Chapter XI: In Time of War

The now hastily summoned Council of War was distracted with private fears and disagreements. The Deputies, whose opinion had to be consulted, and with whom rested the power of final decision, were powerfully affected by the embassy M. de Witt had just sent upon its way to Doesburg.

It showed, they thought, both that the Grand Pensionary despaired of saving the country by force of arms, and also that he considered an advantageous treaty might yet be made with Louis.

They were, therefore, for avoiding a decisive engagement, and suggested that the army should retreat.

The deputy for Zeeland and M. Beverningh, influenced by the Prince, opposed this, and a high argument followed.

M. de Zuylestein and most of the officers of the Prince’s Staff were for fortifying the present camp and awaiting the attack of the enemy.

William himself was for falling back on Utrecht, at present undefended, and securing that against the advance of the French.

Under the orders of the States, and much against the wish of the Captain General, the forces had been imprudently divided. Major-General Wurtz had two thousand seven hundred men with which to defend Gorcum in the south; Prince John Maurice, with ten thousand men at Muyden, covered Amsterdam; the Marquis de Louvignies with the Spanish cavalry to the number of fifteen hundred occupied Schoonhoven; and Count Homes with the same number was stationed at Gouda.

These four positions were skilfully chosen, but inclusive of the men sent to strengthen the garrisons of Nymwegen and Arnheim they left the Prince, who had ardently wished to defend the Yssel to the last, a force of only three thousand six hundred under his personal control. With these he could hope to do nothing save defend as he might the entrance to Holland.

He told the Deputies so, and they, with the indecision that had so hampered his movements, shrugged and argued and would not say what they would or would not do.

At length the Prince, who had been largely silent, threatened to throw up his commission if he was not allowed a free hand. His position, he declared, was intolerable, and he would be no man’s puppet. M. de Witt’s policy of controlling the theatre of war from a Cabinet in the Binnenhof had been disastrous enough already. He, the Captain General, was constantly overruled and disregarded; they tied his hands, then tried to make him responsible for actions he had never sanctioned.

He was supported by M. de Zuylestein and M. Beverningh, and finally the others dare stand out no more. Two hours after the news of the approach of the enemy had been received orders were given to strike camp and fall back on Utrecht.

The news of the advance of M. de Rochfort was at best vague. Scouts reported that a large force had taken Emerloo and Rutten, and was approaching from that direction. The flying peasants declared the country from Heerde to Vaasen had been devastated, and that William’s lordship of “het Loo” was in the hands of the victorious French.

The Prince, seeing that only the insufficiently defended fortress of Nijkerk was between the enemy and Amersfoort and Utrecht, made a détour and threw his men along the banks of the Eem before Amersfoort, to whose defences he had just seen.

But the army were no sooner in position than the survivors of the little town of Wijk, a fortress on the Rhine, arrived with the news that a large division of the French were advancing on Utrecht by that route.

An instant message was sent to de Louvignies at Schoonhoven to defend the passage of the river Leek, and a small body of cavalry was sent on to Utrecht to encourage the city with an assurance of the Prince’s speedy arrival and to urge them to see to their defences.

It was now about one in the morning, and further arrivals from Elst, Schalkwyk, and Houten confirmed the news of the near vicinity of the enemy.

It was said that Louis had made a public boast that he would take Utrecht and treat with the commissioners of the States in their own town.

M. de Rochfort, with a large detachment of cavalry, was acting as his advance guard in clearing the country from Doesburg to Amersfoort.

The Captain General’s entire efforts now became directed to saving Utrecht. The city was one of the largest and finest in the Netherlands; it directly protected the entrance to Holland, and if it fell there was every reason to suppose that its loss would prove as fatal to that province as the capture of Wesel had to Guelders and Overyssel, both of which were now almost entirely in the hands of the enemy.

By a rapid countermarch, which was much impeded by a moonless, misty night, the army of the States recrossed the Eem at Amersfoort (which town was encouraged in its intention to resist the enemy by the addition of a company of infantry to its scanty garrison), and found themselves at daybreak in the rich and wooded meadows between Soest and Zeyst, the heart of the fertile and prosperous lands that comprised the district of Rutten.

