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Title: Marlborough and the War of the Spanish Succession
Author: Nicholson, Gerald William Lingen (1902-1980)
Cartographer: Bond, C. C. J.
Date of first publication: 1955
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1955
   [Directorate of Military Training, Army Headquarters]
Date first posted: 28 March 2013
Date last updated: 28 March 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1058

This ebook was produced by
Barbara Watson, Mark Akrigg, Ronald Tolkien
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                           MARLBOROUGH AND
                              THE WAR OF
                        THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

[Illustration: MARLBOROUGH AT THE BATTLE OF OUDENARDE

(from du Bosc's _The Military History of the Late Prince Eugene of
Savoy and of the Late John Duke of Marlborough_, published 1736)]




                           MARLBOROUGH AND
                              THE WAR OF
                        THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

                                  By
                     LT.-COL. G. W. L. NICHOLSON,
        DEPUTY DIRECTOR, HISTORICAL SECTION, ARMY HEADQUARTERS
                                OTTAWA

                            Maps drawn by
                        CAPTAIN C. C. J. BOND


                   DIRECTORATE OF MILITARY TRAINING
                          ARMY HEADQUARTERS
                    QUEEN'S PRINTER, OTTAWA, 1955




                          TABLE OF CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

  I THE BACKGROUND TO THE WAR                                          1

     The Supremacy of France in the Seventeenth Century. The Problem
     of the Spanish Succession. The Rise of John Churchill. The
     Coalition against Louis XIV.

  II THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1702-3                                          13

     The Art of War in Marlborough's Day. The Clearing of the Lower
     Meuse, 1702. 1703--A Frustrating Year.

  III THE MARCH TO THE DANUBE, 1704                                   29

     The Expedition is Planned. From Bedburg to Donauwrth. The
     Assault of the Schellenberg.

  IV BLENHEIM, 1704                                                   48

     The Devastation of Bavaria. Eugene Rejoins Marlborough. The
     Approach to Battle. The Battle is Joined. The Decisive Stroke.
     "It was a Famous Victory".

  V THE LINES OF BRABANT, 1705                                        72

     After Blenheim. Failure on the Moselle. The Lines of Brabant.

  VI RAMILLIES, 1706                                                  87

     The French Seek Battle. The Allies Attack. The Pursuit.
     Exploiting the Victory.

  VII OUDENARDE, 1708                                                102

     The Stalemate of 1707. 1708--Early French Successes.
     Oudenarde--An Encounter Battle. The Siege of Lille.

  VIII MALPLAQUET, 1709                                              123

     Negotiations for Peace. The Siege of Tournai. Preparations for
     Battle. Malplaquet, September 11, 1709.

  IX THE LINES OF "NE PLUS ULTRA", 1711                              139

     The Campaign of 1710. Piercing the "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines. The
     Siege of Bouchain. Marlborough's Dismissal.


  APPENDICES

  Appendix "A"--Table of the Spanish Succession                      158

  Appendix "B"--Sources and Books for Further Reading                159


  MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

  Marlborough at the Battle of Oudenarde  frontispiece

  Europe during the War of the Spanish Succession                      3

  Campaign of 1702                                                    19

  The March to the Danube, 1704                                       33

  The Battle of the Schellenberg, 2 July 1704                         40

  Blenheim, 13 August 1704                                            55

  The Battlefield of Blenheim                                         63

  Operations between the Rhine and the Moselle, September--December
  1704                                                                73

  The Lines of Brabant, 17-18 July 1705                               80

  Operations, 15-18 August 1705                                       84

  Ramillies, 23 May 1706                                              90

  The Low Countries                                                   97

  Oudenarde, 11 July 1708                                            108

  Malplaquet, 11 September 1709                                      129

  The Campaign of 1710                                               141

  The "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, 1 May--7 August 1711                    144

  Capture of Bouchain, 7 August--14 September                        151




                              CHAPTER I

                      The Background to the War

     As to the Duke of Marlborough . . . it was allowed by all men,
     nay even by France itself, that he was more than a match for
     all the generals of that nation. This he made appear beyond
     contradiction in the ten campaigns he made against them; during
     all which time it cannot be said that he ever slipped an
     opportunity of fighting when there was any probability of his
     coming at his enemy. And upon all occasions he concerted
     matters with so much judgment and forecast that he never fought
     a battle which he did not gain, nor laid siege to a town which
     he did not take.


Thus recorded in his diary[1] Captain Robert Parker, whose regiment,
the 18th Foot (Royal Irish), fought under Marlborough in the War of
the Spanish Succession and contributed in no small way to the high
reputation with which the British Army emerged from that conflict. So
enthusiastic an estimate might well be discounted as coming from one
who served with the Duke and whose judgment might tend to be unduly
influenced by his great personal charm and the blaze of fame which
surrounded him while he lived. But other critics with no grounds for
personal bias have been just as generous; indeed Marlborough's
military stature has grown with the passage of time. A century later
one of Napoleon's ablest officers, General Foy, could find no higher
praise for the brilliant generalship displayed by the Duke of
Wellington at the battle of Salamanca than to place the Iron Duke
"almost on the level of Marlborough". Napoleon himself regarded
Marlborough's campaigns as a model; he read and re-read them many
times, and appears to have accorded the English general a higher place
than the great Frederick of Prussia. Modern military historians are
unanimous in placing Marlborough in the forefront of the great
soldiers of all time. "If there had been no Marlborough," writes one
of them,[2] "England would have sunk into a mere province of France,
and the United States would have been French, not English . . .
Centuries hence, when historians write their account of an England
which has become a mere name and of an Europe which has passed away,
they will be silent about many men who are now reckoned great, but
they will not pass over Marlborough."

The War of the Spanish Succession has been called "the most
businesslike" of all wars in which British forces have been engaged.
The investment of a comparatively small number of troops brought
Britain rich returns. By the end of the war she had acquired valuable
territorial assets (including her first permanent Mediterranean naval
base) and had replaced France as the leading state in Europe--and
hence in the world. That a limited expenditure for men and materials
could achieve such results must be credited in no small degree to the
masterly guidance of the Duke of Marlborough. While he is remembered
chiefly for the brilliant Continental victories which demonstrated his
skill as tactician (and it is primarily with these battles that this
study is concerned), these could not have crushed the power of France
had it not been for his genius in the field of grand strategy, in
which he was so ably served by his talents as statesman and diplomat.


          The Supremacy of France in the Seventeenth Century

What were the circumstances in which England became involved in this
war which was to bring her such profitable returns? Let us first look
briefly at the political picture of Europe at the close of the
seventeenth century. Dominating the scene was France, unified and
expanded by forty years of masterful rule by "the grand monarch",
Louis XIV. Pursuing his doctrine of "natural boundaries", Louis had
fought two wars (the War of Devolution, 1667-8, and the Dutch War,
1672-8) in an attempt to extend French domains to the Rhine. He had
managed to retain much of the fruits of this aggression by reaching a
stalemate in a third conflict, the War of the League of Augsburg,
1689-97, thrust upon him by an alliance of European states who
believed that the creation of a "balance of power" provided better
assurance for stability in Europe than any enforced recognition of
"natural boundaries".

[Illustration:

  EUROPE

  DURING THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

  Historical Section, G.S.
]

The lead in forming the Augsburg League in 1686 had been taken by the
Emperor Leopold I, head of the Holy Roman Empire. This crumbling
"survival of a great tradition and a grandiose title" was a loose
alliance of some three hundred independent states covering roughly the
territory of modern Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Belgium. The
most important member was Austria, which had been steadily growing
stronger as the ancient empire, weakened by religious quarrels and
destructive civil wars, fell into decline. The election to the
imperial crown of a succession of princes of the Austrian branch of
the House of Hapsburg had brought them little more than "an historical
title and dignified trappings", and it is not surprising that from
their court at Vienna they regarded the extension and consolidation of
their own Austrian dominions as a more profitable venture than the
defence of the decaying Germanic Empire. Of the German states which
joined the league against Louis XIV the most powerful was the
Electorate of Brandenburg, which in a few years was to become the
Kingdom of Prussia.

The two other major partners in the original league were Sweden and
Spain. The conquests of Gustavus Adolphus had made Sweden one of the
largest states in Europe; her territories east of the Baltic extended
from Finland to West Pomerania. But the enormous costs of her military
campaigns had seriously weakened Sweden, and at the turn of the
century, three years after the fifteen-year old Charles XII had
ascended the throne at Stockholm, her chief rivals, Russia, Poland,
Saxony and Denmark, banded together, judging the time ripe to strip
her of her trans-Baltic possessions. As for Spain, once the leading
power in Europe, the process of deterioration from her former
greatness was far advanced. Her participation in the Thirty Years' War
(1618-48) and subsequent struggles had emptied her treasury and
exhausted her military strength. Her hold on her vast territories in
the New World was slipping, and in Europe, although her Mediterranean
possessions (Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Milan)
were still intact, she had been forced to cede to France part of the
Spanish Netherlands (the present Belgium and Luxembourg). Nor could
Spain look to the crown for strong leadership out of her troubles.
Since 1665 the Spanish throne had been occupied by the sickly Charles
II, who from birth had been practically an imbecile.

In 1689 the expansion of the League of Augsburg into the Grand
Alliance, largely through the efforts of William III, brought Holland
and England into the coalition against France. By the latter half of
the seventeenth century Holland (variously called the United Provinces
or the Dutch Netherlands) had become England's bitterest rival in sea
power, trade and colonization (there were three Anglo-Dutch Wars
between 1652 and 1674). These differences were composed, however, when
in 1689, following the Revolution which drove James II into exile, his
son-in-law, William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, was called to
the English throne. William was the arch-enemy of Louis XIV, and he
lost no time in embroiling England in his feud with France. Thus began
the century-long struggle between the two countries which was to be
fought out not only on the historic battlegrounds of Europe, but on
less familiar fields in India and North America.

From the War of the Augsburg League, which the Treaty of Ryswick
terminated in 1697, William III emerged with added stature and an
influence in European politics which placed him on almost equal terms
with Louis XIV. Eight years of inconclusive conflict coming at the end
of a century which had seen more war than peace had left both sides
exhausted, and there now seemed every reason for the two monarchs to
seek a prolonged respite from hostilities. For William there was
little choice. He could not engage in further fighting without the
help of a strong English army. Yet his English subjects had no desire
to be involved again in their Dutch King's continental troubles.
Immediately after Ryswick Parliament ordered a rapid demobilisation of
the army,[3] relying on England's insularity and a strong navy to keep
her neutral in any future conflict. The adoption of this pacific
policy and the dissolution of the coalition against him gave Louis
(who was no more anxious to renew hostilities than was William) the
advantage over his opponent. He could now play a bold hand in the
complex game of European politics, knowing that when the opportunity
arose he could advance his own interests without fear of effective
opposition. That opportunity was to come in the disputed question of
the Spanish Succession.


                The Problem of the Spanish Succession

By 1697 it had become apparent that "Charles the Sufferer", the feeble
invalid on the Spanish throne, would die childless, and probably
before very long. His nearest male relatives were his two powerful
cousins, the Bourbon Louis XIV, King of France, and Leopold I, Holy
Roman Emperor and head of the Austrian Hapsburgs. Both had married
sisters of Charles II, although Louis had solemnly renounced any
French claim which might arise from his marriage. The question of who
would inherit the Spanish empire could not wait for solution until the
throne became vacant; for the balance of power in Europe would be
seriously upset if the crown of Spain with its control of half the
world became joined with either the French or the Austrian crown. With
the rival houses of Bourbon and Hapsburg each ready to resist to the
utmost the other's claim, partition of the Spanish empire appeared the
only solution if a general war were to be averted. In September 1698
William III and Louis XIV met secretly (the former without the
knowledge of the English Parliament) to frame what became known as the
First Partition Treaty. There were three major claimants to be
considered: the Bourbon candidate, Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of
Louis XIV (the French renunciation was assumed to have been nullified
by Spain's failure to pay their princess's dowry at the time of Louis'
marriage); Leopold's nominee, his son (by his second wife), the
Archduke Charles; and the Elector of Bavaria, Joseph Ferdinand,
grandson of the Emperor and his former Spanish wife (see Appendix
"A"). The choice of the two royal planners fell on the young Bavarian
prince, who being the least powerful of the three candidates was the
least likely by his acquisitions to disturb the balance of Europe.
Consolation prizes would be provided by pruning the Spanish
inheritance of its Italian possessions--the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies (Sicily and Naples) going to the French Dauphin, and Milan to
the Archduke Charles.

This settlement, whose guarantee by England, Holland and France seemed
sufficient to ensure its fulfilment, was unfortunately brought to
nought by the unexpected death, early in 1699, of the young Joseph
Ferdinand. Again Louis and William tackled the knotty problem of
succession, and in June 1699 agreed on a Second Partition Treaty. They
selected as the chief heir the Archduke Charles, who was to be King of
Spain and the Indies and ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, on
condition that these territories should never be joined to the Empire.
Naples, Sicily and Milan would go to the French Dauphin. The division
seemed to favour Austria; yet Leopold, wanting all for his son,
refused to accept the terms of the treaty. From this point war was
inevitable.

The long-awaited death of Charles II of Spain occurred in November
1700. Barely a month earlier, however, the moribund King had signed a
will leaving all his domains to Philip of Anjou. This unlooked for
action came less as a result of persuasive French diplomacy than of
pressure by the Spanish grandees, who were determined that their
empire should not be partitioned and who preferred by this means to
buy French support for their cause rather than face a hostile
neighbour against whom neither England nor Austria would be able to
protect them. By the terms of the fateful will Louis XIV must sanction
Philip's acceptance of the whole Spanish empire, or it would pass
intact to Charles of Austria. This proviso placed the Grand Monarch in
an extremely awkward position. If he refused the legacy, Austria could
rightfully claim the Italian territories which William and Louis had
previously reserved for France. In the words of one of the French
Ministers:

     The King, by rejecting the Will had no other course left than
     entirely to resign the Spanish Succession, or to wage war in
     order to conquer that part which the Treaty of Partition had
     assigned to France.

And Louis realized that the English, who were anxious about the safety
of their Mediterranean trade with Turkey and the Levant, would not
support him in any war to win Naples and Sicily to France.

Louis soon reached a decision. Since he was faced with an Austrian war
whichever course he took, it was naturally to his advantage to have
Spain on his side and her ports and fortresses open to his forces. He
accepted the will and sent his grandson to rule in Madrid as King
Philip V. And now the moderation which had heretofore characterized
his attitude on the question of the Spanish Succession gave way to
arrogance, and he soon antagonised England and Holland, uniting them
with Austria against him. In 1701 he marched his armies into the
Spanish Netherlands, occupied the Spanish fortresses there, and went
on to seize the Dutch Barrier--a chain of seven fortresses[4]
stretching from Luxembourg to the sea which the Dutch had been given
right by treaty to maintain in Spanish territory.

France's entry into Belgium and her newly acquired influence in Italy
had a damaging effect on English trade, and other blows followed.
Louis forced the Spaniards to hand over to a French company the
contract for supplying African slaves to Spanish America, thereby not
only blighting English hopes in that direction but opening the door to
French smuggling between the New World and European ports. In June
1701 Portugal allied herself with France and Spain, with the result
that there was now "not a port between London and Leghorn" where
British ships could find shelter in case of war. Before the end of the
year the authorities in Spanish ports were compelling English and
Dutch merchants to sell their goods at half price. There was a strong
reaction in England, where King William found public opinion veering
rapidly towards the support of his United Provinces. In May a petition
had urged the House of Commons to turn its "loyal addresses" into
"bills of supply" in order "that his most sacred Majesty may be
enabled powerfully to assist his allies before it is too late." A
treaty signed in 1677 had pledged England to aid the Netherlands with
10,000 men if attacked, and before the end of June twelve battalions
reached Holland from service in Ireland. Louis XIV was taken
completely unawares by this action, which his ambassador at Madrid
attempted to explain on the grounds that "the English are the most
unsteady people, easy to be blown to violent resolutions."


                      The Rise of John Churchill

The man whom William made Commander-in-Chief of the English contingent
and appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the
United Provinces was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. Although the
King was but fifty years of age, he had been for some time in
indifferent health, and in selecting to succeed him, both in command
and diplomacy, one who had for much of the past decade been out of the
royal favour, he showed a shrewd recognition of the problems which
were likely to face the next wearer of the English crown and an
appreciation of Marlborough's ability to cope with them.

To these important posts John Churchill came well fitted by experience
and temperament. He was born in 1650, the same year as his royal
master, the son of a country squire who had been on the King's side in
the Civil War. At the age of seventeen he was commissioned in what
later became the Grenadier Guards, and as an ensign saw garrison
service in Tangier. In the Franco-Dutch War of 1672-8, in which
England supported Louis XIV, young Churchill distinguished himself as
a Captain at the sieges of Nijmegen and Maastricht. His promotion was
rapid. By 1674 he was commanding a British infantry regiment in the
French service, during which employment he earned the commendation of
the renowned Marshal Turenne, and "learned to speak and write bad
French with fluency and confidence". This first active phase of his
military career ended in 1675, when he returned to England to resume
his place in the household of the King's brother, James, Duke of York.
In 1678 he married Sarah Jennings, Maid of Honour to the Duchess of
York, and in the following year, when public opinion compelled Charles
II to banish James as a papist, Colonel Churchill and his wife
accompanied the Duke to Brussels.

During the next four years he was employed upon a number of important
missions between the royal brothers, the successful completion of
which owed much to his shrewdness and tact, coupled with his great
personal charm, and helped to establish his reputation as a skilled
diplomat. James was able to return to the London Court in 1682, and
shortly afterwards Churchill was rewarded by being raised to the
Scottish peerage and made Colonel of the King's Own Royal Regiment of
Dragoons (an appointment which entitled him to make what profit he
could out of the annual clothing of the regiment). Three years later,
on the death of Charles, his patron ascended the throne as James II.
Almost immediately Churchill, in the rank of Brigadier-General, was
called on to play a major part in the suppression of the Duke of
Monmouth's ill-fated rebellion (although he had no hand in the
atrocities which followed). His promotion to Major-General (with no
increase of pay) came just before the decisive Battle of Sedgemoor.

The year 1688 saw Lord Churchill taking the critical step which has
been termed by his illustrious descendant "the most poignant and
challengeable action of his life."[5] For the past three years James
II, having successfully survived the Monmouth revolt, had been moving
steadily in the direction of absolute government and a return of
England to the Church of Rome. Firm in his Protestant upbringing and
sure in his judgment of what was best for England, Churchill did not
hesitate to issue the plainest of warnings to his royal master. These
went unheeded, yet apparently unresented; James knew that "Churchill
loathed his policy, but fondly believed he loved his person more." But
early in 1688 the Princess Anne, whose childhood acquaintance with
Sarah Churchill had ripened into a warm and intimate friendship, was
to write of John Churchill to her elder sister, Queen Mary, "though he
will always obey the King in all things that are consistent with
religion--yet, rather than change that, I daresay he will lose all his
places and all that he has." That summer Churchill joined in the
invitation to William of Orange to come to England. For nineteen days
after the landing Churchill remained with James, before slipping away
to William's camp. His unexpected defection, which was copied by the
other leading officers of the Army, convinced James of the
hopelessness of his cause and hastened his departure to France. Years
later, when giving her instructions "to the Gentlemen that are to
write the Duke of Marlborough's History", the widowed Duchess was to
set down: "When he left King James, [it] was with the greatest Regret
imaginable, but he saw it was plain that King James could not be
prevented any other way from establishing Popery and arbitrary Power
to the Ruin of England." This justification of Churchill's actions
might be more convincing had he remained firm in his break with James
and given his unswerving loyalty to his new sovereign.

Churchill's first task under William III was to rebuild the Army,
which James had disbanded in chaos when he saw that all was lost. He
tackled the job energetically, bringing to it the wealth of his
organizational ability and military experience. He was confirmed in
the rank of Lieutenant-General, and at the coronation of William and
Mary in April 1689 he was advanced to the Earldom of Marlborough. The
War of the Augsburg League had broken out and during the next two
years the new Earl fought with William in the Low Countries and in
Ireland, adding to his military repute in both campaigns. But his
attitude towards the King was becoming openly hostile. He was
dissatisfied with his rewards (an expected Order of the Garter and the
lucrative post of Master General of the Ordnance had been bestowed
elsewhere), and he complained to William about the preferred treatment
given to the King's Dutch favourites. The break came early in 1692,
when William discovered that Marlborough had sought and obtained the
forgiveness of the exiled James, and had allowed his name to be
associated with several suspected Jacobite plots. (That Marlborough
planned to recall James to the English throne seems less likely than
that he hoped to depose William in favour of his niece Anne.) The King
stripped Marlborough of all his civil and military offices, banished
him from Court, and even confined him for a few weeks in the Tower of
London. The remainder of the war was fought without the services of
Marlborough, William commanding the Allied troops in the Low Countries
with no conspicuous success. The process of restoration to favour
began in 1698, when Marlborough was appointed Governor to the young
Duke of Gloucester, Anne's only surviving son; later in the same year
he was readmitted to the Privy Council and was selected as one of the
nine Lord Justices to rule England during the King's absence in
Holland. Although Marlborough wrote in May 1700, "The King's coldness
to me still continues",[6] by the middle of 1701, as we have seen, he
had risen once more to the important post of Commander-in-Chief, and
was in addition enjoying extensive diplomatic powers.


                   The Coalition Against Louis XIV

On reaching The Hague in July Marlborough at once entered into
negotiations for a last-minute settlement with France and Spain. That
having failed, he began the reconstruction of a Grand Alliance against
Louis XIV. King William remained in the background, wisely leaving the
Earl to treat with the ambassadors from the various courts of Europe.
The experience gave Marlborough a valuable insight into European
affairs from the continental point of view. What he now learned in the
field of grand strategy was to keep him from ever contenting himself
with the popular belief "that naval operations against Spanish
colonies and treasure-ships were the chief part of all that England
need do to bridle the ambition of Louis."[7] Deliberations were
completed by the beginning of September, and on the 7th Marlborough
signed the main treaty, by which the Empire, Holland and England
agreed to unite in imposing their territorial demands upon France and
Spain. According to these Philip V would rule Spain and the Indies,
but the French and Spanish crowns should in no circumstances become
united. In return for this recognition of Philip, Milan, the two
Sicilies and the Spanish Mediterranean islands were to go to the House
of Austria. The disposition of the Spanish Netherlands, in which Dutch
and Austrian interests conflicted, was purposely left indefinite--they
were to "serve as a dyke, rampart and barrier to separate and keep off
France from the United Provinces". A clause in the treaty guaranteed
England and Holland the same commercial privileges with Philip V's
territories as they had enjoyed under his predecessor, at the same
time prohibiting French ships from trading with the Spanish Indies.
The treaty expressly set down the number of troops that each of the
principals would put into the field to enforce these objectives. The
Empire agreed to furnish 66 regiments of foot and 24 of horse (82,000
men), Holland 82 foot and 20 horse (100,000) and England 33 foot and
seven horse (40,000).

Subsequent agreements made individually with Prussia, Hanover and
other German principalities swelled the numbers of the international
army which was forming against Louis XIV--these minor powers, many of
which maintained forces far larger than the size of their territories
warranted, pledging their contingents in return for English and Dutch
subsidies. By the exercise of skilful diplomacy and the outlay of
large sums of money Marlborough secured the neutrality of the young
Charles XII of Sweden, who had just won an exhilarating victory over
Russia and was being assiduously wooed by Louis, with whom he was
traditionally far more inclined to side than the Emperor. With Sweden
thus restricted her nervous neighbour Denmark felt safe in supplying
her quota of troops to the Grand Alliance.

An enthusiastic English Parliament quickly ratified the treaties which
Marlborough had negotiated, and preparations went forward rapidly to
put the country on a war footing. England had to raise 58,000
men--40,000 seamen for her fleet and 18,000 soldiers. The remaining
22,000 troops required to meet her commitment to the Grand Alliance
would be foreign soldiers in English pay. Then on February 20, 1702
King William was thrown from his horse while taking exercise and broke
his collarbone. Complications set in and in two weeks he was dead. On
March 8 Anne, younger daughter of James II, ascended the throne. Her
friendship with Sarah Churchill at this stage was never more sincere.
During the Churchills' long service in her father's household Anne had
been accustomed to turn to them for guidance in almost all she did.
Now that she was queen her reliance upon Marlborough was greater than
ever; for the next five years the management of not only England's
military ventures on the Continent but also of the country's domestic
affairs was to rest largely in the Duke's hands.




                              CHAPTER II

                       The Campaigns of 1702-3


                 The Art of War in Marlborough's Day

Before turning to Marlborough's campaigns on the Continent it may be
useful to examine briefly the state of military science at the
beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession. Two types of
operation, both generally carried out in accordance with certain set
rules of procedure, dominated the military scene--the siege, and the
large-scale pitched battle. The wasting struggles of the Thirty Years'
War had encouraged a tendency to favour defensive methods of warfare.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century the principle of
offensive action as accepted today received little recognition; to be
considered a successful commander it was less important to win
victories than to guard against defeat. The numerous fortresses and
fortified towns of Flanders furnished ample scope for the exercise of
such non-aggressive tactics; securely garrisoned, they would serve as
strong points about which a defending army might manoeuvre almost
indefinitely while holding off a superior force.

In attempting to reduce one of these fortresses the attacker must
employ two armies--one to perform the actual investment, the other to
cover the siege by warding off counter-blows from the defending field
force. As one war after another flowed across this cockpit of Europe
and these strongholds changed hands time and again, the procedure
became so stereotyped that it was possible to predict with a high
degree of accuracy the cost, in time and lives, of taking a particular
fortress. Thus was Louis XIV able on occasion to move his Court in
holiday mood to the scene of action in order to enjoy the operations
from a safe distance and then participate in the capitulation
ceremonies.

Custom had established just as definite a pattern for the conduct of
the pitched battle. It was an operation to be entered upon only after
careful deliberation. An army was a great political and moral asset
which had been acquired at great expense; it might not be lightly
risked in decisive action. In those days there were no well organized
lines of communication moving a steady stream of reinforcements up to
the front; a beaten army usually meant no more campaigning until an
intervening winter had allowed its commander to go home and rebuild
his forces. Thus the stakes were uncomfortably high. In a single
battle two opposing armies with a combined strength of upwards of
200,000 men, fighting on a front restricted to three or four miles,
might in a few short hours decide the issue of a year's campaign--if
not of the whole war. Topographical conditions had to be just right.
As we shall see, the manoeuvrability of an army in line of battle was
very low; a hedge, a ditch, or any other comparatively minor
irregularity might be enough to throw the advancing ranks into
confusion. Accordingly battle was rarely joined unless the combat
ground conformed closely to accepted standards of space and flatness;
and, of greater importance, a considerable numerical advantage seemed
to lie with the attacker. It was far less risky to wage war by the
slower method of attrition and piecemeal absorption of territory (and
there was then always the possibility of coming to terms with the
opponent).

Campaigns had to be fought in the summer months, when forage was
plentiful and the few roads had sufficiently recovered from the winter
rains to allow the passage of troops. In this respect the Spanish
Netherlands were particularly suited to conduct of war because of
their rich plains furnishing abundant crops for the feeding of armies,
and their navigable waterways which could be used for moving siege
trains and other heavy material. Always the approach of winter ended
hostilities for the year and the opposing armies would retire into
winter quarters until the following spring. Many of the officers would
return to their homes to spend the next six months recruiting
replacements and preparing for the summer's campaign. For the
commander-in-chief dependent upon foreign contingents to fill his army
it was a time for making the rounds of his clients to ensure that each
was going to live up to his commitment in the spring.

The composition of Marlborough's armies during his campaigns was never
more than one-third British. This component was raised in the main by
voluntary enlistment, each colonel being responsible for bringing his
regiment up to strength. The officers whom he sent recruiting, when
they had combed the countryside for likely yokels, could usually find
in the jails and the debtors' prisons many willing candidates for the
Queen's bounty; and they were further assisted by a series of
Recruiting Acts passed from 1703 onward, which authorized certain
limited forms of conscription (such as impressing able-bodied
unemployed persons with no visible means of support).

The presence of the foreign contingents alongside his English force
precluded any homogeneity in the structure of Marlborough's army. Nor
was there anything approaching the systematic organization of modern
times. Corps and divisional formations were unknown, and indeed were
not to come into existence until the wars of the French Revolution.
Not only did each national contingent retain its identity as a
fighting force, but within each the troops of the various arms were
kept segregated both for purposes of administration and for tactical
employment. The absence of any established chain of command through
which the commander-in-chief might delegate his authority meant that
he had to exert personal control over the operations of all parts of
his army. From a point of vantage overlooking the battlefield he would
direct the progress of the action, keeping the position and role of
every unit registered in his mind, and transmitting to each his verbal
orders by means of specially trained liaison officers. It was a
prodigious task, and one which required a rare combination of almost
superhuman intellectual and physical qualities.

The seventeenth century had seen an important development in the
tactics of battle--the change from fighting in column to fighting in
line. During the Thirty Years' War it had been the custom for cavalry
to charge in close column of six or more in depth, directing their
attack against infantry drawn up in dense columns, with the pikemen in
the centre flanked on either side by the musketeers in mutual support.
One of the great contributions of Gustavus Adolphus to tactics had
been to reduce the depth of both horse and foot formations; as a
result, by the end of the century the cavalry charge was usually
delivered in line three deep, and opposed by infantry formed in ranks
not more than six deep. The cavalry continued to be the dominant arm
in battle as long as the pike remained the chief infantry weapon. The
principal weakness of the infantry lay in this necessity of having to
employ pikemen to protect with their ten- or twelve-foot weapons the
musketeer laboriously engaged with his slow-loading matchlock. The end
of this cumbersome interdependence (not unlike that of the
intermingled archers and dismounted men-at-arms of an earlier day) was
foreshadowed by the introduction of the ring, or socket, bayonet in
the 1680s. Its great advantage over the earlier plug bayonet, which
blocked the muzzle of the musket, was in allowing the musketeer to
fire his weapon right up to the instant of engaging the enemy with
cold steel. By the turn of the century the ratio of pike to musket in
English regiments had fallen as low as one to five. Before the battle
of Blenheim the last pikes in Marlborough's armies had been replaced
by firearms, although French infantry were still being trained in "_le
combat  la pique et au mousquet_."

Musketry had further developed with the replacement of the matchlock
by the much faster flintlock; by 1700 a man thus armed could fire at
the previously unheard of rate of one shot a minute. The new musket[8]
had the added advantage of requiring only about half as much space for
loading and firing as the clumsier matchlock. The closing up of files
which this made possible, the substitution of musketeers for pikemen,
and the improved capabilities of the new weapon all contributed to the
production of a greatly increased volume of fire on any given front.
Marlborough made the most of these advances, believing that infantry
"was not a thing that stood, but a thing that fired." He insisted on
constant exercise in fire discipline and marksmanship, schooling his
troops to fire by platoons, two or three men deep--a technique which
permitted close control and achieved a more devastating volley than
the system, which the French continued to use, of firing rank by rank.

As the War of the Spanish Succession opened, the ability to deliver
the maximum volume of fire was being recognized as the most important
factor in determining the order in which an army would be drawn up for
battle. To secure the widest possible front for firing, the normal
arrangement was to form up the infantry three deep in two long lines
reaching across the centre. Deploying the troops into position from
order of march was a complicated procedure, and in spite of lengthy
parade ground training every winter took a considerable time, all
wheeling having to be carried out at the halt. To maintain these ranks
in perfect order throughout the battle, either when halted or when
moving forward, was the aim to which much exacting drill and the
exercise of rigid discipline were directed. A line once broken could
rarely be repaired; any gap in that row of fire or in the array of
advancing bayonets might afford the opposing cavalry squadrons a point
of penetration to throw all into confusion.

The cavalry were posted on both flanks, also in two lines, and in the
rear there might be a small reserve of horse and foot. In the
seventeenth century it was the general practice on the continent for
squadrons when charging to attack with carbine or pistol fire before
drawing their swords. It was a manoeuvre of very dubious worth, for
either the speedy motion of the horse made accurate shooting
impossible, or should the rider draw rein in order to take proper aim
the whole benefit of the momentum gained in the charge was lost. The
great Gustavus however taught his Swedish horse to charge straight in,
sword in hand, reserving their firearms for the ensuing mle; and
this tactic had been copied by both Rupert and Cromwell in the English
Civil Wars. Following this practice Marlborough's troopers charged
with the sword as their only weapon, reaching their maximum rate of
speed--a full trot--just before the moment of impact. As will be seen,
this shock action gave the English cavalry a decided advantage over
their French opponents, whose squadrons at Blenheim still halted to
discharge their firearms.

Field artillery up to this time had played a relative minor role,
partly because of the limited accuracy and range of the crude
field-pieces then in use, and also from the fact that the work of
moving these in and out of position was done not by soldiers[9] but by
hired civilians with a natural disinclination to take any risk which
might cause them to become casualties. It was customary for the guns,
generally three-pounders weighing about eight hundredweight and firing
round shot at long range and grapeshot at close quarters (although
heavier pieces up to 24-pounders were in use), to be placed out in
front of the infantry in order to cover the deployment into line of
battle. Because of their lack of mobility their usefulness generally
ended once the opposing forces had come to grips. As we shall see, the
Duke of Marlborough attached great importance to artillery and made
the most of the superiority in gun strength enjoyed by the English
over the French (one estimate gives a ratio of 1.16 guns per 1000 men
for the Allies against .91 for the French). Before a battle he would
personally site each of his batteries, carefully co-ordinating his
artillery fire with that of his infantry to thin the enemy's ranks and
break up their counter-attack; and he did not hesitate to shift his
guns to a more advantageous position as the operation developed. But
although artillery was acquiring some mobility the heavy guns required
for siege operations still remained. It is recorded that a siege train
in Marlborough's day consisted of 100 guns and 60 mortars of all
calibres up to 15 inches (only mortars and howitzers fired explosive
bombs or shells), and more than 3000 wagons. It took 15,000 horses to
move this cumbersome train, and its passage occupied more than fifteen
miles of road space.[10]

It must not be imagined however that because battles of Queen Anne's
day were generally fought by set formulas and with weapons inferior to
those of modern times they were the less violent or sanguinary. Let a
master of description paint the scene:

     We do not think that the warriors of our time,[11] unsurpassed
     in contempt of death or endurance of strain, would have
     regarded these old battles as a light ordeal. Instead of
     creeping forward from one crater to another or crouching low in
     their trenches under the blind hail of death and amid its
     shocking explosions, Marlborough's men and their brave,
     well-trained opponents marched up to each other shoulder to
     shoulder, three, four, or six ranks deep, and then slowly and
     mechanically fired volley after volley into each other at
     duelling distance until the weaker wavered and broke. This was
     the moment when the falcon cavalry darted in and hacked and
     slashed the flying men without mercy. Keeping an exact, rigid
     formation under the utmost trial, filling promptly all the gaps
     which at every discharge opened in the ranks, repeating at
     command, platoon by platoon, or rank by rank, the numerous
     unhurried motions of loading and firing--these were the tests
     to which our forebears were not unequal. In prolonged severe
     fighting the survivors of a regiment often stood for hours
     knee-deep amid the bodies of comrades writhing or for ever
     still. In their ears rang the hideous chorus of the screams and
     groans of a pain which no anaesthetic would ever soothe.


                The Clearing of the Lower Meuse, 1702

On May 4, 1702 England, the United Provinces and the Empire
simultaneously declared war on France. Marlborough went at once to The
Hague as Queen Anne's ambassador. It took a month or more to dispose
of the claims of various rival candidates for the chief command of the
allied armies, and at the end of June the Dutch named Marlborough
Deputy Captain General of the Republic. The appointment placed him in
charge of the British, Dutch and German armies, a command which he was
to exercise continuously for the next ten years. Although nominally he
held no authority over the forces of the Austrian Empire, he was
recognized (by his enemies, if not always by his allies) as the
leading general of all the forces opposing Louis XIV, and we shall
refer to him hereafter as Commander-in-Chief.

But the ten thousand pounds a year which the Dutch paid Marlborough
carried with it very definite restrictions on his freedom to wage war
as he chose. Following constitutional practice they attached to his
staff two parliamentary deputies, whose instructions were to see that
the new Captain General exercised extreme caution in all that he
undertook and did not allow himself to be drawn into any battle that
could possibly be avoided. The Government at The Hague was suffering
from the defensive complex which had characterized so much of the
campaigning of the latter seventeenth century, and it was quite
content to prevent the French from occupying Dutch territory without
making any attempt to drive them out of the Spanish Netherlands.

[Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF 1702

Historical Section, G.S.]

To Marlborough the situation in the Low Countries at the beginning of
the campaigning season of 1702 seemed one that called for vigorous
offensive Allied action. The Grand Monarch held an extremely
advantageous position as a result of his seizure of the Spanish
Netherlands and the Dutch Barrier and his occupation of the
Archbishopric of Cologne and the Bishopric of Lige, whose rulers had
both made common cause with Louis. The French controlled the important
waterways of the Scheldt, the Meuse (except for the fortress of
Maastricht, still in Dutch hands), and the Lower Rhine from Bonn down
almost to Nijmegen. During the summer of 1701 Louis had caused to be
constructed, under the direction of his skilled engineer Sbastien
Vauban, a seventy-mile defence system stretching from Namur on the
Meuse to Antwerp on the Scheldt. These "Lines of Brabant", consisting
of extensive field works based on a number of small rivers and
supplemented by low-lying areas which had been deliberately flooded,
were strongly garrisoned and were designed to bar the way to any
opposing army seeking to reach French territory by an advance west of
the Meuse.

In disposing his forces for the summer's campaigns, Louis placed in
the Netherlands an army of 60,000 men led by one of his most competent
generals, Marshal Boufflers. He sent another 60,000 under Marshals
Villars and Vendme to Italy to carry on the fight against Prince
Eugene of Savoy, the brilliant commander of the Imperial Army of
Austria. A third French army of 20,000 men under Marshal Catinat was
put on guard in the region of Alsace, as a check to an Allied army of
equal size commanded by Prince Louis of Baden, which was blocking any
French move eastward across the Upper Rhine. The Prince was holding
the strong "Lines of Stollhofen", an elaborate system of
fortifications which he had constructed to close the nine-mile gap
between the Rhine at Stollhofen (fifteen miles below Strasbourg) and
the heavily timbered slopes of the Black Forest Mountains.

When on July 2 Marlborough, accompanied by his two Dutch Field
Deputies, went to Nijmegen, there to assume command of an army of
60,000, fighting had been in progress for ten weeks. In mid-April a
combined Dutch-German force of 25,000 had besieged Kaiserswerth, a
French-held fortress on the right bank of the Rhine, half a dozen
miles below Dsseldorf. Its capture would free the river from the
Dutch border up to Cologne. The main French army had pushed up between
the Meuse and the Rhine to within twenty miles of Nijmegen, the Dutch
stronghold which guarded the Rhine delta and barred entry to Holland.
From his headquarters at Xanten Boufflers had sent an army under
Marshal Tallard to raise, or at least hamper, the siege of
Kaiserswerth, but his efforts from the Rhine's left bank had been
unavailing. On June 10 Boufflers suddenly made a two-pronged advance
through Gennep and Cleves in an attempt to nip off the Dutch General
Ginckel, who was at Kranenburg concentrating the main Allied army and
at the same time covering the siege of Kaiserswerth. Ginckel narrowly
escaped to the protection of the guns of Nijmegen, and Boufflers took
up position at Gennep, with his left flank protected by the River
Meuse. Kaiserswerth fell in mid-June, setting free 8000 of the
besiegers to join the main Allied force, the others moving up the
Rhine to rid the Archbishopric of Cologne of its remaining French
garrisons.

Marlborough soon found that any plan to march southward and seek a
decisive battle with the French was stubbornly opposed by the
authorities at The Hague as well as by the Dutch generals in his army,
who in their anxiety to guard Holland closely showed little concern
that the initiative in the campaign should remain with the French. "If
the fear of Nimeguen and the Rhine had not hindered us from marching
into Brabant", he wrote to the Earl of Godolphin, the English Lord
Treasurer, on July 13, "they [the French] must then have had the
disadvantage of governing themselves by our motions, whereas we are
now obliged to mind them."[12] Marlborough won the support however of
one of the Dutch Deputies, who urged the Grand Pensionary of Holland,
Anton Heinsius, "to be so good as to work unceasingly for a resolve to
do something effective; for without action all is lost."[13]
Marlborough realized that he must contrive to get the French out of
the area between the Lower Rhine and the Meuse before the Dutch would
agree to operations against the Spanish Netherlands--and he had to
accomplish this without committing his forces to a pitched battle.

On July 15 he moved his army to Grave, on the Meuse eight miles
south-west of Nijmegen, and ten days later, having secretly bridged
the river in three places, crossed to the left bank. His intention was
to advance towards Dutch-held Maastricht, in the hope that this threat
to the French communications would force Boufflers to beat a retreat.
Before he could start his march, however, to placate the Dutch he was
compelled to divide his army and leave a substantial force entrenched
in front of Nijmegen. Having covered forty miles in five days
Marlborough halted at Lille St. Hubert within the territory of the
Bishopric of Lige to see what Boufflers would do. The French
commander reacted as expected. Finding his enemy between him and the
Lines of Brabant, he recalled Tallard from the Rhine and fell back to
the south-west by way of the fortresses of Venlo and Roermond, leaving
both strongly garrisoned. On August 1 his path of retreat lay over a
wide moorland between Lille St. Hubert and the village of Peer.
Although this would take his army right across the Allied front,
Boufflers decided to make the attempt under cover of darkness. This
was what Marlborough was waiting for, and he ordered his troops to
stand to their arms all night. But at the crucial moment the Dutch
Deputies prevailed on him to abandon the attack. Next morning at the
Commander-in-Chief's insistence they rode out with their generals to
watch the passage of the French across the heath and, writes Parker in
his _Memoirs_, "saw them hurrying over it in the greatest confusion
and disorder imaginable; upon this they all acknowledged that they had
lost a fair opportunity of giving the enemy a fatal blow."

A second opportunity came next day when the tired French army was
still ten miles from its destination, encamped in an ill-chosen
position that made it particularly vulnerable to attack. But again
Marlborough's hands were tied by Dutch timidity, and Boufflers escaped
safely behind his defence lines, where he was shortly joined by
Tallard. On August 5 the Allied army moved forward to Peer, a score of
miles from the River Demer, which formed part of the Brabant position.

