Who:              English vs. French

Where:          The town of Formigny in Normandy

When:            April 15, 1450 during the Hundred Years War

Description:  In 1449, the Truce of Tours between the English and the French was broken by the French when they captured the town of Fougeres in Brittany.  By that time, the French Army was far superior to the English and was ready to take on the English forces to recapture Normandy.  Charles VII of France told one of his Generals named Dunois to lead the French forces to victory in Normandy.

            In October of 1449, the French forces left Paris and started the campaign to recapture Normandy.  By March of 1450, they had captured the town of Caen, about halfway between Paris and the tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula.  On March 15, 1450, 2,500 English troops under the command of General Kyriell.

            One of the first things that Kyriell did was recapture the town of Valognes, about 20 miles North of the famous city of Carentan.  At Valognes, Kyriell had many casualties, but was reinforced with more troops, which resulted in an English force of about 4,000 strong.  The French had two armies at their disposal.  One, under the command of the comte de Clermont was waiting at the town of Carentan with 3,000 troops.  The other, under the constable de Richemont, left from the city of Coutances, about 20 miles South of Carentan with 2,000 troops to reinforce the comte de Clermont.

            The English came to the town of Carentan on April 12.  Instead of confronting Clermont and his forces, Kyriell decided to march around the city and continue on.  Clermont had not yet been reinforced by the extra 2,000 troops under Richemont, and had a far smaller army than the English.  Therefore, he decided to let the English pass and not confront them.

            From Carentan, the English marched to the East.  On April 14, the night before the Battle, Kyriell and the full English army camped near Formigny.  The English were determined to reach Bayeux, an English-held city that needed reinforcements.  Bayeux was only about 10 miles from where the English were camped.  Clermont had not yet even left Carentan, about fifteen miles away from the English, and Richemont was about twenty miles Southwest of Formigny rushing to join Clermont at Carentan and defeat Kyriell before he reached Bayeux.

            The next day in the mid-afternoon, Clermont’s army of approximately 3,000 men had left Carentan and was closing in on the English army.  Kyriell had placed outposts several miles to the West of his position late the previous night or early that morning, and they alerted him of the French forces.  The English soldiers were placed in their classic positions used for many years.  Earlier, they had placed thousands of wooden stakes in the ground to stop the French cavalry, and almost 3,000 of elite longbowmen were placed behind these stakes.  Kyriell’s forces were lined up along the banks of a brook with a stone bridge in the middle of their line.

            Clermont immediately attacked the English lines without horses, but was held back by archers.  Then, the French used horses, but this was again quickly defeated.  A while later, around 5 pm, Clermont brought up two of his “Culvrin” guns.  These were fired so rapidly that it confused the English longbowmen, who were too far away to fire arrows back.  Quickly, Kyriell ordered his soldiers to rush the French guns, which were captured.

            Just when the guns were captured by the English, the additional 2,000 French troops under Richemont were within sight of Kyriell and Clermont to the South of the Battle.  The English line turned into a semicircle to help fight off both the newly-arrived Richemont and Clermont simultaneously.  Kyriell’s forces were spread too thin, and the English were quickly overtaken.  Kyriell was captured, and his entire army was killed, taken prisoner, or fled to the nearby English-held city of Bayeux.

Casualties:   French            -           About 200

                        English           -           About 3,750

Importance: -           This was one of the first battles in which guns were used.

-                      Normandy fell into French control within a few months.

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