They were perilously placed between two rivers, one of which, the Eem, had only Amersfoort to defend it; the other, the Rhine, being utterly unprotected until reinforcements should arrive from Gouda or Schoonhoven.

And as the French were circling round from the direction of Nijkerk, and on the other side from the banks of the Rhine, they indeed seemed, with their hopelessly inferior numbers, to be in a peril from which they could do nothing to extricate themselves.

Several of the Deputies were reduced to despair, and were for putting pressure on the Prince to abandon Utrecht and retreat into Holland towards Amsterdam.

But William, who owed his present position to their cautious policy, refused to listen to them, and, energetically encouraging his officers, pressed on towards the town of Utrecht.

They had not, however, come in sight of the walls before they heard the guns of the enemy and saw pale fires in the early sky, and at half-past six of a misty, warm morning they saw through their perspective glasses the glittering lines of the cavalry of France completely blocking their progress.

By reason of the flat country they could see a great way, and Count Struym, who knew the district well, pointed out the burning fortress of Zeyst, which had either blown up or been fired by the French.

The army halted, and officers and Deputies held a hasty consultation on horseback. The enemy now lay between them and Utrecht, and it was impossible to gain that town without a battle.

The Deputies again advised a retreat towards Amsterdam. In face of the overwhelming number of the enemy, M. de Rochfort’s force advancing from Nijkerk to conjoin, the unfortifiable nature of the ground, it would be not a battle but a massacre, and they were not authorised by the States to sacrifice the last defenders of the country; a defeat, they argued, would have a very ill effect on the projected negotiations of M. de Groot.

On the other hand, Count Struym contended that a retreat in face of the enemy would result only in a pursuit and an utter rout, in which they all would equally perish, but in this way with ignominy and disgrace.

The young Captain General sat silent on his grey horse and looked at the distant line of the French.

He was so well used to argument and opposition that he withheld his opinion till asked.

He had a great contempt for words, and the eloquence of the Deputies seemed to him mere mouthing. He was thinking of Utrecht, and wondering what there was to be got out of his men.

He had only been head of the army a few weeks, but he had made a new thing of the forces under his command. Throughout a campaign that had been a series of disasters and retreats his men had never lost heart. He had a way of maintaining discipline, and a personal popularity that the veterans did not possess; a gift of command that was worth everything to an army pitted against tremendous odds.

He turned his eyes on his men as they defiled across the meadows, to where the vanguard halted by a belt of trees and an old farm and windmill, and thoughtfully stroked his horse’s neck.

William Bentinck rode up to him.

“Sir,” he cried impatiently, “if these lawyers have their way we shall be cut to pieces as we stand----”

“They are for a retreat?” said the Prince.

“Yes----”

“It is neither wise nor honourable to retreat in sight of the enemy,” remarked the Captain General coldly. He turned his horse and rode up to M. Beverningh, and touched him on the arm.

“Mynheer,” he said curtly and decidedly, “there has been enough talking.”

They all looked at him.

“What is your wish?” asked Count Struym eagerly. “It seems to me, Highness, we have no course open but to fight.”

“There is Utrecht,” answered the Prince. “I mean to save Utrecht.”

The Deputies were silent. They wished, above all things, to avoid responsibility. William eyed them; he saw perfectly well that they would neither sanction nor veto his plans, and that whatever course he took they would blame him if it proved disastrous, and take the credit if it ended in success. Divided authority placed both sides in a difficult position, but if the Deputies hesitated the Captain General’s decision was prompt and unshakable.

His scheme was to remain and face the French with three regiments of cavalry, thereby distracting them from Utrecht, which town Count Struym, with the rest of the army of the States, was to reach in a détour by way of Maartensdyk and Maarsen.

It was hoped that before midday reinforcements would arrive from Schoonhoven and Gouda; these, attacking the rear of the enemy, would enable the Prince to withdraw the rest of his army along the road to Utrecht, which Count Struym must keep open, and throw himself into that town before the French bombarded the fortifications.

