BATTLE OF PATAY

The 'Battle of Patay' (18 June 1429) was a major battle in the Hundred Years' War between the French and English in north-central France. It was a decisive victory for the French and turned the tide of the war. Although credited to Joan of Arc, most of the fighting took place at the vanguard of the French army and the battle was over before the main body could arrive.

Contents

Background

The Battle

Aftermath

Bibliography

See also

External links

Background

After the relief of the Siege of Orléans, the French recaptured several English strongholds in the Loire valley. This regained bridges for the subsequent French assault on English and Burgundian territory to the north. Nearly all of France north of the Loire river was under foreign control. The French victory at Orléans had destroyed the only French-controlled bridge. Three smaller battles had recovered bridges along the Loire.
The French Loire campaign of 1429 consisted of five actions:
:1. The Siege of Orléans.
:2. The Battle of Jargeau.
:3. The Battle of Meung-sur-Loire.
:4. The Battle of Beaugency.
:5. The Battle of Patay.
The Battle of Patay took place the day after the English surrender at Beaugency. In this battle, the English attempted to use the same tactics it had in the victorious battles of Crecy in 1346,
Poitiers in 1356, and Agincourt in 1415. These tactics called for having extensive numbers of longbowmen defended by sharpened stakes driven into the ground in front of their army, the stakes slowing and hampering a cavalry assault while the longbowmen massacred the enemy. However, in the battle of Patay, the French mounted soldiers were finally able to catch the English unprepared and steamroll them - it was basically the same plan of their former defeats.
No other country in Europe used the longbow as extensively as England. Although the weapon was relatively inexpensive to produce, the cost of keeping longbowmen was prohibitive: the constant training needed to operate the weapon required the maintenance of a standing army. During the late Middle Ages most soldiers fought seasonally, and campaigns often ended in time for the autumn harvest. Longbowmen and nobles were the only truly career soldiers, but there was some resentment from the latter, seeing the presence of the former as an infringement on class prerogative.
The longbow corps had two weaknesses: its lightly armored men were poor defenders in close combat and extensive training slowed the production of new longbowmen. The French army exploited both of these weaknesses in 1429.

The Battle

An English reinforcement army under Sir John Fastolf departed from Paris following the defeat at Orléans. The French had moved swiftly, capturing three bridges and accepting the English surrender at Beaugency the day before Fastolf's army arrived. The French knew that they could not win against a readied English army on open land. So they scoured the area in hopes of finding the English before battle preparations were complete.
The English reconnoitered with remaining defenders at Meung-sur-Loire. The French had taken only the bridge at this location, not the neighboring castle or the town. Retreating defenders from Beaugency joined them. The English excelled at open battles; they took up a position whose exact location is unknown but traditionally believed to be near the tiny village of Patay.
Fastolf, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Thomas Scales commanded the English.
The standard defensive tactic of the English longbowmen was to drive pointed stakes into the ground near their positions. This prevented cavalry charges and slowed infantry long enough to eliminate assailants. But the English bowmen disclosed their position before preparations were complete in a near mythical story: a stag wandered onto the field near the English army and the archers raised a hunting cry, attacking it as sport. This alerted nearby French scouts, who promptly led the French army vanguard towards the English.
About 1,500 men under captains La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles, composing the heavily armed and armoured cavalry vanguard of the French army, attacked the unprepared English. The battle swiftly turned into a rout, with every Englishman on a horse fleeing while the infantry, mostly composed of the famed professional longbowmen, were cut down in droves. Longbowmen were never intended to fight armoured knights except from prepared positions where the knights could not charge them, and they were massacred. For once the French tactic of a large frontal cavalry assault had succeeded, with decisive results.

Aftermath

Talbot was captured by the French along with many other notable English. Fastolf escaped with a small band of men to disgrace. John, Duke of Bedford blamed Fastolf for the defeat and stripped him of his membership in the Order of the Garter. This was the beginning of his somewhat undeserved reputation as the basis for the legendary Falstaff.
As the concluding action of the French offensive along the Loire, Patay left the English army in short supply of two of its most important elements: commanders and longbowmen. This victory permitted the French army to march northward to Rheims without further bloodshed and hold the coronation of Charles VII of France, which settled the disputed succession to the French throne.

Bibliography

★ Devries, Kelly. ''Joan of Arc: A Military Leader'' (Glaucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999). ISBN 0-7509-1805-5

★ Richey, Stephen W. ''Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint.'' (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003). ISBN 0-275-98103-7

★ Allmand, C. ''The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c. 1300–1450.'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). ISBN 0-521-31923-4

See also

★ Medieval warfare

★ Patay

★ Joan of Arc bibliography

External links

★ Siege of Orleans and the Loire campaign a detailed description with strategic and tactical maps

★ The Battle of Patay from the same site

★ Dynamic maps of Joan of Arc's campaigns from Southern Methodist University

★ Jeanne d'Arc: Her Life and Death by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

★ A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot, vol. 3