Battle of Poitiers (1356)

Battle of Poitiers

Part of: Hundred Years War

Depiction of the Battle of Maupertuis around 1400

date	September 19, 1356
place	Maupertuis , approx. 10 km southeast of Poitiers
output	English victory capture of King John II.

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of England Gascony	Kingdom of France , Lorraine mercenaries , German mercenaries , Scottish mercenaries , Swiss mercenaries
Commander
Edward of Woodstock Jean de Grailly John Chandos	Johann II. Walter von Brienne † Arnould d'Audrehem Jean de Clermont †
Troop strength
about 10,000	approx. 20,000
losses
a few hundred	2,500

The Battle of Poitiers on September 19, 1356 (in German-speaking countries the name Battle of Maupertuis is also common) was an event of the Hundred Years' War in which the French King John II was captured by the English. It was - after the Battle of Crécy (1346), which was ominous for the French - the second of three great English victories in this war and, in a certain sense, a repetition of Crécy, since here it was again shown that better strategy and tactics were numerical inferiority can weigh.

After their victory at Crécy, the English had firmly established themselves in the Guyenne , from where they launched regular raids into the south of France. As early as 1355 it was King John II, who in 1350 his father Philip VI, who died of the plague . had followed on the throne, for lack of reserves not succeeded in defeating them, so that the "Black Prince" Edward of Woodstock could pillage the county of Quercy almost unhindered . In 1356, Johann II called the Estates General (États généraux) together, which granted him the necessary funds to raise an army (30,000 men for 5 years).

Operations before the battle

The Chevauchée , headed by the Black Prince Edward of Woodstock , had led the English from Gascony via Bellac and Issoudun , which was taken by storm, to Bourges , while the French were still occupied with the siege of Breteuil in Normandy . Meanwhile, was on the English side of the Duke of Lancaster from Brittany from broken to push the army of the Black Prince. He wanted to meet him via Tours , but a hailstorm and a lack of siege equipment prevented the capture of the city and since John II had meanwhile gathered a large army in Chartres and set out for the Loire, Edward was forced to move back to Gascony. A union with the troops of Lancaster did not succeed, since this found no crossing over the Loire and thus got stuck in Brittany. In order to achieve a more effective pursuit of the enemy, Johann II. U. a. With the soldiers provided by the citizens, half of his army returned and was limited to the cavalry , with which he hoped to advance more quickly. When he had confronted the enemy, the French army was south of Poitiers , the English, laden with booty, on their way back to Bordeaux . Since their way to the Guyenne was blocked, the English were forced to enter the fight after lengthy negotiations.

The battle

Map of the course of the battle

As with Crécy, the French were clearly numerically superior and had a force about twice as large as the English. The battlefield at Nouaillé-Maupertuis was uneven and interspersed with hedges, so John II decided to take up the fight on foot, while the English used the hedges to post their archers behind. On the French side, the Maréchal Clermont pleaded for a cautious tactic aimed at starving the English struggling with supply difficulties. Others, including the Earl of Douglas , who led a Scottish aid contingent, the Bishop of Châlons and Arnoul d'Audrehem, spoke out in favor of an attack. Early in the morning, movements on the English left wing under the Earl of Warwick made it appear that they were trying to ford their prey across the Miosson . Before the French could line up in an orderly manner, assuming that the English were on the run, the right French wing under d'Audrehem pushed itself into a hedge-lined path ( Maupertuis means bad passage ) and thus became an easy one Booty for the English archers and d'Audrehem was captured.

On the French left wing, Clermont found himself forced, meanwhile, after the advance of the right wing, also to attack in order to maintain a halfway closed battle line. He faced the English right wing under the Earl of Salisbury , whom reserve troops of the Earl of Suffolk rushed to aid. Clermont was killed in these battles and in view of the fierce resistance, especially by the archers, the French were forced to retreat. Now the second row of French stormed forward under the Dauphin , but were also unsuccessful. A third wave under the Duke of Orléans got into the retreating troops of the Dauphin, which led to some confusion, whereupon the king, whose own departments had remained in the background until then, threw them into battle and tried to force the decision. His attack was directed against the center of the opposing ranks, where the Black Prince stood with his troops. This then ordered Jean III. de Grailly to carry out a sweeping attack with a contingent of cavalry on his right wing, which remained undetected by the French through a hill and led behind the French ranks. Since the archers of the Earl of Oxford on the English left wing succeeded in attacking the French right wing from the side, the French fell on the defensive. The battle turned in the Black Prince's favor. John II, who feared defeat, had his sons brought to safety in Chauvigny : the heir to the throne, Charles, the Duke of Normandy and the Duke of Anjou . When his army saw this, they took it as a sign of defeat and turned to flee.

Johann II refused to flee and soon found himself isolated with his 14-year-old son Philip (who later became Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy ). The two were surrounded and captured, and the Oriflamme banner also fell into the hands of the English. Two miles away was Camboniac's new castle, the Château de Chambonneau , which the Black Prince had previously taken by deception. The two prisoners were first brought here and then to Bordeaux.

Result

On September 23, 1357, an armistice was concluded in Bordeaux, which was limited to April 9, 1359. Johann was then taken to London and only released again in 1361. A ransom of 4 million écu (about two and a half times the income of the French royal household of 1355) was requested, but this was reduced to 3 million écu after later negotiations. Shortly after the battle, the Estates General met. They decided to release King Charles II of Navarre , cousin and son-in-law of John, who was stuck in Château-Gaillard in the hope that he would protect the country after the defeat. However, Karl only made contact with the English to secure further fiefs .

With the Peace of Brétigny , which John Chandos negotiated on the English side and Bonabes IV , Lord of Rougé and Derval , on the French side, in 1360 , France ceded the entire kingdom south of the Loire to the English.

literature

• Joachim Ehlers : The Hundred Years War (= Beck'sche series 2475 CH Beck knowledge ). CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-56275-4 .
• Johann Baier: The Black Prince and the Battle of Poitiers . Verlag Angelika Hörnig, Ludwigshafen 2013, ISBN 978-3-938921-29-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Ehlers p. 32
2. ↑ cf. Ehlers p. 36

Web links

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