If these tactics savoured of desperation, the situation was such as called for desperate expedients, and no one dared withstand them. Some encouragement was afforded by the fact that the rising ground would disguise from the enemy that the stand the Dutch offered covered the retreat of the greater portion of their forces, and it was reasonably hoped that the French would not suspect that any attempt was being made to save Utrecht.

At half-past seven Count Struym drew off with the bulk of the army and the larger number of the Deputies.

M. Beverningh, however, remained with the Prince, who, relieved from supervision and control, was energetically disposing his little force to the best advantage.

Since they had broken camp they had been swelled by the survivors of the garrisons of the Rhine fortresses, large numbers of peasants, and M. de Montbas’ company of cavalry, which had been put under the command of M. Bentinck. In all they numbered about two thousand men, of which fourteen hundred were cavalry.

They had been marching and counter-marching all night, and some were mere fugitives without as much as a musket. They were weary, and had every excuse for discouragement; since neither the number of the enemy nor the peace proposals of M. de Witt (which all took for an indication of despair on that statesman’s part) could be disguised from them. To add to their discomfort the baggage waggons had not been able to keep pace with the rapid movements of the army, and there was not so much as a loaf of bread among them.

The mill and adjacent farms were found to be deserted, all the surrounding country-folk having retreated into Utrecht, and the hopes of food from these were dispelled.

The men were mostly unmoved. Their officers and the Prince himself were as badly off as themselves; they would sooner fight than retreat; they had a way of doing both quietly.

William rode among the companies, and his quick observation detected no discontent. Many of the men sang psalms as they brought up the guns, and there were weighty arguments on points of doctrine between Arminians and Calvinists, Latter Day Saints and Knipperdollings,--for these people, the most obstinate and unconvincible in the world, found one of their keenest pleasures in logic and argument.

William’s appearance woke their deep and sincere enthusiasm.

He spoke to them with more animation than M. Bentinck had ever known him show, promised the cavalry (who were doing the work of foot soldiers) double pay, and the peasants, who were digging trenches and erecting palisades, a florin a day while they stuck to their work.

He heartened them with a promise of rest and food in Utrecht before night, and entreated them to stand firm in defence of their religion and their liberty.

His resolution and his energy did not fail of its effect. They forgot fatigue, the number and prestige of the enemy, their own former disasters, and set themselves cheerfully in readiness.

But if the men were encouraged by the Prince’s inspection, he himself was not. Everything was lacking--ammunition, guns, even shoes and coats.

A considerable number of the cavalry were on foot for want of horses, and two culverins had had to be abandoned for lack of gun-carriages.

William thought bitterly of M. de Witt. The Grand Pensionary had answered his appeal in eager and affectionate terms, but neither levies nor supplies had arrived; de Witt seemed more desirous to send M. de Groot on a mission of peace than to strengthen the army, and the new Captain General was left with miserably inadequate means.

“M. Beverningh,” said William, “this is my first experience of war, and I do not think any one ever fell into a harder apprenticeship.”

And the coming encounter was his first experience of actual battle. He had been a fortnight with the army but had heard no more than the distant sound of the French guns; he had witnessed no engagement.

Yet perhaps M. Beverningh was the only man to whom it occurred as an anomaly that a youth of twenty-one who only knew war from books, and had never seen bloodshed, should be commanding an army in such desperate straits against a foe led by the most famous soldiers in the world.

Every one else seemed as unconscious as was the Prince himself. If he lacked experience he had certainly rare qualities; but M. Beverningh was curious as to his behaviour in the actual shock of battle, in the actual moment of leading his men to the encounter.

The infantry was placed behind the hastily constructed earthworks, and in the mill and farm buildings which were taken as the nucleus of the defence.

The French were an unaccountable time in advancing; seemed, if anything, to be hanging back.

The truth was their commander had no wish for an encounter with the Prince of Orange, against whom his master had no quarrel and whose interests Louis had agreed to respect. His intention was to take Utrecht, and he thought that, given a little time, William would have the tact to withdraw and leave the road open to him as M. de Montbas had done at the Rhine.

