A European quarrel over the succession to the Spanish throne, on the death of the imbecile King Charles the Second, had long been foreseen by William, and had been provided against, as he hoped, by a Partition Treaty in the year 1698. The arrangement then made had been upset by the death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, and had been superseded by a second Partition Treaty in March 1700. In November of the same year King Charles the Second died, leaving a will wherein Philip, Duke of Anjou, and second son of the Dauphin, was named heir to the whole Empire of Spain. At this the second Partition Treaty went for naught. Lewis the Fourteenth, after a becoming interval of hesitation, accepted the Spanish crown for the Duke of Anjou under the title of King Philip the Fifth.
1701
The Emperor at once entered a protest against the will, and Lewis prepared without delay for a campaign in Italy. William, however, for the present merely postponed his recognition of Philip the Fifth; and his example was followed by the United Provinces. Lewis, ever ready and prompt, at once took measures to quicken the States to a decision. Several towns in Spanish Flanders were garrisoned, under previous treaties, by Dutch troops. Lewis by a swift movement surrounded the whole of them, and having thus secured fifteen thousand of the best men in the Dutch army, could dictate what terms he pleased. William expected that the House of Commons would be roused to indignation by this aggressive step, but the House was far too busy with its own factious quarrels. When, however, the States appealed to England for the ten thousand men, which under the treaty of 1677 she was bound to furnish, both Houses prepared faithfully to fulfil the obligation.
Then, as invariably happens in England, the work which Parliament had undone required to be done again. Twelve battalions were ordered to the Low Countries from Ireland, and directions were issued for the levying of ten thousand recruits in England to take their place. But, immediately after, came bad news from the West Indies, and it was thought necessary to despatch thither four more battalions from Ireland. Three regiments were hastily brought up to a joint strength of two thousand men, and shipped off. Thus, within fifteen months of the disbandment of 1699, the garrison of Ireland had been depleted by fifteen battalions out of twenty-one; and four new battalions required to be raised immediately. Of these, two, namely Brudenell's and Mountjoy's, were afterwards disbanded, but two more, Lord Charlemont's and Lord Donegal's, are still with us as the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth of the Line.
In June the twelve battalions were shipped off to Holland, under the command of John, Earl of Marlborough, who since 1698 had been restored to the King's favour, and was to fill his place as head of the European coalition and General of the confederate armies in a fashion that no man had yet dreamed of. He was now fifty years of age; so long had the ablest man in Europe waited for work that was worthy of his powers; and now his time was come at last. His first duties, however, were diplomatic; and during the summer and autumn of 1701 he was engaged in negotiations with Sweden, Prussia, and the Empire for the formation of a Grand Alliance against France and Spain. Needless to say he brought all to a successful issue by his inexhaustible charm, patience, and tact.
September.
Still the attitude of the English people towards the contest remained doubtful, until, on the death of King James the Second, Lewis made the fatal mistake of recognising and proclaiming his son as King of England. Then the smouldering animosity against France leaped instantly into flame. William seized the opportunity to dissolve Parliament, and was rewarded by the election of a House of Commons more nearly resembling that which had carried him through the first war to the Peace of Ryswick. He did not fail to rouse its patriotism and self-respect by a stirring speech from the throne, and obtained the ratification of his agreement with the Allies that England should furnish a contingent of forty thousand men, eighteen thousand of them to be British and the remainder foreigners. So the country was committed to the War of the Spanish Succession.
It was soon decided that all regiments in pay must be increased at once to war-strength, and that six more battalions, together with five regiments of horse and three of dragoons, should be sent to join the troops already in Holland. Then, as usual, there was a rush to do in a hurry what should have been done at leisure; and it is significant of the results of the late ill-treatment of the Army that, though the country was full of unemployed soldiers, it was necessary to offer three pounds, or thrice the usual amount of levy-money, to obtain recruits. The next step was to raise fifteen new regiments—Meredith's, Cootes', Huntingdon's, Farrington's, Gibson's, Lucas's, Mohun's, Temple's, and Stringer's of foot; Fox's, Saunderson's, Villiers', Shannon's, Mordaunt's and Holt's of marines. Of the foot Gibson's and Farrington's had been raised in 1694, but the officers of Farrington's, if not of both regiments, had been retained on half-pay, and, returning in a body, continued the life of the regiment without interruption. Both are still with us as the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth of the Line. Huntingdon's and Lucas's also survive as the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth, and Meredith's and Cootes', which were raised in Ireland, as the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-ninth, while the remainder were disbanded at the close of the war. Of the marines, Saunderson's had originally been raised in 1694, and eventually passed into the Line as the Thirtieth Foot, followed by Fox's and Villiers' as the Thirty-first and Thirty-second. Nothing now remained but to pass the Mutiny Act, which was speedily done; and on the 5th of May, just two months after the death of King William, the great work of his life was continued by a formal declaration of war.
The field of operations which will chiefly concern us is mainly the same as that wherein we followed the campaigns of King William. The eastern boundary of the cock-pit must for a time be extended from the Meuse to the Rhine, the northern from the Demer to the Waal, and the southern limit must be carried from Dunkirk beyond Namur to Bonn. But the reader should bear in mind that, in consequence of the Spanish alliance, Spanish Flanders was no longer hostile, but friendly, to France, so that the French frontier, for all practical purposes, extended to the boundary of Dutch Brabant. Moreover, the French, besides the seizure, already related, of the barrier-towns, had contrived to occupy every stronghold on the Meuse except Maestricht, from Namur to Venloo, so that practically they were masters so far of the whole line of the river.
A few leagues below Venloo stands the fortified town of Grave, and beyond Grave, on the parallel branch of the Rhine, stands the fortified city of Nimeguen. A little to the east of Nimeguen, at a point where the Rhine formerly forked into two streams, stood Fort Schenk, a stronghold famous in the wars of Morgan and of Vere. These three fortresses were the three eastern gates of the Dutch Netherlands, commanding the two great waterways, doubly important in those days of bad roads, which lead into the heart of the United Provinces.
1702
44711
June 10.
It is here that we must watch the opening of the campaign of 1702. There were detachments of the French and of the Allies opposed to each other on the Upper Rhine, on the Lower Rhine, and on the Lower Scheldt; but the French grand army of sixty thousand men was designed to operate on the Meuse, and the presence of a Prince of the blood, the Duke of Burgundy, with old Marshal Boufflers to instruct him, sufficiently showed that this was the quarter in which France designed to strike her grand blow. Marlborough being still kept from the field by other business, the command of the Allied army on the Meuse was entrusted to Lord Athlone, better known as that Ginkell who had completed the pacification of Ireland in 1691. His force consisted of twenty-five thousand men, with which he lay near Cleve, in the centre of the crescent formed by Grave, Nimeguen, and Fort Schenk, watching under shelter of these three fortresses the army of Boufflers, which was encamped some twenty miles to south-east of him at Uden and Xanten. On the 10th of June Boufflers made a sudden dash to cut off Athlone from Nimeguen and Grave, a catastrophe which Athlone barely averted by an almost discreditably precipitate retreat. Having reached Nimeguen Athlone withdrew to the north of the Waal, while all Holland trembled over the danger which had thus been so narrowly escaped.
44733
July 2.
July 15 26 .
Such was the position when Marlborough at last took the field, after long grappling at the Hague with the difficulties which were fated to dog him throughout the war. In England his position was comparatively easy, for though Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen Anne, was nominally generalissimo of all forces by sea and land, yet Marlborough was Captain-General of all the English forces at home and in Holland, and in addition Master-General of the Ordnance. But it was only after considerable dispute that he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the allied forces, and then not without provoking much dissatisfaction among the Dutch generals, and much jealousy in the Prince of Nassau-Saarbrück and in Athlone, both of whom aspired to the office. These obstacles overcome, there came the question of the plan of campaign. Here again endless obstruction was raised. The Dutch, after their recent fright, were nervously apprehensive for the safety of Nimeguen, the King of Prussia was much disturbed over his territory of Cleve, and all parties who had not interests of their own to put forward made it their business to thwart the Commander-in-Chief. With infinite patience Marlborough soothed them, and at last, on the 2nd of July, he left the Hague for Nimeguen, accompanied by two Dutch deputies, civilians, whose duty it was to see that he did nothing imprudent. Arrived there he concentrated sixty thousand men, of which twelve thousand were British, recrossed the Waal and encamped at Ober-Hasselt over against Grave, within two leagues of the French. Then once more the obstruction of his colleagues caused delay, and it was not until the 26th of July that he could cross to the left bank of the Meuse. "Now," he said to the Dutch deputies, as he pointed to the French camp, "I shall soon rid you of these troublesome neighbours."
44764
August 2.
Five swift marches due south brought his army over the Spanish frontier by Hamont. Boufflers thereupon in alarm broke up his camp, summoned Marshal Tallard from the Rhine to his assistance, crossed the Meuse with all haste at Venloo, and pushed on at nervous speed for the Demer. On the 2nd of August he lay between Peer and Bray, his camping-ground ill-chosen, and his army worn out by a week of desperate marching. Within easy striking distance, a mile or two to the northward, lay Marlborough, his army fresh, ready, and confident. He held the game in his hand; for an immediate attack would have dealt the French as rude a buffet as they were to receive later at Ramillies. But the Dutch deputies interposed; these Dogberries were content to thank God that they were rid of a rogue. So Boufflers was allowed to cross the Demer safely at Diest, and a first great opportunity was lost.
August 11 22 .
Marlborough, having drawn the French away from the Meuse, was now at liberty to add the garrison of Maestricht to his field-force, and to besiege the fortresses on the river. Boufflers, however, emboldened by his escape, again advanced north in the hope of cutting off a convoy of stores that was on its way to join the Allies. Marlborough therefore perforce moved back to Hamont and picked up his convoy; then, before Boufflers could divine his purpose he had moved swiftly south, and thrown himself across the line of the French retreat to the Demer. The French marshal hurried southward with all possible haste, and came blundering through the defiles before Hochtel on the road to Hasselt, only to find Marlborough waiting ready for him at Helchteren. Once again the game was in the Englishman's hand. The French were in great disorder, their left in particular being hopelessly entangled in marshy and difficult ground. Marlborough instantly gave the order to advance, and by three o'clock the artillery of the two armies was exchanging fire. At five Marlborough directed the whole of his right to fall on the French left; but to his surprise and dismay, the right did not move. A surly Dutchman, General Opdam, was in command of the troops in question and, for no greater object than to annoy the Commander-in-Chief, refused to execute his orders. So a second great opportunity was lost.
August 12 23 .
Still much might yet be won by a general attack on the next day; and for this accordingly Marlborough at once made his preparations. But when the time came the Dutch deputies interposed, entreating him to defer the attack till the morrow morning. "By to-morrow morning they will be gone," answered Marlborough; but all remonstrance was unavailing. The attack was perforce deferred, the French slipped away in the night, and though it was still possible to cut up their rearguard with cavalry, a third great opportunity was lost.
August 18 29 .
Marlborough was deeply chagrined; but although with unconquerable patience and tact he excused Opdam's conduct in his public despatches, he could not deceive the troops, who were loud in their indignation against both deputies and generals. There was now nothing left but to reduce the fortresses on the Meuse, a part of the army being detached for the siege while the remainder covered the operations under the command of Marlborough. Even over their favourite pastime of a siege, however, the Dutch were dilatory beyond measure. "England is famous for negligence," wrote Marlborough, "but if Englishmen were half as negligent as the people here, they would be torn to pieces by Parliament." Venloo was at length invested on the 29th of August, and after a siege of eighteen days compelled to capitulate. The English distinguished themselves after their own peculiar fashion. In the assault on the principal defence General Cutts, who from his love of a hot fire was known as the Salamander, gave orders that the attacking force, if it carried the covered way, should not stop there but rush forward and carry as much more as it could. It was a mad design, criminally so in the opinion of officers who took part in it, but it was madly executed, with the result that the whole fort was captured out of hand.
Sept. 26
October 7.
Oct. 1 12 .
The reduction of Stevenswaert, Maseyk, and Ruremond quickly followed; and the French now became alarmed lest Marlborough should transfer operations to the Rhine. Tallard was therefore sent back with a large force to Cologne and Bonn, while Boufflers, much weakened by this and by other detachments, lay helpless at Tongres. But the season was now far advanced, and Marlborough had no intention of leaving Boufflers for the winter in a position from which he might at any moment move out and bombard Maestricht. So no sooner were his troops released by the capture of Ruremond than he prepared to oust him. The French, according to their usual practice, had barred the eastern entrance to Brabant by fortified lines, which followed the line of the Geete to its head-waters, and were thence carried across to that of the Mehaigne. In his position at Tongres Boufflers lay midway between these lines and Liège, in the hope of covering both; but after the fall of so many fortresses on the Meuse he became specially anxious for Liège, and resolved to post himself under its walls. He accordingly examined the defences, selected his camping-ground, and on the 12th of October marched up with his army to occupy it. Quite unconscious of any danger he arrived within cannon-shot of his chosen position, and there stood Marlborough, calmly awaiting him with a superior force. For the fourth time Marlborough held his enemy within his grasp, but the Dutch deputies, as usual, interposed to forbid an attack; and Boufflers, a fourth time delivered, hurried away in the night to his lines at Landen. Had he thrown himself into Liège Marlborough would have made him equally uncomfortable by marching on the lines; as things were the French marshal perforce left the city to its fate.
Oct. 12 23 .
The town of Liège, which was unfortified, at once opened its gates to the Allies; and within a week Marlborough's batteries were playing on the citadel. On the 23rd of October the citadel was stormed, the English being first in the breach, and a few days later Liège, with the whole line of the Meuse, had passed into the hands of the Allies. Thus brilliantly, in spite of four great opportunities marred by the Dutch, ended Marlborough's first campaign. Athlone, like an honest man, confessed that as second in command he had opposed every one of Marlborough's projects, and that the success was due entirely to his incomparable chief. He at any rate had an inkling that in Turenne's handsome Englishman there had arisen one of the great captains of all time.
Nevertheless the French had not been without their consolations in other quarters. Towards the end of the campaign the Elector of Bavaria had declared himself for France against the Empire, and, surprising the all-important position of Ulm on the Danube, had opened communication with the French force on the Upper Rhine. Villars, who commanded in that quarter, had seconded him by defeating his opponent, Prince Lewis of Baden, at Friedlingen, and had cleared the passages of the Black Forest; while Tallard had, almost without an effort, possessed himself of Treves and Trarbach on the Moselle. The rival competitors for the crown of Spain were France and the Empire, and the centre of the struggle, as no one saw more clearly than Marlborough, was for the present moving steadily towards the territory of the Empire.
While Marlborough was engaged in his operations on the Meuse, ten thousand English and Dutch, under the Duke of Ormonde and Admiral Sir George Rooke, had been despatched to make a descent upon Cadiz. The expedition was so complete a failure that there is no object in dwelling on it. Rooke would not support Ormonde, and Ormonde was not strong enough to master Rooke; landsmen quarrelled with seamen, and English with Dutch. No discipline was maintained, and after some weeks of feeble operations and shameful scenes of indiscipline and pillage, the commanders found that they could do no more than return to England. They were fortunate enough, however, on their way, to fall in with the plate-fleet at Vigo, of which they captured twenty-five galleons containing treasure worth a million sterling. Comforted by this good fortune Rooke and Ormonde sailed homeward, and dropped anchor safely in Portsmouth harbour.
Meanwhile a mishap, which Marlborough called an accident, had gone near to neutralise all the success of the past campaign. At the close of operations the Earl, together with the Dutch deputies, had taken ship down the Meuse, with a guard of twenty-five men on board and an escort of fifty horse on the bank. In the night the horse lost their way, and the boat was surprised and overpowered by a French partisan with a following of marauders. The Dutch deputies produced French passes, but Marlborough had none and was therefore a prisoner. Fortunately his servant slipped into his hand an old pass that had been made out for his brother Charles Churchill. With perfect serenity Marlborough presented it as genuine, and was allowed to go on his way, the French contenting themselves with the capture of the guard and the plunder of the vessel, and never dreaming of the prize that they had let slip. The news of his escape reached the Hague, where on his arrival rich and poor came out to welcome him, men and women weeping for joy over his safety. So deep was the fascination exerted on all of his kind by this extraordinary man.
