In the rouen region of northwestern France, there is a medieval fortress called the Château de Gaiar, which stands on the banks of the Seine River, southwest of Rouen, more than eight hundred years ago. The castle is now dilapidated, and around the end of the sixteenth century, King Henry IV of France took control of the castle, demolished and destroyed it, and the Castle of Gayar, which we can see now, is no longer the size of its predecessors, and the castle is full of ruins and broken walls.
Ruins of The Castle of Gaiar
The castle was built by Richard I of the famous English Plantagenet Dynasty, who, around 1194, was finally freed by richard I, who had been imprisoned for two years by the Duke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who had been famous for leading crusaders against Saladin before his captivity. During the imprisonment of Richard I, King Philip II of France had been encroaching on the Plantagenet Dynasty's lands in Normandy, where much of eastern Normandy had been occupied by Philip II.
Immediately after richard I's return, he began to retake the occupied lands in Normandy, and under Richard I's counterattack, most of normandy was returned to the Plantagenet dynasty, and the castle of Gaiar was built during this period.
By 1196, Richard I decided to build a military fortress on the banks of the Seine against the French, so he used thousands of craftsmen to build the Castle of Gaiar in more than two years.
Richard I in film and television
After the completion of the Castle of Gaiar, it became the forefront of the Plantagenet Dynasty's resistance to the French, and King Philip II of France did not dare to attack the Castle of Gaiar, in addition to fearing Richard I, the castle's perfect fortifications were also one of the reasons why Philip II stopped. However, on April 6, 1199, the good news reached philip II's ears, and his nemesis Richard I was shot by an arrow at a castle in the south of France, and soon after he died of his deteriorating wounds.
Philip II was overjoyed by the death of Richard I, who soon led an expedition to the castle of Gaiar, hoping to pull out his "flesh stab" completely. The commander stationed at the castle of Gaiar at that time was The General Drexy under Richard I, who had followed Richard I to the Third Crusade and had rich combat experience, and it was for a reason that Richard was relieved to hand over the castle to Dresy before his death.
Richard I and Philip II
Philip II's army arrived at the castle of Gaiar in the winter of 1203 and surrounded the castle, because the fortifications of the castle were very perfect, and the defenders of the city were veterans of the battlefield, Philip II did not dare to rush to attack the city. He first ordered the trebuchet to attack the walls outside the castle, and then ordered people to destroy the foundations of the walls with explosives, and it took many twists and turns to destroy the walls outside the castle, and the inner castle of the castle of Gaiar was the most difficult to break, Philip II ordered the soldiers to attack the inner fort day and night, but there was not much breakthrough, and it also caused heavy casualties to the French soldiers.
Just as Philip II was frowning over his inability to breach the inner fort, a French soldier named Ralph found a passage in the western part of the inner fort, which was actually a sewage channel for the castle's toilets. So Philip II ordered a group of death squad soldiers to enter this passage.
The glorious task of getting them to raid the defenders inside the inner fort was given to Ralph, the discoverer of the passage, who entered the passage with his brothers and endured the stench, and then made it to the toilet in the inner fort.
Medieval toilets
After Ralph and the others entered the castle, they first killed the guards of the inner castle by surprise, and then opened the gates of the castle, and philip II, who had been waiting outside the city for a long time, saw that the gate was opened, and led his soldiers into the castle, and the castle of Gaiar fell. After the French soldiers annihilated the British soldiers in the city
Philip II summoned Ralph and the others, who had not yet cleaned the feces and dirt from Ralph and his death squad soldiers, and their smell caused the French soldiers around them to cover their noses.
However, Philip II did not dislike the stinking Ralph and others, believing that he was able to break through the castle of Gaiar, Ralph was the greatest credit, and he also praised Ralph's dirt as the medal of victory, and gave Ralph many booty.