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"I have some twelve thousand of your countrymen here, and I rely upon them greatly. We know how they fought at Fontenoy. Splendid fellows they are. There is a Scotch regiment with them, whose appearance in kilts and feathers in no slight degree astonishes both the people and my own soldiers. Their cavalry are very fine, too. They have much heavier horses than ours, and should be terrible in a charge.
"How long have you been on the road?"
"I have been eighteen days, sir. I could have ridden faster myself, having a spare charger, but my orderly could hardly travel more rapidly; and indeed, when I got to Magdeburg, and found that it was not likely that there would be any engagement for some time, I allowed the horses three days' rest, so that they should be fit for service as soon as they arrived here."
A tent was at once erected in the staff lines for Fergus. He found, upon inquiry, that the British division was at present at Muenster. He was invited by the duke to dinner that evening, and was introduced to the officers of the staff; who received him courteously, but with some surprise that one so young should not only bear the rank of major, but the coveted insignia of the Black Eagle.
The duke, however, when the introductions were over, gave them a short account of the newcomer's services, and after dinner begged Fergus to tell them how he escaped from Linz; and they had a hearty laugh over the manner in which he and his companions obtained their first disguise.
"I have heard something of this," Colonel Zolwyn, the head of the staff, said. "Captains Stauffen and Ritzer were both ordered here, on their arrival at Berlin; and though I have not met them, I have heard from others of their escape from Linz, which they ascribed entirely to a major of Marshal Keith's staff, who was a fellow prisoner of theirs."
For the next three weeks Fergus was on horseback from morning till night. The movements of the troops were incessant. The two French generals manoeuvred with great skill, giving no opportunity for the Duke of Brunswick to strike a blow at either. Broglio, guided by a treacherous peasant, captured Minden by surprise. Contades, with thirty thousand men, had taken up an unassailable position: his right wing on the Weser, and his left on impassable bogs and quagmires, and with his front covered by the Bastau, a deep and unfordable brook. Thirty thousand of his troops were occupied in besieging Muenster and Osnabrueck, and other places, and succeeded in capturing the latter, containing the duke's magazines of hay and cavalry forage.
The duke's position became very grave, and the French believed that, in a very short time, they would be masters of all Hanover. Broglio's force of twenty thousand men was on the east side of the Weser, and Ferdinand was unable to move to strike a blow at the detached force of Contades; for had he done so, Broglio would have captured the city of Hanover, which lay perfectly open to him within a day's march.
Fergus had been specially employed in carrying despatches to the British division, and had made many acquaintances among the officers. As the army gradually concentrated, when the French forces drew closer together, he often spent the evening in their tents when the day's work was done.
In the Scotch regiment he was soon quite at home. The fact that he was related to Marshal Keith, of whom every Scotchman was proud, and had been one of his aides-de-camp, sufficed in itself to render him at once popular. The officers followed with eager interest the accounts of the various battles he had witnessed, and little by little extracted from him some account of the manner in which he had won his steps so rapidly in the Prussian service. He found that they, and the British troops in general, had a profound dislike for Lord Sackville; who commanded them, but who was especially in command of their cavalry. All described him as a heavy, domineering fellow, personally indolent and slow, on ill terms with the Duke of Brunswick, whom in a quiet and obstinate way he seemed bent on thwarting.
"He is an ill-conditioned brute," one of the officers remarked. "The only thing to be said for him is that he is not deficient in personal courage. He has fought several duels, into which he brought himself by his overbearing temper."
Although he had frequently carried despatches to Sackville, Fergus had not exchanged a word with him. The English general had taken the paper from his hand, barely acknowledging his salute; and not indeed glancing at him, but turning on his heel and walking off to read the contents of the despatch, which generally appeared to displease him, judging by the manner in which he spoke to his officers. Then he would go into his tent, and one of his aides-de-camp would shortly come out with a letter containing his reply.
Fergus naturally came to regard the English commander with the same dislike that his own officers felt for him. One day, when handing him a despatch, he omitted the usual salute. Sackville noticed it at once.
