the stockade-work. There, covered with tar, pitch, rosin, and gunpowder,
they flamed, flared, and exploded, during a brief period, with much
vigour, and then burned harmlessly out. One of the objects for which
they had been sent--to set fire to the palisade--was not accomplished.
The other was gained; for the enemy, expecting another volcanic shower of
tombstones and plough-coulters, and remembering the recent fate of their
comrades on the bridge, had retired shuddering into the forts. Meantime,
in the glare of these vast torches, a great swarm of gunboats and other
vessels, skimming across the leaden-coloured waters, was seen gradually
approaching the dyke. It was the fleet of Hohenlo and Justinus de
Nassau, who had been sailing and rowing since ten o'clock of the
preceding night. The burning ships lighted them on their way, while it
had scared the Spaniards from their posts.
The boats ran ashore in the mile-long space between forts St. George and
the Palisade, and a party of Zeelanders, Admiral Haultain, governor of
Walcheren, at their head, sprang upon the dyke. Meantime, however, the
royalists, finding that the fire-ships had come to so innocent an end,
had rallied and emerged from their forts. Haultain and his Zeelanders,
by the time they had fairly mounted the dyke, found themselves in the
iron embrace of several hundred Spaniards. After a brief fierce
struggle, face to face, and at push of pike, the patriots reeled backward
down tile bank, and took refuge in their boats. Admiral Haultain slipped
as he left the shore, missed a rope's end which was thrown to him, fell
into the water, and, borne down by the weight of his armour, was drowned.
The enemy, pursuing them, sprang to the waist in the ooze on the edge of
the dyke, and continued the contest. The boats opened a hot fire, and
there was a severe skirmish for many minutes, with no certain result. It
was, however, beginning to go hard with the Zeelanders, when, just at the
critical moment, a cheer from the other side of the dyke was heard, and
the Antwerp fleet was seen coming swiftly to the rescue. The Spaniards,
taken between the two bands of assailants, were at a disadvantage, and it
was impossible to prevent the landing of these fresh antagonists. The
Antwerpers sprang ashore. Among the foremost was Sainte Aldegonde, poet,
orator, hymn-book maker, burgomaster, lawyer, polemical divine--now armed
to the teeth and cheering on his men, in the very thickest of the fight.
The diversion was successful, and Sainte Aldegonde gallantly drove the
Spaniards quite off the field. The whole combined force from Antwerp and
Zeeland now effected their landing. Three thousand men occupied all the
space between Fort George and the Palisade.
With Sainte Aldegonde came the unlucky Koppen Loppen, and all that could
be spared of the English and Scotch troops in Antwerp, under Balfour and
Morgan. With Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau came Reinier Kant, who had
just succeeded Paul Buys as Advocate of Holland. Besides these came two
other men, side by side, perhaps in the same boat, of whom the world was
like to hear much, from that time forward, and whose names are to be most
solemnly linked together, so long as Netherland history shall endure;
one, a fair-faced flaxen-haired boy of eighteen, the other a square-
visaged, heavy-browed man of forty--Prince Maurice and John of Olden-
Barneveldt. The statesman had been foremost to urge the claim of William
the Silent's son upon the stadholderate of Holland and Zeeland, and had
been, as it were, the youth's political guardian. He had himself borne
arms more than once before, having shouldered his matchlock under
Batenburg, and marched on that officer's spirited but disastrous
expedition for the relief of Haarlem. But this was the life of those
Dutch rebels. Quill-driving, law-expounding, speech-making, diplomatic
missions, were intermingled with very practical business in besieged
towns or open fields, with Italian musketeers and Spanish pikemen. And
here, too, young Maurice was taking his first solid lesson in the art of
which he was one day to be so distinguished a professor. It was a sharp
beginning. Upon this ribband of earth, scarce six paces in breadth, with
miles of deep water on both sides--a position recently fortified by the
first general of the age, and held by the famous infantry of Spain and
Italy--there was likely to be no prentice-work.
To assault such a position was in truth, as Alexander had declared it to
be, a most daring and desperate resolution on the part of the States.
