Hi my name's Kevin Hicks welcome to my YouTube channel The History Squad. Now today's film
The Battle of La Roche-Derrien 20th of June 1347. It's long awaited for me, I've been trying to put
together a decent model of a castle or of a town wall and I had so much trouble just trying to find
straightforward castle towers, uh no they were all fantasy stuff so I've actually made some towers,
and as you can see in the background there I've built completely the entire town of La
Roche-Derrien. Now this battle is part of the uh Breton Wars of Succession and Charles Blois
who was the claimant for the throne of Brittany, he's the nephew of theKking of France Philip VI,
so his army it's Breton and it's French, it's all part of those Wars of the Breton Succession. He'd
had a problem with us, he'd really copped a bit of a good hiding, but before I go any
further let me just explain La Roche-Derrien had been captured in December 1343 by the
Earl of Northampton. It's close to the coast of Brittany, it's a strategic place, it has a bridge
across the local river there. So let's have a little look at what happens with Charles Blois.
What happened at La Roche-Derrien, a defeat for the French, I'll tell you all about it in
a moment but the key to it lies the year before Battle of Saint Pol De Leon, uh 9th of June 1346.
What happened was Charles of Blois came upon Sir Thomas Dagworth, Edward III's right-hand man in
Brittany. His force was overwhelmingly larger than the English force and he attacks straight away
but his first wave is repulsed, so they actually go round the flanks of the English army,
but the bowman in Sir Thomas Dagworth’s army cut them to ribbons and
Charles of Blair's Army literally runs away those that are left
something in the phsyche of Charles of Blois, it's the bowmen, the bowmen of England
and it takes him a year to rebuild his army before he can even attempt to attack La Roche-Derrien.
But in his mind he's actually making a trap La Roche-Derrien, yes it's a siege, but actually
what a Charles is trying to do is to lure Sir Thomas Dagworth in into a trap and destroy him.
It was 1347 20th of May that Charles of Blois invests the siege on La Roche-Derrien. He's got
1800 men at Arms, 600 archers, 2000 crossbowmen, plus uh ragtag infantry, your peasant infantry.
But this is where he really does overthink it. Now he makes four camps and that’s fortified
camps. I've got a plan a map of the battle of La Roche-Derrien, how the battle looked,
bird's eye view. You'll see that the town stands on some high ground here on the River Jaudi,
and here are the four French camps surrounding. One, two, three, four,
and you'll see that Dagwood's force is approaching La Roche-Derrien from the south.
So what I've done on my model is I've tried to show there was a ditch, there was
um you know the soil from the ditch in the old Roman way, but they put thorn bushes and all kinds
of things on the top. There were three of these that they made, one at the east which is the one
that I've replicated. Then on the north and south covering the gates of the town, but there was a
ready-made one there, the Black Castle to the west of the town across the other side of the river.
So what he says was we fortifiy the camps. He had nine catapults, one of them a trebuchet could hurl
a 300 pound rock. Four in an hour. So they're gonna really smash this town to pieces. He had
so many crossbowmen, and he had some Genoese crossbowmen, and he fortified the whole lot.
But it's not to lay siege to the castle you know really, what he's doing is he's
going to draw Dagworth in. But what Charles of Blois is frightened of is the bowmen,
so the mound around it’s got to be high enough so the bowmen from the town and anybody attacking
can't see. That’s what he kept saying apparently is the bowmen can't shoot what they can't see.
So he's got this idea and then he says, you in your separate camps stay exactly where you are
do not come to my aid unless I sound the signal. Now in Bernard Cornwall's book The Vagabond,
it's seven blasts from the trumpet to summon aid and he kept on reinforcing this. You do not leave
your encampment. Do not make yourself targets for the bowmen. So you've got these basically
four separate little French armies surrounding La Roche-Derrien, and they start to bombard it,
and they cause some terrible damage and they kill a lot of people inside the town.
Dagworth, he has to summon soldiers from every garrison he can afford. Carhaix I think it is,
50 miles away is, is his collection point. Now his army 300 mounted men at arms and 400 bowmen,
all mounted so he can move. So he's going to approach the town,
he has guides, but what he doesn't know is this.
Part of Charles's camp, he's actually a trap. You think you're attacking the camp,
as you come over the rise and knock down any palisades it's actually a field of fire.
