Battle of La Roche-Derrien
Charles of Blois is captured at the Battle of La Roche-Derrien (contemporary illustration)
| date | 19th / 20th June 1347 |
|---|---|
| place | La Roche-Derrien |
| output | English victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 1000 men | about 4000-5000 men |
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 La Roche-Derrien took place on the night of June 19-20, 1347 near La Roche-Derrien in Brittany between English and French troops. The battle was part of the Hundred Years War and the War of Breton Succession .
prehistory
→ Main articles: War of the Breton Succession , Hundred Years War
About 4,000 to 5,000 French, Breton and Genoese mercenaries under Duke Charles de Blois (the largest army ever raised by him) besieged the Breton town of La Roche-Derrien in the hope of Sir Thomas Dagworth , in command of the only English standing army in Brittany, to bait. Charles of Blois, in an effort to defeat the hated English longbowmen of Dagworth, gave the order for four camps to be set up at the four city gates around the city. Palisades were erected to protect his men and to block the direct line of sight of the troops. Karl assumed that the advancing long archers could not kill what they could not see. Karl therefore gave strict orders to his soldiers and mercenaries to stay in their camps so as not to make easy targets for the dreaded long archers. Thomas Dagworth finally reached the city with his relief army , and battle broke out in the French camps at night.
Course of the battle
Dagworth's relief army was less than a quarter of the size of the French army. Unaware of this fact, Dagworth first attacked the eastern main camp and fell into the trap of the entrenched and numerically superior French army. Dagworth's main force was massively fired from the front and rear by crossbowmen . After a short time Dagworth was forced to abandon the attack.
Karl thought at first that he had won the battle and that Brittany was now his. But then there was a sortie from the city, consisting of armed citizens with axes and agricultural tools and the garrison . The militia and garrison got behind Karl's lines and attacked his force. The English long archers and the men -at-arms , i.e. soldiers who had survived the main attack, united with the militia and the garrison to put down Karl's troops in the camps. Karl had to surrender and was taken prisoner.
consequences
Karl spent his captivity in the Tower of London . When he was released nine years later for a ransom of half a million Écus , he resumed the war against the Montforts , that is now against Johann V , but fell in 1364 at the Battle of Auray , which marked the end of the war and the Victory of the Montforts meant.
A few years after the battle (according to various sources, 1350, 1352 or 1359) Thomas Dagworth was ambushed by discontented Bretons , tired of English rule, and was killed.
rating
Karl's strict order to leave his troops in the camps throughout the battle was a wrong decision, because this way the English troops succeeded in attacking each camp one after the other with all their might.
The battle is also one of the examples from the Hundred Years War, in which the victory was in large part due to the English longbow archers, as their arrows with Bodkin points , when fired directly, easily penetrated even the strongest plate armor .
