Brittany campaign of 1378
The
Brittany campaign of 1378 was a major offensive launched by the kingdom of England against the kingdom of France and pro-French forces in the duchy of Brittany during the Caroline Phase of the Hundred Years War. The campaign was an attempt by the English to retake the initiative in the war after
French attacks on the English mainland the previous year.
Background
Jean III, duke of Brittany, died in 1341 without a direct heir. He was predeceased by his brother, Guy, but was survived by his half-brother, Jean, count of Montfort. Guy's daughter, Jeanne,
suo jure countess of Penthièvre, and her husband, Charles de Blois, challenged Montfort for control of the duchy. The subsequent War of the Breton Succession drew the interest of England and France, quickly growing into a proxy war between the two kingdoms.
Broadly speaking, Brittany was divided between the claimants by class, culture, and geography. Wealthier, Francophone lords from eastern Brittany tended to support Blois-Penthièvre while poorer, Breton-speaking regions in the west tended to support Montfort. Blois was a nephew of King Philippe VI of France, giving the French crown a personal interest in his cause. Meanwhile, Montfort's control of western Brittany made him a natural ally of King Edward III of England, who needed to ensure the safety of sea lanes between England and Gascony.
Montfort died in 1345, but his son, also named Jean, won the war with English support. Jean the Younger was recognized as Duke Jean IV in the 1365 Treaty of Guérande, but he failed to win over supporters of the Blois-Penthièvre party during his reign. The favor King Charles V of France showed toward Blois-Penthièvre adherents like Bertrand du Guesclin, who was made constable of France in 1370, made Jean feel insecure in his position as duke. In early 1372, Jean secretly defied the neutrality clause of the Treaty of Guérande and sought a new alliance with England, but the duke's dealings were discovered before the year's end.
Jean's support in Brittany quickly collapsed after the Anglo-Breton alliance was exposed. He was forced into exile in 1373. Charles V's new Breton favorite, Olivier V de Clisson, took control of the duchy as lieutenant of Brittany. By 1378, only Brest held out against the French. Plans for a major English offensive in Brittany were
drawn up and parliament duly approved a substantial grant of taxation to fund land and naval operations expected to include 6,000 men.
Attack by sea
England faced major logistical problems in moving a large army across the Channel in 1378. The English had never fully recovered from the 1372 Battle of La Rochelle and Castile, who had an alliance with France, was the greatest sea power in western Europe. Worse still, attacks against the southern English coast in 1377 demonstrated the threat posed by France's own burgeoning navy.
Thomas Beauchamp, 12th earl of Warwick, was appointed admiral of the northern fleet ahead of the 1378 campaign. He was personally popular within the nobility and his father was a celebrated veteran of the Crécy and Poitiers campaigns. He was a major regional power in the midlands and appears to have been more interested in managing his estates than in national government, but he was committed to successfully prosecuting the war.
Richard Fitzalan, 4th earl of Arundel, was appointed admiral of the western fleet at the same time. He was an ambitious young lord whose father, like Warwick's, had been one of Edward III's closest friends and most trusted lieutenants. That, however, was where his similarities with Warwick ended. Arundel's father was one of the country's shrewdest administrators and Arundel had inherited not just one of England's great landed estates, but an enormous cash fortune. He lived lavishly, aggressively sought honors and offices from the crown, and had a thirst for glory.
Warwick managed the organization of the campaign, including the requisition of ships, their holding at various ports, recruitment of volunteers and, eventually, the impressment of men. Arundel appears to have had little involvement in these activities, even in those areas traditionally the purview of the western admiral, and was instead focused on intelligence gathering. Merchants and travelers were generously rewarded for information on the French Channel ports. In late April, a Norman spy in Arundel's employ delivered news of French naval activity that suggested another attack on the southern English coast was being planned for the coming summer.
