246 
THE BROME-WALTON FAMILY. 
vain, on account of the number of batteries behind one another. 
Ferdinand massed his artilleries, and the remainder of the day was 
spent in furious cannonading on both sides, until under cover of night 
the Allies effected retreat, with the loss of 2000 men and five Hessian 
6-prs., which had to be left through the horses having been killed. The 
cavalry behaved splendidly, and effectually checked the enemy in 
pursuit. 1 
Rothburg, Munster, and Miuden, consequently, fell to the Due de 
Broglie. 
In evidence on the Sackville court-martial, Lord Granby stated that 
before the attack on Bergen, Prince Ferdinand sent for all the Lieut.- 
Generals, and in the clearest terms explained the disposition of march, 
with the order of battle; that this was the Prince’s habit, in which he 
excelled. 2 
Battle of Minden. 
Nothing but a decisive battle could now hinder the French from again 
taking possession of Hanover; and while the French Court urged Mar¬ 
shal Contades (Commander-iu-Ohief) to this extremity, this had, also, 
long been Ferdinand’s resolution (on advice of Frederick), which Bergen 
only strengthened. 3 The measures by which Ferdinand accomplished 
this design through his masterly retreat upon the heights of Minden 
(like Wellington upon Waterloo), with a greatly inferior army and 
without loss, must ever cause him to be ranked amongst the greatest 
masters of military strategy; while perhaps there is no instance of 
generalship so complete and finished as his manoeuvres by which he drew 
the enemy out of their impregnable position into the plains of Minden . 4 
We arc not particularly concerned with the encounters, on the event¬ 
ful 1st August, of the 10,000 Hessians and Hanoverians, under the 
Hereditary Prince, whom Ferdinand had sent towards Lubeck , 5 a 
fews days previously, to fall upon the enemy’s rear (in event of 
victory) ; nor with the 20,000 allies, under General Wangenheim at 
Thonhausen, Kutenhausen, and Biickberg, against de Broglie, in which, 
until the French retreat, the allies maintained throughout the positions 
taken up at the beginning, 6 and right loyally and gallantly showed 
themselves to be as splendid troops as they afterwards proved in the 
Peninsula and at Waterloo : but with that of the right or first division 
of some 25,000 men and about 80 guns (including Hille camp), against 
Contades with some 34,000 men and 112 field pieces. 7 The greater part 
1 “Campaigns,” p. 79. “Annals of War,” 1759, pp. 322-3. “Modern Europe” (Russell), 
Yol. II., p. 495. 
2 Court-Martial , p. 48. Roy’s map of Bergen is the only military map of the period which 
shows the positions of the respective artillery batteries and brigades. 
3 “Decker,” p. 259 “ Campaigns,” p. 74. 
4 “ Modern Europe,” Yol. II., p. 496. “ Annals of War,” 1759, p. 328. “ Campaigns,” p. 99. 
6 “ Campaigns,” p. 95. 
6 Ibid, p. 102. 
7 Decker, who wrote his “ Guerre de Sept Ans ” in 1840, in giving the British only 28 guns, 
omits the 12 6-prs. with the six infantry battalions, the 14 3-pr. gallopers with the cavalry, and 
the position guns at head-quarter camp at Hille; while Roy, in his “Campaigns,” gives the 
British 102 guns—which is incontestibly wrong—and he does not give the number of men. Lieut. 
Roy, 51st Regiment, was commissioned in 1756; but this youngster’s volume of Minden history 
does him infinite credit, and makes us all the more regret that Capt. Forbes Macbean, R.A., embryo 
has left us to rely alone upon Samuel Cleaveland’s rough notes of artillery operations, and 
Cleaveland was called away from his company before Minden, to command expedition to West 
Indies. 