Furious at the loss of the whole of the lower Meuse (below Maastricht
only the isolated fortresses of Stevensweert, Roermond and Venlo were
still in French hands) Louis XIV spurred Boufflers to vigorous action.
A profitable course seemed to lie in interrupting Marlborough's supply
lines, which because passage up the Meuse was still blocked by the
French forts, ran overland from Nijmegen and Bois-le-Duc.[14]
Marlborough, who was just as anxious for action as the Grand Monarch,
set the stage by arranging that a large convoy of bread wagons from
the north should pass within reach of Boufflers. Thus enticed the
French left the safety of their lines on August 9, intending to
intercept the supply train near Eindhoven. Marlborough's move to cut
in behind them was made prematurely, however, and Boufflers escaped
the trap. The Duke now moved his main army southward, keeping General
Opdam's convoy escort of 6000 men well to the rear as a decoy. With
the King's exhortations in mind, Boufflers went in pursuit, and after
three days came up with Opdam near Helchteren, where to his
consternation he found not only the small force of the Dutch general,
but the whole of Marlborough's army drawn up for battle on the open
plain. Yet once more Marlborough's skilful manoeuvring was to go for
naught. His advantage over the tired and unprepared French was so
obvious that the Dutch Deputies assented to an attack. The battle
opened with a brisk artillery exchange which caused several hundred
casualties to each army, but when Opdam was ordered to make a key
assault on the French left, which was badly disarrayed because of
marshy ground, he refused to advance because the footing was not firm.
The remaining hours of daylight were wasted without an attack being
made, and during the night Boufflers was able to complete his
deployment. Next day the Deputies, finding the balance between the two
sides more even, although still in Marlborough's favour, prohibited
further offensive action. That night Boufflers slipped back behind the
River Demer. In bitter disappointment Marlborough wrote from
Helchteren:[15]

     I have but too much reason to complain that the ten thousand
     men upon our right did not march as soon as I sent the orders,
     which if they had, I believe we should have had a very easy
     victory, for their whole left was in disorder ... I am in so
     ill humour that I will not trouble you, nor dare I trust myself
     to write more ...

The dispiritedness of the Dutch Deputies or the Dutch generals had now
prevented Marlborough on at least four occasions from forcing a
decisive action on the French. For the remainder of the campaigning
season of 1702 he turned to the reduction of the three Meuse
fortresses below Maastricht. Siege warfare being a conventional form
of operation to which they were well accustomed the Dutch raised no
objections to these undertakings, particularly against Venlo, which
besides being the strongest of the three was the closest to Holland.
It was invested on August 29, but although preparations had been
ordered well in advance there were long delays in bringing the heavy
siege batteries up the river and securing the civilian labour to carry
out the required entrenchings and mining. To cover the siege
Marlborough placed himself with an army of 45,000 at Asch between
Helchteren and the Meuse, where he could intercept not only any French
attempt to relieve Venlo but also any move against the Dutch garrison
in Maastricht, about ten miles to his south. Venlo fell on September
23 after a brilliant assault upon an outlying fort by a British force
(which included Captain Parker's Royal Irish Regiment), and
Stevensweert and Roermond were taken in quick succession. By October 7
the whole of the Meuse was cleared as far as Maastricht.

It was late in the season for further campaigning, but Marlborough
sought once more for a chance to smash the French army. Less than
twenty miles up the Meuse from Maastricht was the city of Lige, whose
retention by the French was of great importance to their
communications with Bonn and their other fortresses on the Rhine. To
check a possible Allied move in this direction Boufflers, who was
under orders from Louis XIV to save Lige at all costs, moved to
Tongres and took up a stand on the Jaar, a small tributary which
entered the Meuse above Maastricht. The threat did not deter
Marlborough from marching south. On the night of October 13-14 he
crossed the Jaar between the French position and the Meuse. As was to
be expected his proposal to attack Boufflers was vetoed and he turned
to the reduction of Lige. The town opened its gates immediately but
there was stern opposition from the citadel, which only fell to a
general assault on October 23, and an outlying fort which capitulated
six days later. The capture of Lige was Marlborough's crowning
success of the 1702 campaign, and a bitter blow to the French, who
besides sustaining 10,000 casualties in the siege now found themselves
cut off from their positions in the Archbishopric of Cologne.

Early in November Marlborough moved his men into winter quarters and
headed for England, narrowly avoiding capture when the boat in which
he was descending the Meuse was waylaid by a marauding band of French
irregulars. He escaped by using a French passport which had been made
out for his brother, General Charles Churchill (for the custom still
persisted from the days of chivalry for generals to give their
opposite numbers safe-conduct passes). Marlborough was
enthusiastically welcomed by the English people and the Parliament;
the Queen conferred a dukedom upon him, and he was granted a pension
of five thousand pounds a year for life.

The year 1702 had not gone as well for the Allies on other fronts. In
Italy Prince Eugene, who by his masterly campaigning in 1701 had
established himself in Lombardy, had failed in his efforts to extend
his control south of the Po. On the Upper Rhine Prince Louis of
Baden's capture of the fortress of Landau had been more than offset by
the treacherous defection to the French of Prince Max Emmanuel, who
had succeeded the young Joseph Ferdinand (page 6 above) as Elector of
Bavaria. While negotiating with the Allies he suddenly seized the city
of Ulm on the Danube, thereby threatening the communications of Prince
Louis and the other Allied German Princes of the Rhine with Vienna.
Fortunately for the Allies the barrier of the Black Forest Mountains
separated the Bavarian Elector at Ulm from the French forces west of
the Rhine, and although Marshal Villars, replacing Catinat, routed
Prince Louis' army at Friedlingen in mid-October, it was too late in
the season for a junction. Before campaigning ceased Marshal Tallard's
capture of the fortresses of Trves and Trarbach in the Moselle valley
had opened to the French a new passage from the Netherlands to the
Upper Rhine.

An Allied amphibious undertaking against Spain, designed as the first
step in Marlborough's strategy to gain control of the Mediterranean,
had miscarried. At the end of July a British fleet under Admiral Sir
George Rooke carrying a force of 8000 soldiers commanded by the Duke
of Ormonde sailed for Cadiz, the key port for trade with Spanish
America, with orders to seize that important harbour as a base for
subsequent operations against Minorca in the Balearic Islands. There
was even a hope, if all went well, that help by sea might be brought
to Prince Eugene's operations in Northern Italy. The assault on Cadiz
failed through the Admiral's apathy and the General's weak leadership,
and through lack of co-operation by both; and the fiasco was only
partly redeemed on the way home by a well executed raid on a treasure
fleet in Vigo Harbour in North-Western Spain, which enriched the
British treasury by one million pounds sterling.

Marlborough spent the remaining winter months in preparation for the
campaign of 1703, receiving from Parliament a vote of 10,000
additional foreign troops and five new British battalions. He returned
to The Hague in mid-March in order to make an early start with
operations. The probability of what the French would do played an
important part in determining the Allied plans. Louis XIV was anxious
to join forces with his new ally, the Elector of Bavaria, to which end
he proposed to send Marshal Villars eastward through the Black Forest
and bring the French army in Italy back across the Alps into Bavaria.
He was content to stay mainly on the defensive in the Netherlands,
where Villeroi had 60,000 men behind the Lines of Brabant, covering
the area from Namur to Bruges. However, he wanted Lige retaken at the
opening of the year's campaign, before the Allies, who were expected
to be delayed by the customary tardiness of the Dutch, were ready to
begin operations.


                       1703--A Frustrating Year

Marlborough recommended to the Allied planners a vigorous offensive in
Flanders that would compel the French to reinforce their army there,
and so curtail their activities along the Upper Rhine. As usual the
Dutch, clinging to the idea that "to reduce fortresses was the whole
art of war", would agree only to besieging Bonn, the capture of which
would free the whole Lower Rhine (the fortress of Rheinberg having
been taken early in February in a winter siege).

The investment of Bonn began on 27 April, much earlier than the French
had expected Allied campaigning to start. Marlborough took personal
charge of the operation, placing a covering army of 15,000 men under
the Dutch Marshal Overkirk between Lige and Maastricht. This
relatively small force was soon attacked by Villeroi, who, surprised
and angered by Marlborough's sudden move, thought to recapture Lige
while the Allies were occupied with the siege of Bonn. A heroic stand
at Tongres by two Allied battalions delayed a French army of 40,000
men more than a day, and the timely arrival of 10,000 British
reinforcements, coupled with the support of the fortress guns of
Maastricht, provided Overkirk with a sufficiently powerful argument to
compel a French retirement. This check of the enemy at the Meuse gave
Marlborough the time he needed at Bonn. By pressing the siege with the
utmost vigour (the general bombardment employed the unprecedented
fire-power of ninety large mortars of up to 8 inches in calibre, 500
smaller mortars and more than 500 guns) he forced a capitulation on
May 15--less than forty-eight hours after Villeroi had shamefacedly
withdrawn from before Maastricht.

The Duke hastened back to the Meuse, and immediately set afoot his
next project. He called it "the great design", and aptly so, for it
was a bold plan to capture Antwerp by mounting four widely separated
attacks against the French. The thrust on the big port itself was to
be made by General Opdam advancing southward from Bergen-op-Zoom, to
which base twenty battalions from the Bonn operation were transported
in troop barges down the swiftly flowing Rhine. At the same time a
diversionary attack would be made sixty miles to the west against
Ostend by another force under the noted Dutch engineer, Baron Cohorn,
a master of siege warfare and inventor of the small grenade-throwing
mortar to which he gave his name. Marlborough himself would pin down
Villeroi by moving his main army south-westward from Maastricht to
threaten the fortress of Huy, which commanded the Meuse between Lige
and Namur. A final diversion was assigned to the fleet, which was to
simulate an assault against Dieppe on the French coast.

But "the great design" failed, less from any weakness in the plan or
strength of enemy opposition, than from the failure of Marlborough's
subordinates to carry out their allotted tasks. The Commander-in-Chief
himself succeeded in drawing Villeroi well down towards Huy, but in
the north Cohorn, whose merit as a tactician seems to have fallen
short of his skill as an engineer, instead of attacking Ostend
obtained permission from The Hague to go on a plundering raid into the
region between Antwerp and Bruges. For nearly three weeks the armies
of Marlborough and Villeroi faced each other north of Huy while the
Duke waited in vain for the States-General to make Cohorn carry out
his original assignment, and so force a detachment from the garrison
at Antwerp. At the end of June, Opdam, without co-ordinating his
actions with the other Allied forces, advanced with 10,000 troops to
within four miles of Antwerp. He was met and defeated by Marshal
Boufflers' army of nearly 40,000, which Villeroi had rushed northward
behind the Brabant Lines.

The main armies on both sides had been drawn towards Antwerp by
Opdam's ill-timed move, but Marlborough's proposal to force an
engagement a few miles south of the city was rejected. Throughout the
summer the Dutch refused to sanction any attack on the French lines,
and he had to be content with the siege of two not very important
fortresses--Huy, which fell on August 25, and Limbourg, ten miles east
of Lige, which was taken on September 27.

The obstruction of the Dutch parliament and its generals was
intolerable to Marlborough (indeed, he made up his mind to resign his
command), for a victory in Flanders was particularly desirable in view
of Allied setbacks elsewhere. Marshal Villars, after capturing the
fortress of Kehl on the east bank of the Rhine opposite Strasbourg,
had crossed the Black Forest and joined the Elector Max Emmanuel, so
that now the French had a clear path from Lorraine to Bavaria. On
September 20 Villars and the Elector soundly defeated an Imperial army
at Hochstadt on the Danube, and the Elector's capture of Augsburg
shortly afterwards still further opened a way to Vienna. Only a
spirited uprising by the peasantry of Tyrol against the Elector's
attempt to overrun their country prevented his Bavarian army from
linking up with Marshal Vendme, who was ready to come through the
Brenner Pass from Italy. Finally, Marshal Tallard's recapture of
Landau in November deprived the Grand Alliance of a useful outpost in
the valley of the Upper Rhine.

This gloomy balance sheet reflected two minor Allied gains, although
neither of them achieved by force of arms. In September Victor
Amadeus, whose Duchy of Savoy-Piedmont guarded the Alpine passes
between Italy and France, had quarrelled with Louis XIV and declared
for the Allies. There had been no major activity at sea; but an
alliance with Portugal had given the English and Dutch fleets the use
of Lisbon and Lagos.

The Allied reverses do not seem to have greatly worried the Dutch. Far
from sharing Marlborough's disappointment they regarded the campaign
of 1703 as quite successful, and in celebration struck a medal showing
the Duke receiving the keys of the three fortresses he had captured
and inscribed with what he must surely have regarded as a most dubious
tribute--"Victorious without slaughter, by the taking of Bonn, Huy,
and Limburg". While this motto epitomizes the Dutch concept of
warfare, it is hard to think of a less appropriate allusion to
Marlborough's aspirations and achievements in the campaign just
completed. For him it had been a year wasted in passively safeguarding
the Dutch frontier; as in 1702, recurring opportunities of smashing
the armies of the French king had been thrown away.

But although for two years Marlborough had not been allowed to
demonstrate conclusively his tactical skill in battle, he had during
that time given ample evidence of the military genius that was to win
him the great victories of the next six years. If we may apply to the
years 1702-3 the Principles of War generally recognized by modern
students of military science[16] we shall see the measure of
Marlborough's superiority over his Dutch Allies. The two campaigns
demonstrate above everything else his firm belief in the necessity for
_Offensive Action_--a conviction which sets him far apart from most of
his contemporaries. Just as apparent was the Allied failure to agree
on the _Selection and Maintenance of the Aim_--the non-observance of
this primary principle, as demonstrated in the diverging views on
strategy held by Marlborough and the Dutch, was more than anything
else responsible for the Allied lack of success. The Dutch insistence
on tying down large forces along their borders in a passive role of
defence violated the principle of _Economy of Effort_; fortunately for
the Allied cause this was to some extent offset by Marlborough's
_Flexibility_--notably in his manoeuvres between Eindhoven and
Helchteren in August 1702, and the speed with which he redisposed his
forces after the capture of Bonn in the following May. The mobility
with which the Duke executed these tactics enabled him to achieve
effective _Surprise_, although circumstances did not permit him to
reap its benefits. We shall see more of this use of mobility, however,
in subsequent campaigns, when the genius which employed it will at
last be allowed to reap its just rewards.




                             CHAPTER III

                    The March to the Danube, 1704

                      The Expedition is Planned


The year 1704 opened with exceedingly gloomy prospects for the Grand
Alliance, for it seemed impossible that the Empire could be saved from
French domination, in which event European resistance to the Grand
Monarch must inevitably collapse. Vienna was seriously threatened from
east, south and west. In Hungary Magyar hostility against the House of
Austria, which had first shown itself in guerrilla risings in 1702,
had developed into open warfare waged by powerful armies under the
fiery leadership of the outlawed Prince Rakoczy. In mid-February the
English ambassador wrote from Vienna: "We live at the discretion of
the Hungarians as to the suburbs, where they may arrive with little
opposition in twelve hours' time."[17] In the south Marshal Vendme,
burning to punish the defection of Victor Amadeus, was preparing a
major offensive against Savoy and its allied Austrian army in Northern
Italy.

Austria's western neighbour, Bavaria, as we have already noted,
blocked the Emperor's communications with his Maritime allies, and the
Elector now controlled the Danube from its source to the Austrian
frontier. With Marshal Marsin, who had succeeded Villars in command of
the French Army of Bavaria, he had assembled 40,000 men at Ulm, ready
to descend the Danube as soon as reinforcements should arrive from
France. Marsin's force was one of eight French armies placed in the
field by Louis XIV, who was confidently determined that 1704 would be
the decisive year of the war. The primary objective was Vienna. Once
French and Bavarian troops had joined hands there with the Hungarian
rebels (who had not wanted for French support in money and men) Louis
would be able to dictate separate terms of peace to the Emperor
Leopold, leaving Holland and England to face the armies of France
alone.

Good strategist as he was, the Duke of Marlborough could not have
failed to appreciate these unfavourable prospects for the coming year;
but if there remained any possible doubt concerning the serious danger
to Vienna it was removed by the insistent representations of the
Emperor's ambassador to England, Count Wratislaw. As the Empire's
plight became increasingly desperate during 1703 the Austrian envoy
not only vigorously pressed his case in London but travelled from
court to court of the Grand Alliance soliciting aid for Leopold, and
urging in the strongest possible terms that in 1704 the Allies must
turn their attention eastward from the Netherlands. The proposal to
carry the war into a new theatre was in line with the thinking of
Marlborough, who was resolved never again to exercise command in
Flanders under the restrictions of the last two years. It also found
favour with the English parliament, where a strong anti-Dutch attitude
had arisen, particularly on the part of the Tory opposition.

During the winter of 1703-4 Marlborough gave careful consideration to
the various courses advocated by Count Wratislaw, the boldest of which
was to strike at the main threat to Vienna by leading an army against
the enemy forces in Bavaria.[18] It was probably April before he
finally included in his plans a march to the Danube, but in the
meantime he produced a design that was to win the enforced support of
the defence-minded Dutch and at the same time serve as an effective
cover plan for the major operation, should that be undertaken.
Marlborough had long entertained the idea that once the Dutch frontier
was cleared he would invade France by advancing up the valley of the
Moselle from its junction with the Rhine, and thereby outflanking the
strong fortress zone which stretched across southern Flanders. Dutch
timidity had kept him from carrying this out during 1702 and 1703, but
at the end of January we find him crossing to The Hague firmly
resolved "to induce the States-General to decide upon a siege of
Landau, or a diversion on the Moselle."

At first the Dutch Government vigorously opposed his proposal to
transfer all British and some foreign troops to the Moselle region,
even though Dutch forces and the remaining auxiliaries would remain
under General Overkirk on the defensive in the Netherlands. But with
the influential Grand Pensionary, Heinsius, on his side, Marlborough
finally won a grudging acquiescence in the Moselle plan, and even
secured a vote of subsidies to maintain the Margrave of Baden and
other German princes in the field. Before he returned to London the
Duke arranged for the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents that were
watching the northern frontiers of Bavaria to move westward to
Coblenz, where they would ostensibly be available for operations on
the Moselle, but at the same time be in readiness to join in a march
up the Rhine.

After a brief period in England, during which he matured his plans and
arranged for the dispatch of 10,000 reinforcements to his army on the
continent, Marlborough landed again in Holland on April 21 accompanied
by Count Wratislaw, who was to back him in his arguments with the
Dutch. He was the bearer of the Queen's written instructions
authorizing him

     to take the most effectual methods with the States-General of
     the United Provinces, Her good Allies and Confederates, to send
     a speedy Succour to His Imperial Majesty and the Empire, and to
     press the States to take the necessary measures to rescue
     Germany from the imminent Danger it was now exposed to.[19]

The Duke needed the support which this fortifying and conveniently
vague directive gave him. He found that the obstinate States-General,
although already committed by agreement to some form of campaign on
the Moselle, were resolved to spare only 15,000 troops for that
purpose, and had moreover ordered the recall to Holland of Dutch
regiments serving with Prince Louis of Baden east of the Rhine.

After more than a week's debate in which little was accomplished,
Marlborough abruptly announced his intention of proceeding to Coblenz
with all troops in English pay, regardless of what the Dutch might do.
The threat worked. The States-General agreed to supply the required
troops for a Moselle campaign, and indeed from that time onward showed
a reasonable and even magnanimous attitude towards Marlborough and the
Allied cause. They were still in the dark as to the Duke's real
intentions, which were set down in two letters to the Earl of
Godolphin. On 29 April he wrote:[20]

     By the next post I shall be able to let you know what
     resolutions I shall bring these people to; for I have told them
     I will leave this place on Saturday. My intentions are to march
     all the English to Coblentz, and to declare here that I intend
     to command on the Moselle. But when I come there to write to
     the States that I think it absolutely necessary, for the saving
     of the Empire, to march with the troops under my command and to
     join those in Germany that are in Her Majesty's and the Dutch
     pay, in order to take measures with Prince Lewis for the speedy
     reducing of the Elector of Bavaria . . . What I now write I beg
     may be known to nobody but Her Majesty and the Prince
     [Consort].

Three days later he wrote announcing his ultimatum to the Dutch and
confirming his subsequent intentions:[21]

     By the advice of my friends that I advise with here, I have
     this afternoon declared to the deputies of the States my
     resolution of going to the Moselle . . . I am very sensible
     that I take a great deal upon me. But should I act otherwise,
     the empire would be undone, and consequently the confederacy .
     . . If the French shall have joined any more troops to the
     Elector of Bavaria, I shall make no difficulty of marching to
     the Danube.

The condition expressed here is significant. Until news of such a
reinforcement reached Marlborough (which was not until May 23, when he
had not progressed beyond Bonn), he had a choice of three
courses--either to carry out the operation on the Moselle expected by
his army, to proceed farther up the Rhine for an attack on Alsace, or
to do what he ultimately did, swing south-eastward to the Danube.

The cloak of secrecy under which preparations for the great project
were carried to completion was not designed merely to keep the Dutch
in blissful ignorance of an enterprise so contrary to their limited
ideas of strategy that they could never have been persuaded to agree
to it. There was a greater need of concealing the undertaking from the
French. The move from the Netherlands to Bavaria would take
Marlborough's army across the long curve of the enemy front. His route
lay within striking distance of French forces on the Moselle (based in
Trves and Trarbach) and in Alsace (about Landau); given sufficient
warning these would be able to intercept the Allied march.

[Illustration: THE MARCH TO THE DANUBE, 1704

Historical Section, G.S.]

The prospect of Allied operations in the Moselle valley did not
greatly disturb the French. There seemed little probability that an
invasion of France by that route could present a serious threat to
Paris before Vienna had fallen and the Grand Alliance had been
smashed. To Louis XIV the decisive theatre of action was on his right
flank, and to his satisfaction he saw his Anglo-Dutch opponents
apparently tied down on his left. It is ironical that probably one of
the most powerful factors in concealing from the French the proposed
Allied move was the assurance, arising from thirty years' experience
of Dutch military methods, that the government at The Hague would
never consent to weakening its defences for a concentration in
Bavaria. Thus the French, secure in the belief that the initiative was
all theirs, developed their plans to reinforce Marsin and the Elector
Max Emmanuel. From his position on the Upper Rhine above Strasbourg
Marshal Tallard was given the responsibility of passing drafts of
10,000 men eastward through the Black Forest to Ulm. Then, while
Villeroi stood guard in Flanders, Louis would strike a double blow at
Germany--Tallard attacking down the Upper Rhine, and Marsin and the
Elector down the Danube.


                      From Bedburg to Donauwrth

Early in May British and Dutch forces and foreign auxiliaries began
assembling at Bedburg, between Roermond and Cologne, about seventy
miles from Coblenz. Concentration was carried out under General
Charles Churchill, and on May 18 Marlborough reviewed an army nearly
50,000 strong, composed of 90 squadrons of horse and 51 infantry
battalions (of which 19 squadrons and 14 battalions, numbering some
16,000 troops, were British)[22]. Two days later the march began. The
next six weeks were to see a gigantic "scarlet caterpillar" crawling
for three hundred miles across the map of Europe, "dragging the whole
war along with it."

Among the Principles of War it is laid down that for any operation
"the administrative arrangements must be designed to give the
Commander the maximum freedom of action in carrying out any plan." It
would be hard to find a better instance of adherence to this principle
than the efficient manner in which everything necessary to the
progress of the expedition was provided for by Marlborough, assisted
by a handful of carefully picked officers (a staff which seems
extraordinarily inadequate when contrasted with the extensive
headquarters of an army today).

To ensure the speed essential to his project, Marlborough sent the
bulk of his artillery and heavy baggage and his hospital stores up the
Rhine by barge as far as Mannheim. Although the Dutch would not permit
their siege train to leave Flanders, they furnished the gunpowder to
be used in siege cannon obtained from the German Princes. The
convenient cover of the Moselle plan had made it possible, long before
the army left the Meuse, for provision to be made in German cities
along the Middle Rhine for the supply of the army and the payment of
the troops. Thus a complete issue of new shoes had been contracted for
in Frankfurt, and adequate credits had been arranged with local
bankers. We find Marlborough writing to the Lord Treasurer on May
29:[23]

     I send tomorrow to Frankfort to see if I can take up a month's
     pay for the English, and shall draw the bills on Mr. Sweet; for
     notwithstanding the continual marching, the men are extremely
     pleased with this expedition, so that I am sure you will take
     all the care possible that they may not want.

What better evidence could be given of the importance which the Duke
attached to maintaining his army's morale?

To the inhabitants of the towns and villages on the line of march it
was a novel experience to witness the passage of an army that instead
of pillaging along the route paid its way in cash. They responded with
an enthusiastic welcome and a willingness to aid which considerably
expedited the march. They admired the costly British equipment (later
they were to give the name "Malbrouck" to a wagon of the highest
standard of construction); and on one occasion the neat and cleanly
appearance of the English officers drew the observation, "these
gentlemen seem to be all dressed for the ball."

Unlike the French Marshal Tallard, who hustled the reinforcements for
Marsin through the Black Forest at such a rate that half of them
became incapacitated along the way, Marlborough enforced a wise march
discipline which produced a satisfactory rate of speed with no
injurious effect on his men. Each morning the troops were on the move
by three o'clock and had completed their march by nine in the forenoon
before it was really hot, "so that the remaining part of the day's
rest was as good as a day's halt." The cavalry rode on similarly
well-planned schedules. There were ample supplies of forage for the
horses, and we are told that Prince Eugene was amazed at their
splendid condition at the end of their journey. Captain Parker sums up
the excellence of the administrative arrangements:[24]

     As we marched through the countries of our allies commissaries
     were appointed to furnish us with all manner of necessaries for
     man and horse: these were brought to the ground before we
     arrived and the soldiers had nothing to do but pitch their
     tents, boil their kettles, and lie down to rest. Surely never
     was such a march carried on with more order and regularity and
     with less fatigue.

Six days after leaving Bedburg Marlborough and his cavalry reached
Coblenz, followed two days later by his infantry under General
Churchill. Instead of turning along the Moselle, "to our surprise",
writes Parker, "we passed that river over a stone bridge and the Rhine
over two bridges of boats."[25] As the long columns continued up the
right bank of the Rhine they were joined by Hanoverian and Prussian
forces. On the last day of the month the mounted troops crossed the
River Main opposite Mainz, where Marlborough arranged for siege
artillery to ascend the Rhine to Mannheim and for a bridge of boats to
be thrown over the river at Philippsburg--a suitable crossing place
for an attack on Landau.

To Louis XIV and his marshals, whose plans of campaign had been thrown
into confusion by Marlborough's sudden seizure of the initiative,
these latest developments seemed a sure sign of an impending attack on
Alsace. From the first intelligence of the Allied march they had been
forced to suspend the intended movements of their own armies and
undertake temporary expedients until Marlborough's objectives should
become apparent. Within a day of the departure from Bedburg Villeroi,
after a demonstration against Huy (which brought from General Overkirk
a frantic but fruitless appeal to the Duke to return at once), had
hastened southward to cover the Moselle. Tallard had successfully
delivered the drafts to Max Emmanuel on May 19 (the Margrave of Baden
by staying too long in the Lines of Stollhofen having missed a good
chance to intercept him in the Black Forest) and had returned to
Alsace. By the time French agents brought word that Marlborough had
reached the Main, Tallard was ready with 22,000 men to meet an attack
on Landau, and Villeroi with an army of equal size was rapidly
approaching through Lorraine. Characteristically the Dutch had made no
attempt to hold the latter by a diversionary attack. The French
marshal, however, had some cause for apprehension that the whole
operation might be a ruse to draw him away from the Low Countries; for
it was uncomfortably apparent that if Marlborough suddenly doubled
back to Holland his Rhine boats could transport his forces downstream
at upwards of 80 miles in a day--eight times as fast as the French
army could travel overland.

Meanwhile Marlborough crossed the River Neckar at Ladenburg, and after
a three days' halt to allow his brother to reduce the distance between
cavalry and infantry he reached Wiesloch on June 6, where he was a
day's march east of Philippsburg and less than 30 miles from Landau.
The suspense with which Tallard and Villeroi were watching his
movements ended next day, when Marlborough turned abruptly eastward
and headed for the Danube.

The significance of this sudden change in direction was only too clear
to the French marshals. By his skilful manoeuvring, and without a shot
being fired on either side, their enemy had achieved a major
strategical victory. A junction of the armies of Marlborough and
Prince Louis of Baden was imminent. When that happened a combined
force of close to 100,000 Allied troops would stand between the
Franco-Bavarian force at Ulm and the two French armies west of the
Rhine. Louis XIV immediately directed Villeroi and Tallard to submit a
plan for bringing aid to the Elector; but after two weeks of
consultation they had to report to their royal master, "In view of the
superiority of the enemy forces between the Rhine and the Danube,
assistance to Bavaria is so difficult as to appear almost an
impossibility."[26]

On June 10 Prince Eugene of Savoy arrived in Marlborough's camp. The
Duke had stipulated in his preliminary talks with Wratislaw that
Eugene should join him for the forthcoming campaign, and to this the
Emperor had agreed, even though the Prince was now at the War Office
in Vienna serving as President of the Imperial Council of War. This
first meeting of two most distinguished soldiers marked the beginning
of a close personal friendship and a harmonious collaboration rarely
to be equalled in the annals of war. Three days later they were joined
by Prince Louis, the Margrave of Baden. At Gross Heppach, 40 miles
north-west of Ulm, the trio formed their plans. Although the three
generals addressed each other in the most cordial and complimentary
terms, both Marlborough and Eugene distrusted the Margrave, whom they
suspected of deliberately delaying operations in order to give the
Elector of Bavaria a chance to avoid defeat. (Indeed, before the month
was out Wratislaw was to suggest to the Emperor the advisability of
having the Margrave arrested.) Prince Eugene was assigned the
important task of taking a force of 30,000 troops back to the Rhine to
oppose the armies of the two French marshals at either Philippsburg or
Stollhofen. Marlborough's army was to join the Margrave's forces at
the Danube as quickly as possible. On the question of the command of
the combined armies, Prince Louis' claim of precedence as the senior
Imperial general had to give recognition to Marlborough's status as
Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the Queen of England and of the
States-General of Holland. Long before the two met, the Englishman had
taken the precaution of having the Supreme Council of War at Vienna
arrange that the command should be shared between them, both working
together "as commanders of independent forces of equal status". The
watchword of the day, which was issued by the Emperor, and the day's
orders previously agreed upon, would be given by each general "to his
army or to his wing if the armies were together or alternatively could
be given out by each of them on alternate days".[27]

The final stage of Marlborough's march was made over the barrier of
the Swabian Jura, which forms the watershed between the Neckar and the
Danube. The steepness of the rough mountain roads hampered the
progress of the artillery, and ten days of heavy rain added to the
difficulties of the infantry. On June 22, however, the two Allied
armies joined hands at Launsheim, ten miles north-west of Ulm. And now
the excellent administrative arrangements made by Marlborough for the
journey brought their reward in the fine physical condition and high
morale of the troops, who had just completed a march of some 300
miles--the cavalry in 35 days, the infantry (who arrived on the 27th)
in 42 days. Further evidence of the Duke's foresight was soon
forthcoming. Having passed the limit of his extended lines of
communication backward along the valley of the Neckar and down the
Rhine, he now brought into use new lines of supply which he had set up
stretching north-eastward to Nuremberg and the fertile regions of the
upper Main.

After the necessary detachments had been made to Eugene's force at the
Rhine, the combined Allied armies at the Danube outnumbered those of
Marsin and the Elector of Bavaria by some 70,000 to 45,000 men. Yet in
spite of this superiority Marlborough did not hold any great hope of
bringing the enemy to an immediate contest; for although the
Franco-Bavarian troops were on the north side of the Danube, having
fallen back to an entrenched camp near Dillingen (30 miles downstream
from Ulm), they could if threatened refuse battle and, crossing to the
right bank, put the river barrier between them and the Allies. The
Duke already had a plan in mind. Another 30 miles below Dillingen was
the old town of Donauwrth, the capture of which would not only
provide the Allies with a strong base of operations, but would give
them a bridgehead through which they could cross into Bavaria and so
carry the war into the Elector's own country. For even though Max
Emmanuel could not be brought to battle, he might well be prevailed
upon to break off his alliance with France if he saw his territory
being ravaged by a hostile army. On June 8 Marlborough had written to
Godolphin, "I shall in two days after the junction march directly to
Donauwrth. If I can take this place I shall there settle a magazine
for the army." Without delay he now pushed eastward, following a
course about eight miles back from the river. On June 30 he passed the
enemy's camp at Dillingen; whereupon the Elector hastily dispatched a
force of 14,000 men under his leading Bavarian general, Count d'Arco,
to occupy Donauwrth and strengthen its defences.

The town itself was no strong fortress. Its mediaeval walls were long
obsolete and would present little difficulty to an attacker. To the
south and west the Danube and its unfordable tributary, the Wernitz,
afforded natural protection. The real key to the defences was a steep,
flat-topped hill to the north-east, named from its bell-like shape,
the Schellenberg. On the broad plateau, 500 feet above the town, there
was room for an army of 20,000 men. The northern slopes were covered
by a dense wood (in those days an effective barrier to attacking
troops), but to the east, where the incline was less steep than on the
west, a stretch of open ground extended down to the Danube. In spite
of French warnings Max Emmanuel had delayed starting work on defences
until late in June, so that while a line of newly-constructed trenches
ran from the Danube along the eastern and northern sides of the
plateau, it stopped short of an old earthwork fort (built by Gustavus
Adolphus in the Thirty Years' War) on the west side of the hill, about
500 yards north of the town walls. The southern part of the unfinished
sector could be covered by the fortress guns in Donauwrth; to fortify
the rest of this gap became the urgent task of Count d'Arco's men.


                   The Assault of the Schellenberg

On July 1 the Allied armies camped at Amerdingen; 15 miles west of
Donauwrth. Wet weather had made marching conditions deplorable, and
it seemed obvious to d'Arco, busy with his preparations on the
Schellenberg, that his enemy could not be in position to launch an
attack before the morning of the 3rd at the earliest. Another day's
digging would put the defences in a satisfactory state of readiness.
This Marlborough realized, and he also appreciated that every hour
that passed brought the probability of strong reinforcements reaching
Donauwrth from the Franco-Bavarian main body. He was convinced that
if the Schellenberg was to be taken, it must be taken on July 2, and
on the afternoon of the 1st he began preparing for an attack next day.

[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE SCHELLENBERG

26 JUNE-2 JULY 1704

THE BATTLE OF THE SCHELLENBERG

2 JULY 1704

Historical Section, G.S.]

It has been the custom of historians to emphasize that July 2 was the
Duke's turn to command the combined Allied force, and that the urgency
with which he pushed the operation against the Schellenberg was
dictated by his fear of the Margrave's inability to mount a successful
attack when his turn came on the 3rd. As we have seen (footnote to
page 38, above), one modern writer has questioned the existence of
this daily alternation of command. In fact he produces evidence to
show that the schedule by which each commander alternately issued the
Emperor's password gave the odd-numbered days in June and July to
Marlborough and the even numbers to the Margrave.[28] The significant
thing is that on the 1st when he was issuing his preliminary order, on
the 2nd when he was conducting the attack, and on the 3rd when he was
reporting success to Queen Anne, Marlborough undoubtedly acted as if
he were sole Commander-in-Chief--though all the while being careful to
secure the full co-operation of his fellow general.

Ever conscious of the value of good intelligence, Marlborough sent
forward a large reconnaissance group of horsemen to the Wernitz to
report on the enemy's defences, and supplemented this information with
examination of local inhabitants and deserters. Having decided to
attack he methodically went about his preparations. He drew 130 men
from each infantry battalion in his army to form an assault force of
nearly 6000. To this were added three battalions of the Margrave's
Imperial Grenadiers, and 35 squadrons of cavalry. In completing his
administrative arrangements the Duke did not forget to send
notification to the town of Nrdlingen (fifteen miles north-west of
Donauwrth on the new communications) to prepare its surgeons to
receive many wounded.

At three o'clock on the morning of July 2 Marlborough's picked band
set off along the road to Donauwrth, followed two hours later by the
main army under Prince Louis. During the seventeen hours before
darkness fell the advanced force was faced with the desperate task of
marching fifteen miles through the mud, crossing the river Wernitz,
deploying for battle, and finally storming the Schellenberg. Pioneer
parties had gone forward in the early darkness, and by the time the
assault troops reached the Wernitz, having taken nine hours to cover
twelve miles along the vile roads, these pioneers had repaired a
broken stone bridge and thrown three pontoon bridges over the river.
Crossing to the east bank and approaching so close to the enemy's
position that the Donauwrth cannon opened fire, Marlborough and his
generals made their reconnaissance. They could see d'Arco's troops
frantically digging their entrenchments on the west side of the
Schellenberg, while south of the Danube were signs of a new camp being
set out to receive heavy reinforcements, probably that night. Time was
with the enemy; but the advantage of surprise lay with the Duke. If
any further incitement to action was needed, it came in a dispatch
from Prince Eugene warning that Villeroi and Tallard were at
Strasbourg, preparing to reinforce the Elector through the Black
Forest. Marlborough took his final decision, to which the Margrave
agreed, that

     . . . Notwithstanding that the infantry was very tired from the
     long march, that the enemy's entrenchment was found perfected
     and that the evening was beginning to fall . . . the
     advantageous enemy entrenchment should be attacked that evening
     with the utmost vigour . . .[29]

Behind his incomplete defences Marshal d'Arco, realizing at last that
contrary to all the rules an army which had marched all day was going
to attack with darkness only a few hours away, had his own decision to
make. He discarded the alternative of saving his force by a withdrawal
across the Danube, and ordering his infantry to lay aside their
shovels and resume their arms set himself to resist the impending
assault. To cover the vital sector north of the old fort which the
fortress guns could not reach he posted half of his sixteen field
cannon at the edge of the wood, concentrating the bulk of his infantry
in this vulnerable area. He ordered the Governor of the town to man
the "covered way"[30] outside his walls with French musketeers;
another French battalion was spread thinly along the line of trenches
adjoining the town, where the enfilading cannon fire was expected to
keep off any serious assault.

By five o'clock Marlborough's storming column, having formed up for
battle east of the Wernitz, had advanced up the lower slopes of the
Schellenberg until the leading troops were within 250 yards of the
entrenchments. The Duke had decided to launch a massed attack on a
narrow frontage immediately adjacent to the wood, where the line of
fortifications jutted outward to form a sharp salient angle about 300
yards along each arm. He was fully aware that this obviously vital
sector would be defended in great strength, but his plan gave him two
chances of winning. If he could bludgeon his way through the enemy
concentration victory was assured; on the other hand should this
thrust fail, it ought to draw in sufficient enemy forces from other
parts of the defences to ensure the success of a subsidiary attack
elsewhere. He drew up his 6000 storm troops in three dense lines on a
front of about 300 yards, supporting them by 16 battalions of the
Margrave's army; and behind these he placed in a fifth and sixth line
35 squadrons of cavalry. In command of the assault force he put
Lieut.-General von Goor, a Dutchman "of courage and capacity" on whose
leadership he placed great reliance. Each foot-soldier carried in his
left hand a short fascine of brushwood which the early arriving
cavalry had cut. These were for filling the trench in front of the
enemy breastworks.

The word to advance was given at about six o'clock. For nearly an hour
an English battery of ten guns beside the Nuremberg road had been
hurling round shot with telling effect at a battalion of French
Grenadiers posted high up the Schellenberg to guard against any attack
from the northern flank. As the assault force stepped briskly up the
slopes led by a "forlorn hope" of 80 volunteers, it was met by the
deadly fire of the eight guns stationed beside the wood. Soon these
switched to grapeshot and the defending infantry poured a heavy volume
of musketry fire into the dense ranks of the assailants. Men fell by
hundreds, among them General Goor and many of his officers. Yet with
cheers and cries of "God save the Queen!" the attackers pressed
forward, their shouts so threatening the enemy morale that within the
ramparts orders were given to drown out the noise by beating the
"Charge" on the drums. By ill chance the leading attackers mistook a
dry gully for the enemy's ditch and threw in their fascines, and thus
had no means of crossing the actual works fifty yards beyond.

Here a fierce hand-to-hand struggle ensued as the French and Bavarian
infantry on the parapet fought tooth and nail to throw back the
assailants. "I verily believe", wrote the commander of the French
Grenadiers, who had descended the hill and were now closely committed
in the struggle, "that it would have been quite impossible to find a
more terrible representation of hell itself than was shown in the
savagery of both sides on that occasion."[31] The attackers were
forced back down the slope, and were rallied only by the steadfastness
of a battalion of English Guards who, with most of their officers
killed or wounded, stood their ground against the enemy's
counter-attack, driving them once more within their lines.

Now the Allies dropped back to re-form at a point where the steepness
of the hillside concealed them from the defending muskets, although
they still suffered casualties from the round shot fired by the
Bavarian artillery. Generals and other mounted officers left their
horses to lead the second assault on foot. Again the assailants
reached the trenches and engaged the defenders with cold steel, and
again the attack was beaten off with tremendous loss. This time it was
the English cavalry squadrons that, moving forward to within musket
range, rallied the retreating infantry and checked the enemy's sally.
Disregarding the heavy fire which took its toll of charger and
trooper, the lines of horsemen stood steadfast, their confidence
inspiring the shaken infantry. Methodically these began re-ordering
their ranks for a third attempt on what one writer has aptly called
the "death-angle".[32] But before this was launched the defenders had
come under threat from a new quarter.

The main Allied army had begun to arrive on the scene about the time
that the first assault was launched, and by seven o'clock it had
completed deployment on Marlborough's right flank. Boldly led by
Prince Louis it advanced against the centre of the line of trenches
joining the town and the old fort. As we have noted, these positions
had been but thinly held at the start of the battle, and the demands
for reinforcements in the "death-angle" had further denuded them of
troops. But of greater significance was the unexplained failure of the
Governor of Donauwrth to man the covered way outside the fortress
walls as instructed. As the Margrave's close columns passed in front
of the town they were assailed by the cannon on the ramparts, but no
deadly enfilading musketry fire struck them. Pressing forward they
overcame without difficulty the ineffective resistance in the
trenches, and quickly re-formed ranks within the defences, in time to
break with their disciplined fire a desperate downhill charge by nine
squadrons of d'Arco's cavalry. Then they pushed forward against the
Bavarian flank as Marlborough launched his third and final attack.
Caught between the converging thrusts the defenders of the
Schellenberg broke and fled for the river. As they raced southward
across the front of the Imperial army volleys of musket fire mowed
them down in droves. Then Marlborough's cavalry squadrons were upon
them and cutting them down with the cry, "Kill, kill and destroy!"[33]
No quarter was given. Some escaped by swimming the Danube; many were
drowned when a bridge of boats collapsed under the crowding fugitives.
From the rout of d'Arco's army fewer than 5000 (some authorities say
not more than 3000) made their way back to rejoin the forces of the
Elector.

On the following night the Governor abandoned Donauwrth, failing to
carry out his instructions to set the town on fire and completely
destroy the bridge over the Danube. As a result a quantity of valuable
stores fell intact into Allied hands. Thus the battle had given
Marlborough his Danube bridgehead for operations into Bavaria and the
terminus he needed for his new communications. For the British Army
the result was especially significant (although strangely enough the
name Schellenberg appears on no regimental colours). British forces on
the continent had won their first victory of the war--a victory that
did much to atone for the bitter defeats suffered under William III at
Steenkirk (1692) and Landen (1693).

