On 26 July 1757 a French army under Marshal d'Estrées defeated the Duke of Cumberland's Hanoverians, Hessians and Brunswickers at Hastenbeck near Hameln. Each commander ordered a retreat at almost the same moment, but the French returned and kept the field. On 26 July 1758 the French fortress of Louisbourg capitulated to the British.
Battle of Hastenbeck
26 July 1757 · 269 years ago
Hanover in the line of fire
In 1757 the French invaded Hanover, the German electorate of King George II. The king's son, the Duke of Cumberland, commanded the army of observation formed to cover it, made up mainly of Hanoverians, Hessians and Brunswickers. The French army of Marshal d'Estrées crossed the Weser and moved on Hanover.1
After an outpost action at Latferde on 24 July, Cumberland drew up behind the village of Hastenbeck, near Hameln, with his right toward the town and his left on wooded heights.2
The French were much the stronger, though the counts differ: the Prussian General Staff history gives the allies about 36,000 men against some 60,000 French, Richard Waddington 40,000 against about 60,000, and the Russian Voennaya entsiklopediya 48,000 against 70,000.3
Up the Obensburg
D'Estrées decided to turn the allied left through the woods. Lieutenant General Chevert, with the brigades of Picardie, Navarre and Marine, set out by night to climb the Obensburg, the height at the far end of the allied line.4
On the morning of 26 July, as the fog lifted, the guns of both armies opened fire. Picardie's men stormed the Obensburg and planted a French flag on its summit, and the French took the great Hanoverian battery at the edge of the woods.5
The young Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, led a bayonet counterattack and retook the battery. He could not keep it: when the army began to leave its position he had to give it up again.6
Two armies in retreat
Cumberland, seeing his left about to be turned, ordered a retreat. Meanwhile three Hanoverian battalions under Colonel von Breidenbach, sent round through the woods, climbed the Obensburg and drove a French brigade down the slope in disorder. Panic spread through the French in the woods, and the Swiss brigade of Reding, in red coats like the Hanoverians, was fired on by French troops who took it for the enemy.7
Believing his own right was being turned, d'Estrées in turn ordered his troops back. When he learned that the allies were marching off, he sent them forward again and reoccupied the heights. The Prussian General Staff wrote that, apart from Hastenbeck, military history offered no example of both opponents beginning to retreat at almost the same time for fear of being outflanked (our translation).8
Counting the cost
Allied losses in the fighting of 24 to 26 July came to between about 1,400 and 1,500 killed, wounded and missing: 1,454 in Cumberland's own report, 1,480 in Waddington and about 1,414 in the General Staff history.9
The French lost more: the General Staff and Waddington both give 16 officers and 1,038 men killed and 118 officers and 1,159 men wounded, 2,331 in all. The guns of the great battery stayed in French hands.10
From Hameln to Kloster-Zeven
The allied army fell back down the Weser, leaving Hameln to its fate, and the town capitulated a few days later. Waddington called Hastenbeck an action "restée presque indécise sur le terrain" (left almost undecided on the ground) whose results gave it "la portée d'un triomphe éclatant" (the weight of a brilliant triumph; our translation). D'Estrées did not enjoy it for long: the Duke of Richelieu had been named to command over him, and he left the army.11
Cumberland retreated north toward Stade. On 8 September, through the Danish envoy Count Lynar, he signed the Convention of Kloster-Zeven: hostilities were to cease, the Hanoverian troops were to cross the Elbe, and the others were to go home without laying down their arms.12
Battle of Valea Albă, 1476: Stephen the Great against Mehmed II
26 July 1476 · 550 years ago
At Valea Albă, also called Războieni, Stephen the Great and his Moldavian army faced an Ottoman invasion led in person by Sultan Mehmed II. The Moldavians were beaten and withdrew, but the Ottomans soon failed to take key fortresses and pulled out of Moldavia.
Read the full story of Battle of Valea Albă, 1476: Stephen the Great against Mehmed II ›Also on this day
1758: the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island capitulated. The army of Major General Jeffery Amherst had landed on 8 June, some 27,000 soldiers and sailors in about 150 ships. On the 26th, Amherst wrote, "I received a Letter from the Governor, offering to capitulate", and the articles were agreed. The next day three grenadier companies took possession of the West Gate and the garrison laid down its arms as prisoners of war.13
