CHAPTER VIII

For convenience of arrangement I have followed the conquests both of Canada and of India without interruption to their close. In the earlier stages of the war, when England had not yet succeeded in obtaining for herself the minister that she desired, it was possible and in the fitness of narrative to turn from enterprise to enterprise, fitfully undertaken, insufficiently provided for, and committed to the wrong hands for execution; since all were symptoms of one organic disorder. While the heart of England beat weak, palpitating and intermittent, it could not but fail to drive the blood to the extremities, and leave them cold and paralysed. But when, under the treatment of Pitt, the heart revives and throbs with strength and regularity, then we can watch member after member tingling with new life and waking to new power; and the action of each may be traced independently, for while their energy continues, it is certain that the heart must be vigorous and sound. Since, however, that work is now done, it behoves us to return, after long digression, to England and to Pitt, and to take up the study where it was laid down, in the spring of 1759.
1759.

With the mighty enterprises, even now not yet wholly told, of that year in memory, it is remarkable to note that the estimates for 1759 showed little sign of what was to come. The British Establishment was set down at but eighty-five thousand men, or one thousand more than in the previous year; and the fact is the more extraordinary in that, ever since the previous winter, the French had been preparing for an invasion of Great[476] Britain at three different points with sixty-three thousand men. Vast numbers of flat-bottomed boats had been collected at Dunkirk, Brest and Havre de Grace; and the menace was serious, for the regular troops left in England were but few, and the country was crowded with French prisoners. Pitt, while reposing his chief trust in the navy, was sufficiently disquieted in January to offer special terms to recruits who would enlist for short service within the kingdom only; and in May he called out the newly-embodied militia. Yet only two new regiments of regulars were raised during the first half of the year. The first of these, Eyre Coote's, has already been seen at Wandewash; the second demands lengthier notice since it signified a new departure. Mention has already been made of the addition of light troops to certain regiments of cavalry: it was now determined to form a complete regiment of Light Dragoons; which service was entrusted to Colonel George Augustus Elliott,[347] an officer who was to become famous for his defence of Gibraltar, though not before his regiment had already won fame both for him and for itself. Its actions will come before us very soon, so for the present it will suffice to say that Elliott's Light Dragoons are still with us, retaining the original number of their precedence, as the Fifteenth Hussars.

Such additions were trifling enough if in view of no more than the danger of invasion, but, seeing that Pitt abated not one jot of his aggressive designs, they were of astonishing insignificance. With the nature and extent of those designs the reader has already been in great part acquainted; but it will be convenient to recall the military situation in all parts of the world in the spring of 1759. Goree had already surrendered and was occupied by a British garrison; Barrington was busy over the conquest of Guadaloupe; in America Amherst was organising his expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Forbes was struggling with the first difficulties of his advance to Fort[477] Duquêsne, and Wolfe was on his way to Quebec; in India Lally had lately raised the siege of Madras and liberated the garrison for work in the field, Forde had lately fought Condore and was advancing on Masulipatam, and Clive was at Moorshedabad securing the fruits of his victory at Plassey. Lastly, ten thousand British troops were about to enter on their first campaign under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Yet it never occurred to Pitt to recall one man of them, notwithstanding the peril of invasion. It may be asked why the ten thousand, being so near home, were not summoned from Germany, and of what possible service they could have been on the Continent. The answer, which has already been hinted at, will occur readily to those who have had the patience to follow me so far, who have seen Guadeloupe worried into submission by a handful of sickly troops, and watched Montreal and Pondicherry drop at last into British hands like fruit ripe for the plucking. Pitt spoke but half the truth when he spoke of conquering America in Germany; it was not only America, but the East and West Indies, in a word the British Empire. The war in Germany was in fact nothing more than a diversion on a grand scale, and it is as such that it must now be followed. The French likewise pursued their idea of a diversion when they threatened a descent upon the shores of Great Britain. It was a plan which they had employed with some success in the days of King William and of Queen Anne, but it had not saved them from Marlborough at Oudenarde, and it was not to deliver them from the busy designs of Pitt.

Before entering on the campaigns of Prince Ferdinand it is indispensable to attempt to grasp the general purport of the operations on either side. The French had invaded Germany primarily to take vengeance upon Prussia for King Frederick's scornful treatment of Madame de Pompadour. Frederick, being already occupied with the Saxons and Austrians to the south and with the Russians on his flank to the eastward, could[478] hardly have escaped disaster with the French pressing on his other flank from the west. He had indeed, in 1758, with the swiftness that characterised his operations, made a dash upon the French and hurled them back at Rossbach, and within a month dealt the Austrians as severe a buffet at Leuthen with the same army. But to defeat two armies at two points over two hundred miles apart within a few weeks, was a strain that could not be repeated; and it was primarily to guard Frederick's right or western flank that Ferdinand's army was called into being. So far as Frederick was concerned it quite fulfilled its purpose; but in the eyes of England its mission was somewhat different. Under the Duke of Cumberland the force had been called an army of observation, to secure the frontiers of Hanover; and Cumberland, despite Frederick's warnings, had endeavoured to cover Hanover by holding the line of the Weser, with results that were seen at Hastenbeck. Under Ferdinand the army became an Allied Army for active operations in concert with King Frederick;[348] but none the less its chief function was to cover Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Brunswick. For the French army, being lax in discipline, behaved with shameful inhumanity towards the inhabitants of German territory during this war; and there was always apprehension lest the rulers of Hesse and Brunswick, from sheer compassion towards their suffering people, should withdraw from the Alliance.

