The Battle of Poitiers on 19 September 1356 CE was the second great battle of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453 CE) after Crécy (1346 CE) and, once again, it was the English who won. Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376 CE), son of Edward III of England (r. 1327-1377 CE), masterminded victory largely thanks to the continued domination of the powerful longbow weapon, Edward's excellent defensive positioning, and the outdated reliance of heavy cavalry by the French leadership. A major consequence of the battle was that it allowed Edward III to keep 25% of France under the 1360 CE Treaty of Brétigny.
The Hundred Years' War
In 1337 CE Edward III of England was intent on expanding his lands in France, and he had the perfect excuse as via his mother Isabella of France (b. c. 1289 CE and the daughter of Philip IV of France, r. 1285-1314 CE), he could claim a right to the French throne as nephew of Charles IV of France (r. 1322-1328 CE). Naturally, the current king, Philip VI of France (r. 1328-1350 CE) was unwilling to step down and so the Hundred Years' War between France and England began. The name of the conflict, derived from its great length, is actually a 19th-century CE label for a war which proceeded intermittently for well over a century, in fact, not finally ending until 1453 CE.
The English had won the first major battle of the wars at Crécy in August 1346 CE and then captured Calais in July 1347 CE. The Black Death plague pandemic arrived in Europe from 1347 CE and England the following year but the Hundred Years' War would resume in the middle of the next decade. As preparation for another major confrontation, Edward III's eldest son, Edward of Woodstock, aka Edward the Black Prince, was charged with torching as many southwestern French towns, villages and crops as possible in 1355-6 CE, just as he had done before the Battle of Crécy ten years before. Gascony was raided and Bordeaux captured which the Black Prince thereafter used as his base for further destructive sorties. This strategy, known as chevauchée, had multiple aims: to strike terror into the locals, provide free food for an invading army, acquire booty and ransom for noble prisoners, and ensure the economic base of one's opponent was severely weakened, making it extremely difficult for them to later put together an army in the field. The region Edward attacked was a major contributor to the French king's coffers, and this brutal form of economic warfare weakened the enemy and obliged the French king to ultimately engage the enemy in a large-scale battle.
Battle
Following his ravaging of southwest France, the Black Prince had intended to link up with a second English army coming down from Normandy. This northern army, which had also been ravaging the towns and countryside, was led by Henry of Grosmont, the Duke of Lancaster. However, John II saw the danger and positioned his army around Chartres between the two enemy forces, obliging Edward to move back down to Gascony.
Then the French army swept southwards and surprised the Black Prince's mixed force of English and Gascon troops on 18 September 1356 CE. Both sides used the breathing-space to strengthen their position: Edward by digging trenches and forming barricades with his supply wagons, John by assembling more troops. At this stage, some of the French commanders pushed for a more cautious but guaranteed strategy: surround the English and starve them out. King John, though, was confident in his numerical supremacy and opted for an all-out attack on Edward's position.
The next day a mighty battle ensued 6.5 km (4 miles) from Poitiers in the mixed terrain of vineyards, woods, hedges, and marshes. Just as at Crécy, the French outnumbered their opponents, in this case perhaps by 35,000 to 7,000 (or 50,000 to 8,000 according to higher estimates favoured by some historians). In another repeat of Crécy, the English had taken up the better position on a small hill protected in the rear by a wood and in front by hedges and marshland. The French would have to narrow their battle lines and attack in waves uphill, tiring their knights and nullifying their numerical advantage.
The battle began around 8.00 a.m. and was over by lunchtime. Yet again the French commanders proved to be ill-disciplined and wilful, making any sort of strategic troop movements impossible. Various French cavalry charges, which were often uncoordinated between commanders, were broken up by the tight defensive lines of the English, arranged in the now customary three divisions (two at the front and one at the rear), and the terrain dotted with thick hedges. A feigned retreat led by the Earl of Warwick tempted another rash cavalry charge while Captal de Buch, the captain of the Gascon troops, raced around to the rear of the French causing still more confusion. Sir Geoffrey de Chargny, the standard-bearer of the French flag the Oriflamme - a signal to give no quarter - was cut down as the battle descended into vicious hand-to-hand combat.
