Hero of Crefeld
The battle of Crefeld was fought on 23rd of June, 1758. John Grey was a part of 46th Regiment, which was assigned to fight under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in the Rhine Valley. During the battle John Grey took charge of a gun crew that had lost its commanding officer. In the end, the cannon blew up and injured him severely. It took months for him to recover. Afterwards John was referred as “Hero of Crefeld” at newspapers, with embarrassingly exaggerated narration of the chain of events.
(Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon)
The Battle of Krefeld (sometimes referred to by its French name of Créfeld) was a battle fought on 23 June 1758 between a Prussian-Hanoverian army and a French army during the Seven Years' War.
Since the beginning of his winter offensive in Western Germany in February 1758, the Allied Army under the command of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick had first pushed back the French Army to the Rhine. Then, at the beginning of June, Ferdinand had led his army across the Rhine and initiated a campaign on the west bank of the Rhine and he was now trying to pin the French Army against the Rhine.
On June 23, Ferdinand, now some 70 km on the west side of the Rhine, found the French drawn up in battle order at Krefeld. The French army, under the Comte de Clermont, counted some 47,000 men while Ferdinand had 33,000 men. After feigning an attack against Clermont's own right flank, Ferdinand executed a wide flanking march, crossing the canal out of sight of the French and emerging from a wooded area on Clermont's left flank. Clermont, who had just sat down for a midday meal, was late in sending reinforcements and, as a result, his left flank was crushed.
(Wikipedia)
