IN TIME OF WAR
The now hastily summoned Council of War was distracted with private
fears and disagreements. The Deputies, whose opinion had to be
consulted, and with whom rested the power of final decision, were
powerfully affected by the embassy M. de Witt had just sent upon its
way to Doesburg.
It showed, they thought, both that the Grand Pensionary despaired of
saving the country by force of arms, and also that he considered an
advantageous treaty might yet be made with Louis.
They were, therefore, for avoiding a decisive engagement, and suggested
that the army should retreat.
The deputy for Zeeland and M. Beverningh, influenced by the Prince,
opposed this, and a high argument followed.
M. de Zuylestein and most of the officers of the Prince’s Staff were
for fortifying the present camp and awaiting the attack of the enemy.
William himself was for falling back on Utrecht, at present undefended,
and securing that against the advance of the French.
Under the orders of the States, and much against the wish of the
Captain General, the forces had been imprudently divided. Major-General
Wurtz had two thousand seven hundred men with which to defend Gorcum
in the south; Prince John Maurice, with ten thousand men at Muyden,
covered Amsterdam; the Marquis de Louvignies with the Spanish cavalry
to the number of fifteen hundred occupied Schoonhoven; and Count Homes
with the same number was stationed at Gouda.
These four positions were skilfully chosen, but inclusive of the men
sent to strengthen the garrisons of Nymwegen and Arnheim they left the
Prince, who had ardently wished to defend the Yssel to the last, a
force of only three thousand six hundred under his personal control.
With these he could hope to do nothing save defend as he might the
entrance to Holland.
He told the Deputies so, and they, with the indecision that had so
hampered his movements, shrugged and argued and would not say what they
would or would not do.
At length the Prince, who had been largely silent, threatened to throw
up his commission if he was not allowed a free hand. His position,
he declared, was intolerable, and he would be no man’s puppet. M. de
Witt’s policy of controlling the theatre of war from a Cabinet in the
Binnenhof had been disastrous enough already. He, the Captain General,
was constantly overruled and disregarded; they tied his hands, then
tried to make him responsible for actions he had never sanctioned.
He was supported by M. de Zuylestein and M. Beverningh, and finally the
others dare stand out no more. Two hours after the news of the approach
of the enemy had been received orders were given to strike camp and
fall back on Utrecht.
The news of the advance of M. de Rochfort was at best vague. Scouts
reported that a large force had taken Emerloo and Rutten, and was
approaching from that direction. The flying peasants declared the
country from Heerde to Vaasen had been devastated, and that William’s
lordship of “het Loo” was in the hands of the victorious French.
The Prince, seeing that only the insufficiently defended fortress of
Nijkerk was between the enemy and Amersfoort and Utrecht, made a détour
and threw his men along the banks of the Eem before Amersfoort, to
whose defences he had just seen.
But the army were no sooner in position than the survivors of the
little town of Wijk, a fortress on the Rhine, arrived with the news
that a large division of the French were advancing on Utrecht by that
route.
An instant message was sent to de Louvignies at Schoonhoven to defend
the passage of the river Leek, and a small body of cavalry was sent
on to Utrecht to encourage the city with an assurance of the Prince’s
speedy arrival and to urge them to see to their defences.
It was now about one in the morning, and further arrivals from Elst,
Schalkwyk, and Houten confirmed the news of the near vicinity of the
enemy.
It was said that Louis had made a public boast that he would take
Utrecht and treat with the commissioners of the States in their own
town.
M. de Rochfort, with a large detachment of cavalry, was acting as his
advance guard in clearing the country from Doesburg to Amersfoort.
The Captain General’s entire efforts now became directed to saving
Utrecht. The city was one of the largest and finest in the Netherlands;
it directly protected the entrance to Holland, and if it fell there
was every reason to suppose that its loss would prove as fatal to that
province as the capture of Wesel had to Guelders and Overyssel, both of
which were now almost entirely in the hands of the enemy.
By a rapid countermarch, which was much impeded by a moonless, misty
night, the army of the States recrossed the Eem at Amersfoort (which
town was encouraged in its intention to resist the enemy by the
addition of a company of infantry to its scanty garrison), and found
themselves at daybreak in the rich and wooded meadows between Soest and
Zeyst, the heart of the fertile and prosperous lands that comprised the
district of Rutten.
