Never in the whole course of her history had come to England such a year of triumph as 1759. Opening with the capture of Goree in January, its later months had brought one unbroken tale of success, of Madras saved and Masulipatam taken in India, of Quebec captured in Canada, of Minden won in Germany, of one French fleet worsted by Boscawen off the Portuguese coast, of another defeated by Hawke in the romantic action of Quiberon Bay. Such was the story with which King George the Second met his Parliament for the last time in his life; and Pitt did not fail to turn it to good account. A monument was voted to Wolfe in Westminster Abbey; thanks were given to Hawke, Saunders and Holmes of the Navy, and to Monckton, Murray and Townsend of the Army; and the military estimates were passed with little difficulty. It was ordered that Ferdinand\'s army should be augmented from Great Britain, Brunswick, and Hesse alike. The full number of national troops voted for the British Establishment exceeded one hundred thousand men; the embodied militia augmented this total by twenty thousand, and the German troops in the pay of England by fifty-five thousand more; while another twelve thousand men at home and abroad, which were borne on the Irish Establishment, raised it to close on one hundred and ninety thousand men. Before the campaign of 1760 was opened, the infantry of the British Line had increased to ninety-six regiments; England contributing one new corps, Wales one, Scotland five, and Ireland four, all of[500] which were disbanded at the close of the war.[356] To these there were added later in the year six new regiments of Light Dragoons. The first was formed in August under Colonel John Burgoyne, which took rank as the Sixteenth Dragoons, and is now known to us as the Sixteenth Lancers; the second, created in October by Lord Aberdour, soon perished and left no mark behind it; and the third was raised under rather remarkable conditions by Colonel John Hale in November. Colonel Hale, originally of the Blues and later of the Forty-third Foot, was the officer who brought back the despatches reporting the victory of Quebec. Finding on his arrival in England in October that there was still some alarm of a French invasion, he volunteered to form a regiment of the footmen and chairmen of London and to lead them against the best household troops of France; an offer which so delighted Pitt that he reported it to the House of Commons. Finally, he engaged himself to raise a strong regiment of light dragoons without levy-money for men or horses, promising that any men or horses objected to on review by the inspecting officer should be replaced without expense to the country, and that the whole corps should be completed within two months. The offer was accepted, and the regiment was raised at the sole expense of the officers within the space, as it is said, of seventeen days. The number was not inappropriate; for though first known, during the few years while Aberdour\'s lasted, as the Eighteenth, this regiment, still conspicuous by the white facings and[501] the badge of skull and crossbones which Hale selected for it, remains with us as the Seventeenth Lancers. The three remaining corps, which raised the number of regiments of dragoons to twenty-one, were too short-lived to merit more than mere mention.[357]
1760.
Feb.

The menace of French invasion was rather ludicrously realised in February by a descent of the French privateer, Thurot, with five ships upon Carrickfergus. Landing about a thousand troops, he received the surrender of the town after a skirmish with the garrison, plundered it, contrary to the terms of the capitulation, and re-embarked. His squadron, however, was almost immediately caught by three British men-of-war, when after a short action Thurot was killed and every one of his ships captured. This tragic termination to Thurot\'s escapade relieved the general tension, and restored the country\'s confidence.

So foolish a raid was not likely to produce any change in Pitt\'s preparations for the reinforcement of Ferdinand, who needed to be specially strengthened after the disasters that had befallen King Frederick at Kunersdorf and at Maxen. In January it was decided to send three more regiments of British cavalry to Germany; and a few weeks later the number was increased to five. In May a further reinforcement of six battalions and two regiments of Highlanders was promised, and in June two additional regiments of cavalry; making up a total of close on ten thousand men.[358] The troops were shipped to the Weser instead of, as heretofore, to Emden, and seem to have been despatched with commendable promptitude; for the six regiments of foot, though only warned for service [502]on the 1st of May, were actually reviewed by Ferdinand in his camp at Fritzlar on the 17th of June, and were declared by him to be in a most satisfactory condition.[359]
May.
June 20.
June 22.
June 24.
July.