In a note to the Queen Marlborough attributed the success of our first
attack of the enemy . . . in great measure . . . to the particular
blessing of God, and the unparalleled bravery of your troops".[34] To
his wife the Duchess he wrote: "It has pleased God, after a very
obstinate defence, to have given us the victory, by which we have
ruined the best of the elector's foot, for there was very little
horse."[35] But well might the Duke admit (in a letter to Overkirk)
that the victory "a cot un peu cher".[36] The total Allied
casualties numbered nearly 6000, including 1500 killed. Of the 4000
English troops engaged more than one third had been killed or wounded.
Particularly great was the proportion of loss among the senior
officers--eight generals were killed and nine others, including the
Margrave, suffered wounds. Not only were the surgeons of Nrdlingen to
have their hands full, but in all the surrounding villages
arrangements were made for the wounded to receive whatever crude care
was available. These heavy casualties were seized upon by
Marlborough's political enemies in England to launch new attacks on
his generalship. The Dutch struck another medal, which gave all the
credit for the Schellenberg victory to Prince Louis. And from Hanover
the Electress Sophia, deploring a thousand Hanoverian casualties, was
to write:[37]

     The Elector is saddened at the loss of so many brave subjects
     in consequence of the mistakes made by the great general
     Marlborough. He says that the Margrave of Baden did very much
     better, and that without him there would have been complete
     failure, as on the other wing proper measures had not been
     taken.

But these critics are not supported by the verdict of history. The
dramatic victory at the Schellenberg was a fitting climax to the great
march of Marlborough's army from the North Sea to the Danube. Both the
march itself and the battle which followed carry important lessons for
the student of military history. The former has been called "one of
the most striking examples in history of the indirect approach."[38]
By threatening the enemy at successive stages with blows at
alternative objectives, each of them completely convincing, the Allied
commander kept his foes ignorant of his ultimate design until it was
too late for them to prevent its accomplishment. By the time
Marlborough revealed his true goal by turning eastward from the Middle
Rhine he had gained the advantage of interior lines, along which he
was able to outpace any reinforcements moving from Alsace to the aid
of the isolated Franco-Bavarian force. As we have shown, the speed
with which the whole journey was completed was not exceptional; a
century later Napoleon's Grand Army was to march from the Straits of
Dover to Ulm in three weeks, covering from thirteen to fifteen miles a
day. But, as Captain Liddell Hart has pointed out, this lack of
rapidity was partly compensated for by "the mask of strategic
ambiguity" which covered the march. Indeed, until the final stages of
Marlborough's march there was no particular need of haste; it was far
more important to him to have his troops arrive at the end of their
journey (over roads which were considerably worse than in Napoleon's
day) in high morale and physically fit for battle.

If Marlborough's long-range move from the area in which all his
military tasks seemed to lie marked a bold departure from the cautious
strategy of his day, his unexpected attack on the Schellenberg was
equally an innovation in tactics. By contemporary standards the normal
procedure on this occasion would have been for the Allied commander to
postpone action until he had assembled his total strength outside
Donauwrth, and then assault the hill on a wide front. But realizing
that such a delay would have allowed the enemy to complete his
defences and bring in reinforcements Marlborough took a calculated
risk. He knew the quality of his troops. He accepted the inevitably
heavy price in casualties, and reaped the great advantage of surprise.

Many of the Principles of War are strikingly demonstrated in the
events described in this chapter. We have already shown how
Marlborough in preparing and executing the march to the Danube
recognized the value of sound _Administration_, and by the practical
application of this principle was able to maintain the high _Morale_
of his army--the evidence of which was to appear so splendidly on the
bloody slopes of the Schellenberg. We have also referred to the way in
which the long march and the final assault made use of _Surprise_. The
elements of surprise are secrecy, concealment, deception, originality,
audacity and rapidity--a list from which the reader should have little
difficulty in selecting characteristics which these operations
demonstrated. Few better examples of _Flexibility_ can be found than
the manner in which the Duke laid his plans and selected his route for
the ascent of the Rhine so as to have a choice of objectives and thus
retain the initiative. The final rapid march to Donauwrth exemplified
the mobility which is an important factor of this principle. Lastly
the battle of the Schellenberg demonstrated once again Marlborough's
belief in _Offensive Action_; while the tactics he employed of the
massed attack on a narrow front proclaimed him as a redoubtable
exponent of the principle of _Concentration of Force_.




                              CHAPTER IV

                            Blenheim, 1704


A letter from Prince Eugene to Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, undated,
but apparently penned about the middle of July 1704, expressed concern
over the way in which his fellow generals Marlborough and the Margrave
of Baden were conducting their part of the campaign. "Up to now
everything has gone well enough between them", wrote the Prince, "but
I greatly fear that this will not last. And to tell the truth since
the Donauwrth action I cannot admire their performances."[39] This
observation, coming from such a brilliant soldier is the more
significant because Eugene, while serving under Marlborough in the
field, was also responsible, as President of the Imperial War Council,
for the direction of the Empire's total military effort in all
theatres. How far was the criticism justified in the case of
Marlborough?

The immediate result of the battle of the Schellenberg was to lay the
Electorate of Bavaria open to the Allies, unless Max Emmanuel could
put his forces to his country's defence--and in so doing run the risk
of being cut off from French support. Right after d'Arco's crushing
defeat the Elector and Marshal Marsin had abandoned Dillingen and
withdrawn to Augsburg, a fortress on the west bank of the River Lech,
which flows north into the Danube about ten miles below Donauwrth.
The Bavarian prince decided that his best plan was to wait here for
Tallard's army to join him, in the meantime protecting his threatened
territory as best he might by dispersing the majority of his infantry
and half his cavalry to garrison unwalled towns and guard valuable
properties (not forgetting his own private estates). He abandoned the
fortified town of Neuburg on the Danube and moved its garrison down to
Ingolstadt, hoping to retain this as the last of his river fortresses
on the 200-mile stretch from Ulm to the Austrian frontier.


                      The Devastation of Bavaria

On July 8 Marlborough, having crossed the Lech five miles above its
junction with the Danube, occupied Neuburg (thereby gaining another
supply route from Nuremberg) and laid siege to the walled town of
Rain. The defences were by no means formidable, but the attackers were
hampered by the lack of a siege train, which the Margrave had failed
to provide as arranged; and it was not until the 16th, after some
heavy cannon arrived from Nuremberg, that the place fell. Possession
of the Donauwrth-Rain-Neuburg triangle gave Marlborough a secure base
on the Danube at the head of his new lines of communication from
Central Germany. From this position he could either strike
south-eastward into Bavaria or move westward for a reunion with
Eugene, for which eventuality he took the precaution of destroying the
abandoned Franco-Bavarian entrenchments at Dillingen, and posting a
small watching garrison there and at Hochstadt, ten miles down the
river. While Rain was still under siege the Allied armies had begun
laying waste the countryside. Seizing as much grain and other food
stocks as they required for their own needs, they ruthlessly destroyed
the rest, burning whole towns and villages in their path. This
devastation continued for three weeks, and when it ended upwards of
400 communities had been put to the torch.

Marlborough has been assailed by German and English historians alike
for imposing this rigorous treatment on the Bavarians, and the fact
that the bulk of the destruction was carried out by Imperialist rather
than British troops has not lessened the censure. Yet there were sound
reasons, both political and military for his action.

As a political measure this dreadful visitation upon Max Emmanuel's
subjects was aimed at bringing him to terms. "We shall to-morrow have
all the army in the elector's country", Marlborough wrote to Godolphin
on July 9, "so that if he will ever think of terms it must be now, for
we shall do our utmost to ruin his country."[40] However on the 14th
the Elector himself broke off the negotiations to win him from his
French partnership when word arrived that Tallard was on the march to
join him and already in the Black Forest. The attempt to coerce him
through his people's sufferings had apparently failed, and Marlborough
probably had strictly military considerations in mind when two days
later he wrote to Heinsius: "We are now advancing into the heart of
Bavaria to destroy the country and oblige the Elector one way or the
other to a compliance."[41] His object now, as set down in one of his
dispatches, was two-fold--"to deprive the enemy as well of present
subsistence as future support on this side". By cutting off supplies
into the Augsburg fortress he hoped to starve Marsin and the Elector
out into the open where they might be brought to battle; and once the
"scorched earth" policy had been carried out Bavaria would be
incapable of sustaining the combined forces of the Elector and
Marshals Marsin and Tallard. As we already mentioned, the burnings
were to have the effect of dispersing Max Emmanuel's troops throughout
his entire territory, an action which caused Tallard to reproach him
"for having all his troops, except five battalions and about 23
squadrons, spread about the country to cover his salt-works, a
gentleman's private estate in fact, instead of what they should have
guarded--his frontiers."[42]

Meanwhile the Allied armies, advancing southward, had on July 22
occupied Friedberg, a town on the right bank of the Lech, opposite
Augsburg. The inaction which Eugene had criticized was to continue for
two more weeks as they remained facing the enemy forces only four
miles away on the far bank. For Marlborough it must have been a period
of frustration reminiscent of his worst days in Holland. He could not
provoke his opponents into leaving their fortified camp at Augsburg,
yet he lacked the strength to launch an assault. Nor could he cross
the Lech to intercept the approaching French reinforcements, for such
a move would have placed in jeopardy his own communications with the
north and with Eugene. He considered laying siege to Munich, the
Bavarian capital, but was forced to abandon the scheme for want of the
necessary artillery. To his difficulties were added the "perpetual
annoyance of a joint command". His relations with Prince Louis had
steadily deteriorated since the Schellenberg battle, and it was
becoming increasingly difficult for the two to reach agreement. But
these unfavourable circumstances were not fully known to Eugene, or he
might have shown more forbearance before he wrote to his compatriot,
"To put things plainly, your Royal Highness, I don't like this
slowness on our side".


                      Eugene Rejoins Marlborough

At the western end of the theatre of operations Eugene had been
playing his exacting role with considerable skill. He kept in close
touch with Marlborough by means of frequent dispatches and a
continuous exchange of liaison officers of senior rank. The two
generals thus had up-to-date intelligence of the enemy's activities on
both fronts and were able to co-ordinate their own moves with a
precision that was to contribute in large measure to victory in
mid-August.

From his position behind the Lines of Stollhofen Eugene had shown the
two French marshals in Alsace so bold a front during June that when
Tallard began his march towards Bavaria Louis XIV had forbidden
Villeroi either to become involved in the Black Forest or to send
further reinforcements after his fellow marshal. By mid-July Tallard,
having set out from Strasbourg with an army of 35,000 men, had crossed
the mountains and was besieging the fortress of Villingen on the
headwaters of the Danube, deeming its reduction necessary to secure
his supply lines. The German garrison resisted staunchly, so that in
four days of bombardment the French made little progress.

Meanwhile Prince Eugene, leaving the greater part of his strength at
Stollhofen to watch Villeroi, had cut through the Black Forest to the
upper valley of the Neckar, appearing on July 18 with 18,000 men at
Rottweil, less than a dozen miles from Villingen. Fear of Eugene's
intervention may have been the main reason for Tallard's decision to
raise the unprofitable siege; at any rate on the 22nd he left
Villingen untaken, and crossing to the right bank of the Danube
arrived in the neighbourhood of Ulm a week later. The considerable
detail in which Marlborough's spies reported the Marshal's moves is
disclosed in a dispatch of the Duke from Friedberg:

     M. Tallard, after lying six days before Villingen, with four
     twenty-four pounders and eight sixteen-pounders, had been
     obliged that day [July 22], upon the approach of Prince Eugene,
     to retire; . . . and was to march the same day to Dutlingen
     [Tuttlingen] on the Danube, where he had sent before to bake
     bread for his troops, resolving to march with all expedition to
     join the Elector.[43]

And now Eugene's brilliance as a tactician is revealed in his
successful manoeuvres to hold Villeroi at the Rhine and at the same
time cover Tallard's eastward advance. A quick descent of the Neckar
valley to Tbingen, thirty miles north-east of Rottweil (where he had
been reinforced by 40 squadrons from Marlborough's army), made it
appear to the French that he was abandoning the pursuit of one army in
order to return and face the other. As a consequence Villeroi, who had
been preparing to follow Tallard to Bavaria, decided that he must
remain about Strasbourg in order to guard Alsace. But from Tbingen
Eugene doubled back south-eastward, roughly paralleling the movements
of Tallard, although along a shorter route. Thus all was proceeding as
foreseen by the Allies: the impending reinforcement of the Elector by
Tallard would be balanced by a junction between Eugene and
Marlborough. On July 27 the Duke reported to the Secretary of
State:[44]

     M. Tallard . . . is now marching this way with all the
     expedition possible, so that he may probably join the Elector
     about the 2nd of next month. Prince Eugene is likewise
     advancing this way, and I hope will be within reach of us about
     the same time.

Tallard, taking three days longer than expected, joined the Elector on
August 5 at Biberbach, roughly midway between Augsburg and Donauwrth.
Marlborough at once withdrew twenty miles north-eastward to
Schrobenhausen, where on the afternoon of the 6th he welcomed Prince
Eugene, whose army had arrived that day at Hochstadt.

On August 7 the three Allied commanders conferred together for the
first time since their discussions at Gross Heppach. They examined the
courses of offensive action open to Tallard (who must now be regarded
as the Commander-in-Chief of the 60,000 Franco-Bavarian troops at
Biberbach). The Allied fortifications at Rain and Donauwrth would
frustrate any attempt to cut Marlborough's communications north of the
Danube. The only practicable course open to the enemy seemed to be to
attack Eugene's force of 18,000 before a junction with Marlborough's
"grand army" of 53,000 gave the Allies the superiority in concentrated
strength. To encourage such a move and so provoke the battle they
sought, Marlborough and Eugene would keep their forces separated, on
opposite sides of the Danube, although we may be sure that the
marching time between them was carefully measured against the enemy's
capabilities.

Yet the Allies had no intention of remaining inactive until such time
as Tallard should make a move. Before Eugene arrived plans had been
laid for the capture of Ingolstadt, and on August 9 the Margrave
crossed the Danube at Neuburg with a force of 15,000 men and marched
along the north bank to invest the fortress. Marlborough's role was to
cover the siege. With his army now reduced to 38,000 he moved closer
to Eugene, halting for the night near Rain, where he was only a short
march of seven miles from Donauwrth.

While this move was still in progress word reached the Duke that the
whole Franco-Bavarian force had left Biberbach and was heading for the
Danube, apparently with the intention of crossing at Lauingen, five
miles above Dillingen. The news brought Eugene hurrying back for
consultation, and in a critical two-hour conference the two generals
made their final plans for the clash that now seemed imminent. The
most surprising result of their deliberations was the decision not to
recall the Margrave, even though without his force the enemy would
outnumber them by about six to five. That Marlborough was willing to
accept this disadvantage in numbers rather than be hampered by the
Margrave's presence during the forthcoming battle is a striking
commentary on the hostility that existed between them. Yet more than
that it illustrates the supreme confidence that both Eugene and the
Duke placed in the fighting quality of their troops and in their own
ability to outgeneral the enemy. Indeed, to allay any fears that
Prince Louis might have about the security of his rear, Marlborough
still further depleted his forces by sending him ten of Eugene's
Imperial squadrons.


                        The Approach to Battle

It seems certain that at this conference at Rain the two commanders
reached the momentous decision to stake everything on a pitched
battle, and even picked a place for the struggle. Eugene's army had
fallen back from Hochstadt to Mnster, on the right bank of the
Kessel, a small tributary entering the Danube four miles west of
Donauwrth. Here the range of wooded hills which extend westward from
the Schellenberg along the left bank of the Danube recede from the
river to leave a narrow plain varying from one to three miles in
width. Eugene did not want to retire farther east than Mnster; for,
as he wrote to Marlborough on the 10th, "it is above all important not
to be shut in between these mountains and the Danube."[45] The battle
would be fought in the open, somewhere west of the Kessel.

The nicety of judgement which had determined the Allied moves and
dispositions up to this moment now showed its fruits in the rapidity
and precision with which the final concentration was carried out.
Marlborough used two routes. At two o'clock on the morning of the 10th
he dispatched the bulk of his cavalry (28 squadrons under the Duke of
Wrttemberg) northward to cross the Danube at Marxheim and then move
west through Donauwrth. General Charles Churchill followed with 20
battalions of foot. At three the main army began to march westward
from Rain, taking a short cut across the River Lech. Late that evening
the cavalry reached Mnster, where they joined 22 squadrons of
Eugene's horse on guard along the banks of the Kessel. Eugene had
prudently withdrawn his infantry into Donauwrth for the night; next
morning he brought them forward again to Mnster, where they were soon
joined by Churchill's infantry. Throughout the rest of the day the
single road from Donauwrth was crowded with the long columns of
Marlborough's main force, and by ten that night both armies were
concentrated at the Kessel. Marlborough's army had marched less than
twelve miles, but the journey had been made over roads damaged by
heavy rain, and had involved crossing three rivers--the Lech, the
Danube and the Wernitz. While the Allied troops rested in their camp
all day on the 12th, the two commanders rode forward to reconnoitre,
escorted by 28 squadrons of cavalry. From the church-tower at
Tapfheim, a hamlet two miles west of Mnster, they were able to watch
the approach of the Franco-Bavarian army. About two miles east of
Hochstadt the Nebel, a companion watercourse to the Kessel, entered
the Danube from the north, and on the grassy flats behind this stream
Marlborough and Eugene observed the enemy's quartermasters marking out
a new camp.

In contrast to the air of immediacy that had characterized the Allied
activities of the past few days, the enemy's movements seem strangely
leisurely. After crossing the Danube at Lauingen on the morning of
August 10 the Elector and the two French marshals had failed to attack
Eugene when they had the advantage of numbers, probably because of
poor intelligence and divided counsel. Max Emmanuel seems to have
favoured a quick advance, but Tallard decided it was wiser to await
reinforcement by the troops which he had urged the Elector to call in
from guard duties. He had opposed their employment on such tasks, and
now that Marlborough was withdrawing from south of the Danube (a
conclusion he based on the Duke's retirement from Friedberg even
before he learned of the probable junction with Eugene) there were no
longer any grounds for their retention in Bavaria. Since Marlborough's
action in levelling the Dillingen fortifications had deprived him of a
protected camp there, he moved on to occupy Hochstadt on the 11th and
selected the open area east of that town as a good spot to halt his
armies until the Bavarians arrived. With frontal protection afforded
by the swampy Nebel and three defended villages, and flanked by low
hills on the one side and on the other the River Danube, the site
appeared to offer all necessary security.

[Illustration: BLENHEIM

13 AUGUST 1704

Historical Section, G.S.]

That the Allies would venture to attack does not seem to have entered
the minds of Tallard or his fellow commanders. It would be contrary to
all accepted doctrines of war that they should be assailed in their
present defensible position, unless perhaps by a force of far greater
numerical superiority than could be mustered by the three Allied
armies (carefully briefed "deserters" had told the French that the
Margrave and his troops had joined Marlborough and Eugene). The Allies
knew the rules, and any such offensive action by them in the present
circumstances would be (to borrow Churchill's simile) "as unlikely as
that a chess-player should knock over the board and seize his opponent
by the throat." Tallard now conceived his role to be that of pursuing
the Allies as they fell back along their communications. So convinced
was he of the correctness of his appreciation that on the morning of
the 13th, when he awoke to see the Allied armies approaching on the
far side of the Nebel, he decided that they were on their way
northward, and to a letter written the previous day to King Louis he
added an optimistic postscript:

     They are now drawn up at the head of their camp, and it looks
     as if they will march this day. Rumour in the countryside
     expects them at Nrdlingen. If that be true, they will leave us
     between the Danube and themselves and in consequence they will
     have difficulty in sustaining the posts and depots which they
     have taken in Bavaria.[46]

While the Franco-Bavarian camp slept, the Allied armies had been on
the move since three o'clock. On the previous day pioneers had bridged
the Kessel in several places and thrown fascine causeways across the
Reichen, a small watercourse west of Tapfheim. There was thus no undue
delay at these obstacles as the mighty company of 56,000 men advanced
steadily, Marlborough's army in four columns on the flank nearest the
Danube, and Eugene's with the same number on the right. On the far
bank of the Reichen a ninth column was formed from 20 battalions and
15 squadrons of British and German troops, and this powerful force
fell in on the extreme left under Lord Cutts (a commander who had won
distinction at the siege of Venlo). By six o'clock the heads of the
columns had drawn level with the village of Schweningen, only two
miles from the Nebel; here they halted briefly while Marlborough and
Eugene rode forward with 40 squadrons of horse to reconnoitre the
French positions and confirm their plan of battle. Through the
clearing morning mists they could see the opposing camp spread out on
the rising ground beyond the Nebel. They had no detailed maps on which
to project formation boundaries, but the three villages which
punctuated the four-mile gap between the Danube and the hills gave
them definite landmarks. It was decided that Oberglau, roughly 1000
yards to the right of centre, should mark the inter-army boundary.
Marlborough, with 34,000 men, would attack on a front from Blindheim
(or Blenheim), at the river, to Oberglau; Eugene with the lesser
force, would take on the right-hand sector, from the northern
outskirts of Oberglau to the village of Lutzingen on the hill slopes.
Their reconnaissance completed, the two leaders rejoined their
respective armies, which now moved forward to deploy for action.

It was then that realization came to the Franco-Bavarians that they
were going to be attacked. Their camp sprang into motion, "their
Generals and their Aid de Camps galloping to and fro to put all things
in order". Signal guns recalled scattered foragers, and outposts fell
back hurriedly from a number of small hamlets east of the Nebel, first
setting these on fire. There was still ample time to complete
defensive dispositions while the Allies were engaged in the long
drawn-out process of deploying over the difficult ground, so that the
surprise gained by Marlborough must be considered moral rather than
tactical. Nevertheless the shock of his appearance was bound to have
an adverse psychological effect upon the Franco-Bavarian commanders
and troops alike, who suddenly saw their fancied security rudely
disturbed and the initiative wrested from their grasp.

Although taken unawares, Marshals Tallard and Marsin and the Elector
were too experienced campaigners not to have planned their
dispositions to meet such an emergency. Their three armies formed up
in the order in which they had encamped--Tallard's nearest the Danube,
Marsin's in the centre about Oberglau and the Elector's on the
northern flank. They made their strongest infantry concentrations in
the sectors most likely to be attacked by fordings of the Nebel--on
the left from Lutzingen to Oberglau, and on the right immediately
about Blenheim. The remaining sector, facing the area between
Unterglau (which stood on the Allied bank below Oberglau) and some
water mills 500 yards above Blenheim, where the marshy ground about
the stream seemed to preclude any danger of a serious attack, was held
mainly by cavalry. Of the three villages on which the defences were
based, Blenheim with its 300 stone houses was by far the strongest
held. Into it Tallard packed 16 infantry battalions, ranging 11 more
in reserve a few hundred yards to the rear. The 200-yard gap between
Blenheim and the Danube he blocked with a barricade of wagons guarded
by 12 squadrons of dismounted dragoons whose horses had died of a
disease caught in Alsace. On the two-mile stretch of open ground
overlooking the Nebel between Blenheim and Oberglau were drawn up in
two lines 68 squadrons of cavalry (36 of Tallard's and 32 of Marsin's)
supported by only nine battalions of foot. Marsin guarded Oberglau
with 14 battalions, and the rest of the line was held by 67 French and
Bavarian squadrons flanked by 17 battalions outside Oberglau and 12
defending Lutzingen.[47] The cannon were posted in a chain of
batteries across the entire front, outnumbering the Allied guns 90 to
66.

Various military writers have criticized this order of battle,
particularly the unusual disposition which placed the French cavalry
in the centre instead of on the flanks. The arrangement arose from the
fact that since his arrival in Bavaria Tallard, instead of integrating
his forces arm by arm with those of the Elector and Marsin, had kept
his army separate, principally in order to prevent the spread of the
ailment afflicting his horses to the rest of the Franco-Bavarian
cavalry. Thus when they hurriedly deployed from their respective camps
on the morning of August 13 Tallard's flanking squadrons found
themselves next to those on Marsin's right flank. Those who give this
reason for the unusual formation have suggested that had the enemy
commanders not been taken by surprise they might have rearranged their
line to give their centre the solidarity of defense that only infantry
could provide. It seems evident, however, that Tallard, overruling the
objections of his colleagues, who favoured repelling the attackers at
the stream's edge, was planning a deliberate trap for the Allies in
the improbable event of a crossing in force in this swampy sector of
the Nebel. He therefore kept his squadrons well up on the crest, 1000
yards from the water, so as to leave a "killing ground" on which a
frontal charge by his cavalry could be reinforced by heavy flanking
blows from the infantry in Blenheim and Oberglau.


The Battle is Joined

On the Allied side of the Nebel Eugene's assignment to the right flank
meant that because of the oblique course of the stream from north-west
to south-east his troops had to make a long and troublesome deployment
to reach their positions opposite Lutzingen. Their progress was slow
across the rough fields intersected with numerous ditches, and all the
while they were under fire from the enemy's guns, which their own,
still on the move, could not answer. Meanwhile pioneers were busy
repairing a stone bridge over the Nebel and constructing five
additional crossing-places between Oberglau and Blenheim. Shortly
before 10 o'clock the leading brigade of Lord Cutts' column occupied
the mills on the left bank, and pushing across the stream went to
ground about 150 yards in front of Blenheim. Seated or lying rank on
rank on the slopes leading down to the Nebel Marlborough's remaining
units were now ready for action; but they had to wait for nearly three
hours for Eugene's troops to reach their allotted positions. Under
continuous fire from the enemy's cannon they held divine service and
ate their midday meal. The Duke himself, ignoring the flying cannon
balls, cantered slowly up and down the lines conferring with his
officers, checking the position of every gun, and inspecting his
squadrons and battalions. His composed bearing instilled confidence in
all who saw him, and only the frequency with which he dispatched
messengers to inquire of Eugene's progress revealed his impatience to
begin the action. Finally at half-past twelve a message came that the
Prince was ready. Immediately the Duke sent word to Cutts to attack
Blenheim and ordered a general advance down to the Nebel.

The nature of the task before him had caused Marlborough to dispose
his main columns in four lines (each three or four men deep)--a line
of infantry in front and rear (of 17 and 11 battalions respectively),
with two of cavalry (36 and 35 squadrons) in between. The purpose of
this unconventional arrangement is explained by Dr. Hare, the Duke's
personal chaplain, who was present at the battle, and whose journal of
the events was read by Marlborough himself.

     The reason for drawing up the first line of foot in front of
     the horse was because it was to pass the rivulet first, and to
     march as far in advance on the other side as could be
     conveniently done, and then to form and cover the passage of
     the horse, leaving intervals in the line of infantry large
     enough for the horse to pass through and take their post in
     front.[48]

In employing this close co-operation between horse and foot
(forerunner of "infantry-cum-tank" tactics of the Second World War),
Marlborough was exploiting to the full the advantage held by his
musketeers in their possession of the ring bayonet (see p. 15 above).

The battle of Blenheim was fought long before the day of written
operation orders, and Marlborough does not appear to have gone on
record afterwards as to his actual intentions for the attack. But we
can reconstruct his plan from his direction of the successive phases
of the Allied effort and his prompt reaction to the enemy's counter
strokes. When he observed the unorthodox arrangement of the enemy's
armies the Duke could not have failed to appreciate the significance
of the long lines of cavalry that linked none too strongly the
powerful defences on either flank. He must have noted that although
Blenheim and Oberglau were held in strength (he could no doubt
recognize the colours of the finest regiments of the French Army), the
distance between these villages was too great for their cannon fire to
cover the intervening ground effectively. And the fact that instead of
defending the edge of the Nebel Tallard had left an inviting open
space in front of his line suggested that the French Marshal either
deemed the rivulet too difficult to cross or was preparing a trap for
the Allies.

The decision of Marlborough and Eugene therefore appears to have been
to keep the enemy in a sense of false security by striking first in
those sections where the nature of the ground was least unfavourable
to the Allies and thus most likely to encourage an attack. Eugene
would assault vigorously on the right in the hope of turning the
Lutzingen flank or at least keeping the enemy fully occupied in that
sector. The decisive blow, on the success of which would be risked all
the fruits of the long march to the Danube, would be delivered by
Marlborough's army opposite Unterglau. But first the defended villages
of Oberglau and Blenheim would be engaged by forces strong enough to
carry these places if possible, but at all events to keep the infantry
garrisons from assisting the French cavalry squadrons in the centre.

The frontal assault on Blenheim by the five British battalions was
first halted by the withering fire that burst from the village
palisades and then broken by a flanking charge of three squadrons of
the famous French Gendarmerie. Casualties were heavy. A second attack
in which Cutts put in two more of his infantry brigades managed to
break into the outskirts, but could get no farther. The French
commander in Blenheim, Lieut.-General the Marquis de Clrambault,
whose morale seems to have been badly shaken by the Allied decision to
give battle, had called in the infantry reserve which Tallard had
stationed in the rear, and the village was now jammed with 27 French
battalions, besides the 12 squadrons of dismounted dragoons who had
swarmed in from the river flank. Thus the tactics of the Schellenberg
assault were again succeeding. The Allied attack might not penetrate
the defences, but it was drawing in forces which the enemy should have
kept elsewhere. In vain one of Tallard's cavalry commanders urged the
excited Clrambault to release 12 battalions to line the banks of the
Nebel above Blenheim; while the Marshal himself, the one man who could
and should have corrected his subordinate's error, had ridden across
to the less critical left flank to exercise an uncalled-for
supervision over Marsin and the Elector in their handling of Eugene's
attack.

That Prince's role, as we have seen, was diversionary, to contain the
enemy's left wing even though there was little hope of overcoming the
Franco-Bavarian forces, who had the advantage of ground and superior
numbers. Having formed all his infantry on his right he crossed the
numerous streamlets which comprised the Nebel in that sector and
launched an attack on Lutzingen, about the time that Cutts was making
the first assault on Blenheim. Seven Danish and eleven Prussian
battalions of foot pushed back the enemy's front line and captured a
six-gun battery, and in the open ground to the left the Imperialist
cavalry broke the Elector's first line of horse. But a counter-charge
of Bavarian Life Guards turned the tables and drove the whole
attacking force back to the woods behind the Nebel. A second cavalry
effort was broken up by heavy converging cannon fire from Lutzingen
and Oberglau.

Oberglau itself, opposite Marlborough's extreme right flank, was
becoming the scene of some of the bitterest fighting of the day. The
Duke had kept the village under vigorous cannonading, and as soon as
the first of Churchill's infantry had crossed the Nebel he assigned to
the assault ten German battalions, led by the Prince of Holstein-Beck.
But the French general in Oberglau, the Marquis de Blainville,
displayed better tactics than his fellow commander in Blenheim. As
Holstein-Beck's two leading battalions advanced to storm the village,
Blainville suddenly unleashed on them nine of his best battalions,
including the indomitable Irish Brigade of the French service.
Holstein-Beck was mortally wounded, one of his battalions was
annihilated, and the rest of the attacking force was thrown back in
disorder across the Nebel. At this critical point, when Marlborough's
right flank was exposed to a cavalry attack that might have cut the
whole Allied line in two, the Duke himself galloped up and took
charge. He sent an urgent call to Eugene for cavalry assistance, and
throwing in three fresh Hanoverian battalions he halted the Irish
counter-attack. Hard pressed though the Prince of Savoy was, he was
soldier enough to recognize Marlborough's greater need, and he
instantly sent him a strong force of Imperial Cuirassiers. They
arrived in time to take Marsin's charging squadrons in the left flank
(on their vulnerable bridle hand) and save the day. The Allied
infantry now pressed forward again and drove Blainville's troops back
into Oberglau, where with the help of a battery brought forward by
Marlborough's artillery commander, Colonel Holcroft Blood,[49] they
kept them pinned down from further sortie. It was the first time that
an English army had used artillery as a mobile weapon.

Meanwhile Tallard had returned to his own flank in time to absorb a
painful lesson in cavalry tactics. Fearing a further Gendarmerie
charge upon his infantry outside Blenheim, Cutts had urgently
requested cavalry protection. In response five squadrons of horse from
the left of Marlborough's line forded the Nebel in the vicinity of the
mills and formed up on the left bank a few hundred yards north-east of
the village. They were immediately charged by eight squadrons of
Gendarmerie, who, in accordance with their training, halted before
reaching their target to discharge their carbines from the saddle. It
was a fatal mistake, which cost them all their advantage of impetus
and superior numbers. Before they could regain momentum the five
English squadrons were upon them with drawn swords, swerving outwards
to shear off their wings and then converging inwards to demolish their
centre and put all to rout. The episode shocked Tallard, who later
accounted for his defeat at Blenheim "first, because the Gendarmerie
were not able to break the five English squadrons".

About half-past two Lord Cutts, calling up his fourth and last
infantry brigade, prepared to assault Blenheim for the third time. But
Marlborough, who in contrast to Tallard had kept full control of the
actions of his commanders and who now judged that the threat to the
French right flank had fulfilled its purpose, called off the attack,
and ordered that the enemy be kept pinned down in the village. This
Cutts achieved by covering all the village outlets with his fire and
having his infantry advance successively by platoons from just outside
musket range to pour their volleys into the congested streets. In this
manner 15 or 16 Allied battalions held 27 French in Blenheim
throughout the afternoon.

While the opposing forces on either flank had been fighting the
violent and protracted actions which we have described, Marlborough's
main body had been steadily crossing the Nebel, the infantry filing
over the bridges and causeways below the burning village of Unterglau,
the cavalry columns following at various fording places.

[Illustration: The Battlefield of Blenheim looking Southward from a
point near Weilheim Photograph taken in 1955]

     There was very great difficulty and danger [writes Hare] in
     defiling over the rivulet in the face of an enemy already
     formed and supported by several batteries of cannon, yet by the
     brave examples given and great diligence used by the commanding
     officers, and by the eagerness of the men, all passed over by
     degrees and kept their ground.[50]

But the French did not rely on artillery fire alone to halt the
passage of the opposing army. No sooner had the front line of foot
redeployed on the western bank with the first line of cavalry behind
it than a sudden charge of Tallard's squadrons struck the left flank,
and was only beaten off by the steady fire of the infantry and the
timely arrival of fresh Danish and Hanoverian horse. Thus another
crucial threat was overcome, as was Blainville's violent
counter-attack on the Oberglau flank. In spite of these obstructions,
by four o'clock the entire army had passed the stream and had formed
up at the foot of the slope, with the two lines of cavalry now in
front and a double row of infantry in the rear with intervals through
which the horse could retire if pressed.

At last Marlborough's tactics had gained him the advantage he sought:
by inducing his adversary to dissipate his superior infantry strength,
he had achieved an overwhelming preponderance of his own. With 41 of
the best French battalions penned in Blenheim and Oberglau by 25
Allied battalions, Tallard could put only nine battalions of young
recruits with the cavalry in the two-mile space between the villages.
Concealed behind his lines of horse Marlborough had 23 battalions. The
60 French squadrons, several of which had been engaged earlier, he
confronted with 80 fresh, well-conditioned squadrons of his own.


                         The Decisive Stroke

Although his troops were now in position to deliver the long-planned
decisive blow, almost another hour was to pass before Marlborough put
his men in motion. He wanted the final offensive to be launched on the
whole front; and on the far right Eugene was not yet ready. After the
failure of his second cavalry attack the Prince had personally led
another unsuccessful infantry advance against Lutzingen, and he was
now preparing a three-pronged effort in which Danish battalions would
circle through the woods to outflank the Elector's left, Prussian foot
would attack Lutzingen frontally, and his rallied cavalry squadrons
would deliver their third charge across the Nebel between Lutzingen
and Oberglau. Shortly before five o'clock, writes Hare, "the Duke of
Marlborough, having ridden along the front, gave orders to sound the
charge, when all at once our two lines of horse moved on, sword in
hand, to the attack." The "leisured and majestic" advance of the
squadrons up the long slope was made at a walk so that the infantry in
the rear could keep pace and even bring forward supporting cannon with
them.

In the French lines Tallard (whose defective eyesight is said to have
misled him as to the numbers which had crossed the Nebel) was soon to
realize that his cavalry squadrons, whose earlier engagements that day
could have brought them no great cause for exhilaration, were
confronted by a vastly superior force. He ordered forward the nine
battalions which formed his only infantry reserve and interspersed
them between the rear squadrons of his cavalry over towards Oberglau.
It was too late to withdraw some of the surplus troops in Blenheim by
the rear of the village, and his orders for a breakout on the flank
were futile as long as Cutts' platoons commanded the forward outlets
with their fire.

Accounts vary concerning the initial clash, but most agree that the
enemy did not wait for the Allies to strike first. A French narrative
describes a brisk charge ordered by Tallard which

     made all the Squadrons they attacked give way; but these
     Squadrons being sustained by several lines of horse and foot,
     our men were forced to shrink back, and throw themselves on our
     second line . . .[51]

Whatever the French horse may have done, far more effective in
temporarily halting the Allied advance was the steady shooting of the
determined young musketeers with whom Tallard had reinforced his left,
and the volume of fire with which the Blenheim garrison continued to
aid his right flank. Marlborough's front line of cavalry was driven
back some sixty yards, and for one hopeful moment the French
commander, as he wrote later, "saw an instant in which the battle was
gained".[52] But volley after volley from General Churchill's
well-disciplined platoons checked any forward movement of the French
cavalry, and Colonel Blood's artillery poured a deadly volume of
grapeshot into the ranks of the nine French battalions, which were
formed up in hollow squares. These recruits held their ground like
veterans, falling where they stood, so that after the battle their
corpses clearly revealed the order of their positions.

And now Marlborough ordered his cavalry to charge. As the trumpets
sounded, the double lines broke forward in a brisk trot. The French
squadrons, thoroughly demoralized at the spectacle of this approaching
power, hurriedly discharged their carbines in an ineffectual fusillade
and then turned in flight, leaving the surviving infantry to be cut
down or captured. The routed enemy ran in two directions. Those on
Tallard's left headed for Hochstadt and the rear of Marsin's army;
those of his right swung down towards the Danube behind Blenheim.
Marlborough sent 30 Allied squadrons under his Prussian cavalry
leader, Lieut.-General Hompesch, after the former; he himself led a
similar force in pursuit towards the river. The French were given no
time to rally. Many that escaped the Allied sabres were swept over the
high river bank to be crushed under their falling horses in the
marshes below or to perish in the swift current. Tallard himself was
captured when trying to make his way into Blenheim. He was taken to
Marlborough, who with courtly ceremony offered him his own coach.[53]

Elsewhere on the four-mile front the issue was no longer in doubt.
Eugene's cavalry attack, like the earlier ones, had been repulsed by a
counter-charge of Marsin's horse; but his infantry, battling
heroically against murderous fire, had reached the outskirts of
Lutzingen and once more captured the great battery there. They hung on
grimly to the ground they had gained, and in time their resoluteness
was rewarded. Marsin and the Elector, seeing the dbcle of Tallard's
forces and the resultant exposure of their own right flank, began an
orderly withdrawal, first setting on fire the two villages for which
so much blood had been shed. Their hasty but disciplined retreat,
which was in marked contrast to the headlong flight of the French
right, was aided by the failing light. Hompesch, with a good chance to
intercept them, mistook Eugene's pursuing force for part of the
Elector's army and halted to make sure; while Eugene, taking
Hompesch's cavalry for French reinforcements from Tallard, also
hesitated. By the time each had recognized the other the
Franco-Bavarians had reached the marshes behind Hochstadt, where it
was too dark for the Allied cavalry to hunt them down.

Meanwhile only Blenheim remained in the possession of its original
defenders, and its fate was sealed. As soon as Marlborough's cavalry
rode off in pursuit of Tallard's shattered squadrons Churchill had
wheeled to his left and with his battalions had extended almost to the
Danube Cutts' containing line around the village. But the harassed
Clrambault had not waited to see Blenheim invested. He realized that
the day was lost and blamed it on his own misjudgement. Without
handing over his command to anyone he rode down into the Danube,
seeking either safety or suicide. The groom who accompanied him
reached the far bank, but Clrambault was drowned. For nearly an hour
the leaderless garrison in Blenheim bore the weight of repeated
assaults from three sides, and all the time the casualties mounted as
Allied artillery fire raked the crowded streets. There were renewed
but fruitless efforts to break out when a new leader, the Marquis de
Blansac, assumed command. Demands for capitulation made by the British
generals were at first indignantly rejected but later hotly debated.
Finally, about nine o'clock Blansac surrendered; yet there were many
dissenters among the unconquered battalions. Shocked officers sadly
surmised, "Que dira le Roi?"; and the proud regiment of Navarre
buried[54] its colours.


                      "It Was a Famous Victory"

"Thus was concluded and completed the victory of this great day",
wrote Hare in his journal, and went on to rejoice at the acquisition
of "about one hundred fat oxen ready-skinned, which were to have been
delivered out this day to the French troops, but which proved a
welcome booty to the soldiers of the Allied army after such long and
hard service."[55] Marlborough had already dispatched to the Duchess
his famous message, pencilled on the back of a tavern bill:

     I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to
     the Queen, and let her know her army has had a glorious
     victory. Monsieur Tallard and two other Generals are in my
     coach and I am following the rest. The bearer, my Aide-de-Camp
     Colonel Parke, will give Her an account of what has passed. I
     shall do it in a day or two by another more at large.

Measured by casualties alone the French suffered a crushing defeat.

    They say it was a shocking sight
      After the field was won;
    For many thousand bodies here
      Lay rotting in the sun;
    But things like that, you know, must be,
      After a famous victory.[56]

The Allies had lost some 6000 killed and probably a slightly larger
number wounded (a contemporary[57] computed the total loss at 12,758,
or about 23% of all the forces engaged). But against this it is
estimated that at least 14,000 of the enemy were killed, wounded or
drowned, and upwards of 15,000 fell unwounded into Allied hands. These
numbers were increased by desertions and the cutting off of stragglers
during the subsequent retreat to the Rhine; indeed, two weeks after
the battle intercepted letters to the French Court admitted losses of
40,000 men, or no less than two-thirds of their original strength.[58]
The vast quantity of equipment captured by the Allies included "100
pieces of cannon, great and small, 24 mortars, 129 colours, 171
standards, 17 pair of kettle-drums, 3600 tents, 34 coaches, 300 laden
mules, 2 bridges of boats, 15 pontoons, 24 barrels, and 8 casks of
silver."[59]

Yet the significance of Blenheim does not lie in the balance sheet of
losses of men and material. The defeat had suddenly brought to naught
the Grand Monarch's aspirations in Central Europe. Vienna was saved,
there would now be no French-sponsored Bavarian Prince on the Imperial
throne, and German principalities between the Rhine and the Danube
need no longer fear the march of Louis XIV's armies. Above all
Blenheim ended the delusion of the invincibility of French arms. For
two generations the prestige enjoyed by French soldiers had dominated
the European military scene. It had created in the opponent a sense of
inferiority which facilitated the very conquests on which it thrived.
That reputation had now been struck a shattering blow from which it
was not to recover for nearly a century. For the remainder of the War
of the Spanish Succession the moral advantage was to be very
definitely with the armies of the Grand Alliance.