"Why do you not salute, sir?" he said, raising his head, and for the first time looking at the duke's aide-de-camp.
"This is the twelfth time, sir, that I have brought despatches from the Duke of Brunswick. Upon each occasion I have made the military salute. By the regulations of the army, I believe that the superior officer is as much bound to return a salute as the inferior officer is to render it. As you have not chosen, upon any one of those twelve occasions, to return my salute, I see no reason why I should continue to give it."
Sackville looked at him as he shouted in English, with astonishment and rage:
"And who the devil are you?"
"I am Major Fergus Drummond, a companion of the order of the Black Eagle, and an aide-de-camp of the King of Prussia."
"The deuce you are!" Sackville said insolently. "I did not know that the King of Prussia promoted lads to be majors, chose them for his aides-de-camp, and made them companions of his order."
"Then, sir, you know it now," Fergus said quietly; "and for an explanation of my rank, I beg to refer you to the Duke of Brunswick; who will, I doubt not, be not unwilling to explain the matter to you."
"I shall report your insolence to the duke, at any rate, sir. Were it not for my position here, I would myself condescend to give you the lesson of which you seem to me to be in want."
"I should doubt, sir, whether I could receive any lesson at your hands; but after this affair has terminated, I shall be happy to afford you an opportunity of endeavouring to do so."
Lord Sackville was on the point of replying, when the colonel of his staff, whom Fergus had met at dinner at the duke's, and who spoke German fluently, came up and said:
"Pardon me, general. Can I speak to you for a moment?"
Fergus reined back his horse a length or two, while the officer spoke rapidly to Lord Sackville.
"I don't care a fig," the latter burst out passionately.
The officer continued to speak. The general listened sullenly, then turning to Fergus, he said:
"Well, sir, we shall leave the matter as it is. As soon as this battle is over, I shall waive my rank and meet you."
"I shall be ready at any time," Fergus said; and then, formally saluting, he rode away.
"I suppose you have no answer, Major Drummond," the duke said, when he returned to his quarters; "but indeed, there is none needed."
"I have no answer, sir, and indeed did not wait for one. Lord Sackville and I had a somewhat hot altercation;" and he related, word for word, what had passed.
"It is a pity, but I cannot blame you," the duke said, when Fergus had finished. "The man has given me a great deal of trouble, ever since he joined us with his force. He is always slow in obeying orders. Sometimes he seems wilfully to misunderstand them, and altogether he is a thorn in my side. I am glad, indeed, that the British infantry division are entirely under my control. With them I have no difficulty whatever. He was entirely in the wrong in this matter; and I certainly should address a remonstrance to him, on the subject of his manner and language to one of my staff, but our relations are already unpleasantly strained, and any open breach between us might bring about a serious disaster."
"I certainly should not wish that you should make any allusion to the matter, sir. Possibly I may have an opportunity of teaching him to be more polite, after we have done with the French."
By two sudden strokes the duke, in the third week of July, obtained possession of Bremen, thereby obtaining a port by which stores and reinforcements from England could reach him; and also recaptured Osnabrueck, and found to his great satisfaction that the French had also established a magazine there, so that the stores were even larger than when they had taken it from him.
The great point was to induce Contades to move from his impregnable position. He knew that both Contades and Broglio were as anxious as he was to bring about a battle, did they but see an advantageous opportunity; and he took a bold step to tempt them.
On the 30th of July he sent the Hereditary Prince, with a force of ten thousand men, to make a circuit and fall upon Gohfeld, ten miles up the Weser; and so cut the line by which Contades brought up the food for his army from Cassel, seventy miles to the south. Such a movement would compel the French either to fight or to fall back. It was a bold move and, had it not succeeded, would have been deemed a rash one; for it left him with but thirty-six thousand men to face the greatly superior force of the French.
The bait proved too tempting for the French generals. It seemed to them that the duke had committed a fatal mistake. His left, leaning on the Weser was, by the march of the force to Gohfeld, left unsupported at a distance of three miles from the centre; and it seemed to them that they could now hurl themselves into the gap, destroy the duke's left, and then crush his centre and right, and cut off whatever remnant might escape from Hanover.
