The Hundred Years' War, a conflict between England and France,
is generally considered to have lasted 116 years, beginning in 1337 and
ending in 1453.
The effective beginning of the war was the decision of King Edward III
of England to make a claim on the throne of France following the death
of King Charles IV of France in 1328. Edward's claim was through his mother,
Isabella of France, Charles's sister. However, the French quoted the Salic
law in order to bypass female heirs. Edward refused to do homage to Philip
VI of France in 1337 and war began soon afterward.
Edward's campaigns against the French knights were mostly successful.
He was far less successful against the castles. He defeated them at the
Battle of Crecy in 1346 and was defeated in turn at the Battle of the Thirty
during which 30 French Knights from Chateau Josselin called out and defeated
30 English knights. Unfortunately the French, observing chivalric tradition,
sold Knollys(Canolles) and Cavely. This was good for the individual knights
but damaged the country. Again, at Poiters, John the Good and his son Phillip
the Bold were poorly served by the disloyal French noble, Captal de Buch,
who led the charge behind the king Battle of Poitiers in 1356, by which
time the English forces were under the command of the king's eldest son,
Edward the Black Prince. Fortunately for the French, the next king Charles
V, nullified English gains. His successes included stopping payment agreed
to by King John. With DuGueslin he was able to reverse even apparent English
success such as the Black Prince's victory at Najara. In the end Pedro
the Cruel paid nothing to this prince and eventually the English puppet
was killed by his rival. Just before New Years day 1370, the English Seneschel
of Poitou, John Chandos, was defeated at the Bridge at Chateau Lussac.
The loss of this commander was a significant loss to the English. Captal
de Buch was also captured and locked up by King Charles who, like the English,
was not bound by outdated chivalry. The Black Prince after the affair with
Pedro the Cruel was impotent and the best he could do was commit a war
crime in Limoges. With the accession to the throne in 1377 of the Black
Prince's son the war quieted down. During the reign of his son, the boy-king
Richard II of England, there was something of a lull, and it was not until
the Earl of Lancaster had murdered his cousin, Richard II, that his son
Henry V of England seriously revived the English claim to the French throne.
Henry V's almost accidental victory at the Battle
of Agincourt in 1415 resulted in his being accepted as the heir of
King Charles VI of France, whose daughter, Catherine of Valois, he married.
A civil war in France between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs was exploited
by Henry V, who allied with the Burgundians.
On January 19, 1419 Rouen surrendered to Henry V of England which made
Normandy a part of England.
After Henry's early death in 1422, almost simultaneously with that of
his father-in-law, his baby son was crowned King Henry VI of England and
also King of France, but the French (Armagnacs) remained loyal to Charles
VI's son, dauphin Charles. War continued half-heartedly until the raising
of the siege of Orleans in 1429, which brought Joan of Arc to the fore
and lead to dauphin Charles being crowned King Charles VII of France.
In 1435, the Burgundians under Philip the Good switched sides, returning
Paris to the King of France. In 1450, the counts of Clermont and Richmont
caught the English Army at Formigny and destroyed it using some canon to
break up the archers. By 1453 Charles VII had finally created an army as
opposed to a group of knights and at the final battle of the hundred years
war at Castillone east of Bordeaux, the Bureau brothers used cannon to
good effect against the Earl of Talbot who was killed during his charge.
Following Henry VI's episode of insanity in 1453, the Wars
of the Roses broke out, and the English were no longer in any position
to pursue their claim to the French throne and lost all their land on the
continent (except Calais). Ill feeling between the two nations continued
well into the 16th century. England did not formally renounce rights to
the French throne until 1800.
Battle of Tannenberg (1410)
The Battle of Tannenberg or Battle of Grünwald (called also
Battle of Zalgiris by Lithuanians) occurred July 15 1410.
It was a battle between two alliances. On the one hand, the Polish, Lithuanian,
Russian and Tatar forces under the command of the Lithuanian-Polish king
Wladyslaw Jogaila (about 39,000 troops). On the other hand, forces of the
Teutonic Knights and its Bohemian and other allies (about 27,000 troops)
under the Great Master of the Teutonic Order Ulrich von Jungingen.
The Battle was won by Jagiello's forces. Ulrich von Jungingen died in
battle. After this battle the Teutonic Knights never regained its previous
power.
Battle of Poitiers (1356)
This was a major victory for England, led by Edward
the Black Prince, son of King Edward III of England, in the ongoing territorial
war against France, following up his victory a few years earlier at Crecy.
Note: The Battle of Tours from 732 is sometimes called 'Battle of Poitiers'
as well.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation
License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire
work (including additions) remains under this license. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
for details. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hundred_Years%27_War
