Chapter II: Sphere of Government (9)

In 1689 Louis had six armies on foot. That in Germany, which had executed the raid of the previous autumn, was not in a position to resist the principal army of the coalition so far from support. Louvois therefore ordered it to lay waste the Palatinate, and the devastation of the country around Heidelberg, Mannheim, Spires, Oppenheim and Worms was pitilessly and methodically carried into effect in January and February. There had been devastations in previous wars, even the high-minded Turenne had used the argument of fire and sword to terrify a population or a prince, while the whole story of the last ten years of the great war had been one of incendiary armies leaving traces of their passage that it took a century to remove. But here the devastation was a purely military measure, executed systematically over a given strategic front for no other purpose than to delay the advance of the enemy's army. It differed from the method of Turenne or Cromwell in that the sufferers were not those people whom it was the purpose of the war to reduce to submission, but others who had no interest in the quarrel. It differed from Wellington's laying waste of Portugal in 1810 in that it was not done for the defence of the Palatinate against a national enemy, but because the Palatinate was where it was. The feudal theory that every subject of a prince at war was an armed vassal, and therefore an enemy of the prince's enemy, had in practice been obsolete for two centuries past; by 1690 the organization of war, its causes, its methods and its instruments had passed out of touch with the people at large, and it had become thoroughly understood that the army alone was concerned with the army's business. Thus it was that this devastation excited universal reprobation; and that, in the words of a modern French writer, the "idea of Germany came to birth in the flames of the Palatinate."

As a military measure this crime was, moreover, quite unprofitable; for it became impossible for Marshal Duras, the French commander, to hold out on the east side of the middle Rhine, and he could think of nothing better to do than to go farther south and to ravage Baden and the Breisgau, which was not even a military necessity. The grand army of the Allies, coming farther north, was practically unopposed. Charles of Lorraine and the elector of Bavaria--lately comrades in the Turkish war (see below)--invested Mainz, the elector of Brandenburg Bonn. The latter, following the evil precedent of his enemies, shelled the town uselessly instead of making a breach in its walls and overpowering its French garrison, an incident not calculated to advance the nascent idea of German unity. Mainz, valiantly defended by Nicolas du Ble, marquis d'Uxelles, had to surrender on the 8th of September. The governor of Bonn, baron d'Asfeld, not in the least intimidated by the bombardment, held out till the army that had taken Mainz reinforced the elector of Brandenburg, and then, rejecting the hard terms of surrender offered him by the latter, he fell in resisting a last assault on the 12th of October. Only 850 men out of his 6000 were left to surrender on the 16th, and the duke of Lorraine, less truculent than the elector, escorted them safely to Thionville. Boufflers, with another of Louis's armies, operated from Luxemburg (captured by the French in 1684 and since held) and Trarbach towards the Rhine, but in spite of a minor victory at Kochheim on the 21st of August, he was unable to relieve either Mainz or Bonn.

In the Low Countries the French marshal d'Humieres, being in superior force, had obtained _special permission_ to offer battle to the Allies. Leaving the garrison of Lille and Tournay to amuse the Spaniards, he hurried from Maubeuge to oppose the Dutch, who from Namur had advanced slowly on Philippeville. Coming upon their army (which was commanded by the prince of Waldeck) in position behind the river Heure, with an advanced post in the little walled town of Walcourt, he flung his advanced guard against the bridge and fortifications of this place to clear the way for his deployment beyond the river Heure (27th August). After wasting a thousand brave men in this attempt, he drew back. For a few days the two armies remained face to face, cannonading one another at intervals, but no further fighting occurred. Humieres returned to the region of the Scheldt fortresses, and Waldeck to Brussels. For the others of Louis' six armies the year's campaign passed off quite uneventfully.

The war in Ireland, 1689-1691.

Simultaneously with these operations, the Jacobite cause was being
fought to an issue in Ireland. War began early in 1689 with desultory
engagements between the Orangemen of the north and the Irish regular
army, most of which the earl of Tyrconnel had induced to declare for
King James. The northern struggle after a time condensed itself into
the defence of Derry and Enniskillen. The siege of the former place,
begun by James himself and carried on by the French general Rosen,
lasted 105 days. In marked contrast to the sieges of the continent,
this was resisted by the townsmen themselves, under the leadership of
the clergyman George Walker. But the relieving force (consisting of
two frigates, a supply ship and a force under Major-general Percy
Kirke) was dilatory, and it was not until the defenders were in the
last extremity that Kirke actually broke through the blockade (July
31st). Enniskillen was less closely invested, and its inhabitants,
organized by Colonel Wolseley and other officers sent by Kirke,
actually kept the open field and defeated the Jacobites at Newtown
Butler (July 31st). A few days later the Jacobite army withdrew from
the north. But it was long before an adequate army could be sent over
from England to deal with it. Marshal Schomberg (q.v.), one of the
most distinguished soldiers of the time, who had been expelled from
the French service as a Huguenot, was indeed sent over in August, but
the army he brought, some 10,000 strong, was composed of raw recruits,
and when it was assembled in camp at Dundalk to be trained for its
work, it was quickly ruined by an epidemic of fever. But James failed
to take advantage of his opportunity to renew the war in the north,
and the relics of Schomberg's army wintered in security, covered by
the Enniskillen troops. In the spring of 1690, however, more troops,
this time experienced regiments from Holland, Denmark and Brandenburg,
were sent, and in June, Schomberg in Ireland and Major-general
Scravemore in Chester having thoroughly organized and equipped the
field army, King William assumed the command himself. Five days after
his arrival he began his advance from Loughbrickland near Newry, and
on the 1st of July he engaged James's main army on the river Boyne,
close to Drogheda. Schomberg was killed and William himself wounded,
but the Irish army was routed.

