The Flight Of The Wild Geese And

...the woods with a column of some 15,000 troops and 20 cannon. On the 16th April 1746 Cumberland would earn the name ' Butcher ' at the Battle of Culloden, when he had the survivors of the Jacobite army slaughtered and the wounded bayoneted as they lay on the battlefield. No mercy was shown or given by his troops.
Waldeck's two assaults on Fontenoy on the left of the British were thrown back and Ingoldsby on the British right flank failed to attack and take redoubt d'Eu, leaving the flank of the British exposed to its fire. Against all expectation the British advance passed Fontenoy in a great deep column, known as the ' Infernal Column ' with the English on the right, led by the Foot Guard regiments and the Hanoverians on the left.

  Maurice de Saxe King Louis XV

The two lines of Infantry became compressed into three as they funnelled forward. Most of the Hanoverians of the column's left making the third line as they shifted away from Fontenoy. Initially, the superior discipline of the Infantry compensated for the column's exposed flank. However, de Saxe had planned for this possibility. After the French and Swiss were pushed back by the assault of heavy and steady volley fire of the Allies. Marshal de Saxe ordered several counter-attacks by both calvary and infantry. These culminated in furious charges on the British Guards' right by the Wild Geese of the Irish Brigade, the Swiss Guard on the Hanoverian left and French Guards to the front of the column and finally the cavalry of the Maison du Roi. The fighting was extremely close and deadly, some British regiments lost half their strength such as the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, which lost 322 soldiers. over 200 killed. the French counter-attack eventually halted and then repelled the British column, taking the field.

The victory at Fontenoy allowed the French to successfully complete their siege of Tournai and capture numerous other Flemish towns throughout the rest of 1745. These included: Oudenarde, Burges, Ghent, Nieuport, and Ostend, where a battalion of British Foot Guards and a garrison of 4,000 surrendered. Additionally, the triumph of de Saxe over the British inspired the second Jacobite rising, the Forty-Five, under the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie. Charles with a small contingent of troops returned to Scotland and invaded England. He had some reason to believe in his ultimate success as all but 6,000 British troops were away on the continent and recently defeated at Fontenoy. Charles' return to Scotland combined with a stunning victory at the Battle of Prestonpans obliged Cumberland to pull his army back to England to deal with the Jacobite invasion. The absence of the British on the continent allowed Saxe to conduct a winter campaign in the lowlands in which more cities and fortresses such as Brussels, Antwerp, Mons and Charleroi fell into french hands.
The Irish Brigade, composed of regiments of Clare, Lally, Dillon, Berwick, Ruth and Bulkeley, as well as Fitz-James' horse. The French Army captured one Colour at the Battle of Fontenoy, the flag of the 2nd Regiment of English Foot Guards ( Coldstream Guards ) It was captured by Sergeant Wheelock of the Irish Regiment Bulkeley
The Battle saw heavy casualties on both sides. The Allies lost between ten and twelve thosand men, killed, wounded or captured, along with 40 cannon. The French suffered approximately 7,137 dead and wounded with 400 men captured. The Irish Brigade had 675 men killed or wounded. The cavalry regiment Fitz-James lost half of its squadron. In 1907 an Irish cross was erected in the centre of Fontenoy to commemorate the battle. The role played by the Irish Brigade was commemorated on the 250th anniversary of the battle by a common design stamp
issued by the Irish and Belgian post offices. The battle cry " Remember Fontenoy " was used by the 69th New York and the Irish Brigade during the American Civil War.

Above, stamps issued to commemorate the battle.

These two memorials now stand at the town of Fontenoy to commemorate the courage of the Irish Brigade

Up until 1745, Catholic Irish gentry were allowed to recruit soldiers for France in Ireland. The authorities in Ireland saw this as preferable to the potentially disruptive effects of having large numbers of unemployed young Catholic men of military age in the country. However, after a composite Irish detachment from the French Army
( drawn from each of the regiments comprising the Irish Brigade and designated as " Irish Picquets " ) was used to support the Jacobite Rising of 1745 in Scotland, the British realised the dangers of this policy and banned recruitment for foreign armies in Ireland.