In England the news of the victory was received with the greatest
rejoicing. The entire population of the capital thronged the streets,
and the tavern cellars were quickly emptied as loyal citizens drank
bumpers to the Queen's and the Duke's health. "Never were such
illuminations, ringing of bells, such demonstrations of joy since the
laying of London stone."[60] The Queen proclaimed a solemn
thanksgiving and rode in stately procession to St. Paul's with the
Duchess of Marlborough by her side. The nation's attitude towards the
war underwent a marked change; active opposition was replaced by a
glowing enthusiasm for the struggle to continue until France was
beaten to her knees.

As for the Duke himself, the people of England were not to have a
chance to welcome him until Christmas Day, for, as we shall see in our
next chapter, he was to press four more months of campaigning into the
year 1704. On December 26, in reply to a highly laudatory address
delivered in the House of Lords, he begged "to do right to all the
officers and soldiers I had the honour of having under my command;
next to the blessing of God, the good success of the campaign is owing
to their extraordinary courage."[61] This tribute to the British
soldier (who heretofore had been all too "commonly regarded as a
blackguard") was not only to raise him in his countrymen's esteem but
was to win from him a gratitude which for seven years he registered
"in deeds, the like of which are only done for generals who possess
the key to the self-respect and pride of simple hearts."

It remains to sum up briefly the lessons of the battle. This was
Marlborough's most decisive victory, and probably the one which he
gained at the heaviest risk. Here was displayed in striking fashion
the "touch of the gambler" which Lord Wavell lists as one of the
requirements of true generalship. It is a measure of the Duke's
greatness that having gained by successful strategy an opportunity
favourable for attack, he fully realized the odds against him, yet had
sufficient confidence in his tactical skill to carry a sound yet
simple plan through to victory. One modern historian has declared that
"the scales were turned more by the stoutness of the rank and file,
together with the miscalculations of the French command, than by
Marlborough's skill."[62] We may subscribe to this opinion without
detracting from Marlborough's reputation if we keep two things in
mind. It was Marlborough's strategy of the march to the Danube,
carried out successfully under his skilful organization, that had
brought his forces to the scene of battle in first class physical
condition and morale, while compelling the French to reinforce
hurriedly with "raw troops, over-marched and ill-provisioned". And in
admitting Tallard's contribution to his own defeat we must recognize
Marlborough's special gift of detecting his opponent's weaknesses and
capitalizing on them to the fullest extent.

While it would be an exaggeration to say that the French violated the
Principles of War almost as consistently as the Allies adhered to
them, the respective breach and observance of certain Principles by
the opposing sides stand out clearly. We may note the _Economy of
Effort_ demonstrated by Marlborough in achieving in the centre "an
effective concentration at the decisive time and place"; by contrast,
what could have been less economical than the enemy's concentration in
Blenheim of 27 battalions whose immobilization robbed Tallard of any
chance to exercise much-needed _Flexibility_ to counter Marlborough's
deciding blow? The division of command between Tallard, Marsin and the
Elector resulted in a fatal absence of _Co-operation_; in effect the
French left and right fought as two separate armies, a condition
which, as we have seen, placed Tallard under the imagined necessity of
leaving his own front at a crucial moment to visit his colleagues on
the other wing. On the Allied side, however, a similar division of
command was neutralized by the complete mutual understanding that
existed between the two leaders and by Marlborough's "exceptional tact
in managing to retain the reality of undivided generalship under the
surface of a divided one".[63] None of Tallard's errors was more
serious than the neglect of Security which arose from his
overestimation of the Nebel as an obstacle. This made it possible for
Marlborough to deliver his decisive stroke where it was least
expected. It was the Duke's third important use of _Surprise_ against
Tallard, who had been previously taken unawares by Marlborough's
unexpected junction with Eugene, and by the subsequent Allied decision
to give battle at Blenheim.

_Offensive Action_, obviously a function of the attacking force, is no
less a requirement in the defence. Tallard failed to recognize this,
and, as we have seen, sacrificed the mobility of his troops to a
passive defence. On the Allied side no one exemplified this principle
more brilliantly than Prince Eugene, whose repeated onslaught against
the strongly held Franco-Bavarian positions splendidly fulfilled
Marlborough's purpose of keeping the enemy's left wing fully occupied.
The Prince's gallant perseverance brought a generous tribute from
Marlborough: "Had the success of Prince Eugene been equal to his
merit, we should in that day's action have made an end of the
war."[64]




                              CHAPTER V

                      The Lines of Brabant, 1705

                            After Blenheim


As the defeated French and Bavarian armies hurried by forced marches
back to the Rhine, their route marked for later generations by
churchyards which the aftermath of battle had filled, Marlborough
ascended the valley of the Danube at a more restrained pace. Blenheim
had been followed by no grand pursuit, for neither Allied commander
had fresh troops available, and both were occupied with the care of
their wounded and the task of feeding the thousands of prisoners.
While a small force of Austrian hussars harried the enemy's rear, the
main Allied body rested for four days near Dillingen. On the 19th the
two armies moved forward towards Ulm.

[Illustration: OPERATIONS BETWEEN THE RHINE AND THE MOSELLE

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1704

Historical Section, G.S.]

Outside Ulm Marlborough and Eugene were joined by Prince Louis of
Baden, who had been recalled from the now unnecessary siege of
Ingolstadt. The Margrave was smarting under the trick which had
deprived him of participation in the triumph of Blenheim (although had
he been present there must almost certainly have been no battle). He
temporarily concealed his indignation, but his resentment against
Marlborough was to persist, and with most adverse effects upon the
Allied cause. All three commanders agreed that they must exploit
success by following the French back to the Rhine, and beyond it. The
Margrave's proposal to besiege Landau was acceptable to Marlborough,
for its recapture would enable Allied forces to be stationed on the
French side of the Rhine. But the Duke had greater things in mind. He
realized that the demoralized state of the enemy invited an incursion
into the Moselle valley. The season was late, but if the Allies could
secure the Moselle as far up as Trves before winter set in, they
would be excellently situated to undertake in the spring his
long-cherished project of an advance up the river towards Paris.
Leaving 15,000 men with the siege train to reduce Ulm, the Allies
resumed their march. For ease of supply the armies moved in four
columns by as many separate routes, that of the English infantry and
artillery taking them in triumph through the same towns and villages
that had welcomed them two months before. There was a rendezvous at
Philippsburg during the first week of September (Eugene bringing in
from the Stollhofen Lines the troops no longer needed there), and by
the 8th the whole force had crossed the Rhine and was concentrated on
the left bank.

Meanwhile Marshal Marsin and the Elector, herding with them the
remnants of Tallard's army, had been met near Villingen by Villeroi,
who had hastened eastward from the Rhine to cover their withdrawal
through the Black Forest. They reached the Rhine on August 31, to find
refuge under the fortress guns of Kehl. By the time Marlborough
arrived Villeroi had gathered together a force of 85 battalions and
112 squadrons to oppose operations against Landau, and was holding the
line of the River Queich, which ran past the fortress to enter the
Rhine about three miles above Philippsburg. With all crossing places
defended by hastily constructed palisades and entrenchments, the
position was one that seemed reasonably defensible, even against an
Allied force of 92 battalions and 181 squadrons.

But the French troops, their morale shattered from the disaster of
Blenheim and the horrors of the retreat, were in no mood to face their
former opponents. Villeroi recognized this, and when on September 9
the Allies marched south towards the Queich, he ordered successive
retreats to the Lauter and the Moder, two more tributaries of the
Rhine respectively 20 and 40 miles south of Landau. "If they had not
been the most frightened people in the world", Marlborough wrote to
Godolphin on the 12th, "they would never have quitted these two
posts."[65]

Ulm had fallen on the 11th, releasing the siege train to be moved to
Landau, where Prince Louis opened his trenches on the 16th. The
operation against the Alsatian fortress went slowly, for the garrison
was alert and vigorous, and the Margrave was short of engineers and
equipment. As one English cavalry officer wrote, "The Imperialists
undertake sieges without cannon, ammunition, and engineers with as
much assurance as they did a war without money, credit, or
troops."[66] Marlborough and Eugene had the role of covering the
siege, but after five weeks of relative inactivity the former,
impatient to lay the foundations for a spring campaign on the Moselle,
began putting his plans into effect.

Leaving the Prince of Savoy on the Lauter with 25,000 men to watch
Villeroi's 40,000 at the Moder, the Duke quietly concentrated a force
of 12,000 at Homburg, some 40 miles north-west of Landau. On October
25 he struck out across the mountains which enclose the Moselle valley
from the south. Marlborough was well aware of the risks attending the
expedition. On the 26th, when he had covered a score of miles and had
the same distance still to go, he wrote to Sarah:

     I am got this far in my way to the Moselle, after having
     marched through very terrible mountains. Had we any rain it
     would have been impossible to have got forward the cannon, and
     it is certain if the enemy are able to hinder us from taking
     winter quarters in this country, we must throw our cannon into
     some river, for to carry them back is impossible.[67]

Too late Villeroi awoke to the danger to Trves, which was defended by
only 300 French soldiers. He dispatched 5000 reinforcements, who came
within sight of the fortress on the 29th. But they were a few hours
too late; earlier that day Marlborough had marched in, the garrison
fleeing at his approach.

This success isolated the companion fortress of Trarbach, down the
river towards Coblenz. Having billeted his infantry in and about
Trves and put 6000 peasants to work repairing the fortifications,
Marlborough entrusted the siege of Trarbach to the Prince of
Hesse-Cassel, giving him twelve Dutch battalions newly arrived from
Holland and arranging for a siege train to come up by water from
Coblenz. He himself returned to Landau, where that siege was still
dragging on, deliberately prolonged by the Margrave, in the opinion of
many, as a revenge for his treatment at Blenheim. The English cavalry
covering the operations had scoured the countryside bare of fodder and
their horses were wasted with disease. The same officer reported: "He
has spun out the siege till the left wing of the horse, to which that
action [Blenheim] was chiefly owing, is entirely ruined. We have not
above twenty horses a troop left."[68]

Landau finally fell on November 28 after 70 days of siege, and the
rocky fortress of Trarbach was taken on December 20. The Moselle
valley from the Saar to the Rhine was now in Allied hands, and
supplies could reach Trves all the way from Utrecht by boat. The
preparation of bases for the great spring design went steadily
forward. Meanwhile Marlborough was busy making the rounds of the
European capitals. It was no pleasure trip. The Duke was threatened
with a breakdown in health as a result of his strenuous campaigning.
"I am so lean", he had written to the Duchess in October, "that it is
extremely uneasy to me . . . your care must nurse me this winter or I
shall certainly be in a consumption".[69] Yet he now undertook a
fatiguing 800-mile journey in his lumbering coach, "obliged to be
every day 14 or 15 hours on the road, which has made my side very
sore."[70] In Berlin he got the agreement of King Frederick I to
supply 8000 Prussians to help the Duke of Savoy in Northern Italy. At
Hanover his charm won the Electress Sophia from her former hostility,
causing her to forget her criticism of his tactics at the Schellenberg
(page 45, above). She saw him as the perfect commander. "Never have I
become acquainted with a man who knows how to move so easily, so
freely, and so courteously. He is as skilled as a courtier as he is a
brave general".[71] The warmth of his reception by the Prussian and
Hanoverian monarchs was repeated in Amsterdam and The Hague. He
finally reached London on December 25, after an absence of eight
months, to receive the acclaim of a grateful nation. The Queen granted
him the manor of Woodstock, to build there, at her expense, stately
Blenheim Palace.

In contrast to the successes gained under Marlborough the year 1704
had recorded no great Allied achievements on other fronts. General
Overkirk had accomplished nothing in the Netherlands; in Northern
Italy Victor Amadeus had lost to Vendme's army one after another of
his fortresses in Piedmont, and was now hemmed in about his capital
city of Turin. In south-western Europe the Portuguese Alliance had
dragged England into an unprofitable and indecisive Peninsular War.
The young Archduke Charles had gone to Portugal, where he had been
proclaimed King Charles III of Spain. But a campaign launched along
the Spanish border had failed and the end of the year found Charles
still in Lisbon. Illuminating this otherwise gloomy picture, however,
had been Admiral Sir George Rooke's capture of Gibraltar in the week
before Blenheim. Then, on August 22, Rooke engaged in the Straits
Admiral Toulouse with the main French fleet, which had been sent out
from Toulon to retake Gibraltar. The battle, fought off Malaga, was
the one big naval action of the whole War of the Spanish Succession.
At the end of the day both sides exhausted claimed the victory, the
British and Dutch with the better right; for next morning Toulouse's
battered fleet was on its way back to France, and England's ownership
of her new Mediterranean fortress had survived its first serious
threat.


                        Failure on the Moselle

After a busy winter Marlborough returned to The Hague in mid-April, in
high hopes that his long-cherished project, the foundations of which
he had so carefully laid the previous autumn, might now be brought to
completion. But, as so frequently seemed to happen when his prospects
at the beginning of a campaign looked bright, he was doomed to
disappointment. Once again it was to be his allies who let him down.
For it appears that Dutch and Austrians alike were incapable of
sharing the Duke's penetration and breadth of vision; a limited
success would satisfy them and make them forget their obligations
until fresh misfortunes provided a new incentive to co-operate.

It had been Marlborough's design to invade France by two parallel
thrusts, within mutual supporting distance so that neither could be
separately overwhelmed. He himself would lead 60,000 troops in English
and Dutch pay up the Moselle from Trves, while the Margrave of Baden
with 30,000 Austrians and Germans marched westward from Landau to the
River Saar. But to his disappointment he found that the magazines on
the Meuse and the Moselle which the States-General had agreed to fill
with supplies were half empty, and that the longstanding fear for the
safety of their own frontiers had decided the Dutch to retain in
Holland half the troops which they had promised for the Moselle.
Things were no better on the Austrian side of the Rhine, where the
German princes, freed from the Bavarian war, were showing little
concern for their obligations to the Grand Alliance. Preparations for
the spring campaign were dilatory and inadequate and it became
apparent that the commitment on the left would not be met. The
Margrave himself was making the most of an infected foot, injured at
the Schellenberg, and furnished Marlborough with many polite excuses,
but no troops.

Marlborough set to work to overcome Dutch fears, and finally convinced
the Deputies that a bold execution of his plan would compel the French
to abandon any threat against Holland. He wrote in the strongest terms
about the Imperial shortcomings to Prince Eugene, who, by threatening
to abandon the service of the Empire, forced the government in Vienna
into a belated effort to redeem its pledges. Yet when he reached
Trves on 26 May, having brought his British and Dutch forces forward
from their concentration area at Maastricht (besides making a
week-long journey to confer with the Margrave in his new palace near
Strasbourg), the Duke was forced to report to the Secretary of State
that the negligence of his Allies had reduced him to one army.

     According to the promise I have had all this winter from
     Vienna, I was in good hopes the Prince of Baden would have been
     enabled to have seconded me in these parts with a considerable
     force, so that we might have acted with two separate armies;
     but you will be surprised to hear that all he can bring at
     present does not exceed eleven or twelve battalions and
     twenty-eight squadrons. These troops were to begin their march
     about this time, and may be here in ten or twelve days.[72]

On the last day of May he recorded with bitterness, "We are losing the
finest opportunity in the world for want of troops who should have
been here long ago."[73]

On the enemy side there had been no half-heartedness in preparing for
a renewal of hostilities. Louis XIV had entrusted the defence of his
frontiers to Villeroi and the Elector in Flanders, Marsin in Alsace,
and in the centre, where the danger was gravest, to his ablest
commander, Marshal Villars. Early in February Villars set up his
headquarters at Metz and established a chain of posts stretching from
Thionville on the Moselle to Saarlouis on the Saar. By the end of May
he was holding a position of great natural strength near Sierck, on
the Moselle's right bank, about 25 miles above Trves. Here,
reinforced to an army of 52,000, he awaited his opponent's move.

That move came suddenly, as Marlborough, without waiting longer for
reinforcements, set out from Trves at 2:00 a.m. on June 3, and
advanced quickly between the rivers with 30,000 men, to halt within
sight of Villars' position on the heights of Sierck. Taken by surprise
the French Marshal failed to use his superior numbers to fall upon the
fatigued Allied forces at the vulnerable moment when they were
deploying. Marlborough took up headquarters in the castle of Elst
(still called by the Lorraine peasantry the "Chteau de Malbrook")
confronting Villars' own rocky position. From here he could intercept
any French move towards the fortress of Saarlouis, which he hoped to
besiege whenever the arrival of German transport would enable him to
move the siege train up from Trarbach. There followed a fortnight of
inactivity, for Marlborough had not the strength for a frontal attack,
and the French flanks were too well protected by the Moselle on one
side and by deep ravines and dense woods on the other. The Duke's
correspondence during this period is taken up with problems of supply;
the French had laid bare the countryside, and all food and fodder had
to come forward through Trves. He calls for "all possible grain and
forage from Mainz and Coblenz". Biscuit was to be sent "as fast as it
can be cooked", and fifty bakers were to be taken to Trves under
escort and set to work. Sutlers were to be encouraged to come forward
to the army, "for we are in a country where we find nothing."[74]

In spite of fictitious statistics planted on "deserters" and various
other attempts at deception it was impossible for Marlborough to
conceal from Villars the fact that his strength was considerably less
than the figure of 110,000 which he would have liked the French to
accept. Lacking the Margrave's army he could not impel Villars to draw
in troops from his northern flank. Soon serious news came from
Flanders, where Villeroi had moved against Overkirk during the last
week in May. The French had recaptured the fortress of Huy on the
Meuse and besieged Lige. When the inevitable Dutch appeals for help
reached Marlborough, he acted quickly. There was nothing to hold him
on the Moselle now that his great design had collapsed. In the
circumstances he welcomed the call from the Dutch as a way out of an
untenable position; indeed it is reported that before leaving
Maastricht he had provided himself with such a safeguard by dropping
pointed hints that he was to be summoned should the French launch an
offensive in Flanders.


                         The Lines of Brabant

In the darkness of the night of June 17/18 Marlborough withdrew
quickly from Elst, and leaving a German garrison of 16 battalions and
15 squadrons in Trves (in the faint hope, not to be realized, that
the Moselle project might later be re-opened) began the long march to
the Meuse. The journey over the bleak, mountainous region of the Eifel
was made in vile weather, and large numbers of the ill-fed horses
perished. On June 27 Marlborough reached Maastricht, and on July 2
took his army across the Meuse and joined Overkirk. Villeroi, whose
strength of 70,000 about equalled that of the combined English and
Dutch armies, immediately raised the siege of Lige and fell back
within the Lines of Brabant. The southern part of this system was
based on two small rivers, the Mehaine, a tributary of the Meuse, and
the Little Geete, which flowed northward into the Demer. Between these
two streams there was a space of seven miles without any natural
protection, and here Villeroi concentrated his main body, establishing
his headquarters at Merdorp, in the centre of the gap. Marlborough
encamped opposite him, about the hamlet of Lens-les-Beguines. He took
immediate steps to recover Huy; by the time it capitulated on July 12
the preparations for his next move were well advanced.

It will be recalled that in 1703 the Duke had failed in every attempt
to win Dutch agreement to an assault of the lines behind which
Villeroi then, as now, was standing in apparent security. Since the
attitude of the States-General had not changed, he determined to
attempt a surprise penetration of the Lines, using only English troops
and auxiliaries in English pay. The Dutch generals agreed that their
forces were only "to second and follow him if he succeeded, to help
him to make his retreat if he miscarried, but not to share the danger
with him."[75]


[Illustration: THE LINES OF BRABANT

17-18 JULY 1705

Historical Section, G.S.]

As Marlborough rested in apparent indecision outside the Brabant
Lines, conflicting rumours as to his future moves began to reach the
French camp. The Duke was busy weaving the web of deception which was
to cloak his true actions and secure the surprise he needed. Villeroi
knew well the Dutch opposition to a major attack, but when Allied
"deserters" spoke of preparations being made for a three-pointed
assault centred on Merdorp, he concentrated his forces more closely in
that sector. He might place more weight on reports that Marlborough
was preparing to take his army back to the Moselle, or (as set down in
captured letters) that he was about to move a few miles northward to
Saint Trond, a camping area used by the English in 1703, in search of
better subsistence for his idle army.

This last conjecture seemed to be the correct one when late on July 17
Villeroi and the Elector learned that the Army of the Moselle had
broken camp and was marching north. It had been a perplexing day for
the French Marshal. Early that morning Overkirk's army, which had been
employed in covering the siege of Huy, had crossed the Mehaine and
advanced to within six miles of the lines. Extensive bridge-building
behind the Dutch suggested that Marlborough's force would follow
across the Mehaine that night. Villeroi hurriedly shifted to his right
and concentrated 40,000 men in the threatened area, ordering all to
remain on the alert all night. Just before sunset a strong body of
Overkirk's dragoons marched down the Namur road to bring new alarm to
the extreme French right.

But the actual point which Marlborough had selected for penetrating
the Lines lay a good dozen miles north of where Villeroi was expecting
trouble. The Duke rightly concluded that since the Little Geete
provided the strongest natural obstacle in this sector it would be
relatively lightly guarded. As darkness fell a picked force of 20
battalions and 38 squadrons moved off from Lens, led by Count
Noyelles, a general officer who knew the country well. Every
precaution had been taken to insure secrecy. No unit commander knew in
advance his destination nor the identity of his flanking units. The
customary tell-tale fascines for crossing ditches had not been
prepared; instead each trooper carried a truss of hay. An hour after
the advanced guard had marched northward, Marlborough set the rest of
his army in motion along the same route. It was then 10 o'clock, and
within another hour Overkirk's troops had withdrawn from their
positions on the extreme left and were following swiftly in the rear.
The sound of their going was heard by the enemy, but by this time the
northward shift of the entire Allied force had gained too big a lead
for any French counter move to overtake.

In the small hours of the night French patrols, straining their ears
in the darkness, reported that Marlborough's columns were following
the road to Saint Trond. About three o'clock, however, as Noyelles
reached the famous battlefield of Landen, he swung to the left off the
Saint Trond road and headed in three separate columns for the Little
Geete. There was no shortage of guides here, for many in the English
regiments had fought on that bloody field twelve years before.

A thick morning mist rising off the river covered the final deployment
as the three columns moved to their points of attack on a front about
two miles wide--Noyelles in the centre opposite the Chteau of Wanghe,
with the flanking columns at the villages of Elixem on the left and
Neerhespen on the right. A body of cavalry seized the bridge at Wanghe
about 4:00 a.m., and as the first storming parties crossed the Little
Geete, they took the French guards completely by surprise. Without
waiting for the pioneers to build bridges the infantry threw the
trusses of hay into the stream and scrambled across on the uneven
footing. On the far side they quickly overpowered the few defenders in
the almost empty lines, and began forming up in battle array. The coup
had been completed at the cost of not more than half a dozen
casualties. The attacks on the flanks were equally successful, another
bridge being secured intact at Elixem. Soon the cavalry were crossing
the captured bridges and those constructed by the engineers; by
half-past five, when the first enemy appeared in force, a double line
of horse was drawn up from Elixem to Tirlemont, on the main Geete,
with more than 6000 infantry forming behind them. The whole of
Noyelles' force was within the enemy's lines, and the leading units of
Marlborough's main army were now arriving. General d'Algre, who
commanded Villeroi's left wing, was three miles south of Elixem when
news of the Allied penetration reached him. He at once hastened
northward with 33 squadrons of French, Bavarian and Spanish cavalry.
From four miles farther south he ordered up eleven Bavarian battalions
under Count Pierre Caraman. He also brought forward ten new
triple-barrelled cannon, a "secret weapon" of which high hopes were
held.

When Marlborough reached the scene at seven o'clock he found the
opposing cavalry facing each other across a deep sunken road which ran
at right angles from the Little Geete toward Tirlemont, while behind
the French horse Caraman's infantry were beginning to deploy from
their rapid march. From between the French squadrons the new guns
opened a surprisingly rapid fire at close range. Deciding to attack
while the enemy's infantry and horse were still separated, Marlborough
occupied the hollow way with five infantry battalions, whose volleys
quickly compelled the enemy to fall back. Under cover of this fire the
British squadrons managed to make their way across the obstacle. Then
they charged, with Marlborough himself riding in the front rank. At
the force of the impact d'Algre's horsemen broke in disorder, and
before they could rally the second Allied line was upon them. This
time the rout was complete: the Bavarian squadrons, who formed the
bulk of the enemy cavalry, galloped from the field, leaving the new
guns in Allied hands. Only Caraman's infantry acquitted themselves
with distinction. Their commander formed all eleven battalions into a
great hollow square, and in this formation, firing by platoons as they
retired, they held off their pursuers--Marlborough refusing to
sanction a further charge until he knew the whereabouts of the main
forces of Villeroi and the Elector.

Those commanders, however, had quickly grasped the situation and
directed their armies to retreat westward to Louvain. There was still
time for the Allies to intercept them, had Marlborough been assured
Dutch support; but when Overkirk's weary columns crossed the Little
Geete at ten o'clock on the 18th they had marched 27 miles in the last
31 hours. There were sound reasons for not risking a major battle with
tired troops, and at the very moment that the Dutch General
Slangenberg, Marlborough's personal enemy, was ostentatiously calling
for an advance to Louvain, his army was quietly pitching its tents
behind Tirlemont. By nightfall the French were safely at Louvain on
the west side of the Dyle River. Another year was to pass before the
Allies would reap the full harvest of their passage of the Little
Geete. Yet the fact of a missed chance at Louvain cannot detract from
the brilliance of the stroke which had suddenly deprived the French of
fifty miles of defence lines and brought to an end the long period of
stalemate in that northern theatre. Fatigue parties were set to work
filling in trenches and levelling earthworks, and the Lines of Brabant
ceased to be a factor in the strategy of the war.

[Illustration: OPERATIONS

15-18 AUGUST 1705

Historical Section, G.S.]

The rest of the summer of 1705 repeated the frustrations of 1703.
Efforts by Marlborough to bring the enemy to battle were blocked by
the Dutch generals or the civilian Deputies. On July 29 a carefully
devised scheme to capture Louvain by a surprise flanking movement
across the Dyle was called off by the Dutch just as the river passage
had been made and there was good prospect of taking the town. Never
was the need for unity of command more apparent. From his camp at
Meldert (ten miles south-east of Louvain) Marlborough wrote to
Heinsius after this failure:

     It is absolutely necessary that such power be lodged with the
     general as may enable him to act as he thinks proper, according
     to the best of his judgment, without being obliged even to
     communicate what he intends further than he thinks
     convenient.[76]

The only response to this was a concession permitting Marlborough to
make two or three marches without summoning a council of war; but he
was not to engage in any major operation without the concurrence of
Overkirk and the Deputies.

The Duke determined to make the most of these three free marches. On
August 15, having accumulated a ten days' supply of bread, which
carried in convoy would give him considerable flexibility of movement,
he marched south from Meldert and swinging right crossed the Dyle at
Genappe. Here he turned northward along the Brussels road, and by the
end of his third day's march was in the neighbourhood of Waterloo. To
Villeroi and the Elector this unexpected threat from the south placed
either Brussels or Louvain in peril--just as in a game of chequers the
interposing of a king between two of the opponent's pieces seals the
fate of one. They decided early on the 18th to abandon Louvain and
save Brussels; but they had barely started their retirement on the
latter city when they found themselves confronted by Marlborough's
army ready to give battle. During the night the Duke had sent a strong
corps under his brother Churchill to take the enemy in flank and rear,
and had rapidly shifted his main forces to the right and deployed them
along the south bank of the narrow Ysche, abreast of the French
positions.

Detachment from the French army of numerous units to guard open towns
which the loss of the Lines of Brabant had exposed to Allied threat
had left Villeroi with 103 battalions and 127 squadrons, against which
Marlborough had concentrated 100 battalions and 162 squadrons.
Complying with the stipulations from The Hague, the Duke had sought
and obtained General Overkirk's agreement to attack. Having thus
secured a superiority of more than four to three, and with all his
skilfully laid plans moving smoothly towards fulfilment, he could, at
midday on the 18th, congratulate the Field Deputies "on the prospect
of a glorious victory". It was a vain hope. Led by Slangenberg the
Dutch generals opposed the whole enterprise, producing one specious
argument after another against its practicability. The afternoon
passed in fruitless appeals by Marlborough to generals and Deputies in
turn. Meanwhile, and throughout the night, the French improved their
means of defence, and by morning the Allied chance of victory was
gone. The disappointment hurt Marlborough keenly. "I am at this moment
ten years older than I was four days ago," he said on the evening of
the 18th, and wrote next day to Godolphin:

     I think this will show very plainly that it is next to
     impossible to act offensively with this army, so governed as
     they are; for when their general and I agree, as we did in
     this, that it shall be in the power of subordinate generals to
     hinder its execution is against all discipline . . . If I had
     had the same power I had the last year I should have had a
     greater victory than that of Blenheim, in my opinion, for the
     French were so posted that if we had beat them, they could not
     have got to Brussels.[77]

A week later with thinly veiled sarcasm the Duke notified Heinsius of
his willingness to fall in with any plans made by his Dutch
subordinates, "for I have so good an opinion of this army that I think
they are able to execute whatever their generals will resolve; beside
we have yet two months before we ought to think of winter quarters."
And again later--"The resolution I have taken of being governed by
your generals the remaining part of this campaign gives me a great
deal of quiet, so that I am now drinking the Spa waters."[78]

Out of these dismal frustrations and missed opportunities some good
was to emerge, however. The States-General were left in no doubt
concerning English reaction to the Dutch treatment of Marlborough. But
any resentment at English anger was overshadowed by their fear of the
offers of peace with which Louis XIV now approached them. Before the
year ended an envoy from The Hague had expressed regrets to
Marlborough for the past and pledged that he would not again be asked
to serve under such conditions. Another factor which, unknown as yet
to the Allies, was to help them next year, was the buoyant effect
which their failures in the field had had upon the French. "I have a
mediocre opinion of the capacity of the Duke of Marlborough", wrote
the French Minister of War to Villeroi in September. Perhaps Blenheim
should "be attributed to luck alone" rather than to Allied
generalship. Thus with false confidence misleading the French high
command, and a spirit of contrition persuading the Dutch military
leaders to make amends for past obstructiveness, there was a
reasonable chance that in 1706 Marlborough might realize his long-held
ambition of precipitating a major battle in the Netherlands.




                              CHAPTER VI

                           Ramillies, 1706

                        The French Seek Battle


The beginning of 1706 found Marlborough contemplating a far grander
project than a renewal of inconclusive hostilities in Flanders. He
proposed nothing less than a march to Northern Italy where he might
campaign with Prince Eugene to drive the French back across the Alps
and restore the fortunes of the Duke of Savoy. In such an operation in
the Mediterranean theatre the Allies would be able to benefit by their
superior sea power. Things had gone well in the Spanish Peninsula
during 1705. Gibraltar had been held against French counter-attacks,
and the spectacular capture of Barcelona in September by a British
amphibious expedition under the Earl of Peterborough had been followed
by the occupation of Catalonia and Valencia, so that the entire
eastern Spanish seacoast was now in Allied hands.

But the Italian venture was not to be made. The Kings of Denmark and
Prussia showed little enthusiasm for a project which would carry their
troops so far afield, and Prince Louis of Baden was as dilatory as
ever in contributing his forces. Early in May, just as the
States-General seemed about to give their consent, a sudden offensive
by Marshal Villars south of the Moselle drove the Margrave from his
holdings on the Lauter and the Moder and chased him across the Rhine.
On the left bank only the key fortress of Landau remained in Allied
hands. The defeat alarmed the Dutch and put an end to the Italian
scheme. Against his will Marlborough found himself once more committed
to operations in Flanders. On May 12 he was at Maastricht, assembling
his forces for what he feared would be a round of indecisive
manoeuvres.

The Duke had little hope of bringing the enemy to battle in the coming
season. In March he had written to Heinsius:

     In my opinion there is nothing more certain than that the
     French have taken their measures to be this campaign on the
     defensive both in Flanders and Germany, in order to be the
     better able to act offensively in Italy and Spain.[79]

But Marlborough erred in judging the French intentions by what he
himself might have done in a similar case. How was he to know that
Louis XIV, inflated with some of his Minister of War's optimism, was
urging Villeroi to adopt a bolder attitude and to seize any
opportunity for a pitched battle? Marsin's army of 25,000 men was in
Lorraine, and could reinforce his fellow marshal in Brabant. Specific
instructions went out from Versailles that Villeroi should recapture
Leau, a petty fortress at the junction of the Great and Little Geete
which the Allies had taken the previous September when demolishing the
Lines of Brabant. Perhaps this action would provoke Marlborough to
battle.

On May 19 Villeroi, hurt by the implied royal doubts about his
courage, and anxious to prove these harsh suspicions unjustified,
without waiting for assistance from Marsin crossed the Dyle at Louvain
and advanced towards Tirlemont. He had learned from his agents that
Marlborough was far from being at full strength. The Prussians were
still east of the Rhine and unlikely to march, and the Danish
mercenaries were being held in winter quarters until the Allies should
settle arrears of pay. Villeroi thus counted on having to reckon only
with the English and Dutch forces, which combined would be
considerably inferior in numbers to his own 60,000.

At Maastricht Marlborough had been considering a dash at Namur when he
received the welcome news of Villeroi's advance. English gold flowed
freely and quickly to adjust financial differences with the King of
Denmark, and the fine Danish cavalry were soon hastening to join the
Duke. On the evening of May 22 they camped within half a dozen miles
of the combined Dutch and British armies, which had moved forward to
Corswaren, about eight miles east of the battlefield of Landen. The
Danish arrival raised Marlborough's total strength to about
62,000--all in first class condition. His spies reported the French
moving to Judoigne, near the headwaters of the Great Geete. He
determined to advance in order "to oblige them to retire, or with the
blessing of God to bring them to a battle."[80] Judoigne was two days'
march away. The 22nd was a Saturday, and it was the Duke's intention
to camp next day, Whitsunday, at the village of Ramillies, and from
there, early on the Monday, advance to battle with Villeroi. Each
side, however, misjudged the rate of the other's approach. Early on
the 23rd the advanced guards of the two armies almost blundered into
one another in a dense morning fog. Ramillies thus became a
battlefield by a strategical accident; neither Marlborough nor
Villeroi can be credited with selecting it for its tactical
possibilities.

The area was familiar to both contenders, Villeroi from his occupancy
of the Lines of Brabant, and Marlborough from his stay at nearby
Meldert the previous autumn. It was a flat region in which high and
low were only relative terms. The most elevated ground was a rise
about two miles long which stretched between the source of the Little
Geete and the Mehaine and formed part of the watershed between the
Scheldt and the Meuse. The villages of Ramillies and Taviers marked
the north and south ends of this rise, which broadened out into two
"plateaux"--to the west Mont St. Andr (with a high mound called the
Tomb of Ottomond forming a landmark in the centre), and to the east
the Jandrenouille plain. In the shallow depression between them the
Little Geete curved in a slight crescent towards the north-east. On
its left bank lay two more villages, Offus and Autre-Eglise,
respectively one and two miles north of Ramillies. The only other
built-up community in the vicinity was the small hamlet of Francqne,
which was situated beside the Mehaine a few hundred yards below
Taviers, and was the most easterly position to be manned by the
French.

[Illustration: RAMILLIES

23 MAY 1706

Historical Section, G.S.]

Whether Villeroi had originally intended to fight on this site or to
occupy it only temporarily with a view to later seeking a battle
further east, the unexpected encounter with Marlborough's forces left
him no choice. By mid-morning of the 23rd his army was arrayed along a
four-mile front reaching from Autre-Eglise to Taviers. In general it
was a strong position, and bore a close similarity to that taken up by
the French and Bavarians along the Nebel in the previous August (page
57, above). To the south the marshes about the Mehaine replaced the
Danube in protecting the right flank, and the open space for manoeuvre
between Taviers and Ramillies matched that between Blenheim and
Oberglau. The French left, like the difficult Lutzingen flank which
had faced Eugene, had the strongest natural protection of the whole
front. An attack against Offus and Autre-Eglise would have to be made
across the morass of the Little Geete and up slopes obstructed by
orchards and small enclosures. Unlike the Blenheim field, however,
there was no continuous water obstacle across the French right centre,
which an attacking army would undoubtedly select for its main cavalry
charge.

The chief disadvantage of the French position, and one that was to
contribute heavily to Villeroi's defeat, was the concave front which
he was forced to adopt because of the direction of the Little Geete
and the location of the villages that must be held. It meant that once
battle was joined the transfer of any French troops from either wing
to a critical point in the centre must be made in an arc along
"exterior lines". On the other hand Marlborough, conforming to the
French position, would be holding a convex front, and could make his
shifts to a corresponding spot along a direct chord.

On the open tract of ground between Ramillies and Taviers Villeroi
(temporarily deprived of the assistance of the Elector of Bavaria, who
had gone to Brussels for his Whitsunday mass) drew up in three lines
some 80 squadrons of horse, including the Maison du Roi, the flower of
the French cavalry. Interspersed between them were several battalions
of his best infantry. He hastily entrenched Ramillies and allotted to
its defence 20 battalions and 24 of his 80 guns. The remainder of his
front, protected as we have seen by nature, received less attention. A
brigade of infantry held Taviers, and a small delaying force of
dragoons was pushed forward to Francqne. From Ramillies a double line
of infantry stretched northward to Offus, backed by 50 squadrons of
cavalry. A single line of foot continued to Autre-Eglise, which was
defended by the crack troops of the Rgiment du Roi.

From the slopes opposite Ramillies the Duke of Marlborough made his
reconnaissance about 11 o'clock and directed the deployment of his
army, which was arriving from the east in four long columns. He
brushed aside the naive recommendations of one of the new field
Deputies, Sicco van Goslinga, who has been described as "a
military-minded civilian, fascinated (without any professional
knowledge) by the art of war".[81] Observing the obvious unsuitability
of the northern end of the front for cavalry action Goslinga could not
understand the Duke's apparent obtuseness in dividing his horse
equally between his two flanks instead of concentrating them on the
left where the going was good. But Marlborough's plan of action was as
usual based upon a close study of the ground. He had not missed the
fact that his convex front gave him the advantage in transferring
troops. Yet such moves if visible to the enemy could still be copied,
even with some delay. Of far greater significance, his reconnaissance
had showed him a slight fold in the ground east of the Geete. Behind
this lay a shallow depression which would just give sufficient cover
from French view for troops opposite Autre-Eglise to be moved
southward for about a mile without being seen by the enemy.[82] It
seems certain that his initial dispositions were made with this in
mind. In the post of honour on the right he placed his British
contingent of horse and foot together with 39 squadrons of foreign
cavalry; German and Dutch infantry and cavalry under the command of
General Overkirk formed the centre and left; as the Danish squadrons
arrived they were posted behind the left centre. His guns outnumbered
the enemy's by fifty per cent, and the greater part of these,
including some thirty 26-pounders, were massed opposite the French
centre, between Ramillies and Offus.


                          The Allies Attack

Shortly after one o'clock the artillery of both sides opened fire, and
an hour later the Allies advanced to the attack. The first contact was
made on the Mehaine flank, where four Dutch battalions quickly cleared
Francqne and, supported with excellent effect by two guns, pushed on
to take Taviers by storm. Alarmed at this serious threat to his flank
Villeroi ordered a Bavarian brigade of infantry behind Ramillies to
move to Taviers, but without waiting for these reinforcements the
commander of the French right dismounted fourteen squadrons of
dragoons and marched them up to the village. Withering Dutch volleys
halted them, and a whirlwind charge by the Danish cavalry utterly
routed them, their flight throwing the late-arriving Bavarians into
disorder.

This setback brought no immediate reaction from Villeroi, whose
attention was taken up with affairs on his left flank, where the
scarlet-coated English battalions under Lord Orkney had begun
descending the eastern slope of the Geete valley opposite Offus and
Autre-Eglise. Behind them moved the cavalry squadrons commanded by
General Henry Lumley. The French Marshal had not expected an attack
against his naturally strong left flank, but he took prompt
counter-measures. Louis XIV had prescribed for just such a
contingency. "It would be very important", the Grand Monarch had
written two weeks earlier, "to pay particular attention to that part
of the line which will endure the first shock of the English
troops".[83] Accordingly Villeroi (as Marlborough had foreseen) at
once began reinforcing his left at the expense of his right and
centre. In spite of the uncertain footing, and in the face of a
galling fire from the villages above, the English foot-soldiers
struggled across the marshy stream and mounted the opposite slope,
while behind them the cavalry laboriously made their way across the
sodden water meadows. With a dozen battalions, including the 1st
Guards (the Grenadier Guards), across the Geete, and the first line
closely engaged, there seemed to Orkney an excellent chance of turning
the French left wing. He was considerably surprised, therefore, and
not a little chagrined, when a succession of messengers brought orders
for him to break off the attack and withdraw to the east bank. The
whole undertaking on this part of the front had been designed by
Marlborough as a feint to force Villeroi to weaken his right, but in
order that it should appear the more convincing the Duke had let
Orkney believe that it was the real thing. It reflects great credit on
the discipline of the English battalions and their leaders that in
such circumstances they managed to disengage safely and conduct an
orderly withdrawal. On the eastern slope the rear line wheeled about
and faced the French to form a potential threat which for the next
hour was to hold nearly half of Villeroi's horse and foot immobile on
the opposite bank. But the front line continued retiring until they
reached the hidden fold in the ground, where they turned to their
right, and unobserved by the enemy, marched southward to take up
reserve positions to the rear of Marlborough's centre.

If the action on the two wings be regarded as constituting the first
phase of the battle, the second had opened about half-past two with a
massive attack by Overkirk's 48 squadrons against the main French
forces drawn up south of Ramillies in the open plain. The initial
charge of the Dutch troopers broke the front line of Franco-Bavarian
horse, but they were checked by the interspersed bodies of infantry,
which stood firm, and were counter-attacked by the famous regiments of
the Maison du Roi. A desperate struggle ensued. The tide of battle
ebbed and flowed as each side mounted charge and counter-charge. Even
with the help of the 21 Danish squadrons brought up on his left flank
Overkirk was hard put to it to hold his own. It was at this stage that
Marlborough drew the first dividends from his convex position. As soon
as the cavalry action started he had summoned 18 squadrons from his
right flank. Moving by the concealed route already referred to, the
long column of horse had arrived without the enemy being aware that
any large body of troops was being shifted across their front. They
formed up quickly and Marlborough himself led their charge against the
French, having first ordered the immediate transfer of the remaining
cavalry of his right wing, except the English, 21 squadrons in all. In
the ensuing mele the Duke twice came near death--once when he was
unhorsed and overridden in a ditch, and later when a French cannonball
took the head off the equerry who was assisting him to remount.

The arrival of the 21 fresh squadrons decided the issue. By successive
reinforcements Marlborough had increased his cavalry force from the
original 69 squadrons (48 Dutch and 21 Danish) to 87, and then 108
squadrons. He now held an overwhelming advantage, for on the French
side not a single troop had been added to the 68 squadrons that faced
Overkirk's first charge. Among the 25,000 horsemen engaged in the
struggle neither side held a monopoly of courage, but in the end sheer
weight of numbers told. Even before the latest Allied arrivals could
make their charge, the Danish squadrons had turned the French right
flank behind Taviers, and were posting over the plain to the Tomb of
Ottomond, riding down the remnants of the fourteen dismounted
squadrons of dragoons. Outnumbered five to three, and assailed in
front and flank and with its rear threatened, the French cavalry of
the right wing collapsed and broke in disorder.

