CHAPTER VII. DETTINGEN AND FONTENOY. The Pragmatic Sanction-Maria Theresa-George in the field-Cumberland -Dettingen-Treaty of Worms-The Pelhams-A lucky storm-Return of Anson-The Broad Bottom Ministry-Fontenoy. TH HE Emperor Charles the Sixth published an ordinance called the Pragmatic Sanction, in terms of which his daughters were appointed to succeed him in his Austrian dominions, if he left no son. This will was confirmed or guaranteed by all the principal European powers. When Maria Theresa, the eldest of his daughters, proceeded after his death, in 1740, to assume the Austrian crown, a vast coalition arose for the purpose of wresting these possessions from a seemingly weak and defenceless woman. Only to the Hungarians, whose swords were bared at once in her cause, and to the English, whose gold was ready for her service, could she look in that hour of peril. In 1742, the British Parliament voted her a sum of £5,000,000, and a yearly subsidy of £300,000. It was not pure chivalry that prompted Great Britain. France and she naturally took opposite sides. While Great Britain aided Maria, France backed Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, who had been elected emperor. The British government sent 16,000 men under Lord Stair into Flanders to support Maria's cause. These, however, unaided by the Dutch, could do nothing. In the spring of 1743, the king, his soldier-son Cumberland, and his Foreign Secretary Lord Carteret, set out for the Continent. June 27, 1743 The Duc de Noailles with a French army, and the Earl of Stair with a force of British and Germans, manœuvred in the basin of the Maine, until the latter was shut into a pass through which the Maine runs from Aschaffenburg to Dettin* gen. As the French had secured Aschaffenburg, there Their was no escape for the allies in that direction. only possible chance was to return to Hanau, lower down the river, where their chief magazines were. At this juncture the king and his son entered the camp. The allies marched down the right bank of the river. The French marched down the left bank, and reached the entrance to the pass first. To make sure of his prey, De Noailles sent his nephew, the Duc de Grammont, across the Maine with 23,000 men, to hold the entrance of the valley, and thus to cut off the retreat of Stair. De Grammont made the mistake of quitting his strong position and attacking the allied army. King George's horse ran away with him toward the enemy; but he was able to pull up in time. Dismounting and drawing his sword, he put himself at the head of his soldiers. With a rapid rush of infantry he drove back Grammont's horse at the point of the bayonet, winning the battle, as Britons have often. since done, with the cold steel. The bridges over the Maine were choked with the flying Frenchmen. The losses were 6,000 on the French side-2,000 on the British. The victors were too hungry to pursue. Pressing on to Hanau, they found consolation for their toils in an abundant meal, regardless entirely of the wounded whom they had left on the battleground. In the autumn, the treaty of Worms, which Carteret induced George to conclude with Austria and Sardinia, strengthened considerably the interest of Maria Theresa (September 13, 1743). The treaty secured the alliance of Great Britain, Hol Dettingen, a small village in Bavaria on the Maine, sixteen miles south-east of Frankfort. land, Austria, and Saxony in support of the Pragmatic Sanction. In the following spring a counter treaty-the league of Frankfort was formed by France and Prussia. The death of Wilmington, in July 1743, caused a vacancy in the cabinet, and led to the advancement of two brothers, who soon took the reins and held them long. These were the Pelhams-Henry Pelham, who was made First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, who became Secretary of State. From this time forward the First Lord of the Treasury is usually the Prime Minister. Meanwhile the great event of the next summer was casting its threatening shadows forward. Seven noble Scottish Jacobites having communicated with the Pretender at Rome, and having stirred up the French to attempt the invasion of Britain, young Charles Edward left Rome in January 1744 and travelled secretly to Paris. A plan had already been arranged : three thousand men were to be landed in Scotland, while ten thousand, led by the famous Marshal Saxe, and accompanied by the prince, would land near London. Lurking at Gravelines, the young Pretender waited for the sailing of the fleet; but a great storm shattered it utterly, and nothing could be done that season. 1744 The departure of Anson for the South Seas was mentioned in the last chapter. Storms shattered his little squadron as he struggled round Cape Horn, and it was ultimately reduced to one ship, the Centurion, scarcely half manned. Yet he worked steadily out the bold resolve which he had formed when news of the Vernon failure reached him. This was to follow the course of Drake over the Pacific, in the hope of intercepting the great silver-ship which annually sailed from Manilla to Mexico. Fortune favoured the daring enterprise. Battering away at the galleon from the decks of the Centurion, which could scarcely bear the recoil of her own guns, he succeeded in capturing the rich prize. His homeward voyage round the The influence of the Pelhams had now become so great that they bluntly told the king that either Carteret (now Earl Granville by his mother's death) or they must go. The weaker party went, for Orford (old Walpole) urged the king to force Carteret's resignation. Then was formed the Broad Bottom Ministry, which had the singular good fortune of being for many years almost free from even the shadow of opposition. 1744 The war went on, the Low Countries now taking their turn as the theatre of operations. Marshal Saxe, a brave old soldier, so worn with sickness that he could not sit his horse, commanded a fine army of 76,000 men in Flanders. To him was opposed a motley allied force, containing 28,000 British, and amounting in all to not quite twice that number. When by a sudden movement the French invested Tournay, the allied army under Cumberland advanced to the rescue. Posted on some gentle heights between Fontenoy and the Scheldt, the army of Saxe stood resolutely blocking up the way to Tournay. A wood guarded his left flank; the Scheldt swept his right. An attempt to penetrate the wood failed, owing to the stupidity of a British officer who mistook some sharpshooters for a vast body of defenders. The Dutch prudently moved out of range. The whole brunt of the conflict fell on the British and the Hanoverian troops. Painfully dragging their cannon up rocky steeps, where cavalry could not act, and pierced by a deadly cross fire from batteries on right and left, they advanced through the wooded gorge May 11, 1745 Fontenoy,. a Belgian village in the province of Hainault, five miles south-east of Tournay. with the slow certainty of a gigantic lava stream. If the Dutch had fired a shot at that moment, victory would have been certain; but the last desperate rush of the French broke the advancing column. Four guns blazed death into their very teeth. The household troops of France, and the Irish Brigade, composed of exiled soldiers, dashed on the exhausted and blinded ranks in a fresh and continuous torrent that nothing could withstand. There was no flight, but a steady and masterly retreat began. Cumberland, riding in the rear, brought off the army in comparative safety. Tournay, Ghent, Bruges, Oudenarde, Dendermonde, one after another, fell into the hands of the French, while the allies could merely stand on guard, covering Brussels and Antwerp. |