Next set of quotes is from the book War in the Age of Enlightenment, 1700–1789 by Armstrong Starkey. It describes just one battle, but this description helps us to feel what the real battles were. I find this part of the mentioned book very useful and inspiring. Hope you'll like the reading!
Field of Honor: Fontenoy, 1745
If this day was a great day for the nation, it was a thousand times greater for the eternal and personal glory of His Majesty.1 Oui, un beau jour, mais le dernier de l’ancienne France! –The Duke de Broglie, La Journee de Fontenoy (1897)
THE SPORT OF KINGS
Montesquieu’s observation that war was the spirit of monarchies was supported by the close involvement of eighteenth-century monarchs in the practice of warfare. Some kings were accomplished generals in their own right. Charles XII and Frederick the Great were true soldier-kings and possessed military genius. Britain’s first two Hanoverian monarchs were deeply interested in military affairs and sought to raise standards of military professionalism. As elector of Hanover, George I saw action during the War of the Spanish Succession, and George II commanded at the battle of Dettingen, June 23, 1743. This was the last occasion that a British monarch led troops in battle. Victor Amadeus II of Piedmont-Savoy exercised personal command over his army in battle, as did his successor Charles Emmanuel. Sovereigns such as Charles XII, Frederick the Great, and Peter the Great began their careers under the watchful eye of experienced commanders but emerged as great military leaders in their own right. Others, such as Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Joseph II of Austria, were involved in the planning of campaigns and were present at battles and sieges. For the most part, they deferred to their generals on operational matters.
There were good reasons for royal involvement at this level. Armed forces were the most important institutions of eighteenth-century states. Machiavelli’s advice to princes continued to hold true. Kings who ignored their armies might lose their thrones to those who actually commanded them. Louis XIV’s greatest commanders, Turenne and Conde, had participated in rebellions against royal authority. Thus Versailles came to hold its marshals on a short leash. A king might not possess the ability of Charles or Frederick, but his presence on the field of battle or at the siege lines was important all the same. The king was the fount of honor, and officers and men serving under his eye were inspired to feats of courage that might win them recognition and advancement. On the battlefield a king rekindled the chivalric bond with his nobility. This required that he assume some level of risk. His close circle of advisers might be horrified that he might be wounded, killed, or taken prisoner. This was a real prospect. Charles XII was killed in action and Frederick was slightly wounded at Torgau, Germany, in 1760. George II won praise for his coolness under fire at Dettingen in 1743. Things might have been worse. The “Pragmatic army” (so named because it had come into existence to uphold the Pragmatic Sanction insuring the integrity of the Habsburg inheritance) that George II led found itself in a trap skillfully planned by the French marshal Noailles. Penned between the river Main and a range of hills, the Pragmatic army found its path swept by French artillery and blocked at both ends by French troops. Only an error by the commander of the blocking force saved the day for the Pragmatic army. Ordered to remain behind a bog, the French commander led his men across and into the ferocious fire of the British infantry.2 George was able to celebrate his victory, but he might have easily ended the day a prisoner.
Not all monarchs could participate in battle. Britain’s Queen Anne, Austria’s Maria Theresa, and Russia’s Catherine the Great relied on the services of their male subjects. Maria Theresa, however, was a great war leader, even if she sometimes chose her generals unwisely. Even her enemy Frederick II admired her indomitable spirit, and she appealed to the chivalric sentiments of her subjects, particularly the Hungarians, in her time of need. All understood that, if they could not participate themselves, they remained the source of the honors and rewards that motivated eighteenth-century soldiers.3 We should remember that eighteenth-century states had yet to develop a modern form. Monarchs depended on the nobility to sacrifice blood and treasure in their defense. However “absolute” these states might be, such sacrifice could not always be compelled. The nobility would not act against their interests or their honor. Monarchs had to recognize the tangible interests of the governing elites and also share the values associated with the less-tangible standards of honor.
FONTENOY
Such things were on the mind of the king of France, Louis XV, on the eve of the battle of Fontenoy, Belgium, which was fought on May 11, 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession. The king had arrived in response to an invitation from the commander of his army in Flanders, Maurice de Saxe (Maurice of Saxony). Saxe had performed a brilliant maneuver. Massing his army near the town of Maubeuge, in northern France, he had left his opponents, an allied army commanded by William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, uncertain of his true objective—Mons or Tournai. The allies did not learn the truth until Tournai was invested and Saxe’s covering army was strongly posted to prevent its relief. Tournai was the key fortress defending the Scheldt estuary. It was considered the strongest fortress in the Dutch barrier, a chain of fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands that the Dutch had won the right to garrison by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. Constructed under the direction of the great French military engineer Sebastien de Vauban, partially protected by the waters of the Scheldt, and garrisoned by 8,000 Dutch troops, Tournai presented a formidable obstacle to an invader. The weakness of fortresses, however, lay in the spirit of the defenders. Residents of towns in the Austrian Netherlands had little love for the Dutch, and morale among the mercenaries of the Dutch garrisons was low. Officers were susceptible to bribery, and the senior Dutch engineer at Tournai had actually sabotaged the preparation of the defenses.4 Several barrier fortresses had already surrendered with no more than token resistance. The Dutch had been tight fisted in their maintenance of their hard-won barrier, and now it was proving distinctly permeable. In 1745, at least, the defense of the barrier relied more on armies in the field than on the passive defenses of the fortress system. Saxe was confident that he could take Tournai. If the allies hoped to prevent its fall, they would have to fight him in the field. He was determined that it be a field of his choosing.
Voltaire, the first of many historians of this battle, tells us that the arrival of the king accompanied by the dauphin was greeted with acclamations of joy in the French camp. Morale soared. Saxe wrote of this day, “His presence is worth an additional 50,000 men to us as much by the impression it makes upon our own troops as on the enemy who do not think that we have assembled in force.”5 Louis was in a festive mood. “The King was never more gay than on the eve of combat,” Voltaire wrote. On the evening before the battle, conversation turned to the battles that kings had attended in person. Louis said that since the battle of Poitiers (1356) no French king had fought in the company of his son. Indeed, no French king since Saint Louis had gained a significant victory over the English. Now he hoped to be the first.6 It is a leader’s duty to inspire confidence, and Louis played his part well. Nevertheless, the conversation must have inspired some sober reflection. All were aware that Poitiers had not only been a military disaster but that the French king John had been taken prisoner by the Black Prince, son of King Edward III. Now a French king would lead his army into battle against the younger son of George II, the 24-year-old William Augustus, duke of Cumberland. Concern for the king’s safety weighed heavily upon his staff. They had no illusions about the troops they would face. In the place of the Black Prince’s knights and archers, the British would deploy the famous infantry trained in the tradition of Marlborough. At Dettingen they had demonstrated a clear superiority over their French opponents. Noailles, who was now with the king as a senior aide-de-camp, had reported that the British infantry at Dettingen “were in close order and held together as a wall of bronze from which there burst a fire so lively and sustained that the most experienced officers had never seen its like, and so superior to ours that there could be no comparison.” 7 The French troops, he concluded, lacked the discipline and the military spirit of old. Medieval and modern history lent the king’s discussions added drama, but in a tragic vein. The scene of the king and his followers reminds one of the dauphin and the French nobles on the night before Agincourt in Shakespeare’s Henry V.
