PRINCE FERDINAND DEFEATS THE FRENCH, &c.

The court of Versailles, though equally mortified and confounded at the turn of their affairs in Germany, did not sit tamely and behold this reverse; but exerted their usual spirit and expedition in retrieving the losses they had sustained. They assembled a body of troops at Hanau, under the direction of the prince de Soubise, who, it was said, had received orders to penetrate, by the way of Donawert, Ingoldstadt, and Arnberg, into Bohemia. In the meantime, reinforcements daily arrived in the camp of the count de Clermont; and, as repeated complaints had been made of the want of discipline and subordination in that army, measures were taken for reforming the troops by severity and example. The mareschal duke de Belleisle, who now acted as secretary at war with uncommon ability, wrote a letter, directed to all the colonels of infantry, threatening them, in the king’s name, with the loss of their regiments, should they connive any longer at the scandalous practice of buying commissions; an abuse which had crept into the service under various pretexts, to the discouragement of merit, the relaxation of discipline, and the total extinction of laudable emulation. The prince of Clermont having quitted his strong camp at Rhinefeldt, retired to Nuys, a little higher up the river, and detached a considerable corps, under the command of the count de St. Germain, to take post at Creveldt, situated in a plain between his army and the camp of the allies, which fronted the town of Meurs. After several motions on both sides, prince Ferdinand resolved to attack the enemy, and forthwith made a disposition for this purpose. He assigned the command of the whole left wing, consisting of eighteen battalions and twenty-eight squadrons, to lieutenant-general Sporcken; the conduct of the right wing, composed of sixteen battalions and fourteen squadrons, was intrusted to the hereditary prince and major-general Wangenheim; the squadrons, with the addition of two regiments of Prussian dragoons, were under the immediate direction of the prince of Holstein, while the hereditary prince commanded the infantry. The light troops, consisting of five squadrons of hussars, were divided between the prince of Holstein and lieutenant-general Sporcken. Major Luckner’s squadron, together with Scheither’s corps, were ordered to observe the flank of the enemy’s right, and with this view were posted in the village of Papendeick; and a battalion of the troops of Wolfenbuttel were left in the town of Hulste, to cover the rear of the army. Prince Ferdinand’s design was to attack the enemy on their left flank; but the execution was rendered extremely difficult by the woods and ditches that embarrassed the route, and the numerous ditches that intersected this part of the country. On the twenty-third day of June, at four in the morning, the army began to move; the right advancing in two columns as far as St. Anthony, and the left marching up within half a league of Crevelt. The prince having viewed the position of the enemy from the steeple of St. Anthony, procured guides, and having received all the necessary hints of information, proceeded to the right, in order to charge the enemy’s left flank by the villages of Worst and Anrath; but, in order to divide their attention, and keep them in suspense with respect to the nature of his principal attack, he directed the generals Sporcken and Oberg to advance against them by the way of Crevelt and St. Anthony, and, in particular, to make the most of their artillery, that, being employed in three different places at once, they might be prevented from sending any reinforcement to the left, where the chief attack was intended. These precautions being taken, prince Ferdinand, putting himself at the head of the grenadiers of the right wing, continued his march in two columns to the village of Anrath, where he fell in with an advanced party of the French, which, after a few discharges of musketry, retired to their camp and gave the alarm. In the meantime, both armies were drawn up in order of battle; the troops of the allies in the plain between the villages of Anrath and Willich, opposite to the French forces, whose left was covered with a wood. The action began about one in the afternoon, with a severe cannonading on the part of prince Ferdinand, which, though well supported, proved ineffectual in drawing the enemy from their cover; he therefore determined to dislodge them from the wood by dint of small arms. The hereditary prince immediately advanced with the whole front, and a very obstinate action ensued. Meanwhile, the cavalry on the right in vain attempted to penetrate the wood on the other side, where the enemy had raised two batteries, which were sustained by forty squadrons of horse. After a terrible fire had been maintained on both sides till five in the afternoon, the grenadiers forced the intrenchments in the wood, which were lined by the French infantry. These giving way, abandoned the wood in the utmost disorder; but the pursuit was checked by the conduct and resolution of the enemy’s cavalry, which, notwithstanding a dreadful fire from the artillery of the allies, maintained their ground, and covered the foot in their retreat to Nuys. The success of the day was in a good measure owing to the artillery on the left and in the centre, with which the generals Sporcken and Oberg had done great execution, and employed the attention of the enemy on that side, while prince Ferdinand prosecuted his attack on the other quarter. It must be owned, however, that their right wing and centre retired in great order to Nuys, though the left was defeated, with the loss of some standards, colours, and pieces of cannon, and six thousand men killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.*

* Among the French officers who lost their lives in this
engagement, was the count de Gisors, only son of the
mareschal duke de Belleisle, and last hope of that
illustrious family, a young nobleman of extraordinary
accomplishments, who finished a short life of honour in the
embrace of military glory, and fell gallantly fighting at
the head of his own regiment, to the inexpressible grief of
his aged father, and the universal regret of his country.

This victory, however, which cost the allies about fifteen hundred men, was not at all decisive in its consequences; and, indeed, the plan seemed only calculated to display the enterprising genius of the Hanoverian general. True it is, the French army took refuge under the cannon of Cologn, where they remained without hazarding any step for the relief of Dusseldorp, which prince Ferdinand immediately invested, and in a few days reduced, the garrison being allowed to march out with the honours of war, on condition that they should not, for the space of one year, carry arms against the allies.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760