February 15 – King John (Lackland) lands with an invasion force (accompanied by mercenaries) at La Rochelle; many barons of England refuse to join him in the campaign. John sends his half-brother William Longespée (Long Sword) to Flanders, with money to assemble a mercenary army there. John pushes the French forces northeast from Poitou towards Paris, while Emperor Otto IV marches southwest from Flanders.[2]
King Philip II (Augustus) decides to defend the French territories by leaving a third of his army under his son, Prince Louis to confront John (Lackland) in the Loire Valley – while Philip heads for Flanders to raid the region. On July 2, John's forces are confronted by a French relief force while they besiege the castle of Roche-au-Moine. John retreats back to La Rochelle, but his rearguard suffers immensely by the French army.[3]
June – Otto IV arrives in Flanders with a small army; four German nobles have joined him, but he is soon reinforced by troops of Renaud I, duke of Boulogne, Ferdinand, (jure uxoris) count of Flanders and the mercenaries under William Longespée. On July 26, Philip II arrives at the Flemish town of Tournai with his army (some 7,000 men), while the allied forces encamp 12 kilometers south at the Castle of Mortagne (France).
July 27 – Battle of Bouvines: Philip II defeats an army (some 9,000 men) of German, English and Flemish soldiers led by Otto IV near Bouvines, ending the Anglo-French War. The French forces have taken a considerable number of soldiers prisoner, including 131 knights and five counts with Ferdinand, Renaud I and William Longespée among them.[2]
November 20 – A group of English nobles, after finding a copy of the Charter of Liberties, swear an oath at the altar of Bury St. Edmunds, to force John (Lackland) to acknowledge their rights.
Spring – Emperor Xuan Zong of the Jurchen-led Chinese Jin Dynasty surrenders to the Mongols under Genghis khan – who have besieged the capital of Zhongdu (modern-day Beijing) for a year. He is forced to pay tribute (including some 3,000 horses, 10,000 'bolts' of silk and his daughter), along with subjugation to the Mongol Khan. Xuan Zong abandons northern China and moves his court to Kaifeng.[5]
After securing all Jin lands north of the Yellow River, Genghis Khan receives a message that Xuan Zong has moved his capital to Kaifeng. He returns to Zhongdu and precedes the city with the help of thousands of Chinese engineers. The Mongols starve the city out (the inhabitants are forced to eat the dead). The garrison, with a short supply of ammunition for the cannons holds out for the winter.[6]
In his campaigns in Liaodong, the Mongol general Muqali (or Mukhali) forms a newly Khitan-Chinese army and a special corps of some 12,000 Chinese auxiliary troops.
^Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society, p. 718. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN0-804-72630-2.
^ abcdPalmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 77–79. ISBN0-7126-5616-2.
^Oman, Charles (2012). A History of the Art of War: The Middle Ages from the Fourth to the Fourteenth Century, p. 539. ISBN978-1-62358-003-2.
^Linehan, Peter (1999). "Chapter 21: Castile, Portugal and Navarre". In David Abulafia (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History c.1198-c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 668–671. ISBN0-521-36289-X.
^Man, John (2011). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, pp. 169–170. ISBN978-0-553-81498-9.
^Man, John (2011). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, p. 171. ISBN978-0-553-81498-9.