Battle of Minden 1759
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 1 August 1759 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1759 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Germany | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Seven Years' War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Kingdom of Great Britain | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 52.3278, 8.8909 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Minden was a major engagement during the Seven Years' War, fought on 1 August 1759. An Allied army, under the overall command of Prussian Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick, defeated a Franco-Saxon army commanded by Marshal of France, Marquis de Contades. Two years previously, the French had launched a successful invasion of Hanover and attempted to impose an unpopular peace treaty upon the Allied nations of Britain, Hanover and Prussia. After a Prussian victory at Rossbach and under pressure from the Prussian king Frederick the Great and the British prime minister William Pitt, King George II disavowed the treaty. In 1758, the Allies launched a counter-offensive against the French and Saxon forces and drove them back across the Rhine.
After the Allies failed to defeat the French before reinforcements swelled their retreating army, the French launched a fresh offensive, capturing the fortress of Minden on 10 July. Believing Ferdinand's forces to be over-extended, Contades abandoned his strong positions around the river Weser and advanced to meet the Allied forces in battle. The decisive action of the battle occurred when six British and two Hanoverian line infantry regiments repelled repeated French cavalry attacks.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Minden (revision 1380383430), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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