{ "slug": "dettingen", "title": "Battle of Dettingen", "status": "draft", "era": "1600–1760", "date_text": "27 June 1743", "start": "1743-06-27", "end": "1743-06-27", "war": "War of the Austrian Succession", "cdb90_war": "WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION", "place": { "name": "Dettingen (Karlstein am Main), between Aschaffenburg and Hanau, Bavaria, Germany", "lat": 50.0406, "lon": 9.0361, "wikidata": "Q402312" }, "lede": "On 27 June 1743 George II's Pragmatic Army, trapped between the Main and the Spessart woods, broke a French force that had left its strong position at Dettingen. The allies escaped to Hanau; George II was the last British monarch to lead troops in battle.", "result": "Allied victory", "result_cdb90": "attacker win", "belligerents": [ { "role": "attacker", "name": "Pragmatic Army (British, Hanoverian and Austrian troops)", "commanders": [ "George II", "Earl of Stair", "Duke of Arenberg", "Count Neipperg", "Johann Georg von Ilten" ], "strength": { "value": 35000, "low": 35000, "high": 40000, "source": "s1" }, "casualties": { "value": 2381, "low": 2000, "high": 3000, "source": "s3" } }, { "role": "defender", "name": "French army of Marshal Noailles (Gramont's force on the north bank)", "commanders": [ "Duc de Noailles", "Duc de Gramont", "Duc d'Harcourt" ], "strength": { "value": 28000, "low": 23000, "high": 35000, "source": "s2" }, "casualties": { "value": 4000, "low": 3000, "high": 6000, "source": "s4" } } ], "sections": { "background": "The War of the Austrian Succession began with the death of the Emperor Charles VI in 1740, when Maria Theresa's right to the Habsburg lands was challenged by Charles Albert of Bavaria with French, Prussian and Saxon support. Britain, Hanover and the Dutch Republic backed Austria. By 1743 Prussia had made peace, the Austrians were driving the French and Bavarians out of Germany, and George II, as King and Elector of Hanover, had assembled the so-called Pragmatic Army of British, Hanoverian and Austrian troops on the Main.\n\nThe Earl of Stair, its commander until the King arrived, wanted to strike at the French; George II and the Austrians preferred caution. Marshal Noailles, with about 70,000 men, came up the south bank of the Main and cut the allies' supply routes. When George II joined the army at Aschaffenburg on 19 June he found it short of bread and forage, plundering, and hemmed into the narrow plain between the river and the wooded Spessart hills. Noailles blocked supplies from Franconia, fortified his end of the Aschaffenburg bridge, and threw two bridges across the Main at Seligenstadt, downstream towards the allied magazines at Hanau.\n\nAfter a week of indecision the King resolved on 26 June to retreat to Hanau that night. Noailles had expected exactly this. He sited batteries on the south bank to play on the road, ordered a force to cross at Aschaffenburg behind the allies, and sent his nephew the Duc de Gramont over the Seligenstadt bridges to hold the defile at Dettingen. British accounts of the time date the battle 16 June, Old Style.", "forces": "The Pragmatic Army had about 35,000 to 40,000 men present. George II was in nominal command, with Stair exercising operational control, the Duke of Arenberg and Count Neipperg leading the Austrians, and the Hanoverian general Ilten the infantry. The King's son, the Duke of Cumberland, served as a major-general. The British contingent had seen no major battle for some thirty years. Its infantry was well drilled in platoon fire, its cavalry less steady; the King's guns were fewer and lighter than the French. The command was divided, Stair and Arenberg being barely on speaking terms. CDB90 gives the allies 98 guns.\n\nGramont's force across the river numbered roughly 23,000 to 30,000, and included the best of Noailles's troops: the Gardes françaises and the household cavalry of the Maison du Roi, among them the Gendarmerie, the Musketeers and the Chevau-légers de la Garde. Behind it, on the south bank, Noailles kept 20,000 to 30,000 more men and a strong artillery under Vallière, reported at five batteries and some 50 guns, including 18-pounders. French officers were brave, but contemporaries and later historians judged their discipline poor after two campaigns of plunder in Germany, and Gramont had no fresh plan for fighting in the open.", "course": "**Night to 7 a.m.: the march into the trap.** At about 1 a.m. on 27 June Noailles learned that the allies were moving. Their army was fairly on the march by 4 a.m., British cavalry leading, then Austrian cavalry, British and Austrian infantry, and a strong rearguard of the Foot Guards, picked German infantry and Hanoverian cavalry. Near Kleinostheim the allies could see French troops on the far bank marching to cross behind them at Aschaffenburg, which the French occupied as soon as it was empty. Noailles, as he put it, had them in a mousetrap: the river on one flank, woods on the other, a force behind and Gramont in front.