Battle of Bouvines

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Battle of Bouvines
Part of the Welf-Hohenstaufen and Capetian-Angevin feuds, Angevin-Flanders War
La Bataille de Bouvines, by Horace Vernet. (Galerie des Batailles, Palace of Versailles). The white Arabian horse and Moorish attendant (right) of Philippe Auguste at the Battle of Bouvines can be seen in this 19th-century painting.
Date 27 July 1214 Location Bouvines, County of Flanders, Kingdom of France Result Decisive French victory
Belligerents
Welfs Flanders England Boulogne	France
Commanders and leaders
Emperor Otto IV William de Longespee# Renaud of Boulogne# Ferrand of Flanders# Henry I, Duke of Brabant	Philip II, King of France Robert II, Count of Dreux Philip of Dreux Eudes III of Burgundy William II of Ponthieu
Strength
25,000 men[1]	15,000 men[1] 11,000 infantry[1] 4,000 cavalry[1]
Casualties and losses
~1,000 dead[1] ~9,000 captured[1]	~1,000 dead[1]

French and Imperial knights clashing

King Philip II of France's victory at Bouvines, by Vincent of Beauvais

Ferrand of Flanders and Renaud of Boulogne marched as prisoners to Paris

The Battle of Bouvines, 27 July 1214, was a conclusive medieval battle ending the twelve year old Angevin-Flanders War^[2] that was important to the early development of both the French state by confirming the French crown's sovereignty over the Angevin lands of Brittany and Normandy.

Philip Augustus of France defeated an army consisting of Imperial, English and Flemish soldiers, led by Otto IV of Germany. Other leaders included count Ferrand of Flanders, William de Longespee and Renaud of Boulogne. The defeat was so decisive that Otto was deposed and replaced by Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Ferrand and Renaud were captured and imprisoned and King John of England was forced to seal the Magna Carta by his discontented barons. Philip was himself able to take undisputed control of most continental territories of John of England, Otto's maternal uncle and ally.

The context

In 1214, Ferdinand, Infante of Portugal, and Count of Flanders (the latter title held by right of his marriage to Joan of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders), desired the return of the cities of Aire-sur-la-Lys and Saint-Omer, which he had recently lost to Philip Augustus (Philip II), King of France (Treaty of Pont-à-Vendin, February 25, 1212). He thus broke with his liege, King Philip of France, and assembled a broad coalition including Emperor Otto IV, King John I of England, Duke Henry I of Brabant, Count William I of Holland, Duke Theobald I of Lorraine, and Duke Henry III of Limburg.

Prelude

The campaign plan seems to have been designed by John, who was the fulcrum of the alliances; his general idea was to draw the French king away from Paris southward against himself and keep him occupied, while the main army, under Emperor Otto IV, with the counts of the low countries, should march on Paris from the north. John's part in the general strategy was carried out at first, but the allies in the north moved slowly. John, after two encounters with his mortal enemy the king of France, turned back to his possessions in Aquitaine on 3 July, however, perhaps in one of his fits of despondency.

When, three weeks later, on July 23, after having summoned his vassals, his under-vassals and the militia of Commons, Philip Augustus and his army, consisting of 20,000 cavalry and 39,000 piétons^[3], the emperor finally concentrated his forces at Valenciennes, John was out of the picture, and in the interval Philip Augustus had counter marched northward and regrouped. Philip now took the offensive himself, and in maneuvoering to get a good cavalry ground upon which to fight he offered battle (27 July), on the plain east of Bouvines and the river Marque.

Otto is surprised to have caught the king of France^[4] (which has probably attracted the emperor in this piège^[5]). Although the Church interdise^[6], Otto, already excommunicate^[7], decided to launch an attack on what was then the French rearguard. Philippe Auguste can fight. His army whirls.

The imperial army drew up facing south-westward towards Bouvines, the heavy cavalry on the wings, the infantry in one great mass in the centre, supported by the cavalry corps under the emperor himself. The total force is estimated at 25,000 men; a much larger proportion of foot soldiers and slightly less cavalry than the French.^[1] The French army of 15,000 men^[1] took ground exactly opposite in a similar formation, cavalry on the wings, infantry, including the townsmen (milice des communes) in the centre, Philip with the cavalry reserve and the royal standard, the Oriflamme, in rear of the men on foot. Philip's army contained about 2,000 knights (750 were from the royal demesne) and 2,000 mounted sergeants with the rest being infantry.^[8]

The Contenders

If today, the evaluation of forces is controversial - the classic French historiography often refers to Coalition troops three times more numerous than those of the King of France (Philip Contamine^[9] is not of this opinion: "In front, his opponents did not have a clear numerical superiority") - is known by Guillaume le Breton, chaplain to Philip II at Bouvines this, that the lines of soldiers stood in line in a space of 40 000 steps (15 hectares)^[10], which does not leave little clearance and predisposes melee. William the Breton says in his column that the two lines of combatants were separated by a space small.

Philip Augustus had then launched an appeal to the municipalities in northern France, in order to obtain their cooperation.

Seventeen of the thirty-nine municipalities of the State Capetian answer the call:

• Arras sends 1,000 militiamen,
• the area of ​​Abbeville 2000 men ...
• Paris sends a corps of 2000 men, 1750 remain on the field of bataille^[11]

In total, the royal army would reach 7,000 fighters.

