Battle of Formigny

Battle of Formigny

Part of: Hundred Years War

Depiction of the Battle of Formigny as illumination from the Vigiles du roi Charles VII by Martial d'Auvergne (15th century)

date	April 15, 1450
place	Formigny near Bayeux
output	decisive victory for the French

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of England	Kingdom of France Duchy of Brittany
Commander
Thomas Kyriell	Count of Clermont Connétable de Richemont
Troop strength
4,000 men	5,000 men
losses
2,500 men	600-1,000 men

The Battle of Formigny on April 15, 1450 was a decisive French victory towards the end of the Hundred Years War . The battlefield was near Formigny near Carentan in the Manche department .

The French had used the time after the Peace of Tours in 1444 to reorganize their armies. The English under the leadership of the weak King Henry VI. however, were exceptionally weakened. When the French broke the armistice in June 1449, they were in a much better position. Pont-Audemer , Pont-l'Évêque and Lisieux fell in August, and a large part of Normandy followed by October. Rouen was conquered in October, Harfleur in December, Honfleur and Fresnoy in January 1450. Then the French marched against Caen .

The English had assembled a small army in the winter, around 3,000 men under the command of Sir Thomas Kyriell , who were moved from Portsmouth to Cherbourg and landed in Normandy on March 15, 1450 . At the end of the month they were joined by 2,000 men from the Caen Garrison under Sir Mathew Gough's command . Kyriell moved south, conquered Valognes , while further south around 5000 French under the command of the Count of Clermont made their way north to Carentan.

The English included Carentan on April 12; the French renounced a sortie and limited themselves to a number of smaller skirmishes. Kyriell turned east towards Bayeux and arrived in Formigny on April 14th. At the same time, another French army under the command of the Connétable de Richemont reached Saint-Lô from the south.

On April 15th the British discovered Clermont's troops. The armies lined up along the Bayeux-Carentan road, near a small tributary of the Aure , the English with their backs to the water. The English army consisted of about 4,000 men, including about 3,000 archers, and was positioned in a long line behind stakes and low earthen walls.

Clermont began the fighting with an attack on the flanks, with which he was unsuccessful and was soon repulsed. He then brought two cannons to the front which caused some losses among the English until they were captured by them.

These first battles lasted about three hours before Richemont appeared on the battlefield from the south and approached the English positions from the side. His troops consisted of 1,200 Bretons , almost all of whom, judging by the speed of their advance, were mounted.

Kyriell withdrew from Clermont's forces and put his men in an L-shape, which he pulled his lines apart too much. The French were now able to quickly overcome the English in a series of attacks. Kyriell was captured.

The English losses were 2,500 dead and seriously wounded and 900 prisoners; on the French side, 1,000 were dead and injured. Without any further troops in the region, the English had to give up Normandy. The advance of the French wrested everything but the city of Calais from them .

The Battle of Formigny is often mentioned as the first confrontation in which cannons played a decisive role (they were first mentioned as decisive in the Battle of Castillon in 1453). Contemporary reports on this are ambiguous. The appearance of the Connétable and his cavalry on the flanks of the English, which forced them to give up their defensive positions , can be assumed to be more essential . The contribution of the cannons may have been less in the losses they inflicted on the English, but more in the fact that they made a noise to inform Richemont that the fight had begun and who then appeared on the battlefield shortly afterwards in great haste - an assessment that one of Clermont's captains put into writing shortly afterwards.

literature

• Guillaume Gruel (ed.): Mémoires d'Artus III, duc de Bretagne, comte de Richemont, et connétable de France; Depuis 1393 jusqu'en 1457. In: Jean-Antoine Roucher, Antoine Perrin, Louis d'Ussieux, Alexandre-Claude Bellier-Duchesnay: Collection universelle des mémoires particuliers relatifs à l'histoire de France. Volume 7: Contenant les Mémoires de la Pucelle d'Orléans, ceux du Connétable de Richemont, & ceux de Florent Sire d'Illiers. sn, London / Paris 1785, pp. 223–441. (Version depuis l 'an 1413 iusques à l' an 1457 p. 142 ff. )
• Julien-Toussaint-Marie Trevedy: La bataille de Formigny (15 avril 1450). In: Bulletin de la Société Archéologique du Finistère. Volume 30, 1903, ISSN  0249-6763 , pp. 241-275.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Formigny  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• http://www.xenophongroup.com/montjoie/formigny.htm

Footnotes

1. ^ Often - as in en: Battle of Formigny and fr: Bataille de Formigny - Duke Charles I of Bourbon is given as the commandant , but who no longer bore the title of Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis in 1450; Count of Clermont at the time of the battle (and thus commander of the French troops) was his son Johann

Coordinates: 49 ° 20 ′  N , 0 ° 54 ′  W