No stand was made by the defeated party either in the Dublin or in the
Waterford district. Lauzun, the commander of the French auxiliary
corps in James's army, and Tyrconnel both discountenanced any attempt
to defend Limerick, where the Jacobite forces had reassembled; but
Patrick Sarsfield (earl of Lucan), as the spokesman of the younger and
more ardent of the Irish officers, pleaded for its retention. He was
left, therefore, to hold Limerick, while Tyrconnel and Lauzun moved
northward into Galway. Here, as in the north, the quarrel enlisted the
active sympathies of the people against the invader, and Sarsfield not
only surprised and destroyed the artillery train of William's army,
but repulsed every assault made on the walls that Lauzun had said
"could be battered down by rotten apples." William gave up the siege
on the 30th of August. The failure was, however, compensated in a
measure by the arrival in Ireland of an expedition under Lord
Marlborough, which captured Cork and Kinsale, and next year (1691) the
Jacobite cause was finally crushed by William's general Ginckell
(afterwards earl of Athlone) in the battle of Aughrim in Galway (July
12th), in which St Ruth, the French commander, was killed and the
Jacobite army dissipated. Ginckell, following up his victory, besieged
Limerick afresh. Tyrconnel died of apoplexy while organizing the
defence, and this time the town was invested by sea as well as by
land. After six weeks' resistance the defenders offered to capitulate,
and with the signing of the treaty of Limerick on the 1st of October
the Irish war came to an end. Sarsfield and the most energetic of King
James's supporters retired to France and were there formed into the
famous "Irish brigade." Sarsfield was killed at the battle of
Neerwinden two years later.

The campaign of 1690 on the continent of Europe is marked by two battles, one of which, Luxemburg's victory of Fleurus, belongs to the category of the world's great battles. It is described under FLEURUS, and the present article only deals summarily with the conditions in which it was fought. These, though they in fact led to an encounter that could, in itself, fairly be called decisive, were in closer accord with the general spirit of the war than was the decision that arose out of them.

Luxemburg had a powerful enemy in Louvois, and he had consequently been allotted only an insignificant part in the first campaign. But after the disasters of 1689 Louis re-arranged the commands on the north-east frontier so as to allow Humieres, Luxemburg and Boufflers to combine for united action. "I will take care that Louvois plays fair," Louis said to the duke when he gave him his letters of service. Though apparently Luxemburg was not authorized to order such a combination himself, as senior officer he would automatically take command if it came about. The whole force available was probably close on 100,000, but not half of these were present at the decisive battle, though Luxemburg certainly practised the utmost "economy of force" as this was understood in those days (see also NEERWINDEN). On the remaining theatres of war, the dauphin, assisted by the duc de Lorge, held the middle Rhine, and Catinat the Alps, while other forces were in Roussillon, &c., as before. Catinat's operations are briefly described below. Those of the others need no description, for though the Allies formed a plan for a grand concentric advance on Paris, the preliminaries to this advance were so numerous and so closely interdependent that on the most favourable estimate the winter would necessarily find the Allied armies many leagues short of Paris. In fact, the Rhine offensive collapsed when Charles of Lorraine died (17th April), and the reconquest of his lost duchy ceased to be a direct object of the war.

Fleurus, 1690.

Luxemburg began operations by drawing in from the Sambre country, where he had hitherto been stationed, to the Scheldt and "eating up" the country between Oudenarde and Ghent in the face of a Spanish army concentrated at the latter place (15th May-12th June). He then left Humieres with a containing force in the Scheldt region and hurried back to the Sambre to interpose between the Allied army under Waldeck and the fortress of Dinant which Waldeck was credited with the intention of besieging. His march from Tournay to Gerpinnes was counted a model of skill--the _locus classicus_ for the maxim that ruled till the advent of Napoleon--"march always in the order in which you encamp, or purpose to encamp, or fight." For four days the army marched across country in close order, covered in all directions by reconnoitring cavalry and advanced, flank and rear guards. Under these conditions eleven miles a day was practically forced marching, and on arriving at Jeumont-sur-Sambre the army was given three days' rest. Then followed a few leisurely marches in the direction of Charleroi, during which a detachment of Boufflers's army came in, and the cavalry explored the country to the north. On news of the enemy's army being at Trazegnies, Luxemburg hurried across a ford of the Sambre above Charleroi, but this proved to be a detachment only, and soon information came in that Waldeck was encamped near Fleurus. Thereupon Luxemburg, without consulting his subordinate generals, took his army to Velaine. He knew that the enemy was marking time till the troops of Liege and the Brandenburgers from the Rhine were near enough to co-operate in the Dinant enterprise, and he was determined to fight a battle at once. From Velaine, therefore, on the morning of the 1st of July, the army moved forward to Fleurus and there won one of the most brilliant victories in the history of the Royal army. But Luxemburg was not allowed to pursue his advantage. He was ordered to hold his army in readiness to besiege either Namur, Mons, Charleroi or Ath, according as later orders dictated; and to send back the borrowed regiments to Boufflers, who was being pressed back by the Brandenburg and Liege troops. Thus Waldeck reformed his army in peace at Brussels, where William III. of England soon afterwards assumed command of the Allied forces in the Netherlands, and Luxemburg and the other marshals stood fast for the rest of the campaign, being forbidden to advance until Catinat--in Italy--should have won a battle.

Staffarda.

