Oct. 9 20 .
April 1 12 .

Long before the enterprise against the Spanish Main had worn itself out to its tragical end, all Europe had been kindled into a blaze of war. On the 20th of October 1740, while Cathcart was still impatiently awaiting the fair wind which should carry him from Spithead, the Emperor Charles the Sixth died, leaving his daughter Maria Theresa sole heiress of his dominions. Her succession had already been recognised by the powers of Europe through their guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, but on such guarantees little trust was to be reposed. The principal rival to the Queen of Hungary was the Elector of Bavaria, and France, mindful of her old friendship with Bavaria, was ready enough to wreak her old hostility upon the House of Austria by upholding him. England and Holland alone, commercial nations to whom a contract was a thing not lightly to be broken, felt strongly as to their duty in supporting the young Queen. The various states of Germany were as usual self-seeking and disunited, watching greedily to make what profit they could out of the helpless House of Hapsburg. Frederick of Prussia, not yet named the Great, was the first to move. He had but recently come to the throne, inheriting together with it the most efficient army in Europe, and a large stock of ready money. Moving, as ever, promptly, swiftly, and silently, he invaded Silesia, and by a signal victory over the Austrians at Mollwitz called the whole of Europe to arms.

France, with visions not only of acquiring new[81] territory in Germany, but of paying off old scores against England through Hanover, had begun to weave great schemes even before the fight of Mollwitz. The most remarkable of living French statesmen, Marshal Belleisle, having thought out his plans and obtained the royal sanction for them, started off in March 1741 on a tour of visits to the courts of Europe; his object being to persuade them, first to renounce the Pragmatic Sanction, and secondly to support the candidature of the Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria against that of Maria Theresa\'s husband, the Grand Duke Francis of Lorraine, for the imperial crown. This done, he seems to have hoped to partition Austria proper between Saxony and Prussia, and to divide all Germany and the Empire into four weak kingdoms, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, and Hungary, which by careful fostering of jealousies and quarrels should be kept dependent on France.
Dec. 4 15 .
February.

Charles Albert of Bavaria, Augustus of Saxony, Frederick of Prussia and the Queen of Spain were gained over by Belleisle with little difficulty; but Hanover, with England at its back, stood out for the Pragmatic Sanction. In England the sympathy with Maria Theresa was strong, and Walpole in the session of 1741 obtained from Parliament a pledge to maintain her succession, a subsidy of three hundred thousand pounds to tide her over financial difficulties, and an acknowledgment of England\'s obligation to assist her with a force of twelve thousand men. He also attempted to detach Frederick from Belleisle\'s confederacy, but with conspicuous ill-success. Meanwhile King George went over to Hanover to assemble troops for the support of Maria Theresa; and then France, always ready to strike the first blow, sent two armies across the Rhine, one to join hands with the forces of Bavaria and carry the war to the gates of Vienna, the other straight upon Hanover itself. Thus surprised, the King could do nothing but stipulate for one year\'s neutrality for Hanover, promising also that during the same period he would neither give help to the Queen of Hungary[82] nor cast his vote as an Elector of the Empire in her husband\'s favour. Bound by this humiliating agreement, which had excited no less scorn in England than in Austria, the King returned home to meet a new parliament, which had been elected amid no ordinary excitement owing to the disasters on the Spanish Main. Furious attacks were made upon Walpole, who was held responsible for a war which he had always deprecated, and for which he knew the nation to be unprepared; and in less than two months he was driven from office. Lord Wilmington succeeded him as nominal head of the Treasury, and Lord Carteret, one of the few living Englishmen who could speak German, took charge of foreign affairs. Parliament showed itself more zealous than ever in the cause of Maria Theresa, and voted her a subsidy of half a million, while Carteret prevailed with his colleagues to send sixteen thousand British troops to Flanders to act as her auxiliaries in arms. Finally, five millions were granted for the prosecution of the war.

Notwithstanding that all these preparations could be aimed at no power but France, the two nations were not supposed to be at war with each other. The French had invented the phrase auxiliaries, and had marched their armies into Germany under the shelter of that innocent designation; and the English were foolish enough for a time to follow their example. The movements of the French fleet at the outset of Wentworth\'s expedition had, however, left little doubt as to the hostility of France towards England, and the fact had been settled beyond all dispute by some French despatches intercepted by Vernon. The past year therefore had not passed without additional military preparations on the part of England. In January 1741 four more regiments of marines were raised over and above those sent out with Wentworth; and simultaneously orders were issued for the formation of seven new regiments of foot under Colonels Fowke, Long, Houghton, Price, Cholmondeley, and De Grangue. Of these the first six still remain with us, numbered the[83] Forty-third to the Forty-eighth. Throughout the summer also a force of some five thousand men had been kept in camp near Colchester under General Wade, in readiness to take the field. Finally, the estimates for 1742 provided for a force on the British establishment of sixty-two thousand men. Sufficient troops being therefore presumably to hand, the next thing was to appoint a commander, and the choice fell on John, Earl of Stair.

