1757. Pitt had now a free hand for the execution of such enterprises as he might desire, a freer hand indeed than any of his predecessors for ten years past had enjoyed; for Cumberland, being ill-received by the King on his return from Hastenbeck, had resigned the Commandership-in-Chief and all his military appointments of whatever description. Pitt, conscious that the Duke had been hardly treated, made no secret of his sympathy with him; but there can be no doubt that Ligonier, who succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief, was infinitely more competent as a military adviser and more sympathetic as a military colleague. And there was need for sound military capacity to deal with all the projects that were ripening in the minister's teeming brain. June 23.
December. Parliament met on the 1st of December, and the King's speech, after announcing vigorous prosecution of the war in America and elsewhere, begged for support for the King of Prussia. Frederick fortunately stood just at that moment at his highest in the public view, for his two masterly victories at Rossbach and Leuthen; and Parliament did not hesitate to confirm a subsidy to him to enable him to carry on the struggle. But in other respects Pitt could find little to boast of in the past year, and he was obliged to confine his eulogy to Frederick and to Clive, whose victory at Plassey, now just become known in England, could not be ascribed to any extraordinary efforts on the part of a British Ministry. The word "elsewhere" in the King's speech was understood to signify Hanover, though Pitt warmly disclaimed any such interpretation of the term; but the Commons did not quarrel with it nor with the estimates that were submitted in support of the policy. These were presented on the 7th of December and showed a force for the British Establishment of eighty-six thousand five hundred men, thirty thousand of them for Gibraltar and the colonies, and the remainder nominally for service at home. Four thousand of this number, however, were invalids, who were kept for duties in garrison only, a system wisely copied from earlier days and followed from the beginning to the end of the war. One new regiment only had been raised since the formation of Fraser's and Montgomery's Highlanders, namely Colonel Draper's, which had been created for service in India and which brought up the number of the regiments of the Line to seventy-nine. Adding the troops on the Irish to those on the British Establishment the full numbers of the Army may be set down roughly at one hundred thousand men. It was soon to be seen what Pitt could accomplish with them, when he had found officers who would fulfil his instructions. America first occupied his attention and was dealt with summarily. The first thing to be done was to recall Lord Loudoun from the command, a resolution which was carried out before the year's end,[281] and to appoint a new General in his place. The choice fell upon General James Abercromby, who had been sent out by Newcastle's Administration; and the selection was not a fortunate one. The next step was to summon Colonel Jeffery Amherst from Germany, where he had been employed since 1756 as Commissary to the Hessian troops in the pay of England. Amherst, it will be remembered, was a Guardsman, and was last seen by us as Ligonier's aide-de-camp on the field of Fontenoy; so it is at least probable that his appointment was due to Ligonier's influence. Three new brigadiers were nominated to serve under him, Lawrence, Whitmore, and James Wolfe. The operations to be undertaken in America were threefold. First and foremost Louisburg was to be besieged; and this duty was assigned to Amherst with fourteen thousand regular troops. Concurrently an advance was to be made upon Crown Point, and pushed forward if possible to Montreal and Quebec; which service was entrusted to Abercromby, aided by Brigadier Lord Howe, with about ten thousand regulars and twenty thousand Provincial troops. Lastly, nineteen hundred regular troops and five thousand Provincials under Brigadier-General Forbes were to repair Braddock's failure and capture Fort DuquÊsne.[282] The number of Provincial troops to be employed was five times as great as that provided by the colonies in any previous year; but Pitt, while asking for so formidable a force, agreed to supply the troops with tents, provisions, arms, and ammunition, leaving to the provinces the expenses of raising, clothing, and paying them only. Moreover, he had readjusted the former regulations as to the seniority of Provincial and Imperial officers, which had given much offence, in a spirit somewhat less to the prejudice of the Provincials. True to his principle that British battles should be fought by British subjects he grudged no expense to gather recruits from the new British beyond sea. The troops were to be escorted to America by a fleet under Admiral Boscawen, which was strong enough to overpower any French fleet in American waters. A squadron was also sent under Admiral Osborne to the Mediterranean to intercept any French reinforcements from Toulon, while yet another squadron under Sir Edward Hawke cruised with the like object before Rochefort. Osborne's name has been forgotten, and Hawke's lesser services have been swallowed up in the fame of his action before Quiberon; but it may be said here once for all that both officers performed their parts with admirable ability and signal success. The reader may now begin to judge of Pitt's talent for organising victory. 1758.
Feb. 19. Boscawen, with twenty-three ships of the line and several smaller vessels, sailed with his convoy of transports on the 19th of February. It had been Pitt's hope that the siege of Louisburg should have been begun by the 20th of April;[283] but fate was against him, and the Admiral did not reach Halifax until the 9th of May. Amherst, who had sailed with Captain George Rodney in H.M.S. Dublin on the 16th of March, was not less unlucky in his passage; and Boscawen, after waiting for his arrival at Halifax until the 28th of May, at last put to sea without him, but fortunately met the Dublin just outside the harbour. The huge fleet, one hundred and fifty-seven sail in all, with eleven thousand troops on board, then steered eastward, and on the 2nd of June sailed into Gabarus Bay, immediately to westward of the tongue of land whereon stood Louisburg. Here there were three possible landing-places: Freshwater Cove, four miles from the town; Flat Point, which was rather nearer; and White Point, which was within a mile of the ramparts. East of the fortress there was yet another landing-place named Lorambec. It was determined to threaten all these points simultaneously, Lawrence and Whitmore with their respective brigades moving towards White Point and Flat Point, with one regiment detached against Lorambec, while Wolfe's brigade should make a true attack upon Freshwater Cove.[284] Nothing very clear was known of the French defences erected to cover these landing-places, and it so happened that the point selected for attack was the most strongly defended of all. June 8. For five days all attempts at disembarkation were frustrated by fog and storm; but at two o'clock on the morning of the 8th the troops were got into the boats, and at daybreak the frigates of the fleet stood in and opened a fierce fire upon the French entrenchments at all of the threatened points. A quarter of an hour later the boats shoved off and pulled for the shore. Wolfe's party consisted of five companies of grenadiers, a body of five hundred and fifty marksmen drawn from the different regiments and known as the Light Infantry, and a body of American Rangers, with Fraser's Highlanders and eight more companies of grenadiers in support. The beach at Freshwater Cove, for which they were making, was a quarter of a mile long, with rocks at each end; and on the shore above it more than a thousand Frenchmen lay behind entrenchments, which were further covered by abatis. Eight cannon and swivels had been brought into position to sweep every portion of the beach and of its approaches, but were cunningly masked by young evergreen shrubs planted in the ground before them. The French had not been at fault when they selected the point remotest from the town as the most likely to be attacked by an enemy. The boats were close in-shore before the French made any sign, when they suddenly opened a deadly fire of grape and musketry. Wolfe, seeing that a landing in face of such a tempest of shot would be hopeless, signalled to the boats to sheer off; but three of them, filled with Light Infantry on the extreme right, being little exposed to the fire, pulled on to a craggy point just to eastward of the beach, which was sheltered from the enemy's cannon by a small projecting spit. There the three officers in charge leaped ashore followed by their men, and Wolfe hastened the rest of his boats to the same spot. Major Scott, who commanded the Light Infantry, was the first to reach the land; and though his boat was stove in against the rocks he scrambled ashore, and with no more than ten men held his own against six times his numbers of French and Indians, till other troops came to his support. The rest of the boats followed close in his wake. Many were stove in and not a few capsized; some of the men too were caught by the surf and drowned; but the greater part made their way ashore wet or dry, Wolfe, who was armed only with a cane, leaping into the surf and scrambling over the crags with the foremost. Arrived at the firm ground beyond, the men formed, attacked the nearest French battery in flank, and quickly carried it with the bayonet. Lawrence's brigade now rowed up, and finding the French fully occupied with Wolfe, landed at the western end of the beach with little difficulty or loss. Amherst followed him; and the French seeing themselves attacked on right and left, and fearing to be cut off from the town, abandoned all their guns, some three-and-thirty pieces great and small, and fled into the woods in the rear of their entrenchments. The British pursued, until on emerging from the forest they found themselves in a cleared space with the guns of Louisburg opening fire upon them. Then the pursuit was checked, for the first great object had been obtained. The total loss of the British little exceeded one hundred in killed, wounded, and drowned; that of the French was not much greater, but the British had gained a solid success. Amherst pitched his camp just beyond range of the guns of the fortress, and selected Flat Point Cove as the place for landing his guns and stores. The disembarkation of material was a task of extreme difficulty and danger owing to the surf, so much so that over one hundred boats were stove in during the course of the siege. The General, therefore, had ample leisure to examine the ground before him. The harbour of Louisburg is a land-locked bay with an extreme width from north-east to south-west of about two and a half miles. The entrance is rather more than a mile wide, but is narrowed to less than half of that distance by a chain of rocky islets. The defences of the entrance were a battery on a small island on the west side of the channel and a fort on the eastern shore at the promontory of Lighthouse Point. Within the harbour on the northern shore had stood a battery known as the Grand battery, but this was destroyed by the French on the night of Amherst's landing; and on the western shore on a triangular peninsula stood Louisburg itself, the Dunkirk of America, the apex of the triangle pointing towards the harbour, the base towards the land where Amherst's force now lay encamped. The full circuit of its fortifications was about a mile and a half, and the number of cannon and mortars mounted thereon and on the outworks exceeded two hundred. The garrison consisted of five battalions of regular troops, numbering about four thousand men, together with several companies of colonial troops from Canada; the whole being under command of a gallant officer named Drucour. Finally, at anchor in the harbour lay five ships of the line and seven frigates. The strongest front of the fortress was on the side of the land, running from the sea on the south to the harbour on the north: it was made up of four bastions called in succession, from north to south, the Dauphin's, King's, Queen's, and Princess's bastions. The King's bastion formed part of the citadel, and before it the glacis sloped down to a marsh which protected it completely; but at both extremities of the line there was high ground favourable for the works of a besieging force. It was towards the northern extremity, from a hillock at the edge of the marsh, that Amherst resolved to push his first attack. June 25.
June 29. Meanwhile the labour to be accomplished before the guns and stores could be brought to the spot was immense. The distance from the landing-place was a mile and a half, every yard of it consisting of deep mud covered with moss and water-weeds, through which it was necessary to make not only a road but an epaulement also, to protect the road; for a French frigate, the ArÉthuse, lay in a lagoon called the Barachois at the extreme western corner of the harbour, and swept all the ground before the ramparts with a flanking fire. While, therefore, this work was going forward Wolfe was ordered with twelve hundred men and artillery to the battery at Lighthouse Point, which had been abandoned by the French, in order to fire upon the Island battery and upon the ships in the harbour. After some days the Island battery was silenced with the help of the fleet, and the men of war were driven under the guns of the main fortress. The entrance to the harbour being thus laid open to the British fleet, the French commander under cover of a foggy night sank six large ships in the channel to bar the passage anew. July 9.
July 14.
July 21. On the very day when Wolfe succeeded in silencing the Island battery Amherst's preparations were at last completed; and the British began to break ground on the appointed hillock. From thence the trenches were carried, despite the fire of the ArÉthuse, towards the Barachois; and it was soon evident that the frigate would be repaid for all the mischief that she had wrought. At the same time Wolfe broke ground to the south opposite to the Princess's bastion, and despite a fierce sortie made by a drunken party of the garrison, pushed his works steadily forward against it. Another three weeks saw the net closing tighter and the fire raining fiercer about the doomed fortress. The ArÉthuse, after sticking to her moorings right gallantly under an ever increasing fire, was compelled at last to shift her position. Two days later Wolfe, as busy at the left as at the right attack, made a dash at nightfall upon some rising ground only three hundred yards before the Dauphin's bastion, drove out the French that occupied it, and would not be forced back by the fiercest fire from the ramparts. On the 21st a lucky shell fell on one of the French line-of-battle ships and set her on fire. The scanty crew left on board of her could not check the flames. She drifted from her moorings upon two of her consorts and kindled them also; and all three were burned to the water's edge. The two remaining line-of-battle ships survived them but a little time, for a few nights later six hundred sailors rowed silently into the harbour and surprised and captured both of them. One, being aground, was burned, and the other was towed off, in contempt of the fire from the fortress, to a safe anchorage. July 27. By this time Amherst's batteries had reduced Louisburg almost to defencelessness. The masonry of the fortress had crumbled under the concussion of its own guns and was little able to stand the shot of the British. A new battery erected on the hill to the north of the Barachois raked the western front of the French works from end to end, and there was no standing against its fire. On the 26th of July the last gun on that front was silenced and a practicable breach had been made. Drucour then made overtures for a capitulation. Amherst's reply was short and stern: the garrison must surrender as prisoners of war, and a definite answer must be returned within one hour. Drucour replied at first with defiance, but, before his messenger could reach Amherst he sent a second emissary to accept the terms; and on the following day the British occupied the fortress. The casualties of the besiegers were not heavy, little exceeding five hundred killed and wounded of all ranks. The loss of the French is unknown, but must have been very great, from sickness not less than from shot and shell. The number of soldiers and sailors made prisoners amounted to fifty-six hundred, while over two hundred cannon and a large quantity of munitions and stores were surrendered with the fortress. So Cape Breton, and Prince Edward's Island with it, passed under the dominion of the British for ever. The siege over, Amherst proposed to Boscawen to proceed to Quebec, but the Admiral did not consider the enterprise to be feasible. Drucour's gallant defence, indeed, had accomplished one object, in preventing Amherst from co-operating with Abercromby in the attack on Canada; though, could the siege have been begun at the date fixed by Pitt, his efforts would have been of little avail. Amherst therefore left four battalions to garrison Louisburg,[285] and sent Colonel Monckton, Colonel Lord Rollo, and Wolfe, each with a sufficient force, to complete the work of subjugation on Prince Edward's Island, the Bay of Fundy, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Wolfe having accomplished his part of the task went home on sick leave, and Amherst sailed with five battalions[286] for Boston, where he arrived on the 14th of September and was received with immense though rather inconvenient enthusiasm by the inhabitants.[287] His presence was but too sorely needed to repair the mischief wrought by Abercromby's incapacity. The prospects of Abercromby at the opening of the campaign were such as might have encouraged any General. Vaudreuil, the Governor of Canada, a corrupt and incapable man, knowing of the intended advance of the British by Lakes George and Champlain upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point, had proposed to avert it by a counter-raid along the Mohawk upon the Hudson. This plan, being vague, and indeed impracticable, was abandoned; and the defence of the approaches to Montreal was committed to Montcalm, who was stationed at Ticonderoga with an insufficient force of about four thousand men, and without support from the posts higher up the lake. To Abercromby, with seven thousand regular troops and nine thousand Provincials, the exposure of this weak and isolated force should have been welcome as the solution of all his difficulties. It must now be seen to what end he turned so excellent an opportunity. The early months of the summer were occupied with the task, always vexatious and troublesome, of collecting the Provincial troops, and of sending supplies up the Mohawk and the Hudson to Fort Edward. The latter work was tedious and harassing, despite the facilities of carriage by water, for there were three portages between Albany and Fort Edward, at each of which all boats had to be unladen, and dragged, together with their stores, for three or even more miles overland before they could be launched again for easier progress. None the less the business went forward with great energy; and notwithstanding the danger of convoys from the attack of Indians when passing through the forest, the work of escorting was so perfectly managed that not one was molested. These admirable arrangements were due to Brigadier Lord Howe, the eldest of three brothers, all of whom were destined to leave a mark for good or evil on English history. Howe had been appointed by Pitt to make good the failings which were suspected in Abercromby. He was now thirty-four years of age, and having arrived in America with his regiment, the Fifty-fifth, in the previous year, had been at pains to learn the art of forest-warfare from the most famous leader of the Provincial irregulars. He threw off all training and prejudices of the barrack-yard, joined the irregulars in their scouting-parties, shared the hardships and adopted the dress of his rough companions and became one of themselves. Having thus schooled himself he began to impart the lessons that he had learned to his men. He made officers and men, alike of regular and of Provincial troops, throw off all useless encumbrances; he cut the skirts off their coats and the hair off their heads, browned the barrels of their muskets, clad their lower limbs in leggings to protect them from briars, and filled the empty space in their knapsacks with thirty pounds of meal, so as to make them independent for weeks together of convoys of supplies. In a word, he headed a reaction against the stiff unpractical school of Germany so much favoured by Cumberland, and tried to equip men reasonably for the rough work that lay before them. Such ideas had occurred to other men besides him. Colonel Bouquet of the Sixtieth wished to dress his men like Indians, and Brigadier Forbes went cordially with him, for, as he wrote emphatically, "We must learn the art of war from the Indians." Washington, again, said that if the matter were left to his inclination he would put both men and officers into Indian dress and set the example himself.[288] There was in fact a general revolt of all practical men against powder and pipeclay for bush-fighting, and Howe was fortunately in a position to turn it to account. Possibly it is to his influence that may be traced the formation in the same year of a regiment which, being designed for purposes of scouting and skirmishing only, was clothed in dark brown skirtless coats without lace of any description. This corps ranked for a time as the eightieth of the Line, and was known as Gage's Light Infantry.[289] It must not be supposed that these reforms were accepted without demur. Officers were dismayed to find that they were expected to wash their own clothes without the help of the regimental women, and to carry their own knives and forks with them according to Howe's example; and the German soldiers, of whom there were many in the Sixtieth, sorely resented the cropping of their heads. But Howe was a strict disciplinarian, and not the less, but rather the more, on this account was adored by the men.[290] July 5. By the end of June the whole of Abercromby's force, with all its supplies, was assembled at the head of Lake George. On the 4th of July the stores were shipped, and on the following day the men were embarked. The arrangements were perfect: each corps marched to its appointed place on the beach without the least confusion, and before the sun was well arisen the whole army was afloat. The scene was indescribably beautiful. Overhead the sky was blue and cloudless; the sun had just climbed above the mountain tops, and his rays slanted down over the vast rolling slope of forest to the lake. Not a breath of air was moving to ruffle the still blue water or stir the banks of green leaves around it, as the twelve hundred boats swept over the glassy surface. Robert Rogers, most famous of American partisans and instructor of Howe, with his rangers, and Gage with part of his new Light Infantry led the way. John Bradstreet of New England followed next with the boatmen, himself the best boatman among them; and then in three long parallel columns came the main body of the army. To right and left blue coats showed the presence of the Provincial troops of New England and New York, and in the centre flared the well-known English scarlet. Howe led this centre column with the Fifty-fifth, his own regiment; and after him followed the first and fourth battalions of the Sixtieth, the Twenty-seventh, Forty-fourth, Forty-sixth, and last of all the Forty-second with their sombre tartan, each regiment marked by its flying colours of green or buff or yellow or crimson. Then, unmarked by any flag, for colours they had none, came more of Gage's brown coats. Two "floating castles" armed with artillery also accompanied this column, towering high above the slender canoes and whale-boats; and in the rear came the bateaux laden with stores and baggage, with a rear-guard made up of red coats and of blue. So the great armament, stretching almost from shore to shore, crept on over the bosom of the lake, the strains of fife and drum mingling with the plashing of ten thousand oars, till the narrows were reached and the broad front dwindled into a slender procession six miles in length, still creeping on like some huge sinuous serpent on its errand of destruction and death. July 6. By five in the afternoon the flotilla had travelled five-and-twenty miles, and a halt was made for the baggage and artillery, which had lagged behind. At eleven o'clock it started again, and at daybreak reached the narrow channel that leads into Lake Champlain by the headland of Ticonderoga. A small advanced post of the French on the shore was driven back, and the work of disembarkation was begun. By noon the whole army had been landed on the western shore of the lake; Rogers with his rangers was sent forward to reconnoitre, and the troops were formed in four columns for the march. The route proposed was to follow the western bank of the channel which connects Lake George with Lake Champlain, since the French had destroyed the bridge over it, and to fall upon Ticonderoga from the rear. The way lay through virgin forest, encumbered with thick undergrowth and strewed with the decaying trunks and limbs of fallen trees. All order became impossible; the men struggled forward as best they could; the columns got mixed together; the guides lost all idea of their direction in the maze; and the army for a time was lost in the forest. Meanwhile the French advanced party, some three hundred and fifty men, which had fallen back before the British, found its retreat cut off, and had no resource but to take to the woods. They too lost themselves among the trees, and the two hostile bodies were groping their way helplessly on, when the right centre column of the British, with Lord Howe and some rangers at its head, blundered unawares full upon the French party. A sharp skirmish followed, and in the general confusion the main body of the British, hearing volleys but unable to see, became very unsteady. Fortunately the rangers stood firm, and Rogers' advanced guard, turning back at the sound of shots, caught the French between two fires and virtually annihilated them. The British loss in this affair was trifling in numbers but none the less fatal to the expedition; for Lord Howe lay dead with a bullet through his heart, and with his death the whole soul of the army expired. July 7. Abercromby's force was for the moment paralysed. Half of his army was lost, nor did he know where to find it. So much of it as he could collect he kept under arms all night, and next morning he fell back to his landing-place, where to his great relief he found the rest of his troops awaiting him. Montcalm meanwhile had been devoured by anxiety. The channel between Lake George and Lake Champlain being impassable by boats owing to rapids, the usual route to Ticonderoga lay across it by some saw-mills at the foot of the rapids, where he had already destroyed the bridge. Nevertheless it was not by these saw-mills but on the western bank of the channel that he had determined to make his stand; nor was it until the evening of the 6th that, yielding to the advice of two of his officers, he decided to retire to Ticonderoga. Accordingly, at noon of the 7th, Abercromby sent Rogers forward with a detachment to occupy the saw-mills. The bridge was rebuilt; and the army, crossing the channel late in the afternoon, occupied the camp deserted by the French. Abercromby was now within two miles of Ticonderoga. But meanwhile Montcalm had not been idle. The peninsula of Ticonderoga consists of a rocky plateau with low ground on each side, standing at the junction of Lakes George and Champlain. The fort stood near the end of this peninsula; and half a mile to westward of the spot the ground rises and forms a ridge across the plateau. On this ridge Montcalm decided at the last moment to throw up abatis and accept battle. The outline of the works had already been traced, and at the dawn of the 7th every man of his force was at work, cutting down the trees that covered the ground. The tops were cut off and the logs piled into a massive breast-work nine feet high, which was carefully loop-holed. The forest before the breast-work was also felled and left lying with the tops turned outwards, as though, to use the words of an eye-witness, it had been laid low by a hurricane. Between these felled trees and the breast-work the ground was covered with heavy boughs, their points being sharpened and the branches interlaced, so as to present an almost impenetrable obstacle. The French officers themselves were amazed at the work which had been accomplished in one day. July 8. Still the position was no Malplaquet, and there was no occasion for Abercromby to dread it. It was open to him either to attack Montcalm in his flanks, which were unfortified; or to bring up his artillery and batter the breast-work to splinters about his ears; or better still to post his guns on a height, called Mount Defiance, which commanded the position, and to rake the breast-work from end to end; or best of all to mask this improvised stronghold with a part of his force and push on with the rest northward up Lake Champlain and so cut off at once Montcalm's supplies and his retreat. The French General had but thirty-six hundred men and only eight days' provisions with him, so that this movement would have ensured his surrender without the firing of a shot. Abercromby's intelligence, however, told him that the French were six thousand strong and that three thousand more were expected to join them at any hour; and he was nervously anxious to make his attack before this reinforcement, which had in reality no existence, should arrive on the spot. Accordingly, at dawn of the 8th, Abercromby sent his engineers to reconnoitre the enemy's position from Mount Defiance. The duty was most perfunctorily fulfilled, and the chief engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, reported that the works could be captured by direct assault. This was enough for Abercromby. Without further inquiry he resolved that the artillery should be left idle at the place where it had been landed, and that the abatis should be carried with the bayonet. It was high noon, and the French were still busily strengthening their wooden ramparts with earth and sandbags when shots in the forest before them gave warning that the British advanced parties had struck against their picquets. Instantly they fell in behind the breast-work, three deep, eight battalions of regular troops and four hundred and fifty Canadians, numbering in all little more than a fourth of the British force. The advance of the British was covered by the Light Infantry and rangers while the columns of attack were forming under shelter of the forest. Then the skirmishers cleared the front and the scarlet masses came forward, solid and steady; the picquets leading, the grenadiers in support, the battalions of the main body after the grenadiers, and the Fifty-fifth and Forty-second Highlanders in reserve. It was little that they could see through the tangle of fallen trees and dying leaves; possibly they caught a glimpse of the top of the breast-work but of not a white coat of the defenders behind it. On they came in full confidence, knowing nothing of the obstacles before them, when suddenly the breast-work broke into a sheet of flame and a storm of grape and musketry swept the ranks from end to end. Abercromby's instructions had been that the position should be taken with the bayonet, but all order was lost in the maze of fallen trees, and very soon the men began to return the fire as they advanced, but with little effect, for not an enemy could they see. Nevertheless, though riddled through and through, they scrambled on over the prostrate trunks straight upon the breast-work, when they were stopped by the tangled hedge and sharpened boughs of the inner abatis. Strive as they might they could not force their way through this under the terrible fire that rained on them in front and flank from the angles of the breast-work; and after an hour's struggle they fell back, exclaiming that the position was impregnable. Reports were sent to Abercromby, who throughout the action had never moved from the saw-mills, two miles away, and for all answer there came back the simple order to attack again. And then came such a scene as had not been witnessed since Malplaquet nor was to be seen again till Badajoz. The men stormed forward anew, furious with rage and heedless of bullets or grape-shot, through the network of trunks and boughs against their invisible enemy. Behind the breast-work the French were cheering loudly, hoisting their hats occasionally above the parapet and laughing when they were blown to pieces, but pouring in always a deadly and unquenchable fire; while the British struggled on, grimed with sweat and smoke, vowing that they would have that wooden wall at any cost. The Highlanders broke loose from the reserve with claymores drawn and slashed their way through the branches to the breast-work, and the British rushed after them to its foot but could advance no further. They had no ladders, and as fast as they hoisted one another to the top of the breast-work they were shot down. Montcalm, cool and collected, moved to and fro among his men in his shirt-sleeves, always at the point of greatest danger, to cheer them and keep them to the fight. The French fire was appalling in its destruction. Men who had passed through the ordeal of Fontenoy declared that it was child's play compared with Ticonderoga. Nevertheless not once only, but thrice more, the British and the Americans with them hurled themselves desperately against the French stronghold, only to be beaten back time after time, until the inner abatis was hung with wisps of scarlet, like poppies that grow through a hedge of thorn, some swaying with the contortions that told of living agony, some limp and still in the merciful stillness of death. The fight had endured for five hours, when some officer of more intelligence than his fellows formed two columns and made a fifth attack upon the extreme right of the French position. The men hewed their way to the breast-work, and for a time the fate of this unequal day hung trembling in the balance. Montcalm hurried to the threatened quarter with his reserves, but only by desperate exertion held his own, for the Highlanders fought with a fury that would yield neither to discipline nor to death. Captain John Campbell and a few of his men actually scaled the wooden wall and dropped down within it, but only to be pierced at once by a score of bayonets. Finally at six o'clock a last attack was delivered, as heroic, as hopeless, and as fruitless as the rest; and then the order was given to retreat. The Highlanders were with the greatest difficulty forced away from their fallen comrades, and under cover of the skirmishers' fire the British withdrew, shattered, exhausted, and demoralised. And then came one of those strange and dreadful scenes which break an officer's heart. Hardly was the retreat sounded when the very men who for six hours had faced the mouth of hell without flinching were seized with panic and fled in wild disorder through forest and swamp to the landing-place, leaving their arms, their accoutrements, the very shoes from their feet to mark the track of their flight. Fortunately Bradstreet and his armed boatmen mounted guard over the boats and prevented the fugitives from setting themselves afloat. Abercromby came up, as abject as the worst, despatched orders for the wounded and the heavy artillery to be sent back to New York, and followed himself so speedily with his humiliated troops that he arrived at the head of Lake George before his messenger. There he entrenched himself and sat still, while the reckoning of his ignorance and folly was made up. Of the Provincial troops three hundred and thirty-four had fallen before Ticonderoga; of the seven British battalions no fewer than sixteen hundred. The Forty-second lost close on five hundred men and officers killed and wounded, the Forty-fourth and Forty-sixth each about two hundred, the Fifty-fifth and the fourth battalion of the Sixtieth each about one hundred and fifty, the Twenty-seventh and first battalion of the Sixtieth each about a hundred. The loss of the French was less than three hundred and fifty, and Montcalm might well praise his gallant soldiers and hug himself over his victory, for he had fended off attack on Canada for at least one year. August. The French General contented himself with strengthening the defences of Ticonderoga and sending out parties of irregulars to harass Abercromby's communications with Fort Edward. Abercromby for his part remained throughout July and the first days of August glued to his camp at the head of Lake George, losing many men from dysentery but attempting nothing. At last he made over to Bradstreet a force of twenty-five hundred men, Provincial troops for the most part, and sent him to attack the French post of Fort Frontenac, which guarded the outlet of Lake Ontario into the St. Lawrence. The project was Bradstreet's own and had been favourably regarded some time before by Loudoun; but it was only under pressure of a council of war that Abercromby's assent to it was wrung from him. Bradstreet accordingly dropped down to Albany, and advanced by the Mohawk and Onandaga to the site of Oswego, where he launched out on to the lake on the 22nd of August, and on the 25th landed safely near Fort Frontenac. The French garrison being little over one hundred strong could make small resistance, and on the 27th surrendered as prisoners of war, leaving nine vessels, which constituted the entire naval force of the French on the lake, in Bradstreet's hands. The fort was dismantled, two of the ships were carried off, the remainder were burned since there was no fort at Oswego to protect them, and Bradstreet returned triumphant to Albany. The service that he had rendered was of vast importance. The command of Lake Ontario was lost to the French, their communications north and south were severed, the alliance of a number of wavering Indian tribes was secured for the British, and Fort DuquÊsne, the point against which Pitt had levelled his third blow, was left isolated and alone. Heartened by this success and by the news of Louisburg, Abercromby began to write vaguely of a second attempt upon Ticonderoga[291] as soon as Amherst should have reinforced him; but it was October before the conqueror of Louisburg reached Lake George, and then both commanders agreed that the season was too far spent for further operations. The troops were accordingly sent into winter quarters, and Canada was saved for another year. It now remains to be seen how matters fared with Brigadier Forbes at Fort DuquÊsne. Forbes himself had arrived at Philadelphia early in April, to find that no army was ready for him. The Provincial troops allotted to him from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina had not even been enlisted; Montgomery's Highlanders were in the south, and only half of Colonel Bouquet's battalion of the Sixtieth was within reach. It was the end of June before the various fractions of his force were on march: and meanwhile the General was seized with a dangerous and agonising internal disease, against which he fought with a courage and resolution which was as admirable as it was pathetic. Forbes's career had been somewhat singular. He hailed from county Fife and had begun life as a medical student, but had entered the Scots Greys as a cornet and had risen to command the regiment. He had served in Flanders and Germany on the staff of Stair, Ligonier, and General Campbell, and finally as Cumberland's quartermaster-general.[292] But though all his training had been in the old formal school he had recognised, as has been seen, that in America he must learn a new art of war. He had studied Braddock's failure, and had perceived that even if Braddock had succeeded he must inevitably have retired from Fort DuquÊsne from want of supplies. Instead, therefore, of making one long march with an unmanageable train of waggons, he decided to advance by short stages, establishing fortified magazines at every forty miles, and at last, when within reach of his destination, to march upon it with his entire force and with as few encumbrances as possible. This plan he had learned from a French treatise,[293] though he might have gathered it from a study of Monk's campaign in the Highlands had the opportunity been open to him. Nor was Bouquet, a Swiss by nationality, less assiduous in thinking out new methods. His views as to equipment have already been noticed; but knowing the value of marksmanship in the woods, Bouquet obtained a certain number of rifled carbines for his own battalion, and thus turned a part of the Sixtieth into Riflemen before their time.[294] He also introduced a new system of drill for work in the forest, forming his men into small columns of two abreast which could deploy into line in two minutes. Under such commanders the mistakes of Braddock were not likely to be repeated.[295] July. Then came the question whether Braddock's route should be followed, or a new but shorter line of advance from Pennsylvania. Virginia was furiously jealous lest Pennsylvania should reap the advantage of a direct road to the trading station on the Ohio, and Washington was urgent in recommending the old road; but Forbes had no respect for provincial squabbles and decided for Pennsylvania. He had much difficulty in shaping the Provincials into soldiers, the material delivered to him being of the rawest, and destitute of the remotest idea of discipline. It was not till the beginning of July that Bouquet with an advanced party encamped at Raystown, now the town of Bedford, on the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, and that Forbes was able to move to the frontier village of Carlisle and thence to Shippensburg. There his illness increased, with pain so excruciating that he was unable to advance farther until September. Bouquet meanwhile pushed forward the construction of a road over the Alleghanies with immense labour and under prodigious difficulties. The wildness and desolation of the country seems somewhat to have awed even the stern resolution of Forbes. "It is an immense uninhabited wilderness," he wrote to Pitt, "overgrown everywhere with trees or brushwood, so that nowhere can one see twenty yards." Through this with its endless obstacles of jungle, ravine, and swamp Bouquet's men worked their way. The first fortified magazine had been made at Raystown and named Fort Bedford; the next was to be on the western side of the main river Alleghany at a stream called Loyalhannon Creek. Progress was necessarily slow, but Forbes's advance was not made so leisurely without an object. The French had collected a certain number of Indians for the defence of Fort DuquÊsne; but if the attack were delayed it was tolerably certain that these fickle and unstable allies would grow tired of waiting and disperse to their homes. Forbes meanwhile lost no opportunity of conciliating these natives; and by the efforts of his emissaries the most powerful tribes were persuaded to join the side of the British, and scornfully to reject the rival overtures of the French. But at this critical time a rash exploit of one of Bouquet's officers went near to wreck the whole enterprise. Major Grant of the Highlanders entreated permission to go forward with a small party to reconnoitre Fort DuquÊsne, capture a few prisoners, and strike some blow which might discourage and weaken the French. Eight hundred men of the Highlanders, Sixtieth, and Provincial troops were accordingly made over to him; so setting out with these from Loyalhannon he arrived before dawn of the 14th of September at a hill, since named Grant's hill, within half a mile of the fort. With incredible rashness he scattered his force in all directions. Leaving a fourth of his men to guard the baggage, he sent parties out to right and left, took post himself two miles in advance of the baggage with a hundred men, and sent an officer forward with a company of Highlanders into the open plain to draw a map of the fort. Finally, as if to call attention to his own folly, he ordered reveillÉ to be beaten with all possible parade. The French and Indians at once swarmed out of the fort and drove all the parties back in confusion upon one another. The Highlanders were seized with panic at the yells of the Indians and took to their heels, and but for the firmness of the Virginians of the baggage-guard the whole force would probably have been cut to pieces. As it was, nearly three hundred men were killed, wounded, or taken, and Grant himself was among the prisoners. Forbes, who amid all torments, troubles, and reverses preserved always a keen sense of the ridiculous, declared that he could make nothing of the affair except that his friend Grant had lost his wits; which indeed was a concise and accurate summary of the whole proceeding. But such paltry success could avail the French little, for Bradstreet's capture of Fort Frontenac had already decided the fate of Fort DuquÊsne. The French commander, his supplies being cut off, was obliged to dismiss the greater number of his men; otherwise Forbes could hardly have penetrated to the Ohio in that year. The elements fought for the French. Heavy rain ruined Bouquet's new road; the horses being underfed and overworked kept breaking down fast; the magazines at Raystown and Loyalhannon were emptied faster than they could be replenished; and Forbes was in despair. All through October the rain continued until at length it gave place to snow, and the roads became a sea of mud over which retreat and advance were alike impossible. At the beginning of November the General, though now sick unto death, was carried to Loyalhannon, where he decided that no attack could be attempted for that season. Intelligence, however, was brought that the French were so weak in numbers as to be defenceless; and on the 18th, twenty-five hundred picked men marched off without tents or baggage, Forbes himself travelling in a litter at their head. At midnight of the 24th the sentries heard the sound of a distant explosion, and on the next day at dusk the troops reached the blackened ruins of what had been Fort DuquÊsne. The fortifications had been blown up; barracks and store-houses were in ashes; there was no sign of anything human except the heads of the Highlanders who had been killed in Grant's engagement, stuck up on poles with their kilts hung in derision round them. Their Highland comrades went mad with rage at the sight; but the French and their allies were gone, having evacuated and destroyed the fort and retired to the fort of Venango farther up the Alleghany river. Forbes planted a stockade around a cluster of huts that were still undestroyed, and named it Pittsburg in honour of the minister. Arrangements were then made for leaving a garrison of two hundred Provincials to hold the post, for there could be no doubt that the French would collect a force from Venango and Niagara to endeavour to retake it. The garrison indeed was far too small, but there was not food enough for more; so this handful of poor men was left perforce to make the best of its solitude during the dreary days of the winter. One duty still remained to be done before Forbes's column turned homeward,—to search for the bones of those who had fallen with Braddock. A party of Pennsylvanians made their way through the forest to the Monongahela, Major Halket of Forbes's staff accompanying them. Among the multitude of ghastly relics two skeletons were found lying together under one tree. Halket recognised the one by a peculiarity of the teeth as that of his father, Sir Peter Halket of the Forty-fourth; and in the other he thought that he saw his brother, who had fallen by his side. The two were wrapped in a Highlander's plaid and buried in one grave, under a volley fired by the Pennsylvanians. The rest of the remains were buried together in one deep trench; and then at the beginning of December the troops marched back to Pennsylvania with the dying Forbes in their midst. With great difficulty the General was brought still living to Philadelphia, where he lingered on through the winter and died in the following March. Though no brilliant action marked his advance to the Ohio he had accomplished his work against endless difficulties and in extremity of bodily torture; and that work was the taking from France of half of her Indian allies, the relief of the western border from Pennsylvania to Maryland from Indian raids, and the opening to the British of the vast regions of the West. So ended the American campaign of 1758. The French had been struck hard on both flanks, at Louisburg in the north and on the Ohio in the south, but in the centre they had held their own. Two parts out of three of Pitt's design had been accomplished; but the most important success of all was that achieved by Bradstreet in severing the French communications at Fort Frontenac. It may be that Pitt thought best to adhere to the plan of operations mapped out for him by Loudoun, or it may be that he wished to retrieve the reputation lost by Braddock's defeat; but the fact remains that he meditated no attack on Niagara or Fort Frontenac, the capture of either of which would have entailed that of Fort DuquÊsne, and that despite the industry of Bouquet and the tenacity of Forbes the advance to the Ohio would have been impossible but for the brilliant and successful enterprise of Bradstreet. to face page 338 MONONGAHELA, July 8th 1755.
FORMATION OF AMHERST'S FLOTILLA JULY 1759.
From a contemporary plan. THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE, 1755. The Country round TICONDEROGA,
From a Sketch by Lieut. Meyer of the 60th Reg.
1757.
1758.
Feb. 15.
March 31. The reader will probably have been struck during the narrative of the American campaign of 1758 with the inferiority of the French in numbers to the British at every point. The French colonies were in fact allowed to take their chance, while French soldiers were poured by the hundred thousand into Germany to avenge King Frederick's sarcasm against Madame de Pompadour. A Pitt was hardly needed to perceive that the more employment that could be found for French armies in Europe, the fewer were the men which could be spared for the service of France's possessions beyond sea; and Pitt resolved accordingly to keep those armies fully occupied. By the convention of Klosterzeven, as has already been told, it was agreed that the Hanoverian army should be broken up; but even before Cumberland's return to England, the question of repudiating that convention had been broached, and a fortnight later a message was despatched to Frederick announcing that the army would take the field again, and requesting the services of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick as General-in-Chief. Frederick assented; and on the 24th of November Ferdinand arrived at Stade, fresh from the victory of Rossbach in which he had taken part three weeks before, to assume the command. The whole aspect of affairs changed instantly, as if by magic. Setting his force in motion at once Ferdinand by the end of the year had driven the French back to the Aller, and renewing operations after six weeks spent in winter-quarters pressed the enemy still farther back, even across the Rhine. June 5.
June 7.
June 29.
July 1. It is said that even before Ferdinand had achieved this success Pitt had resolved to reinforce him with British troops, but for the present the minister reverted to his old plan of a descent on the French coast, which might serve the purpose of diverting French troops alike from America and from Germany. The first sign of his intention was seen in April, when the officers of sixteen battalions received orders to repair to the Isle of Wight by the middle of May. Such long notice was a strange preliminary for a secret expedition, for the troops themselves did not receive their orders until the 20th of May; and it was the end of the month before the whole of them, some thirteen thousand men,[296] were encamped on the island. The Duke of Marlborough was selected for the command, and, since his military talent was doubtful, Lord George Sackville, whose ability was unquestioned, was appointed as his second, with the duty of organising the whole of the operations. Two squadrons, comprising twenty-four ships of the line under Lord Anson, Sir Edward Hawke, and Commodore Howe, were detailed to escort the transports, and on the 1st of June the armament set sail, arriving on the 5th at Cancalle Bay, about eight miles from St. Malo. A French battery, erected for the defence of the bay, was quickly silenced by the ships, and on the following day the entire army was landed. One brigade was left to guard the landing-place, and the remainder of the force marched to St. Malo, where the light dragoons under cover of night slipped down to the harbour and burned over a hundred privateers and merchant-vessels. The Duke of Marlborough then made dispositions as if for the siege of St. Malo, but hearing that a superior force was on the march to cut off his retreat, retired to Cancalle Bay, re-embarked the troops, and sailed against Granville, a petty town some twenty miles to north-east of St. Malo. Foul weather frustrated the intended operations; and on the 27th the expedition arrived off Havre de Grace. Preparations were made for landing, but after two days of inactivity Marlborough decided against an attack, and the fleet bore up for Cherbourg. There once more all was made ready for disembarkation, but the weather was adverse, forage and provisions began to fail, and the entire enterprise against the coast was abandoned. So the costly armament returned to Portsmouth, having effected absolutely nothing. It is, however, doubtful whether blame can be attached to the officers, either naval or military, for the failure. Pitt had procured no intelligence as to the dispositions of the French for defence of the threatened ports; so that a General might well hesitate to run the risk of landing, when he could not tell how soon he might find himself cut off by a superior force from the sea. June 23.
Aug. 21. Meanwhile Ferdinand following up his success had pursued the French over the Rhine and gained a signal victory over them at Creveld. This action appears to have hastened Pitt to a decision, for within four days he announced to the British Commissary at Ferdinand's headquarters the King's intention to reinforce the Prince with two thousand British cavalry. The troops were warned for service on the same day; but within three days it was decided to increase the reinforcement to six thousand troops,[297] both horse and foot, and a week later the force was further augmented by three battalions. The first division of the troops was shipped off to Emden on the 11th of July, and by the second week in August the entire reinforcement had disembarked at the same port under command of the Duke of Marlborough, joining Prince Ferdinand's army at Coesfeld on the 21st.[298] There for the present we must leave them, till the time comes for Ferdinand's operations to engage our whole attention. Meanwhile the reader need bear in mind only that the British Army is definitely committed to yet another theatre of war. August. Even so, however, Pitt remained unsatisfied without another stroke against the French coast. While the troops were embarking for Germany he had formed a new encampment on the Isle of Wight and was intent upon a raid on Cherbourg. So intensely distasteful were these expeditions to the officers of the Army that the Duke of Marlborough and Lord George Sackville used their interest to obtain appointment to the army in Germany, so as to be quit of them once for all. The result was that when Lieutenant-General Bligh, who had been originally selected to serve under Prince Ferdinand, arrived in London from Ireland to sail for Emden, he found to his dismay that his destination was changed, and that he must prepare to embark for France. He accepted the command as in duty bound, the more so since Prince Edward was to accompany the expedition, but he was little fit for the service, having no qualification except personal bravery and one great disqualification in advanced age. Accordingly, obedient but unwilling, he set sail on the 1st of August with twelve battalions[299] and nine troops of light dragoons, escorted by a squadron under Commodore Howe. Not yet had the gallant sailor learned of his succession to the title through the fall of his brother Lord Howe at the head of Lake Champlain. Aug. 16.
September. The expedition began prosperously enough. The fleet arrived before Cherbourg on the 6th and at once opened the bombardment of the town. Early next morning it sailed to the bay of St. Marais, two leagues from Cherbourg, where the Guards and the grenadier-companies, having landed under the fire of the ships, attacked and drove off a force of three thousand French which had been drawn up to oppose them. The rest of the troops disembarked without hindrance on the following day and advanced on Cherbourg, which being unfortified to landward surrendered at once. Bligh thereupon proceeded to destroy the docks and the defences of the harbour and to burn the shipping, while the light cavalry scoured the surrounding country and levied contributions. This done, the troops were re-embarked; and after long delay owing to foul winds the fleet came to anchor on the 3rd of September in the Bay of St. Lunaire, some twelve miles east of St. Malo. There the troops were again landed during the two following days, though not without difficulty and the loss of several men drowned. Bligh's instructions bade him carry on operations against Morlaix or any other point on the coast that he might prefer to it, and he had formed some vague design of storming St. Malo from the landward side. This, however, was found to be impracticable with the force at his disposal; and now there ensued an awkward complication. The weather grew steadily worse, and Howe was obliged to warn the General that the fleet must leave the dangerous anchorage at St. Lunaire, and that it would be impossible for him to re-embark the troops at any point nearer than the bay of St. Cast, a few miles to westward. Accordingly he sailed for St. Cast, while Bligh, now thrown absolutely on his own resources ashore, marched for the same destination overland. Sept. 9. The army set out on the morning of the 7th of September, and after some trouble with small parties of French on the march encamped on the same evening near the river Equernon, intending to ford it next morning. It speaks volumes for the incapacity of Bligh and of his staff that the passage of the river was actually fixed for six o'clock in the morning, though that was the hour of high water. It was of course necessary to wait for the ebb-tide; so it was not until three in the afternoon that the troops forded the river, even then waist-deep, under a brisk fire from small parties of French peasants and regular troops. Owing to the lateness of the hour further advance on that day was impossible; and on resuming the march on the following morning the advanced guard encountered a body of about five hundred French troops. The enemy were driven back with considerable loss, but their prisoners gave information of the advance of at least ten thousand French from Brest. Arrived at Matignon Bligh encamped and sent his engineers to reconnoitre the beach at St. Cast in case he should be compelled to retreat. Deserters who came in during the night reported that the French were gathering additional forces from the adjacent garrisons; and in the morning Bligh sent word to Howe that he intended to embark on the following day. Sept. 11. Constant alarms during the night showed that the enemy was near at hand; and it would have been thought that Bligh, having made up his mind to retreat, would in so critical a position have retired as swiftly and silently as possible. On the contrary, at three o'clock on the morning of the 11th the drums beat the assembly as usual, to give the French all the information that they desired; while the troops moved off in a single column so as to consume the longest possible time on the march. It was nine o'clock before the embarkation began, and at eleven, when two-thirds of the force had been shipped, the enemy appeared in force on the hills above the beach. For some time the French were kept at a distance by the guns of the fleet, but after an hour they found shelter and opened a sharp and destructive fire. General Drury, who commanded the rear-guard, consisting of fourteen hundred men of the Guards and the grenadiers, was obliged to form his men across the beach to cover the embarkation. Twice he drove back the enemy, but, ammunition failing, he was forced back in turn, and there was nothing left but a rush for the boats. The French bringing up their artillery opened a furious fire; and all was confusion. So many of the boats were destroyed that the sailors shrank from approaching the shore and were only kept to their work by the personal example of Howe. In all seven hundred and fifty officers and men were killed and wounded, General Drury being among the slain, and the rest of the rear-guard were taken prisoners. The fleet and transports made their way back to England in no comfortable frame of mind, for the French naturally magnified their success to the utmost; and so ended Pitt's third venture against the coast of France. There can be little doubt but that Bligh must be held responsible for the failure. It should seem indeed that he was ignorant of the elements of his duty, even to the enforcing of discipline among the troops, who at the first landing near Cherbourg behaved disgracefully. The Duke of Marlborough had met with the same trouble at Cancalle Bay, but had had at least the strength to hang a marauding soldier on the first day and so to restore order. But after all Pitt was presumably responsible for the selection of Bligh; or, if he was aware that he could not appoint the right man for such a service, he would have done better to abandon these raids on the French coast altogether. The conduct of Marlborough and Sackville in shirking the duty because it was distasteful to them does not appear commendable; but Sackville at any rate was no fool, and Pitt might at least have recognised the military objections that were raised against his plans. The truth of the matter is, as Lord Cochrane was to prove fifty years later, that sporadic attacks on the French coast are best left to the Navy; for a single frigate under a daring and resolute officer can paralyse more troops than an expedition of ten or fifteen thousand men, with infinitely less risk and expense. Pitt had not yet done with his favourite descents, but his next venture of the kind was to be directed against an island instead of the mainland, when the British fleet could interpose between his handful of battalions and the whole population of France. Meanwhile Cherbourg had at any rate been destroyed, so like a wise man the minister made the most of this success, by sending some of the captured guns with great parade through Hyde Park to the Tower. April 30.
Oct. 26.
