Hi I'm Kevin and thanks for joining me on my channel the History Squad in this our series
about the Hundred Years War. This is part three, the road to Crecy. Now if you've missed part
one and part two you can actually go back yeah? The link to the playlist is in the description,
but now let's go back France 1346. There is fighting in Gascony, there has been a war well in
fact it's still going on down in Brittany there's also something going up in Flanders, France
is bubbling over but Philip VI has got an idea. He knows that our King Edward III is going to invade
so he's going to intercept the English fleet, he's going to take him out in the English channel. He
has a fleet of ships hired from the Genoese coming up, except they're not going to arrive because
what we think is Edward III actually bribed them not to come and his French fleet is actually
not fully assembled when Edward’s fleet finally after several delays set sail. These are hundreds
of ships right and they are gonna go all the way to Bordeaux. No they're not, actually he changed
his mind because he's not telling anybody this Edward III, this king he keeps his plans close
to his chest, he's gonna land in Normandy and he's gonna fool everybody, and he lands right where the
Americans landed on D-day 6th June 1944. He lands on the Carentan Peninsula, Normandy on the 12th of
July 1346 and now virtually unopposed. A local commander Robert Bertram only has 300 militia,
he should have also had 500 professional mercenary troops but mistake number one he didn't pay them,
so a few days before the English landed they packed up and went home.
This means that Edward III's army now can launch what is called a chevauchée. It's a
terrible thing, it's when you broaden your army and you move through enemy territory
burning, pillaging, killing. It is the most devastating thing, but Edward III
we think his plan, because this guy just doesn't tell anybody what he's doing it's great yeah?
We think his plan is this, he has a joint Anglo-Flemish army coming down from the north
he also has part of his own army coming up from the south what we think we understand you see
that big word think yeah is that he's going to converge with his three armies on to Paris.
But first he has to take Caen, 26th of July 1346 the English moving
around Normandy now and they hit Caen. 1500 French soldiers protecting the
walls and the English storm it and it's a fast storming and they take the city, refugees flee
all the way to Paris, it's terrible those soldiers that survived go with them. It's terrible for them
because this town is going to be sacked and interestingly the English fleet had been sent
home to fetch reinforcements and supplies and he's supposed to meet the king's army further up
the coast it doesn't turn up, missed op, missed opportunity or is that a mistake but it means
that we're going to run short of either men or supplies further down the line. Meanwhile
the King's plan, that we really don't know about, was it to join up with the army from the north
and with the army from the south and then he comes from the west and then they can take Paris.
I don't know in fact nobody does and of course he didn't know that the two armies aren't going
to make it, they've been intercepted. There's fighting in the south and our army from Flanders
get fed up burn some of their supplies and go home. Ouch Edward III's army's on its own
now he reaches almost to the outskirts of Paris at Poissy, on the river Seine just outside of Paris
Edward gets his engineers, he had 40 carpenters with his wagon train you know and they built a
wooden bridge across and they capture the other side the Paris side of the river Seine and uh oh
my goodness me there's panic in Paris because there are so many refugees and also a problem
for the French king his army is down in the south in Gascony fighting away. He keeps calling it to
come back but they won’t. Now he's stuck with an English army right outside his front door.
He comes up with an idea and he says to Edward III let us meet in a field and have a battle then
and Edward says yeah right. So Edward appears to accept the challenge but he's bluffing,
he will meet somewhere on the south of the Seine for this battle but he knows has no intention yeah
and remarkably he's only 23 kilometres from the centre of Paris when he decides to burn down the
little town of boise and the bridge so the French can't follow him and marches away to the north
he's obviously got spies he knows now that the main French army is coming up from Gascony and
it's coming up fast so now he has got to get north he's got to find that fleet or he's got to get to
Calais so he can escape back to England this is where things could go wrong for the English
Philip VI, King of France moves fast he realizes if the English army is moving north they are going
to be running low on supplies so he ensures that messages are sent militias what soldiers they have
are actually stripping the countryside of any food anything usable in front of the English meanwhile
his army is coming up this is going to be a race to the River Somme if the English get across they
can escape so they ensure that all of the bridges are actually guarded there will be many a fierce
fight along the way English army is literally starting to fall to its knees they need food
when they find out there is a ford at Blanchetaque right at the end of the river Somme, it's actually
2000 yards wide so I understand, but when the tide goes out you can get across you've got about four
hours. There is a rumour that a Frenchman actually tipped them off and he was regarded as a traitor
but now what we don't realize is the other side of Blanchetaque are three and a half thousand French.
They also have Genoese crossbowmen with them it's not going to be as straightforward as you think
and I love this because the Earl of Warwick now has bowmen wading across the river as they get
about halfway across now crossbow bolts are going past them I've got a crossbow bolt here you just
have a look at that this is the type of crossbow bolt that will be hitting you. The bowmen fall but
they still come on as they wade through the water ignoring men falling until they get within range
now they can draw their bows now they can rain arrows into the position of the Genoese
it takes time but there is a bit of a duel going on here until eventually the crossbowmen begin
to slacken off their pace of shot that gives the Earl of Warwick chance now to get some mounted men
men at arms nights into the water and get across the French respond right in front of the bowman
there is a little battle between knights swords lances water splashing horses rearing meanwhile
the bowmen are shooting over the heads around wherever they can until the French horsemen
those that survive are driven back now the bowman joined by reinforcements more men now are coming
across the river and they get onto the other side there ensues a battle. The bowmen shoot
as hard as they can and the French break and run. 2000 French dead it wasn't an easy crossing
but now we've got to get the wagons across we've got to get everything across those wagons
stacked high with arrows and those mysterious iron tubes that are underneath the arrows
everything must be got across because we know hot on our heels is a French army and it arrives
he might have captured one or two wagons taken one or two prisoners
but the rest of the army gets across it's a bit of a strange one here why didn't the French
attack the rear why didn't they come across there was still time
or was the tide coming in were they afraid were there not enough soldiers what we do know now
is the English are across the river some and they are attacking towns nearby that haven't
been cleared of food and supplies now we can resupply now we can get on the road to Calais.
So just to recap we have a map here and I'm going to show you the route uh that Edward III's army
took I'll show you the bodkin arrowhead and here you have him leaving Portsmouth 11th
12th of July 1346 gets across the channel and he lands just a day later on the Carentan Peninsula
it takes a couple of days to get his army going and then they head south
but don't forget this is actually a chevauchée, they burn their way forward so these little towns
yeah they're going to be destroyed, people are going to be made refugees as he moves on to Caen,
it's here that he lays siege on the 26th of July in Caen and the army then they move
further towards Paris and you can see the route they take town after town after town
and they eventually end up at Poissy and it's here that um the King of France offers
Edward the the chance of a uh battle and Edward bluffs it there so what he does instead of
meeting the French for a battle is he burns the bridge, burns Poissy so nobody can follow him
and he heads north but it's here that the land is devoid of supplies he tries to get across
the river some so he can get on north to Calais but all of the crossings are heavily guarded so
it's on and on till eventually 24th of August he manages to get across Blanchetaque and then
once he's resupplied from local towns he can head north but it's only two days later
that we reach Crecy but that will be part four of our series. I've ordered some soldiers so
that I can make a little bit of a model of the battle the soldiers are coming from Perry
Miniatures and they're couriering them all the way here to Canada, so hopefully they will come
pretty quick. So I hope you've enjoyed this and if you have thumbs up, if you're a subscriber great
,if you're not a subscriber, ding that bell. Thank you very much for your time.