Poitiers

Hilaire Belloc's Poitiers frames the battle as one of the great English victories of the Hundred Years' War, inseparable from Crécy and shaped by the long political deadlock between Edward III and the French crown. He explains how disputes over sovereignty, feudal allegiance, and territory kept the war alive after Calais, and why Gascony and Guienne seemed a natural English sphere to Edward and the Black Prince. In Belloc's telling, Bordeaux's trade, local loyalties, and distance from Paris made English rule plausible, while the young prince himself appears as a dazzling but flawed commander: daring, extravagant, and driven by war. The narrative then turns into a close military study of the campaign and battlefield. Belloc reconstructs the Black Prince's retreat with his spoil-laden army, his misjudgment at Châtellerault, and King John's persistent pursuit toward Poitiers. Vineyards, hedges, roads, woods, river crossings, and the Miosson and Clain-Vienne terrain all become decisive, channeling cavalry and shaping the English defense. Belloc weighs conflicting chroniclers, tests what troop movements were physically possible, and proposes a more plausible sequence of withdrawal, wagon movement, and re-engagement. The result is a vivid blend of history, strategy, and battlefield geography, culminating in the French decision to attack a rear guard before the main clash. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.