On Tuesday evening, July 1st, the French got into motion as soon as it was dark. During the night Contades crossed, by nineteen bridges that he had thrown across the Bastau; while at the same time Broglio crossed the Weser, by the bridge of the town, and took up his position facing the Prussian left wing, which rested on the village of Todtenhausen, intending to attack him early in the morning, and to finish before the duke could bring the centre to his assistance.
Feeling sure that the French would fall into the trap, the duke ordered his cavalry to mount at one o'clock in the morning, and moved in with his troops from the villages around which they were encamped; closing in towards Minden, whereby the centre gradually came into touch with the left, the whole forming a segment of a circle, of which Minden was the centre.
The French also formed a segment of a similar circle, nearer to Minden. Contades was a long time getting his troops into position, for great confusion was caused by their having crossed by so many bridges, and it took hours to range them in order of battle.
Broglio was in position, facing the duke's left, at five o'clock in the morning. He was strong in artillery and infantry; but as the ground on both flanks was unfavourable for the action of cavalry, these were all posted in the centre. The cavalry, indeed, was the strongest portion of the force. They numbered ten thousand, and were the flower of the French army.
The duke placed six regiments of British infantry in his centre. They were the 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 37th and 51st. Some regiments of Hanoverians were in line behind them. The British cavalry were on the duke's right. The morning was misty, and it was not until eight o'clock that both sides were ready, and indeed even then Contades' infantry was not finally settled in its position.
The battle began with an attack by some Hessian regiments on the village of Hahlen, and by a very heavy fire of artillery on both sides. The orders to the English regiments had been, "March to attack the enemy on sound of drum," meaning that they were to move when the drums gave the signal for the advance. The English, however, understood the order to be, "You are to advance to the sound of your drums." They waited for a time, while the attack on Hahlen continued. It was repulsed three times before it succeeded, but before this happened the English regiments lost patience, and said, "We ought to be moving." The drums therefore struck up and, to the astonishment of the Hanoverians, these English battalions strode away towards the enemy. However, the regiments of the second line followed.
As the British stepped forward, a tremendous crossfire of artillery opened upon them, thirty guns on one side and as many on the other; but in spite of this the six regiments pressed on unfalteringly, with their drums beating lustily behind them. Then there was a movement in their front, and a mighty mass of French cavalry poured down upon them. The English halted, closed up the gaps made by the artillery, held their fire until the leading squadrons of the French were within forty paces, and then opened a tremendous file fire. Before it man and horse went down. At so short a distance every bullet found its billet and, for the first time in history, a line of infantry repulsed the attack of a vastly superior body of cavalry.
Astonished, and hampered by the fallen men and horses of their first line, the French cavalry reined up and trotted sullenly back to reform and repeat the charge. The British drums beat furiously as the French rode forward again, only to be repulsed as before. Six times did the cavalry, with a bravery worthy of their reputation, renew the charge. Six times did they draw back sullenly, as the leading squadrons withered up under the storm of shot. Then they could do no more, but rode back in a broken and confused mass through the gaps between their infantry, throwing these also into partial confusion.
"Ride to Lord Sackville, and tell him to charge with his cavalry, at once," the duke said to Fergus; and then checking himself said, "No, I had better send someone else," and repeated the order to another of his staff.
Sackville only replied that he did not see his way to doing so. A second and then a third officer were sent to him, with a like result, and at last he himself left his cavalry and rode to the duke and inquired:
"How am I to go on?"
The duke curbed his anger at seeing the fruits of victory lost. He replied quietly:
"My lord, the opportunity is now past."
Harassed only by the fire of the British and Hanoverian guns, and by that of the British infantry, Contades drew off his army by the nineteen bridges into his stronghold. Broglio, who had done nothing save keep up a cannonade, covered the retreat with his division. The total amount of loss on the duke's side was two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two, of which more than half belonged to the British infantry. The French loss was seven thousand and eighty-six, with their heavy guns and many flags; but had Sackville done his duty, their army would have been annihilated, pent up as it was with the river on each flank, convergent to each other at Minden; a perfect rat trap from which no army could have escaped, had it been hotly pressed by cavalry.
