The Battle of Sluys was a naval engagement fought between the English and the French on June the 24th 1340, in which a French fleet was annihilated by the English fleet. The Battle of Sluys followed Edward III of England's declaration in January 1340 of himself as king of France and lord of the sea and of passage across the sea, to which the French had responded by ravaging Sandwich, Winchester, Rye, Southampton and Portsmouth and capturing numerous English ships. As a result an English fleet of some 200 vessels was assembled in the Orwell and on June the 20th 1340 Edward III embarked in the Thomas followed by the rest of the fleet and they were in turn joined by the northern fleet of 50 ships off Blankenberghe. Edward III estimated the strength of the enemy fleet at 190 ships including a Genoese contingent under Barbanegra.
The enemy fleet lay at anchor in the river Sluys some ten miles from Blankenberghe well armed with knights, men-at-arms, crossbowmen and stone-throwers. Edward III carried his fleet into the river on the flood tide on the morning of the 24th of June with a plan of attack that was to be closely copied by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of The Nile a few hundred years later. The English attack caught the French at the end of the line and ship after ship was destroyed with terrible slaughter before the tide turned and the surviving 24 French ships could slip their cables and sail away, a few being caught at sea and surrendering. Research Battle of Sluys
Abbreviations
Warfare
Research Battle of Sluys