"Soldiers, citizens, and all," said Parma, "they are obstinate as dogs to
try their fortune."
With wool-sacks, sand-bags, hurdles, planks, and other materials brought
with them, the patriots now rapidly entrenched themselves in the position
so brilliantly gained; while, without deferring for an instant the great
purpose which they had come to effect, the sappers and miners fastened
upon the ironbound soil of the dyke, tearing it with pick, mattock, and
shovel, digging, delving, and throwing up the earth around them, busy as
human beavers, instinctively engaged in a most congenial task.
But the beavers did not toil unmolested. The large and determined force
of Antwerpers and English, Hollanders and Zeelanders, guarded the
fortifications as they were rapidly rising, and the pioneers as they were
so manfully delving; but the enemy was not idle. From Fort Saint James,
next beyond Saint George, Camillo del Monte led a strong party to the
rescue. There was a tremendous action, foot to foot, breast to breast,
with pike and pistol, sword and dagger. Never since the beginning of the
war had there been harder fighting than now upon that narrow isthmus.
"'Twas an affair of most brave obstinacy on both sides," said Parma,
who rarely used strong language. "Soldiers, citizens, and all--they
were like mad bulldogs." Hollanders, Italians, Scotchmen, Spaniards,
Englishmen, fell thick and fast. The contest was about the entrenchments
before they were completed, and especially around the sappers and miners,
in whose picks and shovels lay the whole fate of Antwerp. Many of the
dyke-breakers were digging their own graves, and rolled, one after
another, into the breach which they were so obstinately creating.
Upon that slender thread of land the hopes of many thousands were
hanging. To tear it asunder, to roll the ocean-waves up to Antwerp,
and thus to snatch the great city triumphantly from the grasp of Philip
--to accomplish this, the three thousand had come forth that May morning.
To prevent it, to hold firmly that great treasure entrusted to them, was
the determination of the Spaniards. And so, closely pent and packed,
discharging their carbines into each other's faces, rolling, coiled
together, down the slimy sides of the dyke into the black waters,
struggling to and fro, while the cannon from the rebel fleet and from the
royal forts mingled their roar with the sharp crack of the musketry,
Catholics and patriots contended for an hour, while still, through all
the confusion and uproar, the miners dug and delved.
At last the patriots were victorious. They made good their
entrenchments, drove the Spaniards, after much slaughter, back to the
fort of Saint George on the one side, and of the Palisade on the other,
and cleared the whole space between the two points. The centre of the
dyke was theirs; the great Kowenstyn, the only key by which the gates of
Antwerp could be unlocked, was in the deliverers' hands. They pursued
their victory, and attacked the Palisade Fort. Gamboa, its commandant,
was severely wounded; many other officers dead or dying; the outworks
were in the hands of the Hollanders; the slender piles on which the
fortress rested in the water were rudely shaken; the victory was almost
complete.
And now there was a tremendous cheer of triumph. The beavers had done
their work, the barrier was bitten through and through, the salt water
rushed like a river through the ruptured dyke. A few moments later, and
a Zeeland barge, freighted with provisions, floated triumphantly into the
waters beyond, now no longer an inland sea. The deed was done--the
victory achieved. Nothing more was necessary than to secure it, to tear
the fatal barrier to fragments, to bury it, for its whole length, beneath
the waves. Then, after the isthmus had been utterly submerged, when the
Scheldt was rolled back into its ancient bed, when Parma's famous bridge
had become useless, when the maritime communication between Antwerp and
Holland had been thoroughly established, the Spaniards would have nothing
left for it but to drown like rats in their entrenchments or to abandon
the siege in despair. All this was in the hands of the patriots. The
Kowenstyn was theirs. The Spaniards were driven from the field, the
batteries of their forts silenced. For a long period the rebels were
unmolested, and felt themselves secure.
"We remained thus some three hours," says Captain James, an English
officer who fought in the action, and described it in rough, soldierly
fashion to Walsingham the same day, "thinking all things to be secure."