BACKGROUND TO FONTENOY
Louis XV is remembered as neither a general nor a statesman. Compared to his gifted and dynamic peers among the “enlightened absolutists,” he appears to posterity as a mediocre meddler and voluptuary. Even when he aroused himself to be a king, it was usually at someone else’s bidding. When Cardinal Fleury died in 1743, the king, in the tradition of Louis XIV following the death of Mazarin, proclaimed himself his own prime minister. The result was government by committee with unclear war aims and plans. Still, French policy had undergone a shift in direction. Marshal Charles de Belle-Isle’s ambitious coalition to dismember the Habsburg possessions had collapsed, and that soldier-statesman had achieved only a skillful and heroic retreat from Prague in December 1742. British subsidies and diplomacy under the guidance of Lord John Carteret offered the prospect of a great coalition against the Bourbon powers, France and Spain, but that great scheme also collapsed because of the conflicting interests and suspicions of its members. By November 1744, Carteret had also been removed from the scene. Nevertheless, Britain’s financial and naval power focused French attention on her as the true national enemy. In September 1743, France declared war on Britain, thus ending the fiction of Britain’s participation in the conflict as an auxiliary. Two forms of attack were contemplated. First was an invasion of England itself with a force commanded by Maurice de Saxe, an endeavor that was shelved when storms wrecked both the French and the British fleets. The second approach was to invade the Austrian Netherlands. In 1744 the king accompanied Saxe on a campaign that secured the surrender of demoralized Dutch garrisons in the barrier fortresses of Furnes, Menin, and Ypres, while the Pragmatic army stood by ineffectively. Only an Austrian invasion of Alsace and a serious illness suffered by the king delayed the French advance.
Louis recovered, but his inclination for hands-on statesmanship did not. In November 1744 he appointed the marquis d’Argenson minister of foreign affairs and returned to his life of ease and pleasure. Argenson has puzzled most historians. Many see him as even less qualified for the post than the king himself. Reed Browning describes him as a visionary utopian, a Wilsonian idealist lost in a maze of eighteenth-century realism.8 Perhaps it is better to see him as Abbe de Saint-Pierre’s statesman in action, one who sought to use France’s military power to secure a lasting peace. He took the position that France was a disinterested power and an honest broker. However, he proved unable to define military priorities and to supply the energy and direction required of a war leader. France was fortunate only in the commander of its army in Flanders. Saxe’s advance to Fontenoy brought a prompt response from the allied army. The ineffective commander of the previous year, Field Marshal Wade, a notable road builder, had been replaced by the more-energetic Cumberland.9 Cumberland had accompanied his father at Dettingen and had been wounded in action but possessed no experience in high command. He remains a controversial figure. To his credit, he took his responsibilities seriously and was devoted to increasing professionalism within the army. There is no doubt that he was personally brave and capable of generous gestures. That he was chosen for command is another reminder of the close connection between the monarchy and military affairs. He was the king’s surrogate and brought to the army the inspiration that only a monarch could provide. He was no Marlborough, but the army had no Marlborough waiting in the wings. His rank assured him first place among allied generals, and he brought to his command the energy and decisiveness lacking under the dilatory Wade. As Saxe would prove, Cumberland’s aggressiveness could be used against him, yet he had reason for confidence as he marched to the relief of Tournai. He knew history as well as did Louis XV, and he commanded the best troops. Cumberland’s subsequent career has cast a cloud over his reputation. He was consistently outmaneuvered in the Flanders campaigns by Saxe, who thereby proved to be one of the great generals of the century. Cumberland’s only battlefield victory was gained against the Jacobite army at Culloden Moor, Scotland, in 1746. His performance on that occasion was coolly professional, but the subsequent brutal aftermath blackened his name. The savage repression of the Scottish Highlands was a government policy, but Cumberland has forever carried the burden of responsibility. He earned thereby the sobriquet “Butcher.” In an age in which honor and reputation were all, this was a heavy price to pay. All of this was ahead of him on the eve of Fontenoy, but on that day at least would be no blot on his honor. The presence of the king, princes of the blood, and rival generals complicated the command of the French army, but at least it was a unified national army. Cumberland’s army was a coalition force fraught with all the dangers of conflicting procedures and goals. The British-Hanoverian element was the largest contingent, and the British could expect to appoint the commander. A general of royal lineage was an advantage among coalition partners jealous of their own privileges and claims to precedence. The Dutch Republic furnished the next largest contingent, about 20,000 men, led by the young, inexperienced, and enthusiastic prince of Waldeck. He was advised by an uninspiring group of senior officers. The cavalry officer Brigadier Schlippenbach left a scathing criticism of the four major generals of the Dutch cavalry. One, 78 years old, could scarcely mount his horse; another was forced to lead his men from a carriage especially made for his great paunch; a third was melancholy and often imbecilic; and the fourth was often sick.10 On paper the Dutch army was large, reaching 65,000 men at its highest point. But it was a shadow of the great forces deployed in previous centuries. It was a garrison rather than a field army, without the military spirit so valued by military commentators. The Republic had little enthusiasm for this war. Indeed, it had refused to declare war on France and participated as a reluctant auxiliary in order to uphold the Pragmatic Sanction. The Austrians furnished a small mounted force, recruited from the Austrian Netherlands. Some of Austria’s best soldiers came from that region, but the Austrian government saw the defense of the Netherlands as more important to British and Dutch interests than to their own. They were content to let the allies bear the primary burden while they concentrated on the defense of Austrian core lands. The Austrians were led by the elderly and experienced Count Konigsegg, but their commitment was too small to allow him to serve as a break to the youthful Cumberland’s impetuosity.
The two armies were evenly balanced in numbers, between 50,000 and 60,000 each. David Chandler credits the French with 60,000 men in 69 battalions and 119 squadrons (the basic battle organizations for infantry and cavalry) and 70 field guns; the allies with 50,000 in 51 battalions, 90 squadrons, and 101 guns.11 Saxe had to maintain additional forces for the investment of Tournai and its 8,000 Dutch troops. Everything depended on how these forces were used. The allies, for example, failed to take advantage of their numerical superiority in artillery. The ultimate French victory would owe much to the skillful deployment of the French field artillery in fighting a defensive action. In quality both armies were uneven. Saxe had some of the best regulars in the French army but also battalions of militia. Many of his general officers were unreliable. It was one thing to devise a good plan as Noailles had done at Dettingen. It was another thing to see that it was carried out. Indeed, on the day of Fontenoy, some noble officers were forbidden to give orders. Saxe did attract some officers of high ability and experience, most notably his chief lieutenant, the Danish professional Count Lowendahl. Senior officers attached to the king as aides-de-camp, particularly Noailles and the duke of Richelieu (grandnephew of the great Cardinal Richelieu), might have made for a divided command, but on the whole they played a constructive role.
In 1743 the king had expressed reluctance to give Saxe independent command in Alsace, even though he was the best available commander, because of his vaulting ambition and uncertain loyalties.12 Louis’s greatest contribution to his victory at Fontenoy was to place full confidence in his military commander. On the evening before the battle, recalled one officer, three-quarters of the army were persuaded that Saxe had chosen the wrong position and that the enemy would attack their left, seize the bridges on the lower Scheldt, and capture the siege works at Tournai. The king put an end to this clamor, saying to Saxe: “Monsieur Marshal, in confiding to you the command of my army, I have intended that everyone should obey you; I shall be the first to give an example of such obedience.” 13 Perhaps the worst threat to Saxe’s exercise of command was his health. He suffered from dropsy and had twice undergone surgical procedures to relieve the fluid. He was forced to resort to a litter in the days preceding the battle and endured intense pain. Saxe was not one to yield to physical infirmities, however. He remained a high liver and brought with him to the front a carriage filled with women described as actresses, or putains. His physician Senac prescribed chastity as a remedy and stood guard over the marshal’s tent at night to enforce it. But in every other way it was clear who commanded the army.
As was the custom with young commanders who owed their position to high rank, Cumberland was provided with experienced veteran advisers, most prominent of whom was Lord Ligonier. It seems clear, however, that the key decisions on the allied side were made by Cumberland, sometimes against the strong advice of his subordinates. For all of his faults, the duke did not run his army by committee. He was Saxe’s equal in energy, bravery, and decisiveness. But he was no match for his opponent’s intellect, which had been shaped by long years of experience and reflection. As Voltaire observed, Saxe “joined profound theory with practice. Vigilance, secrecy, prudence, and foresight were his talents.”14 Cumberland’s instincts were those of a good battalion commander, “to march towards the sound of the guns.” Saxe was a true commander in chief, able to grasp the entire situation and to plan ahead. He possessed that rare quality known in the eighteenth century as coup d’oeil. In short, Cumberland was about to be taught lessons of command by one of the era’s truly great generals.