While the open plain south of Ramillies was thus being bitterly
contested, a stubborn infantry action had developed for Ramillies
itself. It is conceivable that Marlborough may have visualized this
third phase as forming the main effort of the battle, to which the two
flank attacks and the cavalry encounter in the left centre would be
preliminary actions. That these had already secured unexpectedly
decisive results detracts nothing from the achievement of the spirited
foot-soldiers who were ordered to capture the village. Early in the
afternoon the place had been vigorously bombarded by the heavy cannon,
but with comparatively little effect on the defenders, who were well
covered. At about three o'clock, when Overkirk was already engaged
with the French cavalry, on his right a force of twelve infantry
battalions, led by the Dutch General Schultz, advanced to storm the
village. They immediately came under fire from the guns which had been
enfilading the Allied cavalry, who from then on had no enemy
interference to fear from that quarter. Two frontal assaults were
repulsed, but a third, accompanied by an encircling movement on the
right, met with success. Taken unawares on the flank two Swiss
battalions deserted their posts and gave the attackers entrance into
the northern part of Ramillies. Schultz's main force burst into the
village, driving out the defenders in time for them to join in the
cavalry's retreat. The Buffs and the Scots Fusiliers are said to have
chased three entire French battalions into the marshy source of the
Little Geete. By five o'clock Ramillies was firmly in Allied hands.


                             The Pursuit

There followed a brief lull in the fighting while Marlborough's forces
reorganized for the pursuit. By his orders the whole cavalry line,
pivoting on Ramillies, made a great right wheel to face almost due
north across the plain, in readiness to roll up the French line of
battle. Villeroi frantically attempted to form a new front facing
south between Offus and the village of Mont St. Andr. In the centre
of this, about St. Pierre de Geest, he placed his 50 squadrons of the
left wing, brought over from behind Autre-Eglise, where they had not
yet been committed in the battle. At right angles to this line the
high ground above the Little Geete was held, more thinly now, by its
original infantry; the important hinge Villeroi had to entrust to the
remains of the battalions that had been given the defence of
Ramillies.

The enormous task of re-forming more than 100 squadrons of Allied
cavalry, "disordered by fierce action and triumphant pursuit", was
skilfully accomplished, and at six o'clock the charge was sounded. The
morale of the Bavarian and Spanish squadrons drawn up across the Mont
St. Andr plain had been broken by the disaster to their comrades of
the original right wing; as the long line of Allied cavalry began
advancing the enemy squadrons broke and fled. Their panic spread to
the flanking infantry, who themselves now came under attack from the
whole of the Allied foot. Included among these were several of the
British battalions that had been earlier balked of success. The
redcoats met only slight resistance as they surged up the slopes,
while on their extreme right the British cavalry, having struggled
across the Little Geete, fell upon the French rear behind
Autre-Eglise. Emboldened by the enemy's disorganization to charge at
the gallop (unusual tactics in that period) the Royal Scots Greys
overtook two battalions of the Rgiment du Roi and cut them to pieces.
All across the battlefield similar incidents were taking places as the
fresh British squadrons rode down the demoralized enemy. Only here and
there a disciplined body of French infantry briefly held off the
charging troopers by volleys fired from the temporary protection of a
ditch or hedge which the horse could not pass, and then made good
their escape before the following infantry could come up with them.

The pursuit was pressed right through the night. The general French
retreat was to the north-west along the road to Judoigne and Louvain.
But the fleeing columns found this route blocked by the great bulk of
their own transport. Some escaped by scattering over the countryside;
vast numbers were cut down or fell into Allied hands. By the time
pursuing cavalry drew rein within sight of Louvain, having covered a
score of miles from the battlefield, nearly 6000 of the enemy had been
taken. Villeroi had lost double that number dead and wounded. There
remained under his control only 15,000 men, or about a quarter of the
army with which he had entered the battle. All his guns were captured.
By contrast the Allies had suffered a little more than 4000
casualties.

Of all Marlborough's great battles Ramillies stands out as the one in
which he successfully carried out a major pursuit. In this respect it
ranks with the great victories of Jena and Waterloo. An all-night
march of fifteen miles brought the infantry to Meldert on May 24, and
next day they crossed the Dyle and entered Louvain unopposed. Villeroi
had hoped to make a stand at the Dyle, but the rapidity of the Allied
advance gave him no time to rally. For the same reason he was forced
to abandon Brussels fifteen miles to the west. And now the
significance of the Whitsunday victory became more fully apparent. On
the 27th Marlborough, informing Godolphin of his capture of Louvain,
Malines and Brussels, wrote:

     The consequence of this battle is likely to be of greater
     advantage than that of Blenheim; for we have now the whole
     summer before us, and with the blessing of God I will make the
     best use of it.[84]


                        Exploiting the Victory

The triumphant march westward continued. At first it was a progress
less of conquest than of liberation. The people of the Spanish
Netherlands seized the opportunity to throw off the yoke of Louis XIV
and declare for Charles III. One by one their cities opened their
gates, the French garrisons usually beating a hasty retreat. By the
end of the month Ghent and Bruges had been added to the Allied gains,
though Dendermonde (on the Scheldt below Ghent) escaped capture when
its governor inundated the approaches to the town. "So many towns have
submitted since the battle," Marlborough wrote to Sarah on May 31,[85]
"that it really looks more like a dream than truth . . . I hope we
shall do more in this campaign than was done in the last ten years'
war in this country."

[Illustration: THE LOW COUNTRIES

Historical Section, G.S.]

The "dream" persisted. On June 2 Oudenarde capitulated, and three days
later the Allied army had crossed the Scheldt and the Lys. Marlborough
had expected that the reduction of Antwerp, isolated by the French
withdrawal from Ghent and Bruges, would take a month. Yet on June 7,
before the siege had started, the Spanish governor surrendered the
city, the French troops in the garrison being given a safe conduct,
and the Walloon regiments coming over to the Allied side. Marlborough
now concentrated on securing Ostend, for its possession would give him
direct lines of communication from England, and would provide a
continental base for a descent on the French coast. At the end of June
Overkirk laid siege to the fortress with the Duke himself commanding
the covering force at Roulers, 20 miles to the south-east. A squadron
of English battleships and smaller craft subjected the place to a
three-day bombardment, which all but reduced it "to a heap of
rubbish". On July 6, two days after a Dutch battalion had gained a
lodgement on the counterscarp, Ostend surrendered.

In seven weeks Marlborough had cut a clean swath across the Spanish
Netherlands from the Lines of Brabant to the North Sea. North of a
line joining Namur to Ostend only Dendermonde remained in French
hands. He now turned his attention to the chain of key fortresses
which lay above the French border and included the strong points of
the old Dutch Barrier. He saw the need for haste, for he had learned
that Louis XIV had recalled Marshal Vendme from Italy to replace
Villeroi, and was making arrangements to furnish him a huge army of
100,000 men. He moved against Menin, one of Vauban's great fortresses,
and in a siege described by a participant as "the briskest and
regularest carried on in the whole war", and one which cost the Allies
2500 casualties, secured its capitulation on August 22. Dendermonde,
which Louis had boasted could only be taken by an army of ducks, was
captured early in September by General Charles Churchill; and a sudden
onslaught on Ath which completely surprised Vendme, who had arrived
at Valenciennes only 25 miles away, secured the town's capitulation on
October 1. Marlborough would next have attacked Mons, but was deterred
therefrom by the heavy autumn rains and by the opposition of the
Dutch, who were more than satisfied with the results so far achieved,
and were showing a willingness to lend a ready ear to French overtures
for peace. The captured fortresses were strongly garrisoned and the
Allied troops went into winter quarters. A council of state was set up
to govern the Belgian provinces on behalf of Charles III, Marlborough
having declined the Emperor's offer of the governorship (at 60,000 a
year) so as not to incur the jealousy of the Dutch.

Decidedly 1706 had been a good year for Allied arms. Ramillies, and
the vigorous exploitation of that victory, had set a new mark in the
campaigning of those times. Never had so much territory been overrun
in so short a time. The success in Flanders had been matched in Italy.
Outside the walls of Turin on September 7 Prince Eugene, after a
spectacular march up the length of the Po valley, had inflicted a
crushing defeat upon Louis XIV's main Italian army under Marsin. The
Marshal, who had come from France convinced that he would not survive
the campaign, received mortal wounds. The siege of Turin was raised,
and the French began evacuating Savoy-Piedmont. By the end of the year
the war in Italy was over.

Throughout the summer Marlborough, the grand strategist, had been a
close observer of events in that theatre, which he saw as an extension
of his own front. At the beginning of June, when reporting to
Godolphin the movement to Flanders of some of Villars' forces which
had been opposing the Margrave of Baden on the Rhine, he wrote:

     If Prince Louis makes use of this occasion to press the French
     in Alsace, as I will, with the blessing of God, in this
     country, the King of France will be obliged to draw some troops
     from Italy, by which Turin may be saved.[86]

But the Margrave was in neither physical nor mental condition to
fight. Blood poisoning from his injured foot had spread through his
body, and he was bitterly grieved that the Emperor, mistrusting him as
a malingerer, if not a mutineer, was threatening to replace him with
his second-in-command. No Allied offensive developed across the Rhine;
and on January 4, 1707 the Margrave died in his still unfinished
palace behind the Lines of Stollhofen. Things had gone somewhat better
in Spain. Barcelona, which in April had come under French siege from
land and sea, had been relieved on May 9 by the combined fleets of
England and Holland. An army under the Earl of Galway had advanced
from Portugal into Spain and occupied Madrid in June, but before
Charles III could reach the scene the arrival of a strong French force
under the Duke of Berwick (the natural son of James II and
Marlborough's sister Arabella) had forced the Allies to abandon the
capital and retire eastward into Valencia.

All in all, for the Grand Alliance the campaign of 1706 was the most
successful of the whole war; and in that year Marlborough reached the
summit of his military fame. Of all his great victories Ramillies was
the only one for which there could be no question of sharing credit
with his famous collaborator, Prince Eugene. The laurels were his, and
his alone. The Duke's prowess was recognized not only in England, but
throughout Europe, and not least in France. "Everyone here is ready to
take off his hat at the mere name of Marlborough", wrote Vendme on
his arrival at Valenciennes.

Ramillies will rank for ever (Sir Winston Churchill has pointed out)
"as an example of what a general can do with men". The opposing sides
were almost equal in numbers, but Marlborough's gained the victory
because he had taken pains to maintain in them a high level of
_Morale_.[87] No other Principle of War does the battle demonstrate
more clearly. Through all the ranks of his international army a strong
sense of loyalty, born of confidence, inspired British soldier and
foreign mercenary alike to give his best for "Corporal John". How
different from the situation on the other side of the Geete, where
Villeroi's hesitancy and defensive attitude communicated themselves to
an entire army whose disordered ranks were to hear before nightfall
the demoralizing cry, "Sauve qui peut"!

No better example of the "master" principle of _Maintenance of the
Aim_ is to be found than in the singleness of purpose with which
Marlborough refused to allow the unexpected success on his right wing
to divert him from his original objective--the break-through in the
centre. As for _Surprise_, we have observed that the Duke did not
hesitate even to mislead his own commanders in order the better to
deceive the enemy. We must note too the contributing elements of
concealment, made possible by his intimate knowledge of the ground
("time spent in reconnaissance is rarely wasted"), and the rapidity
with which the all-important reinforcement from right to centre was
accomplished. Not least among the surprises to which Villeroi was
subjected that day was the unexpectedly strong showing of the once
poorly rated Dutch cavalry squadrons, who were demonstrating the
beneficial results of five years under Marlborough's leadership. The
holding throughout the afternoon of the flank opposite Autre-Eglise
with considerably reduced numbers admirably illustrated _Economy of
Effort_ (just as Villeroi's fruitless build-up on the same flank
transgressed that principle), and led to the striking demonstration in
the centre of the complementary principle of _Concentration of Force_.
Finally, from the moment that Marlborough seized the initiative with
his first flanking attacks, retaining that initiative throughout the
whole battle by his indomitable resolution, until the halt of the
pursuit many hours later, the Allied army exhibited convincingly that
victory can only be gained by _Offensive Action_.




                             CHAPTER VII

                           Oudenarde, 1708

                        The Stalemate of 1707


The alternation of good and bad years which we have already remarked
as characterizing the Allied fortunes in the War of the Spanish
Succession persisted. In making plans for 1707 Marlborough decided
that there was little to be gained by campaigning in Flanders, where a
recurrence of Dutch hesitancy and Vendme's defensive tactics made a
major battle improbable. Eugene's appraisal of the French marshal,
sent to Marlborough in July 1706, was being confirmed: "He is ever
ready to challenge an army, but unless he has a large superiority he
will not attack it if he finds that it intends to stand its
ground."[88] Since the Dutch would not hear of a revival of the
Moselle project, the best prospects for success seemed to lie in the
Mediterranean, where the Allied achievements in Italy and Spain
encouraged the Duke to contemplate an amphibious assault of the great
French port of Toulon, the capture of which might well end the war. It
was another "great design". From Northern Italy, secured to the Allies
by the victory at Turin, Prince Eugene would cross the Alps and,
advancing along the Riviera coast, combine with a British fleet in a
surprise attack on the French naval base. Allied affairs in Spain
would benefit; for the withdrawal of French forces to meet the threat
in Toulon should enable the English and Portuguese armies to reoccupy
Madrid and secure Spain for Charles III.

Having set this ambitious scheme in motion, Marlborough hurried over
to the Continent on a diplomatic errand for the Emperor Joseph (who
had succeeded to the throne in 1705 on the death of his father,
Leopold I). The tempestuous young Charles XII of Sweden, having
soundly beaten one of his chief rivals, Augustus II, King of Poland
and Elector of Saxony, had driven him from his Polish throne and
pursued him into the heart of Saxony. This southern penetration
alarmed the Allies, who feared a Franco-Swedish coalition, more
especially since Charles, as self-constituted champion of the
oppressed Protestants of Eastern Europe, was challenging the Emperor's
ill-treatment of the Lutherans in Silesia. In September 1706
Marlborough had written to Heinsius, "I agree very much with you, that
if the King of Sweed be not brought to reason very quickly, he will
give us great trouble",[89] and in the following February he expressed
to the Grand Pensionary his readiness to visit Charles in Saxony in
order "to set him right, or at least to penetrate his designs, that we
may take the justest measures we can, not to be surprised."[90]

The two met at Altrandstadt, in Saxony, and Marlborough's persuasive
powers quickly won over the young King, who was not averse to such
flattery as: "I wish I could serve some campaigns under so great a
general as your majesty, that I might learn what I yet want to know in
the art of war."[91] The negotiations were probably assisted by the
clandestine payment of large sums of money to some of Charles XII's
ministers; at any rate, when the Duke left the Swedish court on April
29, he was able to report that King Charles "has no manner of
engagement with the French, nor is inclined to take any measures with
them that may occasion the least disturbance to the Allies in the
prosecution of the war."[92] Before Marlborough returned to Flanders
he saw the Elector Augustus and secured the promise of 4500 Saxon
soldiers. But the satisfaction that he could rightly feel at the
success of his mission was offset by serious news from Spain. At
Brussels he was met by word that the Earl of Galway's army had been
soundly beaten on April 25 by a superior Franco-Spanish force at
Almanza, on the borders of Valencia. The defeat cost the Allies the
whole of Valencia, and struck a crippling blow at Marlborough's plans
against Toulon. He now turned his attention to the campaign in
Flanders.

Taking the field late in May he advanced with 90,000 men towards Mons,
which Vendme was holding with an army of more than 100,000. On the
26th the Allies reached Soignies, a dozen miles from the French lines,
only to find that Vendme had moved eastward to threaten Brabant.
Marlborough would have followed to try and force a battle but was
prevented by the Dutch Deputies. He withdrew to his old post at
Meldert, to guard the approaches to Brabant between the Dyle and the
Great Geete. A score of miles to the south Vendme set up a fortified
camp at Gembloux, and in these positions the opposing armies remained
virtually inactive for the next ten weeks--the French because they
were under restraint not to fight unless the need were urgent, and
Marlborough, both because of Dutch reluctance and the necessity of
covering Brussels and other open towns with his numerically inferior
force.

At the end of May he had received tidings of another reverse. After
the death of Louis of Baden the Imperial command on the Rhine had been
given to the Margrave of Bayreuth, who turned out to be even more
incompetent than his predecessor. His forces were dissipated over
South Germany in unnecessary garrison duties, a fact of which the able
Marshal Villars was quick to take advantage. Striking suddenly across
the Rhine, his troops overran the almost empty Lines of Stollhofen and
raided far and wide through German territory, some bands reaching as
far as Blenheim. It was a bitter but none the less deserved lesson to
the German princes for their apathy towards the Allied cause. The loss
of the long-trusted defences between the Black Forest and the Rhine
caused the diversion to Southern Germany of the Saxon contingent for
which Marlborough had negotiated, and added considerably to Dutch
fears. At the Duke's insistence the Margrave of Bayreuth was replaced
by the Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I of England. With the
general situation so unfavourable, Marlborough's sole hopes for
success in 1707 now rested on a favourable outcome of the Toulon
venture.

But here too he was doomed to disappointment. The surprise which would
have attended an expedition in the early spring was forfeited through
the selfish designs of the Emperor Joseph, who saw in the Turin
victory an opportunity to bring the whole of the Italian peninsula
under Austrian control. He delayed Eugene's start by sending 10,000 of
his men on an expedition to rid Naples of its weak Spanish garrisons,
so that it was the beginning of July before the Prince and Victor
Amadeus could set off into Provence with an inadequate army of 35,000
men. As they marched along the Mediterranean coast their left flank
was protected by the combined English and Dutch fleets under Admiral
Sir Cloudesley Shovell. They reached Toulon on July 26, to find that
the French garrison had been reinforced from Spain and was in
sufficient strength to make siege impracticable. Further
reinforcements were on the way, including 12 battalions and 12
squadrons released by Vendme in Flanders, and others from Villars,
who had been hastily recalled across the Rhine. Fearing for the
security of his lines of communication Eugene, over the protests of
the Duke of Savoy and the English admiral, withdrew eastward, leaving
Toulon untaken.

From the miscarriage of this venture there emerged, however, some
cause for satisfaction in the destruction by the French of a large
part of their fleet rather than face action, and the pulling back of
Villars and Vendme on the central and northern fronts. On learning
that Vendme had transferred some of his forces and was retiring
towards Mons, Marlborough hurried west in an unsuccessful attempt to
force an engagement; by the end of August both sides were in the
positions they had held in May. Two weeks of heavy rain intervened,
and then came a final series of rapid marches which brought no
decisive result, as Vendme continued to live up to his reputation of
excessive caution. During September Marlborough crossed the Dendre (at
Ath) and the Scheldt (at Oudenarde), causing his opponent to withdraw
across the French border to the shelter of the guns of Lille. There
the frustrating campaign ended in October, with Marlborough "much out
of humour and peevish" as he sent his army into winter quarters.

He returned to England in poor health to face political storms and to
find that the close friendship between Sarah and Queen Anne had
cooled, and that the Queen no longer placed her full confidence in
him. In Parliament, where the opposition urged the transfer of
England's main efforts to the Spanish theatre, he justified the policy
of remaining in Flanders, in order to tie down large French forces and
to ensure continued Dutch adherence to the Alliance.

Thus ended 1707, of all the years of the war the one most lacking in
Allied achievement. The disappointments of Almanza, Stollhofen and
Toulon, and Marlborough's failure to accomplish anything of note in
the Netherlands must be considered due in no small measure to the
bitter jealousies and rivalries that were dividing the principal
partners of the Grand Alliance. In December Marlborough wrote to
Heinsius:

     It is very melancholy to reflect how little the Emperor and the
     Empire have done this war for their own preservation and how
     little they seem disposed to exert themselves at present when
     their all is in a manner at stake . . . It behooves us to be
     very plain with them without loss of time in letting them know
     . . . that we may reasonably expect they should exert
     themselves beyond anything they have done hitherto.[93]


                     1708--Early French Successes

In planning for the campaign of 1708 Marlborough realized from the
experience of the previous year that whatever success might be gained
would have to come from his own efforts. He determined to have Prince
Eugene once more at his side, and with him to force another battle in
Flanders, in the hope of chasing the French back through the border
fortresses and invading their homeland. On April 1 he met with Eugene
and Heinsius at The Hague to work out their strategy. The Allies would
line up in three separate armies: the Elector of Hanover on the Alsace
border with 40,000 German troops; Eugene on the Moselle with 45,000
(including the main Imperial contingent); and Marlborough in Belgium
with 90,000 men in English and Dutch pay. Subsequently Eugene's forces
would secretly join Marlborough's, but these early dispositions would
serve to conceal this intention from the French.

For their part the French, encouraged by the events of 1707 (which had
brought them no major defeat), saw good prospects of a successful
campaign in Flanders. They hoped to recover the cities which Ramillies
had lost to them, counting on the co-operation of the inhabitants, who
were generally discontented with two years of Dutch administration.
Victory here would help to ensure the favourable peace which the
depleted national treasury demanded. The nominal command in Flanders
was given to the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV and heir to
the French throne, with Marshal Vendme attending him as a sort of
adjutant. It was not a happy arrangement; the two commanders rarely
saw eye to eye, and their followers formed two factions in the French
camp. Max Emmanuel, the Elector of Bavaria, refused to serve under
Burgundy, and was sent with the Duke of Berwick to watch the Upper
Rhine.

Spring came very late in 1708, and May was half over before either
side could put its forces in the field. Marlborough was at Hal, on the
River Senne above Brussels, while outside Mons the French assembled
the largest army that had been seen for many a war--132 battalions and
216 squadrons, numbering nearly 110,000 men. It was an anxious time
for Marlborough, for Eugene's army was slow in mustering and could not
arrive before the end of June, and without this reinforcement he could
not take the initiative. After a week of inactivity the French,
repeating their tactics of the previous year, suddenly moved eastward.
Once again the Duke headed them off with a counter-march, and encamped
beside the Dyle, just outside Louvain, the enemy halting at Braine
l'Alleud, ten miles south of Brussels. Here both waited out the rest
of June, Marlborough perforce being satisfied to protect both Brussels
and Louvain from attack by much superior forces. He systematically
reviewed his own army. What he saw pleased him, and he was able to
report to Eugene that his troops were "in so good a condition that I
am sure it would gratify your Highness to see them".[94] At last the
news he had long been awaiting arrived. On July 2 he was able to break
secrecy and inform the States-General that Eugene's Moselle army was
to join him in Flanders, and was at that moment approaching by forced
marches. He concluded,

     As soon as the cavalry shall approach we shall move directly
     upon the enemy, and bring on a battle, trusting in God to bless
     our designs.[95]

But the French acted first. Disagreement between the Duke of Burgundy
and Vendme as to objectives was temporarily settled as the former
overruled his more experienced colleague, and decided on a direct
march on Ghent and Bruges. On the evening of July 3 the Grand Army
broke camp and headed rapidly westward. Advanced detachments crossed
the Senne and the Dendre, and on the second morning were at the gates
of both cities. Bruges surrendered without opposition. Ghent followed
suit, although its citadel held out for two more days. By daylight on
the 6th the whole French army was west of the Dendre and in position
to attack the Allied fortresses of Oudenarde (on the Scheldt) and
Menin (on the Lys). Thus by a timely stroke the French had regained
control of the waterways of Western Flanders and were well placed to
sever Marlborough's line of communication through Ostend. They
encamped between the Dendre and the Scheldt, near Alost, where they
could cover the reduction of the Ghent citadel and threaten Brussels
while deciding on their next move.

[Illustration: OUDENARDE

11 JULY 1708

Historical Section, G.S.]

Marlborough, though far from well, had acted with his usual promptness
and decision. He had earlier stationed a mobile brigade between Bruges
and Ghent, and as soon as he learned of Burgundy's move he ordered its
commander to send a regiment to reinforce Oudenarde. He was seriously
handicapped by the absence of Eugene's forces, which he could not
expect for several days. He put his army in motion towards Brussels in
order to cover the capital from any sudden eastward thrust by the
French. Late on the 5th one of his cavalry detachments caught up with
the enemy's rear-guard as it was crossing the Dendre and captured a
baggage column and some 200 prisoners. He established his main force
at Assche, midway between Alost and Brussels, and was joined here on
July 6 by Eugene, who had ridden on ahead of his cavalry now at
Maastricht.

The Prince of Savoy found Marlborough "pretty consternated", but
(according to the former's Austrian biographer) "succeeded in
convincing the Duke that his affairs were not in anything like so bad
a state as he saw them."[96] In a conference which lasted several
hours the two comrades formulated plans which the Dutch council of war
endorsed (the Field Deputies being under orders from The Hague not to
persist in their restrictive tactics of the previous year). The
northward move of the French armies against the Allied lines of
communication had left their own communications with France
dangerously exposed. The Allied plan was to advance across the Scheldt
so as to safeguard Oudenarde and Menin, and then to continue to the
coast in order to cut off the enemy from Lille and his other bases,
and if possible provoke a battle. These projects were to be undertaken
by Marlborough's army alone, whose commitment of protecting Brussels
would be taken over by Eugene's cavalry--now expected on the 9th.

Thus the enemy's temporary inactivity played into the Allies' hands.
Preparations were made to ensure the utmost mobility when the time
came to strike. A supply of bread for eight days was made ready, and
all baggage was cut down (writes Hare) "with a greater strictness than
has been used on our side this war that we may have nothing to hinder
our march."[97] At the same time Marlborough further reinforced the
garrison of Oudenarde with 700 men from Ath. Of greater importance,
the pause got the Duke past the crisis of his sickness. He collapsed
in a fever on the evening of the 7th, and spent next day in bed,
improving in the evening thanks to "something he took in the
afternoon". At two o'clock on the following morning (July 9) he was on
the march with his whole army. It was an advance leading directly into
a battle which, unlike the carefully patterned, set-piece engagements
of that period, was to foreshadow in its improvisation and flexibility
the fluid operations of a much later day.


                    Oudenarde--An Encounter Battle

On the other side of the Dendre the French were also on the move. The
Ghent citadel had capitulated on the 7th, and a decision had then been
taken to besiege Oudenarde, placing the covering force at Lessines, on
the Dendre's left bank. The investment of Oudenarde was still
proceeding on July 9, when word came that Marlborough had struck camp
and was at Herfelingen, fifteen miles south of Assche. This could mean
that the Allies were contemplating an advance south-eastward against
Charleroi or Namur. The possibility of a thrust to the west does not
seem to have been given much consideration; in any case such a move
might be blocked at Lessines, to which Burgundy's main forces began
marching during the afternoon. These rested for the night at Voorde,
ten miles short of their objective.

But Marlborough had not stayed long at Herfelingen. Preceded by a
strong advanced guard under the Earl of Cadogan, which crossed the
Dendre and occupied Lessines before midnight, he brought his main body
to the river by mid-morning of the 10th, having completed a march of
thirty miles in 33 hours. The French, finding Lessines denied to them,
decided to abandon the siege of Oudenarde, but to secure the line of
the Scheldt and await the arrival of Berwick's army, which Eugene's
departure from the Moselle had brought hastening northward from
Alsace, and which was reported to have its advanced guard at Namur.
They did not know that Marlborough's main army had reached the Dendre,
for he had taken the precaution to leave some tents standing at a
halting-place south of Herfelingen. They had thus no sense of
insecurity as they turned towards the Scheldt and on the evening of
the 10th halted to prepare crossings at Gavere, half a dozen miles
downstream from Oudenarde. Once across the river it was their
intention to advance up the left bank in order to block any Allied
crossing and put themselves within a safe two days' march of Lille.

But while they slept their opponent was on the march. At one o'clock
in the morning (July 11) Cadogan set off from Lessines along the road
to Oudenarde fifteen miles away, taking with him 16 British and Dutch
battalions and eight Hanoverian squadrons, 32 guns and strong bridging
detachments. His task was to seize and hold a bridgehead for the main
army. He reached the Scheldt unperceived by the French, who were still
on the east bank at Gavere, and by mid-morning his pioneers were at
work throwing pontoon bridges across the river below the fortress.
Marlborough had started his main force from Lessines at 7:00 a.m., and
when news reached him from Cadogan that the French were not yet over
the Scheldt, he ordered the march to be pushed with the utmost speed.

His men responded enthusiastically, eager to get at the enemy and
avenge the loss of Bruges and Ghent. The Duke himself galloped forward
with Eugene and 20 squadrons of cavalry, and shortly after midday
crossed the bridges which Cadogan had completed. Now for the first
time the enemy became aware that the Allies were at the Scheldt and
had begun to cross in force. The news was sent back to Vendme and
Burgundy by the commander of their advanced guard, Lieut.-General
Biron, who had gone forward along the west bank with 20 squadrons and
seven battalions to cover a foraging party and to reconnoitre. After a
brush with some of Cadogan's patrols the French cavalry had taken post
astride the road from Ghent while the infantry occupied two villages
near the river bank--three battalions in Heurne, about three miles
north of Oudenarde on the river road, and the other four in Eyne, a
mile nearer the fortress, at the junction with the Ghent road. Here
they were between two streams that flowed eastward into the Scheldt,
the Diepenbeck, which crossed the main road just south of Eyne, and
the much larger Norken, about two miles to their rear.

Vendme received the news with incredulity. How could Marlborough's
forces, which had been at Assche only two days before, have covered
nearly 50 miles in so short a time? Angrily he declared, "If they are
there the devil must have carried them. Such marching is
impossible!"[98] He assumed that only a small advanced guard could
have crossed the Scheldt, and sending Biron orders to attack at once
he headed towards Oudenarde with a strong force of cavalry, leaving
Burgundy to follow with the main body. Biron, however, had been
informed by a fellow general who had arrived to lay out the French
camp that the ground in front of him was too marshy to pass, and
noting the rapidly growing strength of the Allied force south of the
Diepenbeck he thought it better to remain on the defensive, a decision
in which Vendme on his arrival apparently acquiesced. Thus it was
Cadogan who attacked. During the early afternoon he had formed up his
16 battalions behind the Diepenbeck and now he marched them, headed by
a British brigade, against the four Swiss battalions in Eyne. His
cavalry, under the Hanoverian General Rantzau, advanced on the left
flank. The first volley was fired at three o'clock, and the battle of
Oudenarde had begun. In their isolated position the Swiss offered
little resistance. Three battalions surrendered at once, and the
fourth was cut down by Rantzau's squadrons. The defenders of Heurne
retreated precipitately behind the Norken, where Burgundy's infantry
were coming into position on a long ridge which ran back westward from
the Ghent road. Without halting, Rantzau's cavalry charged and routed
Biron's twelve squadrons behind Heurne. As though this success had
whetted his appetite, the fiery Hanoverian carried on against the
cavalry of the French left wing, now forming up in front of the
Norken. He was driven off by weight of numbers, but not before his
gallant riders (who included the young Electoral Prince of Hanover,
later George II of England) had given an excellent account of
themselves. The first round had been won handsomely by the Allies.

On the high ground north of the Norken stood three villages, from east
to west Huysse, Lede and Wannegem, which from their elevated positions
would have furnished Burgundy's army with strong defensive posts had
he decided to remain on the ridge and await an Allied attack. The
region south of the river formed a rough sort of amphitheatre,
enclosed on the west by the Boser Couter, a prominent hill north-west
of Oudenarde, and on the east by a slight ridge about 500 yards west
of the Ghent road, overlooking the Marollebeck rivulet, a tributary of
the Diepenbeck. These lesser heights were crowned by three small
villages within a space of a mile--Schaerken, at the junction of the
two streams, and farther north, Groenewald and Herlegem. It was in and
around these communities, and along the banks of the Diepenbeck, in a
region of closely cultivated ground broken by hedges and garden walls,
that the main battle was to be fought. While the opening encounter was
taking place Marlborough's main forces had been steadily deploying
across the Scheldt. After the capture of Eyne and Heurne Cadogan had
moved the majority of his infantry into position about Groenewald, and
as fresh battalions arrived from the bridges they formed up on his
left in a line reaching to Schaerken and beyond.

Up till now, in spite of Vendme's orders to drive the Allies back
across the Scheldt, the French had shown a marked hesitancy in getting
into action. The conflict of wills between the Marshal and Burgundy
was undoubtedly to blame for this and throughout the day was to
continue to result in a complete absence of any co-ordinated plan for
dealing with the rapidly changing situation. Thus it was without
Vendme's knowledge that Burgundy, stung by the daring affront of
Rantzau's cavalry charge, about four o'clock, having sent forward 16
squadrons to reconnoitre, ordered the infantry of his right wing to
cross the Norken in successive detachments and attack the Allied
positions. The Prince crossed the stream with his staff and
established himself in a windmill at Royegem, from where he could
observe the progress of the battle. An initial attempt by six French
battalions to capture the village of Groenewald was beaten off in a
heavy fire-fight. As soon as the direction of the French thrust was
established, Cadogan on Marlborough's orders brought the remainder of
his 16 battalions into line, and occupied Herlegem as an advanced
position on his right. Thus when the French renewed the attack,
employing six additional battalions, they were caught by unexpected
flanking fire from Herlegem, and were again heavily repulsed. In the
thick of the fight, wielding a pike like any private of the line, was
Vendme himself. He was determined to take Groenewald at all costs,
and called forward battalion after battalion across the Norken.

As the commitment of new troops on both sides gradually extended
Marlborough's left flank farther to the south-west along the
Diepenbeck, the Allied right singularly remained unassailed. As a
precautionary measure the Duke had placed behind Cadogan--between
Herlegem and Heurne--Rantzau's eight squadrons and 20 fresh Prussian
squadrons under General Natzmer. Experience had shown, however, that
cavalry unsupported by infantry formed no strong defence, and the open
fields east of the Ghent road seemed to invite an attack by the French
left wing, which was now drawn up behind Mullem, a village on the
Norken about a mile below Huysse. At five o'clock Vendme, doing what
Marlborough had expected, sent orders to Burgundy to launch the whole
of the left wing (some 30,000 strong) in an attack that would come in
behind Herlegem and aim at rolling up the Allied right flank. But
under the misapprehension that the intervening ground was too boggy to
be crossed the Prince made no move. What was worse, the courier whom
he sent informing Vendme of this decision was killed before he could
deliver his message. When Vendme led his next frontal attack on
Groenewald, to his surprise it was unsupported by the expected
flanking thrust. Thus the Marshal paid the penalty of abandoning his
responsibilities as a commander to fight in the ranks.

But while the French left remained uncommitted, the whole of the
infantry of the right and centre were locked in a deadly struggle
along the Marollebeck. At the Schaerken end of the line the Duke of
Argyll had arrived with 20 British battalions, among them the Royal
Scots and the Buffs, and these with the tiring soldiers of Cadogan's
16 units were opposed by nearly 50 French battalions. Schaerken itself
changed hands twice as the enemy broke across the Diepenbeck,
outflanking Argyll, but 20 Prussian and Hanoverian battalions under
Count Lottum arrived in time to force the enemy back and recover the
village. More and more troops were thrown in on both sides until the
front extended more than two miles from Herlegem, to come within a
mile of the road which ran north-west from Oudenarde over the Boser
Couter.

This road was destined to play an important part in deciding the day's
issue. As we have noted, the battle of Oudenarde, unlike most of the
other major actions of the war, was fought "on the move", for neither
side had had an opportunity to plan a complete course of action or
draw up a formal line of battle before fighting started. From the time
that he crossed the Scheldt Marlborough had been busily engaged in
committing to various parts of the field the successive units as they
arrived in the bridgehead. His right flank remained under tremendous
threat from the powerful French force about Mullem, and in the
hand-to-hand struggle in the centre the issue was still very much in
doubt. Yet amid the full fury of the battle, while closely occupied
with what one writer has called his "radial reinforcement" of each
endangered portion of his front in turn, and so weakened by fever that
he could with difficulty sit his horse, the Duke had contrived to keep
the whole operation in proper perspective and devised the scheme which
was to carry the Allies to a decisive victory.

Marlborough had probably gained some familiarity with the ground about
Oudenarde in the year of Ramillies. At any rate, he was quick to
discern that the Boser Couter commanded the battle area from the west,
and that the French had been too busily engaged with their struggle
for the villages to post a guard on the hill. He therefore ordered
General Overkirk--who with the cavalry of the left had earlier been
guarding the east bank of the Scheldt against any attack on that side
of the river--to cross on two permanent and two supplementary bridges
inside Oudenarde and ascend the Boser Couter in an encircling movement
that would outflank the French right. In order the better to control
these operations on the left, shortly before six o'clock the Duke
turned over to Eugene the command of the Allied right, which included
the infantry of Cadogan and Argyll and the cavalry under Rantzau and
Natzmer. Almost immediately the Prince was in difficulties, as
Vendme's determined third attack having reached its peak forced
Cadogan's weary battalions out of Herlegem and Groenewald. Marlborough
sent help to his colleague even before it was asked. He rapidly
transferred to the danger area Lottum's corps of 20 battalions,
replacing them along the Diepenbeck with his latest infantry arrivals,
18 Dutch and Hanoverian units. It was not the first time in his
campaigning that he had deprived one section of his front to benefit
another, and once again the manoeuvre was successful. Lottum's troops
arrived in time to counter-attack and regain the two villages.

Meanwhile, on the extreme left, the veteran Overkirk (now 67 years
old), unseen by the French was approaching the Boser Couter at the
head of a force of 25,000 composed of Dutch infantry and a number of
Danish cavalry squadrons. A breakdown of the temporary bridges in
Oudenarde had delayed his crossing, and was to reduce the fruits of
the final victory. As his leading infantry reached the source of the
Diepenbeck Overkirk detached two Dutch brigades under General Week to
swing right and join Marlborough's left. Their arrival coincided with
Eugene's recovery of Groenewald and Herlegem, and was the signal for
the whole Allied front to advance in a great converging movement. It
is recorded that the musketry fire from both sides at this stage of
the battle was the heaviest and most sustained that had ever been
known.

Less than two hours of daylight remained, and Overkirk was still some
distance from the top of the hill whence he was to turn in behind the
French rear. The greatest risk to the Allies was still on their own
right flank, and at seven o'clock Marlborough again reinforced Eugene,
sending him General Lumley's 17 squadrons of British cavalry, which
had not yet been committed. They swiftly trotted across from the left
flank, and their arrival behind Herlegem released Natzmer's 20
squadrons for a very gallant charge against Burgundy's cavalry, whose
presence in front of Royegem had been a deterrent to the advance of
Lottum's foot. The Prussian gendarmes broke right through the French
squadrons and two infantry battalions beyond, but were finally stopped
and driven back with losses of 75 per cent by the deadly fire of the
Maison du Roi. Forlorn though the charge may have been, it eased the
pressure and gained the time needed for events to mature on the other
flank.

At last Overkirk was in position, and from Oycke on the top of the
Boser Couter he sent four brigades of Dutch infantry marching down the
road to Royegem, supported by a dozen Danish squadrons. In command was
the nineteen-year old Prince of Orange, fighting his first battle. At
the same time the other claw of the pincers closed in as Cadogan
pushed forward from Groenewald, the Grenadier Guards and the
Coldstream leading the advance. Soon all was over. On some parts of
the front the French fought bravely to escape annihilation, but
eventually discipline and order vanished before the remorseless Allied
pressure. As darkness fell Marlborough halted the battle to prevent
the two Allied wings firing into each other's ranks. Later he was to
write to the Duchess:

     If we had been so happy to have had two more hours of daylight,
     I believe we should have made an end of this war.[99]

The cordon was too thin to hold all within it, and large numbers of
the French right and centre escaped. Burgundy's left wing, which from
the safe side of the Norken had been spectators of the whole battle,
retired intact to Ghent, where they were joined by other remnants of
the army (excepting an estimated 10,000 stragglers who headed across
the Scheldt to France). There was no large-scale pursuit (40 squadrons
assigned the task were stopped by an effective French rear-guard), but
within the pocket 9000 were captured, to add to the loss of 6000
killed and wounded. A French officer wrote that "at least forty of our
regiments are reduced to a wretched condition, the greatest part of
them being killed or taken."[100] By contrast the Allied casualties
numbered just over 3000, including 800 killed. But their army was
still intact; when darkness fell on the 11th there stood at the
Scheldt crossings 20,000 troops who had taken no part in the battle,
and the losses were readily replaced by enemy deserters and captured
mercenaries.

Marlborough's tactics at the battle of Oudenarde provide an excellent
example of the principle of _Maintenance of the Aim_. Confronted with
the possibility of catching the French in the open, he was determined
to force a fight and inflict the maximum damage on his opponents. From
the moment that, having forestalled the enemy at Lessines, he sent
Cadogan's small force forward to seize a Scheldt bridgehead until the
final closing of the pocket around the French right wing, his skilful
tactical control of operations moved the course of events relentlessly
towards victory. In marked contrast is the violation of this principle
by the French commanders, who first of all could not agree whether or
not to oppose the Allied passage of the Scheldt, and subsequently
failed to co-ordinate their efforts, issuing conflicting orders with
disastrous results. The principle of _Flexibility_ is nowhere better
illustrated in Marlborough's campaigns than in this battle, not only
in the physical mobility which ensured the timely arrival of the
Allied forces at the point of conflict and their presence at the right
part of the field at the crucial moment, but more particularly in the
originality of mind and rapidity of decision exercised by the
commander in making these dispositions.

Whereas the French violated the principle of _Economy of Effort_,
first by sending forward their unsupported detachment to Eyne while
advancing with their main body in a different direction, and then by
the fruitless unemployment of the whole of their left wing behind the
Norken, Marlborough maintained a judicious balance in the use of his
resources. Thus he opposed the French infantry along the Diepenbeck
and the Marollebeck with inferior numbers, not hesitating to transfer
troops from the centre to reinforce Eugene when hard pressed; and by
placing his cavalry behind Herlegem, he contrived to ensure the
continued immobilization of the French left. By such measures he was
able to keep in hand the necessary forces for the final thrust behind
the French right flank--a good example of _Concentration_, which
enabled the decisive blow to be delivered at the crucial moment.

Undoubtedly the chief element in the _Surprise_ which enabled
Marlborough to seize the initiative in the battle was the _rapidity_
with which the approach march was made (although we may note too the
_deception_ of the empty tents on the way and the _audacity_ of
Cadogan's initial crossings); while _concealment_ played an important
part in the successful delivery of Overkirk's unexpected thrust from
the Boser Couter. Among the various ways of raising the _Morale_ of
soldiers, not the least effective is the incentive of avenging a wrong
(real or imagined). As we have seen, eagerness to remove the sting of
Bruges and Ghent inspired Marlborough's troops to prodigious efforts
on the approach march and encouraged them to give their best in the
continued _Offensive Action_ which won the victory. And here we may
note that more than any of the Duke's great battles this one belonged
to the infantry; no less than fourteen famous British foot regiments
proudly display on their colours the honour "Oudenarde".