In this quarter the armed neutrality of the duke of Savoy had long disquieted the French court. His personal connexions with the imperial family and his resentment against Louvois, who had on some occasion treated him with his usual patronizing arrogance, inclined him to join the Allies, while on the other hand he could hope for extensions of his scanty territory only by siding with Louis. In view of this doubtful condition of affairs the French army under Catinat had for some time been maintained on the Alpine frontier, and in the summer of 1690 Louis XIV. sent an ultimatum to Victor Amadeus to compel him to take one side or the other actively and openly. The result was that Victor Emmanuel threw in his lot with the Allies and obtained help from the Spaniards and Austrians in the Milanese. Catinat thereupon advanced into Piedmont, and won, principally by virtue of his own watchfulness and the high efficiency of his troops, the important victory of Staffarda (August 18th, 1690). This did not, however, enable him to overrun Piedmont, and as the duke was soon reinforced, he had to be content with the methodical conquest of a few frontier districts. On the side of Spain, a small French army under the duc de Noailles passed into Catalonia and there lived at the enemy's expense for the duration of the campaign.

In these theatres of war, and on the Rhine, where the disunion of the German princes prevented vigorous action, the following year, 1691, was uneventful. But in the Netherlands there were a siege, a war of manoeuvres and a cavalry combat, each in its way somewhat remarkable. The siege was that of Mons, which was, like many sieges in the former wars, conducted with much pomp by Louis XIV. himself, with Boufflers and Vauban under him. On the surrender of the place, which was hastened by red-hot shot (April 8th), Louis returned to Versailles and divided his army between Boufflers and Luxemburg, the former of whom departed to the Meuse. There he attempted by bombardment to enforce the surrender of Liege, but had to desist when the elector of Brandenburg threatened Dinant. The principal armies on either side faced one another under the command respectively of William III. and of Luxemburg. The Allies were first concentrated to the south of Namur, and Luxemburg hurried thither, but neither party found any tempting opportunity for battle, and when the cavalry had consumed all the forage available in the district, the two armies edged away gradually towards Flanders. The war of manoeuvre continued, with a slight balance of advantage on Luxemburg's side, until September, when William returned to England, leaving Waldeck in command of the Allied army, with orders to distribute it in winter quarters amongst the garrison towns. This gave the momentary opportunity for which Luxemburg had been watching, and at Leuze (20th Sept.) he fell upon the cavalry of Waldeck's rearguard and drove it back in disorder with heavy losses until the pursuit was checked by the Allied infantry.

In 1692[2] the Rhine campaign was no more decisive than before, although Lorge made a successful raid into Wurttemberg in September and foraged his cavalry in German territory till the approach of winter. The Spanish campaign was unimportant, but on the Alpine side the Allies under the duke of Savoy drove back Catinat into Dauphine, which they ravaged with fire and sword. But the French peasantry were quicker to take arms than the Germans, and, inspired by the local gentry--amongst whom figured the heroine, Philis de la Tour du Pin (1645-1708), daughter of the marquis de la Charce--they beset every road with such success that the small regular army of the invaders was powerless. Brought practically to a standstill, the Allies soon consumed the provisions that could be gathered in, and then, fearing lest the snow should close the passes behind them, they retreated.

Siege of Namur, 1692.

Steenkirk.

In the Low Countries the campaign as before began with a great siege. Louis and Vauban invested Namur on the 26th of May. The place was defended by the prince de Barbancon (who had been governor of Luxemburg when that place was besieged in 1684) and Coehoorn (q.v.), Vauban's rival in the science of fortification. Luxemburg, with a small army, manoeuvred to cover the siege against William III.'s army at Louvain. The place fell on the 5th of June,[3] after a very few days of Vauban's "regular" attack, but the citadel held out until the 23rd. Then, as before, Louis returned to Versailles, giving injunctions to Luxemburg to "preserve the strong places and the country, while opposing the enemy's enterprises and subsisting the army at his expense." This negative policy, contrary to expectation, led to a hard-fought battle. William, employing a common device, announced his intention of retaking Namur, but set his army in motion for Flanders and the sea-coast fortresses held by the French. Luxemburg, warned in time, hurried towards the Scheldt, and the two armies were soon face to face again, Luxemburg about Steenkirk, William in front of Hal. William then formed the plan of surprising Luxemburg's right wing before it could be supported by the rest of his army, relying chiefly on false information that a detected spy at his headquarters was forced to send, to mislead the duke. But Luxemburg had the material protection of a widespread net of outposts as well as a secret service, and although ill in bed when William's advance was reported, he shook off his apathy, mounted his horse and, enabled by his outpost reports to divine his opponent's plan, he met it (3rd August) by a swift concentration of his army, against which the Allies, whose advance and deployment had been mismanaged, were powerless (see STEENKIRK). In this almost accidental battle both sides suffered enormous losses, and neither attempted to bring about, or even to risk, a second resultless trial of strength. Boufflers's army returned to the Sambre and Luxemburg and William established themselves for the rest of the season at Lessines and Ninove respectively, 13 m. apart. After both armies had broken up into their winter quarters, Louis ordered Boufflers to attempt the capture of Charleroi. But a bombardment failed to intimidate the garrison, and when the Allies began to re-assemble, the attempt was given up (19th-21st Oct.). This failure was, however, compensated by the siege and capture of Furnes (28th Dec. 1692-7th Jan. 1693).

