Battle of Crécy

The battles of Crécy is a crushing victory of the English army over the French knighthood in 1346, at the beginning of the Guerre One hundred Year old.

Context

The Battle of Crécy proceeds in the conflict of the Middle Ages which one names Guerre One hundred Year old. This conflict, was born from the continuations of the déshérence of the throne of France (as from February 1328): two greater monarchies of Europe will dispute the throne of France during a conflict with strong bounces and multiple truces.

October 7th, 1337, with the Abbey of Westminster, the king of England Edouard III lance publicly a challenge with his/her cousin, the king of France. He disputes the legitimacy of Philippe VI of Valois and asserts the crown of France for itself. It is the beginning of the One hundred Year old war.

The first countryside of Edouard III in 1339 passes relatively unperceived.

In 1340, after having held its court with Ghent and taken the title of " king d' Angleterre and of France" , Edouard III, engages the second countryside on ground and on sea which shows the French defeat at the time of the battles naval of the Lock.

In 1346, Edouard III undertakes a third campaign having for goal to take Paris. It is within this countryside that the battle of Crécy takes place.

The countryside

In 1346, Edouard III undertakes a campaign having for goal to take Paris.

Edouard III prepares a new unloading, which it does not know yet where to fix. Its adversary, the king of France, saves too long hesitations to him by condemning to the exile a large Norman lord, Geoffroy d' Harcourt, lord of Saint-Saver-the-Viscount, which runs to take refuge at the court of England, thus offering to Edouard III the ideal pretext of a free access in Cotentin.

July 7th, the king of England joins together a thousand of ships in the roads of Portsmouth and puts the sail.

The July 12th, it unloads with 20  000 men with Saint-Vaast-the-Hougue and seizes the Normandy.

Surprised and terrorized by the horror organized by the English, the Norman ones open their cities whose defenses could not have resisted an attack. After having ransacked and plunderhaving plundered the Cotentin, the troops of Edouard III besiege and take Caen, however defended well. The fleet which followed them sets out again of Ouistreham towards England charged with considerable spoils.

Towards the confrontation

Edouard III fact then movement towards north to join its Flemish allies. For that it must initially cross the natural obstacles which the Seine and the Sum constitute.

It must cross the Seine and tries to pass by Rouen which refuses the passage to him. It is withdrawn without fighting battle and settles with Poissy, time to establish a bridge on the Seine which it crosses on August 15th.

It is now necessary to make very quickly, Philippe VI of Valois gathers increasingly many troops with Saint Denis and is on the point of fighting battle. As in Normandy, Edouard III sows terror on his passage and dodges, when it is possible, the frontal combat. Nothing seems to be able to stop it. But it still should cross the Somme. Edouard III, which lived in Abbeville of which he is the suzerain, knows well the Sum and the little of sympathy of the Picardy communes which order the passage of the river, with regard to the English. It thus settles with Airaines in order to locate and to test the possible passages. With the difference of the Normans cities, the cities of the Sum are strongly strengthened and defended well. They appear impregnable. The situation becomes critical. The king of France, with the head of a considerable army, joined Amiens and is likely to take it in trap between the river and the sea.

There remain two solutions: to take Saint-Valery-sur-Somme to join England by sea or to find a passage not strengthened.

In front of the failure of the catch of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, it is absolutely necessary to find the ford whose Edouard III was informed without really being able to locate it. However the Picardy ones are not very talkative. It ends up finding a peasant who, not including/understanding well the interest of information, indicates to him, realizing finance, the passage of Blanquetaque, not far from Noyelles-on-Sea.

The English army immediately makes movement at the dawn of August 24th and crosses the river by easily hustling the few thousands of men come from north to protect the passage.

Philippe VI of Valois, which continues it, arrives at the moment when last English crosses the ford. The rising tide nails it on the spot. Edouard III takes again the hand: he will be able from now on to fight the battle on his ground.

Preparation of the battle

Edouard III wishes to go up towards the Canche, it crosses the Sum with Blanquetaque. He is accommodated there by Catherine d' Artois, girl of Robert III of Artois his old and faithful companion. Then it moves towards Rue, which it burns and plunders.