The campaign of 1759 having been prolonged so far into the winter, Ferdinand gave his army rest until late in May. At length on the 20th he called the infantry of the army of Hesse from its cantonments, and posted the main body under his own command at Fritzlar, with one corps advanced to Hersfeld on the Fulda to protect his left, and a second under General Imhoff at Kirchhain, on the Ohm. It was his intention that, in case of the enemy\'s advance, Imhoff should call in the detachment from Hersfeld to Homberg, a little to the south of Kirchhain on a bend of the Ohm, where there was a position, before long to be better known to us, in which he could bar the way to a far superior force. Simultaneously the army of Westphalia moved to its line of the previous year, from Coesfeld eastward to Hamm. In these positions the Allies remained for nearly a month before the French made the least sign of movement; when at last the army of the Lower Rhine under the Count of St. Germain assembled at Düsseldorf, and crossing the Rhine advanced to Dortmund. From this centre it was open to St. Germain to advance either northward against Münster or eastward against Lippstadt; but it was tolerably evident that his real design was to join the army of the Main, and to operate against the right flank of the Allied army of Hesse. At about the same time Broglie concentrated the army of the Main a little to the east of Giessen, and began his advance northward. The Hereditary Prince at once fell back from Hersfeld with his detachment towards the Ohm, while Ferdinand moved southward as far as Ziegenhain to join Imhoff, with every intention of making Broglie fight him before he advanced another mile. To his infinite disgust, however, he learned that Imhoff had abandoned the[503] position entrusted to him, and had ordered the whole of the advanced corps back to Kirchhain. Thus the most effective barrier in Hesse was opened to the French; Ferdinand perforce halted; and Broglie pushed on without delay to Homberg, whence turning eastward he encamped in the face of Ferdinand\'s army at Neustadt. In this situation both armies remained for a whole fortnight inactive, though not two hours\' march apart, neither daring to attack the other, and each waiting for the other to make the next movement.
July 8.
July 10.

Broglie brought the deadlock to an end. Sending orders to St. Germain to march from Dortmund on the 4th of July, and to meet him at Corbach, he marched on the night of the 7th north-westward upon Frankenberg. Ferdinand on learning of his movements next day marched also northward with all speed, pushing forward a strong advanced corps under the Hereditary Prince by way of Sachsenhausen upon Corbach, to bar the outlet of the defile through which Broglie\'s army must pass into the plain, and so to hinder his junction with St. Germain. The French, however, had gained too long a start. St. Germain, though he distressed his troops terribly by the speed of his march, succeeded in passing through the defile from the north; and Broglie, hastening up from the south, found his troops forming in order of battle just as the Hereditary Prince debouched into the plain from Sachsenhausen. As not more than ten thousand of the French were yet deployed, the Prince attacked; but was soon driven back by superior numbers as the rest of the French came up, and finally retired with the loss of five hundred men and fifteen guns, seven of which last were British. It fell to the British infantry with the Prince, the Fifth, Twenty-fourth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first regiments, to cover the retreat; but so hard were they pressed that the Prince only extricated them by putting himself at the head of two squadrons of the First and Third Dragoon Guards, and leading them to a desperate charge. Fortunately the squadrons responded[504] superbly,[360] and so the rear-guard was saved; but the Prince had received an unpleasant reverse, and the French had secured their first object with signal success.
July 12.

The Allied army of Westphalia, under General von Sp?rcke, arrived on the scene in obedience to orders two days after the action, and was posted at Volksmarsen on the Diemel to protect Ferdinand\'s right; and then once more the two hosts remained motionless and face to face, the French at Corbach, the Allies at Sachsenhausen. Ferdinand\'s total force was sixty-six thousand men only, while that of the French numbered one hundred and thirty thousand;[361] yet such was the difference in the quality of the two armies that Broglie dared not act except with extreme caution. His principal object was to envelope Ferdinand\'s right and cut him off from Westphalia at the line of the Diemel; and Ferdinand accordingly resolved to distract Broglie\'s attention to the opposite flank.
July 15.
July 16.

