WI: French Victory at Sluys?

Define "won".

Does the English fleet is repealled? The following raid is probably butterflied, and early HYW got changed but Plantagenet ressources are intact, only delaying further actions.

Does their fleet is severely crushed? That's more unlikely, but that would really prevent Edward's III possibilities there. I could see Flanders being in trouble.

Quoting myself from another thread for how it could have happened.

French commander, Béhuchet, refused to consider genoese commander (Barbavera) to sail at sea in order to being stuck in estuaire. Admittedly Béhuchet wanted to block Edward III's forces, but he didn't had the place to manoeuvre and boarding and fight on ship themselves was the common sight.

It seems that the flemish fleet joined later, thanks to a favourable wind. I don't know how much this is ASB as a PoD, but without this one or with a dalayed reaction, it could have turned slightly better.

I don't think anglo-flemish fleet could have been beaten ITTL as franco-genoese was IOTL. Still it would prevent their dominance on Channel, and therefore the possibility of raid continuations.
 
Define "won".

Does the English fleet is repealled? The following raid is probably butterflied, and early HYW got changed but Plantagenet ressources are intact, only delaying further actions.

Does their fleet is severely crushed? That's more unlikely, but that would really prevent Edward's III possibilities there. I could see Flanders being in trouble.

Quoting myself from another thread for how it could have happened.

I was open to both ideas. A narrow victory or one as crushing as the English inflicte, although the latter seems more interesting and dramatic for sure.
 
Well a narrow victory requires less changes, and less implausible ones : Béhuchet let some autonomy to genoese commanders, Flemish fleet react more slowly to wind's change.
So, if you go for plausibility, take this one : a delayed Plantagenet raid would be interesting and certainly would change enough of early HYW to make a good TL.

A crusing victory is, safe out-of-character actions, implausible. French-Geonese fleet doesn't have the place to manoeuvre and wouldn't have the same motivation to crush Anglo-Flemish one, simply because they're on defense.

So, for the sake of discussion, let's assume that we're talking about the first :
- Anglo-Flemish dominance on Channel is somewhat threatened but not clear result. A Sulys-equivalent battle would happen sooner or later for that either French or English could invade each other.
- It gives more room and time to Capetians to act : probably more war effort in Gascony. Maybe (but I doubt it, or at least its efficiency, in Flanders at some time).

It could really evolve either in another Plantagenet campaign in France, or in a French campaign in England, both of them having equal chances to fail or success. Sulys was a decisive battle for Plantagenets, not for Capetians.
 
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