The Hundred Years War: The most decisive struggle ever?...And general talk on the war

[Derfasciti]

I've been thinking of the Hundred Years War recently and it seems to me that it truly was the most important (European)war that ever happened in terms of determining national characters and future diplomatic arrangements. This was the war that got English Nobles to start actually speaking English and hardened both England and France into bitter enemies. Without this war, the Seven Years war may never have happened, or at least not in that particular way.

France and England were natural enemies with English possessions in southeastern France but it was this particular conflict and it's shear length that instilled a certain primitive nationalism into both countries and a real hatred for eachother. It also gave England a general sense that warfare was very profitable(And from it's chevauchee looting and wanton ransoming, it certainly was) and perhaps helped determine their future colonial ambitons much further into their history. In the same way, the massive devastation and humiliation embittered France for a long, long time to come.

I'm opening this up as a general discussion on this subject. What are your thougts on my above beliefs? What are your thoughts on the war in general? Who/what do you think was particularly interesting or significant in this war? How could the war have ended differently, and what would have been it's consequences?


In general- What say you?

[Marshal Murat]

I think it really defined which side was which. Since both sides were really intermixed, it separated them, which has it's good and bad points.

For the English-
Really forced the nobles to level with the Anglo-Saxon troops in their army, and begin to be them, and not an upper-caste Francophone nation.
Established English dominance of the Seas. I mean, where would they be without winning at Sluys?
For the French
The nobles began to be viewed as murderous and self-serving (Revolution anyone?)
Bad for France overall.

The conflict really defines Middle Ages, and helped boost England to the realm of Britain, when the trained troops defeated the Welsh and other natives of Britain (except for the Scots)

Eh, my 2 cents.

[Justiciar]

I really don't think it was that important in terms of international politics. It was just a succession crisis, the likes of which had been seen across Europe on any number of occasions. It did create a unified France though. And the loss of French territories did result in the adoption of the (already bastardised) English language by a previously Francophone aristocracy. You're a bit off on that last bit, Murat. Edward I's conquest of Wales and assertion of dominance over Scotland happened before the Hundred Years War. I suppose you could argue that Edward III lost his Warginity (har har!) fighting the Scots, though.

[Incongruous]

It did help to craete a unified France, the most powerful and millitarily successful nation in European History. Thus a rather decisive conflict.

[Geoffrey S]

The most decisive European struggle ever? By your reasoning that could be pretty much any major conflict, ranging from the Persian Wars to the Second World War, with many more in between.

[KARTLOS]

It did help to craete a unified France, the most powerful and millitarily successful nation in European History. Thus a rather decisive conflict.

Im sorry but please could you justify and expand upon your claim that France was the most powerful and militarily successful nation in european history.

[Innocentius]

I've been thinking of the Hundred Years War recently and it seems to me that it truly was the most important (European)war that ever happened in terms of determining national characters and future diplomatic arrangements.

Here I must disagree. There are many other European wars that had greater impact on international politics, the Thirty Years' War for one. The Hundred Years' War only determined the faith of France, England and Burgundy (which was eradicated about 20 years later) while the Thirty Years' War cemented the division of the HRE, saw the decline of Denmark, the rise of Sweden and Russia, the decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Spain and the rise of France.

To me, The Hundred Years' War is much more important from a military/technological point of view. The war proved that the more professional, non-feudal, and technologically advanced English armies could beat the French, despite being outnumbered and the French brave and chivalrous way of fighting. The Hundred Years' War saw the rise and shine (and decline) of the longbow, the advent of the arbalest and more importantly: gunpowder. Gunpowder was of course never the deciding factor during the Hundred Years' War, but its efficiensy was proved.

[derfinsterling]

Im sorry but please could you justify and expand upon your claim that France was the most powerful and militarily successful nation in european history.

Yes, please!

[Brenus]

What a huge question!!!
First, it was not the English Possession in France the reason of the conflict, but the fact that the Duke of Normandy, vassal of the French King had a kingdom of England, which made him more powerful than his suzerain…
France and England were not natural enemies, and the Channel was more a trade road than a barrier during the Middle Ages… Import and export, population movements (in term of the period) were quite impressive.
It was so true than the King of England who started the war was the Grand-son f one of the greatest King of France Phillip Le Bel, by his daughter La Louve de France, Isabelle…

“In the same way, the massive devastation and humiliation embittered France for a long, long time to come.” That is a pure English point of view. Believe me for that, the French are less obsess by the English than the English by the French, and at the end, well the French won. Some English defeats are as cruel and humiliating than Agincourt or Crécy… Patay (18 June 1429), Formigny (15 April 1450) and Castillon (17 July 1453) are good examples…

It is in the 100 years war that most of the heroes needed to build a national conscience were taken from, from Joan of Arc, Dugueslin, Jeanne Hachette, and others. Not only the French are not humiliated by the 100 years war, but they are proud of their resistance against an enemy who had a technological advantage, and even help by traitors, France succeeded to not only win, but to expel the enemies out of the territory… That is the lecture of the French of the 100 Years War. I remember as a kid watching a series (Thierry la Fronde) where the hero was (not killing, it was for kids) but ridiculed the English at each episode… Let say it was a old equivalent of Sharp…

“The nobles began to be viewed as murderous and self-serving (Revolution anyone?)
Bad for France overall.” In which way? The French Nobility didn’t suffer as such during the war. Again, Dugesclin was a hero (Connétable de France) for generations of young French.

