To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your country rears this sacred monument.”
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION—SEVEN YEARS’ WAR—AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE—FRENCH REVOLUTION—CRIMEA—ANTICIPATED RUPTURE WITH THE UNITED STATES—1742–1862.
The family feuds which at this time divided the House of Austria once more kindled the flames of continental war. In support of the Austrians, George II. sent a British army into the Netherlands. Assuming himself the command of the allies, he prepared to combat, on this ancient battlefield, the confederacy of France, Prussia, and Bavaria. With the army, the present Scots Fusilier Guards landed in Holland in 1742, under the Earl of Dunmore. They were present at the battle of Dettingen in 1743, where the French were signally defeated. In the following year Marshal Wade assumed the command of the allies. Nothing of importance was undertaken until 1745, when the Duke of Cumberland was appointed to the command;—the Guards were at this period brigaded with the Forty-second Royal Highlanders, (then making their first campaign as the Forty-third Regiment, or “Black Watch,” which latter title has recently been confirmed to them.) At the battle of Fontenoy, fought for the relief of Tournay, this brigade was charged with the attack upon the village of Veson. Here the French, strongly entrenched, made a gallant defence, but were forced to yield to the fierce onset of such a chosen body of troops. The ill success of the Dutch auxiliaries in other parts of the field, and the last and desperate charge of Marshal Saxe at the head of the French Guards, with the Irish and Scottish brigades in the French service, led on by the young Chevalier, speedily changed the fortunes of the day, compelled the allies to retreat, and our brave Guards reluctantly to relinquish the important post their valour had won.
Meantime, Prince Charles Edward having landed in Scotland, set up the standard of rebellion, and summoned the tumultuous and fierce array of the clans to do battle for his pretensions to the throne. The war on the Continent having occasioned the withdrawal of a large body of the regular army, the rebels succeeded in driving before them the few troops which had been left at home. Their progress southward into England promised the speedy downfall of the House of Brunswick, and the restoration of that of Stuart. The timely return of the major part of the army, including the Scots Fusilier Guards, from Holland, at this juncture, arrested the advance of the rebels upon London, and occasioned their precipitate retreat into Scotland. A strong force of the king’s troops, including a portion of the Guards, advanced in pursuit of the prince, whilst the remainder, grouped in positions in and around London, prepared to defend the country from the threatened descent of the French. The bloody defeat of Culloden, as it utterly ruined the rebel army, so it terminated the war, by the dispersion or submission of the clans and the flight of the prince.
Culloden’s moor! a darker scene
Of civil strife thy sons have seen,
When for an exiled Prince ye bled,
Now mourn alas! your “mighty dead,”
The brave o’ bonnie Scotland.