Chapter IV: Part 4

The safe arrival of the convoy before Lille raised the hope of the besiegers; and Vendôme, now fully alive to the importance of cutting off communication with Ostend, marched towards that side with a considerable force, and opening the dykes laid the whole country under water. Marlborough went quickly after him, but the marshal would not await his coming; and the Duke, by means of high-wheeled vehicles and punts, contrived to overcome the difficulties caused by the inundation. ◆Oct. 11/22.◆ At last, after a siege of sixty days the town capitulated; and the garrison retired into the citadel, where Eugene proceeded to beleaguer it anew.

While the new siege was going forward, the Elector of Bavaria arrived on the scene from the Rhine, from whence the apathy of the Elector of Hanover had most unpardonably allowed him to withdraw, and laid siege to Brussels with fifteen thousand men. ◆Nov. 13/24.◆ This was an entirely new complication; and, since the French held the line of the Scheldt in force, it was difficult to see how Marlborough could parry the blow. Fortunately the garrison defended itself with great spirit, the English regiments[58] setting a fine example; and the Duke, in no wise dismayed, laid his plans with his usual secrecy and decision. ◆Nov. 15/26.◆ Spreading reports, which he confirmed by feint movements, that he was about to place his troops in cantonments, he marched suddenly and silently eastward on the night of the 26th of November, crossed the Scheldt at two different points before the enemy knew that he was near them, took a thousand prisoners, and then remitting the bulk of his force to the siege of Lille, pushed on with a detachment of cavalry and two battalions of English Guards to Alost. ◆Nov. 17/28.◆ On his arrival he learned that the Elector had raised the siege of Brussels and marched off with precipitation. The bare name of Marlborough had been sufficient to scare him away.

Meanwhile Eugene’s preparations before the citadel of Lille were in rapid progress, and Marlborough was already maturing plans for a further design before the close of the campaign. It had been the earnest desire of both commanders to reduce Boufflers to unconditional surrender; but time was an object, so on the 9th of December the gallant old marshal and his heroic garrison marched out with the honours of war. ◆Nov. 28./Dec. 9.◆ So ended the memorable siege of Lille. It had cost the garrison eight thousand men, or more than half of its numbers, and the Allies no fewer than fourteen thousand men. The honours of the struggle rested decidedly with Boufflers, and were paid to him by none more ungrudgingly than Marlborough and Eugene. Yet as an operation of war, conducted under extraordinary difficulties in respect of transport, under the eyes of a superior force and subject to diversions, such as that of the Elector of Bavaria, this siege remains one of the highest examples of consummate military skill.

The fall of Lille was a heavy blow for France, but it was not the last of the campaign. Within eight days Marlborough and Eugene had invested Ghent, which after a brief resistance surrendered with the honours of war. The capitulation of Bruges quickly followed, and the navigation of the Scheldt and Lys having been regained, the two commanders at last sent their troops into winter quarters.

But even this did not close the sum of English successes for 1708. From the Mediterranean had come news of another conquest, due to the far-seeing eye and far-reaching hand of Marlborough. Early in the year Galway had withdrawn from Catalonia to Lisbon, and the command in Catalonia had been given at Marlborough’s instance to Field-Marshal von Staremberg, an Imperial officer of much experience and deservedly high reputation. Staremberg, however, could do little with but ten thousand men against the Bourbon’s army of twice his strength; so by Marlborough’s advice the troops were used to second the operations of the Mediterranean squadron. Sardinia, the first point aimed at, was captured almost without resistance; and the fleet then sailed for Minorca. Here somewhat more opposition was encountered; but after less than a fortnight’s work, creditably managed by Major-general Stanhope, the Island was taken at a trifling cost of life.[59] ◆Sept. 13/24.◆ Thus the English gained their first port in the Mediterranean; and the news of the capture of Minorca reached London on the same day as that of the fall of Lille.

NOTE.—I have been unable to discover any Order of Battle for the campaign of 1708. The regiments that bear the name of Oudenarde on their appointments are the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th Dragoon Guards, the 2nd Dragoons, 5th Lancers, Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 37th Foot.

VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER VIII

◆1708.◆

The successes of the past campaign were sufficient to put the British Parliament in good humour, and to prompt it to vote a further increase of ten thousand German mercenaries for the following year. Nevertheless political troubles were increasing, and there were already signs that the rule of Godolphin and Marlborough was in danger. The death of the Prince Consort had been a heavy blow to the Duke. Prince George may have deserved Lord Macaulay’s character for impenetrable stupidity, but there can be little doubt that his heavy phlegmatic character was of infinite service to steady the weak and unstable Queen Anne.

◆1709.◆

In the spring of 1709, however, it seemed reasonable to hope that peace, which would have set all matters right, was well-nigh assured. France, already at the last gasp through the exhaustion caused by the war, was weakened still further by a severe winter which had added famine to all her other troubles; and Lewis sought anxiously, even at the price of humiliation, for peace. He approached Marlborough, reputed the most avaricious and corruptible of men, with a gigantic bribe to obtain good terms, but was unhesitatingly rebuffed. The Duke stated the conditions which might be acceptable to England; and, had the negotiations been trusted to him, there can be little doubt but that he would have obtained the honourable peace which he above all men most earnestly desired. He was, however, overruled by instructions from home, imposing terms which Lewis could not be expected to grant; the war was continued; and Marlborough, who had striven his hardest to bring it to an end, was of course accused of prolonging it deliberately for his own selfish ends.