                          The Siege of Lille

Marlborough allowed his over-marched army two days' rest at Oudenarde
and then moved westward to the Lys, to encamp at Wervicq, four miles
above Menin. He had sent a strong detachment under Count Lottum to
level the French fortified lines from Ypres to the Lys at Comines, and
thereby open a pathway into France between the great fortresses along
the border. The Duke of Berwick, hastening over from the Meuse,
arrived too late to prevent these demolitions, and turned his
attention to reinforcing with stragglers from the recent battle the
garrisons of Ypres, Lille and Courtrai.

With the French army of Flanders safely behind the Bruges-Ghent canal,
Marlborough saw that there was little hope of compelling an action in
that sector. But he recognized other means of drawing Vendme out of
Ghent.

     They leave all France open to us [he wrote to Godolphin on July
     16], which is what I flatter myself the King of France and his
     council will never suffer; so that I hope by Thursday M. de
     Vendme will receive orders from Court not to continue in the
     camp where he is, from whence we are not able to force him but
     by famine.[101]

In order that Louis XIV should not lack the incentive to recall his
Marshal, Marlborough now laid a heavy hand on the provinces of Artois
and Picardy, sending 25,000 troopers to pillage and destroy throughout
the countryside and to exact heavy levies from the towns and cities.

Eugene went off to join his army, which had arrived at Brussels, and
which it was decided should remain there as long as the French held
Ghent. But before he left, Marlborough had unfolded to him what was
probably the most daring strategical project that the two generals had
yet considered. This was no less than a plan for their combined armies
to invade France and establish a new base at Abbeville, at the mouth
of the Somme. The advance by land would be accompanied by a
cross-Channel assault, for which a force of 6000 men was already
standing by on the Isle of Wight. With Abbeville in possession the
stores and equipment in Flanders could be ferried down the coast to
the new base, and the Allied communications through Ostend abandoned.
The target would then be Paris. But the plan was too audacious even
for Prince Eugene, who was dubious about its amphibious aspects.
Furthermore he was against leaving the frontier fortresses unreduced.
On July 26 Marlborough was to report to Godolphin:

     He thinks it impracticable, till we have Lille for a _place
     d'armes_ and magazine: and then he thinks we may make a very
     great inroad, but not be able to winter, though we might be
     helped by the fleet, unless we were masters of some fortified
     town.[102]

With Eugene opposed to the plan there was no point in considering it
further. Marlborough turned to the siege of Lille, for which task he
was faced with the difficult problem of getting his artillery train
over from Holland. As long as the French held Ghent, at the junction
of the Lys and the Scheldt, transfer by water (the normal means of
passage) was impossible. The Duke therefore determined to bring the
heavy guns by road. It was a bold decision, not only because of the
tremendous administrative difficulties involved, but because during
the move the artillery, upon whose safe arrival so much depended, must
pass within easy reach of two French armies--Vendme's at Ghent, and
Berwick's, now at Mons. The guns were assembled as secretly as
possible in Brussels, whither every horse that the army could spare
was dispatched. Nearly 16,000 were required to draw the 15-mile train,
which included 80 heavy cannon (20 horses each), 20 great mortars (16
horses), and 3000 four-horse ammunition wagons. The huge convoy left
Brussels on August 6, guarded by the greater part of Eugene's army, as
well as by 25 squadrons and as many battalions supplied by
Marlborough. At intervals along the 75-mile route it was joined by
other strong detachments. Berwick would have attacked, but could not
secure Vendme's co-operation. It passed through Ath on the 8th,
crossed the Scheldt two days later, and reached its destination at
Menin on the 12th, without having lost a gun. Next day, on the fourth
anniversary of the battle of Blenheim, the investment of Lille was
completed, and that night Marlborough (who was keenly conscious of
French attempts to minimize their July defeat) recorded:

     The siege . . . will be pressed with all possible vigour, and
     this may at last convince the enemy that they have lost the
     battle of Oudenarde.[103]

On August 27 the batteries were in position and bombardment of the
walls began.

The siege of Lille, which Marlborough's engineers were at first
hopeful of ending in ten days, lasted four months. The fortifications
were the strongest in France, and the large garrison under the veteran
Marshal Boufflers fought with the utmost determination. Prince Eugene
was entrusted with the actual siege operations; Marlborough commanded
the covering force of 137 squadrons and 83 battalions. The Duke took
up a position 15 miles away on the Scheldt at Helchin, from where he
could counter relief attempts by Vendme from the north or Berwick
from the east. But by September 2 the two, having joined forces on the
Dendre, had crossed the Scheldt at Tournai, causing Marlborough to
fall back towards Lille. In the next fortnight the combined French
armies, which considerably outnumbered Marlborough's forces, made
three attempts to outflank the Duke and reach Lille. But each time
they were outmanoeuvred and found their path blocked by a force which
Vendme could not raise the courage to attack. On September 16 they
pulled back to the Scheldt, having at no time got within six miles of
the besieged city.

The process of overcoming the formidable defences of "Vauban's
masterpiece" moved slowly, Marlborough blaming "the ignorance of our
engineers and the want of stores."[104] A serious shortage of
ammunition had developed, for by holding the line of the Scheldt the
French had been able to cut off supplies coming from Holland through
Brussels. Towards the end of September Vendme sent 22,000 men to
intercept a convoy bringing much-needed munitions across country from
Ostend; but Marlborough successfully met the threat by dispatching two
protecting forces, one of which, under General John Webb, gained an
outstanding victory over much superior numbers at Wynendaale. The
timely arrival of new materials for the bombardment of Lille brought
results. The counterscarp was in Allied hands on October 1, and on the
22nd Boufflers surrendered the city, the citadel still holding out.

Late in November in a last desperate effort to raise the siege the
French presented a counter threat by sending the Elector of Bavaria
with 15,000 men to besiege Brussels. The Belgian capital was
garrisoned by less than 7000 troops, whose morale the governor sought
to boost by ordering "a pound of flesh, two quarts of beer, and four
large glasses of brandy to be distributed to each soldier every day
_gratis_."[105] Probably more stimulating than these excellent
measures was the news that Marlborough was on his way to the rescue.
On November 25, after feinting northwards towards Ghent, he suddenly
struck eastward to the Scheldt. The enemy, taken completely by
surprise, offered little resistance. Wide-flanking columns under
Cadogan and Lottum forced passages above and below Oudenarde, where
Marlborough's main body crossed in time to capture 1000 of the enemy's
rear-guard. In a single stroke the Scheldt fortifications were lost to
the enemy, whose garrisons fled north to Ghent or south to Tournai. By
the 28th the Duke was at Alost, where he learned that Max Emmanuel had
abruptly abandoned the siege of Brussels and retired to Mons, in his
haste leaving his guns behind him.

The citadel at Lille fell on December 10, Boufflers and 7000 survivors
marching out with all the honours of war. The garrison's determined
resistance had cost the Allies 15,000 casualties, many having been
incurred from the enemy's "hellish inventions of throwing of bombs,
boiling pitch, tar, oil and brimstone with scalding water and such
like combustible from the outworks."[106] On word of this final blow
King Louis called it a day and ordered his armies into winter
quarters, counting on holding Ghent and Bruges as a base for
operations in the spring. But Marlborough, in spite of the lateness of
the season, had other ideas. A few days before Lille fell he had
written to Lord Godolphin, "I think we must have Ghent and Bruges, let
it cost what it will."[107] Favoured by unusually good December
weather he moved his siege train north by water and laid siege to
Ghent, the trenches being opened on Christmas Eve. Reversing their
procedure at Lille, Marlborough directed the operations at the walls,
with Eugene commanding the covering army. Although the place was
strongly held by 19 squadrons and 36 battalions, it capitulated with
unexpected suddenness on January 2. On the same day the Bruges
magistrates arrived to surrender their city.

All conquests made by the French early in 1708 had now been recovered.
There had been good news too from the Mediterranean. The British fleet
had needed a winter base there from which it could watch Toulon. Two
days after the battle of Oudenarde Marlborough had written to General
Stanhope, the British Commander in Spain, "I am so entirely convinced
that nothing can be done effectually without the fleet, that I conjure
you, if possible, to take Port Mahon".[108] This harbour on the island
of Minorca was considered the finest in the Mediterranean. In
September an English fleet under Admiral Sir John Leake, having
captured Sardinia for Charles III, rendezvoused off Minorca with a
force of 2000 troops brought by Stanhope from Barcelona. Fort St.
Philip, covering the harbour, was successfully invested and after a
brief siege surrendered, putting Port Mahon and the whole island in
British hands for the next fifty years.

Marlborough could look back upon his seventh, and in many respects his
greatest, campaign of the war with considerable satisfaction. Ably
assisted by his great comrade in arms, the Prince of Savoy (though at
all times bearing the full responsibility himself for what was done),
the Duke, despite constant ill-health and harassing by political
opponents in England, had pursued his aims with a skill and ruthless
determination which had completely outmanoeuvred the French and left
them thoroughly demoralized. His field of operations had been the
whole of Western Flanders from the Bruges Canal to the French
frontier, an area in which he had convincingly demonstrated by his
amazing marches the supreme importance of mobility in an army. In a
little over six months he had twice saved the Belgian capital; on the
banks of the Scheldt he had fought and won a "twentieth-century
battle" which proved to be a major turning point in the war; he had
reduced the most powerful fortress on the French border, while
neutralizing every attempt by the enemy to sever his communications;
and finally by the recovery of the key cities along the northern
waterways he had secured for his army a quiet occupation of their
winter quarters and assurance of opening "with advantage the next
campaign". In no other year did he demonstrate so brilliantly the
"touch of the gambler"--and yet the risks he took were based on a
shrewd appreciation of his opponent's capabilities and limitations,
and must appear justified by their successful results.

Well might he write to Godolphin at the beginning of January: "The
campaign is now ended to my own heart's desire."[109]




                             CHAPTER VIII

                           Malplaquet, 1709

                        Negotiations for Peace


The overtures for peace which Louis XIV had unsuccessfully made after
Ramillies were renewed after Oudenarde, the first negotiations taking
place secretly between the French Foreign Minister, the Marquis de
Torcy, and Heinsius, the Dutch Grand Pensionary. During the autumn of
1708 Marlborough carried on personal negotiations with the French in
an exchange of letters with his nephew, the Duke of Berwick, with whom
he had kept in correspondence despite (or because of) the latter's
presence in the enemy's camp. These exchanges ended abruptly in
November, however, when the French, who had not then lost the line of
the Scheldt or the Bruges Canal, professed to attribute Marlborough's
approaches to concern for his own precarious situation in the field,
and stipulated that the evacuation of their territory and the
restoration of Lille should be a condition of any armistice.

The new year saw the commencement of formal negotiations at The Hague,
with Marlborough under instruction from his Government to make the
maximum demands upon the French. The successes of 1708 had encouraged
the English people to believe that the enemy was in no position to
fight another campaign. France was exhausted from many years of war
and Louis could no longer be deaf to the clamour of the population,
who were reduced to extreme wretchedness and despondency and were
indeed facing famine as a result of a prolonged winter's frost "which
had destroyed the fruits of the earth in the germ". But Marlborough
was under no illusion regarding French capabilities. In mid-February
he wrote to the Lord Treasurer:

     I am far from thinking the King of France so low as he is
     thought in England, and, as I am afraid, will appear very
     quickly; for it is hardly to be credited the reports the people
     make me, whom I employ on the frontier, of the vast numbers of
     troops they have in all their towns, and that all their
     villages and farm-houses between the Sambre and the Meuse are
     full of their horse.[110]

Progress at The Hague was slow, as the French representatives
reluctantly conceded the Allied claims point by point. Besides
recognizing the right of the Hapsburg Archduke (Charles III) to the
Spanish inheritance, France was now ready to acknowledge Queen Anne
and expel the "Old Pretender", demolish Dunkirk (for long a base for
privateers preying on merchantmen in the English Channel), hand over
Alsace to the Empire and Newfoundland to England, and give the Dutch a
protective barrier of fortresses from Ypres to Charleroi. But the
final memorandum of terms which Torcy sent back to Versailles at the
end of May contained two humiliating articles which the Allies had
inserted as safeguards for French compliance. These demanded that
Louis should himself assist in expelling his grandson from Spain if
Philip failed to leave within two months, and that should Spain not be
evacuated within that time, the armistice would be void, and six
fortresses which the French were required to hand over as a pledge of
good faith would be forfeited to the Allies. Acceptance of these
conditions would have placed Louis completely at the mercy of the
Allies. He rejected them, and the war went on.


                         The Siege of Tournai

Marlborough had not waited for the final breakdown in negotiations to
take the field, although the late termination of the 1708 campaign and
the backward spring, which delayed the growth of green fodder,
prevented an early start in 1709. Enthusiasm for a continuation of
operations was stronger in England than in Holland or the Empire, and
the increase of 25,000 men in Marlborough's forces came mostly as a
result of the English Parliament's vote of 7,000,000 for the year's
campaign. At the beginning of May Marlborough wrote, "Our troops were
never in better order nor the enemy's in worse."[111]

But for once the Duke was underestimating his foe. Although the French
army had been reduced to a state of destitution by the national
poverty and the unparalleled severity of the winter, they had found in
their very adversity a stimulus to greater endeavour. Louis XIV
capitalized on the harshness of the Allied terms to kindle in his
people a burning patriotism which showed itself in a determination to
fight on. Above all, he gave the command of his main army to the
brilliant Marshal Villars, whom all recognized as the man who had
stopped Marlborough on the Moselle in 1705. The French soldiers had
confidence in him as in no other leader. He vigorously set about
improving conditions in his army, obtaining for it a priority in the
allocation of available food. The wealthy followed the example of
Marshal Boufflers in sending their plate to the mint so that soldiers
might eat. Peasants flocked to the colours to avoid starvation. By the
end of June, when campaigning started, Villars had nearly 90,000 men
to oppose Marlborough's 120,000. With this force, inferior in numbers
and equipment and badly undernourished (a regiment received full
rations only on the days it marched) the French marshal had little
choice about his course of action. To halt the Allied advance on
Paris, and preserve his army (for undoubtedly France would not be able
to raise another) he must adopt defensive tactics and exercise extreme
caution. He therefore constructed the Lines of La Basse, a strong
system of field fortifications 40 miles long, stretching from a point
on the Lys west of Bthune to the Scarpe at Douai. This position
blocked the Allied path southward from Lille, at the same time
providing Villars with a base from which he could strike suddenly if a
favourable occasion arose.

When in mid-June the Allied council of war at Marlborough's
headquarters between Menin and Courtrai were discussing plans for the
coming campaign they had to decide between three possible courses of
action. Public opinion in England clamoured for a direct march on the
French capital. But an examination of the Lines of La Basse--Cadogan
is reported to have made a personal reconnaissance, disguised as a
French peasant--had revealed their strength, and it was unanimously
decided that a frontal assault would not be feasible. As an
alternative Marlborough, hoping to revive his scheme of the previous
year, advocated the capture of Ypres as a preliminary to operations
down the coast to Abbeville, and thence to Paris. Eugene, looking to
the inland flank, favoured an assault on Tournai, on the Scheldt, and
was supported by the Dutch and German leaders in the council. On June
24 it was decided to attack Tournai.

This fortress was regarded as the strongest in Europe after Lille,
though held by a garrison much reduced below normal numbers, and
considerably underprovisioned. To conceal his true intention
Marlborough made ostentatious preparations pointing to either an
assault of the western end of Villars' lines or a siege of Ypres, and
added conviction to the latter possibility by moving the siege train
forward to nearby Menin. To meet this threat to his left flank Villars
transferred forces from his right, including the battalions from the
Tournai garrison. Then on the evening of June 26 Marlborough's whole
army began advancing south-westward as though to attack La Basse, but
after marching for two hours, turned abruptly to its left and headed
eastward. As so many of them had done on previous excursions, the
troops marched all night, unaware of their destination. Daylight found
them in sight of Tournai, and investment of the city was completed by
nightfall. The siege train made the long journey down the Lys from
Menin to Ghent and then up the Scheldt, arriving, despite French
attempts to block the latter river, on July 10.

Marlborough himself directed the siege operations, with Eugene
commanding the covering army to the south-west. The assailants
suffered heavily from mining operations carried on by the depleted but
none the less determined garrison, and many fierce subterranean
struggles took place as Allied sappers penetrated the galleries which
underlay the fortifications. On July 30 the town capitulated, and
after five more weeks of bitter fighting the citadel was taken. The
cost to the besiegers had been 5000 casualties.

With the main French army resting safely behind the double row of
trenches of the La Basse lines, it might have been expected that the
only operations for the Allies to undertake now would be the reduction
of more fortresses, in the hope of further weakening the enemy and
hastening his ultimate collapse. But such was not to be the case.
While Tournai was still under siege the high command on both sides
adopted a very much more aggressive attitude. Louis XIV relaxed the
rigid restrictions earlier imposed upon Villars, and gave him freedom
to seek an encounter in the field. Marlborough was notified of the
great desire of the Allied representatives at The Hague "that we
should undertake something of consequence". On August 18 he hastened
to reply to Heinsius that "the prince and myself . . . shall neglect
no opportunity of undertaking what we can judge practicable . . . and
that [if] the temper of your people are such that they will not be
satisfied unless there be action, we must then take our measures
agreeable to that".[112] Thus both contenders were started upon the
road to the bloodiest battle of the century.

If further sieges were to be undertaken--and there was no other course
unless the French moved out into the open--the Allies had to look well
out to the flanks for their next objective. Bthune, Arras, Douai and
Valenciennes in the centre were too well protected by the La Basse
lines; but the capture of either Ypres in the west or Cond or Mons in
the east would outflank Villars' positions. Decision fell on Mons, as
being the least strongly held; it was hoped too that an Allied move in
that direction might provoke Villars to come out into the open and
thereby bring on the battle which Marlborough sought. Several days
before Tournai fell the Duke and Eugene had moved the bulk of their
forces westward to a position in front of the French lines opposite
Douai, and from there they secretly dispatched Lord Orkney with a
detachment of 20 squadrons and all the grenadiers in the army to seize
St. Ghislain, a minor fortress six miles west of Mons which guarded
the line of the Haine, one of the Scheldt's tributaries.

The fall of Tournai was the signal for the main forces to move. On the
afternoon of the 3rd a band of 60 squadrons and 4000 foot marched
eastward under the Prince of Hesse-Cassel with orders from Marlborough
to help Orkney take St. Ghislain if it were not too strongly held.
Behind them came Cadogan with another 40 squadrons, followed by the
remainder of the Allied army. In a remarkably rapid march through
pouring rain Hesse-Cassel reached St. Ghislain, and learning from
Orkney that it was garrisoned in strength pushed on along the north
bank of the Haine, to cross at Obourg, three miles east of Mons. In 56
hours he had covered 53 miles. Without pausing he wheeled to his right
around the southern outskirts of the city, passed unopposed through
some defence lines running south-east from Mons to the Sambre, and on
the morning of September 6 took up a position facing west--the
direction from which any move by Villars must come. Early on the 7th
Marlborough's main body followed across the Haine, and by nightfall
had joined Hesse-Cassel west of Mons.

The sudden coup caught Villars completely unprepared. Determined to
save Mons, he rushed 30 squadrons of dragoons eastward in an attempt
to stop Hesse-Cassel at the Sambre lines; but they arrived too late,
the three garrison regiments having fled at the Allied approach. The
dragoons fell back to Quivrain, a dozen miles west of Mons on the
Valenciennes road, to await the arrival of the main French army, which
Villars was hurrying eastward by forced marches. The Marshal himself
arrived on the 7th, and while waiting for his infantry to come up
spent part of the day in a reconnaissance in force towards the Allied
positions. In the evening he brought his army forward to a point about
two miles east of Quivrain. During the day Marshal Boufflers, who was
held in a respect only surpassed by that accorded Villars, had arrived
from Paris bringing "his cuirass and his weapons with him".[113] No
one in the French army now doubted that a fight was at hand.


                       Preparations for Battle

The morning of September 8 found the armies less than eight miles
apart, each watching to see what the other might do. The whole area
from the Haine to the Sambre was fairly heavily wooded, and between
the opposing forces stretched a broad forest barrier which an army
might pass at only two places. The northern gap, called the Troue de
Boussu, lay between the Haine at St. Ghislain and the Forest of
Warquignies, which at its southern end merged into the Bois de Sars.
The southern gap, the mile-wide Troue d'Aulnois, separated the Sars
wood from the Bois de Lanires, which reached southward towards the
Sambre. For Villars the shortest route to Mons lay through the Boussu
Gap, and the direction of his approach suggested that this was the
path he had chosen to take. But the Marshal, taking a leaf out of
Marlborough's book, was only feinting. Late on the 8th his cavalry
seized the forward edges of both gaps, and reconnaissance of the
Troue d'Aulnois by Marlborough and Eugene early on the 9th discovered
the French army moving southward down the west side of the woods. The
escorting cavalry squadrons clashed vigorously with the French
advanced guard, but were soon driven off, and by midday Villars had
occupied the Aulnois gap in strength. He now held a decided advantage
over his opponents, for though Marlborough, on learning of the French
shift, had immediately brought his own army southward in a parallel
move, Eugene's troops, which had been covering the Boussu gap, were
still six miles to the north.

Villars had boasted that he would fight a battle to prevent the siege
of Mons, yet instead of attacking on the 9th he began digging in. In
acting thus he may have felt the need of more time for deployment or
perhaps the boldness of Marlborough's advanced squadrons in contesting
his occupancy of the gap had convinced him that Eugene's troops were
close at hand. Above all was the psychological factor--the realization
that his army was the last that France could muster, and the
disquieting thought that no French commander had yet beaten the
redoubtable Marlborough in battle. Nor did the Allies attack that day,
the commanders deciding in a council of war to await the arrival of
Eugene.

[Illustration: MALPLAQUET

11 SEPTEMBER 1709

SITUATION 7 SEPTEMBER

Historical Section, G.S.]

By the morning of September 10 he had joined Marlborough, and their
combined forces now equalled or outnumbered the enemy's. The rapidly
growing system of entrenchments which the French were constructing
made it clear that Villars had decided not to risk an encounter in the
open, but to invite an Allied attack and oppose it from a position
whose natural advantages had been reinforced by elaborate field
fortifications. Yet Marlborough made no offensive move on the 10th,
even though postponement of action gave Villars valuable time to
extend and improve his defences. Had they wished, the Allies might
have thrown up field works of their own in front of Villars and
holding him thus immobile detached a force to reduce Mons. The Allied
delay, however, was occasioned by no indecision as to objectives.
Marlborough had determined to attack Villars, for the defeat of the
French army, even at a heavy cost, would be of far greater strategical
significance than the capture of Mons. But there were 19 battalions
and ten squadrons under General Withers still on the march from
Tournai, and it was judged that their presence would outbalance any
advantage that a day's pause might give the defenders.

On the 10th Villars, having done all he could on his main line of
entrenchments, began work on an alternative position about 700 yards
to the rear, which would give him more space for the employment of his
cavalry. However this second line was not completed in time. His
formidable forward line followed the crest of a ridge which ran
between the Lanires and Sars woods.[114] In order to provide the
maximum field of fire it conformed closely to the contours of the
ground, an arrangement which resulted in a number of salients and
re-entrants decidedly advantageous to the defenders. In the open
ground in the centre the line consisted of a triple row of trenches
next to the southern wood, extended to the left by a series of nine
redans (earthworks with high breastworks in front and on each flank
but open to the rear to allow the defenders to retire if overrun and
to give the enemy no cover if he occupied them). Between these redans
were wide gaps for the passage of the supporting cavalry. At either
extremity the advanced wooded flanks concealed rows of entrenchments
behind "abatis" of felled trees, whose sharpened branches pointed
directly towards the expected attack. These defences were concentrated
in the greatest strength at the northern end of the line, where it
jutted forward nearly a mile to form a right-angled salient about the
skirts of the Bois de Sars. The whole formidable position was
supported by 80 guns in numerous entrenched batteries, the largest of
which was a 20' gun battery at the right centre, about 500 yards from
the edge of the Bois de Lanires. "I don't believe ever army in the
field was attacked in such a post", wrote Orkney. "From their right to
the left I may call it a counter-scarp and traverse, in many places,
three, four and five retrenchments one behind the other."[115]

To man these defences Villars assigned 45 battalions to the right
flank, to hold the wood and the adjacent entrenchments; at the right
centre, next to the 20-gun battery, he placed 17 battalions, which
included the famous French and Swiss Guards; in the redans of the left
centre over to the edge of the Bois de Sars were another 17
battalions, among them those of the Irish Brigade; and on the extreme
left in the wood itself was a corps of 23 of his best regiments under
the Chevalier d'Albergotti, with a further 17 battalions in reserve
west of the wood. The cavalry, 260 squadrons strong, were massed in
rear of the centre, just in front of the village of Malplaquet, which
was to give its name to the battlefield. Villars entrusted the command
of the right flank to Boufflers, taking the responsibility of the left
himself. Thus when the Allies attacked on the morning of the 11th,
they were to be faced by an equal force of well-entrenched soldiers,
who were imbued with a new fighting spirit and commanded by Louis
XIV's two most skilful generals.

Marlborough spent some time on the 10th carefully investigating the
French positions and planning his attack. He completed the investment
of Mons and sent a detachment of 18 battalions to storm St. Ghislain,
which Villars had stripped of all but 200 men. Thus he secured an
unimpeded line of retreat to Tournai should the battle go wrong, and a
shortened means of approach for Withers. The Duke's design for the
battle was the familiar one that he had used at Blenheim and
Ramillies. He would cause the enemy to weaken his centre by assailing
both flanks, and then, having pierced the centre with his infantry,
send his massed cavalry through for the deciding encounter with the
enemy's horse in the rear.

On the morning of the 11th divine service was read in the Allied camp
at three o'clock, and the subsequent deployment was carried out under
cover of a dense fog. Shortly after six all were in position,
Marlborough's army (which included the forces of the States-General)
on the left and centre, and Eugene's Imperial troops on the right. The
main flank attack would be made on the Allied right, where the
menacing salient at the edge of the Bois de Sars would come under
converging attacks by two forces. General Schulenberg with 36 of
Eugene's German battalions would strike from the north-east, deriving
some advantage from an approach masked by the trees, while Lottum with
22 Prussian and Hanoverian battalions from Marlborough's right would
advance towards the French centre and then swing to their right to
assault the south-eastern face of the wood. To assist in the storming
of this strong position a Grand Battery of 40 guns had been dug in
during the night within range of the salient. Another 28-gun battery
was placed opposite the French centre. The remaining 32 Allied cannon
were assigned as "guns of accompaniment" to the infantry.

The attack on the left against the Bois de Lanires was to be
secondary to that on the right, and to start half an hour later. It
would be made from the vicinity of the village of Aulnois by thirty
Dutch battalions under Count Tilly and the Prince of Orange (the
veteran Overkirk had died outside Lille the previous autumn).[116] In
the centre the Duke of Orkney, with fifteen British battalions drawn
up on the right of the small Bois de Tiry, had the task of covering
Lottum's left and, when the French front should have been sufficiently
weakened, advancing to occupy the enemy redans. The Allied cavalry,
200 squadrons strong, were massed in the rear to await the moment for
the decisive charge, but ready in the meantime to exploit any gains
which the infantry might make in any part of the field. A special role
was assigned to General Withers' detachment, which had arrived from
Tournai late on the 10th and made camp four miles south of the Haine.
Originally it had been intended that Withers' troops should support
the Dutch on the left, but in view of their late arrival and the
fatigue of their 35-mile march from Tournai, a last-minute change of
plan kept them on the Allied right, in fact outside the main order of
battle. Their new task was to advance across or around the northern
part of the Sars Wood, in order to turn the French left flank.


                    Malplaquet, September 11, 1709

Just before nine o'clock a salvo of fire from all the Allied artillery
gave the signal to attack. On the right Schulenberg, with 20,000
Germans marching in a triple line, plunged into the wood, while on his
left Lottum's battalions advanced in column towards the French centre,
to turn sharply to their right after passing the great battery. A
bitter struggle soon developed in the Wood of Sars. In spite of the
Allied superior numbers (fully 60 battalions assaulted the vital
salient, which was defended by one quarter of that strength), the
first line of attackers was thrown back at the fringe of the wood. The
second and third lines pressed forward and overcame the outlying
entrenchments, but as they fought their way inwards they were stopped
by the successive lines of Albergotti's stoutly manned fortifications.
Casualties were heavy, for in the close hand-to-hand fighting quarter
was neither asked nor granted. Disorganized by the difficulty of
movement through the trees, the Allied troops fell back before
vigorous French counter-attacks. At this point Orkney on his own
initiative detached two of his own battalions, the 1st (Grenadier)
Guards and the Royal Scots, and sent them under heavy covering fire
from the Grand Battery to help Lottum's hard pressed infantry. With
this timely assistance the crucial angle of the wood was repossessed
and held.

Villars now prepared to counter-attack Orkney with a dozen battalions
from his centre, but called off the charge when he saw Marlborough,
who was directing the battle from an exposed rise behind Orkney's
position, quickly place himself at the head of a strong force of
cavalry to meet the threat. Bitterly contesting every yard the
defenders of the Wood of Sars were gradually forced backward, and
shortly before midday Schulenberg and Lottum gained the western edge
and began forming up in the open fields. During the morning General
Withers had been carrying out his allotted role. While his ten cavalry
squadrons, augmented by another ten released to him by Prince Eugene,
were making their way around the northern perimeter to the village of
La Folie, his foot-soldiers had advanced steadily through the wood,
their turning movement gradually forcing back the French left.

In the meantime things had been going badly for the Allies on the
other flank. The initial advance of the Dutch infantry had halted just
outside artillery range as planned. Then, after the prescribed
half-hour's pause, the impetuous young Prince of Orange, without
waiting for Tilly's orders, had led his force forward. The Dutch
battalions (including two Scottish regiments in the Dutch service)
heavily outnumbered, advanced courageously against the French
right--some assaulting the positions in the Bois de Lanires and
others attacking the triple fortifications in the open. They suffered
heavily from deadly round shot and grape from the 20-gun battery and
the volleys of musket-fire which beset them from front and flank. Yet
they carried the first line of trenches in two places before being
driven back with staggering losses as Boufflers began throwing in his
reserves. Subsequent attempts were equally unsuccessful, the attackers
undergoing "such a butchering that the oldest general alive never saw
the like".[117] Five thousand fell in half an hour, among them large
numbers of the famous Blue Guards, pride of the Dutch army. By the
time that the Prince of Hesse-Cassel with 20 squadrons had extricated
them from the battle, the Dutch had lost more than half their number.
A more daring commander than Boufflers might have exploited this
French advantage by a general advance of his right wing, which could
have spelled disaster to the Allies; but the opportunity passed, and
before long Marlborough had restored his left flank with hastily
gathered reserves.

While the Allies were being repulsed at the south end of his line
Villars had been fully occupied with his left, where he now planned to
deliver a large-scale counter-attack. Up to this stage his centre had
been assailed only by artillery fire (though this had been costly
enough, particularly to his cavalry in the rear, who had suffered
numerous casualties from "overs" and ricochets). Since Boufflers could
spare him no reinforcement from the right, Villars felt justified in
transferring northward a number of infantry units from the centre,
among them the exiled Irish Brigade. This diversion of strength was
what Marlborough had been waiting for. The tactics so successfully
employed at Blenheim had worked again here in giving the superiority
he needed at the right time. Shortly before one o'clock the 40-gun
battery was moved forward, and Orkney's thirteen battalions charged
the enemy centre. The few remaining defenders were quickly put to
flight, the redans taken, and through the gaps between them 30 Dutch
squadrons trotted forward to take their turn in the battle.

Quickly forming up behind the French line they charged the enemy horse
drawn up in the rear. The ensuing struggle was fought on very even
terms. Once again it was the Maison du Roi, flower of the French
cavalry, led by Marshal Boufflers himself, that stopped the Dutch
squadrons and drove them back. But now the British and Prussian
cavalry with Marlborough at their head came pouring through the
captured lines. The French, helped by being already in line of battle,
launched six successive charges which hampered the deployment of the
Allied horse. Each of these counter-attacks suffered heavily from the
volleying of Orkney's infantry in the captured field works, and from
the point-blank fire of ten cannon which had been hastily brought
forward to the ridge. "I really believe", wrote Orkney later, "had not
ye foot been there they would have drove our horse out of the
field."[118] Thus aided, the cavalry, which included such famous
British regiments as the Royal Scots Greys and the King's Dragoon
Guards, formed up in order and flung themselves against the French.
With the arrival of Eugene and the Imperialist squadrons there were
30,000 Allied troopers engaged, and for more than an hour a deadly
cavalry struggle, the fiercest of the whole war, was waged over the
heath beside the village of Malplaquet.

And now we must return to the situation west of the Bois de Sars,
where along a mile of front both sides had spent more than an hour
preparing for fresh encounters. They were about equal in number, for,
as we have seen, Marshal Villars had reinforced the original defenders
of the wood with his reserve units and the battalions drawn untimely
from his centre, so that altogether some 50 battalions faced the
diminished forces of Schulenberg and Lottum.

The action opened with a sudden charge by eight French squadrons upon
Withers' cavalry, who were in the process of deploying north of La
Folie. The Allied horse were completely routed, six squadrons being
cut to pieces. Cheered by this success the French launched their
counter-stroke, even as news reached Villars that Orkney's infantry
were breaking into his weakened lines in the centre. From the edge of
the wood the Allied foot, personally directed by Eugene, returned
volley for volley. By a queer turn of fate the French Royal Regiment
of Ireland was engaged and repulsed by the 18th Foot (Royal Irish), of
Withers' command. The losses on both sides were exceedingly heavy.
Villars himself was wounded and carried unconscious from the field,
Albergotti and the commander of the left centre becoming casualties at
the same time. With the command suddenly thus disorganized a staff
officer called off the counter-attack and withdrew the fifty
battalions out of Allied range. As this retreat of the French left
began, Eugene, disregarding a musket shot wound in the head, hurried
back to the centre, where he was in time, as we have noted, to lead
his cavalry in the final stages of the battle.

On the southern flank the Allies were in full control, the indomitable
Prince of Orange, backed by Hesse-Cassel's cavalry, having finally
overrun the French positions. With both his wings in retreat,
Boufflers, on whom the whole command had now devolved, broke off the
cavalry action shortly before three o'clock, realising that the day
was lost. He ordered a general retirement, to be covered by rear-guard
action. But the Allied infantry and cavalry had fought too hard that
day to take part in any great pursuit. A few squadrons followed the
French left wing as far as Quivrain, without seriously disturbing its
orderly withdrawal. The exhausted main Allied forces encamped on the
battlefield to bury the dead and begin the care of 15,000 wounded.
That evening Marlborough penned a short postscript to a letter he had
started to the Duchess two days before.

     I am so tired that I have but strength enough to tell you that
     we have had this day a very bloody battle; the first part of
     the day we beat their foot, and afterwards their horse. God
     Almighty be praised, it is now in our powers to have what peace
     we please, and I may be pretty well assured of never being in
     another battle.[119]

It had indeed been "a very bloody battle". The Allied casualties
numbered close to 20,000, of which the Dutch had suffered more than
half; the French losses were estimated at nearly 14,000[120]--a
comparison which justified Villars' observation to King Louis, "If God
gives us another defeat like this, your Majesty's enemies will be
destroyed."[121] Marlborough's enemies in England charged him with a
heavy "butcher's bill", although British casualties were less than 600
killed and 1300 wounded, a considerably lower figure than for the
battle of Blenheim. The Dutch exhibited no rancour over their heavy
proportion of the total cost. "Your High Mightinesses cannot but be
sensible", wrote Goslinga and his fellow Deputies to the
States-General, "that the enemy could not be forced from three
entrenchments well provided with cannon, without a considerable
loss."[122] The expressions of gratitude which reached Marlborough
from The Hague were evidence of the changed attitude of the Dutch
Government, which now seemed as determined to press the war
relentlessly against the French as it had once been anxious to seek a
separate peace.

There was nothing now (except a prolonged period of bad weather) to
hinder the siege of Mons, which was carried out as rather an
anti-climax to the battle. The siege train was brought forward in
three large road convoys from Brussels, and after considerable
battering of its walls the fortress capitulated on October 20. Of the
2000 troops who formed the garrison the French were allowed to march
to Maubeuge, and the Spaniards and Bavarians to Namur. With the
surrender of Mons Marlborough wrote on the 23rd, "We are obliged to
conclude our campaign, through the scarcity of forage, and in two days
the troops will be moving towards their winter-quarters."[123] Thus
the most tangible gains of the year 1709 were the capture of Tournai
and Mons, the last French strongholds in Flanders and Brabant.

Where does Malplaquet stand among the Duke of Marlborough's great
battles? If it had been fought in the opening years of the war there
is little doubt that it would have been hailed by the Allied nations
as a major triumph. But people had been spoiled by the successes of
Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenarde, and they could muster only limited
enthusiasm for an encounter which had cost the Allies as many
casualties as these three victories combined, without achieving any
spectacular results. Yet tactically Malplaquet was as brilliant an
action as Marlborough had ever fought. At the beginning the odds might
seem to have been very much against him. His armies had enjoyed no
great numerical superiority over the enemy forces, whose morale was
exceedingly high, who were skilfully led by a very able commander,
and, above all, who had the advantage of an exceptionally strong
position.

We have noted that Marlborough had to decide between tackling this
formidable situation and the alternative of containing Villars where
he was and turning to the siege of Mons. But the Duke realized that
the defeat of the French army was of far greater importance than the
capture of Mons, and having selected this _Aim_ he maintained it with
the utmost vigour. The execution of his plan, simple like those of his
other battles, depended perhaps more than any of them on a close
_Co-operation_ between the various arms. Not only was the employment
of Orkney's infantry with the cavalry a first class example of
combined tactics, but even more outstanding (in a period when
artillery was not noted for its mobility) was the contribution of the
guns in supporting the assaulting infantry, smashing the enemy's
cavalry charges, and even putting out of action sixteen of the
opposing cannon.

Once again at Malplaquet, as in his former battles, Marlborough
demonstrated his skill in securing the desired _Concentration of
Force_ by causing the enemy to denude his lines at the point he had
selected for the decisive blow. And although some Dutch critics might
argue that support by Withers' detachment in the role originally
assigned to it would have restored the balance of the left flank and
lessened the disastrous casualties there, we must credit Marlborough
with foreseeing that its employment on the right would (as in fact it
did) turn the scale in a very even struggle in that sector--a good
example of _Economy of Effort_. Finally, the tremendous casualties
suffered by both sides at Malplaquet bear testimony to the complete
commitment of attacker and defender to _Offensive Action_. There is no
finer tribute to the persistence with which the Allied infantry
adhered to this principle than the words of the French official
account of the battle:

     After four hours of a bloody and obstinate combat in which
     their left had failed and their right been brought to a
     standstill, far from renouncing the role of the attacker, in
     one final effort they succeeded in breaking the resistance of
     their opponents, affirming with no uncertain voice the immense
     superiority of the offensive.[124]




                              CHAPTER IX

                  The Lines of "Ne Plus Ultra", 1711


                         The Campaign of 1710

Although after Malplaquet Marlborough had written, "it is now in our
powers to have what peace we please", he was still to fight two more
campaigns, after which the war was to drag on yet another year. It is
not surprising that his conduct of operations in 1710 lacked some of
the vigour and imagination which had characterized his leadership in
other campaigns. He had to be extremely cautious, for there were not
wanting powerful enemies at home ready to seize on the slightest
failure in the field as an excuse for degrading him and encompassing
the downfall of those ministers who supported him.

His relations with the Queen had never been worse. In the autumn of
1709, realizing that the uncertain political situation in England
threatened the security of his own position, Marlborough had
imprudently asked Anne to make him Commander-in-Chief for life. The
Queen's refusal provoked an angry letter from the Duke, complaining of
her attachment to Mrs. Abigail Masham, who had replaced the Duchess in
the royal confidence. The Tory opposition made the most of the
unfortunate episode, accusing Marlborough of seeking to become
"Perpetual Dictator", and even his Whig colleagues were hostile. The
Queen's antagonism increased when he successfully opposed her award of
the command of a Dragoon regiment to Mrs. Masham's brother, Colonel
John Hill, which she had proffered without first consulting him as
Commander-in-Chief. In the summer of 1710 Anne compelled him against
his will to promote Hill; and in the following year the new Brigadier
added little to an inconspicuous military career when he commanded the
force which accompanied Admiral Walker's ill-fated expedition to
Canada.

Before the campaign of 1710 could start, Marlborough had other less
personal problems to deal with. Two events had taken place to weaken
further the ties binding together the Grand Alliance and seriously
increase the Duke's difficulties in securing the necessary forces for
the coming operations. In the previous October England and Holland had
signed a Barrier Treaty, which secured Dutch support for a
continuation of the war (particularly in order to win Spain for
Charles III) by guaranteeing Holland the right to garrison a large
number of cities and fortresses on the French Border and in the
Spanish Netherlands. The disadvantages which this agreement imposed on
the Spanish Netherlands aroused the antagonism of the Emperor, just as
the proposed Dutch acquisition of Upper Guelderland (astride the Meuse
below Venlo) angered Frederick of Prussia. The other main source of
Marlborough's recruiting worries lay in the threatened transfer of
Denmark, Prussia, Saxony and Hanover into a northern war over division
of the abandoned territories of Charles XII of Sweden, who had been
overthrown by Russia at the Battle of Poltava (June, 1709). Only
strenuous efforts by English diplomats kept the northern allies from
attacking each other over the spoils and withdrawing their 60,000
troops from their commitments against France.

With these difficulties temporarily patched up Marlborough was enabled
to take the field in April with a strong force. The early start (a
month in advance of normal) caught the French unawares, and gave the
Duke unusual freedom in his opening moves. His plan for the campaign
was to take the fortresses of Douai and Arras, co-ordinating with the
siege of the latter a landing near Abbeville, in order to isolate
Boulogne and Calais. The reduction of Douai was a masterly
demonstration of the role of a covering army. On the evening of April
20 Marlborough left his area of concentration outside Tournai and
marched rapidly south-westward into the plain of Lens, passing the La
Basse Lines without opposition, having covered thirty miles in the
first 22 hours. Villars' main army, south of Douai, was unready for
battle; short of dry forage, it would be immobile until new growth
appeared, and its regiments were still far below strength. On the 22nd
Marlborough crossed the Scarpe above Douai, and next day completed the
investment of the fortress. Orders were issued for the siege train to
be brought up by water from Tournai.

The 8000 defenders were to derive little assistance from outside their
walls, but under General Albergotti, the stout-hearted holder of the
Wood of Sars, they put up a determined resistance, checking the
besiegers with repeated sorties and inflicting heavy casualties upon
them. Towards the end of May Villars, at last able to field an army,
moved against Marlborough. But the Duke, having placed the siege
operations in Eugene's capable hands, was ready. He had used his
advantage of time to secure the routes which Villars must use, and
although the wily Marshal carried out a number of rapid manoeuvres
during June in attempts to break through to Douai he was thwarted each
time by Marlborough's counter-moves. With Malplaquet fresh in their
minds the French dared not force a battle. They abandoned Douai and
fell back south of the Scarpe to cover Arras. On June 26 the fortress
fell, having cost the Allies more than 8000 casualties.