I think that the lost of all Continental possession for England made the things clears… No need of an Army, just a fleet, even if it was not obvious at the time…

It probably helped to unit France. However, long time after, by the use of this event as example in schools, army, in the creation of the national identity…

“Gunpowder was of course never the deciding factor during the Hundred Years' War, but its efficiency was proved.” Err, it is actually how the Long Bow declined… To be efficient, the archers had be grouped, and the flow the cavalry under arrows. However this tactic made them sitting ducks for the artillery. But if the spread, the cavalry cut them into pieces. And that is what happened, and that why, at the end, the English lost the technological war… And the war…

“Im sorry but please could you justify and expand upon your claim that France was the most powerful and militarily successful nation in European history.” Read books: Size of France at the beginning of the Capetiens, let’s say, then size of France at the end of 19th Century. Even if most of the territorial expansion was done by Louis the XIV, how much coalitions and countries it took to defeat France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and how long?
I do know that is not your image of France, however that is history…

[The Wizard]

To me, The Hundred Years' War is much more important from a military/technological point of view. The war proved that the more professional, non-feudal, and technologically advanced English armies could beat the French, despite being outnumbered and the French brave and chivalrous way of fighting. The Hundred Years' War saw the rise and shine (and decline) of the longbow, the advent of the arbalest and more importantly: gunpowder. Gunpowder was of course never the deciding factor during the Hundred Years' War, but its efficiensy was proved.

Strongly seconded. The reasons the author of this thread states as making the Hundred Years' War so important are all the results of much, much later efforts, conflicts, and endeavors.

The most important results were:

1. Technological, as mentioned above;
2. Taking France directly onto the path of becoming an absolute monarchy;
3. Making out of France a suddenly dominant power in its environs, which was able to quickly reach out and involve itself in conflicts surrounding it in a way that it never could've before the War; the Hundred Years' War effectively catapulted France into a position in which it was finally able to exploit its considerable potential.

In no way did the outcome of the Hundred Years' War have any effect on British naval dominance, French revolutionary fervor, or either nations' colonial ambitions. It's even doubtable it made the two countries antagonists of each other; that is most probably a by-product of the Napoleonic Wars.

[Justiciar]

“Gunpowder was of course never the deciding factor during the Hundred Years' War, but its efficiency was proved.” Err, it is actually how the Long Bow declined… To be efficient, the archers had be grouped, and the flow the cavalry under arrows. However this tactic made them sitting ducks for the artillery. But if the spread, the cavalry cut them into pieces. And that is what happened, and that why, at the end, the English lost the technological war… And the war…

I'd acctually say that advancements in armour proved the end of the Longbow's brief reign. As seen in a number of battles following Henry V's death. They just lost their edge.

[Marshal Murat]

I think the Battle of Sluys began the confirmation of British naval power. If the war catapulted (and it did) France into a position of power, they would have tried to exploit all advantages. However, with the English able to bring their fleet to the forefront. While not confirmed until the battles with the Spanish Armada, it no doubt started the English rise to naval dominance.

[MilesGregarius]

I think the Battle of Sluys began the confirmation of British naval power. If the war catapulted (and it did) France into a position of power, they would have tried to exploit all advantages. However, with the English able to bring their fleet to the forefront. While not confirmed until the battles with the Spanish Armada, it no doubt started the English rise to naval dominance.

Sluys merely assured that the Hundred Years' Wars would be fought entirely in France. The English lost control of the Channel to a Franco-Castillian fleet in 1372 at LaRochelle. Thereafter, England remained just another naval power, winning some, losing some.

The Armada's failure saved England, but it didn't end Spanish predominance. That wasn't decisively done until the Dutch defeated the Spanish fifty years later at the Battle of the Downs in 1639, which took place in English waters with the English navy unable to intervene. The Dutch remained the premier European naval power for much of the following century, humiliating the English in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. In fact, English naval supremacy only really started after the Glorious Revolution when Dutchman William of Orange ascended to the thrown and placed the Dutch fleet under English command - the ultimate case of "if you can't lick 'em...".

