Their losses in the action were terribly severe. Of the fifteen thousand infantry, English and Hanoverian, for the Hanoverians bore themselves not less nobly than their Allies, nearly six thousand were killed or wounded, the casualties of the twenty English battalions just exceeding four thousand men. The heaviest sufferers were the Twelfth and Twenty-third regiments, both of which lost over three hundred men, the Twenty-first and Thirty-first, which lost rather fewer than three hundred men apiece, and the three battalions of Guards, which lost each of them about two hundred and fifty. Of the Generals of Foot, Cumberland, Ligonier, and Brigadier Skelton, though in the hottest of the fire, alone came off unhurt; all of the rest were either killed or wounded. Many regiments of cavalry also suffered not a little, in particular the Blues and Royal Dragoons; and the total loss of the British cavalry exceeded three hundred men and six hundred horses. The loss of the French was never made public, but was certainly at least equal to that of the Allies. Contemporary accounts set it down, with no great improbability, at fully ten thousand men. As an example of the prowess of British infantry, Fontenoy stands almost without a parallel in its history. The battalions formed under a cross-fire of artillery, remained halted under the same fire, advanced slowly for half a mile in perfect order under the same fire, and marched up to within pistol-shot of the French infantry to receive their volley before they discharged a shot. They shattered the French battalions to pieces, repulsed three separate attacks of cavalry, halted under a heavy cannonade, retired for some distance and re-formed under a cross-fire, advanced again with both artillery and musketry playing on front and flanks, made the bravest brigade in the French service recoil, repelled another desperate attack of cavalry, and retired slowly and orderly under a cross-fire almost to the end. By consent of all the British commanders it was Ingoldsby’s misunderstanding of his orders and his failure to capture the Redoubt d’Eu that lost the battle; and Ingoldsby was duly tried by court-martial for his behaviour. He was, however, acquitted of all but an error in judgment; and indeed there was no question of cowardice, for he accompanied the remainder of the infantry in its advance with his own detachment and was severely wounded. It is customary to blame Cumberland for dashing his head against a wall in attempting such an attack; and no doubt he was guilty of a tactical blunder in assaulting a re-entrant angle before the salient had been carried. But he could hardly have been expected to count on such bad luck as the failure of Ingoldsby on one flank and of the Dutch on the other. The sheer audacity of his advance went near to give him the victory. Saxe owned that he never dreamed that any General would attempt such a stroke, or that any troops would execute it. Cumberland