Having intelligence that a party of the enemy under General Glaubitz, consisting of six battalions, a regiment of Hussars, and a number of light troops, was on its way to Ziegenhain from Marburg, evidently with the object of disturbing his communications, Ferdinand, on the night of the 14th, detached the Hereditary Prince to take command of six battalions which were lying at Fritzlar, and to attack it. Accordingly on the following morning the Prince marched rapidly southward, being joined on the way by a regiment of German hussars, and by the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, which had just arrived from England. On reaching the vicinity of Ziegenhain, he found that Glaubitz was encamped farther to the west, near the village of Emsdorff. His troops being exhausted by a long march, the Prince halted for the night at Treysa, and continuing his advance early on the morrow, picked up [505]two more bodies of irregulars, horse and foot, which were on their way to him, and pushed on with his mounted troops only, to reconnoitre the enemy\'s position. He found the French posted at the mouth of a gorge in the mountains, fronting to north-east, astride of the two roads that lead from Kirchhain to Fritzlar and to Ziegenhain. Their right lay in rear of the village of Erxdorff, and their left in front of the village of Emsdorff, resting on a forest some three miles long. The Prince and General Lückner, who was with him, entered the forest, but found neither picquets nor sentries; they pushed forward through the corn-fields to within half a mile of the camp, but saw neither vedettes, nor patrols, nor so much as a main-guard; nay, Erxdorff itself, though within less than a mile of the camp, was not occupied. They stole back well content with what they had seen.

Waiting till eleven o\'clock for his infantry to join him, the Prince posted one battalion, Lückner\'s regiment of hussars and the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, in a hollow a mile before Erxdorff; then taking the five remaining battalions, together with the irregular troops and four guns, he fetched a compass through the forest and came in full upon the enemy\'s left flank. The French were completely surprised. Two battalions had barely time to form towards the forest before the Prince\'s infantry came upon them, poured in a volley which laid three hundred men low, and drove back the rest upon Glaubitz\'s remaining infantry, which was falling in hurriedly in rear of the camp. Simultaneously Lückner, at the sound of the firing, came galloping up on the French right with his cavalry; whereupon the entire French force abandoned its camp and retired through the woods in their rear towards Langenstein. Here they rallied; but Lückner\'s single battalion hurried on beyond them to bar their way over the Ohm to westward, while the Fifteenth, pressing on along their flank, stationed itself across the road to Am?neberg, and charging full upon them headed them back from that[506] side. With some difficulty the French repelled the attack, and turning about to south-eastward made for a wood not far away, hoping to pass through it and so to escape to the south. But on arriving at the southern edge of the wood they found every outlet blocked by the Prince\'s mounted irregulars. Perforce they turned back through the wood again and emerged on to the open ground on its western side, trusting that some marshy ground, which lay in the way of the Prince\'s cavalry, would secure them from further pursuit. But they had not marched over the plain for more than a mile before the hussars and light dragoons were upon them again, and the Fifteenth for the second time crashed single-handed into the midst of them, cutting them down by scores and capturing one battalion complete. With great difficulty the remnant of the French beat back their pursuers and continued the retreat: half of them had been killed or captured, or had dropped down unable to march farther, but the rest struggled gallantly on. Reaching an open wood they again halted and formed for action. The Prince, still close at their heels with his cavalry, thereupon surrounded them and summoned them to surrender; and the French commander, despairing of further resistance in the exhausted state of his troops, was obliged to yield.

So ended the action which is still commemorated on the appointments of the Fifteenth Hussars by the name of Emsdorff. The French camp had been surprised at noon; and the last fragment of their force capitulated at six o\'clock in the evening, having striven manfully but in vain to shake off the implacable enemy that had hunted them for nearly twenty miles. The loss of the French in killed and wounded is unknown, though it must have been considerable, but the prisoners taken numbered twenty-six hundred, while nine colours and five guns were also captured. The total loss of the Prince\'s troops did not exceed one hundred and eighty-six men and one hundred and eighty-one horses, of[507] which one hundred and twenty-five men and one hundred and sixty-eight horses belonged to the Fifteenth. It was the Fifteenth, in fact, that did all the fighting. The other regiments engaged did not lose twenty men apiece. The infantry could not keep pace with the pursuit after they reached Langenstein, and the two other corps of cavalry, though they did excellent work in heading back the enemy, never came to close quarters. Lückner\'s hussars did not lose a man nor a horse, and of the mounted irregulars but twenty-three men and horses were killed or wounded. It was the Fifteenth alone, a young regiment that had never been under fire, which thrice charged five times its numbers of French infantry and rode through them; and the success of the action was ascribed to them and to them only. Their gallantry indeed was the amazement of the whole army.[362] The tradition of charging home, as shall be seen in due time both in Flanders and in Spain, remained with the regiment, and doubtless remains with it to this day.
July 23.
July 25-27.
July 29.
July 30.

