CHAPTER III.
BATTLE OF MINDEN.
The morning of the 1st of August dawned fair and softly. The sky was a deep blue, and light fleecy clouds were floating across it. It was the opening of a day of battle, a day of doom to many, for who among us were fated to fall, and who to see its close?
A gentle breeze waved the foliage of the green woods, and swayed the ripened corn in yellow billows as it passed over the broad harvest-fields.
Bright, clear, and sparkling amid the blue ether shone the morning star, and lower down rolled a mass of amber-coloured cloud, on the edges of which glittered the rays of the yet unrisen sun.
Phosphor paled, the light gradually became golden, and the last shadows of night grew fainter as they faded away. Then the light breeze died, and there was not a breath to stir the foliage of the dense old forests which cast their shadows on the current of the Weser—that watery barrier which the French were to defend, and we to force at all hazards; hence, as the morning drew on, the air became close, heavy, and hot, and our men—horse, loot, and artillery—while wheeling, deploying, and getting into position among green hedgerows and deep corn, laden as they were in heavy marching order, soon felt their frames relaxed and the bead-drops oozing from under their grenadier caps and heavy cocked hats.
Brightly the sun burst forth from amid his amber clouds, and ere long the embattled walls of Minden, and its Gothic spires, Catholic and Lutheran, were shining in light.
The allied army formed in order of battle on the plain called Todtenhausen, in front of the town of Minden, which occupies the left bank of the Weser, and in which there was a strong French garrison, whose cannon commanded the famous stone bridge of six hundred yards in length. After capturing the town from General Zastrow, the main body of the army of M. de Contades had encamped near it.
On his left rose a steep hill, in his front lay a deep morass, and in his rear flowed a rugged mountain-stream.
As this position was strong, Prince Ferdinand employed all his strategy to draw the maréchal from it. With this view he had quitted his camp on the Weser, and marched to a place named Hille, leaving, however, General Wangenheim with a body of troops entrenched on the plain of Todtenhausen. Then detaching his nephew (known among us as the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick) with six thousand men, he gave him orders to make a detour towards the French left, and thus cut off their communication with Paderborn.
Though not ignorant of the compass of these triple dispositions, Contades, the Duc de Broglie, and Prince Xavier of Saxony, leader of the Household Cavalry of France, readily fell into the snare.
"Messeigneurs," said Maréchal Contades, with confidence, "the opportunity which we have so long sought for cutting off Prince Ferdinand's communication with the Weser has been found at last. It is the very consummation of our wishes. Already we may behold those vainglorious allies divided and separated in three masses without the possibility of a reunion. Let us march, gentlemen, and by the ruin of General Wangenheim, obtain the full command of the Weser!"
"Vive le Roi!" cried the whole council of war.
It was with this idea in their minds that we saw the French troops leaving their strong position between the hill, the long and impassable morass, and the rugged stream, and advancing into the open plain—precisely the same fatal error committed about a hundred years before by the Scots at the battle of Dunbar.
The allied army, composed of fifty-nine squadrons of horse and forty-three battalions of infantry, with forty-eight 12-pound field-pieces and four mortars, was formed in three lines.
We, the Scots Greys, were in Elliot's brigade of Lord Granby's Cavalry Division, and with the 3rd Dragoon Guards (Howard's) and 10th Dragoons (Mordaunt's) were on the extreme right of the second line, when we formed up from open column of squadrons through fields of hemp and flax.
In our front were the Horse Guards (Blue) and Inniskilling Dragoons, who formed the right of the first line.
Over those thousands forming in order of battle the shadow of death was passing; but no thought had we then, save of victory and triumph, and of regilding our lost laurels!
"There will be rough work to-day—Auld Geordie has his buff-coat on," I heard our men muttering.
As the kettledrums beat and the trumpets sounded the usual flourish when swords were drawn, old Preston looked along our glittering line with a grim smile of satisfaction on his wrinkled visage.
"They have unsheathed as one man!" exclaimed Lord Granby, approvingly.
"'Tis well, my lord," said Colonel Preston, "for those swords have killed as many Frenchmen as any blades in Europe."