In 1693, the culminating point of the war was reached. It began, as mentioned above, with a winter enterprise that at least indicated the aggressive spirit of the French generals. The king promoted his admiral, Tourville, and Catinat, the _roturier_, to the marshalship, and founded the military order of St Louis on the 10th of April. The grand army in the Netherlands this year numbered 120,000, to oppose whom William III. had only some 40,000 at hand. But at the very beginning of operations Louis, after reviewing this large force at Gembloux, broke it up, in order to send 30,000 under the dauphin to Germany, where Lorge had captured Heidelberg and seemed able, if reinforced, to overrun south Germany. But the imperial general Prince Louis of Baden took up a position near Heilbronn so strong that the dauphin and Lorge did not venture to attack him. Thus King Louis sacrificed a reality to a dream, and for the third time lost the opportunity, for which he always longed, of commanding in chief in a great battle. He himself, to judge by his letter to Monsieur on the 8th of June, regarded his action as a sacrifice of personal dreams to tangible realities. And, before the event falsified predictions, there was much to be said for the course he took, which accorded better with the prevailing system of war than a Fleurus or a Neerwinden. In this system of war the rival armies, as armies, were almost in a state of equilibrium, and more was to be expected from an army dealing with something dissimilar to itself--a fortress or a patch of land or a convoy--than from its collision with another army of equal force.

Neerwinden.

Thus Luxemburg obtained his last and greatest opportunity. He was still superior in numbers, but William at Louvain had the advantage of position. The former, authorized by his master this year "_non seulement d'empecher les ennemis de rien entreprendre, mais d'emporter quelques avantages sur eux_," threatened Liege, drew William over to its defence and then advanced to attack him. The Allies, however, retired to another position, between the Great and Little Geete rivers, and there, in a strongly entrenched position around Neerwinden, they were attacked by Luxemburg on the 29th of July. The long and doubtful battle, one of the greatest victories ever won by the French army, is briefly described under NEERWINDEN. It ended in a brilliant victory for the assailant, but Luxemburg's exhausted army did not pursue; William was as unshaken and determined as ever; and the campaign closed, not with a treaty of peace, but with a few manoeuvres which, by inducing William to believe in an attack on Ath, enabled Luxemburg to besiege and capture Charleroi (October).

Marsaglia.

Neerwinden was not the only French victory of the year. Catinat, advancing from Fenestrelle and Susa to the relief of Pinerolo (Pignerol), which the duke of Savoy was besieging, took up a position in formal order of battle north of the village of Marsaglia. Here on the 4th of October the duke of Savoy attacked him with his whole army, front to front. But the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat's minute attention to details[4] in arraying them, gave the new marshal a victory that was a not unworthy pendant to Neerwinden. The Piedmontese and their allies lost, it is said, 10,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, as against Catinat's 1800. But here, too, the results were trifling, and this year of victory is remembered chiefly as the year in which "people perished of want to the accompaniment of _Te Deums_."

In 1694 (late in the season owing to the prevailing distress and
famine) Louis opened a fresh campaign in the Netherlands. The armies
were larger and more ineffective than ever, and William offered no
further opportunities to his formidable opponent. In September, after
inducing William to desist from his intention of besieging Dunkirk by
appearing on his flank with a mass of cavalry,[5] which had ridden
from the Meuse, 100 m., in 4 days, Luxemburg gave up his command. He
died on the 4th of January following, and with him the tradition of
the Conde school of warfare disappeared from Europe. In Catalonia the
marshal de Noailles won a victory (27th May) over the Spaniards at the
ford of the Ter (Torroella, 5 m. above the mouth of the river), and
in consequence captured a number of walled towns.

Later campaigns of the war.

In 1695 William found Marshal Villeroi a far less formidable opponent
than Luxemburg had been, and easily succeeded in keeping him in
Flanders while a corps of the Allies invested Namur. Coehoorn directed
the siege-works, and Boufflers the defence. Gradually, as in 1692, the
defenders were dislodged from the town, the citadel outworks and the
citadel itself, the last being assaulted with success by the "British
grenadiers," as the song commemorates, on the 30th of August.
Boufflers was rewarded for his sixty-seven days' defence by the grade
of marshal.

By 1696 necessity had compelled Louis to renounce his vague and
indefinite offensive policy, and he now frankly restricted his efforts
to the maintenance of what he had won in the preceding campaigns. In
this new policy he met with much success. Boufflers, Lorge, Noailles
and even the incompetent Villeroi held the field in their various
spheres of operations without allowing the Allies to inflict any
material injury, and also (by having recourse again to the policy of
living by plunder) preserving French soil from the burden of their own
maintenance. In this, as before, they were powerfully assisted by the
disunion and divided counsels of their heterogeneous enemies. In
Piedmont, Catinat crowned his work by making peace and alliance with
the duke of Savoy, and the two late enemies having joined forces
captured one of the fortresses of the Milanese. The last campaign was
in 1697. Catinat and Vauban besieged Ath. This siege was perhaps the
most regular and methodical of the great engineer's career. It lasted
23 days and cost the assailants only 50 men. King William did not stir
from his entrenched position at Brussels, nor did Villeroi dare to
attack him there. Lastly, in August 1697 Vendome, Noailles' successor,
captured Barcelona. The peace of Ryswijk, signed on the 30th of
October, closed this war by practically restoring the _status quo
ante_; but neither the ambitions of Louis nor the Grand Alliance that
opposed them ceased to have force, and three years later the struggle
began anew (see SPANISH SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE).

Austro-Turkish wars, 1682-1699.

