CHAPTER XXV.The Battle of Dettingen.
On the 21st of April, 1743, King George prorogued Parliament, and almost immediately hastened over to Hanover accompanied by his son, William, Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret as Secretary of State, in attendance. The object of this departure was to aid Queen Maria Theresa of Hungary in her struggle against the French and Bavarians, and in so doing to gratify an ambition long cherished by King George to place himself at the head of an allied army. For whatever failings the little King is credited with, and we know he had many—thosefoiblessesof which we have been so frequently reminded—he was certainly a soldier, and a brave one.
Probably also he had a great desire to establish a reputation as a soldier for his favourite son William, also, that young man having at a very early period displayed a considerable penchant for the military art.
This preference for his brother was very far from gratifying to the Prince of Wales, who would have much liked to have gone to the wars himself, although his training had never been in that direction.
But to give him a command was about the last thing that King George would have thought of doing. Such an act would have given his eldest son fresh popularity, which he was far from desiring.
Not only was Frederick denied a command, but he was also excluded from the regency which his father left behind him. Sir Robert Walpole remarked as follows upon it:
“I think the Prince might have been of it, when Lord Gower is. I don’t think the latter more Jacobite than his Royal Highness.” So once more, as far as any active participation in the affairs of the state were concerned, the Prince of Wales was left in the galling position of being on the shelf.
Meanwhile the British troops under the Earl of Stair, had commenced their march towards the end of February into Germany, but appear to have moved with incredible slowness as it was the middle of May before they crossed the Rhine.
Lord Stair—the celebrated correspondent of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough,—appears to have been a very poor sort of a general, and in addition was hampered for want of a proper commissariat, which was not understood in those days.
There appeared to be the same happy-go-lucky state of affairs—which seems to be national and chronic—to which the great Marlborough referred in 1702, by calling his native country: “England that is famous for negligence.”[66]Lord Stair’s army, however, struggled onward, and was joined on the way by some sixteen thousand Hanoverians in British pay, who had been in winter quarters in Liège, and by a few Austrian regiments. Eventually they all arrived at Hochst, between Mayence and Frankfort, and here Lord Stair’s command numbered about forty thousand men.
Meanwhile, the French commander-in-chief, the Maréchal de Noailles, with sixty-thousand men, crossed the Rhine and approached the Southern bank of the River Maine, the northern bank of which was occupied by the British.
It is an extraordinary thing that although these two armies stood facing one another, prepared for battle—a battle which came off very soon—their respective countries had not broken off diplomatic relations with one another.
Horace Walpole refers to it as follows:
“A ridiculous situation! we have the name of War with Spain without the thing, and War with France without the name.”
Lord Stair appears to have entirely lost his head under these circumstances and to have made a series of imbecile marches and countermarches, which thoroughly tired out his horses and men and left him and his army at their conclusion in a worse position than they were before, with the addition that they were exceeding short of food and forage. The French General had entirely out-manœuvred Stair.
At this juncture—19th July, 1743—King Georgeand his son, the Duke of Cumberland, joined the English army, which was at that time hemmed in in a narrow valley extending from Aschaffenberg to the considerable village of Dettingen on the north bank of the River Maine.
Here, after several counsels of War, it was decided to fall back on Hanau, a town where a magazine of provisions had been established. At this period the horses had but two days’ rations of forage left, all other supplies being cut off by the French.
The difficult retreat was commenced in face of the enemy—on the other bank of the River Maine—who immediately, as might have been expected from such a celebrated General as de Noailles, pontooned the river, and sent twenty-three thousand men across, under his nephew the Duc de Grammont to stop the retreat of the British and their allies at the defile of Dettingen, through which they must pass to reach their supplies at Hanau, sixteen miles further on.
So that the battle of Dettingen may be referred to as a “bread-and-butter” fight on the part of the British, who fought possibly all the better on that account.
The march of the English on Dettingen began before daylight on the 27th of June, the King at first commanding the rear guard, which was considered through ignorance of the movements of the French, to be the point of danger.
When, however, the advance guard was driven inat Dettingen and French troops came pouring across the river, King George and his son rode along the column to the front, where they appear to have taken supreme command at once.
Now the British Army was in a very tight corner indeed; no sooner had they marched than the Marquis de Noailles, perfectly alive to the situation, sent twelve thousand men to occupy Aschaffenberg in their rear; thus with twenty-three thousand men in a strong entrenched position in their front between them and their stores of food, the river on their left, and a force of twelve thousand in their rear, the position of the British looked pretty hopeless, hemmed in as they were in addition by hills on the right. Across the river a strong force of artillery was posted, which commenced a heavy fire into the left flank of our regiments, mowing down whole ranks. It was a position which at any moment might have been turned into a panic. That it wasnotturned into a panic and a rout is entirely owing to the courage and military skill of George the Second.
As far as courage was concerned, he was ably seconded by his son the Duke of Cumberland, but as this was his first fight, his military knowledge wasnil, and it never shone particularly at any time after.