[Illustration: THE CAMPAIGN OF 1710

  Historical Section, G. S.
]

Instead of proceeding directly against Arras, Marlborough, showing an
unusually cautious attitude, decided to improve his communications
with Flanders and at the same time clear the path for his projected
descent on Abbeville by reducing three fortified towns which lay west
of Lille in the upper basin of the Lys--Bthune, St. Venant and Aire.
Accordingly he marched westward over Vimy Ridge to take up a
well-entrenched position on the watershed between the Scarpe and the
Lys, where he could block any attempts by Villars to molest Eugene's
siege. The Marshal, however, who claims that he was under orders not
to attack, left Bthune to its fate, employing his army on the
construction of new defence lines which were to figure prominently in
the next year's campaign. Bthune surrendered on August 28 after a
siege of six weeks. Without delay St. Venant and Aire, the two
remaining fortresses on Marlborough's programme for the year, were
invested simultaneously. The former, weakly held, fell within a
fortnight, but Aire caused considerably more trouble. Besides having
to deal with a resolute garrison in a position made "very strong by
art and nature", the besiegers were severely hampered by heavy rains
which put them knee-deep in mud and water. It was November 8 before
they could force a capitulation. The victory ended a campaign which,
though falling short of the aim, had nevertheless brought the Allies
substantial gains. The reduction of the four fortresses had made an
imposing breach in the defences of the French frontier, and had
extended the Allied communications towards France by securing control
of the whole of the Lys waterway and of the Scheldt and Scarpe as far
as Douai. Even though Villars had not been inveigled into a decisive
battle, what progress had been made would materially assist a major
offensive next year.

When Marlborough met the Queen on his return to England, she told him
not to expect the usual thanks of both Houses; "the reason assigned",
says du Bosc, "was that nothing very remarkable had been done in the
foregoing campaign."[125] The Duke could no longer count on the
support of the ministry, for during the summer Anne had replaced one
by one Godolphin and her leading Whig ministers in order to pave the
way for a Tory return to power in the November general election. In
this she had been influenced by the scheming Robert Harley, Earl of
Oxford, who now became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The new government
would have dismissed Marlborough except for the damaging effect such
an action would have had upon the Allied war effort. Although the
Tories were anxious to end the war (indeed, unknown to Marlborough,
Harley had reopened negotiations with Louis XIV), they saw the need of
maintaining military pressure upon France in order to secure the terms
they wished. Marlborough must therefore be kept on for a time, since
(as the new Chancellor was reminded by a correspondent on the
Continent) "his success in the field, his capacity or rather dexterity
in council. . . and his personal acquaintance with the heads of the
Alliance, and the faith they have in him make him still the great man
with them and on whom they depend."[126] Only the representations made
by Prince Eugene are said to have prevented the Duke from resigning.
The new House of Commons voted 6,000,000 to carry on the war, and in
March Marlborough returned to The Hague to set his last campaign in
motion.

The only remaining theatre of significance was Flanders and the French
border, the fighting in Spain having ended disastrously for the Allies
in 1710. In September, after defeating Philip V's Spanish forces at
Almenara and Saragossa, an Allied army under Count von Starhemberg had
marched on Madrid and led Charles III once more into the capital. But
the people of Spain preferred the Bourbon Philip to the Hapsburg
Charles, and at the beginning of winter Starhemberg was forced to
begin retiring towards the east coast, moving in three columns for
better foraging. Louis XIV had reacted to his grandson's two setbacks
by sending Marshal Vendme into Spain with an army gathered from the
frontier garrisons. Marching swiftly in pursuit of the Allies Vendme
surprised and surrounded Lord Stanhope's column of 4000 British at
Brihuega, taking all captive. The defeat proved to be the deciding
blow in the Peninsular War, only Barcelona and one or two other
Catalonian cities being held for Austria. For years English statesmen
had whipped up flagging Dutch efforts with the pledge, "No Peace
without Spain", but these words were soon to be heard no more.
Instead, before the year ended, the Marquis of Torcy secretly received
this significant and not too creditable message from across the
Channel:

     We will no longer insist on the entire restoration of the
     Monarchy of Spain to the House of Austria . . . and we shall be
     content provided France and Spain will give us good securities
     for our commerce; and as soon as we have got what we need and
     have made our bargain with the two crowns, we will tell our
     Allies.[127]


                  Piercing the "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines

The work begun by Villars on defence positions during the summer of
1710 had been completed during the winter, and when Marlborough took
the field in the spring he was confronted by a formidable system of
field fortifications stretching across Northern France from the
English Channel to the Meuse. This 150-mile barrier was based on a
succession of rivers (the Canche, Gy, Scarpe, Sense, Scheldt, Sambre
and Meuse), a number of these having been dammed to inundate the
banks. A series of elaborate earthworks protected the only part (about
15 miles) not covered by water or marsh, and the whole was
considerably strengthened by the presence of a number of fortresses
either in or close to the lines. These included the strongholds of
Montreuil, Arras, Bouchain, Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroi and
Namur, the last forming the eastern anchor of the system; at the
western end the Calais-St. Omer group of fortresses projected well
forward to threaten the communications of any hostile effort against
the centre. To Villars it seemed impossible that an invading army,
even Marlborough's, could advance beyond this position.

[Illustration: THE "NE PLUS ULTRA" LINES

1 MAY-7 AUGUST 1711

THE PENETRATION, 5 AUGUST

  Historical Section, G.S.
]

From the beginning of March Marlborough was busy at The Hague getting
ready for the campaign. Administrative preparations received his
customary careful attention. Numerous letters in his particularly
voluminous correspondence at this time reflect his concern that
magazines of forage should be ready in time. On March 6 he wrote, "We
are doing all that is possible to prevent the enemy's being in the
field before us, as they threaten by their early preparations";[128]
and a week later he dispatched the Earl of Cadogan "to assemble a body
of troops in the plains of Lille, as well to observe the enemy's
motions as to cover the boats and convoys going up the rivers with
forage, and other provisions for forming our magazines."[129]

There were the usual troubles over manpower. A "corps of neutrality"
formed to keep the peace in the Baltic had taken a number of
battalions that would otherwise have been available to Marlborough;
the King of Prussia held back his expected contribution pending
satisfaction over the promise of Guelderland to the Dutch; without
warning the English Government withdrew five battalions to accompany
Brigadier Hill on his fruitless expedition to Canada (a classic
violation of the principle of _Maintenance of the Aim_); and the four
French towns captured in 1710 had to be garrisoned. To crown all, on
April 17 the Emperor Joseph, long a firm supporter of Marlborough's,
died of smallpox. His successor was his brother the Archduke (Charles
III of Spain), who in due course became Emperor Charles VI; but
pending the election Eugene was called away to command an Imperialist
army assembled on the Rhine to block any French intervention. This was
to leave Marlborough in mid-June with an army reduced to 94 battalions
and 145 squadrons, against Villars' 131 battalions and 187 squadrons.

Yet with this inferiority in numbers Marlborough was to give one last
demonstration of his military genius unequalled in his whole career.
In nine years of war the French had fallen farther and farther back
under Allied pressure, relinquishing in 1703 the fortresses of the
Lower Meuse, in 1704 their positions east of the Upper Rhine, the
Lines of Brabant in 1705, most of Flanders after Ramillies in 1706,
the great fortress of Lille after Oudenarde in 1708, and finally,
following the breathing-space which Malplaquet had given, Douai and
the Lys fortresses in 1710. Now Villars had drawn a line that was
intended to set a limit to further encroachment. At the end of April
his army lay behind that part of his water defences formed by the
Sense marshes, with its right at Bouchain and its left eight miles to
the west. On May 1 Marlborough posted his army south-east of Douai
opposite Villars, and for six weeks the two forces faced each other
without action, the Duke reporting that the French were "very busy in
fortifying and securing all the passages of the rivers."[130] On June
14 Eugene marched off to the Rhine with all the Imperialist troops,
and in order to divert attention from his departure Marlborough
shifted his remaining forces a day's march westward into the plain of
Lens. If Villars interpreted this as an invitation to battle, he did
not accept it, for he was under definite instructions to stay behind
his defences.

Three weeks passed with neither side showing any inclination for a
further move. But Marlborough was devising the scheme whereby he would
force the lines, and on July 6 he took the first step to implement it.
He had singled out the Bouchain area as offering the greatest
possibilities, for the capture of Bouchain or Cambrai would make the
deepest inroad towards Paris. But the flooded Sense marshes behind
which these places lay formed a very strong point in Villars' defence
system; for marsh, which can be neither rafted nor bridged, is the
most effective obstacle to an army that nature can provide. Two
causeways, however, reportedly left for the benefit of the local
peasantry, crossed these swamps. The larger of these, nine miles west
of Bouchain, carried the main Douai-Paris road between the small
villages of Aubigny-au-Bac on the north bank, and Aubencheul-au-Bac on
the south. The other was about three miles up the Sense and was
guarded on the north bank by the town of Arleux, which Villars had
garrisoned and fortified. As long as the French held Arleux
Marlborough could not use either causeway; yet he realized that to
seize the place, even if he later destroyed it, would warn Villars of
an intended crossing and enable him to concentrate a strong blocking
force at the threatened points. The Duke therefore resolved to induce
Villars to demolish the place himself.

Arleux's isolated position outside the French defences made it
extremely vulnerable, and on the night of July 6 an Allied detachment
under General Rantzau captured it without difficulty. Marlborough put
in a garrison and strengthened the defences, placing a covering force
under General Hompesch between Arleux and Douai. Villars reacted
quickly. He attacked the fort on the 9th, and though repulsed caught
Hompesch by surprise and inflicted nearly 1000 casualties on him. It
has generally been accepted that the failure of Hompesch to take
elementary precautions (he is said to have had no sentries out) was
part of a deliberate plot to lead on Villars.[131] Marlborough, making
no attempt to conceal his anger at his subordinate, reinforced him and
strengthened the garrison in Arleux, as though emphasizing his
determination to hold it. When on July 20 the Duke marched a score of
miles to the north-west and camped south of Lillers, near the source
of the Lys, the enemy seemed justified in believing that his main
interest in retaining Arleux was as a block to a French raid towards
Douai. Villars had paralleled the Allied westward move with his own
army, but had left behind a detachment large enough to deal with
Arleux. On July 22 this force attacked the place, whose commander sent
Marlborough a frantic call for help. The Duke immediately dispatched
Cadogan with 30 squadrons and all the grenadiers in his camp; but
Cadogan is reported to have taken "not such haste as the occasion
seemed to require", and before he was half way to his destination he
received word that Arleux had fallen.

Once again Marlborough paraded his vexation in a manner so contrary to
his usual self-control that (even making allowances for his ailing
health and his political worries) it must surely have been simulated.
Word that Villars had razed the Arleux fortifications provoked a
further peevish outburst, and he declared in public "that he would be
even with Villars"--all of which was doubtlessly faithfully relayed to
the French by their spies. He showed every intention of launching a
full-scale assault on the French lines west of Arras, making elaborate
reconnaissances of the defences in that sector. But meanwhile he did
not neglect to further his true objective. Although the French
believed the whole Allied army to be in the Lillers area, Marlborough
actually had strong forces much nearer Arleux. At the time of his
westward shift he had inconspicuously increased his garrisons in
Douai, Lille and Tournai. Then the news that Villars was preparing to
send a large force to make a diversion in Brabant gave the Duke an
excuse to dispatch Lord Albemarle in a counter-move eastward to
Bthune with 10,000 men (at the same time furnishing an opportunity to
ship all the army's baggage and his heavy artillery to Douai).

Marlborough now made ostentatious preparations for a frontal assault.
Successive advances on August 1 and 2 brought his army to the St.
Pol-Arras road, only six miles from the line of elaborate earthworks
which linked the headwaters of the Canche and the Gy. Villars no
longer doubted that he was going to be attacked, but he was supremely
confident that his position was invulnerable. Ever since Marlborough's
manoeuvres started he had been strengthening his already formidable
defences, and he had called in to the threatened area the majority of
his distant garrisons, including the troops left in the vicinity of
Arleux. In his assurance he wrote to the King that "at length he had
brought Marlborough to his _ne plus ultra_".[132]

On August 4 the drama neared its climax. On the previous evening
another strong detachment had slipped out of the Allied camp, taking
with it most of the field artillery and all remaining vehicles.
Shortly after daylight Marlborough with his general officers, escorted
by the army's grenadiers and 80 cavalry squadrons, rode in
reconnaissance along the whole front in full view of the enemy, the
Duke pointing out with his cane the objectives assigned to each
commander. "Every one with him", writes an eye-witness, "was surprised
at the rash and dangerous undertaking, and believed it proceeded from
the affront which Villars had put upon him, and the ill-treatment he
had of late received from the queen and the ministry, which now made
him desperate."[133] The confidence of the Allied troops in their
Commander-in-Chief was strained to the utmost as they faced the awful
prospect of a frontal attack delivered without artillery and with
inferior numbers against a well-prepared enemy who was manning
defences considerably stronger than those which he had held at
Malplaquet. As the day passed the gloom in the Allied camp was in
marked contrast to the optimism which pervaded the French lines.
Finally tattoo sounded, and the attention of the French was attracted
by a body of light cavalry which moved out on the Allied right flank
and trotted westward on a course which was later to bring it in a wide
sweep back to its own lines.

This was the signal for the whole Allied camp to spring to action. In
the gathering darkness tents were quickly struck and by nine o'clock
the army was formed up in four columns, ready to move off from the
left.

With Marlborough himself leading the vanguard the long march to the
east started. Earlier in the day Cadogan had galloped out of camp with
forty hussars to alert the garrison at Douai. There Hompesch was
waiting with a force which detachments moving in from Lille, Tournai
and St. Amand swelled to 23 battalions and 17 squadrons. Before
midnight some 14,000 troops stood ready at Douai, less than eight
miles from the Aubigny causeway.

In the meantime Marlborough's main army was hastening eastward. The
darkness which had covered the important initial movements had given
way to brilliant moonlight. They marched all night, passing between
Vimy Ridge and Arras over ground whose turn as field of battle was to
come 200 years later. In less then eight hours they covered nineteen
miles, reaching the River Scarpe at Vitry shortly after sunrise. Here
the pontoon bridges were already laid, and on crossing they found
their artillery waiting on the eastern bank.

And now a messenger reached Marlborough with word that Cadogan and
Hompesch with 2000 horse and 20 battalions had crossed the Arleux
causeway unopposed at 3:00 a.m. and were posted to block any French
move eastward. But the objective of the marching army, the eastern
causeway at Aubigny, was still ten miles away. Down the long columns
Marlborough's staff officers carried his personal message to the weary
troops: "My Lord Duke wishes the infantry to step out." Marlborough
himself pushed forward with his fifty cavalry squadrons; by eight
o'clock they were across at Aubencheul and were forming up along the
south bank of the Sense. Loyally responding to their leader's order
the infantry "stepped out"; although with the burden of each man's 50
pounds of equipment, the forcing of the pace with no pause for rest or
food, and the fatigue of what had already been accomplished during the
night, these last ten miles under the hot morning sun imposed a
terrific strain.

The numbers who dropped out in sheer exhaustion ran into the hundreds,
and then the thousands. Many died where they fell. Not more than half
reached the objective. But in Marlborough's careful calculations these
were enough for the allotted task, and they arrived with enough
strength to perform it. The vanguard crossed the Sense sometime in
the forenoon, and the last of the rear-guard still in formation were
over by four in the afternoon (those of the Allied right wing having
covered close to forty miles in less than nineteen hours). They spread
out eastward to the Scheldt and westward to the Arleux crossing, the
fresher troops from Douai holding the flank nearer the enemy.

What of Villars and his proud boast of invulnerability? The Marshal
had first learned of Marlborough's movements about 11:00 p.m. on the
4th, but the cavalry diversion opposite his left had misled him, and
it was two in the morning before he was sure of the direction of the
Allied march. He immediately set his own army in motion to the east,
and hurried ahead with the Maison du Roi. But the five-hour start
could not be overtaken. Before he reached the Sense he had learned of
the Allied crossing, and when with a few hundred horsemen he reached
the area south of Arleux about eleven o'clock he was confronted by
Marlborough's forces drawn up in strength, and narrowly escaped
capture.

Thus were the "_ne plus ultra_" lines pierced without a shot being
fired. "This success", wrote Marlborough to Secretary of State St.
John, "must give a great reputation to Her Majesty's arms in all
parts."[134] The troops' great feat of marching was indeed worthy of
the highest praise and bore striking testimony to the excellence of
their morale; but behind it all was the military genius which could
devise and put into execution a plan which has been called "the most
perfect example of a full and successful strategic surprise achieved
through an exact calculation which the old wars have to show."[135] It
was indeed "the most uncannily indirect of all his approaches."[136]


                        The Siege of Bouchain

For three days Marlborough rested, as stragglers rejoined their
regiments. He was now within striking distance of Arras, Cambrai and
Bouchain. In the hope of regaining some of his lost prestige Villars
offered battle in front of Cambrai, but the Duke realized that to
accept the challenge with his inferior numbers would be disastrous,
and although the Dutch Deputies, unexpectedly bellicose, urged action,
he turned instead to the siege of Bouchain, which had been his
intention from the first. In defence of this decision (for which he
was severely criticized by his political enemies) he wrote to
Heinsius:

     I own, had it been practicable, there is no comparison between
     the advantages of a battle and what we can reap by a siege, but
     there is not one general or other officer that has the least
     judgment in these matters but must allow it was altogether
     impossible to attack the enemy with any probable hopes of
     success; I cannot but think it very hard, when I do my best, to
     be liable to such censures.[137]

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF BOUCHAIN

7 AUGUST-14 SEPTEMBER 1711

  Historical Section, G.S.
]

Until Marlborough should declare his hand Villars could not move, for
to shift eastward to protect Bouchain would leave Arras open to
attack. Thus the Duke retained the initiative, and on the night of
August 6-7 passed his whole army across the Scheldt three miles south
of Bouchain, without any interference from the French. The task of
reducing Bouchain was attended with difficulties unlike any
encountered by Marlborough in previous sieges. Built at the junction
of the Sense and the Scheldt, the fortress had the natural protection
of inundations from the Scheldt to the east, and an all but impassable
area of marshland about the Sense to the south-west. Marlborough
established his main camp north-east of Bouchain, but immediately
passed his right wing across the Scheldt below the town, constructing
enough bridges to allow rapid transfer of his whole force to the left
bank if necessary. Villars moved his army of 100,000 men into the
angle between the Scheldt and the Sense, sending a strong force under
Albergotti across the latter river to occupy the village of Wavrechin,
about two miles south-west of the fort. Here Albergotti constructed an
entrenched camp and established communications with the Bouchain
garrison by means of the Cow Path--a narrow track which followed a
dyke through the Sense marshes. This he laboriously protected with a
double screen of fascinades--bundles of long faggots lashed together
between the willow trees for a distance of two miles.

The French position at Wavrechin not only prevented Marlborough from
completely encircling Bouchain: it posed a serious threat to his
communications with Douai. The Allies depended upon these to get the
siege train up the Scarpe from Tournai, for French retention of
Valenciennes blocked the Scheldt below Bouchain. In trying to read the
enemy's mind Marlborough appreciated that any major effort by Villars
to raise the siege was more likely to be made west of Bouchain than
east of the Scheldt, for the latter move would have left the Allies
free to march on Arras. Although badly outnumbered the Duke was
willing to accept a battle if the French offered one. He therefore
moved the bulk of his army to the Scheldt's left bank, and called in
6000 Dutch labourers to enclose by a double line of entrenchments a
lane seven miles long and two miles wide leading from the Scarpe to
his lines of investment about Bouchain. There remained the severing of
the enemy's last link with the besieged. Copying the French example
the besiegers pushed double lines of fascinades into the marsh from
north and south, and on August 17 Marlborough launched a force of 600
British and Dutch in an attack upon four French companies holding the
Cow Path. In places the water was up to the necks of the advancing
grenadiers (one ensign short in stature being borne high on the
shoulders of one of his men). There was little enemy resistance, and
with the taking of the Cow Path Bouchain was completely isolated. Four
days later the siege train began arriving, and the batteries were at
work by the end of the month. The defenders inflicted heavy losses on
the Allies, who also came under bombardment from Villars' guns. "The
whole French army being so camped that they are seen by the garrison
of Bouchain", wrote Marlborough on September 3, "makes the defence the
more obstinate".[138] Finally on September 14 the place capitulated,
the besiegers having suffered 4000 casualties. Marlborough's
insistence on unconditional surrender was a sharp reproof to Villars
for his failure to interfere effectually with the siege.

To the great relief of the French Marlborough did not follow up the
capture of Bouchain, though only two small fortresses, Quesnoy and
Landrecies, lay between him and the path down the valley of the Oise
to Paris. But no provision for further sieges was forthcoming from
London; for, unknown to Marlborough, peace negotiations had reached a
stage where England was ready to forsake the Grand Alliance. The siege
of Bouchain was thus the Duke's last military operation.


                       Marlborough's Dismissal

Marlborough arrived home in November, in time to take part in the
debate in which the Tory ministry sought to obtain Parliament's
acceptance of the preliminary peace proposals made to France. He
defended himself against the charge that he was one "of those who
delight in war" and was therefore deliberately seeking to prolong the
struggle; but he declared that "the safety and liberties of Europe
would be in imminent danger if Spain and the West Indies were left to
the house of Bourbon."[139] Stimulated by his lead the Whig majority
in the House of Lords rejected the preliminaries and defeated the
Government--which, however, still had a fairly solid Tory Commons
behind it. The Earl of Oxford and his ministers now resorted to
drastic measures to gain their ends. They needed a majority in the
Lords, and in order to prevent a serious renewal of the fighting in
1712 they wanted a Commander-in-Chief who would be less friendly to
the Allies and more amenable to Tory instructions. They therefore
induced the Queen to create a dozen new Tory peers to carry the Upper
House, and they unscrupulously set out to blacken Marlborough's
reputation in order that his replacement might arouse the minimum of
public displeasure.

The means to do this were at hand. Since May a Parliamentary
commission had been investigating alleged abuses in the public
expenditure. Its findings led to a charge being laid in the House of
Commons that between 1702 and 1711 the Duke had received from
contractors more than 63,000 for the supply of bread and bread-wagons
to the British forces. This, as Marlborough pointed out to his
accusers, was a long-established perquisite allowed the
Commander-in-Chief in Flanders to be used for the purchase of
intelligence. "I do assure you. . .", he had written earlier to the
commission, "that whatever sums I have received on that account have
been constantly employed in the service of the public, in keeping
secret correspondence, and getting intelligence of the enemy's notions
and designs."[140] He was further charged with appropriating 2 per
cent of the pay of British-hired foreign auxiliaries--a sum amounting
to 280,000. He was able to show that these deductions had been agreed
upon by William III with the foreign princes concerned, to form a
secret service fund, and that Queen Anne had authorized him to receive
the money and use it in the manner prescribed. That it had been well
spent was proved by the excellence of the Duke's intelligence service;
indeed there is little doubt that he paid out much more than these two
sums for that purpose.

But his arguments were without avail. On December 31 Queen Anne
dismissed Marlborough "from all his employments", and the _Gazette_
for New Year's Day announced the appointment of the Duke of Ormonde as
Commander-in-Chief (the Ministry shortly afterwards confirming to him
the very perquisites which had just been declared illegal). The news
was received in the capitals of the Allied countries as an outrageous
example of base national ingratitude; but at Versailles Louis XIV
triumphantly exclaimed, "The affair of displacing the Duke of
Marlborough will do for us all we desire."[141]

The miserable record of events in 1712 was to show the accuracy of the
Grand Monarch's prediction. When the Duke of Ormonde took the field
with Eugene, he was under express instructions not to hazard a battle,
but indeed to enter into private correspondence with Villars. However
he supplied a covering force for Eugene's siege of Quesnoy, which fell
early in July. Before Landrecies could be invested a two-month
armistice was concluded with France, and Ormonde was ordered to
withdraw his troops to Dunkirk. It was a most humiliating episode for
the men whom Marlborough had led so often to victory. The foreign
auxiliaries in England's pay refused to be separated from Eugene and
quit the Allied camp. The Dutch commandants at Tournai and Bouchain
denied the retiring British passage through their towns, so that the
troops were compelled to bridge the river barriers with their own
pontoons. When the suspension of hostilities was announced at the head
of each regiment there was heard a "general hiss and murmur throughout
the camp". A contemporary historian relates that officers were so
"overwhelmed with vexation that they sat apart in their tents . . .
and for several days shrunk from the sight even of their fellow
soldiers". Many deserted to serve with the Allies, "and whenever they
recollected the Duke of Marlborough, and the late glorious times,
their eyes flowed with tears."[142]

After the withdrawal of the British troops things went badly with
Eugene. A crushing defeat of the Dutch at Denain compelled him to
abandon the siege of Landrecies and fall back to Tournai. By the end
of the year Villars had regained Quesnoy, Bouchain and Douai. These
French successes further strengthened their hand at the formal peace
conference which assembled early in 1713.

By the Treaty of Utrecht (the collective name for a series of
agreements signed during 1713) Spain and the Indies were retained by
Louis XIV's grandson, Philip V, who renounced all claim to the French
throne. Thus all the blood which had been shed in Spain to secure that
country to the Hapsburgs went for naught. The former Spanish
Netherlands became the Austrian Netherlands, and a modified Dutch
Barrier was set up which included many of the frontier fortresses
captured by Marlborough, although some, notably Lille, were restored
to France. England came off best, acquiring Gibraltar and Port Mahon
(Minorca) in the Mediterranean; the Hudson Bay settlements,
Newfoundland, Acadia and St. Kitts in North America; and elsewhere in
the New World important trading privileges, including the monopoly of
the carriage of African slaves to America. Whatever recriminations
might be brought against England for breaking up the Grand Alliance in
order to seek a peace profitable to herself (forty years later William
Pitt called Utrecht "an indelible reproach of the last generation"),
the increased stature which she acquired during the War of the Spanish
Succession and the substantial gains which came to her must be largely
credited to the general who, having led the Allied armies to an
unparalleled series of triumphs, now found himself disgraced and
stripped of all his honours.

In November 1712 Marlborough left England in self-imposed banishment,
to remain in the Low Countries until the death of Anne in July 1714.
On the accession of George I he returned home, and was restored to his
former posts of Captain-General (now a merely honorary office) and
Master-General of the Ordnance. Advancing age and ill health prevented
him from taking an active part in public life. He died on June 16,
1722 at the age of 72, and was buried with great pomp and ceremony in
Westminster Abbey. At his funeral were heard for the first time the
commands which now form part of the ceremonial at all military
funerals: "Reverse arms", "Rest on your arms reversed".[143]

Few will deny that Marlborough was Britain's greatest military
commander--indeed, many will agree with Lord Wavell that "he has
claims to be considered the most gifted of all time."[144] In
appraising the six whom he regards as the strongest claimants to this
honour Wavell rates Belisarius as Marlborough's equal in "imagination
and originality", and places them first "as the two most gifted and
ablest soldiers of whom I have read." Below these he puts Frederick
the Great and Wellington, "two of the soundest and most single-minded
soldiers", in strategy the latter being "sure and steady rather than
brilliant"; next come Napoleon, "on the whole an indifferent
tactician", and Lee, whose chief defect he finds "a lack of hardness".

Marlborough owes his place at the head of the list to his outstanding
qualities as diplomat and statesman, strategist and tactician, and as
a leader of men. The control he exercised over England's foreign
policy, particularly in holding together the Grand Alliance, was more
effective than that of many a Foreign Minister, and at his zenith his
powers over domestic policies were virtually those of a Prime
Minister. As a strategist he always took the wide view, seeing the war
as a whole in which the needs of Italy and Spain had to be considered
in relation to those of the Western European theatre. One of the first
to recognize the possibilities of amphibious warfare (witness the
capture of Port Mahon and the proposed descent upon Abbeville), he has
been acclaimed fit "to rank as high among naval strategists as in his
own special art." As we have seen, the restrictions imposed by his
allies prevented him from carrying out much of his planned strategy;
but the success of the glorious venture to the Danube in 1704 shows
what might have been accomplished had he been permitted to put into
action the daring scheme which he had projected for the 1706 campaign.

But it was as a tactician that Marlborough chiefly excelled. Each of
his great victories reveals his brilliance--his keen eye for ground,
his uncanny ability to pick out and capitalize on the enemy's
weaknesses, the simplicity of his plan of action, the vigour with
which he launched the attack, his judicious commitment of his reserves
involving generally the full employment of all his forces, his
masterly deception of the enemy, and above all his effective
co-ordination of the fire power of his infantry and artillery to pave
the way for the devastating shock tactics of his cavalry. To this
military sense Marlborough added those other personal qualities which
mark the great leader. Above all--to use the tribute paid to him by
Voltaire--was "that calm courage in the midst of tumult, that serenity
of soul in danger, which is the greatest gift of nature for
command."[145] The meticulous care which he devoted to the
administrative arrangements for the welfare of his troops, the
inspiring example of his bravery on the field of battle, and the
geniality which came naturally to him even in times of adversity, all
combined to deserve the affection with which the English soldiery
regarded "Corporal John".

Marlborough's greatest memorial is to be found in the added prestige
which his campaigns brought to British arms. Under him the British
Army earned a place second to none in Europe, and in his great
victories many famous British regiments find the source of their long
and treasured traditions. Proud indeed are those units which bear on
their colours the names of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and
Malplaquet. In the long history of war no one man did more to
establish British military reputation on a firm and lasting basis than
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.




                             APPENDIX "A"

                   Table of the Spanish Succession


                                  Philip III of Spain
                                            |
             +------------------------------+-------------------+
             |                              |                   |
  Louis XIII = Anne of France            Philip IV        Maria = Emp. Ferdinand III
             |                              |                          |
       +-----+       +---------------+------+------+                   |
       |             |               |             |                   |
  Louis XIV = Maria Theresa     Charles II      Margaret = Emp. Leopold I = Eleanor
            |                ("the Sufferer")    Theresa |    d. 1705     |   of
            |                     d. 1700        +-------+                | Neuburg
            |                                    |                        |
  Louis, Grand Dauphin        Max Emmanuel = Maria Antonia                |
            |                              |                              |
        +---+---------+                    |                 +------------+-----+
        |             |                    |                 |                  |
  Louis, Duke   Philip, Duke of     Joseph Ferdinand,   Emp. Joseph   Charles, Archduke
  of Burgundy    Anjou, later      Elector of Bavaria    d. 1711      of Austria, later
               Philip V of Spain        d. 1699                         Charles III of
                                                                      Spain, later Emp.
                                                                         Charles VI




                             APPENDIX "B"

                Sources and Books for Further Reading


     Atkinson, C. T., _Marlborough and the Rise of the British Army_
     (London, Putnam's, 1921). This is an excellent brief account of
     Marlborough's part in the War.

     Belloc, Hilaire, _The Tactics and Strategy of the Great Duke of
     Marlborough_ (Bristol, Arrowsmith, 1933).

     du Bosc, Claude, _The Military History of the Late Prince
     Eugene of Savoy and of the Late John Duke of Marlborough_
     (London, du Bosc, 2 vols., 1736). This almost contemporary work
     contains accounts by participants in the various campaigns.

     Burne, Alfred H., _The Art of War on Land_ (London, Methuen,
     1944).

     Churchill, Winston S., _Marlborough, His Life and Times_
     (London, Harrap, 4 vols., published in 2 books, 1949). This
     comprehensive work is based in part on previously unpublished
     material.

     Coxe, William, _Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough_ (London,
     Bohn, 3 vols., 1847-8).

     Fortescue, Hon. J. W., _A History of the British Army_, Vol. I
     (London, Macmillan, 1935).

     ---- _Marlborough_ (London, Davies, 1932).

     Fuller, J. F. C., _The Decisive Battles of the Western World_,
     Vol. II (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955). Includes a chapter
     on the Battle of Blenheim.

     't Hoff, B. Van (ed.), _The Correspondence (1701-1711) of John
     Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, and Anthonie Heinsius,
     Grand Pensionary of Holland_ (Utrecht, Kemink en Zoon, 1951).

     Liddell Hart, B. H., _Strategy: The Indirect Approach_ (London,
     Faber & Faber, 1954).

     Murray, Sir George (ed.), _The Letters and Dispatches of John
     Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, from 1702 to 1712_
     (London, Murray, 1845).

     Taylor, Frank, _The Wars of Marlborough, 1702-1709_ (Oxford,
     Blackwell, 2 vols., 1921). A good detailed account of the
     campaigns up to Malplaquet.

     Trevelyan, G. M., _England under Queen Anne: Blenheim_
     (Toronto, Longmans, Green, 1948). From the outbreak of the War
     to the Battle of Blenheim.

     ---- _England under Queen Anne: Ramillies and the Union with
     Scotland_ (Toronto, Longmans, Green, 1948). Carries the War up
     to the Battle of Oudenarde.

     ---- _England under Queen Anne: The Peace and the Protestant
     Succession_ (Toronto, Longmans, Green, 1948). From Malplaquet
     to the end of the War.




                                Index


  Abbeville, 118, 125, 140-1, 156

  Acadia, 155

  Aire, 141-2

  Albemarle, Arnold van Keppel, 1st Earl of, 147

  Albergotti, Marquis d' at Malplaquet, 131, 133, 135;
    at Douai, 140;
    at Bouchain, 152

  Almanza, 103, 105

  Almenara, 143

  Alost, 107, 109, 120

  Alps, 25, 87, 102

  Alsace, base for French forces (1704), 20, 32, 36, 46;
    threatened by Marlborough, 36, 52, 78;
    claimed by Empire, 124;
    _see also_ 52, 57, 99, 106, 110

  Altrandstadt, 103

  Amerdingen, 39

  America, North, 1, 4, 155;
    Spanish, 7, 24

  Amphibious Operations, 24, 26, 87, 102

  Amsterdam, 75

  Anjou, Duke of--_see_ Philip V of Spain

  Anne, Queen, as  Princess, 9-10;
    ascends throne, 12;
    confers dukedom on Churchill, 24;
    and campaign of 1704, 31, 41, 45, 69;
    gives Marlborough Blenheim Palace, 76;
    estrangement from Marlborough, 105, 139, 142, 154;
    death of, 155;
    _see also_ 18, 124

  Antwerp, 19, 26-7, 98

  Arco, Marshal Count d', 39, 41-2, 44, 48

  Argyll, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of, 113-4

  Arleux, 146-50

  Arras, 126, 140-1, 145, 147, 149-50, 152

  Artillery, in seventeenth century, 17;
    Marlborough's emphasis on, 17, 59;
    first employed as mobile weapon, 62;
    French triple-barrelled cannon, 82;
    siege train, equipment of, 17;
    _see also_ named operations

  Artois, 118

  Asch, 23

  Assche, 109-11

  Ath, 7, 98, 105, 109, 119

  Atkinson, C. T., 132

  Aubencheul-au-Bac, 146, 149

  Aubigny-au-Bac, 146, 149

  Augsburg, 27, 48, 50, 52

  Augsburg League, 2, 4; War of, 5, 10

  Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 102-3

  Aulnois, 132;
    Troue d', 128

  Austria, joins Augsburg League, 2, 4;
    joins Grand Alliance, 7;
    and territorial claims in Italy and Spain, 6, 11, 143;
    threatened with invasion, 29;
    _see also_ 6, 18, 20

  Autre-Eglise, 89, 91-2, 95, 100


  Baden, Margrave of--_see_ Louis, Prince

  Balearic Islands, 10, 25

  Baltic, 3, 145

  Barcelona, 87, 99, 121, 143

  Barrier Treaty (1709), 140

  Bavaria, French in, 27, 29-31, 37, 51, 54, 83;
    Allies in, 32, 38, 45, 48-50, 56;
    _see also_ Max Emmanuel, Elector of

  Bayreuth, Margrave of, 104

  Bedburg, 34

  Belgium, 2, 4, 7, 106;
    _see also_ Netherlands, Spanish

  Belisarius, 156

  Belloc, Hilaire, 92, 147

  Bergen-op-Zoom, 26

  Berlin, 75

  Berwick, James, Duke of, in Spain, 99;
    at siege of Lille, 117, 119;
    _see also_ 106, 110, 123

  Bthune, 125-6, 141, 147

  Biberbach, 52

  Biron, Lt.-Gen., 111-2

  Black Forest, and Lines of Stollhofen, 20, 36, 143;
    French Lines of Communication through, 25, 27, 34-5, 42, 49, 51, 73;
    _see also_ 24, 51

  Blainville, Marquis de, 61, 64

  Blansac, Marquis de, 67

  Blenheim, battle of, 17, 57, 73, 131, 134, 137;
    casualties at, 136;
    _see also_ 15, 48, 74-5, 85-6, 89, 96, 104, 119, 157

  Blood, Col. Holcroft, 62, 65

  Bois-le-Duc--_see_ 's-Hertogenbosch

  Bonn, siege of, 25-8;
    _see also_ 19, 23, 32

  du Bosc, Claude, 142

  Boser Couter, 112, 114-5, 117

  Bouchain, siege of, 150-3;
    _see also_ 145-6, 153-5

  Boufflers, Marshal Louis, in 1702 campaign, 20-4;
    defeats Opdam, 27;
    and defence of Lille, 119-20;
    at Malplaquet, 125, 127, 133-5

  Boulogne, 140

  Bourbon, House of, 5, 153

  Boussu, Troue de, 128

  Brabant, 21, 88, 103-4, 137, 147

  Brabant, Lines of, described, 19, 79;
    in 1703 campaign, 27;
    penetrated by Marlborough, 79, 81, 83;
    _see also_ 21-2, 72, 85, 88-9, 98, 146

  Braine l'Alleud, 107

  Brandenburg--_see_ Prussia

  Brenner Pass, 27

  Brihuega, 143

  British Army, prestige gained under Marlborough, 1, 45, 157;
    demobilized after Treaty of Ryswick, 5;
    reorganized by Marlborough, 9;
    method of recruiting, 14;
    _see also_ 2, 15

  Bruges, captured by Allies, 96, 121;
    retaken by French, 107, 111;
    _see also_ 25-6, 117-8, 121, 123

  Brussels, French retire to, 118-9;
    Marlborough's capture of, 96;
    and protection of, 104, 106-9, 118-9;
    Franco-Bavarian siege of, 120;
    _see also_ 8, 91, 103, 136

  Burgundy, Louis, Duke of, commands in Flanders, 106;
    captures Ghent and Bruges, 107;
    at Oudenarde, 110-3, 115-6

  Burne, A. H. Lt.-Col., 100, 130


  Cadiz, 24-5

  Cadogan, William, 1st Earl of, at Oudenarde, 110-7;
    seizes Scheldt crossing, 120;
    at La Basse Lines, 125;
    at Mons, 127;
    at "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, 145, 147, 149

  Calais, 140, 145

  Cambrai, 146, 150

  Canada, 136, 139, 145

  Canche, 143, 148

  Caraman, Count Pierre, 82-3

  Catalonia, 87

  Catinat, Marshal Nicholas de, 20, 24

  Cavalry, method of employment, 15-8;
    on march to Danube, 34-5, 38;
    at the Schellenberg, 42, 44;
    at Blenheim, 53-4, 56-66;
    at Lines of Brabant, 81-3;
    at Ramillies, 91-6;
    at Oudenarde, 110-7;
    at Malplaquet, 130-7;
    at "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines 147-50;
    _see also_ 48, 51, 53, 73, 85, 104, 119, 121

  Charleroi, 7, 110, 124, 145

  Charles, Archduke of Austria--_see_ Charles III of Spain

  Charles II of England, 8

  Charles II of Spain, 4-6

  Charles III of Spain, and Partition Treaties, 6;
    in Portugal, 76;
    Spanish Netherlands declare allegiance to, 96, 98;
    marches on Madrid, 99, 102;
    and Barrier Treaty, 140;
    unpopular in Spain, 143;
    becomes Emperor Charles VI, 145;
    _see also_ 121, 124

  Charles VI, Emperor--_see_ Charles III of Spain

  Charles XII of Sweden, ascends the throne, 4;
    neutrality secured (1701), 11;
    with Marlborough at Altrandstadt, 102-3;
    defeated at Poltava, 140

  Churchill, Lt.-Gen. Charles, his passport saves Marlborough, 24;
    on march to Danube, 34-5;
    at Blenheim, 53-4, 61, 65-7;
    at the Ysche, 85;
    captures Dendermonde, 98

  Churchill, John--_see_ Marlborough, Duke of

  Churchill, Sir Winston Spencer, 9, 18, 30, 38, 56, 58, 100

  Civil War, 8, 17

  Clrambault, Lt.-Gen., Marquis de, 60, 67

  Cleves, 20

  Coblenz, 31-5, 75, 78

  Cohorn, Baron Menno van, 26

  Cologne, 20, 34;
    Archbishopric of, 19-20, 24

  Comines, 117

  Cond, 126

  Corswaren, 88

  Courtrai, 117, 125

  Cow Path, 152

  Coxe, Archdeacon William, 30, 38

  Cromwell, Oliver, 17

  Cutts, John, 1st Baron, assaults Blenheim village, 56, 59-61;
    contains French in Blenheim, 62, 65-7

  Czechoslovakia, 2


  Danube, river, Franco-Bavarian control of, 25, 27, 29, 34, 51-3;
    Marlborough's march to, 30-3, 36, 46, 60, 69-70, 156;
    Allied armies at, 37-8, 48-9, 52;
    tactics in vicinity of, 41-4, 51, 53-8;
    and battles of Blenheim, 66-7;
    _see also_ 38-9, 44, 68, 89

  Demer, river, 22-3, 79

  Dendermonde, 96, 98

  Dendre, river, 105, 107, 109-10, 119

  Denmark, relations with Sweden, 4, 11, 140;
    King Frederick IV of, 87-8

  Diepenbeck, river, 111-5, 117

  Dieppe, 26

  Dillingen, 38-9, 48-9, 53-4, 72

  Donauwrth, and Schellenberg battle, 38-9, 41-4;
    Governor of, 42, 44-5;
    Eugene at, 54;
    _see also_ 34, 46-8, 52-4

  Douai, and Lines of La Basse, 125-7;
    siege of, 140-2;
    and "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, 146-9;
    recaptured by French, 155

  Dunkirk, 124, 154

  Dsseldorf, 20

  Dutch Barrier, 7, 98, 155

  Dutch Deputies, in 1702, 18-22;
    1705, 77, 83-5;
    1707, 103;
    1708, 109;
    1711, 150;
    _see also_ 136

  Dutlingen--_see_ Tuttlingen

  Dyle river, 83-5, 88, 96, 104-6


  Eifel, 79

  Eindhoven, 22, 28

  Elixem, 82

  Elst, 78-9

  Empire, Holy Roman, defined, 2-4;
    in Grand Alliance, 11, 18;
    threatened by French, 23-4;
    weakens in support of Marlborough, 77, 124;
    _see also_ 31, 124