They were perilously placed between two rivers, one of which, the
Eem, had only Amersfoort to defend it; the other, the Rhine, being
utterly unprotected until reinforcements should arrive from Gouda or
Schoonhoven.
And as the French were circling round from the direction of Nijkerk,
and on the other side from the banks of the Rhine, they indeed seemed,
with their hopelessly inferior numbers, to be in a peril from which
they could do nothing to extricate themselves.
Several of the Deputies were reduced to despair, and were for putting
pressure on the Prince to abandon Utrecht and retreat into Holland
towards Amsterdam.
But William, who owed his present position to their cautious policy,
refused to listen to them, and, energetically encouraging his officers,
pressed on towards the town of Utrecht.
They had not, however, come in sight of the walls before they heard the
guns of the enemy and saw pale fires in the early sky, and at half-past
six of a misty, warm morning they saw through their perspective glasses
the glittering lines of the cavalry of France completely blocking their
progress.
By reason of the flat country they could see a great way, and Count
Struym, who knew the district well, pointed out the burning fortress of
Zeyst, which had either blown up or been fired by the French.
The army halted, and officers and Deputies held a hasty consultation
on horseback. The enemy now lay between them and Utrecht, and it was
impossible to gain that town without a battle.
The Deputies again advised a retreat towards Amsterdam. In face of the
overwhelming number of the enemy, M. de Rochfort’s force advancing from
Nijkerk to conjoin, the unfortifiable nature of the ground, it would be
not a battle but a massacre, and they were not authorised by the States
to sacrifice the last defenders of the country; a defeat, they argued,
would have a very ill effect on the projected negotiations of M. de
Groot.
On the other hand, Count Struym contended that a retreat in face of the
enemy would result only in a pursuit and an utter rout, in which they
all would equally perish, but in this way with ignominy and disgrace.
The young Captain General sat silent on his grey horse and looked at
the distant line of the French.
He was so well used to argument and opposition that he withheld his
opinion till asked.
He had a great contempt for words, and the eloquence of the Deputies
seemed to him mere mouthing. He was thinking of Utrecht, and wondering
what there was to be got out of his men.
He had only been head of the army a few weeks, but he had made a new
thing of the forces under his command. Throughout a campaign that had
been a series of disasters and retreats his men had never lost heart.
He had a way of maintaining discipline, and a personal popularity
that the veterans did not possess; a gift of command that was worth
everything to an army pitted against tremendous odds.
He turned his eyes on his men as they defiled across the meadows,
to where the vanguard halted by a belt of trees and an old farm and
windmill, and thoughtfully stroked his horse’s neck.
William Bentinck rode up to him.
“Sir,” he cried impatiently, “if these lawyers have their way we shall
be cut to pieces as we stand----”
“They are for a retreat?” said the Prince.
“Yes----”
“It is neither wise nor honourable to retreat in sight of the enemy,”
remarked the Captain General coldly. He turned his horse and rode up to
M. Beverningh, and touched him on the arm.
“Mynheer,” he said curtly and decidedly, “there has been enough
talking.”
They all looked at him.
“What is your wish?” asked Count Struym eagerly. “It seems to me,
Highness, we have no course open but to fight.”
“There is Utrecht,” answered the Prince. “I mean to save Utrecht.”
The Deputies were silent. They wished, above all things, to avoid
responsibility. William eyed them; he saw perfectly well that they
would neither sanction nor veto his plans, and that whatever course
he took they would blame him if it proved disastrous, and take the
credit if it ended in success. Divided authority placed both sides in a
difficult position, but if the Deputies hesitated the Captain General’s
decision was prompt and unshakable.
His scheme was to remain and face the French with three regiments
of cavalry, thereby distracting them from Utrecht, which town Count
Struym, with the rest of the army of the States, was to reach in a
détour by way of Maartensdyk and Maarsen.
It was hoped that before midday reinforcements would arrive from
Schoonhoven and Gouda; these, attacking the rear of the enemy, would
enable the Prince to withdraw the rest of his army along the road to
Utrecht, which Count Struym must keep open, and throw himself into that
town before the French bombarded the fortifications.