The French, now menaced by an invasion and a march of the Allies to Paris, had strengthened their army enormously by withdrawing troops from all quarters to Flanders, and had set in command their only fortunate general, that very able soldier and incomparable liar, Marshal Villars. To cover Arras, the north-eastern gate of France, Villars had thrown up a strong line of entrenchments from the Scarpe at Douay to the Lys, which were generally known, after the name of his headquarters, as the lines of La Bassée. There he lay, entrenched to the teeth, while Marlborough and Eugene, after long delay owing to the lateness of the spring, encamped with one hundred and ten thousand men to the south-east of Lille,◆ between two villages, with which the reader will in due time make closer acquaintance, called Linselles and Fontenoy. ◆June. Thence they moved south straight upon Villars’s lines, with every apparent preparation for a direct attack upon them and for forcing their way into France at that point. The heavy artillery was sent to Menin on the Lys; report was everywhere rife of the coming assault, and Villars lost no time in summoning the garrison of Tournay to his assistance. ◆June 15/26.◆ On the 26th of June, at seven in the evening, Marlborough issued his orders to strike tents and march; and the whole army made up its mind for a bloody action before the lines at dawn. To the general surprise, after advancing some time in the direction of the French, the columns received orders to change direction to the left. After some hours’ march eastward they crossed a river, but the men did not know that the bridge lay over the Marque and that it led them towards the battlefield of Bouvines; nor was it until dawn that they saw the gray walls and the four spires of Tournay before them, and discovered that they had invested the city.

Tournay had been fortified by Vauban and was one of the strongest fortresses in France,[60] but its garrison had been weakened by the unsuspecting Villars, and there was little hope for it. The heavy artillery of the Allies, which had been sent to Menin, went down the Lys to Ghent and up the Scheldt to the besieged city, the trenches were opened on the 7th of July, ◆June 26./July 7.◆ and after three weeks, despite of the demonstrations of Villars and incessant heavy rain, Tournay was reduced to surrender.[61] ◆July 19/28.◆ Then followed the siege of the citadel, the most desperate enterprise yet undertaken by the Allied troops, inasmuch as the subterraneous works were more numerous and formidable than those above ground. The operations were, therefore, conducted by mine and countermine, with destructive explosions and confused combats in the darkness, which tried the nerves of the soldiers almost beyond endurance. The men did not object to be shot, but they dreaded to be buried alive by the hundred together through the springing of a single mine.[62] Four English regiments[63] bore their share in this work and suffered heavily in the course of it, until on the 3rd of September the citadel capitulated. ◆Aug. 23./Sept. 3.◆

Before the close of the siege Marlborough and Eugene, leaving a sufficient force before Tournay, had moved back with the main army before the lines at Douay. They had long decided that the lines were far too formidable to be forced, but they saw no reason for communicating this opinion to Villars. ◆Aug. 20/31.◆ On the 31st of August Lord Orkney, with twenty squadrons and the whole of the grenadiers of the army, marched away silently and swiftly eastward towards St. Ghislain on the Haine. ◆Aug. 23./Sept. 3.◆ Three days later, immediately after the capitulation of the citadel of Tournay, the Prince of Hessen-Cassel started at four o’clock in the afternoon in the same direction; at nine o’clock Cadogan followed him with forty squadrons more, and at midnight the whole army broke up its camp and marched after them. Twenty-six battalions alone were left before Tournay to superintend the evacuation and to level the siege-works, with orders to watch Villars carefully and not to move until he did.

The Prince of Hessen-Cassel soon overtook Orkney, from whom he learned that St. Ghislain was too strongly held to be carried by his small force. The Prince therefore at once pushed on. Rain was falling in torrents, and the roads were like rivers, but he continued his advance eastward, behind the woods that line the Haine, almost without a halt, till at length at two o’clock on the morning of the 6th of September he wheeled to the right and crossed the river at Obourg three miles to the north-east of Mons. ◆Aug. 26./Sept. 6.◆ Before him lay the river Trouille curving round to the south by Mons, and in rear of it a line of entrenchments, thrown up during the last war, from Mons to the Sambre, to cover the province of Hainault. A short survey showed him that the lines were weakly guarded; and before noon he had passed them without opposition. His force, notwithstanding the weather and the state of the roads, had traversed the fifty miles to Obourg in fifty-six hours.

Too late Villars discovered that for the second time he had been duped, and that Marlborough had no intention of forcing his way into France through the lines of La Bassée and the wet swampy country beyond them, when he could pass the lines of the Trouille without loss of a man. He was in a difficult position, for Mons was slenderly garrisoned and difficult of access, though, if captured, it would be a valuable acquisition to the Allies. The approach to it from the westward was practically shut off by a kind of natural barrier of forest, running, roughly speaking, from St. Ghislain on the Haine to the north to Maubeuge on the Sambre to the south. In this barrier there were but two openings, the Trouée de Boussut between the village of that name and the Haine, and the Trouées d’Aulnois and de Louvière, which are practically the same, some miles further to the south. These will be more readily remembered, the northern entrance by the name of Jemappes, the southern by the name of Malplaquet. ◆Aug. 27./Sept. 7.◆ Villars no sooner knew what was going forward than he pushed forward a detachment with all speed upon the northern entrance, which was the nearer to him. The detachment came too late. The Prince of Hessen-Cassel was already astride of the opening, his right at Jemappes, his left at Ciply. The French thereupon fell back to await the approach of the main army of the Allies.

