The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France during the Hundred Years' War , resulting in an English victory and heavy loss of life among the French. The English army had landed in the Cotentin Peninsula on 12 July. It had burnt a path of destruction through some of the richest lands in France to within 2 miles 3 km of Paris, sacking many towns on the way. The English then marched north, hoping to link up with an allied Flemish army which had invaded from Flanders.
Late on 26 August the French army, which greatly outnumbered the English, attacked. During a brief archery duel a large force of French mercenary crossbowmen was routed by Welsh and English longbowmen. The French then launched a series of cavalry charges by their mounted knights. These were disordered by their impromptu nature, by having to force their way through the fleeing crossbowmen, by the muddy ground, by having to charge uphill, and by the pits dug by the English.
The attacks were further broken up by the effective fire from the English archers , which caused heavy casualties. By the time the French charges reached the English men-at-arms , who had dismounted for the battle, they had lost much of their impetus. The ensuing hand-to-hand combat was described as "murderous, without pity, cruel, and very horrible.
The English then laid siege to the port of Calais. The battle crippled the French army's ability to relieve the siege; the town fell to the English the following year and remained under English rule for more than two centuries, until Since the Norman Conquest of , English monarchs had held titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France.
This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War , which was to last years. There followed eight years of intermittent but expensive and inconclusive warfare: Edward campaigned three times in northern France to no effect; [ 3 ] Gascony was left almost entirely to its own devices and the French made significant inroads in attritional warfare. There were further delays and it proved impossible to take any action with this force before winter.
