The 1746 Campaign Marshal Saxe defied conventional wisdom by storming Brussels in a winter campaign in January. He spent the spring mopping up the remaining fortresses that held out in his rear. Antwerp fell in May and Mons surrendered to him in July. The balance of the campaign centered around Namur and Leige, to the east of Brussels. We begin to see how Marshal Saxe planned to systematically overrun the Austrian Netherlands. First, he deprived the British of their supply bases at the North Sea ports; secondly, he secured the Scheldt River basin and Brussels in the center of the country; then he would shift his attention to the Brabant region and finish up with a campaign in the Meuse River valley with the capture of Maastricht. This would knock the Austrians out of the war and the Dutch would quickly follow or face the threat of a French invasion. Then the British would be forced off the continent and would have no choice but to make peace or risk losing Hanover. By July, the Jacobite Rebellion had been crushed and British troops were returning to the continent. It seemed likely that a battle would be fought near Namur. Once Namur fell to Marshal Saxe, he would be in position to capture Leige and Maastricht; and if Maastricht fell, an invasion of Holland would be feasible. A shortage of supplies forced the allies to abandon their strong position at Namur and the city fell to Saxe on September 19, 1746. A major battle was fought at Rocoux, outside of Leige, in October. The allies were commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine. Lt. General John Ligonier, a French Huguenot with a distinguished career in the British army, commanded the British contingent at Rocoux, and Prince Waldeck once again commanded the Dutch contingent. The battle opened with the news that the inhabitants of Liege had opened the town gates to the French, thereby imperiling the entire allied left flank, held by the unreliable Dutch. Saxe focused the brunt of his attack on the hinge between the Dutch and British-Hanoverain positions at Rocoux. Then he launched dense columns of French battalions at the Dutch and British lines in simultaneous attacks. The Dutch fought surprisingly well, but the threat from Leige and the superior numbers of French forced them to fall back. Ligonier conducted an effective rear guard action which allowed the allies to retire across the Meuse River safely. This time it had been the Austrians who demonstrated a lack of enterprise in battle. They remained rivited to their entrenchments on the allied right for the entire battle and did nothing to help their Dutch and British allies stem the attack of Saxe's assault columns. Chalk up another victory for Marshal Saxe and the French. The Final Campaign: 1747 Up to now, Marshal Saxe had been unstoppable; in two campaigns he had captured Flanders, Hainault and the Brabant and French armies were poised to invade Holland proper in 1747. Whereas France and Saxe were focused on a singular goal, the allied effort had been wrecked by internal differences among the British, Austrian and Dutch field commanders. The Dutch, in particular, were not willing participants in the war. Their performance was abysmal and their commander, Prince Waldeck, was despised by everyone he met. The Austrians never seemed to meet their promised troop commitments to the Austrian Netherlands, despite the ever-increasing British subsidies. Cumberland returned as commander-in-chief for the 1747 campaign and he had a nominal force of 139,000 men at his disposal, including Waldeck's 40,000 Dutch. Prince Charles of Lorraine added 60,000 Austrians to the mix. The most reliable troops in the army were the 15,000 British; 18,000 Hanoverians and 6,000 Hessians. They faced off against Marshal Saxe and his army of 150,000 seasoned French. Saxe was usually the first to hit the campaign trail, but this time he kept his larger and better provisioned army in winter quarters while Cumberland spent a miserable February and March in the field. "When the Duke of Cumberland has sufficiently weakened his army, I shall teach him that a general's first duty is to provide for the army's welfare," declared Saxe. Saxe left the dangerous General Lowendahl with a corps of 35,000 men in the west to threaten the Dutch border post at Breda, while the balance of the army marched to Maastricht. Lowendahl would eventually snap up some more Dutch border forts and by September he captured Bergen-op-Zoom on the Scheldt estuary. The entire Scheldt River was now controlled by the French. Further east, Saxe and Cumberland fought a major battle at Laffeldt on June 17, 1747, just outside of Maastricht. Saxe employed deep brigade attack columns as he had at Rocoux, and once again, the sheer weight of numbers caused the allied defenses to collapse. The allies withdrew, but Saxe had suffered twice as many casualties (8,700) as the allies and he failed to follow up his victory. Maastricht was safe for the time being. 1748 By 1748, both sides were weary of war and were looking for ways to end the conflict. France proposed a peace settlement as early as 1745, but Maria Theresa had wanted revenge against France for invading Bohemia and supporting Prussia. Cumberland saw the hopelessness of his position and advised the government to seek the best possible peace terms. The War of Austrian Succession officially ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle on October 30, 1748. Britain, France and Spain all reverted to the territorial positions that they held before the war. Thus at the stroke of a pen, Marshal Saxe's conquest of the Austrian Netherlands was signed away. Within two years he was dead. France recovered Fort Louisburg in Canada in return for Madras in India, and renounced once and for all its support of the Jacobite cause. In the east, Prussia retained Silesia and Maria Theresa would prove to be an angry woman with a long memory. Anglo-French Campaigns Flanders 1741 To 1748 Background and Outbreak of War Rhine Campaign of 1743 Campaign in Flanders 1744 and 1745 Campaign in Flanders 1746, 1747, and 1748 Back to Seven Years War Asso. Journal Vol. VI No. 3 Table of Contents Back to Seven Years War Asso. Journal List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by James E. Purky This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com