WI: French win at Golden Spurs

What happens if, by use of minor PODs, the Battle of the Golden Spurs ends with a final French cavalry charge sealing victory for the French with few casualties? What happens to France, the Flemish, and the other powers in Europe?
 
Fat Henry's ego takes a large dip.

Wrong battle. You're thinking of the 1513 Battle of the Spurs, in which Henry VIII and Maximilian I defeated a French army at Guinegate in Artois, while the OP was asking about the 1302 Battle of the Golden Spurs, when the Flemish burghers defeated a French army at Courtrai in Flanders.
 
there wouldn't be a battle, the battle of the golden spurs was won because it was a well prepared trap. the eyed field of battle was prepared by somewhat inundating it, they dug ditches that took water from a nearby river, making it soggy, so that the horses would get stuck in the mud, making the french an easy target.
I think that had this trap not been executed, they would have avoided battle, and the later would have taken place somewhere else, where a trap could have been prepared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Golden_Spurs
 
How would the Flemish revolt be affected with a decisive defeat at Golden Spurs? Could it survive?
I think defeat at Courtrai would probably mean the French can keep their castle, so the rebellion is definitely much weaker. Survival seems obvious short-term but medium-term it is doomed, it doesn't have good defensive spots like Cassel and Courtrai.
Long-term this strengthens the King a lot as he keeps both his Maréchaux de France and a large host.
 
How would the Flemish revolt be affected with a decisive defeat at Golden Spurs? Could it survive?

It wouldn't really able to survive, altough resenment would certainly be much alive, forcing French either to negociate, or undergoing a siege warfare in an hostile country with limited ressources.

As Draco pointed, it means that French military ressources are more important, that the moral and strategic upgrade of Flemish rebellion isn't going to happen nearly as much. Eventually, it means a Capetian victory.

I think it would like a lot as the situation in 1305 after the battle of Mons, maybe a bit more unfavourable to Flanders.
You'd probably see some cities outright surrendering to Philippe IV, and giving that plus the places that joined up the general rebellion only after 1302...

You may expect an harsher tribute, but Philippe wouldn't be able to pressure more Flanders than on the Treaty of Athis, would it be for political reasons.

While confiscation was used as a pretext, I doubt it would be carried on (threat of revolt, more convenient to rule trough proxy, negative reaction of other great french nobles would certainly influe on this) : it was a similar device used against Plantagenets that never lost all of their territory.
At worst, the royal demesne would advance further north-west more than IOTL

That said, you'd probably have some major changes for what matters Dampierre line. Maybe he could get replaced by his son, Robert, that was less much hostile to Philippe than he was?
 
So any major butterflies?

Not really. IOTL, the french came back and crushed the flamish and wallon rebels a couple years afterward (after they got rid of some other nuisances). With a victory at golden spurs, they won't have to come back.

The main difference is that the modern flamish nationalism will have to invent another legend.
 
What happens if, by use of minor PODs, the Battle of the Golden Spurs ends with a final French cavalry charge sealing victory for the French with few casualties? What happens to France, the Flemish, and the other powers in Europe?

It probably changes nothing.

The kingdom of France OTL crushed the flemish in 1305.
 
So any major butterflies?
Maybe...But it would depends on the evolution from the PoD : it could go either way.

Flanders' cities political evolution was really ongoing at this point (or the revolt couldn't have happened in first place), so while you won't have the historiographical and identitary marker of the OTL battle (tough it really existed with the XVIIIth/XIXth/XXth centuries), things would probably remain similar to OTL in first place.

That said, it all depends on what would happen, now Capetians are in a stronger position than IOTL.
I doubt Philippe would even attempt to bring major cities into the royal demesne, would it be only because it would be hard to overseen, but more of Flanders could mean French kings may have a better hold on the County of Flanders itself.

I doubt, for exemple, that the royal annexation in Flanders (Lille, Douai, etc.) would be removed as they didn't IOTL as well, they passed to Burgundy.
ITTL, with bigger annexations, I'd expect Capetiens-Bourgogne to only take a part of it, the rest being either let to the royal line or to another apanage.

It would certainly make Burgundy's geopolitics in Late Middle Ages quite different.

So, in short, this *may* happen all together, separatly or not at all :
- County of Flanders more tightly under Capetian watch, especially its relations with England
- Duchy of Burgundy with a lesser interest on Netherlands.
 
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