Dec. 29. The operations already narrated of the year 1758 were of considerable scope, embracing as they did the advance of three separate armies in America, two raids on the French coast, and the despatch of British troops to Germany; but these by no means exhaust the tale. There were few quarters of the globe in which the British had not to complain of French encroachment, and to this insidious hostility Pitt had resolved to put a stop once for all. Five years before, the merchants of Africa had denounced the unfriendliness of the French on the Gambia, who were building forts and stirring up the natives against them. The Royal African Company also, with its monopoly of the slave-trade, was anxious for its line of fortified depÔts on the West Coast, and prayed to be delivered from its troublesome neighbours at Senegal and in the island of Goree.[300] One of Pitt's first actions in 1758 was to order an expedition to be prepared against Senegal, a duty for which two hundred marines and twenty-five gunners were deemed a sufficient force. On the 23rd of April Captain Marsh of the Royal Navy sailed into the Senegal river, and by the 30th Fort Louis had surrendered and was flying the British flag. Two hundred men of Talbot's regiment[301] were at once sent to garrison the new possession, and then for some months there was a pause, while the troops for Germany and Cherbourg were embarking for their destinations. But no sooner was Bligh's expedition returned than a new enterprise was set on foot, and Captain Keppel of the Royal Navy received secret instructions to convoy Lieutenant-Colonel Worge with Forbes's regiment[302] and two companies of the Sixty-sixth to the West Coast.[303] Within three weeks the troops were embarked at Kinsale, and by the 28th of December Keppel's squadron was lying off Goree. On the following day the ships opened fire on the French batteries, and at nightfall the island surrendered, yielding up over three hundred prisoners and nearly an hundred guns. So with little trouble were gained the West African settlements of the French. 1759.
Jan. 13.
Jan. 15. But even before Keppel had received his instructions six more battalions[304] were under orders for foreign service; and his squadron had hardly sailed before another fleet of transports was gathering at Portsmouth. Major-General Peregrine Hopson, who had been Governor at Nova Scotia in the difficult years that preceded the outbreak of war, was appointed to the chief command, and Colonel Barrington, a junior officer, was, despite the honourable protests of his brother, the Secretary-at-War, selected to be his second. The expedition was delayed beyond the date fixed for its departure by bad weather, but at length on the 12th of November the transports, escorted by eight ships of the line under Commodore Hughes, got under way and sailed with a fair wind to the west. On the 3rd of January 1759 they reached Barbados, the time-honoured base of all British operations in the West Indies, and there was Commodore Moore waiting with two more ships of the line to join them and to take command of the fleet. After ten days' stay they again sailed away north-westward before the trade-wind. Astern of them the mountains of St. Vincent hung distant like a faint blue cloud; ahead of them two tall peaks, shaped like gigantic sugar-loaves, rose higher and higher from the sea, and marked the southern end of St. Lucia. Then St. Lucia came abeam, a rugged mass of volcanic mountains shrouded heavily in tropical forest, and another island rose up broad and blue not many leagues ahead, an island which the men crowded forward to see, for they were told that it was Martinique. Still the fleet held on; St. Lucia was left astern and Martinique loomed up larger and bolder ahead; then an islet like a pyramid was passed on the starboard hand, the Diamond Rock, not yet His Majesty's Ship; a little farther and the fleet was under the lee of the island; yet a little farther and the land shrank back to eastward into a deep inlet ringed about by lofty volcanic hills, and a few useless cannon-shot from a rocky islet near the entrance proclaimed that the French were ready for them in the Bay of Fort Royal.[305] Jan. 16.
Jan. 17. The ships lay off the bay until the next day, while Hopson thought out his plan of operations. The town and fortress of Fort Royal lies well within the bay on the northern shore, so Negro Point, which marks the entrance to the harbour to the north, was the spot selected for the landing. The ships next morning stood in and silenced two small batteries mounted at the Point, and in the afternoon the troops landed unopposed in a small bay adjacent to it. A camping ground was chosen in the only open space that could be found, between two ravines, and there the army passed the night formed up in square, to be ready against any sudden attack. At dawn of the next morning shots were heard, and the outposts reported that the enemy was advancing and entrenching a house close to the British position. The grenadiers were sent forward to dislodge them, and a smart skirmish ended in the retreat of the French. Hopson would fain have pushed more of his men into action, but the jungle was so dense that they could find no enemy. "Never was such a country," wrote the General plaintively, "the Highlands of Scotland for woods, mountains, and continued ravines are nothing to it."[306] As it was plainly out of the question to attempt to drag the heavy artillery before Fort Royal over such a country, it was decided to re-embark the troops forthwith. Nearly one hundred men had been killed and wounded in the morning's skirmish, but the embarkation was accomplished without further loss. Jan. 18. On the following day the fleet coasted the island northward and by evening lay off St. Pierre, the second town in Martinique, which stood nestling in a little plain at the head of a shallow bay. The men-of-war stood in on the next morning to observe the defences of the place, and the fire of the French batteries from the heights to right and left soon convinced the Commodore that the town could not be taken without such damage to his ships as would disable them for further service. It was therefore resolved that Martinique should for the present be left alone, and that the expedition should proceed to Guadeloupe, which was not only the richest of the French Islands but the principal nest of French privateers in the West Indies. So the fleet steered northward once more past Dominica, where the white flag of the Bourbons yet floated over the fort of Roseau; while a single ship was sent forward with the chief military engineer on board to reconnoitre the town of Basseterre, which lies on the western or leeward coast a few miles to north of the most southerly point of Guadeloupe. Jan. 23.
Jan. 24.
Jan. The engineer returned with no very encouraging report. The town though lying on an open roadstead was well fortified, and all the approaches to it along the coast were well protected, while the fort of Basseterre, situated on a lofty eminence at the southern end, was declared to be impregnable by the attack of ships alone. Moore, however, was resolute that the town could and should be taken, and at ten o'clock on the morning of the 23rd the ships of the line and bomb-ketches opened a heavy fire on the fort and batteries. In a few hours the town, crammed with the sugar and rum of the past harvest, was burning furiously, and by nightfall every battery was silenced and the town was a heap of blackened ruins. At dawn of the morrow the troops were landed, to find the elaborate lines of defence inland deserted and every gun spiked, while desultory shots from among the sugar-canes alone told of the presence of the enemy. The army encamped in Basseterre, but the firing from the cane-fields increased, and picquets and advanced posts were harassed to death by incessant alarms and petty attacks. Hopson sent a summons to the French Governor to surrender, but received only an answer of defiance. The Governor had in fact withdrawn his force some six miles from Basseterre to an impregnable position such as can be found only in a rugged, mountainous and untamed country. Each flank was covered by inaccessible hills clothed with impenetrable forest; in his front ran the river Galeon with high and precipitous banks, and beyond the river a gully so steep and sheer that the French themselves used ladders to cross it. The position was further strengthened by entrenchments and cannon. To attack it in front was impossible. The only practicable access was by a narrow road which led through dense forest upon one flank; and this was most carefully guarded. Here therefore the French commander lay, refusing to come to action but sending out small parties to worry the British outposts, in the hope that the climate would do the work of repelling his enemy for him. Feb. 14. Nor was he without good ground for such hope; for Hopson was in great doubt whether it would not be more expedient for him to re-embark. His own health was failing rapidly, and the men were beginning to fall down fast under the incessant work at the advanced posts and the fatigue of carrying provisions to them. From the day of landing it had been found necessary to push these advanced posts farther and farther inland and to make them stronger and stronger, until at last they embraced a circuit of fully three miles. By the end of January the men on the sick list numbered fifteen hundred, or fully a quarter of the force. Hopson sent six hundred invalids to Antigua in the hope of saving at least some of them, but therewith his efforts came to an end, nor could all the representations of Barrington stimulate him to further action. Yet new operations were by no means difficult either of conception or of execution. Guadeloupe is in reality not one island but two, being divided by a narrow strait known as the Salt River. It is very much of the shape of a butterfly with wings outspread, flying south; the western wing being known as Guadeloupe proper and the eastern as Grande Terre, while the Salt River runs in the place of the butterfly's body. Grande Terre, the most fertile part of the island, still lay open to attack, with an excellent harbour at Point À Pitre, of which the principal defence, Fort Louis, could be reached by the cannon of ships. Moore being fortunately independent of Hopson in respect of naval operations, sent ships round to Fort Louis, which speedily battered it into surrender, and installed therein a garrison of three hundred Highlanders and Marines. But even with this new base secured to him Hopson declined to move. He was indeed sick unto death, and on the 27th of February he died, leaving the command to devolve on Barrington. March 6.
March 11.
March. His death came none too soon, for the force was on the brink of destruction. The number of the dead cannot be ascertained, but over and above the six hundred invalids sent to Antigua there were more than sixteen hundred men on the sick list, and the remainder were succumbing so fast that sufficient men could hardly be found to do the daily duty. Barrington resolved to close this fatal period of inaction at once. The defences of the fort of Basseterre had already been repaired and rendered safe against attack, so the Sixty-third regiment was left to hold it while the remainder of the troops were embarked on board the transports. After five days of weary beating against the trade-wind a portion of the ships came to anchor before Fort Louis; but more than half of them had fallen to leeward. The next day was spent by Barrington in an open boat reconnoitring the coast, but on his return in the evening he was met by the bad news that a French squadron had been sighted to northward of Barbados and that Moore felt bound to fall back with his own squadron to Prince Rupert's Bay, Dominica, in order to cover Basseterre and the British Leeward Islands. Finally, as sickness had wrought little less havoc in the fleet than in the army, the Commodore begged for troops to make up the complement of his crews. Few situations could have been more embarrassing than that in which Barrington now found himself. He loyally gave Moore three hundred soldiers for his ships, and watched the fleet on which his communications depended vanish from sight. Nearly if not quite half of his force had perished or was unfit for duty; while of the rest a part was isolated in Basseterre and fully one moiety was at sea, striving to beat into Point À Pitre. Fort Louis, the only strong position in which he could hope to wait in safety, was found to be untenable; and the French were already preparing to besiege it. Yet with a resolution which stamps him as no common man, he resolved despite all difficulties to begin offensive operations at once. He had at any rate transports though he had no men-of-war, and he resolved to use them; his plan being, if he failed to bring the enemy to action, to ravage the whole island and reduce it by starvation. The cultivated land in such a confusion of mountains could lie only in the valleys, and the settlements must needs lie at the mouths of those valleys where there was communication with other parts of the island by sea or by roads that followed the coast. The French had raised abundance of batteries and entrenchments to protect these settlements, but such multiplicity of defences necessarily implied dispersion of force. Barrington's troops, few though they might be, were at any rate to some extent concentrated; and it was in his power to embark men sufficient to overwhelm any one of these isolated settlements, and so to break up the defences in detail. The operations were not in fact difficult when once a man had thought out the method of conducting them, but it was precisely in this matter of thought that Hopson had failed. March 27.
March 29. A fortnight was occupied in strengthening the defences of Port Louis; and on the 27th of March six hundred men were embarked under command of Colonel Crump and sent off to the south coast of Grande Terre, with orders to land between the towns of St. Anne and St. FranÇois, destroy both of them and ruin the batteries erected for their protection. Crump, an excellent officer, performed this duty punctually and with little loss; and on the 29th Barrington, guessing that the French would certainly have detached some of their troops from Gosier, a port a few miles to westward of St. Anne, sailed with three hundred men against it, and at dawn fell upon the enemy in their entrenchments. The troops, eager for work after long inaction, attacked with great spirit, drove the enemy out with little difficulty and slight loss, and then prepared to force their way back to Fort Louis by land. Barrington had ordered two separate sallies to be made by the garrison upon the lines erected by the French against the fort, but owing to some mistake one only was delivered. Nevertheless his own little detachment did the work unaided, captured a battery of twenty-four pounders which had been planted by the enemy to open on the fort on the next day, and returned to its quarters triumphant. April 12.
April 13. By this time the missing transports had succeeded in working into Point À Pitre; but to countervail this advantage there came news from Basseterre that the colonel in command, a valuable officer, had been killed, together with one or two of his men, by an accidental explosion, and that the French were constructing batteries to bombard the fort. Barrington appointed a new commander, with orders to sally forth and capture these batteries without more ado; and the task, since he had chosen the right men to execute it, was performed with little trouble or loss. Moreover, having now ruined the most important settlements in Grande Terre he resolved to apply the same principles of warfare to Guadeloupe. Accordingly on the 12th of April Brigadier Clavering, with thirteen hundred men and six guns, was sent off to a bay close to Arnouville,[307] where they landed unopposed, the enemy retiring to a strong position in rear of the river Licorne. This position was all-important to the French since it covered Mahault Bay, which was the port by which the Dutch supplied Guadeloupe with provisions from the island of St. Eustatia. It was so strong by nature that it needed little fortification by art; access to the river being barred by a mangrove swamp, across which there were but two narrow approaches, both of them protected by redoubts, palisaded entrenchments, and cannon. None the less Clavering determined to attack. Covered by a heavy fire of artillery the Fourth and Forty-second advanced against the French left, firing by platoons as coolly as if on parade, till the Highlanders drawing their claymores made a rush, and the Fourth dashing forward with the bayonet drove the French from the redoubt. Then pushing round to the rear of the entrenchments on the French right they forced the enemy to evacuate them also, and captured seventy prisoners. The French then retreated southward, setting fire to the cane-fields as they passed in order to check the British pursuit, and took post behind the river Lezarde, breaking down the bridge behind them. It was too late for Clavering to attack them on that day, for the only ford on the river was protected by a redoubt and four guns; but keeping up a fire of artillery all night in order to distract the enemy's attention, he passed a party in a canoe across the river below the position of the French, who no sooner saw their right flank turned than they retired with precipitation, abandoning all their guns. Following the coast southward to Petit Bourg, where they had prepared fortified lines and armed redoubts, the French again tried to make a stand; but Barrington had sent a bomb-vessel to await them off the coast, which opened fire with shell and drove them back once more, before they could withdraw their guns from the entrenchments. April 14.
April 18.
April 19.
May 1. Then and not till then did Clavering grant his men a halt after their hard work under the tropical sun; but on the 15th he was in motion again, and a detachment of a hundred men was sent to capture the next battery to southward at the town of Gouyave. The French, now thoroughly disheartened, waited only to fire one shot and then fled, leaving seven guns behind them, when the British having spiked the cannon retired to Petit Bourg. On the same day Colonel Crump was sent with seven hundred men to Mahault Bay, where he found the French defences abandoned. Having destroyed them, together with a vast quantity of stores, he marched to join Clavering at Petit Bourg and to help in the work of desolating the country round it. Heavy rain suspended operations during the two following days; but on the 18th the entire force, excepting a garrison of two hundred and fifty men which was left at Petit Bourg, renewed the advance southward upon St. Maries, where all the French troops in the island were assembled to oppose it. The French position was as usual strongly entrenched, but the paths that led to rear of it, being judged impassable, were left unguarded. A detachment was therefore sent to turn the entrenchments by these paths, and the artillery was hastened up to the front; but the guns had hardly opened fire when the French, perceiving the movement in their rear, deserted their fortifications and fled to another entrenched position on the heights beyond St. Maries. The British pursued; and, while the ground was clearing for the artillery to come into action, part of the infantry tried to force a way through the forest and precipices on the flank of the earthworks. The French, weary of finding position after position turned, left their fortified lines to meet this attack, whereupon Clavering instantly launched the remainder of his troops straight at the lines, and despite a heavy fire of artillery and musketry swept the enemy out of this last refuge. On the morrow the army entered the district of Capesterre, reputed the richest in the whole of the West Indies; and the inhabitants, dreading lest it should be overtaken by the fate of the rest, came and begged for terms. A capitulation was therefore granted on liberal conditions, and Guadeloupe, one of the wealthiest of the Antilles, with a harbour large enough to shelter the whole Navy of England from hurricanes, passed for the present to the Crown of Britain. May 26. The surrender came in the nick of time, for the ink of the signatures was hardly dry when news came of the arrival of General Beauharnais from Martinique with six hundred French regular troops and two thousand buccaneers. A day earlier this reinforcement would have saved Guadeloupe; but on hearing of the capitulation Beauharnais re-embarked his troops and sailed away. Nothing therefore remained for Barrington but to settle the administration, fortify the harbour, and leave a sufficient garrison to hold it. The island of Mariegalante, which had not been included in the capitulation, made some show of defiance but surrendered on the first display of force. Crump was installed as Governor; the Fourth, Sixty-third, and Sixty-fifth were left with him; the Thirty-eighth returned to its old quarters in the Leeward Islands, the Highlanders were shipped off to America, and in June Barrington, with the remnant of the Buffs, Sixty-first, and Sixty-fourth, returned to England. So ended the campaign of Guadeloupe. The story is one which is little known, and the name of John Barrington is one of which few have heard; yet surely the achievements of himself and of his troops are such as should not be forgotten. Barrington took over from Hopson an army weakened by sickness, worn to death by defensive warfare of the most harassing kind, and disheartened by the consciousness that it was working to no purpose. He at once shifted his base for more active operations, only to find, to his great mortification, half of his force literally at sea, and the fleet taken from him for other duty. Yet he went to work at once; and knowing that he could not take the island by force reduced it to submission by cutting off and destroying its supplies. I have not hesitated to describe the petty engagements which followed, since there was not one which did not show forethought in the planning and skill in the execution. It is true that the French regular troops on the island were few, and that the enemy which deserted its entrenchments so readily was made up mainly of raw militia and armed civilians; but they never fought except in a strong position protected by artillery. It is true also that the actual work in the field was done by Crump and Clavering, two excellent officers, for Barrington was so much crippled by gout that he could hardly leave Fort Louis. Nevertheless the whole scheme of operations was Barrington's, and no man more cordially acknowledged the fact than Clavering himself. The number of the British killed and wounded in action is unfortunately not to be ascertained, but judging by the casualties of the officers, of whom eleven were killed and twenty-one wounded, it was not very great. But it is not lead and steel that are most fatal in a tropical expedition, and it is not in killed and wounded that its cost must be reckoned. The island had been conquered, but the climate had not; and the climate took its revenge. By the close of the seven months that remained of the year 1759 nearly eight hundred officers and men of the garrison had found their graves in Guadeloupe. Authorities.—For the expeditions to Cancalle Bay and Cherbourg, see Account by an officer of the late expedition. Entick also gives details from the official documents. For the operations at Goree, see State Papers (Record Office), C. O., Col. Corres., Sierra Leone, 2, 3. For Guadeloupe, see State Papers, C. O., America and West Indies, 100, 101; W. O., Orig. Corres., 26. Entick again gives a confused statement.
1758.
Dec. 1. It was late in November before Parliament reassembled, and listened to a speech from the throne, jubilant over the captures of Louisburg, Fort Frontenac, and Senegal, but modestly deploring the inevitable expense of the war. The Commons, however, were practically unanimous in allowing a free hand to Pitt, though the minister himself was startled when he was brought face to face with the estimates. Those for the Army were introduced a week later, and showed but a slight increase in the British Establishment, the total number of men not exceeding eighty-five thousand. Yet the main operations of the coming year were to be conducted on a grander scale than before, while at the same time provision was needed to make good the enormous waste caused by tropical expeditions. Two new regiments only were formed before the actual opening of the operations of 1759, one of them, Colonel Eyre Coote's,[308] serving as a reminder that concurrently with all other enterprises there was progressing the struggle, which shall presently be narrated, for the mastery of the East Indies. 1759. Pitt's principal effort, as in the previous year, was directed against Canada, and the operations prescribed were little less complicated than those of the last campaign. In the first place a direct attack was to be made upon Quebec, for which purpose Amherst was to make over ten battalions to General Wolfe. In the second, the attempt to penetrate into Canada by way of Ticonderoga and Crown Point was to be renewed. Amherst himself was to take this duty upon him, Abercromby having been rightly recalled; and it was hoped that he might join Wolfe in the capital of Canada or at least make a powerful diversion in his favour. At the same time Amherst was ordered to secure Oswego and Pittsburg, and empowered to undertake any further operations that he pleased, without prejudice to the main objects of the campaign. The General having already twenty-three battalions of the King's troops in America, it was reckoned that, with the regiments to be forwarded to him from the West Indies by Hopson, he would possess a sufficient force for the work. No fresh battalions therefore were sent to him from England.[309] The selection of James Wolfe for the command of the expedition against Quebec came as a surprise to many. He was now thirty-two years of age, and had held a commission ever since he was fourteen, attaining the rank of captain at seventeen and of major at twenty. He had served in Flanders and distinguished himself as brigade-major at Lauffeld, but it was as Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the Twentieth Foot that he had shown himself most competent. He was an admirable regimental officer, enthusiastic over his profession and well acquainted with its duties, a stern disciplinarian yet devoted to his men, and a refined and educated gentleman. In short he was a commanding officer who could be trusted to raise the tone of any corps.[310] He had attracted Pitt's notice by his constant though fruitless advocacy of action in the abortive descent on Rochefort in 1757, and had come prominently before the public eye by his behaviour at Louisburg. His relations with Amherst, however, appear not to have been very friendly, nor to have been improved by his return home from Cape Breton in 1758; indeed Wolfe was reprimanded as soon as he arrived in England for returning without the King's orders, under misconception of his letter of service.[311] It was possibly under the sting of this censure that he wrote to Pitt declaring his readiness to serve in America and "particularly in the river St. Lawrence"; but be that as it may he received the appointment. There is an anecdote that he filled the great minister with dismay by some extraordinary gasconnade at a dinner to which he had been invited shortly before his departure; but even if, in a moment of elation,[312] he may have given way to excited talk for a time, yet such outbursts were not usual with him, for he was the quietest and most modest of men. The real objection to his appointment was the state of his health. He had never been strong and was a martyr to rheumatism and stone, but he was as courageous against pain as against the bullets of the enemy; in fact, like King William the Third, he was never so happy as when under fire. For the rest nature had cursed him with a countenance of singular ugliness, his portraits showing a profile that runs in a ridiculous curve from the forehead to the tip of the nose, and recedes in as ridiculous a curve from the nose to the neck. A shock of red hair tied in a queue, and a tall, lank, ungainly figure added neither grace nor beauty to his appearance; but within that unhandsome frame lay a passionate attachment to the British soldier, and an indomitable spirit against difficulty and danger. February.
May. It was the middle of February when Wolfe sailed from England in H.M.S. Neptune, the flag-ship of a fleet of twenty-one sail under Admirals Saunders, Holmes, and Durell. The voyage was long and tedious, and when at last Louisburg was reached the harbour was found to be blocked with ice, so that the fleet was obliged to make for Halifax. From thence Durell was detached, too late as was presently proved, to the mouth of the St. Lawrence to intercept certain transports that were expected with supplies from France; Holmes was sent to convoy the troops that were to sail from New York; and in May the entire armament for the reduction of Quebec was assembled at Louisburg. Wolfe had been led to expect a force of twelve thousand men; but the regiments which should have been detached from Guadeloupe could not yet be spared, and those drawn from the garrisons of Nova Scotia had been reduced considerably beneath their proper strength by sickness during the winter. The quality of the troops, however, was excellent, and on this Wolfe counted to make good a serious numerical deficiency. The force was distributed into three brigades, under Brigadiers Monckton, Townsend, and Murray, all three of them men of youth, energy, and talent, well qualified to serve under such a commander as Wolfe.[313] The grenadiers of the army were, as had now become usual, massed together and organised in two divisions, those of the regiments in garrison at Louisburg being known as the Louisburg grenadiers.[314] Another separate corps was composed of the best marksmen in the several regiments, and was called the Light Infantry, while six companies of Provincial rangers furnished a proportion of irregular troops. The whole strength of the force was thus brought up to about eight thousand five hundred men. A fortnight sufficed for the final arrangements, for Amherst and his staff had spared no pains to provide all that was necessary;[315] and on the 6th of June the last division of transports, amid a roar of cheering from the men, sailed out of Louisburg for the St. Lawrence. The French commanders meanwhile had been anxiously making their preparations for defence. There could be no doubt that the British would make at least a double attack upon Canada, from Lake Champlain on the south and Lake Ontario on the west, and every able-bodied man in the colony was called out to repel it. No sooner had the dispositions been settled than news came of the intended advance by the St. Lawrence, which threw the whole colony into consternation. Five regular battalions and the militia from every part of Canada were summoned, together with a thousand Indians, to Quebec; and after much debate Montcalm, who held the command of the troops under the Governor of the city, decided on his scheme of defence. Quebec with its fortifications stands on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, being situated on a rocky headland which marks the contraction of the river from a width of fifteen or twenty miles to a strait scarcely exceeding one. Immediately to northward of this ridge the river St. Charles flows down to the St. Lawrence; and seven miles to eastward of the St. Charles the shore is cut by the rocky gorge through which pours the cataract of the Montmorenci. It was between these two streams that Montcalm disposed his army, his right resting on the St. Charles, his left on the Montmorenci, with his headquarters on the little river of Beauport midway between the two, and his front to the St. Lawrence. All along the border of the great river were thrown up entrenchments, batteries, and redoubts. From Montmorenci to Beauport abrupt and rocky heights raised these defences too high above the water to be reached by the cannon of ships. From Beauport to the St. Charles stretched broad flats of mud, which were commanded by batteries both afloat and ashore, as well as by the guns of Quebec. On the walls of the city itself were mounted over one hundred cannon; a bridge of boats with a strong bridge-head on the eastern side preserved the communication between city and camp; and for the defence of the river itself there was a floating battery of twelve heavy guns besides several gun-boats and fire-ships. The vessels of the convoy that Durell had failed to intercept, together with the frigates that escorted them, were sent up the river beyond Quebec to be out of harm's way; and the sailors were taken to man the batteries ashore. Thus strongly entrenched with fourteen thousand men of one description and another, and firm in the belief that no foreign ship would dare to attempt the intricate navigation of the St. Lawrence, Montcalm waited for the British to come. June. It was not until the 21st of June that the first mast-heads of the fleet were seen. For days the British had been groping their way up the river, helped partly by a captured Canadian pilot, more often by their own skill and experience. "Damn me if there are not a thousand places in the Thames fifty times more hazardous than this," growled an old skipper on one of the transports, as he waived the pilot contemptuously aside. So the great fleet crept up the stream, ships of the line passing where the French had feared to take a coasting schooner, and at last on the 26th of June the whole was anchored safely off the southern shore of the Isle of Orleans, a few miles below Quebec. No single mishap had marred this masterly and superb feat of pilotage. June 27.
June 28.
June 29.
July. The troops landed without resistance next day on the Isle of Orleans, and on the same afternoon a sudden squall drove many of the ships ashore and destroyed several of the flat-boats prepared for the disembarkation. The storm raised high hopes of providential deliverance in the French, which, however, were speedily dashed, for the tempest subsided as suddenly as it had arisen. On the morrow therefore the Governor of Quebec resolved to launch his fire-ships down the river upon the fleet. The attempt was duly made, but the ships were ill-handled and the service ill-executed. The British sailors coolly rowed out, grappled the burning vessels and towed them ashore, while the troops, formed up in order of battle, gazed at the most imposing display of fireworks that they had ever seen. Meanwhile Wolfe reconnoitred the French lines and the city, but could see no possible opening for a successful attack. One thing alone seemed feasible, to occupy the heights of Point LÉvis over against Quebec on the southern shore, and to fire across this, the narrowest part of the river, upon the city. Monckton's brigade accordingly entrenched itself on these heights, threw up batteries, and on the 12th of July opened a fire which wrought havoc among the buildings of Quebec. But however this cannonade might afflict the nerves of the inhabitants, it could contribute little, as Wolfe well knew, to advance the real work in hand. Accordingly, while the batteries on Point LÉvis were constructing, the English General resolved to see whether a vulnerable point could be found on Montcalm's left flank. On the 8th of July, leaving a detachment to hold the camp on the Isle of Orleans, he sent Townsend's and Murray's brigades across to the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, where they proceeded to entrench themselves on the eastern side of the Montmorenci. The movement was highly perilous, since it divided his force into three portions, no one of which could support the other; but the French kept themselves rigidly on the defensive, though the British lay but a gunshot from them across the rocky gorge of the Montmorenci and annoyed their camp not a little with their artillery. Still Wolfe could accomplish nothing decisive. The news that Amherst was advancing against Ticonderoga did indeed discourage the Canadians and increase desertion among them; but in all other respects the operations before Quebec had come to a deadlock. July 18.
July 28. Now, however, the fleet which had already vanquished the difficulties in the navigation of the St. Lawrence once more came forward to show the way. It was the opinion of the French that no vessel could pass the batteries of Quebec without destruction; but on the night of the 18th of July H.M.S. Sutherland, of fifty guns, with several smaller vessels, sailed safely up the river, covered by the fire of the guns on Point LÉvis, destroyed some small craft which they found there and anchored above the town. This was the first menace of an attempt to take Quebec in reverse, and obliged Montcalm to detach six hundred men from the camp of Beauport to defend the few accessible points between the city and Cap Rouge, some eight miles above it. Wolfe took advantage of the movement also to send a detachment to ravage the country to westward of Quebec; but though he thus added a fourth to the three isolated divisions into which he had broken up his army, Montcalm still declined to move. A second attempt was indeed made to destroy the British vessels by fire-ships, which was frustrated like the first by the coolness and gallantry of the British sailors; but beyond this French aggression would not go. Montcalm was resolved to play the part of Fabius, and he seemed likely to play it with success. The season was now wearing on, and Wolfe was not a whit nearer to his object than at his first disembarkation. Mortified by his ill-success he now resolved to attack Montcalm's camp in front. The hazard was desperate, for, after leaving troops to hold Point LÉvis and the entrenchments on the Montmorenci, he could raise little more than five thousand men with which to attack a force of more than double his strength in a very formidable position. A mile to westward of the falls of the Montmorenci there is a strand about a furlong wide at high water and half a mile wide at low tide, between that river and the foot of the cliffs. The French had built redoubts on this strand above high-water mark, which were commanded, though Wolfe could not see it, by the fire of musketry from the entrenchments above. Wolfe's hope was that by the capture of one of these redoubts he might tempt the French down to regain it and so bring on a general action, or at least find an opportunity of reconnoitring the entrenched camp itself. Moreover, below the falls of the Montmorenci was a ford, by which some at least of his troops on that river could join in the attack, and so diminish in some degree the disparity of numbers. But Wolfe held the Canadian militia in such contempt that he was not afraid to pit against them, at whatever odds, the valour of his own disciplined soldiers. July 31. Accordingly on the morning of the 31st of July H.M.S. Centurion stood in close to the Montmorenci, dropped her anchor and opened fire on the redoubts. Two armed transports followed her and likewise opened fire on the nearest redoubt, stranding as the tide ebbed till at last they lay high and dry on the mud. Simultaneously the batteries on the other side of the Montmorenci opened a furious fire upon the flank of Montcalm's entrenchments, and at eleven o'clock a number of boats filled with troops rowed across from Point LÉvis and hovered about the river opposite Beauport as if to attack at that point. Time, however, showed Montcalm where real danger was to be apprehended, and he concentrated the whole of his twelve thousand men between Beauport and the Montmorenci. At half-past five the British batteries afloat and ashore opened fire with redoubled fury, and the boats made a dash for the shore. Unfortunately some of them grounded on a ledge short of the flats, which caused some confusion and delay, but eventually all of them reached the strand and set the men ashore. Thirteen companies of grenadiers were the first to land, and after them two hundred men of the Sixtieth; while some distance behind them the Fifteenth and Fraser's Highlanders followed in support. No sooner were they ashore than the grenadiers, the most trusted troops in the army, for some reason got out of hand. Despite the efforts of their officers they would not wait for the supports to form up, but made a rush in the greatest disorder and confusion for the redoubt and drove the French from it. Instantly a tremendous fire was poured upon them from the entrenchments above. The grenadiers recoiled for a moment; then recovering themselves they ran forward again and made a mad effort to struggle up the steep, slippery grass of the ascent, but only to roll down by scores, killed or wounded by the hail of musketry from the French lines. Where the affair would have ended it is hard to say, had not the clouds of a summer's storm, which had hung over the river all the afternoon, suddenly burst just at that moment in a deluge of rain. All ammunition on both sides was drenched, so that further firing became impossible, while the grassy slope became so treacherous that it was hopeless to attempt to climb it. Wolfe, seeing that everything was gone wrong, ordered a retreat; and the troops fell back and re-embarked, the grenadiers and Sixtieth having lost five hundred officers and men, or well-nigh half of their numbers, in killed, wounded, and missing. August 5. Wolfe was highly indignant over the misbehaviour of the grenadiers, and rebuked them sharply in general orders for their impetuous, irregular, and unsoldierlike proceedings. The French, on the other hand, were naturally much elated, and flattered themselves that the campaign was virtually at an end. Nor was Wolfe of a very different opinion. It is said, indeed, that he conceived the idea of leaving a part of his troops in a fortified position before Quebec, to be ready for a new attempt in the following spring. Meanwhile for the present he fell back on the tactics, which Barrington had so successfully employed at Guadeloupe, of laying waste all the settlements round about Quebec, with the object of provoking desertion among the militia and exhausting the colony generally. Montcalm, however, was not to be enticed from his lines; he had Indians with him sufficient to make hideous reprisals for Wolfe's desolation, and Canada was not to be won by the burning of villages. Wolfe, therefore, now shifted his operations to the point whither the enterprise of the fleet had led him, above and on the reverse side of Quebec. With every fair wind more and more ships had braved the fire of the batteries and passed through it in safety; and now a flotilla of flat-boats dared the same passage, while twelve hundred men under Brigadier Murray marched overland up the south bank of the St. Lawrence to do service in them. This movement compelled Montcalm to withdraw another fifteen hundred men from the camp at Beauport, to check any attempt at a landing above the city. The duty thus imposed upon this small body of French was most arduous, since it involved anxious watching of fifteen or twenty miles of the shore. So well was it performed, however, under the direction of Bougainville, an officer afterwards famous as the great navigator, that it was only after two repulses that Murray succeeded in burning a large magazine of French stores. The alarm caused by this stroke was so great that Montcalm hastened from Beauport to take command in person; but when he arrived the British had already retired, content with their success. None the less the French from the highest to the lowest now grew seriously uneasy. Their army was on short rations. All its supplies were drawn from the districts of Three Rivers and Montreal; and, from want of transport overland, these were perforce sent down the river where the British ships lay ready to intercept them. Now was seen the error of sending the frigates up the river and allowing the British squadron to assemble by small detachments above Quebec; but it was too late to repair it. The British fleet had discovered the true method of reducing the city by severing its communications both above and below. The only hope for the French was that winter might drive the shipping from the St. Lawrence and put an end to the campaign, before Quebec should be starved out. June 15.
July.
July 24. Meanwhile Amherst's operations to south and west began likewise to tell upon the situation. Taking advantage of the latitude allowed to him by Pitt, he determined to add the reduction of Niagara to the enterprises prescribed to him. This duty he assigned to Brigadier Prideaux with five thousand men;[316] Brigadier Stanwix was entrusted with the relief of Pittsburg; and Amherst in person took charge of the grand advance by Lakes George and Champlain. The operations of Prideaux and Stanwix were to be conducted in combination; for it was intended that while Prideaux was engaged with Niagara, Stanwix should push a force northward against the French posts on Lake Erie, and thence on to Niagara itself, thus releasing Prideaux for an advance to the St. Lawrence. Prideaux was the first to take the field. His force having been assembled on the Mohawk at Senectady, he moved up the stream, left a strong garrison at Fort Stanwix to guard the Great Carrying-place, and moved forward by Lake Oneida and the river Onandaga to Oswego. There leaving nearly half of his force under Colonel Haldimand to secure his retreat, he embarked with the rest on the lake for Niagara. The fort stood in the angle formed by the river Niagara and Lake Ontario, and was garrisoned by some six hundred men. Prideaux at once laid siege in form, though the trenches were at first so unskilfully laid out by the engineers as to require almost total reconstruction. At last, however, the batteries opened fire. Prideaux was unluckily killed almost immediately by the premature explosion of a shell from one of his own guns, but Sir William Johnson, who had joined the force with a party of Indians, took command in his place and pushed the siege with great energy. The fort after two or three weeks of battering was in extremity; when a party of thirteen hundred French rangers and Indians, which had been summoned from the work of harassing the British on the Ohio to the relief of Niagara, appeared on the scene in the very nick of time. Johnson rose worthily to the occasion. Leaving a third of his force in the trenches and yet another third to guard his boats, he sallied forth with the remainder to meet the relieving force, and after a brisk engagement routed it completely. The survivors fled hurriedly back to Lake Erie, burned Venango and the posts on the lake and retired to Detroit. Niagara surrendered on the evening of the same day, and thus were accomplished at a stroke the most important objects to be gained by Stanwix and Prideaux. The whole region of the Upper Ohio was left in undisputed possession of the British, and the French posts of the West were hopelessly cut off from Canada. Now, therefore, the ground was open for an advance on Montreal by Lake Ontario; and Amherst lost no time in sending General Gage to take command of Prideaux's force, with orders to attack the French post of La Galette, at the head of the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and thence to push on as close as possible to Montreal. "Now is the time," wrote Amherst to him, "and we must make use of it."[317] July 21.
July 26.