\n\n**7 a.m. to noon: deploying under fire.** About 7 a.m. the army began to file through Kleinostheim on a single road, and the cavalry halted beyond it for an hour while the infantry came up. Patrols then reported Gramont in order of battle at Dettingen. The baggage was jammed between the leading divisions and the French batteries across the river opened on the mass of waggons and troops. The narrow plain allowed a front of only 22 or 23 battalions. For more than an hour the allies shuffled into line under fire until their own guns came up; the baggage was parked in a wood flanked by marshes in the middle of the plain. Ilten sent the British and Hanoverian Foot Guards back towards Aschaffenburg to face the threat to the rear, and they took no real part in the fight. The allied line ran from the Main, held by British infantry and the 3rd Dragoons on the left, to the wooded hills on the right, with Austrians and British cavalry there and the Austrians in second line.\n\n**About noon: Gramont advances.** Gramont had been told to wait behind the boggy rivulet that ran down to the Main at Dettingen, crossed only by the Hanau road bridge. Instead, believing only the allied rearguard was left, or simply impatient, he crossed it and formed up in the plain, masking the batteries on the far bank, which had to cease fire. Noailles, back on the south bank, is reported to have exclaimed that Gramont had ruined all his plans. The allied line advanced slowly through the mire. George II's horse bolted to the rear; once it was stopped the King came back, dismounted and led his infantry on foot, sword in hand.\n\n**Early afternoon: the Maison du Roi.** The Gardes françaises came on in disorder and broke under steady British platoon fire. The French household cavalry charged the British left by the river. The 3rd Dragoons, two weak squadrons, charged nine French squadrons three times and were nearly destroyed; Trooper Thomas Brown recovered a standard and was later knighted. The Gendarmerie broke into the 21st and 23rd Fusiliers, who faced inwards and shot them down. Several British cavalry regiments, the Blues among them, were repulsed before the 4th and 6th Dragoons, Austrian dragoons, the Scots Greys and the 7th Dragoon Guards forced the French horse back. On the right the Black Musketeers charged the Royal Dragoons and were cut up by British and Austrian horse, which then struck the flank of the French infantry. A Hanoverian battery fired into the French at close range.\n\n**About 4 p.m.: rout at the bridges.** After some four hours the French broke for the fords and bridges of the Main. One bridge collapsed and many men drowned. Stair wanted to pursue but was overruled. The allies marched on to Hanau, leaving their wounded to the French.", "aftermath": "The allies lost about 2,000 to 3,000 killed and wounded, the British share some 820; the French probably 3,000 to 6,000, many of them drowned, and the household cavalry lost 93 officers. General Clayton was killed and Cumberland was shot through the leg. On the field George II revived the creation of knights banneret, Stair among them and Trooper Brown the last.\n\nDettingen was a tactical victory but, in Lecky's phrase, a happy escape rather than a great one. Had Gramont kept to his orders, or Noailles used his idle troops on the south bank, the allied army might have been destroyed. The allies did not exploit the win: they went into winter quarters in the Netherlands, Stair resigned and was replaced by Wade, and France and Britain formally declared war on each other in 1744. Noailles's report to Louis XV blamed his own army's indiscipline, and Gramont was killed at Fontenoy two years later. The French nonetheless had to give up Germany that year.\n\nIn Britain the victory was celebrated in sermons, ballads and bad verse, and Handel composed the Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem, first performed that November. The battle is remembered above all because a reigning British monarch fought in it, and the regimental lore of the Young Buffs and Thomas Brown's standard grew from it. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst still names a company after Dettingen.", "wargaming": "Dettingen is a narrow, linear battle that suits a grand-tactical game with battalions and squadrons as units, or a smaller game of the clash on the allied left between the river and the marshes. The whole fight takes place on a strip of plain little more than a mile or two wide, so frontage is the dominant fact: neither side can deploy its full order of battle, and the allies must form line from a column of march with baggage in the way.