The feat performed by the British infantry astonished Europe, who were at first almost incredulous that six regiments in line could have repulsed, over and over again, and finally driven off the field, ten thousand of the best cavalry of France.
While the battle was raging, the Hereditary Prince had done his share of the work, had fallen upon Gohfeld, crushed the French division guarding it, cutting the French from their magazines and rendering their position untenable. They received the news that evening, and at once commenced their retreat, Broglio towards Frankfort and Contades straight for the Rhine. The latter was obliged to abandon all his baggage, and many of his guns; and his army, by the time it had reached the Rhine, had become a mere rabble. The general was at once recalled in disgrace, and Broglio appointed commander-in-chief; although by failing to carry out the orders he had received, to fall upon the allies left at five in the morning, he had largely contributed to the defeat that had befallen Contades.
Chapter 17: Unexpected News
The fury of the British cavalry, at the shameful inactivity in which they had been maintained, was unbounded; and their commander, if he moved from his tent, was saluted with hisses and jeers by the troopers. It was not for long, however; for as soon as the news was known at home, he was ordered to return. On the afternoon of the same day, an officer rode over to headquarters and asked for Major Drummond.
"I am here, sir," he said courteously, "on behalf of Lord Sackville. He will be leaving for England tomorrow, and I am the bearer of a hostile message from him. I shall be obliged if you will put me in communication with some officer who will act on your behalf."
"Certainly," Fergus replied. "I was expecting such a message."
He had already heard of the order that Sackville had received; and had requested Major Kurstad, a fellow aide-de-camp, to act for him should he send him a hostile message. Going in he spoke to Kurstad, who at once went out and introduced himself to the British officer.
"This is a painful business," the latter said, "and I can assure you that I do not undertake it willingly. However, I overheard the altercation between Lord Sackville and Major Drummond, and the same night he asked me to act for him, when the time for it came. I consented, and cannot draw back from the undertaking; but I need hardly say that, after what happened at Minden, no English officer, unless previously pledged, would have consented to act for him. I suppose, sir, there is no use in asking whether the matter cannot be arranged."
"Not in the slightest. Major Drummond told me that he had expressed his willingness to meet the general, and he is certainly not one to withdraw from his word. My friend chooses swords. In fact the use of pistols, on such occasions, is quite unknown in the Continental army."
"As Lord Sackville leaves tomorrow morning, we should be glad if you would name an early hour."
"As early as you like. It is light at half-past four."
"Then shall we say five o'clock?"
"Certainly."
"And the place?"
"There is a small clump of trees on the heath, two miles west of our camp."
"We will be there at that time, sir. Would you object to each side being accompanied by a second friend? I ask it because, did anything happen to my principal, I should certainly wish that another witness was present at the duel."
"We have no objection," Major Kurstad said. "We shall also bring a surgeon with us, and of course you can do the same, if you are disposed."
The two officers saluted, and the major returned to Fergus.
"Do you mean to kill him?" he asked, after he had told him of the arrangements that had been made.
"Certainly not. The man is an overbearing fool, and I merely wish to give him a lesson. Personally, I should be glad if the whole of the officers of the British force could be present, in order that he might be as much humiliated as possible; but even if I hated the man–and I have no shadow of feeling of that kind–I would not kill him. He is going home to England to be tried by court martial, and its sentence is likely to be a far heavier blow, to a bully of that kind, than death would be. He has a taste of it already, for I hear that he is hooted whenever he leaves his tent."
At the appointed time the two parties arrived, almost at the same moment, at a spot arranged. Fergus was accompanied by Major Kurstad and another officer of the duke's staff, and by the duke's own surgeon. Formal salutations were exchanged between the seconds. The duelling swords were examined, and found to be of the same length. There was no difficulty in choosing the ground, as there was an open space in the centre of the little wood, and the sun had not risen high enough to overtop the trees. As, therefore, the glade was in shade, there was no advantage, in point of light, to either combatant.
