Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/23

A.D.1761.] lay near in augmented strength of position, and his resources had ominously decreased. Voltaire, who, from a friend, was become a bitter enemy, exulted over him in writing to the duke de Choiseul, the minister of France, calculating on his fall.

The campaign against the French was opened in February by prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, by attacking the duke de Broglie, and driving him out of Cassel. In their retreat towards the Maine, the French were attacked by the united forces of the Hanoverian general, Sporken, and the Prussian general Syburg, near Lanensalze, who took from them three thousand prisoners, and captured or destroyed all their magazines. Prince Ferdinand followed up this advantage by attacking them in Marburg, Göttingen, and Ziegenhain, and applied himself particularly to the siege of Cassel. But Broglie, now recovered from his surprise, first defeated the hereditary prince of Brunswick, Ferdinand's nephew, at Stangerode, and then repulsed Ferdinand himself from Cassel.

The destruction of the French magazines delayed their operations till midsummer, when Broglie advanced from Cassel, and the prince Soubise from the Rhine, to give Ferdinand battle. On the march they again fell in with Sporken, and this time defeated one of his posts, and took nineteen pieces of cannon and eight hundred prisoners. The allies awaited them in front of the river Lippe, and betwixt that river and the Aest, near the village of Kirk-Denkern. The French united in the forest of Teutoburg—sacred ground to the Germans, where their great hero, Hermann, annihilated the Roman legions of Varus, and where, if anywhere, Germans must fight well. Ferdinand was strongly encamped with the river in front, and the English, under the marquis of Granby and general Conway, forming the centre and right of his position.

On the evening of the 10th of July, De Broglie, aiming at engrossing the honour, of the victory—for the allied troops were inferior to him in numbers—fell suddenly on Granby's wing, where he, however, met a brave reception, and though the English for some time had to bear the whole brunt of the assault, he was driven back by them with heavy slaughter. The next morning prince Soubise, highly indignant at Broglie's conduct, renewed the attack on Granby's division, and the battle became general, the whole force of Soubise and Broglie being engaged. The conflict continued five hours, when the French were routed on all points, having lost, according to the allies, five thousand men, whilst they themselves had only lost one thousand five hundred. Both prince Ferdinand and Granby distinguished themselves highly by their gallantry and management. On the other hand, the French commanders fell into violent quarrel, Soubise accusing Broglie of intentionally beginning the action without concert with him, and Broglie charging Soubise with backwardness.

Notwithstanding the repulse at Kirch-Denkern, the French soon outnumbered the allies; but, as the commanders could not agree, they separated their forces, and Ferdinand was compelled to do the same to watch them. Broglie crossed the Weser and marched for Hanover, and Ferdinand followed him; whilst the hereditary prince of Brunswick threw himself betwixt Soubise and Munster, which he menaced. The prince managed to save Munster by harassing Soubise, and destroying his magazines; and prince Ferdinand, seeing no other means of checking; Broglie's advance into Hanover, directed his march into Hesse, where he destroyed the French magazines, and cut off Broglie's communication with the French forces in that quarter; a manœuvre by which he compelled Broglie to halt on his march, and eventually return to Cassel, whilst Soubise retreated to the Lower Rhine. In one of the skirmishes, during these movements, Ferdinand's nephew prince Henry Albert of Brunswick, was killed. The complaints of the French commanders were mutually carried home in their dispatches. Broglie, who had not the same court interest as Soubise, though far more popular with both army and people, was recalled, and banished to his estates.

If the French had been by no means successful in Germany, they had been much less in other quarters of the globe. In the East Indies we had taken Pondicherry, their chief settlement, from them, and thus remained masters of the whole coast of Coromandel, and of the entire trade with India. In the West Indies, the French had been fortifying Dominica, contrary to treaty, and lord Rollo and Sir James Douglas were sent thither, and speedily reduced it. France, indeed, was now fast sinking in exhaustion; her fleet was destroyed, her trade ruined, her people impoverished and discontented. All her colonies were gone, and at home there were serious differences betwixt the court and parliament, the church and the courts of law. Louis XV. was a man of no mark or ability, inclined to peace, and leaving all affairs to his ministers, and still more to his mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Choiseul was a man of talent, but of immense vanity, and little persistent firmness. He had undertaken the administration with an idea that he could check England and humble Prussia. In these objects he had signally failed. The people complained that he had ruined France in the vain endeavour to assist its ancient enemy, Austria. Choiseul was now anxious for peace, but, too proud to make the proposal directly, he induced the courts of Russia and Austria to do it. It was suggested that a congress should be held at Augsburg for settling the peace of Europe. England and Prussia readily consented, and the English government immediately named as its plenipotentiaries the earl of Egremont, lord Stormont, ambassador at Warsaw, and Sir Joseph Yorke, ambassador at the Hague. But the duke of Choiseul, anxious to have a clear understanding of the terms on which England and France were likely to treat, proposed a previous exchange of views, and dispatched for this purpose M. Bussy to London, whilst Mr. Pitt sent to Paris Mr. Hans Stanley, the grand-son of Sir Hans Sloane. By the commencement of June these negotiators were each at his post. Bussy proved a captious, irritable person, and not well adapted for such a mission; but Stanley displayed a capacity for business, and put the cabinet at home into the most exact possession of the state of the French court, and the sentiments prevailing there. He informed Pitt that the king, alarmed at the attempt which had been made on his life by Damiens, was extremely timid and afraid of strange faces; that business was left to Choiseul, who was by no means a man of