Battle of Cravant
The Battle of Cravant depicted as illumination from the Vigiles du roi Charles VII by Martial d'Auvergne (15th century)
| date | July 31, 1423 |
|---|---|
| place | near Cravant , France |
| output | English victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 8,000 men | 4,000 men |
| losses | |
|
6,000 men |
around 600 men |
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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 for 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 Cravant was a clash between English and French forces on July 31, 1423 during the Hundred Years War . It ended with a victory for the Anglo- Burgundian troops.
After the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, the English king was allowed to own all of the land north of the Loire . When Heinrich V died surprisingly in 1422 and the just one year old Heinrich VI. as a successor, the enmity began again.
In the early summer of 1423, two Allied armies, the English and the Burgundians, met in Auxerre to oppose the Dauphin's army , which was about to invade Burgundy. The French army included a large number of Scots and was under the command of John Stewart . The two armies finally met at the Burgundian village of Cravant at a bridge and the fords of the Yonne River , southeast of Auxerre.
The forces of the French Dauphin on one side of the river outnumbered those of the English on the other by almost half.
The two armies faced each other for a full three hours, trying to stare each other down, as neither of them dared to cross the river. Eventually the Earl of Salisbury took the initiative and began to traverse the waist-high, 50-meter-wide body of water under a volley of arrows from the English archers. At the same time, Lord Willoughby de Eresby was able to create a passage between the Scottish soldiers over a narrow bridge and thus divide the Dauphin's army.
When the French began to flee, the Scots refused to do the same and were cut down by the hundreds. 3,000 of them fell near the bridge or the bank, 2,000 were captured, including the Earl of Buchan and the commander of the French army, the Count of Vendôme. The French army withdrew to the Loire , leaving many prisoners and over 6,000 dead. With the victory at Cravant, the English had reached the peak of their success in the Hundred Years' War.