Battle Of Caen (1346)

The Battle of Caen was an assault conducted on 26 July 1346 by forces from the Kingdom of England, led by King Edward III, on the French-held town of Caen as a part of the Hundred Years' War.

The assault was part of the Chevauchée of Edward III, which had started a month earlier when the English landed in Normandy. The French failed to intercept the English transports at sea and were taken by surprise, with their main army of more than 15,000 men in Gascony. The English were virtually unopposed and devastated much of Normandy before assaulting Caen. Part of the English army, which consisted of 12,000–15,000, commanded by the Earls of Warwick and Northampton, prematurely attacked Caen. It was garrisoned by 1,000–1,500 soldiers, who were supplemented by an unknown, large number of armed townsmen, and commanded by Raoul, the Count of Eu, the Grand Constable of France. The town was captured in the first assault. More than 5,000 of the ordinary soldiers and townspeople were killed, and a few nobles were taken prisoner. The town was sacked for five days.

Five days after storming the city the English marched to the River Seine. By 12 August they were from Paris. After turning north they heavily defeated the French at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August. Subsequently, the English commenced the successful siege of Calais, which had a significant effect on the remainder of the war.

Background

Since the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, English monarchs had held titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France. The status of the English king's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. Following a series of disagreements between Philip VI of France () and Edward III of England (), on 24 May 1337 Philip's Great Council in Paris agreed that the Duchy of Aquitaine, effectively Gascony, should be taken back into Philip's hands on the ground that Edward was in breach of his obligations as a vassal. This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War, which was to last 116 years.

Although Gascony was the cause of the war, Edward was able to spare few resources for it and when an English army had campaigned on the continent it had operated in northern France. Edward determined early in 1345 to attack France on three fronts: a small force would sail for Brittany; a slightly larger force would proceed to Gascony under the command of Henry, Earl of Derby; and the main force would accompany Edward to northern France or Flanders. In early 1345 the French decided to stand on the defensive in the south west. Their intelligence had uncovered the English plan for offensives in the three theatres, but they did not have the money to raise a significant army in each. They anticipated, correctly, that the English planned to make their main effort in northern France. Thus they directed what resources they had to there, planning to assemble their main army at Arras on 22 July. Southwestern France was encouraged to rely on its own resources.

Edward III's main army sailed on 29 June 1345. It anchored off Sluys in Flanders until 22 July, while Edward attended to diplomatic affairs. When the fleet sailed again, probably intending to land in Normandy, it was scattered by a storm and the ships found their way to several English ports over the following week. After more than five weeks on board ship, the men and horses had to be disembarked. There was a further week's delay while the King and his council debated what to do, by which time it proved impossible to take any action with the main English army before winter. Aware of this, Philip VI despatched reinforcements to Brittany and Gascony. During 1345, Derby led a whirlwind campaign through Gascony at the head of an Anglo-Gascon army. He smashed two large French armies at the battles of Bergerac and Auberoche, captured more than a hundred French towns and fortifications in Périgord and Agenais and gave the English possessions in Gascony strategic depth. Late in the year he captured the strategically and logistically important town of Aiguillon, "the key to Gascony".

Prelude

John, Duke of Normandy, the son and heir of Philip VI, was placed in charge of all French forces in south west France, as he had been the previous autumn. In March 1346 a French army numbering between 15,000 and 20,000, enormously superior to any force the Anglo-Gascons could field, marched on Aiguillon and besieged it on 1 April. On 2 April the , the formal call to arms for all able-bodied males, was announced for the south of France. French financial, logistical and manpower efforts were focused on this offensive.

The French were aware of Edward III's efforts, but given the extreme difficulty of disembarking an army other than at a port, and the recent ambivalence of Edward's erstwhile allies in Flanders, the French assumed that Edward would sail for one of the friendly ports of Brittany or Gascony—probably the latter, to relieve Aiguillon. To guard against any possibility of an English landing in northern France, Philip VI relied on his powerful navy. This reliance was misplaced given the naval technology of the time and the French were unable to prevent Edward III successfully crossing the Channel.

The campaign began on 11 July 1346 when Edward's fleet of more than 700 vessels, the largest ever assembled by the English to that date, departed the south of England and landed the next day at St. Vaast la Hogue, from Cherbourg. The English army was estimated to be between 12,000 and 15,000 strong and consisted of English and Welsh soldiers as well as some German and Breton mercenaries and allies. It included several Norman barons who were unhappy with the rule of Philip VI. The English achieved complete strategic surprise and marched south. Edward's aim was to conduct a chevauchée, a large-scale raid, across French territory to reduce his opponent's morale and wealth. His soldiers razed every town in their path and looted whatever they could from the populace. The towns of Carentan, Saint-Lô