Hi, welcome to our YouTube channel the History Squad and this is part two in our Hundred Years
War series. In part one we covered this what sparked the Hundred Years War, we went through
all those different people and who'd had what babies, the wrong kind of babies and so on and so
forth and we ended up with these two characters. We've got Edward III of England and Philip VI
of France. Edward young headstrong a little bit arrogant oh and then we got Philip VI, belligerent
oh this doesn't look good. So the Battle of Sluys, uh 24th of June uh 1340. But a couple years before
1338 there'd been a major catastrophe for Edward III, you see he had these fighting ships. Uh two
of the most famous, the Christopher and the Edward the Christopher had cannons on board
I believe four guns so these were state of the art and what had happened was they've been sent across
as escorts for a massive wool convoy to Flanders yeah? Money, revenue that he needed
for the forthcoming wars but unfortunately they were intercepted. This squadron was intercepted
by a massive fleet of French ships, they never stood a chance, they stood off they fought
our sailors were killed, Arnemuiden I think was the name of the battle and we lost those warships
those cogs and the King was heartbroken so that affected the English channel the power in the
English channel and now the King he's gonna try and seize power. He’s trying to defeat
the French fleet this is vital because the French are attacking Portsmouth and all these other towns
also the Channel Islands and the Isle of Wight, so we need to do something.
Sluys is now in modern day the Netherlands uh it's all silted up now so you wouldn't see it
but I've got a map and we're gonna try and lead you through, we've got some models so it'll be
great fun especially when I knock it and all the soldiers fall over that's what normally
happens. So the battle is about to commence, the King sent two knights forward over land to have a
look and see what the French were doing. What in fact they had done was blocked the entire
estuary with their ships, row upon row, in fact it was described as if there was a forest of masts
floating upon the sea there were that many yeah but you could see the English cogs at the one end
the Christopher the Edward yeah so the French had included them in their navy.
The two knights report back the French are blocking our way we shouldn't go we should stand
fast. Well Edward was still this young man and he bawled the knights out, no way. He stormed up and
down the deck shouting his orders we're gonna go, we’re gonna go, everybody's kind of going
and the ships set sail but the French had made the most massive mistake they chained all their ships
together. They had formed one almighty fighting platform. In those days naval warfare he didn't
stand off like at uh with the HMS Victory at Trafalgar, he didn't stand off and fire and
so on and so forth and board later you hopefully grappled the enemy ships brought them in,
bang. But the King, as soon as he saw that the French ships were all shackled together
he laughed, he knew he was going to win the day, and the reason being is how he formed his navy.
Now I've got some models here and I want to show you what an English cog with the fore and stern
castle looked like. So this is a model, a model kit of the Thomas the flagship for Edward III at
Sluys and you can see the forecastle here, bowman all lined up, there are some along the belly of
the ship and then the stern castle and then right on the top of the master you have the top castle
here and bowman loaded up to the gunnels literally as they move the ship around they'll be shooting
down into the galleys and the French ships this puts them above any enemy ships now these are
slow moving their advantage is the forecastle and the stern castle but when they're up against
the galleys of the French navy which were actually Genoese if you want the truth I hadn't got a model
of a French galley so I made one these had oars and a massive sail they were very narrow on the
beam and light draft in the water so they were very, very maneuverable. However what the French
had done is they'd anchored these all together, so there they are in a line abreast, the English
cogs are coming in now. The first thing they're going to do is just rain sheer hell down
on the French. The French didn't have very many crossbowmen I believe only around 500. 20000 armed
sailors plus 150 men at arms so they were not um as well armed as the English the English had
about three to five thousand archers and fifteen hundred men at arms plus the armed sailors
so we didn't have as many ships as the French but we had far more fighting men and the way the King
arrayed his navy which I think is fantastic is he would have two cogs full of bowman and then he
would have a third cog full of men at arms behind them there will be a reserve another ship and this
will be filled with a mixture of bowman and men at arms and they would go in rake the enemy ships
pouring the arrows into them decimating the crews the cog with the men at arms would simply smash
into them and board but if you start at the one end you start to take the ships as French sailors
run the other way they're going to start to crowd out the other ships and what the English found was
that just one or two cogs would capture several French ships. Let me show you on the diagram
what happened. So here is Sluys, this is the estuary blocked by the French fleet,
now don't forget they'd anchored themselves tied all the ships together the Christopher
and the Edward so I understand. We're at this far end, the King is way out of view
when he hears from his two knights that the French have blocked the estuary but he storms
forward, as he comes around the headland he has three ranks of ships three lines of ships
yeah and he's got that formation where it's two cogs full of archers with their boarding
party in the second the men at arms. When he sees the French are tied and they can't move
it's he laughs because there is a wind that is for the English fleet, it's against the French.
Many of the French ships try to disengage but it's too late and of course when the battle is well
on ships from Sluys the Flemish ships with armed men on board who were loyal to the English
attack the French fleet from the rear some of the Genoese the mercenaries
escape with their fast moving galleys this battle was immense it shows the bowman not
shooting great distance to sting the enemy like at Agincourt, these guys are shooting close quarter
and they're going to be raining those arrows down on many men who simply did not have armour. At the
end of the day Edward bless him captured his ship the Thomas and the Christopher countless
French ships but the tragedy for the French was that there's anything up to 20,000 men perished,
many of them jumping into the water. People at the time said that if the fish in the sea could speak
they would have learned to speak French. Now bodies for French sailors
were being washed up for days upon days after the battle. You can't visit the site anymore,
it's all silted up it's just part of the mainland of the Netherlands but I think it's a battle which
should have more said about it. 20000 French dead, negligible of how many English were killed.
Well I hope you've enjoyed our little film here. I hope you like my models because I actually made
the galley out of scrap wood. Thanks very much for your time. If you've enjoyed it
thumbs up, if you've not subscribed then subscribe and then ding the bell.
Thank you very much and stand by for part three because that's the Crecy
campaign and that's when I really get going thank you very much for your time.