The Battle of Fontenoy 1745 by James Falkner

Author:James Falkner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY/Modern/18th Cuntury
Publisher: Pen and Sword/Pen and Sword Military
Published: 2019-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

A Breaking-in Battle

The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone.1

The Duke of Cumberland was in the saddle by 4.00am on 11 May 1745. It was a misty morning and, had he known it, both Louis XV and Marshal Saxe were up at the same time, just a few hundred yards away across the fields to his front. The duke rode down the line of his mustering troops to where the Foot Guards formed on the right of the allied army’s deployment. Here, the pressing need to clear the redoubt d’Eu on the edge of the Bois de Barri, before any general advance was made, was once more pointed out to him. ‘An irreproachable tactical conception,’ as one French observer drily noted, ‘but applied without haste.’2 Brigadier General Richard Ingoldsby, of the 1st English Foot Guards, had been detailed the previous evening to carry out the task with his brigade, with troops drawn from the 12th (Duroure’s), 13th (Pulteney’s), 25th (Rothes/Sempill’s) Foot, Murray’s Highlanders (the Black Watch, detached from the army reserve), and von Borschlanger’s Hanoverians.

One of Cumberland’s staff officers wrote afterwards that ‘The idea of attacking the fort [redoubt d’Eu] near the wood was entirely H.R.H.’s, and he had chosen for the service Brigadier General Ingoldsby as a man in whom he had confidence.’3 If that really were so, then the actual execution of such a key task remains puzzling and apparently inept. With this force of some 2,000 men, Ingoldsby was initially given very specific orders by the duke to march straight up to the French redoubts and seize the guns. A detachment of British gunners would accompany the attack, to turn the French pieces on their owners or otherwise to spike them if this was not possible in good time. It was a seemingly straightforward task of high importance that begged of no discussion, with a force that, at first sight, was quite adequate. The mission could have been taken on sooner, of course, but as previously mentioned this might have brought on a premature general action that the allies were not ready for. Saxe might after all have been better placed for such an eventuality, and have delivered a sharp rebuff to upset all of Cumberland’s plans.

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