A few days later he returned to England, where a new Parliament had already congratulated Queen Anne on the retrieving of England's honour by the success of his arms. The word retrieving was warmly resented, but though doubtless suggested by unworthy and factious animosity against the memory of William, it was strictly true. The nation felt that it was not in the fitness of things that Englishmen should be beaten by Frenchmen, and they rejoiced to see the wrong set right. Nevertheless party spirit found a still meaner level when Parliament extended to Rooke and Ormonde the same vote of thanks that they tendered to Marlborough. This precious pair owed even this honour to the wisdom and good sense of their far greater comrade, for they would have carried their quarrel over the expedition within the walls of Parliament, had not Marlborough told them gently that the whole of their operations were indefensible and that the less they called attention to themselves the better. The Queen, with more discernment, created Marlborough a Duke and settled on him a pension of ￡5000 a year. With the exaggerated bounty of a woman she wished Parliament to attach that sum forthwith permanently to the title, but this the Commons most properly refused to do. Moreover, the House was engaged just then on a work of greater utility to the Army than the granting of pensions even to such a man as Marlborough.
Nov 11.
On the 11th of November, the day before the public thanksgiving for the first campaign, the Committee of Public Accounts presented its report on the books of Lord Ranelagh, the paymaster-general. Ranelagh, according to their statement, had evinced great unwillingness to produce his accounts, and had met their inquiries with endless shuffling and evasion. In his office, too, an unusual epidemic of sudden illness, and an unprecedented multitude of pressing engagements, had rendered his clerks strangely inaccessible to examination. The commissioners, however, had persisted, and were now able to tell a long story of irregular book-keeping, false accounts, forged vouchers, and the clumsiest and most transparent methods of embezzlement and fraud.
Ranelagh defended himself against their charges not without spirit and efficiency, but the commissioners declined to discuss the matter with him. The Commons spent two days in examination of proofs, and then without hesitation voted that the Paymaster-General had been guilty of misappropriation of public money. It was thought by many at the time that Ranelagh was very hardly used; and it is certain that factious desire to discredit the late Government played a larger part than common honesty in this sudden zeal against corruption. Whig writers assert without hesitation that there was no foundation whatever for the charges; and it is indubitable that many of the conclusions of the commissioners were strained and exaggerated. It is beyond question too that much of the financial confusion was due to the House of Commons, which had voted large sums without naming the sources from whence they should be raised, and where it had named the source had absurdly over-estimated the receipts. But it is none the less certain that Ranelagh's accounts were in disorder, and that, though his patrimony was small, he was reputed to have spent more money on buildings, gardens, and furniture than any man in England. Without attempting to calculate the measure of his guilt, it cannot be denied that his dismissal was for the good of the Army.
Had the House of Commons followed up this preliminary inquiry by further investigation much good might have been done, but its motives not being pure its actions could not be consistent. Ranelagh, for instance, had made one statement in self-defence which gravely inculpated the Secretary-at-War; but the House showed no alacrity to turn against that functionary. Very soon the question of the accounts degenerated into a wrangle with the House of Lords; and in March 1704 the Commons were still debating what should be done with Ranelagh, while poor Mitchelburne of Londonderry, a prisoner in the Fleet for debt, was petitioning piteously for the arrears due to him since 1689.
1705,
May 10.
Commission
dated April
20, 1704.
It will, however, be convenient to anticipate matters a little, and to speak at once of the reforms that were brought about by this scandal in the paymaster's office. First, on the expulsion of Ranelagh the office was divided and two paymasters-general were appointed, one for the troops abroad, the other for those at home. Secondly, two new officers were established, with salaries of ￡1500 a year and the title of Controllers of the Accounts of the Army, Sir Joseph Tredenham and William Duncombe being the first holders of the office. Lastly, the Secretary-at-War definitely ceased to be mere secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, and became the civil head of the War Department. In William's time he had taken the field with the King, but from henceforth he stayed at home; while a secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, not yet a military secretary, accompanied the general on active service on a stipend of ten shillings a day. William Blathwayt, who had been Secretary-at-War since the days of Charles the Second, was got rid of, with no disadvantage to the service, and his place was taken by the brilliant but unprofitable Henry St. John.
The force voted by Parliament for the campaign of 1703 consisted, as in the previous year, of eighteen thousand British and twenty-two thousand Germans. There had been much talk of an increase of the Army, and indeed Parliament had agreed to make an augmentation subject to certain conditions to be yielded by the Dutch; but when the session closed no provision had been made for it, and the details required to be settled, as indeed such details generally were, by Marlborough himself. Four new British regiments formed part of the augmentation, and accordingly five new battalions were raised, which, as they were all disbanded subsequently, remain known to us only by the names of their colonels, Gorges, Pearce, Evans, Elliott, and Macartney. Finally, small contingents from a host of petty German states brought the total of mercenaries to twenty-eight thousand, which, added to twenty thousand British, made up a nominal total of fifty thousand men in the pay of England. But none of these additional troops could take the field until late in the campaign.
Such efforts were not confined to the side of the Allies. The French successes to the eastward of the Rhine had encouraged them to projects for a grand campaign, so their army too was increased, and every nerve was strained to make the preparations as complete as possible. The grand army under Villeroy and Boufflers, numbering fifty-four battalions and one hundred and three squadrons, was designed to recapture the strong places on the Meuse and to threaten the Dutch frontier. The frontiers towards Ostend and Antwerp were guarded by flying columns under the Marquis of Bedmar, Count de la Mothe, and the Spanish Count Tserclaes de Tilly. The entire force of the Bourbons in the Low Countries, including garrisons and field-army, included ninety thousand men in infantry alone. With such a force to occupy the Allies in Flanders and with Marshal Tallard to hold Prince Lewis of Baden in check at Stollhofen on the Upper Rhine, Marshal Villars was to push through the Black Forest and join hands with the Elector of Bavaria. Finally, the joint forces of France and Savoy were to advance through the Tyrol to the valley of the Inn and combine with Villars and the Elector for a march on Vienna.
March 6 17 .
May 7 18 .
The design was grand enough in conception; but Marlborough too had formed plans for striking at the enemy in a vital part. A campaign of sieges was not to his mind, for he conceived that to bring his enemy to action and beat him was worth the capture of twenty petty fortresses; and accordingly on his arrival at the Hague he advocated immediate invasion of French Flanders and Brabant. But the project was too bold for the Dutch, whose commanders had changed and changed for the worse. Old Athlone was dead, and in his stead had risen up three new generals—Overkirk, who had few faults except mediocrity and age; Slangenberg, who combined ability with a villainous temper; and Opdam, who was alike cantankerous and incapable. Very reluctantly Marlborough was compelled to undertake the siege of Bonn, he himself commanding the besiegers, while Overkirk handled the covering army. Notwithstanding Dutch procrastination, Marlborough's energy had succeeded in bringing the Allies first into the field; and before Villeroy could strike a blow to hinder it, Bonn had capitulated, and Marlborough had rejoined Overkirk and was ready for active operations in the field.
The Duke now reverted to his original scheme of carrying the war into the heart of Brabant and West Flanders, and with this view ordered every preparation to be made for an attack on Antwerp. Cohorn, the famous engineer, was to distract the French by the capture of Ostend on the west side, a second force was to be concentrated under Opdam at Bergen-op-Zoom to the north, while Marlborough was to hold Villeroy in check in the east until all was ready.
The Duke's own share of the operations was conducted with his usual skill. Pressing back Villeroy into the space between the heads of the Jaar and the Mehaigne he kept him in continual suspense as to whether his design lay eastward or westward, against Huy or against Antwerp. Unfortunately, in an evil hour he imparted to Cohorn that he thought he might manage both. The covetous old engineer had laid his own plans for filling his pockets; and no sooner did he hear of Marlborough's idea of attacking Huy than, fearful lest Villeroy should interrupt his private schemes for making money, he threw the capture of Ostend to the winds, and marched into West Flanders to levy contributions before it should be too late.
June 15 26 .
Still Marlborough was patient. He had hoped for Ostend first and Antwerp afterwards, but a reversal of the arrangement would serve. Cohorn having filled his pockets returned to the east of the Scheldt at Stabrock; Spaar, another Dutch general, took up his position at Hulst; Opdam remained at Bergen-op-Zoom; and thus the three armies lay in wait round the north and west of Antwerp, ready to move forward as soon as Marlborough should come up on the south-east. The Duke did not keep them long waiting. On the night of the 26th of June he suddenly broke up his camp, crossed the Jaar, and made for the bridge over the Demer at Hasselt. Villeroy, his eyes now thoroughly opened, hastened with all speed for Diest in order to be before him; and the two armies raced for Antwerp. The Duke had hastened his army forward on its way by great exertions for six days, when the news reached him that Cohorn, unable to resist the temptation of making a little more money, had made a second raid into West Flanders, leaving Opdam in the air on the other side of the Scheldt. The Dutch were jubilant over Cohorn's supposed success, but Marlborough took a very different view. "If Opdam be not on his guard," he said, "he will be beaten before we can reach him"; and he despatched messengers instantly to give Opdam warning. As usual he was perfectly right. Villeroy hit the blot at once, and detached a force under Boufflers to take advantage of it. Opdam, in spite of Marlborough's warning, took no precautions, and finding himself surprised took to his heels, leaving Slangenberg to save his army. Thus the whole of Marlborough's combinations were broken up.
The quarrels of the Dutch generals among themselves left no hope of success in further operations. Failing to persuade the Dutch to undertake anything but petty sieges he returned to the Meuse, and after the capture of Huy and Limburg closed the campaign. Thus a second year was wasted through the perversity of the Dutch.
Sept. 9 20 .
Meanwhile things had gone ill with the Grand Alliance in other quarters. The King of Portugal had indeed been gained for the Austrian side and had offered troops for active operations in Spain, an event which will presently lead us to the Peninsula. The Duke of Savoy again had been detached from the French party, and the intended march over the Tyrol had been defeated by the valour of the Tyrolese; but elsewhere the French arms had been triumphant. Early in March Villars had seized the fort and bridge of Kehl on the Rhine, had traversed the Black Forest, joined hands with the Elector of Bavaria, and in spite of bitter quarrels with him had won in his company the victory of Hochst?dt. Tallard too, though he took the field but late, had captured Old Brisach on the Upper Rhine, defeated the Prince of Hessen-Cassel at Spires, and recaptured Landau. The communications between the Rhine and the Danube were thus secured, and the march upon Vienna could be counted on for the next year. With her armies defeated in her front, and the Hungarian revolt eating at her vitals from within, the situation of the Empire was well-nigh desperate.
Marlborough, for his part, had made up his mind to resign the command, for he saw no prospect of success while his subordinates systematically disobeyed his orders. "Our want of success," he wrote, "is due to the want of discipline in the army, and until this is remedied I see no prospect of improvement." Nevertheless a short stay in England seems to have restored him to a more contented frame of mind, while even before the close of the campaign he had begun to plan a great stroke for the ensuing year, and to discuss it with the one able general in the Imperial service, Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frail and delicate in constitution, Eugene had originally been destined for the Church, and for a short time had been known as the Abbé of Savoy, but he had early shown a preference for the military profession and had offered his sword first to Lewis the Fourteenth. It was refused. Then Eugene turned to the Imperial Court, and after ten years of active service against Hungarians, Turks, and French, found himself at the age of thirty a field-marshal. At thirty-four he had won the great victory of Zenta against the Turks, and in the War of the Succession had made himself dreaded in Italy by the best of the French marshals. He was now forty years of age, having spent fully half of his life in war, and fully a quarter of it in high command. Marlborough was fifty-three, and until two years before had never commanded an army in chief.
Marlborough's design was nothing less than to commit the Low Countries to the protection of the Dutch, and, leaving the old seat of war with all its armies and fortresses in rear, to carry the campaign into the heart of Germany. The two great captains decided that it could and must be done; but it would be no easy task to persuade the timid States-General and a factious House of Commons to a plan which was bold almost to rashness.
Marlborough began his share of the work in England forthwith. Without dropping a hint of his great scheme he contrived to put some heart into the English ministers, and so into their supporters in Parliament. The Houses met on the 9th of November, and the Commons, after just criticism of the want of concert shown by the Allies, cheerfully voted money and men for the augmented force that had been proposed in the previous session. Then came a new difficulty which had been added to Marlborough's many troubles in the autumn. The treaty lately concluded with Portugal required the despatch of seven thousand troops to the Peninsula; and these it was decided to draw from the best British regiments in the Low Countries. It was therefore necessary to raise one new regiment of dragoons and seven new battalions of foot, a task which was no light one from the increasing difficulty of obtaining recruits.
1704
January 15.
But while the recruiting officers were busily beating their drums, and convicted felons were awaiting the decision which should send them either in a cart to Tyburn or in a transport to the Low Countries, the indefatigable Marlborough crossed the North Sea in the bitterest weather to see how the Dutch preparations were going forward. He found them in a state which caused him sad misgivings for the coming campaign, but he managed to stir up the authorities to increase supplies of men and money, and suggested operations on the Moselle for the next campaign. The same phrase, operations on the Moselle, was passed on to the King of Prussia and to other allies, and was repeated to the Queen and ministers on his return to England. Finally, early in April the Duke embarked for the Low Countries once more in company with his brother Charles, with general instructions in his pocket to concert measures with Holland for the relief of the Emperor.
44675
May 5.
May 7 18 .
Three weeks were then spent in gaining the consent of the States-General to operations on the Moselle, a consent which the Duke only extorted by threatening to march thither with the British troops alone, and in consultation with the solid but slow commander of the Imperial forces, Prince Lewis of Baden. To be quit of Dutch obstruction Marlborough asked only for the auxiliary troops in the pay of the Dutch, and obtained for his brother Charles the rank of General with the command of the British infantry. In the last week of April the British regiments began to stream out of their winter quarters to a bridge that had been thrown over the Meuse at Ruremonde, and a fortnight later sixteen thousand of them made rendezvous at Bedbourgh. Not a man of them knew whither he was bound, for it was only within the last fortnight that the Duke had so much as hinted his destination even to the Emperor or to Prince Lewis of Baden.
It is now time to glance at the enemy, who had entered on the campaign with the highest hopes of success. The dispositions of the French were little altered from those of the previous year. Villeroy with one army lay within the lines of the Mehaigne; Tallard with another army was in the vicinity of Strasburg, his passage of the Rhine secured by the possession of Landau and Old Brisach; and the Count of Coignies was stationed with ten thousand men on the Moselle, ready to act in Flanders or in Germany as occasion might demand. At Ulm lay the Elector of Bavaria and his French allies under Marsin, who had replaced Villars during the winter. The whole of this last force, forty-five thousand men in all, stood ready to march to the head-waters of the Danube, and there unite with the French that should be pushed through the Black Forest to meet it. The Elector, by the operations of the past campaign, had mastered the line of the Danube from its source to Linz within the Austrian frontier; he held also the keys of the country between the Iller and the Inn; and he asked only for a French reinforcement to enable him to march straight on Vienna.
To the passage of this reinforcement there was no obstacle but a weak Imperial force under Prince Lewis of Baden, which made shift to guard the country from Philipsburg southward to Lake Constance. The principal obstruction was certain fortified lines, of which the reader should take note, on the right bank of the Rhine, which ran from Stollhofen south-eastward to Bühl, and, since they covered the entrance into Baden from the north-west, were naturally most jealously guarded by Prince Lewis. From that point southward the most important points were held by weak detachments of regular troops, but a vast extent of the most difficult country was entrusted to raw militia and peasantry. To escort a reinforcement successfully through the defiles from Fribourg to Donaueschingen and to return with the escort in safety was no easy task, but it was adroitly accomplished by Tallard within the space of twelve days. The feat was lauded at the time with ridiculous extravagance, for, apart from the fact that Prince Lewis of Baden was remarkable neither for swiftness nor for vigilance, Tallard had hustled his unhappy recruits forward so unmercifully, along bad roads and in bad weather, that the greater part of them perished by the way. Nevertheless the French had scored the first point of the game and were proportionately elated, while poor Tallard's head was, to his great misfortune, completely turned.
May 8 19 .
Marlborough meanwhile had begun his famous march, the direction lying up the Rhine towards Bonn. On the very day after he started he received urgent messages from Overkirk that Villeroy had crossed the Meuse and was menacing Huy, and from Prince Lewis that Tallard was threatening the lines of Stollhofen, both commanders of course entreating him to return to their assistance. Halting for one day to reassure them, the Duke told Overkirk that Villeroy had no designs against any but himself, and that the sooner reinforcements were sent to join the British the better. Prince Lewis he answered by giving him a rendezvous where his Hessians and Danes might also unite with his own army. This done he continued his march.
May 12 23 .
May 18 29 .
44702
June 1.
May 20 31 .
44704
June 3.