It's a trap and Dagworth, he's gonna go straight into it. He sends the baggage train
though straight down the road. Make as much noise as you can. But Charles of Blois knew
exactly where Dagworth was. He knew that he was coming but Dagworth is going to attack in the dark
and this adds to it. It's at least two hours before sunrise. He has three guides so he hits the
camp from three different directions and as they approach it, there's no crossbow shots, no arrows
as they get to the mound nothing, and the English there think they must all be asleep,
we must have done it. And as they go up to the top they push the palisades thinking
they're gonna have to knock stuff and they just simply collapse. Still doesn't, the penny still
doesn't drop. It's a trap. And as they go through there's another palisade and they knock that down.
Then from three different directions the arrows and crossbow bolts pour in.
Now the battle begins and Dagworth, being the man he is, simply says we'll fight. Now they attack,
but the crossbowmen are causing absolute mayhem. Dagworth is wounded and actually captured. His men
are falling down the English are losing, and this is where the whole thing goes topsy-turvy, because
the French are looking in this direction. They're fighting the English. When the garrison commander,
Totsham, he rallies his troops and people from the town, and they attack and they come straight
over and hit the French in the back. The bowmen cause absolute mayhem amongst the crossbowmen,
shooting them down. And uh it's great actually, I mentioned Bernard Cornwell's book, The Vagabond
because it covers this, and it's really exciting because you've got them racing in and out of the
tents. You've got a fight outside the windmill. I hope you like me windmill, I've had that for
years. Eventually the French beginning to lose and Charles of Blois is cornered. He hasn't got
his armor on, so somewhere along the line did he think the English were beaten, he he takes his
armor off, the next minute is he's confronted by English men at Arms? 17 wounds he had. Meanwhile,
the men from his other camps can see something going on and they are waiting for the signal.
Seven trumpet sounds, that's a lot actually isn't it, and there's one account he gives the order,
sound the signal, and as the trumpeter sounds two toots an arrow then cuts him down. No signal.
The French in this camp, if they stay, they're annihilated.
Sir Thomas Dagworth who'd been taken prisoner because he was wounded, he's recovered
and what the English do now is they knock off the other French camps, one at a time. The one
at the north and the one at the south gates, they didn't come to each other's help. Those
in the Black Castle, the French in the Black Castle, had it on their toes they, they simply
withdrew. The La Roche-Derrien, incredibly well planned, incredibly well thought of,
but the problem was, it's the English again isn't it? Thomas Dagworth there, he's his men
are being slaughtered what does he say ‘come on let's fight’ and what does the garrison do?
They weren't called, they simply come and apparently uh Sir Thomas Dagworth says to Totsham,
‘oh thanks, thanks for coming to our aid’ and he says ‘only doing me job’. Wow,
I'm not sure if that was from Bernard's book or not but I think it's wonderful, don't you?
Now Charles Blois, wounded 17 times was it? He's taken to various castles
to recover and then on to England. It’s half a million ecus I understand was his
um ransom. But there's another little interesting thing, he was an important guy, nephew of the
King of France and he must have been terrified of the ocean or suffering terrible from seasickness,
because the English serenaded him with nine guitarists or something, guitar players to
sooth his nerves on the crossing. But that's not the end of the story with La Roche-Derrien.
You know you get to these places don't you, these historical places and you, you have a look and
you're wow. This happened there. Brittany is, is quite special because of the amount of towns that
really suffered. In La Roche-Derrien, well, once the Thomas Dagworth returned to England the French
attacked it and captured it very quickly. The 150 man garrison, Breton and English surrendered,
but the inhabitants were massacred, butchered, and that's horrendous when you think about it.
And then later on, the soldiers who'd surrender honorably, they in turn were massacred.
So you visit these places, these lovely, picturesque towns and really the soil,
the walls are drenched in the blood aren't they? Mainly in the blood of the innocent.
But hey, this is the last one I'm doing on the Wars of the Breton Succession, now we're going
to crack on with the Hundred Years War series. Well I hope you enjoyed our video there and my
model yeah? If you did, like, share and subscribe and don't forget to put on your ‘all’ notification
button because we've got so many different kind of videos coming down the line. But before I go,
a special mention to some of my Patreon members, without them I wouldn't be able to do this,
it's great. So Sandra Teeling, Derek Schultz and Michael Anderwald, hey guys thanks a million.