While the Allies were thus painfully drawing their forces together, the activity of the French never ceased. The Prince of Conti was detached with a considerable June 30./July 11. force to the Haine, where he quickly reduced Mons and St. Ghislain, thus throwing down almost the last July 13/24. relics of the Austrian barrier in the south. Thence moving to the Sambre, Conti laid siege to Charleroi. It was now sufficiently clear that the plan of the French campaign was to operate on the line of the Meuse for the invasion of Holland. Maestricht once taken, the rest would be easy, for most of the Dutch army were prisoners in the hands of the French; and, with the possession of the line of the Meuse, communication between the Allied forces of England and of Austria would be cut off. But before Maestricht could be touched, Namur must first be captured; and the campaign of 1746 accordingly centred about Namur.
For the first fortnight of July the Allies remained at Terheyden, a little to the north of Breda, Saxe’s army lying some thirty miles south-westward of them about Antwerp. On the 17th of July the Allies at July 6/17. last got on the march, still with some faint hopes of saving Charleroi, and proceeded south-eastward, a movement which Saxe at once parried by marching parallel with them to the Dyle between Arschot and Louvain. Pushing forward, despite endless difficulties of transport and forage, through a wretched barren country, the Allies, now under command of Prince Charles of Lorraine, reached Peer, turned southward July 16/27. across the Denier at Hasselt, and by the 27th of July were at Borchloen. They were thus actually on the eastern side of the French main army, within reach of the Mehaigne and not without good hope of saving July 21./Aug. 1. Namur if not Charleroi. On the 1st of August they crossed the Mehaigne, only to learn to their bitter disappointment that Charleroi had surrendered that very morning. Saxe meanwhile, with the principal part of his army, still lay entrenched at Louvain, with detachments pushed forward to Tirlemont and Gembloux. The Allies continued their march before the eyes of these detachments to Masy on the Orneau, and there took up a position between that river and the head-waters of the Mehaigne, fronting to the north-east. This was the line approved through many generations of war as the best for the protection of Namur.[92]
Saxe now drew nearer to them, and the two armies lay opposite to each other, in many places not more than a musket-shot apart, both entrenched to the teeth. The Allies so far had decidedly gained a success, but they were outnumbered by the French by three to two, and they were confined within a narrow space wherein subsistence was extremely difficult; while, if they moved, Namur was lost. Ligonier, who was most uneasy over the situation, longed for five thousand cavalry with which to make a dash at Malines and so to call the enemy back in haste to defend Brussels and Antwerp.[93] Prince Charles, however, was averse from operations of such a nature. His hope was that Saxe would offer him battle on the historic plain of Ramillies, where, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, he trusted that the quality of his troops and the traditions of victory would enable him to prevail. But Saxe had no intention of doing anything of the kind. He did indeed shift his position farther to the north and east, with the field of Ramillies in his rear, but it was not to offer battle. Pushing out detachments to eastward he captured Aug. 18/29. Huy, and cutting off the Allies’ communications with Liège and Maestricht forced them to cross the Meuse and to fall back on Maestricht from the other side of the river. Cross the Meuse the Allies accordingly did, unmolested, to Ligonier’s great relief, by twenty thousand French who were stationed on the eastern bank of the stream. They then opened communication with Maestricht, five leagues away, while Saxe extended his army comfortably with its face to the eastward along the line of the Jaar from Warem to Tongres, Sept. 2/13. waiting till want of forage should compel the Allies to recross the Meuse. Back they came over the river within a fortnight, as he had expected, and the Marshal, without attempting to dispute the passage, retreated quietly for a few miles, knowing full well that his enemy could not follow him from lack of bread. Ligonier never in his life longed so intensely for the end of a campaign.[94]
Sept. 6/17.
On the 17th of September the Allies advanced upon the French and offered battle. Saxe answered by retiring to an impregnable position between Tongres and the Demer. There was no occasion for him to fight, when his enemies were short of provisions and their cavalry was going to ruin from want of forage. So there the two armies remained once more, within sight of each other but unwilling to fight, because an attack on the entrenchments of either host would have led to the certain destruction of the attacking force. But meanwhile the trenches had been opened Aug. 30./Sept. 10. before Namur by a French corps under the Prince of Clermont, and within nine days the town had fallen. Ligonier again urged his design, for which he had prepared the necessary magazines, to upset Saxe’s plans by a dash upon Antwerp, but he could find no support in the council of war; so there was nothing for the Allies to do but to wait until some further French success should compel them to move. Such a success was not long in coming. The castle of Namur surrendered after a miserable defence of but eleven days; Clermont’s corps was released for operations in the field, and the Allies were forced to fall back for the Sept. 27./Oct. 7. protection of Liège. Accordingly, on the 7th of October they crossed the Jaar, not without annoyance from the enemy, and took up a new position, which gave them indeed possession of Liège, but placed them between the Meuse in their rear, and an army of nearly twice their strength on the Jaar before their front.[95]
Roucoux, Sep. 30th / Oct. 11th 1746
Sept. 29./Oct. 10.
Now at last Saxe resolved to strike a blow. On the 10th of October he crossed the Jaar with evident intention of an attack, and the Allied army received orders to be ready for action before the following dawn. The Allies’ position faced very nearly due west, the army being drawn up astride of the two paved roads leading into Liège from Tongres and St. Trond. Their extreme right rested on the Jaar and was covered by the villages of Slins, Fexhe, and Enick, all of which were strongly entrenched and occupied by the Austrians. South of Enick extended an open plain from that village to the village of Liers, and in this plain was posted the Hanoverian infantry and four British battalions, the Eighth, Nineteenth, Thirty-third, and Forty-third Foot, with the Hessian infantry on their left, in rear of Liers. The Hanoverian cavalry prolonged the line southward to the village of Varoux, and the Sixth and Seventh Dragoons and Scots Greys continued it to the village of Roucoux, from which point Dutch troops carried it on to the village of Ance, which formed the extreme left of the position. Ligonier did not like the situation, for he did not see how the turning of the left flank could be prevented if, as would certainly be the case, the French should seriously attempt it. Prince Charles, knowing that, if his right were turned, his retreat to Maestricht would be cut off, had taken care to hold the right flank in real strength and dared not weaken it; but the position, with the Meuse in its rear, was perilously shallow, while the convergence of two ravines from the Jaar and Mehaigne into its centre allowed of but one narrow way of communication between the right and the left of the army. The defects of the Allies’ dispositions were in fact not unlike those which had proved fatal to King William at Landen; and Ligonier’s anxiety was proved to rest on all too good foundation.
Sept. 30./Oct. 11.