Yet in the very supreme moment of victory, the leaders, both of the
Hollanders and of the Antwerpers, proved themselves incompetent to their
position. With deep regret it must be admitted, that not only the
reckless Hohenlo, but the all-accomplished Sainte Aldegonde, committed
the gravest error. In the hour of danger, both had comported themselves
with perfect courage and conduct. In the instant of triumph, they gave
way to puerile exultation. With a celerity as censurable as it seems
incredible, both these commanders sprang into the first barge which had
thus floated across the dyke, in order that they might, in person, carry
the news of the victory to Antwerp, and set all the bells ringing and the
bonfires blazing. They took with them Ferrante Spinola, a mortally-
wounded Italian officer of rank, as a trophy of their battle, and a
boatload of beef and flour, as an earnest of the approaching relief.
While the conquerors were thus gone to enjoy their triumph, the
conquered, though perplexed and silenced, were not yet disposed to accept
their defeat. They were even ignorant that they were conquered. They
had been forced to abandon the field, and the patriots had entrenched
themselves upon the dyke, but neither Fort Saint George nor the Palisade
had been carried, although the latter was in imminent danger.
Old Count Peter Ernest Mansfeld--a grizzled veteran, who had passed his
childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, under fire--commanded at the
land-end of the dyke, in the fortress of Stabroek, in which neighbourhood
his whole division was stationed. Seeing how the day was going, he
called a council of war. The patriots had gained a large section of the
dyke. So much was certain. Could they succeed in utterly demolishing
that bulwark in the course of the day? If so, how were they to be
dislodged before their work was perfected? It was difficult to assault
their position. Three thousand Hollanders, Antwerpers, Englishmen--
"mad bulldogs all," as Parma called them--showing their teeth very
mischievously, with one hundred and sixty Zeeland vessels throwing in
their broadsides from both margins of the dyke, were a formidable company
to face.
"Oh for one half hour of Alexander in the field!" sighed one of the
Spanish officers in council. But Alexander was more than four leagues
away, and it was doubtful whether he even knew of the fatal occurrence.
Yet how to send him a messenger. Who could reach him through that valley
of death? Would it not be better to wait till nightfall? Under the
cover of darkness something might be attempted, which in the daylight
would be hopeless. There was much anxiety, and much difference of
opinion had been expressed, when Camillo Capizucca, colonel of the
Italian Legion, obtained a hearing. A man bold in words as in deeds, he
vehemently denounced the pusillanimity which would wait either for Parma
or for nightfall. "What difference will it make," he asked, "whether we
defer our action until either darkness or the General arrives? In each
case we give the enemy time enough to destroy the dyke, and thoroughly to
relieve the city. That done, what good can be accomplished by our arms?
Then our disheartened soldiers will either shrink from a fruitless combat
or march to certain death." Having thus, very warmly but very
sagaciously, defined the position in which all were placed, he proceeded
to declare that he claimed, neither for himself nor for his legion, any
superiority over the rest of the army. He knew not that the Italians
were more to be relied upon than others in the time of danger, but this
he did know, that no man in the world was so devoted as he was to the
Prince of Parma. To show that devotion by waiting with folded arms
behind a wall until the Prince should arrive to extricate his followers,
was not in his constitution. He claimed the right to lead his Italians
against the enemy at once--in the front rank, if others chose to follow;
alone, if the rest preferred to wait till a better leader should arrive.
The words of the Italian colonel sent a thrill through all who heard him.
Next in command under Capizucca was his camp-marshal, an officer who bore
the illustrious name of Piccolomini--father of the Duke Ottavio, of whom
so much was to be heard at a later day throughout the fell scenes of that
portion of the eighty years' tragedy now enacting, which was to be called
the Thirty Years' War of Germany. The camp-marshal warmly seconded the
proposition of his colonel. Mansfeld, pleased with such enthusiasm among
his officers, yielded to their wishes, which were, in truth, his own.
Six companies of the Italian Legion were in his encampment while the
remainder were stationed, far away, upon the bridge, under command of his
son, Count Charles. Early in the morning, before the passage across the
dyke had been closed the veteran condottiere, pricking his ears as he
snuffed the battle from afar, had contrived to send a message to his son.
