A History of the British Army, Vol. 2 / First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

Sept. 21.

The French were not slow to take advantage of the opening thus afforded to them. On the night of the 20th they invested the castle of the Amöneberg so closely that not a man of the garrison could pass through their lines, and, driving the thirteen men from the mill, occupied the court as well as the old redoubt with light troops. This done they waited till morning, and at six o'clock, under cover of a dense mist, opened a heavy fire on the bridge and on the unfinished redoubt beyond it. The men in that redoubt, two hundred Hanoverians, resisted stoutly, in order to gain time for their supports to come up and for their artillery on the Galgenberg to answer the French batteries. The corps in occupation of the ground immediately before the Brückemühle (for so the mill was named) was Zastrow's of seven battalions, seven squadrons and six guns; while Wangenheim's corps of about the same strength lay on his left, and Granby's[400] on the heights of Kirchhain to his right. Ferdinand on hearing the sound of the firing hastened to the scene of action and found the redoubt still safe, the two hundred Hanoverians having held it stubbornly for two hours until relieved by Zastrow. But meanwhile the French brought forward more guns behind the veil of the mist; and presently thirty pieces of cannon were playing furiously upon the redoubt, while the infantry under cover of the fire renewed their attack on the bridge. Zastrow continued to feed the redoubt with fresh troops, and so held his ground; but the full significance of the attack was not realised until at ten o'clock the mist rolled away, when it was seen by the French dispositions that the enemy was bent upon carrying the bridge at any cost. Then at last Ferdinand ordered up Granby's corps from Kirchhain to Zastrow's assistance.

Sept. 22.

Meanwhile the fight waxed hotter. The superiority of the French in artillery made itself felt; nine out of twelve of Zastrow's guns were dismounted by noon, and the rest were silent for want of ammunition. At length at four o'clock the British Guards and the Highlanders arrived; and twelve German field-pieces attached to Granby's corps came also into action. The French likewise brought up reinforcements and the combat became livelier than ever. So far the reliefs for the garrison in the redoubt had marched down in regular order, but the fire of the French artillery was now so terrible that the men were ordered to creep down singly and dispersed, as best they could. British Guards replaced Hanoverians, and Hessians replaced British Guards; regiment after regiment taking its turn to send men to certain destruction. So the fight wore on till the dusk lowered down and the flashes of the guns turned from yellow to orange and from orange to red. The Hessians piled up the corpses of the dead into a rampart and fired on, for the redoubt though untenable must be held at any cost. At seven o'clock the French by a desperate effort carried the passage of the bridge and fought their way close up to the redoubt, but they were met by the same dogged resistance and repulsed; and at eight o'clock, after fourteen hours of severe fighting, they abandoned the attack. Zastrow's and Granby's corps bivouacked about the bridge, and Ferdinand took up his quarters in the mill; but on the next day, none the less, the French after several unsuccessful assaults forced the garrison of Amöneberg to an honourable capitulation.

November.

The loss of the Allies in this action was about seven hundred and fifty killed and wounded, more than a third of whom were British; the Scots Guards suffering more heavily than any corps of the troops engaged. The loss of the French rose to twelve hundred men, and the failure of their attack decided the fate of Hesse. Ferdinand, who on his advance southward had left behind a force to blockade Cassel, was able within three weeks to spare troops enough for a regular siege. On the 16th of October the trenches were opened, and on the 1st of November the town surrendered. A few days later came the news that preliminaries of a treaty had been signed. For despite all the successes of the year nothing could deter Bute from his resolution to make peace; and, indeed, knowledge of this fact had latterly made English commanders negligent and British troops backward in the field.[401] So with the fall of Cassel the war came to an end.