\n\nKey terrain is the Main on one flank and the wooded Spessart slopes on the other, the boggy rivulet and the Dettingen bridge in front of the French position, the wood and marshes in the middle of the plain, and the French batteries across the river, which should hit the allied left until French troops mask them. Off-table, the Seligenstadt bridges are the French line of retreat.\n\nThe obvious what-if is Gramont staying put: the allies would then have to storm the rivulet and village under fire from front and flank while the Aschaffenburg force closes behind them. Others are Noailles committing his reserve from the south bank, the Foot Guards returning to the line, and Stair being allowed to pursue to the bridges. Rules should reward disciplined infantry fire, make the French household cavalry formidable but brittle, and give the French player a morale penalty for indiscipline. A timed scenario with a ticking clock on the rear threat works well." }, "images": [ { "file": "File:27 June 1743 battle of Dettingen diagram.jpg", "kind": "map", "caption": "Dettingen, 27 June 1743: the allied army hemmed in between the Main and the Spessart, with Gramont's force at Dettingen.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/27_June_1743_battle_of_Dettingen_diagram.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/27_June_1743_battle_of_Dettingen_diagram.jpg/960px-27_June_1743_battle_of_Dettingen_diagram.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:27_June_1743_battle_of_Dettingen_diagram.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Unknown author Unknown author", "credit": "Page from a microfilm of the parish register of the Catholic Church in Seligenstadt (Offenbach District)", "width": 4879 }, { "file": "File:Plan de la Bataille ou choque entre l'armée du Roy et celle des alliés au Village de Dettingen le 27 juin 1743 - btv1b8492659v.jpg", "kind": "map", "caption": "A contemporary French plan of the action at Dettingen, 27 June 1743 (Bibliothèque nationale de France).", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Plan_de_la_Bataille_ou_choque_entre_l%27arm%C3%A9e_du_Roy_et_celle_des_alli%C3%A9s_au_Village_de_Dettingen_le_27_juin_1743_-_btv1b8492659v.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Plan_de_la_Bataille_ou_choque_entre_l%27arm%C3%A9e_du_Roy_et_celle_des_alli%C3%A9s_au_Village_de_Dettingen_le_27_juin_1743_-_btv1b8492659v.jpg/960px-Plan_de_la_Bataille_ou_choque_entre_l%27arm%C3%A9e_du_Roy_et_celle_des_alli%C3%A9s_au_Village_de_Dettingen_le_27_juin_1743_-_btv1b8492659v.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_de_la_Bataille_ou_choque_entre_l%27arm%C3%A9e_du_Roy_et_celle_des_alli%C3%A9s_au_Village_de_Dettingen_le_27_juin_1743_-_btv1b8492659v.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "", "credit": "Bibliothèque nationale de France", "width": 6429 }, { "file": "File:John Wootton (c.1682-1764) - George II at the Battle of Dettingen, with the Duke of Cumberland and Robert, 4th Earl of Holderness, 27 June 1743 - NAM. 1961-07-116 - National Army Museum.jpg", "kind": "painting", "caption": "John Wootton, George II at the Battle of Dettingen, with the Duke of Cumberland and the Earl of Holderness (National Army Museum).", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/John_Wootton_%28c.1682-1764%29_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen%2C_with_the_Duke_of_Cumberland_and_Robert%2C_4th_Earl_of_Holderness%2C_27_June_1743_-_NAM._1961-07-116_-_National_Army_Museum.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/John_Wootton_%28c.1682-1764%29_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen%2C_with_the_Duke_of_Cumberland_and_Robert%2C_4th_Earl_of_Holderness%2C_27_June_1743_-_NAM._1961-07-116_-_National_Army_Museum.jpg/960px-thumbnail.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Wootton_(c.1682-1764)_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen,_with_the_Duke_of_Cumberland_and_Robert,_4th_Earl_of_Holderness,_27_June_1743_-_NAM._1961-07-116_-_National_Army_Museum.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "John Wootton", "credit": "Art UK", "width": 1200 }, { "file": "File:The Battle of Dettingen.jpg", "kind": "painting", "caption": "The Battle of Dettingen, by Henri-Louis Dupray (about 1890).", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/The_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/The_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Henri Louis Dupray", "credit": "Henri-Louis Dupray", "width": 460 }, { "file": "File:Hillingford - George II at the Battle of Dettingen.jpg", "kind": "painting", "caption": "George II at Dettingen, by Robert Alexander Hillingford.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Hillingford_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Hillingford_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg/960px-Hillingford_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillingford_-_George_II_at_the_Battle_of_Dettingen.