Throughout the operations about to come under our notice the French acted with at least two armies, jointly superior to Ferdinand's in numbers, along two different lines. The northern army was known as the Army of the Rhine, its base being Wesel on the Lower Rhine, an outlying possession of King Frederick's, which had perforce been abandoned by him at the opening of the war, and which despite Ferdinand's efforts could never be recovered. This army was destined to advance into Westphalia, and thence, if possible, into Hanover; and a glance at the map will show that its[479] simplest line of advance was by the river Lippe. The second or southern army of the French was known as the Army of the Main; having provided itself with a base on that river by the treacherous capture of Frankfort.[349] This was one of the many unscrupulous actions whereby the French made themselves loathed in Europe; for Frankfort being an Imperial Free Town was held always to be neutral. Still the thing was done; and thereby was secured to the Army of the Main, which had begun life as the Army of the Upper Rhine, not only an excellent base but a sure means of retreat. For the Allies, even if they defeated it, could not bar its way to the Rhine until Frankfort should be first besieged and captured, which could not but be a very arduous undertaking. The primary function of this second army was the invasion of Hesse.

Ferdinand's task, with an inferior force, was in its essence defensive. For him the supremely important thing was to retain possession of the line of the Weser, on which waterway he depended for his supplies alike from Germany and from England. Thus, roughly speaking, the field of operations lay between the Rhine on the one side and the Weser on the other, with the sea and the Main for northern and southern boundaries; and the normal front of the French would be to the east and of the Allies to the west. But it must be remembered that in addition to the army operating from Wesel against Ferdinand's front there was another operating from Frankfort upon his left or southern flank; while there was always the further danger that the Saxons might elude a Prussian corps of observation, which was posted to check them, on the south-east, and steal in upon Ferdinand's left rear. To defeat these combinations it was of vital importance to Ferdinand to hold in particular two fortresses—Münster in Westphalia, since the French, if they took it, could push on unhindered to the Weser and cut off his[480] supplies; and Lippstadt on the Upper Lippe, which secured communications between Münster and Cassel, or in other words between Westphalia and Hesse, and contrariwise impeded the joint action of the two French armies. For the rest it will be useful to take note of three rivers which barred the advance of the French northward from Frankfort to Cassel and beyond: namely, counting from south to north, the Ohm, the Eder, and the Diemel. With the last in particular, as the final barrier between Hesse and Westphalia, we shall have much to do; so the reader would do well to grasp its position once for all, not neglecting its relation to the neighbouring waters of the Lippe and the Weser.
End of March.
April 13.

At the close of the campaign of 1758 Ferdinand's winter quarters extended from Coesfeld, a little to westward of Münster, through Münster, Lippstadt and Paderborn to the Diemel, his front facing thus somewhat to south of south-east. The French army of the Rhine under Marshal Contades was cantoned along that river from Wesel southward almost to Coblentz; while the army of the Main, under the Prince of Soubise, the defeated General of Rossbach, lay just to north of the river about Frankfort. Ferdinand's first trouble was with an advance of the Austrians upon his left flank by the river Werra. This he headed back by a rapid march to Fulda; and, being freed from this danger, he resolved to turn this enforced movement to southward to account by making a bold stroke upon Frankfort, so as, if possible, to paralyse the operations of the French on that side by snatching from them their base. Unfortunately for him, the incapable Soubise had been recalled to command the army for invasion of England, and Marshal Broglie, who had succeeded him, had entrenched himself in a strong position at Bergen, a little to the north of Frankfort. There on the 13th of April, just five days after the storm of Masulipatam, Ferdinand boldly attacked him,[350] but was repulsed with[481] a loss of over two thousand men, and compelled to fall back to Ziegenhain, on the road to Cassel. His audacious attempt to cripple one French army, before the campaign had even been opened, had failed.
May.
May 27.
May 29.