◆Aug. 26./Sept. 6.◆

Meanwhile that army had toiled through a sea of mud on the northern bank of the Haine, and crossing the river had by evening invested Mons on the eastern side. ◆Aug. 27./Sept. 7.◆ On the following day Villars and his whole army also arrived on the scene and encamped a couple of miles to westward of the forest-barrier, from Montreuil to Athis. Here he was joined by old Marshal Boufflers, who had volunteered his services at a time of such peril to France. The arrival of the gallant veteran caused such a tumult of rejoicing in the French camp that Marlborough and Eugene, not knowing what the clamour might portend, withdrew all but a fraction of the investing force from the town, and, advancing westward into the plain of Mons, caused the army to bivouac between Ciply and Quévy in order of battle.

◆Aug. 28./Sept. 8.◆

Villars meanwhile had not moved, being adroit enough to threaten both passages and keep the Allies in doubt as to which he should select. While, therefore, the mass of the Allied army was moved towards the Trouée d’Aulnois, a strong detachment was sent up to watch the Trouée de Boussut. ◆Aug. 29./Sept. 9.◆ That night Villars sent detachments forward to occupy the southern passage, and by mid-day of the morrow his whole army was taking up its position across the opening. Marlborough at once moved his army forward, approaching so close that his left wing exchanged cannon-shot with Villars’s right. Everything pointed to an immediate attack on the French before they should have time to entrench themselves. Whether the Dutch deputies intervened to stay further movements is uncertain. All that is known is that a council of war was held by the commanders of the Allies, and that, after much debate, it was resolved to await the arrival of the detachment from the Trouée de Boussut and of the troops that had been left behind at Tournay, to turn the siege of Mons into a blockade, and in the meanwhile to send eighteen battalions north to capture St. Ghislain. Evidently in some quarter there was reluctance to hazard a general action.

Villars now set himself with immense energy to strengthen his position; and, when Marlborough and Eugene surveyed the defences at daybreak of the following morning, they were astonished at the formidable appearance of the entrenchments. ◆Aug. 30./Sept. 10.◆ Marlborough was once more for attacking without further delay, but he was opposed by the Dutch deputies and even by Eugene. The attack was therefore fixed for the morrow; and another day was lost which Villars did not fail to turn to excellent account.

The entrance from the westward to the Trouée d’Aulnois or southern entrance to the plain of Mons was marked by the two villages of Campe du Hamlet on the north and Malplaquet on the south. About a mile in advance of these villages the ground rose to its highest elevation, the opening being about three thousand paces wide, and the ground broken and hollowed to right and left by small rivulets. This was the point selected by Villars for his position. It was bounded on his right by the forest of Laignières, the greatest length of which ran parallel to the Trouée, and on the left by a forest, known at different points by the names of Taisnières, Sart and Blangies, the greatest length of which ran at right angles to the Trouée. Villars occupied the forest of Laignières with his extreme right, his battalions strengthening the natural obstacles of a thick and tangled covert by means of abatis. From the edge of the wood he constructed a triple line of entrenchments, which ran across the opening for full a third of its width, when they gave way to a line of nine redans. These redans in turn yielded place to a swamp backed by more entrenchments, which carried the defences across to the wood of Taisnières. Several cannon were mounted on the entrenchments, and a battery of twenty guns before the redans. On Villars’s left the forests of Taisnières and Sart projected before the general front, forming a salient and re-entering angle. Entrenchments and abatis were constructed in accordance with this configuration, and two more batteries were erected on this side, in addition to several guns at various points along the line, to enfilade an advancing enemy. Feeling even thus insecure, Villars threw up more entrenchments at the villages of Malplaquet and Chaussée du Bois in rear of the wood of Sart, and was still hard at work on them to the last possible moment before the action. Finally in rear of all stood his cavalry, drawn up in several lines. The whole of his force amounted to ninety-five thousand men.

MALPLAQUET
Aug. 31st./Sept. 11th 1709

_Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London._
]

The position was most formidable, but it had its defects. In the first place the open space before the entrenchments was broken at about half a mile’s distance by a small coppice, called the wood of Tiry, which could serve to mask the movements of the Allied centre. In the second place the forest of Sart ran out beyond the fortified angle in a long tongue, which would effectually conceal any troops that might be directed against the extreme left flank. Finally the French cavalry, being massed in rear of the entrenchments, could take no part in the action until the defences were forced, and was therefore incapable of delivering any counterstroke. Marlborough and Eugene accordingly decided to make a feint attack on the French right and a true attack on their left front and flank. Villars would then be obliged to reinforce his left from his centre, which would enable the defences across the open to be carried, and the whole of the allied cavalry to charge forward and cut the French line in twain.

◆Aug. 31./Sept. 11.◆

The dawn of the 11th of September broke in dense heavy mist which completely veiled the combatants from each other. At three o’clock prayers were said in the Allied camp, and then the artillery was moved into position. Forty pieces were massed in a single battery on the open ground against the French left, and were covered with an epaulment for defence against enfilading fire; twenty-eight more were stationed against the French right, and the lighter pieces were distributed, as usual, among the different brigades. Then the columns of attack were formed. Twenty-eight battalions under Count Lottum were directed against the eastern face of the salient angle of the forest of Taisnières, and forty battalions of Eugene’s army under General Schulemberg against the northern face, while a little to the right of Schulemberg two thousand men under General Gauvain were to press on the French left flank in rear of their entrenchments. Behind Schulemberg fifteen British battalions under Lord Orkney were drawn up in a single line on the open ground, ready to advance against the centre as soon as Schulemberg and Lottum should have done their work. Far away beyond Gauvain, General Withers with five British and fourteen foreign battalions and six squadrons was to turn the extreme French left at the village of La Folie.