Once Cumberland decided to march to the relief of Tournai, Saxe was forced to prepare for battle. The allies had the option of attempting to raise the siege by maneuvering against the French communications. A prudent commander might have chosen this course, but as Saxe’s aide, the baron de Espagnac, recalled, “The ardent courage of the Duke of Cumberland and the great confidence of the English resisted such council.”15 However, as long as he was committed to protecting the besiegers of Tournai, Saxe knew, Cumberland could force a battle on him. He chose a defensive battle, one in which he could gain the maximum advantages from his position. The deliberate pace at which the allied army approached allowed the French time to thoroughly survey the countryside, to predict Cumberland’s line of advance, and to sight their positions accordingly. Cumberland does not seem to have been in a hurry, for he thought that the French would withdraw on his approach.16 Crossing to the eastern bank of the Scheldt by pontoon bridges, Saxe deployed across Cumberland’s line of advance about two miles from Tournai. On the left of his position was the wood of Barri, and on his right the small farm village of Fontenoy, from which the ensuing battle drew its name. From Fontenoy the French rightangled back to the village of Antoing on the Scheldt. Between the wood of Barri and Fontenoy, astride the road to Tournai, was a gap of about onehalf mile, and perhaps a mile separated Fontenoy from Antoing. The center of this position was unobstructed by woods or buildings and allowed free movement for French troops, particularly the cavalry, of which they possessed superior numbers. As Jean Colin observed, this represented both a strength and a weakness, for, if the position were penetrated, the French army might be thrown back into the river at its rear.17 Saxe’s dispositions appear as if he had been planning them for years. He shared Noailles’s concern that the French were not the equals of the British infantry and planned a battle that would compensate for that weakness.
Two battles of 1709, Malplaquet and Poltava, appear to have influenced his plans on this occasion. Saxe had been present at Malplaquet, where the French marshal Villars had posted his army in trenches between two woods. In his usual style, Marlborough had attacked the two flanks in order to weaken the center that was to be in turn the target of his main thrust. The Dutch Guards assaulting the French right were massacred by French artillery, something the Dutch still remembered at Fontenoy, but British troops forced the wood on the left and Villars was driven from his trenches. Saxe believed that a trench once penetrated was a death trap for its defenders, and his dispositions were aimed at avoiding a repetition of Malplaquet. His defense featured three key elements. First, he occupied the wood of Barri with a specialized partisan regiment, the Grassins, trained in loose order and marksmanship, the kind of soldiers he had envisaged in his Reveries. Second, eschewing trenches, he employed a series of redoubts, small self-contained field fortifications of earth and timber containing artillery and infantry. This was the kind of field fortifications that had absorbed the fury of the Swedish charge at Poltava. Two redoubts were on the left, one of which—the redoubt d’Eu, occupied by two battalions and eight guns—was at the edge of the wood at the Barri- Fontenoy gap. Behind the wood of Barri was a strong force of infantry protected by an abatis. Fontenoy itself was demolished and fortified with batteries containing six guns. The one-mile gap between Fontenoy and Antoing was protected by three redoubts and infantry posted in a sunken road. Antoing was heavily fortified and covered by heavy siege guns planted on the far side of the river. Independent redoubts offered the opportunity of drawing the enemy into a cross fire. Saxe took full advantage by disposing his artillery to sweep the gaps between the fortifications. The majority of the heavy guns were allotted to the field fortifications with only the light “Swedish guns,” probably four- pounders, available to maneuver with the troops. However, twelve guns were held in reserve. The author David Chandler commented, “This creation of an artillery reserve was practically unique at the period and really foreshadows Napoleonic practice—and equally notable was the degree of care Saxe took in selecting his battery positions. Not since the days of Marlborough had a commander-in-chief taken such pains based on careful thought and study of the ground.”18
Among the allies, only Konigsegg seems to have counseled against an attack on this position. Cumberland did not rely on finesse. He intended to follow Marlborough’s favored tactical plan by breaking through the enemy center. Informed that enemy troops were in the wood to the right, he ordered a brigade to clear it in preparation for the general advance. The Dutch corps was given the assignment of capturing Fontenoy itself. Once the flanks were secured the main thrust would take place. Colin observes that the plan was deeply flawed because insufficient forces were allocated to attack the two strongest positions in the French lines. This was partly due to a faulty reconnaissance conducted by the allied commanders on the previous day and to their failure to understand the strength of the French position on their right.
The allies assembled at 2:00 A.M., an hour before sunrise. Heavy fog obscured their movements, but by 5:00 A.M. they found themselves under artillery fire. The allied plan quickly began to unravel. Brigadier Ingolsby and the troops responsible for clearing the wood were pinned down by musketry from the Grassins and cannon fire from the redoubt d’Eu. Despite repeated orders from Cumberland to attack the redoubt, Ingolsby accomplished nothing. Uncertain of the number of the Grassins hovering in the woods and under heavy cannon fire, his men cowered in a sunken road. The commander of the British cavalry in the center responsible for covering the assembly of the infantry was killed by a cannon shot, and his men were left under fire without orders. It took some time for the allies to bring up guns to reply to the bombardment. The British artillery succeeded in killing the duke of Grammont, the officer responsible for the French debacle at Dettingen. It is unclear which side was most favored by this lucky shot. The allied failure to properly use their artillery was most evident in the assault on Fontenoy. Here there was no artillery preparation at all, and the Dutch twice failed in attacks on the village. Had they been able to penetrate the gap between Fontenoy and Antoing, the Dutch would have won the day. But they were stopped by crossfire from the redoubts. One cavalry regiment broke in panic and the attack failed ingloriously. 19
By 10:00 A.M. the situation no longer resembled a battle directed by Marlborough. The duke had used attacks on the flanks to weaken the center for a final blow. In this case, the French flank positions were intact and the bulk of their army had yet to be engaged. A prudent commander might have paused to consider alternatives. But Cumberland now ordered the British and Hanoverian infantry to advance through the Barri- Fontenoy gap. Compounding this fateful decision, and against the urgings of his senior commanders, he joined his lieutenant general Ligonier at their head. In doing so, he not only placed at risk a royal life but abdicated his role as commander in chief. No one on the allied side remained in overall control, and thus it is not surprising that the Anglo-Hanoverians were left to themselves. Cumberland was determined to share his soldiers’ risk and inspire them by his presence. His bravery was praised throughout the army. Cornet Philip Brown wrote shortly after the battle that “his Highness the Duke was never excelled by any Hero whatever. He exposed his person every where the same time as the most private soldier, this is no Compliment to his High Birth but a fact to my own eyes and certain knowledge which ought to endear him to the whole Nation—But Success is not always to the Valiant and Brave.”20
Cumberland was known as a severe disciplinarian of the German school, but his bravery won him the respect and loyalty of his troops. He could be said to have fulfilled the code of honor discussed in chapter 3. Cumberland was not the only commander at Fontenoy whose judgment was clouded by a desire for glory. The sixteen-year-old dauphin is said to have twice demanded to charge the enemy at the head of his household troops.21 At the climax of the battle, a number of French lieutenant generals deserted their commands to charge with the cavalry. Saxe, who knew that these young men had more breeding than sense, kept them on a short leash and gave them little opportunity to give orders on their own. When at one point in the battle it was suggested to the comte d’Eu, a prince of the blood, that it would be a good idea to charge the enemy, he replied that he agreed but could not give orders to the cavalry.22 However, Cumberland was not a lieutenant general, but commander in chief, a fatal difference. Following the repulse of the Dutch attack, an officer complimented Saxe on his success. “All is not said,” replied the marshal. “Now we come to the English and they will be harder on the digestion.”23 Saxe who, ill and listless, had been carried to and fro in a wicker chariot, now roused himself to an extraordinary effort. At the height of the battle his officers were surprised to find him on horseback exercising a firm grip over developments. Indeed, at Fontenoy he appears to have exercised a mastery of command and control that was unusual in an eighteenth-century army. According to the fine distinctions drawn by military writers of the time, Cumberland displayed bravery, but Saxe courage.