August. Amherst himself had assembled his army at the end of June at the usual rendezvous by the head of Lake George. His force consisted of about eleven thousand five hundred men, five thousand of them Provincials and the remainder British.[318] As was now the rule, he had massed the grenadiers of the army into one corps, and had formed also a body of Light Infantry which he had equipped appropriately for its work.[319] It was not, however, until the 21st of July that the troops were embarked, and that a flotilla little less imposing than Abercromby's set sail with a fair wind over Lake George. It was drawn up in four columns, the light troops and Provincials on either flank, the regular troops in the right centre and the artillery and baggage in the left centre. An advanced and a rear-guard in line covered the head and tail of the columns, and an armed sloop followed in rear of all. Before dark they had reached the Narrows, and at daybreak of the following morning the force disembarked and marched, meeting with little resistance, by the route of Abercromby's second advance to Ticonderoga. The entrenchments which had foiled the British in the previous year had been reconstructed but were found to be deserted; Bourlamaque, the French commander, having withdrawn his garrison, some thirty-five hundred men only, into the fort. Amherst brought up his artillery to lay siege in form, but on the night of the 26th a loud explosion announced that the French had abandoned Ticonderoga and blown up the works. It was, however, but one bastion that had been destroyed, so Amherst at once repaired the damage and made preparations for advance on Crown Point. On the 1st of August he learned that Bourlamaque had abandoned this fortress also, and fallen back to the strong position of Isle aux Noix at the northern outlet of Lake Champlain. Amherst was now brought to a standstill, for the French had four armed vessels on the lake, and it was necessary for him to build vessels likewise for the protection of the flotilla before he could advance farther. He at once set about this work, concurrently with the erection of a strong fort at Crown Point, but unfortunately he began too late. Amherst was above all a methodical man, whose principle was to make good each step gained before he attempted to move again. Possibly he had not anticipated so easy an advance to Crown Point, but, be that as it may, he had made no provision for advancing beyond it, and when at last, by the middle of September, his ships were ready, the season was too far advanced for further operations. He tried to stir up Gage to hasten to the attack on La Galette, but without success. In fact by the middle of August the campaign of the armies of the south and west was virtually closed. August. Nevertheless for the moment the news of Amherst's advance to Crown Point caused great alarm in Quebec, and Montcalm felt himself obliged to send LÉvis, one of his best officers, to superintend the defence of Montreal. Gradually, however, as Amherst's inaction was prolonged, the garrison regained confidence; and meanwhile deep discouragement fell on the British. On the 20th of August Wolfe, who was much exhausted by hard work, anxiety, and mortification, fell seriously ill and was compelled to delegate the conduct of operations to a council of his brigadiers. Several plans were propounded to them, all of which they rejected in favour of an attempt to gain a footing on the ridge above the city, cut off Montcalm's supplies from Montreal, and compel him to fight or surrender. The course was that which had been marked out by the fleet from the moment that the ships had passed above Quebec. It was indeed both difficult and hazardous, but it was the only plan that promised any hope of success; and the success, if attained, would be final. Wolfe accepted it forthwith and without demur. The army had lost over eight hundred men killed and wounded since the beginning of operations, and had been weakened still more seriously by disease; but the General was driven to desperation by sickness and disappointment and was ready to undertake any enterprise that commended itself to his officers. On the last day of August he was sufficiently recovered to go abroad once more, and on the 2nd of September he wrote to Pitt the story of his failure up to that day and of his resolutions for the future, all in a strain of dejection that sank almost to despair. Sept. 3. On the following day the troops were skilfully withdrawn without loss from the camp on the Montmorenci. On the night of the 4th a flotilla of flat-boats passed successfully above the town with the baggage and stores, and on the 5th seven battalions marched westward overland from Point LÉvis and embarked, together with Wolfe himself, on Admiral Holmes' ships. Montcalm thereupon reinforced Bougainville to a strength of three thousand men and charged him to watch the movements of the fleet with the utmost vigilance. Bougainville's headquarters were at Cap Rouge, with detached fortified posts at Sillery, six miles down the river, at Samos yet farther down, and at Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove, a mile and a half above Quebec. It was by this last that Wolfe, searching the heights for mile after mile with his telescope, perceived a narrow path running up the face of the precipice. From the path he turned his glass to the post above it, and seeing but ten or twelve tents concluded that the guard was not numerous and might be overpowered. There then was a way found for the ascent of the cliffs from the river: the next problem was how to turn the discovery to good account. On the morning of the 7th of September Holmes' squadron weighed anchor and sailed up to Cap Rouge. The French instantly turned out to man their entrenchments; and Wolfe, having kept them in suspense for a sufficient time, ordered the troops into the boats and directed them to row up and down as if in search of a landing-place. The succeeding days were employed in a series of similar feints, the ships drifting daily up to Cap Rouge with the flood tide and dropping down to Quebec with the ebb, till Bougainville, who followed every movement with increasing anxiety and bewilderment, fairly wore out his troops with incessant marching to and fro. Sept. 12. At last on the 12th of September Wolfe's opportunity presented itself. Two deserters came in from Bougainville's camp with intelligence that at next ebb-tide a convoy of provisions would pass down the river to Quebec. Wolfe sent orders to Colonel Burton, who was in command of the standing camps, that all the men which he could spare from them should march at nightfall along the southern bank of the river, and wait at a chosen place for embarkation. As night fell Admiral Saunders moved out of the basin of Orleans with the main fleet and ranged the ships along the length of the camp at Beauport. The boats were then lowered and manned by marines, sailors, and such few soldiers as had been left below Quebec, while the ships opened fire on the beach as if to clear it for a landing. Montcalm, completely deceived, massed the whole of his troops at Beauport, and kept them under arms to repel the threatened attack. Meanwhile Holmes' squadron, with boats moored alongside the transports, lay quietly anchored off Cap Rouge, nor showed sign of life until late dusk, when seventeen hundred men[320] took their places in the boats and drifted with the tide for some little distance up the stream. Bougainville marked the movement and made no doubt that attack was designed upon his headquarters. Night fell, dark and moonless, and all was quiet. Monsieur Vergor, who commanded the post at Anse du Foulon, gave leave to most of his guard of Canadians to go harvesting, and saw no reason why he should not himself go comfortably to bed. Bougainville remained on the alert, doubtless impatient for the tide to turn, which would carry the British away from his quarters and leave him in peace. He did not know that Wolfe was even then on board the flag-ship making his final arrangements for the morrow's battle, and that he had handed the portrait of his betrothed to Captain John Jervis[321] of H.M.S. Porcupine, to be returned to her in the event of his death. Sept. 13. At length at two o'clock in the morning the tide ebbed. Two lanterns rose flickering to the maintop shrouds of the Sutherland; Wolfe and his officers stepped into their boat, and with the whole flotilla astern of them dropped silently down the river. After a due interval the sloops and frigates followed, with the second division of troops on board;[322] and Bougainville with a sigh of relief resolved not to harass his men by a fruitless march after them. For full two hours the boats pursued their way, when the silence was broken by the challenge of a French sentry. "France," answered a Highland officer who had learned the French tongue on foreign service. "What regiment?" pursued the sentry. "The Queen's" (de la Reine) replied the officer, naming a corps that formed part of Bougainville's force. The sentry, knowing that a convoy of provisions was expected, allowed the boats to pass; for though Bougainville had, as a matter of fact, countermanded the convoy, the guards had not been apprised of the countermand. Off Samos another sentry, visible not a pistol-shot away from the boats, again challenged. "Provision-boats," answered the same officer, "don't make a noise or the English will hear." Once more the boats were suffered to pass. Presently they rounded the headland of Anse du Foulon, and there no sentry was to be seen. The leading boats were carried by the current somewhat below the intended landing-place, and the troops disembarked below the path, on a narrow strand at the foot of the heights. Then twenty-four men of the Light Infantry, who had volunteered for a certain unknown but dangerous service under Colonel Howe, slung their muskets about them, threw themselves upon the face of the cliff, and began to drag themselves through the two hundred feet of stunted bush that separated them from the enemy. The dawn was just breaking as they reached the top, and through the dim light they could distinguish the group of tents that composed Vergor's encampment. Instantly they dashed at them; and the French, utterly surprised, at once took to their heels. Vergor, who was reputed a coward, stood firm and fired his pistols; and the report of three of the British muskets, together with the cheers of Howe's forlorn hope, gave Wolfe the signal for which he waited. He uttered the word to advance, and the rest of the troops swarmed up the cliff to their comrades as best they could. The zigzag path which had first attracted Wolfe's eye was found to be obstructed by trenches and abatis, but these obstacles were cleared away and the ascent made easier. Presently the report of cannon was heard from up the river: the batteries of Sillery and Samos were firing at the rearmost of the boats and at Holmes' squadron. Howe and his Light Infantry were detached to silence them, which they effectually did; and meanwhile the disembarkation proceeded rapidly. As fast as the boats were emptied they went back to fetch the second division from the ships and Burton's men from the opposite shore. Before the sun was well up the whole force of forty-five hundred men had accomplished the ascent, and was filing across the plain at the summit of the heights. Wolfe went forward to reconnoitre. The ground on which he stood formed part of the high plateau which ends in the promontory of Quebec. About a mile to eastward of the landing-place was a tract of grass, known as the plains of Abraham, fairly level ground for the most part, though broken by patches of corn and clumps of bushes, and bounded on the south by the heights of the St. Lawrence and to north by those of the St. Charles. On these plains, where the plateau is less than a mile wide, Wolfe chose his position for the expected battle. His situation, despite the skilful execution of the movement which brought his army across Montcalm's line of communication, was no secure nor enviable one, for besides Montcalm's army and the garrison of Quebec in his front, he had also to reckon with Bougainville's detachment in his rear. His only chance of success was that the French should allow him to beat them in detail, that, in fact, they should bring out their main army and give him opportunity to crush it in front, before Bougainville should have time to operate effectively in his rear. But there was no reason why the French should do anything of the kind; and Wolfe's dispositions needed to be regulated accordingly. The extent of the ground was too great to permit order of battle in more than one line; and it was in one line that he prepared to meet the main force from the side of Quebec. The right wing rested on the brink of the heights above the St. Lawrence, and here was stationed a single platoon of the Twenty-eighth. Next it, in succession from right to left, stood the Thirty-fifth, three companies of the Louisburg grenadiers,[323] the remainder of the Twenty-eighth, the Forty-third, Forty-seventh, Fraser's Highlanders, and the Fifty-eighth. Straight through the centre of the position, midway between the Forty-seventh and Fraser's, ran the road from Sillery to Quebec, and here was posted a single light field-gun[324] which had been dragged up from Wolfe's Cove. On the extreme left, beyond the flank of the Fifty-eighth, ran the road from Sainte Foy to Quebec, with a few scattered houses on the south side and patches of bushes and coppice beyond it. The line, being three ranks deep, was not long enough to rest its left on this road, much less on the heights above the St. Charles, so the Fifteenth foot was thrown back en potence to prevent the turning of the left flank. The second battalion of the Sixtieth and the Forty-eighth Foot were stationed in rear, the one on the left and the other on the right, in eight subdivisions, with wide intervals. Two companies of the Fifty-eighth were left to guard the landing-place, the third battalion of the Sixtieth was detached to the right rear to preserve communication with it; and finally Howe's Light Infantry occupied a wood far in rear, evidently to hold Bougainville in check. Monckton commanded the right and Murray the left of the fighting line, while Townsend took charge of the scattered troops which did duty for a reserve. Wolfe in person remained with Monckton's brigade.[325] Probably he anticipated that Montcalm would attempt to turn his right and so cut off his retreat. Meanwhile Montcalm had passed a troubled night. The false attack of the fleet on Beauport had kept him in continual anxiety; and he was still more disquieted at daybreak to hear the sound of the cannon of Samos and Sillery above the city. He sent an officer to the Governor's quarters in Quebec for information, but received no answer; so at six o'clock he rode up to look for himself, when on reaching the right of his camp he caught sight, over the St. Charles, of an ominous band of scarlet stretched across the heights two miles away. His countenance fell. "This is a serious business," he said, and he despatched an aide-de-camp at full gallop to bring up the troops from the right and centre of the camp of Beauport. The men, only lately relieved from the manning of the entrenchments, got under arms and streamed away in hot haste across the bridge of the St. Charles and through the narrow streets of the city—Indians, Canadians, and regulars all alike stirred by the sudden approach of danger. Further reconnaissance filled Montcalm with still greater dismay. It was not a mere detachment, but practically the entire British army that had found its way to the heights between him and Montreal. Meanwhile Vaudreuil, the Governor of Quebec, who was also Commander-in-Chief, was not to be found; and there was unity neither of direction nor of obedience. Montcalm applied to Ramesay, who commanded the garrison of Quebec, for twenty-five field-guns which were mounted in one of the batteries: Ramesay declared that he needed them for his own defence and would spare but three. Then there was anxious waiting for the troops from the left of Beauport's camp, which for some reason never came. All was confusion, perplexity, and distraction. In such circumstances Montcalm appears to have succumbed to nervous strain and to have lost his wits. He held a hasty council of war with his principal officers and decided to fight at once. He was afraid, it seems, lest Wolfe should be reinforced or lest he might entrench himself. Yet there was no occasion for extreme haste. Another two hours would have sufficed, if not to bring up the missing troops from Beauport, at all events to procure more guns and to send a messenger by a safe route to concert measures with Bougainville; and the day was yet young. The supplies of the French were failing, it is true, but their army was not starving; and from whence was Wolfe himself, with Bougainville in his rear, to draw his supplies even supposing that he did entrench himself? The British had two days' provisions with them, but for all further supply they must depend on a single zigzag path wide enough for but one man abreast. Even supposing that Montcalm could not succeed in obtaining the thirty field-guns for which he asked, and which if obtained would almost inevitably have blasted the British army off the field, there was nothing to prevent him from manoeuvring with a superior force to keep the British under arms until nightfall, while his Indians and irregulars, of whom he had abundance, harried the British right flank in front and rear under shelter of the scrub, and hindered the bringing up of further stores. What would have been the condition of Wolfe's army on the following morning after a second night under arms, and what opening might there not have been for successful attack? But it was not to be. Whether Montcalm was spurred on by the impatience of his own half-distracted force, or whether he simply gave way to nervous exhaustion, must remain uncertain. At any rate he resolved with the five thousand troops that were with him to accept battle at once. By nine o'clock his line of battle was formed, some six hundred yards from the British position. On his right, resting on the road to Sainte Foy was a battalion of Canadian militia, and next to it in succession the regular regiments of BÈarn and La Sarre. Next to these, in column on either side of the road to Sillery, were the regiments of Guienne and Languedoc, and to their left regiment Roussillon and another battalion of militia. On the extreme right and left some two thousand Indians and Canadians swarmed forward in skirmishing order in advance of the line of battle. It was with the fire of these sharpshooters that the action began. There was good cover for them not only on the flanks but also among the scattered bushes in the front. Wolfe threw out skirmishers to meet them, and the fusillade became lively, especially on the British left, where Townsend's men began to fall fast. So severe became this pressure on the left that Townsend, alarmed for his flank, brought up the second battalion of the Sixtieth to the left of the Fifty-eighth, detailed part of them to drive the Canadians from the houses by the road and doubled the remainder back en potence in line with the Fifteenth; while at the same time the Light Infantry was called up in support of the Fifteenth to strengthen the flank still further. Thus before the action was well begun the rear-guard and half of the reserve was practically absorbed in the fighting line. On the British right, where the French sharpshooters could not get round the flank, their fire was by no means so deadly; but it does not appear that either of these attacks formed part of any settled plan of Montcalm, for by throwing the mass of his skirmishers against the British left he might have made them very formidable. Meanwhile Montcalm's three field-guns had opened fire, and were answered by the single gun on the Sillery road with great effect. So the minutes dragged on, until at a little before ten the French line advanced with loud shouts to the true attack, the regulars in the centre moving steadily, a long streak of white edged on either hand with red and with blue, and the militia striving to move as steadily on the flanks. The English, who until now had been lying down, then sprang to their feet and stood steady with recovered arms. At a range of two hundred yards the French muskets opened fire but with little effect, while much confusion and delay was caused by the Canadian militia who, true to their instincts as skirmishers, threw themselves flat on the ground to reload. Wolfe was shot through the wrist, but he merely wrapped his handkerchief round the wound, and called to the men to be steady and reserve their fire. The French recovered their order somewhat and again came on, filling the air with their cries, while the British stood calm, silent and immovable, knowing their chief and trusting him.[326] Nearer and nearer drew the parti-coloured line, gayer and gayer as the blue and scarlet facings on the white coats came into view, brighter and brighter as the detail of metal buttons and accoutrements cleared themselves from the distance, till at length the time was come. Thirty-five yards only separated the opposing arrays, when the word rang out, the still red line sprang into life, the recovered muskets leaped forward into a long bristling bar, and with one deafening crash, the most perfect volley ever fired on battlefield burst forth as if from a single monstrous weapon, from end to end of the British line. A dense bank of smoke blotted the French from sight, and from behind it there rose a horrible din of clattering arms, and savage oaths and agonised cries. The sharp clink of ramrods broke in upon the sound as the British reloaded; and when the smoke rolled away, the gay line was seen to be shivered to fragments, while the bright coats strewed the ground like swathes of gaudy flowers. There was hardly a bullet of that volley that had not struck home. Montcalm, himself unhurt and conspicuous on a black charger, galloped frantically up and down his shattered ranks in a vain effort to restore order. Wolfe gave the order to advance, and after one more volley the scarlet line strode forward with bayonet and claymore to complete the rout. There was nothing to stop the British, nothing even to gall them except the fire of a few sharpshooters hidden in the scrub. Wolfe himself led them at the head of the Twenty-eighth. A bullet struck him in the groin, but he paused not a moment and was still striding on, when another ball passed through his lungs. He staggered forward, still vainly striving to keep on his feet. "Support me, support me," he gasped to an officer who was close to him, "lest my gallant fellows should see me fall." Two or three men fell out and carried him to the rear, but his fall was noticed by few; and the victorious line pressed on. Some of the sharpshooters continued to fire from behind the shrubs and required to be driven out. Others taking cover nearer to the town opened a biting fire on the Highlanders who, charging as usual with the claymore only, suffered much loss in the attempt to force so wily an enemy from the bush. But other regiments came up and did the work for them with the musket, and thenceforward no further stand was made by the French, but Montcalm's whole force broke up and fled in wild confusion towards the town. He himself, borne away in the rush of the fugitives, was shot through the body, but being supported in the saddle rode in through the gates. "It is nothing, nothing," he called to the shrieking women who saw the red stains on his white uniform; "don't distress yourselves over me, good people." He was lifted from his horse and borne into a surgeon's house to die. The panic among the French increased. Their chief was dying, his second mortally wounded; and among the terrified mob that fled by the St. Charles there rose a cry to destroy the bridge of boats, lest the English should break into the camp of Beauport. This insane movement, which would have sacrificed the whole of the fugitives who had not yet crossed the river, was checked by one or two officers who still kept their wits about them; but none the less the French were not only beaten but demoralised, and the victory of the British was complete. But the victors also had lost the services both of their General and his second. Monckton had been severely wounded by a musket-shot which for the present disabled him from duty, and Wolfe had been carried to the rear more dead than alive. He begged his bearers to set him down, and refused to see a surgeon. "There is no need," he said, "it is all over with me"; and he sank into unconsciousness. "How they run," cried out one of the attendants, as he watched the French flying before the red-coats. "Who run?" asked Wolfe, waking suddenly to life. "The enemy, Sir, they give way everywhere." "Go one of you to Colonel Burton," ordered the dying General with great earnestness, "and tell him to march Webb's regiment[327] down to Charles River to cut off the retreat from the bridge." He ceased, and turned on his side. "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace," he murmured; and so died. With his death and the disabling of Monckton the command devolved upon Townsend, who had no sooner assumed it than he found the rear of the army threatened by Bougainville. Turning upon this new enemy with two battalions and two field-guns he soon forced him to retire; and then, the pursuit being ended, he proceeded to entrench himself on the battlefield. The losses of the British were trifling compared with the magnitude of the success, amounting to no more than six hundred and thirty of all ranks killed and wounded.[328] The chief sufferers were the Highlanders, during their onslaught with the claymore, and the Fifteenth, Fifty-eighth and second battalion of the Sixtieth, who bore the brunt of the sharpshooting on the left flank. Before midnight the entrenchments had made good progress, and cannon had been brought up to defend them. A battery also had been mounted at the northern angle of the town, and the French hospital, full of sick and wounded men, had been taken. Nothing is said of the exhaustion of the troops, who had been on duty continuously for at least thirty hours. Meanwhile utter confusion reigned in the French camp. Vaudreuil called a council of war, and there was tumultuous debate. A messenger was sent to the dying Montcalm for advice, and returned with the reply that there were three courses open, to retreat up the river, to fight again, or to surrender the colony. There was much to be said for fighting, for with Bougainville's force the French could still bring superior numbers into the field; still more to be said for the defence of Quebec; but the demoralisation was too deep to permit any bold action. At nine o'clock in the evening Vaudreuil gave the order to retreat, and, the word once uttered, the entire French force streamed away in disorderly and disgraceful flight to the post of Jacques Cartier, thirty miles up the St. Lawrence. The only instructions left with the garrison of Quebec were to surrender as soon as provisions should fail. Well was it for Montcalm, always a brave and faithful soldier, that his deliverance came to him before the dawn of another day. Townsend for his part pushed his trenches forward against Quebec with the greatest energy. The French, despite their precipitate retreat, were still superior force in his rear; and though certainly demoralised might rally on joining the unbeaten troops of LÉvis, and imbibe new courage under the leadership of that excellent officer. It was therefore imperative to press the garrison hard while still overpowered by the despairing sense of its isolation. On the 17th of September the British ships of war moved up against the Lower Town, and a scarlet column approached the walls from the meadows of the St. Charles. The French drums beat to arms, but the Canadian militia refused to turn out, and the white flag was hoisted. An officer was sent to Townsend's quarters to gain time, if possible, by prolonging negotiations. Townsend's answer was peremptory: unless the town were surrendered by eleven o'clock, he would take it by storm; and on this Ramesay signed the capitulation. It was none too soon. Before the messenger with the signed articles had reached Townsend, Canadian horsemen arrived with provisions and with a cheering message that help was at hand; and on the very next morning LÉvis marched out from Jacques Cartier, only to learn that he was just too late. Sept. 18. On the afternoon of the 18th the British entered the city, and during the following weeks were employed in strengthening the defences and making provision against the winter; for it had been decided that the fortress must be held at all risks. Monckton was still too far disabled to assume command; Townsend, fresh from the House of Commons, had no mind for such dreary duty as winter-quarters; so Brigadier Murray was left as Governor with a garrison of seven thousand five hundred men, his battalions being strengthened by drafts from the Sixty-second and Sixty-ninth, which were serving on board the fleet. At the end of October Admiral Saunders fired his farewell salute and dropped down the river with his fleet, carrying with him the embalmed remains of Wolfe, to be laid by his father's body in the parish church of Greenwich. So ended the first stage of the conquest of Canada, with better fortune than might have been expected; for there is no gainsaying the fact that the concert of operations intended by Pitt and designed by Amherst had broken down. It should seem indeed that the scheme was too complex, that too much was attempted with the resources at command, that the combination of the various enterprises was too intricate to admit of complete success in a wild and distant country, where the campaigning season was so strictly bounded by the climate. Amherst's operations depended greatly on the help given to him by the Provincials, and the colonial assemblies whatever their good-will were always dilatory, while sometimes, as in the case of Pennsylvania, they were intolerably recalcitrant. Again, though drafts had been sent to the General to make good the losses of the previous campaign,[329] these were not nearly sufficient to fill the gaps made by the slaughter of Ticonderoga and the bitter cold of a Canadian winter. Significantly enough, also, no care had been taken to provide the garrison of Louisburg, most arctic of quarters, even with coverlets, so that the casualties in the winter were far greater than they should have been.[330] Again, it had been ordained that Hopson should reinforce Amherst when his work at Martinique was done, but this arrangement also had broken down; and the least forethought as to the waste of a tropical campaign would have shown that it should not have been reckoned on. The result was that Amherst and Wolfe found themselves with insufficient troops, and that as a natural consequence the former was obliged to cut the margin of his several operations too fine. The death of Prideaux, an excellent officer, was a great misfortune, though Johnson finished his work at Niagara efficiently enough. Stanwix also, after overcoming vast difficulties of transport, succeeded in penetrating to Pittsburg; but here the operations of both columns came to an end. The Ohio happened to be so low that Stanwix could not send up a battalion, as he had been bidden, to reinforce Gage for his advance to La Galette; and Gage, who was not a very enterprising man, to Amherst's great disappointment thought himself not strong enough to move in consequence. On Amherst's own failure to reach Montreal comment has already been passed; but it should be remembered that the whole burden of the preparations for Wolfe's expedition was laid upon him, and that Wolfe gratefully acknowledged the thoroughness of the work. Still the fact remains that the diversions from south and west were an almost total failure, and that Wolfe was consequently obliged to perform his difficult task unaided. Fortune was against the British in that the weather delayed the assembling of Wolfe's army at Louisburg; for those few lost weeks might easily have made the entire difference to the campaign. Wolfe, with an inadequate force, was driven to his wits' end to solve the problem assigned to him; and it is quite incontestable that the credit for the fall of Quebec belongs rather to the Navy than to the Army. The names of Saunders and of Holmes are little remembered; and the fame of James Cook the master, whose skill and diligence did much to reveal the unknown channel of the St. Lawrence, is swallowed up in that of Captain James Cook the navigator. Still the fact remains unaltered. It was the audacity of Holmes and his squadron in running the gauntlet of the batteries of Quebec which first threatened the supplies and communications of the city, and forced Montcalm to weaken his main army by detaching Bougainville. It was the terrible restless energy of the same squadron, ever moving up and down the river, which wore out the limbs of the French soldiers and the nerves of their officers; and to the Navy fully as much as to the Army is due the praise for the movement that finally set Wolfe and his battalions on the heights of Abraham. But in truth this last most delicate and critical operation was so admirably thought out and executed by the officers of both services that it must abide for ever a masterpiece in its kind. The British Navy and Army working, as at Quebec, in concord and harmony under loyal and able chiefs, are indeed not easily baffled. It still remains for enquiry why Wolfe did not take earlier advantage of the opportunities opened to him by the fleet; and even after allowance has been made for his constant illness, the answer is not readily found. The measures which led to the decisive action were, as has been told, taken on the advice of his brigadiers, and, if Montcalm had not succumbed to positive infatuation, would very likely have brought Wolfe to a court-martial. But if instead of wasting the whole of August in futile efforts below Quebec, Wolfe had shifted his operations forthwith to the west of the city, it seems at least probable that he could have attained his object without hazarding that desperate cast on the plains of Abraham. It would presumably have been open to him to gain the heights as he gained them ultimately, to have overwhelmed Bougainville's posts piecemeal, as was done as far as Sillery by a small detachment on the morning of the battle, and to have entrenched himself in the most suitable of them. Then having cut the French communications by land and water, he could have forced Montcalm either to abandon Quebec or to fight on his own terms. But it is easy to be wise after the event; and a brilliant success, however fortunate, is rightly held to cover all errors. Moreover, the praise for the perfection of drill and discipline which won the victory with a single volley is all Wolfe's own. Still it seems to be a fair criticism that the General was slow to perceive the real weakness of Montcalm's position and the vital spot laid open to him by the fleet for a deadly thrust. The consequence was that the work was but half done and, as shall now be seen, only narrowly escaped undoing.
1759. The city of Quebec when the British entered into possession was little better than a shapeless mass of ruins, having been reduced to that state by the guns of the fleet. The population was thoroughly demoralised, and given over to theft and pillage; liquor was abundant and the British soldier was thirsty; in fact it needed all Murray's firmness to restore any kind of order.[331] In December severe weather began in earnest, and the effects of bad quarters, bad food, insufficient clothing and insufficient fuel speedily made themselves felt. The sentries were relieved every hour, yet it was impossible to keep them free of frost-bite. The Highlanders despite their natural hardihood suffered more than their comrades, the kilt being but a sorry protection against a Canadian winter; and they were only relieved by a supply of long woollen hose knitted for them, perhaps as much for decency's as for charity's sake, by the nuns of the city. Still the men remained cheerful, for they were kept constantly at work cutting fuel and dragging it in sledges to their quarters, an errand on which they set forth always with muskets as well as with axes, from fear of Indians and bushrangers. Nevertheless their sufferings were great. Fifty men were frost-bitten on a single day while employed on this duty; three days later sixty-five more were similarly afflicted, and before Christmas there were over a hundred and fifty cases.[332] This, however, would have been a small matter but for the more deadly scourge that was added to it. The garrison was victualled entirely with salt provisions; it was impossible to procure fresh meat for the men; and scurvy grew and increased until there was hardly a soldier in the ranks, even among those reckoned fit for duty, who was wholly free from the disease. 1760. With such a plague in his midst Murray might well feel apprehensive for the safety of Quebec against the enemy without the walls, for ever since the British occupation of the city the French had made no secret of their intention to recapture it. Murray had established two fortified posts a few miles to westward of Quebec at Sainte Foy and Old Lorette; while the French had established themselves at St. Augustine, only two days' march from the gates, from which position it was soon necessary to expel them. Petty skirmishes such as this were frequent, but ended always with so easy advantage to the British that the troops began to think themselves invincible. Repeated intelligence, however, still arrived of French designs against Quebec, vague enough at first, but, as the winter wore on, gradually assuming more definite form. LÉvis, the ablest officer left to the French since the fall of Montcalm, was in fact straining every nerve to organise and equip a force of overwhelming strength for the purpose. He had full information of the state of Murray's army and knew that he had but to bide his time for scurvy to do the best part of his work for him. At the end of March he heard that half of the British were on the sick-list, and the report was not far from the truth. By the middle of April Murray had barely three thousand men fit for duty, while no fewer than seven hundred were lying in the snow-drifts, waiting till spring should unbind the frozen ground to give them a grave. April 21.
April 26.
April 27. On the 17th of April Murray, learning that the preparations of the French were complete, occupied the mouth of Cap Rouge River to prevent a landing at that point. Four days later LÉvis set out with about seven thousand men, half of them regular troops, and a fleet of bateaux escorted by two frigates and by several smaller craft. The river was not yet free from ice, the weather was bad, and navigation was difficult; but on the 26th the army, reinforced by the garrisons of several outlying stations to nearly nine thousand men, landed at St. Augustine and marched upon the British advanced posts. The British at once fell back from Cap Rouge and Old Lorette upon Sainte Foy. LÉvis followed after them all night, despite the difficulties of half-thawed ice and driving rain and tempest, and at daybreak arrived before Sainte Foy to find every house occupied by the British and their cannon playing on his columns as they emerged from the forest. Murray, warned by the information of a French gunner, who had been picked up half dead from the floating ice in the St. Lawrence, had marched out with half of the garrison to cover the retreat of his advanced parties. The position which he occupied was strong, and LÉvis being ignorant of the weakness of his numbers would not venture to attack, but resolved to wait until nightfall and then move round the British left flank. Murray therefore was able to retire in safety to Quebec, while LÉvis occupied Sainte Foy and pushed his light troops forward to Sillery. April 28. Murray's position now was none of the pleasantest. The fortifications of Quebec were in no condition to withstand an energetic cannonade, and the ground was still frozen so hard that it was impossible for him to throw up entrenchments, as he had long desired, outside the walls. The only alternative open to him was to sally out and fight LÉvis, at odds of one against two, and beat him if he could. Murray was young, daring and fired by the example of Wolfe; his army was, as he said, in the habit of beating the enemy;[333] and he had a fine train of artillery. He therefore resolved to go out and fight. Accordingly at half-past six on the morning of the 28th he marched out of Quebec at the head of all the troops that he could muster, a bare three thousand men, with three howitzers and twenty field-pieces, and drew them up on the ground which Montcalm had occupied on the famous 13th of September. The force was formed in one line of two brigades, the right or Burton's brigade consisting, from right to left, of the Fifteenth, Fifty-eighth, second battalion of the Sixtieth, and Forty-eighth regiments; the left or Fraser's brigade of the Forty-third, Forty-seventh, Fraser's Highlanders, and the Twenty-eighth. The Thirty-fifth and third battalion of the Sixtieth were posted in reserve in rear of the centre, while the Light Infantry and the Provincial rangers stood wide on the right and left flanks. The field-guns were distributed in pairs to each battalion. Moving forward to reconnoitre, Murray perceived that the French line was not yet formed. That LÉvis had chosen his ground was clear, for he had occupied two block-houses built by the British above Anse du Foulon at the southern edge of the plateau, as well as a house and a fortified windmill at the northern brink, and had extended his vanguard along the ridge between these two points. But the main body was still debouching in columns from Sillery Wood, a mile or more in rear, and two brigades only were as yet deployed by the block-house to form the French right wing. Thinking the opportunity favourable, Murray ordered an immediate advance; and his whole line moved forward, the men dragging their guns with them in the intervals between battalions. The ground was for the most part still covered with snow, which in some places was piled up in drifts and everywhere soft and sodden with rain; and the tramp of three thousand men soon turned the soil into a sea of mud. Arrived at the ground where Wolfe's army had stood, the line halted, and the guns unlimbering opened so destructive a fire on the French columns that LÉvis ordered the battalions of his left to fall back to the woods. The manoeuvre was not executed without confusion, and Murray, elated by his apparent success, ordered the line to renew its advance, inclining to its right. This movement, however, brought Burton's brigade on to low ground, where the melting snow was knee-deep and the guns could not be worked with effect. The British Light Infantry attacked the windmill and houses on the French left with great spirit, carried them in spite of a desperate resistance, and pressed on in pursuit of the retreating French. But now the battalions of the French left, no longer checked by the fire of artillery, dashed out of the woods in skirmishing order and falling on the rash pursuers fairly overwhelmed them. Over two hundred of the Light Infantry were killed and wounded, and the few survivors hurrying back in confusion upon Burton's brigade prevented it from firing on the advancing enemy. The French seized the opportunity to reform their broken ranks and the combat was hotly maintained for more than an hour, until ammunition for the British artillery failed, the tumbrils being immovably fixed in the snow-drifts. On Murray's left his hasty advance was little less disastrous. The block-houses were indeed carried and held for a time, but the French fell back into the woods only to advance again in overwhelming force when the fire of the British artillery failed, and to extend themselves along the British front and flank. The two battalions of the reserve were called up and the fight was maintained with indomitable stubbornness; but with both flanks turned the efforts of the British were hopeless, and Murray gave the word to fall back. The men, though but two in three of them remained unhurt, were furious at the order. "Damn it, what is falling back but retreating!" they said; but there was no help for it. So first the left brigade and then the right retired, cursing as they went. Some of the regiments tried to carry off their guns with them, but finding this impossible owing to deep snow and mud spiked and abandoned them. The French followed in pursuit, hoping to cut them off from the city; but LÉvis perceiving the orderliness of the retreat judged it more prudent to recall his troops, and Murray brought back the remnant of his force in safety to Quebec. So ended the action of Sainte Foy after two hours of stern and bloody work. The loss of the British amounted to a thousand killed and wounded or a full third of the entire force. The Fifteenth, Twenty-eighth, and Highlanders[334] were, after the Light Infantry, the greatest sufferers, but in the attenuated state of the battalions it is probable that in seven out of the ten there fell at least one man in three. The loss of the French was admitted to have exceeded eight hundred. Altogether it was an unfortunate affair, though it cannot be called discreditable to the troops. Murray was misled by overweening confidence in his men and miscalculation of the spirit of the French. His past experience doubtless partly excused the mistake; but even if he had failed to grasp that LÉvis was a man who could restore confidence to demoralised troops, he might at least have guessed that he would bring up fresh regiments, who had not learned to fear the red-coats, to meet him. As things were, he sacrificed the advantages of his position and of his superiority in artillery and found himself shut up within the miserable fortifications of Quebec, with his force reduced to twenty-four hundred men, nominally fit for duty, but in reality, to use the expressive words of one of them, "half-starved scorbutic skeletons." May 9.
May 16. Murray, however, rose to the emergency with a spirit worthy of a British officer. The troops were at first inclined to break loose from discipline, but Murray hanged the chief offender, staved in all the rum-barrels of the sutlers and quickly restored order. Then every soul of the garrison fell to work to strengthen the defences. Officers yoked themselves to cannon and plied pickaxe and spade, and the men with such an example before them strained themselves to the utmost. In a short time one hundred and fifty guns were mounted and at work on the walls of Quebec, while the French, however they might toil at their trenches in the stubborn soil of the plateau, had hardly brought up a single cannon to answer them. None the less incessant labour and bad food were telling heavily on the enfeebled strength of the garrison, when on the 9th of May the Lowestoft frigate sailed up to Quebec with the news that a squadron was at the mouth of the river and would arrive within a few days. The tidings put new heart into the besieged, though had LÉvis ventured on an assault they would have found it hard to repel him. On the 15th two more British men-of-war arrived at Quebec, and next morning two frigates sailed up above the city, attacked and destroyed LÉvis' ships and with them the French supplies of food and ammunition. That same evening LÉvis raised the siege and retreated with precipitation, leaving behind him forty guns, the whole of his material for the siege, and every man of his sick and wounded. Murray marched at dawn to fall upon his rear, but though he captured many stragglers failed to overtake the main body. Thus Quebec was saved; and the advent of spring, together with a supply of fresh provisions, soon turned Murray's sickly battalions into an army fit for service in the field. During these miserable months of cold, privation, and disease Amherst had been maturing his plans for a decisive campaign. Pitt had enjoined the capture of Montreal upon him as the principal object, and had resolved to demolish the useless fortress of Louisburg, thereby releasing the garrison for active service.[335] The provincial assemblies were called upon once more to furnish large contingents of troops for a supreme effort, and the final blow was about to fall. Amherst's design was to invade Canada simultaneously from east, west, and south. Murray was to ascend the St. Lawrence from Quebec; Brigadier Haviland was to break in by Lake Champlain; and Amherst himself was to lead the main army down the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario. Of the three lines of advance Amherst's was not only the longest but the most difficult and dangerous, owing to the rapids which obstruct the navigation of the St. Lawrence; but on the other hand the movement would cut off the retreat of the French army to westward and force it back upon Montreal, where Haviland and Murray would close in upon it and fairly throttle it. The plan was delicate in the extreme and called for the greatest nicety of calculation, for the three armies must start from three different points hundreds of miles apart without possibility of inter-communication, and yet arrive at their goal together, lest the French should concentrate and overwhelm Murray's or Haviland's corps in detail. The principal French posts for barring the lines of advance were Île aux Noix at the head of Lake Ontario, Sorel on the eastern side of Montreal, and La Galette at the head of the rapids of the St. Lawrence. The year opened ill for Amherst. In March he was compelled to send thirteen hundred men[336] to the south to quell a rising of Cherokee Indians; and he had not long communicated his instructions to Murray when he received tidings of the defeat of Sainte Foy. He at once summoned two battalions from Louisburg to reinforce Murray, but it was not until late in June that he was relieved by news of the safety of Quebec. The provincial governments also were as usual a sore trial and the cause of much vexatious delay;[337] but Amherst was a man of tenacity and patience who never lost sight of his object nor relaxed his industry for a moment. At length, when midsummer was fully past, the net which he had woven began to close round the French. July.
August 4. Murray was the first to move. His garrison had rapidly recovered health and strength, and by July he was able to pick out twenty-two hundred men for the advance on Montreal, while still leaving seventeen hundred behind him for the garrison of Quebec. On the 14th of July his little column embarked in thirty-two vessels with a number of boats and bateaux, and on the following day set sail up the St. Lawrence, leaving Lord Rollo to follow with the Twenty-second and Fortieth Regiments, which had arrived from Louisburg. Murray advanced slowly, skirmishing with small parties of the enemy which hovered about the flotilla on the shore, and disarming the inhabitants as he passed. On the 4th of August he reached Three Rivers, where lay a detachment of the French army; but without delaying to attack it, he passed on to Sorel, where Bourlamaque and M. Dumas with some four thousand men were entrenched along both banks of the river. These officers had been instructed to follow up the flotilla as it moved, so British and French alike advanced towards Montreal, where LÉvis lay with the main French army. Murray, meanwhile, by rigour towards the recalcitrant and lenity towards the submissive, persuaded half of Bourlamaque's militia to yield up its arms and take an oath of neutrality. By the 24th, being within nine leagues of Montreal, he sent out a party to seek news of Haviland, and then moving up to Île Sainte ThÉrÉse, just below Montreal, he encamped and awaited the coming of his colleagues. August 27. Haviland, meanwhile, had embarked in the third week of August at Crown Point, with two battalions of regulars, and with Provincials and Indians sufficient to raise his force to thirty-four hundred men. Four days brought him to Bougainville's position at Île aux Noix, where he landed, erected batteries, and opened fire on the fort; while at the same time a party of rangers dragged three guns to the rear of the position and turned them upon Bougainville's sloops of war, which got under way in all haste and stranded in the next bend of the river. Thus Bougainville's communications with the next post, St. John's, down the river Richelieu, were severed, and, as Amherst had foreseen,[338] he was compelled to abandon the island. He joined M. Roquemaure at St. John's with infinite difficulty by a night march through the forest; and both officers falling back from St. John's and Chambly waited with Bourlamaque on the banks of the St. Lawrence, where their force melted away fast through desertion. Haviland opened communications with Murray, and both awaited the approach of Amherst. August 26.
Sept.
Sept. 5. The main army had assembled at Oswego during July, Amherst himself arriving on the 9th, but it was not until the first week of August that the last of the appointed regiments appeared at the rendezvous. The force consisted of eight weak battalions of British, numbering less than six thousand men, with four thousand five hundred Provincials and seven hundred Indians, or about eleven thousand in all. The flotilla for the transport of the army was made up of nearly eight hundred whale-boats and bateaux, and was escorted by gun-boats. On the 10th of August the entire force was embarked and by the 15th it had reached Oswegatchie or La Galette, on the site of the present Ogdensburg. Here a French brig of ten guns was attacked and captured by the gun-boats, and the flotilla pursued its way among the Thousand Islands. On an islet at the head of the rapids stood a French post named Fort LÉvis, with a garrison of three hundred men, which Amherst forthwith invested, and after three days' cannonade reduced to surrender. Repair of the fort and of his boats detained him until the 30th, and on the 31st the expedition entered upon the most critical of its work, the descent of the rapids. On the 1st of September the flotilla was compelled to proceed in single file, but all went well until the 4th, when the most dangerous of the rapids was reached. On that day over sixty boats were wrecked or damaged and eighty-four men were drowned: but the passage was accomplished without molestation from the enemy, though large numbers of Canadians were on the watch on the banks. The next day was consumed in repairs, and on the 6th, the last rapid having been passed, the boats glided down to La Chine, nine miles from Montreal, on the left bank of the St. Lawrence. Here the army landed unopposed, marched straight upon Montreal and encamped beneath the walls on the eastern side: while Haviland on the 8th arrived on the southern shore against Amherst's camp. Amherst was a little late, having been delayed by the resistance of Fort LÉvis. Had he been content to ignore it and simply to cut it off from Montreal, he, Murray and Haviland would have met, punctual to a day, on the 29th of August. As it was the junction was sufficiently complete, and the work of the campaign was practically done. Sept. 8. Bougainville, Bourlamaque, and Roquemaure had crossed over to Montreal with the few regular troops remaining with them, for the whole of their militia had melted away, and even the regulars had been greatly reduced by desertion. Thus the army assembled at Montreal, the sole force that remained for the defence of Canada, amounted to barely twenty-five hundred men, demoralised in order, in spirit, and in discipline. Around the city lay an hostile army of seventeen thousand men; the fortifications were contemptible except for defence against Indians, and Amherst's cannon were already moving up from La Chine. The French Governor called a council of war, which resolved that resistance was hopeless. Articles of capitulation were accordingly drawn up, and carried on the 7th by Bougainville to Amherst. The condition on which the French laid greatest stress was that they should march out with the honours of war; but this Amherst flatly refused. The troops, he said, must lay down their arms and serve no further during the present war: the French had played so inhuman a part in stirring up the Indians to treachery and barbarity of every kind, that he was determined to make an example of them. It is probable that the General referred only to the massacre of the wounded after the defeats at Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, and the Monongahela; but the reckoning to be paid went back to earlier times. There were the wrongs, the encroachment and the double-dealing of a full century to be redressed; and the time for payment was come. In vain the French pleaded for easier terms: Amherst, a man not easily turned from his purpose, remained inflexible. Accordingly on the 8th of September, despite expostulation which rose almost to the point of mutiny on the part of LÉvis, the capitulation was signed, and half a continent passed into the hands of Great Britain. Meanwhile, as if to crown the whole work and to redeem all past failings and misfortunes, the expedition against the Cherokee Indians had been brilliantly successful. Trifling though the affair may seem in comparison with Amherst's momentous operations in the north, it marked the banishment of the panic fear of Indians which had followed on the defeat of Braddock. The command was entrusted to Colonel Montgomery, and the force committed to him was four hundred of the First Royals, seven hundred of his own Highlanders, and a strong body of Provincials. Starting from Charlestown, Carolina, Montgomery marched up one hundred and fifty miles to the township of Ninety-six, so called because it was supposed to be ninety-six miles from the township of Keowee, and pushed forward thence for four days through dense forest and mountainous country without finding any sign of Indians. Concluding therefore that the Cherokees were unaware of his advance, he left all tents and baggage behind and made a forced march to surprise the savages before they could escape. The main body of the Indians, however, retired before he could reach them; and he could accomplish no more than the destruction of crops and villages, after which he returned to a fort on the frontier, having traversed no less than sixty miles over a most difficult country without a halt. It was then resolved to begin the work anew and to make a fresh advance into the forest. On this occasion the Indians lay in wait for the British in a wooded valley and burst upon them suddenly, as they had upon Braddock, with hideous whooping and howling, and a scattered but deadly fire of rifles. The grenadiers and Light Infantry at once plunged into the forest to engage them, while the Highlanders hastened round their rear to cut off their retreat; and after a sharp action of an hour the Indians were put to flight with great slaughter. This engagement cost the British over eighty men killed and wounded, twice as many as Amherst had lost by lead and steel during the whole of his advance from Oswego to Montreal. But the mere comparison of casualties is of small moment. The really weighty matter is that British officers had learned to face the difficulties which had been fatal to Braddock, and to overcome them with a light heart. It now remained for Amherst to enforce the capitulation on the French posts of the west. The occupation of Detroit, Miamis, and Michillimackinac was entrusted to Rogers, the partisan, with his rangers, who in the course of the winter hauled down the ensign of the Bourbons and hoisted the British flag in its place. There was still to be trouble with these remote stations, but it was not to come immediately, nor directly from the French. The rest of the General's work was principally administrative. Generous terms were granted to the inhabitants, and every precaution was taken to protect them against the Indian allies of the British. Amherst issued a general order appealing to his troops not to disgrace their victory by any unsoldierlike behaviour or appearance of inhumanity; and the army responded to the appeal with a heartiness which amazed the Canadians. A month after the capitulation the General could report that British soldiers and Canadian peasants were joining their provisions and messing together, and that when he had ordered soldiers to leave their scattered quarters so as to be closer to their companies, the people had begged that they might not be moved.[339] Such was not the fashion in which the French were wont to treat a captured territory. Here then for the present we may take leave of Amherst. Pitt, as shall presently be seen, had further tasks for him, which were to be executed as usual quietly and thoroughly. The fame of the man is lost in that of Wolfe, and yet it was he, not Wolfe, that was the conqueror of Canada. The criticism usually passed upon him is that he was sure but slow, and to some extent it is justified by facts. Yet it should be remembered that, when he took over the command, affairs in North America were in extreme confusion and disorder, and that the work assigned to him was, on a far larger and more formidable scale, that which had fallen to Cumberland in 1745. Braddock had started everything in the wrong direction. Not only had he quarrelled with the Provincials and failed to instruct his troops aright, but he had deliberately forced them to follow wrong methods. Loudoun, again, had not improved relations with the provincial assemblies either by his correspondence with them or by his military operations. Finally Abercromby's imbecility at Ticonderoga had sacrificed hundreds of valuable lives, disgusted the colonists, and heightened the reputation gained by the French at the Monongahela. Then Amherst took the whole of the confused business in hand, and from that moment all went smoothly and well; so smoothly indeed that people quite forgot that it had ever gone otherwise. Yet his difficulties with the Provincials were not less than those of his predecessors nor less trying to his patience than to theirs; nay, even the good-will of the colonists was sometimes as embarrassing to him as their obstruction. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the atmosphere of young communities, such as were then the North American colonies, is most noxious to discipline. Americans, as their latest military effort has proved, do not yet understand the meaning of the term; the colonists of Australia and New Zealand, which have no such religious traditions as America, have but the vaguest conception of its significance. Thus when Amherst returned from the conquest of Louisburg to Boston, not all his efforts could prevent the inhabitants of that godly city from filling his men with rum; and the same spirit of indiscipline doubtless haunted the army through all the long and dreary months of winter-quarters. There was, again, the additional complication that in the matter of forest-fighting the British had much to learn from the Provincials; and it fell to Amherst to teach his troops greater freedom and independence in action without simultaneous relaxation of discipline. He overcame all these obstacles, however, in his quiet, methodical way. Discipline never failed; for Amherst, though no martinet, could be inexorably severe. Special corps of light troops and of marksmen were organised, and the drill of the whole army was modified to suit new conditions. It was in fact Amherst who showed the way to the reform afterwards carried out by Sir John Moore at Shorncliffe, of reducing the depth of the ranks to two men only. Such a formation would have diminished Wolfe's difficulties and materially have strengthened his dispositions on the plains of Abraham: but apparently so important an innovation never occurred to him. Amherst never fought a great action, so his improvements were never put to the test; but this does not impair his credit as a soldier of forethought and originality. But the most remarkable quality in Amherst was his talent for organisation. The difficulties of transport in the Canada of his day were appalling. "Canada," says the American historian Parkman, "was fortified with vast outworks of defence in the savage forests, marshes, and mountains that encompassed her, where the thoroughfares were streams choked with fallen trees and obstructed by cataracts. Never was the problem of moving troops encumbered by artillery and baggage a more difficult one. The question was less how to fight an enemy than how to get at him." It was just this problem which Amherst's industry and perseverance had power to solve. We read of his launching forth on to Lake George with a flotilla of eight hundred boats and an army of eleven thousand men, and all sounds simple and straightforward enough. Yet these boats, setting aside the original task of building and collecting them, had to make several journeys to carry the necessary stores and provisions from Albany to the head of the lake, while every one of them, together with its load, required to be hauled overland from three to six miles through forest and swamp from the carrying-place on the Mohawk to Wood Creek. The same provision against the same difficulties were necessary on a smaller scale for Prideaux's attack on Niagara, and, under conditions of special embarrassment, for Stanwix's advance to the Ohio; while over and above this, there was marine transport and all necessaries for the expedition to Quebec to be provided, so as to enable Wolfe to proceed on his mission fully equipped and without delay. Add to this burden of work endless correspondence with the various provinces, as well as constant friction, obstruction, and general dilatoriness, and it becomes apparent that for all his slowness Amherst accomplished no small feat when he achieved the conquest of Canada in two campaigns. The whole problem was in truth one of organisation, and Amherst was the man to solve it, for he was a great military administrator. Cautious undoubtedly he was in the field, but it would be absurd to contend that a man who took ten thousand men down the rapids of the St. Lawrence, with the dry comment that the said rapids were "more frightful than dangerous,"[340] was wanting in enterprise or audacity. His career as a general in the field was short, and his crowning campaign, having achieved its end without a general action, has little fame. Such is the penalty of bloodless operations, though they be the masterpiece of a mighty genius. Austerlitz is a name familiar to thousands who know nothing of the capitulation of Ulm. So Amherst to the majority of Englishmen is but a name: as though it were a small thing for a colonel taken straight from the classic fields of Flanders to cross the Atlantic to a savage wilderness, assume command of disheartened troops and the direction of discordant colonists, and quietly and deliberately to organise victory. He was the greatest military administrator produced by England since the death of Marlborough, and remained the greatest until the rise of Wellington. Authorities.—The history of the French in Canada and of the long struggle between them and the English for the mastery of the continent has been admirably written in a series of volumes by Francis Parkman. Following in his footsteps through the original papers in the Record Office (C.O., America and West Indies, vols. lxiii., lxv., lxxiv.-lxxvi., lxxxi.-xciv., xcix.; W. O. Orig. Corres., vols. xiii.-xv.), through the Bouquet and Haldimand Papers, and through other English material, I have found little or nothing to glean, while the information which he has gathered from American sources is most valuable. The histories of Mante and Entick give a general account of the operations. Knox's Journal is one of the most valuable sources of information. Other authorities will be found given in detail by Parkman. Readers who are familiar with his works will have no difficulty in apprehending my obligations to him, which I wish to acknowledge to the full.
1755. It is now time to return to the subject of India, which, as will be remembered, was dropped at the conclusion of the truce between France and England in January 1755. Two days after the signing of the articles, Governor Saunders left Madras for Europe, and was followed a month later by M. Godeheu. It is not likely that the departure of the two signatories of the treaty wrought any great influence on the subsequent proceedings of the East India Company; but certain it is that before the instrument was a month old the infraction of its provisions was already begun. It was in fact impossible to observe the truce. Its object seems to have been to terminate hostilities in the Carnatic alone; but it was not to be expected that, while Bussy was exerting his vast ability and energy at Aurungabad for the promotion of French interests, the British could sit with folded hands in submission to the article which bound French and English alike "not to interfere in any difference which might arise between the princes of the country." The British had their puppet as well as the French, and having used him for their own purposes could not suddenly desert him, the less so inasmuch as the Nabob Mohammed Ali had neither resources of his own nor the wits whereby to provide himself with them. When therefore Mohammed Ali begged for a British force to reduce Madura and Tinnevelly, which he conceived to be his tributaries, and to collect his tribute for him, the authorities at Madras assented without hesitation. It was, in fact, unusual, not to say impossible, for Indian tribute to be levied except by means of an armed force; and, since Mohammed Ali had no troops of his own, it might be maintained, at least with some show of reason, that the furnishing of a small army for so innocent a purpose was not an act of war. February. Accordingly at the beginning of February twenty-five hundred men, one-fifth of them Europeans, were placed under command of Colonel Heron, an officer lately arrived from England, who proceeded to perform the duty assigned to him. It is unnecessary to enter into details of his operations. Suffice it that he succeeded not only in occupying both Madura and Tinnevelly, but in demoralising his troops and insulting the religious prejudices of the people by scandalous pillage of a pagoda. Mohammed Ali made over the government of the subdued territory to his brother Maphuze Khan, and in June Heron, having done his work, encamped before Trichinopoly. From thence he was summoned to Madras to be tried by court-martial for accepting bribes and for malversation of funds, and was dismissed from the Company's service. The French lost no time in protesting against this expedition as a violation of the treaty, and with not the less vigour that they were extremely jealous of the reuniting of Madura and Tinnevelly, which had long been severed from the sway of Arcot, to the dominions of Mohammed Ali. The protest was of course answered by indignant disclaimer of any sinister purpose; and M. de Leyrit, the Governor of Pondicherry, thought it more profitable to waste no further words in argument, but simply to follow the British example. An opportunity for doing so soon presented itself. The chieftain of a tract of country known as Terriore, about thirty miles north of Trichinopoly, had for some time past evaded payment of his tributary dues to Mysore. Now the Mysoreans on retiring from Trichinopoly had appointed the French their agents to watch over their interests in the Carnatic; and M. de Leyrit accordingly sent fifteen hundred men under M. Maissin into Terriore to enforce discharge of the arrears of this revenue. Maissin having fulfilled his mission with ease and success led his army eastward to Palamcotah, on territory which the British claimed to be subject to Mohammed Ali. The authorities at Madras threatened to stop him by force if he did not desist; and, De Leyrit giving way, war was for the present averted. But since both sides had now infringed the treaty, it was plain that the renewal of hostilities could not long be deferred. 1756. The rest of the year passed away without serious trouble; but, however the suspension of arms might be observed in the south, there could be no safety for the Carnatic while Bussy remained at Aurungabad, virtually viceroy of the Deccan. He had been now installed therein since 1751, wielding his great powers with consummate tact and address in the face of intrigue, jealousy, and even conspiracy; nay, he had turned the most formidable of the combinations against him into a means of increasing his influence and of gaining nearly five hundred miles of the eastern coast, from the Chilka Lake southward, for the government of Pondicherry. It is true that this vast tract, which was known as the Northern Sirkars, had for the most part been restored to its native owners under the terms of the treaty, but it was still held by France pending the ratification of the articles, which was not expected to arrive until the middle of 1756; and it was always possible that so degrading a concession might be repudiated at Versailles. Moreover, whatever the fate of the negotiations, the cardinal fact remained that Bussy continued always at the court of the Viceroy of the Deccan, and that it was vital to the British that his power should be undermined—that, in fact, Salabad Jung should be persuaded or forced to dismiss him. The first idea at Madras was to send a force to the assistance of the Mahratta, Balajee Rao, who had frequently carried on hostilities against Salabad Jung; for which duty Clive, who had returned to India with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and Governor of Fort St. David, volunteered his services. Another officer, however, was preferred to him, who died before the work could be begun; and the authorities at Bombay, from which side the operations were to be conducted, allowed the project to drop. Native intrigue nevertheless wrought effectually for the British what they could not do for themselves; and in May the feeble Salabad Jung was prevailed upon to dismiss Bussy and the French troops from his service. But Bussy had still an army with him, and had shown himself not less formidable in the field than in the council-chamber; so his enemies, to decide the matter, applied to Madras for a body of troops to assist in the expulsion of the French. No invitation could have been more pleasing. A force of eighteen hundred men was at once ordered for the service, when in the middle of July came tidings from Bengal which demanded the presence of every British soldier that could be spared from the coast of Coromandel. May.
May 9.
June. The provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar had since 1735 been governed by a prince known to the English as Allaverdy Khan, who, like all other viceroys of the Moguls, had become virtually independent. At his death the sovereignty descended, according to his own nomination, to his great nephew Surajah Dowlah, a youth who had early discovered propensities towards cruelty, intemperance, and debauchery such as are rare even in Oriental despots. Surajah Dowlah had always hated the English, and his hatred was not lessened after his succession by the fact that the most formidable of his competitors for the throne had received asylum and permission to deposit his treasures and his family at Madras. At the beginning of April the authorities at Calcutta received warning that the renewal of war with France was inevitable, and accordingly set about the repair of the fortifications of the settlement. Surajah Dowlah, not only irritated but alarmed lest such preparations should be levelled against himself, sent a message to the Governor requiring that the work should cease and that the newly-erected defences should be destroyed. The authorities answered by tendering explanations; but the angry Nabob heard them only to reject them, and ordered his army to march against the fort and factory of Cossimbazar. The place was in no condition to make any defence, and Surajah Dowlah having received its surrender pursued his march upon Calcutta. There the authorities, uninured to such trials as Madras, had weakly endeavoured to appease the wrath of the Nabob by desisting from further work on the fortifications: nor was it until too late that they discovered that their only safety lay in resistance. Letters were hurriedly despatched to Bombay and Madras for reinforcements, though with little hope that these would reach Calcutta in time. Appeals for aid were addressed also to the French at Chandernagore and to the Dutch at Chinsura, but were rejected by both parties, and by the French in particular with studied insolence. By the 16th of June the Nabob's army was before the city. Fort William, the principal defence, was abandoned as untenable, and the British resolved to confine their resistance to the streets. On the 18th the enemy attacked and were gallantly beaten back; but on the 19th they succeeded in carrying the principal batteries: and it was then determined, while there was yet time, to embark the women and children on the shipping in the Hooghly. The resolution was executed with a haste and disorder which soon turned to panic, and there was a general rush to escape. The Governor, who so far had shown firmness and courage, embarked with the rest, and the scanty remnant of Europeans left behind in Calcutta was compelled to capitulate. The tragedy that ensued is well known—how one hundred and forty-six Europeans were packed during the insufferable heat of a summer's night into a room not twenty feet square and with but two small windows; how the unhappy creatures strove for a time to fight with order and discipline against suffocation; how the effort proved, as it could not but prove, beyond their powers, and gave place to a succession of mad struggles for life, renewed and renewed again through hour after hour till at length they were closed by the slow mercy of death; and how when the corpses were cleared away from the door in the morning thirty-three ghastly figures staggered out from among them to tell to their countrymen the tale of the Black Hole of Calcutta. July. The Nabob then occupied himself with the plunder of the city and in writing inflated accounts of his conquest to Delhi; which done he left a garrison of three thousand men in Calcutta and departed with his army on the 2nd of July. On his way he extorted large contributions from Chandernagore and Chinsura as the price of their immunity, and so returned to his capital of Moorshedebad. July 20.
August.