"Charles, my boy," were his words, "to-day we must either beat them or
burst."
Old Peter Ernest felt that the long-expected, long-deferred assault was
to be made that morning in full force, and that it was necessary for the
royalists, on both bridge and dyke, to hold their own. Piccolomini now
drew up three hundred of his Italians, picked veterans all, and led them
in marching order to Mansfeld. That general at the same moment, received
another small but unexpected reinforcement. A portion of the Spanish
Legion, which had long been that of Pedro Pacchi, lay at the extreme
verge of the Stabroek encampment, several miles away. Aroused by the
distant cannonading, and suspecting what had occurred, Don Juan d'Aquila,
the colonel in command, marched without a moment's delay to Mansfeld's
head-quarters, at the head of all the force he could muster--about two
hundred strong. With him came Cardona, Gonzales de Castro, Toralva, and
other distinguished officers. As they arrived, Capizucca was just
setting forth for the field. There arose a dispute for precedence
between the Italians and the Spaniards. Capizucca had first demanded the
privilege of leading what seemed a forlorn hope, and was unwilling to
yield his claim to the new comer. On the other hand, the Spaniards were
not disposed to follow where they felt entitled to lead. The quarrel was
growing warm, when Aquila, seizing his Italian rival by the hand,
protested that it was not a moment for friends to wrangle for precedence.
"Shoulder to shoulder," said he, "let us go into this business, and let
our blows rather fall on our enemies' heads than upon each other's."
This terminated the altercation. The Italians and Spaniards--in battle
array as they were--all dropped on their knees, offered a brief prayer to
the Holy Virgin, and then, in the best possible spirits, set forth along
the dyke. Next to fort Stabroek--whence they issued--was the Palisade
Fort, nearly a mile removed, which the patriots had nearly carried, and
between which and St. George, another mile farther on, their whole force
was established.
The troops under Capizucca and Aquila soon reached the Palisade, and
attacked the besiegers, while the garrison, cheered by the unexpected
relief, made a vigorous sortie. There was a brief sharp contest, in
which many were killed on both sides; but at last the patriots fell back
upon their own entrenchments, and the fort was saved. Its name was
instantly changed to Fort Victory, and the royalists then prepared to
charge the fortified camp of the rebels, in the centre of which the dyke-
cutting operations were still in progress. At the same moment, from the
opposite end of the bulwark, a cry was heard along the whole line of the
dyke. From Fort Holy Cross, at the Scheldt end, the welcome intelligence
was suddenly communicated--as if by a magnetic impulse--that Alexander
was in the field!
It was true. Having been up half the night, as usual, keeping watch
along his bridge, where he was ever expecting a fatal attack, he had
retired for a few hours' rest in his camp at Beveren. Aroused at day-
break by the roar of the cannon, he had hastily thrown on his armour,
mounted his horse, and, at the head of two hundred pikemen, set forth for
the scene of action. Detained on the bridge by a detachment of the
Antwerp fleet, which had been ordered to make a diversion in that
quarter, he had, after beating off their vessels with his boat-artillery,
and charging Count Charles Mansfeld to heed well the brief injunction of
old Peter Ernest, made all the haste he could to the Kowenstyn. Arriving
at Fort Holy Cross, he learned from Mondragon how the day was going.
Three thousand rebels, he learned, were established on the dyke, Fort
Palisade was tottering, a fleet from both sides was cannonading the
Spanish entrenchments, the salt water was flowing across the breach
already made. His seven months' work, it seemed, had come to nought.
The navigation was already open from the sea to Antwerp, the Lowenstyn
was in the rebels' hands. But Alexander was not prone to premature
despair. "I arrived," said he to Philip in a letter written on the same
evening, "at the very nick of time." A less hopeful person might have
thought that he had arrived several hours too late. Having brought with
him every man that could be spared from Beveren and from the bridge,
he now ordered Camillo del Monte to transport some additional pieces of
artillery from Holy Cross and from Saint James to Fort Saint Georg. At
the same time a sharp cannonade was to be maintained upon the rebel fleet
from all the forts.
