Gascon campaign of 1450-1453 | |||||||
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Part of the Hundred Years' War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of France Duchy of Brittany | Kingdom of England Duchy of Gascony | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Charles VII of France Jean Bureau Peter II, Duke of Brittany Jacques de Chabannes Jean de Dunois Jean II de Bourbon Olivier de Coëtivy Gaston IV de Foix-Béarn | Gadifer Shorthose Thomas Gassiot John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury † John Talbot, Viscount Lisle † John de Foix, Earl of Kendal (POW) Pierre de Montferrand Gaillard IV de Durfort |
The Gascon campaign of 1450-1453 took place during the Hundred Years' War when the kingdom of France undertook a military campaign to invade and cede the Duchy of Gascony from the English. Following the decisive victory of the French at the battle of Castillion and after the fall of Bordeaux, the last English stronghold in Gascony, English control of Gascony was removed.
After the fall of Normandy, Charles VII concentrated his efforts on Gascony, the last remaining English province which had been English since 1154, some 300 years.
On the 1st November, French forces defeated an English army at the Battle of Blanquefort. By early 1452 Bordeaux had fallen to the French leaving only the Pale of Calais and the Channel Islands in British authority.
However, on the 17th October 1452 John Talbot landed in Gascony. Six days later, the city usurped the garrison and Talbot entered the city. By December, most of Western Gascony was under English control, despite a small defeat at the Battle of Martignas, were 500 archers were ambushed by the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Foix. Charles had been expecting a campaign in Normandy, so he assembled his forces in winter and by early 1453, he was ready. Meanwhile, Talbot had received 3,000 troops from his fourth son John, Lord Lisle and 2,000 from Gascony, under the command of Jean de Foix, Earl of Kendal, assembling an army of around 8,000. French forces numbered 10,000. French forces laid siege to Castillon-la-Bataille and Talbot moved to meet them, with a force of just 500 men-at-arms and 800 archers, expecting the rest of his army, under the Earl of Kendal to reinforce him. After beating a French detachment of archers near the Castillon Church, Talbot advanced towards the French camp, believing they were retreating ( In fact, the camp followers were leaving for the upcoming battle). Jean Bureau, the french artillery commander had laid out a camp of three hundred cannons. Talbot, according to an earlier ransom agreement, was the only Englishman mounted and he did not wear armour. As his troops advanced, they were massacred by French cannon. Even though his reinforcements continued to arrive under Kendal, they too suffered the same fate. Despite the odds against the English, the battle lasted over an hour until the Duke of Brittany led cavalry against their rear and flank. Talbot was killed, possibly after his horse had been killed, a French archer finished him off with a battle axe. Talbot's son Lisle was also killed. Kendal was captured. This battle, the Battle of Castillon and the following Fall of Bordeaux mark the effective end of the war.
John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, 3rd Earl of Somerset, KG was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was the maternal grandfather of Henry VII.
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 1st Earl of Waterford, 7th Baron Talbot, KG, known as "Old Talbot", was an English nobleman and a noted military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was the most renowned in England and most feared in France of the English captains in the last stages of the conflict. Known as a tough, cruel, and quarrelsome man, Talbot distinguished himself militarily in a time of decline for the English. Called the "English Achilles" and the "Terror of the French", he is lavishly praised in the plays of Shakespeare. The manner of his death, leading an ill-advised charge against field artillery, has come to symbolize the passing of the age of chivalry. He also held the subsidiary titles of 10th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 6th Baron Furnivalljure uxoris.
The Battle of Castillon was a battle between the forces of England and France which took place on 17 July 1453 in Gascony near the town of Castillon-sur-Dordogne. On the day of the battle, the English commander, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, believing that the enemy was retreating, led his army in an attack on a fortified French encampment without waiting for reinforcements. Talbot then refused to withdraw even after realizing the strength of the French position, causing his men to suffer severe casualties from the French artillery. Castillon was a major European battle won through the extensive use of field artillery.
Jean Bureau was a French artillery commander active primarily during the later years of the Hundred Years' War. Along with his brother, Gaspard, he is credited with making French artillery the most effective in the world. As Master Gunner of Artillery in the armies of Charles VII, Bureau acquired a reputation as an effective artillery officer during the Normandy campaign (1449–1450), when his bombardments helped capture the towns of Rouen, Harfleur, and Honfleur, and aided in the French victory at Formigny. Bureau commanded the victorious French army at the decisive Battle of Castillon in 1453.
