Battle of Fontenoy

“ They renewed the combat, and their enemy became so alarmed in their turn that even the French King, and his son the Dauphin, were in danger of being swept away in the rout. Again there came a turn in the battle, and, mostly because of the daring and dash of the famous Irish Brigade, the Allies were beaten and forced to retreat. It is stated that the whole body of heroic British Grenadiers who were engaged at Fontenoy gave a strong proof of the effect of the panic upon their minds—and bodies; thus establishing the fact that they had stomachs for something besides the fight. ”

“ He was present at Dettingen, and was promoted major-general in July 1743. At the battle of Fontenoy on 11 May 1745, as one of the major-generals of the first line, he was at the head of the first battalion of the 1st footguards, and therefore in the forefront of the famous charge made by the British and Hanoverian infantry. He was in the act of handing over his ring and watch to his son, Chambré-Brabazon, a lieutenant in his own regiment, when he was killed by a cannon-shot. ”

“ In ’45, when the French invested Tournay under Marshal Saxe, the son of Aurora Königsmark, the Duke of Cumberland was placed in command of the English and Dutch forces,3 numerically very inferior to the foe, and charged with leading them to force the enemy to raise the siege. The attempt was made in the great battle of Fontenoy, where we gained a victory, and yet were vanquished. We beat the enemy, but, through want of caution, exposed ourselves to a cross fire of batteries, against which valour was impotent. It cost us ten thousand men and unmerited loss of reputation. ”

“ As examples of the importance of field fortifications and of the manner of organizing them, the reader is referred to the celebrated battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, where the carefully-arranged intrenchments of Marshal Saxe enabled the French to repel, with immense destruction, the attacks of greatly superior numbers; to the battle of Fleurus, in 1690, where the Prince of Waldeck exposed himself to a most disastrous defeat "by neglecting the resources of fortification and other indispensable precautions;" ”

“ They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that
battle-wind—
Their bayonets the breakers' foam; like rocks,
the men behind!
One volley crashes from their line, when, through
the surging smoke,
With empty guns clutched in their hands, the
headlong Irish broke.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce
huzza!
"Revenge! remember Limerick! dash down
the Sassenach."
Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with
hunger's pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles
sprang:
Bright was their steel,'tis bloody now, their
guns are filled with gore ”

“ From Ath Cumberland fell back to Lessines and drew out such British corps as were in garrison in Flanders, to replace those which had suffered most heavily in the action. Meanwhile Tournay, very shortly after the battle, fell by treachery into the hands of the French; and Saxe’s field-army being thus raised to a force nearly double that of the Allies, Cumberland was reduced to utter helplessness. The mischief of Fontenoy lay not in the repulse and the loss of men, for the British did not consider themselves to have been beaten, but in the destruction of all confidence in the Dutch troops. ”

“ Death of Peter McDonnell, a member of the American-Irish Historical Society, dies. His death took place aboard the White Star steamer Oceanic, while he was returning from a visit to Ireland. August. David McClure of New York City, a member of the American-Irish Historical Society, participated in the dedication this month of a monument at Fontenoy. The monument commemorates the valor of the Irish brigade in the battle of Fontenoy, 1745. Aug. 18. There is an article in the Boston Sunday Globe today on the library of Dr. M. F. Sullivan, Lawrence, Mass. ”

“ In the assault, Meagher's Irish troops especially distinguished themselves, leaving two-thirds of their number on the field of their heroic action. The London Times's correspondent, who watched the battle from the heights, speaking of their desperate valor, says: "Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo, was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of their foe. That any mortal man could have carried the position, defended as it was, it seems idle for a moment to believe. ”

“ It was at Fontenoy that the Black Watch first met a foreign foe, and their dealings with that foe were an emphatic earnest of their future honours. The fortune of war was not on their side; they were forced to retreat, covering it in such perfect order that Lord Crawford waved his hat to them, with the well-remembered approval that they had achieved as great honour as if they had gained an actual victory.
The Black Watch have acquired great reputation in America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meantime the young duke and the old Austrian field-marshal had agreed to take all risks and to storm through between Fontenoy and the wood redoubt, and had launched the great attack, one of the most celebrated in the history of war. The English infantry was in two lines. The Hanoverians on their left, owing to want of space, were compelled to file into third line behind the redcoats, and on their outer flanks were the battalions that had been with Ingoldsby. A few guns, man-drawn, accompanied the assaulting mass, and the cavalry followed. The column may have numbered 14,000 infantry. ”

“ The French army was discovered in order of battle on a gentle ascent protected by batteries, and rising gradually from the plain near Fontenoy. At daybreak on the morning of the 11th of May the allies moved forward, but, having many defiles to pass, the attack did not commence until near ten o'clock. The British infantry advanced against the enemy, and throughout the day they displayed the greatest valour and intrepidity; but the Dutch did not evince equal resolution, and their failure occasioned the most unfortunate results. ”

“ On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!
And mustering came his chosen troops like clouds at eventide.
Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread;
Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head.
Steady they step adown the slopes, steady they mount the hill,
Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still,
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace-blast,
Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast ”

“ Cumberland himself and all the senior generals remained with the rearguard.
The losses at Fontenoy were, as might be expected, somewhat less than normally heavy when distributed over the whole of both armies, but exceedingly severe in the units really engaged. Eight out of nineteen regiments of British infantry lost over 200 men, two of these more than 300. A tribute to the loyalty and discipline of the British, as compared with the generality of armies in those days, may be found in the fact that the three Guards’ regiments had no “missing” men whatever. ”

