Bertrand du Guesclin

Biography

Bertrand du Guesclin was ugly, rough-mannered, and of minor noble birth — everything the chivalric ideal was not — yet he became the greatest French commander of the fourteenth century. After the disasters of Crécy, Poitiers, and the capture of King John II, du Guesclin convinced Charles V to abandon pitched battles against the English longbow and instead use guerrilla tactics: harassing English forces, cutting supply lines, and retaking castles one by one. Between 1369 and his death in 1380, he reconquered nearly all of France without fighting a single major engagement. He is the only non-royal figure buried among the French kings at Saint-Denis.