This study of Medieval military leadership offers a critical comparison of two great rivals of the Hundred Year War. Known to history as The Black Prince, Edward of Woodstock led the English army to victory at the Battle of Poitiers against the French King Jean II. With an illuminating analysis of these fourteenth century commanders, historian Peter Hoskins examines the importance of leadership, strategic vision, and tactical skill in medieval warfare. Paying close attention to their strengths and weaknesses as soldiers, both on campaign and on the battlefield, Hoskins also considers their contrasting characters and backgrounds as well as the military traditions of their time. The Black Prince was one of the most admired generals of his generation: a charismatic leader, decisive commander, and shrewd tactician and strategist. In contrast King Jean was impulsive, driven more by pride than by strategic priorities. When he was put to the ultimate test at Poitiers, Jean lost control of his army. Meanwhile, the Black Prince took the initiative personally to secure victory against the odds. Peter Hoskins analyses the leadership qualities of the prince and the king according to the principles of war enunciated by Sun Tzu and Vegetius as well as the modern principles of war of the United Kingdom armed forces. He gives readers a fascinating insight into the nature of command and the conduct of war in the Middle Ages.

As a child he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of sixteen, he helped defeat the French at Crécy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England’s dominance in the Hundred Years War. As lord of Aquitaine, he ruled a vast swathe of territory across the west and southwest of France, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility and drew them like moths to the flame of his cause. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, and better known to posterity as “the Black Prince.” His military achievements captured the imagination of Europe: heralds and chroniclers called him “the flower of all chivalry” and “the embodiment of all valor.” But what was the true nature of the man behind the chivalric myth, and of the violent but pious world in which he lived?

The author has retraced on foot the routes taken by the Black Prince during the French campaigns of 1355-1356, enabling him to provide an entirely new dimension to the events. In 1355 the Black Prince took an army to Bordeaux and embarked on two chevauchées (mounted military expeditions, generally characterised by the devastation of the surrounding towns and countryside), which culminated in hisdecisive victory over King Jean II of France at Poitiers the following year. Using the recorded itineraries as his starting point, the author of this book walked more than 1,300 miles across France, retracing the routes of the armies in search of a greater understanding of the Black Prince's expedition. He followed the 1355 chevauchée from Bordeaux to the Mediterranean and back, and that for 1356 from Aquitaine to the Loire, to the battlefield at Poitiers, and back again to Bordeaux. Drawing on his findings on the ground, a wide range of documentary sources, and the work of local historians, many of whom the author met on his travels, the book provides a unique perspective on the Black Prince's chevauchées of 1355 and 1356 and the battle of Poitiers, one of the greatest English triumphs of the Hundred Years War, demonstrating in particular the impact of the landscape on the campaigns. Peter Hoskins is a former Royal Air Force pilot, now living in France. He combines his interest in exploration of his adopted country with his research into the Hundred Years War.

This “taut narrative” of the fourteenth-century conflict between England and France offers “a detailed, climactic account of a legendary battle” (Publishers Weekly). The epic fourteenth-century Battle of Poitiers marked a major turn in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. Prince Edward, known to all as the Black Prince, not only won a surprising victory in his first campaign as commander, but managed the nearly impossible feat of taking the French monarch, King Jean II, prisoner. In the summer of 1356, Prince Edward drove toward the Loire Valley, deep in French territory. There, he met the full French army led by King Jean and a number of French nobles, including veterans of the defeat at Crécy ten years before. Outnumbered, the Prince fell back, but in September, he turned near the city of Poitiers to make a stand. Historians Witzel and Livingstone provide a day-by-day description of the campaign of July to September 1356, climaxing with a vivid description of the Battle of Poitiers itself. The detailed account and analysis of the battle and the campaigns that led up to it has a strong focus on the people involved in the campaign: ordinary men-at-arms and noncombatants, as well as princes and nobles.

On 13 September 1356 near Poitiers in western France, the small English army of Edward, the Black Prince crushed the forces of the French King Jean II in of the most famous battles of the Hundred Years' War. Over the centuries the story of this against-the-odds English victory has, along with Crécy and Agincourt, become part of the legend of medieval warfare. And yet in recent times this classic battle has received less attention than the other celebrated battles of the period. The time is ripe for a reassessment, and this is the aim of Christian Teutsch's thought-provoking new account.

Family tree -- Glossary of names -- Timeline -- Map -- A note on money -- Prologue -- Book one: The bastard son -- Book two: The obedient nephew -- Book three: The prince alone -- Afterword: Alessandro's ethnicity.