But now the First and Seventh Dragoons, which had been summoned from the right, came galloping up and fell in gallantly enough upon the French Household Cavalry. These were, however, repulsed, partly, it should seem, because they attacked with more impetuosity than order, partly because the French were armed with helmets and breastplates heavy enough to turn a pistol shot. The Blues followed close after them, but sacrificing order to speed were, like their comrades, driven back in confusion; and the French Gendarmes, flushed with success, bore down for the second time upon the Twenty-first and Twenty-third and succeeded in breaking into them. But the two battalions were broken only for a moment. Quickly recovering themselves they faced inwards, and closing in upon the French in their midst shot them down by scores. The Fourth and Sixth British Dragoons, together with two regiments of Austrian dragoons, now came up and renewed the combat against the French Household Cavalry, but it was not until after they had been twice repulsed that at last they succeeded, with the help of their rallied comrades, in forcing back the intrepid squadrons of the French horse.
Meanwhile the battle elsewhere had flagged. A feeble attack of the French against the right of the Allies had been easily repelled, and in the centre the second line of the French infantry had cared little more than the first to face the terrible English fire. But while the Gendarmerie were still pressing the British hard on the left, the French Black Musketeers suddenly broke away from their place by their side, and wheeling to their left galloped madly between the fire of friendly and hostile infantry to make a dash upon the British Royal Dragoons at the extreme right of the Allied line. The Austrian Marshal Neipperg no sooner saw them than he exclaimed: "Now is the time. The British horse will attack in front, and our horse in flank, and the thing is done." British and Austrians at once closed in upon the Black Musketeers, cut them to pieces, and then bore down upon the flank of the French infantry. The French foot, which had behaved very unworthily of itself all day, now took to its heels and fled in confusion towards the Main. The British horse on the left, one regiment in particular burning to wipe out the humiliation of its first failure, pressed the French Household Cavalry harder than ever in front, and the Scots Greys plunging in upon their flank threw them into utter rout. The whole French army now made headlong for the fords and bridges of the Main, the infantry in their panic plunging madly into the stream and perishing by scores if not by hundreds in the water. Now was the moment for a vigorous pursuit, and had Stair been left to work his own will the French would have suffered very heavily; but the King was too thankful to have escaped from Noailles's mousetrap to think of turning his good fortune to account. The Marshal was allowed to retreat in peace, and thus, after four hours of sharp work, ended the battle of Dettingen.
Seldom has a commander found more fortunate issue from a series of blunders than King George. Had Grammont obeyed his orders it is difficult to see how a man of the Allied Army could have escaped; but even allowing for Grammont's ill-timed impatience it is strange that Noailles should have allowed the day to go as it went. It is true that he had sent the best of his troops across the Main with Grammont, but he had still from twenty to thirty thousand men on his own side of the river whom he left standing idle, without an attempt to employ them. He seems, in fact, to have been paralysed with dismay over the wreck of his very skilful combinations. The action itself deserves the name of a combat rather than a battle, for on neither side was more than half of the force really engaged; yet Dettingen was decidedly a victory, for the French were badly beaten and lost little, if any, less than five thousand men, killed, wounded, and prisoners. The loss of the Allies was about half of that number, of which the British share was two hundred and sixty-five killed and five hundred and sixty-one wounded, the most valuable life taken being that of General Clayton. As the brunt of the action fell wholly on the first line, the greatest sufferers among the infantry were the regiments chiefly exposed to the flanking fire of the French batteries. These were the Thirty-third, Twenty-first, Twenty-third, and Twelfth of the Line, but in not one of them did the casualties exceed one hundred men, or about an eighth of their strength. The cavalry suffered far more heavily in comparison, though here again the losses of the heroes of the day, the Third Dragoons, were more than twice as great as those of any other regiment: one hundred and fifty men and as many horses forming a terrible proportion of casualties in two squadrons. The most noticeable points in the engagement were the disgraceful behaviour of the French infantry, by no one more severely censured than by Noailles himself, and the deadly accuracy of the British fire. A smaller but curious fact is that both the King and the Duke of Cumberland were run away with by their horses, the former, as has been told, to the rear, the latter to the front, and indeed into the midst of the French infantry, from which, however, he emerged with no greater hurt than a bullet in the leg. At the close of the day the King was so much elated by his success as to revive the creation of knights banneret in the field, a proceeding which ceases to seem ridiculous when we learn that Lord Stair was the first and Dragoon Thomas Brown the last of the new knights. Such a scene was never to be seen again, for Dettingen was the last action in which a king of England actually commanded his army in person.
December.
1744.
March 21 April 1.
The ceremony of knighthood completed, the King left his wounded on the ground to the care of Noailles, and hastened away as quickly as possible with the army to his magazine at Hanau. The battle virtually closed the campaign, so far as the British were concerned, and King George returned home with his laurels fresh upon him, to be hailed with acclamation as a victor, and hear his praises sung in endless stanzas of most execrable verse. A few months later Lord Stair also returned home, without recrimination and without complaint, but with resolute and scornful determination to resign the command, since he was not trusted with the conduct of operations. General Wade was appointed field-marshal, to command in his stead. Finally, some weeks later the ridiculous fiction, that the principal combatants were acting only as auxiliaries to rival claimants to the Empire, was abandoned, and open war was declared against France. Had this straightforward course been adopted two years before, Stair would probably have turned the date of the declaration of war into that of the conclusion of an honourable peace. As matters stood the war was prolonged, and the time of its avowed inception was chosen as the moment for discarding the ablest of living British Generals.
Authorities.—The best accounts of the battle of Dettingen will be found in a collection of letters entitled British Glory Revived, in the British Museum, and in a great number of letters printed in the Gentleman's Magazine. There are accounts also in the Life of the Duke of Cumberland, and in the anonymous Memorial of the E[arl] of S[tair]. The best known of the French accounts is that of Voltaire in Siècle de Louis Quinze, which should be read with Noailles's report to the King in Correspondance de Louis XV. et du Maréchal Noailles. The exploits of Thomas Brown are to be found in the newspapers, and in Cannon's History of the Third Dragoons. The best plan of the battle that I have seen is in the Memorial of the E. of S. As a specimen of the doggerel effusions, I transcribe one stanza from a broadsheet in the British Museum:—
Our noble generals played their parts,
Our soldiers fought like thunder,
Prince William too, that valiant heart
In fight performed wonders.