England and France fought for 116 years over the French throne — a conflict that produced Joan of Arc, transformed medieval warfare, and forged two modern nations.
The war began in 1337 when English King Edward III claimed the French throne through his mother. French nobles rejected his claim under Salic law, choosing a French king instead — but Edward wasn't giving up. What followed was a conflict that would drag on for over a century.
In the early decades, England dominated. At the Battle of Crécy in 1346, English longbowmen decimated the French cavalry, killing thousands in a few hours. A decade later at Poitiers, the English actually captured the French king and held him for ransom.
The Black Death struck between battles, killing 30–60% of France's population — some 6 to 12 million people. The plague didn't end the war; it just made it more brutal, with both sides fighting over a shattered, depopulated landscape and collapsing economies.
Henry V of England revived English fortunes with his stunning victory at Agincourt in 1415, where a heavily outnumbered English force destroyed the French army. Combined with a civil war tearing France apart, England came closer than ever to permanently conquering France.
Then a teenage peasant girl changed everything. Joan of Arc appeared in 1429, claiming divine visions, and persuaded the French dauphin to give her an army. She lifted the Siege of Orléans and turned the war's momentum in weeks — an astonishing reversal that defied all military logic.
Joan was captured in 1430 and burned at the stake as a heretic by English-allied Burgundians in 1431. But her impact outlasted her death: French armies continued winning. She was declared a martyr, and 500 years later, canonized as a saint.
France systematically expelled the English over the next two decades. By 1453, England had lost everything on the continent except Calais. The war ended not with a grand treaty but with France simply winning the last battle — at Castillon — and the English going home. It remains the longest military conflict in history between two nations.