Philip II: The Battle Of St. Quentin

A main battle during Philip’s reign was the battle of St. Quentin in which he defeated the French army. In February 1556 the Truce of Vaucelles was signed by Henry II and Charles V and was peace for five years but ended before five (Historyofwar.org 1). “Pope Paul IV managed to engineer an incident in Italy that triggered his defensive alliance with France. In response, Henry II sent his main army, under Francis, duke of Guise, across the Alps to aid the Pope. This ended the truce (Historyofwar.org 1).” In response to this, Philip II put together an army of about 45,000 men which then invaded Picardy. The next day Admiral Coligny arrived with 800 reinforcements and took over the defence; this was called the siege of St. Quentin and would last
Quentin and join up with a small English army (then allied with the Spanish). Savoy’s army moved on 29 July. Savoy’s advance guard reached St. Quentin on the 2nd of August and the town was only guarded by 300 men. Coligny saw the Spanish and was told to put himself and reinforcements into the town to win time. Coligny got to St. Quentin at 1am and got 800 men into the town as well as an extra 1,500 men he gathered in the town. Therefore, he had a total of 2,600 men in the town to win time. Coligny had a hard time though because Savoy had 45,000 men. Anne, duke of Montmorency, raised a relief army for Coligny which distracted the Spanish by lingering in the distance. Montmorency tried to get reinforcements led by Andelot into the town but this failed and started the battle of St. Quentin (Rickard, J Historyofwar.org 1). He actually gathered around 26,000 men which was enough to reinforce Coligny, but not to battle which ended up happening (Historyofwar.org
Quentin. Montmorency’s men arrived near St. Quentin on 7 August and were seen from the town. On 10 August Montmorency decided to try and attempt to get reinforcements and supplies into the beleaguered town. He planned to get them across the river and get them through the marsh and this was led by Coligny’s brother. This plan wasn’t great from the start, so his army got to the river but the boats were in the back of the convoy so it took hours to get them to the river and load them. The boats were too heavy and got stuck in the mud so they were lightened and 500 men eventually got into the town. The Spanish saw Montmorency and the hours spent at the river gave the time to respond, so they crossed the river below the town (Historyofwar.org 1). Montmorency ordered a retreat but it was too late and his army was terminated. 3,000 men were killed and 7,000 were captured including Montmorency. News of the defeat reached Coligny but he defended the town for another two weeks until they fell to a Spanish assault. Philip eventually lost interest and sent his army back to the Netherlands, and Coligny saved France from a hard beat down (Historyofwar.org 2). The battle of St. Quentin was a major battle during Philip’s reign and ended in a win for