Aug. 26.
Yet another expedition brought the British face to face with their new enemy on more familiar ground than Luzon. The Spaniards, on the pretext of Portuguese friendship with England, in April invaded Portugal, overran the country as far as the Douro from the north, and threw another force against Almeida from the east. The injured kingdom appealed to England for help; and in May orders were sent to Belleisle for the despatch of four regiments of infantry,[394] together with the detachment of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons, to Portugal. Two more regiments were added from Ireland,[395] bringing the total up to about seven thousand men; and simultaneously a number of British officers were sent to take up commands in the Portuguese army. Unfortunately there was some trouble over the selection of a commander; and though the two regiments from Ireland were actually in the Tagus by the first week in May, it was not until June that the rest of the troops arrived, with the Count of Lippe-Bückeburg, the famous artillerist, as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces, and Lord Loudoun in command of the British. The operations that followed were so trifling and of so short duration that they are unworthy of detailed mention. The Spaniards captured Almeida early in August; and Bückeburg was obliged to stand on the defensive and cover Lisbon at the line of the Tagus. Two brilliant little affairs, however, served to lift an officer, who so far was little known, into a prominence which was one day to be disastrous to himself and to England. This was Brigadier-General John Burgoyne, Colonel of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons, who with four hundred troopers of his regiment surprised the town of Valencia de Alcantara after a forced march of forty-five miles, annihilated a regiment of Spanish infantry and captured several prisoners. Not content with this, he a month later surprised the camp of another party of Spaniards at Villa Velha, on the south bank of the Tagus, dispersed it with considerable loss and captured six guns, at a cost of but one man killed and ten wounded. Such affairs, which in Ferdinand's army were so common as seldom to be noticed, made Burgoyne and the Sixteenth[396] the heroes of this short campaign; but though the regiment has lived the rest of its life according to this beginning, Burgoyne's career will end for us twenty years hence at Saratoga.
From these scattered enterprises against Spain I return to Ferdinand's last campaign against the old enemy in Germany. We left the contending parties in their winter-quarters, the French army of the Rhine cantoned along the river from Cleve to Cologne; the army of the Main extending from Altenkirchen, a little to north of Treves, north-eastward to Cassel and from Cassel south-eastward to Langensalza; and the Allies, facing almost due south, stretched from Münster to Halberstadt. The whole situation was, however, changed in various respects. The French had resolved to throw their principal strength into the army of the Main, which was accordingly raised to eighty thousand men under the command of Soubise and Marshal d'Estrées; Broglie having been recalled to France. The army of the Rhine was reduced proportionately to thirty thousand men under the Prince of Condé. The total numbers of the French, though less than in previous years, still remained far superior to Ferdinand's; but, on the other hand, owing to the change of ministry in England and the reopening of negotiations by Bute, the Court of Versailles was content to hold the ground already gained without attempt at further conquest. Soubise and d'Estrées were therefore instructed to cling fast to Cassel and Göttingen, to spare the district between the Rhine and the Lahn with a view to winter-quarters, and to destroy the forage between the Eder and the Diemel so as to prevent Ferdinand from manœuvring on their flanks and rear.
Ferdinand on his side, though still outmatched by the armies opposed to him, was relatively stronger in numbers than in any previous year, having a nominal total of ninety-five thousand men ready for the field. Winter-quarters were little disturbed during the early months of 1762, the country having been so much devastated that neither side could move, from lack of forage, until the green corn was already grown high. Towards the end of May both armies began to concentrate; and Ferdinand, though much delayed by the negligence of the British Ministry in recruiting the British regiments to their right strength, determined to be first in the field.
June 18.
June 22.
Having detached a strong corps under the Hereditary Prince to watch the movements of Condé, he concentrated at Brakel, a little to the east of Paderborn, and advanced to the Diemel, where he posted the main army about Corbeke, with Granby's corps to westward of it at Warburg. Hearing at the same time that the French had left a corps under Prince Xavier on the east of the Weser to invade Hanover, he detached General Lückner with a small force across the river to keep an eye on him, sending also parties to seize the Castle of Zappaburg, some few miles to south-east, to secure communications with Lückner, and to occupy the passes leading from the south of the Diemel into Hesse. Meanwhile, on the 22nd of June, Soubise and d'Estrées moved northward from Cassel with the main body of the army as far as Gröbenstein, fixed their headquarters at Wilhelmsthal and halted. The design of this movement is unintelligible unless, as is conjectured by one writer,[397] they wished simply to amuse themselves at the castle of Wilhelmsthal; but in any case they neglected all necessary precautions. Their right flank rested on the large forest known as the Reinhardswald, and might have been rendered absolutely secure by the occupation of the Zappaburg, which commanded every road through that forest; yet they had suffered this important post to fall into Ferdinand's hands. Again, the occupation of the passes to the south of the Diemel would have secured their front; but here also they had allowed the Allies to be before them. None the less there they remained, careless of all consequences, at Wilhelmsthal; while to tempt an active enemy still farther, they stationed a corps under M. de Castries before their right front at Carlsdorff, in absolute isolation from their main body. Ferdinand saw his opportunity, and though he could bring but fifty thousand men against their seventy thousand, resolved to strike at once.
June 23.
On the 23rd he recalled Lückner from across the Weser to Gottesbühren, a little to the north of the Zappaburg; and on hearing of his safe arrival at eight o'clock of the same evening, ordered the whole army to be under arms at midnight. For Lückner's corps was but one of the toils which he was preparing to draw around the unsuspecting French; and the places for the rest had already been chosen. Spörcke, with twelve battalions of Hanoverians and several squadrons, was to advance from the left of the main body, turn a little to the eastward upon Humme after crossing the Diemel, and, marching from thence southward, was to fall upon the right flank and rear of Castries' corps at Hombrechsen. Lückner, with six battalions and seven squadrons, was to march south-west from Gottesbühren through the Zappaburg to Udenhausen, and form up to the left of Spörcke on Castries' right rear. Colonel Riedesel was to push forward from the Zappaburg with a body of irregulars to Hohenkirch, on the south and left of Lückner. Meanwhile Ferdinand was to advance with the main body in five columns between Liebenau and Sielen, upon the front of the French principal army, while Granby should move south upon Zierenberg and fall upon its left flank. Supposing that every corps fulfilled its duty exactly in respect of time and place, there was good hope that the entire force of the French might be destroyed.
June 24.
Riedesel and Lückner were punctually in their appointed places at seven o'clock on the morning of the 24th. Spörcke's two columns, on emerging from the Reinhardswald at five o'clock, found only two vedettes before them on the heights of Hombrechsen, and ascended those heights unopposed. Then, however, not seeing Castries' corps, which, as it chanced, was hidden from them by a wood, they turned to their left instead of to their right, and advanced unconsciously towards the front of the French main army. The startled vedettes galloped back to give the alarm; and Castries hurriedly calling his men to arms prepared to retreat. Pushing forward his cavalry right and left to screen his movements from Spörcke and from Riedesel, Castries quickly set his infantry in order for march; and having contrived to hold Spörcke at bay for an hour, began his retreat upon Wilhelmsthal and Cassel. Lückner came up as he had been bidden at Udenhausen, but meeting part of Spörcke's corps on its march in the wrong direction was fired upon by it; and in the confusion Castries was able to make his escape. Riedesel being weak in numbers could not stop him, though he fell furiously with his hussars upon the rear-guard and cut one regiment of French infantry to pieces; but except for this loss Castries retired with little damage. Thus, as so often happens, failed the most important detail of Ferdinand's elaborate combinations.