Concurrently with these campaigns, the emperor had been engaged in a
much more serious war on his eastern marches against the old enemy,
the Turks. This war arose in 1682 out of internal disturbances in
Hungary. The campaign of the following year is memorable for all time
as the last great wave of Turkish invasion. Mahommed IV. advanced from
Belgrade in May, with 200,000 men, drove back the small imperial army
of Prince Charles of Lorraine, and early in July invested Vienna
itself. The two months' defence of Vienna by Count Rudiger Starhemberg
(1635-1701) and the brilliant victory of the relieving army led by
John Sobieski, king of Poland, and Prince Charles on the 12th of
September 1683, were events which, besides their intrinsic importance,
possess the romantic interest of an old knightly crusade against the
heathen.

But the course of the war, after the tide of invasion had ebbed,
differed little from the wars of contemporary western Europe. Turkey
figured rather as a factor in the balance of power than as the
"infidel," and although the battles and sieges in Hungary were
characterized by the bitter personal hostility of Christian to Turk
which had no counterpart in the West, the war as a whole was as
methodical and tedious as any Rhine or Low Countries campaign. In 1684
Charles of Lorraine gained a victory at Waitzen on the 27th of June
and another at Eperies on the 18th of September, and unsuccessfully
besieged Budapest.

In 1685 the Germans were uniformly successful, though a victory at
Gran (August 16th) and the storming of Neuhausel (August 19th) were
the only outstanding incidents. In 1686 Charles, assisted by the
elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria, besieged and stormed Budapest (Sept.
2nd). In 1687 they followed up their success by a great victory at
Mohacz (Aug. 12th). In 1688 the Austrians advanced still further, took
Belgrade, threatened Widin and entered Bosnia. The margrave Louis of
Baden, who afterward became one of the most celebrated of the
methodical generals of the day, won a victory at Derbent on the 5th of
September 1688, and next year, in spite of the outbreak of a general
European war, he managed to win another battle at Nisch (Sept. 24th),
to capture Widin (Oct. 14th) and to advance to the Balkans, but in
1690, more troops having to be withdrawn for the European war, the
imperialist generals lost Nisch, Widin and Belgrade one after the
other. There was, however, no repetition of the scenes of 1683, for in
1691 Louis won the battle of Szlankamen (Aug. 19th). After two more
desultory if successful campaigns he was called to serve in western
Europe, and for three years more the war dragged on without result,
until in 1697 the young Prince Eugene was appointed to command the
imperialists and won a great and decisive victory at Zenta on the
Theiss (Sept. 11th). This induced a last general advance of the
Germans eastward, which was definitively successful and brought about
the peace of Carlowitz (January 1699). (C. F. A.)

NAVAL OPERATIONS

The naval side of the war waged by the powers of western Europe from 1689 to 1697, to reduce the predominance of King Louis XIV., was not marked by any very conspicuous exhibition of energy or capacity, but it was singularly decisive in its results. At the beginning of the struggle the French fleet kept the sea in face of the united fleets of Great Britain and Holland. It displayed even in 1690 a marked superiority over them. Before the struggle ended it had been fairly driven into port, and though its failure was to a great extent due to the exhaustion of the French finances, yet the inability of the French admirals to make a proper use of their fleets, and the incapacity of the king's ministers to direct the efforts of his naval officers to the most effective aims, were largely responsible for the result.

When the war began in 1689, the British Admiralty was still suffering from the disorders of the reign of King Charles II., which had been only in part corrected during the short reign of James II. The first squadrons were sent out late and in insufficient strength. The Dutch, crushed by the obligation to maintain a great army, found an increasing difficulty in preparing their fleet for action early. Louis XIV., a despotic monarch, with as yet unexhausted resources, had it within his power to strike first. The opportunity offered him was a very tempting one. Ireland was still loyal to King James II., and would therefore have afforded an admirable basis of operations to a French fleet. No serious attempt was made to profit by the advantage thus presented. In March 1689 King James was landed and reinforcements were prepared for him at Brest. A British squadron under the command of Arthur Herbert (afterwards Lord Torrington), sent to intercept them, reached the French port too late, and on returning to the coast of Ireland sighted the convoy off the Old Head of Kinsale on the 10th of May. The French admiral Chateaurenault held on to Bantry Bay, and an indecisive encounter took place on the 11th of May. The troops and stores for King James were successfully landed. Then both admirals, the British and the French, returned home, and neither in that nor in the following year was any serious effort made by the French to gain command of the sea between Ireland and England. On the contrary, a great French fleet entered the Channel, and gained a success over the combined British and Dutch fleets on the 10th of July 1690 (see BEACHY HEAD, BATTLE OF), which was not followed up by vigorous action. In the meantime King William III. passed over to Ireland and won the battle of the Boyne. During the following year, while the cause of King James was being finally ruined in Ireland, the main French fleet was cruising in the Bay of Biscay, principally for the purpose of avoiding battle. During the whole of 1689, 1690 and 1691, British squadrons were active on the Irish coast. One raised the siege of Londonderry in July 1689, and another convoyed the first British forces sent over under the duke of Schomberg. Immediately after Beachy Head in 1690, a part of the Channel fleet carried out an expedition under the earl (afterwards duke) of Marlborough, which took Cork and reduced a large part of the south of the island. In 1691 the French did little more than help to carry away the wreckage of their allies and their own detachments. In 1692 a vigorous but tardy attempt was made to employ their fleet to cover an invasion of England (see LA HOGUE, BATTLE OF). It ended in defeat, and the allies remained masters of the Channel. The defeat of La Hogue did not do so much harm to the naval power of King Louis as has sometimes been supposed. In the next year, 1693, he was able to strike a severe blow at the Allies. The important Mediterranean trade of Great Britain and Holland, called for convenience the Smyrna convoy, having been delayed during the previous year, anxious measures were taken to see it safe on its road in 1693. But the arrangements of the allied governments and admirals were not good. They made no effort to blockade Brest, nor did they take effective steps to discover whether or not the French fleet had left the port. The convoy was seen beyond the Scilly Isles by the main fleet. But as the French admiral Tourville had left Brest for the Straits of Gibraltar with a powerful force and had been joined by a squadron from Toulon, the whole convoy was scattered or taken by him, in the latter days of June, near Lagos. But though this success was a very fair equivalent for the defeat at La Hogue, it was the last serious effort made by the navy of Louis XIV. in this war. Want of money compelled him to lay his fleet up. The allies were now free to make full use of their own, to harass the French coast, to intercept French commerce, and to co-operate with the armies acting against France. Some of the operations undertaken by them were more remarkable for the violence of the effort than for the magnitude of the results. The numerous bombardments of French Channel ports, and the attempts to destroy St Malo, the great nursery of the active French privateers, by infernal machines, did little harm. A British attack on Brest in June 1694 was beaten off with heavy loss. The scheme had been betrayed by Jacobite correspondents. Yet the inability of the French king to avert these enterprises showed the weakness of his navy and the limitations of his power. The protection of British and Dutch commerce was never complete, for the French privateers were active to the end. But French commerce was wholly ruined.