Now began one of the extraordinary episodes in the history of the British army. Drawn up in two lines, the infantry advanced at a slow parade-ground pace through the Barri-Fontenoy gap. They were enfiladed by artillery fire from the French strongholds on the flanks and suffered from sniping by the Grassins. The narrowness of the front and the enfilading fire caused some battalions to bend back to face the flanks. The Anglo-Hanoverians thus began to form a hollow square or oblong, an act that appears to have been forced on them by necessity rather than as the result of a preconceived plan. There is no evidence that Cumberland was a student of Folard (as Saxe certainly was), and any resemblance between the British formation and the latter’s famous column was coincidental.24 The British infantry advanced up a gently rising slope until they came to a sunken road. There the French Guards, deployed in four ranks, waited to receive them.
THE CHALLENGE
According to Voltaire: “They were at a distance of fifty paces. . . . The English officers saluted the French by raising their hats. The Count de Chabones [sic], the Duke de Biron who were in the front and all the officers of the French Guards returned the salute. Lord Charles Hay, Captain of the English Guards, cried ‘Gentlemen of the French Guards, fire.’ “Count d’Auteroche, then lieutenant and later captain of the Grenadiers, replied ‘Gentlemen, we never fire first, open fire yourselves.’ The English commenced a rolling fire, that is, they fired by divisions, so that one battalion in four ranks having fired, another battalion made its discharge, and then a third, while the first recharged their weapons. The line of French infantry had not fired; it was alone in four ranks, the line rather elongated and not sustained by any other force of infantry. Nineteen officers of the guards fell stricken at that single discharge. . . .The first rank having been thrown into confusion, the three others looking to their rear and seeing only cavalry at three hundred toises [about 150 yards], they fled.”25
But did it really happen this way? Voltaire had many friends in the French army, the most important of whom was the duke of Richelieu, who Voltaire credited with having rallied the French at a critical moment. Count d’Argenson, the secretary of war, provided Voltaire with all of the officers’ letters; he also received material from Saxe and Noailles. Another close friend, the marquis d’Argenson, the foreign minister and older brother of the war secretary, was present at the battle and wrote him a detailed account four days after the battle. Argenson did not mention the famous challenge.26 Even so, Voltaire’s published account became the standard source for the events described above. Francis Henry Skrine, author of a standard twentieth-century history of the battle, dismissed Voltaire’s narrative as a legend aimed at furthering his interests at court. Relying on a letter written three weeks after the battle by Lord Charles Hay to his brother, the marquis of Tweedale, Skrine expanded on the British officer’s role. Hay stepped to the front of his battalion and saluted with his hat. Then he took out a pocket flask and drank their health, shout- ing, “We are the English Guards, and we hope that you will stand till we come up to you, and not swim the Scheldt as you did the Main at Dettingen!” He then turned and called for three cheers that were given with a will. The French officers, claimed Hay, were dumbfounded by his gesture. Biron, Auteroche, and others returned the salute and called for cheers, which were given with little enthusiasm. Then the French fired.27 Hay was not as polite as the British officers in Voltaire’s account. Perhaps that gives him more credibility. He was an eccentric and unstable personality. In 1757, while serving on Loudon’s staff in North America, he continually engaged in disruptive outbursts that made it difficult to carry on business. Eventually he was arrested, placed in confinement, and sent home.28 It would appear that he was mentally disturbed. There is no reason to prefer the account of this bizarre individual to that provided by Voltaire. Perhaps there was no exchange of salutes at all. The Gentleman’s Magazine, a periodical with good army sources, published an account of the battle in its May 1745 issue: “We advanced nevertheless to the Enemy, and receiv’d their Discharge at the Distance of thirty Paces before we fired.”29 The French historian Eric de Saint Denis notes that the dialogue is perhaps the only aspect of the battle retained in the national memory. He believes that it is unlikely that Voltaire made it up but finds it difficult to authenticate. He cites two other accounts that do not appear to provide definitive confirmation and concludes that the context of eighteenthcentury military courtesy provides the best argument for the veracity of Voltaire’s account.30
The marquis de Valfons recalled that as the British closed to within 300 paces from the French Guards, he turned to their captain, La Peyre, and said, “These men that I bring to you will pass their time badly for they will find the man of Rechswag,” a memorable military exploit on the part of that officer. “He thanked me for my recollection and my politeness. These compliments—they are useful to everyone. They give an air of sang-froid to the one who makes them and augment the confidence of the one who receives them. Then the English gave their war cry: House! House!” Valfons confirms the spirit if not the fact of the dialogue: “An air of ease and of gaiety is useful in all of these adventures.”31 It is best to see in these dialogues, real or imagined, a manifestation of the military spirit prized by writers of the period.
Cheers and gasconades were a way of fortifying the spirit in the face of death. But there remains disagreement over who fired first. This is interesting in itself, for no eighteenth-century exchange has been so intensely scrutinized. Voltaire’s account was stylized. “The [British] corps advances, always compact, always solid.”32 It appears to be a machine moving forward impervious to sound of cannon and musketry, the shriek of missiles, and the screams of men whose limbs were severed or who were disemboweled. The allied army had endured a hard march to the rescue of Tour- nai. The men had been under fire for five hours before they began their advance through billows of black-powder smoke. That they persevered under these conditions is remarkable and says much for their training and the leadership of long-service company officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). One wonders if the infantry was able to maintain the famous platoon fire (inaccurately referred to as rolling fire by Voltaire). If musket fire was as ineffective as is often suggested, how did they rout the French Guards so easily? It has been suggested that the French Guards were not the elite troops one would expect from their name; they were recruited from urban workers and journeymen who lacked soldierly qualities and were addicted to wine and every other vice.33 It was reported that Saxe had ordered the Guards not to fire first because they would be left defenseless and demoralized before an enemy whose muskets were loaded. Noailles had ordered them to hold their fire at Dettingen but to no avail. French discipline was recognized as inferior to that of the British, and some may have fired without orders. At Fontenoy the same failure seems to have occurred. The French practice of four ranks may have reduced the effectiveness if they did fire first, because the rear rank could not see the target. Perhaps we are misled by the image of ranks of men standing and firing at one another at almost point-blank range.
