strated by the now fully developed genius of Marshal
Saxe. After Fontenoy the French carried all before them. The withdrawal of
most of the English to aid in suppressing the 'Forty-Five rebellion at home
left their allies in a helpless position. In 1746 the Dutch and the
Austrians were driven back towards the line of the Meuse, and most of the
important fortresses were taken by the French. The battle of Roucoux (or
Raucourt) near Liege, fought on the 11th of October between the allies
under Prince Charles of Lorraine and the French under Saxe, resulted in a
victory for the latter. Holland itself was now in danger, and when in April
1747 Saxe's army, which had now conquered the Austrian Netherlands up to
the Meuse, turned its attention to the United Provinces, the old fortresses
on the frontier offered but slight resistance. The prince of Orange and the
duke of Cumberland underwent a severe defeat at Lauffeld (Lawfeld, &c.,
also called Val) on the 2nd of July 1747, and Saxe, after his victory,
promptly and secretly despatched a corps under (Marshal) Loewendahl to
besiege Bergen-op-Zoom. On the 18th of September Bergen-op-Zoom was stormed
by the French, and in the last year of the war Maestricht, attacked by the
entire forces of Saxe and Loewendahl, surrendered on the 7th of May 1748. A
large Russian army arrived on the Meuse to join the allies, but too late to
be of use. The quarrel of Russia and Sweden had been settled by the peace
of Abo in 1743, and in 1746 Russia had allied herself with Austria.
Eventually a large army marched from Moscow to the Rhine, an event which
was not without military significance, and in a manner preluded the great
invasions of 1813-1814 and 1815. The general peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
(Aachen) was signed on the 18th of October 1748.

11. _General Character of the War._--Little need be said of the military
features of the war. The intervention of Prussia as a military power was
indeed a striking phenomenon, but her triumph was in a great measure due to
her fuller application of principles of tactics and discipline universally
recognized though less universally enforced. The other powers reorganized
their forces after the war, not so much on the Prussian model as on the
basis of a stricter application of known general principles. Prussia,
moreover, was far ahead of all the other continental powers in
administration, and over Austria, in particular, her advantage in this
matter was almost decisive