Battle of Brest

Part of: War of the Breton Succession ,
Hundred Years War

date	August 18, 1342
place	Brest , mouth of the Penfeld
output	English victory

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of England	House Blois Kingdom of France
Commander
William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton	Carlo (?) Grimaldi
Troop strength
1350, 260 boats	Unknown crew, 14 galleys
losses
unknown	Crew losses unknown, 11 galleys

The Battle of Brest (also known as the Battle of the Penfeld ) in 1342 was a clash during the War of the Breton Succession in the Hundred Years' War between an English fleet of coastal ships and Genoese mercenary galleys in the service of the Franco-Breton party of the House of Blois.

prehistory

After the death of Jean III. , Duke of Brittany, in 1341 both his half-brother Jean Montfort and Charles Blois , the husband of his niece Johanna von Dreux , claimed the successor. While Blois was confirmed by the French King Philip IV , Montfort received from the English King Edward III. the promise to support him in the enforcement of his claims, if this recognizes Edward as feudal lord and rightful king of France. The initially regional dispute over a French fiefdom was soon instrumentalized in the overarching dispute of the Hundred Years War between England and France for the French throne.

After Jean Montfort had first brought large parts of Brittany under his control, he was defeated in November 1341 in the Battle of Champtoceaux to the Franco-Breton army of Charles Blois. This captured Montfort and occupied almost all of Brittany in the following months. In July 1342 his troops finally besieged Brest , the last city in Brittany held by the Montforts. With the exception of a company of 230 English mercenaries under the command of Walter Mauny , who were stationed in Brest, the English had not yet given the promised aid to the House of Montfort. The reasons for this were not so much a lack of will as the inability to raise enough soldiers and archers in England, delays in pay payments and the chronic shortage of ships to transport large units across the English Channel . Only one troop under the command of Hugh le Despenser , which was actually on the way to Bordeaux , had landed in Brittany, but could not stop the numerically far superior Franco-Breton army.

From mid-July 1342, the city was besieged, with access to the sea of 14 Genoese galleys under the command of Carlo (?) Grimaldi , who had sailed to northern France four years earlier and already in the naval war on the English Channel 1338-1340 and was blocked fought for the French crown in the naval battle of Sluis .

Preparations for battle

The English fleet to transport the troops led by William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton , to Brittany was finally able to leave Portsmouth in early August . It consisted of only 1350 men who made the crossing in 260 small coastal ships. A quickly assembled French fleet to intercept them reached Portsmouth just days after leaving and burned the town after finding the port empty. Three days after leaving Portsmouth the English fleet reached Brest. The Genoese galleys had anchored in the mouth of the Penfeld River .

Course of the battle

William de Bohun was an experienced commander and recognized immediately that a lengthy landing of the troops was not possible in view of the Genoese galleys. In addition, there was a risk that they outmaneuvered and overwhelmed the English fleet with its much smaller ships. He responded immediately and attacked his fleet immediately before the galleys could go out to sea.

Watched by both parties ashore, the English boats approached the Genoese galleys. However, they made no attempt to drive out, as most of the crews were ashore and the Genoese commander had obviously failed to make preparations for their rapid retrieval. Only the crews of three galleys succeeded in making their ships clear. But instead of attacking the approaching English, they headed for the mouth of the Elorn and later escaped on the open sea. The remaining eleven galleys were quickly enclosed and stormed by the English. The Genoese sailors had to flee to the beach, but they managed to set their ships on fire beforehand. The French maritime domination off Brittany was thus ended in one fell swoop. After this victory the English manned their boats again and entered the port of Brest.

consequences

Although the English reinforcements were urgently needed in the besieged city, the victory had a particularly devastating effect on the morale of the Franco-Breton troops. Karl von Blois clearly overestimated the number of English soldiers who had arrived and immediately called off the siege. While he was retreating with his troops to the north of Brittany, the Genoese and Castilian mercenaries he had hired - who made up a large part of his army - refused to serve and marched to Bourgneuf , where they boarded their ships and sailed back to Spain . A few days later, Robert III landed . von Artois with another 800 men in Brittany, and King Philip VI. ordered part of the French troops from Brittany to Calais , where he suspected the imminent arrival of an English invading army. The balance of power in Brittany was thus completely reversed in a short time, and the house of Montfort, which had almost been defeated, was able to regain hope in the conquest of the duchy.

literature

Nicholas AM Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea. A Naval History of Great Britain. Volume One. Harper Collins Publishers: London 1998. ISBN 978-0-00-638840-1 .
Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War. Volume 1: Trial by Battle . University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia 1999. ISBN 0-8122-1655-5 .