For the feint against the French right, thirty-one battalions, chiefly Dutch, were massed together under the Prince of Orange. The cavalry was detailed in different divisions to support the infantry. The Prince of Orange was backed by twenty-one Dutch squadrons under the Prince of Hesse, Orkney by thirty more under Auvergne, Lottum by the British and Hanoverian cavalry, and Schulemberg by Eugene’s horse. The orders given to the cavalry were to sustain the foot as closely as possible without advancing into range of grape-shot, and, as soon as the central entrenchments were forced, to press forward, form before the entrenchments and drive the French army from the field. The whole force of the Allies was, as near as may be, equal to that of the French.

At half-past seven the fog lifted, and the guns of both armies opened fire. Eugene and Marlborough thereupon parted, the former taking charge of the right, the latter of the left of the army. Then the divisions of Orange and of Lottum advanced in two dense columns up the glade. Presently the Dutch halted, just beyond range of grape-shot, while Lottum’s column pushed on under a terrific fire to the rear of the forty-gun battery and deployed to the right in three lines. Then the fire of the cannon slackened for a time, till about nine o’clock a salvo of the forty guns gave the signal for attack. Lottum’s and Schulemberg’s divisions thereupon advanced perpendicularly to each other, each in three lines, Gauvain’s men crept into the wood unperceived, and Orkney extended his scarlet battalions across the glade.

Entering the wood, Schulemberg’s Austrians made the best of their way through marshes and streams and fallen trees, nearer and nearer to the French entrenchments. The enemy suffered them to approach within pistol-shot, only to deliver a volley which sent them staggering back; and, though the Austrians extended their line till it joined Gauvain’s detachment, yet they could make little way against the French fire. Lottum’s attack was hardly more successful. Heedless of the tempest of shot in their front and flank the Germans pressed steadily on, passed a swamp and a stream under a galling fire, and fell fiercely upon the breastwork beyond; but, being disordered by the ground and thinned by heavy losses, they were forced to fall back. Schulemberg then resumed the attack with his second line, but with all his exertions could not carry the face of the angle opposed to him. Picardie, the senior regiment of the French Line, held this post and would not yield it to the fiercest assault. The utmost that Schulemberg could accomplish was to sweep away the regiments in the wood, and so to uncover its flank.

Lottum, too, extended his front and attacked once more, Orkney detaching three British battalions, the Buffs, Sixteenth, and Temple’s, to his assistance, while Marlborough took personal command of Auvergne’s cavalry in support. The Buffs on Lottum’s extreme left found a swamp between them and the entrenchments, so deep as to be almost impassable. In they plunged, notwithstanding, and were struggling through it when a French officer drew out twelve battalions and moved them down straight upon their left flank. The British brigade would have been in a sorry plight had not Villars caught sight of Marlborough at the head of Auvergne’s horse and instantly recalled his troops. So the red-coats scrambled on, and, turning the flank of the entrenchment while Lottum’s men attacked the front, at length with desperate fighting and heavy loss forced the French back into the wood. Thus exposed to the double attack of Lottum and Schulemberg, Picardie at last fell back, but joined itself to Champagne, the next regiment in seniority; and the two gallant corps, finding a rallying-point behind an abatis, turned and stood once more. Their comrades gave way in disorder, but the wood was so dense that the troops on both sides became disjointed, and the opposing lines broke up into a succession of small parties, fighting desperately from tree to tree with no further guidance than their own fury.

The entrenchments on the French left had been forced; and Villars sent urgent messages to his right for reinforcements. But Boufflers could spare him none. After Schulemberg and Lottum had been engaged for half an hour, the Prince of Orange lost patience and, without waiting for orders, opened not a false but a real attack against the French right. On the extreme left of Orange’s division were two Highland regiments of the Dutch service, Tullibardine’s and Hepburn’s, and next to them King William’s favourite Blue Guards. These were to attack the defences in the forest of Laignières, while the rest fell upon the entrenchments in the open; and it was at the head of the Highlanders and of the Blue Guards that Orange took his place. A tremendous fire of grape and musketry saluted them as they advanced, and within the first few yards most of the Prince’s staff were struck dead by his side. His own horse was killed beneath him, but he disentangled himself and continued to lead the advance on foot. A few minutes more brought his battalions under the fire of a French battery on their left flank. Whole ranks were swept away, but still the Prince was to be seen waving his hat in front of his troops; and Highlanders and Dutchmen pressing steadily on carried the first entrenchment with a rush. They then halted to deploy, but, before they could advance further, Boufflers had rallied his men, and charging down upon his assailants drove them back headlong. On Orange’s right, success as short-lived was bought at as dear a price. The Prince still exerted himself with the utmost gallantry, but his attack was beaten back at all points. The loss of the Dutch amounted to six thousand killed and wounded; the Blue Guards had been annihilated, and the Hanoverian battalions, which had supported them, had suffered little less severely. In fact, the Prince’s precipitation had brought about little less than a disaster.

