Never in the whole course of her history had come to England such a year of triumph as 1759. Opening with the capture of Goree in January, its later months had brought one unbroken tale of success, of Madras saved and Masulipatam taken in India, of Quebec captured in Canada, of Minden won in Germany, of one French fleet worsted by Boscawen off the Portuguese coast, of another defeated by Hawke in the romantic action of Quiberon Bay. Such was the story with which King George the Second met his Parliament for the last time in his life; and Pitt did not fail to turn it to good account. A monument was voted to Wolfe in Westminster Abbey; thanks were given to Hawke, Saunders and Holmes of the Navy, and to Monckton, Murray and Townsend of the Army; and the military estimates were passed with little difficulty. It was ordered that Ferdinand's army should be augmented from Great Britain, Brunswick, and Hesse alike. The full number of national troops voted for the British Establishment exceeded one hundred thousand men; the embodied militia augmented this total by twenty thousand, and the German troops in the pay of England by fifty-five thousand more; while another twelve thousand men at home and abroad, which were borne on the Irish Establishment, raised it to close on one hundred and ninety thousand men. Before the campaign of 1760 was opened, the infantry of the British Line had increased to ninety-six regiments; England contributing one new corps, Wales one, Scotland five, and Ireland four, all of which were disbanded at the close of the war.[356] To these there were added later in the year six new regiments of Light Dragoons. The first was formed in August under Colonel John Burgoyne, which took rank as the Sixteenth Dragoons, and is now known to us as the Sixteenth Lancers; the second, created in October by Lord Aberdour, soon perished and left no mark behind it; and the third was raised under rather remarkable conditions by Colonel John Hale in November. Colonel Hale, originally of the Blues and later of the Forty-third Foot, was the officer who brought back the despatches reporting the victory of Quebec. Finding on his arrival in England in October that there was still some alarm of a French invasion, he volunteered to form a regiment of the footmen and chairmen of London and to lead them against the best household troops of France; an offer which so delighted Pitt that he reported it to the House of Commons. Finally, he engaged himself to raise a strong regiment of light dragoons without levy-money for men or horses, promising that any men or horses objected to on review by the inspecting officer should be replaced without expense to the country, and that the whole corps should be completed within two months. The offer was accepted, and the regiment was raised at the sole expense of the officers within the space, as it is said, of seventeen days. The number was not inappropriate; for though first known, during the few years while Aberdour's lasted, as the Eighteenth, this regiment, still conspicuous by the white facings and the badge of skull and crossbones which Hale selected for it, remains with us as the Seventeenth Lancers. The three remaining corps, which raised the number of regiments of dragoons to twenty-one, were too short-lived to merit more than mere mention.[357]
1760.
Feb.
The menace of French invasion was rather ludicrously realised in February by a descent of the French privateer, Thurot, with five ships upon Carrickfergus. Landing about a thousand troops, he received the surrender of the town after a skirmish with the garrison, plundered it, contrary to the terms of the capitulation, and re-embarked. His squadron, however, was almost immediately caught by three British men-of-war, when after a short action Thurot was killed and every one of his ships captured. This tragic termination to Thurot's escapade relieved the general tension, and restored the country's confidence.
So foolish a raid was not likely to produce any change in Pitt's preparations for the reinforcement of Ferdinand, who needed to be specially strengthened after the disasters that had befallen King Frederick at Kunersdorf and at Maxen. In January it was decided to send three more regiments of British cavalry to Germany; and a few weeks later the number was increased to five. In May a further reinforcement of six battalions and two regiments of Highlanders was promised, and in June two additional regiments of cavalry; making up a total of close on ten thousand men.[358] The troops were shipped to the Weser instead of, as heretofore, to Emden, and seem to have been despatched with commendable promptitude; for the six regiments of foot, though only warned for service on the 1st of May, were actually reviewed by Ferdinand in his camp at Fritzlar on the 17th of June, and were declared by him to be in a most satisfactory condition.[359]
May.
June 20.
June 22.