December. It was not until the 15th of July that the news of the fall of Cossimbazar reached Madras. Two hundred and thirty Europeans under Major Kilpatrick were promptly shipped off to the Hooghly, and arrived at Fulta, five-and-twenty miles below Calcutta, on the 2nd of August. But there was long hesitation as to the expediency of sending further reinforcements to Bengal. News was daily expected of declaration of war with France, and it was held by many of the Council that it would be wiser policy to send aid to Salabad Jung and to complete the discomfiture of Bussy while there was yet time. Fortunately wider and less selfish views prevailed, and ultimately it was decided to send every ship and man that could be spared to the Hooghly. There was still longer debate over the selection of a commander, but the choice finally fell upon Clive, though he was subordinated to Admiral Watson, who commanded the British squadron then lying at Madras. The force entrusted to him consisted of nine hundred Europeans, two hundred and fifty of which were of the Thirty-ninth regiment, and fifteen hundred Sepoys. Thus at last on the 15th of October the transports sailed under convoy of Admiral Watson's four ships of the line, though, owing to divers misfortunes, it was Christmas before the bulk of the fleet arrived at Fulta. Even then two ships, the one containing two hundred European troops, the other the great part of the field-artillery, were still missing. Dec. 29. Even more discouraging was the condition of Kilpatrick's detachment which, being perforce encamped on unhealthy ground, had buried over one hundred men and could supply but thirty that were fit for duty. Still there was nothing to be gained by delay, so on the 27th of December the fleet sailed up the river and on the 29th anchored at Mayapore, two miles below the fort of Budge Budge. Here, contrary to Clive's opinion, Watson insisted that the troops should march against the fort overland. Five hundred Europeans and the whole of the Sepoys were accordingly disembarked, and after a most difficult march arrived at the place appointed for camp, a large hollow situated between two villages a mile and a half to north-east of Budge Budge. The men being greatly fatigued were permitted to leave their arms in the hollow and to lay themselves down wherever they thought best; and with inexcusable neglect not a sentry was posted. It so happened that Monichund, the officer left by Surajah Dowlah at Calcutta, had that very day reached Budge Budge with thirty-five hundred men, where on receiving intelligence of Clive's dispositions he laid his plans to attack him at nightfall. The British troops had not been long asleep when they were awaked by the fire of musketry and found the enemy upon them. Instantly they rushed to the hollow for their arms, the artillerymen deserting their guns and flying back with the infantry to take shelter. Clive, always cool and collected, called to his men to stand, knowing that the slightest retrograde movement would produce a panic, and detached two platoons from two different points to make a counter-attack. The British then recovered themselves, the artillerymen returned to their guns, and Clive was able to form his line in order for a general advance. Before the action could become general a round shot passing close to Monichund's turban caused that officer to give a hasty signal for retreat; and so Clive's army was saved, though, indeed, it was by no fault but his own that it had been endangered. H.M.S. Kent then sailed up and silenced the guns of Budge Budge; and on the following night a drunken sailor, who chanced to blunder into the fort, made the discovery that it had been abandoned by the enemy. Dec. 30.
1757.
Jan. 12.
Feb. 2.
Feb. 3. On the 30th the fleet pursued its way up to Alighur, where Clive again landed with the army to march on Calcutta, while the ships engaged the enemy at Fort William. The Nabob's troops soon deserted both fort and town, and the fort was occupied, before Clive could reach it, by a detachment under Captain Eyre Coote of the Thirty-ninth Foot, who had sailed from England with two companies of his regiment in the previous November. It was then resolved to recapture Hooghly before the Nabob could advance from Moorshedabad; and accordingly three hundred and fifty of the Thirty-ninth with a due proportion of Sepoys were detached for the purpose, who took the town by storm with trifling loss and a week later returned to Calcutta. Meanwhile news arrived of the outbreak of war between France and England; and the Company fearing lest the French troops at Chandernagore, who numbered three hundred Europeans with a train of artillery, might join the Nabob, endeavoured to come to terms with him. The attempt was vain. Surajah Dowlah, irritated by the attack on Hooghly, collected an army of forty thousand men and moved steadily upon Calcutta. On the 2nd of February his advanced guard came into sight; whereupon Clive, who had taken up a position at the northern end of the town, marched out as if to attack. He decided, however, to wait for a more favourable moment; and on the following day the whole of the Nabob's army was encamped along the eastern side of the town, beside the entrenchment that bore the name of the Mahratta Ditch. Feb. 4. Even then, though the French had not joined Surajah Dowlah, Clive was loth to encounter his army without reinforcements, and made a last effort at negotiation; but, on the return of his commissioners without success, he decided to make an attempt upon the enemy's camp on the morrow. At midnight six hundred sailors were landed from the men-of-war, and with these, six hundred and fifty European infantry, a hundred gunners with six guns, and eight hundred Sepoys Clive started before dawn for the Nabob's encampment. His advance was made in a long column of three men abreast, with the artillery in rear; and day had just broken when he struck against the enemy's advanced posts and drove them back. With the coming of the light there came also a dense fog, through which the column continued to move forward, successfully repulsing an attack of the enemy's cavalry as it went, until a causeway was reached, running at right angles to the line of march, which led to the Nabob's quarters within the Mahratta Ditch. There the head of the column changed direction to the right, as it had been bidden, but in the perplexity caused by the fog found itself under the fire of the British field-guns in the rear, and broke up to seek shelter. This movement misled the rear of the column; and very soon the entire force was in hopeless confusion. The enemy opening fire with their cannon increased the disorder; and Clive had much ado to keep his men together. Finally when the fog lifted he found himself surrounded by the enemy's cavalry; and though he succeeded in driving them off he was obliged, owing to the fatigue of his troops, to abandon the attack and return to camp. His losses amounted to one hundred Europeans and fifty Sepoys killed and wounded, against which there seemed little gain to be set. The men indeed were not a little disheartened, and complained with some bitterness of the rashness of their leader. Feb. 9.
March.
June 4.
June 13. But if the British were discouraged, much more so was the Nabob. Blind and uncertain though the action had been, he had lost six hundred men and five hundred horses, while the idea of a British force calmly perambulating his camp was utterly distasteful and disquieting to him. Five days later he concluded a treaty whereby he agreed to restore all property taken at Calcutta and to revive all other privileges formerly granted to the British; an agreement which was expanded forty-eight hours afterwards into an offensive and defensive alliance. Clive then proposed to attack the French at Chandernagore, but this the Nabob positively forbade. In March, however, reinforcements of three companies of infantry and one of artillery arrived from Bombay, and Clive resolved to make the attack notwithstanding the Nabob's prohibition. On the 7th of March the army began its march up the river; the siege was opened a week later, and the fort, which held no very strong garrison, was soon forced to capitulate. This defiance of his wishes increased at once the Nabob's dread of the British and his anxiety to evade the obligations of the treaty. The miserable creature writhed under the masterful spirit of Clive. He made overtures to Bussy, to the Mahrattas, to any one whom he thought able to help him out of his difficulties: sometimes he threatened the English, sometimes he apologised to them; and Clive, thoroughly distrustful of this abject ally, determined to keep the whole of his army in Bengal to watch him and hold him to his obligations. Meanwhile aid suddenly reached the British from an unexpected source. The followers of the Nabob, alienated by his folly, his insults, and his caprice, began to fall away from him. Discontent ripened into disaffection, and disaffection into conspiracy. Overtures were presently made to the authorities at Calcutta to join in a plot for the overthrow of Surajah Dowlah and for the setting up of Meer Jaffier, hitherto his commander-in-chief but now foremost among the conspirators, in his place. Long negotiations followed, which have become famous for the blot which, rightly or wrongly, they have left upon the memory of Clive. Finally Meer Jaffier signed the treaty which bound the English to win for him the throne of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, and engaged himself in return to make over to them all French factories within those provinces, as well as a slight accession of territory about Calcutta, and to give compensation for the damage inflicted by Surajah Dowlah. Meer Jaffier, however, had displayed considerable irresolution during the negotiations, and the secret of the conspiracy had already begun to leak out, so that it became necessary to clench the arrangement by immediate action. Accordingly on the 13th of June, Clive, who had been throughout the leading and deciding spirit, set his force in motion from Chandernagore upon Moorshedabad, and on the following day sent a letter to the Nabob which amounted virtually to a declaration of war. Before the letter arrived Surajah Dowlah had awaked to his peril and sent emissaries to treat with Meer Jaffier; nay, throwing off all royal state he visited his former vassal in person to entreat humbly for reconciliation. Meer Jaffier yielded; the agreement between the two men was ratified by the usual oaths on the Koran; and Surajah Dowlah, returning a defiant answer to Clive, ordered the whole of his army to assemble some twelve miles due south of Moorshedabad at the village of Plassey. June. Meanwhile Clive continued his advance up the Hooghly, the Europeans travelling by water in boats, the Sepoys marching along the western bank. His force consisted in all of nine hundred Europeans, two hundred half-bred Portuguese and twenty-one hundred Sepoys, with ten guns. On the 16th he halted at Paltee, on the Cossimbazar river above its junction with the Jelingeer, and sent forward Major Eyre Coote to secure the fort of Cutwa, twelve miles farther up, which commanded the passage of the river. The governor of the fort was one of the conspirators against Surajah Dowlah, but he met Coote's overtures with defiance, and on the deployment of the British force for attack set fire to the defences and retired together with his garrison. Clive's force encamped in the plain of Cutwa that night; but the behaviour of the Governor was calculated to disquiet him, for Meer Jaffier's letters only reported vaguely that he himself, though reconciled to the Nabob, intended none the less to abide by the treaty with the British. Distrusting so ambiguous a declaration Clive decided not to cross the river into what was called the Island of Cossimbazar,[341] until his doubts should be resolved. On the 20th further letters arrived from Meer Jaffier tending somewhat to allay Clive's misgivings as to his good faith, but holding out little hope of assistance in the coming operations; while simultaneously there came a letter from one of Clive's agents which gave some reason for doubting Meer Jaffier's sincerity. Much perplexed Clive summoned a council of war, and put it to the twenty officers therein assembled whether it would be better to cross the river and attack the Nabob at all hazards, or to halt at Cutwa, where supplies were abundant, until the close of the rainy season, and meanwhile to invoke the assistance of the Mahrattas. He gave his own opinion first in favour of remaining at Cutwa, and was followed by thirteen of the officers, including so bold a soldier as Kilpatrick. Coote and six more, however, gave their votes for immediate action or return to Calcutta. Clive broke up the council, retired alone into an adjoining grove for an hour, and on his return issued orders to cross the river on the morrow. June 23. At sunrise of the 22nd the army began the passage of the river, and by four in the afternoon it stood on the eastern bank. Here another letter reached Clive from Meer Jaffier, giving information as to the intended movements of the Nabob. Clive's answer was that he should advance to Plassey at once, and on the following morning to Daoodpoor, six miles beyond it; and that if Meer Jaffier failed to meet him there, he would make peace with Surajah Dowlah. The troops accordingly proceeded on their way, Europeans by water, Sepoys by land; but owing to the slow progress of the boats against the stream, it was one o'clock in the morning before they had traversed the fifteen miles to the village of Plassey. Here they were surprised to learn from the continued din of drums and cymbals that the Nabob's army was close at hand; for they had expected to meet with it farther north. Solaced by this rude music the men lay down in a mango-grove to sleep; but the officers that slept were few, and Clive was not one of them. The grove of Plassey extended north and south for a length of about half a mile, with a width of about three hundred yards. The trees were planted in regular rows, and the whole was surrounded by a slight bank and by a ditch beyond it, choked with weeds and brambles. The grove lay at an acute angle to the river, the northern corner being fifty yards and the southern two hundred yards from the bank. A little to the northward of it and on the edge of the river stood a hunting-house of the Nabob, surrounded by a garden and wall. A mile to northward of this house the river makes a huge bend to the south-west in the form of a horse-shoe, containing a peninsula of about a mile in diameter, which shrinks at its neck to a width of some five hundred yards from stream to stream. About three hundred yards to south of this peninsula an entrenchment had been thrown up, which ran for above a furlong straight inland and parallel to the grove, and then turned off at an obtuse angle to the north-eastward for about three miles. The whole of the Nabob's army was encamped within this entrenchment and the peninsula, and the angle itself was defended by a redoubt. Some three hundred yards to the east of the redoubt, but outside the entrenchment, stood a hillock covered with trees; half a mile to southward of this hillock lay a small tank, and yet a hundred yards farther south a second and much larger tank, both of them surrounded by a mound of earth. At dawn the Nabob's forces began to stream by many outlets from the camp towards the grove, a mighty host of thirty-five thousand foot, eighteen thousand horse, and fifty pieces of artillery. The cannon were for the most part of large calibre and were carried, together with their crews and ammunition, on large stages, which were tugged by forty or fifty yoke of oxen in front and propelled by elephants from behind. Forty or fifty French adventurers under M. St. Frais, who had formerly been of the garrison of Chandernagore, took post with four light field-guns at the larger tank, which was nearest to the grove; while two heavy guns under a native officer were posted to St. Frais's right and between him and the river. In support of these advanced parties were five thousand horse and seven thousand foot under the Nabob's most faithful general, Meer Murdeen. The rest of the hostile army extended itself in a huge curve from the hillock before the entrenchments to within half a mile of the southern angle of the grove. Thus the British could not advance against the force in their front without exposing themselves to overwhelming attack on their right flank. Clive watched these dispositions from the hunting-house, and was surprised at the numbers and confidence of the enemy. But knowing that his only chance was to assume a bold face, he drew his troops out of the grove and formed them in a single line, with their left resting on the hunting-house and their front towards the nearest tank. The European battalion occupied the centre of the line. It mustered on that day about seven hundred men, partly of the Company's troops, since numbered the Hundred and First to the Hundred and Third Regiments, and partly of the Thirty-ninth Foot, while one hundred half-bred Portuguese also were ranked within it. Three six-pounders were posted on each flank of this battalion, manned by fifty men of the Royal Artillery and as many seamen; and to right and left of these guns, twenty-one hundred Sepoys were drawn up in two equal divisions. The line extended for six hundred yards beyond the grove, but the enemy at this point was too remote to fall upon the British flank before dispositions could be made to meet them. Two more field-guns and two howitzers were posted two hundred yards in advance of the left division of Sepoys, under shelter of two brick-kilns. Therewith Clive's order of battle was complete; and the handful of three thousand men stood up to meet its fifty thousand enemies. Its strength lay in the group of white faces in the centre, and the strength of that group lay in the will of one man. It was the first time that British troops had faced such odds; but it was not to be the last. At eight o'clock the action was opened by the firing of one of the French guns at the tank. The shot fell true, killing one man and wounding another of the British grenadier-company. Then the whole of the enemy's guns, from the tanks in front along the whole vast sweep of the curving line, opened a heavy and continuous fire. The British guns replied and with effect, but the loss of one of Clive's soldiers was ill compensated for by the fall of ten of the enemy; and after losing thirty men in the first half hour of the cannonade Clive ordered the whole of his force to fall back into the grove. So the little band of scarlet faced about, passed into the trees and vanished from sight; while wild yells of elation rose up from the enemies that ringed them about, and their whole line closing in nearer upon the grove renewed the cannonade with redoubled energy. The shot, however, did little damage, for the British had been ordered to lie down; and Clive's field-guns, firing through embrasures made in the bank, wrought greater destruction, at the closer range, than before. So the duel of artillery continued until eleven o'clock, when Clive called a council of officers, and decided that it would be best to maintain the position until nightfall, and at midnight to take the offensive and attack the enemy's camp. Then by chance nature interposed, as at CrÉÇy, to change the whole aspect of the fight. A heavy storm of rain swept over the plain, drenching both armies to the skin. The British had tarpaulins ready to cover their ammunition; but the enemy had taken no such precaution, and consequently most of their powder was damaged. Their fire began to slacken, while that of the British was as lively as ever. Nevertheless, believing that his adversary must be in the same predicament as himself, Meer Murdeen advanced from the tank towards the grove to drive the British from it. His troops were met by a deadly fire of grape, his cavalry was dispersed and he himself mortally wounded. The news of his fall shattered the shaken nerves of the unhappy Nabob, and in abject despair he sent for Meer Jaffier and besought earnestly for his help. He, the sovereign, flung his turban at the feet of his subject and cried, "Jaffier, that turban you must defend." And Jaffier, with the readiness of submissive gesture which graces Oriental duplicity, bowed his head and laid his hands upon his breast, swearing to render his utmost service. Then returning to his fellow-conspirators he forthwith despatched a letter to Clive, advising him to push forward at once, or at all events to attack the Nabob before next dawn. The messenger was afraid to deliver the letter while the fire continued; but Surajah Dowlah, as though aware that no faithful counsellor was left to him, turned to another of his leaders for help. This man, being also of the conspirators, advised him to order the army to fall back within the entrenchment and himself to retire to the capital, leaving the issue of the fight to his Generals. The wretched Nabob acted on this counsel, and mounting a camel set forth with an escort of two thousand horse for Moorshedabad. Thus it was that at about two o'clock the enemy's fire ceased, the teams were harnessed to the guns, and the whole host turning about flowed back slowly towards the entrenchments. While all this was going forward, Clive, having resolved to make no offensive movement before night, had retired to the hunting-house to snatch a few minutes of sleep after the anxiety and fatigue of the previous day. He was roused by a message from Major Kilpatrick which brought him back speedily into the field. Despite the withdrawal of the Nabob's army St. Frais and his little party still held their position in the tank, and Kilpatrick, perceiving that the position was one from which the enemy's flank could be cannonaded during their retreat, sent word to Clive that he was about to attack it. Clive, waked abruptly from sleep, sharply reprimanded Kilpatrick for taking such a step without orders; but presently seeing that the Major was right, he took command of his two companies, and sending Kilpatrick to bring forward the rest of the army, himself led the advance against the tank. St. Frais, aware that he could hold his ground no longer, thereupon limbered up, and retiring with perfect coolness to the redoubt at the angle of the entrenchment, made ready for action once more. Meanwhile, during the advance of the British, the southernmost division of the Nabob's army was observed to be holding aloof from the rest of the host and approaching nearer to the grove. These were the troops of Meer Jaffier, but their movement was misconstrued as a design upon the boats and baggage in the grove; and accordingly three platoons and a field-gun were detached to hold them in check. The division therefore retired slowly, but still remained significantly apart from the remainder of the host. But before this, the main body of the British had reached the tank, and planting their artillery on the mound opened fire on the enemy behind their entrenchments. Thereupon many of the Nabob's troops faced about again and moved out into the plain to meet them; the infantry opening a heavy fire, while the artillery likewise wheeled about to enter the fight anew. In effect it was at this moment that the true battle began, though the Nabob's force was by this time without leader or general. Clive perceived that his only chance was to press his attack home before the resistance to him could assume any organised form. He therefore pushed forward half of his infantry and artillery to the lesser tank, and the remainder to some rising ground a furlong to the left of it, at the same time detaching a hundred and fifty men to occupy a tank close to the entrenchments and to keep up a fire of musketry upon them. From these stations the firing was renewed at closer range than before and with admirable efficiency. The enemy suffered great loss, and the teams attached to their heavy artillery were so much cut up that the guns could not be brought into action. Nevertheless St. Frais's field-pieces at the redoubt were still well and regularly served; and the enemy, though lacking leadership, were able, under favour of the ground and of their immense superiority in numbers, to carry on the fight with some spirit in their own irregular fashion. The entrenchments themselves, the hillock to eastward of the redoubt, and every hollow or coign of vantage, were crammed with matchlockmen, while the cavalry hovered round, threatening continually to charge, though always kept at a distance by the British artillery. At length it dawned upon Clive that the isolated division of the Nabob's army by the grove must be that of Meer Jaffier, and that his flank and rear were safe. He resolved therefore to cut matters short. Two parties were detached to make simultaneous attack upon the redoubt on one side and the hillock on the other, while the main body moved up between them in support. The hillock was carried without the firing of a shot, and St. Frais, perceiving that he was now wholly unsupported, abandoned his guns and retired. At five o'clock the British were in possession of the Nabob's entrenchments and camp, and the battle of Plassey was won. From a military standpoint the action has comparatively little interest, since the issue turned really on the good faith or, if the term be preferred, the ill-faith of the leading conspirators against Surajah Dowlah. The British could not advance until the enemy retired; it was a shower of rain that silenced the Nabob's artillery and began the discouragement which led to their retreat; and even then the British commander needed to be waked out of sleep to follow them. There were no such superb audacity of attack, no such bloody struggle, no such triumph of discipline over numbers, as were to be seen afterwards at Meeanee. The whole loss of the British amounted to but seven Europeans and sixteen Sepoys killed, thirteen Europeans and thirty-six Sepoys wounded. It was a small price to pay for dominion over the provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, for such and no less were the fruits of the victory. Yet it is not by the mere tale of the slaughtered and the maimed that such successes must be judged. The victory may have been easily won when the moment came for the actual clash of arms; but the main point is that the British were there to win it. The campaign of Plassey is less a study of military skill than of the iron will and unshaken nerve that could lead three thousand men against a host of unknown strength, and hold them undaunted, a single slender line, within a ring of fifty thousand enemies. June 24.
1758. The day's work did not end with the capture of the camp. Eyre Coote was sent forward with a detachment to keep the enemy moving, and the army encamped for the night at Daoodpoor. On the following day Meer Jaffier was saluted by Clive as Nabob of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, after which he hastened with his troops to Moorshedabad, reaching the city on the same evening. Surajah Dowlah had fled before his arrival, but parties were sent out at once in search of him, and a few days later he was brought back and assassinated. On the 29th Clive likewise entered the city and formally installed Meer Jaffier on the throne. He then spent the succeeding months in dividing the spoils of the victory, of which the troops received no small share, and in securing that British interests should be paramount in the new possessions, or, to use plain language, that the Company should be the true sovereign and Meer Jaffier its puppet. On this part of his task I shall for the present dwell no further, except to mention that the agent selected by him to reside at the Court of Meer Jaffier was a young man of five-and-twenty, named Warren Hastings. The work was not fully accomplished for many months, nor was it until the following May that Clive was able to return to Calcutta, having left the greater number of his troops at Cossimbazar to keep watch over Moorshedabad. A month before his arrival events in Southern India had taken a ply which called for the appointment of the ablest possible man as ruler of Bengal; and in June Clive, at the request of the authorities at Calcutta, assumed the office of President. Before long his hand will again be seen busy in the direction of new conquests; but it is necessary first to trace the course of events in Southern India.
1756.
Aug. 26.
1757.
June. It might have seemed that, with the recall of Dupleix and the dismissal of Bussy from the court of Salabad Jung, French ascendency in India was already shaken to its foundations. Such, however, was very far from the fact. On the news of Bussy's withdrawal the French governors both at Pondicherry and at Masulipatam had sent him reinforcements, which he contrived by rare skill and daring to join to his own troops, and to use so effectively that within three months of his dismissal he was re-established at Hyderabad with all his former titles, dignities, and honours. For the rest of the year he was fully occupied in the reassertion of his position at the Viceroy's court and of French influence in the Northern Sirkars, those provinces on the eastern seaboard which, as will be remembered, should by the treaty of 1755 have been restored to their native owners. The most dangerous enemy of the British, therefore, though not removed, was fully employed over his own affairs during the year 1756. No sooner was he free, however, than he was once again busy in mischief, reducing Vizagapatam and the British factories on the Godavery, until new intrigues at the Court of the Viceroy recalled him hurriedly to Hyderabad. May. Still farther south, at Trichinopoly, matters remained for a time comparatively quiet. Major Caillaud, who commanded the garrison of the city, had received strict orders to abstain from all hostilities; while the French, though still in occupation of Seringham, had been so much weakened by the detachment of reinforcements for the help of Bussy, that until December 1756 they ceased to be formidable. In the following February, however, the dread of French intrigue at Madura and Tinnevelly had forced Caillaud to lead an expedition to both of these districts; and in April the necessity for collecting the revenues of the Nabob Mohammed Ali led the authorities at Madras to send a further expedition to Nellore on the river Pennar. This latter enterprise was unsuccessful, but has a distinct interest of its own for that it was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Forde of the Thirty-ninth Foot, an officer who was soon to win for his name a place beside those of Clive and Lawrence. In this his first command, however, he failed; and the French, though they had received orders to attempt nothing before the arrival of reinforcements, could not resist the temptation to take the field while the forces of Madras were divided between two points so remote as Tinnevelly and Nellore. M. d'Auteuil therefore seized the moment to collect four thousand men, one-fourth of them Europeans, together with a train of siege-artillery, and on the 14th of May appeared with this force before Trichinopoly. The position of the British garrison was never more critical during the whole course of the war than at this moment. The best of the troops were absent with Caillaud; and Captain Joseph Smith, who was left in command, had but seven hundred Sepoys and less than two hundred English with which to hold the fortifications and to guard five hundred French prisoners who were still within the walls. D'Auteuil, thinking to capture Trichinopoly at small cost, tried to scare Smith into surrender by bombardment and by incessant petty attacks, but Smith was not easily frightened and held his ground until the 25th. Then Caillaud appeared, having hastened back with all speed from Madura, and by extreme skill and perseverance passed his force by night unnoticed through the midst of the French camp into the city. D'Auteuil thereupon retired to Pondicherry, and Trichinopoly was once more in safety. Sept. Meanwhile the authorities at Madras had initiated a diversion in favour of Trichinopoly, to which the French answered by reprisals in kind; but the operations were of little interest or significance. In September a French squadron arrived which disembarked one thousand regular troops; but even after the arrival of this reinforcement the enemy's movements were of small importance. Indeed their inactivity at this period was no less surprising than welcome to the British, for the Presidency of Madras, in the face of their superior numbers, had been obliged to withdraw all its troops into garrison and to stand strictly on the defensive. The secret of the French forbearance was that the Governor of Pondicherry, having received positive orders from France to await the arrival of further succours, was fain to content himself with the reduction of a few of the outlying forts of the Carnatic. Thus the campaign of 1757 closed with the advantage to the French of the capture of Chittapett, a post thirty miles south of Arcot, and to the British of the acquisition of Madura. 1758.
April. The year 1758 opened far more seriously for the British. At daybreak on the 28th of April a fleet of twelve sail was seen standing into the roadstead of Fort St. David and was presently recognised to be French. This was the long-expected armament on which the French had built all their hopes for the expulsion of the British from India, and it had consumed nearly twelve months in its passage. It had left Brest originally in March 1757 and had been driven back by foul weather. Then two line-of-battle ships had been taken from it for service in Canadian waters, and the squadron had waited till May for their place to be supplied by two French East Indiamen fitted out as ships of war. Then the Admiral, d'AchÉ, for all that a British fleet was hurrying after him, loitered on the voyage to Mauritius, and on leaving that island selected a course which kept him three months on his passage to Coromandel. At last, however, the squadron arrived in the roadstead of Fort St. David, having lost by that time between three and four hundred men through sickness. It carried on board Lally's regiment of infantry and fifty European artillerymen, together with Count Lally himself, who had been appointed to the supreme command of the French in India. Lally de Tollendal, or to give him his real name, O'Mullally of Tullindally (for he was of Irish extraction), was an officer who had been of the Irish brigade in the French service, and who enjoyed the credit of having suggested that movement of the artillery which had shattered the British column to defeat at Fontenoy. How far this training would avail him in India remained still to be seen. April 29. Lally's instructions from Versailles directed him first to besiege Fort St. David; and accordingly he himself sailed at once with three ships from that roadstead to Pondicherry to give the necessary orders, while the rest of the fleet worked down two miles to southward and dropped anchor off Cuddalore. But now the consequences of the long protraction of Admiral d'AchÉ's voyage began to reveal themselves. Commodore Stevens, who had left England with his squadron three months after him, had reached Madras five weeks before him, and joining with Admiral Pocock's squadron in the Hooghly had sailed with it on the 17th of April to intercept d'AchÉ. Pocock having missed the French squadron on his voyage south bore up to the northward, and on the morning of the 29th came in sight of it at its moorings before Cuddalore. D'AchÉ at once weighed anchor and stood out to sea; but owing to the heavy sailing of some of the English vessels it was not until the afternoon that Pocock could engage him, with seven ships against nine. The action that ensued though indecisive was decidedly to the disadvantage of the French. They lost six hundred men killed and wounded, while one of their ships of the line was so badly damaged that she was perforce run ashore and abandoned. The British ships lost little over a hundred men, though on the other hand their rigging was so much cut up that they were unable to pursue the enemy. Pocock therefore returned to Madras to refit, while the French fleet anchored some twenty miles north of Pondicherry in the roadstead of Alumparva. April 30.
May 1.
May 6. On the self-same day, under the energetic impulse of Lally, a thousand Europeans and as many French Sepoys under Count d'Estaing arrived before Fort St. David from Pondicherry and exchanged shots with the garrison. On the morrow M. de Soupire joined d'Estaing with additional troops and with siege-guns, and on the 1st of May appeared Lally himself, who immediately detached a force under d'Estaing against Cuddalore. The defences of this town were slight and the garrison consisted of five companies of Sepoys only, which were encumbered by the custody of fifty French prisoners. The fort accordingly capitulated on the 4th of May, on condition that the garrison should retire to Fort St. David with its arms, and that the French prisoners should be transported to neutral ground in the south until the fate of Fort St. David should be decided. Two days later d'AchÉ's squadron anchored again before Fort St. David and landed the troops from on board; and on the 15th the French began the erection of their first battery for the siege. May 28.
June 2. Lally had now the considerable force of twenty-five hundred Europeans and about the same number of Sepoys assembled before the town; but his difficulties none the less were very great. The authorities at Pondicherry were disloyal to him; the military chest was absolutely empty; and, long though his arrival had been expected, no preparation had been made for his transport and supplies. In his impatience for action, for he dreaded the return of Pocock from Madras, he had hurried the first detachment forward to Cuddalore without any transport or supplies whatever, with the result that the troops had been obliged to plunder the suburbs for food. Now, since no other means seemed open to him, he took the still more fatal step of impressing the natives for the work of carriage, without respect to custom, prejudice, or caste. For the moment, however, he was successful. The defences of Fort St. David were respectable, but the garrison was too weak in numbers to man them properly, and the quality of the troops was remarkably poor. The Sepoys numbered about sixteen hundred and the Europeans about six hundred; but of the latter less than half were effective, while two hundred and fifty out of the whole were sailors, recently landed from the frigates and most defective in discipline. Major Polier, who was in command, made the mistake of attempting to defend several outworks with an inadequate force, instead of destroying them and retiring into the main fortress. Lally was therefore able to drive the defenders from these outworks piecemeal; and his success sufficed to scare nearly the whole of the Sepoys into desertion. A ray of hope came for a moment to the garrison with the news that Pocock's squadron had arrived at Pondicherry on its way from Madras, and that the French sailors had mutinied, refusing to put to sea until their wages were paid. But Lally, always energetic, contrived to find the necessary funds, and d'AchÉ set sail in time to prevent any communication between the fleet and Fort St. David. Finally the fort, though not yet breached, capitulated on the 2nd of June, and Lally's first great object was gained. June 7. The fall of Fort St. David gave great alarm at Madras, and with reason, for the defence had been discreditably feeble. Polier had formerly proved himself in repeated actions to be a gallant soldier; but making all allowance for the defects of his garrison, his conduct was not such as was to be expected from a countryman of Caillaud and a brother officer of Clive, Lawrence, and Kilpatrick. Moreover, Lally was not a man to be content with a single success. On the very day of the surrender he detached a force under d'Estaing against Devicotah, which was perforce abandoned by the British at his approach; and there was every reason to fear that his energy would now be bent towards the capture of Madras. The government therefore called in all its scattered garrisons in the Carnatic, maintaining only that of Trichinopoly, and concentrated them in Madras; thus adding two hundred and fifty Europeans and twenty-five hundred Sepoys to the strength of that city. On this same day Lally returned to Pondicherry with his army from Fort St. David and made triumphant entry. Te Deum was sung, and thanksgiving was followed by banquets and festivities—all at a time when the public treasury was empty. June 18. In fact, however Lally might long for it, there was no possibility for him yet to attack Madras. D'AchÉ, declaring that his duty summoned him to cruise off the coast of Ceylon, would not spare the fleet to aid in the enterprise against the seat of British power in the Carnatic, and actually sailed for the south on the 4th of June. For a march overland upon Madras Lally's army required equipment; and equipment meant money, which the authorities at Pondicherry averred that they could not supply. Acting therefore on the advice of a Jesuit priest, Lally resolved to march into Tanjore and to extort the cash which he needed from the Rajah. The civil authorities in alarm recalled d'AchÉ to protect Pondicherry, and on the day following his arrival Lally ordered out sixteen hundred European troops and a still larger number of Sepoys and started with them for the south. June 25. The march was one long succession of blunders and misfortunes. The harsh measures employed towards the natives on the advance to Fort St. David had alienated every man of them from taking service with the army; so the force started without transport. Gross excesses committed by the French troops in plundering the country drove the villagers to hide away all their cattle; hence neither transport nor supplies were to be obtained on the march. The soldiers were therefore of necessity turned loose to find provisions as best they might, and their discipline, already seriously impaired, went rapidly from bad to worse. When they entered Devicotah they had not tasted food for twelve hours; and finding that only rice in the husk awaited them there, they set fire to the huts within the fort and went near to kindling the magazines. It was not until they reached Carical, after traversing fully a hundred miles, that the troops at last received a real meal. Fresh follies marked the progress of the march. The town of Nagore was seized and its ransom farmed out to the captain of the French hussars, a corps which had only recently arrived in India and had distinguished itself above all others by violence and pillage. Ammunition again, for even this was not carried with the army, was extorted by force from the Dutch settlements of Negapatam and Tranquebar. Finally, two pagodas of peculiar sanctity were plundered, though to no advantage, and the Brahmins were blown from the muzzles of guns. Lally's difficulties were doubtless great, and his methods were those honoured and to be honoured by his countrymen in many a campaign past and future; but it is hard to understand how a man calling himself a soldier could deliberately have led from three to four thousand men for a distance of a hundred miles from his base without making the slightest provision for its subsistence, or the least effort to maintain its discipline. August.
Aug. 18. Lally's sins soon found him out. On his arrival at Carical seven thousand Tanjorines under the Rajah's general, Monacjee, advanced to Trivalore to oppose him; and this force was soon afterwards swelled not only by native allies but by five hundred British Sepoys and ten English gunners, who had been lent by Caillaud from Trichinopoly. Monacjee fell back before Lally step by step to the city of Tanjore, but his cavalry never ceased to harass the French foraging-parties, to drive off the cattle which they had collected, and to intercept supplies. Some days were spent in fruitless negotiation, and on the 2nd of August Lally's batteries opened fire on the city; whereupon Caillaud immediately sent to the Rajah a further reinforcement of five hundred of his best Sepoys. On the 8th disquieting intelligence reached Lally of the defeat of a French squadron by the British, and of a British occupation of Carical, the only port from which his army, already much distressed by want of stores and ammunition, could possibly be relieved. On the 10th, having with difficulty repelled a sortie of the garrison, he raised the siege and retreated towards Carical, leaving three heavy guns behind him. Instantly the Tanjorines were after him, hovering about him on every side during his march, swooping down on stragglers and cutting off supplies. The sufferings of the French troops were frightful. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Lally brought them through to Carical, to find on his arrival that the British fleet was anchored at the mouth of the river. Aug. 28.
Sept. For on the 2nd of August Pocock had again engaged d'AchÉ, though with inferior numbers, and after an action of two hours had so battered the French squadron that it had crowded all sail to escape and taken refuge under the guns of Pondicherry. Moreover, d'AchÉ was so much disheartened that he not only refused to meet the British again, but announced his intention of returning to Mauritius. Lally had received intimation of this resolve during his retreat to Carical, and had despatched Count d'Estaing to d'AchÉ to protest against it. On arriving with his army at Pondicherry from Carical he repeated his remonstrances, but in vain. D'AchÉ had secured thirty thousand pounds by illegal capture of certain Dutch ships in Pondicherry roads, and this he was content to leave with his colleagues; but he was resolute as to his departure from the coast, and on the 2nd of September he sailed away. Oct. 4. Whatever Lally's indignation against d'AchÉ for this desertion, it must be confessed that his operations had been little more successful than the Admiral's. He had injured both the health and the discipline of his troops by the raid into Tanjore, and had failed to extract more than a trifling sum from the Rajah. The money taken by d'AchÉ, however, furnished him with sufficient funds to initiate preparations for a march on Madras; and since the British had seized the opportunity of his own absence to recapture some of the scattered forts in the Carnatic, he despatched three several expeditions to Trinomalee, Carangooly, and Trivatore to clear the way to Arcot, ordering them to concentrate about thirty-five miles south-east of Arcot, at Wandewash. The several columns having done their work, he joined the united force in person at Wandewash and marched with it on Arcot, which having no British garrison surrendered without resistance. There now remained but two posts in the occupation of the British between him and Madras, Conjeveram on the direct road from Arcot to Madras, and Chingleput on the river Paliar, neither of them strongly garrisoned and both therefore easy of capture. Failing, however, to appreciate the importance of these two forts, and finding that his stock of ready money was exhausted, Lally sent his troops into cantonments, and returned to Pondicherry to collect funds. Thereby he threw away his last chance of worsting the British in India. Sept. 14. The authorities at Madras accepted his successes in the Carnatic as the inevitable consequence of the fall of Fort St. David, and were therefore little dismayed. Nevertheless the situation had been apprehended to be serious; and early in August appeal had been made to Bengal for assistance. It was refused. Clive was not indifferent to the peril of the sister Presidency, but he had matured designs of his own for a diversion in favour of the Carnatic, which, as shall presently be seen, was brilliantly executed. Madras being thus thrown on her own resources, the authorities resolved at the end of August to recall Caillaud and all the European troops from Trichinopoly, and to leave Captain Joseph Smith in charge of that city with two thousand Sepoys only. After some inevitable delay Caillaud embarked at Negapatam, and on the 25th of September arrived safely with one hundred and eighty men at Madras. A few days before, a still more welcome reinforcement had been received in the shape of Colonel Draper's regiment,[342] eight hundred and fifty strong, with Draper himself, lately an officer of the First Guards, in command. Such an accession of strength made it possible to profit by Lally's omission to capture Chingleput. That post covered a district which, being rich in supplies, would spare Madras the exhaustion of the stock which had been laid up for the expected siege; and in view of its importance the troops at Conjeveram were withdrawn to it, and the garrison gradually strengthened to a force of one hundred Europeans and twelve hundred Sepoys. Further, it was determined to hire a contingent of Mahrattas and of Tanjorines so as to harass the enemy's convoys and lines of communication during the siege. June 13. These preparations were well completed some time before Lally was ready to move. That General was indeed concentrating all the strength of France for his great effort against Madras, but in blind pursuance of this object he had removed the most dangerous enemy of the British from the post in which, of all others, he would have been most formidable. In plain words, he had recalled Bussy, with his army, from the court of Salabad Jung and from the administration of the Deccan. Further, he had ordered him to entrust the occupation of the Northern Sirkars to M. Conflans, an officer who was only just arrived from Europe, together with the smallest possible force that would enable him to maintain it. Bussy obeyed, but in perplexity and despair; for it was hard for him to abandon the work at which he had toiled for so long with unwearied zeal and unvarying success; and it was scarcely to be expected that he should feel cordially towards this new and impulsive commander who, whatever his merits, possessed not a quarter of his own ability. Lally on his side entertained decided antipathy towards Bussy. He looked upon the French authorities in India generally as a pack of rogues, wherein he was not far wrong, but in including Bussy with the common herd he was very far from right. He therefore treated Bussy's supplications to return to Hyderabad as designed merely for the thwarting of his own enterprise, and disregarded them accordingly. The junior officers of the army, with a sounder appreciation of Bussy's powers, generously petitioned that he might rank as their superior, to which request Lally, though with no very good grace, was forced to accede. Thus, for one preliminary disadvantage, there was little prospect of hearty accord and co-operation in the French camp. Then there was the deficiency of funds to be faced, which was only overcome by subscriptions from the private purses of Lally and other officers; though Bussy, the wealthiest of all, declined, if Lally is to be believed, to contribute a farthing. Finally, there were endless troubles over the matter of transport, for which Lally had no one but himself to thank; and, what with one embarrassment and another, it was the end of November before the French troops were fairly on the march for Madras. Dec.
Dec. 13. Lally's force comprised in all twenty-three hundred Europeans, both horse and foot, and five thousand Sepoys. The main body moved from Arcot along the direct road by Conjeveram, and a large detachment followed the bank of the Paliar upon Chingleput. Lally in person joined this latter column on the 4th of December, but having reconnoitred Chingleput decided to leave it in his rear, and to continue his march northward to Madras. The defending force collected by the British in that city amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty Europeans and twenty-two hundred Sepoys, the whole under command of Colonel Stringer Lawrence. The Colonel drew the greater part of these troops into the field to watch the French movements, failing back slowly before them as they advanced; and on the 13th Lally's entire force encamped in the plain, rather more than a mile to south-west of Fort St. George. Nearer approach to the fort was barred by two rivers, the more northerly of them, called the Triplicane, entering the sea about a thousand yards south of the glacis; the other, known as the North River, washing the actual foot of the glacis, but turning from thence abruptly southward to join the Triplicane and flow with it into the sea. Lally therefore passed round to the other side of Fort St. George, the British evacuating the outer posts before him as he advanced, and established himself in the Black Town on the north-western front of the fort, and thence along its northern side to the sea. With his right thus resting on the town and his left on the beach, he prepared to open the siege of Madras. Dec. 14. The Black Town was rich, and the French troops, with the indiscipline now become habitual to them, fell at once to indiscriminate plunder, with the result that in a short time a great many of them were reeling drunk. Colonel Draper thereupon proposed a sortie in force, and the suggestion was approved as tending to raise the spirit of the garrison. Accordingly, at eleven o'clock on the following morning, Draper with five hundred men and two guns marched out from the western ravelin of the fort, and holding his course westward for some distance turned north into the streets of the Black Town to attack the French right, while Major Brereton with another hundred men followed a route parallel to him, but nearer to the fort, in order to cover his retreat. By some mistake Draper's black drummers began to beat the Grenadiers' March directly they entered the town, and so gave the alarm. The French formed in a cross street to receive the attack, but in the confusion mistook the line of the British advance and awaited them at the head of the wrong street, too far to the westward. Draper therefore came up full on their left flank, poured in a volley, and bringing up his guns opened fire with grape. In a few minutes the whole of the French had taken refuge in the adjoining houses, and Draper, ordering his guns to cease fire, rushed forward to secure four cannon which the French had brought with them. The French officer in charge of them offered to surrender both himself and his guns, when Draper, looking behind him, found that he was followed by but four men, the rest having, like the enemy, fled for shelter to the houses. Had the British done their duty Draper's attack would probably have put an end to the siege then and there; but as things were, the French, hearing the guns cease, quickly rallied, and streaming out of the houses in superior numbers opened a destructive fire. Draper was obliged to abandon the guns and order a retreat, the French following after him in hot pursuit. His position was critical, for he could not retire by the route of his advance, but was obliged to take a road leading to the northern face of the fort. The way was blocked by a stagnant arm of the North River with but one bridge; and it lay within the power of Lally's regiment, on the left of the French position, to reach this bridge before him and so to cut off his retreat. Bussy, however, who was in command on the French left, either through jealousy, or possibly because his men were too much intoxicated to move, took no advantage of this opportunity. Brereton came up in time to cover Draper's retreat, and the British re-entered the fort in safety. They had lost over two hundred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners in this abortive attack; and though the French had suffered as great a loss, yet they were victorious whereas the British were demoralised. Had Lally's regiment done its duty Madras would probably have fallen in a few days. So ended an episode most thoroughly discreditable to both parties. 1759.
Jan.
Feb.
Feb. 9.
Feb. 17. Lally now began the construction of batteries over against the north and north-western fronts of the fort, from the Black Town to the sea. Meanwhile Caillaud was despatched to Tanjore to obtain troops from the Rajah; and Captain Preston, who commanded the garrison at Chingleput, never ceased to harass the French by constant petty attacks and threatening of their communications. At length, on the 2nd of January, the French batteries opened fire, which they continued throughout the month, but with no very great effect. The indiscipline which Lally had permitted during his earlier operations told heavily upon the efficiency of the besieging force; and everything moved slowly and with friction. At length, on the 30th of January, a British ship arrived to hearten the garrison with ammunition and specie, both of which were sorely needed; and on the 7th of February Caillaud, after endless difficulties at Tanjore, joined Preston at Chingleput and increased his force by thirteen hundred Sepoys and two thousand Tanjorine horse. Though half of the Sepoys and the whole of the horse were worth little, yet this growth of numbers in his rear, and the knowledge that Pocock's squadron was on its way from Bombay to relieve Madras, forced Lally to take strong measures against Chingleput. Accordingly, on the 9th of February, he detached a force of nine hundred Europeans, twelve hundred Sepoys and five hundred native horse, with eight field-pieces, to attack Caillaud in earnest. The action was hot, and Caillaud only with the greatest difficulty succeeded in holding his own; but ultimately the French were repulsed, and Chingleput, that terrible thorn, remained still rankling in Lally's side. His position was now desperate. Supplies, money, ammunition, all were failing, and his troops, both native and European, were melting away by desertion. He had succeeded in battering a breach in the fort, but his officers were averse to attempt an assault. Finally, on the 16th the arrival of Pocock's squadron, at once relieving Madras and threatening Pondicherry, brought his darling project to an end. By the morning of the 17th he was in full march for Arcot, leaving fifty-two guns, all his stores and ammunition, and forty sick and wounded men behind him. So ended the siege of Madras, the last offensive movement of the French in India. It had cost the garrison thirty-three officers, five hundred and eighty Europeans and three hundred Sepoys killed, wounded and prisoners, while over four hundred more of the Sepoys had deserted. Happily Pocock's squadron brought reinforcements which made good the loss of Europeans. The casualties in the French army remain unknown, but, whether they were considerable or not, the survivors were at any rate demoralised. Lally retired with bitter rage in his heart against the authorities at Pondicherry, to whose apathy and self-seeking he attributed his failure. Doubtless if they had seconded his efforts loyally and truly, his difficulties would have been infinitely less, and his chances of success proportionately greater. But even if the hasty and masterful temper which estranged them from him be excused, nothing can palliate his two cardinal errors as a soldier; first, the omission to secure Chingleput while yet the capture was easy, and secondly the neglect to enforce discipline among all ranks of his army. Violence without strength, energy without foresight, imperiousness without ascendency—such are not the qualities that go to make a great leader in the field. 1758. And meanwhile the counterstroke prepared by Clive had fallen once and was about to fall again with redoubled force. Affairs in Bengal in the autumn of 1758 stood on no very sure footing. Meer Jaffier was not wholly resigned to his puppet-hood; but his nobles were disaffected, his treasury was empty, and he was threatened on his northern frontier by invasion from Oude; so he was obliged reluctantly to throw himself upon the protection of Clive. So unstable a condition of affairs presented no ideal moment for weakening the small force on which British influence in those provinces might depend; but Clive, perceiving that Bussy's withdrawal from Hyderabad gave him a chance to substitute British for French ascendency at the court of the Deccan, determined at all hazards to seize it. The ruler of one district of the Northern Sirkars, the Rajah Anunderaj, had already risen in revolt against the French, seized Vizagapatam, and appealed to Madras for assistance. An agent was sent to concert operations with him; and Clive, making up a force of five hundred European infantry and artillery, one hundred Lascars and two thousand Sepoys, together with six field-guns and as many battering pieces, shipped them off from Calcutta at the end of September. The command was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Forde. Dec.
Dec. 9. The voyage was protracted by foul weather, and it was not until the 20th of October that the expedition reached Vizagapatam, from which it marched to join Anunderaj's troops at Cossimcotah. Here more delay was caused by the unwillingness of the Rajah to fulfil his engagement to pay the British troops; but at length on the 1st of December the force advanced and on the 3rd came in sight of the enemy, who were encamped forty miles north of Rajahmundry within sight of the fort of Peddapore and astride of the high road to the south. The French force, which was commanded by M. Conflans, consisted of five hundred Europeans, six thousand Sepoys and a quantity of native levies. Forde's army, on his side, had received the accession of five hundred worthless horse and a rabble of five thousand foot, chiefly armed with pikes and bows, which represented the contingent of Anunderaj. On the 6th Forde advanced along the high road to within four miles of Conflans, but each officer thought the other too strong to be attacked. Inaction continued until the 8th, when both commanders simultaneously framed independent designs for extricating themselves from the deadlock. Conflans's plan was to send six guns with a sufficient force to a height which commanded the British camp, and which Forde had omitted to occupy. Forde, for his part, had decided to make a detour of three miles to Condore, from which he could turn Conflans's position and regain the high road to Rajahmundry. At four o'clock on the morning of the 9th, accordingly, Forde marched away with his own troops only, while the Rajah's army, which though warned was unready to move, remained in the camp. Forde had not proceeded far before he heard the sound of Conflans's guns in his rear and received piteous messages from the Rajah for assistance. Turning back he met the Rajah's rabble in full flight and rallied them; after which the whole force pursued its march and at eight o'clock arrived at Condore. Conflans, flattering himself that he had defeated Forde's entire army, followed him quickly, with the idea of preventing his return to his former camp; and in his haste to advance allowed his line to fall into disorder. His European battalion was in his centre, with thirteen field-pieces distributed on its flanks, while his right and left wings were composed each of three thousand Sepoys with some unwieldly native cannon. Forde formed his line in much the same order. In his centre he posted the British, now represented by the Hundred-and-First and Hundred-and-Second Foot, with six guns on their flanks, and his Sepoys, in two divisions each of nine hundred men, on either wing; and he bade the Rajah's troops keep out of the way in the rear. He then advanced under a heavy cannonade from the enemy for some distance before Condore, and halted with his centre in rear of a field of Indian corn, which entirely concealed the Europeans, but left the Sepoys uncovered on the plain on either hand. These Sepoys, being from Bengal, were dressed in scarlet instead of in the white clothing worn by their brethren in the hotter climate of the south. The French had never seen the scarlet except on the bodies of European troops, and Forde was fully aware of the fact; for he ordered the Sepoys to furl the old-fashioned Company flags, which they still carried, as also their regimental colours, that they might be the more easily mistaken for a regular battalion of British. In the ardour of their advance the enemy's infantry out-marched their guns and moved forward without them. Their line, from its superiority in numbers, far outflanked the British on both wings; but as it drew nearer, the French battalion in the centre suddenly inclined to the right towards Forde's left wing of Sepoys. Conflans had swallowed the bait laid for him by Forde. The French battalion evidently mistook the Sepoys for Europeans, for before engaging them it dressed its ranks, and then opened fire by platoons at a distance of two hundred yards. Long though this range was for the old musket, the Sepoys seeing Europeans in front and natives menacing their flank hardly stood to deliver a feeble volley, but immediately broke, despite all the efforts of Forde, and fled away pursued by the enemy's horse. Conflans at once detached several platoons of his Europeans to join in the pursuit; when to his dismay a second line of scarlet filed steadily up from behind the Indian corn to the ground whereon the Sepoys had stood, halted and fronted as coolly as if on parade, and then with equal coolness opened fire by volleys of divisions from the left.[343] The first volley brought down half of the French grenadiers, and by the time that the fifth and last division had pulled trigger the whole of Conflans's European battalion was broken up, and flying back in disorder to its guns, half a mile in rear. Forde, unable to curb the eagerness of his men, allowed them to pursue in succession of divisions, the left leading; but every division marched too fast to preserve order excepting the fourth, which was kept well in hand by Captain Yorke as a rallying-point in case of mishap. But no mishap was to come. The French rallied behind their cannon, but had not time to fire more than a round or two when the British fell upon them, drove them from their batteries and captured every gun. The Sepoys and native levies of the French made little or no stand after the defeat of their Europeans, and the British Sepoys of the right, together with some rallied fugitives from the left, advanced to join their victorious comrades. No sooner were they come than Forde made fresh dispositions, and marched on without losing a moment to attack Conflans's camp. The remnants of the French battalion, which were posted in a hollow way before it, made some faint show of resistance; but seeing the British guns coming forward, turned to the right about and fled, with the British in hot pursuit. Many of the fugitives threw down their arms and surrendered; the rest, together with the remainder of the French army, ran away in hopeless confusion. Conflans, after sending off his military chest and four field-guns, jumped on a horse and galloped away, not stopping except to change horses till he reached Rajahmundry, forty miles distant. Of his Europeans seventy-six officers and men were killed, many wounded, and fifty-six taken. Thirty cannon, seven mortars, and the whole of his baggage and transport were captured. The British loss amounted to no more than forty Europeans and over two hundred Sepoys killed and wounded. Had the Rajah's cavalry been of the slightest value, the losses of the French would have been far greater; but Forde's promptness in following up his first success made his victory sufficiently complete. This brilliant little action marked the rise of yet another great leader among the British in India. Dec. 10.
