As usual Frederick was saved by the sluggishness of his enemies, who attempted no pursuit, and being reinforced the day after the battle by 23,00o men, and having ordered up Kleist (who had been watching the Swedes), he was again at the head of an army. Week after week went by, during which he countered all attempts of Daun and Soltikov to combine, and ultimately the Russians, having consumed all the food and forage in the dis tricts they occupied, were compelled to fall back on their own frontiers. Then, uniting with Prince Henry, the king turned to fall upon Daun ; but his contempt for his adversary proved his own undoing.
Battle of Maxen.—He sent a detachment of 12,000 men under Finck to work round the Austrians' flank by Dippoldiswald to Maxen, but the latter, learning of the movement and calling up a wing of the Empire Army to their assistance, fell upon Finck with 42,00o men and compelled him to surrender after two days' hard fighting. The combination having failed, the two armies stood facing one another till far into the winter. But for Prince Ferdinand's glorious victory at Minden on Aug. 1, the year would have been one catalogue of disaster to the Prussian arms, and these operations must now be mentioned.
In the early part of 1758 Prince Ferdinand with 30,00o men had advanced from Luneburg and was joined by Prince Henry with 8,600 from Halberstadt. The approach of the latter threat ened the right wing of the French army under Clermont, which was posted along the Aller, and the whole line gave way and retreated without making any serious stand behind the Rhine. Prince Ferdinand followed and defeated them on June 23 at Crefeld. Clermont was relieved by Contades and at the same time Soubise, who had at last reorganized his command, shat tered by the disaster of Rossbach, moved forward through Hesse and compelled Prince Ferdinand to withdraw from his very advanced position. No engagement followed ; Soubise fell back upon Frankfurt and Prince Ferdinand held a line through Mun ster, Paderborn and Cassel during the winter.
Fortunately events in Canada and the glory of his victories had made Frederick's cause thoroughly popular in Great Britain, and at last it became possible to detach a considerable force of British troops to Prince Ferdinand's assistance, whose conduct turned the scale in the critical moment of the campaign. During the winter the French had organized their forces in two columns— based on Frankfurt and Wesel respectively. Broglie was now in command of the former; Contades still led the latter.
In April Prince Ferdinand advanced to drive the French out of Hesse and Frankfurt, and actually reached Bergen, a village some 10 m. to the north, but here he was defeated by Broglie (April 13) and forced to retreat the way he had come, the French following along their whole front and by sheer weight of numbers manoeuv ring him successively out of each position he assumed. On July io Broglie surprised Minden, thus securing a bridge over the Weser and free access into Hanover, and light troops overran the south of the electorate. On the 16th Contades with the left column joined Broglie and the French now had some 6o,000 men against the 45,00o Ferdinand could muster. The latter's position was extremely difficult, for the French had only to continue in pos session of the bridges at Minden to ruin the whole country by their exactions, and the position they held was too well pro tected on the flanks and too strong in front for direct attack.
Nevertheless Prince Ferdinand drew up before it and met the French plundering raids by a threat on their communication with Cassel, and as a further inducement to tempt Contades to attack him, he detached a column under Wangenheim, which entrenched itself across the only outlet by which the right of the French army could debouch from behind the marshes which lie in the angle between the Weser and the Bastau. The bait took, and during the early hours of Aug. i the French army moved out to attack Wangenheim.
Battle of Minden.—But Ferdinand's troops had been lying in instant readiness for action, and as soon as the outposts gave the alarm they were in motion in eight columns, i.e., practically deployed for action to meet the French as they emerged from their positions. Unfortunately the outpost reports were delayed by about two hours, owing to the heavy gale and storm that was prevailing, and the French had made far greater progress with their deployment than Ferdinand had reckoned on. An almost front-to-front engagement ensued. Things were going badly with the Prussians when, through a mistake in the delivery of an order, the British brigade (12th, loth, 23rd, 25th, 37th, 51st regiments), followed by some Hanoverian battalions, began to advance straight upon the masses of French cavalry who stood protected by the crossfire of several batteries. Once launched, neither fire nor shock could check their progress; halting for a moment to pour volleys into the charging squadrons hastily thrown against them, they swiftly resumed their advance. French infantry too were hurled against them, but were swept away by fire and bayonet, and presently they had pierced right through the French line of battle. Now came the moment when cavalry should have been at hand to complete the victory, and this cavalry, the Blues, the 1st and 3rd Dragoons, Scots Greys and loth Dragoons under Lord George (afterwards Viscount) Sackville (q.v.) stood ready, waiting only the order to advance. This Sackville refused to give, though called on three times by the prince; no satisfactory explanation of his conduct has ever been discovered, but he was tried by a general court-martial and cashiered. Nevertheless, so brilliant had been the conduct of all the troops engaged, especially of the infantry brigade that the victory was won even in spite of this failure of the cavalry, and before evening the French were retreat ing as a demoralized mass towards Cassel, leaving some io,000 men and 45 guns in the hands of the victors, who on their side out of 43,000 had lost 2,600 killed and wounded. Of the six British regiments that went into action 4,434 strong, 1,33o (3o%) had fallen, but their feat is not to be measured only by the losses victoriously borne—these were not unusual in the period —but by the astounding discipline they maintained throughout the advance, resuming their march after beating off cavalry charges with the cool precision of a review in peace-time. Ferdi nand followed up his victory by a pursuit which was vigorous for three days and had all but reached the Rhine when his move ment was stayed by the necessity of detaching 12,000 men to the king to make good the losses of Kunersdorf.