Battle of Champtoceaux

Part of: War of the Breton Succession ,
Hundred Years War

date	October 14, 1341 to October 16, 1341
place	l'Humeau, near Champtoceaux
output	Victory of the Blois / France party

Parties to the conflict
House Montfort	House Blois Kingdom of France
Commander
Jean Montfort	Charles de Blois
Troop strength
unknown	unknown (probably a few dozen), later at least 7,000 more men were brought in
losses
unknown	unknown

The Battle of Champtoceaux , also known as the Battle of l'Humeau , was the first battle of the 23-year War of the Breton Succession , a dynastic dispute over the Duchy of Brittany during the Hundred Years War between England and France . At first the battle seemed to have decided the conflict in one fell swoop, as Jean Montfort, the leader of one side, was captured. However, with the support of his wife Johanna von Flanders and the English , he was later able to escape and his son Jean V finally won the conflict.

background

The dynastic conflict over the Duchy of Brittany arose after the death of Duke Jean III. of Brittany on April 30, 1341. His successor was both his half-brother Jean Montfort and his niece Johanna von Dreux and her husband Charles von Blois , who was a nephew of the French king Philip VI. was claimed. The French king supported his nephew, while Montfort soon got the support of the English king Edward III. could secure against the promise to swear allegiance to him and to recognize his claims to the French throne. The original local dispute between two candidates for a French fiefdom had thus become a proxy war in the dispute over the claim to the French crown.

The start of the battle

When it became apparent in Paris in 1341 that Philip VI. If the House of Blois were to claim the Duchy of Brittany, Jean Montfort fled the city and went to Brittany. There he took possession of the ducal treasure and hastily occupied the largest cities ( Nantes , Rennes , Dinant , Brest ) and most important castles. By September of that year, Charles von Blois had gathered 5,000 French soldiers and 2,000 Genoese mercenaries to enforce his claim to the duchy, which had now been declared legitimate. The castle Champtoceaux, also occupied by Montfort, at the western end of the Loire Valley, was Blois's first destination, after which Nantes was to be occupied. Charles of Blois reached Champtoceaux on October 10th with his advance troops and began the siege while the bulk of the army was still slowly approaching. In view of this situation, more and more supporters of Montfort threatened to fall away from him, so that he felt compelled to immediately start a counterattack. Together with a few supporters and their troops, he set out to end the siege of Champtoceaux.

Course of the battle

This attempt turned out to be a disaster for Montfort. Since his troops were scattered as garrisons over all possible cities and castles, he was only able to gather a few men in Nantes for his project. This "army" assembled in this way was hardly big enough to face Blois' advance force, let alone the approaching main army. Montfort stopped in a small hamlet called l'Humeau, about 5 km from Champtoceaux, where a small garrison of his supporters was waiting to inform him of the situation in front of the castle. To his great surprise, he met Charles von Blois and his bodyguard himself. In the ensuing battle, this bodyguard was largely overpowered, but Blois managed to hide in one of the farmhouses and fend off any attempts by Montfort's men to penetrate there. The two men and their companions fought for two days under these surreal circumstances, while the French army was steadily approaching. Finally, Montfort had to realize that he could not win on the spot and rode back to Nantes with his troops, pursued by the French cavalry that had meanwhile been brought in. When it became known that he had escaped, the Champtoceaux garrison surrendered to the French army on October 26th.

consequences

Back in Nantes, Montfort was hostile to the townspeople. They made him promise that the city would be surrendered after a month of siege if no reinforcements had arrived by then. After the arrival of the French army, the following weeks were marked by a series of failures by Montfort's troops, which however did not achieve any resounding success. Those men of Montfort who were taken prisoner were executed by the French within sight of the city walls. When the mercenaries hired by Montfort deserted during the battle during one of these failures and the remaining fighters from the city were overwhelmed by the French and their severed heads were catapulted into the city, the city council forced Montfort to surrender on November 2nd . He was subsequently imprisoned in the Louvre .

In the following months Blois was able to occupy almost all of Brittany with his troops, until finally only Brest remained in the hands of the Montforts. In July 1342 the long-awaited reinforcements of the English arrived there and the fortunes of war turned. Montfort escaped from French captivity in January 1345, but died a few months later in Hennebont . His son Jean V, who grew up in England, continued the fight for the duchy and was finally able to prevail in 1364.

literature

Jonathan Sumption , The Hundred Years War. Volume 1: Trial by Battle . University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia 1999. ISBN 0-8122-1655-5 online edition
AH Burne , The Crecy War. A Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny, 1360. , Greenhill Press: London 1991. ISBN 9781853670817