Lord George Sackville felt the stroke. He saw Germany and the Army were no longer a situation for him. He wrote for leave to resign his command, and to return. Both were granted. Ere he could arrive, both the Court and the nation were prepared to receive him with little less abhorrence and abuse than had led the way to the fate of Admiral Byng. A promotion of Lieutenants-General was immediately made, in order to include and hasten the rank to General Waldegrave,[60] to whom the success of the battle had in great measure been owing. The six English regiments, who sustained the whole effort of the French, had begun the engagement with less promise of valour. At first they began to give way. Waldegrave, affecting not to perceive that their motion tended towards a retreat, cried out, “Wheel to the right!”--they did, and recovered the day. Waldegrave was a man who united much frankness with steady attention to his interest. His parts were never taken notice of but on this occasion: but such an occasion is immortality. Seventy thousand men routed by 35,000 was indeed a shining victory. The defeat of the French was attended with scarce less rancour between their Generals than happened between ours. The Marshals Contades and Broglio threw the blame on each other: but the former never recovered any share of estimation. His papers, which fell into our hands soon after the battle, were artfully published. They included his correspondence with Marshal Belleisle, who directed the operations of the war, and gave orders for the conduct of it with a barbarity that spoke very plainly how little France was influenced by any sentiments of humanity or good faith in pursuit of her views.[61] The Germans were treated in those despatches with the most marked contempt; the Princes suspected by them, despotically; and even their friends, the Electors of Cologne and Palatine, were to be made feel the misery of being connected with a too powerful and arrogant Ally. They were to be plundered under the observance of the most insulting ceremonial. But what shocked Europe most, were repeated commands to reduce the most fertile provinces of Germany to a desert: the pretence, to shorten the war. Had their meditated invasions of this country succeeded, one may judge what would have been the secret instructions to their Generals!