The confusion in this part of the field called both Marlborough and Eugene to the Allied left to restore order. Further useless sacrifice of life was checked, for enough and more than enough had been done to prevent Boufflers from detaching troops to Villars. But soon came an urgent message requiring the presence of the Duke and the Prince once more on the right. Schulemberg and Lottum had continued to push their attack as best they could; and red-coated English, blue-coated Prussians, and white-coated Austrians were struggling forward from tree to tree, tripping over felled trunks, bursting through tangled foliage, panting through quagmires, loading and firing and cursing, guided only by the flashes before them in the cloud of foul blinding smoke. But now on the extreme right Withers was steadily advancing; and his turning movement, though the Duke and Eugene knew it not, was gradually forcing the French out of the wood. Villars, seeing the danger, called the Irish Brigade and other regiments from the centre, and launched them full upon the British and Prussians. Such was the impetuosity of the Irish that they forced their opponents back some way, until their own formation was broken by the density of the forest. Eugene hastened to the spot to rally the retreating battalions and, though struck by a musket ball in the head, refused to leave the field. Then up came Withers, just when he was wanted. The Eighteenth Royal Irish met the French Royal Regiment of Ireland, crushed it with two volleys by sheer superiority of fire, drove it back in disorder, and pressed on.[64] Eugene also advanced and was met by Villars, who at this critical moment was bringing forward his reinforcements in person. A musket shot struck the Marshal above the knee. Totally unmoved, the gallant man called for a chair from which to continue to direct his troops, but presently fainting from pain was carried insensible from the field. The French, notwithstanding his fall, still barred the advance of the Allies, but they had been driven from their entrenchments and from the wood on the left, and only held their own by the help of the troops that had been withdrawn from the centre. The moment for which Marlborough had waited was now come.

The forty-gun battery was moved forward, and Orkney leading his British battalions against the redans captured them, though not without considerable loss, at the first rush. Two Hanoverian battalions on their left turned the flank of the adjoining entrenchments; and Orange, renewing his attack, cleared the whole of the defences in the glade. The Allied cavalry followed close behind him. Auvergne’s Dutch were the first to pass the entrenchments, and, though charged by the French while in the act of deploying, succeeded in repelling the first attack. But now Boufflers came up at the head of the French Gendarmerie, and drove Auvergne’s men back irresistibly to the edge of the entrenchments. Here, however, the French were checked, for Orkney had lined the parapet with his British; and, though the Gendarmerie thrice strove gallantly to make an end of the Dutch, they were every time driven back by the fire of the infantry. Meanwhile the central battery, which had been parted right and left into two divisions, advanced and supported the infantry by a cross-fire, and Marlborough, coming up with the British and Prussian horse, charged the Gendarmerie in their turn. Boufflers, however, was again ready with fresh troops, and falling upon Marlborough with the French Household Cavalry crashed through his two leading lines and threw even the third into disorder. Then Eugene advancing at the head of the Imperial horse threw the last reserves into the mêlée and drove the French back. Simultaneously the Prince of Hesse hurled his squadrons against the infantry of the French right, and, with the help of the Dutch foot, isolated it still further from the centre. Boufflers now saw that the day was lost and ordered a general retreat to Bavay, while he could yet keep his troops together. The movement was conducted in admirable order, for the French, though beaten, were not routed, while the Allies were too much exhausted to pursue. So Boufflers retired unmolested, though it was not yet three o’clock, honoured alike by friend and foe for his bravery and his skill.

Thus ended the battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest ever fought by mortal men. Little is known of the details of the fighting, these being swallowed up in the shade of the forest of Taisnières, where no man could see what was going forward. All that is certain is that neither side gave quarter, and that the combat was not only fierce but savage. The loss of the French was about twelve thousand men, and the trophies taken from them, against which they could show trophies of their own, were five hundred prisoners, fifty standards and colours and sixteen guns. The loss of the Allies was not less than twenty thousand men killed and wounded, due chiefly to the mad onset of the Prince of Orange. The Dutch infantry out of thirty battalions lost eight thousand men, or more than half of their number; the British out of twenty battalions lost nineteen hundred men,[65] the heaviest sufferers being the Coldstream Guards, Buffs, Orrery’s and Temple’s.[66]

The more closely the battle is studied, the more the conviction grows that no action of Marlborough’s was fought less in accordance with his own plans. We have seen that he would have preferred to fight it on either of the two preceding days, and that he yielded to Eugene against his own judgment in suffering it to be postponed. Then again there was the almost criminal folly of the Prince of Orange, which upset all preconcerted arrangements, threw away thousands of lives to no purpose, and not only permitted the French to retreat unharmed at the close of the day, but seriously imperilled the success of the action at its beginning. Nevertheless there are still not wanting men to believe the slanders of the contemptible faction then rising to power in England, that Marlborough fought the battle from pure lust of slaughter.

Notwithstanding all blunders, which were none of Marlborough’s making, Malplaquet was a very grand action. The French were equal in number to the Allies, and occupied a position which was described at the time as a fortified citadel. They were commanded by an able general, whom they liked and trusted, they were in good heart, and they looked forward confidently to victory. Yet they were driven back and obliged to leave Mons to its fate; and though Villars with his usual bluster described the victory as more disastrous than defeat, yet French officers could not help asking themselves whether resistance to Marlborough and Eugene were not hopeless. Luxemburg with seventy-five thousand men against fifty thousand had only with difficulty succeeded in forcing the faulty position of Landen; yet the French had failed to hold the far more formidable lines of Malplaquet against an army no stronger than their own. Say Villars what he might, and beyond all doubt he fought a fine fight, the inference could not be encouraging to France.

