page_title: Black Prince's chevauchée of 1355
section_title: Returning west
hierarchical_section_title: Black Prince's chevauchée of 1355 / Chevauchée / Returning west
caption_attribution_description: English: John I of Armagnac
context_page_description: The Black Prince's chevauchée, also known as the grande chevauchée, was a large-scale mounted raid carried out by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 5 October and 2 December 1355 as a part of the Hundred Years' War. John, Count of Armagnac, who commanded the local French forces, avoided battle, and there was little fighting during the campaign.
  The Anglo-Gascon force of 4,000–6,000 men marched from Bordeaux in English-held Gascony 300 miles to Narbonne and back to Gascony, devastating a wide swathe of French territory and sacking many French towns on the way. While no territory was captured, enormous economic damage was done to France; the modern historian Clifford Rogers concluded that "the importance of the economic attrition of the chevauchée can hardly be exaggerated." The English component resumed the offensive after Christmas to great effect, and more than 50 French-held towns or fortifications were captured during the following four months.
context_section_description: John of Armagnac, with Bourbon and Clermont, moved at least part of the French army to Homps, 15 miles (24 km) west of Narbonne, where the road crossed the River Aude. They apparently hoped to force the English to attack them across the river, and so fight at an advantage. The English were unable to remain in any one place for long, as it soon became stripped of food, especially fodder and grain for the 15,000 horses with the army. So on 10 November the English moved out from Narbonne, their rearguard and stragglers being harassed by a sortie of the town militia. The English crossed the Aude north of Narbonne and then headed north east towards Béziers; their scouts reported that the town was strongly held, and so after a council of war they turned back to the west, expecting to have to fight Armagnac's force. It was an arduous march and water was short; one chronicler writes that the horses, which would normally require 120,000 imperial gallons (550,000 l; 140,000 US gal) of water each day, had to be given wine instead. The French retreated to Toulouse, not wishing to meet the English on equal terms, when they anticipated that the English combined arms tactics and use of longbowmen would lead to their defeat. The Black Prince pursued them as far as Carcassonne, where, struggling to forage in territory which had already been well picked over, he struck south towards the prosperous city of Limoux, which was destroyed.
  On Sunday 15 November the English army razed four large French towns and devastated the surrounding area, while their leaders were inducted as lay brothers at the Dominican monastery at Prouille. The English then turned east again, across the County of Foix. On the 17th the Black Prince met with Gaston, Count of Foix, the most powerful French noble in the region after Armagnac, and a great enemy of his. The details of the discussion are unknown, but Gaston allowed the English free passage, arranged provisions, allowed his men to join the Black Prince's army and provided guides. The weather was bad, and the going difficult; the army again forded the Garonne and Ariège in flood, to the amazement of locals. Numerous towns not belonging to Gaston were looted and burnt.
  The French were initially quiescent as the English swung wide to the south of Toulouse, but James of Bourbon persuaded John of Armagnac to lead the French army south west from Toulouse on 18 November in an attempt to cut off the English. They hoped to turn back the English at the River Save, in eastern Armagnac, and so strand them in French territory. The two advance guards met in a fierce clash on 20 November; the French were defeated and they retreated. The English followed and camped close to the French on the 22nd, in formation, anticipating a battle the next day, but the numerically superior French withdrew during the night. The English headed directly for Gascony, following a different route to that of six weeks earlier. The marching was hard and water was short in places, causing an increase in deaths among the horses. On 28 November the English crossed the border of Gascony, and many Gascons left at this point. The balance of the army returned to La Réole on 2 December, having marched 675 miles (1,100 km); the Black Prince and his entourage moved on to Bordeaux on the 9th.
caption: John, Count of Armagnac
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