If these tactics savoured of desperation, the situation was such as
called for desperate expedients, and no one dared withstand them. Some
encouragement was afforded by the fact that the rising ground would
disguise from the enemy that the stand the Dutch offered covered the
retreat of the greater portion of their forces, and it was reasonably
hoped that the French would not suspect that any attempt was being made
to save Utrecht.
At half-past seven Count Struym drew off with the bulk of the army and
the larger number of the Deputies.
M. Beverningh, however, remained with the Prince, who, relieved from
supervision and control, was energetically disposing his little force
to the best advantage.
Since they had broken camp they had been swelled by the survivors of
the garrisons of the Rhine fortresses, large numbers of peasants, and
M. de Montbas’ company of cavalry, which had been put under the command
of M. Bentinck. In all they numbered about two thousand men, of which
fourteen hundred were cavalry.
They had been marching and counter-marching all night, and some were
mere fugitives without as much as a musket. They were weary, and had
every excuse for discouragement; since neither the number of the enemy
nor the peace proposals of M. de Witt (which all took for an indication
of despair on that statesman’s part) could be disguised from them. To
add to their discomfort the baggage waggons had not been able to keep
pace with the rapid movements of the army, and there was not so much as
a loaf of bread among them.
The mill and adjacent farms were found to be deserted, all the
surrounding country-folk having retreated into Utrecht, and the hopes
of food from these were dispelled.
The men were mostly unmoved. Their officers and the Prince himself were
as badly off as themselves; they would sooner fight than retreat; they
had a way of doing both quietly.
William rode among the companies, and his quick observation detected
no discontent. Many of the men sang psalms as they brought up the
guns, and there were weighty arguments on points of doctrine between
Arminians and Calvinists, Latter Day Saints and Knipperdollings,--for
these people, the most obstinate and unconvincible in the world, found
one of their keenest pleasures in logic and argument.
William’s appearance woke their deep and sincere enthusiasm.
He spoke to them with more animation than M. Bentinck had ever known
him show, promised the cavalry (who were doing the work of foot
soldiers) double pay, and the peasants, who were digging trenches and
erecting palisades, a florin a day while they stuck to their work.
He heartened them with a promise of rest and food in Utrecht before
night, and entreated them to stand firm in defence of their religion
and their liberty.
His resolution and his energy did not fail of its effect. They forgot
fatigue, the number and prestige of the enemy, their own former
disasters, and set themselves cheerfully in readiness.
But if the men were encouraged by the Prince’s inspection, he himself
was not. Everything was lacking--ammunition, guns, even shoes and
coats.
A considerable number of the cavalry were on foot for want of horses,
and two culverins had had to be abandoned for lack of gun-carriages.
William thought bitterly of M. de Witt. The Grand Pensionary had
answered his appeal in eager and affectionate terms, but neither levies
nor supplies had arrived; de Witt seemed more desirous to send M. de
Groot on a mission of peace than to strengthen the army, and the new
Captain General was left with miserably inadequate means.
“M. Beverningh,” said William, “this is my first experience of war, and
I do not think any one ever fell into a harder apprenticeship.”
And the coming encounter was his first experience of actual battle.
He had been a fortnight with the army but had heard no more than the
distant sound of the French guns; he had witnessed no engagement.
Yet perhaps M. Beverningh was the only man to whom it occurred as
an anomaly that a youth of twenty-one who only knew war from books,
and had never seen bloodshed, should be commanding an army in such
desperate straits against a foe led by the most famous soldiers in the
world.
Every one else seemed as unconscious as was the Prince himself. If he
lacked experience he had certainly rare qualities; but M. Beverningh
was curious as to his behaviour in the actual shock of battle, in the
actual moment of leading his men to the encounter.
The infantry was placed behind the hastily constructed earthworks, and
in the mill and farm buildings which were taken as the nucleus of the
defence.
The French were an unaccountable time in advancing; seemed, if
anything, to be hanging back.
The truth was their commander had no wish for an encounter with the
Prince of Orange, against whom his master had no quarrel and whose
interests Louis had agreed to respect. His intention was to take
Utrecht, and he thought that, given a little time, William would have
the tact to withdraw and leave the road open to him as M. de Montbas
had done at the Rhine.