Stair was now close on seventy years of age, but despite a very early beginning of a soldier\'s life, was still active and efficient enough. At the age of nineteen he had fought at Steenkirk, already with the rank of colonel; in Marlborough\'s first campaign he had been the foremost in the breach in Cutts\'s mad assault upon Venloo; he had served as a regimental officer at Blenheim, as a brigadier at Ramillies, on Marlborough\'s staff at Oudenarde, and had been present also at Malplaquet. He had been distinguished by particular kindness and attention both from the great Duke and from Prince Eugene, and had not failed to take to heart their teaching in the art of war. Altogether he was not ill-qualified to command a British army in its first active service on the continent since the death of Marlborough.
May 6 17 .

His first duties, however, were diplomatic, namely to induce the States-General to permit the occupation of Nieuport and Ostend by the British, as their bases of operations against the French in the Austrian Netherlands. He was further instructed to allay any feeling of distrust that might have been roused by Hanover\'s declaration of neutrality, and if possible to engage the Dutch to take an active part as auxiliaries of Queen Maria Theresa. It was no easy task, for endless faction joined to an impossible form of government had reduced the Dutch to the lethargy, inefficiency, and helplessness which was their ruin; while, moreover, recollections of the Peace of Utrecht were still strong enough to make them diffident and cold towards any[84] overtures from England. The proposal to quarter a British garrison in the Netherlands was therefore ill-received, until, in the nick of time, there came the news that the Austrians, having made a desperate push to expel Frederick of Prussia from Silesia, had been totally defeated by him at the battle of Chotusitz. Such a blow to the Austrian cause might bring about great results. Marshal Maillebois, with a French army of forty thousand men, lay in Westphalia, blocking the march of the Hanoverian troops if they should try to join the British, and at the same time ready to pierce into Holland at any moment. In such circumstances a contingent of British troops could not but be valuable to the States, so leave was granted for the disembarkation of the first British battalions at Ostend; and arrangements were made, though with no very good grace, to find them quarters in Bruges and Ghent. But as to throwing in their lot with the British for the defence of the Pragmatic Sanction, the machinery of the Dutch Government was too complicated, the minds of men too cautious, and the spirit of those in authority too corrupt, to permit the settlement of a matter of such importance without delay of months or even years.

The British troops continued to arrive in driblets from England, and Stair meanwhile, knowing that his movements must depend upon those of the French, watched the situation with the keenest interest. The French army of Bavaria, after a few trifling successes on the Danube, had been rapidly swept back by the energy of the Austrian General Khevenhüller. A portion of it, which had penetrated into Bohemia and captured Prague, was still lying in that kingdom under an incompetent commander, Marshal Broglie, with Prague for its base. Little was to be feared from Broglie: the really formidable enemy was Frederick of Prussia, whom Stair was for detaching from Belleisle\'s confederacy at any cost. The Prussian army once out of the way, the whole armed force of Austria could be turned upon the French in Bohemia, who, owing to[85] Khevenhüller\'s successes on the Danube, must either be sacrificed altogether, or rescued with great difficulty at the price of denuding the whole French frontier of troops. It would then be open to the Austrians to advance through the Palatinate and up the Moselle into France, while the Dutch and English might either join them or break straight in from the north upon Paris and put an end to the war and to the mischief of French ambition for ever.
May 31 June 11.

So counselled Stair, with a clearness of judgment, alike as soldier and statesman, that was not unworthy of his great master; but unfortunately Maria Theresa would not come to terms with Frederick without striking a last blow for Silesia, which ended, as has been told, in the disaster of Chotusitz. Then at last she gave in; and the Treaty of Breslau purchased the friendship of Frederick at the cost of Silesia. Stair was instantly on the alert, for the game seemed now to be in his hand. The French frontier towards the Netherlands was but weakly defended; a feint of invasion in that direction must certainly bring back Maillebois from Westphalia to guard it, and then the road would be open for the junction of the Hanoverians with the British. The Austrians had already fourteen thousand troops in the country, which, added to the British and their Allies, would make up a force superior to any that Maillebois could bring together.[159] Carteret entered warmly into the plan; and meanwhile events elsewhere had fallen out exactly according to Stair\'s prevision. The Austrians, relieved from the pressure of Frederick and his Prussians, turned all their strength against the French in Bohemia, and swept them out of all their posts except Prague, wherein they held the wreck of the French force closely besieged. Maillebois was called away to Bohemia to save the beleaguered army if he could, and the whole of the French frontier towards Flanders lay open, with little more than twenty thousand[86] men to protect it. This was the moment for which Stair had waited, hardly daring to hope that it would ever come, and he urged that the whole of the forces present, alike of England, Hanover, and Austria, should be concentrated for an immediate attack on Dunkirk, where the best of the French troops were known to be gathered together. These troops once beaten, the road would be clear for a march to Paris.[160]

