The Seven Years' War brought new alliances and military operations in several theatres simultaneously. This is where military strategy and tactics really began. With an army of 100,000 men, the campaign of 1757 was characterised by large-scale manoeuvres and the necessary operational measures for supply and resupply. It also demonstrates the difficulty of exercising command over a court and a government for whom short-term results take precedence over the means. This campaign by the French armies in Westphalia culminated on 26 July 1757 near the village of Hastenbeck. The author wanted to provide a vivid and human account of the campaign and therefore gave considerable space to the memoirs and letters of officers, both generals and non-commissioned officers, of the cavalry and infantry regiments. Four months earlier, they had left their garrisons and, after a journey of more than six hundred kilometres through Austria and Germany, had gone into battle at the gates of Hanover.