It wasn't until time of Nelson that Britannia truly came to rule the waves, though she only really lost once, at the Battle of the Chesapeake, following William's ascension.

[The Wizard]

I think the Battle of Sluys began the confirmation of British naval power. If the war catapulted (and it did) France into a position of power, they would have tried to exploit all advantages. However, with the English able to bring their fleet to the forefront. While not confirmed until the battles with the Spanish Armada, it no doubt started the English rise to naval dominance.

You realize that "English naval dominance" didn't exist until the decline of the Dutch Republican navy? The British (or any other, for that matter) navy was nothing compared to that of the Dutch during the Republic's Golden Century.

So, no. Medieval naval warfare was small-scale and unimportant to the larger strategic picture of things, and any victory in it certainly had no long-term effects for anybody's naval power.

EDIT: As MilesGregarius says.

[AntiochusIII]

Eh, for some reason I'm getting the impression that some people took the English of the Hundred Years War to be the same English as the victors of the Napoleonic Wars and the Empire of Victoria.

That's obviously not the case. Sluys might be taken by modern English/British military tradition as some sort of a start of the naval tradition, but the battle itself really had no such importance in reality.

Elizabeth was much more responsible in shaping England into what she could become during the Victorian Era than, say, Henry V.

By the way, France did reach out and in a distractingly effective way for its neighbors very shortly after they managed to win the Hundred Years War. They crushed the Burgundians -- which only rose to prominence under Philip the Good's successful leadership that transformed a French hereditary duchy into, for a short time, the dominant power in the Lowlands. They intervened in Italy, and Louis XII came as close as anyone else in almost winning the Italian Wars. They then faced both the Germans and Spain in a series of struggles carried out between Francis I (who really wasn't that successful, though he certainly was competent enough to hold his own. Of sorts) and Charles of Habsburg. Only the Wars of Religion interrupted that trend.

All that time, the English were sitting there doing nothing much. Well, not really. They did have their War of Roses, their fighting with Scots and Irish, their crazy Henry VIII and all that. But they certainly weren't the first-rate all-round European power France was at least until they lucked out with Elizabeth at the earliest (naval power, may be). Some would in fact say only after King Billy took the throne and brought with him the military and economic might of the Dutch that they truly became a great power.

But yes, the war did transfer both nations out of the Middle Ages and influenced the direction both nations take afterwards. In fact, it wasn't really that stretched of a claim that both nations were forged in the fighting. Before that the "nations" were just a bunch of titles and lands for the kings and nobles to drool and war over.

the massive devastation and humiliation embittered France for a long, long time to come.

No, not really. You might be right about the humiliation and identity crisis thing if it were the Napoleonic Wars. But the Hundred Years War?

I've been thinking of the Hundred Years War recently and it seems to me that it truly was the most important (European)war that ever happened in terms of determining national characters and future diplomatic arrangements.

Disagree. You are forgetting such international conflicts as the Thirty Years War and the Napoleonic Wars; heck, even World War I if you want to go that far. Those wars defined many more nations than two.

[Derfasciti]

Disagree. You are forgetting such international conflicts as the Thirty Years War and the Napoleonic Wars; heck, even World War I if you want to go that far. Those wars defined many more nations than two.

Yes, but my point was that (not definitely mind you, but probably, in my mind) the reason this war was so important was that it defined the (generally speaking) enmity which both countries felt for eachother for centuries to come. This in turn helped define future conflicts. I know that my earlier statement may have confused some on what I really meant.

[Motep]

huh...good read...

[The Wizard]

Yes, but my point was that (not definitely mind you, but probably, in my mind) the reason this war was so important was that it defined the (generally speaking) enmity which both countries felt for eachother for centuries to come. This in turn helped define future conflicts. I know that my earlier statement may have confused some on what I really meant.

Not really. National sentiment as we know it didn't really pop up until the shiny, brand-new ideology of nationalism popped up in the eighteenth century. The struggles against France by Britain in the Seven Years' War, and especially the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were far more important for the (now dying, I surmise) English-French mutual enmity.

[Marshal Murat]

Learn something new every day huh?

[AntiochusIII]

Yes, but my point was that (not definitely mind you, but probably, in my mind) the reason this war was so important was that it defined the (generally speaking) enmity which both countries felt for eachother for centuries to come. This in turn helped define future conflicts. I know that my earlier statement may have confused some on what I really meant.

Considering the enmity really was forged into being only through the Napoleonic Wars (and Baba Ga'on was right, the colonial competitions between the two giants, the Seven Years War sort of included, were much more important in making them hate each other's guts), and that it didn't prevent both to ally with each other in both World Wars, the legendary cross-channel rivalry might not actually have that much to do with both nation's paths in history; apart from, of course, their ever persistent colonial competitions. On the other hand, the Thirty Years War ended the long term Habsburg attempts to unite the Empire for good -- very fundamental for Germany's history -- destroyed a superpower's position -- Spain, losing to the French and the Dutch, and losing Portugal -- and allowed others to fill the void.