After this alarm the French employed themselves busily in entrenching themselves on the Main. Prince Henry of Prussia, by King Frederick's direction, marched northward to relieve Ferdinand from further trouble from the Austrians; and the enemy made little movement during the ensuing month. On the 25th of April Contades arrived at Düsseldorf from Paris with an approved plan of campaign in his pocket, and proceeded to distribute the army of the Rhine into four corps, two of them about Wesel, a third at Düsseldorf, and a fourth about Cologne. This grouping, as Contades intended, left Ferdinand in doubt whether his main design was aimed at Westphalia or Hesse. The corps which guarded Westphalia included the British contingent under Lord George Sackville, who had been appointed to the command on the death of the Duke of Marlborough in the previous year, and it lay a little to the west of Münster, under the orders of the Hanoverian General von Sp?rcke. That officer growing uneasy over Contades's movements, Ferdinand on the 16th of May marched from Ziegenhain, leaving sixteen thousand men under General von Imhoff to protect Hesse, and on the 24th, having effected his junction with Sp?rcke, cantoned his troops along the Lippe from Coesfeld to Hamm. Meanwhile Contades, detaching a corps of fifteen thousand men under Count d'Armentières to threaten Münster, marched southward from Düsseldorf upon Giessen, there to join Broglie and begin operations against Hesse. Ferdinand, in the faint hope of recalling him to the Rhine, despatched a corps under the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, a most brilliant officer, to alarm the French garrisons at Düsseldorf and other points on the river; but Contades, adhering to his purpose, pushed forward an advanced corps under M. de Noailles from Giessen to Marburg, evidently intent[482] on prosecuting his march to the north. Contades was in overwhelming force. Noailles's corps at Marburg numbered twenty thousand men, his own at Giessen close on sixty thousand, while Broglie's reserve-corps at Friedberg, a little to the south of Giessen, included close on twenty thousand more. He now sent Broglie forward by Fritzlar upon Cassel, while he himself continued his march due north through Waldeck upon Corbach. Imhoff, fearful of being cut off and unable to defend Cassel, fell back towards Lippstadt; and Broglie having left a force to occupy Cassel, turned westward to rejoin Contades. On the 14th of June the whole were again assembled together, Contades' corps lying a little to the south of Paderborn, and Broglie's at Stadtbergen.
June 11.
June 18.

These movements caused Ferdinand the deepest anxiety. On the 11th of June he concentrated and marched eastward to Büren, where he halted and picked up Imhoff's corps; but even so he was weaker than the enemy, for though he had recalled the Hereditary Prince from Düsseldorf, he had been obliged to leave nine thousand men under General Wangenheim at Dülmen, to watch d'Armentières's designs against Münster. But worse was to come; for on the 18th Broglie's corps, moving up to the right of Contades's, began to edge Ferdinand's left wing back to the westward. Ferdinand, accepting the inevitable, fell back on Lippstadt and crossed the Lippe to Rietberg. His embarrassment was now extreme. He could not divine whether the enemy designed to besiege Lippstadt or Münster or both, or whether they meant to force a battle upon him against greatly superior numbers. He was inclined to risk a battle, seeing that, for all that he could do to prevent it, both fortresses might be taken before his eyes; in which case he must needs cross to the east side of the Weser. So critical did he consider the position that he wrote to King George the Second for instructions, and begged that ships might be ready to transport the garrison in case it should be necessary[483] to evacuate Emden. The King's answer showed the Guelphic loyalty and courage at its noblest. He said that since Ferdinand was inclined to hazard an action he also was ready to take the risk, but that he left his General an absolutely free hand, only assuring him that his confidence in him would be unabated, whatever the result; and, lest Ferdinand should be in any doubt, he caused a second letter to be written to him to the same effect, but in stronger terms even than the first.[351]
June 29.
July 3.
July 8.
July 10.
July 14.

Meanwhile Contades marched up to Paderborn and halted for some days, keeping Ferdinand still in doubt as to his intentions. At last on the 29th he moved northward and pushed his light troops forward to Bielefeld, showing plainly that his true aim was the capture either of Hameln or of Minden on the Weser. Ferdinand therefore recalled Wangenheim's corps from Dülmen to the main army; whereupon, as he had expected, d'Armentières at once advanced to besiege Münster. On the same day Ferdinand himself moved northward and encamped parallel to Contades at Diessen, comforting himself with the reflection that though his enemies might be nearer to Minden than he, he at any rate was nearer to his food-supplies than they.[352] It was, however, extremely difficult for him to obtain intelligence of the French movements, since the two armies were separated by a broad chain of wooded hills; and he consequently hesitated for some days before he decided, on false information of a French advance, to move towards Osnabrück. His intention was to turn eastward from thence, and to take up a position which would render it perilous for the French to attempt the siege either of Hameln or Minden. He had made, however, but one march from Osnabrück when he received the news that Broglie had surprised Minden on the day before, and that the French had thus secured a bridge over the Weser and free access into Hanover. This [484]was a most unpleasant surprise for Ferdinand. For a day he hesitated whether or not to return to Münster, and then decided to fall back to the Lower Weser, so as to save his magazine at Nienburg, and, since the French had set the example of lawlessness at Frankfort, to occupy the Imperial Free Town of Bremen. On the 14th of July accordingly his headquarters were fixed at Stolzenau, between Nienburg and Minden on the Weser, and a detachment was sent to Bremen.
July 17.