The two admirals were divided on how to proceed to this threat. Arundel argued for a preemptive strike against the French fleet while it was in port, but Warwick cautioned that this would create logistical problems that would delay the campaign in Brittany. Understanding that tens of thousands of pounds would be wasted if men and material were gathered at English ports only to sit idle, Warwick wanted to move as much of the army to Brest as could be moved ahead of the French assault. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster and lord regent of England, was eager to crush French sea power. He endorsed Arundel's plan.
Arundel had 1,400 men, 30 large warships and as many smaller requisitioned vessels at his disposal when word came down from Gaunt. He set sail for Normandy on 12 May. The French were completely unprepared for the attack. The English had built a decentralized, flexible coast guard system ahead of the resumption of hostilities in 1377, allowing them to repel a French force nearly four times the size of Arundel's with minimal effort. French defenses, by contrast, were highly centralized and maintained with only skeletal garrisons so early in the year.
On 16 May, Arundel landed at the mouth of the Seine. A pair of fortified towns guarded the estuary: Harfleur on its northern bank and Honfleur on its southern. The towns were taken by surprise and had fewer than 200 defenders between them, but Charles V had recognized their strategic value and built new circuits of walls in recent years. Arundel had not seriously planned a campaign and his men lacked the equipment necessary to mount a siege. The English quickly aborted their attack and sailed northeast, raiding various towns and villages without opposition. Fécamp was razed to the ground while Dieppe, Le Tréport and Berck were looted and terrorized. Arundel continued up the coast to Sluys, where merchant ships promised great fortunes. Three unarmed Castilian and Flemish vessels loaded with cloth, dyes and wax were captured and sailed to England for the profit of Arundel's men. Several other ships were burned and their crews killed.
Arundel returned to England on 14 June. He had failed at his mission to destroy the French navy and his terror campaign had no real strategic value. French warships were gathered at the river ports along the Seine, and concentrated at Rouen, but Arundel never ventured up the river as he could not take either Harfleur or Honfleur. The damage he'd inflicted along the French coast would do nothing to dissuade another attack on southern England. As Warwick predicted, the only major effect of the campaign was a serious delay in launching the Breton expedition. Arundel found popular support despite this, though. News of his lightning raids along northern France began to rehabilitate his reputation after
his inaction the previous year had left Sussex defenseless against French raiders.
Attack by land
Arundel had departed for Normandy in mid May with about 60 ships, leaving only about 70 vessels at Warwick's disposal as he tried to manage the transport to Brittany of thousands of men and the materials needed to support them. Warwick proved highly efficient at managing a large-scale requisition program, however.
On 25 May, Sir Thomas Percy led Warwick's fleet to Brest. Thomas of Woodstock, 1st earl of Buckingham, who had been named co-leader of the ground campaign, was on board with the entirety of the English army that had been gathered at that point—about 1,000 men and horses—as well as the campaign treasury and supplies. They found the port of Brest blocked by Castilian warships upon their arrival. The small squadron of Castilian ships had only recently arrived with orders to maintain a blockade ahead of a French assault planned for the summer.
The Castilian fleet, though outnumbered, was composed of larger and more formidable craft. Buckingham ordered Percy to charge through the enemy line. The Castilians, not expecting to encounter enemy forces so soon after their arrival, scrambled to react. The English took advantage of the chaotic response and captured a half dozen vessels as the blockade was broken and the Castilians retreated.
By June, Warwick had requisitioned 150 transport vessels in addition to those Arundel had taken on his quixotic campaign. More than half of these were already in Brest, unloading their stores and preparing for a return trip to England, or on a return trip from Brest. Warwick established a ferry system whereby transports of 35-40 ships would embark from eastern and southern English ports every week, planning to double that number after Arundel returned with his fleet. This system had barely begun to function when yet another mission was given higher priority.
English ambassadors had
returned from Navarre on 1 June with details of an alliance that had the potential to transform the war in Aquitaine and promised to open a new front in Normandy. There were already plans to send a small army to Gascony in late summer, but that timetable was now moved up. About 1,000 men that had been gathered for the Breton campaign were to be sent instead to Bordeaux and almost half of Warwick's ships were needed to move these men with their horses and stores.
