Battle of Fontenoy

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 of Bavaria with French, Prussian and Saxon backing. Britain, Hanover and the Dutch Republic stood with Austria in the so-called Pragmatic Army. By 1745 the Bavarian candidate was dead, his successor had sued for peace, and France could turn its full weight on the Austrian Netherlands. France was also close to bankruptcy and wanted a decisive result.

Marshal Maurice de Saxe argued that the way to get one was to make the Allies fight on ground he had chosen, before British money could raise more troops. After a cavalry feint towards Mons on 21 April drew Cumberland's attention, the French laid siege to Tournai on 28 April. Tournai, held by a Dutch garrison of over 8,000, commanded the upper Scheldt and was one of the Dutch barrier fortresses, so the Allies could not let it fall without a fight.

Saxe left about 22,000 men in the siege lines and took the rest of his army a few miles south-east, to the low plateau between Antoing on the Scheldt and the Bois de Barry, with the village of Fontenoy in the middle. There he dug in across the Allies' line of approach. Cumberland's army closed up on 9 and 10 May, drove the French outposts out of Vezon and Bourgeon, and prepared to attack on the morning of 11 May. British accounts of the time date the battle 30 April, Old Style.

The armies

The Allies had about 50,000 men: British and Hanoverians on the right and centre, Dutch under the Prince of Waldeck on the left, and a small Austrian contingent under Marshal Königsegg. The Duke of Cumberland, George II's son, was 24 and had first seen action only two years earlier at Dettingen; his royal rank, not his experience, gave him the command. Sir John Ligonier commanded the infantry and Lord Albemarle the Foot Guards. The Allied guns are given as 80 to 101, among them British six- and three-pounders that would be pushed forward with the infantry.

Saxe had roughly 50,000 to 60,000 men on the field, and 100 or more guns, with a further battery firing across the Scheldt. He was ill with dropsy and was carried about in a wicker chair. Louis XV and the Dauphin were present with the army, which made the stakes, and the pressure on Saxe, all the higher. Saxe thought his own infantry inferior to the British, so he relied on fortified villages, redoubts and a mass of cavalry, including the household cavalry of the Maison du Roi, to break up and then counter-attack any assault. His reserve included the Irish Brigade, regiments of Jacobite exiles in French service, among them Clare's, Dillon's, Bulkeley's, Lally's, Rothe's and Berwick's.

The battle

The position. The French line faced east and north-east. Its right rested on Antoing and the Scheldt, where houses were fortified, streets barricaded and trenches dug. Between Antoing and Fontenoy stood a chain of redoubts, and Fontenoy itself was turned into a strongpoint with guns covering every approach. From Fontenoy the line ran north along a sunken road to the Bois de Barry, whose edge was lined with infantry and felled trees; at its south-eastern corner stood the Redoubt d'Eu. Any attack on the gap between Fontenoy and the wood would come up a gentle slope under fire from the front and both flanks.

Dawn: the opening moves. The Allies formed up from about 4 a.m. and their guns bombarded Fontenoy to little effect. The plan gave the Dutch Fontenoy and Antoing, and sent Brigadier Ingoldsby's brigade to clear the Bois de Barry and its redoubt. Shortly before 6 a.m. Ingoldsby ran into the Redoubt d'Eu, which the Allies had not detected, and into French light troops, the Arquebusiers de Grassin, in the wood. He hesitated. Cumberland then changed his orders and told him to join the main attack, without telling Ligonier, so that when Ligonier's aide arrived to demand an assault on the redoubt Ingoldsby could show him a contrary order. The redoubt was never taken.

Meanwhile General Campbell led the British cavalry through Vezon into the French cannonade. Campbell was mortally wounded and the horse fell back. The Dutch attacks on Fontenoy and Antoing, including a renewed assault around 10.30 a.m. supported by the Black Watch, were driven off by fire from the village and the guns across the river.

