New Record! Two updates in as many days!
Sundgau bloody Sundgau - Burgondian Inheritance War, 1480
"The Coalition tried to turn its trickle of troops into a flood. Except that only God can flood the ocean." Jean de Comminges, after the Battle of Colmar.
"Actually, the real reason is that the Swiss, the Austrians and the Lorrains couldn't see eye-to-eye." Phillippe de Crèvecoeur, upon hearing Jean's words.
L'Hiver Terrible.
The winter of 1480 saw many deaths. This could be explained as coming from a variety of factors : the global cooling that had started after the Mongol conquests led to an exceptionnally cold winter; the large amounts of money drained by the Burgondian War had left even less food for the peasants than usual; starved peasants chopped firewood for themselves first, and their lords second, and a series of intricated factors that led to high-ranking deaths among the nobles in Europe. Notably, the cold caught in January led slowly to René d'Anjou's death in mid-May; Charles d'Anjou, Count of Maine, was found in his bedroom intoxicated by fire fumes in February; and in the very Louvre, Yolande de France, duchess dowager of Savoy, was found dead. Although she had been pretty sick for all of 1479, she finally died because of the palace's rich winter foods.
These deaths had many consequences. First of all, the death of the two last Angevins made Provence a French county, which would throw into the war additionnal amounts of money and men, not that it would tip the scales much, as seen with the forces that the warring powers had set into motion. What's more, Yolande's death effectively made Louis the Spider the tutor of the heirs of Savoy. He would not imprison his nephews, unlike a neighbouring Yorkist soon would, but the Savoyard troops which had been sent into Western Switzerland would join the French Army for the Lorrain Campaign that was planned by the Spider King.
Meanwhile, to simplify the administration of the Burgondies, Louis the Spider signed an edict which integrated the Counties of Auxerre, Charolais and Mâcon to the Principalty of Burgondy, hereby unifying the Burgondies in France into the Principalty.
In England too, the winter of 1480 took its toll on the nobles, albeit more lightly than in France (because of the battle of Caen, there weren't that many to kill). Notably, King Edward caught tuberculosis.
Winter didn't only kill people : Switzerland, Austria and Lorraine, having proved they couldn't fight separate wars against the Franco-Savoyard Alliance, decided to pool their armies into one, which was then planned to move into France until the French King decided to let Lorraine and Sundgau-Breisgau alone.
The English, as of 1480, planned two massive campaigns in Hainaut and Holland to break the Burgondians and their one-eared leader.
French plans : the Second Campaign of Lorraine
The French had laid plans for a two-pronged attack on Southern Alsace and Lorraine starting on April 1st : one half of the troops, led by Crèvecoeur, would come from Metz and seize Western Lorraine's cities, while Comminge's second half would take over Southeastern Lorraine's cities with a starting point in the Abbey of Luxeuil. The two forces, of 15 000 men each - a 6 000 men force remained in Luxembourg to guard it from the rest of Burgondy and seize Limbourg - would meet under Nancy, which they would then besiege, only to leave the city after the Savoyard army of 8 000 arrived. Afterwards, they would launch a massive attack into Sundgau. Together, these armies represented some 38 000 men which could classify as follows :
- 2 300
Lances, which correspond to 2 300 lancers and 9 200 footmen
- 3 000 French knights (typical heavy cavalry, but the finest of the French nobles. Slightly more careful than they used to be, though).
- 500 Savoyard knights
- 200 Savoyard lancers and 800 footmen
- 6 500 Savoyard mercenaries, ~2 000 of them missile troops.
- 15 000
Bandes Françaises, including some ~6 000 missile troops.
- one hundred canons with some 5 servants per canon.
- 2 skilled generals
The Combined Coalition
The Lorrain army had assembled its remainders in Nancy and the Confederation and Siegmund von Österreich had agreed to bring all their forces in Colmar to prepare a counter-attack. It was obvious a French attack would come the following spring, and that the French would go for Nancy. However, this would leave the Coalition time to work out any possible difficulties. The three armies were to meet in Colmar on June 15th, for a counter-attack before the end of June to catch the French off their feet.
The armies :
Switzerland :
- 6 000 elite pikemen in Swiss Bands.
- 110 canons and couleuvrines captured at Morat.
- 2 500 cavalry, mostly lancers
- 3 500 crossbowmen
Austria :
- 1 000 knights
- 20 canons.
- 12 000 foot soldiers
- 5 000 missile troops, mostly crossbowmen
- 2 000 lancers
Lorraine :
- 500 Lorrain knights
- 7 000 hastily raised foot soldiers
- 3 000 missile troops
- 280 lancers
- 1 one-eyed Duke
All in all, some 41 300 men.
"Two cold water ports! And the Roman road to connect them! And Sundgau-Lorraine!"