Lord Sackville had the reputation of being a good fencer, but in point of physique there was no comparison between the combatants. Sackville was a tall and powerfully-built man, but dissipation and good living had rendered his muscles flabby and sapped his strength, although he was still in what should have been his prime. Fergus, on the other hand, had not a superfluous ounce of flesh. Constant exercise had hardened every muscle. He was a picture of health and activity.
The general viewed him with an expression of vindictive animosity; while his face, on the other hand, wore an expression of perfect indifference. The uniform coats were removed, and the dropping of a handkerchief gave the signal for them to commence.
Lord Sackville at once lunged furiously. The thrust was parried, and the next moment his sword was sent flying through the air. His second did not move to recover it.
"Why do you not bring it here?" Sackville exclaimed, in a tone of the deepest passion.
"Because, my lord," his second said coldly, "as you have been disarmed, the duel necessarily terminates; unless your antagonist is willing that the sword shall be restored to you."
"I shall be obliged if you will give it him, Major Buck," Fergus said quietly. "A little accident of this sort may occur occasionally, even to a noted swordsman, when fighting with a boy."
The general was purple with passion, when he received the sword from his second.
"Mind this time," he said between his teeth as, after a preliminary feint or two, he again lunged.
Again the sword was wrenched from his hand, with a force that elicited an exclamation of pain from him.
"Pray, give the general his sword again, Major Buck," Fergus said.
"You hold your rapier too tightly, General Sackville. You need a little more freedom of play, and less impetuosity. I don't want to hurt you seriously, but your blood is altogether too hot, and next time I will bleed you on the sword arm."
Steadying himself with a great effort, Sackville played cautiously for a time; but after parrying several of his thrusts, without the slightest difficulty, Fergus ran him through the right arm, halfway between the elbow and the shoulder, and the sword dropped from his hand.
Lord George Sackville had borne himself well in several duels, and was accounted a gentleman, though arrogant and overbearing. He stood without speaking, while the surgeon bandaged up his arm. Then he said quietly:
"I ask your pardon, Major Drummond. This matter was altogether my fault. I said that I would give you a lesson, and you have given me one, which assuredly I shall never forget. I trust that you will accept my apology for the words I uttered."
"Certainly, general, the more so that I own I gave provocation by failing to salute you–my only excuse for which is that officers of the highest rank, in Prussia, always return the salute of a junior officer, of whatever rank; and that I did not reflect that you, having many important matters in your mind, might have neglected to return mine from pure absent mindedness, and not with any intentional discourtesy. I can only say that I have not spoken of this matter to any but my three friends here, and I am sure that the matter will not be mentioned by them, when it is my earnest request that it shall go no further."
The parties then mutually saluted, and rode off to their respective camps. The story of the duel did not leak out from Fergus's friends; but Sackville had openly spoken of the matter, the evening before, to several officers; and had added to their disgust at his conduct by declaring that he wished it had been the Duke of Brunswick, instead of this upstart aide-de-camp of his, with whom he had to reckon the next morning. He, on his part, exacted no pledge from the officers who had accompanied him, but rode back to camp without speaking a word, and an hour later left in a carriage for Bremen.
The news of the encounter, then, circulated rapidly, and excited intense amusement, and the most lively satisfaction, on the part of the British officers.
On Sackville's arrival in England he was tried by court martial, sentenced to be cashiered, and declared incapable of again serving his majesty in any military capacity. This the king proclaimed officially to be a sentence worse than death and, taking a pen, he himself struck out his name from the list of privy councillors.
No satisfactory explanation has ever been given of Sackville's conduct at Minden. Many say it is probable that he was disgusted and sulky at having to rise so early, but this would hardly be a sufficient explanation. The more probable conjecture is that, as he was on notoriously bad terms with the duke, he was willing that the latter should suffer a severe repulse at Minden, in the hope that he would be deprived of his command, and he himself appointed commander-in-chief of the allied army.