It was the misfortune of the allies that their co-operation with armies was largely with the forces of a power so languid and so bankrupt as Spain. Yet the series of operations directed by Russel in the Mediterranean throughout 1694 and 1695 demonstrated the superiority of the allied fleet, and checked the advance of the French in Catalonia. Contemporary with the campaigns in Europe was a long series of cruises against the French in the West Indies, undertaken by the British navy, with more or less help from the Dutch and a little feeble assistance from the Spaniards. They began with the cruise of Captain Lawrence Wright in 1690-1691, and ended with that of Admiral Nevil in 1696-1697. It cannot be said that they attained to any very honourable achievement, or even did much to weaken the French hold on their possessions in the West Indies and North America. Some, and notably the attack made on Quebec by Sir William Phips in 1690, with a force raised in the British colonies, ended in defeat. None of them was so triumphant as the plunder of Cartagena in South America by the Frenchman Pointis, in 1697, at the head of a semi-piratical force. Too often there was absolute misconduct. In the buccaneering and piratical atmosphere of the West Indies, the naval officers of the day, who were still infected with the corruption of the reign of Charles II., and who calculated on distance from home to secure them immunity, sank nearly to the level of pirates and buccaneers. The indifference of the age to the laws of health, and its ignorance of them, caused the ravages of disease to be frightful. In the case of Admiral Nevil's squadron, the admiral himself and all his captains except one, died during the cruise, and the ships were unmanned. Yet it was their own vices which caused these expeditions to fail, and not the strength of the French defence. When the war ended, the navy of King Louis XIV. had disappeared from the sea.

See Burchett, _Memoirs of Transactions at Sea during the War with
France, 1688-1697_ (London, 1703); Lediard, _Naval History_ (London,
1735), particularly valuable for the quotations in his notes. For the
West Indian voyages, Tronde, _Batailles navales de la France_ (Paris,
1867); De Yonghe, _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen_
(Haarlem, 1860). (D. H.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The name "Grand Alliance" is applied to the coalition against
Louis XIV. begun by the League of Augsburg. This coalition not only
waged the war dealt with in the present article, but (with only
slight modifications and with practically unbroken continuity) the
war of the Spanish Succession (q.v.) that followed.

[2] Louvois died in July 1691.

[3] A few days before this the great naval reverse of La Hogue put an
end to the projects of invading England hitherto entertained at
Versailles.

[4] Marsaglia is, if not the first, at any rate, one of the first,
instances of a bayonet charge by a long deployed line of infantry.

[5] Hussars figured here for the first time in western Europe. A
regiment of them had been raised in 1692 from deserters from the
Austrian service.

GRAND CANARY (Gran Canaria), an island in the Atlantic Ocean, forming part of the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands (q.v.). Pop. (1900) 127,471; area 523 sq. m. Grand Canary, the most fertile island of the group, is nearly circular in shape, with a diameter of 24 m. and a circumference of 75 m. The interior is a mass of mountain with ravines radiating to the shore. Its highest peak, Los Pexos, is 6400 ft. Large tracts are covered with native pine (_P. canariensis_). There are several mineral springs on the island. Las Palmas (pop. 44,517), the capital, is described in a separate article. Telde (8978), the second place in the island, stands on a plain, surrounded by palm trees. At Atalaya, a short distance from Las Palmas, the making of earthenware vessels employs some hundreds of people, who inhabit holes made in the tufa.

GRAND CANYON, a profound gorge in the north-west corner of Arizona, in the south-western part of the United States of America, carved in the plateau region by the Colorado river. Of it Captain Dutton says: "Those who have long and carefully studied the Grand Canyon of the Colorado do not hesitate for a moment to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly spectacles"; and this is also the verdict of many who have only viewed it in one or two of its parts.