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Robert Alexander Hillingford", "credit": "http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=7016", "width": 1000 }, { "file": "File:Féron - Adrien Maurice de Noailles (1678-1766) - MV 1082.jpg", "kind": "portrait", "caption": "Marshal Adrien Maurice, Duc de Noailles, the French commander.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/F%C3%A9ron_-_Adrien_Maurice_de_Noailles_%281678-1766%29_-_MV_1082.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/F%C3%A9ron_-_Adrien_Maurice_de_Noailles_%281678-1766%29_-_MV_1082.jpg/960px-F%C3%A9ron_-_Adrien_Maurice_de_Noailles_%281678-1766%29_-_MV_1082.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9ron_-_Adrien_Maurice_de_Noailles_(1678-1766)_-_MV_1082.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "After François de Troy / Éloi Firmin Féron", "credit": "RMN", "width": 1314 }, { "file": "File:John Dalrymple 2nd Earl of Stair (1673-1747) General and Diplomat.jpg", "kind": "portrait", "caption": "John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, who directed the allied army.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/John_Dalrymple_2nd_Earl_of_Stair_%281673-1747%29_General_and_Diplomat.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/John_Dalrymple_2nd_Earl_of_Stair_%281673-1747%29_General_and_Diplomat.jpg/960px-John_Dalrymple_2nd_Earl_of_Stair_%281673-1747%29_General_and_Diplomat.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Dalrymple_2nd_Earl_of_Stair_(1673-1747)_General_and_Diplomat.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "School of Godfrey Kneller", "credit": "Government Art Collection", "width": 3792 } ], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "title": "Battle of Dettingen", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dettingen", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s2", "title": "J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. II (Macmillan, 1899), ch. IV", "url": "https://archive.org/details/historyofbritisharm02fort", "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "Francis Henry Skrine, Fontenoy and Great Britain's Share in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1741–1748 (Blackwood, 1906), pp. 77–85", "url": "https://archive.org/details/cu31924027889686", "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "C. V. F. Townshend, The Military Life of Field-Marshal George First Marquess Townshend, 1724–1807 (John Murray, 1901)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/militarylifeoffi00townuoft", "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "Battle of Dettingen, 16 June 1743 (British Battles)", "url": "https://www.britishbattles.com/war-of-the-austrian-succession/battle-of-dettingen/", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "The Battle of Dettingen 1743 (Queen's Royal Hussars Museum)", "url": "https://www.qrhmuseum.com/timeline/the-battle-of-dettingen-1743", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Battle of Dettingen, 1743 (Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment Association)", "url": "https://queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/1661to1966/dettingen/dettingen.html", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s8", "title": "Battle of Dettingen 1743 (National Army Museum)", "url": "https://nam.ac.uk/whats-on/battle-dettingen-1743", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s9", "title": "Schlacht bei Dettingen (German Wikipedia)", "url": "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlacht_bei_Dettingen", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s10", "title": "Michael McNally, Dettingen 1743: Miracle on the Main (Osprey, 2020)", "url": null, "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s11", "title": "Michael Orr, Dettingen 1743 (Charles Knight, 1972)", "url": null, "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s12", "title": "Reed Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession (St. Martin's Press, 1993)", "url": null, "kind": "book" } ], "cdb90": [ 57 ], "order": 26, "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/dettingen/", "oob": [], "oob_lwtv": [], "scenarios": [], "orbat": null, "orbat_lwtv": null, "reading": { "prose": [ { "work_id": "ia:femalereviewherm00mannrich", "title": "The female review. Life of Deborah Sampson, the female soldier in the war of the revolution", "in": null, "author": "Herman Mann", "life": "1771–1833", "year": 1916, "kind": "memoir", "library": "Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/femalereviewherm00mannrich", "language": "en", "contemporary": false, "subject": false, "references": 1, "page": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/reading/the-female-review-life-of-deborah-sampson-the-female-soldier-baeb17/" } ], "history": [], "fiction": [], "poetry": [] }, "reading_lwtv": { "prose": [], "poetry": [] }, "photos": [], "photos_kind": "photographs", "newspapers": null }