But about ten o’clock, perceiving (as he thought) the entire Dutch forces still immovable before their protection of trees and rising ground, he advanced to the attack, after expressing to his officers his regret that His Majesty’s cousin had given them the unnecessary trouble of beating him.

He had under his command seven or eight thousand men, well fed, well drilled; a fine corps of artillery, and two of the most renowned cavalry regiments of France. He was further strengthened by the knowledge of M. de Rochfort’s advance from Nijkerk and near approach of the King himself, who was reported to have already left Doesburg with the Household brigade, a conquered country behind his banners.

Through the thick, sweet, hazy air came at last the sound of the French drums and trumpets, and as it was quite windless their colours and banners were all displayed above them as they marched.

They had left their baggage waggons and some of their artillery under the guard of the infantry in the rear, for they did not regard the coming engagement as one likely long to impede their progress, and at an easy pace their magnificent cavalry advanced across the flat meadows to the little wood of elm and beech where the birds were singing among the warm leaves and the Dutch waited.

The sun bathed them in an even glow; red and blue coats, gold and silver trappings gleamed as the men and horses moved. From the distance even they had an extraordinarily easy demeanour, as if they laughed amongst themselves.

Soon it became possible to distinguish the soft tramp of the horses, the jingle of the harness, and the rumbling of the guns shaking on their carriages.

The Dutch trumpets made answer now, and as the French came within range their guns opened fire, tearing the summer peace into fury.

And as the smoke curled away the cavalry of the States galloped out of the wood in little companies, colours flying and slack reins.

The Prince of Orange, Count Königsmarck, and William of Aylva were together on a little incline, watching the enemy.

“Who are they?” asked the Prince of the German, who had travelled much in France.

“Regiments of the line, Highness, dragoons,--and in the centre one of the Household brigades.” He raised his perspective glass. “Yes, the company under the Prince de Soubise. I can see the colours.”

William said nothing, he turned and galloped to the centre of the line of guns, just beneath the mill.

The French, assuming the Netherlanders would have remained under cover if their numbers were weak, took the daring charge of the cavalry as a sign that their entire force was concealed by the rising ground.

This was the impression the Prince had hoped to create.

Instantly the French, wishing to draw their enemy into the open and to put themselves beyond the range of the guns, retreated with a skilful backward movement, steady and swift as the reflux of a wave.

Then the foremost company of cavalry, regardless of the empty saddles already made, divided, wheeled to left and right, met again and charged. This was the French mode; reckless, showy, expensive, but irresistible, at once the glory and the ruin of their arms. It exposed the very flower of their youth, gallantry, and nobility to the whole brunt of the battle, while the infantry remained comparatively immune.

Again and again the French were to buy dashing and profitless victories at the price of their best blood; again and again the aristocrats and gentlemen were to be sacrificed in cruel slaughter, until all the finest lives in France were hurled away in pursuance of the reckless policy of the cavalry charge of the Household troops.

So now they came on, reins hanging loose, the horses with lengthened necks, flattened ears, and staring eyes; ribbons, feathers, laces, and curls blowing back over the shoulders of the men.

The Dutch formed close and received the shock of the onset without flinching.

There was a short struggle, then the French withdrew at the gallop, wheeled and charged.

The Dutch backed before them, and as they swept to the foot of the wood a volley from the guns their cavalry had galloped aside to make way for sent back half the horses riderless.

The French were too well trained to show confusion; this was a fiercer defence, however, than they had expected.

M. de Soubise hurled forward two more companies and himself advanced with his own light horse.

This fresh and hot onslaught almost overpowered the Dutch horse; they were driven back almost to the mouths of their own guns.

The Prince sent out the Spanish cavalry to the rescue, and placed a regiment of foot behind the gunners where they could pick off the French cavalry from the cover of the trees.

M. de Soubise, unable to make much use of his artillery, had thrown out his left wing, composed of brigadiers and guns, in a half circle to attempt to storm the wood where the ground was flat and a small cottage the only vantage spot.

William, perceiving this, sent M. Bentinck to the assistance of the officer occupying the cottage, and himself rode up to M. D’Aylva, who was commanding the troops held in reserve.