June 24.
July.
The campaign of 1759 having been prolonged so far into the winter, Ferdinand gave his army rest until late in May. At length on the 20th he called the infantry of the army of Hesse from its cantonments, and posted the main body under his own command at Fritzlar, with one corps advanced to Hersfeld on the Fulda to protect his left, and a second under General Imhoff at Kirchhain, on the Ohm. It was his intention that, in case of the enemy's advance, Imhoff should call in the detachment from Hersfeld to Homberg, a little to the south of Kirchhain on a bend of the Ohm, where there was a position, before long to be better known to us, in which he could bar the way to a far superior force. Simultaneously the army of Westphalia moved to its line of the previous year, from Coesfeld eastward to Hamm. In these positions the Allies remained for nearly a month before the French made the least sign of movement; when at last the army of the Lower Rhine under the Count of St. Germain assembled at Düsseldorf, and crossing the Rhine advanced to Dortmund. From this centre it was open to St. Germain to advance either northward against Münster or eastward against Lippstadt; but it was tolerably evident that his real design was to join the army of the Main, and to operate against the right flank of the Allied army of Hesse. At about the same time Broglie concentrated the army of the Main a little to the east of Giessen, and began his advance northward. The Hereditary Prince at once fell back from Hersfeld with his detachment towards the Ohm, while Ferdinand moved southward as far as Ziegenhain to join Imhoff, with every intention of making Broglie fight him before he advanced another mile. To his infinite disgust, however, he learned that Imhoff had abandoned the position entrusted to him, and had ordered the whole of the advanced corps back to Kirchhain. Thus the most effective barrier in Hesse was opened to the French; Ferdinand perforce halted; and Broglie pushed on without delay to Homberg, whence turning eastward he encamped in the face of Ferdinand's army at Neustadt. In this situation both armies remained for a whole fortnight inactive, though not two hours' march apart, neither daring to attack the other, and each waiting for the other to make the next movement.
July 8.
July 10.
Broglie brought the deadlock to an end. Sending orders to St. Germain to march from Dortmund on the 4th of July, and to meet him at Corbach, he marched on the night of the 7th north-westward upon Frankenberg. Ferdinand on learning of his movements next day marched also northward with all speed, pushing forward a strong advanced corps under the Hereditary Prince by way of Sachsenhausen upon Corbach, to bar the outlet of the defile through which Broglie's army must pass into the plain, and so to hinder his junction with St. Germain. The French, however, had gained too long a start. St. Germain, though he distressed his troops terribly by the speed of his march, succeeded in passing through the defile from the north; and Broglie, hastening up from the south, found his troops forming in order of battle just as the Hereditary Prince debouched into the plain from Sachsenhausen. As not more than ten thousand of the French were yet deployed, the Prince attacked; but was soon driven back by superior numbers as the rest of the French came up, and finally retired with the loss of five hundred men and fifteen guns, seven of which last were British. It fell to the British infantry with the Prince, the Fifth, Twenty-fourth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first regiments, to cover the retreat; but so hard were they pressed that the Prince only extricated them by putting himself at the head of two squadrons of the First and Third Dragoon Guards, and leading them to a desperate charge. Fortunately the squadrons responded superbly,[360] and so the rear-guard was saved; but the Prince had received an unpleasant reverse, and the French had secured their first object with signal success.
July 12.
The Allied army of Westphalia, under General von Spörcke, arrived on the scene in obedience to orders two days after the action, and was posted at Volksmarsen on the Diemel to protect Ferdinand's right; and then once more the two hosts remained motionless and face to face, the French at Corbach, the Allies at Sachsenhausen. Ferdinand's total force was sixty-six thousand men only, while that of the French numbered one hundred and thirty thousand;[361] yet such was the difference in the quality of the two armies that Broglie dared not act except with extreme caution. His principal object was to envelope Ferdinand's right and cut him off from Westphalia at the line of the Diemel; and Ferdinand accordingly resolved to distract Broglie's attention to the opposite flank.