After Dettingen, Lt. Colonel Charles Russell wrote to his wife that the British had made an irregular running fire, not “Hide Park firing,” a reference to the precision drills displayed to the public in peacetime. The enemy dropped to the ground while waiting to receive fire, and the British waited for them to stand up again before firing. He recalled that the French had conducted a similar irregular running fire. Russell’s commander, the earl of Stair, a veteran of Marlborough’s wars, commented that he had seen many a battle and had never seen infantry engage in any other manner.”34 The nature of the action at Fontenoy makes it unlikely that the British infantry maintained parade-ground precision for long and suggests that they engaged in irregular firing. Skrine tells us that whole ranks were swept away by cannon fire. The soldiers were trained to close up, but surely this would have been difficult to carry out over the bodies of their dead and wounded comrades, who eventually numbered 6,000. The stricken men would have made it difficult for the troops to maneuver but were a source of ammunition, as the ensuing firefights would have exhausted an infantryman’s standard supply of cartridges. The fallen British soldiers were a grim source of supply for those still fighting. The French also experienced ammunition shortages, particularly when the guns at the village of Fontenoy were reduced to firing blank charges. Voltaire’s portrait of the battle resembles the battlefield paintings of the era that sought to provide viewers with an accurate, if romanticized, picture of events. Missing are the chaos, confusion, and the uncertainty that contributed to Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of the friction of war. But this was Voltaire’s battle as well as Saxe’s. The latter laid the plans and led his army to victory. Voltaire created a version of it for the historical memory. He had many agendas. Despite his hatred of war, he glorified the French in their victory. The French military historian Emile Leonard acidly observed that Voltaire’s antimilitarism varied according to circumstances and always followed public opinion. He scorned the private soldiers, but eagerly sought the friendship of the generals.35 Shortly after the battle, Voltaire whipped out his Poeme de Fontenoy. Published on May 17, 1745, it sold a remarkable 20,000 copies. Skrine describes it as a rhymed bulletin, eagerly snapped up by those hungry for news. The poem celebrates the sacrifices of the French nobility and the heroism of his friends. Above all it credits Louis XV with the victory. Voltaire dedicated the poem to the king “as an authentic monument of all the glorious deeds performed in your presence in imitation of your own.” Argenson recalled that at one moment in the battle the dauphin had drawn his sword but was prevailed upon to desist. Voltaire caught the drama of the event, for his readers at least:
His son, his only hope . . . Ah! Dear prince, stop; Why do you draw your sword so hastily? Conserve that life so precious to the world. Louis fears for his son, the son fears for his father. Our bloodstained warriors fear for both, Dismay stirs the generous hearts of you who guard my king, You who avenge France, You, people of heroes, on whom the enemy advance, March! You will determine destiny, Louis, his son, the State, Europe Are in your hands.36
All this because the dauphin drew his sword! Overblown as Voltaire’s language appears, it reminds us of the significance of the king’s presence. Furthermore, Voltaire demonstrated a journalist’s shrewd instinct in tapping the public’s reverence for the monarchy. He basked in the reflected glow of the victory and sought to please those in high circles. The king was the embodiment of honor. The English might speak of courage, But they speak in vain; when Louis advances Their spirit is tamed, the English are overthrown, And ferocity gives way to virtue.37
There were reports that some British soldiers had shouted “no quarter!” as they had advanced. Against them Louis had marshaled true courage. Voltaire’s readers would have understood the distinction between British bravery and French courage. His preliminary discourse to the poem struck another familiar theme: the civilized manner in which war was conducted among European people. “The peoples of Europe have principles of humanity not found in the rest of the world. . . . The European Christians are like the Greeks: they wage war among themselves, but retain in their disputes much of the decorum and common politeness that a Frenchman, an Englishmen, or a German, on meeting one another might think themselves to have been born in the same city.”38 Thus Voltaire’s Fontenoy became celebrated as an ideal battle of the Old Regime, fought by men of honor, inspired by the presence of royalty, and bound even in the heat of action by civility and humanity. It was, in short, a battle of enlightened knights. But this was not the real battle. Argenson, whose letter contributed to Voltaire’s version of the battle, was closer to reality when he wrote: “Certainly the artillery had the honour of this terrible slaughter.”39
THE HONOR OF THE SLAUGHTER
When the French Guards gave way before the British advance, a crisis gripped the French army. The British plan now appeared to have succeeded. One would have expected a second line of French infantry to have been drawn up in support of the French Guards, but they fled into a vacuum. Chabannes, who commanded in the center, had dispatched the troops of the second line to support those defending Fontenoy. Cumberland had thus partially succeeded in replicating the Marlborough tactic of weakening the center by attacks on the flanks of the French position.40 Now it appeared that the front had been ruptured and that the French might be driven into the Scheldt. Ligonier believed that the day was won for the British.41 Panic gripped the king’s headquarters. Earlier in the day, the king had laughed when splashed by mud from a cannonball, but now the mood had changed. Noailles and others feared for the king’s safety and urged that he retire across the Scheldt. Acruel jest later circulated in Paris that during the battle the brave duc de Biron required three changes of horses, the feverish Maurice de Saxe three changes of shirts, and Noailles three changes of breeches.42 Saxe recognized that the king’s departure would spread panic throughout the army and initiate a rout. Fortunately, at this moment the duke of Richelieu arrived from a reconnaissance of the British force. Argenson referred to him as the Bayard of the army. He presented himself sword in hand, out of breath, and covered in gunpowder. According to Voltaire, Noailles asked him for his news and for his advice. Richelieu replied that the battle was won if they had the will. His advice was to concentrate four guns against the head of the British column and, while the artillery bombarded the enemy, to throw the maison du roi (household troops) and all the other available troops against them and attack like marauders.43 Richelieu seems to have stiffened the king’s resolve, and he remained at his post. Although the king does not deserve credit for the ensuing victory, he could have lost the battle if he had fled.
Richelieu was not the only one who recognized that the British were in serious difficulty. Despite exhaustion and pain, Saxe roused himself to action and was encouraged when Lowendahl, in command of the reserve, arrived to congratulate him on the situation. Cumberland had staked all on one throw and had almost succeeded. Now the British infantry were deep in the French position but under cannon fire from the front, flanks, and rear. According to Ligonier’s biographer, they withdrew under this fire to the line of the Fontenoy-Barri gap, reformed and again penetrated the French camp. There they are said to have formed a square, though this may have been true of only a portion of the corps.44 The British might have intended to attack Fontenoy from the rear with a portion of the troops. It is unclear whether this was the result of an order on the part of Cumberland or Ligonier or a reaction among the troops to an attack from all sides. The conscious formation of square, a defensive formation, would indicate that the assault had come to an end. Were this deployment conceived of as a column, it would mean that the British intended to remain on the offensive. There may have been no decision at all, and the British troops may have huddled together to seek safety from the storm that broke upon them.
The British deployment later aroused much interest among military thinkers. Saxe gave the following account to his mentor Folard: Let us speak a little of the column to which you always return. Chance produced that which the English made at the battle of Fontenoy; they attacked us by lines, but as their center encountered great resistance at the village of Fontenoy, their right attacked the brigade of guards whom they scattered, and then sought to effect a 90 degree turn to the left to take the village of Fontenoy from the flank and the rear. I attacked these two lines of infantry by several charges of cavalry that I reiterated for three hours to prevent them from achieving their objective; since they had occupied the field where the brigade of guards had been posted, these two lines presented us their flank, which everyone has called a column; and in order to protect this flank, they stationed a battalion or two across it, which formed a long square. I held them in that position until it was possible to reassemble the brigades of infantry that were upon my left, to attack that infantry and to make an effort on all sides of the square at the same time, and that decided the outcome of the battle. You well understand that, if I had allowed them to take the village of Fontenoy by the flank, the outcome of our affair would have become equivocal; there is the fact of the matter, and we leave there the column of Epaminondas and those of everyone else; you know my affection for you.45
Folard took a keen interest in the British deployment and as a result modified his tactical scheme to allow for a hedgehog of three columns with sufficient space between them for the movement of cavalry and artillery.46 A later advocate of the column, Baron Mesnil-Durand, dismissed the idea that the British deployment was a true test. The so-called column lacked the mobility and energy offered by his “plesions,” which would not have suffered, he maintained, the same fate. He believed that Fontenoy had provided a false lesson for military specialists. “That action contributed greatly to that rapture for artillery that began then and has only grown since.”47
Their formation, however it may be termed, protected the British from the vigorous but poorly coordinated French cavalry attacks, but it offered a rich target to the French artillery. The British had no artillery support of their own. Skrine indicates that the British infantry were accompanied in their advance by 12 six-pound cannons, but they appear to have played no role. Such heavy field guns were difficult to move, and their horse teams were vulnerable to enemy fire. The gun crews were compelled to manhandle them forward. Perhaps this explains the deliberate nature of the British advance. However, when the British were forced into their defensive formation, which Skrine described as a hollow square, the guns remained in the center and were useless.48 They were left behind when the infantry began its retreat. The cavalry, the arm on which Marlborough had relied to deliver the coup de grace in his victories, were nowhere to be seen. They were unable to maneuver through the narrow Fontenoy-Barri gap, their way blocked by French fire and by their own infantry. Nor was there anyone to give them orders, for the commander in chief, as we have seen, had conceded his ability to exercise command and control when he went forward with the infantry. Thus the cavalry, the artillery, and the allies stood by while the French concentrated on the Anglo-Hanoverian infantry. Saxe struggled to bring the full combination of French arms to bear upon the British.
