It consisted of a raid on the Flemish island of Cadzand, designed to provoke a reaction and battle from the local garrison and so improve morale in England and amongst King Edward III's continental allies by providing his army with an easy victory.

Cadzand was a poor, marshy island populated by fishing villages with little in the way of plunder or importance except that it was close to the wealthy Flemish port of Sluys and thus could be used as bait for the garrison of that town.

[1] Manny understood this well, and after an initial probe against the town failed on 9 November, he retired his 3,700 sailors and soldiers to Cadzand and unleashed them on the local population resulting in several days of feverish looting, raping and pillaging of the isolated villages in the manner of a miniature chevauchée.

The English commander was prepared for this and had his men formed up on the island in an ideal defensive position which allowed him to attack and destroy the Flemish force in a short, sharp action probably enabled by use of the longbow although no accounts of the fighting survive.

King Philip VI was also greatly affected by this development, assuming that traitors amongst the Flemings had caused the defeat and responding by a wave of terror and executions which continued for the remainder of his reign and served to alienate many of his allies and supporters.