Besides being repeatedly outmanoeuvred, once again the French could not find an answer to the range, power and accuracy of the English longbow. Another repeated English strategy was to have knights fight on foot for greater mobility in the confined terrain. The French followed suit, with King John himself leading his men on foot, but then an English cavalry reserve swept in and won the day. Edward's army suffered only a few hundred casualties compared to the thousands of fallen Frenchmen.
King John Captured
Around 2,000 French knights were captured or killed, including the constable of France, both of the country's two marshals, 13 counts, five viscounts, 21 barons, an archbishop, and Prince Philip. Even John himself was captured, the king having surrendered by giving his right glove to Sir Denis de Morbecque and then reassuring the victors that he would fetch a tidy ransom. Indeed, all of these nobles provided a huge potential for cash returns but John's was astronomical, truly a king's ransom at 4 million gold écus (triple David II of Scotland's ransom, another captive king held by Edward III). So massive was this figure John was released in order to raise it from his kingdom while his son Louis was kept hostage in Calais. When Louis escaped, King John voluntarily handed himself back over for confinement, such were the unwritten rules of medieval chivalry.
Aftermath
After Poitiers, France, without its leaders, descended into the abyss of chaos. Most immediately, the disbanded French mercenaries who had fought so poorly caused havoc as they raided the surrounding area. Then King Edward pressed his advantage by marching on Rheims in 1359 CE, fully intending to have himself made king of the French where their monarchs were traditionally crowned. Rheims proved impregnable, though, and a harsh winter so reduced Edward's army he was obliged to start peace talks. In May 1360 CE a treaty was signed between England and France. Under the Treaty of Brétigny, Edward's claim to 25% of France (mostly in the north and south-west) was recognised and, in return, he gave up any ambition for the French crown itself.
The Hundred Years' War carried on as Charles V of France, aka Charles the Wise (r. 1364-1380 CE) proved much more capable than his predecessors and began to claw back the English territorial gains. Edward III was now too old to campaign and was showing signs of senility. The Black Prince died, probably of dysentery, in June 1376 CE and so England's martial prowess suffered a serious setback. Now, the only lands left in France belonging to the English Crown were Calais and a thin slice of Gascony. During the reign of Richard II of England (r. 1377-1399 CE) there was largely peace between the two nations but under Henry V of England (r. 1413-1422 CE), the wars flared up again and witnessed the great English victory at the Battle of Agincourt in October 1415 CE. Henry was so successful that he was even nominated as the heir to the French king Charles VI of France (r. 1380-1422 CE). Henry V died before he could take up that position, and the arrival of Joan of Arc (1412-1431 CE) in 1429 CE saw the beginning of a dramatic rise in French fortunes as King Charles VII of France (r. 1422-1461 CE) took the initiative. The weak rule of Henry VI of England (r. 1422-61 & 1470-71 CE) saw a final English defeat as they lost all French territories except Calais at the wars' end in 1453 CE.