Late morning to early afternoon: the column. Cumberland now sent the British and Hanoverian infantry, some 15,000 men led by himself and Ligonier, straight up the slope between Fontenoy and the Redoubt d'Eu. The sources disagree on the time, from about 10.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. Enfiladed from both flanks, the two lines compressed into one dense mass, the "Fontenoy column", dragging light guns with them. It reached the crest still in order. Here comes the famous exchange in which Lord Charles Hay of the 1st Foot Guards is said to have invited the Gardes françaises to fire first. Voltaire first told the story in 1768, the versions differ even on which side made the offer, and the exactness of the words is doubtful. What is certain is the volley: delivered at close range, it killed or wounded 700 to 800 Frenchmen and broke the French first line. With many French reserves drawn off towards the Dutch, the column pressed on into the gap.

The crisis. Courtiers urged Louis XV to retire to safety; he stayed. French cavalry charged the column repeatedly and were thrown back, but the Allies had no room to bring their own horse up in support, and Ingoldsby's failure left the right flank open to fire from the wood. Under fire from three sides the column formed a hollow, three-sided square and held its ground. Saxe, carried from point to point, brought up guns, which by about 1.30 p.m. were firing grapeshot into the square at point-blank range.

The counter-attack. Around 2 p.m. Saxe launched a general assault on the square. Infantry struck it from the French right, while from the left came the Irish Brigade with Normandie, des Vaisseaux, d'Eu and two battalions of the Gardes françaises, and the Maison du Roi charged in support. The Irish lost 656 men. The battered column fell back down the slope in good order, its rearguard turning to fire at intervals, and the cavalry covered its retreat through Vezon. The French did not pursue far, and the Allied army marched away to Ath.

Aftermath

Fontenoy was the bloodiest battle in western Europe since Malplaquet in 1709. Allied losses are given anywhere between about 7,400 and 12,000 killed, wounded and captured; the British and Hanoverian infantry of the column lost about 6,000 of their 15,000 men. French losses were probably 6,000 to 8,000. The day after the battle French cavalry took some 2,000 Allied wounded and more than 40 guns at Leuze.

Tournai surrendered on 20 June, and Ostend and Nieuport followed. In October Britain withdrew most of its troops to deal with the Jacobite rising, leaving Saxe free to overrun much of the Austrian Netherlands in 1746. Yet the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 handed the country back to Austria, so France gained little for its victory.

Louis XV celebrated the first French field victory over the English since Saint Louis, and Voltaire wrote a poem on it. Saxe's critics complained that he had not pursued; he answered that his troops were exhausted and much of the Allied army intact. Cumberland was blamed for ignoring advice, leaving the Bois de Barry uncleared and issuing contradictory orders, faults that reappeared at Lauffeld in 1747. Ingoldsby was court-martialled and left the army. In Ireland the battle became a nationalist emblem, celebrated in Thomas Davis's poem and a memorial Celtic cross at Fontenoy, though how far the Irish Brigade alone turned the day is a matter of national memory as much as history.

Wargaming it

Fontenoy is a set-piece defence that rewards a game with a strong sense of ground. The battlefield is compact, a few miles from Antoing to the Bois de Barry, and works well as a grand-tactical game with one unit per battalion and cavalry in regiments or brigades, or as a smaller game of the column's assault alone. The key terrain is all fixed and fortified: Antoing, the redoubts, Fontenoy village, the sunken road, the Redoubt d'Eu and the edge of the wood. The French player's batteries and their supply of ammunition matter, as French guns were short of ball by early afternoon.

The decisions are mostly Allied ones. Does Ingoldsby take the Redoubt d'Eu before the column moves, so that its right flank is safe? Can the Dutch be made to press Fontenoy hard enough to pin its garrison and guns? Should the column halt and consolidate on the crest, or wheel? Frederick the Great's verdict was that a quarter-wheel to the left or right would have brought victory, a ready-made scenario rule. The French player must decide when to commit the reserve, including the Irish Brigade and the Maison du Roi, and must keep the king safe.

Rules should reward close-range infantry fire and make frontal attacks across enfiladed ground costly, while giving cavalry little room in the centre. A timetable that delays the column, as Ingoldsby's hesitation did, gives the French time to recover.

Maps and pictures