Battle of Gerberoy

date	May 9, 1435
place	Gerberoy
output	French victory

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of France	Kingdom of England
Commander
Jean Poton de Xaintrailles , Étienne de Vignolles	John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel
Troop strength
600-1800	3000
losses
low	probably hundreds

The Battle of Gerberoy (also known as the Battle of Arundel ) on May 9, 1435 was a victory by France over England in the Hundred Years War .

background

In the spring of 1435, after a few years of relative calm, the Hundred Years War began to enter a hot phase again. The English armies operated from northern France and Aquitaine . The English also controlled Paris , Saint-Denis and all of Normandy . Nevertheless, the situation in the occupied territories had become more difficult for the British over the past few decades. Although Joan of Arc had been captured in 1430 and executed in 1431, it seemed increasingly difficult to enforce the claims under the Treaty of Troyes .

In the course of 1434, the French King Charles VII gained increasing control of the areas north of Paris, including Soissons , Compiègne , Senlis and Beauvais . Because of his position, Gerberoy appeared to be a good outpost to threaten the English occupied Normandy even more and to protect the nearby Beauvais from a possible reconquest.

The French hoped to be able to expand the city as early as 1432, but due to the insufficient state income, they could not raise enough troops and initially abandoned the project. In the spring of 1435 the project was taken up again and corresponding expenditure in the defense budget was prepared. According to the writings of canon Jean Pillet ( Gerberoy's first historiographer ), a force of 600 to 1800 men was formed for this purpose and placed under the command of Jean Poton de Xaintrailles and Étienne de Vignolles , known as La Hire, both former commanders of Jeanne d ' Arc . They secretly reached Gerberoy and began to restore the old defenses.

At this time, in Gournay sur Epte in Normandy, about a dozen kilometers southwest of Gerberoy, an English army under the command of John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel , was in motion. This should bring the city of Rue , which had also recently been retaken from the French, back under English control. The troops were carrying material for a siege. Arundel and his troops reached Gournay at the beginning of May 1435 and marched on Gerberoy without any special security, which he believed was only weakly defended. His troops (about 3,000 men according to Jean Pillet, but this number is probably only a rough estimate) were certainly far outnumbered the French troops.

Course of the battle

Arundel appeared in front of Gerberoy on May 9th, together with an advance guard , which probably consisted of only a few men, and after a brief observation of the valley withdrew immediately and waited for the arrival of the main force.

The French, who had been watching everything from an elevated position from Gerberoy, quickly realized that it was merely an advance command and that the main English forces were still on the road to Gournay. Since the fortifications had not yet been sufficiently restored for an imminent siege, the French decided to take the initiative and dare to attack quickly in order to find the English completely unprepared.

A column of cavalry under La Hire left the city, bypassing the position of the English vanguard, to launch a surprise attack on the English on the road to Gournay. They made a detour to a place called Les Epinettes, near Laudencourt , a hamlet in the vicinity of Gerberoy, and attacked the main English force. At the same time, the rest of the garrison, under the command of Xaintrailles, attacked Count Arundel's smaller force. This, isolated from the rest of the troops, sought protection behind a nearby stilt house. During the battle, Count Arundel was badly wounded in the leg by a French field snake .

After La Hire and his mounted men had succeeded in defeating the English on the Gournay Strait, they hurriedly set out on their way back to Gerberoy. When these reinforcements appeared, the remaining English realized that their position was hopeless. They turned to flee, and large numbers of armed men were killed. The Count of Arundel fell into captivity and later died of his injuries. The losses of the English were certainly high and in the hundreds (even if the scriptures are unclear on this), while the French are said to have lost only about twenty fighters.

consequences

Despite the victory, the French did not develop their position in Gerberoy. The city was subsequently besieged again by the English and conquered in 1437. The French did not finally recapture the city until 1449. By 1451, all of Normandy was again under French control, with Gerberoy losing its role as a strategic front post.

Despite its clear outcome, the victory of May 9, 1435 is not considered to be one of the decisive victories of the Hundred Years War. But it illustrates well how the military situation developed increasingly favorably for the French after the victories of Joan of Arc.

literature

Jean Pillet: Histoire du Château et de la Ville de Gerberoy. E. Aleau, Rouen 1679.
René Pinon : La Bataille de Gerberoy. In: Miroir de l'Histoire. Vol. 1, No. 10, November 1950, ZDB -ID 416131-2 , pp. 55-62.
Jean Favier : La Guerre de Cent Ans. Éditions Fayard, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-213-00898-1 .
Andrew Baume: La Bataille de Gerberoy (= Les Cahiers de la Société Historique et Géographique du Bassin de l'Epte. Vol. 65/66, ISSN 0337-9876 ). Société Historique et Géographique du Bassin de l'Epte, Coudray-Saint-Germer 2011.