THE FRENCH ABANDON HANOVER.
The two grand divisions of the French army, quartered at Zell and Hanover, retired in good order to Hamelen, where they collected all their troops, except those that were left in Hoya, and about four thousand men placed in garrison at Minden, to retard the operations of the combined army. Towards the latter end of February, prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, having received intelligence that the count de Chabot was posted with a considerable body of troops at Hoya, upon the Weser, detached the hereditary prince of Brunswick, with four battalions, and some light troops and dragoons, to dislodge them from that neighbourhood. This enterprise was executed with the utmost intrepidity. The hereditary prince passed the Weser at Bremen with part of his detachment, while the rest advanced on this side of the river: and the enemy, being attacked in front and rear, were in a little time forced, and thrown into confusion. The bridge being abandoned, and near seven hundred men taken prisoners, the count de Chabot threw himself, with two battalions, into the castle, where he resolved to support himself, in hope of being relieved. The regiment of Bretagne, and some detachments of dragoons, were actually on the march to his assistance. The hereditary prince being made acquainted with this circumstance, being also destitute of heavy artillery to besiege the place in form, and taking it for granted he should not be able to maintain the post after it might be taken, he listened to the terms of capitulation proposed by the French general, whose garrison was suffered to march out with the honours of war; but their cannon, stores, and ammunition were surrendered to the victor. This was the first exploit of the hereditary prince, whose valour and activity on many subsequent occasions shone with distinguished lustre. He had no sooner reduced Hoya, than he marched to the attack of Minden, which he invested on the fifth day of March, and on the fourteenth the garrison surrendered at discretion. After the reduction of this city, the combined army advanced towards Hamelen, where the French general had established his head-quarters; but he abandoned them at the approach of the allies, and leaving behind all his sick and wounded, with part of his magazines, retired without halting to Paderborn, and from thence to the Rhine, recalling in his march the troops that were in Embden, Cassel, and the land-graviate of Hesse, all which places were now evacuated. They were terribly harassed in their retreat by the Prussian hussars, and a body of light horse, distinguished by the name of Hanoverian hunters, who took a great number of prisoners, together with many baggage-waggons, and some artillery. Such was the precipitation of the enemy’s retreat, that they could not find time to destroy all their magazines of provision and forage; and even forgot to call in the garrison of Vecht, a small fortress in the neighbourhood of Diepholt, who were made prisoners of war, and here was found a complete train of battering cannon and mortars. The count de Clermont, having reached the banks of the Rhine, distributed his forces into quarters of cantonment in Wesel and the adjoining country, while prince Ferdinand cantoned the allied army in the bishopric of Munster; here, however, he did not long remain inactive. In the latter end of May he ordered a detachment to pass the Rhine at Duysbourg, under the command of colonel Scheither, who executed his order without loss, defeated three battalions of the enemy, and took five pieces of cannon. In the beginning of June the whole army passed the Rhine on a bridge constructed for the occasion, defeated a body of French cavalry, and obtained divers other advantages in their march towards Wesel. Keiserwaert was surprised, the greater part of the garrison either killed or taken; and prince Ferdinand began to make preparations for the siege of Dusseldorp. In the meantime, the count de Clermont, being unable to stop the rapidity of his progress, was obliged to secure his troops with strong intrenchments, until he should be properly reinforced.
PRINCE FERDINAND DEFEATS THE FRENCH, &c.