Dec. 11. The British battalion being much fatigued was halted after the engagement in the French camp, but on the same evening Captain Knox with the right wing of Sepoys was sent forward to Rajahmundry. On the following day a further reinforcement of Sepoys joined him; and the French, still under the influence of panic, evacuated the fort. Knox at once entered it, and turning the guns on to the fugitives, though far out of range, set them running once more. Thus Rajahmundry, the gate and barrier of the district of Vizagapatam, passed into the hands of the British, with all its artillery, ammunition, and stores. Forde arrived there with the rest of the army on the 11th, eager to pursue his success by an advance on Masulipatam. This, the most important town and the centre of French influence in the province, was doubly important to the enemy as a base from which they might at any time recover their lost territory. Forde, however, was in want of money, for which he had relied on the promises of Anunderaj. The Rajah, as is the way of his kind, now refused either to supply funds or to set his rabble in motion to accompany him. At length after six weeks of negotiation this deplorable potentate was induced, partly by favourable terms of repayment, partly by a severe fright, to fulfil his undertaking; but fifty precious days had been lost, and the French had gained time to recover themselves. 1759.
Feb.
March. On the 28th of January Forde resumed his march, and on the 6th of February occupied Ellore, forty-eight miles north of Masulipatam. Here again he was compelled to halt by the dilatoriness of the Rajah in sending forward supplies; but he was not on that account idle. Conflans, having got the better of his panic after Condore, had replaced garrisons in Narsipore and Concal, two outlying strongholds to the north of Masulipatam, and had organised an army of observation, consisting of two hundred and fifty Europeans and two thousand Sepoys, under M. du Rocher. The dispositions of this latter force were so faulty as to leave Narsipore in isolation, and Forde lost no time in sending Captain Knox with a detachment of Sepoys to capture it. The French commander of the post was no sooner warned of Knox's approach then he evacuated Narsipore and joined the army of du Rocher. Then came more delay; and it was the 1st of March before Forde was again able to move. Two days later Concal was taken, though most gallantly defended by a French sergeant; and on the 6th Forde came in sight of Masulipatam. Conflans occupied a strong position before the town, which he might have held with advantage; but his heart failed him, and he retired within the fortifications. March 7-25.
March 27.
April 1. The defences of Masulipatam had been improved by the French since their entry into possession in 1751, and now formed an irregular parallelogram, open on the south side, where a broad estuary furnished sufficient natural protection, and closed on the three other sides by mud walls faced with brick and strengthened by eleven bastions: there was also a wet ditch and a narrow palisaded space between ditch and parapet, but no glacis. On the landward side the fort was surrounded everywhere by a heavy swamp, the road to the town being carried on a causeway to the main gate on the north-west front. This causeway was covered for a distance of a hundred and twenty yards from the wall by a parapet ending in a ravelin, which commanded the whole length of the road. The only sound ground within reach of the fort was to be found on some sandhills to east and west of it; of which those on the eastern side, being within eight hundred yards of the wall, were selected by Forde for his position. Regular approaches for a formal siege were out of the question for so small a force, so Forde was fain to begin the erection of batteries on the sandhills, to play on the works from thence as best they could. The whole of the eighteen ensuing days were devoted to the work of construction, the siege-guns being landed from ships which had followed the movements of the army along the coast. During this short period it seemed as though fate had laid itself out to raise every possible obstacle against Forde's success. No sooner had he invested Masulipatam than du Rocher's army of observation woke to sudden activity, and moved round upon Rajahmundry and the British communications with the north. The officer in charge of that fort, being unable to make any defence, was obliged to send away to safer custody a large sum in specie which had been received from Bengal; and thus Forde's supply of ready money was cut off. Du Rocher then advanced a little to the northward of Rajahmundry, vowing vengeance against Anunderaj's country, and so terrified the pusillanimous Rajah that he declined to employ either his money or his credit for the service of the British army. Forde was left absolutely penniless. He had already borrowed all the prize-money of his officers and even of his men, and knew not whither to turn for cash for the payment of his troops. The soldiers became apprehensive and discontented, and on the 19th the whole of the Europeans turned out with their arms in open mutiny, and threatened to march away. With great difficulty Forde persuaded them to return; and the men, once conciliated, went back to work with all their former ardour. But the batteries had not been completed two days when news arrived that the Viceroy, Salabad Jung, was arrived at the river Kistnah, not more than forty miles away, with an army of forty thousand men, to expel the intruders who had dared to invade the provinces under his suzerainty. Messengers arrived from him requiring Anunderaj to quit the British immediately and to repair to his standard; and the terrified Rajah actually started to return to his own country. He was only with difficulty recalled by Forde's representations that his one chance of retreat was to remain with the British. In the faint hope of gaining time Forde proposed to open negotiations with Salabad Jung, who to his great relief consented to receive his emissary and undertook for the present to advance no farther. Here, therefore, was a respite, though not such as could be counted on for long endurance. Meanwhile, ever since the 25th of March, Forde's batteries had maintained a hot fire; and, though the damage done to the works by day had been regularly repaired by the besieged at night, three of the bastions had been sufficiently ruined to give foothold to a storming party. But now the weather changed, and on the 5th of April the southern monsoon broke with a flood of rain that soaked the morass around the fort to its deepest. On the morrow the storm ceased, but the day was ushered in by the gloomiest of tidings for Forde. Salabad Jung was advancing from the Kistnah, and du Rocher was on the point of junction with him. Finally, on the same evening, the artillery-officers reported that but two days ammunition was left for the batteries. Here, therefore, was the climax. Before Forde was a fortress with a garrison of greater strength than his own army; behind him was a force which outnumbered his own by more than ten to one; his communications were cut, and his ammunition and his funds were exhausted. It was open to him to embark and retire ignominiously by sea, or to stake all on a single desperate venture. He chose the bolder course and resolved to storm the fort. During the progress of the siege it had been remarked that at the south-western corner of the fort, adjoining the sound, no ditch had been constructed; the ground without being a mere waste of mire, which might well be accounted a more difficult obstacle than any ditch. Natives, however, had more than once been seen traversing this quagmire; and Captains Yorke and Knox on making trial of it found it to be stiff and heavy indeed, but not more than knee-deep. This, therefore, was a point at which at least a false attack could be made, and Forde resolved to take advantage of it. Another point at which a feint might be directed was the ravelin outside the main gate. The true attack must of necessity be delivered against the front which had been damaged by the batteries; and the north-east bastion, known as the Chameleon, was the place selected. The necessary dispositions were quickly settled. The Rajah's troops were some of them to guard the camp, and the rest to make a demonstration against the ravelin. Captain Knox with seven hundred Sepoys was to conduct the feint attack upon the south-west angle, and the remainder of the troops were detailed for the true assault on the Chameleon bastion. The Europeans, who numbered but three hundred and forty-six, including the gunners, and thirty sailors borrowed from the ships, were told off into two divisions, the first under Captain Callendar, the second under Captain Yorke; while of the seven hundred remaining Sepoys part formed a third division under Captain Macleane, and the remainder a reserve under Forde himself. It was ordered that both the true and false attacks should begin simultaneously at midnight, when the tide would be at ebb and no more than three feet of water in the ditch; and the last stroke of the gongs within the fort was to be the signal for the storming parties to advance. April 7.
April 8. All through daylight of the 7th of April the British batteries maintained a fierce fire, playing impartially upon the three bastions of the eastern front. At length night came to silence the guns, and at ten o'clock the troops fell in for the assault. Knox having the longer distance to traverse was the first to move off, and his column presently disappeared into the darkness. The minutes flew by, and the time came for the advance of the European troops; but Captain Callendar, the leader of the first division, was not to be found. There was anxious enquiry and search, but the missing officer could not be discovered; and at length, after a precious half-hour had been lost, Captain Fischer took his place and the column marched off without him. The men were still struggling through the morass towards the Chameleon bastion when the sound of firing told them that Knox, punctual to a second, had opened his false attack. Quickening their speed as best they might, they plunged heavily on, knee-deep in mire over the swamp, waist-deep in mud and water through the ditch; when, just as Fischer's column reached the palisade, a sharp fire from the breach and from the bastions on either hand showed that they were discovered. All the more eagerly Fischer's men hewed and hacked at the palisade; while Yorke's division engaged the St. John's bastion to his left and Macleane the Small-gate bastion to his right. The men fell fast, but presently the palisades were cleared away, and the first division swarming up the breach swept the French out of the Chameleon bastion. Fischer halted for the arrival of Yorke with the second division, and then the two officers parted, Fischer to the right to clear the northern, and Yorke to the left to clear the eastern face of the fort. Finding a field-gun with its ammunition in the Chameleon bastion, Yorke at once trained it along the rampart to southward, and was preparing to follow in the same direction himself, when he observed a party of French Sepoys advancing between the rampart and the buildings of the town to reinforce the Chameleon bastion. Instantly he ran down, and seizing the officer at their head bade them lay down their arms and surrender. Startled beyond all thought of resistance they obeyed, and were at once sent back to the captured bastion; while Yorke, taking the way by which they had advanced, pressed on against the St. John's bastion. The French guard, which had sought shelter within the angles from the raking fire of Yorke's field-gun, fired upon him and struck down not a few of his men, but surrendered immediately afterwards. They too were sent back to the Chameleon bastion, where the Sepoys took charge of them; and Yorke pursued his way to the next bastion to southward, named the Dutch bastion, where the same scene was repeated and a fresh consignment of prisoners was sent back to the custody of the Sepoys. The FranÇois bastion, the most southerly of all, alone remained untaken, and Yorke was eager to prosecute his success; but now the men hung back. The division had been not a little thinned by previous losses and by the detachment of guards for prisoners and for the captured bastions; and the handful of men that remained with the Captain began to wonder where such work was going to end. By threats and exhortations Yorke after a time induced them to follow him; but while passing an expense-magazine a little way beyond the Dutch bastion, one of the men caught sight of powder-barrels within it and cried out "A mine, a mine." Immediately every man rushed back in panic to the Chameleon bastion; and Yorke was left alone, with his black drummers by his side vainly beating the Grenadiers' March. Fortunately the guards in the captured bastions stood fast; and Yorke returning to the fugitives, who were on the point of leaving the fort, stopped the panic by threatening death to the first man who attempted to run. Rallying thirty-six men he went back to complete his work; but the delay had given the French in the FranÇois bastion time to train a gun upon the line of his advance. Waiting until his party was come within close range they fired, killed sixteen of them outright and wounded several more, including Yorke himself, who was brought to the ground with a ball in each thigh. The survivors picked him up and carried him off; but with his fall the attack in that quarter came, for the time, to an end. Fischer meanwhile had been even more successful on the northern front. He cleared the two first bastions without difficulty, and on reaching the third, by the causeway, seized the gate and cut off the troops in the ravelin from the fort. Captain Callendar, the missing officer, suddenly appeared, no man knew from whence, in the middle of the affair, but was instantly shot dead; and Fischer was still pushing on, when he received orders from Forde to halt. Conflans throughout the attack had remained by the south front of the fort, quite at his wits' end, and adding to the general confusion by a succession of contradictory orders. Knox's attack distracted him on one side, the Rajah's troops made an unearthly din by the ravelin, and the true assault on the eastern front fairly broke his spirits down. At the very moment when Yorke's men were returning discomfited from the FranÇois bastion, he sent a messenger to Forde, offering to surrender on honourable terms. Forde was far too shrewd to betray his own weakness. He replied that he could hear of nothing but surrender at discretion; and Conflans, concluding his position to be hopeless, acceded. Five hundred Europeans and two thousand French Sepoys laid down their arms, and the British were masters of Masulipatam. So ended this daring and marvellous adventure, with the loss to the British of but eighty-six Europeans and two hundred Sepoys killed and wounded. Salabad Jung was within fifteen miles, and du Rocher even nearer at the time of the assault; but the victory was sufficient to paralyse them also. The Viceroy quickly consented to open negotiations, and though he haggled, after the manner of his race, for a whole month, finally concluded a treaty whereby he granted to the British eighty miles of the coast, and engaged himself not only never to entertain French troops again, but even to compel such as remained to evacuate the Sirkars. Thus not only was the district secured, but French influence was displaced in favour of British at the court of Hyderabad. Such were the prizes gained by the will, resource, and resolution of one man, who had strength to rend the toils that fate had woven about him just when they seemed to have closed upon him for ever.
1759.
March. Lally's failure before Madras could not fail to raise British reputation and to depress that of the French; and sundry petty chieftains who had long been wavering in the Carnatic, now threw in their lot definitely with the victors. Nevertheless the British success could be but negative unless the territory adjacent to Madras were at once recovered and protected; and to this task the authorities wisely addressed themselves without delay. The reinforcements which had already arrived, together with two companies lately returned from Bengal, left the British with a force of eleven hundred Europeans, fifteen hundred Sepoys, and three thousand native irregulars fit to take the field; but, owing to the difficulty of collecting transport and supplies, the troops were not in a position to advance until the 6th of March. Meanwhile Lally had moved his army eastward from Arcot to Conjeveram, whence he returned himself to Pondicherry, leaving M. de Soupire in command with orders not to risk a general action. On the British side also the command had changed hands owing to the failing health both of Draper and of Lawrence, and had passed to Major Brereton of Draper's regiment. April 6.
April 15. For fully three weeks the two hostile armies remained in sight of each other, de Soupire waiting to be attacked, and Brereton rightly declining to engage him except on the open plain. The capture of Conjeveram was important to the British, since the fort would cover such districts as they had already regained, and so liberate their army for service farther afield. At length Brereton determined to dislodge de Soupire, if possible, by threatening his communications south of the Paliar; so marching upon Wandewash, the most important French station between Madras and Pondicherry, he broke ground before it as if for a formal siege. De Soupire made no attempt to follow him, but finding himself pressed for money and supplies left a small garrison in Conjeveram and retired to Arcot, well content to be able to reach it without hazard of an action. Brereton thereupon made a forced march upon Conjeveram, and before de Soupire was aware that he had moved from Wandewash, had taken the fort, with little difficulty, by storm. June. Lally, who at the news of the siege of Wandewash had advanced northward from Pondicherry, halted on hearing of the capture of Conjeveram, and finally took up a position seven miles to westward of the fortress. There Major Monson, who had taken the command from Brereton, thrice offered him battle; but Lally declined, and after a few weeks withdrew from the field, distributing his troops into cantonments at Arcot, Covrepauk, Carangooly, and Chittapett. In truth his army was rapidly going from bad to worse. A recent exchange of prisoners had restored to him five hundred French soldiers, who, having lived an idle and by no means uncomfortable life in custody of the British for five years, were very far from eager to resume hard work in the field. Their discontent soon extended itself to their comrades, and spread not the less rapidly since all alike were irregularly paid. Indeed, the garrisons both at Arcot and Covrepauk offered to betray these stations to the British for money, though, their hearts failing them at the last moment, they renounced their bargain. But events had begun to turn steadily against the French, while the British gathered strength on every side. At the end of June two hundred recruits arrived from England, and brought news that Colonel Eyre Coote was likewise on his way to Madras with his own battalion, one thousand strong, which had been lately raised in England. Brereton, who was once again in command, seized the opportunity afforded by his own strength and by French disaffection to make a dash upon Covrepauk, which surrendered almost without resistance. The flood-tide of British power was crawling slowly but surely to the south. July. Meanwhile disquieting symptoms had been observed in another quarter, from which British influence had for some years suffered little trouble. There was intelligence of a Dutch armament fitting out at Batavia for the Bay of Bengal, which, although nominally designed merely to reinforce the Dutch garrisons, could not, from the known jealousy of the Dutch over the British successes in Bengal, be credited with any very friendly intentions. Admiral Pocock, who was cruising off Pondicherry in daily expectation of a French squadron, had already picked up transports with five companies of Coote's regiment, and had received permission to keep these troops to man his ships pending the engagement, for which he waited, with Admiral d'AchÉ. A sight of the Dutch fleet at Negapatam, however, convinced him that the troops would be needed ashore; and he accordingly sent them to Madras, recommending that at least a part of them should be forwarded to Bengal. It will presently be seen that Pocock acted with admirable judgment and foresight. August.
Sept. 10.
Sept. 26.
Sept. 29. This complication added not a little to the anxiety of the British, though some relief was afforded by news of Lally's continued troubles with his troops. At the beginning of August his own regiment, which was in garrison at Chittapett, broke into open mutiny and marched out of the fort with the avowed intention of joining the British. Their officers followed them, and by promises to discharge the arrears of their pay, now several months overdue, succeeded in conciliating most of them; but sixty men persisted in their resolution and deliberately carried it out. The authorities at Madras seized the moment to order an advance on Wandewash; but before the troops could march there came fresh important intelligence. D'AchÉ had arrived off the coast and had for the third time been engaged by Pocock; and the action though severe had ended indecisively in the retirement of the French squadron to Pondicherry. It was therefore uncertain what reinforcements might have been landed for the defence of Wandewash; besides which, as a further ground for caution, there were uncomfortable signs of renewed French intrigue at Hyderabad. But Brereton, knowing that Eyre Coote must shortly arrive to take the command from him, was burning to advance; and the authorities had not the heart to bid him halt. Accordingly, after some delay owing to heavy rain, Brereton marched from Conjeveram, with fifteen hundred European and twenty-five hundred native infantry, besides cavalry and artillery, and, misled by false information as to the strength of the French garrison, attacked Wandewash with a thousand British only. Though successful at the outset he was eventually repulsed with a loss of two hundred men. The reverse was unfortunate at so critical a time, but luckily was insufficient to shake the confidence of the British troops in themselves. Nov. In any case, moreover, Lally was in no position to take advantage of his success. D'AchÉ, though personally a brave man, was so much chagrined by his third failure that he sailed, in defiance of all protests, to Mauritius, leaving Pocock master of the sea. His desertion was a hard blow to Lally, for the indiscipline of his troops was ever increasing. In despair of help from other quarters he reverted to that from which he had at first so hastily withdrawn, the court of Hyderabad; though affairs there had altered greatly since the departure of Bussy. Salabad Jung had been won to the British cause by the storm of Masulipatam; his brother Nizam Ali had always been Bussy's worst enemy; but there was still a third brother, Basalut Jung, who hated his brethren and had shown a friendly disposition towards Pondicherry. Him Bussy now approached with the offer of the Nabobship of the Carnatic, if he would join the French with a body of native troops. The terms were agreed upon; Basalut Jung began to advance along the Pennar; and Bussy was on his way to him with five hundred Europeans, when he was recalled by the outbreak of a dangerous mutiny of the garrison which he had left behind him at Wandewash. Turning back, he succeeded by payment of six months' arrears in reducing the men to obedience; but the incident was fatal to his negotiations with Basalut Jung; and after a few days of fruitless haggling he returned to Arcot, with no accession to his force but a few irregular levies of horse and foot. Nov. 24.
Nov. 29.
Dec. 12. Foiled in this direction Lally in despair determined to make a diversion in the south, and sent a force of nine hundred Europeans and a thousand Sepoys under M. Crillon to alarm Trichinopoly, while he himself marched northward to join Bussy at Arcot. Crillon duly succeeded in capturing the island of Seringham, and left a battalion of French there to keep the city in awe; but Lally's rash division of his force between points so distant as Arcot and Trichinopoly gave the British an opportunity which they did not fail to grasp. Coote with the remainder of his regiment, in all six hundred men, had arrived at Madras, and though compelled to send two hundred men forthwith to Bengal, had been able to make good the deficiency with about the same number of exchanged prisoners who had arrived from Pondicherry. On the 21st of November Coote arrived at the British camp at Conjeveram, where he was joined two days later by the newly arrived troops. He had already made up his mind to attack Wandewash; but to conceal his intentions he despatched one detachment under Brereton to seize the fort of Trivatore on the road, sent another detachment with the heavy artillery to Chingleput, and himself marched upon Arcot. Brereton captured Trivatore without difficulty, and advancing forthwith upon Wandewash drove in the French outposts and began to construct batteries. Coote thereupon joined him instantly by forced marches; on the 29th his batteries opened, and on the same day Wandewash surrendered. Without delay Coote pushed on to Carangooly, five-and-thirty miles to eastward, and took that also after a few days of siege. Then calling in all detachments to him, he on the 12th of December reunited his entire force at Wandewash. Dec. 19. Now Lally perceived the evil consequences of his diversion in the south. The capture of Wandewash and of the other posts retrieved at once any reputation that the British might have lost by Crillon's success at Seringham, while the possession of these forts was a solid gain to his enemy. He therefore hastily recalled Crillon, bidding him leave three hundred men only in Seringham and join him with the rest of his troops at Arcot. Meanwhile Bussy's irregular horse from that city spread desolation on the north of the Paliar to within twenty miles of Madras itself. The terror of these marauding bands drove all the natives from the open country to take refuge in the hills; and Coote, who had moved up to within a few miles of Arcot, as if to intercept Crillon on his march, was compelled by lack of supplies and inclement weather to cross the Paliar and distribute his troops into cantonments. So ended for the present the disjointed and indecisive operations in the Carnatic for the year 1759. Oct.
Nov. During these latter months any hope that Lally might have built on diversion of the British forces to Bengal by the menaces of the Dutch, had already been dashed to the ground. The Dutch armament, so much suspected of Pocock, had sailed to the mouth of the Hooghly in October; and Meer Jaffier, weary of his subjection and dependence, had gone to Calcutta to concert with them the overthrow of the British in Bengal. The Dutch force consisted of seven hundred Europeans and eight hundred trained Malays on board the fleet; while at Chinsura, their settlement on the Hooghly, there were one hundred and fifty Dutch soldiers, as well as native levies, which by Meer Jaffier's connivance and help were daily increasing in number. To meet this danger Clive could raise in and about Calcutta but three hundred and thirty men of the Hundred-and-First, and twelve hundred Sepoys; but he was a man accustomed to face heavy odds. Summoning to him every man that could be spared from outlying stations, he called out the militia for the defence of Calcutta, organised two tiny bodies of volunteers, both horse and foot, ordered the British ships to sail up the Hooghly, and strengthened the batteries that commanded the river. At the beginning of November Forde and Knox arrived fresh from the triumph of Masulipatam, in time to furnish Clive with two admirable commanders. To Knox was assigned the command of the batteries, and to Forde that of the troops in the field. Nov. 24. In the second week of November the Dutch addressed a long letter of remonstrance and complaint to Calcutta, and shortly afterwards followed it up by seizing some small British vessels and burning the British agent's house at Fulta; after which they weighed anchor and stood up the river. Clive thereupon ordered Forde to move forward by Serampore upon Chinsura. Forde started accordingly with one hundred of the Hundred-and-First, four hundred Sepoys and four guns, and on the 23rd encamped in the suburbs of Chandernagore, three miles distant from Chinsura. The Dutch on the same evening sent one hundred and twenty Europeans and three hundred Sepoys from Chinsura to take up a position in the ruins of Chandernagore and bar his further advance. These Forde attacked and utterly defeated on the following morning, capturing their guns and pursuing them to the walls of Chinsura. Thus one part of the Dutch force was disposed of, which, had it waited for the co-operation of the troops on the river might have placed Forde between two fires. On the evening of the fight Knox joined the Colonel and raised his force to three hundred and twenty European infantry, fifty volunteer cavalry, eight hundred Sepoys, and one hundred native cavalry; with which Forde faced about to deal with the rest of the enemy. The Dutch squadron, for want of pilots, had moved but slowly up the river, but on the 21st it anchored just below the British batteries, and landed the troops on the western bank, with orders to march to Chinsura; which done, the ships dropped down the stream again to Melancholy Point. There on the following day Clive's armed East Indiamen under Captain Wilson attacked them, three ships against seven, and captured six of them on the spot, leaving only one to escape and to fall an easy prey to two British men-of-war that had arrived at the mouth of the river. This splendid little action cut off the Dutch troops from their base and ensured that any reverse must be fatal to them. Nor was that reverse long in coming. On the same evening Forde learned that the Dutch army would come up with him on the morrow, and wrote to Clive for instructions. Clive was playing whist when the letter reached him. He put down his cards, and without leaving the table wrote on the back of the letter, "Dear Forde, fight them immediately. I will send you the Order in Council to-morrow." Then taking up his hand again, he went on with the game. Nov. 25. Accordingly early in the morning of the 25th Forde took up a position midway between Chandernagore and Chinsura and astride of the road that connects them. His right rested on the village of Badara and his left on a mango-grove, both of which he occupied; while his front was covered by a broad, deep ravine behind which he posted his four guns. About ten o'clock the Dutch forces were seen approaching over the plain; and as soon as they were within range Forde's artillery opened fire. The Dutch advanced none the less with great firmness, until to their dismay they found themselves stopped by the ravine, of which they knew nothing. The leading files perforce halted abruptly, while the rear, not understanding the cause, pushed on and threw the whole body into confusion. Forde continued to ply them with artillery and musketry until they wavered, and then seized the moment to hurl his handful of European cavalry at them. This threw them into still greater disorder; and the native horse charging in their turn completed the rout. The entire force of the enemy, excepting sixty Dutchmen and two hundred and fifty Malays, was killed, wounded, or taken; and the Dutch settlements, humbled to the dust, sued not only for mercy but for protection. Clive used his opportunity so to shackle them that they could never again threaten British supremacy in Bengal; and the Dutch in Europe, being in alliance with England, disavowed the action of their fleet and paid compensation for the damage that it had done. Thus, far from diverting British troops from the principal conflict, the Dutch expedition served only to strengthen the foundations of British ascendency by the ruin of a still older rival than the French. In such fashion could Clive and Forde wrench profit out of adversity. 1760.
Jan. 8.
Jan. 13.
Jan. 15.
Jan. 21. The death-blow to French rivalry also was now near at hand. On the 8th of January Crillon's force reached Arcot; and in the evening of the 11th, after three days of manoeuvring, Lally divided his army into two columns, and leaving Bussy with one of them at Trivatore, made a forced march with the other upon Conjeveram. So effectively had his Mahratta cavalry screened his movements that Coote knew nothing of them, until he received a message from the officer commanding at Conjeveram itself. He at once made a forced march to save the fort, but on arriving found that Lally had been content with the plunder of the town and had marched to rejoin Bussy at Trivatore. Taking five hundred Europeans, a thousand Sepoys, and six hundred and fifty French and Mahratta horse, Lally left Trivatore on the 14th and marched on Wandewash, which had been his true object from the first. Coote received intelligence of his departure on the same evening, and on the following day marched also by the direct road to the same point. Lally meanwhile, anxious to recapture the post before Coote's arrival, had in the morning of the 15th attacked a small British detachment in the southern suburb and driven it with some difficulty into the fort; after which he began to erect batteries against the walls. On the 17th he learned from Bussy that Coote was advancing against him; by which time the British had actually arrived at Outramalore, about fifteen miles to north-east of Wandewash. Here Coote halted, being secure of his communications with Chingleput and Madras, and resolved not to risk an action until the French were ready to assault the fort. The French works meanwhile progressed but slowly; and it was not until the 20th that the batteries opened fire, Bussy's column having meanwhile joined Lally from Trivatore. On the next day Coote advanced to within seven miles of Wandewash, and on the 22nd, having directed that the rest of the army should immediately follow him, he went forward at sunrise with his cavalry to reconnoitre. Jan. 22. About seven o'clock Coote's advanced guard struck against an advanced party of Lally's native horse; and presently three thousand Mahratta cavalry came swarming over the plain in his front. Coote brought up a couple of guns masked behind his own cavalry, and wheeling his squadrons outwards, right and left, when within close range, opened a fire which sent the Mahrattas flying back with heavy loss. Then halting the main body of his army he went forward to examine the French camp. He found it marked out in two lines about two miles to the east of the fort and facing eastward, the left flank of each line being covered by a large tank. In advance of their left front were two smaller tanks, of which the foremost had been turned into an entrenchment and armed with cannon, so as to enfilade the whole front of the camp and command the plain beyond it. Leaving the advanced guard halted where it stood, he returned and brought up his main army, formed in two lines, in order of battle before the camp. Finding after a short halt that no notice was taken by Lally, he caused the whole force to file to its right across the French front towards the foot of a mountain, which stood about two miles to northward of the fort. As soon as the leading files had reached some stony ground, impassable by cavalry, close to the mountain's base, Coote again halted and fronted, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the enemy. Seeing that this movement also passed unnoticed, he ordered the army to file along the skirt of the mountain round the French left flank. By thus coasting the hill until he came opposite to the fort he would be able to form his line with his left resting on the mountain and his right covered by the fire of the fort, thus at once securing communications with the garrison and threatening the French flank and rear. Before this masterly manoeuvre could be fully completed, Lally came hurriedly out of his camp; and presently the whole of the French army was observed to be in motion. Coote thereupon desisted from his movement round their left flank, halted his filing columns, and fronting them to the left, formed his line of battle obliquely to the enemy. Lally was thus compelled to cancel his preconcerted dispositions, to change front from east to north-east, and, while still resting his left on the entrenched tank, to move forward his right in order to bring his line parallel to that of the British.[344] None the less this tank remained the pivot of his position. His army was formed in a single line in the following order. On the extreme right were three hundred European cavalry; next to them stood Regiment Lorraine, four hundred strong; next to Lorraine the European Regiment of India formed the centre; and to the left of the centre stood Regiment Lally with its left flank resting on the entrenched tank, the entrenchment itself being manned by marines, with four guns. Three guns were also posted between the tank and Lally's regiment, and as many more in the intervals between the different corps of the line, making sixteen guns in all. The smaller tank, which by the change of disposition was now in rear of the entrenched tank, was held by four hundred native infantry; while nine hundred Sepoys were ranged on a ridge before the camp. The total force drawn out for the action amounted to twenty-two hundred and fifty Europeans,[345] cavalry and infantry, and thirteen hundred Sepoys; some five hundred men more of both nationalities being left in the batteries before Wandewash. The Mahratta horse, having tasted the fire of the British artillery earlier in the day, had no relish for further share in the action. Coote's army was drawn up in three lines. The first line was composed of four European battalions, with a battalion of nine hundred Sepoys on either flank. Of the Europeans, Draper's regiment held the right; the Hundred-and-Second, in two weak battalions, the centre; and Coote's the left. Three field-guns were posted in the intervals on each flank of Draper's and of Coote's, and two more with an escort of two companies of Sepoys were detached a little in advance of the left of the first line. The second line was made up of three hundred European grenadiers in the centre, with a fieldpiece and a body of two hundred Sepoys on each flank. The third line consisted entirely of cavalry, eighty Europeans forming the centre, with natives on either flank. The total force in the field was nineteen hundred and eighty Europeans, twenty-one hundred Sepoys, and twelve hundred and fifty native horse, with sixteen guns. In this order the British advanced; but before they arrived within cannon-shot Lally caught up his squadron of European hussars, and making a wide sweep over the plain came down with it upon the cavalry in the British third line. Coote's native cavalry at once broke and fled away, and the left divisions of Sepoys, while changing front to meet the attack, showed signs of wavering; but the weak squadron of British horse stood firm, and the two detached guns of the left front under Captain Barker coming into action at short range in the nick of time, brought down ten or fifteen men and horses at their first fire. The French horse thereupon broke despite all Lally's efforts to stop them, and would not be rallied until they had galloped far to the rear. During this attack the British halted, while the French batteries fired wildly and unsteadily with grape, though their enemy was not yet within range of round shot. Coote coolly continued his advance until his guns could play effectively, and then opened a most destructive fire. Lally finding his men impatient under the punishment placed himself at their head, and gave the word to move forward. Coote thereupon halted the whole of his force excepting the Europeans of the first and second lines, and advanced to meet him with these alone. Like Forde at Condore he staked everything on the defeat of the French regular troops. Coote, true to the English rule, intended to reserve his volley for close range; but some few Africans who were mingled in the ranks of the British opened fire without command, and this disorder was only with difficulty prevented from spreading to the whole line. Coote, galloping from right to left of the line, actually received two or three bullets through his clothes. Order being restored, he took up his station on the left by his own regiment; and at about one o'clock the fire of musketry became general. Coote's regiment had fired but two rounds, when Lally formed Regiment Lorraine on the French right into a column of twelve men abreast, and ordered it to charge with the bayonet. Anticipating Wellington's tactics of a later day Coote met column with line, reserved his fire until the French were within fifty yards, and then poured in a volley which tore the front and flanks of Lorraine to tatters. None the less the gallant Frenchmen, unchecked by their losses, pressed on the faster; and in another minute the two regiments had closed and were fighting furiously hand to hand. The column broke by sheer weight through the small fragment of line opposed to it; but the remainder of Coote's closed instantly upon its flanks; and after a short struggle Lorraine, already much shattered by the volley, broke up in confusion and ran back to the camp, with the British in hot pursuit, carrying dismay into the ranks of the Sepoys. Coote paused only to order his regiment to be reformed, and galloped away to see how things fared with Draper on the right. As he passed, a flash and a dense cloud of smoke shot up from the entrenched tank, followed by a roar which rose loud above the din of battle. A lucky shot from the British guns had blown up a tumbril of French ammunition. The commander of the entrenchment was killed, eighty of his men were slain or disabled around him, and the rest of his force, abandoning the guns, fled in panic to the French right, followed by the Sepoys from the smaller tank in rear. Coote instantly ordered Draper's regiment to advance and occupy the entrenchment; but Bussy, who commanded on the French left, brought forward Lally's regiment to threaten their flank as they advanced, and forced them to fetch a compass and file away to their right. Bussy thus gained time to rally some of the fugitives and to re-occupy the tank with a couple of platoons; but Draper's men, with Major Brereton at their head, moved too fast to allow him to complete his dispositions, and coming down impetuously upon the north face of the tank swept the French headlong out of it. Brereton fell mortally wounded in the attack, but bade his men leave him and push on. The leading files hurried round to the southern face of the tank, opened fire on the gunners posted between Lally's regiment and the parapet, and drove them from their guns; while the rest hurriedly formed up on their left to resist any attempt upon the eastern face. Bussy did all that a gallant man could do, but the odds were too great for him; and he could hope for no help, since all the rest of the line was hotly engaged. He wheeled Lally's regiment round at right angles to the line to meet the fire on its flank, and detached a couple of platoons from his left against the western face of the tank; but his men shrank from the British fire and would not come to close quarters. Then two of Draper's guns came up, and opening on the right flank of Lally's regiment raked it through and through. As a last chance Bussy placed himself at the head of his wavering troops and led them straight at the southern face of the tank; but his horse was shot under him, and on looking round he saw but twenty men following him, the rest having no heart for the conflict. Two platoons of Draper's at once doubled round to cut them off, while Major Monson came up with part of the grenadiers of the second line to support Draper's attack. Bussy and his devoted little band were surrounded and made prisoners, and the whole of Lally's regiment was captured or dispersed. The battalions of the centre on both sides had throughout kept up a continual fire at long range; but when the French Regiment of India perceived both its flanks to be uncovered, it faced about and retreated, hastily indeed but in good order. Lally had some time before attempted to bring forward the Sepoys from the ridge, but they had refused to move; and the Mahrattas took themselves off when they saw how the day was going. Nothing was left to Lally but his few squadrons of French horse, which came forward nobly to save his army. A few men of Regiment Lorraine, heartened by their appearance, harnessed the teams to three field-guns and joined with the cavalry in covering the retreat. The British squadron was too weak to attack, and Coote's native horse refused to face the French cavalry; so Lally was able to set fire to his camp, collect the men from his batteries, and to retire in better order than his officers had dared to hope. None the less the victory was sufficiently complete. Two hundred of the Frenchmen lay dead on the field, as many more were wounded, and one hundred and sixty were taken, so that Lally's loss amounted to close on six hundred Europeans. Besides this, twenty-four guns were taken, together with all the tents, stores, and baggage that remained unburnt. Against this the British had lost but sixty-three killed and one hundred and twenty-four wounded, Draper's being the regiment that suffered most severely. The native troops had few casualties, for practically none but Europeans were engaged. The speedy defeat of the French was doubtless due to the explosion which gave away the key of their position; and there can be no question but that this fortunate accident immensely simplified Coote's task for him. On the other hand, it may be asked why, seeing that this tank was the key of the position, Lally should have garrisoned it with sailors and marines, the worst instead of the best of his troops. It is improbable that, even without this stroke of luck, the ultimate issue of the action could have been different, especially if Lally's own figures as to the strength of his own force be accepted as correct. It is plain that he felt no great confidence in his troops, and that his distrust was justified. His cavalry would not stand by him in his first attack on Coote's rear; his artillery was unsteady; he did not venture to attack the British infantry except with column against line; he seems to have advanced in the first instance chiefly because his men chafed under the fire of the British artillery; and his attack on Coote's left was not only a failure in itself but took all the heart out of his Sepoys. Coote, on the other hand, felt perfect reliance on his troops, and proved it by advancing finally with his infantry only, leaving his guns to follow as they could. Moreover, he had the choicest of his troops, the grenadiers, still in reserve at the close of the action; so that it would have been open to him, after the defeat of Lorraine, to have turned these or his own regiment upon the flank of the French battalions in the centre, and to have rolled up their line from right to left instead of from left to right. In fact, from the moment that he forced Lally to come out and fight, the superiority of his troops assured him of victory; and it is probable that Lally himself was painfully aware of the fact. The tragic fate of the French commander a few years later made him an object of compassion to foe and friend, but it is plain that the disaster of Wandewash was principally of his own making. Bussy had begged him to desist from the siege on Coote's approach, but he would not, and was therefore unable to oppose his full strength to his enemy. Finally, though he wished to decline any engagement except a direct attack on his camp, he was out-manoeuvred and compelled to fight on his adversary's terms. In the face of such facts, whatever our sympathy with a gallant and unfortunate man, it is idle to ascribe his defeat to mere accident, although that defeat was a mortal blow to French domination in India. Jan. 29.
Feb. 9.
Feb. 29.
April 5. Lally on the next day fell back to Chittapett, and sending the Mahrattas and native troops to Arcot retired to Gingee to cover Pondicherry. Coote on learning of his withdrawal from Chittapett determined to attack that post, while yet he might, with his whole army; and after a few hours' cannonade compelled it to surrender. Then instead of following Lally up further, he bent himself, after the fashion of Amherst, to systematic reduction of all the minor posts held by the French. Arcot, the first object chosen, fell after a siege of a few days; Timery, a few miles to south-east of Arcot, fell at the same time; Trinomalee surrendered on the last day of February; Permacoil and Alumparva were taken after some resistance early in March. Coote, however, was wounded at Permacoil; and the capture of Carical, the one French station left on the coast, was entrusted to Major Monson, who speedily effected it with the help of Admiral Cornish's squadron, which had arrived on the coast six weeks before. The possession of Carical was of importance, since, being an outlet from the rich country of Tanjore, it could have kept Pondicherry supplied with provisions; while it was also a port wherein a French squadron could obtain not only victuals but also intelligence before proceeding to Pondicherry. Lally, amid all his preparations for defence, in his heart gave up the capital for lost after its fall. July 17.
August. On the 7th of April Coote re-assumed command, and drawing a chain of posts around Pondicherry from Alumparva to Chillumbrum, closed in slowly upon the doomed city. Lally had allowed him to capture far too many of his men piecemeal in different garrisons; but he now called in all French troops from Trichinopoly and other posts in the south, and entered into an agreement with Hyder Ali, then commander of the forces at Mysore, engaging to concede large tracts of territory in return for the services of eight thousand men. This accession of strength to the enemy hampered Coote not a little for the moment, the more so since a detachment which he sent to check the advance of the Mysoreans was totally defeated. But the relief to Lally was short-lived; for dearth of provisions and unwillingness to be attached to the losing side soon caused his new allies to withdraw. Even so, however, the British force was not strong enough to undertake a regular siege of Pondicherry, and Coote was obliged to content himself with a mere blockade. Sept. 2.
Sept. 4.
1761.
April 5. At length reinforcements arrived for the Company's troops, together with half a regiment of Morris's Highlanders[346] under Major Hector Munro. Three men-of-war also came with the transports, raising the squadron before Pondicherry to seventeen sail. Lally, rightly guessing that more vigorous operations would follow on this increase of the British force, devised a plan of extreme skill and daring for the surprise of their camp; but fortune was as usual against him. His combinations miscarried; and his troops after showing conspicuous gallantry were repulsed. From that day the end drew rapidly near. Coote indeed forsook the siege for a time on finding that Colonel Monson had been promoted over his head, but was soon obliged to take command again on the disabling of Monson by a wound. It would be of no profit to linger over the dying agony of Pondicherry. Lally, despite shameful disloyalty and opposition from the civil authorities, resolved to fight on to the end, trusting that d'AchÉ might come with his squadron to his relief; and his regular troops worked for him with a fidelity and devotion worthy of the best traditions of France. Once there came a gleam of hope. On the last day of 1760 a sudden hurricane burst over the city and harbour which overwhelmed three of the British ships with all hands on board, drove three more of them ashore, and ruined all the works of the besiegers. But the surviving ships returned within a week to resume the blockade, and no d'AchÉ arrived to interrupt them. The British works were repaired and pushed forward; and on the 15th of January the garrison, being on the brink of starvation, surrendered. A few weeks sufficed to reduce the few isolated fortresses which were still held by French garrisons; and on the 5th of April the white flag of the Bourbons had ceased to fly in India. So after fifteen years of strange vicissitude ended the long struggle of French and English for empire in the East. That the result was due as much to the shortcomings of the French Government as to the prowess of her adversary is unquestionable; for the corruption and mismanagement both at Versailles and at Pondicherry were sufficient to wreck any empire. Still the failure of the French was due to something more than mere maladministration. Though no people is so patriotic where the soil of their own country is at stake, Frenchmen once passed across the sea appear to be cursed with a fatal tendency to jealousy, distrust, and disunion. In Canada as in India the same forces were always at work to undermine French influence and neutralise French success. Individual Frenchmen are found wielding vast power and authority with consummate ability; yet such men are always alone; not one of them can command the loyal service of his countrymen. Even Dupleix, the Napoleon of India, was thwarted at every turn by his subordinates; for Bussy may be considered to have held practically an independent command. Again, setting aside individuals of brilliant talent, the general average of capacity was lower on the French side. It may have been that ability was by some strange coincidence absent; or that commanders had no power or were too jealous to select the ablest of their subordinates for important work; or indeed that capable subalterns found the acceptance of a great trust too thankless at the hands of such superiors. In any case the result remains the same. There are Dupleix, Bussy, and Paradis on one side, and on the other Clive, Saunders, Lawrence, Forde, Coote, Brereton, Caillaud, Kilpatrick, Knox,—captains, lieutenants and ensigns innumerable, all prepared to accept independent command and yet to work loyally for the common cause. Before long there will have to be told a story of administrative cupidity and corruption in Calcutta as shameful as ever disgraced Pondicherry; and yet always young officers come forward to undertake the most perilous work and to carry it to a successful end. Such a contrast points to a distinction between the two nations which is more deeply rooted than in mere accidents of administration. Partly no doubt the victory of the British was due to the traditions that kept archer and man-at-arms together at Crecy, and may be ascribed to peculiarities of social and political organisation. But beyond this there appears to be something in the national character which makes it difficult for a Frenchman, outside the borders of France, to assume high station without dangerous exaggeration of his self-esteem; while the Briton, for all his energetic and imperious nature, has the grim humour and the deep melancholy of his kind, ever whispering to him of the vanity of great place. Authorities.—Orme's Military Transactions continues to be the chief authority though it unfortunately closes without giving account of Forde's action at Badara. The actions of Wandewash, Condore and Badara are described at length in Colonel Malleson's Decisive Battles of India, where the authorities are quoted. The French side of the story is presented by the same author in his History of the French in India, based chiefly on the memoirs of Lally and Bussy. Wilks's History of Mysore, the Memoirs of Stringer Lawrence, and the Biographies of Clive by Malleson and Malcolm are also of value. Walker & Boutall del. To face Page 474. TRICHINOPOLY.
COVREPAUK, Feb. 3 14 1752. PLASSEY, June 23 rd 1757. MASULIPATAM, The Assault of 8th April 1759.
WANDEWASH, 22nd Jan. 1760.
