Great Britain -- Defenses; Imaginary wars and battles
The right column, consisting of the 39th Infantry Brigade of five
battalions, six batteries, and a squadron of Dragoons, came into
collision with the left flank of the Dunmow force, which was engaged in
attacking Von der Rudesheim's right at Down Hall, and endeavouring to
surround it. Sir Jacob Stellenbosch, who was in command, in vain tried
to change front to meet the advancing enemy. His troops were nearly all
Volunteers, who were incapable of quickly manoeuvring under difficult
circumstances; they were crumpled up and driven back in confusion
towards Hatfield Heath. Had Von Kronhelm been able to get in the bulk of
his cavalry from their luckless pursuit of the Ist and Vth British Army
Corps, who had been driven back on Brentwood the evening previous, and
so send a proportion with the 20th Division, few would have escaped to
tell the tale. As it was, the unfortunate volunteers were shot down in
scores by the "feu d'enfer" with which the artillery followed them up,
and lay in twos and threes and larger groups all over the fields,
victims of a selfish nation that accepted these poor fellows' gratuitous
services merely in order that its citizens should not be obliged to
carry out what in every other European country was regarded as the first
duty of citizenship--that of learning to bear arms in the defence of the
Fatherland.
By this time the greater portion of the retreating British Army, with
all its baggage, guns and impedimenta, was crawling slowly along the
road from Harlow to Epping. Unaccustomed as they were to marching, the
poor Volunteers who had already covered eighteen or twenty miles of
road, were now toiling slowly and painfully along the highway. The
regular troops, who had been engaged since early morning, and who were
now mostly in the neighbourhood of Moor Hall, east of Harlow, firing at
long ranges on Von der Rudesheim's men to keep them in their places
while Sir Jacob Stellenbosch attacked their right, were now hurriedly
withdrawn and started to march south by a track running parallel to the
main Epping Road, between it and that along which the covering force of
Volunteers, who had come in by train, were now established in position.
The 1st and 2nd Coldstreamers, who had formed Lord Byfield's rearguard
during the night, were halted in Harlow village.
Immediately upon the success obtained by his right column, General
Richel von Sieberg, who commanded the 20th Hanoverian Division, ordered
his two centre and left columns, consisting respectively of the three
battalions 77th Infantry and two batteries of Horse Artillery, then at
Matching Green, and the three battalions 92nd Infantry, 10th Pioneer
Battalion, and five batteries Field Artillery, then between High Laver
and Tilegate Green, to turn to their left and advance in fighting
formation in a south-westerly direction, with the object of attacking
the sorely-harassed troops of Lord Byfield on their way to Epping.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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