The Forgotten Battles n°29 - Île de Ré 1627 (in French)

In 1627, after the wars of religion, the kingdom of Louis XIII tried to find some semblance of peace. However, the city of La Rochelle remains under the close surveillance of the royal army and its Fort Louis. Annoyed by this threat, the Huguenot leader Benjamin de Soubise manages to convince England to help the capital of Protestantism. The famous Duke of Buckingham is assigned to command the expedition. Without a specific objective and poorly accepted by the Rochelais, the English decided to seize the Ile de Ré. Fighting ensued and more than three months of siege of Fort Saint-Martin, defended by Jean de Toiras. With the support of French and English archives, correspondence, newspapers and stories, this work allows us to discover this little-known episode which was to lead to the Great Siege of La Rochelle by Richelieu.