Marlborough's information was good. Villeroy had received strict orders to follow him to the Moselle, the French Court being convinced that he meditated operations in that quarter. The Duke stepped out of his way to inspect Bonn in order to encourage this belief, and then pushed on in all haste to Coblentz with his cavalry only, leaving his brother to follow him with the infantry, while the artillery and baggage was carried up the Rhine to Mainz. Once again all his movements seemed to point to operations on the Moselle, unless indeed (for the French never knew what such a man might do next) he designed to double back down the river for operations near the sea. But wherever he might be going he did not linger, but crossing the Rhine and Moselle pushed constantly forward with his cavalry. Starting always before dawn and bringing his men into camp by noon he granted them no halt until he reached the suburbs of Mainz at Cassel. Here he improved his time by requesting the Landgrave of Hesse to send the artillery, which he had prepared for a campaign on the Moselle, to Mannheim. Again the French were puzzled. Was Alsace, and not the Moselle, to be the scene of the next campaign; and if not, why was the English general bridging the Rhine at Philipsburg, and why was his artillery moving up the river? Tallard moved up to Kehl, crossed to the left bank of the Rhine and took up a position on the Lauter, and Villeroy sent to Flanders for reinforcements; but meanwhile Marlborough had crossed the Main, and still, struggling on by rapid and distressing marches over execrable roads, was within three more days across the Neckar at Ladenburg and out of their reach.
44707
June 6.
44711
June 10.
June 2 13 .
His plans were now manifest enough, but it was too late to catch him. He therefore halted two days by Ladenburg to give orders for the concentration of the troops that were on march to join him from the Rhine, and then striking south-eastward across the great bend of the Neckar, traversed the river for the second time at Lauffen, and by the 10th of June was at Mondelheim. Halting here for three days to allow his infantry to come nearer to him, he was joined by Prince Eugene whom he now met for the first time in the flesh. The Prince inspected the English horse and was astonished at the condition of the troops after their long and trying march. "I have heard much," he said, "of the English cavalry, and find it to be the best appointed and finest that I have ever seen. The spirit which I see in the looks of your men is an earnest of victory." Hither three days later came also a less welcome guest, Prince Lewis of Baden; and the three commanders discussed their plans for the future. Marlborough in vain tried to keep Eugene for his colleague, but it was ultimately decided that Eugene should take command in the lines of Stollhofen, to prevent the French if possible from crossing the Rhine, and to follow them at all hazards if they should succeed in crossing, while Baden should remain on the Danube and share the command of the allied army by alternate days with Marlborough.
June 3 14 .
June 9 20 .
June 11 22 .
Then the march was resumed south-eastward upon Ulm; and after one day's halt to perfect the arrangements for the junction with Prince Louis, the army reached the mountain-chain that bounded the valley of the Danube. The Pass of Geislingen, through which its road lay, could not in the most favourable circumstances be passed by any considerable number of troops in less than a day, and was now rendered almost impracticable by incessant heavy rain. To add to Marlborough's troubles the States-General, learning that Villeroy was astir, became frightened for their own safety and entreated for the return of their auxiliary troops. The Duke, to calm them, ordered boats to be ready to convey forces down the Rhine, and went quietly on with his own preparations, establishing magazines to the north of the Danube, and not forgetting to send a reinforcement of foreign troops to Eugene. At last the news came that Baden's army was come within reach; the British cavalry plunged into the defile, and two days later the junction of the two forces was effected at Ursprung.
June 14 25 .
The joint armies presently advanced to within eight miles of Ulm, whereupon the Elector of Bavaria withdrew to an entrenched camp further down the Danube between Lavingen and Dillingen. The Allies therefore turned northward to await the arrival of the British infantry at Gingen; for Charles Churchill, with the foot and the artillery, had found it difficult to march at great speed in the perpetual pouring rain. His troubles had begun from the moment when Marlborough had gone ahead with the cavalry from Coblentz. The ascent of a single hill in that mountainous country often cost the artillery a whole day's work, and would have cost more but for the indefatigable exertions of the officers. Marlborough's care for the comfort and discipline of these troops was incessant. A large supply of shoes, for instance, was ready at Heidelberg to make good defects, while constant injunctions in his letters to his brother testify to his anxiety that nothing should be omitted to lighten the burden of the march. Finally, anticipating Wellington in the Peninsula, he insisted that the men should pay honestly for everything that they took, and took care to provide money to enable them to do so. Such a thing had never been known in all the innumerable campaigns of Germany.
June 18 29 .
44732
July 1.
The joint armies after the arrival of Churchill amounted to ninety-six battalions, two hundred and two squadrons, and forty-eight guns; but a large contingent of Danish cavalry was still wanting, and not all Marlborough's entreaties could prevail with its commander, the Duke of Würtemberg, to hasten his march. Nevertheless it was necessary to move at once. Marlborough's objective had from the first been Donauw?rth, which would give him at once a bridge over the Danube and a place of arms for the invasion of Bavaria. His move northward had revealed his intentions; and the Elector of Bavaria had detached Count d'Arco with ten thousand foot and twenty-five hundred horse to occupy the Schellenberg, a commanding height which covers Donauw?rth on the north bank of the Danube. Marlborough pressed Baden hard to attack this detachment before it could be reinforced; and accordingly the army broke up from Gingen, and advancing parallel to the Danube encamped on the 1st of July at Amerdingen.
44733
July 2.
The next day was Marlborough's turn for command. It had not yet dawned when Quartermaster-General Cadogan was up and away with a party of cavalry, pioneers, and pontoons. At three o'clock marched six thousand men from the forty-five battalions of the left wing, three regiments of Imperial Grenadiers, and thirty-five squadrons of horse. At five o'clock the rest of the army, excepting the artillery, followed in two columns along the main road towards a height that overhangs the river W?rnitz between Obermorgen and W?rnitzstein. By eight o'clock Cadogan was at Obermorgen, had driven back the enemy's picquets, and was engaged in marking out a camp; and at nine appeared the Duke himself, who, taking Cadogan's escort, went forward to reconnoitre the position.
The Schellenberg, as its name implies, is a bell-shaped hill, some two miles in circumference at the base and with a flat top about half a mile wide, whereon was pitched the enemy's camp. On the south side, where the hill falls down to the Danube, the ascent is steeper than elsewhere; on the north-west the slope is gradual and about five hundred yards in length. To the south-west the hill joins the town of Donauw?rth, from the outworks of which an entrenchment had been carried for nearly two miles round the summit to the river. This defence was strongest and most complete to the north-east, where a wood gave shelter for the formation of an attacking force; and at this point was stationed a battery of cannon. To the north-west the works though incomplete were well advanced, and were strengthened by an old fort wherein the enemy had mounted guns. Marlborough, as he conned the position, could see that the enemy before him was so disposed as if expecting an attack on the northern and western sides. But looking to his right beyond Donauw?rth, and across the Danube, he could see preparations of a more ominous kind, a camp with tents pitched on both wings and a blank space in the centre, sure sign that cavalry was already present and that infantry was expected. Closer and closer he drew to the hill, Prince Lewis and others presently joining him; and then puffs of white smoke began to shoot out from various points in the enemy's works as his batteries opened fire.
Finishing his survey undisturbed, Marlborough turned back to meet the advanced detachment of the army; for it was plain to him that the Schellenberg must be carried at once before more of the enemy's troops could reach it. So bad, however, was the state of the roads, that though the distance was but twelve miles, the detachment did not reach the W?rnitz until noon. It was then halted to give the men rest, for there were still three miles of bad road before them, and to allow the main body to come up. The cavalry was sent forward to cut fascines in the wood, pontoon bridges were thrown across the W?rnitz, and at three o'clock the advanced detachment passed the river. While this was going forward a letter arrived from Eugene that Villeroy and Tallard were preparing to send strong reinforcements to the Elector; and this intelligence decided Marlborough to take the work in hand forthwith. Without waiting for the rear of the main body to arrive he drew out sixteen battalions only, five of them British, and led them and the advanced detachment straight on to the attack. The infantry of the detachment was formed in four lines, the English being on the extreme left by the edge of the wood, and the cavalry was drawn up in two lines behind them. Eight battalions more were detailed to support the detachment or to deploy to its right if need should be, and yet eight more were held in reserve.
It was six o'clock in the evening before Marlborough gave the order to attack. Every foot-soldier took a fascine from the cavalry, and the columns, headed by two parties of grenadiers from the First Guards under Lord Mordaunt and Colonel Munden, marched steadily up the hill. The hostile batteries at once opened a cross-fire of round shot from the intrenchment and from the walls of Donauw?rth, but the columns pressed on unheeding to within eighty yards of the intrenchment before they fired a shot. Then the enemy continued the fire with musketry and grape, and the slaughter became frightful. The grenadiers of the Guards fell down right and left, and very soon few of them were left. Still Mordaunt and Munden, the one with his skirts torn to shreds and the other with his hat riddled by bullets, stood up unhurt and kept cheering them on. General Goor, a gallant foreigner who commanded the attack, was shot dead, and many other officers fell with him under that terrible fire. The columns staggered, wavered, recovered, and went on. But now came an unlucky accident. In front of the intrenchment ran a hollow way worn in the hill by rain, into which the foremost men, mistaking it for the intrenchment, threw down their fascines, so that on reaching the actual lines they found themselves unable to cross them. Thus checked they suffered so heavily that they began to give way; and the enemy rushed out rejoicing to finish the defeat with the bayonet. But the English Guards, though they had suffered terribly, stood immovable as rocks, the Royal Scots and the Welshmen of the Twenty-third stood by them, and the counter-attack after desperate fighting was beaten back.
Meanwhile the enemy, finding the western face of the hill unthreatened, withdrew the whole of their force from thence to the point of assault. Their fire increased; the attacking columns wavered once more, and General Lumley was obliged to move up the entire first line of cavalry into the thick of the fire to support them. So the fight swayed for another half-hour, when the remainder of the Imperial army at last appeared on Marlborough's right, and finding the intrenchments deserted passed over them at once with trifling loss. Repulsing a charge of cavalry which was launched against them, they hurried on and came full on the flank of the French and Bavarians; yet even so this gallant enemy would not give way, and the allied infantry still failed to carry the intrenchment. Lumley now ordered the Scots Greys to dismount and attack on foot; but before they could advance the infantry by a final effort at last forced their way in. Then the Greys remounted with all haste and galloped forward to the pursuit, while Marlborough, halting the exhausted foot, sent the rest of the cavalry to join the Greys. The rout was now complete. Hundreds of men were cut off before they could reach Donauw?rth, many were driven into the Danube, many more, flying to a temporary bridge to cross the river, broke it down by their weight and miserably perished. Of twelve thousand men not more than one-fourth rejoined the Elector's army.
To face page 426
SCHELLENBERG
June 21st July 2nd 1704
The whole affair had lasted little more than an hour and a half, but the loss of the Allies in overcoming so gallant a defence cost them no fewer than fourteen hundred killed and three thousand eight hundred wounded. The losses of the British were very heavy, amounting to fifteen hundred of all ranks, or probably more than a third of the numbers engaged. The First Guards, Royal Scots, and the Twenty-third suffered most severely, every battalion of them having lost two hundred men or more, while the Guards at the close of the day could count but five officers unhurt out of seventeen. Of these five, wonderful to say, were Mordaunt and Munden, the one with three bullets through his clothes, the other with five through his hat, but neither of them scratched; but of eighty-two men whom they led to the assault only twenty-one returned. When it is remembered that the main body had been on foot fourteen hours, and the advanced detachment for sixteen hours, the exhaustion of the troops at the end of the day may be imagined. Nevertheless Donauw?rth was taken and the enemy was not only beaten but demoralised.
July 11 22 .
The Elector of Bavaria on hearing the news broke down the bridge over the Lech, and entrenched himself at Augsburg. Marlborough on his part crossed the Danube, and set himself to cut off the Elector's supplies. The passage of the Danube he severed at Donauw?rth, the road to the north by the capture of Rain, and that to the north-east by an advance south-eastward to Aichach, from which he presently moved on to Friedberg, hemming his enemy tightly into his entrenched camp. The Elector was at first inclined to come to terms, but hearing that the French were about to reinforce him he thought himself bound in honour to hold out. Marlborough was therefore compelled to put pressure on him by ravaging the country, a work which his letters show that he detested but felt obliged in duty to perform. The destruction was carried to the very walls of Munich; indeed, nothing but want of artillery, for which Prince Lewis of Baden was responsible, prevented an attack upon the city itself. The prospect of the arrival of a French army gave the Duke little disquiet: if Bavaria were to become the seat of war, so much the worse for Bavaria and for the cause of the Bourbons. So after sending thirty squadrons to reinforce Eugene, he prepared in the interim for the siege of Ingolstadt, which would give him command of the Danube from Ulm to Passau, and free access at all times into Bavaria. The Elector's country should feel the stress of war at any rate, and if fortune were propitious the French might feel it also. It is now time to return to the movements of those French.
44710
June 9.
44733
July 2.
July 5-10 16-21 .
44765
August 3.
We left Villeroy with his army in the Low Countries endeavouring not very successfully to obey the orders which he had received, to watch Marlborough. On the 29th of May, when the Duke had already crossed the Neckar and fixed his quarters at Mondelheim, Villeroy was still at Landau waiting for him to repass the Rhine. On the following day, however, he took counsel with Tallard, with the result that, while Marlborough was marching to the attack of the Schellenberg the French armies were streaming across the Rhine at Kehl. Tallard then moved south towards Fribourg, close to which he received intelligence of the Elector's defeat. Thereupon both he and Villeroy entered the defiles of the Black Forest, uniting at Horneberg, from which point Tallard pushed on eastward alone. Advancing to Villingen he wasted five precious days in an unsuccessful effort to take that town, a mistake which was not lost on Marlborough and Eugene. Called to his senses by an urgent message from the Elector, Tallard at last marched on by the south bank of the Danube, encamped before Augsburg on the 23rd of July, and three days later effected his junction with the Elector and Marsin a few miles to the north of the city.
44768
August 6.
Tallard was no sooner fairly on his way than Eugene, leaving a small garrison to hold the lines of Stollhofen, hurried on parallel with him along the north bank of the Danube, reaching Hochst?dt on the day of the enemy's junction at Augsburg. Marlborough meanwhile, at the news of Tallard's arrival, had fallen back northward in the direction of Neuburg on the Danube, and was lying at Schobenhausen some twelve miles to the south of the river. Hither came Eugene from Hochst?dt to concert operations. The French and Bavarians were united to the south of the Danube; the Allies were divided on both sides of the river. If Marlborough fell back to Neuburg to join Eugene, the enemy could pass the Lech and enter Bavaria; if Eugene crossed the river to join Marlborough the enemy could pass to the north of the river and cut them off from Franconia, their only possible source of supplies. It was agreed that Prince Lewis of Baden should be detached with fifteen thousand men for the siege of Ingolstadt; and, as it was reported that the French were moving towards the Danube, Marlborough advanced closer to the river, so as to be able to cross it either at Neuburg or by the bridges which he had thrown over it by the mouth of the Lech at Merxheim.
44771
August 9.
44772
August 10.
44773
August 11.
On the 9th of August Prince Lewis marched off to Ingolstadt, to the unspeakable relief of his colleagues, and Eugene took his leave. Two hours later, however, Eugene hurried back to report that the French were in full march to the bridge of Dillingen, evidently intending to cross the river and overwhelm his army. The Prince hastened back and withdrew his army eastward from Hochst?dt to the Kessel. Marlborough, on his side, at midnight sent three thousand cavalry over the Danube to reinforce him, while twenty battalions under Churchill followed them as far as the bridge of Merxheim, with orders to halt on the south bank of the river. Next morning the Duke brought the whole of the army up to Rain, within a league of the Danube, where he received fresh messages from Eugene urging him to hasten to his assistance. At midnight Churchill received his orders to pass the river and march for the Kessel, and two hours later the whole army moved off in two columns, one to cross the Danube at Merxheim, the other to traverse the Lech at Rain and the Danube at Donauw?rth. At five on the same afternoon the whole of them were filing across the W?rnitz; by ten that night the junction was complete, and the united armies encamped on the Kessel, their right resting on Kessel-Ostheim, their left on the village of Munster and the Danube. Row's brigade of British was pushed forward to occupy Munster; and then the wearied troops lay down to rest. The main body had been on foot for twenty hours, though it had covered no more than twenty-four miles. Both columns had passed the Danube and the W?rnitz, and the left column the Ach and the Lech in addition. It is easy to imagine how long and how trying such a march must have been; it is less easy to appreciate the foresight and arrangement which enabled it to be performed at all.
August 1 12 .
The artillery, which had perforce been left to come up in the rear of the army, was by great exertions brought up at dawn on the following morning. A little later the Duke and Eugene rode forward with a strong escort to reconnoitre the ground before them, but perceiving the enemy's cavalry at a distance, ascended the church-tower of Tapfheim, from whence they descried the French quartermasters marking out a camp between Blenheim and Lutzingen, some three or four miles away. This was the very ground that they had designed to take up themselves, and it was with no small satisfaction that they perceived it to be occupied by the enemy. The French and Bavarian commanders had decided, after their junction on the Lech, that their best policy would be to cross the Danube, take up a strong position, and wait until want of supplies, by which Marlborough had already been greatly embarrassed, should compel the Allies to withdraw from the country. Tallard had no idea of offering battle; Marlborough indeed did not expect it of him, and had not dared to hope that the marshal would allow an action to be forced on him. But now that he had the chance, the Duke resolved not to let it slip. Men were not wanting to urge upon him the dangers of an attack on a superior force. "I know the difficulties," he answered, "but a battle is absolutely necessary, and I rely on the discipline of my troops."