Meanwhile Contades proceeded to reap the fruit of his very successful movements. Part of his light troops seized upon Osnabrück, and the rest were sent to levy contributions in Hanover; M. de Chevreuse was detached with three thousand men to besiege Lippstadt; d'Armentières continued to besiege Münster; Broglie's corps crossed the Weser on the 14th to invest Hameln; and on the 16th Contades with the main army debouched into the basin of Minden, and pushed a part of his army as far to the northward as Petershagen. Ferdinand, though he could bring but forty-five thousand men into the field against sixty thousand, advanced southward next day to offer him battle; but Contades retired without awaiting his arrival and withdrew to an unassailable position immediately to south of Minden. If he could hold Ferdinand inactive while his several detachments did their work, it was of no profit to him to hazard a general action.
July.

So far Contades's operations had been masterly. He had taken Cassel, the capital of Hesse, and had invested both Lippstadt and Münster; he had further taken Minden and invested Hameln; and thus he bade fair to possess himself of the line of the Weser and to carry the war straight into Hanover. Ferdinand's position was most critical, and was not rendered more pleasant to him by a series of uncomplimentary messages from Frederick the Great. But Contades, from the moment that he declined battle, seems to have taken leave, possibly from excessive confidence, of all energy and ability. His position was, it is true,[485] impregnable. His army lay immediately to the south of Minden, communicating by three bridges with Broglie's corps on the other side of the Weser. His right rested on the town and the river, his left on a mass of wooded hills—the end of the range that had separated his army from Ferdinand's—and the whole of his front was covered by a wide morass, through which ran a brook called the Bastau. But though unassailable from any point, the position had conspicuous defects. In the first place, it did not leave the army free to move in all directions; and in the second, it necessitated the detachment of troops to the south to maintain communication through Gohfeld and Hervorden with the French base at Cassel. It was for Ferdinand, by skilful use of these defects, to entice Contades from his pinfold to meet him in the open field.
July 28.
July.

Returning to camp at Petershagen after Contades's withdrawal to Minden, Ferdinand's first step was to push his picquets forward into a chain of villages that lay in his front: Todtenhausen on the bank of the Weser, Fredewald immediately to west of Todtenhausen, Stemmern and Holthausen somewhat in advance of Fredewald, and Nord Hemmern, Sud Hemmern, and Hille still farther to south and west. The occupation of Hille brought his advanced posts to the western edge of the morass that covered Contades's front, and to the head of the one causeway that led across it. On the 22nd Wangenheim's corps, about ten thousand strong, was pushed forward to Todtenhausen, where it remained conspicuous, in advance of the army. In the midst of these movements came the bad news of the fall of Münster, which enabled d'Armentières to march from thence to besiege Lippstadt, and Chevreuse to return with his detachment to Minden; but this misfortune only quickened Ferdinand to action. On the 27th the Hereditary Prince marched with six thousand men south-westward towards Lübbecke, and on the following day drove from it a body of French irregulars which was stationed there for the protection of[486] Contades's left flank. Then turning eastward he pursued his march against the French communications. Simultaneously, on the 28th, General Dreve led the garrison of Bremen against Osnabrück, retook it, and hastened eastward to join the Hereditary Prince. The junction effected, the two pressed on towards Hervorden, and on the 31st established themselves astride of the road by which all Contades's supplies must be brought up from the south.

Here, therefore, was a menace in his rear to make the French General uneasy in his position behind the morass; and now Ferdinand added a temptation in his front to induce him the more readily to quit it. On the 29th the Prince, leaving Wangenheim's corps isolated about Todtenhausen, led the whole of the rest of the army a short march to the south-west, and encamped between Fredewald and Hille. Headquarters were at Hille, under guard of the Twelfth and Twentieth Regiments of the British Foot, for the red-coats held the place of honour on the right of the line; and picquets were pushed on to Sud Hemmern, Hartum, and Hahlen, villages on the eastern side of Hille, by the border of the morass. Finally, from two to three thousand men were ordered to Lübbecke to maintain communication with the Hereditary Prince. Such dispositions might well have appeared hazardous; but Ferdinand had thought them out in every detail. Wangenheim's corps, though isolated, was strongly entrenched, with several guns; while his position covered the only outlet by which the French could debouch from behind the marsh. Thereby two important objects were gained. First, the safe passage of convoys from the Lower Weser was assured; and secondly, it was made certain that, before Contades could deploy to attack Wangenheim in force, Ferdinand with the main army would have time either to fall upon his flank or simply to join his own left to Wangenheim's right. To ensure the swift execution of this latter critical movement, Ferdinand directed all Generals to acquaint themselves[487] carefully with the ground, and in particular with the outlets that led from his position to the open plain before Minden.

