Hundred Years' War.
Publié le 03/05/2013
Extrait du document
«
knowledge of English tactics.
Du Guesclin became Constable of France (head of the army) in 1370, and when he died in 1380, Clisson succeeded him.
Charles also reorganized the French military, developing a full-time, professional army for the first time, and established a regular system of taxation to pay for it.
Inaddition, France gained an important ally on the throne of the Spanish kingdom of Castile, Henry II, who had pledged support for Charles V.
When the Caroline war began in 1369, the English found themselves at a disadvantage.
Edward III of England was getting old, and the Black Prince was in the earlystages of a terminal illness.
French troops under Du Guesclin and Clisson gradually were able to reconquer western France, using hit-and-run tactics and avoiding majorpitched battles.
The French cause was helped when a largely Castilian fleet defeated the English navy in 1372 off La Rochelle in western France.
The French had alsobeen rebuilding their own fleet, and in the summer of 1377 they launched an offensive that left the English in control of only a few coastal cities in the northwest ofFrance.
The French and Castilian navies took command of the English Channel and attacked the southern English coast.
Under threat of invasion, the English wereforced onto the defensive.
B Domestic Turmoil
However, the untimely death in 1380 of Charles V brought French advancement to a halt.
Charles’s heir, Charles VI (1380-1422), was only 11 years old, and hisinability to take power immediately led to the development of rival factions at court.
One faction was led by Charles VI’s uncle Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy.
Theother, called the Marmousets, included Charles V’s former officials and military commanders and was led by the Constable of France, Olivier de Clisson.
The Frenchplanned major invasions of England in 1385 and 1386, and a lesser raid in 1387.
However, a combination of bad weather andinternal political conflict prevented thesecampaigns, and the Caroline war finally ended in 1389 with the first of several long truces.
Shortly after the truce was signed, a series of crises destabilized the governments of both England and France, gradually undermining the peace.
In August 1392,Charles VI had a sudden attack of mental illness, which would afflict him off and on for the rest of his life.
Philip the Bold immediately seized power and ousted Clissonand the Marmousets.
Under Philip’s leadership, a new and longer truce was made with England in 1396, when English king Richard II married the daughter of CharlesVI.
Then, in 1399, Richard II, who was the key to peace between the English and the French, was overthrown by his cousin, Henry IV, of the Lancastrian branch of thePlantagenet family.
Finally, in 1404, the able and diplomatic Philip the Bold died and was succeeded by his brutal and unpopular son, John the Fearless, as ruler ofBurgundy.
In 1407 John the Fearless had the king’s brother murdered, and France plunged into civil war.
John occupied Paris in 1418, but one year later he wasmurdered by forces loyal to the king.
V THE LANCASTRIAN WAR (1415-1435)
The Lancastrian war was originally a success for the English.
Aided by an alliance with the duke of the French region of Burgundy, the English quickly captured much ofnorthern and western France, taking Paris in 1420.
English expansion, though checked in 1429, was not reversed until the duke of Burgundy changed his allegianceback to the French in 1435, leaving English forces seriously overextended.
After this, the French quickly regained lost territory.
A English Resurgence
The turmoil generated by John the Fearless left France highly vulnerable to attack, and King Henry V of England inaugurated the Lancastrian war by invading France in1415.
A large French force trapped Henry’s troops in October near Agincourt in northern France.
Though Henry’s forces were severely outnumbered, the Englisharchers and foot soldiers held their ground against the French heavy cavalry.
The French, who no longer had leaders like Clisson who understood English tactics,reverted to their traditional cavalry charge and were easy targets for English arrows.
The French suffered a defeat that approached a massacre at the Battle ofAgincourt.
In 1417 Henry began the methodical conquest of Normandy and other parts of northwestern France.
He met little resistance since many of the noblemen of Normandyhad died in the massacre at Agincourt.
Henry was aided by the forces of Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless of Burgundy.
Philip sided with the advancingEnglish after his father was murdered by forces loyal to the French king.
In 1420 the French government was forced to sign the Treaty of Troyes, which disinherited thedauphin (the French heir to the throne), gave his sister Catherine to Henry V in marriage, and declared Henry the heir of Charles VI.
Philip the Good accompanied the English king into Paris.
In 1421 Henry and Catherine had a son, Henry VI.
Like Edward III before him, he was the grandson of two kings but owed his French royalblood to his mother.
The Treaty of Troyes did not end the Lancastrian War, for much of central and southern France did not accept it; they supported the dauphin, who became Charles VIIin 1422.
Though still young, Henry V of England died in 1422, and Charles VI followed a few months later.
The infant Henry VI was officially the king of both countries,and his uncle John, duke of Bedford, continued the English war effort in France, with the much-needed support of Philip the Good of Burgundy.
In 1424 the duke ofBedford defeated the French in battle at Verneuil, and in 1428 he besieged Orléans, an important city in central France.
B Joan of Arc
Early in 1429 there appeared before Charles VII a most unusual and unexpected visitor—a 17-year-old peasant girl, dressed in men’s clothing.
This young womanclaimed to have had visions of saints who told her that she was to lead a French army against the English besieging Orléans.
Though hesitant to accept this offer,Charles finally agreed and sent a relief expedition that successfully broke the siege.
The young heroine, known to history as Saint Joan of Arc, followed this success withanother victory over the English at Patay, and then led Charles to Reims, deep in enemy-held territory, where he was crowned king of France.
However, despite the dramatic French victories under Joan of Arc, they were merely a brief episode in which the French made limited gains.
Joan was eventuallycaptured by the Burgundians, turned over to the English, and executed in 1431.
VI THE END OF THE WAR
In 1435, after lengthy peace negotiations with Charles VII, Philip the Good of Burgundy abandoned his support of the English.
Without the support of Philip’s forces, theEnglish were unable to adequately hold their territory, and the tide of the war turned in favor of France, and the French regained Paris in 1436.
In addition, the French revived the stable coinage, regular taxes, and the standing army that had originated under Charles V but had disappeared during his son’sinsanity.
France also acquired superiority in the use of firearms, especially field artillery .
These large, mobile cannons were capable of inflicting heavy damage, and they gave the French the same sort of military advantage that the longbow had given the English in the previous century.
In 1444 French conquests forced the English to agree to a truce.
When that truce expired five years later, the remaining English possessions in France quickly fell intoFrench hands.
Artillery decided both the battle of Formigny (1450), which determined the fate of Normandy, and the battle of Castillon (1453), which ended English rulein Aquitaine.
The battle of Castillon marked the end of the Hundred Years’ War.
The English retained Calais in the far north until 1558, but were never again able to.
»
↓↓↓ APERÇU DU DOCUMENT ↓↓↓
Liens utiles
- Hundred Years' War .
- One Hundred Years of Olympics.
- Nestor Greek King of Pylos (on the west coast of Messenia, in the Peloponnesus) and, at 60 years old, the oldest and most experienced of the chieftains who fought in the Trojan War.
- VERTES ANNÉES [The Green Years]. Archibald Joseph Cronin (résumé)
- TUEUR DE DAIMS (Le) [The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path]. (Résumé et analyse)