Battle of Veurne

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Battle of Veurne
date August 20, 1297
place Veurne
output French victory
Peace treaty Armistice, October 9th in Vyve-Saint-Bavon
Parties to the conflict

Blason pays for FranceAncien.svg Kingdom of France

Blason Nord-Pas-De-Calais.svg County of Flanders

Commander

Robert of Artois

Wilhelm von Jülich


The Battle of Veurne ( French Bataille de Furnes ) was one of the many military clashes in the battle between France and Flanders. It took place on August 20, 1297 and was victorious for the French.

prehistory

Decades ago, Count Guido I of Flanders in the Flemish War of Succession (1244–1254) only with the help of the French crown, the arbitration awards of King Louis IX. († 1270) and at the expense of a loss of power to be able to assert his dignity as a count against his half-brothers from the House of Avesnes .

Ludwig's successor, King Philip the Fair , who ruled since 1285, now based his influence in Flanders mainly on the patricians in the cities. Although these established their economic and political strength through their cloth trade with England, they were anxious to have good relations with the king, who accepted their trade privileges with England and protected them from a strong count. Count Guido now strove to restore his dignity as a count to its old, almost sovereign position and to free himself from royal influence.

In King Edward I of England he found an ally against Philip IV, as his interests were of a similar nature. In 1294, Count Guido established close diplomatic relations with Eduard and betrothed one of his daughters to the Prince of Wales . As expected, Philipp refused the necessary consent, and Guido had to swear lasting loyalty, nevertheless continued his policy and won the German King Adolf von Nassau in Grammont in December 1296 , who wanted to prevent France from growing stronger in the Lorraine-Dutch area, and other imperial princes for him his thing. After Philip asked the count to explain these acts, he terminated his vassal relationship with France on January 20, 1297. The king then called a pair court, which condemned the count of high treason and felony and withdrew his fiefdom. In addition, Philip obtained the ban on Count Guido and the interdict over Flanders from the Pope .

Philip tackled the military fight against the anti-French alliance with determination. Count Robert II of Artois led an army to Flanders, with which he was able to take one city after another, including Kortrijk , Dunkirk , Bergen and Bruges . These quick successes were favored by the patricians who were positively minded for France and the refusal to support Count Guido from the German king, who, after paying French gold and due to papal pressure, renounced war despite his alliance with Flanders and England.

decision

On August 20, 1297 there was a battle near Veurne (Furnes), in which the French, led by Robert von Artois, were victorious over the Flemish army. After the royal troops had taken Lille on August 26, 1297 , Count Guido, who could only stay in Ghent , was ready to enter into an armistice, which was concluded under papal mediation on October 9 in Vyve-Saint-Bavon and in 1298 in Tournai was extended by two years.

aftermath

After the armistice expired in 1300, Guido gave up the fight. A year earlier, his only real ally, Count Heinrich III. von Bar , captured, and Edward I was reconciled with France after Philip lifted the occupation of Guyenne, which his brother Karl von Valois had succeeded in a few years earlier. A continuation of the fight was hopeless for the count under these circumstances. Despite Charles of Valois's word of honor for safe conduct, Guido and his eldest son Robert von Béthune were imprisoned in knightly custody at the meeting with the king, Guido in Compiegne , Robert in Bourges . Flanders was entrusted to the administration of royal governors. Philip appeared personally in Flanders in 1301, where he dissolved the sea blockade of Ghent by Edward I of England and built new fortresses. In a treaty signed in Bruges in 1301, the new rulers were determined.

Despite this success, the crown quickly lost its reputation and support among the Flemish population. The decisive factor here was Philip's rigid financial policy, who, despite the end of the war, did not want to abolish the war tax levied. This upset the craftsmen who had been socially disadvantaged for a long time and attacked some houses of the wealthy patricians and cloth merchants. The governor Jacques de Châtillon (see House of Châtillon ) then had the cities of Bruges and Ghent garrisoned. However, on the morning of May 18, 1302, the citizens of Bruges broke into the quarters of the royal soldiers and probably killed several hundred of them.

The uprising took hold of all Flemish cities that rallied behind Count John I of Namur , a younger son of Count Guido. Philip responded by sending an army under Robert von Artois. Contrary to expectations, the French knights were defeated by the Flemish bourgeois army on July 11, 1302 in the Spore Battle of Kortrijk (Coutrai), in which more than seven hundred knights lost their lives, including the entire military leadership of France, including Robert von Artois and Jacques de Châtillon.

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