It was not until the third day after the fight that the Allies returned to the investment of Mons. Eugene was wounded, and Marlborough not only worn out by fatigue but deeply distressed over the enormous sacrifice of life. The siege was retarded by the marshy nature of the ground and by heavy rain; but on the 9th of October the garrison capitulated, and therewith the campaign came to an end. ◆Sept. 28./Oct. 9.◆ Tournay had given the Allies firm foothold on the Upper Scheldt, and Mons was of great value to cover the captured towns in Flanders and Brabant. The season’s operations had not been without good fruit, despite the heavy losses at Malplaquet.

VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER X

◆1711.◆

The French, fully aware of the political changes in England, had during the winter made extraordinary exertions to prolong the war for yet one more campaign, and to that end had covered the northern frontier with a fortified barrier on a gigantic scale. Starting from the coast of Picardy the lines followed the course of the river Canche almost to its source. From thence across to the Gy, or southern fork of the Upper Scarpe, ran a line of earthworks, extending from Oppy to Montenancourt. From the latter point the Gy and the Scarpe were dammed so as to form inundations as far as Biache, at which place a canal led the line of defence from the Scarpe to the Sensée. Here more inundations between the two rivers carried the barrier to Bouchain, whence it followed the Scheldt to Valenciennes. From thence more earthworks prolonged the lines to the Sambre, which carried them at last to their end at Namur.

This was a formidable obstacle to the advance of the Allies, but no lines had sufficed to stop Marlborough yet; and with Eugene by his side the Duke did not despair. Before he could start for the campaign, however, the news came that the Emperor Joseph was dead of smallpox, an event which signified the almost certain accession of the Archduke Charles to the Imperial crown and the consequent withdrawal of his candidature for the throne of Spain. Eugene was consequently detained at home; and, worse than this, a fine opportunity was afforded for making a breach in the Grand Alliance. To render the Duke’s difficulties still greater, though his force was already weakened by the necessity of finding garrisons for the towns captured in the previous year, the English Government had withdrawn from him five battalions[67] for an useless expedition to Newfoundland under the command of Mrs. Masham’s brother, General Hill; an expedition which may be dismissed for the present without further mention than that it was dogged by misfortune from first to last, suffered heavy loss through shipwreck, and accomplished literally nothing.

Nevertheless the Imperial army was present, though without Eugene. The whole of the forces were assembled a little to the south of Lille at Orchies; ◆April 20./May 1.◆ and on the 1st of May Marlborough moved forward to a position parallel to that of Villars, who lay in rear of the river Sensée with his left at Oisy and his right at Bouchain. There both armies remained stationary and inactive for six weeks. Eugene came, but presently received orders to return and to bring his troops with him. ◆June 3/14.◆ On the 14th of June Marlborough moved away one march westward to the plain of Lens in order to conceal this enforced diminution of his strength. The position invited a battle, but Villars only moved down within his lines, parallel to the Duke; and once more both armies remained inactive for five weeks. After the departure of Eugene the French commander detached a portion of his troops to the Rhine, but even so he had one hundred and thirty-one battalions against ninety-four, and one hundred and eighty-seven squadrons against one hundred and forty-five of the Allies.

We now approach what is perhaps the most remarkable and certainly the most entertaining feat of the Duke during the whole war. Villars, bound by his instructions, would not come out and fight; his lines could not be forced by an army of inferior strength, and they could therefore be passed only by stratagem. The inundation on the Sensée between Arras and Bouchain could be traversed only by two causeways, the larger of which was defended by a strong fort at Arleux, while the other was covered by a redoubt at Aubigny, half a mile below it. Marlborough knew that he could take the fort at Arleux at any time and demolish it, but he knew also that Villars would certainly retake it and rebuild as soon as his back was turned. He therefore set himself to induce Villars to demolish it himself. ◆June 25./July 6.◆ With this view he detached a strong force under General Rantzau to capture the fort, which was done without difficulty. The Duke then gave orders that the captured works should be greatly strengthened, and, for their further protection, posted a large force under the Prussian General Hompesch on the glacis of Douay, some six miles distant from the fort.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1711.

_Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London._
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As fate ordained it, Hompesch, thinking himself secure under the guns of Douay, neglected his outposts and even his sentries, and was surprised two days later by a sudden attack from Villars, which was only repulsed with considerable difficulty and not a little shame. ◆June 28./July 9.◆ Villars was in ecstasies over his success, and Marlborough displayed considerable annoyance. However, the Duke reinforced Hompesch, as if to show the value which he attached to Arleux, and pushed forward the new works with the greatest vigour. Finally, when all was completed, he threw a weak garrison into the fort and led the rest of the army away two marches westward, encamping opposite the lines between the Canche and the Scarpe. ◆July 10/21.◆ Villars likewise moved westward parallel to him, and took up a position between Oppy and Montenancourt; but, before he started, he detached a force to attack Arleux. The commander of the fort sent a message to Marlborough that he could not possibly hold it, and the Duke at once despatched Cadogan with a strong force to relieve it. It was noticed, however, that Cadogan made no such haste as the urgency of the occasion would have seemed to require; and indeed, before he had gone half-way, he returned with the intelligence that Arleux had surrendered.

