Battle of Steenkerque The Battle of Steenkerque ( Steenkerque also spelled " Steenkerke " or " Steenkirk " ) was fought on August 3 , 1692 , as a part of the Nine Years ' War . It resulted in the victory of the French under Marshal François - Henri de Montmorency , duc de Luxembourg against a joint English - Scottish - Dutch - German army under Prince William of Orange . The battle took place near the village of Steenkerque in the Southern Netherlands , 50 km south - west of Brussels . Steenkerque is now part of the Belgian municipality of Braine - le - Comte . Prelude . The French had achieved their immediate object by capturing of Namur . The French , not wishing to fight , took up a strong defensive position in accordance with the strategical methods of the time . The French army lay facing North - West with its right on the Zenne at Steenkerque and its left towards Enghien . Their supposition was that the enemy would not dare to attack it . William III had replaced Waldeck as supreme allied commander . The allied army was encamped about Halle . Of the 20 British regiments in the Allied army , 8 were Scottish , including the famed Mackay Regiment , who had landed with William at Torbay in 1688 . The Allies , who would otherwise probably have done as the French marshal desired , were by the fortune of war afforded the opportunity of surprising a part of the enemy ' s forces . Accordingly William set his army in motion before dawn on August 3 and surprised the French right about Steenkerque . He completely misled the enemy by forcing a detected spy to give Luxemburg false news . In the 17th century when the objects of a war were , as far as possible , secured without the loss of valuable lives and general decisive battles were in every way considered undesirable , a brilliant victory over a part , not the whole , of the enemy ' s forces was the tactical idea of the best generals . Battle . The Allied advanced guard of infantry and pioneers , under the Duke of Wurttemberg , deployed silently around 5 : 00 a . m . close to the French camps . The main body of the French army was farther back and forming up after the passage of some woods . Belatedly , Luxemburg became aware of the impending blow . When the fight opened , Luxemburg was completely surprised and he could do no more than hurry the nearest foot and dragoons into action as each regiment came on the scene . The march of the Allies ' main body was mismanaged . Valuable time was lost . At 9 : 00 a . m . Wurttemberg started methodically cannonading the enemy while waiting for support and for the order to advance . The French worked with feverish energy to form a strong and well - covered line of battle at the threatened point . The allied main body had marched in the usual order with one wing of cavalry leading , the infantry following , and the other wing of cavalry at the tail of the column . On arrival at the field they were hastily sorted out into infantry and cavalry , for the ground was only suitable for the former . Only a few Allied battalions had come up to support the advanced guard when the real attack opened at 12 : 30 . Although the advanced guard had already been under arms for nine hours and the march had been over bad ground , its attack swept the first French line before it . The British and Danes stubbornly advanced and the second and third lines of the French infantry gave ground before them . However , Luxemburg was rapidly massing his whole force to crush them . During this time the confusion in the allied main body had reached its height . Count Solms ordered the cavalry he commanded forward , but the mounted men , scarcely able to move over the bad roads and heavy ground , only blocked the way for the infantry . Some of the British foot , with curses upon Solms and the Dutch generals , broke out to the front , and Solms , angry and excited , thereupon refused to listen to all appeals for aid from the front . No attempt was made to engage and hold the centre and left of the French army , which hurried , regiment after regiment , to take part in the fighting at Steenkerque . William ' s counter - order that the infantry was to go forward , the cavalry to halt , was opposed by General Hugh Mackay , who urged an ordered withdrawal , to effect a consolidation of the infantry . When directly ordered by William to advance he reportedly said " the will of the Lord be done " , and was killed at the head of the Mackay Regiment , men of his own clan , after taking his place , on foot , at their head . At the crisis Luxemburg had not hesitated to throw the whole of the French and Swiss guards into the fight , led by the princes of the royal house . More and more French troops under command of Boufflers appeared from side of Enghien . During and after this supreme effort the Allies were driven back , contesting every step against the weight of numbers . The foot and dragoons of the main body which succeeded in reaching the front , served only to cover and to steady the retreat of Wurttemberg ' s force . The coup having manifestly failed , William ordered a general retreat . The Allies retired as they had come , their rear - guard under the Dutch Marshal Ouwerkerk showing too stubborn a front for the French to attack . The French army , very disordered and suffering heavy casualties , was in no state to pursue . Aftermath . Over 8 , 000 men out of only about 15 , 000 engaged on the side of the Allies were killed and wounded . The losses of the French out of a much larger force were at least equal . Contemporary soldiers affirmed that Steenkirk was the hardest battle ever fought by the infantry in that war . Five British regiments were completely destroyed . Their commander , general Hugh Mackay , was also killed . Mackay ' s division , including the Mackay Regiment , composed of clansmen of his own name , bore the brunt of the day unsupported and the general himself was killed . John Cutts , was one of the few survivors . The British blamed their great losses on the ineptitude of the Dutch general Count Solms in command of the Allied cavalry . Steinkirk cravat . An article of dress was named after the battle . A " steinkirk " ( also Steinquerque , Stinquerque in the mémoirs of Abbé de Choisy ) was a lace cravat loosely or negligently worn , with long lace ends . According to Voltaire ( l ' Âge de Louis XIV ) , it was in fashion after the Battle of Steenkerque , where the French gentlemen had to fight with disarranged cravats on account of the surprise sprung by the Allies .