The Battle of Bouvines was fought on 27 July 1214 near the town of Bouvines in the County of Flanders. It was the concluding battle of the Anglo-French War of 1213–1214. Although estimates on the number of troops vary considerably among modern historians, at Bouvines, a French army commanded by King Philip Augustus routed a larger Allied army led by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV in one of the rare pitched battles of the High Middle Ages and one of the most decisive medieval engagements.
Year 1302 (MCCCII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1304 (MCCCIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Dunkirk is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France. It lies 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the Belgian border. It has the third-largest French harbour. The population of the commune in 2019 was 86,279.
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775 during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved. It was the original objective of both the colonial and British troops, though the majority of combat took place on the adjacent hill which became known as Breed's Hill.
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 although fighting continued elsewhere in Europe until 25 May. On 5 June 1945, the Berlin Declaration proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany to the four victorious powers was signed. The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre.
Cassel is a commune in the Nord départment in northern France. Built on a prominent hill overlooking French Flanders, the town has existed since Roman times. It was developed by the Romans into an important urban centre and was the focus of a network of roads, which are still in use today, that converge on the hill. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Cassel became an important fortified stronghold for the rulers of Flanders which was repeatedly fought over before finally being annexed to France in the 17th century. It was the headquarters of Marshal Ferdinand Foch during part of the First World War. In 1940, during the German invasion of France, Cassel was the scene of a fierce three-day battle between British forces and German forces which resulted in much of the town being destroyed.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs was a military confrontation between the royal army of France and rebellious forces of the County of Flanders on 11 July 1302 during the Franco-Flemish War (1297–1305). It took place near the town of Kortrijk (Courtrai) in modern-day Belgium and resulted in an unexpected victory for the Flemish. It is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Courtrai.
Rogers' Rangers was a company of soldiers from the Province of New Hampshire raised by Major Robert Rogers and attached to the British Army during the Seven Years' War. The unit was quickly adopted into the British army as an independent ranger company. Robert Rogers trained and commanded the rapidly deployed light infantry force, which was tasked mainly with reconnaissance as well as conducting special operations against distant targets. Their tactics were built on earlier colonial precedents and were codified for the first time by Rogers as his 28 "Rules of Ranging". The tactics proved remarkably effective, so much so that the initial company was expanded into a ranging corps of more than a dozen companies. The ranger corps became the chief scouting arm of British Crown forces by the late 1750s. The British forces in America valued Rogers' Rangers for their ability to gather intelligence about the enemy. They were disbanded in 1761.
The Flemish peasant revolt of 1323–1328, sometimes referred to as the Flemish Coast uprising in historical writing, was a popular revolt in late medieval Europe. Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, peasant insurrection escalated into a full-scale rebellion that dominated public affairs in Flanders for nearly five years until 1328. The uprising in Flanders was caused by excessive taxations levied by the Count of Flanders Louis I and by his pro-French policies. The insurrection had urban leaders and rural factions, which took over most of Flanders by 1325.
Robert III of Artois was Lord of Conches-en-Ouche, of Domfront, and of Mehun-sur-Yèvre, and in 1309 he received as appanage the county of Beaumont-le-Roger in restitution for the County of Artois, which he claimed. He was also briefly Earl of Richmond in 1341 after the death of John III, Duke of Brittany.
James I of Bourbon, was a French prince du sang, and the son of Louis I, Duke of Bourbon and Mary of Avesnes. He was Count of Ponthieu from 1351 to 1360, and Count of La Marche from 1341 to his death.
The Battle of Amstetten was a minor engagement during the War of the Third Coalition between the First French Empire and the alliance of Austria and Russia. It occurred on 5 November 1805, when the retreating Russo-Austrian troops, led by Mikhail Kutuzov, were intercepted by Marshal Joachim Murat's cavalry and a portion of Marshal Jean Lannes' corps. Pyotr Bagration defended against the advancing French troops and allowed the Russian troops to retreat. This was the first fight in which a major part of the Russian Army opposed a significant number of French troops in the open. The total number of Russo-Austrian troops was around 6,700, while the French troops numbered roughly 10,000 troops. The Russo-Austrian forces suffered more casualties but were still able to successfully retreat.
The Battle of Saint-Omer, fought on 26 July 1340, was a major engagement in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, during Edward III's 1340 summer campaign against France launched from Flanders. The campaign was initiated in the aftermath of the English naval victory at the Battle of Sluys but was far less successful than Edward had hoped. At Saint-Omer, the heavily-outnumbered French men-at-arms, tasked with defending the city and awaiting reinforcements, unexpectedly defeated the Anglo-Flemish forces on their own. The allies suffered heavy losses and the French captured their camp intact, taking many warhorses, draft animals and carts, all the tents, huge quantities of supplies and most of the Flemish standards. Edward's campaign of 1340 had begun badly. On the bright side, the loss of several thousand men was bearable, as the survivors, which included most of the precious English longbowmen, eventually rejoined him at Tournai. The defeat had serious strategic consequences. It exposed southern Flanders to the wrath of Philip VI and enabled the French to concentrate their forces against the main army of the coalition in the siege of Tournai.
The Day of the Flemish Community of Belgium is an annual commemoration in the Flemish Community in Belgium on 11 July which marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag) in 1302.
On 23 August 1328, the Battle of Cassel took place near the city of Cassel, 30 km south of Dunkirk in present-day France. Philip VI fought Nicolaas Zannekin, a wealthy farmer from Lampernisse. Zannekin was the leader of a band of Flemish rebels. The fighting erupted over taxation and punitive edicts of the French over the Flemish. The battle was won decisively by the French. Zannekin and about 3,200 Flemish rebels were killed in the battle.
The Franco-Flemish War was a conflict between the Kingdom of France and the County of Flanders between 1297 and 1305.
The Battle of the Narrow Seas, also known as the Battle of the Goodwin Sands or Battle of the Dover Straits was a naval engagement that took place on 3–4 October 1602 during the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585 and part of the Dutch Revolt. An English fleet under Sir Robert Mansell intercepted and attacked six Spanish galleys under the command of Federico Spinola in the Dover Straits. The battle was fought initially off the coast of England and finally off the Spanish Netherlands. The English were soon joined by a Dutch fleet under Jan Adriaanszoon Cant, and they completed the destruction.
The Yser Front, sometimes termed the West Flemish Front in British writing, was a section of the Western Front during World War I held by Belgian troops from October 1914 until 1918. The front ran along the Yser river (IJzer) and Yser Canal (Ieperlee) in the far north-west of Belgium and defended a small strip of the country which remained unoccupied. The front was established following the Battle of the Yser in October 1914, when the Belgian army succeeded in stopping the German advance after months of retreat and remained largely static for the duration of the war.
The siege of Caudebec was a military event that took place between 24 April to 21 May 1592 as part of the French Wars of Religion and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). The Spanish and the French Catholic League forces of Duke of Parma had captured the town of Caudebec on the Seine, where they soon found themselves trapped by the reinforced Royalist Protestant army led by Henry of Navarre consisting of French, English, and Dutch troops. Seeing that Henry's force had now surrounded him, Parma seeing that defeat was inevitable, pulled his 15,000 men across the river in a single night to escape and retreat to the south.