But about ten o’clock, perceiving (as he thought) the entire Dutch
forces still immovable before their protection of trees and rising
ground, he advanced to the attack, after expressing to his officers his
regret that His Majesty’s cousin had given them the unnecessary trouble
of beating him.
He had under his command seven or eight thousand men, well fed, well
drilled; a fine corps of artillery, and two of the most renowned
cavalry regiments of France. He was further strengthened by the
knowledge of M. de Rochfort’s advance from Nijkerk and near approach of
the King himself, who was reported to have already left Doesburg with
the Household brigade, a conquered country behind his banners.
Through the thick, sweet, hazy air came at last the sound of the French
drums and trumpets, and as it was quite windless their colours and
banners were all displayed above them as they marched.
They had left their baggage waggons and some of their artillery under
the guard of the infantry in the rear, for they did not regard the
coming engagement as one likely long to impede their progress, and at
an easy pace their magnificent cavalry advanced across the flat meadows
to the little wood of elm and beech where the birds were singing among
the warm leaves and the Dutch waited.
The sun bathed them in an even glow; red and blue coats, gold and
silver trappings gleamed as the men and horses moved. From the distance
even they had an extraordinarily easy demeanour, as if they laughed
amongst themselves.
Soon it became possible to distinguish the soft tramp of the horses,
the jingle of the harness, and the rumbling of the guns shaking on
their carriages.
The Dutch trumpets made answer now, and as the French came within range
their guns opened fire, tearing the summer peace into fury.
And as the smoke curled away the cavalry of the States galloped out of
the wood in little companies, colours flying and slack reins.
The Prince of Orange, Count Königsmarck, and William of Aylva were
together on a little incline, watching the enemy.
“Who are they?” asked the Prince of the German, who had travelled much
in France.
“Regiments of the line, Highness, dragoons,--and in the centre one of
the Household brigades.” He raised his perspective glass. “Yes, the
company under the Prince de Soubise. I can see the colours.”
William said nothing, he turned and galloped to the centre of the line
of guns, just beneath the mill.
The French, assuming the Netherlanders would have remained under cover
if their numbers were weak, took the daring charge of the cavalry as a
sign that their entire force was concealed by the rising ground.
This was the impression the Prince had hoped to create.
Instantly the French, wishing to draw their enemy into the open and to
put themselves beyond the range of the guns, retreated with a skilful
backward movement, steady and swift as the reflux of a wave.
Then the foremost company of cavalry, regardless of the empty saddles
already made, divided, wheeled to left and right, met again and
charged. This was the French mode; reckless, showy, expensive, but
irresistible, at once the glory and the ruin of their arms. It exposed
the very flower of their youth, gallantry, and nobility to the whole
brunt of the battle, while the infantry remained comparatively immune.
Again and again the French were to buy dashing and profitless victories
at the price of their best blood; again and again the aristocrats and
gentlemen were to be sacrificed in cruel slaughter, until all the
finest lives in France were hurled away in pursuance of the reckless
policy of the cavalry charge of the Household troops.
So now they came on, reins hanging loose, the horses with lengthened
necks, flattened ears, and staring eyes; ribbons, feathers, laces, and
curls blowing back over the shoulders of the men.
The Dutch formed close and received the shock of the onset without
flinching.
There was a short struggle, then the French withdrew at the gallop,
wheeled and charged.
The Dutch backed before them, and as they swept to the foot of the wood
a volley from the guns their cavalry had galloped aside to make way for
sent back half the horses riderless.
The French were too well trained to show confusion; this was a fiercer
defence, however, than they had expected.
M. de Soubise hurled forward two more companies and himself advanced
with his own light horse.
This fresh and hot onslaught almost overpowered the Dutch horse; they
were driven back almost to the mouths of their own guns.
The Prince sent out the Spanish cavalry to the rescue, and placed a
regiment of foot behind the gunners where they could pick off the
French cavalry from the cover of the trees.
M. de Soubise, unable to make much use of his artillery, had thrown out
his left wing, composed of brigadiers and guns, in a half circle to
attempt to storm the wood where the ground was flat and a small cottage
the only vantage spot.