A few days after the battle, the exultation caused by the victory at Minden was dashed by the news that a Prussian army, twenty-six thousand strong, commanded by Wedel, had been beaten by the Russians at Zuellichau; and ten days later by the still more crushing news that Frederick himself, with fifty thousand men, had been completely defeated by a Russian and Austrian army, ninety thousand in number, at Kunersdorf, on the 11th of August.
At first the Prussians had beaten back the Russians with great loss. The latter had rallied, and, joined by Loudon with the Austrian divisions, had recovered the ground and beaten off the Prussians with immense loss, the defeat being chiefly due to the fact that the Prussian army had marched to the attack through woods intersected with many streams; and that, instead of arriving on the field of battle as a whole, they only came up at long intervals, so that the first success could not be followed up, and the regiments who made it were annihilated before help came.
The news came from Berlin. A letter had been received there from the king, written on the night after the battle. He said that he had but three thousand men collected round him, that the circumstances were desperate, that he appointed his brother Prince Henry general-in-chief, and that the army was to swear fidelity to his nephew. The letter was understood to mean that Frederick intended to put an end to his life. He knew that the enmity of his foes was largely directed against him personally, and that far easier terms might be obtained for the country were he out of the way; and he was therefore determined not to survive irreparable defeat. Indeed, he always carried a small tube of deadly poison on his person.
Universal consternation was felt at the news. However, three days later came the more cheering intelligence that twenty-three thousand men had now gathered round him, and that he had again taken the command. The loss in the battle, however, had been terrible–six thousand had been killed, thirteen thousand wounded. Two thousand of the latter, too seriously wounded to escape, were made prisoners. The loss of the enemy had been little inferior, for eighteen thousand Russians and Austrians were killed or wounded.
Another letter sent off by the king that night had disastrous consequences, for he wrote to the governor of Dresden that, should the Austrians attempt anything on the town beyond his means of maintaining himself, he was to capitulate on the best terms he could obtain.
Happily for Frederick, Soltikoff was as slow in his movements as Daun, and for two months made no attempt to take advantage of the victory of Kunersdorf, and thus afforded time to Frederick to repair his misfortunes. But during the two months Dresden had been lost. Its governor had received Frederick's letter, and was unaware how things had mended after it was written, and that a force was pressing forward to aid him against an Austrian besieging army. Consequently, after little more than a nominal resistance, he surrendered when, unknown to him, relief was close at hand.
The French being defeated, and in full flight for the Rhine, it seemed to Fergus that it was his duty to return to the king; as there was no probability whatever of any hard fighting on the western frontier, while the position of affairs in the east was most serious. He was still on the king's staff, and had but been lent to the Duke of Brunswick. He laid the matter before the latter, who at once agreed with him that he should rejoin the king.
"Frederick sorely needs active and intelligent officers, at present," he said. "It is not by force that he can hope to prevent the Russians and Austrians from marching to Berlin, but by quickness and resource. His opponents are both slow and deliberate in their movements, and the king's quickness puzzles and confuses them. It is always difficult for two armies to act in perfect concert, well-nigh impossible when they are of different nationalities. Daun will wait for Soltikoff and Soltikoff for Daun. The king will harass both of them. Daun has to keep one eye upon his magazines in Bohemia, for Prince Henry in Silesia still constantly menaces them, and not only the Austrian but the Russian army is fed from Prague.
"Were it not that I am specially bound to defend Hanover from the Confederate army, I would march with the greater portion of my force to join the king; but my orders are imperative. 'Tis for Hanover that George of England is fighting, and the British subsidy and the British troops will be lost to the king, were Hanover to be taken by the enemy. If Prince Henry could but join him, it would bring his army again to a strength with which he could fight either the Russians or Austrians; but their armies lie between Henry and the king, and unless Daun makes some grievous mistake–and slow as he is, Daun seldom makes a mistake–it seems well-nigh impossible that the prince can get through.