But just at this moment King George suddenly turned lukewarm. He was not at war with France, he said, and his troops were acting simply as auxiliaries to the Queen of Hungary. France could take no offence at their presence, as her troops were likewise employed only as auxiliaries to the Elector of Bavaria.[161] Again, there were sundry arrangements to be adjusted before the troops of the Allies could be concentrated. It was, therefore, not until the 24th of August that orders were despatched to the Hanoverians to march; and even then King George was inclined rather to bar the return march of Maillebois from Bohemia at the Meuse than to strike at the heart of his enemy at Dunkirk. Then, again, the men of skill in England, as Stair contemptuously called the council of war at Whitehall, thought the attack on Dunkirk too venturesome; and the plan was disapproved, chiefly, it should seem, because the King had some idea of taking command of the Army in person.[162] Stair meanwhile was chafing with impatience, concerting new plans with the Austrian commanders, and promising himself that his winter quarters should be in Normandy. His design now was to march straight for the head of the Oise, which would give him a navigable river for his transport, and to move from thence direct upon Paris. The French troops on the spot were few in number and would not dare to leave [87]Dunkirk. The road for two-thirds of the journey to the Oise was paved, and the short distance that remained, therefore, constituted the only difficulty, by no means insuperable, in the way. Arrived at Paris the army could take artillery from the arsenal there, and move down the Seine to the siege of Havre. Finally, Stair promised that, if the King would give him a free hand, he would enable him before the 12th of October to dictate his own terms.[163]

The plan was daring enough, but Stair was neither a visionary nor an idle boaster, and there appears no reason to doubt that it was perfectly feasible. The French had recently fortified Dunkirk anew, and, as was not uncommon with them, had elaborated the works to such excess that forty thousand men were required to defend them. Unless, therefore, they chose to abandon Dunkirk, which they could hardly afford to do, there remained no troops to check an advance on Paris. But the design did not commend itself to the King. He submitted it to General Wade, slowest and most cautious of generals, who criticised it adversely; and meanwhile, whether through jealousy or treachery or sheer mismanagement, the orders for the Hanoverians to march were on one pretext or another delayed until all hopes of a campaign of 1742 were banished by the coming of the winter.[164]

February.

Stair was deeply chagrined; and the discipline of his troops, who had been long kept idle in quarters which they detested, suffered so much that it was only restored by the strongest measures.[165] The winter set in with unusual severity, making the ground easy for purposes of transport and neutralising the value of the inundations on which the fortresses of the north-west frontier of France depended chiefly for their defence. Stair was eager to pounce upon some of them while the [88]frost lasted, but the Austrian generals would not hear of it. He then proposed to attack one or other of the fortresses in Lorraine, Metz, Longwy, or Thionville, preparatory to an invasion of France by the Moselle; but again the Austrians dissented.[166] Their great object was to move King George\'s army into Germany, in order to frighten some of the minor German princes into alliance with Austria; and Stair, as he bitterly complained, was so much hampered by his instructions that he felt absolutely helpless.[167] The Hanoverians again, though supposed to be under his command, received independent orders from the King which were not communicated to Stair, and they declined to obey any other.[168] At last, after many struggles with Austrian generals and English ministers, the British army in February 1743 began its march eastward, as the Austrians had desired. The regiments were sadly distressed by the absence of multitudes of officers, who had gone home on leave for their duties in Parliament or for more private and trivial objects. "I thought it hard to refuse them leave," wrote Stair with biting sarcasm, "when they said that their preferment depended on the interest of their friends at Court. They had no notion that it depended on their exertions here."[169] To such a pass had twenty years of peace under Walpole brought the discipline of the Army.