The Colorado river is made by the junction of two large streams, the Green and Grand, fed by the rains and snows of the Rocky Mountains. It has a length of about 2000 m. and a drainage area of 255,000 sq. m., emptying into the head of the Gulf of California. In its course the Colorado passes through a mountain section; then a plateau section; and finally a desert lowland section which extends to its mouth. It is in the plateau section that the Grand Canyon is situated. Here the surface of the country lies from 5000 to 9000 ft. above sea-level, being a tableland region of buttes and mesas diversified by lava intrusions, flows and cinder cones. The region consists in the main of stratified rocks bodily uplifted in a nearly horizontal position, though profoundly faulted here and there, and with some moderate folding. For a thousand miles the river has cut a series of canyons, bearing different names, which reach their culmination in the Marble Canyon, 66 m. long, and the contiguous Grand Canyon which extends for a distance of 217 m. farther down stream, making a total length of continuous canyon from 2000 to 6000 ft. in depth, for a distance of 283 m., the longest and deepest canyon in the world. This huge gash in the earth is the work of the Colorado river, with accompanying weathering, through long ages; and the river is still engaged in deepening it as it rushes along the canyon bottom.

The higher parts of the enclosing plateau have sufficient rainfall for forests, whose growth is also made possible in part by the cool climate and consequently retarded evaporation; but the less elevated portions have an arid climate, while the climate in the canyon bottom is that of the true desert. Thus the canyon is really in a desert region, as is shown by the fact that only two living streams enter the river for a distance of 500 m. from the Green river to the lower end of the Grand Canyon; and only one, the Kanab Creek, enters the Grand Canyon itself. This, moreover, is dry during most of the year. In spite of this lack of tributaries, a large volume of water flows through the canyon at all seasons of the year, some coming from the scattered tributaries, some from springs, but most from the rains and snows of the distant mountains about the headwaters. Owing to enclosure between steeply rising canyon walls, evaporation is retarded, thus increasing the possibility of the long journey of the water from the mountains to the sea across a vast stretch of arid land.

The river in the canyon varies from a few feet to an unknown depth, and at times of flood has a greatly increased volume. The river varies in width from 50 ft. in some of the narrow Granite Gorges, where it bathes both rock walls, to 500 or 600 ft. in more open places. In the 283 m. of the Marble and Grand Canyons, the river falls 2330 ft., and at one point has a fall of 210 ft. in 10 m. The current velocity varies from 3 to 20 or more miles per hour, being increased in places by low falls and rapids; but there are no high falls below the junction of the Green and Grand.

Besides the canyons of the main river, there are a multitude of lateral canyons occupied by streams at intervals of heavy rain. As Powell says, the region "is a composite of thousands, and tens of thousands of gorges." There are "thousands of gorges like that below Niagara Falls, and there are a thousand Yosemites." The largest of all, the Grand Canyon, has an average depth of 4000 ft. and a width of 4-1/2 to 12 m. For a long distance, where crossing the Kaibab plateau, the depth is 6000 ft. For much of the distance there is an inner narrower gorge sunk in the bottom of a broad outer canyon. The narrow gorge is in some places no more than 3500 ft. wide at the top. To illustrate the depth of the Grand Canyon, Powell writes: "Pluck up Mount Washington (6293 ft. high) by the roots to the level of the sea, and drop it head first into the Grand Canyon, and the dam will not force its waters over the wall."

While there are notable differences in the Grand Canyon from point to point, the main elements are much alike throughout its length and are due to the succession of rock strata revealed in the canyon walls. At the base, for some 800 ft., there is a complex of crystalline rocks of early geological age, consisting of gneiss, schist, slate and other rocks, greatly plicated and traversed by dikes and granite intrusions. This is an ancient mountain mass, which has been greatly denuded. On it rest a series of durable quartzite beds inclined to the horizontal, forming about 800 ft. more of the lower canyon wall. On this come first 500 ft. of greenish sandstones and then 700 ft. of bedded sandstone and limestone strata, some massive and some thin, which on weathering form a series of alcoves. These beds, like those above, are in nearly horizontal position. Above this comes 1600 ft. of limestone--often a beautiful marble, as in the Marble Canyon, but in the Grand Canyon stained a brilliant red by iron oxide washed from overlying beds. Above this "red wall" are 800 ft. of grey and bright red sandstone beds looking "like vast ribbons of landscape." At the top of the canyon is 1000 ft. of limestone with gypsum and chert, noted for the pinnacles and towers which denudation has developed. It is these different rock beds, with their various colours, and the differences in the effect of weathering upon them, that give the great variety and grandeur to the canyon scenery. There are towers and turrets, pinnacles and alcoves, cliffs, ledges, crags and moderate talus slopes, each with its characteristic colour and form according to the set of strata in which it lies. The main river has cleft the plateau in a huge gash; innumerable side gorges have cut it to right and left; and weathering has etched out the cliffs and crags and helped to paint it in the gaudy colour bands that stretch before the eye. There is grandeur here and weirdness in abundance, but beauty is lacking. Powell puts the case graphically when he writes: "A wall of homogeneous granite like that in the Yosemite is but a naked wall, whether it be 1000 or 5000 ft. high. Hundreds and thousands of feet mean nothing to the eye when they stand in a meaningless front. A mountain covered by pure snow 10,000 ft. high has but little more effect on the imagination than a mountain of snow 1000 ft. high--it is but more of the same thing; but a facade of seven systems of rock has its sublimity multiplied sevenfold."

To the ordinary person most of the Grand Canyon is at present inaccessible, for, as Powell states, "a year scarcely suffices to see it all"; and "it is a region more difficult to traverse than the Alps or the Himalayas." But a part of the canyon is now easily accessible to tourists. A trail leads from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway at Flagstaff, Arizona; and a branch line of the railway extends from Williams, Arizona, to a hotel on the very brink of the canyon. The plateau, which in places bears an open forest, mainly of pine, varies in elevation, but is for the most part a series of fairly level terrace tops with steep faces, with mesas and buttes here and there, and, especially near the huge extinct volcano of San Francisco mountain, with much evidence of former volcanic activity, including numerous cinder cones. The traveller comes abruptly to the edge of the canyon, at whose bottom, over a mile below, is seen the silvery thread of water where the muddy torrent rushes along on its never-ceasing task of sawing its way into the depths of the earth. Opposite rise the highly coloured and terraced slopes of the other canyon wall, whose crest is fully 12 m. distant.

