Black Prince’s chevauchée of 1355

The Black Prince’s chevauchée was a large-scale mounted raid carried out by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 5 October and 2 December 1355. The force of 4,000–6,000 men marched from Bordeaux in English-held Gascony 300 miles to Narbonne and back. More than 50 French-held towns or fortifications were captured during the following four months. In August 1356 he headed north on another devastating chevauxchée with 6,000Men; he was intercepted by the main French army, 11,000 strong, and forced to battle at Poitiers. This marked the start of the Hundred Years’ War,

About Black Prince’s chevauchée of 1355 in brief

The Black Prince’s chevauchée was a large-scale mounted raid carried out by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 5 October and 2 December 1355. The force of 4,000–6,000 men marched from Bordeaux in English-held Gascony 300 miles to Narbonne and back. While no territory was captured, enormous economic damage was done to France. More than 50 French-held towns or fortifications were captured during the following four months. In August 1356 he headed north on another devastating chevauxchée with 6,000Men; he was intercepted by the main French army, 11,000 strong, and forced to battle at Poitiers, where he decisively defeated the French and captured King John II of France. This marked the start of the Hundred Years’ War, which was to last 116 years. The French port of Calais fell to the English on 3 August 1347 after an eleven-month siege and shortly after the Truce of Calais was signed. Fighting continued in Picardy and Brittany, and especially in south-west France, where the English raided deep into French territory, but no large forces took field for a permanent peace commenced in 1353. In 1355 Pope Innocent VI agreed to permanent peace in Avignon under the auspices of the Negotiations of Innocent VI. The same year the Black Death reached northern France and southern England, resulting in the death of approximately 45 per cent of the population. In their 1345 and 1346 campaigns, the main English campaigns had pushed the French to strongly garrison his northern towns and fortifications against the English.

In the same year, the English launched offensives in both northern and southern France and tried to launch that year’s northern campaign against the French capital of Paris. This was partially the result of both countries being financially exhausted. The English Crown levied more than 200,000,000 imperial pints of wine a year from the capital of Gas Cony, more than all other customs duties combined. Before the war commenced, well over 1,000 ships a year departed GasCony. Any interruptions to regular shipping were liable to starve GasconY and financially cripple England; the French were well aware of this. Edward III was able to spare few resources for its defence, and previously when an English army had campaigned on the continent it had operated in northern France. In most campaigning seasons the Gascons had to rely on their own resources and had been hard-pressed by the French. In July 1346, Edward III landed the main. English army in Normandy in north France. Philip concentrated French forces against this threat and over the following year the Anglo-Gascons were able to push the focus of the fighting away from the heart of Gasconys. The war ended in the Treaty of Versailles in 1354. The Treaty ofVersailles was signed in 1356.

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