But it must fork towards the east, braked by the difficulty in crossing the flooded low-fields of Authie to high tide, and including/understanding impossibility of easily joining Montreuil in this area particularly provided in ponds and marsh: impracticable zones with the army rabble.

In the east, it finds the forest of Crécy which it circumvents, probably by the south, its northern fringe being marshy.

It must thus approach the French Army of which it knows that it is with Abbeville before setting out again towards north. It also knows that it will not be able to lead its troops to forced march.

It cannot thus avoid the combat any more and will have to fight battle.

As much to choose the advantage of the ground!

The 25 at the evening, it is installed on the heights of Crécy and sends its barons in recognition.

The 26 in the morning, it decides place where it will await the French troops.

On his side, Philippe VI of Valois leaves Abbeville to the head of impressive armed composed, according to Froissart, which always tends to exaggerate, of 20.000 armours with horse and more than 100.000 men. Among those, 6.000 mercenaries génois or Castilian conduits by Carlo Grimaldi and Otto Doria which have the reputation to be at the same time the most skilful archers and the best sailors of Europe. Moreover Philippe VI of Valois also called with the rescue the fine flower of the knighthood not only French but also European. One finds in the French rows inter alia, Jean I {{er}} of Luxembourg king de Bohême, Charles IV coldly elected king of the Romans, Louis I {{er}} duke of Savoy, Charles II of Valois duke of Alençon and brother of the king.

Then Philippe VI and his considerable army join Crécy by the east.

Involved forces

The battle

The August 26th, the French Army emerges of the road of Abbeville in disorder and the king Philippe VI does not manage to make apply his order to defer the combat to the following day.

The continuation of the " stratégie" Frenchwoman resembles of close with a rotten trick.

The first squadrons receive the order of Philippe VI and stop in time. And at this point in time the battle transfers with the burlesque one. The following squadrons see the other stopped soldiers, and, being filled with enthusiasm, they start to shout and accelerate rate to arrive the first in front of the English. Nobody hears the repeated orders of king de France, and the soldiers with the stop are pulled by the others in a kind of general madness. Philippe VI itself, gained by the contagion of insanity, points his sword in the air and howls: " I see my enemy, and by my heart, I want to face it! ".

Philippe VI sends then the principal rafters génois to start the combat but their weapons suffered from the rain: the cords in hair are wet and lose of their power, therefore the principal rafters lose of their precision (whereas a hemp rope gains in hardness when it is wet). The Génois are exhausted by their walk with this heavy weapon whereas the Welsh archers had only to slacken their arcs. Moreover, they do not draw that to a rate of 4 blows per minute, and finally, the precipitation of the battle sends them stripped of their Pavois, which are their only protection, remained in the luggage behind.

Three bombard English carried for a possible seat, start to thunder, causing terror rather that damage. Génois badly protecteds must be folded up. Believer with a treason, the French knights, in their lunatic enthusiasm, charge their own mercenaries. They continue on the English lines whose shootings decimate them and impale on the traps placed the day before by the English.

The continuation for the French is only one succession of useless and fatal loads, without coherence nor command.

Until late in the night, the French carry out without success about fifteen loads, broken by the Welsh archers. Those, with the number of: 6000, with their long Arc English drawing each of 6 to 12 arrows at the minute (either: 36000 with: 72000 arrows), drown under a hail of arrows the French, from which the horses are not protected yet, or badly. The king of France must give up the battle field with a small escort to request asylum from the castle of Labroye a few miles more in north. The acts of vain heroism follow one another, of which that of Jean I {{er}} of Luxembourg, blind man, who charges surrounded by his people on his horse bound by the support to those of his house.

This battle marks the end of the war known as " courtoise".

Edouard III has from now on the freehands to go up towards Calais, and to besiege the city.

List killed with the battle of Crécy

  • Jean I {{er}} of Luxembourg, king de Bohême
  • Charles II of Valois, duke of Alençon
  • Louis de Châtillon, count de Blois
  • Raoul (known as the Valiant one), duke of Lorraine
  • Louis 1 {{er}}, count de Nevers and of Flanders
  • Louis II, count de Sancerre.

See too

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