Arrival in Brest
Buckingham discovered the precariousness of the English position in Brittany upon his arrival.
King Edward IV of England had dispatched Sir Robert Knolles to Brest the previous year with a small army and a campaign warchest of £5,000, as well as shiploads of food and supplies. That gold had been expected to maintain a major English presence in the area, but the true state of Brest's financial distress had been unknown to Edward's government. Three-quarters of Knolles's funds had gone toward arrears and most of Knolles's army had been disbanded after the immediate threat posed by Olivier de Clisson had passed.
As English priorities shifted toward Aquitaine, Buckingham was left with the men who'd sailed with him and only about 500 more arrivals from Warwick's early ferries before news reached Brest that no more than 200 men could be expected every week and no more than 400 men a week after Arundel's return. At that rate, summer would end before all 6,000 men promised for the campaign would be able to land in Brest.
Despite these setbacks, Buckingham still hoped to extend English control out from Brest and across western Brittany. In mid June, he laid siege to the vital crossing town Carhaix, but French attacks on English supply lines forced Buckingham to return to Brest.
Bertrand du Guesclin established a base of operations at Guingamp in early summer. He had planned to lay siege to Brest with Castilian support, but Buckingham's arrival had ended those plans. Guesclin harassed the English and kept them pinned tightly to the area around Brest. This enraged Buckingham, who considered such tactics dishonorable.
Siege of Saint-Malo
Arundel's ineffective campaign and the prioritization of Aquitaine as part of the Anglo-Navarrese alliance had created exactly the sort of financial and logistical nightmare against which Warwick had warned. Thousands of men were gathered in southern England, waiting for deployment to Brittany. More men were still arriving as part of the summons to Gascony, though they would now have to join the army in Brittany to replace those who'd been taken from the Breton expedition and sent to Gascony already. Ships began returning from Bordeaux in July, but Warwick knew that there were too many men and horses to move to Brest in a single transport and there was not enough time left in the campaign season to make multiple transports.
The buildup of English forces did not go unnoticed. Just as Arundel had sought out and rewarded merchants and other travelers for information on movements in northern France, so too did French commanders for information on southern England. Charles V's war council was aware of the large English army and, having recently learned of English negotiations with Navarre, suspected that the army was bound for King Charles II of Navarre's stronghold of Cherbourg in Lower Normandy. This would be a fateful misreading of events.
Warwick, who understood England's logistical limitations better than any other figure in the upper nobility, suggested launching an invasion of eastern Brittany instead of ferrying the army to Brest, as the shorter distance would allow a ferry system to move men and materials much more quickly. William Montagu, 2nd earl of Salisbury, who was meant to be co-commander of the land forces in Brittany, but was instead stuck in England with the bulk of the army, agreed with Warwick. They set their sights on Saint-Malo, a great fortress port that would require a lengthy siege to conquer. A siege campaign had the benefit of requiring far fewer horses, allowing transport ships to focus on moving men and materials.
On 28 July, Salisbury landed at Saint-Malo with somewhere between 4,000 and 4,500 men. The English again caught their enemies by surprise. They washed over the town's outer defenses, moving in heavy siege weapons and beginning the bombardment of the town's walls in a matter of days. Several merchant ships were captured in the initial landing, their cargoes looted and the vessels taken back to England.
Philippe II, duke of Burgundy, was raising a major army at the time. The French had originally planned for an attack on Calais, but Charles V had ordered its delay as news of the
Conference of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and the troop buildup in southern England trickled in. Expecting the English to land such a large army at Cherbourg, Charles's war council was caught completely off guard by news of the attack on Saint-Malo. It seems that the scale of the assault was not fully understood at first and Charles continued to expect news of an English invasion of Normandy.
