Battle of Minden

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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...

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