For convenience of arrangement I have followed the conquests both of Canada and of India without interruption to their close. In the earlier stages of the war, when England had not yet succeeded in obtaining for herself the minister that she desired, it was possible and in the fitness of narrative to turn from enterprise to enterprise, fitfully undertaken, insufficiently provided for, and committed to the wrong hands for execution; since all were symptoms of one organic disorder. While the heart of England beat weak, palpitating and intermittent, it could not but fail to drive the blood to the extremities, and leave them cold and paralysed. But when, under the treatment of Pitt, the heart revives and throbs with strength and regularity, then we can watch member after member tingling with new life and waking to new power; and the action of each may be traced independently, for while their energy continues, it is certain that the heart must be vigorous and sound. Since, however, that work is now done, it behoves us to return, after long digression, to England and to Pitt, and to take up the study where it was laid down, in the spring of 1759. 1759. With the mighty enterprises, even now not yet wholly told, of that year in memory, it is remarkable to note that the estimates for 1759 showed little sign of what was to come. The British Establishment was set down at but eighty-five thousand men, or one thousand more than in the previous year; and the fact is the more extraordinary in that, ever since the previous winter, the French had been preparing for an invasion of Great Britain at three different points with sixty-three thousand men. Vast numbers of flat-bottomed boats had been collected at Dunkirk, Brest and Havre de Grace; and the menace was serious, for the regular troops left in England were but few, and the country was crowded with French prisoners. Pitt, while reposing his chief trust in the navy, was sufficiently disquieted in January to offer special terms to recruits who would enlist for short service within the kingdom only; and in May he called out the newly-embodied militia. Yet only two new regiments of regulars were raised during the first half of the year. The first of these, Eyre Coote's, has already been seen at Wandewash; the second demands lengthier notice since it signified a new departure. Mention has already been made of the addition of light troops to certain regiments of cavalry: it was now determined to form a complete regiment of Light Dragoons; which service was entrusted to Colonel George Augustus Elliott,[347] an officer who was to become famous for his defence of Gibraltar, though not before his regiment had already won fame both for him and for itself. Its actions will come before us very soon, so for the present it will suffice to say that Elliott's Light Dragoons are still with us, retaining the original number of their precedence, as the Fifteenth Hussars. Such additions were trifling enough if in view of no more than the danger of invasion, but, seeing that Pitt abated not one jot of his aggressive designs, they were of astonishing insignificance. With the nature and extent of those designs the reader has already been in great part acquainted; but it will be convenient to recall the military situation in all parts of the world in the spring of 1759. Goree had already surrendered and was occupied by a British garrison; Barrington was busy over the conquest of Guadaloupe; in America Amherst was organising his expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Forbes was struggling with the first difficulties of his advance to Fort DuquÊsne, and Wolfe was on his way to Quebec; in India Lally had lately raised the siege of Madras and liberated the garrison for work in the field, Forde had lately fought Condore and was advancing on Masulipatam, and Clive was at Moorshedabad securing the fruits of his victory at Plassey. Lastly, ten thousand British troops were about to enter on their first campaign under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Yet it never occurred to Pitt to recall one man of them, notwithstanding the peril of invasion. It may be asked why the ten thousand, being so near home, were not summoned from Germany, and of what possible service they could have been on the Continent. The answer, which has already been hinted at, will occur readily to those who have had the patience to follow me so far, who have seen Guadeloupe worried into submission by a handful of sickly troops, and watched Montreal and Pondicherry drop at last into British hands like fruit ripe for the plucking. Pitt spoke but half the truth when he spoke of conquering America in Germany; it was not only America, but the East and West Indies, in a word the British Empire. The war in Germany was in fact nothing more than a diversion on a grand scale, and it is as such that it must now be followed. The French likewise pursued their idea of a diversion when they threatened a descent upon the shores of Great Britain. It was a plan which they had employed with some success in the days of King William and of Queen Anne, but it had not saved them from Marlborough at Oudenarde, and it was not to deliver them from the busy designs of Pitt. Before entering on the campaigns of Prince Ferdinand it is indispensable to attempt to grasp the general purport of the operations on either side. The French had invaded Germany primarily to take vengeance upon Prussia for King Frederick's scornful treatment of Madame de Pompadour. Frederick, being already occupied with the Saxons and Austrians to the south and with the Russians on his flank to the eastward, could hardly have escaped disaster with the French pressing on his other flank from the west. He had indeed, in 1758, with the swiftness that characterised his operations, made a dash upon the French and hurled them back at Rossbach, and within a month dealt the Austrians as severe a buffet at Leuthen with the same army. But to defeat two armies at two points over two hundred miles apart within a few weeks, was a strain that could not be repeated; and it was primarily to guard Frederick's right or western flank that Ferdinand's army was called into being. So far as Frederick was concerned it quite fulfilled its purpose; but in the eyes of England its mission was somewhat different. Under the Duke of Cumberland the force had been called an army of observation, to secure the frontiers of Hanover; and Cumberland, despite Frederick's warnings, had endeavoured to cover Hanover by holding the line of the Weser, with results that were seen at Hastenbeck. Under Ferdinand the army became an Allied Army for active operations in concert with King Frederick;[348] but none the less its chief function was to cover Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Brunswick. For the French army, being lax in discipline, behaved with shameful inhumanity towards the inhabitants of German territory during this war; and there was always apprehension lest the rulers of Hesse and Brunswick, from sheer compassion towards their suffering people, should withdraw from the Alliance. Throughout the operations about to come under our notice the French acted with at least two armies, jointly superior to Ferdinand's in numbers, along two different lines. The northern army was known as the Army of the Rhine, its base being Wesel on the Lower Rhine, an outlying possession of King Frederick's, which had perforce been abandoned by him at the opening of the war, and which despite Ferdinand's efforts could never be recovered. This army was destined to advance into Westphalia, and thence, if possible, into Hanover; and a glance at the map will show that its simplest line of advance was by the river Lippe. The second or southern army of the French was known as the Army of the Main; having provided itself with a base on that river by the treacherous capture of Frankfort.[349] This was one of the many unscrupulous actions whereby the French made themselves loathed in Europe; for Frankfort being an Imperial Free Town was held always to be neutral. Still the thing was done; and thereby was secured to the Army of the Main, which had begun life as the Army of the Upper Rhine, not only an excellent base but a sure means of retreat. For the Allies, even if they defeated it, could not bar its way to the Rhine until Frankfort should be first besieged and captured, which could not but be a very arduous undertaking. The primary function of this second army was the invasion of Hesse. Ferdinand's task, with an inferior force, was in its essence defensive. For him the supremely important thing was to retain possession of the line of the Weser, on which waterway he depended for his supplies alike from Germany and from England. Thus, roughly speaking, the field of operations lay between the Rhine on the one side and the Weser on the other, with the sea and the Main for northern and southern boundaries; and the normal front of the French would be to the east and of the Allies to the west. But it must be remembered that in addition to the army operating from Wesel against Ferdinand's front there was another operating from Frankfort upon his left or southern flank; while there was always the further danger that the Saxons might elude a Prussian corps of observation, which was posted to check them, on the south-east, and steal in upon Ferdinand's left rear. To defeat these combinations it was of vital importance to Ferdinand to hold in particular two fortresses—MÜnster in Westphalia, since the French, if they took it, could push on unhindered to the Weser and cut off his supplies; and Lippstadt on the Upper Lippe, which secured communications between MÜnster and Cassel, or in other words between Westphalia and Hesse, and contrariwise impeded the joint action of the two French armies. For the rest it will be useful to take note of three rivers which barred the advance of the French northward from Frankfort to Cassel and beyond: namely, counting from south to north, the Ohm, the Eder, and the Diemel. With the last in particular, as the final barrier between Hesse and Westphalia, we shall have much to do; so the reader would do well to grasp its position once for all, not neglecting its relation to the neighbouring waters of the Lippe and the Weser. End of March.
April 13. At the close of the campaign of 1758 Ferdinand's winter quarters extended from Coesfeld, a little to westward of MÜnster, through MÜnster, Lippstadt and Paderborn to the Diemel, his front facing thus somewhat to south of south-east. The French army of the Rhine under Marshal Contades was cantoned along that river from Wesel southward almost to Coblentz; while the army of the Main, under the Prince of Soubise, the defeated General of Rossbach, lay just to north of the river about Frankfort. Ferdinand's first trouble was with an advance of the Austrians upon his left flank by the river Werra. This he headed back by a rapid march to Fulda; and, being freed from this danger, he resolved to turn this enforced movement to southward to account by making a bold stroke upon Frankfort, so as, if possible, to paralyse the operations of the French on that side by snatching from them their base. Unfortunately for him, the incapable Soubise had been recalled to command the army for invasion of England, and Marshal Broglie, who had succeeded him, had entrenched himself in a strong position at Bergen, a little to the north of Frankfort. There on the 13th of April, just five days after the storm of Masulipatam, Ferdinand boldly attacked him,[350] but was repulsed with a loss of over two thousand men, and compelled to fall back to Ziegenhain, on the road to Cassel. His audacious attempt to cripple one French army, before the campaign had even been opened, had failed. May.
May 27.
May 29. After this alarm the French employed themselves busily in entrenching themselves on the Main. Prince Henry of Prussia, by King Frederick's direction, marched northward to relieve Ferdinand from further trouble from the Austrians; and the enemy made little movement during the ensuing month. On the 25th of April Contades arrived at DÜsseldorf from Paris with an approved plan of campaign in his pocket, and proceeded to distribute the army of the Rhine into four corps, two of them about Wesel, a third at DÜsseldorf, and a fourth about Cologne. This grouping, as Contades intended, left Ferdinand in doubt whether his main design was aimed at Westphalia or Hesse. The corps which guarded Westphalia included the British contingent under Lord George Sackville, who had been appointed to the command on the death of the Duke of Marlborough in the previous year, and it lay a little to the west of MÜnster, under the orders of the Hanoverian General von SpÖrcke. That officer growing uneasy over Contades's movements, Ferdinand on the 16th of May marched from Ziegenhain, leaving sixteen thousand men under General von Imhoff to protect Hesse, and on the 24th, having effected his junction with SpÖrcke, cantoned his troops along the Lippe from Coesfeld to Hamm. Meanwhile Contades, detaching a corps of fifteen thousand men under Count d'ArmentiÈres to threaten MÜnster, marched southward from DÜsseldorf upon Giessen, there to join Broglie and begin operations against Hesse. Ferdinand, in the faint hope of recalling him to the Rhine, despatched a corps under the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, a most brilliant officer, to alarm the French garrisons at DÜsseldorf and other points on the river; but Contades, adhering to his purpose, pushed forward an advanced corps under M. de Noailles from Giessen to Marburg, evidently intent on prosecuting his march to the north. Contades was in overwhelming force. Noailles's corps at Marburg numbered twenty thousand men, his own at Giessen close on sixty thousand, while Broglie's reserve-corps at Friedberg, a little to the south of Giessen, included close on twenty thousand more. He now sent Broglie forward by Fritzlar upon Cassel, while he himself continued his march due north through Waldeck upon Corbach. Imhoff, fearful of being cut off and unable to defend Cassel, fell back towards Lippstadt; and Broglie having left a force to occupy Cassel, turned westward to rejoin Contades. On the 14th of June the whole were again assembled together, Contades' corps lying a little to the south of Paderborn, and Broglie's at Stadtbergen. June 11.
June 18. These movements caused Ferdinand the deepest anxiety. On the 11th of June he concentrated and marched eastward to BÜren, where he halted and picked up Imhoff's corps; but even so he was weaker than the enemy, for though he had recalled the Hereditary Prince from DÜsseldorf, he had been obliged to leave nine thousand men under General Wangenheim at DÜlmen, to watch d'ArmentiÈres's designs against MÜnster. But worse was to come; for on the 18th Broglie's corps, moving up to the right of Contades's, began to edge Ferdinand's left wing back to the westward. Ferdinand, accepting the inevitable, fell back on Lippstadt and crossed the Lippe to Rietberg. His embarrassment was now extreme. He could not divine whether the enemy designed to besiege Lippstadt or MÜnster or both, or whether they meant to force a battle upon him against greatly superior numbers. He was inclined to risk a battle, seeing that, for all that he could do to prevent it, both fortresses might be taken before his eyes; in which case he must needs cross to the east side of the Weser. So critical did he consider the position that he wrote to King George the Second for instructions, and begged that ships might be ready to transport the garrison in case it should be necessary to evacuate Emden. The King's answer showed the Guelphic loyalty and courage at its noblest. He said that since Ferdinand was inclined to hazard an action he also was ready to take the risk, but that he left his General an absolutely free hand, only assuring him that his confidence in him would be unabated, whatever the result; and, lest Ferdinand should be in any doubt, he caused a second letter to be written to him to the same effect, but in stronger terms even than the first.[351] June 29.
July 3.
July 8.
July 10.
July 14. Meanwhile Contades marched up to Paderborn and halted for some days, keeping Ferdinand still in doubt as to his intentions. At last on the 29th he moved northward and pushed his light troops forward to Bielefeld, showing plainly that his true aim was the capture either of Hameln or of Minden on the Weser. Ferdinand therefore recalled Wangenheim's corps from DÜlmen to the main army; whereupon, as he had expected, d'ArmentiÈres at once advanced to besiege MÜnster. On the same day Ferdinand himself moved northward and encamped parallel to Contades at Diessen, comforting himself with the reflection that though his enemies might be nearer to Minden than he, he at any rate was nearer to his food-supplies than they.[352] It was, however, extremely difficult for him to obtain intelligence of the French movements, since the two armies were separated by a broad chain of wooded hills; and he consequently hesitated for some days before he decided, on false information of a French advance, to move towards OsnabrÜck. His intention was to turn eastward from thence, and to take up a position which would render it perilous for the French to attempt the siege either of Hameln or Minden. He had made, however, but one march from OsnabrÜck when he received the news that Broglie had surprised Minden on the day before, and that the French had thus secured a bridge over the Weser and free access into Hanover. This was a most unpleasant surprise for Ferdinand. For a day he hesitated whether or not to return to MÜnster, and then decided to fall back to the Lower Weser, so as to save his magazine at Nienburg, and, since the French had set the example of lawlessness at Frankfort, to occupy the Imperial Free Town of Bremen. On the 14th of July accordingly his headquarters were fixed at Stolzenau, between Nienburg and Minden on the Weser, and a detachment was sent to Bremen. July 17. Meanwhile Contades proceeded to reap the fruit of his very successful movements. Part of his light troops seized upon OsnabrÜck, and the rest were sent to levy contributions in Hanover; M. de Chevreuse was detached with three thousand men to besiege Lippstadt; d'ArmentiÈres continued to besiege MÜnster; Broglie's corps crossed the Weser on the 14th to invest Hameln; and on the 16th Contades with the main army debouched into the basin of Minden, and pushed a part of his army as far to the northward as Petershagen. Ferdinand, though he could bring but forty-five thousand men into the field against sixty thousand, advanced southward next day to offer him battle; but Contades retired without awaiting his arrival and withdrew to an unassailable position immediately to south of Minden. If he could hold Ferdinand inactive while his several detachments did their work, it was of no profit to him to hazard a general action. July. So far Contades's operations had been masterly. He had taken Cassel, the capital of Hesse, and had invested both Lippstadt and MÜnster; he had further taken Minden and invested Hameln; and thus he bade fair to possess himself of the line of the Weser and to carry the war straight into Hanover. Ferdinand's position was most critical, and was not rendered more pleasant to him by a series of uncomplimentary messages from Frederick the Great. But Contades, from the moment that he declined battle, seems to have taken leave, possibly from excessive confidence, of all energy and ability. His position was, it is true, impregnable. His army lay immediately to the south of Minden, communicating by three bridges with Broglie's corps on the other side of the Weser. His right rested on the town and the river, his left on a mass of wooded hills—the end of the range that had separated his army from Ferdinand's—and the whole of his front was covered by a wide morass, through which ran a brook called the Bastau. But though unassailable from any point, the position had conspicuous defects. In the first place, it did not leave the army free to move in all directions; and in the second, it necessitated the detachment of troops to the south to maintain communication through Gohfeld and Hervorden with the French base at Cassel. It was for Ferdinand, by skilful use of these defects, to entice Contades from his pinfold to meet him in the open field. July 28.
July. Returning to camp at Petershagen after Contades's withdrawal to Minden, Ferdinand's first step was to push his picquets forward into a chain of villages that lay in his front: Todtenhausen on the bank of the Weser, Fredewald immediately to west of Todtenhausen, Stemmern and Holthausen somewhat in advance of Fredewald, and Nord Hemmern, Sud Hemmern, and Hille still farther to south and west. The occupation of Hille brought his advanced posts to the western edge of the morass that covered Contades's front, and to the head of the one causeway that led across it. On the 22nd Wangenheim's corps, about ten thousand strong, was pushed forward to Todtenhausen, where it remained conspicuous, in advance of the army. In the midst of these movements came the bad news of the fall of MÜnster, which enabled d'ArmentiÈres to march from thence to besiege Lippstadt, and Chevreuse to return with his detachment to Minden; but this misfortune only quickened Ferdinand to action. On the 27th the Hereditary Prince marched with six thousand men south-westward towards LÜbbecke, and on the following day drove from it a body of French irregulars which was stationed there for the protection of Contades's left flank. Then turning eastward he pursued his march against the French communications. Simultaneously, on the 28th, General Dreve led the garrison of Bremen against OsnabrÜck, retook it, and hastened eastward to join the Hereditary Prince. The junction effected, the two pressed on towards Hervorden, and on the 31st established themselves astride of the road by which all Contades's supplies must be brought up from the south. Here, therefore, was a menace in his rear to make the French General uneasy in his position behind the morass; and now Ferdinand added a temptation in his front to induce him the more readily to quit it. On the 29th the Prince, leaving Wangenheim's corps isolated about Todtenhausen, led the whole of the rest of the army a short march to the south-west, and encamped between Fredewald and Hille. Headquarters were at Hille, under guard of the Twelfth and Twentieth Regiments of the British Foot, for the red-coats held the place of honour on the right of the line; and picquets were pushed on to Sud Hemmern, Hartum, and Hahlen, villages on the eastern side of Hille, by the border of the morass. Finally, from two to three thousand men were ordered to LÜbbecke to maintain communication with the Hereditary Prince. Such dispositions might well have appeared hazardous; but Ferdinand had thought them out in every detail. Wangenheim's corps, though isolated, was strongly entrenched, with several guns; while his position covered the only outlet by which the French could debouch from behind the marsh. Thereby two important objects were gained. First, the safe passage of convoys from the Lower Weser was assured; and secondly, it was made certain that, before Contades could deploy to attack Wangenheim in force, Ferdinand with the main army would have time either to fall upon his flank or simply to join his own left to Wangenheim's right. To ensure the swift execution of this latter critical movement, Ferdinand directed all Generals to acquaint themselves carefully with the ground, and in particular with the outlets that led from his position to the open plain before Minden. Contades meanwhile reasoned, as Ferdinand had hoped and intended, in a very different fashion. The Allied army was, to his mind, dispersed in every direction. Ten thousand men were with the Hereditary Prince at Gohfeld; at least two thousand more at LÜbbecke; Ferdinand himself, with the greater portion of the army, seemed so anxious to be within supporting distance of the Prince that he had left Wangenheim in the air; while even Wangenheim's corps was not united, but had detached a few battalions across the river to keep an eye on Broglie. Still the interruption of his own communications with Cassel was troublesome; and it would be well to put an end to that and to all other difficulties by a decisive blow and a brilliant victory. He therefore despatched the Duke of Brissac with eight thousand men to Gohfeld to hold the Hereditary Prince in check, threw eight bridges over the Bastau for the passage of his troops across it in as many columns, and ordered Broglie to be ready to cross the Weser with his corps to form a ninth column upon his right. The total force which he could bring into the plain of Minden was fifty-one thousand men with one hundred and sixty-two guns. Against it, if all went well, Ferdinand could oppose forty-one thousand men and one hundred and seventy guns. Aug. 1. A fresh gale was blowing from the south-west which drowned the stroke of the clocks of Minden, as midnight closed the last day of July and ushered in the first of August. Already the French camp was all alert in the darkness, and the columns were moving off, not without confusion, to the bridges of the Bastau. An hour later two white-coated deserters were brought in by a picquet to the Prince of Anhalt, General Officer of the day in the Allied army, with the important intelligence that the whole French army was in motion. Ferdinand had seen signs of some stir on the previous evening, and had directed that, on the observance of the slightest movement at the advanced posts, information should be brought to him at once. Yet two o'clock came, and three o'clock, before a belated messenger arrived at headquarters from Anhalt with the news. Instantly Ferdinand called the whole of his troops to arms, and ordered them to march to their appointed positions. His orders had already been issued, and were clear and precise enough. The advance was to be in eight columns, and the formation for battle, as usual, with infantry in the centre and cavalry on each flank. The first or right-hand column consisted of twenty-four squadrons of cavalry under Lord George Sackville, fifteen of them being British squadrons of the Blues, First and Third Dragoon Guards, Scots Greys, and Tenth Dragoons. The second was made up entirely of German artillery; and the third under Major-General von SpÖrcke comprised the Twelfth, Twentieth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-first regiments of the British Line. Seven out of the eight columns were formed and marched off with great promptitude; but in Sackville's column all was confusion and delay. Some of the regiments were ready and others were not; and Sackville himself was not to be found. It was no good beginning for the British cavalry. Having given the alarm Ferdinand hastened, with a single staff-officer accompanying him, to see for himself how matters stood. It is not difficult to conceive of his anxiety. Owing to the unpardonable neglect of Anhalt the French had gained two hours upon him; and now, when the army had been at last set in motion, the cavalry of his right wing was not moving with the rest. There was therefore every likelihood that the village of Hahlen, on which he had intended to rest his right flank, might be occupied by the French before Sackville could be there to prevent them. Instantly galloping away to Hartum he ordered the picquets stationed therein to move at once to Hahlen, and then hurried back with all speed to the latter village, only to learn the bad news that it was already in possession of the French. Meanwhile not a word had come from Wangenheim, who, for aught he knew, might be in serious difficulties. Despatching his solitary aide-de-camp to Todtenhausen to ascertain how matters were going on the left, he galloped on alone with his groom into the plain of Minden. The wind was blowing so furiously that not a sound even of cannon could be heard in the direction of the Weser; but before long he caught sight of the French advancing on Kuttenhausen, and of a dense cloud of smoke rising before Todtenhausen. Evidently Wangenheim was hotly engaged. But meanwhile from windward there came the roar of a furious cannonade about Hille, where the causeway issued from the western end of the morass. This could only be a diversion, for Ferdinand had already sealed up the outlet of the causeway with five hundred men and two guns; but to make assurance still surer he now ordered two more guns and the detachment from LÜbbecke to Hille, and sent information to the Hereditary Prince of what was passing. Then, galloping for a moment to the left, Ferdinand satisfied himself that his columns were advancing, and turned back in the teeth of the wind to Hahlen. There once again the stupidity of the Prince of Anhalt had set matters wrong. He had duly brought up the picquets from Hartum before Hahlen, as directed, but had halted instead of clearing the French out of the village, and had thereby delayed the deployment of the whole of SpÖrcke's column. He was bidden to take the village at once, which he did without difficulty; but having done so this hopeless officer proceeded to instal himself and his picquets as if to stay there for ever.[353] After the occupation of Hahlen, however, matters on the right began to adjust themselves. Ferdinand ordered Captain Foy's battery to the front of the village to cover the formation of the troops, and was soon satisfied by the admirable working of these British guns that all was safe in that quarter. Meanwhile his aide-de-camp returned from Todtenhausen with intelligence that Wangenheim was holding his own, though the enemy had gained ground on his right, where his flank was uncovered. Probably few commanders have passed through two worse hours than did Ferdinand at the opening of the battle of Minden. Fortunately for him the French had not executed their own manoeuvres without confusion and delay. It was one defect of Contades's position that he could not debouch from behind the morass by daylight, since he would have brought Ferdinand down instantly upon his flank; and the indiscipline of the French army among both officers and men was not calculated to favour orderly movement in the dark. Broglie, a capable officer, had crossed the river, taken up his appointed position on the right, and made his dispositions to fall upon Wangenheim, punctually and in good order; but he dared not attack until the rest of the army was formed, so contented himself with a simple duel of artillery. The rest of the columns shuffled here and there in helplessness and confusion; and it was not until Broglie had waited for two full hours that most of them were at last deployed in some kind of order. The French line-of-battle was convex in form, following, as it were, the contour of the walls of Minden, with the right resting on the Weser and the left on the morass. Broglie's corps on the right was drawn up in two lines, the first of infantry, the second of cavalry, with two powerful batteries in advance. On his left stood half of the infantry of Contades's army in two lines, with thirty-four guns before them. Next to these, in the centre, were fifty-five squadrons of cavalry in two lines, with a third line of eighteen more in reserve; and next to this mass of horse stood the left wing, composed of the rest of the infantry in two lines, with thirty guns. Thus to all intent the French line-of-battle consisted of a centre of cavalry with wings of infantry; but the left wing of infantry was late in arriving at its position, and its tardiness was not without effect on the issue of the action. Observing the excellent practice of Foy's battery before Hahlen, Ferdinand had already sent Macbean's British battery to join it and ordered Hase's Hanoverian brigade of heavy guns to the same position. Then seeing SpÖrcke's column of British infantry in the act of deployment, he sent orders that its advance, when the time should come, should be made with drums beating. The order was either misdelivered or misunderstood, for to his surprise the leading British brigade shook itself up and began to advance forthwith. A flight of aides-de-camp galloped off to stop them; and the line of scarlet halted behind a belt of fir-wood to await the formation of the rest of the army. In the first line of SpÖrcke's division stood, counting from right to left, the Twelfth, Thirty-seventh, and Twenty-third, under Brigadier Waldegrave; and in the second, which extended beyond the first on each flank, the Twentieth, Fifty-first, and Twenty-fifth, under Brigadier Kingsley, Hardenberg's Hanoverian battalion, and two battalions of Hanoverian guards. There then they stood for a few minutes, while the second line, which was only partially deployed, hastened to complete the evolution; when suddenly to the general amazement the drums again began to roll, and the first line stepped off once more, advancing rapidly but in perfect order, straight upon the French horse. The second line, though its formation was still incomplete, stepped off likewise in rear of its comrades, deploying as it moved, and therefore of necessity dropping somewhat in rear. And so the nine battalions, with the leading brigade far in advance, swung proudly forward into a cross-fire of more than sixty cannon, alone and unsupported from the rest of the line. No aide-de-camp, gallop though he might, could stop them now; and their majestic bearing showed that they would not easily be stopped by an enemy. The British, being on the right, were the more exposed to destruction, for the French batteries on their left were too remote to maintain a really deadly fire; but what signified a cross-fire and three lines of horse to regiments that had fought at Dettingen and Fontenoy? For nearly two hundred yards of the advance the French guns tore great gaps in their ranks; but they passed through the tempest of shot unbroken and untamed, and pressed on with the same majestic steadiness against the huge motionless bank of the French horse. Then at last the wall of men and horses started into life, and eleven squadrons coming forward from the rest bore straight down upon them. The scarlet battalions stood firm until the enemy were within ten yards of them; then pouring in one volley which strewed the ground with men and horses, they hurled the squadrons back in confused fragments upon their comrades, and continued their advance. Ferdinand, perceiving the disorder of the French, sent an aide-de-camp at full speed to Lord George Sackville to bring up the British cavalry and complete the rout. Sackville disputed the meaning of the order for a time, and then advancing his squadrons for a short distance, as if to obey it, brought them once more to a halt. A second messenger came up in hot haste to ask why the cavalry of the right did not come on, but Sackville remained stationary, and the opportunity was lost. Then shamed and indignant at their defeat the French horse rallied. Four brigades of infantry and thirty-two guns came forward from the French left to enfilade the audacious British foot; and Ferdinand, since Sackville would not move, advanced Phillips's brigade of heavy guns in order to parry, if possible, this flanking attack. Then the second line of the French horse came thundering down, eager to retrieve their defeat, upon the nine isolated battalions. For a moment the lines of scarlet seemed to waver under this triple attack; but recovering themselves they closed up their ranks and met the charging squadrons with a storm of musketry which blasted them off the field. Then turning with equal fierceness upon the French infantry they beat them also back with terrible loss. Again an aide-de-camp flew from Ferdinand's side to Sackville, adjuring him to bring up the British squadrons only, if no more, to make good the success; but it was not jealousy of the foreign squadrons under his command that kept Sackville back. The messenger delivered his order; but not a squadron moved. Meanwhile Ferdinand had hurried forward fresh battalions on his right to save the British from annihilation; and now the third line of French horse, the Gendarmerie and the Carbineers, essayed a third attack upon the nine dauntless battalions and actually broke through the first line; but was shattered to pieces by the second and sent the way of its fellows. A fourth messenger was sent to Sackville, but with no result. Ferdinand's impatience waxed hot. "When is that cavalry coming?" he kept exclaiming. "Has no one seen that cavalry of the right wing?" But no cavalry came. "Good God! is there no means of getting that cavalry to advance," he ejaculated in desperation, and sent a fifth messenger to bring up Lord Granby with the squadrons of Sackville's second line only. Granby was about to execute the order, when Sackville rode up and forbade him; and then, as if still in doubt as to these repeated orders, Sackville trotted up to Ferdinand and asked what they might mean. "My Lord," Ferdinand is said to have answered, calmly, but with such contempt as may be imagined, "the opportunity is now passed." Nevertheless the astonishing attack of the British infantry had virtually gained the day. Ferdinand's line had gained time to form and to join with Wangenheim's; and the guns of the Allies coming up gradually in increasing force silenced the inferior artillery of the French. Ferdinand's left wing then took the offensive, and the German cavalry by a brilliant charge dispersed the whole of the infantry opposed to them. Between nine and ten o'clock the struggle was practically over. The French were completely beaten, and retreating rapidly under the guns of Minden to their pinfold behind the marsh. Had Sackville's cavalry come forward when it was bidden, it might have cut the flying French squadrons to pieces, barred the retreat of most if not all of the French left wing, and turned the victory into one of the greatest of all time. As things happened, it fell to Foy and Macbean of the British Artillery to gather the laurels of the pursuit. Hard though they had worked all day, these officers limbered up their guns and moved with astonishing rapidity along the border of the marsh, halting from time to time to pound the retreating masses of the enemy; till at last they unlimbered for good opposite the bridges of the Bastau and punished the fugitives so heavily that they would not be rallied until they had fled far beyond their camp. Meanwhile the Hereditary Prince had engaged the Duke of Brissac at Gohfeld and defeated him, so that the French communications with Hervorden and Paderborn were hopelessly severed. The news of this misfortune seems to have smitten Contades almost with panic. Had he chosen to fall back by the line of his advance he could hardly have been stopped by the inferior force of the Hereditary Prince, and he would have found supplies and a good position at Hervorden. But his defeat had crushed all spirit out of him. Abandoning his communications with Paderborn he crossed the Weser in the night, broke down the bridge of Minden, burned his bridges of boats, and retired through a difficult and distressing country to Cassel, with an army not only beaten but demoralised. Walker & Boutall del. To face page 494. MINDEN. Aug. 1 st 1759. The Action at the moment of the attack of the British Infantry. So ended the battle of Minden, a day at once of pride and disgrace to the British. The losses of the Allies amounted to twenty-six hundred killed and wounded, of which the share of the British amounted to close on fourteen hundred men.[354] Of the six devoted regiments who went into action four thousand four hundred and thirty-four strong, seventy-eight officers and twelve hundred and fifty-two men, or about thirty per cent, were killed or wounded; while the Hanoverian battalions with them, being on the left or sheltered flank, lost but twelve per cent. The heaviest sufferers were the Twelfth, which lost three hundred and two, and the Twentieth, which lost three hundred and twenty-two of all ranks; these regiments holding the place of honour on the right of the first and second lines. The casualties of the French were acknowledged in the official lists to amount to seven thousand, though the letters of Broglie and Contades state the numbers at from ten to eleven thousand; and the defeated army lost in addition the greater part of its baggage, seventeen standards and colours, and forty-three guns. From a military standpoint the most remarkable feature in the action was the skill with which Ferdinand contrived to entice his adversary into the field, reflecting perhaps even more credit on his judgment of men than on his knowledge of his profession. Once drawn from behind the morass into the plain, Contades made singularly feeble and meaningless dispositions: and the formation of his line with cavalry in the centre and infantry on the flanks was, in the circumstances, simply grotesque. He seems indeed to have had no very clear idea as to what he really meant to do. If he had designed to overwhelm Wangenheim's isolated corps—and no doubt he had some vague notion of the kind—the obvious course was to launch Broglie straight at him independently, and himself to protect Broglie's flank with the main army. What he actually did was to turn Broglie's corps into the right wing of an united army, and so practically to fetter it for all decisive action. On the other hand, all preconcerted arrangements on both sides were upset by the extraordinary attack of the British infantry, a feat of gallantry and endurance that stands, so far as I know, absolutely without a parallel. "I never thought," said Contades bitterly, "to see a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to ruin." "Never," grimly wrote Westphalen, the chief of Ferdinand's staff, "were so many boots and saddles seen on a battlefield as opposite to the English and the Hanoverian Guards." Next to this attack the feature that seems to have attracted most attention among both contemporary and modern critics, was the remarkable efficiency of the British artillery. The handling of the artillery generally at Minden, which was entrusted to the Count of Lippe-BÜckeburg, was very greatly admired: but Westphalen, who passed lightly over the deeds of the infantry, went out of his way to write that, though every battery had done well, the English batteries had done wonders. And indeed some British guns which were attached to Wangenheim's corps on the left earned not less praise than those of Foy and Macbean on the right. The palm of the cavalry fell to the Germans, and in particular to a few squadrons of Prussian dragoons lent by Frederick the Great, which earned it brilliantly. It would have fallen to the British but for Sackville. The part played by this deplorable man did not end with the battle. Ferdinand in general orders made scathing allusion to his conduct without mentioning his name; and Sackville was presently superseded and sent home. There he was tried by court-martial and pronounced unfit to serve the King in any military capacity whatever—a hard sentence but probably no more than just. Sackville was admitted to be an extremely able man; and as he had passed through Fontenoy and been wounded in that action, it is not easy to call him a coward. But the courage of some men is not the same on every day; and the evidence produced at the court-martial shows, I think, too plainly that on the day of Minden Sackville's courage failed him.[355] The King published the sentence of his dismissal from the Army in a special order, with very severe but not undeserved comment; and Lord George Sackville henceforth disappears from British battlefields. But we shall meet with him again as a Minister of War, and the meeting will not be a pleasant one. Aug. 2.
Aug. 5.
Aug. 18.
Aug. 24.
Aug. 25.
Sept. 19. On the day following the battle the Hereditary Prince crossed the Weser in pursuit of the French, and overtaking their rear-guard at Einbeck captured many prisoners and much spoil, but failed to arrest the retreat of the main body. Contades, therefore, succeeded in bringing his troops back to Cassel, half starved, worn out by hard marching, and utterly demoralised by indiscipline and pillage. D'ArmentiÈres, on hearing of his chief's defeat, raised the siege of Lippstadt and marched eastward to meet him. Ferdinand meanwhile, having received the surrender of Minden, advanced by Bielefeld and Paderborn south-eastward upon Corbach, so as to turn Contades's left flank. On the 18th Contades, seeing his communications endangered, evacuated Cassel and retired by forced marches to Marburg, where he took up a strong position. Cassel capitulated to the Allies on the following day; and Ferdinand, while still pursuing his march southward, detached seven thousand men to recapture MÜnster. Marshal d'EstrÉes then arrived to supersede Contades; but little came of this change of command. Renewed menace from the westward upon the French communications forced him to withdraw from the line of the Ohm and Lahn, and to fall back to Giessen. Ferdinand at once laid siege to Marburg, which fell within a week, and finally on the 19th of September he encamped at Kroffdorf, a little to north-west of Giessen, over against the French camp. Meanwhile the siege of MÜnster had gone ill for the Allies, and had been turned into a blockade. Ferdinand, after sending additional troops thither, found himself too weak to attempt further operations until the fall of the town; and during this interval Broglie, who had been appointed to the supreme command, had received a reinforcement of ten thousand WÜrtembergers. Thus strengthened he tried incessantly with a detached corps of twenty thousand men to interrupt Ferdinand's communications with Cassel, but in vain; and finally the Hereditary Prince attacked this corps at Fulda, defeated it signally, and then turning upon Broglie's right flank forced him to retire to Friedberg. Ferdinand then blockaded Giessen; but at this point further operations were stayed. Ever since his disastrous defeat by the Russians at Kunersdorf in August, Frederick the Great had pressed Ferdinand for reinforcements; and the detachment of twelve thousand troops to the King not only rendered the Prince powerless for further aggression, but obliged him also to raise the blockade of Giessen. In January 1760 both armies retired into winter-quarters. The French occupied much the same ground as at the beginning of the campaign; and the Allies likewise were distributed into two divisions, the army of Westphalia extending from MÜnster through Paderborn to the Weser, the army of Hesse from Marburg eastward to the Werra. Thus ended the campaign of 1759, leaving both parties in occupation of the same territory as at its beginning; but it had branded the French with the discredit of a great defeat, and had heightened in the Allies their contempt for their enemy and their confidence in their chief.
1759. Never in the whole course of her history had come to England such a year of triumph as 1759. Opening with the capture of Goree in January, its later months had brought one unbroken tale of success, of Madras saved and Masulipatam taken in India, of Quebec captured in Canada, of Minden won in Germany, of one French fleet worsted by Boscawen off the Portuguese coast, of another defeated by Hawke in the romantic action of Quiberon Bay. Such was the story with which King George the Second met his Parliament for the last time in his life; and Pitt did not fail to turn it to good account. A monument was voted to Wolfe in Westminster Abbey; thanks were given to Hawke, Saunders and Holmes of the Navy, and to Monckton, Murray and Townsend of the Army; and the military estimates were passed with little difficulty. It was ordered that Ferdinand's army should be augmented from Great Britain, Brunswick, and Hesse alike. The full number of national troops voted for the British Establishment exceeded one hundred thousand men; the embodied militia augmented this total by twenty thousand, and the German troops in the pay of England by fifty-five thousand more; while another twelve thousand men at home and abroad, which were borne on the Irish Establishment, raised it to close on one hundred and ninety thousand men. Before the campaign of 1760 was opened, the infantry of the British Line had increased to ninety-six regiments; England contributing one new corps, Wales one, Scotland five, and Ireland four, all of which were disbanded at the close of the war.[356] To these there were added later in the year six new regiments of Light Dragoons. The first was formed in August under Colonel John Burgoyne, which took rank as the Sixteenth Dragoons, and is now known to us as the Sixteenth Lancers; the second, created in October by Lord Aberdour, soon perished and left no mark behind it; and the third was raised under rather remarkable conditions by Colonel John Hale in November. Colonel Hale, originally of the Blues and later of the Forty-third Foot, was the officer who brought back the despatches reporting the victory of Quebec. Finding on his arrival in England in October that there was still some alarm of a French invasion, he volunteered to form a regiment of the footmen and chairmen of London and to lead them against the best household troops of France; an offer which so delighted Pitt that he reported it to the House of Commons. Finally, he engaged himself to raise a strong regiment of light dragoons without levy-money for men or horses, promising that any men or horses objected to on review by the inspecting officer should be replaced without expense to the country, and that the whole corps should be completed within two months. The offer was accepted, and the regiment was raised at the sole expense of the officers within the space, as it is said, of seventeen days. The number was not inappropriate; for though first known, during the few years while Aberdour's lasted, as the Eighteenth, this regiment, still conspicuous by the white facings and the badge of skull and crossbones which Hale selected for it, remains with us as the Seventeenth Lancers. The three remaining corps, which raised the number of regiments of dragoons to twenty-one, were too short-lived to merit more than mere mention.[357] 1760.
Feb. The menace of French invasion was rather ludicrously realised in February by a descent of the French privateer, Thurot, with five ships upon Carrickfergus. Landing about a thousand troops, he received the surrender of the town after a skirmish with the garrison, plundered it, contrary to the terms of the capitulation, and re-embarked. His squadron, however, was almost immediately caught by three British men-of-war, when after a short action Thurot was killed and every one of his ships captured. This tragic termination to Thurot's escapade relieved the general tension, and restored the country's confidence. So foolish a raid was not likely to produce any change in Pitt's preparations for the reinforcement of Ferdinand, who needed to be specially strengthened after the disasters that had befallen King Frederick at Kunersdorf and at Maxen. In January it was decided to send three more regiments of British cavalry to Germany; and a few weeks later the number was increased to five. In May a further reinforcement of six battalions and two regiments of Highlanders was promised, and in June two additional regiments of cavalry; making up a total of close on ten thousand men.[358] The troops were shipped to the Weser instead of, as heretofore, to Emden, and seem to have been despatched with commendable promptitude; for the six regiments of foot, though only warned for service on the 1st of May, were actually reviewed by Ferdinand in his camp at Fritzlar on the 17th of June, and were declared by him to be in a most satisfactory condition.[359] May.
June 20.
June 22.
June 24.
July. The campaign of 1759 having been prolonged so far into the winter, Ferdinand gave his army rest until late in May. At length on the 20th he called the infantry of the army of Hesse from its cantonments, and posted the main body under his own command at Fritzlar, with one corps advanced to Hersfeld on the Fulda to protect his left, and a second under General Imhoff at Kirchhain, on the Ohm. It was his intention that, in case of the enemy's advance, Imhoff should call in the detachment from Hersfeld to Homberg, a little to the south of Kirchhain on a bend of the Ohm, where there was a position, before long to be better known to us, in which he could bar the way to a far superior force. Simultaneously the army of Westphalia moved to its line of the previous year, from Coesfeld eastward to Hamm. In these positions the Allies remained for nearly a month before the French made the least sign of movement; when at last the army of the Lower Rhine under the Count of St. Germain assembled at DÜsseldorf, and crossing the Rhine advanced to Dortmund. From this centre it was open to St. Germain to advance either northward against MÜnster or eastward against Lippstadt; but it was tolerably evident that his real design was to join the army of the Main, and to operate against the right flank of the Allied army of Hesse. At about the same time Broglie concentrated the army of the Main a little to the east of Giessen, and began his advance northward. The Hereditary Prince at once fell back from Hersfeld with his detachment towards the Ohm, while Ferdinand moved southward as far as Ziegenhain to join Imhoff, with every intention of making Broglie fight him before he advanced another mile. To his infinite disgust, however, he learned that Imhoff had abandoned the position entrusted to him, and had ordered the whole of the advanced corps back to Kirchhain. Thus the most effective barrier in Hesse was opened to the French; Ferdinand perforce halted; and Broglie pushed on without delay to Homberg, whence turning eastward he encamped in the face of Ferdinand's army at Neustadt. In this situation both armies remained for a whole fortnight inactive, though not two hours' march apart, neither daring to attack the other, and each waiting for the other to make the next movement. July 8.
July 10. Broglie brought the deadlock to an end. Sending orders to St. Germain to march from Dortmund on the 4th of July, and to meet him at Corbach, he marched on the night of the 7th north-westward upon Frankenberg. Ferdinand on learning of his movements next day marched also northward with all speed, pushing forward a strong advanced corps under the Hereditary Prince by way of Sachsenhausen upon Corbach, to bar the outlet of the defile through which Broglie's army must pass into the plain, and so to hinder his junction with St. Germain. The French, however, had gained too long a start. St. Germain, though he distressed his troops terribly by the speed of his march, succeeded in passing through the defile from the north; and Broglie, hastening up from the south, found his troops forming in order of battle just as the Hereditary Prince debouched into the plain from Sachsenhausen. As not more than ten thousand of the French were yet deployed, the Prince attacked; but was soon driven back by superior numbers as the rest of the French came up, and finally retired with the loss of five hundred men and fifteen guns, seven of which last were British. It fell to the British infantry with the Prince, the Fifth, Twenty-fourth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first regiments, to cover the retreat; but so hard were they pressed that the Prince only extricated them by putting himself at the head of two squadrons of the First and Third Dragoon Guards, and leading them to a desperate charge. Fortunately the squadrons responded superbly,[360] and so the rear-guard was saved; but the Prince had received an unpleasant reverse, and the French had secured their first object with signal success. July 12. The Allied army of Westphalia, under General von SpÖrcke, arrived on the scene in obedience to orders two days after the action, and was posted at Volksmarsen on the Diemel to protect Ferdinand's right; and then once more the two hosts remained motionless and face to face, the French at Corbach, the Allies at Sachsenhausen. Ferdinand's total force was sixty-six thousand men only, while that of the French numbered one hundred and thirty thousand;[361] yet such was the difference in the quality of the two armies that Broglie dared not act except with extreme caution. His principal object was to envelope Ferdinand's right and cut him off from Westphalia at the line of the Diemel; and Ferdinand accordingly resolved to distract Broglie's attention to the opposite flank. July 15.
July 16. Having intelligence that a party of the enemy under General Glaubitz, consisting of six battalions, a regiment of Hussars, and a number of light troops, was on its way to Ziegenhain from Marburg, evidently with the object of disturbing his communications, Ferdinand, on the night of the 14th, detached the Hereditary Prince to take command of six battalions which were lying at Fritzlar, and to attack it. Accordingly on the following morning the Prince marched rapidly southward, being joined on the way by a regiment of German hussars, and by the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, which had just arrived from England. On reaching the vicinity of Ziegenhain, he found that Glaubitz was encamped farther to the west, near the village of Emsdorff. His troops being exhausted by a long march, the Prince halted for the night at Treysa, and continuing his advance early on the morrow, picked up two more bodies of irregulars, horse and foot, which were on their way to him, and pushed on with his mounted troops only, to reconnoitre the enemy's position. He found the French posted at the mouth of a gorge in the mountains, fronting to north-east, astride of the two roads that lead from Kirchhain to Fritzlar and to Ziegenhain. Their right lay in rear of the village of Erxdorff, and their left in front of the village of Emsdorff, resting on a forest some three miles long. The Prince and General LÜckner, who was with him, entered the forest, but found neither picquets nor sentries; they pushed forward through the corn-fields to within half a mile of the camp, but saw neither vedettes, nor patrols, nor so much as a main-guard; nay, Erxdorff itself, though within less than a mile of the camp, was not occupied. They stole back well content with what they had seen. Waiting till eleven o'clock for his infantry to join him, the Prince posted one battalion, LÜckner's regiment of hussars and the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, in a hollow a mile before Erxdorff; then taking the five remaining battalions, together with the irregular troops and four guns, he fetched a compass through the forest and came in full upon the enemy's left flank. The French were completely surprised. Two battalions had barely time to form towards the forest before the Prince's infantry came upon them, poured in a volley which laid three hundred men low, and drove back the rest upon Glaubitz's remaining infantry, which was falling in hurriedly in rear of the camp. Simultaneously LÜckner, at the sound of the firing, came galloping up on the French right with his cavalry; whereupon the entire French force abandoned its camp and retired through the woods in their rear towards Langenstein. Here they rallied; but LÜckner's single battalion hurried on beyond them to bar their way over the Ohm to westward, while the Fifteenth, pressing on along their flank, stationed itself across the road to AmÖneberg, and charging full upon them headed them back from that side. With some difficulty the French repelled the attack, and turning about to south-eastward made for a wood not far away, hoping to pass through it and so to escape to the south. But on arriving at the southern edge of the wood they found every outlet blocked by the Prince's mounted irregulars. Perforce they turned back through the wood again and emerged on to the open ground on its western side, trusting that some marshy ground, which lay in the way of the Prince's cavalry, would secure them from further pursuit. But they had not marched over the plain for more than a mile before the hussars and light dragoons were upon them again, and the Fifteenth for the second time crashed single-handed into the midst of them, cutting them down by scores and capturing one battalion complete. With great difficulty the remnant of the French beat back their pursuers and continued the retreat: half of them had been killed or captured, or had dropped down unable to march farther, but the rest struggled gallantly on. Reaching an open wood they again halted and formed for action. The Prince, still close at their heels with his cavalry, thereupon surrounded them and summoned them to surrender; and the French commander, despairing of further resistance in the exhausted state of his troops, was obliged to yield. So ended the action which is still commemorated on the appointments of the Fifteenth Hussars by the name of Emsdorff. The French camp had been surprised at noon; and the last fragment of their force capitulated at six o'clock in the evening, having striven manfully but in vain to shake off the implacable enemy that had hunted them for nearly twenty miles. The loss of the French in killed and wounded is unknown, though it must have been considerable, but the prisoners taken numbered twenty-six hundred, while nine colours and five guns were also captured. The total loss of the Prince's troops did not exceed one hundred and eighty-six men and one hundred and eighty-one horses, of which one hundred and twenty-five men and one hundred and sixty-eight horses belonged to the Fifteenth. It was the Fifteenth, in fact, that did all the fighting. The other regiments engaged did not lose twenty men apiece. The infantry could not keep pace with the pursuit after they reached Langenstein, and the two other corps of cavalry, though they did excellent work in heading back the enemy, never came to close quarters. LÜckner's hussars did not lose a man nor a horse, and of the mounted irregulars but twenty-three men and horses were killed or wounded. It was the Fifteenth alone, a young regiment that had never been under fire, which thrice charged five times its numbers of French infantry and rode through them; and the success of the action was ascribed to them and to them only. Their gallantry indeed was the amazement of the whole army.[362] The tradition of charging home, as shall be seen in due time both in Flanders and in Spain, remained with the regiment, and doubtless remains with it to this day. July 23.
July 25-27.
July 29.