Royal Army

The royal army is divided into three battles:

• The right wing, composed of knights of Champagne and Burgundy, is commanded by the Duke of Burgundy Eudes and his lieutenants: III Gaucher de Châtillon Count of Saint-Pol, Count Wilhelm I of Sancerre, Count of Beaumont and Mathieu de Montmorency and Adam II Viscount of Melun.

The right wing was composed of men of arms and militia parish of Burgundy, Champagne and Picardy covered by the mounted sergeants from Soissons.

• The central battle is conducted by Philip Augustus and his chief knights - William des Barres, Bartholomew of Roye, Girard Girard said the Scophe Truie^[12], William of Garland, Enguerrand III de Coucy and Gautier de Nemours.

The center consisted of the infantry of Commons of Ile de France and Normandy, in front of the king and his knights.

• The left wing, composed of knights and foot soldiers is led by Robert de Dreux, Count William of Ponthieu.

The left wing consists of the Breton police, militia of Dreux, Perche, of Ponthieu and Vimeux. The bridge of Bouvines, the only means of retreat through the marshes, is guarded by 150 sergeants at arms of the king who form only to the French troops.

Army of the allies

Otto has also divided his army into three groups:

• The left flank, under the command of Count of Flanders and Hainaut Ferrand with its Flemish knights - directed by Arnaud of Oudenaarde.

There are the soldiers of Flanders and Hainaut

• The center under the command of Otto and of Thiebaud, Duke of Lorraine, and Henry, Duke of Brabant and Count Philip Courtenay-Namur: there are of the Saxon soldiers, knights and infantry Brabant and Germany.

In the center of the German infantry phalanxes formed deep, bristling with pikes and flanked by companies formed in the corner, then the second line, the Saxon infantry in reserve. Meanwhile, Otto stood surrounded by 50 German knights.

• The right flank, under the command of Renaud de Dammartin, also includes the Brabant and infantry English knights - under the command of Count William of Salisbury Longuépée.

At the extreme right, supported the Make the English archers of Brabant Road and flanked on both the nobility and the Palatinate Lorraines^[13].

Battle

The battle opened with a confused cavalry fight on the French right, in which individual feats of knightly gallantry were more noticeable (and better recorded in the chronicles) than any attempt at combined action. The serious fighting was between the two centres; the infantry of the Low Countries, who were at this time almost the best in existence, drove back the French. Philip led the cavalry reserve of nobles and knights to retrieve the day, and after a long and doubtful fight, in which he himself was unhorsed and narrowly escaped death, began to drive back the Flemings.

In the meanwhile the French feudatories on the left wing had thoroughly defeated the Imperial forces opposed to them, and William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the leader of this corps, was unhorsed and taken prisoner by Philip of Dreux, the fighting bishop of Beauvais. On the other wing the French at last routed the Flemish cavalry and captured Ferrand, Count of Flanders, one of the leaders of the coalition.

In the centre the battle was now a melee between the two mounted reserves led by the King and the Emperor in person. Here too the Imperial forces suffered defeat, Otto himself being saved only by the devotion of a handful of Saxon knights. The Imperial Eagle Standard was captured by the French.

The day was already decided in favour of the French when their wings began to close inwards to cut off the retreat of the imperial centre. The battle closed with the celebrated stand of Reginald of Boulogne, a former vassal of King Philip, who formed a ring of seven hundred Brabançon pikemen, and not only defied every attack of the French cavalry, but himself made repeated charges or sorties with his small force of knights. Eventually, and long after the Imperial army had begun its retreat, the gallant Schiltron was ridden down and annihilated by a charge of three thousand men-at-arms. Reginald was taken prisoner in the mêlée; and the prisoners also included two other counts, Ferrand and William Longsword, twenty-five barons and over a hundred knights. The killed amounted to about 170 knights of the defeated party, and many thousands of foot on either side.

Aftermath

According to Jean Favier, Bouvines is "one of the decisive battles of history and symbolic of France"^[14]. For Philippe Contamine, "the battle of Bouvines was both important and high profile consequences"^[15].

Philip returned to Paris triumphant, marching his captive prisoners behind him in a long procession, as his grateful subjects came out to greet the victorious king. In the aftermath of the battle, Otto retreated to his castle of Harzburg and was soon overthrown as Holy Roman Emperor, and replaced by Frederick II. Count Ferdinand remained imprisoned following his defeat, while King John obtained a five year truce, on very lenient terms given the circumstances.

Philip's decisive victory was crucial in ordering politics in both England and France. In the former, so weakened was the defeated King John of England that he soon needed to submit to his barons demands and sign the Magna Carta, limiting the power of the crown and establishing the basis for common law. In the latter, the battle was instrumental in forming the strong central monarchy that would characterise France until the first French Revolution. It was also the first battle in the Middle Ages in which the full value of infantry was realised.^[16]

Philip conquered most Plantagenet's continental possessions, namely Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy, and the Touraine, leading to the effective end of the Angevin Empire.

In the aftermath of this battle, Philip Augustus founded between Senlis and the Bishop Mount, Abbey of Victoire^[17] - which will be integrated into the domain of the Bishop of Senlis in 1486.

References

• Georges Duby, The Legend of Bouvines (1990). In a careful study of the historiography of a single event, Duby examines how the Battle of Bouvines has been used and abused in French history.

External links

• Historical accounts
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Bouvines: the battle in the context of the campaign in the war of 1202–1214

Citations

Coordinates: 50°35′0″N 3°13′30″E / 50.583333°N 3.225°E / 50.583333; 3.225