Castillon - prequel to the Wars of the Roses?

[Dave Knight]

Compiling a list of Wars of the Roses Battles over and above the usual suspects I had the thought that Castillion might me a good place to start.  From my superficial understanding of it the battle it seems to have much in common with later English battles and the political (and military tactical?) ramifications were certainly a major element in the later conflict.
Can anybody point me in the direction of a more in depth study of the battle - so far I have only been able to find fairly breif summaries

[Nick Harbud]

This could be quite an interesting piece of research. 

The sparse description in Wikipedia places the battle to the east of the town with the French camp adjacent to the River Lidoire.  Indeed, near here and off the appropriately named Route du Monument Talbot is the spot where the English commander was supposedly buried before his body was subsequently removed to England.

Notwithstanding, I suspect the battle took place to the north of the Lidoire rather than between it and the much larger River Dordoigne.  Incidentally, using Streetview to wander the modern day streets of Castillon is quite interesting.  Coats of arms from the English monarch and sundry nobles adorn the lamp posts.  Clearly the inhabitants are still not completely sold on the idea of being French citizens.   

Presumably you already have David Nicolle's account in the Osprey book?

[Erpingham]

I've never seen an in-depth discussion of the battle which places it in a proper context of other military developments of the time.  Personally, I think , because of its strategic significance, the battle has become viewed as a technological turning point in some way.  Was it more than the attempt to lift a siege by storming a siege camp, which had happened before and would happen again?  Did the French show any tactical finesse?  Were the English massively over-confident?  How did they misread the situation so badly?

In terms of accounts, I've only ever seen short ones.  Chapter XV of the H Talbot English Achilles is a rather old fashioned dramatic take on it.  A J Pollard John Talbot and the War in France has a couple of less dramatic pages (pp137-9).

In terms of Nick's idea on an attack from the north, I'd not seen that suggestion.  Most plans suggest that the English crossed the Lidoire by the bridge near the confluence with the Dordogne marched East then turned north to attack against the width of the camp, with the Dordogne to their backs.  An attack from the north would involve an attack across the Lidoire, which you would expect to find in the sources (I'll admit, I haven't them).

[Dave Knight]

Thanks gentlemen.

One of the advatages of being a collector of history books over the years is that I have amassed a reasonable number of books, particularly in the medieval period.

A downside is that I often don't know what I have got  .  I am pretty sure that I have both the Pollard and Nicole books.  Thanks for reminding me - all I have to do now is find them!

[Erpingham]

I'm quite enjoying these "find the details" challenges David.  I'm wondering which will be your next "prequel" to the WOTR?  Formingny?  Sark? 

[Dave Knight]

Sark is on the  list 

[Dave Knight]

Possibly Arkinholm as well

There will also hopefully be sequels up to and including Flodden

[Dave Knight]

I must also say that I am finding these responses to my queries incredibly helpful

I am primarily a wargamer with an interest in history who has read a fair few books, bought a number of them, but also with a poor memory.  Fellow members being able to point me in the right direction not only gives me new ideas but also saves me a huge amount of time trying to trawl through my dispersed collection of books

[aligern]

I visited Castillon some years ago. The site that has been monumentalised made sense to me, particularly as the French  have to have a large camp studded with artillery. The site also made sense with the position of the chapel. I rather assume  that the French fell back towards their  camp deliberately, quite possibly because the Anglo Gascons had a strong reputation for aggressive action and Talbot could  be expected to choose to attack.
The French tactics appeared to me to  be based upon the relatively unacknowledged  military revolution that the Hussites brought about.  A fortified camp with a great field of fire which the enemy has to cross a river to get to works if  you can be certain the enemy is the sort that will attack it. Given that the English are pursuing the camp has to be stood to, the artillery and crossbowmen  and melee troops in position. It doesn't happen by accident.

Roy

[Erpingham]

To me, the question has to be "Did the French build the camp with the deliberate intention of fighting from it?"

It was perfectly othodox to build a fortified siege camp from which to conduct operations.  But was this example built with the intention of fighting a field action from it?  After Castillion, there would be these specialised sites e.g. Northampton 1460, Murten 1477, Fornovo 1495, Hemmingstedt 1500, Cerignola 1503 to name some obvious ones.  But did the specialist sites come from copying French deliberate tactics, observation and applied learning or neither?

[aligern]

I think that the camp is intentional because it concentrates fire on the English and massacres them. Despite several tries Talbot cannot get  his men into contact. That suggests its not just a camp with the guns turned outward, but a deliberate design. Of course the killer would be something suggesting this before the battle......which is unlikely to emerge. However, given the sheer weight of the artillery pieces in fortification and the genius of its designer, Jean Bureau I believe it is deliberate!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Bureau

Roy

[Nick Harbud]

The main problem with locating the French camp south of the Lidoire is its size.  Wikipedia gives a French army strength of 6,000-10,000.  If these are all fighting men then the total army size including servants is of the order of 30,000 and the camp would require an area of approximately 3.4 km², forming a circle of just over 2 km diameter.  On the other hand, if one assumes the Wikipedia strength represents the entire army including non-combatants then the camp diameter shrinks to roughly 1.1 km and the actual fighting strength would be in the range 2,000-3,000.  These camp sizes exclude any surrounding fortifications.

See my article on the Crusader logistics in Marching to Arsuf for the detailed calculation.

Now the distance between the Dordoigne and Lidoire rivers near the monument is about 0.5 km, which means the camp could easily fill the area between the rivers for a distance of 2-7 km depending upon how many bodies one believes it might hold.  However, this begs the question of how the Anglo-Gascon army might have manoeuvred to make their attack from the direction of the Dordoigne.

Incidentally, the Lidoire is not a particularly large river as this view of its confluence with the Dordoigne shows.

Like I said earlier, an interesting piece of research.

[Erpingham]

The issue of placing the camp north of the Lidoire is explaining the fortifications south of the river, which are currently assumed to be those of the camp.  No one has described fortifications to the north AFAIK , but they could have been flattened over time.  Should still be visible on air photos though.

Add : Measurements I found online suggest the fortification south of the Lidoire cover approx 640m x 183m - about 1.1 square kilometres.  However, their irregular shape would reduce the useable internal space somewhat.

[Nick Harbud]

Add : Measurements I found online suggest the fortification south of the Lidoire cover approx 640m x 183m - about 1.1 square kilometres.  However, their irregular shape would reduce the useable internal space somewhat.

I believe your arithmetic is incorrect.

            0.64 x 0.18 = 0.117 km²

This would be enough to accommodate approximately 1,000 people.

[Erpingham]

Thanks Nick