Meanwhile the French main army, startled out of its sleep by the sound of the guns about Hombrechsen, was in absolute confusion. Fortunately for the Marshals, the unlucky mistake as to Lückner's corps which had saved Castries, saved them also, since it checked Spörcke's advance against their right. Breaking up their camp with amazing rapidity, they formed upon the heights and hastened their baggage away towards Cassel. Lückner, awake to the miscarriage of the turning movement on the French right, now begged Kielmansegge, who commanded the left column of Spörcke's corps, to hasten with him to Hohenkirchen, from whence a cross way to westward would enable them to bar every road between Wilhelmsthal and Cassel. But Kielmansegge persisted in attacking the right flank of the French main body, despite the fact that it was covered by a brook running through a swampy valley; and before he could effect his passage over this obstacle, the opportunity for cutting off the French retreat was lost.
Meanwhile the troops under Ferdinand in the centre advanced against the French front, though very slowly. Spörcke's right column formed up on their left, but being out of its right place hampered the advance of the rest and caused lamentable delay. The French main army, having cleared its baggage out of the way, was falling back in several columns towards Wilhelmsthal, when the appearance of Granby on their left showed them the full extent of their peril. The flower of the French infantry was then collected under M. de Stainville and thrown out on the left to cover the retreat of the main body at any cost; and now the action began in earnest. Taking up a strong position in a wood Stainville prepared to do his utmost. Granby's infantry consisted of three battalions of British Guards, the British grenadiers in three battalions, and the Fifth and Eighth Foot,—some of the finest troops in the British Army—but the fight was long and stubborn. Stainville appears at first to have taken the offensive and to have fallen upon the head of Granby's columns before the whole of his troops had come up, but to have been gradually forced back as more and more of the British battalions advanced into action. French and English came to close quarters, guns were taken and retaken, and for a time two British cannon remained in the hands of the French. Granby, however, seems to have got the upper hand at last, to have surrounded the wood on two sides and to have made his dispositions for surrounding it on all sides, when Ferdinand's troops at last came up on Stainville's rear and put an end to the conflict. The gallant Frenchman's corps was nearly annihilated; fifteen hundred men were killed and wounded, nearly three thousand surrendered to the Fifth Foot alone,[398] and two battalions only made good their escape. The Allied army advanced a little to the south of Wilhelmsthal; and so the action came to an end.
The losses of the Allies were small, reaching but seven hundred men killed and wounded, of which four hundred and fifty belonged to Granby's corps. The result of the action was in fact a great disappointment, due partly to the mistakes of Spörcke and Kielmansegge, partly to the extreme slowness of Ferdinand's advance in the centre. The main body of the Allies indeed seems to have taken five hours to move from Gröbenstein to Wilhelmsthal, a distance of little more than four miles; and the fact would appear to indicate considerable clumsiness on the part of some officer or officers in the handling of their men. Still the fact remained that forty thousand men had attacked seventy thousand and driven them back in confusion; and the French were not a little shamefaced and discouraged over their defeat.
July 1.
July 24.
Aug. 30.
On the night of the action Soubise and d'Estrées fell back across the Fulda and took up a position between Cassel and Lutternberg. Ferdinand therefore ordered Granby's corps to a position near Cassel and sent forward a detachment to clear the enemy from the north bank of the Eder; whereupon the French evacuated Fritzlar and retiring across the Fulda took post upon its eastern bank. Both armies remained in this position until the 1st of July, Ferdinand trying always to force the French back, but obliged to act with caution, since Prince Xavier's Saxons had joined the French at Lutternberg and might at any time give trouble on the eastern side of the Weser. Finally on the 24th he boldly attacked the French right at Lutternberg and completely defeated it.[399] The French thereupon fell back to Melsungen on the Fulda, while Ferdinand took up a position opposite to them on the western bank of the river and threatened their communications with Frankfort. The Marshals then summoned Condé from the Rhine, but Ferdinand continued to press their communications so hard that at length they evacuated Göttingen and retreated by Hersfeld and Fulda to Vilbel, a little to the north of Frankfort; Ferdinand marching parallel with them on their western flank to the Nidda, in the hope, which was disappointed, of preventing their junction with Condé. So far he had done well, for he had for the present driven the French armies from Hesse.
Sept. 7.
Sept. 15.
Meanwhile Condé, obedient to orders, had marched towards Frankfort, joining Soubise a little to the south of Friedberg on the 30th of August. The Hereditary Prince, who had followed him closely all the way from the Rhine, attacked him on the same day, apparently in ignorance of the presence of Soubise's army, and was repulsed with considerable loss. For the next few days the two armies remained inactive, Ferdinand between the Nidder and Nidda with his headquarters at Staden, facing south-west, and the French opposite to him between Friedburg and Butzbach. Such a position, while forces were so unequal, could not continue long; and on the 7th of September the French moved northward by Giessen towards the Eder. Ferdinand, divining that their design was to cut him off from Cassel, which it was his own intention to besiege, at once hurried northward to stop them. It was a race between the two armies. The French travelled due north by Giessen and Marburg, crossing the Lahn above the latter town. Ferdinand made for Homberg on the north bank of the Ohm, and turning north-westward from thence marched on by Kirchhain and Wetter, where he overtook the French advanced guard. On the following day he offered battle; but Soubise declined, and, turning to the right about, repassed the Lahn and encamped along the line of the Ohm, with his left at Marburg and his right over against Homberg. Ferdinand thereupon took post in full sight of the enemy on the opposite bank of the river, with his left at Homberg and his right extended beyond Kirchhain. This was the position from which he had intended Imhoff to cover Hesse in 1760; and he had no intention now of allowing the French to break through it to Cassel, for he had made up his mind to recover Cassel for himself.
September.
The valley of the Ohm south-eastward from Kirchhain is about eleven hundred yards broad, rising gradually on the east bank of the river to a height called the Galgenberg, and on the western bank to a steep basaltic hill known as the Amöneberg. The Ohm itself between these hills is from twenty to thirty feet wide and from five to seven feet deep, flowing between steep banks. Just to the south of the Amöneberg was a stone bridge by which stood a water-mill, consisting of a massive court with a group of houses. The steep sides of the Amöneberg frown close to it on the northern hand; but to westward the ground rises in a gentle slope, through which a hollow road, covered by an old redoubt, ran down to the mill. The town and castle of the Amöneberg itself was surrounded with a wall and towers strong enough, on the south and south-western sides, to defy all but heavy artillery. The bridge with the mill and the castle beyond it were for some reason neglected by the Allies. There had been some attempt to secure the bridge itself, and a redoubt had been begun on Ferdinand's side of the river for its defence; but the breastwork was not above three feet high and as many feet thick, so that it could be commanded by an enemy's fire, and the more easily since the western or French bank of the river was the higher. The court of the mill was occupied by but thirteen men; the old redoubt appears not to have been occupied at all; and the garrison of the castle of Amöneberg consisted of a single battalion of irregulars only. Yet the Amöneberg was an advanced post over against the enemy's left wing and on the enemy's side of the river; and the possession of the bridge was of vital importance to the Allies, not only to ensure communication with that advanced post, but to bar the advance of the French across the Ohm and to secure to Ferdinand the means of taking the offensive. The carelessness which allowed these points to remain so slenderly guarded is therefore almost inexplicable.