The Battle of Auberoche was fought on 21 October 1345 during the Gascon campaign of 1345 between an Anglo-Gascon force of 1,200 men under Henry, Earl of Derby, and a French army of 7,000 commanded by Louis of Poitiers. It was fought at the village of Auberoche near Périgueux in northern Aquitaine. At the time, Gascony was a territory of the English Crown and the "English" army included a large proportion of native Gascons. The battle resulted in a heavy defeat for the French, who suffered very high casualties, with their leaders killed or captured.
This is a timeline of the Hundred Years' War between England and France from 1337 to 1453 as well as some of the events leading up to the war.
John Talbot, 1st Baron Lisle and 1st Viscount Lisle, English nobleman and medieval soldier, was the son of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and his second wife Margaret Beauchamp.
The Lancastrian War was the third and final phase of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. It lasted from 1415, when Henry V of England invaded Normandy, to 1453, when the English were definitively defeated in Aquitaine. It followed a long period of peace from the end of the Caroline War in 1389. The phase is named after the House of Lancaster, the ruling house of the Kingdom of England, to which Henry V belonged.
Events from the 1450s in England.
Castillon-la-Bataille is a commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. Castillon station has rail connections to Bordeaux, Bergerac and Sarlat-la-Canéda.
The Hundred Years' War was a conflict between the kingdoms of England and France and a civil war in France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy of Aquitaine and was triggered by a claim to the French throne made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fuelled by emerging nationalism on both sides. The periodisation of the war typically charts it as taking place over 116 years. However, it was an intermittent conflict which was frequently interrupted by external factors, such as the Black Death, and several years of truces.
The Battle of Bergerac was fought between Anglo-Gascon and French forces at the town of Bergerac, Gascony, in August 1345 during the Hundred Years' War. In early 1345 Edward III of England decided to launch a major attack on the French from the north, while sending smaller forces to Brittany and Gascony, the latter being both economically important to the English war effort and the proximate cause of the war. The French focused on the threat to northern France, leaving comparatively small forces in the south-west.
Jean de Foix was the Captal de Buch, first Earl of Kendal, Vicomte de Castillon, Meilles and Comte de Benauges.
The Gascon campaign of 1345 was conducted by Henry, Earl of Derby, as part of the Hundred Years' War. The whirlwind campaign took place between August and November 1345 in Gascony, an English-controlled territory in south-west France. Derby, commanding an Anglo-Gascon force, oversaw the first successful English land campaign of the war. He twice defeated large French armies in battle, taking many noble and knightly prisoners. They were ransomed by their captors, greatly enriching Derby and his soldiers in the process. Following this campaign, morale and prestige swung England's way in the border region between English-occupied Gascony and French-ruled territory, providing an influx of taxes and recruits for the English armies. As a result, France's ability to raise tax money and troops from the region was much reduced.
The siege of Aiguillon, an episode in the Hundred Years' War, began on 1 April 1346 when a French army commanded by John, Duke of Normandy, laid siege to the Gascon town of Aiguillon. The town was defended by an Anglo-Gascon army under Ralph, Earl of Stafford.
Gaillard IV de Durfort, Lord of Duras, was a 15th-century Gascon noble of the Durfort family.
The Black Prince's chevauchée of 1356 was a large-scale mounted raid by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 4 August and 2 October 1356 as a part of the Hundred Years' War. The war had broken out in 1337, but a truce and the ravages of the Black Death had restricted the extent of the fighting since 1347. In 1355 the French king, John II, determined to resume full-scale war. That autumn, while Edward III of England threatened northern France, his son, Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince, carried out a devastating mounted raid, or chevauchée: an Anglo-Gascon army marched from the English possession of Gascony 675 miles (1,086 km) to Narbonne and back. The French refused battle, despite suffering enormous economic damage.
Events from the year 1453 in France.
English offensives in 1345–1347, during the Hundred Years' War, resulted in repeated defeats of the French, the loss or devastation of much French territory and the capture by the English of the port of Calais. The war had broken out in 1337 and flared up in 1340 when the king of England, Edward III, laid claim to the French crown and campaigned in northern France. There was then a lull in the major hostilities, although much small-scale fighting continued.
Sir Edward Hull KG was an English knight who served as Constable of Bordeaux and a military commander during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War. Born into a Lancastrian-supporting family, his parents were both members of Henry IV's royal household. Hull became close to Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. He served on campaign in France and as an ambassador to European powers. Hull held numerous offices including as Esquire of the Body to the king, Knight of the Body and carver to the queen, a feoffee of the Duchy of Lancaster, justice of the peace and sheriff of both Somerset and Dorset, and Devon.