The two camps lay some five miles apart, the ground between them consisting of a plain of varying breadth confined between a chain of woods and the Danube. This plain is cut by a succession of streams running down at right angles to the Danube, no fewer than three crossing the line of the march between the Kessel and the French position. The first of these, the Reichen, cuts a ravine through which the road passed close to the village of Dapfheim; and Marlborough, seeing that at this point the enemy could greatly embarrass his advance, sent forward pioneers to level the ravine, and occupied the village with two brigades of British and Hessian infantry.
Meanwhile the enemy entered their camp, Tallard taking up his quarters on the right, Marsin in the centre, and the Elector of Bavaria on the left. Tallard's force consisted of thirty-six battalions and forty-four squadrons of the best troops of France, his colleague's of forty-six battalions and one hundred and eight squadrons; yet notwithstanding this unequal distribution of the cavalry, the force was encamped not as one army but as two. The rule that infantry should be massed in the centre and the cavalry divided on each wing was followed, not for the entire host, but for each army independently. Thus the centre was made up of the cavalry of both armies without unity of command; the infantry was distributed on each flank of it; and on each flank of the infantry was yet another body of cavalry. Yet it was an axiom in those days that an army which ran the least risk of an engagement should be encamped as nearly as possible according to the probable disposition for action. This violation of rules was not unperceived by Marlborough.
The camp itself was situated at the top of an almost imperceptible slope, which descends for a mile, without affording the slightest cover, to a brook called the Nebel. Its right rested on the village of Blenheim, little more than a furlong from the Danube; and here were Tallard's headquarters. The village having an extended front, and being covered by hedges and palisades, could easily be converted into a strong position. Half a mile above it a little boggy rivulet, called the Maulweyer, which was destined to play an important part in the next day's work, rises and flows down through the village to the Danube. About two miles up the Nebel from Blenheim, but on the opposite or left bank of the stream, stands the village of Unterglau; and a mile above this, on the same side of the stream as Blenheim, and about a hundred yards from the water, is another village called Oberglau. This Oberglau was the centre of the position, and Marsin's headquarters. A mile upward from Oberglau is another village, Lutzingen, resting on wooded country much broken by ravines. Here were the Elector's headquarters and the extreme left of the enemy's position. The Nebel, though no more than four yards broad at its mouth, was a troublesome obstacle, its borders being marshy, especially between Oberglau and Blenheim, and in many places impassable. Below Unterglau this swampy margin extended for a considerable breadth, while opposite Blenheim the stream parted in twain and flowed on each side of a small boggy islet. At the head of this islet was a stone bridge, over which ran the great road from Donauw?rth to Dillingen. This had been broken down, or at least damaged, by Tallard; but herewith had ended his measures for obstructing the passage of the Nebel.
August 2 13 .
At two o'clock on the morrow morning, amid dense white mist, the army of the Allies broke up its camp, and passed the Kessel in eight columns, the two outermost on each flank consisting of cavalry, the four innermost of infantry. For this day the stereotyped formation was to be reversed; the cavalry was to form the centre and the infantry the wings. On reaching Tapfheim the army halted, and the two outlying brigades, reinforced by eleven more battalions as well as by cavalry, formed a ninth column on the extreme left, to cover the march of the artillery along the great road and in due time to attack Blenheim. The new column was conspicuous from the red-coats of fourteen British battalions, with Cutts the Salamander at its head.
Then Marlborough, who commanded on the left, directed his generals to occupy the ground from the Danube to Oberglau, while Eugene's should prolong the line from Oberglau upwards to Lutzingen. The columns resumed the advance, spreading out like the sticks of a fan, wider and wider, as the Imperial troops streamed away to their appointed positions on the right. Fifty-two thousand men in all were tramping forward, and fifty-two guns groaning and creaking after them. Far in advance of all Marlborough and Eugene pushed on with a strong escort. At six o'clock they met and drove back the French advanced posts, and at seven they were on high ground within a mile of the Nebel and in full view of the enemy's camp.
Meanwhile Marshal Tallard was taking things at his ease, and had dispersed his cavalry to gather forage. Even while his vedettes were falling back before Marlborough's escort, he was calmly writing that the enemy had turned out early and was almost certainly on the march for N?rdlingen. The morning was foggy, no uncommon thing on the banks of great and marshy rivers, and a dangerous enemy was within striking distance; yet no precautions had been taken against surprise. Then at seven o'clock the fog rolled away, and there, in great streaks of blue and white and scarlet, were the allied columns in full view, preparing to deploy on the other side of the Nebel. Presently the village of Unterglau and two mills farther down the stream burst into smoke and flame, and the outlying posts of the French came hurrying back across the stream. Then all was hurry and confusion in the French camp. Staff-officers flew off in all directions with orders, signal-guns brought the foragers galloping back, drums beat the assembly from end to end of the line, and the troops fell in hastily before their tents.
Tallard's eyesight was very defective, but he had no difficulty in making out the red coats of Cutts's column, and he knew by this time that where the British were, there the heaviest fighting was to be expected. He therefore lost no time in occupying Blenheim. Four regiments of French dragoons trotted down to seal up the space between the village and the Danube, and presently almost the entire mass of the infantry faced to the right, and the white coats began striding away towards Blenheim itself. Eight squadrons of horse in scarlet, easily recognisable by Marlborough as the Gendarmerie, began Tallard's first line leftward from the village, and other squadrons presently prolonged it to Marsin's right wing. More cavalry supported these in a second line, together with nine battalions, which, being raw regiments, were not trusted to stand in the first line. Then the artillery came forward into position, ninety pieces in all, French and Bavarian. Four twenty-four pounders were posted before Blenheim, while a chain of batteries covered the line from end to end.
These dispositions completed, Tallard galloped off to the left, for Marsin had never yet commanded more than five hundred men in the field. Marsin's cavalry was already drawn up in two lines; his infantry and the Elector's was in rear of Oberglau and to the left of it, and the village itself was strongly occupied. Beyond this the left wing of cavalry stood in front of Lutzingen, and beyond them again a few battalions doubled back en potence protected the Elector's extreme left flank.
Marlborough on his side was equally busy. Blenheim and Oberglau were, as he saw, too far apart to cover the whole of the intervening ground with a cross-fire, and the French cavalry on the slope above were too remote to bar the passage of the Nebel. Officers were sent down to sound the stream, the stone bridge was repaired, and five pontoon bridges were laid, one above Unterglau, the rest below it. Cutts formed his column into six lines, the first of Row's British brigade, the second of Hessians, the third of Ferguson's British brigade, and the fourth of Hanoverians, with two more lines in reserve. The four remaining columns of Marlborough's army were deployed between Wilheim and Oberglau in four lines, the first and fourth of infantry, with two lines of cavalry between them. The French esteemed this a "bizarre" formation, but they understood its purport before the day was over.
At eight o'clock Tallard's batteries opened fire, though with little effect. Eugene thereupon took leave of Marlborough and hurried away to the right, while the Duke occupied himself with the posting of his artillery, every gun of which was stationed under his own eye. The chaplains came forward to the heads of the regiments and read prayers; and then the Duke mounted and rode down the whole length of his line. As he passed a round shot struck the ground under his horse and covered him with dust. For a moment every man held his breath, but in a few seconds the calm figure with the red coat and the broad blue ribbon reappeared, the horse moving slowly and quietly as before, and the handsome face unchangeably serene.
The inspection over, the Duke dismounted and waited till Eugene should be ready. The delay was long, and messenger after messenger was despatched to ask the cause. The answer came that the ground on the right was so much broken by wood and ravine that the columns had been compelled to make a long detour, and that formation had been hampered by the fire of the enemy's artillery as well as by the necessity for altering preconcerted dispositions. Marlborough waited with impatience, for, whether he hoped to carry Blenheim or not, every hour served to place it in a better state of defence. The French dragoons by the river had entrenched themselves behind a leaguer of waggons, and the infantry in the village had turned every wall and hedge and house to good account. Moreover Marlborough had seen how strong the garrison of Blenheim was, having probably counted every one of the twenty-seven battalions into it, and identified them by their colours as the finest in the French army.
At last, at half-past twelve, an aide-de-camp galloped up from Eugene to say that all was ready. Cutts was instantly ordered to attack Blenheim, while the Duke moved down towards the bridges over the Nebel. By one o'clock Cutts's two leading lines were crossing the stream by the ruins of the burnt mills under a heavy fire of grape. On reaching the other side they halted to reform under shelter of a slip of rising ground. There the Hessians remained in reserve; and the First Guards, Tenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth, with Brigadier Row on foot at their head, advanced deliberately against Blenheim. They were received at thirty paces distance by a deadly fire from the French, but Row's orders were, that until he struck the palisades not a shot must be fired, and that the village must be carried with the steel. The British pressed resolutely on, Row struck his sword into the palisades, and the men pouring in their volley rushed forward, striving to drag down the pales by main strength in the vain endeavour to force an entrance. In a few minutes a third of the brigade had fallen, Row was mortally wounded, his lieutenant-colonel and major were killed in the attempt to bring him off, and the first line, shattered to pieces against a superior force in a very strong position, fell back in disorder. As they retired, three squadrons of the Gendarmerie swept down upon their flank and seized the colours of the Twenty-first, but pursuing their advantage too far were brought up by the Hessians, who repulsed them with great gallantry and recaptured the colours.
Cutts observing more of the Gendarmerie preparing to renew the attack asked for a reinforcement of cavalry to protect his flank, whereupon five English squadrons were ordered by General Lumley to cross the Nebel. Floundering with the greatest difficulty through the swamp, these were immediately confronted by the Gendarmerie, who, however, with astonishing feebleness opened a fire of musketoons from the saddle. The English promptly charged them sword in hand and put them to flight, but pursuing as usual too far were galled by the flank fire from Blenheim and compelled to retire.
Cutts's two remaining lines now crossed the Nebel for a fresh attack on Blenheim. The enemy had by this time brought forward more artillery to sweep the fords with grape-shot, but the British made good their footing on the opposite bank and compelled the guns to retire. Then Ferguson's brigade advanced together with Row's against the village once more, carried the outskirts, but could penetrate no further in spite of several desperate attacks, and were finally obliged to fall back with very heavy loss. The subordinate generals would have thrown away more lives had not Marlborough given orders that the regiments should take up a sheltered position and keep up a feigned attack by constant fire of platoons. Then, withdrawing the Hanoverian brigade to the infantry of the centre, the Duke turned the whole of his attention to that quarter.
During these futile attacks on Blenheim, the four lines of Marlborough's main army were struggling with much difficulty across the Nebel. The first line of infantry passed first, and drew up at intervals to cover the passage of the cavalry; while eleven battalions, under the Prince of Holstein-Beck, were detached to carry the village of Oberglau. Then the cavalry filed down to the stream, using fascines and every other means that they could devise to help them through the treacherous miry ground. The British cavalry had the hardest of the work, being on the extreme left, and therefore not only confronted with the worst of the ground, but exposed to the fire of the artillery at Blenheim. With immense difficulty the squadrons extricated themselves and, with horses blown and heated, was forming up in front of the infantry, when the squadrons of the French right, fresh and favoured by the ground, came down full upon them. The first line of the British was borne back to the very edge of the stream, but the pursuit was checked by the fire of the infantry. Then the Prussian General Bothmar fell upon the disordered French with the second line of cavalry, and drove them in confusion behind the Maulweyer. Reinforced by additional squadrons he held the line of the rivulet and kept them penned in behind it, for the French could not cross it, and dared not pass round the head of it for fear of being charged in flank. It was not until two battalions had been sent from Blenheim to ply the allied squadrons with musketry that Bothmar retired, and some, but not all, of the French cavalry on this side was released.
Meanwhile General Lumley had rallied his broken troops, and the squadrons further to the right had successfully crossed the Nebel. Still further up the water the Danish and Hanoverian cavalry had been put to the same trial as the British, being exposed to the fire from Oberglau and to the charges of Marsin's horse. While the combat was still swaying at this point the Prince of Holstein-Beck delivered his attack on Oberglau. He was instantly met by a fierce counterattack from the Irish Brigade, which was stationed in the village. His two foremost battalions were cut to pieces, he himself was mortally wounded, and affairs would have gone ill had not Marlborough hastened up with fresh infantry and artillery, and forced the enemy back into Oberglau. Thus the passage for the central line of the allied cavalry was secured.
It was now three o'clock; and Marlborough sent an aide-de-camp to Eugene to ask how things fared with him. The Prince was holding his own and no more. His infantry had behaved admirably, but his horse had supported them but ill; and three consecutive attacks though brilliantly begun had ended in failure. The fact was that the Elector, with better judgment than Tallard, had moved his troops down towards the water, and was straining every nerve to prevent his enemy from crossing. Meanwhile Marlborough, having at last brought the whole of his force across the Nebel, formed the cavalry in two grand lines for the final attack, the infantry being ranged at intervals to the left rear as rallying-points for any broken squadron. Tallard, on his side, brought forward the nine battalions of his centre from the second line to the first, a disposition which was met by Marlborough by the advance of three Hanoverian battalions and a battery of artillery. For a time these young French infantry stood firm against the rain of great and small shot, closing up their ranks as fast as they were broken; but the trial was too severe for them. Tallard strove hard to relieve them by a charge of the squadrons on their left, but his cavalry would not move; and Marlborough's horse crashed into the hapless battalions, cut them down by whole ranks, and swept them out of existence.
Then Tallard's sins found him out. The cavalry of Marsin's right, seeing their flank exposed, swerved back upon Marsin's centre; a wide gap was cut in the French line; and Tallard's army was left isolated and alone. The marshal sent urgent messages to Marsin for reinforcements, and to Blenheim for the withdrawal of the infantry; but Marsin could not spare a man, and the order reached Blenheim too late. Marlborough was riding along the ranks of his cavalry from right to left, and presently the trumpets sounded the charge, and the two long lines swept sword in hand up the slope. The French stood firm for a brief space, and then, after a feeble volley from the saddle, they broke, wheeled round upon their supports, and carried all away with them in confusion. Thirty squadrons fled wildly in rear of Blenheim towards the river. General Hompesch's division of horse by the Duke's order brought up their right shoulders and galloped after them; and the fugitives in panic madness plunged down the slope towards the Danube. The great river was before them, another stream and a swamp to their right; and there was no escape. Some dashed into the water and tried to swim away, others crept along the bank and over the morass towards Hochst?dt, others again broke back over the slope towards Morselingen; but the relentless Hompesch left them no rest. Those that reached Hochst?dt found themselves cut off, for another division of fugitives had fled thither straight from the field with Marlborough himself hard at their heels. Hundreds were drowned, hundreds were cut down, and a vast number taken prisoners. A few only preserving some semblance of order made good their retreat.
Meanwhile Marsin and the Elector, seeing the collapse of Tallard's army, set fire to Oberglau and Lutzingen, and began their retreat, with Eugene in full march after them. Marlborough thereupon recalled Hompesch and prepared to break up this army also by a flank attack; but in the dusk Eugene's troops were mistaken for the enemy, so Marsin was permitted to escape, though with an army much shaken and demoralised. But there were still the French battalions in Blenheim, which Churchill, after the defeat of Tallard's cavalry, had made haste to envelope with his infantry and dragoons. Tallard had been captured while on his way to them, and the finest troops of France were locked up in the village without orders of any kind, helpless and inactive, and too much crowded together for effective action. At last they tried to break out to the rear of the village, but were headed back by the Scots Greys; they made another attempt on the other side, and were checked by the Irish Dragoons. Churchill was just about to attack them with infantry and artillery in overwhelming force, when the French proposed a parley. Churchill would hear of nothing but unconditional surrender. Regiment Navarre in shame and indignation burnt its colours rather than yield them, but there was no help for it; and twenty-four battalions of infantry together with four regiments of dragoons laid down their arms, many of them not having fired a shot. The officers were stupefied by their misfortune, and could only ejaculate "Oh, que dira le Roi, que dira le Roi!" Seldom has harder fate overtaken brave men.
The day was closing when Marlborough borrowed a leaf from a commissary's pocket-book and wrote a note in pencil to his wife, the message and the handwriting both those of a man who is quite tired out.
"13th August 1704. 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, Monsr. 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 pass'd. I shall doe it in a day or two by another more at large.
"Marlborough.