Contades meanwhile reasoned, as Ferdinand had hoped and intended, in a very different fashion. The Allied army was, to his mind, dispersed in every direction. Ten thousand men were with the Hereditary Prince at Gohfeld; at least two thousand more at Lübbecke; Ferdinand himself, with the greater portion of the army, seemed so anxious to be within supporting distance of the Prince that he had left Wangenheim in the air; while even Wangenheim's corps was not united, but had detached a few battalions across the river to keep an eye on Broglie. Still the interruption of his own communications with Cassel was troublesome; and it would be well to put an end to that and to all other difficulties by a decisive blow and a brilliant victory. He therefore despatched the Duke of Brissac with eight thousand men to Gohfeld to hold the Hereditary Prince in check, threw eight bridges over the Bastau for the passage of his troops across it in as many columns, and ordered Broglie to be ready to cross the Weser with his corps to form a ninth column upon his right. The total force which he could bring into the plain of Minden was fifty-one thousand men with one hundred and sixty-two guns. Against it, if all went well, Ferdinand could oppose forty-one thousand men and one hundred and seventy guns.
Aug. 1.

A fresh gale was blowing from the south-west which drowned the stroke of the clocks of Minden, as midnight closed the last day of July and ushered in the first of August. Already the French camp was all alert in the darkness, and the columns were moving off, not without confusion, to the bridges of the Bastau. An hour later two white-coated deserters were brought in by a picquet to the Prince of Anhalt, General Officer of the day in the Allied army, with the important intelligence that the whole French army was in motion. Ferdinand had seen signs of some stir on the previous[488] evening, and had directed that, on the observance of the slightest movement at the advanced posts, information should be brought to him at once. Yet two o'clock came, and three o'clock, before a belated messenger arrived at headquarters from Anhalt with the news. Instantly Ferdinand called the whole of his troops to arms, and ordered them to march to their appointed positions. His orders had already been issued, and were clear and precise enough. The advance was to be in eight columns, and the formation for battle, as usual, with infantry in the centre and cavalry on each flank. The first or right-hand column consisted of twenty-four squadrons of cavalry under Lord George Sackville, fifteen of them being British squadrons of the Blues, First and Third Dragoon Guards, Scots Greys, and Tenth Dragoons. The second was made up entirely of German artillery; and the third under Major-General von Sp?rcke comprised the Twelfth, Twentieth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-first regiments of the British Line. Seven out of the eight columns were formed and marched off with great promptitude; but in Sackville's column all was confusion and delay. Some of the regiments were ready and others were not; and Sackville himself was not to be found. It was no good beginning for the British cavalry.

Having given the alarm Ferdinand hastened, with a single staff-officer accompanying him, to see for himself how matters stood. It is not difficult to conceive of his anxiety. Owing to the unpardonable neglect of Anhalt the French had gained two hours upon him; and now, when the army had been at last set in motion, the cavalry of his right wing was not moving with the rest. There was therefore every likelihood that the village of Hahlen, on which he had intended to rest his right flank, might be occupied by the French before Sackville could be there to prevent them. Instantly galloping away to Hartum he ordered the picquets stationed therein to move at once to Hahlen, and then hurried[489] back with all speed to the latter village, only to learn the bad news that it was already in possession of the French. Meanwhile not a word had come from Wangenheim, who, for aught he knew, might be in serious difficulties. Despatching his solitary aide-de-camp to Todtenhausen to ascertain how matters were going on the left, he galloped on alone with his groom into the plain of Minden. The wind was blowing so furiously that not a sound even of cannon could be heard in the direction of the Weser; but before long he caught sight of the French advancing on Kuttenhausen, and of a dense cloud of smoke rising before Todtenhausen. Evidently Wangenheim was hotly engaged. But meanwhile from windward there came the roar of a furious cannonade about Hille, where the causeway issued from the western end of the morass. This could only be a diversion, for Ferdinand had already sealed up the outlet of the causeway with five hundred men and two guns; but to make assurance still surer he now ordered two more guns and the detachment from Lübbecke to Hille, and sent information to the Hereditary Prince of what was passing. Then, galloping for a moment to the left, Ferdinand satisfied himself that his columns were advancing, and turned back in the teeth of the wind to Hahlen. There once again the stupidity of the Prince of Anhalt had set matters wrong. He had duly brought up the picquets from Hartum before Hahlen, as directed, but had halted instead of clearing the French out of the village, and had thereby delayed the deployment of the whole of Sp?rcke's column. He was bidden to take the village at once, which he did without difficulty; but having done so this hopeless officer proceeded to instal himself and his picquets as if to stay there for ever.[353]

After the occupation of Hahlen, however, matters on the right began to adjust themselves. Ferdinand ordered Captain Foy's battery to the front of the[490] village to cover the formation of the troops, and was soon satisfied by the admirable working of these British guns that all was safe in that quarter. Meanwhile his aide-de-camp returned from Todtenhausen with intelligence that Wangenheim was holding his own, though the enemy had gained ground on his right, where his flank was uncovered. Probably few commanders have passed through two worse hours than did Ferdinand at the opening of the battle of Minden.

