Naval Battle of La Rochelle

Naval Battle of La Rochelle

Part of: Hundred Years War

Illumination in the Chroniques of the French historian Jean Froissart (around 1419)

date	22. bis 23. June 1372
place	La Rochelle
output	Castilian victory

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of England	Castile and Leon Kingdom of France
Commander
John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke	Ambrosio Boccanegra

In the naval battle of La Rochelle on June 22nd and 23rd, 1372, the French - Castilian fleet defeated that of the English .

prehistory

Gascony had belonged to the English since 1152 . With the Peace of Brétigny of 1360, England received large parts of south-western France in the Hundred Years War . With that, La Rochelle , located directly on the Bay of Biscay behind the Île de Ré and the Île d'Oléron , also fell under English rule.

But the reconquest by France began as early as 1369 and found support for this project in Castile. So La Rochelle, as one of the few larger port cities, was besieged.

The naval battle

The English therefore tried to deliver troops across the sea to stop the counter-offensive by France. However, the English fleet provided for this purpose under John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , which was supposed to guarantee this, was intercepted by a Castilian-French fleet under Admiral Ambrosio Boccanegra in front of the port entrance of La Rochelles on June 22, 1372. So there was a fleet of 40 English warships facing a fleet of 20 Castilian warships.

In the ensuing naval battle, Admiral Ambrosio Bocanegra waited for the tide to come to attack the enemy fleet. This happened the next morning. The lighter ships of the Castilsch-French fleet were vastly superior to the heavier ships of the English fleet because, unlike the English ships, they could move under such circumstances.

So they attacked the English fleet with bombards . Since the English fleet, unlike the Castilian fleet, could not move, it could do nothing against the fatal attack by the enemy fleet. 14 warships were destroyed in no time. After this event, Ambrosio Bocanegra gave the order to ambush the remaining enemy ships. The English, in their inability to defend themselves under these circumstances and in their confusion over these events, were helpless to attack. In this way the English fleet was systematically defeated in this naval battle.

All ships in the English fleet were either destroyed or captured, the crews of these ships and the troop reinforcements for France in these ships either killed or captured. John Hastings himself was captured. The fleet of Admiral Ambrosio Bocanegra, however, thanks to the actions of the Admiral in this situation, did not lose a ship and suffered very little loss of life. In addition, the Castilian fleet captured a great deal of money that the English fleet carried with them and that was intended for the troops in La Rochelle.

consequences

The defeat resulted in Castile and France gaining control of the Atlantic and the English Channel . This meant that the French counter-offensive to recapture their lost territories by England could be carried out successfully. Almost all of the property, including La Rochelle, which the English had conquered in France, gradually fell back into the hands of France, while England itself was struck by attacks by the Castilian-French fleet on its southern coast.

Among other things, trade between England and Flanders was destroyed, so that instead of them trade between Flanders and Castile began to flourish. As a result of these events, over time this trade gained the leading position in Flanders' foreign trade.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ La batalla que humilló a los ingleses y puso el Canal de la Mancha bajo control castellano El Confidencial . Retrieved May 18, 2018 (Spanish) .

bibliography

• Condeminas, Francisco: La marina militar española , 2000, ISBN 84-930472-4-4 (Spanish).
• Fernández Duro, Cesáreo: La marina de Castilla ( cap.IX : Batalla de La Rochela ), Madrid, 1995, ISBN 978-84-86228-04-0 (Spanish).