William, perceiving this, sent M. Bentinck to the assistance of the
officer occupying the cottage, and himself rode up to M. D’Aylva, who
was commanding the troops held in reserve.
“The French are magnificent,” he said, “but our men fight very well.”
He was flushed and excited, his eyes dark and wide open.
All the restraint had gone from his voice, and there was a new
eagerness in his expression; the older man, at this irrelevant moment,
found himself remembering that his General was a boy who had never seen
battle before.
Himself a famous soldier, who had been named “a second Mars,” he looked
critically at the Prince.
“M. de Soubise has every advantage,” he said.
“But we can keep him at bay till nightfall,” replied William, “when we
can gain Utrecht.”
“Do you think so, Highness?”
The Prince turned on him the candid look of youth.
“Yes,” he said simply.
The air about them hung dun and heavy with smoke between the trees. The
whizz and thud of bullets striking the trunks, the hoarse, deafening
boom of the cannon, the nearer sound of striking tinder, transformed
the sweet stillness of the morning into the lurid tumult of war.
“Your Highness is in some danger here,” said M. D’Aylva. “If you would
withdraw nearer the mill----”
William smiled, and rode out of the trees on to the little clearing
beside the guns.
The battle beat fiercely to and fro in the green meadows. M. de Soubise
had turned his attention to the position held by M. Bentinck’s untaught
valour, and at the foot of the wood the Dutch and French struggled
desperately together.
The Prince’s keen glance swept over the field.
A cannon-ball fell beside him and exploded, frightening his horse into
rearing frantically. He kept his seat and quieted the animal, wiping
the foam from its face with his lace handkerchief.
Just beneath him a Dutch company had been repulsed by the enemy;
nearly all the officers had fallen, and the men, left leaderless, were
retreating in a confusion.
The Prince galloped down the incline, and to the head of the
disheartened company. They were men of his own province, part of a
Holland regiment.
“Gentlemen,” he said, drawing his sword, “will you have me for your
leader?”
He was still smiling.
“It is the Prince!” they cried.
He lifted his sword and led them straight against the French dragoons.
They fought now with a mad passion that was not to be withstood.…
The French gave way, inch by inch, and eventually retreated to the main
body.
Without a moment’s pause the Prince, shouting to the Spanish cavalry
to join him, dashed round to the aid of M. Bentinck, who was being
overpowered by sheer numbers.
Time after time his little band was driven back, time after time he led
them again to the charge. The French themselves were amazed at this
undaunted persistence; more than once their ranks were broken, and when
Count Königsmarck came with a Guelderland regiment to the support of
his master they abandoned their attack on the cottage after a fight
lasting two hours.
The sun was now high overhead, and the strong rays drove even through
the choking smoke and glared on the armour of the combatants; the air
was hot, dry, and close with the smell of blood and powder. The leaves,
but a few hours ago so fresh, hung withered and burnt along the lower
branches, and some of the neat painted out-buildings of the farm were
burning steadily with pale flames and black smoke.
Rank after rank, line after line, the French cavalry rode up, and the
right wing of the Dutch began to give way.
The Prince extricated himself from the confusion round the rescued
outpost, and rode with M. Bentinck to his retreating men.
They had lost all their officers save one young ensign, a Friesland
giant with bright gold hair, who seemed dazed, not knowing what to do.
He fought like one in a dream, aimlessly, the red blood drying on his
cuirass.
William dismounted, throwing his reins to M. Bentinck.
“That is not the way!” he cried. “You must put more fire in it,
gentlemen.”
He placed himself at their head and led them against the musketeers.
The young officer stared at him, bewildered.
“Mynheer!” cried the Prince, “second me now and I will give you this
company!”
The Frieslander roused himself and shouted a word of command.
The Dutch stood firm, then hurled themselves against the enemy.
Twice they were repulsed by the superior force, twice the Prince led
them back; till the trampled grass grew so choked with dead that the
living were divided by the slain.
William of Aylva surveyed the battle from the top of the incline.
“Does the Prince want to meet his death?” he muttered; then, “What is
this but madness?” And he looked at the army of France that rolled
almost as far as the horizon, and, though he was a brave man, his
counsels were for a flight, saving such lives as they could.
He saw the Prince, remounted on the grey horse, emerge from the smoky
tumult, and he rode down to meet him.
