What caused the Battle of Fontenoy to break out

What caused the outbreak of the Battle of Fontenoy

From 1740 to 1748, the kingdoms of Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Prussia, Saxony, and Austria fought an eight-year War of Austrian Succession.On May 11, 1745, in the village of Ternois, 8 kilometers southeast of Tournai (now a city in southwest Belgium) ( On May 11, 1745, in the village of Tournai (Fontenoy), 8 kilometers southeast of Tournai (today's city in southwestern Belgium), a fierce battle took place between the French army under the command of Maurice de Saxe, Count of Saxony, and the allied forces of England, Austria, the Netherlands, and Hanover under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, England. The above painting, The Battle of Fontenoy by French painter Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, captures the most famous and widely circulated scene from this battle.

In the painting, in the near distance, dressed in ornate blue uniforms and red pants, in a three-row firing line, are French Guards (Gardes Fran?aises, one of the two unofficial King's Guards in the French army, the other being the Swiss Guards), with Iris crosses fluttering in the wind. Behind the formation, there is another group of soldiers with spears topping the formation, this is to prevent disruption of the formation by causing confusion among the soldiers under the heavy rain of bullets during the battle.

On the opposite side of the French guards 30 paces away is the British close guard 1st Infantry Regiment, according to Voltaire's description, the British commander at the time, Lord Charles Hay (Charles Hay) to the French commander to take off his hat to salute, and shouted: "Gentlemen of the French guards, you first open fire!" The French officers responded courteously, and French bombardier lieutenant d'Auteroche echoed in a loud voice: "Gentlemen! We are not going to fire the first shot, you fire first!" -- which is, in fact, no more than an artful romanticized exaggeration of historical fact. Near the right side of the picture, a group of drummers in more gorgeous clothes, looking at the left side of a soldier has been shot dead, the drummers look serious and tense, the atmosphere of the battle is about to start jumped on the painting.

The battle ended with the victory of the French army, which was also the biggest victory of France in the war, saving the Bourbon dynasty in a strategic crisis, so much so that Napoleon later commented: Fontenoy's victory, so that the French autocratic monarchy continued for 30 years of life. 1740 October 20, the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI ( Charles VI died on October 20, 1740, leaving no male descendants, and according to his 1713 Edict of State, Maria Theresa, his eldest daughter, was to succeed him as Archduke of Austria, King of Bohemia, and King of Hungary, while Theresa's son-in-law, Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, was to succeed him, and Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, was to succeed him. Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, could then inherit the throne as Emperor of the Empire.

But the edict was not recognized by the Habsburgs' arch-enemy France, by Spain, which was attempting to regain the Italian rights it had lost in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), or by many of the empire's states, such as Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony, and the War of the Austrian Succession, which broke out on December 16, 1740, with the declaration of war by Prussia against Austria. officially broke out.

Maria Theresia (1717-1780), the most prominent female politician of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, directly triggered the War of Austrian Succession after the death of her father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, due to the issue of her succession to the throne. The war ended with the establishment of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire by Theresia and her son-in-law Franz. Throughout her life, Theresia had unrivaled influence over Europe, and the rule of the empire remained in the hands of her and her son, Joseph II.

When the war reached 1744, Austria had a great battlefield advantage. Although in the early part of the war, Austria was beaten by Prussia and lost Silesia, but as Prussia got Silesia and withdrew from the war, Austria formed the Pragmatic Allies (Pragmatic Allies) with Britain, Hanover, and Holland to revitalize its counterattacks against anti-Austrian allied countries other than Prussia, such as France, Bavaria, Saxony, and Spain, and also pulled Saxony Saxony was also brought into the fold. France suffered a heavy blow in this war, and at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, the French army suffered a crushing defeat, and its alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia collapsed, resulting in the loss of its territories in Germany. France had been plagued by high deficits since the late reign of Louis XIV, but at this time was still the most powerful nation on the continent.

In 1744, France gathered a force of 95,000 men and took the initiative in the Austrian Netherlands (the southern provinces of the Low Countries, roughly equivalent to present-day Belgium and Luxembourg). Although the southern part of Flanders was occupied in July under the royal command of Louis XV, the strategic situation soon changed in the summer of 1744 when Charles, Duke of Lorraine, led an Austrian army of 70,000 men across the Rhine into Alsace, and at the same time pushed into the Kingdom of Naples in Italy, which posed a serious threat to the south of France. Louis XV and the Duke of Noailles led part of the French army to the south, while Maurice, Count of Saxony, led 50,000-60,000 troops to defend Flanders against the 96,000-strong allied army of England, Holland, Austria and Saxony, and held the line of defense at Courtrai and along the River Lys.

On the other hand, the Austrian victory worried Prussia so much that it feared to lose Silesia, and in the summer of 1744, it marched to Bohemia to threaten the Austrian army's flanks, which was marching to Lorraine. However, the Prussian army was forced to withdraw from Bohemia in November of the same year after losing half of its strength without even fighting a single battle due to fragile logistical supplies and attacks by the Austrian-Saxon coalition.

The War of Austrian Succession was fought under the guise of the Imperial Succession, with each of the warring countries having its own agenda. Prussia attempted to annex the Austrian territory of Silesia and fired the first shot of the war, France, Spain, Saxony joined the Prussian side, Britain, Holland and Austria formed a "state alliance". Before the Battle of Fontenoy, France had been isolated after several defeats.

In December 1744, Maurice drew up a plan for a spring offensive in the Low Countries the following year to sweep away the allied forces. The new commander of the British army at the time was the then 24-year-old Duke of Cumberland, third son of King George II, while Theresia meanwhile appointed the experienced Earl of K?nigsegg to command the Austrian army, and the Dutch army was to be commanded by Prince Waldeck. They also hoped to turn the tables on the early offensives. An atmosphere of impending war prevailed in Flanders. Herman Maurice (1696-1750), one of the many illegitimate sons of August II, Elector of Saxony, a distinguished military figure in French history, enlisted at the age of 12 to fight under Prince Eugen and joined the French army in 1720. He was promoted to lieutenant general during the War of the Polish Succession.

Led the capture of Prague early in the War of the Austrian Succession and was promoted to Marshal of France in 1743. At the Battle of Fontenoy, Maurice, suffering from oedema and spitting bile, commanded the French army and won the victory. 1746 at the Battle of Lochs and again at the Battle of Laufeld in 1747, he conquered the Austrian Netherlands for France, and was promoted to the rank of Grand Marshal of the French Army in 1747.

At the same time, January 20, 1745, in January 1742 by the German states elected to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, Theresia cousin brother-in-law, the Elector of Bavaria Karl Albrecht (i.e., Charles VII) died, take advantage of his successor Maximilian III (Maximilian III) While his successor, Maximilian III, was unsettled, the Austrians defeated the Franco-Bavarian coalition at the Battle of Pfaffenhofen on April 15, and Maximilian III was forced to beg for help. Maximilian III was forced to beg for peace and support the accession of Theresia's husband to the imperial throne. With Bavaria out of the war, Austria had the opportunity to retake Silesia from Prussia. As a result, France faced a serious situation. The fall of Saxony, the defeat of Prussia, and the forced neutrality of Bavaria made it impossible to continue fighting in southern Germany.

On the Italian front, the Franco-Spanish coalition also suffered defeat at Savoy. British sea power threatened France's sea lanes. Caught in a strategic siege, France decided to make a last-ditch effort to turn the tide in the stalemated Austrian Netherlands, which culminated in the May 1745 Battle of Fontenoy.