page_title: Siege of Orléans
section_title: Assault on the Tourelles
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Orléans / Early stages of the siege / Assault on the Tourelles
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Thomas Montagu, comte de Salisbury, est mortellement blessé tandis qu'il examinait le siège d'Orléans depuis les Tournelles (24 octobre 1428). English: Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury is fatally injured at the siege of Orléans in 1428.
context_page_description: The Siege of Orléans was the watershed of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. It was the French royal army's first major military victory to follow the crushing defeat at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and also the first while Joan of Arc was with the army. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war. The city held strategic and symbolic significance to both sides of the conflict. The consensus among contemporaries was that the English regent, John of Lancaster, would have succeeded in realizing his brother the English king Henry V's dream of conquering all of France if Orléans fell. For half a year the English and their French allies appeared to be winning but the siege collapsed nine days after Joan's arrival.
context_section_description: The siege of Orléans formally began on 12 October 1428, and initiated with an artillery bombardment that began on 17 October. The English assaulted the Boulevart on 21 October, but the assaulters were held back by French missile fire, rope nets, scalding oil, hot coals and quicklime. The English decided against a new frontal attack, and set about mining the bulwark. The French countermined, fired the pit props and fell back to the Tourelles on 23 October. But the Tourelles itself was taken by storm the next day, 24 October. The departing French blew up some of the bridge arches to prevent a direct pursuit.
  With the fall of the Tourelles, Orléans seemed doomed. But the timely arrival of the Marshal de Boussac with sizeable French reinforcements prevented the English from repairing and crossing the bridge and seizing Orléans right then. The English suffered another setback two days later, when the Earl of Salisbury was struck in the face by debris kicked up in cannon fire while supervising the installation of the Tourelles. English operations were suspended while Salisbury was carried off to Meung to recover, but after lingering for about a week, he died of his injuries.
caption: Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury is fatally injured (illustration from Vigiles de Charles VII).
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