As yet all was still—not a shot had stirred the morning air; but we knew that the French were advancing, as from time to time the sky-blue colours, with the golden lilies and the steady gleam of bayonets appeared among the trees, the hedges, and broken ground in front.
James Keith of Inverugie was near me. He was smiling now, and there was a bright flush on his cheek with a feverish restlessness in his eye, for the belief in the old prediction was stronger than ever in his heart, and I pitied the poor lad, for he was brave as a Bayard or a Du Guesclin.
Ere long a noisy murmur—the hum of expectation—passed along the first line, when eight battalions of French—the vanguard, which was led by the Duc de Broglie (who was mounted on a splendid white horse with housings flashing in the sun), and which had passed the Weser at midnight, after marching on with perfect confidence until they reached the crest of an eminence, halted simultaneously, on finding to their astonishment the whole army of the allies now acting in unison, disposed in excellent order, and formed in three lines, the first of which reached almost to the gates of Minden, and covered the entire plain of Todtenhausen!
A discovery so unexpected filled the Duke with embarrassment; but it was too late to retreat.
"St. Denis for France!" he exclaimed, waving his baton, and ordered the Cavalry, which had covered his advance, to charge. Thus, in five minutes, the battle began in all its fury about six o'clock, A.M.: a battle in describing which I shall generally confine myself to a few personal episodes.
On the Hanoverian Guards and the six regiments of British Infantry—our brave 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, or Edinburgh, 37th, and 51st—fell the chief fury of the action. They were all formed in one division, protected by a brigade of British artillery under Captains Drummond and MacBean; and we writhed in our saddles when we saw them knocked over like nine-pins—their red coats dotting all the green plain in our front; and yet no order was given for us to advance and support them.
After repulsing the French Infantry they were assailed by a column of Swiss, with whom they exchanged several volleys at twenty yards distance.
Shoulder to shoulder they stood, our splendid British Infantry, the rear-ranks filling up the gaps in front, the men never pausing under fire, save to wipe their pans, renew their priming, or change their flints, for none would fall to the rear. In the words of the old ballad—
"So closing up on every side,
No slackness there was found,"
amid the fierce roar of musketry and the clouds of smoke which enveloped all the plain. Colonel Kingsley, at the head of a Cavalry regiment on our left, had two officers shot dead by his side, two horses killed under him, and he received a musket ball through his hat.
Now the French brought up several batardes, as they term their eight-pounders, and the range of these extended to us, the cavalry of the second line.
Almost immediately after these guns opened, I heard a half-stifled scream near me, and turning, saw Keith doubled in two, and falling from his horse mortally wounded and dying. A cannon-ball had torn away his bowels, and my heart was wrung on seeing him gasping beneath my horse's feet, while the memory of the prediction flashed upon me. He died in a few minutes.
The great aim of the French marshals was now to drive in or destroy either flank of the allies. In endeavouring to effect this object, a charge of cavalry was made. The Household Troops of France, most of whom were noblesse, the red, grey, and black mousquetaires, with the carabiniers and gendarmerie, came boldly on. They were led by Prince Xavier of Saxony, brother of the Queen of France, a brave soldier, distinguished by his bearing, his splendid uniform, which was covered with orders, his sparkling diamond star and piebald charger. Forcing a passage, sword in hand, through the flank of our first line, he was advancing towards us, re-forming his glittering squadrons as they came on, when by order of the Marquis of Granby, we advanced to repel them.
I saw old Preston's withered cheek redden with stern joy, and his sunken eye sparkle brightly, as he rapidly formed us in open column of squadrons at the usual distance of twenty-four feet between each other.
"Forward, my lads! Keep your horses well in hand—no closing—no crowding. March!"
But when we began to move, the ordinary distance from boot-top to boot-top between the files became closer and denser, till we formed as it were a ponderous mass of men and horses wedged together.
"Trot!" cried the colonel; then followed, "Gallop—CHARGE!"
His voice blended with the trumpet's twang; there was a rush of hoofs, a hard breathing of men and horses, a rustling of standards and rattle of accoutrements, as we rushed with uplifted swords and with a wild hurrah upon the recoiling foe.
We trod them down like the hemp-field over which we spurred; and in that dreadful shock, down went mousequetaire, gendarme, cuirassier, and we made a horrid slaughter of the French Household Troops.
