BOUVINES, a village on the French-Belgian frontier be tween Lille and Tournay, the scene of one of the greatest battles of the middle ages, fought on July 27, 1214, between the forces of Philip Augustus, king of France, and those of the coalition formed against him, of which the principal members were the emperor and King John of England. The plan of campaign seems to have been designed by King John to draw the French king south towards the Loire against himself, while his nephew, the emperor Otto IV., the princes of the Netherlands, and the main army of the allies should at the right moment march upon Paris from the north. John's part in the general strategy was perfectly executed; the allies in the north moved tardily. While John, after two inroads, turned back to his Guienne possessions on July 3, it was not until three weeks later that the emperor concentrated his forces at Valenciennes, and in the interval Philip Augustus had counter-marched northward and concentrated an army at Per onne. Philip then took the offensive himself, and in manoeuvring to get a good cavalry ground upon which to fight he offered battle (July 27) on the plain east of Bouvines and the river Marque— the same plain on which in 1794 the brilliant cavalry action of Willems was f ought. He had a superiority in cavalry to compen sate his decidedly smaller numbers of foot. The imperial army accepted the challenge and drew up facing south-westward towards Bouvines, the heavy cavalry on the wings, the infantry in one great mass in the centre, supported by the cavalry corps under the emperor himself. The French army took ground exactly oppo site to the enemy and in a similar formation, cavalry on the wings, infantry, including the milice des communes, in the centre, Philip with his own knights in rear of the foot. The battle opened with a confused cavalry fight on the French right, in which individual feats of knightly gallantry were more noticeable than any attempt at combined action. The fighting was more serious between the two centres; the Flemish infantry, who were at that time almost the best in existence, drove in the French ; Philip led the centre body of cavalry to retrieve the day, and after a long and doubtful fight, in which he himself was unhorsed and narrowly escaped death, began to drive back the Flemings. In the meanwhile the French feudatories on the left wing had thoroughly defeated the imperialists opposed to them, and William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, the leader of this corps, was unhorsed and taken pris oner by the warlike bishop of Beauvais. Victory declared itself also on the other wing, where the French at last routed the Flemish cavalry and captured Count Ferdinand of Flanders, one of the leaders of the coalition. In the centre the battle was between the two mounted reserves led respectively by the king and the emperor in person. Here, too, the imperial forces suffered defeat, Otto himself being saved only by the devotion of a handful of Saxon knights. The day was already decided in favour of the French when their wings began to close inwards to cut off the retreat of the imperial centre. The battle closed with the celebrated stand of Reginald of Boulogne, a revolted vassal of King Philip, who formed a ring of 700 Brabancon pikemen, and not only defied every attack of the French cavalry, but himself made repeated charges or sorties with his small force of knights. Eventually, and long after the imperial army had begun its retreat, the gallant schiltron was ridden down and annihilated by a charge of 3,000 men-at-arms. Reginald was taken prisoner in the melee ; and the prisoners also included two other counts, Ferdinand and William Longsword, 25 barons, and over Too knights. The killed amounted to about I 70 knights of the defeated party, and many thousands of foot on either side, of whom no accurate account can be given. The battle is characteristic of normal mediaeval warfare, the cen tre and two wings fighting their separate battle, without guiding idea or superior guidance. Only Reginald, in basing his mobile action on a stable infantry pivot, showed a glimmer of tactical sense.
See C. W. C. Oman, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, vol. i (2nd ed. 1924) ; also G. Kohler, Kriegsgeschichte, i. (Breslau, 3 vols., i886, etc.) ; and H. Delpech, Tactique au XIIIe. siecle (2 vols. Montpelier, 1886).