Villars was elated beyond measure; and Marlborough for the first time in his life seemed to be greatly distressed and cast down. Throwing off his usual serenity, he proclaimed in public with much passion that he would be even with Villars yet, and would attack him, come what might of it, where he lay. Then came the news that Villars had razed the entire works of Arleux, over which Marlborough had spent such pains, entirely to the ground. This increased the Duke’s ill-temper. He declared that he would avenge this insult to his army, and renewed his menace of a direct attack on the entrenchments. ◆July 15/26.◆ Villars now detached a force to make a diversion in Brabant; and this step seemed to drive Marlborough distracted. Vowing that he would check the march of this detachment, he sent off ten thousand men under Lord Albemarle to Béthune, and the whole of his baggage and heavy artillery to Douay. ◆July 17/28.◆ Having thus weakened an army already inferior to that of the French, he repaired the roads that led towards the enemy’s entrenchments, and on the 1st of August, with much display of vindictiveness, sulkiness, and general vexation, advanced one march nearer to the lines, encamping between Houdain and St. Pol. ◆July 21./Aug. 1.◆ His army watched his proceedings with amazement, for it had never expected such behaviour from Corporal John.

Villars meanwhile was in a transport of delight. He drew every man, not only from all parts of the lines but also from the neighbouring garrisons, towards the threatened point, and asked nothing better than that Marlborough should attack. In the height of exultation he actually wrote to Versailles that he had brought the Duke to his _ne plus ultra_. Marlborough’s strange manner still remained the same. ◆July 22./August 2.◆ On the 2nd of August he advanced to within a league of the lines, his left being opposite to Aubigny on the Upper Scarpe; and during that day and the next set the whole of his cavalry to work to collect fascines. ◆July 23./August 3.◆ At nightfall of the 3rd he sent away all his light artillery, together with every wheeled vehicle, under escort of a strong detachment, and next morning rode forward with most of his generals to reconnoitre the eastern end of the lines. ◆July 24./August 4.◆ Captain Parker of the Eighteenth Royal Irish, who had obtained permission to ride with the Staff, was amazed at the Duke’s demeanour. Marlborough had now thrown off all his ill-temper and was calm and cool as usual, indicating this point and that to his officers. “Your brigade, General, will attack here, such and such brigades will be on your right and left, such another in support, and you will be careful of this, that, and other.” The generals listened and stared; they understood the instructions clearly enough, but they could not help regarding them as madness. So the reconnaissance proceeded, drearily enough, and was just concluding when General Cadogan turned his horse, unnoticed, out of the crowd, struck in his spurs and galloped back to camp at the top of his speed. Presently the Duke also turned, and, riding back very slowly, issued orders to prepare for a general attack on the morrow.

At this all ranks of the army, from the general to the drummer, fell into the deepest depression. Not a man could fail to see that direct assault of the lines was a hopeless enterprise at the best of times, and doubly hopeless now that half of the army and the whole of the artillery had been detached for other service. Again the violent and unprecedented outburst of surliness and ill-temper was difficult to explain; and the only possible explanation was that the Duke, rendered desperate by failure and misfortunes, had thrown prudence to the winds and cared not what he did. A few only clung faintly to the hope that the chief, who had led them so often to victory, might still have some surprise in store for them; but the most part gave themselves up for lost, and lamented loudly that they should ever have lived to see such a change come over the Old Corporal.

So passed the afternoon among the tents of the Allies; but meanwhile Cadogan with forty hussars at his heels had long started from the camp and was galloping hard across the plain of Lens to Douay, five leagues away. There he found Hompesch ready with his garrison, now strengthened by detachments from Béthune and elsewhere to twelve thousand foot and two thousand horse, and told him that the time was come. Hompesch thereupon issued his orders for the troops to be ready to march that night. Still the main army under Marlborough knew nothing of this, and passed the day in dismal apprehension till the sun went down, and the drummers came forward to beat tattoo. Then a column of cavalry trotted out westward, attracting every French eye and stirring every French brain with curiosity as to the purport of the movement. The drums began to roll; and the order ran quietly down the line to strike tents and prepare to march immediately.

Never was command more welcome. Within an hour all was ready and the army was formed into four columns. The cavalry, having done their work of distracting French vigilance to the wrong quarter, returned unseen by the enemy; and at nine o’clock the whole army faced to its left and marched off eastward in utter silence, with Marlborough himself at the head of the vanguard.

◆July 24–25./August 4–5.◆

The night was fine, and under the radiant moonlight the men swung forward bravely hour after hour over the plain of Lens. The moon paled; the dawn crept up into the east throwing its ghastly light on the host of weary, sleepless faces; and presently the columns reached the Scarpe at Vitry. So far the march had lasted eight hours, and fifteen miles had been passed. Pontoon-bridges were already laid across the river, and on the further bank, punctual to appointment, stood Brigadier Sutton with the field-artillery. The river was passed, and presently a messenger came spurring from the east with a despatch for the Duke of Marlborough. ◆July 25./August 5.◆ He read it; and words were passed down the columns of march which filled them with new life. “Generals Cadogan and Hompesch” (such was their purport) “crossed the causeway at Arleux unopposed at three o’clock this morning, and are in possession of the enemy’s lines. The Duke desires that the infantry will step out.” The right wing of horse halted to form the rearguard and bring up stragglers, while a cloud of dust in the van told that the Duke and fifty squadrons with him were pushing forward at the trot. Then the infantry shook themselves up and stepped out with a will.

