Battle of Auberoche The Battle of Auberoche was a significant action between English and French forces during the early stages of the Hundred Years War . It was fought at the village of Auberoche near Périgueux in northern Aquitaine . At the time , Gascony was territory of the English crown and the English army was largely made up of native Gascons . The battle occurred on the Auvezere River which formed part of the unofficial and heavily disputed boundary between the English and French territories . The campaign . The village and castle at Auberoche had been seized from the French occupants by a raiding force under the Earl of Derby , who had landed in June with a small army from England and augmented it with Gascon troops and conducted a large scale raid across the frontier , aiming at and capturing the important town of Bergerac during August . Amongst the other places he took before retreating back to Bordeaux for fresh troops and supplies was Auberoche , and in mid - October it became the first position counterattacked by a 7 , 000 strong French army under Louis of Poitiers . Poitiers ' feudal lord , the Duke of Normandy ( later King John II of France ) , had ordered him to counterattack the English here so that Normandy was free to advance from La Réole to the North . The siege . The French force blockaded the castle , cutting off supplies and aid from the English lands to the West . During this time a tale , most likely apocryphal , emerged that a soldier attempting to reach English lines with a letter requesting help was captured and returned to the castle via a large ballista which caused the unfortunate man grievous injuries . Although this story is repeated by the chronicler Jean Froissart , modern historians have considered the tale unlikely . A messenger did get through French lines and reached Derby , who was already returning to the area with a scratch force of 1 , 500 English and Gascon soldiers . The French encampment was divided in two , with the majority of the soldiers camped close to the river between the castle and village whilst a smaller force was designed to prevent any escape attempts from the north . The battle . On the 21 October the English army led by Derby advanced from Périgueux during the night , crossing the shallow river twice on their path so that by morning they were situated on a hill overlooking the French camp in the valley by the river . Knowing he was outnumbered , Derby had waited several days for the arrival of a force under the Earl of Pembroke but had given up waiting the evening before and had stolen a march on the French force below him . As dawn broke on the 21st , the English remained hidden behind the hill , hoping for Pembroke at the last minute . Derby called a council of his officers including the famous Walter Manny and it was decided that rather than wait any longer and lose the advantage of surprise , the army would advance immediately and attempt to overrun the French camp before an effective defence could be devised . Derby undertook a personal reconnaissance of the French positions and decided to launch a three pronged assault , with his cavalry charging along the flat ground to the south , his infantry following a path in the woods to emerge in the French rear and his longbow men firing from the treeline into the French position . The attack was launched as the French were eating their evening meal , and complete surprise was achieved , the French thrown into disarray by the hail of arrows and the charging horsemen . Those French units who escaped the camp and the cavalry formed ragged bands on the flat ground and were thus ideal targets for the archers . The fighting continued in the camp for sometime and it seemed possible that some of the French forces might have made an effective fighting withdrawal but Sir Frank Halle , the castle ' s commander , had foreseen this and at the pivotal moment threw the castle ' s garrison against the retreating body from the rear , precipitating a total rout with the fleeing French pursued by the English cavalry . Aftermath . The French force which was intended to watch the castle was the only part of the army to escape , and that only because it made no effort to intervene in the action , even failing to prevent the castle ' s defenders sallying out against the other half of the army . They left behind them a large quantity of supplies and loot which added to the English haul , which was prodigious . The French commander Louis of Poitiers had died of his wounds in the English camp and the second in command , Bertrand de l ' Isle , was a prisoner . A number of other noblemen had been taken captive and their ransoms made a fortune for the soldiers in Derby ' s army as well as Derby himself , who was said to have made at least £67 , 000 in the money of the day from his captives . The battle had longer reaching political effects too , Normandy ' s advance on the English territory was called off and no French force conducted any operations in the Gascon border country for six months . Communications between Normandy and the Duke of Bourbon who commanded a force in the south of France were also cut for some time , preventing coordinated operations against the smaller English forces in the near future . Derby used this opportunity to seize more towns in the region including Montségur and conduct successful sieges against La Réole and Aiguillon , placing the region firmly in English hands . Local morale and more importantly prestige in the border region had decidedly swung England ' s way following this conflict , providing an influx of taxes and recruits for the English armies . The region had been in a state of flux for centuries and many local Lords served which ever country was stronger , regardless of national ties . With this success , the English had established a regional dominance which in some respects would last a hundred years .