11 August in military history: the Battle of Seneffe, 1674

11 August 1674 · 352 years ago

Three armies against Condé

The historian Pádraig Lenihan writes that from 1672 Louis XIV fought “coalitions of neighbouring states”, with the heaviest fighting in the eastern half of the Spanish Netherlands, and calls William III of Orange, stadholder of the Dutch Republic, “the linchpin of these anti-French alliances”. According to Larousse, Condé crossed the Rhine in 1672.¹

In July 1674 an Imperial army under the Count de Souches joined the Spanish and Dutch armies near Louvain, while Condé lay entrenched behind the Piéton stream near Charleroi. Wagenaar writes that the allies were reckoned at 74,000 men and Condé, “so it is said”, at no more than 50,000 (our translation). The Musée de l'Armée, which places the battle in the Spanish Netherlands, gives Condé 45,000 men against 60,000.²

The march past the Piéton

The allies camped near Seneffe on 9 August and broke camp on the 11th. A London pamphlet of 1674 dates the action “On Saturday, the 1. of August, 1674” and heads its letter from Brussels “Brussels, August, 3/13 1674”. In that letter “his Highness the Prince of Orange, and General Souches” are intending to take their army over a small river beside a wood.³

William’s own letter, printed by Basnage, and Wagenaar agree on the order of march: the Imperials under Souches in the vanguard, the Dutch in the center, the Spanish in the rearguard. Wagenaar names the Count of Monterey as the Spanish commander, Basnage the Marquis of Assentar; Aumale writes that Monterey was not on the field and Assentar took his place. A covering corps under the Prince de Vaudemont stood at Seneffe while the army filed past: six thousand horse and three Dutch battalions in Condé’s report, four thousand horse and some dragoons in William’s letter.⁴

Lenihan writes that William, on the advice of a senior Spanish officer, took a track on the inner side of a wood that could be overlooked from the French camp.⁵

The rearguard broken

The duc d’Aumale, Condé’s nineteenth-century historian, times the first attack at ten in the morning. French dragoons and infantry under Montal stormed Seneffe, where the allied battalions held the church, the château and the houses; Condé reports them almost all killed or taken, and Montal had a leg broken. Condé then led the Gardes du Corps across the Samme and routed the allied cavalry.⁶

The fighting rolled on to the Spanish army at La Courre-aux-Bois and to William’s position at the priory of Saint-Nicolas; Basnage calls the day “trois Batailles sanglantes dans un même jour” (“three bloody battles in one day”, our translation). Assentar was wounded and died. Before Saint-Nicolas, Aumale and Basnage both tell, the Chevalier de Fourilles objected that the ground favored the enemy, and Condé retorted that Fourilles preferred reasoning to fighting and ordered him to charge.⁷

Condé writes that his men took “the baggage of the Dutch, their munitions, their pontoons, and the money they were carrying to pay their troops” (our translation). Lenihan has him capture “the entire baggage train”. William wrote that the enemy’s only advantage was “the capture of part of the baggage”, while his secretary Launoy wrote on 14 August that “all my master’s baggage and that of his army has been taken and plundered” (our translations).⁸

Fayt by moonlight

Basnage writes that Souches, called back by William, returned slowly, to spare Imperial blood, and reached the main body only after noon. Around the village of Fayt the allies formed a new front, with the Dutch on the right and Imperial infantry in the village and the woods.⁹

Condé’s report says of the attack: “Le combat fut des plus rudes qu’on puisse voir; il dura cinq heures” (“The fight was one of the hardest one could see; it lasted five hours”, our translation). Condé writes that his men mastered the village; Basnage writes that it could not be taken, and Aumale that the French never reached its church. On the French right the Swiss Guards failed to cross a ravine.¹⁰

Wagenaar writes that the fighting went on for two hours after sunset by the light of the moon; Basnage, that the moon lit it until eleven at night. Lenihan calls it “a twelve-hour battle”; Aumale has the armies clash for fourteen hours. Condé writes that, his infantry exhausted and his units weakened by plunderers gone to the baggage, “je ne jugeai pas à propos de pousser la chose plus avant” (“I did not judge it proper to push the matter further”, our translation); the enemy withdrew to Haine-Saint-Pierre and Haine-Saint-Paul, and the French went back to their camp. William wrote that the enemy withdrew first and the allies then reached the camp chosen before the battle.¹¹

Counting the cost

“Certain it is there has been a very great loss of men on each side in this notable action”, says the Brussels letter. Each account counts something different. Condé claimed 3,500 prisoners and more than 3,000 allied dead on the spot, not counting the wounded who got away. Aumale gives the French 7,000 killed and wounded and, from Launoy’s estimate, the allies about 12,000 short, prisoners and deserters included; he calls the story of 20,000 buried a fable.¹²

The Brussels letter offers as “the most moderate and probable account” ten thousand destroyed, 6,500 French and 3,500 allied; the Paris letter in the same pamphlet puts the French loss at 4,000 to 5,000 common soldiers and the enemy’s at “neer twice as many”. Basnage writes of more than 25,000 dead, wounded and prisoners on both sides. The Musée de l'Armée gives over 15,000 deaths, including 7,000 French.¹³

Of the officers lost, Condé wrote to Louvois: “You will find many of them there, which grieves me deeply; but in truth the fire was heavy and lasted a long time” (our translation).¹⁴

Two Te Deums

“Chaque Parti s’attribua la Victoire”, writes Basnage (“Each side claimed the victory”, our translation). Wagenaar explains: the allies because they held the field after Condé went back to his camp in the night, the French because they had taken most of the standards, colors and prisoners; a Te Deum was sung in France and in Brabant. In Paris 107 captured flags and standards were presented at Notre-Dame on 22 August, at a Te Deum. Madame de Sévigné wrote on 5 September: “We lost so much in this victory that, but for the Te Deum and a few flags carried to Notre-Dame, we would think we had lost the battle” (our translation).¹⁵

Aumale judges that if anyone could claim the field, it was Condé. Larousse credits Condé with halting William’s army. Lenihan remarks: “No one was better than William III at retrieving hopeless situations. Or at falling into them”. The Musée de l'Armée calls Seneffe one of Condé’s final combats.¹⁶

In September the allies besieged Oudenaarde; Condé marched to its relief and the siege was lifted on 21 September. In 1675, after Turenne’s death, Condé took over his army in Alsace, and Larousse writes that he drove back the Imperials. Aumale, who titles that chapter “La dernière campagne” (“The last campaign”), records the siege of Haguenau raised on 22 August 1675. The etching above was made in the Northern Netherlands in 1684 by Jacobus Harrewijn after a print by Romeyn de Hooghe. Condé’s victory of 1643 is told in our article on Rocroi, his rival in our biography of Turenne, and William’s best-known battle in our article on the Boyne.¹⁷