Battle of the Herrings 1429: Fastolf's Wagon Fort and Joan of Arc's Omen

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In February 1429 the English had besieged Orléans since October, and the countryside was stripped bare. Sir John Fastolf led about 300 carts and wagons from Paris carrying crossbow bolts, cannon, cannonballs and barrels of salted herring for the coming Lenten fast. On 12 February a French and Scottish force of 3,000 to 4,000 under Charles of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, and Sir John Stewart of Darnley caught Fastolf's roughly 1,600 men near Rouvray on an open plain. Fastolf circled his wagons into a fort and planted sharpened stakes around it, and the French guns began smashing the carts with real effect.

Clermont ordered his men to hold and let the artillery work, but Stewart charged with about 400 lightly armored Scots. The French guns had to stop firing, the Scots stuck on the stakes under English arrows, and the French cavalry stalled the same way. Fastolf counterattacked and the French broke. In Orléans, Clermont was blamed and soon left with 2,000 soldiers. That same day at Vaucouleurs, Joan of Arc told the skeptical commander Robert de Baudricourt that the Dauphin's forces had just suffered a great reverse near Orléans. When couriers confirmed it days later, he gave her an escort, and she set out on 23 February 1429.

• Salted fish was the durable protein that kept an army fed within the rules of Lent.
• The French bombardment was effective because the wagon fort was a stationary target.
• The Journal du siège d'Orléans says the rest of the French came on in a cowardly fashion and failed to support the vanguard.
• Between 400 and 600 French and Scots died, among them Sir John Stewart, while the English losses were light.
• Jean de Dunois, the Bastard of Orléans, was wounded in the battle and later became one of Joan's key commanders.