“Highness,”--he caught the young man’s bridle,--“this is madness----”
William answered--
“No, it is my duty--where are these men if I do not hearten them?”
“If you are slain where are our hopes?”
The Prince laughed.
“I shall not be slain to-day.”
As he spoke a bullet glanced along his cuirass, carrying away the knot
of his black scarf.
“We cannot do it,” said M. D’Aylva. “Will not Your Highness order a
retreat?”
“Not yet, not yet!” answered the Prince passionately. He looked round
at the broken battalions only his unconquerable energy had kept
together so long.
“They need encouragement,” he exclaimed. “They dare not stand up to
such veteran troops--yet it could be done----”
“If every man had your spirit,” muttered William D’Aylva, again looking
at him curiously, “I believe it could.”
The Prince gathered together the last of the cavalry and rode back into
the hottest part of the battle.
William D’Aylva, though with no hope, led the reserve regiment of
Guelderlanders into action. Nearly all the Dutch artillery was
useless; some of the guns were spiked, others had lost their gunners,
and there was little powder left.
The right wing of the Holland regiments was utterly cut to pieces; M.
Bentinck, coming too late to the rescue, could bring off no more than
the colours and one tattered detachment. Still the centre and the left
fought on. The Captain General found himself separated from his men; he
galloped to the Spanish cavalry, where he had stationed it to defend
the entrance to the wood.
Close to the rescued cottage he met a band of men who were doing
nothing.
He drew up his horse and turned in the saddle.
“Why do you not charge?” he asked in French, thinking they were the
Spanish who used that language.
The leader answered civilly that they had no powder, and even as he
spoke William saw that they were French.
He was entirely in their power. His pride did not permit him to fly; he
backed his horse.
“Good,” he said; “I will send you some powder.”
Utterly unconscious, they let him go, taking him for a French officer.
Not in the least impressed by what his temerity had exposed him to,
William gazed round fiercely for the Spanish, who had apparently
forsaken their post.
Suddenly he saw a detachment of them riding through the underwood--but
riding away from the battle.
Pale with rage, he spurred up to them.
“What is this?” he asked them. “I think you should have your faces to
the enemy!”
They had a look about them such as is seldom seen in men; sometimes in
a horse before it shies.
“It is a massacre out there … carnage,” answered one through his teeth.
“The day is lost … lost.”
“I’ll shoot the man who says so!” exclaimed the Prince, putting his
hand to his holster. “Get back to your places, you cowards, and never
care whether the day be lost or no as long as you stay where you are
bidden.”
They cowered before him, and he, in his wrath, turned the officer’s
horse himself, and when the man still hesitated he took his whip from
his boot and lashed them back into the battle.…
It was now nearly dusk, and as the sun struck level rays across the
battlefield, before it sunk below the flat horizon, the sound of the
Marquis de Rochfort’s guns was heard in the distance.
No human endeavour could do any more. The Prince had kept up a fight of
eight hours against overwhelming odds, holding at bay, with his raw,
tired troops, the splendid forces of France.
More than half his army was slain; his guns were dismounted, his powder
spent. Reluctantly he drew off his exhausted men, first firing the mill
and the farmhouses to impede the enemy in the pursuit, which they were,
however, by no means inclined to make.
M. de Soubise was quite satisfied with his victory, and it was no part
of the training of his school of warfare to follow up a success.
He still imagined the Dutch to have been at least twice their number,
and consequently magnified his own glory.
His men were tired, and with the dark great clouds blew up and warm
rain fell. The French camp was pitched on the field of battle, and
glowing dispatches written to His Majesty and M. de Louvois.
The Prince and his officers on the Utrecht road were not ill content
either, for they had done what they intended, and at no higher a price
than they had been prepared to pay.
Utrecht was saved; M. de Zuylestein installed within its walls.
Riding through the soft raining dark, William repeated that to himself--
“Utrecht is saved.”
But when they were within a few miles of the city a little band of men,
bearing lanterns, came to meet them.
M. de Zuylestein’s men, with this news--
“The Catholics and French in Utrecht have seized the town and closed
the gates to the forces of the United Provinces. They intend to open to
King Louis, and refuse even to provision Your Highness’ men.”