“ Even at Fontenoy, the greatest victory over England of which France can boast since Hastings, every regiment in the French army was, on their own admission, routed by the terrible English column, and victory was snatched from its grasp solely by want of support on the part of the Dutch and Austrians. No coalition against France has ever been successful, in which England did not take a prominent part ”

“ To death they rush, but rude their shock—not
unavenged they died.
On through the camp the column trod—King
Louis turns his rein *,
"Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the
Irish troops remain;"
And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a
Waterloo,
Were not these exiles ready then, fresh,
vehement, and true.
"Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish,
there are your Saxon foes;"
The marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously
he goes!
How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're
wont to be so gay! ”

“ By their assistance, we expect soon to give a good account of the enemy and of ourselves. There is much harmony and friendship between us.” [288] The following extract of a letter from Lieutenant William Grant, an officer of the regiment, seems to contain no exaggerated detail:—“The attack began a little past one in the afternoon, and about two the fire became general on both sides, which was exceedingly heavy, and without any intermission, insomuch that the oldest soldier present never saw so furious and incessant a fire. The affair at Fontenoy was nothing to it: I saw both. ”

“ He could point too to the initial success of his attack at Fontenoy, which was simply an elaborate parade-movement; but he forgot that the battlefields of a Prussian army and the adversaries of a Prussian general were to be found on the familiar lands of Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony, whereas the fighting-grounds of the British were dispersed far and wide among distant and untrodden countries, and their enemies such as were not to be encountered according to the precepts of Montecuculi and Turenne. ”

“ We cover our trenches with sheaves of straw gathered from the neighbouring field and await events, crouching deep in our holes.
Roberty keeps us posted in what is taking place. Being a lieutenant, he is privileged to apply for the latest information from the colonel. At two o'clock the enemy takes Fontenoy, and his vanguard has descended right to the bridge of boats. He is stopped short by a company of engineers. The Germans are decimated by a well-directed fire; those who are not killed return in disorder. Our regiment is charged with the task of recapturing Fontenoy. ”

“ The belief that Americans could not fight was that day dispelled forever. British officers who remembered Fontenoy and Minden declared that the firing at Bunker Hill was the hottest they had ever known, and, with an exaggeration which was pardonable as a reaction from their former ill-judged contempt, it was asserted that the regulars of France were less formidable foes than the militia of New England. It was keenly felt that if a conquest of a single strategic position had encountered such stubborn resistance, the task of subjugating the United Colonies was likely to prove a hard one. ”

“ Of the British troops 4000 were killed and wounded, besides 2000 Hanoverians. Fontenoy was a defeat, but hardly one which can be said to have tarnished in the slightest the British Arms.
The Duke of Cumberland withdrew his forces in good order. On the march, an order which is extant shows a novel means of confining prisoners: "The sergeant of miners is to make a black hole under ground, and the carpenter to make a door to it with a padlock; always to be clean straw for the prisoners ”

“ With a few exceptions the superior leaders proved themselves incompetent, and in three great battles, at least, the troops suffered ignominious defeat (Dettingen 1743, Rossbach 1757, Minden 1759) . On the other hand, Marshal Saxe and others of the younger generals were excellent commanders, and Fontenoy was a victory of the first magnitude. ”

“ It was as a favourite exponent of Cumberland's military creed that Braddock was sent to North America. He was born and trained for such actions as Fontenoy; and it was his fate to be confronted with a difficult problem in savage warfare. His task was that which since his day [280] has been repeatedly set to British officers, namely to improvise a new system of fighting wherewith to meet the peculiar tactics of a strange enemy in a strange country. Too narrow, too rigid, and too proud to apprehend the position, he applied the time-honoured methods of Flanders, and he failed. ”

“ Shame on you that twelve battalions of infantry backed by artillery can defy the flower of our French army. The English line shivers into a bristling wall. Keep quiet there and reserve your fire—muttered whispers and curses, and then the flame leaps out. That is the way, sirs; stand up to them and for heaven’s name let the drums keep beating, the drums that beat at Dettingen and are beating now at Fontenoy. Rank after rank totters, breaks, parts, scatters. A cheer rolls up, the cheers of the victors, for dying men and riderless horses are all that remain of our second line of cavalry. ”

“ Guns, horses, men, are feverishly brought up from Fontenoy, and while the Irish brigade, six battalions strong, men once British subjects but now fighting for France, Jacobites, Papists, loyal and disloyal alike, fugitives, and renegades, gentlemen, thieves, adventurers, and footpads—men fighting not for honour or victory but for their necks—are hurled at the red lines, the broken infantry are rallied, the cavalry re-formed. The gayest libertine in France, the Duc de Richelieu, gathers the scattered companies. The King and the Dauphin are rallying the Maison du Roi. ”

“ Saxe owned that he never dreamed that any General would attempt such a stroke, or that any troops would execute it. Cumberland is blamed also for not attacking either the Redoubt d’Eu or Fontenoy after he had penetrated into the French camp. This charge is less easy to rebut, for the French always know when they are beaten, and seeing their left rolled up and troops advancing on Fontenoy in flank and rear would probably have given up the game for lost, and that the more readily since their ammunition in Fontenoy was for the moment nearly exhausted. ”