Fortunately for him the French had not executed their own man?uvres without confusion and delay. It was one defect of Contades's position that he could not debouch from behind the morass by daylight, since he would have brought Ferdinand down instantly upon his flank; and the indiscipline of the French army among both officers and men was not calculated to favour orderly movement in the dark. Broglie, a capable officer, had crossed the river, taken up his appointed position on the right, and made his dispositions to fall upon Wangenheim, punctually and in good order; but he dared not attack until the rest of the army was formed, so contented himself with a simple duel of artillery. The rest of the columns shuffled here and there in helplessness and confusion; and it was not until Broglie had waited for two full hours that most of them were at last deployed in some kind of order. The French line-of-battle was convex in form, following, as it were, the contour of the walls of Minden, with the right resting on the Weser and the left on the morass. Broglie's corps on the right was drawn up in two lines, the first of infantry, the second of cavalry, with two powerful batteries in advance. On his left stood half of the infantry of Contades's army in two lines, with thirty-four guns before them. Next to these, in the centre, were fifty-five squadrons of cavalry in two lines, with a third line of eighteen more in reserve; and next to this mass of horse stood the left wing, composed of the rest of the infantry in two lines, with thirty guns. Thus to all intent the French line-of-battle[491] consisted of a centre of cavalry with wings of infantry; but the left wing of infantry was late in arriving at its position, and its tardiness was not without effect on the issue of the action.

Observing the excellent practice of Foy's battery before Hahlen, Ferdinand had already sent Macbean's British battery to join it and ordered Hase's Hanoverian brigade of heavy guns to the same position. Then seeing Sp?rcke's column of British infantry in the act of deployment, he sent orders that its advance, when the time should come, should be made with drums beating. The order was either misdelivered or misunderstood, for to his surprise the leading British brigade shook itself up and began to advance forthwith. A flight of aides-de-camp galloped off to stop them; and the line of scarlet halted behind a belt of fir-wood to await the formation of the rest of the army. In the first line of Sp?rcke's division stood, counting from right to left, the Twelfth, Thirty-seventh, and Twenty-third, under Brigadier Waldegrave; and in the second, which extended beyond the first on each flank, the Twentieth, Fifty-first, and Twenty-fifth, under Brigadier Kingsley, Hardenberg's Hanoverian battalion, and two battalions of Hanoverian guards. There then they stood for a few minutes, while the second line, which was only partially deployed, hastened to complete the evolution; when suddenly to the general amazement the drums again began to roll, and the first line stepped off once more, advancing rapidly but in perfect order, straight upon the French horse. The second line, though its formation was still incomplete, stepped off likewise in rear of its comrades, deploying as it moved, and therefore of necessity dropping somewhat in rear. And so the nine battalions, with the leading brigade far in advance, swung proudly forward into a cross-fire of more than sixty cannon, alone and unsupported from the rest of the line.

No aide-de-camp, gallop though he might, could stop them now; and their majestic bearing showed that[492] they would not easily be stopped by an enemy. The British, being on the right, were the more exposed to destruction, for the French batteries on their left were too remote to maintain a really deadly fire; but what signified a cross-fire and three lines of horse to regiments that had fought at Dettingen and Fontenoy? For nearly two hundred yards of the advance the French guns tore great gaps in their ranks; but they passed through the tempest of shot unbroken and untamed, and pressed on with the same majestic steadiness against the huge motionless bank of the French horse. Then at last the wall of men and horses started into life, and eleven squadrons coming forward from the rest bore straight down upon them. The scarlet battalions stood firm until the enemy were within ten yards of them; then pouring in one volley which strewed the ground with men and horses, they hurled the squadrons back in confused fragments upon their comrades, and continued their advance. Ferdinand, perceiving the disorder of the French, sent an aide-de-camp at full speed to Lord George Sackville to bring up the British cavalry and complete the rout. Sackville disputed the meaning of the order for a time, and then advancing his squadrons for a short distance, as if to obey it, brought them once more to a halt. A second messenger came up in hot haste to ask why the cavalry of the right did not come on, but Sackville remained stationary, and the opportunity was lost.