Guesclin was similarly caught by surprise. He had about 1,500 men with him in Guingamp, far too few to relieve Saint-Malo, but he expected Burgundy to move to Saint-Malo and crush the English against the town's walls. Guesclin grew concerned as news from Paris did not come and worried that he'd be caught between the English army in the east and Brest in the west if Saint-Malo fell.
On 7 August, Guesclin moved his army and campaign headquarters from Guingamp to Dinan. He harassed the besiegers from his new position, but failed to dislodge them. Buckingham quickly learned of Guesclin's retreat from Guingamp and English forces moved out from Brest. Finding little opposition, Buckingham launched a renewed siege of Carhaix on 24 August.
Siege weapons made little impact on the great walls of Saint-Malo in the first few weeks of August and tensions rose in the English camp. The besiegers were under constant harassment from Guesclin's forces and Salisbury feared a major French assault. Arundel blamed Salisbury for the slow progress and attempted to take command of the army. Their falling out was so severe that it threatened to end the campaign early.
On 27 August, a failed nighttime sortie by the French defenders appeared to offer the English an opportunity to take the town by subterfuge. A French squire captured during the raid was bribed to open the gates, being allowed to return to the town under the pretense that he had escaped. The resulting attack nearly ruined the English army.
On 1 September, an English force entered through the gates of Saint-Malo at daybreak, but the gates slammed closed behind them. The French squire had taken the English bribe and betrayed the plan to his commanders. The French had hoped to trap either Salisbury or Arundel, but closed the gate too early and succeeded only in capturing about 20 English knights. Maddened by the betrayal of the French squire, Salisbury ordered a careful study of Saint-Malo's defenses and the undermining of the town's walls. Although the miners were discovered, French counter-miners were too late to stop them.
On 12 September, the mine's timber supports were fired, bringing down about 100 feet of wall. Salisbury ordered a direct assault. Fierce fighting ensued, but the town's inner defenses held and the English were repulsed with heavy casualties. A second assault broke through. The town was massacred and its wealth looted before the English set to rebuilding its defenses.
News of Saint-Malo's fall reached Paris at nearly the same time as the French learned the full extent of the Anglo-Navarrese negotiations. Charles V was finally moved to action. All Charles of Navarre's lands within the kingdom of France were declared forfeit. The French fleet at Rouen was put to sea on orders that no ship was to be allowed in or out of the great fortress of Cherbourg. Burgundy was ordered to
take control of Charles of Navarre's lands in Normandy.
The sack of Saint-Malo had a chilling effect on towns across Brittany. The people of Carhaix, knowing that Guesclin had moved east weeks earlier and fearing that they too would be put to sword if they continued to resist Buckingham's siege, overthrew the French garrison. A delegation of townspeople opened negotiations with the English and peacefully surrendered on 26 September.
Aftermath
Saint-Malo was an unacceptable loss for the French. Charles V had long obsessed over Calais, which he perceived to be a constant and overwhelming threat to the security of his realm. In various negotiations, he had offered to cede large tracts of land in southern and western France to the kings of England as vassals of the kings of France, but he had never wavered in his insistence that Calais be immediately surrendered or destroyed. The fall of Saint-Malo and negotiated transfer of Cherbourg from Navarre to England had effectively created two new Calaises on France's northern coast. The stress caused by the military setbacks likely contributed to Charles's decline in 1378. The king had struggled with health issues through the year and had suffered through the loss of his beloved wife in February. These things together may explain Charles's actions at a meeting of
parlement in December, at which he made the greatest strategic blunder of his reign.
Parlement was asked to consider the
lèse-majesté of Jean IV, duke of Brittany. Jean was formally charged with a list of treasonous crimes for his collaboration with the English. The verdict was never in doubt and the duke was found guilty on all counts. Jeanne de Penthièvre expected to be invested with the duchy, but her lawyers were rebuffed by the king. Charles declared Brittany forfeit to the crown rather than bestowing it upon his cousin's widow. The annexation of Brittany was immediately and overwhelmingly unpopular. The duchy was in
open revolt by July.