The court of Versailles, though equally mortified and confounded at the turn of their affairs in Germany, did not sit tamely and behold this reverse; but exerted their usual spirit and expedition in retrieving the losses they had sustained. They assembled a body of troops at Hanau, under the direction of the prince de Soubise, who, it was said, had received orders to penetrate, by the way of Donawert, Ingoldstadt, and Arnberg, into Bohemia. In the meantime, reinforcements daily arrived in the camp of the count de Clermont; and, as repeated complaints had been made of the want of discipline and subordination in that army, measures were taken for reforming the troops by severity and example. The mareschal duke de Belleisle, who now acted as secretary at war with uncommon ability, wrote a letter, directed to all the colonels of infantry, threatening them, in the king’s name, with the loss of their regiments, should they connive any longer at the scandalous practice of buying commissions; an abuse which had crept into the service under various pretexts, to the discouragement of merit, the relaxation of discipline, and the total extinction of laudable emulation. The prince of Clermont having quitted his strong camp at Rhinefeldt, retired to Nuys, a little higher up the river, and detached a considerable corps, under the command of the count de St. Germain, to take post at Creveldt, situated in a plain between his army and the camp of the allies, which fronted the town of Meurs. After several motions on both sides, prince Ferdinand resolved to attack the enemy, and forthwith made a disposition for this purpose. He assigned the command of the whole left wing, consisting of eighteen battalions and twenty-eight squadrons, to lieutenant-general Sporcken; the conduct of the right wing, composed of sixteen battalions and fourteen squadrons, was intrusted to the hereditary prince and major-general Wangenheim; the squadrons, with the addition of two regiments of Prussian dragoons, were under the immediate direction of the prince of Holstein, while the hereditary prince commanded the infantry. The light troops, consisting of five squadrons of hussars, were divided between the prince of Holstein and lieutenant-general Sporcken. Major Luckner’s squadron, together with Scheither’s corps, were ordered to observe the flank of the enemy’s right, and with this view were posted in the village of Papendeick; and a battalion of the troops of Wolfenbuttel were left in the town of Hulste, to cover the rear of the army. Prince Ferdinand’s design was to attack the enemy on their left flank; but the execution was rendered extremely difficult by the woods and ditches that embarrassed the route, and the numerous ditches that intersected this part of the country. On the twenty-third day of June, at four in the morning, the army began to move; the right advancing in two columns as far as St. Anthony, and the left marching up within half a league of Crevelt. The prince having viewed the position of the enemy from the steeple of St. Anthony, procured guides, and having received all the necessary hints of information, proceeded to the right, in order to charge the enemy’s left flank by the villages of Worst and Anrath; but, in order to divide their attention, and keep them in suspense with respect to the nature of his principal attack, he directed the generals Sporcken and Oberg to advance against them by the way of Crevelt and St. Anthony, and, in particular, to make the most of their artillery, that, being employed in three different places at once, they might be prevented from sending any reinforcement to the left, where the chief attack was intended. These precautions being taken, prince Ferdinand, putting himself at the head of the grenadiers of the right wing, continued his march in two columns to the village of Anrath, where he fell in with an advanced party of the French, which, after a few discharges of musketry, retired to their camp and gave the alarm. In the meantime, both armies were drawn up in order of battle; the troops of the allies in the plain between the villages of Anrath and Willich, opposite to the French forces, whose left was covered with a wood. The action began about one in the afternoon, with a severe cannonading on the part of prince Ferdinand, which, though well supported, proved ineffectual in drawing the enemy from their cover; he therefore determined to dislodge them from the wood by dint of small arms. The hereditary prince immediately advanced with the whole front, and a very obstinate action ensued. Meanwhile, the cavalry on the right in vain attempted to penetrate the wood on the other side, where the enemy had raised two batteries, which were sustained by forty squadrons of horse. After a terrible fire had been maintained on both sides till five in the afternoon, the grenadiers forced the intrenchments in the wood, which were lined by the French infantry. These giving way, abandoned the wood in the utmost disorder; but the pursuit was checked by the conduct and resolution of the enemy’s cavalry, which, notwithstanding a dreadful fire from the artillery of the allies, maintained their ground, and covered the foot in their retreat to Nuys. The success of the day was in a good measure owing to the artillery on the left and in the centre, with which the generals Sporcken and Oberg had done great execution, and employed the attention of the enemy on that side, while prince Ferdinand prosecuted his attack on the other quarter. It must be owned, however, that their right wing and centre retired in great order to Nuys, though the left was defeated, with the loss of some standards, colours, and pieces of cannon, and six thousand men killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.*
* Among the French officers who lost their lives in this engagement, was the count de Gisors, only son of the mareschal duke de Belleisle, and last hope of that illustrious family, a young nobleman of extraordinary accomplishments, who finished a short life of honour in the embrace of military glory, and fell gallantly fighting at the head of his own regiment, to the inexpressible grief of his aged father, and the universal regret of his country.
This victory, however, which cost the allies about fifteen hundred men, was not at all decisive in its consequences; and, indeed, the plan seemed only calculated to display the enterprising genius of the Hanoverian general. True it is, the French army took refuge under the cannon of Cologn, where they remained without hazarding any step for the relief of Dusseldorp, which prince Ferdinand immediately invested, and in a few days reduced, the garrison being allowed to march out with the honours of war, on condition that they should not, for the space of one year, carry arms against the allies.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760