The Battle of Minden was a major engagement during the Seven Years' War, fought on 1 August 1759. An Allied army, under the overall command of Prussian Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick, defeated a Franco-Saxon 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 peace treaty 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 and Saxon forces and drove them back across the Rhine.