So Colonel Parke galloped away with the news to England, and the broad Danube bore the same tale to the east as it rolled the white-coated corpses in silence towards the sea.
To face page 442
BLENHEIM
Aug. 2nd 13th 1704
The total loss of the Allies amounted to four thousand five hundred killed and seven thousand five hundred wounded, of which the British numbered six hundred and seventy killed and over fifteen hundred wounded. No regimental list of the casualties seems to exist, but judging from their loss in officers the Tenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-sixth regiments of Foot, and the Third, Sixth, and Seventh Dragoon Guards were the corps that suffered most severely—the Twenty-sixth in particular losing twenty officers, the Carabiniers ten officers and seventy-four horses, and the Seventh Dragoon Guards six officers and seventy-five horses. But most remarkable, and perhaps most splendid of all, is the record of the regiments which had been so terribly shattered at the Schellenberg. The Guards lost their colonel and seven other officers; the two battalions of the Royal Scots lost twelve, and the Twenty-third nine officers, notwithstanding that the former had already lost thirty and the latter sixteen little more than a month before. Troops that will stand such punishment as this twice within a few weeks are not to be found in every army.
The losses of the French and their allies in killed, wounded, and prisoners, on the day of the battle and during the subsequent pursuit, fell little short of forty thousand men. Marlborough and Eugene divided eleven thousand prisoners, while the trophies included one hundred guns of various calibres, twenty-four mortars, one hundred and twenty-nine colours, one hundred and seventy-one standards and other less important items, together, of course, with the whole of the French camp.
August 3 14 .
The Allies lay on their arms on the field during the night after the battle, moved on for a short march on the morrow, and then halted for four days. The troops were very greatly fatigued, and Marlborough was much embarrassed by the multitude of his prisoners, so the pursuit, if pursuit it can be called, was left to the hussars of the Imperial Army. The Elector, however, needed no spur. On the night of the battle he crossed the Danube at Lavingen, and destroying the bridge behind him hurried back toward Ulm. Then, without pausing for a moment or attempting to obtain aid from Villeroy, he hastened on by forced marches, rather in flight than retreat, through the Black Forest to the Rhine. The sufferings of his troops were terrible. He had carried with him a thousand wounded officers and six thousand wounded men; and there was not a village on the line of march that had not its churchyard choked with the graves of those that had succumbed. The Imperial hussars too hung restlessly round his skirts, cutting off every straggler and bringing back multitudes of prisoners and deserters. Altogether it was a disastrous retreat.
August 8 19 .
44801
Sept. 8.
On the 19th of August Marlborough resumed his march up the Danube, having first recalled Prince Lewis of Baden from Ingolstadt, and occupied Augsburg. On arrival at Ulm a force was detached to besiege the town, while the main army marched back in three columns by the line of its original advance. By the 8th of September the whole force, strengthened by a reinforcement from Stollhofen, had crossed the Rhine and was concentrated at Philipsburg.
Sept. 5 16 .
Nov. 12 23 .
Villeroy, who with his own army and the remains of the Elector's had taken post in the Queich to cover Landau, now fell back without pausing to the Lauter, very much to the relief of Marlborough, who found it difficult to understand such feebleness even after such a defeat as that of Blenheim. Landau was accordingly invested by Prince Lewis of Baden, while Marlborough and Eugene covered the operations. The siege lasted long, and in October Marlborough, weary of such slow work, made a sudden spring upon Treves, gave orders for the siege of Trarbach, and so secured his winter quarters on the Moselle. The fall of Trarbach and the capture of Landau closed the campaign; and the occupation of Consaarbrück at the confluence of the Moselle and Saar showed what was to be the starting-point for the next year. A full week before the fall of Landau the English troops, so much weakened that their fourteen battalions had been temporarily reorganised into seven, were sent into winter quarters for the rest that they had earned so well.
Thus ended the famous campaign of Blenheim, a name which is rightly grouped with Cre?y, Poitiers, Agincourt, and Waterloo. For well-nigh forty years the French arms had triumphed in every quarter of Europe, checked indeed by an occasional reverse, such as that of Namur, but by no failure that could be counted against the long succession of victories. But now an English general had rudely broken the chain of successes by a crushing defeat, with every circumstance of humiliation. First, the French marshals had been wholly outwitted by Marlborough's march to the Danube. Next, when they approached him it was without an idea of offering battle, but in full confidence that their man?uvres, added to their superior numbers, would compel him to withdraw. Yet to their astonishment the despised enemy had attacked them without hesitation, utterly destroyed one complete army and driven the relics of another in headlong flight to the Rhine. The dismay in Paris was profound; but mighty was the exultation in England, for the nation felt that the old traditions were right after all, and that the English were still better men than the French. "Welcome to England, Sir," said an English butcher to Tallard, as the captured marshal was escorted with every mark of respect into Nottingham. "Welcome to England. I hope to see your master here next year." It was the revival of this feeling in all its old intensity, after a pause of nearly three centuries, that was to win for England her empire in East and West.
Yet amid all the noise of triumph and jubilation there were two men who preserved their modesty and tranquillity unmoved; and these were Marlborough and Eugene. Each quietly disclaimed credit for himself, each eagerly welcomed praise for the other. The French prisoners were comforted by Eugene's testimony to their gallant resistance to his own army, while even the unfortunate officers who had been swept into the net in the village of Blenheim found consolation in the thoughtful and generous courtesy of the great Duke.
Our attention is now claimed for a time by the Peninsula, where the War of the Spanish Succession was to be carried forward on Spanish soil. In January 1704 the Imperial claimant to the throne, the Archduke Charles of Austria, otherwise King Charles the Third of Spain, arrived in England, and was sent away with an English fleet and an English army to possess himself of his kingdom. Portugal had offered to help him with twenty-eight thousand men, to which the Dutch had added two thousand under General Fagel, and the British six thousand five hundred men, under Mainhard, Duke of Schomberg, a son of the old marshal. The campaign of 1704 need not detain us. It was speedily found that the Portuguese army was ill-equipped and inefficient, the magazines empty, the fortresses in ruins, the transport not in existence. To add to these shortcomings, Schomberg and Fagel quarrelled so bitterly that they went off, each with his own troops, in two different directions.
The result might have been foreseen. King Philip, sometime Duke of Anjou, and the Duke of Berwick with twelve thousand French, marched down to the fortresses on the Portuguese frontier, and took them one after another without difficulty. So ready and eager were the Portuguese to surrender these strongholds that they made over not only themselves as prisoners of war, but also to their extreme indignation two British regiments, the Ninth and Eleventh Foot, which had the misfortune to be in garrison with them. Marlborough, in all the press of his work on the Danube, was called upon to nominate a successor to the incompetent Schomberg and selected the Huguenot Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, for the post. With this appointment we may for the present take leave of the Peninsula.
44768
August 6.
Meanwhile, however, the fleet under Sir George Rooke, and a handful of marines under Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, brought a new and unexpected possession to England by the surprise of Gibraltar, which, though captured for King Charles the Third, was kept for Queen Anne. The intrinsic value of the Rock in those days was small, and its value as a military position was little understood in England; but it was at any rate a capture and very soon it became a centre of sentiment.
Sept. 23
October 4.
After the surrender of Gibraltar the fleet sailed away, leaving Prince George with a good store of provisions and about two thousand men to hold it. These troops, though now numbered the Fourth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second of the Line, were at that time Marines, a corps which, despite brilliant and incessant service by sea and land in all parts of the world, still contents itself with the outward record of a single name, Gibraltar. Prince George lost no time in repairing the fortifications, and with good reason, for at the end of August a Spanish force of eight thousand men marched down to the isthmus, while a month later four thousand Frenchmen were disembarked at the head of the bay. These joint forces then began the siege of Gibraltar.
December.
The operations were pushed forward with great vigour, and the besieged were soon hard beset. At the end of October Admiral Leake contrived to throw stores and a couple of hundred men on to the Rock, together with an officer of engineers, one Captain Joseph Bennett, whose energy and ability were of priceless value. The siege dragged on for another month, the British repulsing an attack from the eastern side with heavy loss; but by the end of November the garrison had dwindled to one thousand men, exhausted by the fatigue of incessant duty. At last, in the middle of December a stronger reinforcement of two thousand men, having first narrowly escaped capture by a French fleet, was successfully landed on the Rock; and then Prince George turned upon the besiegers, and by a succession of brilliant sorties almost paralysed further progress on their side.
1705
Jan. 27
Feb. 7.
In the middle of January, however, a reinforcement of four thousand men reached the enemy's camp; their batteries renewed their fire, and a great breach was made in the Round Tower, which formed one of the principal defences on the western side. On the morning of the 27th an assault was delivered, and thirteen hundred men swarmed up to the attack of the Round Tower. They were met by a brave resistance by one-fifth of their number of British, but after a severe struggle they overpowered them, drove them out, and pressed on to gain possession of a gate leading into the main fortress. There, however, they were checked by a handful of Seymour's Marines, just seventeen men, under Captain Fisher. Few though they were, this gallant little band held its own, until the arrival of some of the Thirteenth and of the Coldstream Guards enabled them to force the enemy back and drive them headlong out of the Round Tower.
March 10 21 .
This brilliant little affair marked practically the close of the siege. Further reinforcements arrived for the garrison, and Marshal Tessé, who had taken command of the siege, fell back on the bombardment of the town, which was speedily laid in ruins. The advent of a French squadron seemed likely at one moment to hearten the besiegers to renewed efforts, but Bennett, who ever since his arrival had been the soul of the defence, had by that time constructed fresh batteries and was fully prepared. Finally, in March Admiral Leake's fleet appeared on the scene, destroyed a third of the French squadron, and definitely relieved the fortress. By the middle of April the last of the Frenchmen had disappeared and Gibraltar was safe. Though the scale of the operations may seem small the siege had cost the enemy no fewer than twelve thousand men.
1704
1705
Meanwhile Parliament had met on the 29th of the previous October, full of congratulations to the Queen on the triumphs of the past campaign. There were not wanting, of course, men who, in the madness of faction, doubted whether Blenheim were really a victory, for the very remarkable reason that Marlborough had won it, but they were soon silenced by the retort that the King of France at any rate had no doubts on the point. The plans for the next campaign were designed on a large scale, and were likely to strain the resources of the Army to the uttermost. The West Indies demanded six battalions and Gibraltar three battalions for garrison; Portugal claimed ten thousand men, Flanders from twenty to twenty-five thousand; while besides this a design was on foot, as shall presently be seen, for the further relief of Portugal by a diversion in Catalonia. Five millions were cheerfully voted for the support of the war, and six new battalions were raised, namely, Wynne's, Bretton's, Lepell's, Soames's, Sir Charles Hotham's, and Lillingston's, the last of which alone has survived to our day with the rank of the Thirty-eighth of the Line.
To face page 450
GIBRALTAR
1705
From a contemporary Plan
by
Col. D'Harcourt
May 15 26 .
June 6 17 .
Marlborough's plan of campaign had been sufficiently foreshadowed at the close of the previous year, namely, to advance on the line of the Moselle and carry the war into Lorraine. The Emperor and all the German Princes promised to be in the field early, the Dutch were with infinite difficulty persuaded to give their consent, and after much vexatious delay Marlborough joined his army at Treves on the 26th of May. Here he waited until the 17th of June for the arrival of the German and Imperial troops. Not a man nor a horse appeared. In deep chagrin he broke up his camp and returned to the Meuse, having lost, as he said, one of the fairest opportunities in the world through the faithlessness of his allies.
May 21.
June 14 25 .
44733
July 2.
His presence was sorely needed on the Meuse. Villeroy, who commanded the French in Flanders, finding no occasion for his presence on the Moselle, had moved out of his lines, captured Huy, and then marching on to Liège had invested the citadel. The States-General in a panic of fright urged Marlborough to return without delay, and Overkirk, who commanded the Dutch on the Meuse, added his entreaties to theirs. Marlborough, when once he had made up his mind to move, never moved slowly, and by the 25th of June he was at Düren, to the eastward of Aix-la-Chapelle. Here he was still the best part of forty miles from the Meuse, but that was too near for Villeroy, who at once abandoned Liège and fell back on Tongres. Marlborough, continuing his advance, crossed the Meuse at Visé on the 2nd of July, and on the same day united his army with Overkirk's at Haneff on the Upper Jaar. Villeroy thereupon retired ignominiously within his fortified lines.
These lines, which had been making during the past three years, were now complete. They started from the Meuse a little to the east of Namur, passed from thence to the Mehaigne and the Little Geete, followed the Little Geete along its left bank to Leuw and thence along the Great Geete to the Demer; from thence they ran up the Demer as far as Arschot, from which point a new line of entrenchments carried the barrier through Lierre to Antwerp. Near Antwerp Marlborough had already had to do with these lines in 1703, but hitherto he had made no attempt to force them. Villeroy and the Elector of Bavaria now lay before him with seventy thousand men, a force superior to his own, but necessarily spread over a wide front for the protection of the entrenchments. The marshal's headquarters were at Meerdorp, in the space between the Geete and the Mehaigne, which he probably regarded as a weak point. Marlborough posted himself over against him at Lens-les-Beguines, detaching a small force to re-capture Huy while Overkirk with the Dutch army covered the siege from Vignamont. Thus, as if daring the French to take advantage of the dispersion of his army, he quietly laid his plans for forcing the lines.
The point that he selected was on the Little Geete between Elixheim and Neerhespen, exactly in rear of the battlefield of Landen. The abrupt and slippery banks of the river, which the English knew but too well, together with the entrenchments beyond it, presented extraordinary difficulties, but the lines were on that account the less likely to be well guarded at that particular point. Marlborough had already obtained the leave of the States-General for the project, but he had now the far more difficult task of gaining the consent of the Dutch generals at a Council of War. Slangenberg and others opposed the scheme vehemently, but were overruled; and the Duke was at length at liberty to fall to work.
44742
July 11.
July.
Huy fell on the 11th of July, but to the general surprise the besieging force was not recalled. Six days later Overkirk and the covering army crossed the Mehaigne from Vignamont and pushed forward detachments to the very edge of the lines between Meffle and Namur. Villeroy fell into the trap, withdrew troops from all parts of the lines and concentrated forty thousand men at Meerdorp. Marlborough then recalled the troops from Huy, and made them up to a total of about eight thousand men, both cavalry and infantry, the whole being under the command of the Count of Noyelles. The utmost secrecy was observed in every particular. The corps composing the detachment knew nothing of each other, and nothing of the work before them; and, lest the sight of fascines should suggest an attack on entrenchments, these were dispensed with, the troopers only at the last moment receiving orders to carry each a truss of forage on the saddle before them.
July 6 17 .
July 6-7 17-18 .
At tattoo the detachment fell in silently before the camp of the right wing, and at nine o'clock moved off without a sound in two columns, the one upon Neerhespen, the other upon the Castle of Wange before Elixheim. An hour later the rest of the army followed, while at the same time Overkirk, under cover of the darkness, crossed the Mehaigne at Tourines and joined his van to the rear of Marlborough's army. The distance to be traversed was from ten to fifteen miles; the night though dry was dark; and the guides, frequently at fault, were fain to direct themselves by the trusses dropped on the way by the advanced detachment. Twelve years before to the very day a French army had toiled along the same route, wearied out and stifled by the sun, and only kept to its task by an ugly little hunch-backed man whom it had reverenced as Marshal Luxemburg. Now English and Dutch were blundering on to take revenge for Luxemburg's victory at the close of that march. The hours fled on, the light began to break, and the army found itself on the field of Landen, William's entrenchment grass-grown before it, Neerwinden and Laer lying silent to the left, and before the villages the mound that hid the corpses of the dead. Then some at least of the soldiers knew the work that lay before them.
July 7 18 .
At four o'clock the heads of the columns halted within a mile of the Geete, wrapped in a thick mist and hidden from the eye of the enemy. The advanced detachment quickly cleared the villages by the river, seized the bridge before the Castle of Wanghe, which had not been broken down, and drove out the garrison of the Castle itself. Then the pontoniers came forward to lay their bridges; but the infantry would not wait for them. They scrambled impatiently through hedges and over bogs, down one steep bank of the river and up the other, into the ditch beyond, and finally, breathless and dripping, over the rampart into the lines. So numerous were the hot-heads who thus broke in that they forced three regiments of French dragoons to retire before them without attempting resistance. Then the cavalry of the detachment began to file rapidly over the pontoon-bridges; but meanwhile the alarm had been given, and before the main army could cross, the French came down in force from the north, some twenty battalions and forty squadrons, in all close on fifteen thousand men, with a battery of eight guns.
To face page 454
LINES OF THE GEETE.
July 7 18 1705.