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'Where are you from?' I asked the man who stood directly across from me where Blecher once stood on his side of the assembly block. 'The company sent me,' the man responded in a surprisingly forthcoming and casual tone, although he didn't for a second look up from his work. I then introduced myself and the other two men at the assembly block, who nodded and mumbled their greetings to the stranger. That was when I discovered the limitations of the new man's willingness to reveal himself. 'No offense,' he said. 'But there's a lot of work that needs to be done around here.' During our brief exchange the new man had continued to manipulate those pieces of metal before him without interruption. However, even though he kept his head angled downward, as Blecher had done for most of the previous day, I saw that he did allow his eyes to flash very quickly in the direction of the supervisor's office. Seeing that, I did not bother him any further, thinking that perhaps he would be more talkative during the upcoming break. In the meantime I let him continue his furious pace of work, which was far beyond the measure of productivity anyone else at the factory had ever attained. Soon I observed that the men standing to the left and right of me at the assembly block were attempting to emulate the new man's style of so deftly fitting together those small metal pieces and even to compete with the incredibly productive pace at which he worked. I myself followed suit. At first our efforts were an embarrassment, our own hands fumbling to imitate the movements of his, which were so swift that our eyes could not follow them, nor our minds puzzle out a technique of working quite different from the one we had always practiced. Nevertheless, in some way unknown to us, we began to approach, if somewhat remotely, the speed and style of the new man's method of fitting together his pieces of metal. Our efforts and altered manner of working did not go unnoticed by the employees at the assembly blocks nearby. The new technique was gradually taken up and passed on to others around the factory. By the time we stopped for our first break of the day, everyone was employing the new man's methodology. But we didn't stop working for very long. After it became obvious that the new man was not pausing for a second to join us in our scheduled break period, we all returned to our assembly blocks and continued working as furiously as we could. We surprised ourselves in the performance of what once seemed a dull and simple task, eventually rising to the level of virtuosity displayed by a man whose name we did not even know. I now looked forward to speaking to him about the change he had brought about in the factory, expecting to do so when the time came for our meal break. Yet the rest of us at the factory never anticipated the spectacle that awaited us when that time finally arrived. For, rather than leaving his position at the assembly block during the meal break that the company had always sanctioned, the new man continued to work, consuming his meal with one hand while still assembling those metal pieces, although at a somewhat slower pace, with the other. This performance introduced the rest of us at the factory to a hitherto unknown level of virtuosity in the service of productivity. At first there was some resistance to this heightened level of dedication to our work to which the new man, without any ostentation, was leading us. But his purpose soon enough became evident. And it was simple enough: those employees who ceased working entirely during the meal break found themselves once again preoccupied, even tormented, by the troubling atmosphere that pervaded the factory, the source of which was attributed to the temporary supervisor who inhabited the office with heavily frosted windows. On the other hand, those employees who continued working at their assembly blocks seemed relatively unbothered by the images and influences which, although there was no consensus as to their exact nature, had plagued everyone the day before. Thus, it wasn't long before all of us learned to consume our meals with one hand while continuing to work with the other. It goes without saying that when the time came for our last break of the day, no one budged an inch from his assembly block. It was only when the bell rang to signal the end of the work day, sounding several hours later than we were accustomed to hearing it, that I had a chance to speak with the new employee. Once we were outside the factory, and everyone was proceeding in a state of silent exhaustion back to town, I made a point of catching up to him as he strode at a quick pace through the dense, grayish fog. I didn't mince words. 'What's going on?' I demanded to know. Unexpectedly he stopped dead in his tracks and faced me, although we could barely see each other through the fog. Then I saw his head turn slightly in the direction of the factory we had left some distance behind us. 'Listen, my friend,' he said, his voice filled with a grave sincerity. 'I'm not looking for trouble. I hope you're not either.' 'Wasn't I working right along with you?' I said. 'Wasn't everyone?' 'Yes. You all made a good start.' 'So I take it you're working with the new supervisor.' 'No,' he said emphatically. 'I don't know anything about that. I couldn't tell you anything about that.' 'But you've worked under similar conditions before, isn't that true?' 'I work for the company, just like you. The company sent me here.' 'But something must have changed at the company,' I said. 'Something new is happening.' 'Not really,' he replied. 'The Quine Organization is always making adjustments and refinements in the way it does business. It just took some time for it to reach you out here. You're a long way from company headquarters, or even the closest regional center.' 'There's more of this coming, isn't there?' 'Possibly. But there really isn't any point in discussing such things. Not if you want to continue working for the company. Not if you want to stay out of trouble.' 'What trouble?' 'I have to go. Please don't try to discuss this matter with me again.' 'Are you saying that you're going to report me?' 'No,' he said, his eyes looking back at the factory. 'That's not necessary these days.' Then he turned and walked off at a quick pace into the fog.
is this Ligotti?