From the beginning, all seemed to go even better than according to plan. Épinal and Lunéville fell each in less than a week; Nancy didn't even need a siege, surrendering the moment it saw the French army (to be fair, the series of sieges it had suffered in 1476-1477 had badly wrecked it), and the Savoyard arrived one week ahead of schedule, on May 23rd. Meanwhile, René de Lorraine was in Colmar, preparing supplies for the Combined Coalition army. The Franco-Savoyard force was reinforced on June 6th by 2 000 of René d'Anjou's Provençal troops, all of them men-at-arms. Crèvecoeur and Comminges both felt there was something wrong, as the Duke had not sent any troops to take back lost cities or wreck supply lines like he should have done. Therefore, the 40 000 Franco-Savoyard army entered Sundgau very carefully. Some
éclaireurs (scouts) were sent and disclosed that a large Swiss force was moving rapidly Northwards in North Sundgau, and that rumors of an even greater Austrian one in Breisgau had crossed the Rhine. The meeting point had to be somewhere near Colmar. On the evening of June 17th, three days after the three Coalition armies linked, the French arrived within sight of the Coalition camp. The Battle of Colmar was about to start.
Starting positions of the armies
The French had some small hills in their back, and split the army in two separate blocks instead of three. The right wing, in the North, commanded by Crèvecoeur, consisted in the Savoyard and Provençal armies complemented by 8 000
Bandes Françaises and 500
Lances. His 5 000 missile troops were placed on his left flank, where it would be protected at first by Comminges, while his 1 200-strong cavalry was on his right flank where it would be able to manoeuvre more efficiently than the rest in any flanking moves. The left, Southern, French wing, consisted in the bulk of the French army, with additionnal cavalry - Comminges' favorite force - and the artillery. His 3 000 missile troops were left on top of a small hill where they could defend themselves, along with the canons, far on his left, while the bulk of his force was a classical center made of foot soldiers and right and left wings made of cavalry. His 3000 knights were on his right wing to be able to charge any enemy center, while his lancers, more mobile, would control access to his missile troops.
On the other side, René tried frantically to organise his troops whose back was on the river Lauch. While he managed to work with the Swiss, which had arrived earlier, to make two more or less functionning wings made of a mix of Swiss pikemen, crossbowmen and cavalry, the Austrians spoke a hardly understandable Germanic dialect. He could only recuperate the crossbowmen and left his foot soldiers in the center the Austrian forces made up.
Main Operations
The French attacked first, with a rain of arrows coming from the center-right of the army and its far left. The Swiss and Austrians answered with crossbow bolts, most of which fell on Comminges' cavalry. As a consequence, he decided that, whatever, he'd have his knights charge the center while canonballs were to try and break the wings. Meanwhile, Crèvecoeur started to rotate his troops to attack the enemy flank. While his cavalry would have loved a furious charge like Comminges', they were not capable of distancing the infantry and enjoyed breaches in the pikemen's pike wall before their charge.
While Crèvecoeur's cavalry behaved in a disorderly fashion, Comminges' knights behaved "like a mounted phalanx", according to René de Lorraine's own words - that is, their disciplin was equivalent to that of the Byzantine's army despite being nobles. The result of that was complete disorganisation in the Austrian center, despite the orders in Alsatian the Duke kept yelling, and the Lorrain foot soldiers properly deserting, only to find out that they had a river behind them, and it wasn't that shallow...
All connection with his flanks being lost, it didn't take long for their lines to waver, on his left due to Crèvecoeur's charge, on the right upon seing the very rigorous disciplin in Comminges'
Lances at the front of his center. Yet the Coalition attacked the left flank of the French army, with charges of cavalry and all that was required to break French lines. Except the French line didn't break. It bent, and the Swiss found themselves flanked twice and having 1 800 lancers eager to enter the fight behind them.
Afterwards, all strategy and tactics disappeared as only survival mattered.
The bloodbath only ended when the sun set. The ground was brown and sticky, the Lauch was red, flooding and carried cut-off limbs and corpses.
The amount of casualties in Colmar was disproportionate. The French knights had 26 dead and 194 wounded. The Coalition center had perhaps as many survivors. Louis d'Orléans was made a knight after Colmar and earned a lot of pocket change by capturing Duke René.
All in all, the French lost approximatively 10 000 soldiers : 3 000 on the left wing (Comminges), and 7 000 on the right wing (Crèvecoeur). The Coalition lost 38 000 soldiers, its artillery (stored in a nearby warehouse), its military commander, and its prestige. When news of Colmar arrived at Freiburg im Breisgau, it immediately surrendered. By the end of June, Sundgau and half of Breisgau were in French hands.
Treaty of Colmar
The treaty of Colmar was signed by Louis the Spider and One-Eye René (which represented the Coalition) on October 31st, with Louis d'Orléans lobbying for the ransom he was to be paid. The terms were as followed :
- The Kingdom of France, the Archduchy of Austria and the Swiss Confederation will stop all hostilities from November 1st onwards.
- René de Lorraine, Duke of Bar, Guise and Lorraine, renounces these titles in favor of Louis de Valois, King of France, and is to pay a ransom of quarter a million livres to Louis d'Orléans.
- The counties of Sundgau and Breisgau are turned in to France. However, it is possible for the Archduke of Austria to buy back Breisgau, city of Freiburg excepted, for the sum of half a million livres, within 10 years.
- The County of Vaud is and remains a possession of the House of Savoy.
- René de Lorraine is offered a small county, vassal of France, in Digne-les-Bains.
- The city of Sarrebourg and the surrounding lands are returned to the Bishopric of Metz.
- The Bishoprics of Metz, Verdun and Toul become vassals of France.
To be continued by edit/next chapter for the Anglo-Burgondian war. Maps will also be included in that update.
