page_title: Battle of Minden
section_title: Topography
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Minden / Topography
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: (Deutsche) Karte der Schlacht bei Minden 1759. Die Arbeit basiert auf einer Kartenbeilage aus dem Werk Großer Generalstab / Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung (Hrsg.): Der Siebenjährige Krieg 1756–1763, Bd.11: Minden und Maxen, Verlag Ernst Siegfried Mittler &amp; Sohn, Berlin 1912 (= Die Kriege Friedrichs des Großen, Theil 3). English: (German) Map of the Battle of Minden 1759. The work is based on a seperate map in Großer Generalstab / Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung (Hrsg.): Der Siebenjährige Krieg 1756–1763, Bd.11: Minden und Maxen, Verlag Ernst Siegfried Mittler &amp; Sohn, Berlin 1912 (= Die Kriege Friedrichs des Großen, Theil 3).
context_page_description: The Battle of Minden was a major engagement during the Seven Years' War, fought on 1 August 1759. An Anglo-German army under the overall command of Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick defeated a French army commanded by Marshal of France, Marquis de Contades. Two years previously, the French had launched a successful invasion of Hanover and attempted to impose an unpopular treaty of peace upon the allied nations of Britain, Hanover and Prussia. After a Prussian victory at Rossbach, and under pressure from Frederick the Great and William Pitt, King George II disavowed the treaty. In 1758, the allies launched a counter-offensive against the French forces and drove them back across the Rhine.
  After the allies failed to defeat the French before reinforcements swelled their retreating army, the French launched a fresh offensive, capturing the fortress of Minden on 10 July. Believing Ferdinand's forces to be over-extended, Contades abandoned his strong positions around the Weser and advanced to meet the Allied forces in battle.
context_section_description: In 1759, the fortified city of Minden, now the Innenstadt (inner city) of modern Minden, was situated at the confluence of the Weser, which flows from south to north, and the Bastau, a marshy tributary rivulette. The Bastau drains into the Weser from west to east, roughly parallel with, and south of, the western arm of modern Germany's Midland Canal, where it crosses the Weser at Minden, north of the Innenstadt via the second largest water bridge in Europe). The Battle of Minden took place on the plain immediately in front of the city and its fortifications, to its northwest, with the Weser and Bastau lying behind the city to its east and south respectively.
  On the 31st, the French troops under Contades' direct command had their positions west of the Weser and south of the Bastau, crossing to the north over five pontoons during the night and early morning of the 1st. The French under the junior marshal, de Broglie, were stationed astride the Weser. Some were occupying Minden on the 31st, while the remainder, stationed east of the Weser, crossed over to join them during the night.
caption: A map of the battle.
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