sighthoundman t1_j15jbfc wrote on December 21, 2022 at 8:42 PM

Reply to comment by Intruding1 in What did medieval (European or African) military campaigns look like? by ThingPuzzleheaded472

This is close enough that it's not worth anyone's time to "fix" it. A truly better answer would be at least 150 pages and more likely 300. Rambling is fine because there were lots of variants on the basic plan.

For a specific example which illustrates many of your points, a good case can be made for Edward the Black Prince's campaign in 1355-6. Edward arrived in Gascony on 20 September, 1355. On 5 October, the English forces left their stronghold in Bordeaux and raided and pillaged all the way to Narbonne and back, a distance of 675 miles (1,100 km), returning on 2 December. There were no battles along the way (a few skirmishes), and sieges resulted in either immediate capitulation, a very easy (and violent) capture, or abandonment to look for better looting.

After Christmas the English continued plundering and destroying. The campaign of 1356 became the English raising havoc and trying to get the French to fight, and the French besieging Breteuil. The English couldn't dislodge the French, but the French couldn't take the town.

Eventually, the English moved away and took up more looting and burning. This was a great hardship on the French people, so King Jean had to go looking to fight the English. Neither side would fight on ground where they didn't have the advantage, so August and the first half of September were just six weeks of two ham-fisted powers playing cat and mouse, with a lot of damage to the French countryside (and population).

Finally the two sides met at the Battle of Poitiers on 19 September 1356. Just one day shy of the anniversary of the landing the previous year. The English cleverly deployed their troops (and baggage train) in such a way that the French thought they had an advantage, so when they sprang their trap the French army was destroyed and the king captured.

There you have it. One year of war. A lot of death (of civilians) and destruction. One battle. Which ended the war.

Note: I checked Wikipedia to get dates and verify that my memory is at least somewhat correct. Any errors are my own.

Dragev_ t1_j1hswvh wrote on December 24, 2022 at 1:44 PM

An interesting thing of the first phases of the Hundred Years War to take into account is also the difference between the army organisation of France and England; Edward III had almost a standing army composed mainly of veteran footmen/archers and did many short incursions through France with a fast-moving force (1339-1340, 1342, 1345 and -36). On the other side, the French had to assemble the army (l'ost) by calling up the nobles which could take weeks and sometimes could not catch the English and force them to battle - the English had already returned home by the time the ost was ready.

This also led to economic problems which are a bit involved - simply put, every time a special war tax had to be levied, sometimes for months or years after the English had passed and for paying an army that had not been able to defend anything at all.