Aria (

pyrrhiccomedy) wrote,
2010-01-11 11:11:00

Stick Theater Presents: The Hundred Years' War!

Since I promised

Considering that the Hundred Years' War was one of history's most defining "I just don't like his face" grudge matches, it may surprise you to know that in the beginning, there was an actual reason for it! See, in 1328, France's line of kings died out.

This led to a succession crisis. One of the potential claimants to the throne was…this guy.

At least, according to ENGLISH interpretation of the laws of succession. According to the FRENCH interpretation (here's where you get hotlinked to Salic Law), England was shit out of luck and needed to shut the fuck up.

See, England's claim came through a woman, which according to Salic Law was a no-no; but as far as England was concerned, King Edward III of England was the only surviving male descendant of King Philip IV of France, which meant France needed to bend down and pucker up for an immensely satisfying era of ass-kissing. France, meanwhile, had to back up the family tree to find a cadet branch, and--hang on, let me just show you, this shit is bananas:

So after Philip IV, the crown should have gone first to his eldest son Louis, then (if Louis died without a male heir) to his second eldest son Philip, then (ditto) to Charles, right? No problem. Only here's what happened:

In other words, between 1314 and 1328, the kings of France had the average life expectancy of a pet turtle.

Meanwhile, Philip IV's fourth child, Isabella, had gone off and married King Edward II of England. So…make of France's spectacular bad luck what you will?

Anyway, as far as France and England were concerned, the family tree should look like this:

There were a bunch of other reasons why England wanted an excuse to lamp France one by this point in history, but let's skip ahead to the brawling, yeah?

SO IT'S A RUMBLE.

One of the first things England does is sink France's entire naval fleet at the Battle of Sluys.

This guaranteed that the rest of the Hundred Years' War would be fought on French soil, since France could no longer launch an effective invasion across the Channel. It's also one of the first of history's many instances of England being a dick in water!

Things continued to go badly for France. In 1346, England invaded and captured Caen in a single day--

France gathered an army to oppose the English invasion, but this turned out to be trickier than he had expected, because England had no interest in holding any of the territory he captured; instead, he rampaged across northern France, pillaging as he went, burning down anything that was left behind, and presumably waving his middle fingers at French sheep and laundry maids while getting very drunk.

Then came the Battle of Crécy.

Wait, that needs more sparkletext.

The Battle of Crécy (Battle of Crécy! Battle of Crécy!) took place in August of 1346, and is one of those things you probably ought to know by name and date anyway, but if you're a product of the American school system (it's cool, so was I) then you very likely don't, unless you looked it up yourself. You may have a dim, hazy sense that England should have one of these:

Well, the Battle of Crécy is a big part of why. Basically, it went like this: France had like 35,000 to 100,000 troops (yeah, bookkeeping was really inaccurate back in those days) that mainly featured crossbowmen and heavy cavalry (you know, "knights"). England had about 14,000 troops, half of which were just dipshit peasants with longbows.

Piece of cake, thinks France.

What actually happened looked more like this:

French (and allied) casualties? Approximately fourteen thousand.

English casualties? About a hundred.

Yeah.

England could then proceed north unopposed and capture the city of Calais, on the English Channel. France is all "FUCK DAMN IT," only in French, and I don't know how to say that in French.

Then!

When the swelling goes down, France has apparently still not learned anything, because England pretty much repeats what happened at Crécy at the Battle of Poitiers, where France's new King (whose name is John, if you're interested) is captured. In his absence, the French government begins to collapse. France signs a treaty with England in which he hands over the Aquitaine in exchange for the return of King John and for England to please please stop killing everyone.

England's like, "Heh, sure. (Sucker.)"

France is pretty much a mess at this point. The countryside is falling into chaos. The peasants revolt. His armies go wild in the decidedly unsexy way, and turn to brigandage. England takes advantage of the chaos to invade again, and while he doesn't manage to capture Paris, he walks away from the second peace treaty with about half of what was left of France.

So…yeah. And then they have a few years of peace! So this seems like a good place to leave off for now. I'll see if I can finish this thing off in the next post, if anybody actually wants to read more of this idiocy.

This is the conspicuous link to Part Two at the bottom of the post. You see it, right? Right? Please don't say you didn't see it. It hurts too much.

Tags: england, france, stick theater

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159 comments

twistedsheets10

January 11 2010, 03:18:44 UTC 2 years ago

...so what crack have you been inhaling/ingesting/snorting, and where can I get it?

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Stick Theater Presents: The Hundred Years' War!

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