The battle of Morlaix was fought in Brittany on 30 September 1342 between an Anglo-Breton army under William, Earl of Northampton, and a far larger Franco-Breton force led by Charles of Blois (pictured). England and France, fighting the Hundred Years' War since 1337, had each sided with a faction in the Breton Civil War. The English had prepared a defensive position and when the first of three French divisions advanced it was shot to pieces by English archers using longbows. The second division, of men-at-arms, attacked but their charge was halted when they fell into a camouflaged ditch. Presented with a large, close-range target the English archers inflicted many casualties. The English then withdrew into a wood to their rear, which the French besieged, possibly for several days, before Northampton broke out with a night attack. This was the first major land battle of the Hundred Years' War and the tactics used foreshadowed those of both the French and the English for the rest of the 1340s.
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