Battle of Sluys

In June 1340 Edward III sailed to the Flemish coast to challenge a large French fleet gathered in the Zwin estuary. The French commanders lashed their ships together in lines, in effect making floating platforms. Edward's ships attacked with, by tradition, the sun and wind behind them, and his archers swept the French decks with arrows before men-at-arms boarded in hand-to-hand fighting. The French line was overwhelmed through the afternoon, and the fleet was almost entirely captured or destroyed. The English held command of the Channel for a generation, and the war was fought mainly on French soil from then on.

The sources are English and French chronicles, notably Froissart, written years after the event and prone to exaggeration, so the casualty figures should be read with caution. The site has also vanished in a sense, since the Zwin silted up over the following centuries and the old harbour of Sluis is now far from the open sea. Historians debate whether the chaining of ships was a French blunder or a reasonable defensive choice that the English handled better, and the Genoese captain Barbavera's earlier warnings are known only through later retellings.