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 George and 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 in at 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.