The terms, including as they did the cession by the French of India, except Pondicherry and Chandernagore, of French America, Canada, Tobago, Dominica and St. Vincent, might not seem unfavourable to England. But it was reasonably thought at the time that Goree and Martinique should have been added, though Bute was in such haste to bring the war to an end that it was only as an afterthought that he exacted the cession of Florida by Spain in exchange for Havanna. But the true blot on the treaty was the desertion of Frederick the Great and the conclusion of a separate peace, an exhibition of selfishness and folly which recalled the Peace of Utrecht. Nevertheless Frederick was able to insist on the conditions from which he had from the first resolved not to recede, namely the retention of all that he had taken from Austria in Silesia. In February 1763 the peace was finally concluded, and Frederick entered Berlin with Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had through five campaigns guarded his right flank, appropriately seated at his right side.

The story of the war in Germany should not be closed without some few words as to Ferdinand, who, little though we know of him, was the greatest commander that led British troops to victory in Europe between Marlborough and Wellington. It was no small feat to have fought through five campaigns successfully, always with one army against two, and with at most four men against five. It is true that the conception of his most skilful movements may often be traced to Westphalen, the chief of his staff; but it is not every commander who knows when to take advice and how to act on it, or is so sure of the confidence of his troops that he can trust them always to make the best of it. Moreover, he was confronted, though in a smaller degree, with many of the difficulties that afflicted Marlborough. His army was not an army of Allies, though generally so styled, but a mercenary army of German troops in the pay of England. So far he had the advantage of the great Duke; but his force was compounded of several different elements, British, Hanoverians, Hessians, Brunswickers and Bückeburgers, who were divided by not a little jealousy as to their respective precedence, privileges, and superiority. Of all of these the British gave him the most trouble. Their insular contempt for all foreigners was heightened by the knowledge that their comrades were mercenaries paid by their own nation; and they claimed the best quarters, the post of danger and the post of honour on all occasions. In one respect perhaps they did show superiority to the rest of the army, namely when actually on the field of battle; for beyond all doubt theirs is the chief credit for the success at Minden, at Warburg, at Emsdorff, at Wilhelmsthal, and in a lesser degree at Vellinghausen. In every action indeed they did well, and at Minden and Emsdorff they accomplished what probably no other troops in the army would have attempted. But there were scores of minor actions fought during these campaigns by German troops only, which could be matched against any other of their achievements; and there were grave defects which marred not a little the general efficiency of the British. In the first place there was a large number of British officers of all ranks from the general to the ensign who, though brave enough, knew nothing of their duty. In the second, as Turenne had noticed a century earlier in Flanders, they were extremely negligent in the matter of outposts, patrols, and guards, owing partly to inexperience, partly to their more luxurious life at home, and partly to the contempt of danger and the spirit of gambling which is so strong in the race. Frequently Ferdinand, though quite alive to the valour of British troops in action, dared not trust them as advanced parties; whereupon the red-coats themselves, quite confident of their own sufficiency, grumbled because the foremost place was not given to them. Such jealousies as these gave endless trouble; and the disposition of the various corps, particularly of Granby's division of the Guards and Blues, required careful study as a matter not of military exigency but of policy and tact, lest the various nationalities in the army should fall at variance and take to fighting among themselves. Lastly, the British soldiers, taken as a whole, were men of inferior character to the Germans and of less experience in war; and by loose behaviour in quarters and on the march they set a bad example, which came ill from the men that looked down on all the rest of the army.

Such were the troubles which hampered Ferdinand and his staff at every turn; yet under his guidance the machine worked always with the least possible friction and the greatest development of power. He was in fact not only a great soldier but a great governor and leader of men. He combined patience, tact, and self-control with a genial and hearty courtesy, he had the faculty of selecting good men for his instruments, and above all he worked without fear or favour in noble singleness of purpose for the common cause. Of his merits as a General his campaigns speak sufficiently; and it is only necessary to add that their history was thought worthy of official study and compilation fifty years ago by the Prussian General Staff. British troops may feel proud to have so served under so able a soldier and so great and gallant a man in the campaigns which they fought in Germany for the conquest of their own empire.