Then shamed and indignant at their defeat the French horse rallied. Four brigades of infantry and thirty-two guns came forward from the French left to enfilade the audacious British foot; and Ferdinand, since Sackville would not move, advanced Phillips's brigade of heavy guns in order to parry, if possible, this flanking attack. Then the second line of the French horse came thundering down, eager to retrieve their defeat, upon the nine isolated battalions. For a moment the lines of scarlet seemed to waver under this triple attack; but recovering themselves they closed up their ranks and[493] met the charging squadrons with a storm of musketry which blasted them off the field. Then turning with equal fierceness upon the French infantry they beat them also back with terrible loss. Again an aide-de-camp flew from Ferdinand's side to Sackville, adjuring him to bring up the British squadrons only, if no more, to make good the success; but it was not jealousy of the foreign squadrons under his command that kept Sackville back. The messenger delivered his order; but not a squadron moved. Meanwhile Ferdinand had hurried forward fresh battalions on his right to save the British from annihilation; and now the third line of French horse, the Gendarmerie and the Carbineers, essayed a third attack upon the nine dauntless battalions and actually broke through the first line; but was shattered to pieces by the second and sent the way of its fellows. A fourth messenger was sent to Sackville, but with no result. Ferdinand's impatience waxed hot. "When is that cavalry coming?" he kept exclaiming. "Has no one seen that cavalry of the right wing?" But no cavalry came. "Good God! is there no means of getting that cavalry to advance," he ejaculated in desperation, and sent a fifth messenger to bring up Lord Granby with the squadrons of Sackville's second line only. Granby was about to execute the order, when Sackville rode up and forbade him; and then, as if still in doubt as to these repeated orders, Sackville trotted up to Ferdinand and asked what they might mean. "My Lord," Ferdinand is said to have answered, calmly, but with such contempt as may be imagined, "the opportunity is now passed."

Nevertheless the astonishing attack of the British infantry had virtually gained the day. Ferdinand's line had gained time to form and to join with Wangenheim's; and the guns of the Allies coming up gradually in increasing force silenced the inferior artillery of the French. Ferdinand's left wing then took the offensive, and the German cavalry by a brilliant charge dispersed the whole of the infantry opposed to them.[494] Between nine and ten o'clock the struggle was practically over. The French were completely beaten, and retreating rapidly under the guns of Minden to their pinfold behind the marsh. Had Sackville's cavalry come forward when it was bidden, it might have cut the flying French squadrons to pieces, barred the retreat of most if not all of the French left wing, and turned the victory into one of the greatest of all time. As things happened, it fell to Foy and Macbean of the British Artillery to gather the laurels of the pursuit. Hard though they had worked all day, these officers limbered up their guns and moved with astonishing rapidity along the border of the marsh, halting from time to time to pound the retreating masses of the enemy; till at last they unlimbered for good opposite the bridges of the Bastau and punished the fugitives so heavily that they would not be rallied until they had fled far beyond their camp.

Meanwhile the Hereditary Prince had engaged the Duke of Brissac at Gohfeld and defeated him, so that the French communications with Hervorden and Paderborn were hopelessly severed. The news of this misfortune seems to have smitten Contades almost with panic. Had he chosen to fall back by the line of his advance he could hardly have been stopped by the inferior force of the Hereditary Prince, and he would have found supplies and a good position at Hervorden. But his defeat had crushed all spirit out of him. Abandoning his communications with Paderborn he crossed the Weser in the night, broke down the bridge of Minden, burned his bridges of boats, and retired through a difficult and distressing country to Cassel, with an army not only beaten but demoralised.

Walker & Boutall del.

To face page 494.
MINDEN. Aug. 1st 1759.
The Action at the moment of the attack of the British Infantry.

So ended the battle of Minden, a day at once of pride and disgrace to the British. The losses of the Allies amounted to twenty-six hundred killed and wounded, of which the share of the British amounted to close on fourteen hundred men.[354] Of the six devoted regiments who went into action four thousand four[495] hundred and thirty-four strong, seventy-eight officers and twelve hundred and fifty-two men, or about thirty per cent, were killed or wounded; while the Hanoverian battalions with them, being on the left or sheltered flank, lost but twelve per cent. The heaviest sufferers were the Twelfth, which lost three hundred and two, and the Twentieth, which lost three hundred and twenty-two of all ranks; these regiments holding the place of honour on the right of the first and second lines. The casualties of the French were acknowledged in the official lists to amount to seven thousand, though the letters of Broglie and Contades state the numbers at from ten to eleven thousand; and the defeated army lost in addition the greater part of its baggage, seventeen standards and colours, and forty-three guns. From a military standpoint the most remarkable feature in the action was the skill with which Ferdinand contrived to entice his adversary into the field, reflecting perhaps even more credit on his judgment of men than on his knowledge of his profession. Once drawn from behind the morass into the plain, Contades made singularly feeble and meaningless dispositions: and the formation of his line with cavalry in the centre and infantry on the flanks was, in the circumstances, simply grotesque. He seems indeed to have had no very clear idea as to what he really meant to do. If he had designed to overwhelm Wangenheim's isolated corps—and no doubt he had some vague notion of the kind—the obvious course was to launch Broglie straight at him independently, and himself to protect Broglie's flank with the main army. What he actually did was to turn Broglie's corps into the right wing of an united army, and so practically to fetter it for all decisive action. On the other hand, all preconcerted arrangements on both sides were upset by the extraordinary attack of the British infantry, a feat of gallantry and endurance that stands, so far as I know, absolutely without a parallel. "I never thought," said Contades bitterly, "to see a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry[496] ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to ruin." "Never," grimly wrote Westphalen, the chief of Ferdinand's staff, "were so many boots and saddles seen on a battlefield as opposite to the English and the Hanoverian Guards." Next to this attack the feature that seems to have attracted most attention among both contemporary and modern critics, was the remarkable efficiency of the British artillery. The handling of the artillery generally at Minden, which was entrusted to the Count of Lippe-Bückeburg, was very greatly admired: but Westphalen, who passed lightly over the deeds of the infantry, went out of his way to write that, though every battery had done well, the English batteries had done wonders. And indeed some British guns which were attached to Wangenheim's corps on the left earned not less praise than those of Foy and Macbean on the right. The palm of the cavalry fell to the Germans, and in particular to a few squadrons of Prussian dragoons lent by Frederick the Great, which earned it brilliantly. It would have fallen to the British but for Sackville.

