Maillebois
to his aid. The French, skilfully conducted and marching rapidly, joined
forces once more, but their situation was critical, for only two marches
behind them the army of the king of Sardinia was in pursuit, and before
them lay the principal army of the Austrians. The pitched battle of
Piacenza (June 16) was hard fought, and Maillebois had nearly achieved a
victory when orders from the Infant compelled him to retire. That the army
escaped at all was in the highest degree creditable to Maillebois and to
his son and chief of staff, under whose leadership it eluded both the
Austrians and the Sardinians, defeated an Austrian corps in the battle of
Rottofreddo (August 12), and made good its retreat on Genoa. It was,
however, a mere remnant of the allied army which returned, and the
Austrians were soon masters of north Italy, including Genoa (September).
But they met with no success in their forays towards the Alps. Soon Genoa
revolted from the oppressive rule of the victors, rose and drove out the
Austrians (December 5-11), and the French, now commanded by Belleisle, took
the offensive (1747). Genoa held out against a second Austrian siege, and
after the plan of campaign had as usual been referred to Paris and Madrid,
it was relieved, though a picked corps of the French army under the
chevalier de Belleisle, brother of the marshal, was defeated in the almost
impossible attempt (July 19) to storm the entrenched pass of Exiles (Col di
Assietta), the chevalier, and with him the _elite_ of the French nobility,
being killed at the barricades. Before the steady advance of Marshal
Belleisle the Austrians retired into Lombardy, and a desultory campaign was
waged up to the conclusion of peace.

In North America the most remarkable incident of what has been called "King
George's War" was the capture of the French Canadian fortress of Louisburg
by a British expedition (April 20-June 16, 1745), of which the military
portion was furnished by the colonial militia under Colonel (afterwards
Lieutenant-General Sir William) Pepperell (1696-1759) of Maine. Louisburg
was then regarded merely as a nest of privateers, and at the peace it was
given up, but in the Seven Years' War it came within the domain of grand
strategy, and its second capture was the preliminary step to the British
conquest of Canada. For the war in India, see INDIA: _History_.

10. _Later Campaigns._--The last three campaigns of the war in the
Netherlands were illu