This brilliant exploit was some compensation to the Allies for past mishaps; but a week later Broglie sought to turn the scale by more serious operations. On the 23rd he divided his army into three corps, of which he sent one round Ferdinand\'s left flank under Prince Xavier of Saxony to threaten Cassel, and a second to force back Sp?rcke on his right from Volksmarsen, while the main body under his own command advanced to Sachsenhausen. Perforce Ferdinand retreated north-westward to Kalle, his rear-guard being incessantly and severely engaged throughout the movement; whereupon Broglie, seeing the way to be clear, detached a corps under the Chevalier de Muy, who had recently arrived to relieve the Count of St. Germain, across the Diemel to Warburg, in order to cut off the Allies from Westphalia. The Marshal himself meanwhile moved up parallel to Ferdinand on the eastern side towards Kalle, and Prince Xavier pressed still closer upon Cassel. It[508] being evident to Ferdinand that either Cassel or Westphalia must be abandoned, he detached a force under General Kielmansegge to strengthen the garrison of Cassel and resolved to attack de Muy. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 29th Sp?rcke\'s corps crossed the Diemel to Liebenau, followed on the same evening by that of the Hereditary Prince; and on the 30th their combined force, not exceeding in all fourteen thousand men, encamped between Liebenau and Corbeke with its left on the Diemel, facing west. At dawn of the same morning Broglie\'s army debouched from several quarters simultaneously against the Allied camp at Kalle, but drew off after some hours of cannonade; and Ferdinand, satisfied through other signs that this demonstration was intended only to cover the movement of the French towards Cassel, resolved to pass the Diemel without delay and to deliver his stroke against de Muy.

Sp?rcke and the Hereditary Prince had meanwhile reconnoitred de Muy\'s position and had recommended that their own corps should turn its left flank, while Ferdinand with the main army advanced against its front. De Muy, with about twenty thousand men, occupied a high ridge across a bend of the Diemel, facing north-east, with his right resting on Warburg and his left near the village of Ochsendorf. To his left rear rose a circular hill crowned by a tower, and on his left front lay a village named Poppenheim. It was arranged that the corps of Sp?rcke and the Hereditary Prince should advance westward in two columns from Corbeke and form up in three lines between the tower and Poppenheim, so as to fall on de Muy\'s left flank and rear, while Ferdinand crossing the Diemel at Liebenau should attack his centre and right. As the camp between Liebenau and Corbeke lay about ten miles from de Muy\'s, and as Ferdinand\'s camp lay some fifteen miles to the south of the Diemel from Liebenau, the operation called for extreme nicety in the execution.
July 31.

At nine o\'clock on the evening of the 30th[509] Ferdinand\'s army marched from Kalle, and at six o\'clock on the following morning the heads of his columns passed the Diemel and debouched on the heights of Corbeke. They arrived, however, at later than the appointed hour. The passage of the Diemel had caused much delay; and not all the haste of officers nor the eagerness of men could bring the army forward the quicker. At seven o\'clock Sp?rcke and the Hereditary Prince, after much anxious waiting, decided to march from Corbeke before more time should be lost. The northern column, which included the right wing of all three arms, moved by Gross Eider and Ochsendorf upon the tower; the southern, composed of the left wing, by Klein Eider and Poppenheim. Both columns were led by British troops—the northern by the Royal Dragoons, whose place was on the extreme right of the first line, while the British grenadiers, massed in two battalions under Colonels Maxwell and Daulhatt,[363] marched at the head of the infantry. The southern was headed by the Seventh Dragoons, with Keith\'s and Campbell\'s Highlanders[364] following them to cover the grenadiers in second line.

At half-past one the Hereditary Prince, having posted his artillery on the outskirts of Ochsendorf and Poppenheim, opened fire as the signal for attack; and at the same time the British grenadiers began to file............