[1] War had resumed in 1369 and Charles V of France, a wise politician and strategist, strove to progressively recapture the English possessions on the continent.

[3] However, during the first half of 1373, the English situation in Brittany had considerably worsened: the French had retaken Nantes, which destroyed Gaunt's hope to cross the river Loire there.

[4] Charles V and the Constable of France Bertrand du Guesclin developed a tactic in response: to put the population inside strongholds with supplies and livestock, and to destroy what could not be protected.

The soldiers gathered inside castles and fortified cities, while mobile troops harassed the enemy columns and disturbed their lines of supply.

There they gathered, until on 9 August, brought by a fleet of more than a hundred ships requisitioned in the eastern harbours of the island[clarification needed] or chartered in Holland and Flanders,[3] an army of 6,000 archers and 3,000 men-at-arms (including 1800 Scottish mercenaries), accompanied by 2,000 non-combatants.

[6] The width of the front was a consequence of the need to sufficiently supply the men in food, but offered the disadvantage of having the groups dispersed, at the mercy of attacks from the French cavalry, or even peasants.

[9] On 9 September 1373, on the contrary, the French attacked at Oulchy an isolated English corps, killing its captain Walter Hewitt and numerous men, and capturing several knights and squires, of which Thomas Despenser, brother of the Constable of England himself.

Consequently, when the English arrived before Troyes, around 22 September, Du Guesclin, Olivier de Clisson, Louis II of Bourbon, the Duke of Burgundy and more than 7,000 men in garrison had been waiting for them for a week.

Coming from the south-east, Bertrand du Guesclin was tracking down the English, while on 18 October Philip of Burgundy had taken position at the south-west at Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, after he had crossed the Loire at Roanne.

Finally, the king had urgently called back from Brittany his brother the Duke of Anjou, who was converging north towards the town with his infantry and archers corps.

At the beginning of November, the French lightened their presence: Louis of Anjou went back to Languedoc, Philip of Burgundy disbanded his mercenaries and rejoined his duchy, the infantry of the North returned to its garrisons.

In Combrailles and Upper Limousin, John of Gaunt's soldiers found themselves in one of the most inhospitable regions of France in winter: the dense forest, glacial and almost uninhabited doesn't offer more resources for the horses than for the men; the cold and torrential rain turns the roads into swamps, filling the streams with a muddy water.

[3] Finally, at the beginning of December 1373, the Duke of Lancaster arrived in the valley of the Corrèze river in Lower Limousin, a region still hostile to the authority of the king of France.

Contrary to his older brother Edward the Black Prince, who had come back from his chevauchée of 1355 with an immense loot, John of Gaunt entered Bordeaux on the last days of 1373 with an army that was only the shadow of its former self five months before.

[3] In Bordeaux, the situation was critical: the remnants of the chevauchée had doubled the population of the town, who had to endure an epidemic of bubonic plague during that winter.

[3] From London, the money expected to pay the troops wasn't coming, and John of Gaunt could now only count on a sick army, demoralized and depleted by desertion.

At the end of March 1374, Lancaster had to renounce to his project of invasion of Castile, allied to France, despite the support of Peter IV of Aragon, of Gaston III, Count of Foix and of Charles II of Navarre.