July 30. This brilliant exploit was some compensation to the Allies for past mishaps; but a week later Broglie sought to turn the scale by more serious operations. On the 23rd he divided his army into three corps, of which he sent one round Ferdinand's left flank under Prince Xavier of Saxony to threaten Cassel, and a second to force back SpÖrcke on his right from Volksmarsen, while the main body under his own command advanced to Sachsenhausen. Perforce Ferdinand retreated north-westward to Kalle, his rear-guard being incessantly and severely engaged throughout the movement; whereupon Broglie, seeing the way to be clear, detached a corps under the Chevalier de Muy, who had recently arrived to relieve the Count of St. Germain, across the Diemel to Warburg, in order to cut off the Allies from Westphalia. The Marshal himself meanwhile moved up parallel to Ferdinand on the eastern side towards Kalle, and Prince Xavier pressed still closer upon Cassel. It being evident to Ferdinand that either Cassel or Westphalia must be abandoned, he detached a force under General Kielmansegge to strengthen the garrison of Cassel and resolved to attack de Muy. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 29th SpÖrcke's corps crossed the Diemel to Liebenau, followed on the same evening by that of the Hereditary Prince; and on the 30th their combined force, not exceeding in all fourteen thousand men, encamped between Liebenau and Corbeke with its left on the Diemel, facing west. At dawn of the same morning Broglie's army debouched from several quarters simultaneously against the Allied camp at Kalle, but drew off after some hours of cannonade; and Ferdinand, satisfied through other signs that this demonstration was intended only to cover the movement of the French towards Cassel, resolved to pass the Diemel without delay and to deliver his stroke against de Muy. SpÖrcke and the Hereditary Prince had meanwhile reconnoitred de Muy's position and had recommended that their own corps should turn its left flank, while Ferdinand with the main army advanced against its front. De Muy, with about twenty thousand men, occupied a high ridge across a bend of the Diemel, facing north-east, with his right resting on Warburg and his left near the village of Ochsendorf. To his left rear rose a circular hill crowned by a tower, and on his left front lay a village named Poppenheim. It was arranged that the corps of SpÖrcke and the Hereditary Prince should advance westward in two columns from Corbeke and form up in three lines between the tower and Poppenheim, so as to fall on de Muy's left flank and rear, while Ferdinand crossing the Diemel at Liebenau should attack his centre and right. As the camp between Liebenau and Corbeke lay about ten miles from de Muy's, and as Ferdinand's camp lay some fifteen miles to the south of the Diemel from Liebenau, the operation called for extreme nicety in the execution. July 31. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 30th Ferdinand's army marched from Kalle, and at six o'clock on the following morning the heads of his columns passed the Diemel and debouched on the heights of Corbeke. They arrived, however, at later than the appointed hour. The passage of the Diemel had caused much delay; and not all the haste of officers nor the eagerness of men could bring the army forward the quicker. At seven o'clock SpÖrcke and the Hereditary Prince, after much anxious waiting, decided to march from Corbeke before more time should be lost. The northern column, which included the right wing of all three arms, moved by Gross Eider and Ochsendorf upon the tower; the southern, composed of the left wing, by Klein Eider and Poppenheim. Both columns were led by British troops—the northern by the Royal Dragoons, whose place was on the extreme right of the first line, while the British grenadiers, massed in two battalions under Colonels Maxwell and Daulhatt,[363] marched at the head of the infantry. The southern was headed by the Seventh Dragoons, with Keith's and Campbell's Highlanders[364] following them to cover the grenadiers in second line. At half-past one the Hereditary Prince, having posted his artillery on the outskirts of Ochsendorf and Poppenheim, opened fire as the signal for attack; and at the same time the British grenadiers began to file through Ochsendorf. Certain French battalions, which de Muy had thrown back en potence to protect his left flank, thereupon retired without firing, until it was perceived that the Allies were making for the steep hill in rear of the French position. Then one battalion of Regiment Bourbonnois deliberately faced about and marched off to occupy the hill. To permit such a thing would have been to derange the whole of the plans of the Allies, so it was necessary to prevent it at any cost. Colonel Beckwith with ten grenadiers ran forward, keeping out of sight of the French, to reach the hill before them; the Prince himself with thirty more hurried after him; and with this handful of men, all panting and breathless, they crowned the crest of the height. Bourbonnois arriving on the scene a little later found itself greeted by a sharp fire, and, being unable to see the numbers opposed to it, halted for ten minutes to allow its second battalion to come up. The delay gave time for Daulhatt's entire battalion of grenadiers to join Beckwith's little party; and then the two battalions of Bourbonnois attacked in earnest, and the combat between French and British, at odds of two against one, became most fierce and stubborn. The disparity of numbers however, was too great; and Daulhatt's men after a gallant struggle were beginning to give way, when Maxwell's battalion came up in the nick of time to support them. This reinforcement redressed the balance of the fight; Daulhatt's men speedily rallied, and the contest for the hill was renewed. The French, however, prepared to send fresh battalions in support of Bourbonnois, and the situation of the British became critical; for a battery of artillery, which was on its way to the hill to support them, got into difficulties in a defile near Ochsendorf and blocked the advance of the rest of the northern column. Fortunately it was extricated, though none too soon, and being brought up to the hill was speedily in action; while the head of the southern column likewise coming up took the French reinforcements in flank and drove them back in disorder. The Royals and Seventh Dragoons were then let loose upon the broken French battalions, completing their discomfiture and taking many prisoners. So far the turning movement had succeeded; but its success was not yet assured, for only a portion of the southern column was yet formed for action, and the troops on the field were becoming exhausted. De Muy might yet have hoped to turn the scale in his left, when his attention was suddenly called to the advance of troops upon his front. After desperate but fruitless efforts it had been found that the infantry of Ferdinand's army could not hope to arrive in time to take part in the action. The British battalions, urged by General Waldegrave, struggled manfully to get forward, but the day was hot, and the ground was difficult and in many places marshy: the men would not fall out, but they dropped down insensible from fatigue in spite of themselves. Ferdinand therefore ordered Lord Granby, who had succeeded to Sackville, to advance with the twenty-two squadrons of British cavalry and the British artillery alone. Away therefore they started at the trot, the guns accompanying them at a speed which amazed all beholders.[365] Two hours of trotting brought them at last within sight of the enemy; and Granby at once turned them upon the cavalry of de Muy's right wing. The pace was checked for a brief moment as the squadrons formed in two lines for the attack. In the first line from right to left were the First, Third, and Second Dragoon Guards, in one brigade, the Blues, Seventh, and Sixth Dragoon Guards in another; in the second line were the Greys, Tenth, Sixth, and Eleventh Dragoons. Then the advance was resumed, Granby riding at the head of the Blues, his own regiment, and well in front of all. His hat flew from his head, revealing a bald head which shone conspicuous in the sun, as the trot grew into gallop and the lines came thundering on. The French squadrons wavered for a moment, and then, with the exception of three only, turned and fled without awaiting the shock. The scarlet ranks promptly wheeled round upon the flank and rear of the French infantry; whereupon the three French squadrons that had stood firm plunged gallantly down on the flank of the King's Dragoon Guards, and overthrew them. But the Blues quickly came up to liberate their comrades; and the devoted little band of Frenchmen was cut to pieces. The French infantry, finding itself now attacked on both flanks, broke and fled; and the whole of de Muy's men, horse and foot, rushed down to the Diemel, and, without even looking for the bridges, threw down their arms and splashed frantically through the fords. A party of French irregulars in Warburg tried likewise to escape, but was caught by the cavalry and well-nigh annihilated. Finally, the British batteries came down to the river at a gallop, unlimbered on the bank, and played on the fugitives so destructively as wholly to prevent them from reforming. Granby presently crossed the river in pursuit with ten squadrons; and the fragments of de Muy's corps retired in disorder to Volksmarsen. Thus brilliantly ended the action of Warburg. The loss of the French was set down at from six to eight thousand men, killed, wounded, and taken, while twelve guns remained as trophies in the hands of the victors. The Allies lost just over twelve hundred men, of whom no less than two hundred and forty belonged to Maxwell's grenadiers; Daulhatt's battalion also suffering very severely. The losses of the cavalry were trifling. Altogether the action was a brilliant little affair, well designed and, despite the tardiness of Ferdinand's arrival, well executed. For the British it redeemed the character of the cavalry which had been so shamefully sacrificed by Sackville at Minden; since it was evidently the recollection of that disgrace which spurred Granby on to so rapid an advance and so headlong an attack. For Ferdinand the victory effectually opened the way into Westphalia. Aug. 10. Meanwhile it had been found impossible to defend Cassel against Broglie's overwhelming numbers; and the town was accordingly abandoned. It was no fault of Ferdinand's that Hesse was thus laid at the mercy of the French; indeed, with an army weaker in numbers by one-half than his enemy's, he had done well to save Westphalia. He now took up a position along the Diemel from Trendelburg to Stadtbergen, so as to seal up every passage over the river, while Broglie posted his main army over against him on the opposite bank. The Marshal's superiority in numbers, however, enabled him, while holding the Allies in check with the bulk of his army, to detach independent corps for minor operations, though he took even such enterprises in hand with redoubled caution after the lessons of Emsdorff and Warburg. His first essay was the reduction of Ziegenhain, which surrendered after a siege of ten days; and concurrently he moved a corps under Prince Xavier eastward against MÜnden, which occupied GÖttingen and pushed detachments forward as far north as Nordheim and Einbeck. This latter movement carried the war unpleasantly far into Hanoverian territory; but Ferdinand none the less remained immovable on the Diemel. Broglie thereupon broke up his camp on that river and shifted his position eastward to Immenhausen, to support the operations of Prince Xavier. This placed Ferdinand in an awkward dilemma. He had sent a few troops to Beverungen on the Weser to check Xavier's advanced parties; but this detachment, though it had done its work well, was not strong enough to make head against an invasion in real force. Moreover Einbeck was disagreeably near to the border of his brother's dominions of Brunswick, which he would fain have saved from invasion if he could. Yet he could not move to the east bank of the Weser without uncovering Lippstadt, the one fortress which enabled him to prevent the perfect concert of the French armies of the Rhine and Main. In fact the situation was one of extreme trial and embarrassment. Sept. Ferdinand, whose light troops and irregulars were never idle while they could make mischief, first tried the effect of a raid with a flying column upon Broglie's communications with Frankfort; but this enterprise, though it alarmed the French and somewhat threw back their preparations, only partially achieved its object. On the other hand, it was always open to Ferdinand to stay where he was till want of forage should compel Broglie to retire; but this, though an infallible method, was slow, and would mean that the country would be converted into a desert, through which it would be impossible to follow the French during their retreat. He therefore resolved to make a diversion by carrying the war suddenly to the Rhine. Broglie, in his anxiety to invade Hanover and Brunswick, had denuded Wesel of the greater part of its garrison. If Ferdinand could snatch Wesel, the base of the Army of the Rhine, from him, the diversion would be a telling stroke indeed.[366] Sept. 23.
Oct. 1-2.
October. All through the first days of September Ferdinand's preparations for this undertaking went steadily and silently forward; and on the 22nd a powerful train of siege-artillery, under the Count of Lippe-BÜckeburg, marched away for Wesel, followed three days later by the Hereditary Prince with about ten thousand Hanoverians and Hessians. The Count was to conduct the siege and the Prince to cover it. Broglie, on learning of their departure, at once detached a strong corps under the Marquis of Castries to follow them; to which Ferdinand retorted by sending to the Prince one Hanoverian and ten British battalions, together with a Hessian regiment and three British regiments of cavalry.[367] Meanwhile the Prince's advanced parties had crossed the Rhine below Wesel on the 29th of September, and had surprised two or three small garrisons. The commandant of Wesel thereupon broke down the bridge which connected it with the western bank of the Rhine; and none too soon, for on the 30th the Prince came up and invested the fortress. The siege, however, progressed but slowly owing to rain and stormy weather; and meanwhile Castries was advancing by forced marches, despite the dreadful state of the roads, along a route full fifty miles south of the Prince's, to the Rhine. On the 12th of October he crossed the river at Cologne and pushed on without delay to Rheinberg, where he was joined by reinforcements from Brabant. Considering the unspeakable difficulties of foul weather and almost impassable roads, this march of Castries stands out as a very fine feat of resolution and endurance. The advance of French troops from the side of Brabant was a complication which neither Ferdinand nor the Hereditary Prince had foreseen. In fact it almost deprived the advance to Wesel of the character of a diversion. Castries had in Rheinberg thirty battalions and thirty-eight squadrons besides irregular troops, and was expecting further reinforcements; whereas the Prince, weakened by the absence of men in the trenches before Wesel, could muster but twenty-one battalions and twenty-two squadrons to meet him. It was open to the Prince either to fight against superior numbers or to retreat; and he elected to fight. Castries had taken up a position behind the Eugenian Canal, facing north-west, with his right resting on Rheinberg, and with the abbey of Kloster Kampen, on the northern side of the canal, before his left front. Immediately before his left, but on his own side of the canal, stood the village of KampenbrÖck, consisting of several scattered houses with gardens, ditches, and hedges. In front and to the left, or western, side of KampenbrÖck was a morass covered by a straggling wood of sparse and stunted trees, through which were cut paths to a bridge that connected the village with the abbey on the other side of the canal. Across this bridge lay the Prince's only way to penetrate into the French camp; and Castries had been careful to guard the passage by posting no less than two thousand irregular troops in and about the abbey. The only possible chance for the Prince lay in an attack by surprise. Waiting until the 15th to collect his troops, the Prince marched from before Wesel in dead silence at one hour before midnight. The force was disposed in five divisions. The Fifteenth Light Dragoons, Royal and Inniskilling Dragoons, and Prussian hussars formed the advanced guard; then came the support, of two battalions of Highlanders and as many of British grenadiers; then the main body of the Twentieth and Twenty-fifth British Foot, with eight Hanoverian battalions, all under command of General Waldegrave; then the reserve, of the Eleventh, Twenty-third, Thirty-third and Fifty-first British Foot, with three German battalions, under General Howard; then a rear-guard of the Tenth British Dragoons and ten German squadrons. Oct. 16. At three o'clock on the morning of the 16th the advanced parties of the Allies come upon the outposts of the French irregulars, a mile and a half beyond Kloster Kampen. Despite the strict orders of the Prince one or two shots were fired, but fortunately without alarming the enemy; and the Allies pursued their march unmolested to the bridge, thus cutting off the irregulars in the abbey from the French main body. These isolated troops were then attacked and utterly dispersed; and while the musketry was still crackling loud round the abbey's walls the Prince stealing silently on with the British grenadiers penetrated into the wood and into the village of KampenbrÖck, so quietly and yet so swiftly that he was in possession before the enemy were aware of his presence. The French in camp had, however, been alarmed by the firing, and some of the principal officers had turned the men out and gone forward to the wood to reconnoitre. One of these, the Chevalier d'Assas, on his way to visit the picquets of his regiment, suddenly found himself among the British grenadiers, but distinguishing no one but the Prince in the darkness advanced towards him with the words, "Sir, you are my prisoner." "On the contrary," answered the Prince, "you are mine, for these are my grenadiers"; and as he spoke the men closed round d'Assas with bayonets fixed. "Auvergne, Auvergne, the enemy is on us,"[368] shouted d'Assas to his regiment without a moment's hesitation at the top of his voice; and before the words were out of his mouth a dozen bayonets pierced through his body and laid him dead on the ground. None the less the devotion of the gallant man sufficed to save the French army. Regiment Auvergne came down at once to d'Assas' call; Castries hastily brought down two more battalions to support it; and three more battalions arrived directly after to protect their flank. The supports of the Allies came up in their turn; and the fight swayed furiously backward and forward until daylight, when the French brought up additional battalions from their right. The reserves of the Allies were promptly and frequently summoned, but through some mistake were not to be found. Still the little force of British and Hanoverians fought desperately on, until the Prince himself fell wounded from his horse; and then, their ammunition being exhausted, they yielded to superior numbers in front and flank and suddenly gave way. The French broke their ranks with loud cries of exultation for the pursuit, when the Fifteenth Light Dragoons swooped down upon them, charging home as their custom is, broke up two battalions completely, and drove the rest flying back in confusion upon their comrades. The French cavalry now came forward in overwhelming numbers and handled the British squadrons very roughly; but the charge of the Fifteenth had given the infantry time to rally, and to make their retreat in good order. The reserve appeared at Kloster Kampen in time to cover the retiring troops, and by noon the fight of Kloster Kampen was over. The loss of the Allies amounted to nearly twelve hundred killed and wounded and sixteen hundred prisoners, in addition to which one gun and one British colour were captured. That of the French was as heavy and heavier, amounting to twenty-seven hundred killed and wounded and three hundred prisoners. The struggle was unusually stubborn and murderous, and the fire of the British was so rapid and deadly that three French brigades were almost wiped out of existence.[369] Yet it is said that after this action the Hereditary Prince would never take British troops under his command again.[370] He admitted that General Waldegrave did wonders in the combat,[371] but he complained of the behaviour of his troops, though Waldegrave bore witness that not a man retired until his ammunition was exhausted. It may have been that the Prince was irritated by the failure of the reserve to arrive when it was wanted; but no blame is imputed to any one for this mischance, which appears to have been due simply to bad luck. Mauvillon, who is always very frank in his criticism of the British, says flatly that he does not believe in their misconduct on this occasion; and as the only extant list of casualties, though very far from complete, shows that they lost five hundred killed and wounded, it should seem that the Prince's strictures were ill deserved. It was hard, too, that he should have forgotten all that they had done for him at Emsdorff and at Warburg, to say nothing of the fact that the heroic charge of the Fifteenth probably saved his force from total destruction at Kloster Kampen itself. Whether he himself should have hazarded such an action against odds of two to one, with the French bringing up reinforcements from the west, is another question; for it was not as though the fall of Wesel were likely to ensue speedily even if Castries were beaten, while the diversion had proved to be no diversion whatever. On the other hand, the destruction of his corps, or of the best part of it, would have been a severe blow to Ferdinand. Nevertheless the stake, if he should win it, was worth winning; though if he could have foreseen what was immediately before him he would probably have hesitated to play so desperate a game. October. After the action he retreated northward to BÜderich, to find that the bridge which he had thrown over the Rhine had been swept away by floods, and that he could go no farther. His situation was now desperate, for not only was his retreat cut off, but his ammunition was exhausted. Still, wounded though he was, he faced his difficulties with his usual energy, entrenched himself among his waggons, reconstructed his bridge, and on the 18th crossed the river unmolested, picking up the troops from before Wesel on the eastern bank. Castries followed him as he retreated eastward, thereby forcing him to remain in Westphalia for the protection of Lippstadt and MÜnster, though the Prince none the less made shift to detach a portion of his force to the assistance of Ferdinand. Aug. 15 and
Nov. 3. For to Ferdinand also the failure before Wesel was a serious matter. Any further stroke upon the French was impossible; and the utmost for which he could hope was to drive them out of Hesse and to hold Westphalia safe. He made an effort to expel the French from GÖttingen, but without success; and at last, driven to desperation by three months of continuous rain, he cantoned a force in winter-quarters before the town and closed the campaign, leaving the French in possession of Hesse, of the Principality of GÖttingen, and of the defiles of MÜnden, which gave them free ingress into Hanover and Brunswick. His own headquarters were fixed at Warburg; those of the French at Cassel. Despite all his efforts, superior numbers had told heavily against him; and though he had fired a feu de joie for the capture of Montreal, he probably found less consolation in this than in the victories of his master Frederick at Leignitz and Torgau, and in the expulsion of his enemies' forces from Saxony.
1760. Meanwhile on the 20th of November Parliament had met to hear his first speech from a new king. For on the 25th of October, just before the coming of the news of Kloster Kampen, King George the Second had died suddenly, having lived to see the glories of Queen Anne's reign brought back by Pitt, and the fame of Blenheim and Oudenarde revived not only by Minden and Warburg but by Wandewash and Quebec. George the Third struck a new and strange note in his speech from the throne. "Born and educated in England," he said—and the words were of his own insertion—"I glory in the name of Briton"; and the phrase fell pleasantly on ears that did not love the sound of Hanover; though what this sudden outburst of insular patriotism on the King's part might portend to his German allies was not yet revealed. The estimates for the Army were passed with little difficulty, though the Establishment showed a considerable increase. The new regiments that appeared on the list, indeed, were few, for a system had been initiated of raising an indefinite number of independent companies; but these were gradually combined into regiments, and before the campaign opened there was already a corps numbered the hundredth of the Line.[372] The total number of men voted on the British Establishment was one hundred and four thousand; besides which the embodied militia was increased from eighteen to twenty-seven thousand, making, together with the troops on the Irish Establishment, over one hundred and forty thousand men raised in the British possessions alone. Adding the mercenary forces of Hanover, Hesse, and Brunswick, the number of soldiers in British pay fell little short of two hundred thousand. 1761. Yet for the present no considerable reinforcement was despatched to Ferdinand. A battalion from each regiment of Guards had indeed been sent to him late in the past campaign, together with the usual drafts to fill up vacancies. But Pitt had another enterprise in hand as a diversion in Ferdinand's favour. A scheme of the kind had indeed been on the point of execution in the autumn of 1760; and eight thousand men had actually been embarked for a secret expedition under General Kingsley, but had been returned to the shore on receipt of the news of Kloster Kampen.[373] In January, however, the same regiments were again warned for service under Major-General Hodgson,[374] and on the 29th of March they sailed from Spithead under convoy of ten ships of the line, besides smaller vessels, under Admiral Keppel, for their unknown destination.[375] April.
April 22. On the 7th of April the fleet anchored off the island of Belleisle on the French coast, and on the following day sailed round it looking for an undefended point. Finally Port La Maria on the south-eastern side was selected; the troops were shifted into flat-bottomed boats, and an attempt was made to storm some French entrenchments which covered the landing-place. But the ground was so steep that only sixty men of the Thirty-seventh succeeded in making their way to the top of the heights above the sea, and these after a gallant attempt to hold their ground were overpowered by superior numbers. The attempt was therefore abandoned, and the troops were re-embarked, having lost about five hundred men, killed, wounded, and taken. The island was in fact so strong by nature, and so skilfully fortified by art, that Keppel despaired of a successful descent.[376] The commanders, however, decided that, if feint attacks were made on La Maria and Sauzon some footing might be obtained by ascending the rocks between them, which being judged inaccessible had been left undefended. The attempt was accordingly made on the 22nd and was brilliantly successful. The grenadier-company of the Nineteenth contrived to scramble up the rocks and to hold its own on the summit until reinforced, when the men charged with the bayonet, drove back the enemy and captured three guns. The French then retired into the fortress of Palais and proceeded to strengthen the defences; while Hodgson, to his infinite mortification, was obliged to lie idle for a fortnight, being unable to land his heavy artillery owing to continual gales. At length on the 2nd of May ground was broken, and on the 13th the entrenchments were carried by storm. The French thereupon retired into the citadel, which after a most gallant defence was compelled on the 7th of June to surrender. The losses of the British throughout the whole of the operations were about seven hundred killed and wounded. Thus Belleisle was secured as a place of refreshment for the fleet while engaged in the weary work of blockading the French coast. Feb. Any hopes that might have been built on the value of this expedition as a help to Ferdinand were very speedily dissipated. Ferdinand himself had sought, while it was yet mid-winter, to make good the losses of the past campaign by a bold stroke for the recapture of Hesse. Moving out of his winter-quarters on the 11th of February he distributed his army into three columns. The left or eastern column, under SpÖrcke, was designed to march to the Werra and Unstrut, and to join with a detachment of Prussians in an attack upon the Saxons in that quarter; the main or central army, under Ferdinand himself, was to march to the Eder; and the right or westward column, which was composed of the troops cantoned in Westphalia under the Hereditary Prince, was to advance on Fritzlar, while a separate corps was detached to attempt the capture of Marburg. March 20.
March 21.
March. SpÖrcke for his part did his work well and gained a brilliant little victory at Langensalza; but the rest of the scheme went to wreck. Broglie on learning of Ferdinand's movements left a garrison in Cassel and retreated first to Hersfeld, behind the Eder, and finally to the Main. But meanwhile the Hereditary Prince had been delayed for two invaluable days by unexpected resistance at Fritzlar; and Ferdinand, though he had driven the enemy for the moment from Hesse, had left Cassel, Ziegenhain, and Marburg, invested indeed but untaken, behind him. He dared not linger to master these places one after another, for the whole country was laid waste, and the strain of hauling all supplies from the Weser was intolerable. The road from Beverungen to the central column of the army was paved with dead horses, the corpses tracing the whole line of the advance. He was therefore obliged to hasten on to a district where supplies were still obtainable, trusting that good fortune would throw the strong places into his hands before it was too late. But it was not to be. Broglie quickly concentrated his troops on the Main, summoned twelve thousand men from the Lower Rhine and advanced northward to Giessen; whereupon Ferdinand, who had penetrated as far south as the Ohm, was compelled to fall back to the Eder. On the following day the Hereditary Prince was attacked by superior numbers at GrÜnberg and compelled to retreat with loss of two thousand prisoners; and this misfortune neutralised all the advantages so far gained by the enterprise. Ferdinand, therefore, raised the siege of Cassel and fell back with all speed by forced marches; for Broglie had now eighty thousand troops against his own twenty thousand. Arrived at his old position to north of the Diemel he dispersed his troops once more into winter-quarters. His stroke had failed; and the operations are interesting chiefly as exemplifying the futility, in those days of slow communication, of an advance into an enemy's country, unless at least one fortress were first captured as a place of arms. It is easier to understand the reason for the laborious sieges of Marlborough and Wellington when it is observed that Ferdinand, though he drove the French before him from end to end of Hesse in a few weeks, was obliged to abandon the whole of it and to retreat because he had left Cassel uncaptured in his rear. The Allies had suffered so terribly from hardship and exposure during this winter's expedition that it was two months before they were again fit to take the field;[377] and the French, partly from the same cause, partly owing to the magnitude of their preparations, needed little less time than they. The Court of Versailles had, in fact, resolved to make a gigantic effort and to close the war forthwith by employment of an overwhelming force. The army of the Rhine was raised to one hundred thousand men, under the Prince of Soubise, and that of the Main to sixty thousand men under Broglie. Soubise was to advance from the Rhine against Ferdinand early in May; thus forcing the Prince either to abandon Westphalia, together with MÜnster and Lippstadt, in order to gain time for recuperation of his army, or to march with his troops, still weakened and exhausted by the winter's campaign, to fight him. His task in fact was simply to keep Ferdinand's army in motion until Broglie's troops were refreshed, and ready to advance either into Hanover or to Hameln on the Weser. When Broglie thus occupied the attention of Ferdinand, Soubise would find himself with a free hand in a free field. The weak point of the plan was that the two French armies were to act independently, and that the stronger of them was entrusted to Soubise, an incompetent commander but a favourite with Madame de Pompadour. But in any case the outlook for Ferdinand was formidable, since at the very most he could muster but ninety-three thousand men against one hundred and sixty thousand of the French. April.
May 14. Soubise duly arrived at Frankfort on the 13th of April and summoned Broglie to discuss matters with him. Then, instead of taking the field early in May, he remained motionless behind the Rhine on various pretexts until the beginning of June. Further, he determined, contrary to the advice given to him at Versailles, to pursue operations to the south of the Lippe, and between that river and the Ruhr, in order to effect a junction with Broglie. The motives that may have dictated this resolution are unknown; but it was conjectured that he shrank from engaging so formidable an adversary as Ferdinand without a colleague to share the risk and responsibility. Meanwhile Ferdinand, selecting the least exhausted of his troops, sent a corps under the Hereditary Prince to Nottuln, a little to the west of MÜnster, to watch Soubise, and by great exertions contrived within ten weeks to render both his army and his transport fit to take the field. Soubise's army was known to be encumbered by a vast train of baggage; one troop of Horse Guards, for instance, with a strength of one hundred and forty men, travelling with no fewer than twelve hundred horses attached to it. So all the forage about MÜnster was destroyed, the inhabitants and their herds being provided for by the King's commissaries, and every step was taken to embarrass the French in their advance to the east. June.
July 1-2.
July 3.
July 4.
July 6. At length on the 13th of June Soubise crossed the Rhine at Wesel, and arrived ten days later at Unna, a few miles to eastward of Dortmund, where he entrenched himself, with his front to the east. Ferdinand thereupon concentrated his army on the 19th at Paderborn, leaving twenty thousand men under SpÖrcke on the Diemel to watch Broglie, and a smaller corps of observation before GÖttingen. On the 20th he marched westward, and on the 28th encamped over against Soubise, where he was joined by the corps of the Hereditary Prince. Finding that the French position was too formidable to be attacked, he determined on a bold stroke, made a forced march of thirty hours round Soubise's left flank by Camen, and appeared suddenly at Dortmund full in his rear and across his line of communication. The movement left Soubise free to unite with Broglie; but this was rather an advantage than otherwise to Ferdinand, since the two commanders being on bad terms might neutralise each other, whereas each of them independently was at the head of a stronger army than Ferdinand's. On the 4th of July Ferdinand advanced against the rear of Soubise's camp; whereupon the French General at once moved on, always with the Allies close at his heels, to Soest, where Broglie came to concert with him the junction of the two armies. July 10.
July. Broglie himself had on the 29th of June advanced to the Diemel and obliged SpÖrcke to abandon Warburg and to retreat, not without loss of part of his artillery. He had then turned westward upon Paderborn, which he had occupied, and thence to Soest, where his army joined that of Soubise on the 10th of July. The joint strength of the two armies at Soest, after deducting the detachments made from both of them, was just about one hundred thousand men. Ferdinand's force, after the arrival of SpÖrcke, who had made his way to him from the Diemel with all haste, amounted to no more than sixty thousand men. Even with such odds against him, however, Ferdinand stood firm, refusing to cross to the north bank of the Lippe and abandon Lippstadt, as the French commanders had hoped. He was determined that they should fight him for Lippstadt; and they, knowing their adversary, were not too eager to hazard the venture. After sundry small changes and shiftings of position between the 7th and 11th of July Ferdinand made the following dispositions. General von SpÖrcke with about eight thousand men was left on the north bank of the Lippe at Hersfeld, to watch Prince Xavier of Saxony, who lay with a corps in the vicinity of Paderborn. The main army was encamped on the south bank of the Lippe, with its left resting on the river; from whence the left wing extended to the village of KirchdÜnckern on the Ase, a brook impassable except by bridges. Vellinghausen, Ferdinand's headquarters, lay midway between the Ase and the Lippe at the foot of a declivity called the DÜnckerberg. From the Lippe to Vellinghausen the ground was occupied by Wutgenau's corps, of seven battalions and five squadrons, all of them German troops. From Vellinghausen to KirchdÜnckern the heights were held by Granby's corps, consisting of two battalions of British grenadiers, the Fifth, Twelfth, Twenty-fourth and Thirty-seventh Foot under Brigadier Sandford, Keith's and Campbell's Highlanders, six foreign battalions, the Greys, Seventh and Eleventh Dragoons in one brigade under General Harvey, and eight foreign squadrons, together with a regiment of Hanoverian artillery. From the Ase the position was prolonged to the right along a similar line of heights by the villages of Sud DÜnckern and Wambeln to the rear of Werle at Budberg, the whole of the front being covered by a marshy brook called the Salzbach. From the Ase to Wambeln the ground was occupied by Anhalt's corps of ten German battalions and the First, Sixth, and Tenth British Dragoons; to the right of Anhalt stood Conway's corps, of three battalions of British Guards with their grenadiers massed into a fourth battalion, Townsend's brigade of the Eighth, Twentieth, Twenty-fifth, and Fiftieth Foot, and the First, Third, and Seventh Dragoon Guards; to the right of Conway stood Howard's corps, consisting of Cavendish's brigade of the Eleventh, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-third, and Fifty-first Foot, two German battalions, the British light batteries and two brigades of Hessian artillery; and finally the extreme right from Wambeln to Hilbeck was held by the Hereditary Prince's corps of twenty-five battalions and twenty-four squadrons of Germans. The Salzbach was an obstacle well-nigh insuperable, the only passage by which the French could cross it being by the village of Scheidingen, opposite to Conway's corps, where an old redoubt, dating from the days of Turenne, still remained to bar the way. The weak point of the position was its right flank which, though more or less protected by marshy ground, lay practically in the air, and could have been turned with little difficulty. July 15. The plan of the French commanders, though it took no advantage of this defect, was not ill conceived. Broglie was to attack the corps of Wutgenau and Granby, but particularly that of Granby between the Lippe and the Ase, with his whole force; while Soubise kept the rest of the Allies distracted by an attack on Scheidingen, at the same time sending a cloud of light troops round the right flank of the Allies to Hamm, five miles in their rear, so as to create confusion and embarrass their retreat. The attack was fixed for the 13th but was deferred for two days; and it was not until the evening of the 15th that Ferdinand was apprised of the advance of the French in force against his left. For some reason Wutgenau's corps had been encamped a thousand yards in rear of its position in the line of battle; and although it had received orders at noon, in consequence of suspicious movements by the French, to strike tents and march forward, yet this order had been cancelled. Thus Broglie's attack came upon it as a complete surprise. Granby's corps had only just time to seize its arms and turn out, leaving the tents standing; the Highlanders indeed hardly emerging from their tents before the French guns opened fire on them. Yet there was no confusion, and Granby's dispositions were so good that he was able to hold his own till Wutgenau's troops came up. The two corps then made a fine defence until darkness put an end to the combat; but none the less the French had succeeded in taking Nordel, a village on Granby's right front, and had made good their footing in Vellinghausen. Meanwhile Soubise had not yet moved forward against Scheidingen. The time fixed by the Marshals for their decisive attack has been, in fact, the early hours of the 16th, so that Broglie's advance had been premature. He excused himself by saying that he had intended only to drive in the outposts of the Allies, but that he had been encouraged by his unexpected success to bring forward more troops to hold the ground that he had gained, and that he had accordingly appealed to Soubise to hasten his movements likewise. Had Broglie really pushed his attack home he would probably have succeeded, for the Allies were too weak to stop him and were, moreover, short of ammunition. But the Marshal was too timid a man to take responsibility on his own shoulders; so instead of making a bold attempt to carry the DÜnckerberg, which if successful must have forced Ferdinand to retreat, he stopped short at Vellinghausen, leaving the Allies in their position unmoved. July 16. The night passed uneasily in the Allied camp. Between the Lippe and the Ase skirmishing never ceased. The road to Hamm was full of waggons going and returning with loads of ammunition; Anhalt's corps, together with all the British of Howard's corps, was streaming across the Ase to reinforce Granby; and Conway's and the Hereditary Prince's were extending themselves leftward to cover the ground thus left vacant. For Ferdinand knew Broglie to be his most dangerous antagonist, and was determined to stop him at all costs by fresh troops. Broglie, on his side, was equally busy replacing the battalions that had already been engaged; and the dawn was no sooner come than his columns deployed and attacked in earnest. The ground was so much broken up by hedges and ditches that in many places the troops engaged, though no more than one hundred and fifty yards apart, were unable to see each other, and fired furiously, not without destructive effect, at every puff of smoke that betrayed an enemy's presence. From four until eight o'clock this fusillade continued, neither side gaining or losing an inch of ground, until at last it slackened from the sheer exhaustion of the men, after more than twelve hours of intermittent action. Meanwhile Broglie looked anxiously for Soubise's demonstration against the Allied centre and right, but he looked in vain. Soubise, though he did indeed bring forward troops against Scheidingen, made but a faint attack, often renewed with unchangeable feebleness and as often repulsed. Then after half an hour's respite, the fire opened again on the Allied left. SpÖrcke had detached six battalions to Wutgenau from Hersfeld; and the arrival of fresh troops infused new life into the engagement. Broglie too showed symptoms of reviving energy, for two French batteries were observed in motion towards a height opposite the DÜnckerberg, from which they might have made havoc of Granby's corps. Ferdinand ordered that the height should be carried at all costs; and Maxwell's grenadiers, Keith's and Campbell's Highlanders and four foreign battalions advanced forthwith to storm it. The French were so much exhausted that they appear hardly to have awaited the attack. They broke and fled precipitately, abandoning their dead, their wounded, and several guns. Maxwell's grenadiers alone made four battalions prisoners; and Broglie, disheartened by his failure and by the apathy of Soubise, gave the word to retreat. The ground was too much broken for the action of cavalry; so he was able to draw off his troops with little loss indeed, but not without shame and disgrace. July. Thus ended the battle of Vellinghausen, one of the feeblest ever fought by the French army. The losses were not great on either side for the numbers engaged. Those of the French were reckoned at from five to six thousand men, besides eight colours and nineteen guns; those of the Allies did not reach the figure of sixteen hundred men, of whom over nine-tenths belonged to the corps to the north of the Ase. The brunt of the fighting fell of course on Granby's troops; but the casualties of the British with him little exceeded four hundred men, while those of the British in other parts of the field did not amount to fifty. The victory was in fact trifling except for its moral effects; but these were sufficient. The French were humbled at the failure of a hundred thousand men against fifty thousand; and Broglie and Soubise, who had left the camp with embraces, returned to it sworn enemies, each bitterly reproaching the other for the loss of the battle. Lastly, Broglie, who possessed some military talent and had hitherto been anxious to bring his enemy to action, came to the conclusion that a general engagement with Ferdinand was a thing henceforth not to be courted but to be shunned. July 27.
August.
Aug. 16.
Aug. 22.
Aug. 28. The remainder of the campaign is reckoned to be the finest example of Ferdinand's skill as a general; but it is impossible in this place to sketch it in more than the faintest outline. After the action, Soubise made up Broglie's army to forty thousand men, and therewith the two commanders separated; Broglie marching on Paderborn for operations against Hanover and Hesse, while Soubise made for Wesel to threaten Westphalia. The Hereditary Prince was detached to follow Soubise and to harass his rear-guard, while Ferdinand marched some thirty miles eastward to BÜren, to be ready to move into Hesse and threaten Broglie's communications with Frankfort. At the same time Granby's corps was sent forward to Stadtberg, to drive back a French corps under Stainville, which covered Hesse at the line of the Diemel. At BÜren Ferdinand remained, with his eye always on Lippstadt, until the 10th of August; when, Stainville having been forced back to Cassel and Soubise to the Rhine, both at a safe distance from the precious fortress on the Lippe, he marched away to keep watch over Broglie's army. That officer had used his time to advance to HÖxter, aiming at the capture of Hameln and the mastery of the line of the Weser, and had detached a corps under Prince Xavier of Saxony into the Principality of GÖttingen. Ferdinand by swift marches brought his army to northward of Broglie's at Reilenkirchen, thus heading him back from Hameln; while a separate corps, which he had sent across the Weser, attacked the French detachments about GÖttingen. The Hereditary Prince, finding nothing to fear from Soubise, also returned from the Rhine to threaten Broglie from the south. The Marshal thereupon crossed the Weser; and Ferdinand, for all his unwillingness to move to the east bank of the river, perforce followed him; carefully avoiding an engagement, however, lest Soubise should seize the opportunity to march on Lippstadt. Soubise, finding himself unwatched, moved eastward again towards Hanover; whereupon the Hereditary Prince flew back to look after him, and Ferdinand retiring with the rest of the army to the Diemel, advanced against Broglie's communications with Marburg and Frankfort. This movement brought Broglie back hurriedly to Cassel; whereupon Ferdinand retired quietly to Geismar on the Diemel, having accomplished his object of occupying Broglie's attention for weeks and of rendering his movements absolutely purposeless, without the risk of an action. Sept. 20. It was a whole fortnight before Broglie ventured to return to the east side of the Weser, having meanwhile reinforced Stainville's army for the protection of Hesse, and furnished him with most careful instructions for his guidance. No sooner was the Marshal's back turned, than Ferdinand made a sudden dash upon Stainville just to south of the Diemel, and though he failed to inflict any great damage on him, forced him to retire to Cassel and brought Broglie back in all haste from Hanover. Meanwhile the lethargic Soubise had made a diversion towards the sea, had actually taken Emden, and was threatening Bremen. The Hereditary Prince was as usual despatched to hunt him back to the Rhine; and Ferdinand's communications with Holland were restored. October 10. There still remained some weeks, however, before the campaign could be closed; and Broglie, despite all Ferdinand's activity, was strong enough to detach a corps under Prince Xavier into Brunswick, which captured WolfenbÜttel and bade fair to capture Brunswick itself. The loss of these two fortresses would have been serious, since the French could have turned them into bases of operations for the next campaign, when Ferdinand would have found it impossible to attend both to Brunswick and to Lippstadt. He therefore hastened northward at once from the Diemel to save his brother's capital; whereupon Prince Xavier, though Ferdinand had travelled no further than Hameln on his way, at once withdrew from before Brunswick and evacuated WolfenbÜttel. Much relieved at the news of this deliverance, Ferdinand halted at Hameln until November, when Soubise went into winter-quarters. He then made a final effort to drive Broglie from the eastern bank of the Weser, but succeeded only in thrusting him back for a short distance from his northernmost post at Einbeck. Broglie then went into winter-quarters along the Leine from GÖttingen to Nordheim, and the Allies followed his example; their chain of posts running from MÜnster along the line of the Lippe and Diemel, and eastward through the Sollinger Forest to Ferdinand's headquarters at Hildesheim. So ended this most arduous campaign, in which, though overmatched by two to one, Ferdinand had won a victory on the battlefield and lost little or no territory. The exertion demanded from his troops by incessant and severe marches told heavily upon their efficiency, and the more so since many of the men had been already much weakened by the winter's campaign in Hesse. The waste of the army was in fact appalling, amounting to no fewer than five-and-twenty thousand out of ninety-five thousand men. Of these some few had been killed in action, considerably more had deserted, still more had been invalided, and fully one-half had died of hardship and disease. It was only at such a price that Ferdinand could make one army do the work of two; and the task would have been beyond even his ability had not one of the commanders matched against him been utterly incompetent, and the other hampered by constant interference from Versailles. The extreme laxity of discipline among the French also helped him not a little, and served to heighten the moral superiority of his own troops. But, making all such allowance in his favour, the campaign remains memorable in the annals of war for the consummate skill with which Ferdinand kept two armies, jointly of double his strength, continually in motion for six months, without permitting them to reap the slightest advantage from their operations.
1761.
1762.
Jan. 4. Before the campaign closed in Germany, the great Minister who had revealed to England for the first time the plenitude of her strength in arms, and had turned that strength to such mighty enterprises, was fallen from power. The accession of the new King had brought with it a steady increase in the ascendency of John, Earl of Bute, long a trusted member of his household and now his chief adviser and friend. Blameless in private life and by no means lacking in culture or accomplishments, Bute was both in council and debate a man of distressing mediocrity. Possessing neither sense of the ridiculous nor knowledge of his own limitations, and exalted by mere accident to a position of great influence, he interpreted the caprice of fortune as the reward of merit and aimed at once at the highest office. He was, in fact, one of the many men who, finding it no great exertion to climb up the winding stairs of a cathedral tower, press on, ducking, stooping, and crawling to the top, to find when they reach it that they dare not look down. Being weak as well as ambitious he was compelled to fall back on intrigue in default of ability to help him upward, and having succeeded in displacing Lord Holderness as Secretary of State in March 1761, he turned next to the ousting of Pitt himself. The opportunity soon came. The French Court, weary of the war, approached Pitt with proposals for peace. Resolved, as he said, that no Peace of Utrecht should again sully the annals of England, Pitt not only made large demands for the benefit of Britain, but insisted that even a separate peace between Britain and France should not deter King George from giving aid to the King of Prussia. Curiously enough the negotiation was broken off owing precisely to one of the most disgraceful concessions made at the Peace of Utrecht. The Bourbon King of Spain, Charles the Third, who had succeeded to the throne in 1759, cultivated the friendship of the Bourbon King of France; and the result was a secret treaty of alliance between them, which presently became famous as the Family Compact. Pitt no sooner obtained an inkling of this agreement than he put an end to negotiations with France, and advocated immediate declaration of war against Spain. As shall presently be seen, he made his preparations, which were effective enough; but above all he desired to strike at Spain while she was still unready for war. The Cabinet, however, was alarmed at so bold a measure, being too blind to see that in such a case aggression is the truest precaution. Many of the ministry had only with difficulty been persuaded to second Pitt in the lofty language which he had held towards France; and Bute, who abhorred all interference with affairs on the Continent, was a leader among the dissentients. Lord Temple alone stood by his great chief, so Pitt, unable to prevail, resigned, and his solitary supporter with him. All power passed into the hands of Bute; and within three months Spain, having gained the time that she needed for her military preparations, assumed so offensive a tone that Bute, as Pitt had predicted, was to his huge vexation obliged to declare war against her himself. Such is the fashion in which politicians make difficulties for generals. 1761.
June. Fortunately the designs of Pitt for the new year against both France and Spain were fully matured, and the means of executing them were ready to hand. In June 1761 two new regiments[378] had been either raised or formed out of existing independent companies, and thirteen more had been added in August and October,[379] thus bringing the number of regiments of the Line up to one hundred and fifteen. The total number of men voted by Parliament for 1762 was little short of one hundred and fifty thousand men, making with the German mercenaries a total of two hundred and fifteen thousand men in British pay. There were thus men in abundance for any enterprise; and the sphere of operations had been marked out by Pitt. The conquest of Canada having been completed by the end of 1760, there was no object in leaving a large number of troops unemployed in America; and as early as in January 1761 Pitt had written to Amherst that some of them would be required in the autumn for the conquest of Dominica, St. Lucia, and Martinique. Amherst was therefore instructed to send two thousand men forthwith to Guadeloupe; to concert with the Governor the means of taking the two first of the islands mentioned; and to despatch six thousand more men rather later in the year for the capture of Martinique.[380] Accordingly in the first days of June 1761 transports from America began to drop singly into Guadeloupe, the fleet having been dispersed by a storm. By the 3rd of June four ships had arrived, together with Lord Rollo, who had been appointed by Amherst to take the command; and on the following day the whole of these, together with one ship more from Guadeloupe itself, made sail under escort of Sir J. Douglas's squadron to beat back against the trade-wind to Dominica.[381] By noon of the 6th they had arrived before Roseau, where the inhabitants were summoned to surrender. The French replied by manning their batteries and other defences, which included four separate lines of entrenchments, ranged one above another. Rollo landed his men and entered the town; when reflecting that the enemy might be reinforced in the night he resolved, though it was already late, to storm the entrenchments forthwith. He attacked accordingly, and drove out the French in confusion with trifling loss to himself. The French commander and his second being both taken prisoners, no further resistance was made; and on the following day Dominica swore allegiance to King George. Therewith the operations in the West Indies for the time ceased, though the preparations continued always; but, notwithstanding all possible secrecy, the French in Martinique got wind of the intended attack on that island, and took measures for their defence. Their force was not wholly contemptible in so mountainous a country, for it included twelve hundred regular troops, seven thousand local militia, and four thousand hired privateersmen.[382] The neighbouring English islands did what they could to help the mother country. Antigua sent negroes and part of her old garrison, the Thirty-eighth Foot, which had never left her since Queen Anne's day; and Barbados raised five hundred negroes and as many white men, which were the more acceptable since that island was, as usual, the rendezvous for the expedition.[383] The first troops to arrive in Carlisle Bay were a detachment from Belleisle,[384] where, as well as in America, regiments had been lying idle; and on Christmas Eve appeared the main army from America under command of General Monckton. This was made up of eleven different regiments,[385] besides a few companies of American rangers. In all, the force entrusted to Monckton must have amounted to fully eight thousand men. 1762.
January.
Jan. 24. On the 5th of January the transports weighed anchor and sailed away to leeward, under escort of Admiral Rodney's fleet, past the Pitons of St. Lucia, past the port of Castries and the bay which Rodney was twenty years later to make famous, and on the 7th anchored in St. Ann's Bay, just round the southern extremity of Martinique, on the western side. Two brigades were then landed in the Anse d'Arlet, a bay farther up the western coast, from which they marched to the south of the bay that forms the harbour of Fort Royal, but, finding the road impracticable for transport of cannon, were re-embarked. On the 16th the entire army was landed without loss of a man at Case Navire, a little to the north of Negro Point. This Point forms the northern headland of the harbour, and had at its foot a road leading due east over the mountains to the capital town of Fort Royal,[386] some three miles away. The way was blocked by deep gullies and ravines; while the French had erected redoubts at every point of vantage, as well as batteries on a hill beyond, named Morne Tortenson. Monckton was thus compelled to erect batteries to silence the French guns before he could advance farther. By the 24th this work was complete, and at daybreak a general attack was made under the fire of the batteries upon the French defences on Morne Tortenson, a party being at the same time detached to turn the enemy's right flank. The turning movement was completely successful; and the redoubts by the sea, on the enemy's left, having been carried, the troops stormed post after post, until at nine o'clock they were in possession not only of the detached redoubts but of the entire position of Morne Tortenson, with its guns and entrenchments. The French retired in great confusion, some to Fort Royal and some to Morne Grenier, a still higher hill to the north of Morne Tortenson. Simultaneously two brigades under Brigadiers Haviland and Walsh attacked other French posts to the north of Morne Tortenson and, after great difficulty owing to the steepness of the ground, succeeded in driving them also back to Morne Grenier. The losses of the British in this action amounted to thirty-three officers and three hundred and fifty men killed and wounded. Jan. 25. On the following day Monckton, being now within range, began to throw up batteries against the citadel of Fort Royal, but finding himself much annoyed by the French batteries on Morne Grenier to his left, decided that these must first be silenced. Fortunately the enemy saved him from further trouble by taking the offensive. On the afternoon of the 27th they suddenly debouched in three columns from Morne Grenier upon Haviland's brigade and the Light Infantry of the army, on Monckton's left, and with unexpected temerity ventured to attack. Unhappily for them, one column exposed its flank to the Highlanders and was almost instantly routed. The two remaining columns thereupon gave way, and the whole fled back to Morne Grenier with the British in eager chase. Such was the impetuosity of the pursuers that they plunged down into the intervening ravine after the French, and swarming up Morne Grenier "by every path, road, and passage where men could run, walk, or creep,"[387] hunted the fugitives headlong before them. Night came on, but the British officers would not stop until they had cleared every Frenchman off the hill and captured all the works and cannon. Monckton at once sent off more troops to support the pursuers, and by one o'clock in the morning of the 28th Morne Grenier was securely occupied, at a cost of little more than one hundred British killed and wounded. The batteries on Morne Tortenson were then completed, new batteries were constructed within four hundred yards of the citadel, and on the 3rd of February Fort Royal surrendered. Nine days more sufficed to reduce the rest of the Island, and by the 12th of February Monckton's work was done.[388] Feb. 26-
March 3.