Nevertheless Stair\'s recent severity had borne good fruit, and the conduct both of officers and men in a winter\'s march of extreme hardship and discomfort was such as to call forth his warmest praise.[170] As the spring drew near, the question as to the plan of [89]the coming campaign became urgent. Fifty thousand French troops had been moved to the Moselle to bar any invasion through Lorraine, while all their forces in Flanders had been stationed on the Meuse ready either to join their comrades on the Moselle, or to advance to the Neckar in case the Allies should cross the Rhine to the south of Cologne. Stair, with the spirit of his master strong upon him, hinted at the desirability of a march to the Danube. The Austrians, as he guessed, would certainly resume their advance from the east against the French on that river as soon as the weather permitted, and his plan was to close in upon them from the west and fall upon their rear while the Austrians attacked them in front. Such a project, however, was too bold for the caution of King George, and, moreover, as he was always reminding Stair, though the French were to be treated as enemies he was not at war with France.[171] His final orders, given after immense delay, were that Stair should occupy the heights of Mainz and command the junction of the Rhine and Main.[172] Such a disposition was from a military point of view sufficiently obscure; and indeed it had no military object whatever, being designed simply to secure the choice of King George\'s nominee for the vacant electorate of Mainz.
May.
May 23 June 3.

Very slowly, owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining forage, the forces, both native and mercenary, of England, Hanover, and Austria were assembled on the north bank of the Main. Their position extended from the Rhine to Aschaffenburg, and faced to the south, while a bridge of boats was kept ready at Frankfort for the passage of the river.[173] Meanwhile, a French army of seventy thousand men, under Marshal Noailles, had quietly taken up its station on the Upper Rhine near Spires, and was seeking to establish communication with Bavaria and the Neckar, in order to save what [90]was left of Broglie\'s army while still it might; though, at the same time, not without apprehensions as to the danger of leaving the Palatinate and Lorraine open behind it. Stair took in the situation at a glance. He was for crossing the Main, following the left bank downward and taking up a position between Oppenheim and Mainz. There he could threaten Noailles so closely that he would not dare to detach any part of his army to Bavaria. He would, moreover, have it in his power to attack the French on the Neckar whenever he pleased; and finally, he could in due time cross the Rhine westward, and force the French to retire on Landau and Alsace, leaving Lorraine and the Netherlands open to invasion. After some trouble Count d\'Arenberg, a general neither very enterprising nor very capable, who commanded the Austrians, appears to have been converted to his views; and though the entire army was even now not yet arrived at the rendezvous, the Allies on the 3rd of June began the passage of the Main. A day or two later Stair received intelligence that Noailles had left the Neckar and was advancing along the high road from Darmstadt to Frankfort to attack him. This road passed for a considerable distance through a forest, and it was at its outlet from this forest that Stair took up his position to await the French. D\'Arenberg so strongly disapproved of the whole proceeding that he withdrew the whole of the Austrian dragoons to the right bank of the Main, in order to rescue the shattered remnants that should be left of Stair\'s army after the battle. Marshal Neipperg, his second, however, led the Austrian infantry to the position of Stair\'s choice: and when Noailles arrived on the following morning he withdrew without venturing to attack.
May 30 June 10.

Meanwhile King George, who had arrived at Hanover a fortnight before, was perfectly frantic. On Stair\'s first proposal to cross to the south bank of the Main he had sent positive orders, which reached Stair too late, that he was not to stir. The King was[91] surrounded by nervous Austrians who, having information of Noailles\'s intended advance, were, or professed to be, in terror lest the Allies should be beaten in detail, and did not fail to represent how dreadful it would be if the army should be defeated before His Majesty could take command. Letter after letter therefore was despatched to Stair, bidding him above all things to be careful, and finally ordering him to repass the Main. Stair at first had prepared to obey orders, though not without speaking his mind. "I am too careful of the King\'s interest," he wrote, "to be rash, but I am sure of two things, that the French are far more occupied with Bavaria than with us, and that we are superior to them even in numbers. The importance of giving an army to a person who is trusted is now evident. Had my plan been followed, we should now be in a position to fall on the head of the French army which, after sending away a detachment to Bavaria, is now taking post along the Rhine." In truth, during the months of May and June, the Austrians on the Danube had swept Broglie right out of Germany; and Noailles\'s detachment no sooner reached him than it was ordered forthwith to retreat. But when Stair heard of Noailles\'s advance to attack him he quietly suppressed the King\'s orders to repass the Main until he had offered battle to the French. When Noailles refused it, Stair recrossed the river as he had been bidden, unwillingly indeed, yet not a little satisfied that after all the King\'s orders and all the Austrian predictions of disaster, he had successfully proved the soundness of his views. "But," he added significantly on arriving on the northern bank, "it will be impossible for us now to find forage. The French being masters of one side of the river, forage cannot be brought down to us by water, so we must move upward." ............