Saxe had prepared the way for victory by the excellence of his dispositions and now, to use Richelieu’s expression, he summoned the will to win the day. The French Guards had uncovered the vital center, but they provided only a portion of the army. Other troops were at hand. First, there was the cavalry, including the maison du roi, which was thrown against the allied infantry. These attacks were poorly coordinated and made no impression on the British-Hanoverians, who remained in close order and whose fighting spirit was unchecked. Nevertheless, this sacrifice bought time and by forcing the British into close order exposed them to artillery fire.49 Second, Saxe had posted a strong infantry force of Corsicans, Irish, and Swiss (a reminder of the role that foreign mercenaries continued to play in the French army) behind the wood of Barri as insurance against an enemy breakthrough on the left flank. Lowendahl, assuming command of these troops to which he added the Brigade of Normandy, brought them against the British right.
The French artillery at this time conformed to the Valliere system of heavy guns; these appear to have been positioned in the fortified areas and on the far side of the river. However, half of Saxe’s artillery consisted of light four-pound Swedish guns, so called after the mobile field guns introduced in the seventeenth century by Gustavus Adolphus as infantry support weapons. Saxe had called for light artillery (amusettes) in his Reveries, and the Swedish guns seem to have been a realization of that vision. Heavy artillery, firing solid shot from fixed positions, was ideally situated to enfilade the British infantry. Solid shot was most effective if fired obliquely and allowed to bounce along the enemy line. The Swedish guns enabled Saxe to rush cannon to a critical point and engage the enemy at close quarters. These guns would have employed grapeshot, bags of musket balls, or scrap iron, having the effect of a large shotgun. Against massed troops, grapeshot wreaked deadly slaughter. ADutch officer seeking to explain the failure of the attack on the left wing reported that as they reached the enemy trench they “were taken in the flank and attacked by a battery of twenty-five large battering pieces, which were planted in a wood and which discharged chain shot [cannonballs linked by chains] and partridge [grapeshot] so violently, that we were forced to cause our troops to fall back upon those advancing to sustain us.”50 (No such battery seems to have existed.) The Dutch lieutenant general Aylva also reported the use of grapeshot by the enemy.51 Grapeshot was a controversial ammunition, and some legal authorities declared its use to be a violation of the laws of war. After the battle of Fontenoy, Cumberland ordered the collection of all of the grapeshot and irregular metal found in wounds as evidence that the French had violated the laws of war.52 (On the other hand, Cumberland did not hesitate to employ grapeshot against Scottish rebels at Culloden in 1746.)53 In eighteenth-century warfare, the attempt to regulate the destructiveness of weapons often broke down, even in battles between regulars. The restrictions were seldom observed when irregulars were the target.
The volume of French artillery fire now became irresistible, and Saxe ordered every available infantry regiment forward. The British now experienced their own moment of crisis. Once again we are told that their withdrawal was as calm and orderly as their advance. Indeed, the retreat became as celebrated as the attack. It is true that Cumberland and many of his troops reached their own lines, but they left 6,000 out of 15,000 killed and wounded. Although Voltaire claimed that French care for the allied wounded was exceptionally humane, even the best intentions would have failed to compensate for the deficiencies of the medical services. We can assume that many wounded were left to suffer where they fell. Although there was no rout, we must presume that discipline began to give way as the soldiers sought safety. Nevertheless, their retreat salvaged British honor. There seems to have been agreement that British courage had been overcome by the power of the French guns. Konigsegg praised the bravery of the allied infantry, which had been overwhelmed by enemy fire.54 Contributors to The Gentleman’s Magazine sought to find a moral victory in the midst of defeat. The true heroes of Fontenoy, claimed one writer, were the British common soldiers: “Where has the English history a nobler account of the strength and bravery of the common soldier?”55 An excerpt from the Westminster Journal titled “The true British military spirit encourag’d” found that “the courage of our men was indeed sufficiently exhibited now, as at Dettingen, by standing the charge of a large train of artillery, without anything to oppose it.”56 The Dutch officer quoted above concluded that “if we had only fought against men, I can assure you that the siege of Tournay would have been quickly rais’d and that there would not have escap’d a third part of the French army, which, as we were eye witnesses, is composed of very contemptible people; but we fought against 266 pieces of cannon [an exaggeration] as well battering as field.”57 Aylva reported that “the Anglish and part of the Hanoverians attacked so furiously that they merit universal esteem, and the French could not have gained the battle or claimed any bravery, but solely by the infinite number of their artillery which massacred so many of us.”58 In The True Patriot, Henry Fielding scorned the conduct of the French who, he wrote, “have always fled before us, and who at Fontenoy run from our Forces (tho’ they were but a third of their Number) till their Cannon gave them a dishonourable Victory; if they could be said to obtain any, over an Army which retreated in Order from the Attack, and which they did not pursue.”59 These comments were a rationalization of the defeat, but they are consistent in their contention that there was something dishonorable in a French victory that relied on technology in the form of artillery. There had been courage in abundance, but it was not enough.
Fontenoy was a turning point in many ways. On the British side, it is interesting that the common soldiers conducted themselves with honor. Cumberland, whose decisions contributed directly to the defeat, was shielded from blame because he had shared the danger with his men. Curiously, Saxe credited the attacks of his infantry from the left for his victory. He did not mention the role of the artillery. Perhaps it was indeed Richelieu or Captain Isnard who thought of the four guns that might be deployed at the critical moment, or perhaps Saxe did not believe that their deployment was significant. Perhaps he too believed that there was something dishonorable about winning a battle with artillery and preferred to give the credit to French bravery rather than to round and grapeshot. If that was the case, it was ironic that he had inaugurated a new era in warfare in which artillery would rule the battlefield. The way was open to the slaughterhouse that was the Seven Years’ War. The retreat was secured by the exhaustion of the French army, which had itself been on the verge of defeat. The king found Saxe writhing in agony on the ground. He had summoned every ounce of energy to save the day and could do no more. The French cavalry was in no condition to pursue the enemy, whose own cavalry now moved forward to cover the retreat. Allied reserve infantry and the hitherto-useless artillery provided insurance against a French pursuit. But Tournai remained securely in the French grip.
RESULTS
Estimates of casualties vary. David Chandler, who provides statistics for all major eighteenth-century battles, cites 12,000 allied casualties (including 3,000 prisoners) and 6,000 French casualties. Browning indicates that both sides suffered losses of 7,000-7,500.60 Saxe said to the king after the battle: “Sire, now you see what war really means.”61 Sechelles, the dauphin’s tutor, observed that the latter was fortunate to see for himself, at his age, to what he owed his kingdom.” A senior officer seems to have been in shock: “This terrible spectacle scarcely had any effect in its first moments. I walked about and informed myself about my friends, and I saw a great number dying, with a calm that has astonished me.”62 The allies acknowledged the French victory by abandoning their attempt to succor Tournai. That city fell on June 19, followed by the collapse of the Dutch barrier in western Flanders, including the fortified cities of Ghent, Oudenaarde, Bruges, Dendermonde, Ostend, and Nieuport. This phenomenon places the role of fortresses in their proper context. Along with the battle fleet, fortresses were the greatest technological, capitalintensive, military projects of the era. But their usefulness depended on many factors. The barrier fortresses were in an alien country. The Habsburg state considered the Netherlands as marginal to its interests and contributed little to its defense. There was little enthusiasm for the Dutch garrisons in the Catholic barrier cities, and commanders could not depend on support from the inhabitants. Poor morale and underfinancing undermined the foundation of the Dutch defense system. The barrier depended on the existence of a powerful field army; the Dutch, perhaps, would have done better to invest in one rather than in isolated, ineffective garrisons. But the politics and the defensive inclinations of a republic in decline obviated such a policy. The Dutch defense system really was one of hope: hope that the French would not come and that Britain would protect them if they did. Fontenoy and its aftermath were the result.