  England, and the Grand Alliance, 2, 4, 7, 11-2, 29-30, 153-4;
    declares war, 18;
    Marlborough Lord Justice of, 10;
    relations with Holland, 6-8, 30, 140;
    attitude towards the war, 68-9, 124-5;
    in Spanish operations, 76, 99;
    Marlborough in, 24, 31, 105, 142;
    Marlborough's enemies in, 45, 121, 136, 139;
    gains from the war, 1, 155;
    Marlborough's service to, 1, 100, 155;
    _see also_ 6, 9, 37, 98, 104, 123-4

  English Channel, 124, 143

  Eugene of Savoy, Prince, in Italy (1702), 20, 24-5;
    and march to the Danube, 30, 35, 37;
    at the Rhine (1704), 37-8, 42, 49;
    criticizes Marlborough, 48, 50;
    watches Villeroi and Tallard, 51;
    at Blenheim, 52-6, 58-61, 64, 66;
    at the Lauter, 73-4;
    defeats Marsin at Turin, 99;
    in Provence, 102, 105;
    plans for 1708, 106-9;
    at Oudenarde, 110, 114-5, 117;
    opposes Marlborough's planned advance on Paris, 118;
    at siege of Lille, 119;
    at siege of Ghent, 121;
    at siege of Tournai, 125-7;
    at Malplaquet, 128, 131, 133-5;
    at siege of Douai, 140-1;
    persuades Marlborough not to resign, 142;
    at the Rhine (1711), 145-6;
    at siege of Quesnoy, 154;
    defeated at Denain, 155;
    _see also_ 70-2, 77, 87, 89, 100, 121

  Europe, balance of power in, 2-6;
    prestige of Marlborough and British Army in, 10, 100, 157;
    _see also_ 2-4, 125

  Eyne, 111-2, 117


  Fascines, 43, 56, 81;
    fascinades, 152

  Finland, 4

  Flanders, fortified towns in, 13, 30, 137;
    Marlborough seeks offensive in, 25-7;
    is opposed to campaigning in, 30, 87, 102;
    French forces in, 34, 78-9, 107, 117;
    overrun by Marlborough, 99, 121, 146;
    Marlborough plans campaign (1708) in, 106-7;
    _see also_ 34, 103-5, 118, 141, 143, 153
    _and under_ Netherlands, Spanish

  Fortescue, The Hon. Sir John, 1

  Fort St. Philip, 121

  Foy, Maximilian, General, 1

  France, opposed by Grand Alliance, 4, 10-1, 18, 140;
    and Partition Treaties, 6;
    and peace terms, 143, 153-5;
    and her allies, 7, 38;
    plans for invasion of, 30, 32, 76, 117-8, 142;
    exhausted by war, 123, 125, 128;
    recognition of Marlborough's greatness, 1, 100;
    _see also_ 2, 9, 27, 69, 99, 109, 116, 123, 143

  Francqne, 89, 91-2

  Frankfurt, 34-5

  Frederick I of Prussia, 1, 75, 140, 156

  Friedberg, 50-1, 54

  Friedlingen, 24


  Galway, Henri de Massue, 1st Earl of, 99, 103

  Gavere, 110

  Geete, Great, river, 82, 88, 104

  Geete, Little, river, and Lines of Brabant, 79, 81-3;
    and battle of Ramillies, 88-93, 95, 100

  Gembloux, 104

  Genappe, 84

  Gennep, 20

  George, Prince, of Denmark, as Prince Consort, 32

  George, Elector of Hanover (later George I of England), 45, 104, 106,
155

  George, Electoral Prince of Hanover (later George II of England), 112

  Germany, 2, 31-4, 49, 87, 104

  Ghent, French withdraw from, 96-8;
    recaptured by French, 107, 110, 116, 118-9;
    retaken by Allies, 120-1;
    _see also_ 96-8, 107, 111-3, 117-8, 126

  Gibraltar, 76, 87, 155

  Ginckel, General Godert de, 1st Earl of Athlone, 20

  Gloucester, William, Duke of, 10

  Godolphin, Sidney, 1st Earl of, letters from Marlborough, 1702, 21;
    1704, 31, 38, 49, 74;
    1705, 85;
    1706, 96, 99;
    1708, 118, 121-2;
    1709, 123

  Goor, Lt.-Gen. van, 43

  Goslinga, Sicco van, 91, 136

  Grand Alliance, formed 1689, 4;
    reconstructed in 1701, 10-1;
    prospects in 1704, 29-30, 32;
    internal weaknesses, 105, 140;
    England withdraws from, 153, 155-6;
    _see also_ 68, 77, 100, 142

  Grand Pensionary of Holland--_see_ Heinsius, Anton

  Grave, 21

  "Great Design, The", (1703) 26;
    (1707) 102

  Groenewald, 112-5

  Gross Heppach, 37, 52

  Guelderland, Upper, 140

  Gustavus Adolphus, 4, 15, 17, 39

  Gy, river, 143, 148


  Hague, The, Marlborough at, 10, 18, 25, 30, 75-6, 143, 145;
    Dutch Government at, 18, 21, 32;
    instructions from, 26, 85, 109, 126;
    conferences at, 106, 123-4;
    _see also_ 86, 136

  Haine, river, 127-8, 132

  Hal, 106

  Hanover, 11, 45, 75, 140;
    _see also_ George, Elector or Hanover and George, Electoral Prince
of Hanover

  Hapsburg, House of, 2, 5, 124, 155

  Hare, Francis, Bishop of Chichester, on Blenheim, 59, 64, 67;
    on Oudenarde, 109

  Harley, Robert--_see_ Oxford, Earl of

  Heinsius, Anton, Grand Pensionary of Holland, urged by Dutch Deputy to
take action, 21;
    supports Moselle plan, 30;
    meeting with Marlborough and Eugene, 106;
    meetings with de Torcy, 123;
    letters from Marlborough, 49, 84-5, 87, 103, 105, 126

  Helchin, 119

  Helchteren, 22-3, 28

  Herfelingen, 110

  Herlegem, 111-6

  Hesse-Cassel, Prince Frederick of, at Trarbach, 75;
    at Mons, 127;
    at Malplaquet, 134-5

  Heurne, 111-3

  Hill, Col. John, 139, 145

  Hochstadt, defeat of Imperial Army at (1703), 27;
    and battle of Blenheim, 54, 66;
    _see also_ 49, 52-3

  Holland--_see_ United Provinces

  Holstein-Beck, Prince of, 61

  Homburg, 74

  Hompesch, Lt.-Gen., Count, 66, 147, 149

  Hungary, 29

  Huy, Allied capture of (1703), 26-7;
    (1705) 79;
    French recapture of, 78

  Huysse, 112-3


  Imperial War Council, 37, 48

  India, 4

  Indies, West, 6, 11, 153, 155

  Infantry, method of employment, 115-7;
    on march to Danube, 34-5, 38;
    _see also_ under Battles

  Ingolstadt, 48, 52, 72

  Ireland, 7, 10

  Isle of Wight, 118

  Italy, French forces in, 20, 25, 27, 29, 98-9;
    Prince Eugene in, 24-5, 99;
    Victor Amadeus in, 27, 29, 75-6;
    Marlborough plans campaign in, 87;
    Toulon expedition based in, 102;
    _see also_ 7, 87, 156


  Jaar, river, 23

  James II, as Duke of York, 8;
    ascends throne, 8;
    exiled, 4, 9-10;
    _see also_ 12

  Jandrenouille, Plain of, 89

  Jena, 96

  Jennings, Sarah--_see_ Marlborough, Duchess of

  Joseph I, Emperor, 37, 102, 104-5, 140, 145

  Joseph Ferdinand, Elector of Bavaria, 6, 24

  Judoigne, 88, 96


  Kaiserswerth, 20

  Kehl, 27, 73

  Kessel, river, 53-6

  Kranenburg, 20


  La Basse, 125;
    Lines of, 125-6, 140

  Ladenburg, 36

  La Folie, 133, 135

  Lagos, 27

  Landau, captured by French, 27, 36, 73;
    Allied siege of, 30, 36, 72, 74-5;
    _see also_ 24, 32, 77, 87

  Landen, 45, 82, 88

  Landrecies, 152, 154-5

  Lanires, Bois de, 128-30, 132-3

  Lauingen, 53-4

  Launsheim, 38

  Lauter, river, 74, 87

  Leake, Admiral Sir John, 121

  Leau, 88

  Lech, river, 48-50, 53

  Lede, 112

  Leghorn, 7

  Lens, 140, 146

  Lens-les-Beguines, 79, 81

  Leopold I, Emperor, heads Augsburg League, 2;
    and Partition Treaties, 5-6;
    represented by Wratislaw, 30, 37;
    and dual command by Marlborough and the Margrave, 37-8, 41;
    threatens to supersede Margrave, 99;
    death of, 102;
    _see also_ 11, 29, 102

  Lessines, 110, 116

  Levant, The, 7

  Liddell Hart, Capt. B. H., 46, 69, 150

  Lige, 23-7, 78-9;
    Bishopric of, 19, 21

  Lille, French base, 109, 117;
    siege of, 118-21, 146;
    Allied base, 147, 149;
    restored to France, 123, 155;
    _see also_ 105, 110, 125, 132, 141, 145

  Lille St. Hubert, 21

  Lillers, 147

  Limbourg, 27

  Lisbon, 27, 76

  Lombardy, 24

  London, 7, 10, 30-1, 76, 153

  Lorraine, 27, 36, 78, 88

  Lottum, General Count, at Oudenarde, 114-5;
    levels French lines at Ypres, 117;
    forces passage of Scheldt, 120;
    at Malplaquet, 131-3, 135

  Louis XIV, and wars of 17th century, 2-5, 7-8;
    and Partition Treaties, 5-6;
    takes slave contract from Spain, 7;
    Grand Alliance formed against, 10-11;
    and campaign of 1702, 18, 22-3;
      1703, 25;
      1704, 29, 32-4, 36-7, 51;
      1705, 77, 86;
      1706, 88, 92, 96-99;
      1708, 106, 118, 120;
      1709, 124, 126, 131, 136; 1710, 143;
    and peace negotiations, 123, 142;
    _see also_ 13, 19, 56, 68, 124

  Louis, Margrave of Baden, Prince, in campaign of 1702, 20, 24;
    and Dutch support, 31;
    fails to intercept Tallard's drafts, 36;
    joins Marlborough and Eugene, 36-8, 41;
    at the Schellenberg, 41-2, 44-5;
    friction with Marlborough, 48-50;
    at Ingolstadt, 52-3;
    delays Marlborough after Blenheim, 72, 74, 77;
    driven across Rhine by Villars, 87;
    death of, 99, 104;
    _see also_ 32, 61

  Louvain, 83-5, 88, 96, 106-7

  Low Countries--_see_ United Provinces and Flanders

  Lumley, General Henry, 92, 115

  Lutzingen, 57-8, 60, 64, 66, 89

  Luxembourg, 4, 7

  Lys, river, French defences on, 117-8, 125;
    Allied control of, 107, 141-2, 146;
    _see also_ 97, 126, 147


  Maastricht, held by Dutch, 19, 21-3, 25;
    base for Allied operations, 26, 77, 79, 87, 109;
    _see also_ 8, 23, 88

  Madrid, 7, 99, 102, 143

  Magyar, 29

  Main, river, 36, 38

  Mainz, 36, 78

  Malines, 96

  Malplaquet, battle of, 131-8;
    _see also_ 139, 141, 146, 148, 157

  Mannheim, 34, 36

  Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Duke of, early military career, 1, 8;
    and James II, 8-9;
    and William III, 9-10;
    formation of Grand Alliance, 10-1;
    early influence over Queen Anne, 12;
    contributions to art of war, 13-7, 156-7;
    C.-in-C. Allied forces, 18;
    Ambassador to The Hague, 18;
    campaign of 1702, 19-25;
      1703, 25-8;
    1704, plans campaign on Danube, 30-5;
    the march to the Danube, 35-8;
    joins Eugene and Margrave, 37;
    dual command with Margrave, 37-8, 41;
    at the Schellenberg, 39-47;
    friction with Margrave, 48, 50;
    lays waste Bavaria, 49-50;
    planning for Blenheim, 51-3;
    at Blenheim, 54-7, 59-67, 69-70;
    captures Tallard, 66;
    tribute to Eugene, 71;
    returns to the Rhine, 72-3;
    operations in Moselle valley, 74-9;
    pierces Lines of Brabant, 81-3;
    at the Ysche, 84-5;
    at Ramillies, 88-96;
    overruns Flanders, 96-8;
    and Charles XII, 102-3;
    unsuccessful campaign of 1707, 104-5;
    manoeuvres before Oudenarde, 106-7, 109;
    at Oudenarde, 110-6;
    overruns Artois and Picardy, 118;
    siege of Lille, 118-20;
    siege of Ghent, 121;
    negotiations with French, 123-4;
    siege of Tournai, 124-6;
    threatens Mons, 127-8;
    at Malplaquet, 128-38;
    captures Mons, 136;
    discord with Queen Anne, 139, 142;
    short of forces for 1710 campaign, 140;
    siege of Douai, 140;
    of Bthune, St. Venant and Aire, 141-2;
    "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, 143-50;
    siege of Bouchain, 151-2;
    accused of receiving bribes and misappropriating funds, 153-4;
    dismissed from office, 154;
    last years and death, 155;
    given Blenheim Palace, 76;
    in poor health, 75, 105;
    Mediterranean strategy, 24, 76, 87, 102, 104, 121;
    relations with Dutch, 20-1, 83-6;
    tributes to, 1-2, 100, 155-7;
    letters to Godolphin, (1702) 21, 23,
      (1704) 31, 34, 38, 49, 74,
      (1705) 85,
      (1706) 96, 99,
      (1708) 118, 121,
      (1709) 122-3,
      (1711) 152;
    to Harley, 77, 103;
    to Heinsius, 49, 84-5, 87, 103, 105, 126, 150;
    to the Queen, 45, 139;
    to his wife, 45, 67, 74-5, 96, 116, 136;
    _see also_ 75, 100, 142-3, 154-5

  Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, marries Churchill, 8;
    early friendship with Anne, 9, 12, 69;
    estrangement from Anne, 105, 139;
    letters from Marlborough, 45, 67, 74-5, 96, 116, 136

  Marollebeck, river, 112-3, 117

  Marsin, Marshal Ferdinand, commands French army in Bavaria, 29, 32,
35, 38;
    at Augsburg, 48, 50;
    at Blenheim, 57-8, 61, 66;
    retreat to Rhine, 73;
    death at Turin, 99;
    _see also_ 70, 78, 88

  Marxheim, 53

  Mary II, Queen of England, 9

  Masham, Abigail, 139

  Maubeuge, 136, 145

  Max Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria, joins French, 24;
    Villars' junction with, 27, 32;
    before and after Schellenberg battle, 36-9, 42, 44, 48;
    his country ravaged, 49-50;
    joined by Tallard, 51-2;
    at Blenheim, 54, 57-8, 61, 66;
    with Villeroi at Lines of Brabant, 78, 81, 83;
    at Brussels, 120;
    _see also_ 32, 73, 106

  Mediterranean, 2, 4, 24, 102, 104, 121, 155

  Mehaine, river, 79, 81, 89, 92

  Meldert, 84-5, 89, 96, 103

  Menin, 98, 107, 109, 117, 119, 125-6

  Merdorp, 79, 81

  Metz, 78

  Meuse, river, French control of, 19-20, 23-4, 26, 78, 143;
    and Lines of Brabant, 19, 79, 89;
    Allied operations on, 18, 22-4, 26, 77, 111, 145;
    _see also_ 21, 34, 117, 123, 140

  Milan, 4, 6, 11

  Minorca, 25, 121, 155

  Moder, river, 74, 87

  Monmouth, James, Duke of, 8-9

  Mons, French base, 105-6, 119-20;
    siege of, 127-8, 130-1, 136-7;
    _see also_ 7, 98, 103

  Montreuil, 145

  Mont St. Andr, 89, 95

  Moselle, river, French operations on, 24, 78, 124;
    projected Allied campaign on, 30-2, 34-6, 102;
    Marlborough's operations on, 72-9;
    _see also_ 87, 106-7, 110

  Mullem, 113-4

  Munich, 50

  Mnster, 53-4


  Namur, in Dutch Barrier, 7;
    in Lines of Brabant, 19, 25, 81, 98;
    _see also_ 26, 88, 110, 136, 145

  Naples, 6-7, 11, 104

  Napoleon, 1, 46, 156

  Natzmer, General, 113-5

  "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, described, 141, 143-5;
    penetrated by Marlborough, 145-50

  Nebel, river, 54-65, 70, 89

  Neckar, river, 38, 51

  Neerhespen, 82

  Netherlands, Austrian, 155

  Netherlands, Dutch--_see_ United Provinces

  Netherlands, Spanish, occupied by France (1701), 7;
    as barrier between France and Holland, 11;
    Dutch opposed to operations in, 19, 21;
    acknowledge Charles III, 96;
    overrun by Marlborough, 98;
    and Barrier Treaty, 140;
    _see also_ 4, 6, 14, 155;
    _and under_ Flanders

  Neutrality, Corps of, 145

  Neuburg, 48-9, 52

  Newfoundland, 124, 155

  Nieuport, 7

  Nijmegen, 8, 19-22

  Nrdlingen, 41, 45, 56

  Norken, river, 111-3, 116-7

  North Sea, 46, 98

  Noyelles, Count, 81-2

  Nuremberg, 38, 43, 48-9


  Oberglau, 57-61, 64-5, 89

  Obourg, 127

  Offus, 89-92, 95

  Oise, river, 153

  Opdam, General, 22, 26-7

  Orange, Prince John William Friso of, at Oudenarde, 115;
    at Malplaquet, 132-3, 135

  Orkney, George Hamilton, 1st Earl of, at Ramillies, 92-3;
    at St. Ghislain, 127;
    at Malplaquet, 130, 132-5, 137

  Ormonde, James Butler, 2nd Duke of, 24, 154

  Ostend, 26, 98, 107, 118

  Ottomond, Tomb of, 89, 94

  Oudenarde, in Dutch Barrier, 7;
    captured (1706), 98;
    battle of, (1708) 102-17;
    _see also_ 119-21, 123, 137, 146, 157

  Overkirk, Marshal Count Henry, in 1703, 25-6;
    in 1704, 76;
    at Lines of Brabant, 79-81, 83;
    sides with Marlborough against Deputies, 84-5;
    at Ramillies, 92-4;
    at siege of Ostend, 98;
    at Oudenarde, 114-5, 117;
    death of, 132;
    _see also_ 30, 36, 45

  Oxford, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of, 77, 142, 153

  Oycke, 115


  Paris, 32, 72, 118, 125, 127, 146, 153

  Parke, Col., 67

  Parker, Capt. Robert, 1, 21, 23, 35

  Parliament (Dutch)--_see_ States-General

  Parliament (English), supports Grand Alliance, 7, 11;
    votes supply, 25, 124, 142;
    Tory control of, 142, 153;
    approves expedition to Canada, 145;
    opposes appointment of permanent C.-in-C., 139;
    _see also_ 5, 24, 30, 69

  Partition Treaties, 5-7

  Peer, 21-2

  Peterborough, Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of, 87

  Philip, Duke of Anjou--_see_ Philip V of Spain

  Philip V of Spain, claimant to Spanish crown, 6;
    on Spanish throne, 7, 11;
    defeated at Almenara, 143;
    renounces claim to French throne, 155;
    _see also_ 124

  Philippsburg, 36-7, 72-3

  Picardy, 118

  Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 155

  Po, river, 24, 99

  Poland, 4, 102

  Poltava, 140

  Pomerania, 4

  Port Mahon, 121, 155-6

  Portugal, 7, 27, 76, 99

  Principles of War, 1702-3 campaigns, 28;
    the Schellenberg, 41-2, 46-7;
    Blenheim, 59, 70-1;
    Ramillies, 100-1;
    Oudenarde, 116-7;
    Malplaquet, 131-8;
    _see also_ 13, 34-5, 47, 145

  Provence, 104

  Prussia, 4, 11, 87, 140


  Queich, river, 73-4

  Quesnoy, 153-5

  Quivrain, 127, 136


  Rain, 49, 52-3

  Rakoczy, Prince Franz, 29

  Ramillies, battle of, 87-101;
    _see also_ 106, 114, 123, 131, 146, 157

  Rantzau, General von, at Oudenarde, 111-4;
    captures Arleux, 147

  Recruiting Acts, 14

  Redans, 130-1, 134

  Regiments, Allied, Dutch Blue Guards, 133;
    _see also_ 41, 98

  Regiments, British:--
    _Cavalry_--King's Dragoon Guards (1st), 135;
      Royal Dragoons (1st), 8;
      Royal Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons), 95, 135
    _Artillery_--Royal Regt. of Artillery, 17
    _Infantry_--Grenadier Guards (1st), 8, 93, 115, 133;
      Coldstream Guards, 115;
      Royal Scots (1st Foot), 113, 133;
      Buffs (3rd Foot), 95, 113;
      Royal Irish (18th Foot), 1, 23, 135;
      Royal Scots Fusiliers (21st Foot), 95

  Regiments, French:--Maison du Roi, 91, 93, 115, 134, 150;
    French Guards, 131;
    Bavarian Life Guards, 61;
    Swiss Guards, 131;
    Gendarmerie, 60-2;
    Regiment du Roi, 91, 95;
    Navarre, 67;
    Irish Brigade (in French service), 61, 131, 134-5;
    _see also_ 94, 111

  Reichen, 56

  Rheinberg, 25

  Rhine, river, Lower Rhine controlled by French, 19-21, 25;
    and cleared by Marlborough, 20-1, 23-4, 26;
    Marlborough ascends Middle Rhine, 31-2, 34-6, 46-7;
    French defences on Upper Rhine, 24-7, 106;
    Prince Eugene at, 37-8, 51, 145;
    French retreat to, 68, 72-4;
    Margrave driven to east bank, 87, 99;
    Villars attacks across, 104;
    _see also_ 2, 30, 34, 37, 75, 77, 88, 146

  Riviera, 102

  Roermond, 21-3, 34

  Rome, 9

  Rooke, Admiral Sir George, 24, 76

  Rottweil, 51

  Roulers, 98

  Royegem, 113, 115

  Rupert, Prince, 17

  Russia, 5, 11, 140

  Ryswick, Treaty of, 5


  Saar, river, 75, 77-8

  Saarlouis, 78

  St. Amand, 149

  St. Ghislain, 127-8, 131

  St. John, Henry, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, 150

  St. Kitts, 155

  St. Omer, 145

  St. Pierre de Geest, 95

  St. Pol, 148

  Saint Trond, 81-2

  St. Venant, 141-2

  Salamanca, battle of, 1

  Sambre, river, 123, 127-8, 143

  Saragossa, 143

  Sardinia, 4, 121

  Sars, Bois de, 128-33, 135, 140

  Savoy-Piedmont, 27, 29, 76, 99

  Savoy-Piedmont, Duke of, joins Grand Alliance, 27, 29;
    beaten by Vendme, 76;
    in Provence, 104;
    _see also_ 48, 75, 87

  Saxony, 4, 102-3, 140

  Scarpe, river, 125, 140-3, 149, 152

  Schaerken, 112-3

  Scheldt, river, controlled by French, 19, 110, 119-20, 123, 143;
    and battle of Oudenarde, 109-16;
    other Allied operations at, 96-8, 105, 118-9, 125-6, 142, 151-2;
    _see also_ 89, 122, 127, 149

  Schellenberg, battle of the, 39-47;
    _see also_ 48, 50, 53, 60, 75, 77

  Schrobenhausen, 52

  Schulenberg, General Mathias von der, 131-3, 135

  Schultz, General, 94

  Schweningen, 56

  Sedgemoor, battle of, 9

  Senne, river, 106-7

  Sense, river, 143, 146, 149-52

  's-Hertogenbosch, 22

  Shovell, Admiral Sir Cloudesley, 104-5

  Sicily, 6-7, 11;
    the Two Sicilies, 4, 6

  Siege, method of conducting, 13, 17;
    of Kaiserswerth, 20;
    of Venlo, 23, 56;
    of Stevensweert, 23;
    of Roermond, 23;
    of Lige, 24, 78-9;
    of Rheinberg, 25;
    of Bonn, 25;
    of Huy, 27, 79-81;
    of Limbourg, 27;
    of Rain, 49;
    of Villengen, 51;
    of Ingolstadt, 52, 72;
    of Ulm, 72, 74;
    of Trarbach, 75;
    of Landau, 75;
    of Ostend, 98;
    of Menin, 98;
    of Turin, 99;
    of Toulon, 104-5;
    of Oudenarde, 110;
    of Lille, 117-20;
    of Brussels, 120;
    of Ghent, 121;
    of Ft. St. Philip, 121;
    of Tournai, 124-6;
    of Mons, 126, 130-1, 136;
    of Douai, 140-1;
    of Bthune, 141;
    of St. Venant, 141-2;
    of Aire, 141-2;
    of Bouchain, 151-2;
    of Quesnoy, 154;
    of Landrecies, 155;
    siege train--_see_ Artillery

  Sierck, 78

  Silesia, 103

  Slangenberg, General, 83, 85

  Soignies, 103

  Somme, river, 118

  Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 45, 75

  Spain, in Augsburg League, 4;
    allied with France, 7, 10;
    Allied operations in, 24-5, 99, 102-4, 143;
    _see also_ 5-6, 11, 76, 121, 124, 140, 153, 155-6

  Stanhope, James, 1st Viscount, 121, 143

  Starhemberg, Count Guido von, 143

  States-General, obstructs Marlborough's plans, 18, 26, 30-1, 77, 79,
87;
    _see also_ 37, 86, 107, 136

  Steenkirk, 45

  Stevensweert, 22-3

  Stockholm, 4

  Stollhofen, 20, 37, 51;
    Lines of, 36, 51, 73, 99, 104-5

  Straits of Dover, 46

  Strasbourg, 20, 27, 42, 51-2, 77

  Swabian Jura, 38

  Sweden, 4, 11, 102-3

  Sweet, Benjamin, 35


  Tallard, Marshal Comte de, in 1702, 20-2, 24;
    recaptures Landau, 27;
    reinforces Marsin, 34-5;
    at the Rhine, 36-7, 41-2;
    marches to join Max Emmanuel, 48-52;
    at Blenheim, 52-67;
    defective eyesight of, 65;
    sent to England, 66;
    _see also_ 69-70, 72-3

  Tangier, 8

  Tapfheim, 54, 56

  Taviers, 89, 91-2, 94

  Taylor, Frank, 132

  Thionville, 78

  Thirty Years' War, 4, 13, 15, 39

  Three Rivers, 136

  Tilly, Count von, 132-3

  Tirlemont, 82-3, 87

  Tiry, Bois de, 132

  Tongres, 23, 26

  Torcy, Jean-Baptiste, Marquis de, 123-4, 143

  Toulon, 76, 102-5, 121

  Tournai, siege of, 124-7, 137;
    as Allied base, 130-2, 140, 147-8, 152;
    _see also_ 119-20, 154-5

  Trarbach, 24, 32, 75, 78

  Trevelyan, G. M., 31, 44, 132

  Trier--_see_ Trves

  Trves, captured by French, 24, 32;
    captured by Marlborough, 72, 74-9

  Troops, Allied:--British cavalry, 34, 75, 83, 92, 115, 134-5;
      infantry, 34, 43, 60, 92, 95, 110-1, 113, 117, 132;
    _see also_ Regiments, British;
    Dutch cavalry, 92, 94, 100, 134;
      infantry, 92-3, 110-1, 113-5, 132-3;
    Imperial cavalry, 53, 61, 72;
      infantry, 41;
    German cavalry, 79, 92;
      infantry, 79, 92, 131;
    Hanoverian cavalry, 64, 110;
      infantry, 61, 114-5, 131;
    Prussian cavalry, 113, 115, 135;
      infantry, 61, 64, 114, 131;
    Danish cavalry, 64, 88, 92-4, 115;
      infantry, 61, 64, 75;
    Saxon forces, 103-4

  Troops, Enemy:--French cavalry, 58, 60, 64, 82, 92, 94, 111, 135;
      infantry, 16, 43;
    _see also_ Regiments, French;
    Bavarian, cavalry, 82-3, 95;
      infantry, 82, 92;
    Spanish cavalry, 82, 95;
    Swiss infantry, 94, 111

  Tbingen, 51-2

  Turenne, Marshal Vicomte de, 8

  Turin, 76, 99, 102, 104

  Turkey, 7

  Tuttlingen, 51

  Tyrol, 27


  Ulm, French base, 29, 34, 37;
    siege of, 72, 74;
    _see also_ 24, 38, 46, 48, 51

  United Provinces, enters Grand Alliance, 4, 6-7, 11, 18;
    William III fights in, 10;
    treaties with England, 7, 140;
    Marlborough appointed Ambassador to, 8, 18;
    Dutch concerned with defence of, 18-21, 30-1, 76-7;
    French armies in, 20, 25, 36;
    supply base for siege of Lille, 118-20;
    fleet relieves Barcelona, 99;
    Marlborough retires to, 155;
    _see also_ 23-4, 30, 32, 50, 75, 86, 118, 124

  Unterglau, 57, 60, 62

  Utrecht, 75;
    Treaty of, 155


  Valencia, 87, 99, 103

  Valenciennes, 98, 100, 126-7, 145, 152

  Vauban, Marshal Sbastien de, 19, 98, 120

  Vendme, Marshal Comte de, in Italy, 20, 27, 29, 76;
    replaces Villeroi in Flanders, 98;
    defensive tactics of, 102-3;
    reinforces Toulon, 104-5;
    joint command with Burgundy, 106-7;
    at Oudenarde, 111-14;
    at Ghent, 118-9;
    attempts to relieve Lille, 119-20;
    at Brihuega, 143;
    _see also_ 100

  Venlo, 21-3, 56, 140

  Vrendrye, Pierre Gaultier de la, 136

  Versailles, 88, 124, 154

  Victor Amadeus--_see_ Savoy-Piedmont, Duke of

  Vienna, threat to, 24, 27, 29-30;
    Imperial War Office in, 37;
    _see also_ 4, 32, 68, 77

  Vigo, 25

  Villars, Marshal Louis Hector de, in 1702, 20, 24;
    at Hochstadt (1703), 25, 27;
    replaced in Bavaria by Marsin, 29;
    in Moselle valley, 78;
    drives Margrave over Rhine, 87;
    captures Lines of Stollhofen, 104-5;
    rebuilds French army 124;
    at Lines of La Basse, 125-6;
    at Malplaquet, 127-31, 133, 135;
    is wounded, 135;
    fails to relieve Douai and Bthune, 140-1;
    and the "Ne Plus Ultra" Lines, 145-8, 150;
    at Bouchain, 150-2;
    recaptures forts (1712), 155;
    _see also_ 136-7

  Villeroi, Marshal Franois, Duc de, in 1703, 25-6;
    during march to Danube, 36-7, 42;
    holds army on the Rhine, 51;
    during siege of Landau, 73-4;
    recalled to Flanders (1705), 78-79;
    at Lines of Brabant, 81-3;
    manoeuvres about Brussels, 85;
    at Ramillies, 88-93, 95-6;
    replaced by Vendme, 98;
    _see also_ 33, 86, 100-1

  Villingen, 51, 73

  Vimy Ridge, 141, 149

  Vitry, 149

  Voltaire, Franois, 157

  Voorde, 110


  Walker, Rear-Admiral Hovenden, 139

  Wanghe, Chteau of, 82

  Wannegem, 112

  War, Franco-Dutch (1672-8), 2, 8

  War of Devolution, 2

  Wars, Anglo-Dutch, 4

  Warquignies, Forest of, 128

  Waterloo, 85, 96

  Wavell, Lord, 69, 156

  Wavrechin, 152

  Weapons--carbine, 16, 62, 66;
    flintlock ("Brown Bess"), 16;
    matchlock, 16;
    pike, 15-6, 113;
    plug bayonet, 15;
    ring (or socket) bayonet, 15, 59;
    sword, 16-7;
    _see also_ Artillery

  Webb, Maj.-Gen., John, 120

  Week, General, 115

  Wellington, Duke of, 1, 156

  Wernitz, river, 39, 41-2, 54

  Wervicq, 117

  Wiesloch, 36

  William III (William of Orange), in Grand Alliance (1689), 4;
    ascends English throne, 4;
    and War of Augsburg League, 5, 10;
    and Partition Treaties, 5-7;
    gains support of English public against France, 7;
    and Marlborough, 8-10;
    death of, 11;
    _see also_ 45, 154

  Withers, General Henry, 130-3, 135, 137

  Woodstock, 76

  Wratislaw, Count Johann, 30-1, 37

  Wrttemberg, Duke of, 53

  Wynendaale, 120


  Xanten, 20


  York, Anne, Duchess of, 8

  Ypres, 117, 124-6

  Ysche, river, 85




                              FOOTNOTES:


[1] _Memoirs of the most remarkable Military Transactions from
1683-1718_ (1st edition, 1746).

[2] The Hon. Sir John Fortescue, _Marlborough_ (London, 1932), 168.

[3] The English army, at the end of the war 87,000 strong, was reduced
to 7000 regulars.

[4] Luxembourg, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Ath, Oudenarde and Nieuport.

[5] The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, _Marlborough, His Life and
Times_, Bk. I, (London, 1949), 265.

[6] William Coxe, _Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough_ (London, 1905),
Vol. i, 58.

[7] G. M. Trevelyan, _England under Queen Anne: Blenheim_ (London,
1948), 144.

[8] It is questionable whether Marlborough's troops used the "Brown
Bess" musket. See _Journal of the Society for Army Historical
Research_ (London), vol. XXXIII, 69.

[9] The Royal Regiment of Artillery did not come into existence until
1716.

[10] A. W. Wilson, _The Story of the Gun_ (Woolwich, 1944), 25.

[11] Churchill, Bk. I, 568. He is writing after the First World War.

[12] Coxe, vol. i, 90.

[13] Churchill, Bk. I, 580.

[14] Called by Marlborough's English troops "Boiled Duck"--now
's-Hertogenbosch.

[15] Coxe, vol. i. 94.

[16] In referring to the Principles of War we shall use the following
list: _Selection and Maintenance of the Aim_, _Maintenance of Morale_,
_Offensive Action_, _Security_, _Surprise_, _Concentration of Force_,
_Economy of Effort_, _Flexibility_, _Co-operation and Administration_.

[17] Trevelyan, _Blenheim_, 326.

[18] Although some historians have followed Archdeacon Coxe in giving
Prince Eugene of Savoy the credit for persuading Marlborough to come
to Bavaria, no documentary evidence, as Churchill and Trevelyan both
point out, has been found to support this position.

[19] F. Taylor, _The Wars of Marlborough, 1702-1709_ (Oxford, 1921),
vol. i, 154.

[20] Trevelyan, _Blenheim_, 344.

[21] Churchill, Bk. I, 729.

[22] The approximate figures generally accepted for unit strengths at
the beginning of a campaign are 150 for a squadron and 700 for a
battalion.

[23] Coxe, vol. i, 160.

[24] Churchill, Bk. I, 758.

[25] C. T. Atkinson, _Marlborough and the Rise of the British Army_
(New York, 1921), 193.

[26] Churchill, Bk. I, 765.

[27] Churchill, Bk. I, 779. Mr. Churchill has drawn upon a report by
the Archduke Joseph to the Emperor dated April 12, 1704. He thus
modifies Coxe's statement that the Margrave pressed the claims of his
seniority and agreed only with considerable reluctance to share the
command by alternate days with Marlborough.

[28] Churchill, Bk. I, 792.

[29] Churchill, Bk. I, 798.

[30] The "covered way" encircled the fortress between the "glacis"
(outer sloping bank) and the "open ditch". From seven to nine feet
deep, it had a "banquette" or firing-step from which infantry could
fire down the glacis.

[31] Churchill, Bk. I, 802.

[32] Trevelyan, _Blenheim_, 362.

[33] Taylor, vol. i, 180.

[34] General Sir George Murray (ed.), _The Letters and Dispatches of
John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough_ (London, 1845), vol. i,
330.

[35] Coxe, vol. i, 176.

[36] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 339.

[37] Churchill, Bk. I, 807.

[38] B. H. Liddell Hart, _Strategy: The Indirect Approach_ (London,
1954), 96.

[39] Churchill, Bk. I, 819.

[40] Coxe, vol. i, 180.

[41] B. Van 't Hoff (ed.), _The Correspondence of John Churchill,
First Duke of Marlborough, and Anthonie Heinsius, Grand Pensionary of
Holland_ (Utrecht, 1951), 118.

[42] Churchill, Bk. I, 839.

[43] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 373.

[44] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 375.

[45] Churchill, Bk. I, 838.

[46] Churchill, Bk. I, 847.

[47] The numbers vary in different sources. Churchill gives a total
enemy strength of 84 battalions and 147 squadrons, numbering about
60,000 men.

[48] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 400.

[49] Col. Blood was Second Engineer of Great Britain. He commanded the
artillery by virtue of his appointment as Chief of the Ordnance Train.

[50] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 403.

[51] Churchill, Bk. I, 861.

[52] Taylor, vol. i, 223.

[53] Tallard was sent to England and given a house in the country,
where he introduced the cultivation of celery to the local gentry.

[54] Thus two French sources, Susane, _Histoire de l'Infanterie
Franaise_, Tome 2, 331; and Cmdt Andolenko, _Recueil d'Historiques de
l'Infanterie Franaise_, 29. Churchill and some other writers have the
colours "burned".

[55] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 408-9.

[56] "The Battle of Blenheim", by Robert Southey.

[57] Sergeant Millner's _Journal_ (1701-12), cited in Churchill, Bk.
I, 872.

[58] _Dispatches_, vol. i, 435.

[59] Taylor, vol. i, 233.

[60] Trevelyan, _Blenheim_, 397.

[61] Taylor, vol. i, 261-2.

[62] Liddell Hart, _Strategy: The Indirect Approach_, 100.

[63] Belloc, _The Tactics and Strategy of Marlborough_, 90.

[64] Coxe, vol. i, 214.

[65] Coxe, vol. i, 220.

[66] Atkinson, 241.

[67] Coxe, vol. i, 229.

[68] Churchill, Bk. I, 902.

[69] G. M. Trevelyan, _England under Queen Anne: Ramillies and the
Union with Scotland_ (London, 1948), 49.

[70] Coxe, vol. i, 245.

[71] Churchill, Bk. I, 909.

[72] _Dispatches_, vol. ii, 55.

[73] _Ibid._, 61.

[74] _Dispatches_, vol. ii, 74-5.

[75] Trevelyan, _Ramillies_, 53.

[76] _Dispatches_, vol. ii, 197.

[77] Coxe, vol. i, 314.

[78] Van 't Hoff, _Heinsius Correspondence_, 206, 208.

[79] Van 't Hoff, 227.

[80] _Dispatches_, vol. ii, 518.

[81] Churchill, Bk. II, 84.

[82] The significance of this concealed way is dealt with in some
detail in Belloc, _The Tactics and Strategy of Marlborough_, Ch. IV.

[83] Churchill, Bk. II, 99.

[84] Coxe, vol. i, 424.

[85] _Ibid._, 426.

[86] Coxe, vol. i, 427.

[87] For a more detailed commentary on the battle in the light of the
Principles of War, see Lt.-Col. A. H. Burne, _The Art of War on Land_
(London, 1944), Ch. 9.

[88] _Dispatches_, vol. iii, 29.

[89] Van 't Hoff, _Heinsius Correspondence_, 269.

[90] _Ibid._, 300.

[91] Coxe, vol. ii, 46.

[92] _Dispatches_, vol. iii, 357.

[93] Van 't Hoff, 356.

[94] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 61.

[95] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 94.

[96] Churchill, Bk. II, 350.

[97] Atkinson, 335.

[98] Churchill, Bk. II, 360.

[99] Coxe, vol. ii, 267.

[100] du Bosc, _The Military History of the Late Prince Eugene of
Savoy and of the Late John Duke of Marlborough_, vol. ii, 56.

[101] Coxe, vol. ii, 267.

[102] Coxe, vol. ii, 272.

[103] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 165.

[104] Coxe, vol. ii, 312.

[105] du Bosc, vol. ii, 81.

[106] Atkinson, 364.

[107] Coxe, vol. ii, 340.

[108] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 108.

[109] Coxe. vol. ii, 346.

[110] Coxe, vol. ii, 389.

[111] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 496.

[112] Van 't Hoff, 456.

[113] Churchill, Bk. II, 592.

[114] A detailed description of the battlefield is given in Maj. A. H.
Burne, "Marlborough's Battlefields Illustrated: Malplaquet" in _The
Journal of the Royal Artillery_, vol. ix, 42-53.

[115] Atkinson, 395.

[116] A number of historians (including Atkinson and Taylor) declare
that Marlborough intended the Dutch effort to be a demonstration only,
and that the Prince of Orange disobeyed orders in turning it into a
full-scale and very costly attack. But Marlborough himself has left no
record of any such orders; indeed, as Trevelyan points out, had he
planned a feint he would undoubtedly, as at Ramillies, have kept the
intention secret from the Dutch commander.

[117] Trevelyan, _England under Queen Anne_, vol. 3, _The Peace and
the Protestant Succession_, 16.

[118] Atkinson, 405.

[119] Coxe, vol. ii, 462.

[120] Among the French casualties was a young Canadian ensign from
Three Rivers, Pierre Gaultier de la Vrendrye, who was wounded nine
times and left for dead. He survived, to become the great explorer of
the Canadian West.

[121] Liddell Hart, _Strategy: The Indirect Approach_, 104.

[122] du Bosc, vol. ii, 113.

[123] _Dispatches_, vol. iv, 636.

[124] Cited in Burne, "Marlborough's Battlefields Illustrated:
Malplaquet", 51.

[125] du Bosc, vol. ii, 150.

[126] Atkinson, 431.

[127] Trevelyan, _The Peace and the Protestant Succession_, 88.

[128] _Dispatches_, vol. v, 262.

[129] _Ibid._, 270.

[130] _Dispatches_, vol. v, 330.

[131] Belloc is one of the few writers to deny the existence of such a
plot, declaring that Marlborough's intentions all along were to hold
Arleux (_The Tactics and Strategy of the Great Duke of Marlborough_,
222).

[132] Coxe, vol. iii, 225.

[133] Extract from _Kane's Memoirs_, cited in Coxe, vol. iii, 226.

[134] _Dispatches_, vol. v, 429.

[135] Belloc, 230.

[136] Liddell Hart, _Strategy: The Indirect Approach_, 105.

[137] _Dispatches_, vol. v, 443.

[138] Coxe, vol. iii, 239.

[139] Churchill, Bk. II, 906.

[140] Coxe, vol. iii, 262.

[141] _Ibid._, 281.

[142] Cited in Coxe, vol. iii, 317.

[143] Fortescue, _Marlborough_, 154.

[144] Field-Marshal Earl Wavell, _The Good Soldier_ (London, 1948),
37.

[145] _Ibid._, 7.




[End of Marlborough and the War of the Spanish Succession,
by Lt.-Col. G. W. L. Nicholson]