The enemy advanced rapidly, their cavalry leading, until checked by a hollow way which lay between them and the Allies, where they halted to deploy. Marlborough took in the whole situation at a glance. Forming his thirty-eight squadrons into two lines, with the first line composed entirely of British, he led them across the hollow way and charged the French sword in hand. They answered by a feeble fire from the saddle and broke in confusion, but presently rallying fell in counter-attack upon the British and broke them in their turn. Marlborough, who was riding on the flank, was cut off and left isolated with his trumpeter and groom. A Frenchman galloped up and aimed at him so furious a blow that, failing to strike him, he fell from his horse and was captured by the trumpeter. Then the allied squadrons rallied, and charging the French once more broke them past all reforming and captured the guns. The French infantry now retired very steadily in square, and the Duke sent urgent messages for his own foot. But by some mistake the battalions had been halted after crossing the Geete, so that the French were able to make good their retreat.
By this time Villeroy, who had spent the night in anxious expectation of an attack at Meerdorp, had hurried up with his cavalry, only to find that the Duke was master of the lines. Hastily giving orders for his scattered troops to pass the Geete at Judoigne he began his retreat upon Louvain. Presently up came Marlborough's infantry at an extraordinary pace, the men as fresh and lively after fifteen hours of fatigue as if they had just left camp. The Duke was anxious to follow up his success forthwith, a movement which the French had good reason to dread, but the Dutch generals opposed him, and Marlborough was reluctantly constrained to yield. The loss of the French seems to have been about two thousand men, most of them prisoners, a score of standards and colours, of which the Fifth Dragoon Guards claimed four as their own, and eighteen guns, eight of which were triple-barrelled and were sent across the Channel to be copied in England.
July 8 19 .
The Allies halted for the night at Tirlemont, and advancing next day upon Louvain struck against the rear of the French columns and captured fifteen hundred prisoners. That night they encamped within a mile to the east of Louvain, while the French, once again distributing their force along a wider front, lined the left bank of the Dyle from the Demer to the Yssche, with their centre at Louvain. Marlborough had hoped to push in at once, but he was stopped by heavy rains that rendered the Dyle impassable; and it was not until ten days later that, after infinite trouble with the Dutch, he was able to pursue his design.
July 18 29 .
The operations for the passage of the Dyle were conducted in much the same way as in the forcing of the lines. An advanced detachment was pushed forward from each wing of the army, that from the right or English flank being appointed to cross the river under the Duke of Würtemberg at Corbeek Dyle, that from the left under General Heukelom to pass it at Neeryssche. The detachments fell in at five in the evening, reached their appointed destination at ten, and effected their passage with perfect success. The main bodies started at midnight, and went somewhat astray in the darkness, though by three o'clock the Dutch army was within supporting distance of its detachment and the British rapidly approaching it. The river had been in fact forced, when suddenly the Dutch generals halted their main body. Marlborough rode up to inquire the cause, and was at once taken aside by Slangenberg. "For God's sake, my Lord—" began the Dutchman vehemently, and continued to protest with violent gesticulations. No sooner was Marlborough's back turned than the Dutch generals, like a parcel of naughty schoolboys, recalled Heukelom's detachment. Thus the passage won with so much skill was for no cause whatever abandoned, without loss indeed, but also not without mischievous encouragement to the French, who boasted loudly that they had repulsed their redoubtable adversary.
August 5 16 .
August 6 17 .
August 7 18 .
Deeply hurt and annoyed though he was, the Duke, with miraculous patience, excused in his public despatches the treachery and imbecility which had thwarted him, and prepared to effect his purpose in another way. His movements were hastened by news that French reinforcements, set free by the culpable inaction of Prince Lewis of Baden, were on their way from Alsace. Unable to pass the Dyle he turned its head-waters at Genappe, and wheeling north towards the forest of Soignies encamped between La Hulpe and Braine l'Alleud. The French at once took the alarm and posted themselves behind the river Yssche, with their left at Neeryssche, and their right at Overyssche resting on the forest of Soignies. Marlborough at once resolved to force the passage of the river. On the evening of the 17th of August he detached his brother Churchill with ten thousand foot and two thousand horse to advance through the forest and turn the French right; while he himself marched away at daybreak with the rest of the army and emerged into the plain between the Yssche and the Lasne. The Duke quickly found two assailable points, and choosing that of Overyssche, halted the army pending the arrival of the artillery. The guns were long in arriving, Slangenberg having insisted, despite the Duke's express instructions, on forcing his own baggage into the column for the express purpose of causing delay. At last about noon the artillery appeared, and Marlborough asked formal permission of the Dutch deputies to attack. To his surprise, although Overkirk had already consented, they claimed to consult their generals. Slangenberg with every mark of insolence condemned the project as murder and massacre, the rest solemnly debated the matter for another two hours, the auspicious moment passed away exactly as they intended, and another great opportunity was lost. The French reinforcements arrived, and having been the weaker became the stronger force. Nothing more could be done for the rest of the campaign, but to level the French lines from the Demer to the Mehaigne.
Thus for the third time a brilliant campaign was spoilt by the Dutch generals and deputies. Fortunately the public indignation both in England and in Holland was too strong for them, and Slangenberg, though not indeed hanged as he deserved, was deprived of all further command. Jealousy, timidity, ignorance, treachery, and flat imbecility seem to have been the motives that inspired these men, whose conduct has never been reprobated according to its demerit. It was they who were responsible for the prolongation of the war, for the burden that it laid on England, and for the untold misery that it wrought in France. Left to himself Marlborough would have forced the French to peace in three campaigns, and the war would not have been ended in shame and disgrace by the Treaty of Utrecht.
Consolation for the disappointment in Flanders came from an unexpected quarter. In Portugal, indeed, comparatively little was done. An army was made up of about three thousand British under Lord Galway, two thousand Dutch under General Fagel, and twelve thousand Portuguese under the Spanish General de Corsana; and to avoid friction it was arranged that these three generals should hold command alternately for a week at a time. In such circumstances it was surprising that they should even have accomplished the siege and capture of three weak fortresses, Valenza, Albuquerque, and Badajoz, with which achievements the campaign came to an end.
June 9 20 .
August 12 23 .
But in Catalonia the operations were of a more brilliant kind. The Catalans were known to favour the Austrian side; and it was accordingly resolved in this year to send a fleet and an army to back them under Admiral Leake and Lord Peterborough, the latter to be joint admiral at sea as well as commander-in-chief ashore. The character of Peterborough is one of the riddles of history. He was now forty years of age, and had so far distinguished himself chiefly by general eccentricity, not always of a harmless kind, and, in common with most prominent men of his age, by remarkable pliancy of principle. His experience of active service was slight and had been gained afloat rather than ashore, and though he had long held the colonelcy of a regiment, he had never commanded in war nor in peace. His force consisted of six British and four Dutch battalions, or about six thousand five hundred men in all. The expedition arrived at Lisbon early in June, when after some delay it was decided that the fleet should proceed to Barcelona. Galway lent his two regiments of dragoons, the Royals and the Eighth; and with them Peterborough sailed to Gibraltar, where he picked up the eight battalions of the garrison, leaving two of his own in their place, and proceeded to his destination. On the way up the Spanish coast a detachment was landed to capture Denia, and on the 23rd of August the main force was disembarked before Barcelona and took up a position to the north-east of the town with its left flank resting on the sea.
Sept. 2 13 .
The reports sent to England had represented Barcelona as ill-fortified and ill-garrisoned. Ill-fortified it may have been if compared with a creation of Vauban or Cohorn, but it was none the less a formidable fortress, well stocked with supplies and garrisoned by seven thousand troops under an energetic governor, by name Velasco. Peterborough, who grasped the situation, wished to abandon the project of a regular siege for operations of a livelier kind, but was prevailed upon to give it a trial for eighteen days, at the close of which he ordered the re-embarkation of the army. He was, however, again induced to change his mind, and then suddenly, on the evening of the 13th of September, he produced an original scheme of his own.
About three-quarters of a mile to south-west of Barcelona stood the small fort of Montjuich, crowning a hill seven hundred feet above the fortress, strong by nature and strengthened still further by outworks, which though incomplete were none the less formidable. This Peterborough resolved to capture by escalade. Not a word was said to the men of the work before them. No further orders were issued than that twelve hundred English and two hundred Dutch should be ready in the afternoon to march towards Tarragona, while thirteen hundred men under Brigadier Stanhope were secretly detailed to cover the rear of the assaulting columns from any attack from Barcelona. At six o'clock the attacking force moved off under Lord Charlemont towards the north-west, continuing the march in this false direction for four hours, till Peterborough at last gave the order to turn about to southward. The night was dark, and much of the ground so rocky as to show no track, so that when the columns at length came up before Montjuich one complete body of two hundred was found to be missing, having evidently strayed away from the path of the remainder.
Sept. 3 14 .
Half the force however was told off for simultaneous assault on the eastern and western extremities of the fort, Peterborough and Prince George of Hessen-Darmstadt accompanying the eastern column, which, since it was expected to meet with the sternest of the work, was made the stronger. The other moiety of the troops was held in reserve between the two columns. A little after daybreak the signal was given; the storming parties dashed up the glacis under a heavy and destructive fire, and plunging in among the enemy drove them headlong from the outworks. Following the fugitives in hot pursuit Peterborough and Prince George captured the eastern bastion of the fort itself, threw up a barricade of loose stones in the gorge and entrenched themselves behind it. The western attack had met with equal success, and had likewise entrenched itself in a demi-bastion in that flank of the fort. Both parties being thus under cover the fire ceased, and Peterborough sent orders to Stanhope to bring up his reserve.
Meanwhile the Governor of Barcelona, being in communication with Montjuich, had at the sound of the firing despatched four hundred dragoons in all haste to reinforce the garrison. As they entered the fort they were received with loud shouts of welcome by the Spanish. Prince George, mistaking the sound for a cry of surrender, at once started up and advanced with all his men into the inner works. They were no sooner in the ditch than the Spaniards swept round them to cut them off. Two hundred were taken prisoners, Prince George fell mortally wounded, and the rest fell back in confusion. This was a severe blow; but worse was to come. Peterborough hearing that fresh reinforcements were on their way to the enemy from Barcelona, rode out of the bastion to look for himself, and no sooner was he gone than the troops were seized with panic. Lord Charlemont was powerless to check it; and in a few minutes the whole of the men, with Charlemont at their head, came running with unseemly haste out of the captured position.
They had not run far when up galloped Peterborough in a frenzy of rage. What he said no writer has dared to set down; but he snatched Charlemont's half-pike from his hand and waved the men back to the fort with a torrent of rebuke. Rallying instantly they regained their post without the loss of a man before the enemy had discovered their retreat; and the appearance of Stanhope with the reserve presently banished all further idea of panic. Meanwhile the Spanish reinforcements from Barcelona had met the English prisoners, and learning from them that Peterborough and Prince George were present in person before Montjuich, assumed that the British were attacking in overwhelming force. They therefore returned to Barcelona, leaving the fort to its fate. Three days of bombardment sufficed to overcome the resistance of the weakened garrison; and thus by a singular chapter of accidents Peterborough's design proved to be a success, and Montjuich was taken.
Sept. 28
October 9.
The siege of Barcelona was then pushed forward in form, aided by the guns of the fleet; and on the 9th of October the garrison capitulated with the honours of war. A fortnight later King Charles the Third made his public entry into the city; Peterborough scattered dollars with a liberal hand, and all was merriment and rejoicing. The picture would not be complete without the figure of a drunken English grenadier, whose vagaries afforded inexhaustible amusement to the populace; but Peterborough was a disciplinarian, and the troops as a whole behaved remarkably well. Stanhope was at once sent home with the good news, and England awoke to the fact that she possessed a second officer who, though not to be named in the same breath with Marlborough, possessed a natural, if eccentric, genius for war.
To face page 462
BARCELONA
1705
The capture of Barcelona, and the subsequent reduction of Tarragona by the fleet, brought practically the whole of Catalonia to the side of King Charles. But now further operations were checked by lack of money and supplies. Peterborough, who saw the difficulty of supporting a large force in the field, was for dividing his little army into flying columns, and making good the deficiency of numbers by extreme mobility; but he could not gain acceptance for his views. He wrote piteous letters of his state of destitution, reviling, as his custom was, all his colleagues and subordinates with astonishing freedom. Very soon the troops in Barcelona became so sickly that he was compelled to distribute them in the fortresses of Catalonia, leaving further operations to the Catalan guerillas. By the exertions of these last the close of the year saw not only Catalonia but Valencia gained over, though on no very certain footing, to the side of King Charles. So ended the first serious campaign of the first Peninsular war.
It is now time to revert to England and to the preparations for the campaign of 1706. Marlborough, as usual, directly that the military operations were concluded, had been deputed to visit the courts of Vienna and of sundry German states in order to keep the Allies up to the necessary pitch of unity and energy. These duties detained him in Germany and at the Hague until January 1706, when he was at last able to return to England. There he met with far less obstruction than in former years, but none the less with an increasing burden of work. The vast extension of operations in the Peninsula, and the general sickliness of the troops in that quarter, demanded the enlistment of an usually large number of recruits. One new regiment of dragoons and eleven new battalions of foot were formed in the course of the spring, to which it was necessary to add yet another battalion before the close of the year. Again the epidemic sickness among the horses in Flanders had caused an extraordinary demand for horses. The Dutch, after their wonted manner, had actually taken pains to prevent the supply of horses to the British, though, even if they had not, the Duke had a prejudice in favour of English horses, as of English men, as superior to any other. Finally, the stores of the Ordnance were unequal to the constant drain of small arms, and it was necessary to make good the deficiency by purchases from abroad. All these difficulties and a thousand more were of course referred for solution to Marlborough.
April 14 25 .
When in April he crossed once more to the Hague he found a most discouraging state of affairs. The Dutch were backward in their preparations; Prussia and Hanover were recalcitrant over the furnishing of their contingents; Prince Lewis of Baden was sulking within his lines, refusing to communicate a word of his intentions to any one; and everybody was ready with a separate plan of campaign. The Emperor of course desired further operations in the Moselle for his own relief; but after the experience of the last campaign the Duke had wisely resolved never again to move eastward to co-operate with the forces of the Empire. The Dutch for their part wished to keep Marlborough in Flanders, where he should be under the control of their deputies; but the imbecile caprice of these worthies was little more to his taste than the sullen jealousy of Baden. Marlborough himself was anxious to lead a force to the help of Eugene in Italy, a scheme which, if executed, would have carried the British to a great fighting ground with which they are unfamiliar, the plains of Lombardy. He had almost persuaded the States-General to approve of this plan, when all was changed by Marshal Villars, who surprised Prince Lewis of Baden in his lines on the Motter, and captured two important magazines. The Dutch at once took fright and, in their anxiety to keep Marlborough for their own defence, agreed to appoint deputies who should receive rather than issue orders. So to the Duke's great disappointment it was settled that the main theatre of war should once again be Flanders.
May 8 19 .
May 9 20 .
May 11 22 .
Villeroy meanwhile lay safely entrenched in his position of the preceding year behind the Dyle, from which Marlborough saw little hope of enticing him. It is said that an agent was employed to rouse Villeroy by telling him that the Duke, knowing that the French were afraid to leave their entrenchments, would take advantage of their inaction to capture Namur. Be that as it may, Villeroy resolved to quit the Dyle. He knew that the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents had not yet joined Marlborough, and that the Danish cavalry had refused to march to him until their wages were paid; so that interest as well as injured pride prompted the hazard of a general action. On the 19th of May, therefore, he left his lines for Tirlemont on the Great Geete. Marlborough, who was at Maestricht, saw with delight that the end, for which he had not dared to hope, was accomplished. Hastily making arrangements for the payment of the Danish troops, he concentrated the Dutch and British at Bilsen on the Upper Demer, and moved southward to Borchloen. Here the arrival of the Danes raised his total force to sixty thousand men, a number but little inferior to that of the enemy. On the very same day came the intelligence that Villeroy had crossed the Great Geete and was moving on Judoigne. The Duke resolved to advance forthwith and attack him there.
May 12 23 .
At one o'clock in the morning, of Whitsunday the 23rd of May, Quartermaster-General Cadogan rode forward from the headquarters at Corswarem with six hundred horse and the camp-colours towards the head of the Great Geete, to mark out a camp by the village of Ramillies. The morning was wet and foggy, and it was not until eight o'clock that, on ascending the heights of Merdorp, they dimly descried troops in motion on the rolling ground before them. The allied army had not marched until two hours later than Cadogan, but Marlborough, who had ridden on in advance of it, presently came up and pushed the cavalry forward through the mist. Then at ten o'clock the clouds rolled away, revealing the whole of the French army in full march towards them.