With all his faults and frailties and “foiblesses,” little King George on this day showed himself to be a skilled soldier, and a brave man. His previousreputation gained at Oudenarde had not been forgotten by our own poets when he came to England and became Prince of Wales; one of them had thus addressed him on a birthday:—
“Let Oudenarde’s field your courage tellWho looked so martial, or who fought so well?Who charg’d the foe with greater fire or force?Who felt unmoved the trembling falling horse?Sound, sound, O Fame, the trumpet loud and true,All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due.In early life such deeds in arms were doneAs prove you able to defend the throne.”
“Let Oudenarde’s field your courage tellWho looked so martial, or who fought so well?Who charg’d the foe with greater fire or force?Who felt unmoved the trembling falling horse?Sound, sound, O Fame, the trumpet loud and true,All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due.In early life such deeds in arms were doneAs prove you able to defend the throne.”
“Let Oudenarde’s field your courage tellWho looked so martial, or who fought so well?Who charg’d the foe with greater fire or force?Who felt unmoved the trembling falling horse?Sound, sound, O Fame, the trumpet loud and true,All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due.In early life such deeds in arms were doneAs prove you able to defend the throne.”
“Let Oudenarde’s field your courage tell
Who looked so martial, or who fought so well?
Who charg’d the foe with greater fire or force?
Who felt unmoved the trembling falling horse?
Sound, sound, O Fame, the trumpet loud and true,
All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due.
In early life such deeds in arms were done
As prove you able to defend the throne.”
He had then a well-established reputation for courage, which was no doubt well known to the men he commanded.
The King and his son rode from their station in the rear to the front, and there the former at once deployed the columns into line with the left resting on the river and the right on the slopes of the hills at the other side of the valley. The infantry were in front with the half-starved cavalry in reserve.
The British Army was in presence of perhaps the most accomplished general of his time, Maréchal Noailles, and he had selected his position before Dettingen—an old post village—with consummate judgment.
It had a ravine, the course of a small rivulet running across its front, while its right flank rested on a morass and the river. The only mistake the Maréchal had made was in placing his hot-headed nephew the Duc de Grammont in command of it. This circumstance led to a big stroke of luck inKing George’s favour at the very commencement of the action.
The Duc de Grammont committed the common and deadly error of despising his enemy; believing the advancing force to be but a part of the British Army, he left his entrenchments with the object apparently, of crushing it before its main body came up, but it was in fact the main body, which he had to engage. This advance had a double effect in favour of King George; the French guns across the river, which had been making fearful play on the English ranks, had to cease fire, as the French very soon came in close proximity to their foes, and were as likely to be hit by their own gunners as the English. Therefore our men were relieved from this demoralizing flank fire. This movement of the Duc de Grammont rendered the excellent dispositions of his uncle valueless.
But an untoward incident, at the very commencement, delayed for a time the fruits of this error being gathered and very nearly deprived the British Army of its royal commander; King George’s horse ran away with him in the direction of the enemy.
This was a paralysing spectacle for our own men!
Fortunately, however, the King succeeded in pulling him round before he got close enough for the French to grab him, and he returned in safety if not in triumph to his own lines. This incident,however, determined the brave little man to take a certain course; he got off his horse.
“I vill go on my legs,” he remarked cheerfully, “dey cannot run away with me!”
But the enemy’s cavalry, composed of theéliteof the French Army, were now advancing; the King drew his sword and placed himself at the head of his Grenadiers. Waving his sword, he cheered them on, the last King of England who led his soldiers into battle.
“Now boys,” he cried, “now for the honour of England; fire and behave bravely, and the French will soon run!”
All this was very fine, but the French didnotrun, at first; they came on in a wild charge and considerably shook our infantry, so much so, that it required all the energy of the King and his son—who, with the rank of Major-General, led the left wing—to get them steady again. The father and son certainly did not spare themselves on this day; even when the Duke was wounded in the leg he refused to leave the field. No wonder that poor Frederick at home was boiling with jealousy.
Maréchal Noailles from the other side of the river, where he was organizing a supporting movement, saw his nephew’s error, and hastened back to Dettingen; but he arrived too late.
King George, at the head of a brigade of infantry, had swept the French from their position and cleared the road to Hanau and the much neededfood and stores. The French loss in the retreat was frightfully heavy, and the French Maréchal very wisely drew off the remainder of his troops to the other side of the river, with a list of killed and wounded which totalled up to six thousand men.
Thus ended the Battle of Dettingen, concerning King George’s part in which, Justin McCarthy in his “Four Georges,” makes the following comment:—
“George behaved with a great courage and spirit. If the poor, stupid, puffy, plucky little man did but know what a strange, picturesque, memorable figure he was as he stood up against the enemy at the Battle of Dettingen! The last King of England who ever appeared with his army in the battlefield. There, as he gets down off his unruly horse, determined to trust to his own stout legs—because as he says, they will not run away—there is the last successor of the Williams, and the Edwards, and the Henrys; the last successor of the Conqueror, and Edward the First, and the Black Prince, and Henry the Fourth, and Henry of Agincourt, and William of Nassau; the last English King who faces a foe in battle.”
FOOTNOTES:[66]Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, September, 1702. To Sir H. Mann, July 19th, 1743.
[66]Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, September, 1702. To Sir H. Mann, July 19th, 1743.
[66]Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, September, 1702. To Sir H. Mann, July 19th, 1743.