Mondragon, with a hundred musketeers and pikemen, was sent forward
likewise as expeditiously as possible to Saint George. No one could be
more alert. The battered veteran, hero of some of the most remarkable
military adventures that history has ever recorded,' fought his way on
foot, in the midst of the fray, like a young ensign who had his first
laurels to win. And, in truth, the day was not one for cunning
manoeuvres, directed, at a distance, by a skillful tactician. It was
a brisk close contest, hand to hand and eye to eye--a Homeric encounter,
in which the chieftains were to prove a right to command by their
personal prowess. Alexander, descending suddenly--dramatically, as it
were--when the battle seemed lost--like a deity from the clouds-was to
justify, by the strength of his arm, the enthusiasm which his name always
awakened. Having, at a glance, taken in the whole situation, he made his
brief arrangements, going from rank to rank, and disposing his troops in
the most effective manner. He said but few words, but his voice had
always a telling effect.
"The man who refuses, this day, to follow me," he said, "has never had
regard to his own honour, nor has God's cause or the King's ever been
dear to his heart."
His disheartened Spaniards and Italians--roused as by a magic trumpet--
eagerly demanded to be led against the rebels. And now from each end of
the dyke, the royalists were advancing toward the central position
occupied by the patriots. While Capizucca and Aquila were occupied at
Fort Victory, Parma was steadily cutting his way from Holy Cross to Saint
George. On foot, armed with sword and shield, and in coat of mail, and
marching at the head of his men along the dyke, surrounded by Bevilacqua,
Bentivoglio, Manriquez, Sforza, and other officers of historic name and
distinguished courage, now upon the summit of the causeway, now on its
shelving banks, now breast-high in the waters, through which lay the
perilous path, contending at every inch with the scattered bands of the
patriots, who slowly retired to their entrenched camp, and with the
Antwerp and Zeeland vessels, whose balls tore through the royalist ranks,
the General at last reached Saint George. On the preservation of that
post depended the whole fortune of the day, for Parma had already
received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade--now Fort Victory--
had been regained. He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-
sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted
a battery to play point-blank at the enemy's entrenchments. Here the
final issue was to be made.
The patriots and Spaniards were thus all enclosed in the mile-long space
between St. George and the Palisade. Upon that narrow strip of earth,
scarce six paces in width, more than five thousand men met in mortal
combat--a narrow arena for so many gladiators, hemmed in on both sides by
the sea. The patriots had, with solemn ceremony, before starting upon
their enterprise, vowed to destroy the dyke and relieve Antwerp, or to
perish in the attempt. They were true to their vow. Not the ancient
Batavians or Nervii had ever manifested more tenacity against the Roman
legions than did their descendants against the far-famed Spanish infantry
upon this fatal day. The fight on the Kowenstyn was to be long
remembered in the military annals of Spain and Holland. Never, since the
curtain first rose upon the great Netherland tragedy, had there been a
fiercer encounter. Flinching was impossible. There was scant room for
the play of pike and dagger, and, close packed as were the combatants,
the dead could hardly fall to the ground. It was a mile-long series of
separate mortal duels, and the oozy dyke was soon slippery with blood.
From both sides, under Capizucca and Aquila on the one band, and under
Alexander on the other, the entrenchments of the patriots were at last
assaulted, and as the royalists fell thick and fast beneath the breast-
work which they were storming, their comrades clambered upon their
bodies, and attempted, from such vantage-ground, to effect an entrance.
Three times the invaders were beaten back with heavy loss, and after each
repulse the attack was renewed with fresh vigour, while within the
entrenchments the pioneers still plied the pick and shovel, undismayed by
the uproar around them.
A fourth assault, vigorously made, was cheerfully repelled by the
Antwerpers and Hollanders, clustering behind their breast-works, and
looking steadily into their enemies' eyes. Captain Heraugiere--of whom
more was to be heard one day--had led two hundred men into action, and
now found himself at the head of only thirteen. The loss had been as
severe among many other patriot companies, as well as in the Spanish
ranks, and again the pikemen of Spain and Italy faltered before the iron
visages and cordial blows of the Hollanders.