June. He at once shipped off detachments to St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent, which islands fell without resistance, and had made his arrangements for the capture of Tobago also, when he received orders requiring the presence of his troops elsewhere. War had been declared against Spain; Lord Albemarle had been appointed to command an expedition against Havanna; and Amherst had been directed not only to embark four thousand men from America to join him, but to collect eight thousand more for an attack on Louisiana.[389] The stroke meditated by Pitt three months before was now about to fall. In February 1762 Albemarle's troops embarked; and on the 5th of March he sailed with four regiments only,[390] under convoy of Admiral Sir George Pocock, to pick up the remainder of his forces in the West Indies. On the 20th of April he arrived at Barbados, and on the 25th at Fort Royal, Martinique, where he took over from Monckton what he termed "the remains of a very fine army," much reduced by sickness, which brought his force to a strength of twelve thousand men of all ranks.[391] Thence continuing his voyage he came on the 6th of June into sight of Havanna. Twelve sail of the line were detached to the mouth of the harbour to block in the Spanish fleet, and on the following day the troops were landed safely a little to the northward of the city. On the 8th the army advanced westward, brushing away a force of militia that stood in its path, and on the same day arrived before the principal defences of Havanna. July. The entrance to the harbour of Havanna lies through a channel about two hundred yards wide, which was defended by two forts at its mouth, Fort Moro on the northern shore, and Fort Puntal opposite to it, the town also being situated on the southern shore. On the north side the ground rises rather abruptly from the harbour into a ridge known as the Cavannos, at the end of which stands Fort Moro, abutting on the open sea. A detached redoubt on these heights was carried without difficulty on the 11th of June, and, Fort Moro being found after reconnaissance to be surrounded with impenetrable brushwood, the construction of a battery was begun under cover of the trees. The work progressed slowly, for the soil was thin, while the Spanish ships in the harbour caused the besiegers no slight annoyance; so on the 13th a part of the British force was landed at Chorera, on the other side of the harbour. It was not until July that the British batteries could open a really effective fire, but by the 15th, with the help of the fleet, the enemy's guns were for the time silenced; and since trenches were impossible in ground so rocky, approaches to Fort Moro were made of gabions and cotton-bales. Still the work made little progress, for the climate had begun to tell on the troops, and little more than half of the men were fit for duty. Meanwhile the garrison of Fort Moro continued to defend itself with the greatest obstinacy, due in part to its confidence in the strength of the fort. The ditch at the point of attack was seventy feet deep from the edge of the counterscarp, except in one place, where a narrow ridge of rock made it possible to reach the wall of the fort without scaling-ladders. The only way to surmount such an obstacle was to sink a shaft and blow the counterscarp into the ditch, but powder was already running short; and Albemarle grew extremely anxious over the issue of his operations. July 30. At length on the 27th Colonel Burton arrived from America with three thousand men of the Forty-sixth, Fifty-eighth, Gorham's rangers and Provincial troops, having lost five hundred men captured by the French on the voyage. Three days later the mine under the counterscarp was sprung with success, and Fort Moro was carried by storm with trifling loss, the Spaniards offering but little resistance. New batteries were then pushed forward along the shore at the foot of the Cavannos in order to play on the town. On the 10th of August these opened fire and on the same evening silenced Fort Puntal. The Spaniards then proposed a capitulation; and Albemarle, in consideration of their defence, granted them the honours of war, being in truth devoutly thankful to obtain possession of Havanna on any terms. His army was melting away rapidly from disease; there was indeed one brigade of four battalions which could not muster twenty men fit for duty. Albemarle hastened to ship it back to America; but Amherst could spare no more troops to replace these, having already reduced his garrison to a strength of less than four thousand men.[392] Albemarle hoped that rest and better quarters might restore the health of the army after the work of the siege was done; but on the contrary sickness increased. The losses actually caused by the enemy's fire during the siege were rather less than a thousand men killed and wounded, yet by the 18th of October the British had buried over five thousand men dead from sickness alone.[393] Nor did the transfer of the troops from Cuba to America serve to abate the plague among them; for the hapless brigade first shipped off by Albemarle lost three hundred and sixty men within a month after its return. Yet at any rate Cuba was taken, and Cuba in those days was reckoned a prize little less rich than India. June 27.
Sept. 18. The virtual destruction of the army before Havanna put all ideas of an attack on Louisiana out of the question; and the French seized the opportunity offered by the removal of so many troops from Canada to send a small squadron and fifteen hundred troops against Newfoundland. The British garrison being only one hundred strong could offer no resistance, and the island was accordingly surrendered. Amherst, however, sent his brother with a sufficient force to recover it; and the French after a short defence capitulated as prisoners of war. As Amherst's losses did not exceed fifty men, and the captured French garrison numbered six hundred, the enemy gained little by this brief occupation of Newfoundland. Walker & Boutall del. To face page 544. GUADELOUPE, 1759.
HAVANNA, 1762. MARTINIQUE, 1762.
BELLEISLE, 1761. Aug. 1.
Sept. 24.
Sept. 25.
Oct. 4.
Oct. 5. But in India also there were troops lying idle since the fall of Pondicherry, which could be employed against Spain. In June Admiral Cornish received secret orders for an expedition, which he communicated to the authorities at Calcutta; and on the 1st of August the fleet sailed away to eastward with a force of one thousand Europeans, half of them of Draper's regiment, and two thousand Sepoys, under General Draper. On the 24th of September, after much delay owing to stormy weather and the extremely defective condition of Cornish's ships, the expedition entered the bay of Manila and anchored off Fort Cavita. Draper decided not to waste time in reducing the fort, so landed his troops unopposed on the following day through a heavy surf, about a mile and a half from the walls of the city. On the 26th he seized a detached fort which had been abandoned by the Spaniards within two hundred yards of the glacis, and began to construct a battery, while the ships sailed up to draw the fire of the town upon themselves. On the 30th a storeship arrived with entrenching tools, but was driven ashore on the very same evening by a gale, and there lay hard and fast. By singular good fortune, however, she had taken the ground at a point where she served exactly to screen the rear of Draper's camp from the Spanish cannon, while her stores were landed with greater speed and safety than would have been possible had she remained afloat; for the gale continued for several days and forbade the passage of boats through the surf. Four days later the battery and the ships opened a furious fire, which in four hours silenced the enemy's guns, and by the next day had made a practicable breach. That night the Spaniards made a sally upon the British position with a thousand Indians, who, despite their ferocity and daring, were driven back with heavy loss; and at dawn of the 6th Draper's regiment and a party of sailors attacked the breach and carried the fortifications with little difficulty. Thereupon Manila, with the island of Luzon and its dependencies, surrendered to the British, paying four million dollars for ransom of the town and of the property contained therein. Thus fell Manila within ten days of the arrival of the British; but the siege though short was attended by much difficulty and hardship. Regular approaches were impracticable owing to the incessant rain; while the surf made the landing of troops and stores a matter of extreme labour and peril. Had not the defences of the town been for the most part feeble and the spirit of the garrison feebler still, the capture of the Philippines would have been no such simple matter. The story of Manila is, however, interesting as a comment on Wentworth's proceedings at Carthagena, justifying to the full Vernon's predilection for a direct assault at the earliest possible moment in all operations against the Spaniard. 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 manoeuvring 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. 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. 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. Authorities.—For the expedition to Belleisle there is little beyond the official papers in the Record Office, W.O., Orig. Corres., vol. xxi., and the accounts to be found in such histories as Entick's. The like is true of the operations in Portugal, except that few original papers are to be found in the Record Office. As to Martinique there is again little besides the Official Papers, C. O., America and West Indies, vol. cii., with the letter in the Bouquet Papers already quoted. For Havanna there is a printed account of the siege, and the original papers in C. O., America and West Indies, Havanna. For Manila, see Admiral's despatches, East Indies, and the account in Entick. The Annual Register is also a source of information in default of better in all the above expeditions. For Ferdinand's campaigns, the most readable account is that of Mauvillon, being written in German of rare clearness and simplicity. There are also the histories of Tempelhof and Archenholtz, La Vie Militaire de Ferdinand, MÉmoires de Bourcet, and Westphalen's FeldzÜge Herzogs Ferdinand, in which last is printed every document that came to Ferdinand's headquarters, besides a great many more, with quotations from all other writers on the subject—an exhaustive work of six huge volumes, without an index. Ferdinand's original letters, with some from Granby and other officers, will be found in the Record Office, F. O. Mil. Auxiliary Expeditions, vols. xxviii.-xxxi., xxxiii., xxxiv., xxxvii.-xliv., xlix., l. The letters in the Belvoir Papers, Hist. Manuscript Commission, are disappointing. Walker & Boutall, del. To face page 560. WARBURG, 31st July 1760.
WILHELMSTHAL, 24th June 1762.
Dispositions at the opening
of the attack of the Allies. VELLINGHAUSEN,
15th 16th July 1761.
The attack of 16th July.
Part of HESSE-CASSEL
1739-1763. I have followed with little interruption the long tale of hostilities which opened with the declaration of war with Spain and closed with the Peace of Fontainebleau; for despite the brief truce made by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the armies of England and France were eternally in collision either in the far east or the far west, so that to all intent the struggle resolved itself into one long war. Little though she knew it, England, when she entered wantonly and with a light heart upon the attack on the Spanish Main, had really set herself to wrestle with the French for the empire of the world. For nearly seventeen years she waited for the man who would carry her victorious through the contest; and at last he appeared. The instant change which came over the spirit of the nation when he assumed command has already been shown in the narrative of the operations. It remains only to study more closely the conduct of the war in the departments at home, and to trace the progress, not only in the organisation and training of the various branches of the Army, but also in the general administration. The war with Spain opened, as will be remembered, while the nation had not yet ceased to rail at the iniquity of a standing Army, when the ascendency of the civilian element at the War Office was overpowering, and when the attitude of the ordinary citizen towards the soldier was unfriendly even to aggression. These evils, as may be guessed, did not pass away at once, even though the obnoxious red-coats were embarked or embarking for foreign service. In 1741 there was a general refusal of innkeepers to supply soldiers with food and forage, owing to the dearth caused by a winter of extraordinary severity. Such refusal was not unreasonable; and it was proposed to meet the difficulty by a new clause in the Mutiny Act. It will hardly be believed that one member of the House of Commons made this suggestion a pretext for urging that the Mutiny Act should be dispensed with altogether, his argument being that if the system of billets should break down it would be necessary to build barracks, which would result in the subjection of the country to military government.[402] Two years later again[403] advantage was taken of an address to the King respecting his hired Hessian troops, to insert words, designed evidently for purposes of insult only, referring to, the burthensome and useless army at home. Nor did such amenities end even after the warning of 1745, for the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which left the air still electric with war, was no sooner signed than the old foolish arguments against a standing Army reappeared in the House of Lords, propped by such stable epigrams as "To a free state an army is like drams to a constitution." Yet the full measure of the intoxicant which was distilled for the ruin of the nation was a niggardly draught of nineteen thousand men. These childish outbursts continued until 1754, when they ceased, at any rate until the close of the war, having served their mischievous purpose in keeping alive old animosities which common patriotism and common sense would have buried without ceremony. The ill-will of publicans and of municipalities continued likewise unabated for a few years,[404] but rapidly dwindled away before more generous feelings; and unreasonable complaints from this quarter almost disappear from the correspondence of the War Office after Dettingen. The War Office itself was slower to mend its ways. The Secretary-at-War was quite equal to such petty jobbery as procuring the promotion of sergeants and corporals; but for all other purposes the Office showed itself at first to be utterly and hopelessly inefficient. Glimpses of maladministration have already been seen in the account of the expedition to Carthagena; but the blindness and ignorance of the officials became still more patent when Lord Stair's force was despatched to the Netherlands. The Office had not been at the pains to keep even its records in order. Not a soul seems to have known what were the rules as to allowances for forage, baggage, and the like, for troops embarking on active service; and the officials were obliged to apply to old officers who had served with Marlborough to gather precedents on such purely departmental matters as these.[405] From such beginnings it is not difficult to judge of that which must have come after. The Office of Ordnance also was at the outset as badly disorganised as the War Office. Its shortcomings have already been shown in the matter of the train sent out to Carthagena; but even a year after the departure of Cathcart it seems to have made no improvement. Transports destined for the West Indies in 1741 were obliged to put in at Cork because the water shipped at Spithead was undrinkable, and the provisions supplied for the men unfit to eat.[406] Stair, again, was despatched to the Netherlands without artillery or engineers, a deficiency which brought his force into immense contempt with the French; and when he asked for siege-guns he found that all England could afford him was but twenty twenty-four pounders.[407] Small arms again were so scarce that, when the king rearmed the infantry, it was necessary to purchase ten thousand muskets and bayonets abroad.[408] In Scotland again the inquiries of Hawley and Handasyde revealed not less flagrant neglect.[409] But this was by no means all. The general condition of the national defences both at home and abroad was most alarming; and the result was that at the opening of 1743 there was a regular panic among all the seaports, great and small, on the coast of England. Frantic applications poured into the Office of Ordnance for guns, carriages, and ammunition. It seems to have been the custom for the minor ports to erect batteries at their own expense, and to apply to the Government for their armament; so that the blame for these shortcomings must rest in part upon local authorities. But there is no such excuse for carelessness in respect of regular strongholds, such as Pendennis Castle, where forty-six guns were found to be in charge of a master-gunner ninety years of age, aided by a single assistant. It was not until 1756, when ministers should have been looking after Minorca, that the Government suddenly took the alarm and threw up lines of defence at Chatham, Portsea, and Plymouth Dock.[410] Colonial stations, for which the British Government was responsible, were in little better order. Newfoundland was in a deplorable condition,[411] and Gibraltar even worse; nor could all the representations of officers procure attention for them. As late as in May 1757, even after the actual fall of Minorca, Governor Lord Tyrawley wrote furiously of the state of affairs at the Rock. There had been total stagnation for many years; letters had not been answered; requests often repeated had remained unheeded. The guns mounted on the fortress were too short, the spare carriages were too few, the palisades better fitted for hen-coops than for fortifications; in fact the defences were reduced to dangerous weakness by years of systematic neglect.[412] At St. Kitts, again, the Thirty-eighth Foot, which for years had formed the standing garrison, was in a miserable condition; not forty per cent of the men were fit for service; their clothing was in rags; they had neither hats nor shoes nor cartridge-boxes nor swords.[413] Nor were the self-governing colonies more careful than the mother country. Wealthy West Indian Islands, notwithstanding the incessant warnings of their governors, found themselves at the outbreak of the war in dangerous want of arms and ammunition; and there was a rush of all the colonies both in the West Indies and in America for guns and stores, which ought to have been ready in their own magazines.[414] British carelessness, aggravated by the evil example of factious politicians in the mother country, and by the spectacle of such a creature as Newcastle in high place, had well-nigh stripped the empire of its defences. As to the Army itself, enough has been said in the account of the operations to show how unstable, despite the abundance of individual heroism, were the foundations upon which it rested. The interference of civilian administrators and of irresponsible politicians with military discipline had wrought mischief untold. Officers could not be brought to do duty with their regiments. Stair found the difficulty insuperable; so also did Hawley; so even did Cumberland in Scotland; while in the garrison of Minorca the evil transcended all bounds. Thus both the personnel and matÉriel of the Army were nearly ruined, the former by persistent jobbery and meddling on the part of civil officials, the latter by the equally persistent carping of factious critics in the House of Commons, which forbade the presentation of estimates for necessary works. The military system was in fact a chaos; and it was only by the strenuous efforts of two men, who strangely enough abominated each other, that this chaos was reduced to order. The first of these two was Cumberland. Though in many respects a martinet of a narrow type, and no great commander in the field, Cumberland was an able man, a strong man, and an administrator. He it was who first took the Army seriously in hand and set himself to reduce it to discipline. He began during his first campaign by teaching the officers that they must obey. Hitherto it seems that they had taken the field as if they were going to a picnic, after the fashion of the French, travelling comfortably if not luxuriously, and neglecting all duties except that of displaying gallantry in action. Cumberland quickly put a stop to this. The number of wheeled carriages, even for general officers, was strictly limited, and two only, one for the colonel and one for the sutler, were allowed in each regiment; while in order to reduce baggage still further, it was ordered that no officer under the rank of brigadier-general should appear either in camp or in quarters, on or off duty, except in his regimental coat, old or new.[415] Such orders may appear ludicrous at the present day, but they point to a tightening of the reins of discipline that was very sorely needed. Cumberland, too, was impatient of useless officers. He disliked the system of purchase[416] and chafed at the retention of old colonels, some so unfit for duty as to be confined in a mad-house, whose permanent presence on the active list prevented the advancement of deserving officers.[417] His own selections were not always fortunate, as witness Hawley and Braddock, but he was fully alive to the merit of such men as Ligonier, Wolfe, and Conway, to whom, though not of his school, he gladly gave promotion. But it is after the close of the first war, when the Duke had returned to be Commander-in-Chief in time of peace, that his work is seen to greatest advantage. The whole tone of the War Office is changed. The Secretary-at-War almost reverts to his old position of clerk to the Commander-in-Chief. Military authority is predominant in military matters, and "Secretary-at-War's leave of absence" becomes a thing of the past. The functionary, who not many years before was ready to perpetrate a job for any officer with vote or interest, suddenly develops virtuous scruples and objects to the once familiar phrase, as he never grants leave without the King's signature.[418] But it is less by isolated examples, such as this, than by a general alteration in the methods of transacting business, that the Duke's hand may be traced. There is no longer the indiscriminate correspondence with every rank of officer; but due regard is paid to the rights of superior officers as channels of communication and discipline, and to the authority of the Commander-in-Chief as the supreme motive power. In fact, a work of great and beneficial reform is seen to accomplish itself imperceptibly through the will and influence of a single strong man; and Cumberland's services herein have never received the recognition that they deserve. The Duke, indeed, with all his foibles and prejudices was no ordinary man; and it is no surprise to one who has followed his administrative work to find that Horace Walpole ranked him with his father, Sir Robert Walpole, with Granville, Mansfield, and Pitt as one of the five great men that he had known. It is no disparagement of other members of the Royal Family to say that he was the ablest man which it has produced during the two centuries of its reign in England. The other man who raised the tone of the Army beyond estimation was of course Pitt. His share in the work, however, was very different in its nature from Cumberland's; though, without the preliminary reforms of Cumberland, his influence could hardly have been so successful as it was. Pitt's instincts respecting military administration, as distinct from the statesman's choice of a theatre of war, were thoroughly sound. He was for allowing officers to do their work, and for backing them loyally as they did it. Thus when in 1750 George Townsend, afterwards Wolfe's brigadier, proposed a clause in the Mutiny Bill to prevent non-commissioned officers or privates from being punished except by sentence of court-martial, Pitt crushed him with words which deserve to be remembered. "We," he said, "have no business with the conduct of the Army, nor with their complaints one against another. If we give ear to any such complaint we shall either destroy all discipline, or the House will be despised of officers and detested of soldiers." Cumberland himself would have asked for no severer criticism than this; and yet Pitt, though perhaps unconsciously, was probably more obnoxious in his military even than in his political views to Cumberland. The Duke, as has been repeatedly illustrated, was a soldier of the rigidest German type. "He was as angry," to use Walpole's happy phrase, "at an officer's infringing the minutest precept of the military rubric as at his deserting his post, and was as intent on establishing the form of spatterdashes and cockades as on taking a town or securing an advantageous situation." In other words, he lacked that sense of proportion in matters of discipline which distinguishes the disciplinarian from the martinet. Now, despite the influence of Cumberland, there was growing up in the Army a school of officers quite as strict as he was in needful matters of discipline, but less rigid, less narrow, and more humane—officers who looked upon their men not as marionettes to be dressed and undressed, used up and thrown away, but as human flesh and blood, with good feelings that could be played on, good understandings that could be instructed, self-respect that needed only to be cultivated, and high instincts that waited only to be evoked. Such an officer, as his regimental orders can prove, was Wolfe, who contrived to turn even the work of road-making in Scotland to excellent disciplinary account; and indeed I am disposed to think that this same road-making, first begun under the direction of the mild and gentle Wade, had much to do with the foundation of the new school. The officers were brought very much more into contact with their men off parade, being obliged to supervise them while at work and to enjoin on them conciliatory bearing and behaviour towards the inhabitants; and the men, on their side, were happy and well-conducted, for they were kept constantly employed and received a welcome addition to their pay. It must be remembered that the gulf fixed between officer and man at that time was much wider than at present. Nowadays it is nothing for the subalterns of the smartest regiment of cavalry to pull off their coats and work with their men at the unshipping of horses from a transport; then it was almost painful to men to see their officers lay their hand to any but officer's work. A sergeant of Murray's garrison at Quebec describes the labours of his officers when hauling up the guns almost with tears. Such things were not seemly for gentlemen to do. But beyond all doubt the new school introduced a healthier feeling between officers and men, having the courage to utter its sentiments in print. "Never beat your men," says an officer's manual of the year 1760; "it is unmanly. I have too often seen a brave, honest old soldier banged and battered at the caprice of an arrogant officer." And then follows a protest against picketting, tying neck and heels, the wooden horse and other punishments of torture, which were never inflicted by court-martial, but by the authority of officers only.[419] Such teaching was not in accordance with the system of Cumberland as expounded by himself or by his favourites Braddock and Hawley. Yet it was to officers of this new school that Pitt, when he could have his way, preferred to entrust his work, partly perhaps on account of their youth and vigour, but more probably owing to their freedom from the fetters of pipeclay. Amherst, though he maintained an excellent tone among his troops, was hardly a perfect representative of the school, but Howe and Wolfe were pre-eminently of it, as were likewise such of Wolfe's pupils as Monckton and Murray. India seems spontaneously to have produced men who commanded in virtue of personal ascendency, though the only training of Lawrence, Forde, and Coote had been that of regimental officers. Still these men, though appointed by sheer force of circumstances and by no nomination of Pitt's, served to confirm the correctness of his judgment. By giving scope to this new stamp of officer Pitt rendered the Army signal service, apart from the spirit which he infused into it, as into every body of Englishmen, of energy and adventure. He was too good a master for men to be willing to return to him, unless they had fulfilled their mission or exhausted every effort to fulfil it. It is possible even that the raids on the French coast, which are a blot on his fame as a minister of war, might have been more successful (though they could never have been profitable) could he have appointed commanders of his own choice. But in truth the work of Pitt as a designer of campaigns and operations of war was by no means flawless. He had skill in thinking out how a body of men could be passed rapidly on from enterprise to enterprise, as from Guadeloupe to Canada, from Canada back to Martinique, from Martinique to Havanna, and from Havanna, as he hoped, to Louisiana. But he never made sufficient allowance for the waste of men in the process, nor, apparently, for the loss of life entailed by maintaining large garrisons in tropical territory. In some respects, too, the military administration was little better in his day than in Newcastle's. Notwithstanding the warning given by the terrible losses of the troops during the occupation of Louisburg, no proper care was taken to provide them with special clothing in subsequent winters in Canada; while the arrangements for the hospitals in Germany were so deficient that few of the invalids of the campaign of 1760 ever rejoined their regiments.[420] Hodgson, again, before starting for Belleisle, complained bitterly of his want of officers and of the inadequacy of the preparations made by the Office of Ordnance. These abuses were, it is true, due to the shortcomings of departments only, and therefore must not be charged against a minister who bore the burden, not only of the direction of the war, but of foreign affairs also on his shoulders; but it is, I think, a reproach to Pitt's military administration that he did not appreciate the importance of husbanding the lives of his troops. The British soldier, to put the matter in its least sentimental and most brutally practical light, has always been a most expensive article; no prodigality can be more ruinous than the careless squandering of his life, no economy so false as the grudging of his comfort. But this failing in Pitt, serious though it be, is far outweighed by the profound policy which converted the militia into an efficient force for defence against invasion, thus liberating the regular army for purposes of conquest; and by the military insight which kept King Frederick subsidised, and Prince Ferdinand's army afoot as auxiliary to Frederick, thus turning the whole war in Europe into a diversion in England's favour. Nor was this policy wholly selfish, for loudly though the Prussians still complain of the withdrawal of Pitt's subsidies by Bute, Pitt remained in office long enough to tide Frederick over the deadliest of his peril, and so to establish the corner-stone of the present German Empire. Yet even these achievements pale before the mighty genius and the lofty enthusiasm which called the English-speaking people to arms on both sides the Atlantic to wrest from France the possession of the world. The minister of war is swallowed up in the statesman of the Empire. The next subject of inquiry is the manner of raising that Army, large beyond precedent in English history, which was accumulated by the end of the war. It will be remembered that the regiments of cavalry rose to thirty-two, and that in the infantry of the Line the numbered regiments were one hundred and twenty-four, besides two corps of Highlanders (which for some reason were known by titles of a different kind) and the brigade of Guards, making altogether a total little short of one hundred and fifty battalions. To provide recruits for such a force on the ordinary terms was impossible; and the struggle with France had hardly begun before recourse was made to the system of short service. In the session of 1743-44 was passed the first of a series of Recruiting Acts on the model of those which had been passed under Queen Anne. The bounty offered to volunteers was four pounds, while parish-officers were empowered to impress unemployed men, for each of which they received a reward of one pound and the parish of three pounds. The standard for recruits was fixed at five feet five inches; and it was enacted that every volunteer or enlisted man should be entitled to his discharge at the end of three years. In the following session the Act was somewhat altered. The bounty to volunteers was abolished; the gift to the parish was reduced to two pounds; the standard was lowered by one inch, and the term of service was extended to five years. But as yet of course the real drain on the supply of Englishmen was not begun. After the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle an effort was made in the House of Commons to establish the principle of short service in time of peace. In February 1750 Mr. Thomas Pitt, a kinsman of the Great Commoner, brought forward a bill to enact that soldiers should henceforward be enlisted for ten years, and that the price of discharge should be fixed at three pounds. The scheme was opposed on the ground that men would always claim discharge after receiving their new clothing, and so defraud the colonel; that the country would be filled with idle vagabonds; and that the Pretender's adherents would take advantage of the measure to obtain military training, which would later be turned against England herself. One speaker, who supported the bill, thought ten years too long a term; and Colonel Henry Conway, an officer of much promise, while approving the principle contended that the bill as it stood would be useless, since no man would enlist for service in Ireland or the Colonies without a bounty, nor accept smaller bounty than the cost of his discharge. More than one member who took part in the debate deplored the system of enlisting men for life, which by depriving them of hope made them idle and disorderly; but all agreed that the limitation of the term of service must inevitably lead to increased expense, since it would entail the need of a larger number of recruits. The expense of recruiting fell at that time of course on the officers, pay being allowed for a few fictitious men on the muster-rolls, and the proceeds turned into a recruiting fund. While this practice lasted, it was futile to speak of enlisting more recruits, for the officers simply could not afford it. It was useless to urge, as Conway and Oglethorpe did, that the expense of recruiting at ordinary times should be borne not by the regiment but by the public; for this would have meant an augmentation in the military estimates which was not to be thought of for a moment. So after a useful debate the bill was defeated by one hundred and fifty-four to ninety-two.[421] On the renewal of the war a Recruiting Act identical with that of 1744-45 was passed; but in the following year (1756-57) a bounty of three pounds was again offered to volunteers, who were also allowed to take service for three years only. With this latter Act the measures sanctioned by Parliament came to an end, and though this particular enactment was passed, as usual, for one year only, I conceive that it must have been renewed annually to the close of the war.[422] There were of course the usual abuses in the enforcement of these Acts, abuses which rose to a grave height towards the end of the war. The country was so much exhausted in 1762 that the standard was reduced to five feet two inches,[423] by which time men made a regular living by hanging about the recruiting officers, ready to accompany them before a justice and to swear that some hapless creature had taken the King's bounty.[424] Practically there was impressment for the army as for the navy; and indeed as early as in 1744 the newspapers speak openly of a general press made in Southwark for the Army and marines, with the satisfactory result of a haul of two hundred men.[425] Nor was impressment without its usual romantic consequences. On one of the ships of Admiral Boscawen's squadron in 1748 was a marine named James Gray, who was duly landed with the rest for the siege of Pondicherry. In the course of the siege Gray had the misfortune to be wounded, apparently by splinters, receiving six wounds in one leg, five in the other and a bullet in the groin. This last hurt the injured marine did not submit to the doctors, contriving to extract the bullet without assistance, and so to make a good recovery. In due time Gray returned to England; and then there came a petition to the Duke of Cumberland setting forth that James Gray was in a reality a woman named Hannah Snell. Her sweetheart had been impressed, so she had enlisted and followed him to India, braving all the misery of the voyage and the hardships of the siege to be with him; but all had been to no purpose, for the sweetheart had died, leaving her alone, maimed, friendless and penniless. It is satisfactory to learn that Cumberland at once obtained for her a pension of thirty pounds a year from the King's own bounty.[426] It should be remembered, meanwhile, that since the Highlands had been thrown open, the old recruiting grounds had been considerably enlarged, and that the prospect of bearing arms had attracted great numbers of Highlanders to the ranks. Exclusive of the Forty-second there were at least a dozen Highland battalions on the list in 1762. Irish Catholics again were admitted to the Army, at any rate in America, and distinguished themselves particularly in the Twenty-eighth Regiment at Quebec, where Wolfe himself charged at their head.[427] But to what other shifts the Government may have resorted I have unfortunately been unable to discover. It is more than probable that several corps were formed under peculiar conditions of service. At least one whole regiment of Highlanders, the Duke of Sutherland's, was raised explicitly for three years only or till the close of the war;[428] and the same principle was doubtless extended to other cases. Private enterprise also came to the help of the country. Very early in the war a society was formed in London to promote the enlistment of marines; and after Minden the Common Council of London opened subscriptions to encourage recruiting, and promised to admit men so enlisted to trade within the city forthwith, if discharged with a good character on the close of the war.[429] Then again there were regiments like Hale's and Granby's Light Dragoons which were raised by patriotic officers without cost to the country; and it is probable that these were not solitary examples. Similar advantages of economy seem to have dictated the creation in 1760 and the following years of innumerable independent companies, which after a few months of isolated existence were sorted together into regiments. The history of this system is exceedingly obscure, but it appears to have amounted practically to the offer of a commission to every man who could or would raise a hundred recruits. It was adopted amid considerable difference of opinion, and was not a success, the men so enlisted being generally unfit to carry a musket.[430] Speaking broadly, it may be asserted that during this war the ranks were filled by compulsion far more than by attraction, and by compulsion so ruthless that recruits would resort to self-mutilation to escape service. An interesting experiment in the inner organisation of the recruiting service was instituted by advice of Lord Stair, namely the formation of two extra companies of infantry and one extra troop of cavalry for all regiments on active service. The object was to maintain a depot at home to refill all vacancies in the ranks abroad, and so to obviate the necessity of sending back recruiting officers from abroad to England. The plan did not at first commend itself to the King, and Stair was obliged to urge it repeatedly before he could obtain for it a trial; but the suggestion seems to have been approved by Cumberland, and to have been put into practice for a time, though the additional companies were presently amalgamated into distinct regiments.[431] Therewith the whole system of the feeding of regiments abroad fell back on the old plan of drafting; and during the Seven Years' War regiments at home, particularly the dragoons,[432] were raised to a considerable strength to serve simply as recruiting depots for regiments abroad. From a regimental standpoint the story of the war is one of drafting, drafting, drafting, with of course all the vices that had been condemned by Marlborough attendant on the practice. The garrisons of captured places suffered terribly from this evil, particularly in the West Indies, where service was still abominated by the men. There was no such reluctance to go to the East Indies, where there was some prospect of spoil; and men and officers gladly took advantage of the opportunity afforded to them not only to go to India, but to stay there in the Company's service after their regiments had been recalled.[433] But the West Indies were held in horror and loathing. It became more and more the practice to pardon deserters and bad characters on their accepting service in that unpopular quarter, though even so there were men who preferred to take a thousand lashes.[434] As the operations in the West Indies grew wider of extent, resort was made as usual to drafting; whereupon the colonels, to whom it fell to supply the drafts, of course seized the opportunity to rid themselves of their worst men, heedless of the unhappy corps to which they consigned them.[435] The government of a captured island in the Antilles on such terms was no very enviable post. But the British Isles were by no means the only recruiting ground of the Army during this long struggle. Braddock as early as in 1755 was ordered to fill up his regiments with recruits from America; and the system, as has already been seen, was carried farther and farther as the war progressed. There were at first considerable difficulties, which the British Government attempted to meet by proclaiming that two hundred acres of land should be granted free of rent for ten years to all recruits, after the close of the war.[436] It should seem, however, that this temptation was of small effect, for the Americans enjoyed all the British prejudice against a red-coat, and at first drew little distinction between a soldier and a negro. The Sixtieth in particular found great obstruction to recruiting in Pennsylvania; the lawyers, justices, and people at large being violently opposed to enlistment[437] even for short terms of three or four years. Violent controversies raged over the recruiting of indented servants, the "white servants" or white slaves to which I have already referred; their owners pleading not without reason that, having paid for the passage of these men, they were entitled to consider them as their own property, or, to use their own phrase, as "bought servants." This difficulty was settled by providing for compensation to the owners for loss of such men; but even so the most serious obstacles remained unremoved. In New Jersey, for instance, the justices would persuade recruits not to be attested, or would grant warrants against them for fictitious debts and throw them into gaol until the regiment that sought them had marched away. Finally in 1760 Amherst wrote that, though his battalions were seven thousand men below the proper strength, he could obtain no recruits owing to the vast bounty offered by the provincial authorities to their own troops. These facts should not be forgotten in view of the far greater contest between mother country and colonies which lies close ahead of us. The colonists boasted constantly, and not without just cause, of the sacrifices which they had made throughout the war; but they overlooked the incessant difficulties which they threw in the way of the King's commanders.[438] Intimately connected with the subject of recruiting is the general condition of the private soldier. There was little or no alteration in his pay or allowances during the period under review; and such changes as there were tended if anything rather to his disadvantage. It appears that the War Office had not yet learned that the rigid rules applicable to service at home were impossible of enforcement abroad, and either through blindness or ignorance insisted that all additional burdens, imposed by differences of climate and remoteness from civilisation, must be borne by the soldier. The mutiny roused at Louisburg by excessive stoppages from the pay of the men has already been related; but so dangerous a warning even as this produced no result, for the grievance remained unredressed and led to a second mutiny of the troops in Canada in 1763.[439] The meanness of the Government in respect of such matters was indescribable. It would not even supply extra blankets for the garrison of Quebec, but decided that the price must be deducted from each soldier's pay, and this although recruits were already hardly obtainable for garrisons abroad.[440] Not an official, notwithstanding the repeated representations of military officers, seems to have been capable of devising a new system to cover new conditions. The old formulÆ were stretched and stretched again till they became a mere confusion of rents and patches, barely sufficient to cover the nakedness of maladministration. It is true that the Government was not wholly to blame; it was rather that spirit of carping and meddlesome criticism in the Commons which in these days has led to what is called legislation by reference, with the result that few Acts of Parliament are intelligible without a complete body of the Statutes of the past century to elucidate them. In mortal dread of distasteful discussion of the military estimates, the civil authorities clothed every possible grant of money in the garment of pay for so many men, and made it over to regimental officers to do their best or worst with it. Hence arose a chaos of strange terms which are the bewilderment and despair of every student. The mysteries of the "recruiting-fund" have already been laid bare, and the veil which shrouds the "widow's man" has likewise been lifted; but the list is unfortunately far longer than this. As though widow's men were not sufficient, there were also "contingent men," fictitious men kept on the rolls of every company that their pay might discharge the contingent expenses of the captain.[441] Then there was an item known as "grass-money," an allowance of similar nature, but of so complicated a description that it can be shown only in tabulated form.[442] There were also curious devices whereby the foot-soldier likewise was provided with certain necessary portions of his equipment. Then there was yet another source of regimental income called the stock-purse, which applied originally to dragoons only, and was made up partly from the recruiting fund, partly from the vacant pay of men when the troop was below its established strength, and partly from the value of cast horses. The fund so collected was placed in the hands of the agent, to defray contingent expenses and current cost of recruiting. As all horses were cast at the age of fourteen, and as four horses, at a price not exceeding twenty guineas apiece, were replaced every year irrespective of those lost by death or accident, it may be imagined that a stroke of bad luck might reduce a troop to ruin. All this, however, was part of the system which made the Army pay for itself, and was therefore preserved in defiance of the trouble and confusion to which it inevitably led. It may now be understood why officers who loved their regiments frequently bequeathed large sums of money to the regimental funds, to enable their successors to secure good recruits and to uphold the fair name of the corps. Thus it is sufficiently evident that the Army, notwithstanding the wild ravings in Parliament, did far more for itself than the country did for it; though there are signs that as an institution it was gradually finding acceptance with the nation. In 1740 the nickname of "lobster" for a soldier, which thirty or forty years ago was common enough, first made its appearance, curiously enough with the Christian name of Thomas prefixed to it.[443] Then in the same year Parliament called for and printed a return of the officers of the Army, which was continued yearly and ripened into the annual Army List.[444] Another change also helped to give regiments a surer identity in the popular mind, namely the substitution of a number for the colonel's name for the distinction of corps from corps. This reform crept in during July 1753;[445] but it was many years before the colonel's name was altogether discarded, while the numbers did not find a place on the buttons until 1767. Then, to pass to minuter matters, sufficient deference was paid to the popular love of military music to relieve the colonels in part of the burden of hiring bandsmen, who, in some regiments at any rate, were after 1749 enlisted as soldiers and placed under military discipline.[446] In the cavalry, where the trumpeters supplied six or eight men more or less skilled in the playing of a wind-instrument, the issue of horns and bassoons to these sufficed more cheaply to form a band of music;[447] but the main burden of supporting a band has always lain, as it still lies, upon the officers. Private enterprise, which thus forced military musicians upon the country, strove also to impose another modern fashion, but without success. After his march to Fort DuquÊsne General Forbes caused a medal to be struck, of extremely florid design, and authorised such of his officers as might desire it to wear the same in gold suspended from their necks by a blue ribbon.[448] The hint, however, was not taken at home,—possibly the fame of it never reached official ears,—and though a medal might have increased the flow of recruits and reconciled men to service beyond sea, not one was issued. Ferdinand of Brunswick received the Garter, and Amherst the red ribbon of the Bath, but nothing was done to commemorate for lesser men the share that they had taken in the conquest of an empire. I turn now to consideration of the military progress in the three combatant branches of the Army. In the Cavalry an early change, which has been perpetuated by certain regimental titles to the present day, was the conversion of the three senior regiments of Horse into Dragoons, with the names which they still retain of the First, Second, and Third Dragoon Guards. This was done in December 1746 and was apparently part of a general scheme of economy; for at precisely the same time the Third and Fourth troops of the Life Guards were disbanded, and two troops only reserved, together with two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards.[449] But there seems also to have been somewhat of a craze for dragoons at the moment,[450] first because their pay was small, and secondly, because Frederick the Great, in imitation of the Austrians, had made greater mobility the rule for all cavalry. In truth the old distinctions between Horse and Dragoons were disappearing fast and becoming very much a question of names. The French indeed still made it a rule not to place dragoons in the line of battle; but the horse in their army was distinguished by being heavily clad in defensive armour. Ligonier, who loved the cavalry above all arms, boldly advised the disregard of all fanciful differences, and the issue of defensive armour to the British dragoons; but his recommendation remained unnoticed for twelve years, when, in a true spirit of pedantry, cuirasses and iron skull-caps were given in 1758 to the Blues and in 1760 to the Third and Fourth Horse, or to give them their present names, the Sixth and Seventh Dragoon Guards.[451] Another defect noted by Ligonier in the organisation of the cavalry was the extreme weakness of the British squadrons as compared with the French; for remedy of which he purposed to raise the strength of troops of horse to fifty and of dragoons to seventy-five troopers. Such a reform would have been valuable as a return to Cromwell's system of making the units strong enough to provide full employment for the officers; but the authorities settled the question in a far more simple fashion by ordaining that three troops, instead of two as heretofore, should be the strength of a squadron on service.[452] The country has waited long for Ligonier's suggestion to be adopted, and it is only within very recent years, if now, that it has at last grasped the soundness of the principle. More important as a step forward was the institution of Light Dragoons, begun, as has been told, by the establishment first of light troops and later of complete light regiments. The example in this case came from a corps formed during the Scottish rebellion of 1745, the Duke of Kingston's Light Dragoons, which did so good service that, though disbanded after Culloden, it was at once reformed as the Duke of Cumberland's own. As such it distinguished itself greatly at Lauffeld, and Cumberland pleaded hard that it might be spared after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; but with the usual blindness it was disbanded, and thus a regiment of quite unusual value and promise was sacrificed.[453] Happily the Fifteenth Light Dragoons made a most brilliant beginning for the new branch of the cavalry, and assured its success. The light dragoons were distinguished by wearing a helmet of lacquered copper or leather, and were armed with carbine, bayonet, pistol, and sword, carrying also entrenching tools in their holsters. Their horses are described as of the nag or hunter kind, standing from fourteen hands three inches to fifteen hands one inch; and their saddlery was lighter than that of the ordinary dragoon. Being intended for employment as irregular troops they were known from the first in England as hussars;[454] but though they received special training in horsemanship and in firing, even at a gallop, from the saddle, they had little or no instruction in the duties of reconnaissance, which were the peculiar function of the hussar. Nothing could be more characteristic of the difference between the true and the false light cavalry than the behaviour of the Fifteenth at Emsdorff, who charged through and through the French infantry without hesitation, while the Prussian hussars, never coming to close quarters, lost not a man nor a horse. Fortunately it was not the true hussar that was most sorely needed on that day. For the rest, before the opening of the war the old system of manoeuvre by turning every horse in his own ground had given place to that by wheeling of small divisions, although the ranks were still formed three deep. It does not appear that the drill introduced by Frederick the Great for field-movements was adopted either in whole or in part, though possibly it may have been practised by individual colonels. Shock-action our cavalry did not need to learn from Frederick, having learned it already of Marlborough; but our squadrons seem as usual to have been prone to their besetting sin of unwillingness to rally after a successful charge. It was this wild galloping forward that wrecked Ligonier's heroic regiments at Lauffeld. On the other hand, Granby's squadrons, for all their leader's impetuosity, seem to have been well in hand at Warburg, and to have done their work with spirit and yet subject to control. But a trot of two hours before coming into action had probably rubbed the keen edge off both horses and men. Passing next to the Artillery we approach the most remarkable development observable during this period in the whole Army. Notwithstanding the early disgraces at Carthagena and the shortcomings of the Office of Ordnance, the gunners after 1741 are found to raise the reputation of their corps steadily in all parts of the world. Their place as yet was still on the left of the line, yielding precedence to the whole of the rest of the Army, but they were entitling themselves to a higher station. This sudden change is doubtless in great measure attributable to the foundation of the Academy at Woolwich, with an allowance at first of two hundred pounds, which after a few months was increased to a thousand pounds, a year.[455] In 1744 the forty gentlemen cadets were formed into a single company, and their pay was raised from one shilling to sixteenpence a day; their number also was increased to forty-eight, and from thenceforth the cadet-company stood as the senior company of the corps.[456] The growth of the Royal Regiment in numbers in itself is remarkable. In 1741 it possessed but three marching companies, but from that year onwards it was constantly increased by one, two, or four companies, until in 1757 it consisted of twenty-four companies in two battalions and in 1761 of thirty-one companies in three battalions, or close on thirty-two hundred of all ranks. Finally, in 1760, a warrant was issued for the formation of a distinct regiment of Royal Irish Artillery. At first the gunners are seen at work principally with the battalion guns, light three-pounders or six-pounders, which though attached to the infantry were served by artillerymen;[457] but they are always distinguished, whether at Fontenoy or before Trichinopoly, by the rapidity and accuracy of their fire. In Germany, however, we find the guns before Minden scientifically concentrated and handled in large masses by the skill of the Count of Lippe-BÜckeburg; and there the British batteries win the admiration of the most critical artillerists in Europe, and their officers the special praise of Ferdinand of Brunswick himself. The influence of the Academy had told early; but it is a still more significant fact that British Artillery officers, not obtaining their commissions by purchase, did not rise to command without knowledge of their work. The variety of guns issued for the field was very great, and though three-pounders seem to have given place in the Seven Years' War to light six-pounders as the lightest ordnance employed,[458] yet there were also heavy six-pounders, light and heavy twelve-pounders, howitzers and twenty-four pounders. It was probably the light six-pounders that amazed the whole army at Warburg by advancing at the gallop, a feat which was the more remarkable since drivers and horses were still hired, and not part and parcel of the corps as at present.[459] Finally, Mauvillon bears witness that the British guns were kept far the cleanest and in the most perfect order of any in the whole Allied army. Of the Engineers it is impossible to speak as favourably; indeed it is almost an extreme assumption to assert their existence except in name. A school of engineering was founded in 1741; and the small establishment of engineers as fixed in 1717 having been largely increased in 1756 was finally reorganised with a strength of sixty-one officers in 1759.[460] There seem to have been no men, except a strong company of miners, which, however, was borne on the strength of the Royal Artillery.[461] The results of the school were singularly small compared with those of the Academy at Woolwich. Wentworth possessed one efficient engineer at Carthagena, but Stair had not even one in the Low Countries, and was obliged to engage Dutch and Austrian officers;[462] while the engineers employed with Boscawen at Pondicherry, Abercromby at Ticonderoga, and Hodgson at Belleisle were all alike inefficient. The fact is less remarkable when it is remembered that the sea obviates the necessity for the fortification of inland towns in England. In truth the French engineers, in respect both of the skill of the officers and the organisation of the men, seem to have stood far above the rest of Europe,[463] while the British probably stood lowest of all. Lastly we come to the Infantry. Attention has already been called to the reforms initiated by Howe, Washington, Forbes, Bouquet, and Amherst, which, though still too much advanced to receive welcome at home, were to be realised by Sir John Moore forty years later. The great characteristic of the British infantry throughout the war is the excellence of their fire-discipline and the deadly accuracy of their fire. It is curious, therefore, to read in the most popular military handbook of the time[464] that it was precisely in the matter of fire-discipline that the British were reckoned defective, so defective that they were accounted inferior to the Dutch and were obliged to comfort themselves with the reflection that the Dutch were naturally more phlegmatic of temperament. The author is careful to point out that Dutch superiority lay in discipline only, so it is reasonable to infer that the British improved rapidly in this respect during the war. And such indeed is the conclusion to be drawn from the study of the various actions. At Dettingen the fire though deadly was unsteady; at Fontenoy it was nearly perfect; at Minden, where the British stood motionless until the French cavalry was within ten paces, it was quite admirable; at Quebec it was simply superlative. It is commonly supposed that this improvement was due to the adoption of Prussian methods, but I can find no ground for the assumption. The Prussian manual and firing exercise did indeed find its way to the First Guards in 1756;[465] and there still exists record of a petition from some aged pensioners against the cruelty of an ensign who drilled them every day through the winter in the Prussian exercise, though they had hardly clothes to cover their nakedness;[466] but this has no bearing on the action of Fontenoy in 1745. The truth is that in the matter of attack the British had nothing to learn from the Prussians, either in the cavalry or the infantry. Marlborough had taught them the superiority of shock-action and platoon-fire long before Frederick the Great was born; and all that the Prussian school had to teach, apart from this and from the discipline which went to its perfect execution, was the precision of march learned from pendulum and pace-stick, and certain undeniable improvements in the manoeuvre of a regiment or battalion. It has been suggested, indeed,[467] that a Prussian column at Fontenoy might have manoeuvred its way to victory by sheer perfection of drill and discipline; but this begs the question whether they would have preserved their order as admirably as the British during the advance. Certainly it is hardly conceivable that even Prussian regiments could have behaved more perfectly under very heavy fire and in the presence of an overwhelming force of cavalry than the six British battalions at Minden. But the most important changes in the infantry were akin to those in the cavalry. The first was the practice of massing the grenadiers of the army into battalions, which though forbidden by the King as an Austrian innovation when first proposed by Stair,[468] was ultimately adopted both in America and in Germany. The next was the introduction of light troops for the work of skirmishing and for such rapid movements and special duties as were committed in the cavalry to hussars. In the British Army the first representatives of this class of infantry were the Highlanders, who for this reason were armed with short muskets or carbines and were drawn up outside the line in the formal order of battle. Stair[469] had begged for Highlanders in their native dress as early as in 1742, and to his influence probably was due their presence at Fontenoy. During the Seven Years' War, as has been seen, they were employed in every quarter of the globe and did excellent service. Amherst, however, and Wolfe after him, were not content with Highlanders only, but formed those bodies of marksmen, often armed with rifles, which prepared the way for the Light Companies and the complete corps of Light Infantry and Riflemen that were to follow at a later day. Indeed, there was actually a regiment (which during its short life took precedence as ninetieth of the Line) that was called Morgan's Light Infantry. This was probably an imitation from some continental model; but the British had found a far better model for their own purposes in America. In truth, though there were lessons which the British might learn with profit from foreign nations, both as to what they should imitate and what they should avoid, the best of their instruction was that which they gained from their own hard experience in lands remote from Europe. The influence of King Frederick the Great was perverted in great measure for ill to the Army. The King and Cumberland had both of them a passion for minute details of dress, facings, lace, buttons, cockades, and the like, and were dear lovers of the tight clothing and inelasticity of movement which characterised the Prussian school. There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that strict insistence on cleanliness and smartness is indispensable, and that correctness and uniformity of dress are valuable aids to discipline and to esprit de corps. Such little distinctions as that the coats of Horse should be lapelled to the skirt and of Dragoons to the waist, while those of Light Dragoons should be without lapels of any kind, are harmless in themselves, and give men a pride and an interest in their branch of the service; but the powdering of hair, the docking of the old-fashioned serviceable coats, and the straitening of every article of raiment were no gain to efficiency, no improvement to health, and in the eyes of Englishmen, at first, no embellishment as to appearance.[470] Had the King turned his thoughts to diminishing the weight on a soldier's back,[471] or devising suitable equipment for tropical climates, he might have saved lives untold; but many years were still to elapse before such simple matters as these were to receive due notice. The beautiful accuracy of drill enjoined by Frederick was turned to good account by the British on many fields in Europe and in India; but his excellent discipline on active service both on and off duty was by no means so faithfully copied, as Ferdinand of Brunswick found out to his cost.[472] Yet at any rate the British had an example of the worst that they must eschew in the armies of the French. Therein "there was no discipline, no subordination, no order on the march, in the camp or even in the battlefield. The very subalterns had their mistresses with them, and officers often left their men to accompany them on the march in their carriages. Everything that could contribute to the luxury of the officers was found in the French camp.... At one time there were twelve thousand waggons accompanying Soubise's army which belonged to sutlers and shopkeepers, though the army was not fifty thousand strong.... Balls were given in camp and officers often left their posts to dance a minuet. They laughed at the orders of their leaders and only obeyed when it suited them."[473] From such folly and disgrace as this Cumberland's attachment to the stricter models of Germany delivered the Army; but its best lessons came not from Germany but from America, not from Frederick the Great but from Howe, Washington, Wolfe, Bouquet, and Amherst.
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