Battle of Blanchetaque
| date | August 24, 1346 |
|---|---|
| place | Blanchetaque |
| output | English victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 5,000 (not all actively involved) | 3,500 |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
approx. 2,000 |
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Chevauchées of the 1340s: Saint-Omer - Auberoche
Edward III. Campaign (1346/47): Caen - Blanchetaque - Crécy - Calais
War of the Breton Succession (1341–1364) : Champtoceaux - Brest - Morlaix - Saint-Pol-de-Léon - La Roche-Derrien - Tournament of Thirty - Mauron - Auray
France's allies : Neville's Cross - Les Espagnols sur Mer - Brignais
Chevauchées of the 1350s: Poitiers
Castilian Civil War & War of the Two Peter (1351–1375): Barcelona - Araviana - Nájera - Montiel
French counter-offensive: La Rochelle - Gravesend
Wars between Portugal and Castile (1369– 1385): Lisbon - Saltés - Lisbon - Aljubarrota
Battle of Northern France: Rouen - Baugé - Meaux - Cravant - La Brossinière - Verneuil
Jeanne d'Arc and the turn of the war: Orléans - Battle of the herring - Jargeau - Meung-sur-Loire - Beaugency - Patay - Compiegne - Gerberoy
The Battle of Blanchetaque in 1346 was the second of three battles in the Normandy Campaign of Edward III. during the early stages of the Hundred Years War . Although smaller and less known than the Battle of Crécy , which followed just two days later, the British victory at Blanchetaque was decisive for the further course of the campaign. He allowed Edward to cross the Somme with his army and choose the time and place of the decisive battle that followed.
The campaign
After defeating the French defenders of Caen on July 26, 1346 and the subsequent sacking of the city, the English army turned eastward along the Seine with the aim of Paris , while the French troops withdrew from the advancing enemy. They pursued a scorched earth strategy to starve the English army on its advance. But this calculation no longer worked out when the English army surprisingly took an unguarded ford on the Seine near Poissy and crossed the river by means of a pontoon bridge. Edward refrained from attacking Paris and instead headed northeast. It soon became clear that the French could take advantage of the new situation. If they succeeded in preventing the British from retreating westward across the Seine as well as crossing the Somme in the east, they would be able to deploy their outnumbered army on the flat plain between the two rivers. King Philip VI , who had initially stayed in Paris, came to Amiens to carry out the devastating blow against the English with the army that had gathered there.
Edward meanwhile was determined to break the French blockade of the Somme and had several possible crossings scouted out. Unsuccessful attacks on Hangest-sur-Somme and Pont-Remy followed before slowly moving his army north to look for further ways of crossing along the western side of the river. Behind him followed the French army, which, although approaching dangerously several times, could not overtake the English army. On August 23, a group of French soldiers tried to stop the English army at Boismont , but were ridden down by Edward's cavalry and massacred all but one man. Boismont was subsequently burned down. On the evening of August 24th, the English army camped near the town of Acheux , while the main French force was only 10 km away at Abbeville , in the expectation that Edward would try to cross the bridge there. That evening Edward was informed by either a local Englishman or a French prisoner - there are various accounts of this - that there was a tiny fort called Blanchetaque just a few kilometers away, which was most likely completely unprepared for an attack. Edward broke camp that night and started his army marching towards the river.
The battle
On arrival at Blanchetaque it turned out that the French defended the position much more strongly than expected. The crossing was guarded by 3,500 soldiers under Godemar du Foy , a very experienced French general . Another problem was the tide , which pushed heavily into the river only about 15 km from the coast and would not recede for the next few hours. Even so, Edward was determined to cross the Somme at precisely this point. The English supplies were running low, the army was drained, hungry and increasingly demoralized.
The French army stood in three rows along the eastern side of the river bed, with the best 500 armed men positioned in the center. At 8 a.m., a hundred English knights and armed men began to cross the ford under the command of experienced officers Reginald Gobham and William de Bohun . This advance was supported by a large number of English longbow archers who sent a hail of arrows down on the French lines. The French suffered many casualties and became confused, preventing the Genoese crossbowmen in French service from being able to return fire effectively. The English reached the other side of the river, and the riverside crowd quickly developed when they clashed with the French forces. However, the force of the English attack was sufficient to secure a bridgehead on the eastern bank. Edward took this chance and hurriedly sent more men across the river to intervene in the close combat. The combination of desperate infantry fighting for the transition and precise fire from the archers eventually collapsed the French lines. The survivors fled towards Abbeville, closely followed by the English cavalry.
An hour and a half later, after the French lines were broken on the Somme, the entire English army had crossed the river and marched north into rural areas where there would be much-needed food and booty. The French had been so certain that the English would not be able to break through the defensive line on the Somme that they had not stripped of supplies to the area beyond. The English army burned the cities of Noyelles-sur-Mer and Le Crotoy on their way and was soon able to replenish their reserves. King Philip did not hesitate and drove Edward's much smaller army towards the coast. Some of the slow wagons of the English entourage fell into French hands, but Philip finally waited before attacking, which gave the English a day's advance. Edward took this opportunity to establish a defensive position near the town of Crécy , where the decisive battle was to take place the following day, August 26, 1346.
Without the victory of Blanchetaque, born more of desperation than tactical skill, Edward would not have been able to continue feeding his army or to establish a good defensive position. The losses in the battle are unknown, but historical research suggests that around 2,000 French soldiers were killed. One can only speculate about the unrecorded English losses, but they were probably well below the French ones.
literature
- Jonathan Sumption : The Hundred Years War. Volume 1: Trial by Battle. Faber and Faber, London et al. 1990, ISBN 0-571-13895-0 .
- Alfred H. Burne : The Crecy War. A military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the peace of Bretigny, 1360. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1955 (Reproduced. Greenhill Books et al., London et al. 1991, ISBN 1-85367-081-2 ).
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred H. Burne: The Crecy War. 1991, p. 158.