The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France. It was fought between a French army commanded by King Philip VI and an English army led by King Edward III. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France during the Hundred Years’ War. The battle resulted in an English victory and heavy loss of life among the French. It established the effectiveness of the longbow as a dominant weapon on the Western European battlefield.
About Battle of Crécy in brief
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France. It was fought between a French army commanded by King Philip VI and an English army led by King Edward III. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France during the Hundred Years’ War. The battle resulted in an English victory and heavy loss of life among the French. It established the effectiveness of the longbow as a dominant weapon on the Western European battlefield. The English then laid siege to the port of Calais, which fell to the English the following year and remained under English rule for more than two centuries, until 1558. In March 1346, the French army numbering between 15,000 and 20,000, including all the military officers of the royal household, marched on Gascony. On 2 April, the formal call to arms for all men to arms was announced for the south of France. Edward was not morally obliged to succour his vassal but required to indenture his indenture; if Lancaster were attacked by overwhelming numbers, then Edward would rescue him in one way or another. Meanwhile, Henry, Earl of Derby, led a whirlwind campaign through Gas Cony at the head of an Anglo-Gascon army. He heavily defeated two large French armies at the battles of Bergerac and Auberoche, captured more than 100 French towns and fortifications in Périgord and Agenais and gave the English possessions in GasCony strategic depth. In May 1337 Philip’s Great Council in Paris agreed that the lands held by Edward in France should be taken back into Philip’s hands on the grounds that Edward was in breach of his obligations as aVassal.
This marked the start of the Hundred years’ War, which was to last 116 years. There followed eight years of intermittent but expensive and inconclusive warfare. In early 1345 Edward attempted another campaign in the north; his main army sailed on 29 June and anchored off Sluys in Flanders until 22 July, while Edward attended to diplomatic affairs. When it sailed, probably intending to land in Normandy, it was scattered by a storm. There were further delays and it proved impossible to take any action with this force before winter. The battle crippled the FrenchArmy’s ability to relieve the siege of Calais. In April 1346 the French were able to siege the strategically important and logistically important town of Aiguère-ban-ban, 2 miles south of Paris. Meanwhile Edward was raising a fresh army, and raising more than 700 vessels to transport it – the largest English fleet ever to date – to transport the French against the English. In July 1347 the English were aware of the possibility of the French’s efforts to transport and rescue Edward’s guard against the French, and Edward was aware that if the French attempted to rescue him, he would have to fight back against them. In August 1348 the English and the French fought a battle in which the English won.
You want to know more about Battle of Crécy?
This page is based on the article Battle of Crécy published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
