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Britain and Austria, First Blood

Pitts planned descents on the French coasts at Cherbourg and Saint Cast were cancelled as a result of the perceived failure of the raid on St. Malo. Instead, half the landing forces that would have been part of the Saint Cast, 5,000 land troops, were sent to East Frisia to reinforce the Duke of Brunswick in direct response to Fredrick removal of Prussian forces from the western front. East Frisia had been chosen primarily, to help secure the British supply lines through there to Prussia and because there was not an actual formal declaration of war with Austria, which would have surely occurred had Flanders been invaded. As it would turn out though, their avoidance of this would mean little.

After landing in East Frisia in late August, British forces made their way south to unite with the Duke of Brunswick who had pulled back from the Rhine after defeating the French at Dusseldorf, when Prussia had withdrawn their forces from the area. Despite his victory over the French, without Prussian aid Brunswick did not want to leave himself in a vulnerable position in case the French decided to cross the Rhine again to counter-attack.

Austria meanwhile had dispatched a contingent of troops along with Bavarian allied forces westward to meet up with French forces prior to learning of their defeat at Dusseldorf. After learning of the defeat in July they because operating in the area of Hesse-Kassel to raid and disrupt the supply the German provinces were providing British and Prussian forces.

Battle of Marburg

On September 13th, The Duke of Brunswick British, Hanover and Hessian forces after reinforcing to the north with the new British troops, turned south to face this threat. Allied forces of 25,000 would face off against the smaller Austro-Bavarian force of 10,000.

A quick but bloody victory near the town of Marburg in Hesse-Kassel would see the Austro–Bavarian army defeated. The allies were unable to achieve a complete rout however, and well over half the Austro-Bavarian forces would escape and flee back toward the east.

Battle Results:
Allied Forces: 4000 dead and wounded.
Austrian-Bavarian Forces: 5000 dead, wounded, and captured. 15 guns captured.

Decisive Allied victory

The Battle of Marburg would mark the first time a large number of directly commanded British soldiers would fight directly against a large number of Austrian led soldiers. This battle plus when London learned that Austrian intelligence aided the French in their attacks on British trade in the Mediterranean, would cause some members of government on both sides to consider a formal declaration of war.