The Napoleonic Wars were even more important in other ways. One couldn't count how many existing institutions and boundaries were pulled down by hordes of Frenchmen under the Republic and the Empire, how many new sentiments given life; and even the Congress of Vienna, supposed to be a reactionary return to status quo, affirmed a lot of those changes.

[KARTLOS]

Wh

“Im sorry but please could you justify and expand upon your claim that France was the most powerful and militarily successful nation in European history.” Read books: Size of France at the beginning of the Capetiens, let’s say, then size of France at the end of 19th Century. Even if most of the territorial expansion was done by Louis the XIV, how much coalitions and countries it took to defeat France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and how long?
I do know that is not your image of France, however that is history…

im sorry but you are living in a fantasy land. frances history is one of consistent under-achievement and failure. there werea few short spluters of glory admittedly, but the nation always reverted to type.
the napolenic period is a good example, there were a few years of success (aided by the fact that the french were the first to use mass conscription and thus outnumvered their opponents) followed by utter catstrophe.
After Napoleon, minor colonial expansion allowed the french to build up their self belief and start entertaining ideas that they were world power - a belief which was shown to be dissastrously false in the franco-prussian war.

the pattern repeates itself throught history.

[The Wizard]

I take it you actually believe in the one-dimensial, horrendously oversimplified and frankly just plain wrong chain e-mail fads circling around the internets after the entire U.S.-French (and German, if you'd take the effort to try and remember) diplomatic row over Iraq?

Instead of taking your points and proving them false piece by piece, I'll just hit you with a sweet anecdote: Germany hasn't won a single war it's fought. France, on the other hand...

[Sarmatian]

I agree with Baba Ga'on here. Although I don't know if I would call France the most powerful nation in european history, it certainly is among the selected few. Namely with Germany, England and Russia (not in that particular order).

France had a history of cowardice???

[Derfasciti]

im sorry but you are living in a fantasy land. frances history is one of consistent under-achievement and failure. there werea few short spluters of glory admittedly, but the nation always reverted to type.
the napolenic period is a good example, there were a few years of success (aided by the fact that the french were the first to use mass conscription and thus outnumvered their opponents) followed by utter catstrophe.
After Napoleon, minor colonial expansion allowed the french to build up their self belief and start entertaining ideas that they were world power - a belief which was shown to be dissastrously false in the franco-prussian war.

..

Hmph, actually France has had quite a long history of victory. It's pretty much a fad that everyone (except me) laughs at and I just correct them.

Baba Ga'on I was about to say that was false but...yeah you're right. Unless we include Prussia or other german states.

[Incongruous]

Karltos, you seem to be completley discounting the 17th and early 18th centuries in which France almost completley dominated. No nation in the history of post Roman Europe has been able to attmp to achieve Hegomony, and on so many occasions.

You might even include the nations namesake, the Franks. Imperial Germany on the other hand was a complete and utter failure. To say that the Germans have a great millitary history compared to the French is absurd.

Germany has most probabaly suffered more invasions than France has as well.

[AntiochusIII]

You might even include the nations namesake, the Franks. Imperial Germany on the other hand was a complete and utter failure. To say that the Germans have a great millitary history compared to the French is absurd.

Just to chime in, while KARTLOS's position obviously is rather misguided -- France had a long and complex military history, one with at least as many victories as defeats -- I must note that he didn't really make a point about Germany being a counter-example to the French.

The France-bashing is rather unsupportable, though; especially considering evidence to the contrary...

[KARTLOS]

I take it you actually believe in the one-dimensial, horrendously oversimplified and frankly just plain wrong chain e-mail fads circling around the internets after the entire U.S.-French (and German, if you'd take the effort to try and remember) diplomatic row over Iraq?

Instead of taking your points and proving them false piece by piece, I'll just hit you with a sweet anecdote: Germany hasn't won a single war it's fought. France, on the other hand...

ive never read one im afraid. where people get the impression that i think germans are worthy of admiration i dont know......

[The Wizard]

It stems from the fact that I merely provided a counter-example to yours, of a nation that is often touted as the most successful military power of Europe, or even the West.

More importantly: I have yet to hear a comprehensive argument of yours for your claim that France has "a history of failures."

[Innocentius]

In a way KARTLOS has a point, France was very much up-and-down military wise. Especially when talking about the 100-years' war.

[PanzerJaeger]

Whats with the German bashing? Germans have a strong military history aswell, which included trouncing France on several occassions.

I dont understand why someone bashing the French makes some people instinctively bash the Germans, which is laughable at best.