Villeroy's eyes were rudely opened, for he had not expected Marlborough before the following day; but he knew the ground well, for he had been over it before with Luxemburg, and he proceeded to take up a position which he had seen Luxemburg deliberately reject. The table-land whereon he stood is the highest point in the plains of Brabant. To his right flowed the Mehaigne; in his rear ran the Great Geete; across his centre and left the Little Geete rose and crept away sluggishly in marsh and swamp. In his front lay four villages: Taviers on the Mehaigne to his right, Ramillies, less advanced than Taviers, on the source of the Little Geete to his right centre, Offus parallel to Ramillies but lower down the stream to his left centre, Autréglise or Anderkirch between two branches of the Little Geete and parallel to Taviers to his left. Along the concave line formed by these villages Villeroy drew up his army in two lines facing due east.
The Mehaigne, on which his right rested, is at ordinary times a rapid stream little more than twelve feet wide, with a muddy bottom, but is bordered by swampy meadows on both sides, which are flooded after heavy rain. From this stream the ground rises northward in a steady wave for about half a mile, sinks gradually and rises into a higher wave at Ramillies, sinks once more to northward of that village and rolls downward in a gentler undulation to Autréglise. Between the Mehaigne and Ramillies, a distance of about a mile and a half, the ground east and west is broken by sundry hollows of sufficient inclination to offer decided advantage or disadvantage in a combat of cavalry. A single high knoll rises in the midst of these hollows, offering a place of vantage from which Marlborough must almost certainly have reconnoitred the disposition of the French right. The access to Ramillies itself is steep and broken both to north and south, but on the eastern front the ground rises to it for half a mile in a gentle, unbroken slope, which modern rifles would make impassable by the bravest troops. In rear, or to westward of the French position, the table-land is clear and unbroken, and to the right rear or south-west stands a mound or barrow called the tomb of Ottomond, still conspicuous and still valuable as a key to the actions of the day. The full extent of the French front from Taviers to Autréglise covered something over four miles.
Having chosen his position, Villeroy lost no time in setting his troops in order. His left, consisting of infantry backed by cavalry, extended from Autréglise to Offus, both of which villages were strongly occupied. His centre from Offus to Ramillies was likewise composed of infantry. On his right, in the expanse of sound ground which stretches for a mile and a half from the marshes of the Geete at Ramillies to those of the Mehaigne, were massed more than one hundred and twenty squadrons of cavalry with some battalions of infantry interlined with them, the famous French Household Cavalry (Maison du Roi), being in the first line. The left flank of this expanse was covered by the village of Ramillies, which was surrounded by a ditch and defended by twenty battalions and twenty-four guns. On the right flank not only Taviers but Franquinay, a village still further in advance, were occupied by detachments of infantry, while Taviers was further defended by cannon.
Marlborough quickly perceived the defects of Villeroy's dispositions, which were not unlike those of Tallard at Blenheim. Taviers was too remote from Ramillies for the maintenance of a cross-fire of artillery. Again, the cavalry of the French left was doubtless secure against attack behind the marshes of the Geete, but for this very reason it was incapable of aggressive action. The French right could therefore be turned, provided that it were not further reinforced; and accordingly the Duke opened his man?uvres by a demonstration against the French left.
Presently the infantry of the allied right moved forward in two lines towards Offus and Autréglise, marching in all the pomp and circumstance of war, Dutch, Germans, and British, with the red coats conspicuous on the extreme right flank. Striding forward to the river they halted and seemed to be very busy in laying their pontoons. Villeroy marked the mass of scarlet, and remembering its usual place in the battlefield, instantly began to withdraw several battalions from his right and centre to his left. Marlborough watched the white coats streaming away to their new positions, and after a time ordered the infantry of his right to fall back to some heights in their rear. The two lines faced about and retired accordingly over the height until the first line was out of sight. Then the second line halted and faced about once more, crowning the ascent with the well-known scarlet, while the first marched away with all speed, under cover of the hill and unseen by the French, to the opposite flank. Many British battalions stood on that height all day without moving a step or firing a shot, but none the less paralysing the French left wing.
About half-past one the guns of both armies opened fire, and shortly afterwards four Dutch battalions were ordered forward to carry Franquinay and Taviers, and twelve more to attack Ramillies, while Overkirk advanced slowly on the left with the cavalry. Franquinay was soon cleared; Taviers resisted stoutly for a time but was carried, and a strong reinforcement on its way to the village was intercepted and cut to pieces. Then Overkirk, his left flank being now cleared, pushed forward his horse and charged. The Dutch routed the first French line, but were driven back in confusion by the second; and the victorious French were only checked by the advance of fresh squadrons under Marlborough himself. Even so the Allies were at a decided disadvantage; and Marlborough, after despatching messengers to bring up every squadron, except the British, to the left, plunged into the thick of the melée to rally the broken horse. He was recognised by some French dragoons, who left their ranks to surround him, and in the general confusion he was borne to the ground and in imminent danger of capture. His aide-de-camp, Captain Molesworth, dismounted at once, and giving him his own horse enabled him to escape. The cavalry, however, encouraged by the Duke's example, recovered themselves, and Marlborough took the opportunity to shift from Molesworth's horse to his own. Colonel Bringfield, his equerry, held the stirrup while he mounted, but Marlborough was hardly in the saddle before the hand that held the stirrup relaxed its hold, and the equerry fell to the ground, his head carried away by a round shot.
Meanwhile the attack of the infantry on Ramillies was fully developed, and relieved the horse from the fire of the village. Twenty fresh squadrons came galloping up at the top of their speed and ranged themselves in rear of the reforming lines. But before they could come into action the Duke of Würtemberg pushed his Danish horse along the Mehaigne upon the right flank of the French, and the Dutch guards advancing still further fell upon their rear. These now emerged upon the table-land by the tomb of Ottomond, and the rest of the Allied horse dashed themselves once against the French front. The famous Maison du Roi after a hard fight was cut to pieces, and the whole of the French horse, despite Villeroy's efforts to stay them, were driven in headlong flight across the rear of their line of battle, leaving the battalions of infantry helpless and alone to be ridden over and trampled out of existence.
Villeroy made frantic efforts to bring forward the cavalry of his left to cover their retreat, but the ground was encumbered by his baggage, which he had carelessly posted too close in his rear. The French troops in Ramillies now gave way, and Marlborough ordered the whole of the infantry that was massed before the village to advance across the morass upon Offus, with the Third and Sixth Dragoon Guards in support. The French broke and fled at their approach; and meanwhile the Buffs and Twenty-first, which had so far remained inactive on the right, forced their way through the swamps before them, and taking Autréglise in rear swept away the last vestige of the French line on the left. Five British squadrons followed them up and captured the entire King's Regiment (Regiment du Roi). The Third and Sixth Dragoon Guards also pressed on, and coming upon the Spanish and Bavarian horse-guards, who were striving to cover the retreat of the French artillery, charged them and swept them away, only narrowly missing the capture of the Elector himself, who was at their head. On this the whole French army, which so far had struggled to effect an orderly retreat, broke up in panic and fled in all directions.
The mass of the fugitives made for Judoigne, but the ways were blocked by broken-down baggage-waggons and abandoned guns, and the crush and confusion was appalling. The British cavalry, being quite fresh, quickly took up the pursuit over the table-land. The guns and baggage fell an easy prey, but these were left to others, while the red-coated troopers, not without memories of Landen, pressed on, like hounds running for blood, after the beaten enemy. The chase lay northwards to Judoigne and beyond it towards the refuge of Louvain. Not until two o'clock in the morning did the cavalry pause, having by that time reached Meldert, fifteen miles from the battlefield; nay, even then Lord Orkney with some few squadrons spurred on to Louvain itself, rekindled the panic and set the unhappy French once more in flight across the Dyle.
May 13 24 .
May 14 25 .
May 15 26 .
May 16 27 .
Nor was the main army far behind the horse. Marching far into the night, the men slept under arms for two or three hours, started again at three o'clock, and before the next noon had also reached Meldert and were preparing to force the passage of the Dyle. Marlborough, who had been in the saddle with little intermission for nearly twenty-eight hours, here wrote to the Queen that he intended to march again that same night, but, through the desertion of the lines of the Dyle by the French, the army gained some respite. The next day he crossed the Dyle at Louvain and encamped at Betlehem, the next he advanced to Dieghem, a few miles north of Brussels, the next he passed the Senne at Vilvorde and encamped at Grimberghen, and here at last, after six days of incessant marching, the Duke granted his weary troops a halt, while the French, hopelessly beaten and demoralised, retired with all haste to Ghent.
To face page 472
RAMILLIES
May 12th " 23rd 1706.
So ended the fight and pursuit of Ramillies, which effectually disposed of the taunt levelled at Marlborough after Blenheim, that he did not know how to improve a victory. The loss of the French in killed, wounded, and prisoners was thirteen thousand men, swelled by desertion during the pursuit to full two thousand more. The trophies of the victors were eighty standards and colours, fifty guns, and a vast quantity of baggage. The loss of the Allies was from four to five thousand killed and wounded, which fell almost entirely on the Dutch and Danes, the British, owing to their position on the extreme right, being but little engaged until the close of the day. The chief service of the British, therefore, was rendered in the pursuit, which they carried forward with relentless thoroughness and vigour. The Dutch were delighted that their troops should have done the heaviest of the work in such an action, and the British could console themselves with the performance of their cavalry, and above all, with the reflection that the whole of the success was due to their incomparable chief.
May-June.
The effect of the victory and of the rapid advance that followed it was instantaneous. Louvain and the whole line of Dyle fell into Marlborough's hands on the day after the battle; Brussels, Malines, and Lierre surrendered before the first halt, and gave him the line of the Senne and the key of the French entrenchments about Antwerp; and one day later, the surrender of Alost delivered to him one of the strongholds on the Dender. Never pausing for a moment, he sent forward a party to lay bridges on the Scheldt below Oudenarde in order to cut off the French retreat into France, a movement which obliged Villeroy forthwith to abandon the lines about Ghent and to retire up the Lys to Courtrai. Ghent, Bruges, and Damme thereupon surrendered on the spot; Oudenarde followed them, and after a few days Antwerp itself. Thus within a fortnight after the victory the whole of Flanders and Brabant, with the exception of Dendermond and one or two places of minor importance, had succumbed to the Allies, and the French had fallen back to their own frontier.
June.
Nor was even this all. A contribution of two million livres levied in French Flanders brought home to the Grand Monarch that the war was now knocking at his own gates. Villars, with the greater part of his army, was recalled from the Rhine to the Lys, and a number of French troops were withdrawn to the same quarter from Italy. Baden had thus the game in his own hand on the Rhine, and though he was too sulky and incapable to turn the advantage to account, yet his inaction was no fault of Marlborough's. We are hardly surprised to find that in the middle of this fortnight the Duke made urgent request for fresh stores of champagne; he may well have needed the stimulant amid such pressure of work and fatigue.
June 6 17 .
He now detached Overkirk to besiege Ostend and another party to blockade Dendermond, at the same time sending off five British battalions, which we shall presently meet again, for a descent on the Charente which was then contemplated in England. This done he took post with the rest of the Army at Rouslers, to westward of the Lys, whence he could at once cover the siege of Ostend and menace Menin and Ypres. The operations at Ostend were delayed for some time through want of artillery and the necessity of waiting for the co-operation of the Fleet; but the trenches were finally opened on the 17th of June, and a few weeks later the town surrendered.
44739
July 8.
Aug. 11 22 .
Three days after this the army was reassembled for the siege of Menin. This fortress was of peculiar strength, being esteemed one of Vauban's masterpieces, and was garrisoned by five thousand men. Moreover, the French, being in command of the upper sluices of the Lys, were able greatly to impede the operations by cutting off the water from the lower stream, and thus rendering it less useful for purposes of transport. But all this availed it little; for three weeks after the opening of the trenches Menin surrendered. The British battalions which had been kept inactive at Ramillies took a leading share in the work, and some of them suffered very heavily, but had the satisfaction of recapturing four of the British guns that had been taken at Landen.
Aug. 25
Sept. 5.
Sept. 12 23 .
Sept. 21
Oct. 2.
A few days later Dendermond was attacked in earnest and was likewise taken, after which Marlborough fell back across the Scheldt to secure the whole line of the Dender by the capture of Ath. Ten days sufficed for the work, after which Ath also fell into the hands of the Allies. The apathy of the French throughout these operations sufficiently show their discouragement. Owing to the supineness of Prince Lewis of Baden Villars had been able to bring up thirty-five thousand men to the assistance of Marshal Vend?me, who had now superseded Villeroy, but even with this reinforcement the two commanders only looked on helplessly while Marlborough reduced fortress after fortress before their eyes. They were, indeed, more anxious to strengthen the defences of Mons and Charleroi, lest the Duke should break into France by that line, than to approach him in the field. Nor were they not wholly unreasonable in their anxiety, for Marlborough's next move was upon the Sambre; but incessant rain and tempestuous weather forbade any further operations, so that Ath proved to be the last conquest of the year. Thus ended the campaign of Ramillies, one of the most brilliant in the annals of war, wherein Marlborough in a single month carried his arms triumphant from the Meuse to the sea.
From Flanders it is necessary to return to the Peninsula, where we left Peterborough bewailing his enforced inaction. Nothing is more remarkable in the story of these Peninsular campaigns than the utter want of unity in design between the forces of the Allies in Catalonia and in Portugal. Even in England the British troops in these two quarters were treated, for purposes of administration, as two distinct establishments, which might have been divided by the whole breadth of the Atlantic instead of by twice the breadth of England. Yet the fault could hardly be attributed to any English functionary, civil or military. Galway was as anxious as Peterborough to advance to Madrid; but the Portuguese were terrified at the prospect of moving far from their frontier, while the eyes of King Charles ever rested anxiously on the passes by which French reinforcements might advance into Catalonia. In such circumstances it was not easy to accomplish an effective campaign.
Dec. 26,
1705
Jan. 6,
1706
The Spaniards of the Austrian party, as has been told, had by the winter of 1705 gained a precarious hold on the whole province of Valencia. Just before the close of the year came intelligence that the Spanish General de las Torres had crossed the northern frontier from Arragon into Valencia and had laid siege to San Mateo. The town was important, inasmuch as it commanded the communications between Catalonia and Valencia, but it was held by no stronger garrison than thirty of the Royal Dragoons and a thousand Spanish irregular infantry under Colonel Jones. This officer defended himself as well as he could, but at once begged urgently for reinforcements. King Charles thereupon appealed for help to Peterborough, who forthwith ordered General Killigrew to march with his garrison from Tortosa and cross the Ebro, while he himself, riding night and day from Barcelona, caught up the column at the close of the first day's march. King Charles had represented the force of Las Torres as but two thousand strong, and had added that thousands of peasants were up in arms against it. Peterborough now discovered that the Spaniards numbered four thousand foot and three thousand horse, while the thousands of armed peasantry were wholly imaginary. His own force consisted of three weak British battalions, the Thirteenth, Thirty-fifth, and Mountjoy's Foot, together with one hundred and seventy of the Royal Dragoons, in all thirteen hundred men. With such a handful his only hope of success must lie in stratagem.
Dec. 28,
1705
Jan. 8,
1706
Advancing southward with all speed he split up his minute army into a number of small detachments, and pushing them forward by different routes arrived early in the morning, unseen and unsuspected, at Traguera, within six miles of the enemy's camp. That same day a spy was captured by the enemy and brought before Las Torres. On him was found a letter from Peterborough to Colonel Jones, written in the frankest and easiest style. "I am at Traguera," so it ran in effect, "with six thousand men and artillery. You may wonder how I collected them; but for transport and secrecy nothing equals the sea. Now, be ready to pursue Las Torres over the plain. It is his only line of retreat, for I have occupied all the passes over the hills. You will see us on the hill-tops between nine and ten. Prove yourself a true dragoon, and have your miquelets (irregulars) ready for their favourite plunder and chase." The spy, being threatened with death, offered to betray another messenger of Peterborough's who was lying concealed in the hills. This second spy was captured, and a duplicate of the same letter was found on him. The pair of them were questioned, when the first protested that he knew nothing of the strength of Peterborough's force, while the other declared that the despatch spoke truth. Suddenly came intelligence from the Spanish outposts that the enemy was advancing in force in several columns, and presently the red-coats appeared at different points on the hill-tops, making a brave show against the sky. Las Torres became uneasy. His depression was increased by the accidental explosion of one of his own mines before San Mateo; and he hastily ordered an immediate retreat. Whereupon out came Jones with his garrison, and turned the retreat into something greatly resembling a flight; while Peterborough with his thirteen hundred men walked quietly into San Mateo and took possession of the whole of the enemy's camp and material of war. The trick, for the whole incident of the captured spies had been carefully preconcerted, had proved a brilliant success.