“The French are magnificent,” he said, “but our men fight very well.”

He was flushed and excited, his eyes dark and wide open.

All the restraint had gone from his voice, and there was a new eagerness in his expression; the older man, at this irrelevant moment, found himself remembering that his General was a boy who had never seen battle before.

Himself a famous soldier, who had been named “a second Mars,” he looked critically at the Prince.

“M. de Soubise has every advantage,” he said.

“But we can keep him at bay till nightfall,” replied William, “when we can gain Utrecht.”

“Do you think so, Highness?”

The Prince turned on him the candid look of youth.

“Yes,” he said simply.

The air about them hung dun and heavy with smoke between the trees. The whizz and thud of bullets striking the trunks, the hoarse, deafening boom of the cannon, the nearer sound of striking tinder, transformed the sweet stillness of the morning into the lurid tumult of war.

“Your Highness is in some danger here,” said M. D’Aylva. “If you would withdraw nearer the mill----”

William smiled, and rode out of the trees on to the little clearing beside the guns.

The battle beat fiercely to and fro in the green meadows. M. de Soubise had turned his attention to the position held by M. Bentinck’s untaught valour, and at the foot of the wood the Dutch and French struggled desperately together.

The Prince’s keen glance swept over the field.

A cannon-ball fell beside him and exploded, frightening his horse into rearing frantically. He kept his seat and quieted the animal, wiping the foam from its face with his lace handkerchief.

Just beneath him a Dutch company had been repulsed by the enemy; nearly all the officers had fallen, and the men, left leaderless, were retreating in a confusion.

The Prince galloped down the incline, and to the head of the disheartened company. They were men of his own province, part of a Holland regiment.

“Gentlemen,” he said, drawing his sword, “will you have me for your leader?”

He was still smiling.

“It is the Prince!” they cried.

He lifted his sword and led them straight against the French dragoons.

They fought now with a mad passion that was not to be withstood.…

The French gave way, inch by inch, and eventually retreated to the main body.

Without a moment’s pause the Prince, shouting to the Spanish cavalry to join him, dashed round to the aid of M. Bentinck, who was being overpowered by sheer numbers.

Time after time his little band was driven back, time after time he led them again to the charge. The French themselves were amazed at this undaunted persistence; more than once their ranks were broken, and when Count Königsmarck came with a Guelderland regiment to the support of his master they abandoned their attack on the cottage after a fight lasting two hours.

The sun was now high overhead, and the strong rays drove even through the choking smoke and glared on the armour of the combatants; the air was hot, dry, and close with the smell of blood and powder. The leaves, but a few hours ago so fresh, hung withered and burnt along the lower branches, and some of the neat painted out-buildings of the farm were burning steadily with pale flames and black smoke.

Rank after rank, line after line, the French cavalry rode up, and the right wing of the Dutch began to give way.

The Prince extricated himself from the confusion round the rescued outpost, and rode with M. Bentinck to his retreating men.

They had lost all their officers save one young ensign, a Friesland giant with bright gold hair, who seemed dazed, not knowing what to do. He fought like one in a dream, aimlessly, the red blood drying on his cuirass.

William dismounted, throwing his reins to M. Bentinck.

“That is not the way!” he cried. “You must put more fire in it, gentlemen.”

He placed himself at their head and led them against the musketeers.

The young officer stared at him, bewildered.

“Mynheer!” cried the Prince, “second me now and I will give you this company!”

The Frieslander roused himself and shouted a word of command.

The Dutch stood firm, then hurled themselves against the enemy.

Twice they were repulsed by the superior force, twice the Prince led them back; till the trampled grass grew so choked with dead that the living were divided by the slain.

William of Aylva surveyed the battle from the top of the incline.

“Does the Prince want to meet his death?” he muttered; then, “What is this but madness?” And he looked at the army of France that rolled almost as far as the horizon, and, though he was a brave man, his counsels were for a flight, saving such lives as they could.

He saw the Prince, remounted on the grey horse, emerge from the smoky tumult, and he rode down to meet him.