Down by the river are the folded rocks of an ancient mountain system, formed before vertebrate life appeared on the earth, then worn to an almost level condition through untold ages of slow denudation. Slowly, then, the mountains sank beneath the level of the sea, and in the Carboniferous Period--about the time of the formation of the coal-beds--sediments began to bury the ancient mountains. This lasted through other untold ages until the Tertiary Period--through much of the Palaeozoic and all of the Mesozoic time--and a total of from 12,000 to 16,000 ft. of sediments were deposited. Since then erosion has been dominant, and the river has eaten its way down to, and into, the deeply buried mountains, opening the strata for us to read, like the pages of a book. In some parts of the plateau region as much as 30,000 ft. of rock have been stripped away, and over an area of 200,000 sq. m. an average of over 6000 ft. has been removed.

The Grand Canyon was probably discovered by G. L. de Cardenas in 1540, but for 329 years the inaccessibility of the region prevented its exploration. Various people visited parts of it or made reports regarding it; and the Ives Expedition of 1858 contains a report upon the canyon written by Prof. J. S. Newberry. But it was not until 1869 that the first real exploration of the Grand Canyon was made. In that year Major J. W. Powell, with five associates (three left the party in the Grand Canyon), made the complete journey by boat from the junction of the Green and Grand rivers to the lower end of the Grand Canyon. This hazardous journey ranks as one of the most daring and remarkable explorations ever undertaken in North America; and Powell's descriptions of the expedition are among the most fascinating accounts of travel relating to the continent. Powell made another expedition in 1871, but did not go the whole length of the canyon. The government survey conducted by Lieut. George M. Wheeler also explored parts of the canyon, and C. E. Dutton carried on extensive studies of the canyon and the contiguous plateau region. In 1890 Robert B. Stanton, with six associates, went through the canyon in boats, making a survey to determine the feasibility of building a railway along its base. Two other parties, one in 1896 (Nat. Galloway and William Richmond) the other in 1897 (George F. Flavell and companion), have made the journey through the canyon. So far as there is record these are the only four parties that have ever made the complete journey through the Grand Canyon. It has sometimes been said that James White made the passage of the canyon before Powell did; but this story rests upon no real basis.

For accounts of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado see J. W. Powell,
_Explorations of the Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries_
(Washington, 1875); J. W. Powell, _Canyons of the Colorado_
(Meadville, Pa., 1895); F. S. Dellenbaugh, _The Romance of the
Colorado River_ (New York, 1902); Capt. C. E. Dutton, _Tertiary
History of the Grand Canyon District, with Atlas_ (Washington, 1882),
being Monograph No. 2, U.S. Geological Survey. See also the excellent
topographic map of the Grand Canyon prepared by F. E. Matthes and
published by the U.S. Geological Survey. (R. S. T.)

GRAND-DUKE (Fr. _grand-duc_, Ital. _granduca_, Ger. _Grossherzog_), a title borne by princes ranking between king and duke. The dignity was first bestowed in 1567 by Pope Pius V. on Duke Cosimo I. of Florence, his son Francis obtaining the emperor's confirmation in 1576; and the predicate "Royal Highness" was added in 1699. In 1806 Napoleon created his brother-in-law Joachim Murat, grand-duke of Berg, and in the same year the title was assumed by the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, the elector of Baden, and the new ruler of the secularized bishopric of Wurzburg (formerly Ferdinand III., grand-duke of Tuscany) on joining the Confederation of the Rhine. At the present time, according to the decision of the Congress of Vienna, the title is borne by the sovereigns of Luxemburg, Saxe-Weimar (grand-duke of Saxony), Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Oldenburg (since 1829), as well as by those of Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden. The emperor of Austria includes among his titles those of grand-duke of Cracow and Tuscany, and the king of Prussia those of grand-duke of the Lower Rhine and Posen. The title is also retained by the dispossessed Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty of Tuscany.

Grand-duke is also the conventional English equivalent of the Russian _velikiy knyaz_, more properly "grand-prince" (Ger. Grossfurst), at one time the title of the rulers of Russia, who, as the eldest born of the house of Rurik, exercised overlordship over the _udyelniye knyazi_ or local princes. On the partition of the inheritance of Rurik, the eldest of each branch assumed the title of grand-prince. Under the domination of the Golden Horde the right to bestow the title _velikiy knyaz_ was reserved by the Tatar Khan, who gave it to the prince of Moskow. In Lithuania this title also symbolized a similar overlordship, and it passed to the kings of Poland on the union of Lithuania with the Polish republic. The style of the emperor of Russia now includes the titles of grand-duke (_velikiy knyaz_) of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Finland. Until 1886 this title grand-duke or grand-duchess, with the style "Imperial Highness," was borne by all descendants of the imperial house. It is now confined to the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and male grandchildren of the emperor. The other members of the imperial house bear the title of prince (_knyaz_) and princess (_knyaginya_, if married, _knyazhna_, if unmarried) with the style of "Highness." The emperor of Austria, as king of Hungary, also bears this title as "grand-duke" of Transylvania, which was erected into a "grand-princedom" (Grossfurstentum) in 1765 by Maria Theresa.