Saxe was far from finished. His victory not only delivered western Flanders into French hands but cleared the way for the Jacobite rising in Scotland that required the recall of Cumberland and British troops for home defense. By the end of 1746, Brussels, Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, and Namur were in French hands, a conquest assured by Saxe’s victory over an allied army at Raucoux in October. Saxe defeated the unfortunate Cumberland again at Lauffeld in 1747 despite a hard-fought defense by the British infantry. On this occasion Cumberland displayed the same failures as a commander as those revealed at Fontenoy. Much of the allied army stood by, while the British infantry made their stand. Cumberland was nearly captured while attempting to rally the fleeing Dutch cavalry. Saxe also was nearly captured, but he retained overall control of the battle.63 Jeremy Black concluded, “Saxe’s generalship was instructive not only because of his battlefield ability to control large numbers in both attack and defense, but also because of his determined espousal of a war of manoeuvre. . . . His preference for bold manoeuvres, emphasis on holding and gaining the initiative, and stress on morale contrast markedly with the stereotyped views on non-Frederician mid-eighteenth-century warfare.” 64 In the same year a French corps under Lowendahl overran Dutch Flanders and laid siege to one of the Netherlands’s most powerful fortresses, Bergen op Zoom, at the mouth of the Scheldt River, the western gateway to an invasion of the homeland of the republic. Lowendahl had 30,000 men to accomplish this task while, by threatening Maastricht, the eastern gate, Saxe prevented Cumberland from marching to the relief of Bergen op Zoom.
That city appeared to be a far more difficult conquest than barrier fortresses of the Austrian Netherlands. Menno van Coehoorn, Vauban’s great rival, had designed the defenses to take advantage of its situation. The river and sea gave the city access to reinforcements and supplies throughout the siege. Surrounding wetlands hindered the normal approach techniques, and Lowendahl was compelled to rely on series of redoubts rather than usual trenches. His sappers were threatened by countermines that might explode without warning. There were numerous eruptions of such mines during the siege. Coehoorn’s outer-works were famed for their strength, and the Dutch commander, the 86-year-old General Cronstrom, was confident that the city could withstand any attack. But all was not well within the city. The unbroken string of French successes did not help the morale of the citizens—or the members of the allied garrison. Lowendahl submitted the city to a severe bombardment, aiming red-hot shot at the steeple of the great church, which was set alight. Houses were set ablaze by mortar bombs. In the midst of this chaos, soldiers of the garrison began to pillage the inhabitants they were assigned to protect. Three of the culprits drew lots to determine which should be shot, and the execution followed immediately. Indiscipline seems to have been rife in the garrison. On one occasion the British gunners and the Dutch engineers proclaimed their intention to serve no longer if they did not receive additional money and drink.65 Despite the material strength of the fortifications, the defense was vulnerable because of the low morale and lack of discipline among its defenders. On September 16, 1747, Lowendahl launched a surprise attack at 4:30 A.M. The outer-works were carried without a fight, and the French poured in through the gates while many of the defenders and their commander fled for their lives. Some 2,000 were taken prisoner. Some continued to resist by firing on the French from houses within the city. At this point, an event occurred that made a mockery of Voltaire’s notion of polite war. It was always a tricky business when soldiers carried a town by storm. There remained the time-honored tradition that plunder was a soldier’s right. A town defended too long risked provoking the wrath of soldiers who had endured long periods of danger and hardship. The wine shops helped fuel the frenzy of the French soldiers, who now began to rob and murder defenseless civilians. By 10:00 A.M., 2,000 civilians had perished in this indiscriminate slaughter and another 1,000 were injured. Lowendahl was unable to restore order until the soldiers were sated with drink and murder.66
This sort of thing had happened before, but enlightened opinion held that it could not happen again. That it did reveals the dark side of the wars of the Enlightenment and provides a grim footnote to the legend of Fontenoy. In his account of the incident, Count Pajol blamed Cronstrom for failing to recognize that the French had secured a breach that would allow them access to the city. Aretreat or an honorable capitulation would have spared the city. Pajol concluded that Cronstrom’s failure to act exposed Bergen op Zoom to a sack as provided by the laws of war.67 Lowendahl was made a marshal of France as a result of the capture of the city for, as Saxe told the king, the only alternative was to hang him. As for Saxe, his final achievement was the capture of the great fortress of Maastricht in 1748. Fittingly, peace negotiators at Aix-la-Chapelle met within the distant sound of his guns.
This concluded one of the most extraordinary military campaigns of the century or perhaps of any century. It is not as well remembered as others because French diplomats gave back all of Saxe’s gains at the peace table. The intricacies of this diplomacy may be followed in Reed Browning’s War of the Austrian Succession. In retrospect, we know that the peace was but a truce foreshadowing the far more destructive Seven Years’ War. Louis XV would have no Saxe and no glorious victories in that conflict. Fontenoy illustrates some of the themes of this work. It reveals Voltaire as one who responded to military glory and patriotism. His stylized and romantic description of the battle at Fontenoy and his belief in the common humanity of the combatants suggests the optimism of the early Enlightenment. Both his narrative and his poem convey a sense of quaint anachronism in their focus on the role of the king and the courtier officers. At this point in his life, Voltaire saw the king as the living embodiment of France and drew a connection between monarchy and military glory. Napoleon is said to have observed that Fontenoy prolonged the monarchy by 30 years.68 Perhaps Voltaire’s antimilitarism would not have become so pronounced had France’s experience in the Seven Years’ War proved less disastrous. He seems to have been genuinely embarrassed by France’s military decline. It is significant that his account of Fontenoy focused on the king. Louis had acted bravely and sensibly. Perhaps he did so for the last time. His turn to other pursuits deprived the Old Regime in France of a vital moral quality. The king ceased to be the standard of honorable conduct. For all the deficiencies of his narrative, Voltaire was a good military historian, one who scrupulously, if selectively, relied on the primary sources. As Jean Chagniot observes, when the impulse to engage in flattery did not blunt his critical spirit, Voltaire excelled in the description of battles and the puncturing of myths.69 It would be unfair to expect him to have written about war in the manner of John Keegan. His influence on subsequent military history was profound. When one reads standard accounts of the “rational” and ‘‘polite” wars of the eighteenth century, we must remember that Voltaire was the creator of that image.
It is Saxe who emerges from the slaughterhouse of Fontenoy as a modern figure. As we have seen, he possessed the most creative military mind of the time. He possessed all of the qualities of a great general. A brilliant maneuver allowed him to gain the initiative from Cumberland and to choose the ground on which to fight. His dispositions demonstrated that quality that eighteenth-century writers called coup d’oeil. His field artillery achieved an unprecedented mobility that allowed it to concentrate against the most-vital targets. Fontenoy was an artillery battle that pointed the way to the destructive actions of the Seven Years’ War. The Grassins were a new feature in western-European warfare, regular troops trained to operate in loose formation. This required a new kind of training and discipline; ultimately many military thinkers believed that it would require a new kind of soldier. Finally, few generals could equal Saxe’s ability to retain command and control over a large army amidst the fog and chaos of battle. Saxe seems to have viewed the field with an eye as clear as that possessed in retrospect by historians and painters of battlefield scenes. His great intellectual gifts and iron will allowed him to translate dreams into action. In the wake of Fontenoy, the 76-year-old Folard acknowledged that his pupil had surpassed his master. It was in many ways a turning point. The world of the early Enlightenment played out its last days on the field of Fontenoy and the other scenes of the War of the Austrian Succession. A new and more turbulent world was at hand.
NOTES
1. “Projet de relation de la bataille de Fontenoy. . . . ” In J. Colin, Les Campagnes du Marechal de Saxe (Paris: Libraire Militaire, R. Chapelot et cie, 1901). In addition to providing a detailed account of the battle of Fontenoy, Colin provided a large appendix of primary documents titled “Pieces Justificatives” (hereinafter cited as PJ); see PJ, 307. Other detailed accounts of the battle of Fontenoy include Francis Henry Skrine, Fontenoy and Great Britain’s Share in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1741–1748 (Edinburgh, 1906) and Charles Pierre Victor, comte de Pajol, Les Guerres sous Louis XV, 7 vols. (Paris: Libraire de Firmin-Didot, 1881-91), 3:chapter 10. Saxe’s aide and admirer, Jean Baptiste Joseph Damazit de Sahuguet, the baron de Espagnac, published an account 30 years after the battle. See his Histoire de Maurice, comte de Saxe, duc de Courland et de Semigalle, 2 vols. (Paris: Saillant and Nyon, 1775), 2:48–61. For a recent appraisal, see Jean-Pierre Bois, Fontenoy, 1745: Louis XV, arbitre de l’Europe (Paris: Economica, 1996). Saxe’s other biographers and those of Cumberland and of Lord Ligonier also give detailed attention to this battle.