◆July 25./August 5.◆

Villars had received intelligence of Marlborough’s march only two hours after he had started, but he was so thoroughly bewildered by the Duke’s intricate manœvres that he did not awake to the true position until three hours later. Then, quite distracted, he put himself at the head of the Household Cavalry and galloped off at full speed. So furiously rode he that he wore down all but a hundred of his troopers and pushed on with these alone. But even so Marlborough was before him. At eight o’clock he crossed the lower causeway at Aubanchœuil-au-bac and passing his cavalry over the Sensée barred the road from the west by the village of Oisy. Presently Villars, advancing reckless of all precautions, blundered into the middle of the outposts. Before he could retire, his whole escort was captured, and he himself only by miracle escaped the same fate.

The Marshal now looked anxiously for the arrival of his main body of horse; but the Allied infantry had caught sight of the French on the other side of the Sensée, and, weary though they were, had braced themselves to race them for the goal. Nevertheless the severity of the march and the burden of their packs began to tell heavily on the foot. Hundreds dropped down unconscious, and many died there and then, but they were left where they lay to await the arrival of the rearguard; for no halt was called, and each regiment pushed on as cheerfully as possible with such men as still survived. Thus they were still ahead of the French when they turned off to the causeway at Arleux, and, Marlborough having thrown additional bridges over the Sensée, they came quickly into their positions. The right wing of infantry crossed the river about four o’clock in the afternoon, having covered close upon forty miles in eighteen hours; and by five o’clock the whole force was drawn up between Oisy and the Scheldt within striking distance of Arras, Cambrai, and Bouchain. So vanished the ne plus ultra of Villars, a warning to all generals who put their sole trust in fortified lines.

Marlborough halted for the next day to give his troops rest and to allow the stragglers to come in. Fully half the men of the infantry had fallen out, and there were many who did not rejoin the army until the third day. Villars on his side moved forward and offered Marlborough battle under the walls of Cambrai; but the Duke would not accept it, though the Dutch deputies, perverse and treacherous to the last, tried hard to persuade him. Had the deputies marched in the ranks of the infantry with muskets on their shoulders and a kit of fifty pounds’ weight on their backs, they would have been less eager for the fray. Marlborough’s own design, long matured in his own mind, was the capture of Bouchain, and his only fear was lest Villars should cross the Scheldt before him and prevent it. The deputies, however, who had been so anxious to hurry the army into an engagement under every possible disadvantage, shrank from the peril of a siege carried on by an inferior under the eyes of a superior force. But Marlborough, even if he had not been able to adduce Lille as a precedent, was determined to have his own way, and carried his point. ◆July 27./August 7.◆ At noon on the 7th of August he marched down almost within cannon-shot of Cambrai, ready to fall on Villars should he attempt to pass the Scheldt, halted until his pontoon-bridges had been laid a few miles further down the stream, and then gradually withdrawing his troops threw the whole of them across the river unmolested.

It is hardly credible that a vast number of foolish civilians, Dutch, Austrian, and even English, blamed Marlborough for declining battle before Cambrai, and that he was actually obliged to explain why he refused to sacrifice the fruit of his manœvres by attacking a superior force in a strong position with an army not only smaller in numbers at its best, but much thinned by a forced march and exhausted by fatigue. “I despair of being ever able to please all men,” he wrote. “Those who are capable of judging will be satisfied with my endeavours: others I leave to their own reflections, and go on with the discharge of my duty.”

It is possible that Villars only refrained from hindering Marlborough’s passage of the Scheldt in deference to orders from Versailles, of which the Duke was as well aware as himself; but it is more than doubtful whether he ever intended the British to capture Bouchain. Though inferior in numbers, however, Marlborough covered himself so skilfully with entrenchments that Villars could not hinder him, while all attempts at diversion were met so readily that not one of them succeeded. ◆Sept. 2/13.◆ Finally, the garrison surrendered as prisoners of war under the very eyes of Villars. The Duke would have followed up his success by the siege of Quesnoi, the town before which English troops first came under the fire of cannon in the year of Crecy; but by this time Lewis, with the help of the contemptible Harley, had succeeded in detaching England from the Grand Alliance. Though, therefore, the English ministers continued to encourage Marlborough in his operations, in order to conceal their own infamous conduct from the Allies, yet they took good care that those operations should proceed no further. So with the capture of Bouchain the last and not the least remarkable of Marlborough’s campaigns came, always victoriously, to an end.

CAMPAIGNS OF 1744–1748

VOL. II. BOOK VII. CHAPTER V

However fortunate might be the issue of Dettingen, it served at least its purpose in preventing the despatch of French reinforcements to the Danube and to Bohemia; and the campaign of 1743 closed with the utter collapse of Belleisle’s great schemes and with the expulsion of the French from Germany. It was now clear that the war would be carried on in the familiar cockpit of the Austrian Netherlands. Such a theatre was convenient for France, since it lay close to her own borders, and convenient for the Allies, because the Dutch had at last been persuaded to join them, and because the British would be brought nearer to their base at Ostend. Marshal Saxe, whose fine talent had hitherto been wasted under incompetent French Generals in Bohemia, was appointed to the chief command of the French in Flanders; and every effort was made to give him a numerous and well-equipped army, and to enable him to open his campaign in good time.

◆1744.◆