The part played by this deplorable man did not end with the battle. Ferdinand in general orders made scathing allusion to his conduct without mentioning his name; and Sackville was presently superseded and sent home. There he was tried by court-martial and pronounced unfit to serve the King in any military capacity whatever—a hard sentence but probably no more than just. Sackville was admitted to be an extremely able man; and as he had passed through Fontenoy and been wounded in that action, it is not easy to call him a coward. But the courage of some men is not the same on every day; and the evidence produced at the court-martial shows, I think, too plainly that on the day of Minden Sackville's courage failed him.[355] The King published the sentence of his dismissal from the Army in a special order, with very severe but not undeserved comment; and Lord George Sackville henceforth disappears from British battlefields. But we shall meet[497] with him again as a Minister of War, and the meeting will not be a pleasant one.
Aug. 2.
Aug. 5.
Aug. 18.
Aug. 24.
Aug. 25.
Sept. 19.

On the day following the battle the Hereditary Prince crossed the Weser in pursuit of the French, and overtaking their rear-guard at Einbeck captured many prisoners and much spoil, but failed to arrest the retreat of the main body. Contades, therefore, succeeded in bringing his troops back to Cassel, half starved, worn out by hard marching, and utterly demoralised by indiscipline and pillage. D'Armentières, on hearing of his chief's defeat, raised the siege of Lippstadt and marched eastward to meet him. Ferdinand meanwhile, having received the surrender of Minden, advanced by Bielefeld and Paderborn south-eastward upon Corbach, so as to turn Contades's left flank. On the 18th Contades, seeing his communications endangered, evacuated Cassel and retired by forced marches to Marburg, where he took up a strong position. Cassel capitulated to the Allies on the following day; and Ferdinand, while still pursuing his march southward, detached seven thousand men to recapture Münster. Marshal d'Estrées then arrived to supersede Contades; but little came of this change of command. Renewed menace from the westward upon the French communications forced him to withdraw from the line of the Ohm and Lahn, and to fall back to Giessen. Ferdinand at once laid siege to Marburg, which fell within a week, and finally on the 19th of September he encamped at Kroffdorf, a little to north-west of Giessen, over against the French camp.
Nov. 21.

Meanwhile the siege of Münster had gone ill for the Allies, and had been turned into a blockade. Ferdinand, after sending additional troops thither, found himself too weak to attempt further operations until the fall of the town; and during this interval Broglie, who had been appointed to the supreme command, had received a reinforcement of ten thousand Würtembergers. Thus strengthened he tried incessantly with a detached corps of twenty thousand men to interrupt Ferdinand's communications with Cassel, but in vain; and finally the[498] Hereditary Prince attacked this corps at Fulda, defeated it signally, and then turning upon Broglie's right flank forced him to retire to Friedberg. Ferdinand then blockaded Giessen; but at this point further operations were stayed. Ever since his disastrous defeat by the Russians at Kunersdorf in August, Frederick the Great had pressed Ferdinand for reinforcements; and the detachment of twelve thousand troops to the King not only rendered the Prince powerless for further aggression, but obliged him also to raise the blockade of Giessen. In January 1760 both armies retired into winter-quarters. The French occupied much the same ground as at the beginning of the campaign; and the Allies likewise were distributed into two divisions, the army of Westphalia extending from Münster through Paderborn to the Weser, the army of Hesse from Marburg eastward to the Werra. Thus ended the campaign of 1759, leaving both parties in occupation of the same territory as at its beginning; but it had branded the French with the discredit of a great defeat, and had heightened in the Allies their contempt for their enemy and their confidence in their chief.