The colonel of the Mousquetaires Gris, an old officer, whose breast was covered with stars and medals, was pistolled by one of our corporals; and Prince Xavier of Saxony, separated from his discomfited column, found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Hob Elliot.
Aware of the vast difference between them in strength and stature, worthy Hob Elliot tried to spare and capture the Prince, of whose rank he was ignorant, and who was a very little man; but he resisted bravely, and gave our poor Borderer several severe sword-cuts. Hob at last lost all patience, cut him down, and was about to capture him by the collar, when a stray shot struck the unfortunate Prince, who fell dead from his horse.
This occurred immediately in front of our 51st Foot.
While we waged this conflict on the right, the valour of the Prussian and Hanoverian Dragoons under the Prince of Holstein and others on our left, repulsed the enemy, and compelled them to seek safety in a flight which soon became general along the whole line, despite every effort of the Duc de Broglie and Maréchal de Contades.
"It was at this instant," says an historian of the war, "that Prince Ferdinand sent orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the British and Hanoverian Horse which composed the right wing of the allies, to advance to the charge. If these orders had been cheerfully obeyed, the battle of Minden would have been as decisive as that of Blenheim. The French army would have been utterly destroyed, or totally routed and driven out of Germany. But whatever was the cause, the orders were not sufficiently precise, were misinterpreted, or imperfectly understood."
The cause of the misfortune was this.
We had just re-formed after repelling the Household Cavalry, when Major Shirley, minus his cocked-hat and kid gloves, and what was more, his presence of mind, looking ghastly pale and wild, and so agitated apparently that he could scarcely articulate, rode up to Colonel Preston (who was sitting on his old horse as cool as a cucumber, with the bullets whistling about him), and inquired for Lord George Sackville, whose whereabouts the colonel indicated, by pointing with his sword to a horseman whose aspect was somewhat shadowy amid the eddying smoke.
Shirley's conventional smile had vanished now, and he rode hurriedly on. His instructions were to order the whole line of cavalry to pursue; but this message in his then state of mind he failed to deliver, and hence the omission of an immediate cavalry advance—a miscarriage for which Lord George Sackville, after being victimized by the public press, had to appear before a general court-martial.
Shirley's undisguised panic was, however, unnecessary, as his presentiment was not fulfilled, and he escaped untouched amid the horrors of a field whereon lay one thousand three hundred and ninety-four officers and men of our six British infantry regiments alone, and I know not how many of our allies.
Two thousand French were hurled at the bayonet's point into the Weser, and five thousand more, with Princes Xavier and De Camille, were left dead upon the plain, with many standards and forty-three pieces of cannon. On some of the latter I saw "25th and 51st Foot" chalked, to indicate that these corps had taken them. The Comte de Lutzelbourg and the Marquis De Monti, two maréchaux-de-camp, were captured by the Greys.
The passage of the fugitives across the Weser was a scene of horror.
Beside the stone bridge already mentioned, the French engineer, M. Monjoy, had chained across the stream two pontoons, which broke under the weight of the passers; thus many waggons full of wounded officers were swept away by the current, and the flower of the Cavalry, particularly the Carabiniers and Mousquetaires, were destroyed.
Amid the shrieks, the cries, the scattered shots that filled the air, we heard the hoarse hurrahs of the advancing Germans, with the clear ringing cheers of the British, and the shouts of "Forward with the Light Bobs and Buffers—support the Tow-rows!"
The latter was the nickname of the Grenadiers in those days, and they in turn named the battalion men "buffers," or "mousers" in the militia; while the "Light Bobs" were the pet company of every corps, being always the smartest and most active men.
The town of Minden surrendered with five thousand men, the half of whom were wounded. By sunset the whole of our cavalry were gone in pursuit, save our Light Troop, which, with a few Prussian Hussars, remained on the field to protect the wounded, to patrol after plunderers, and oversee the working parties who interred the dead.
In the activity of that pursuit old Colonel Preston surpassed every other officer. He actually took the Greys two hundred miles from the field, and captured a vast number of prisoners.*
* "Regimental Records."
Part of the military chest, with all the equipages of Maréchal de Contades and the Prince of Condé fell into his hands—prizes of no inconsiderable value.