Battle of Dettingen

“ The action itself deserves the name of a combat rather than a battle, for on neither side was more than half of the force really engaged; yet Dettingen was decidedly a victory, for the French [101] were badly beaten and lost little, if any, less than five thousand men, killed, wounded, and prisoners. ”

“ Tactics and the “order of battle” were slow in changing, but the growing preponderance of infantry, now organised in three ranks only, was becoming more evident after Dettingen and Fontenoy. Battles were fought on more modern lines, and infantry bore the brunt; while the cavalry at Dettingen had at last discovered its proper rôle, and behaved with the greatest gallantry, in not leading the main attack as at Blenheim, but in meeting its own opposing arm and keeping it in check, and finally in converting the French retreat across the river into very nearly a rout. ”

“ At Dettingen the brunt of the fighting fell on the British, whose losses far exceeded the combined casualties of the allies, the principal sufferers being the 3rd Dragoons, all their officers but two, and more than half their men, being killed or wounded. ”

“ Noailles's cannon swept the flank and rear of the Allies, and the only exit from the valley, the defile of Dettingen, was held by young De Grammont with 25,000 men. Had he waited for the Allies to advance through the narrow pass, victory would have been assured; but, impatiently charging upon them, he was thrown back with slaughter and confusion. The French loss amounted to 6000 men ”

“ Aschaffenberg was occupied by the French the moment it was evacuated by the Allies. The Confederate army had to march through a narrow way between a mountain and the Maine, the cannon on the opposite side of the river commanding its flank. Dettingen, in front, was occupied in force by the French, and also Aschaffenberg in the rear. In this situation the destruction of the Allies seemed inevitable; but Marshal Noailles having repassed the river, the Duke de Grammont, who succeeded to the command, advanced to the attack through the defile, thus relinquishing all the advantages of his position. ”

“ Guards, suddenly ran in front of the line, took off his hat to the enemy and drank to them from a pocket flask, shouting a taunt, “We hope you will stand till we come up to you, and not swim the river as you did at Dettingen,” then, turning to his own men, he called for three cheers. ”

“ No aide-de-camp, gallop though he might, could stop them now; and their majestic bearing showed that [492] 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 ”

“ By this time King George and his people in England were thoroughly sick of the war. The British had suffered severely in every action, but had reaped no success except in the fortunate victory of Dettingen. The Dutch had proved themselves useless and contemptible as Allies, their Government feeble and corrupt in council, their troops unstable if not dangerous in action. The Austrians, in spite of lavish subsidies, had never furnished the troops that they had promised, and had invariably obstructed operations through the obstinacy of their Generals and the selfishness of their ends. ”

“ The proud negro constituted himself his captain’s body-guard for the rest of that day. “I believe we must leave the killing out when all is done;” and this, according to Dent, was the “death roll” of Montgomery’s or Gallows Hill battle.
The full force was too much for the insurgents. The whole affair was of not more than a half hour’s duration, and after some perfunctory firing, a number of the “embattled farmers” standing about inactively and wishing themselves anywhere but at Thermopylæ, the outcome was confusion to the one side and a well followed-up victory on the other. ”

“ But the mischief of undertaking a difficult campaign with inadequate forces now manifested itself. No large body of reinforcements was available to carry Lord Methuen's division forward with a rush. There was no cavalry brigade, no horse artillery battery to turn the enemy's entrenchments. Moreover the batteries with the column had not sufficient ammunition for another action, and a halt was imperatively needed to replenish limbers and waggons from the none-too-extensive supplies at the base. In the days of delay which followed the battle, all the results of the victory were lost. ”

“ De Grammont's position was a very strong one behind a swamp and a deep ravine hollowed out by a stream from the hill. There seemed no possibility of escape for the English army, who were as yet absolutely in ignorance of the position of the French. As the head of the column approached Dettingen, Grammont's artillery opened upon them in front, while that of De Noailles smote them in flank. As soon as the king found that his retreat was cut off he galloped from the rear of the column to its head. ”

“ The French loss was much greater, amounting to about 600 killed and more than 1,000 wounded and taken prisoners. The death-roll seems wonderfully small when compared with the carnage in many fields famous in history; but, judged by its results and all the attendant circumstances, the battle may very properly be numbered among the decisive conflicts of the world.
When intelligence of the death of Wolfe and the fall of Quebec reached England, the enthusiasm of the people rose to a height which may almost be described as delirious. ”

“ France has an army largely supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time, which could smash any German military organization hostile to France. The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh. It is absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be organized and put on a war footing secretly. ”

“ They could not hope to resist the enemy by manœuvring, and all that was left to them was to escape the enemy’s blows by forced marches. The 7th Army was in particularly dire straits, as it was retreating under the double pressure of the Army Corps of General Botmer, who was conducting a frontal attack, and of the troops of Bohm-Ermolli, striking from the north against the denuded right flank. The 8th Army had to march over one hundred miles under pressure from the enemy. ”

“ We have, therefore, three great efforts to break the Allied front by their wedge tactics, and three to outflank the Allied outflanking development. None of these efforts succeeded.
What was the consequence? The consequence was that the German armies in France and Belgium could neither advance nor retreat. They could not advance because they are not strong enough. They could not retreat, because retreat would mean their destruction.
The retreat of any army—and most of all the retreat of a huge mass army—is not a simple matter. ”

