Having waited on the King of Sardinia, and settled their plan of future operations, he waited at Nice only until Captain Forbes brought over the Austrian artillery, &c., from Genoa, and until the forces collected for him by the Sardinians were reinforced by the troops from Piedmont, Milan, Genoa, and those which had been blocking up Tortona; and while they were collecting, at the head of a small force he reduced, by assault, Mont Albano, in the county of Nice.
In triumph, and in defiance of the French troops under the Marshal Duke de Belleisle, he passed the Var on the 9th of November, with a fine army, consisting of forty-five squadrons of horse, and sixty-three battalions of foot—in all, 50,000 men. Among these were twenty regiments of the Piedmontese. The wild Croats on their swift grey horses, and the dashing Hungarian Hussars, clad in their brown uniforms, formed his vanguard; and fell with such fury upon the French with their long lances and sharp sabres, that they swept all before them; while the British sailors, under Vice-Admiral Medley, drove the enemy from Fort Laurette, and thereby secured his left flank. Thus safely and victoriously he passed the Var, and entered Provence, the ancient patrimony of the House of Anjou.
With the assistance of a British bomb-ketch, he reduced and took 500 soldiers in the little isles of Saint Marguerite and Saint Honorat, on the south-east coast of France, opposite to Antibes, which he invested by land, while Admiral Medley cannonaded it by sea. Leaving Baron Roth with twenty-four battalions to press the siege against the Chevalier de Sade, he made himself master of Draguignan, with the loss of 2000 men, laid all the open country under contribution, and threw forward his outposts as far as the river Argens. During these arduous operations he was seized by a fever, which confined him to a camp-bed, but he soon relinquished it for his saddle.
The batteries opened against Antibes on the 20th of September. It was cannonaded for thirty-six days, and all its houses were demolished; but on collecting a numerous army, the Marshals De Belleisle and De Boufflers advanced to its relief, while other forces, amounting to sixty battalions, were hastening forward from Flanders. Meanwhile the Genoese, driven to despair by the extortions and severity of the Marquis de Botta, resolved to break their Austrian fetters or die in the attempt. The circumstance of a German officer striking an Italian who refused to drag a mortar to which he was harnessed, kindled a flame; and all the Genoese rushed to arms, and forced the arsenals. The city barriers were stormed, the Austrians driven out, and two regiments, who defended the gate of Santo Thomaso, were cut to pieces. All these circumstances combined, obliged Count Brown to raise the siege of Antibes, abandon the projected expedition against Toulon, and repass the Var. This was executed on the 23rd January, 1747, but not without considerable loss, for his rear-guard was furiously attacked. Ordering a column of horse and foot into Lombardy to join Count Schulemberg, he lined the southern bank of the Var with his main body, and kept the French under the great Belleisle completely in check, till the King of Sardinia secured all the mountain defiles, to prevent them from penetrating into Piedmont.
Brown still continued that masterly retreat which excited the admiration of all military men, and even of his enemy, the brave Belleisle, who followed him across the Var on the 25th May, and retook Mont Albano, Villa Franca, and Ventimiglia, from his garrisons, driving back forty-six Piedmontese battalions with terrible slaughter at the pass of Exilles, where the Chevalier de Belleisle (brother of the marshal), Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, fell, pierced with three wounds. Meanwhile Brown, with a force diminished to 28,000, continued his retreat towards Finale and Savona. The despatch, which was sent to him by Major-General Colloredo, detailing the affair at Exilles, was published in the London Gazette. In Lombardy he ordered two intrenched camps to be formed; one to hold 14,000 men, to guard the banks of the Tanaro; the other to hold 11,000, and guard the Po, near Pavia; but fatigue and want of food soon compelled all to seek quarters for the winter. The King of Sardinia marched to Turin; Brown established his head-quarters at Milan, after winning the praise of all Europe by his skilful operations in Provence. While here, by the severity of his remonstrance, he forced Marshal Schulemberg to abandon his important enterprise against Bisignano, and draw off his division to assist the King of Sardinia in covering Piedmont and Lombardy.
The remainder of that year he occupied by innumerable skirmishes and movements in defending the Italian States of Maria Theresa; among these (after the great review at Coni) was the march upon the Dermont, the assault by the French upon Maison Meau, the attack upon forty-three French battalions who were intrenched near Villa Franca, and other affairs, until the peace so happily signed in 1748, when he was sent by his mistress to Nice, where, in conjunction with the Duke de Belleisle and the Marquis de la Minas, he skilfully adjusted certain difficulties which had arisen in fulfilling the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In reward for his many great and gallant services, the Empress-Queen now made him Governor of Transylvania where he won the love and admiration of the people by his justice, affability, and honourable bearing.
In 1752 he was made governor of the city of Prague, and commander-in chief of all the troops in the kingdom of Bohemia; and in the following year the King of Poland, as Elector of Saxony, honoured him with the Order of the White Eagle, the collar of which is a gold chain (to which a silver eagle is attached), and first worn by Udislaus V. on his marriage with a daughter of the Duke of Lithuania. In 1754 he was raised to the rank of Marshal of the Empire.
After five years of peace the clouds of war again began to gather on the Prussian frontier, and Marshal Brown was summoned for the last time to the field. A quarrel having ensued between the courts of Berlin and Vienna, the warlike King of Prussia became alarmed by the hostile preparations that were made along the Livonian frontier, and resolving to anticipate the designs of his enemies, in 1756 invaded Saxony, and made himself master of Dresden. On the first tidings of this invasion, Marshal Brown put himself at the head of the army of Prague, and marched to relieve the Saxons; but this movement was anticipated by Frederick, who left 40,000 men to continue the blockade of Pirna on the left bank of the Elbe (where Augustus III. of Poland was shut up), and penetrated into Bohemia at the head of 24,000 soldiers.
Brown encamped at Kolin, while his compatriot, Prince Piccolomini, was posted at Konigingratz. From Kolin he marched on the 23rd of September to the fine old city of Budyn, which was surrounded by walls, and contains the ancient fortress of Hassenberg. Here he endeavoured to concert measures with the Saxons for securing their freedom; but Frederick, on being joined by another column of his army, under the great Scottish Marshal Keith, marched to encounter him.
Passing the Egra, Count Brown encamped at Lowositz, on the Elbe, and near the Saxon frontier, and there the King of Prussia came in sight of his army, in position, at daybreak on the 1st of October, with 65 squadrons, 26 battalions, 102 pieces of cannon, which formed in order of battle as they advanced, in that steady manner for which the Prussians had now become so famous. The infantry were formed in two lines, and the cavalry in three in their rear. Frederick's right wing occupied a village at the foot of the Radostitz, a wooded mountain; and on the Homolkaberg, in front of it, he had placed a battery of heavy guns; his left wing rested on the Loboschberg; and his centre occupied the fertile valley between.