10 - Tactics, Strategy and the Battle of Sluys (1340)

Summary

Many historians remain dismissive of fourteenth-century generalship, portraying medieval commanders as being incapable of strategy. In fact all sides pursued strategies that were ultimately economic. Behuchet’s plan served the same purpose as Edward III’s chevauchees – to degrade the enemy’s capacity to wage war by economic means. A memorandum written in 1435 by Sir John Fastolf (a descendant of the fourteenth-century Deputy Admirals of the North) inadvertently expressed Edward’s strategy. Fastolf contended that towns should only be held if they could be resupplied by water. He thought that the wool trade could be protected by alliances with Genoa and Venice, and that the army should be used solely for raiding. The result of this would be that pillaged towns would be unable to pay taxes, as would villages where the harvest had been destroyed by passing armies. Depopulated villages also could not provide soldiers to an enemy monarch. However, probably the most serious damage done by raiding was to prestige. A king who failed to protect his subjects could expect rebellion. Wars between great powers were ultimately attritional with both sides hoping to provoke a political or economic collapse. In this nothing had changed since the days of Ancient Rome, when Vegetius had been writing.

There was one crucial difference between Edward III’s strategy and that portrayed by Fastolf. Edward consistently sought battle, and with good reason. The English tactic of drawing enemy forces into defensive positions, where they could be broken up by archers and dispatched by ranked men-at-arms, had been proven in Scotland. English confidence was heavily boosted by Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill, producing an indomitable spirit which made them very hard to beat. Froissart reflected that ‘the English never worried about it if they were not in great numbers’, and would fight when outnumbered to a hopeless degree due to their faith in the longbow as a leveller. Edward sent a proclamation to the people of Venice in early 1340 in which he exploited Philip VI’s unwillingness to give battle. This stated that he had demonstrated his belief in his cause by putting the matter to God’s judgement in battle, but that his adversary had fled. Robbed of Fieschi, Edward was hoping to persuade the Venetians to provide a forty-strong galley fleet which he intended to pay for in advance.