BOOKS.
FONTENOY.* FONTENOY, Mr. Skrine confesses, is an enigma which has always fascinated him. It has perplexed others before him, among them Carlyle, who called it "a mystery and a riddle." It was the pivot of one of the most disastrous and inglorious of British wars, undertaken for no adequate motive, and con- ducted throughout with curious incompetence. It was the only great battle in modern times where France defeated her ancient enemy. On the French side fought the Irish Brigade, filled with Jacobite exiles, and Saxe's victory was the direct occasion of the Rising of the 'Forty-five. The victory was won for France by the skill of her great Marshal, and all but lost to her by the stubborn valour of the British infantry. Mr. Shrine has made the battle the centre-piece of his work, but has also traced with great care the political causes which led up to the campaign, and the events which followed, including the Scottish War, until the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. In addition, he has given us a most careful and systematic study of the British and French military systems of the period, and admirable portraits of the chief actors in the drama. All students of military history will be indebted to him for a work of sound scholar- ship, which is none the less valuable for the instructive moral it points in regard to the problems of our own day, a moral which Lord Roberts emphasises in his short preface. The'style is sober and workmanlike, but picturesque enough when occasion demands, and there is real insight and judgment in his character sketches. The book deserves to be read as much for its dramatic interest as for its historical learning.
Fontenoy itself is the main feature of the campaign. For though several battles of note succeeded it, the first victory of Saxe decided the issue of the struggle. In England the war was never popular, for the command was divided between English and foreign generals, and English troops were joined with badly trained Continental levies, who were as like as not to fail them in the hour of trial. Wade was the first English general, but he was an old man, and soon resigned his com- mand to Sir john Ligonier, perhaps the foremost British soldier of the day. When Saxe advanced to menace Tournai, the supreme command was given to the Duke of Cumber- land, with whom were joined the Austrian Count Konigsegg and the Prince of Waldeck. Saxe entered upon the campaign half dead with dropsy, but he revived on the march, and though seriously ill most of the time, the vigour of his mind and body seemed scarcely to suffer. " I wish to emphasise the fact," he had written in his ligveries, "that one may fight without leaving anything to chance, and that is the highest pitch of perfection and ability in a chief." Faithful to his maxim, and profiting by the slowness of his enemy's advance, he turned the arena on which he had resolved to give battle "into an improvised citadel by means of a chain of redoubts." One weak spot alone was left in the defence, for there was no redoubt on the ridge between the Redoubt d'Eu and Fontenoy. The story of the battle is familiar. Owing partly to faulty intelligence, and partly to confused orders from Cumberland, the attack of the Allies on the French flanks failed in spite of the gallantry of the Black Watch and other regiments. By 11 a.m. it was clear to
Cumberland and Konigsegg that they must either retreat, or advance against the French centre by the undefended gap on the ridge exposed to a withering cross-fire. They chose the latter alternative, and that famous advance began which is one of the strangest and most romantic events in the annals of the British Army. Mr. Skrine gives the true version of Lord Charles Hay's performance, which is contained in a letter to his brother, Lord Tweeddale, written shortly after the battle. When the Guards Brigade found themselves opposite the French Household Infantry,
• Fontenoy, and Great Britain's Share in the War of the Austrian Succession, 174148. By Francis Henry Skrine. With an Introduction by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts. London W. Blackwood and Sons. [21s. net.]
Lord Charles stepped to the front and doffed his hat to them. Then he took out a flask and drank to their health, shouting: "We are the English Guards, n 1. 3. we hope you will stand till we come up to you, and not swim the Scheldt as you did the Main at Dettingen." The Duo de Biron and a few officers tried to raise a counter-cheer, but their men were too dumb- founded to respond. On rolled the solid mass of infantry, driving the French before them till they were three hundred yards beyond the flanking batteries. The Irish Brigade flung themselves with desperate valour against them, but the formation remained unshaken. Had the Allies made use of their cavalry, which stood idle in the rear, the day might, yet have been won; but as it was, exposed to flank fire and to repeated French attacks, and with no reserves to. relieve them, they were compelled to retire, and turn a half-victory into a defeat. The retreat was managed with great skill, and Cumberland deserves credit for keeping his nerve in trying circumstances. So ended what was more completely a soldier's battle than even Malphquet. Deeds of individual prowess were so common as to be the rule rather than the exception. One private of the Black Watch slew nine French- men with his broadsword, and would have disposed of a tenth if a cannon-ball bad not carried away his arm. The chaplain of the same regiment—afterwards the sedate Dr. Adam Ferguson, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh University—appeared at dawn in the ranks with a drawn sword, and on being ordered back on the pain of losing his commission, said, " D—n my commission!" and fought all day in the ranks. The valour of the Celtic troops—the High- landers on the British and the Irish Brigade on the Freuch side—would alone make Fontenoy unforgettable.
Mr. Skrine does much to rehabilitate the character of the Duke of Cumberland. The soldier who when be was most unjustly blamed for Kloster-Zeven could shrug his shoulders and say that he had been most unjustly praised for Culloden, and that therefore he considered justice had been done, was no common man. But the hero of the book, as is right and fitting, is Maurice de Saxe. So improbable a figure, so strange a compound of genius and folly, would ruin the credit of any romance. With Royal blood in his veins, be hungered all his life for empire, and narrowly missed becoming monarch of Russia. Though a gross liver, no excesses seemed to impair his mental force, and, though be used to go to the wars attended by a complete operatic troop, his untiring energy on the field put all his officers to shame. At Fontenoy, where the day was saved mainly by his indomitable spirit, he was all the time in agony, and bad to retire to his tent at intervals to be tapped for dropsy. His brain was never idle, and in a period of convalescence he wrote his Reveries, which did much to change the whole theory of the art of war. One sentence of that work is worth repeating as a text for our own times : " Let every man be compelled to dedicate to his country the years which are often squandered in debauchery." Frederick the Great thought that he might well be "the professor of all the generals in Europe." But Saxe, while a brilliant man of action with an acute practical instinct, had always something of the boyish dreamer at his heart. When peace deprived him of his occupation, he settled at Chambord in royal state, and raised and commanded a private regiment. His soul was always hungry for adventure. He begged for the sovereignty of Madagascar; he obtained a grant of Tobago, and would have made it the nucleus of an American Empire; and be bad some idea of transporting the Jewish race to colonise the same continent. His portraits show him a large, full-bodied man, with a humorous, sensual face, and a keen blue eye, such as Sulla may have bad. His volcanic energy wore him out early, and he died at fifty-four, having " warmed both hands before the fire of life " with a completeness that is given to few mortals. His last words to his physician reveal the man: " My life has been a beautiful dream,—but it is too short."
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