“ The day's haze had vanished with the smoke of battle; it was a still and clear night, brilliantly lighted by the moon. The Tchernaya lay like a tube of quicksilver along the peaceful plain whereon Denis had gazed before the end; he could see a light in the white farmhouse. The heights of Inkerman twinkled all over with scattered weapons, and all over were mounds more like graves than bodies waiting for the grave. The Sandbag Battery rose sharply against the moonlit sky. ”

“ At the same time, it is undoubtedly a fact that the troops of the Northern Front, and especially the 12th Army, were the most disorganised of all, and, logically, could not offer the necessary resistance. Even the apologist of the 12th Army, Commissar Voitinsky, who always considerably exaggerated the fighting value of these troops, telegraphed on the 22nd to the Petrograd Soviet: “The troops show want of confidence in their powers, absence of training for battle, and, consequently, [Pg 315] insufficient steadiness in open warfare.... Many units fight bravely, as in the early days ”

“ A German army which could fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not be improvised or built up in secret. Even if a third power wished to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from obtaining an immediate and decisive victory. ”

“ At Dettingen, George II., with an army of 40,000 English and Hanoverians, defeated the French under the Duc de Noailles and the Duc de Grammont. In consequence of this defeat, the French were compelled to evacuate Germany. This medal was executed by Daniel Haesling, a native of East Gothland and pupil of Hedlinger. He worked chiefly for the kings of Poland and Denmark. ”

“ When the enemy's fire is so hot that it is impossible to stick your head out or to take the dead out to bury them, the grave is made in a niche or a ledge cut into the side of the trench."
GERMAN ADVANCE HALTED
The western operations in December made it clear that the German advance to the Channel ports of France had been definitely halted. In the terrible battle of Ypres in Flanders, following the prolonged engagements along the Yser river, the Allies succeeded in repulsing the desperate German onslaught, and the German offensive was brought to a full stop. ”

“ The nearness of the enemy left no room for firearms, the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched to man, the useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and science gave way to desperation. Overpowered by numbers, the wearied Swedes at last retire beyond the trenches, and the captured battery is again lost by the retreat. A thousand mangled bodies already strewed the plain, and as yet not a single step of ground had been won. ”

“ Then suddenly out of the thick fumes began to appear German infantry with fixed bayonets, sent forward to the attack. They were literally mown down by the fire from the French machine guns and rifles, but the wave of attackers seemed unending, and by dint of overwhelming numbers it poured into the French trenches. A terrible hand-to-hand fight then ensued in an atmosphere so thick that it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. ”

“ Just then Denis saw a handful of his comrades, not actually in the path of the Russian avalanche, forming for a flank attack upon the intruders; in an instant he was one of them, and in another they had leaped upon the enemy with ball, butt, and bayonet. The Russians were pinned against the wall of the work. Those whom they had been driving rallied and drove them. Murderously assaulted in front and flank, the invading battalion turned and fled as they had come, leaving the ground thick with their dead. ”

“ And as the gusts speed on, when shrill winds blow, on a day when dust lies thickest on the roads, and the winds raise together a great cloud of dust, even so their battle clashed together, and all were fain of heart to slay each other in the press with the keen bronze. And the battle, the bane of men, bristled with the long spears, the piercing spears they grasped, and the glitter of bronze from gleaming helmets dazzled the eyes, and the sheen of new-burnished corslets, and shining shields, as the men thronged all together. ”

“ The general idea was to break through the enemy positions on sectors specially prepared on all European fronts, to advance on a broad front in great strength on the South-Western Front, in the direction from Kamenetz-Podolsk to Lvov, and further to the line of the Vistula, while the striking force of our Western Front was to advance from Molodetchno to Vilna and the Niemen, throwing back northwards the German Armies of General Eichorn. The Northern and the Roumanian Fronts were to co-operate by dealing local blows and attracting the forces of the enemy. ”

“ The German offensive on the front of the 11th Army, which began on July 6th, is growing into an immeasurable calamity which threatens perhaps the very existence of Revolutionary Russia. The spirit of the troops, that were prompted to advance by the heroic efforts of the minority, has undergone a decisive and fatal change. The impetus of the advance was soon spent. Most of the units are in a condition of increasing disruption. There is not a shadow of discipline or obedience; persuasion is likewise powerless and is answered by threats and sometimes by shootings. ”

“ Neither could the Belgian infantry venture on a counterattack, for the Germans were clearly observed in overwhelming strength. At the outset the Germans devoted their efforts to clearing the trenches of the Belgian infantry, leaving the forts for subsequent demolition. The unfortunate Belgian infantry, therefore, could do nothing but fire intermittent rifle volleys, without any effect upon the Germans. They bravely bore this storm of shells for ten hours. Not a man who lifted his head above the German machine gun-swept parapets but was not instantly killed or wounded. ”

“ We shall not be traitors. The enemy shall soon hear the roaring of our guns. I appeal to the troops of the Western Front to make every effort and to prepare as soon as possible for an advance, otherwise we shall be cursed by the Russian people who have entrusted to us the defence of their liberty, honour, and property.”
I do not know whether those who read this order, published in the papers in complete contravention of all the conditions of secrecy of operation, understood all the inner tragedy of the Russian Army. All strategy was turned topsy-turvy. ”