Las Torres, though disagreeably shaken, was recovering his equanimity when, on the second day of the retreat, a friendly spy came to warn him that an English force was marching parallel to his left flank, was already in advance of him, and was likely to cut off his retreat by seizing the passes into the plain of Valencia. The warning was scouted as ridiculous, but the spy offered, if two or three officers would accompany him, to prove that he was right. Two officers, disguised as peasants, were accordingly guided to a point already indicated by the spy, where they were promptly captured by a picquet of ten of the Royal Dragoons. The spy, however, undertook to produce liquor, the dragoons succumbed or seemed to succumb to their national failing, and the three captives slipped out, took three of the dragoons' horses and galloped back with all speed to Las Torres to confirm the spy's story. Their escape did not prompt them to make the least of their adventure; the housings of the horses testified incontestably to the actual presence of English dragoons; and Las Torres broke up his camp on the spot and hurried away once more. Once again the tricks of the eccentric Englishman had been successful; for the friendly spy was in reality a Spanish officer in his own army; and though there were undoubtedly ten English dragoons, who had been specially sent for the purpose, in advance of Las Torres at that particular moment, yet there were no more English within twenty miles of them.
Jan. 1 12 .
Las Torres was still retreating southward by the coast-road, and Peterborough was making a show of pursuit by marching wide on his right flank, when a pressing message reached him from King Charles. A French force of eight thousand men was advancing into Catalonia from Roussillon; a second force of four or five thousand men under Count Tserclaes de Tilly was threatening Lerida, and a third under Marshal Tessé was marching through Arragon upon Tortosa. Seeing that the King was urgent for help in Catalonia, but intent on pursuing his own design in Valencia, Peterborough resolved to send his infantry to the coast at Vinaroz, to be transported if necessary by sea. The men, though ragged, shoeless, and much distressed by long marches through the wintry days, left him very unwillingly. Then summoning the garrison of Lerida and a reinforcement of Spaniards to follow him to Valencia, Peterborough resumed the pursuit of Las Torres with one hundred and fifty dragoons.
January.
He was too late to save Villa Real, which Las Torres took by treachery, and having taken massacred the entire male population; but while always concealing his own weakness he contrived by incessant harassing of the enemy's rear to inflict considerable loss and annoyance. Thus in due time he reached Nules, three days' march from the city of Valencia, a town of considerable strength, where Las Torres had left arms sufficient to equip a thousand of the townsmen. Peterborough marched straight up to the gate with his handful of dragoons. The townspeople manned the walls and opened fire, but were speedily checked by a message from Peterborough, bidding them send out a priest or a magistrate instantly on pain of having their walls battered down and every soul put to the sword, in revenge for Villa Real. Some priests who knew him at once came out to him. "I give you six minutes," said Peterborough to the trembling cassocks. "Open your gates or I spare not a soul of you." The gates were quickly opened, and the General, riding in at the head of his tattered dragoons, demanded immediate provision of rations and forage for several thousand men.
The news soon reached Las Torres, who was little more than an hour ahead, and for the third time his unfortunate army was hurried out of camp and condemned to a weary retreat from an imaginary enemy. Peterborough, however, after taking two hundred horses from Nules, left the town to ponder over its fright and retired to Castallon de la Plana. Having there raised yet another hundred horses he ordered the Thirteenth Foot to march from Vinaroz to Oropesa and went thither himself to inspect them. The men marched in but four hundred strong, with red coats ragged and rusty, yellow facings in tatters, yellow breeches faded and torn, shoes and stockings in holes or more often altogether wanting. "I wish," said Peterborough when the inspection was over, "that I had horses and accoutrements for you, to try if you would keep up your good reputation as dragoons." The men doubtless glanced at their sore and unshod feet, and silently agreed. Presently they were marched up to the brow of a neighbouring hill, where to their amazement they found four hundred horses awaiting them, all fully equipped. The officers received commissions according to their rank in the mounted service, two or three only being detached to raise a new battalion in England; and thus within an hour Barrymore's Foot became Pearce's Dragoons.
January.
44585
February 4.
Peterborough now called in such additional weak battalions of British as he could, and having collected a total force of three thousand men, one-third of it mounted, prepared to outwit a new general, the Duke of Los Arcos, who had superseded Las Torres. The relief of Valencia was Peterborough's first object, but to effect this he had first to gain possession of Murviedro, which lay on his road and was occupied by the enemy, and that, too, in such a way that Los Arcos should not move out against him in the open plain and crush him by superior numbers. It was a difficult problem, and it was only solved by a trick too elaborate and lengthy to be detailed here. The plan was very clever, so clever as almost to transcend the bounds of what is fair in war, but it was completely successful; and on the 4th of February Peterborough marched into Valencia without firing a shot.
44643
April 3.
April.
44681
May 11.
He now cultivated the friendship of the priests and something more than the friendship of the ladies of Valencia, thereby combining pleasure with business and obtaining the best of information. Las Torres, who had once more superseded Los Arcos, presently appeared on the scene again, bringing four thousand men by land and a powerful siege-train by sea for the reduction of the city. Peterborough pounced upon the train directly after it had been landed and captured the whole of it; then sending twelve hundred men against the four thousand he surprised them, routed them, and took six hundred prisoners. But the pleasant and exciting life at Valencia was interrupted by an urgent summons to assist in the defence of Barcelona. King Lewis, at the entreaty of his grandson Philip, had resolved to make a great effort to recover it; and thus it was that at the beginning of April Marshal Tessé appeared before the city with twenty-five thousand men, and three days later began the siege in form. The garrison consisted of less than four thousand regular troops, the backbone of which were eleven hundred British of the Guards and the Thirty-fourth Foot. Weak as it was this little force made a gallant resistance, but the odds were too great against it, and but for the arrival of Peterborough it could not have held out for more than a fortnight. Even after his coming it was well-nigh overpowered; for of the three thousand troops that he brought with him the most part were employed chiefly in harassing Tessé's communications from the rear. The siege was finally raised on the advent of a relieving squadron under Admiral Leake, which so much discouraged Tessé that he abandoned the whole of his siege-train and retired once more over the French frontier.
Nothing now remained but to take advantage of this piece of good fortune. Peterborough had always favoured a dash on Madrid, and had twice urged this course upon King Charles in vain. He now pressed it for a third time with success, and presently sailed for Valencia with eleven thousand men. With immense trouble he procured horses and accoutrements to convert some of his infantry into dragoons, and then pushing forward a detached force of English he succeeded by the beginning of July in capturing Requena and Cuen?a and opening the road for King Charles to Madrid.
March 20 31 .
44708
June 7.
June 16 27 .
Meanwhile, after enormous delay, the English and Portuguese had actually begun operations from the side of Portugal against Marshal Berwick. On the 31st of March Lord Galway and General das Minas left Elvas with nineteen thousand men and advanced slowly northward, forcing back Berwick, whose army was much inferior in number, continually before them. Alcantara, Plasencia, and Ciudad Rodrigo yielded to them after slight resistance; and by the 7th of June the Allied army had reached Salamanca, a country which two regiments, the Second and the Ninth, were to know better a century later. Then turning east it marched straight upon Madrid and entered the city on the 27th of June. So far all was well. The advance from Portugal had been singularly slow, but the capital had been reached. King Philip had retired to Burgos, and King Charles had been proclaimed in Madrid. The object of the War of the Succession seemed to have been fulfilled in Spain.
July 4 15 .
July 7 18 .
44768
August 6.
At this juncture, however, the operations for no particular reason came to an end. Galway, without a thought apparently of following up Berwick, halted for a fortnight in Madrid, where the Portuguese troops behaved disgracefully, and then moving a short distance north-eastward took up a strong position at Guadalaxara. King Charles after immense delay suddenly altered the route which Peterborough had marked out for him and insisted on marching to Madrid through Arragon, even so not reaching Saragossa till the 18th of July. Meanwhile the whole of the country through which Galway had marched rose in revolt against the House of Austria. Berwick, reinforced from France to twice the strength of Galway, cut him off from Madrid, and reproclaimed King Philip; and when Charles and Peterborough with three thousand men at last joined Galway on the 6th of August, the Archduke found that he must prepare not for triumphant entry into Madrid, but for what promised to be a difficult and perilous retreat.
Sept. 17 28 .
Peterborough was for a sudden spring at Alcala and so on Madrid, but being over-ruled retired to Italy to raise a loan for the army. Galway, whose army had been so much reduced by sickness as to number, with Peterborough's reinforcement, but fourteen thousand men, still lingered close to Madrid for nearly a month in the vain hope of seeing the tide turn in his favour. Finally, being cut off from his base in Portugal, he marched for Valencia and the British fleet, Berwick troubling him no further than by occasional harassing of his rearguard. On crossing the Valencian frontier he distributed his force into winter quarters; an example which, after the reduction of Carthagena and of sundry small strongholds, was imitated by Berwick at the end of November.
So closed the year 1706, memorable for two of the most brilliant, even if in some respects disappointing, campaigns ever fought simultaneously by two British generals.
1707
Unexpected reinforcements from Britain came opportunely to revive the hopes of the Archduke Charles at the opening of the new year. It will be remembered that in the summer of 1706 a project for a descent on the Charente had been matured in England, for which Marlborough had detached certain of his battalions after Ramillies. The plan being considered doubtful of success, the destination of the expedition was altered to Cadiz. A storm in the Bay of Biscay, however, dispersed the fleet, which was only reassembled at Lisbon after very great delay, and after waiting in that port for two months was directed to place its force at the disposal of Galway. In December 1706 Peterborough returned from Italy to Valencia to attend the councils of war respecting the next campaign. The general outlook in the Peninsula was not promising. Marlborough indeed opined that nothing could save Spain but an offensive movement against France from the side of Italy, and Peterborough, adopting the same view, strongly advocated a defensive campaign. He was overruled, and since his endless squabbles with his colleagues and his military conduct in general had been called in question in England, he was shortly after relieved of his command and returned to England.
March.
44650
April 10.
April.
After his departure the Archduke Charles and the English commanders fell at variance over their alternative plans, with the result that Charles withdrew with the whole of the Spanish troops to Catalonia. Galway and Das Minas then decided first to destroy Berwick's magazines in Murcia, and this done to march up the Guadalaviar, turn the head-waters of the Tagus, and so move on to Madrid. Though the reinforcements had reached the Valencian coast in January it was not until the 10th of April that Galway crossed the Murcian frontier and after destroying one or two magazines laid siege to Villena. While thus engaged he heard that Berwick having collected his army was advancing towards Almanza, some five and twenty miles to the north-east, and that the Duke of Orleans was on his way to join him with reinforcements. Thereupon Galway and Das Minas resolved to advance and fight him at once, apparently without taking pains to ascertain what the numbers of his army might actually be. Berwick had with him twenty-five thousand men, half French, half Spanish, besides a good train of artillery. Galway, owing to the frightful mortality on board the newly-arrived transports, had but fifteen thousand, of which a bare third were British, half were Portuguese, and the remainder Dutch, German, and Huguenot. Considering how poorly the Portuguese had behaved on every occasion so far, the result of an open attack against such odds could hardly be doubtful.
April 14 25 .
Berwick on his side drew up his army in the usual two lines on a plain to the south of Almanza, his right resting on rising ground towards Montalegre, his left on a height overlooking the road to Valencia, while his right centre was covered by a ravine which gradually lost itself on level ground towards his extreme right flank. The force was formed according to rule with infantry in the centre and cavalry on each flank, the Spaniards taking the right and the French the left. At midday, after a march of eight miles, Galway approached to within a mile of the position, and formed his line of battle according to the prescribed methods. The Portuguese, with poor justice, claimed the post of honour on the right wing, so that the British and Dutch took the left, though with several Portuguese squadrons among them in the second line. But finding himself weak in cavalry Galway made good the deficiency, after the manner of Gustavus Adolphus, by interpolating battalions of foot among his horse.
At three o'clock in the afternoon Galway opened the attack without preliminary fire of artillery by leading an advance of the horse on his left wing. He was driven back at first by sheer weight of numbers; but the Sixth and Thirty-third Foot, which were among the interpolated battalions, came up, and by opening fire on the left flank of the Spanish horse gave the English squadrons time to rally and by an effective charge to drive the Spaniards back in confusion. Meanwhile, the rest of the English foot on the left centre fell, heedless of numbers, straight upon the hostile infantry and drove them back in confusion upon their second line. The Guards and the Second Foot following up their success broke through the second line also and pursued the scattered fugitives to the very walls of Almanza. So far as the Allied left was concerned the battle was going well.
But meanwhile the Portuguese on the right remained motionless; and Berwick lost no time in launching his left wing of horse upon them. Then the first line of Portuguese horse turned and ran, the second line also turned and ran, and the first line of infantry was left to bear the brunt alone. For a time the battalions stood up gallantly enough, but the odds were too great, and they were presently overwhelmed and utterly dispersed. Then Berwick brought up his French, both horse and foot, against the victorious British on his right. The British cavalry had suffered heavily in the first attack, all four regiments having lost their commanding officers, and in spite of all their efforts they were borne back and swept away by the numbers of the French squadrons. The infantry, surrounded on all sides, fought desperately and repeatedly repulsed the enemy's onset, but being overpowered by numbers, were nearly all of them, English, Dutch, and Germans, cut down or captured. By great exertions Galway, who was himself wounded, brought off some remnant of them in good order and retreated unpursued to Ontiniente, some twenty miles distant. The guns also were saved; but a party of two thousand infantry which had been brought off the field by General Shrimpton was surrounded on the following day and compelled to lay down its arms.
In this action, which lasted about two hours, Galway lost about four thousand killed and wounded and three thousand prisoners. The British alone lost eighty-eight officers killed, and two hundred and eighty-six captured, of whom ninety-two were wounded. The Sixth regiment had but two officers unhurt out of twenty-three, the Ninth but one out of twenty-six, and other regiments suffered hardly less severely. The simple fact was that, as the bulk of the Portuguese would not fight, the action resolved itself into an attack of eight thousand British, Dutch, and Germans upon thrice their number of French and Spaniards, in an open plain; and the defeat, though decisive, was in no sense disgraceful except to the Portuguese. The most singular circumstance in this fatal day was that the French were commanded by an Englishman, Berwick, and the English by a Frenchman, the gallant but luckless Ruvigny. The battle of course put an end to further operations on the side of the Allies. Galway, with such troops as he could collect, retired to the Catalonian frontier, and set himself to reorganise a force to defend the lines of the Segre and Ebro, while Berwick methodically pursued the reduction of Valencia and in December retired, according to rule, into winter quarters. So swiftly did disaster follow on the first brilliant successes in the Peninsula.
Since we shall not again see Peterborough in the field this chapter should not be closed without a few sentences as to his peculiar methods. These were outwardly simple enough. Good information to discover his enemy's weak points, deception to put him off his guard, the deepest secrecy lest that enemy should grow suspicious, most careful thinking out of details so that every unit of an insignificant force should know its duty precisely and do it, exact divination of the probable results of each successive step, and extreme suddenness and rapidity in execution; such were, so far as they can be set down, the secrets of his success. In a word, his was the principle of making war by moral rather than by physical force, by scaring men into the delusion that they were beaten rather than by actually beating them. It is a difficult art, of which the highest exponent was produced by the Navy a century later in the person of Lord Dundonald; and it is curious to note that both men were troubled by exactly the same defects. Peterborough was difficult, cantankerous, quarrelsome and eaten up by exaggerated appreciation of self. His letters were so interminably long and tedious, containing indeed little besides abuse of his colleagues, that they exhausted the patience even of Marlborough. In fact, it seems to be impossible for this type of man to work harmoniously with his equals, however he may be adored by his subordinates. The Duke of Wellington summed up Peterborough as a brilliant partisan, but his contemporaries thought more highly of him. Eugene declared that he thought like a general, and Marlborough himself acknowledged that he had predicted the ill consequences of the operations which, contrary to his advice, were undertaken in Spain. But whatever his merit as a general and a leader, he, like all of his kind, is a man of whom we take leave without regret, turning gladly from the fitful, if dazzling flashes of his eccentric genius, to the steady glowing light which illuminates every action of the great Duke of Marlborough.
Authorities.—It is well known that the exploits of Peterborough rest principally on Carleton's Memoirs, and that the authority of these Memoirs is disputed. Colonel Frank Russell in his Life of Peterborough of course makes him a hero, Colonel Arthur Parnell in his War of the Succession in Spain refuses to allow him any merit. Mr. Stebbing in his Peterborough (Men of Action Series) treats the controversy with strong good sense, and I have not hesitated to follow his view. I must none the less acknowledge my obligations to all three of these writers, and particularly to Colonel Parnell, who has gone deeply into the history of the war, taken immense pains to ascertain which British regiments were engaged at every action, and has furnished a most copious list of authorities. The Mémoires de Berwick are most trustworthy on the French side, and the Richards Papers (Stowe Coll. B.M.), as Colonel Parnell says, most important.