2. For Noailles’s description of the battle, see Correspondance de Louis XV et du Marechal de Noailles, ed. Camille Rousset, 2 vols. (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1869), 1:109–20.
3. The role of monarchs in wartime is described by Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1660–1815 (London: UCL Press, 1994), 213–17.
4. Skrine, Fontenoy, 139–40.
5. Marshal Saxe to the comte d’Argenson, 3 May 1745, PJ, 141.
6. Voltaire, Precis du siecle de Louis XV in Oeuvres completes de Voltaire, 52 vols. (Paris, 1878; reprint, Lichtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1967), 15:237 (page citation is to the reprint edition).
7. Correspondance de Louis XV et du Marechal de Noailles, 1:123.
8. Reed Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 190–91. For a different view of Louis XV and Argenson, see Bois, Fontenoy, 124–32. Bois argues that Louis restored his conquests through the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle because, as leader of Europe’s most powerful state, he wished to be a disinterested arbiter, more concerned with justice than with territorial gain. Bois believes that Louis needed a military victory to enable him to assume that role and that Fontenoy provided him with one.
9. Cumberland’s character and ability as a leader has received a staunch defense from Evan Charteris, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, His Early Life and Times (1721–1748) (London: Edward Arnold, 1913). For Fontenoy, see 177–93. This positive view of Cumberland is reinforced by Rex Whitworth, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland: A Life (Hamden, Conn.: Leo Cooper, 1992). One may conclude that although Cumberland was not an especially gifted commander, he was not the cruel bumbler pictured by his detractors.
10. PJ, 287.
11. David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (New York: Sarpedon, 1995), 306.
12. Correspondance de Louis XV et du Marechal de Noailles, 1:178.
13. Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 79–80.
14. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, 239.
15. Espagnac, Histoire de Saxe, 2:48.
16. Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 67.
17. Ibid., 85.
18. Chandler, Art of Warfare, 212. For Saxe’s description of his dispositions, see PJ, 216–20. Also see Colin’s discussion of the French artillery plan, Campagnes de Saxe, 86–88. Saxe’s plans are also discussed in Bois, Fontenoy, 74–80.
19. For the Prince of Waldeck’s journal, see PJ, 265–67. Also see Schlippenbach’s account, PJ, 288.
20. Jeremy Black, “New Accounts of Dettingen and Fontenoy,” Buckinghamshire Record Office, Annual Report and List of Accessions (1992), 18.
21. PJ, 314.
22. Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 143–44.
23. Ibid., 107.
24. Jean Chagniot describes the British formation as a large column of attack with 15 guns on each flank; see Guerre et societe a l’epoque moderne, 193. However, it would appear that the British intended to advance in line and that they altered their formation in response to circumstances. The guns were in the center of the “column” and provided no support.
25. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, 240.
26. Theodore Besterman, Voltaire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 284–85. See also pp. 641–43 for Voltaire’s “Autobiography,” in which he describes his sources and includes the full text of Argenson’s letter.
27. Skrine, Fontenoy , 171–73.
28. Lord Louden to the Earl of Holdernesse, August 5, 1757. Loudon Papers, LO 4072 A, B, and C. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. There are many other references to his strange behavior.
29. The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1745): 271.
30. Eric de Saint Denis, “Fontenoy: Une bataille, un homme, un dialogue,” Histoire economie et societe, 4e trimester (1985): 479–95. I am indebted to Professor Jean Chagniot for calling my attention to this article. Francis Hulot follows the dialogue as reported by Skrine. See Hulot’s Le Marechal de Saxe (Paris: Pygmalion, 1989), 169. In PJ, Colin published an undated letter on the battle of Fontenoy that supports Voltaire’s version, but the letter’s source appears to have been Voltaire! See PJ, 274–76. Espagnac clearly based his account of the incident on Voltaire; see Histoire de Saxe, 2:55. Also see Bois, Fontenoy, v-vii.
31. Charles de Mathei, marquis de Valfons, Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons . . . 1710–1786, Memoires sur le XVIIIe siecle (Paris: E. Paul, 1906), 132–33.
32. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, 241.
33. Chagniot, Guerre et societe, 245.
34. Charles Russell, “Letters of Lieut. Col. Charles Russell,” Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Frankland Russell-Astley (London: Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1906), 278.
35. Emile Leonard, L’Armee et ses problemes au XVIIIe siecle (Paris: Libraire Plon, 1958), 217–33.
36. Voltaire, Poeme de Fontenoy, in Oeuvres, 7:388.
37. Ibid., 391.
38. Ibid., 377.
39. Bestermann, Voltaire, 642.
40. Comte de Chabannes, “Projet de relation de la bataille de Fontenoy...par M. le Comte de Chabannes. . . .,” PJ, 311.
41. Rex Whitworth, Field Marshal Lord Ligonier: A Story of the British Army, 1702–1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 101.
42. Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 119. The saying was recorded by Baron Friedrich Melchior Grimm.
43. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, 243. Skrine, who had little patience for Voltaire’s inclination to glorify his friends, credited Captain Isnard with the suggestion to bring the artillery to bear; see Fontenoy, 181. Colin and Pajol were equally critical of Voltaire and awarded the credit to Isnard; see Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 138, and Pajol, Guerres sous Louis XV, 3:385. However, Chabannes, in his account, attributes the deployment of the guns to Richelieu; see PJ, 313.
44. Whitworth, Ligonier, 101–2.
45. PJ, 221–22.
46. Jean Chagniot, Le Chevalier de Folard: La strategie de l’incertitude (Paris: Editions du Rocher, 1997), 256–57.
47. PJ, 364.
48. Skrine, Fontenoy, 181.
49. On this point, see Espagnac, Histoire de Saxe, 2:59–60.
50. The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1745): 251.
51. PJ, 281.
52. Ibid., 218. For the illegality of grapeshot, see G.F. von Martens, The Law of Nations Being the Science of National Law, Covenants, Power, etc. Founded on the Treatise and Customs of Modern Nations in Europe, trans. William Cobbett, 4th ed. (London, 1829), 287.
53. W. A. Speck, The Butcher: The Duke of Cumberland and the Suppression of the 45 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 143.
54. PJ, 248–49.
55. The Gentleman’s Magazine (June 1745): 293.
56. Ibid., (May 1745): 242.
57. Ibid., 252.
58. PJ, 281.
59. Henry Fielding, The True Patriot, no. 6 (December 10, 1745), ed. Miriam Austin Locke (University: University of Alabama Press, 1964).
60. Chandler, Art of Warfare, 306; Browning, War of the Austrian Succession, 212.
61. John Manchip White, Marshal of France: The Life and Times of Maurice, Counte de Saxe (Chicago, 1962), 164.
62. Colin, Campagnes de Saxe, 146.
63. Skrine, Fontenoy, 332.
64. Black, European Warfare, 128–29.
65. “A Journal of the Works in the Trenches during the Siege of Bergen-op- Zoom,” in Remarks on the Military Operations of the English and French Armies commanded by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland and Marshal Saxe during the campaign of 1747, by an officer (London: T. Becker, 1760), 111–86.
66. Browning, War of the Austrian Succession, 320.
67. Pajol, Guerres sous Louis XV, 3:557–63.
68. Evan Charteris, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, and the Seven Years’ War (London: Hutchinson, n.d.), 5.
69. Chagniot, Guerre et societe, 316.
Historical Research 5: Fontenoy 1745
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