“Highness,”--he caught the young man’s bridle,--“this is madness----”

William answered--

“No, it is my duty--where are these men if I do not hearten them?”

“If you are slain where are our hopes?”

The Prince laughed.

“I shall not be slain to-day.”

As he spoke a bullet glanced along his cuirass, carrying away the knot of his black scarf.

“We cannot do it,” said M. D’Aylva. “Will not Your Highness order a retreat?”

“Not yet, not yet!” answered the Prince passionately. He looked round at the broken battalions only his unconquerable energy had kept together so long.

“They need encouragement,” he exclaimed. “They dare not stand up to such veteran troops--yet it could be done----”

“If every man had your spirit,” muttered William D’Aylva, again looking at him curiously, “I believe it could.”

The Prince gathered together the last of the cavalry and rode back into the hottest part of the battle.

William D’Aylva, though with no hope, led the reserve regiment of Guelderlanders into action. Nearly all the Dutch artillery was useless; some of the guns were spiked, others had lost their gunners, and there was little powder left.

The right wing of the Holland regiments was utterly cut to pieces; M. Bentinck, coming too late to the rescue, could bring off no more than the colours and one tattered detachment. Still the centre and the left fought on. The Captain General found himself separated from his men; he galloped to the Spanish cavalry, where he had stationed it to defend the entrance to the wood.

Close to the rescued cottage he met a band of men who were doing nothing.

He drew up his horse and turned in the saddle.

“Why do you not charge?” he asked in French, thinking they were the Spanish who used that language.

The leader answered civilly that they had no powder, and even as he spoke William saw that they were French.

He was entirely in their power. His pride did not permit him to fly; he backed his horse.

“Good,” he said; “I will send you some powder.”

Utterly unconscious, they let him go, taking him for a French officer.

Not in the least impressed by what his temerity had exposed him to, William gazed round fiercely for the Spanish, who had apparently forsaken their post.

Suddenly he saw a detachment of them riding through the underwood--but riding away from the battle.

Pale with rage, he spurred up to them.

“What is this?” he asked them. “I think you should have your faces to the enemy!”

They had a look about them such as is seldom seen in men; sometimes in a horse before it shies.

“It is a massacre out there … carnage,” answered one through his teeth. “The day is lost … lost.”

“I’ll shoot the man who says so!” exclaimed the Prince, putting his hand to his holster. “Get back to your places, you cowards, and never care whether the day be lost or no as long as you stay where you are bidden.”

They cowered before him, and he, in his wrath, turned the officer’s horse himself, and when the man still hesitated he took his whip from his boot and lashed them back into the battle.…

It was now nearly dusk, and as the sun struck level rays across the battlefield, before it sunk below the flat horizon, the sound of the Marquis de Rochfort’s guns was heard in the distance.

No human endeavour could do any more. The Prince had kept up a fight of eight hours against overwhelming odds, holding at bay, with his raw, tired troops, the splendid forces of France.

More than half his army was slain; his guns were dismounted, his powder spent. Reluctantly he drew off his exhausted men, first firing the mill and the farmhouses to impede the enemy in the pursuit, which they were, however, by no means inclined to make.

M. de Soubise was quite satisfied with his victory, and it was no part of the training of his school of warfare to follow up a success.

He still imagined the Dutch to have been at least twice their number, and consequently magnified his own glory.

His men were tired, and with the dark great clouds blew up and warm rain fell. The French camp was pitched on the field of battle, and glowing dispatches written to His Majesty and M. de Louvois.

The Prince and his officers on the Utrecht road were not ill content either, for they had done what they intended, and at no higher a price than they had been prepared to pay.

Utrecht was saved; M. de Zuylestein installed within its walls.

Riding through the soft raining dark, William repeated that to himself--

“Utrecht is saved.”

But when they were within a few miles of the city a little band of men, bearing lanterns, came to meet them.

M. de Zuylestein’s men, with this news--

“The Catholics and French in Utrecht have seized the town and closed the gates to the forces of the United Provinces. They intend to open to King Louis, and refuse even to provision Your Highness’ men.”