So thought and said many of Philip's officers, and did their best to persuade him to put off the encounter till next day.
But however much Philip might have been inclined to adopt this good advice, his army was in such a state of confusion and disorder, owing to their rapid march, that they were quite unmanageable.

When the officers bade those in front to halt, those behind, shouting and impatient, still pressed on, so much so that the king and all his nobles were carried along with them into the very face of the English, who stood awaiting the attack.
When Philip saw the collision could not be put off, that the battle was inevitable, he shouted loudly, "Bring forward the Genoese bowmen!" Now these bowmen, 15,000 in number, on whom Philip depended to scatter and drive from the field the main portion of his enemy's force, were in no sort of condition for beginning a battle after their long, fatiguing march, and with the strings of their crossbows all loose with damp, and with a dazzling sun now glaring full in their eyes.

But Philip, too confident to heed any such trifles, impatiently, nay, angrily, ordered them to the front, and bade them shoot a volley against the English archers, who stood opposite.
So these foreigners stepped forward, and, as their manner was, gave three leaps in the air, with the idea of terrifying the foes, and then raised their bows to their cheeks, and let fly their arrows wildly in the direction of the English.
The trusty English archers, with the sun behind them, were not the men to be intimidated by leapings into the air, nor panic-struck by a discharge so ill-aimed that scarce one arrow in ten even grazed their armour.
Their reply to the Genoese was a sudden step forward, and a sharp, determined twang of their bow-strings.

Then the air was white with the cloud of their arrows, and next moment the foremost ranks of the Genoese were seen to drop like one man.
This was enough for those already dispirited hirelings.

They fell back in panic disorder; they cut their bow-strings; they rushed among the very feet of the horsemen that Philip, in his rage, had ordered "to ride forward and cut down the cowardly villains!" Then the confusion of the French army was complete.
The English followed up their first advantage steadily and quickly.
Knight after knight of the French dropped from his horse, troop after troop fell back, standard after standard tottered.
Nowhere was the fight fiercer than where the young Black Prince led the van of the English; and from a windmill on a near hill, the eager eyes of King Edward watched with pride that figure clad in black armour ever in the thick of the fight, and never halting an instant where danger or duty called.
It would be too long to tell of all the fighting that day.