Monday, September 29, 2008

Marshal de Saxe victorious- The Battle of Roucoux

Contemporary map of the battle showing the positions of the armies.

October 11th, 2008, will mark the 262nd anniversary of the Battle of Roucoux. British, Dutch, Austrians, Germans and French fought and died in the region around Liege in Marshal Saxe's last effort to wrest control of Flanders from Austria and threaten Holland.

He succeeded, with the Dutch bearing the brunt of the French attack, and the British ending up fighting a rearguard action under Lord Ligonier (a much smaller British contingent as many units were back in the Highlands smiting rebellious clansmen). As for the Austrians- well, I'm not sure just what they were doing really- they were pretty much left alone during the battle.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for the Battle of Roucoux, along with a map and photos of the battlefield today.

To commemorate this hard-fought and rather intriguing action, the next few weeks will see this blog looking at historical and wargaming aspects of the Battle of Roucoux.

2 comments:

Capt Bill said...

Having all the armies involved, you have inspired me to plan a re-fight on the anniversary. Look forward to your updates and hopefully order of battle. Thanks...Bill

Bluebear Jeff said...

I'd love to refight it too . . . but I've got a performance that day . . . and I don't have all of the forces.

Still, you've got me interested since I'd like to have all of those forces . . . so I will look forward to your battle reports.


-- Jeff