The Hundred Years free essay sample

# 8217 ; War Essay, Research Paper The Hundred Years War was a long, complicated war with it? s roots in political battles, the privation of Kings and the people of their states to spread out district, and to take district that they believe is theirs. This war lasted more than a century, from 1337-1453, and was a really a series of wars broken merely temporarily by pacts doomed to neglect. The English male monarch controlled much of France, peculiarly in the fertile South. These lands had come under control of the English when Eleanor of Aquitaine, inheritress to the part, married King Henry II of England in the mid-12th century. There was changeless spat along the French-English frontier, and the Gallic male monarchs ever had to fright an English invasion from the South. Between Flanders in the North and the English in the South, they were caught in between the two English settlements. The Gallic responded by making the same to the English. They allied with the Scots in an agreement that persisted good into the eighteenth century. Thus the English faced the Gallic from the South and the Scottishs from the North. The Gallic trap would merely work if the French could occupy England across the English Channel. Besides, England could back up their Flemish Alliess merely if they could direct assistance across the North Sea, and, furthermore, English trade was dependent upon the free flow of naval traffic through the Channel. Consequently, the Gallic continually tried to derive the upper manus at sea, and the English invariably resisted them. Both sides commissioned what would hold been plagiarists if they had non been runing with royal permission to feed upon each other # 8217 ; s transportation, and there were frequent naval clangs in those constricted Waterss. The last boy of King Philip IV, the carnival, died in 1328, and the direct male line of the Capetians eventually ended after about 350 old ages. Philip had had a girl, nevertheless. This girl, Isabelle, had married King Edward II of England, but her and a group of barons had murdered him, because they thought he was unqualified. So, Edward III their boy was declared male monarch of England. He was hence Philip # 8217 ; s grandson and replacement in a direct line through Philip # 8217 ; s girl. The French could non digest the thought that Edward might go King of France, and Gallic attorneies brought up some old Salic Laws, which stated that belongings, including the throne, could non fall through a female. The Gallic so gave the Crown to Philip of Valois, a nephew of Philip IV. Nevertheless, Edward III had a valid claim to the throne of France if he wished to prosecute it. Although France was the most thickly settled state in Western Europe and besides the wealthiest, England had a strong cardinal authorities, many veterans of difficult contending on England # 8217 ; s Welsh and Scots boundary lines, every bit good as in Ireland, a booming economic system, and a popular male monarch. Edward was disposed to contend France, and his topics were more than ready to back up their immature male monarch who was merely 18 old ages old at the clip. Besides many went to? booty and plunder the carnival and ample land of France. ? 1 The war genuinely started in 1340. The Gallic had assembled a great fleet to back up an ground forces with which they intended to oppress all opposition in Flanders. When the ships had anchored in a heavy battalion at Sluys in modern Netherlands, the English attacked and destroyed it with fire ships and triumph in a conflict fought across the anchored ships, about like a land conflict on a wooden battleground. The English now had control of the Channel and North Sea. They were safe from Gallic invasion, could assail France at will, and could anticipate that the war would be fought on Gallic dirt and therefore at Gallic disbursal. ? A three twelvemonth armistice was signed by England and France in 1343, but in 1345 Edward once more invaded northern France1. ? The Black Death had arrived, and his ground forces was weakened by illness. As the English force tried to do its manner safely to strengthen Channel port, the Gallic attempted to coerce them into a conflict. The English were eventually pinned against the seashore by a much superior Gallic ground forces at a topographic point called Crecy. Edward # 8217 ; s ground forces was a combined force: bowmans, pikemen, visible radiation foot, and horse ; the Gallic, by contrast, clung to their antique feudal horse and used the powerful, but slow fire crossbow. The English had bowmans utilizing the longbow, a arm with great penetra ting power that could sometimes kill armoured knights, and frequently the Equus caballuss on which they rode. Besides, the longbow could fire three of its pointers to the crossbow? s one in the same sum of clip. As a ensue the Gallic knights were unhorsed by a blinding shower of pointers. The conflict was a catastrophe for the Gallic. The English took up place on the crest of a hill, and the Gallic horse tried to sit up the incline to acquire at their oppositions. The long ascent up boggy land tired and slowed the Gallic Equus caballuss, giving the English bowmans and pes soldiers ample chance to bring mayhem in the Gallic ranks. Those few Gallic who reached the crest of the hill found themselves faced with rude, but effectual, barriers, and, as they tried to retreat, they were attacked by the little but fresh English force of mounted knights. Another interesting thing about this conflict, was that for the first clip the cannon was used. Therefore presenting heavy weapon to war in the west.9+ As the war dragged on, the English were easy forced back. They had less Gallic land to back up their war attempt as they did so, and the war became more expensive for them. This caused struggles at place, such as the Peasants # 8217 ; Revolt of 1381 and the beginning of civil wars. However, in the reign of Henry V, the English took the violative one time once more. At Agincourt, non far from Crecy, the Gallic relapsed into their old tactics of feudal warfare one time once more, and were once more disastrously defeated in 1415 at the Battle of Agincourt. Durring this conflict? Gallic casualties totaled about 5000 work forces. English loses numbered fewer than 200 men.1? The English recovered much of the land they had lost, and a new peace was based upon Henry # 8217 ; s matrimony to the Gallic princess Katherine. In the undermentioned old ages, the Gallic developed a sense of national individuality, as illustrated by Joan of Arc, a peasant miss who is said to hold played a major portion in the English withdrawing from their besieging on Orleans, and 10 yearss subsequently, Charles VII being crowned male monarch at Reims. These two things were the true tuning points in the war. The Gallic now had a greater integrity, and the Gallic male monarch was able to field monolithic ground forcess on much the same theoretical account as the British. In add-on, nevertheless, the Gallic authorities began to appreciate the # 8220 ; modern # 8221 ; manner of warfare, and new military commanding officers, such as Bertran du Guesclin, began to utilize guerrilla and # 8220 ; little war # 8221 ; tactics of combat. This war marked the terminal of English efforts to command Continental district and the beginning of its accent upon maritime domination. By Henry V # 8217 ; s matrimony into the House of Valois, an familial strain of mental upset was introduced into the English royal household. There were great progresss in military engineering and scientific discipline during the period, and the military value of the feudal knight was exhaustively discredited. The order of knighthood went down combat, nevertheless, in a moving ridge of civil wars that racked the states of Western Europe. The European states began to set up professional standing ground forcess and to develop the modern province necessary to keep such forces. In both of these states the thought of Nationalism, which is a feeling of integrity and individuality that binds together a people who speak the same linguistic communication, have common lineage and imposts, and live in the same country, spread durring the war. ? By the late center ages, a vague loyaltyto a peculiar dynasty might hold been created, and in a sense, derived from the Hundred Old ages? War of being differeent from other people.1? There was no true victor of this war. Both sides suffered terrible losingss. Even for England when none of the war was fought in England. The cost for them was an astonishing sum of more than five million lbs. The monetary value, although non as much in dollars, may hold been even greater. The English had laid waste to 100s of 1000s of estates of rich farm land, go forthing the rural economic system, and many parts of Franch in shambles. Monetary value, Roger, A Concise History of France, Cambridge Concise Histories, New York, New York, 1993. Schama, Simon, Citizens, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. , New York, New York, 1989 Schom, Alan, One Hundred Days, Maxwell Macmillan International, New York, New York, 1992 Barnie, J. , War in Medieval English Society: Socail Valuess and the Hundred Old ages? War, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1974