MARLBOROUGH.

No. I.

Alexander the Great said, when he approached the tomb of Achilles, "Oh!

fortunate youth, who had a Homer to be the herald of your fame!" "And

well did he say so," says the Roman historian: "for, unless the _Iliad_

had been written, the same earth which covered his body would have

buried his name." Never was the truth of these words more clearly

evinced than in the case of the Duke of MARLBOROUGH. Consummate as were

the abilities, unbroken the success, immense the services of this great

commander, he can scarcely be said to be known to the vast majority of

his countrymen. They have heard the distant echo of his fame as they

have that of the exploits of Timour, of Bajazet, and of Genghis Khan;

the names of Blenheim and Ramillies, of Malplaquet and Oudenarde, awaken

a transient feeling of exultation in their bosoms; but as to the

particulars of these events, the difficulties with which their general

had to struggle, the objects for which he contended, even the places

where they occurred, they are, for the most part, as ignorant as they

are of similar details in the campaigns of Baber or Aurengzebe. What

they do know, is derived chiefly, if not entirely, from the histories of

their enemies. Marlborough's exploits have made a prodigious impression

on the Continent. The French, who felt the edge of his flaming sword,

and saw the glories of the _Grande Monarque_ torn from the long

triumphant brow of Louis XIV.; the Dutch, who found in his conquering

arm the stay of their sinking republic, and their salvation from slavery

and persecution; the Germans, who saw the flames of the Palatinate

avenged by his resistless power, and the ravages of war rolled back from

the Rhine into the territory of the state which had provoked them; the

Lutherans, who beheld in him the appointed instrument of divine

vengeance, to punish the abominable perfidy and cruelty of the

revocation of the edict of Nantes--have concurred in celebrating his

exploits. The French nurses frightened their children with stories of

"Marlbrook," as the Orientals say, when their horses start, they see the

shadow of Richard Coeur-de-Lion crossing their path. Napoleon hummed

the well-known air, "Marlbrook s'en va à la guerre," when he crossed

the Niemen to commence the Moscow campaign. But in England, the country

which he has made illustrious, the nation he has saved, the land of his

birth, he is comparatively forgotten; and were it not for the popular

pages of Voltaire, and the shadow which a great name throws over the

stream of time in spite of every neglect, he would be virtually unknown

at this moment to nineteen-twentieths of the British people.

It is the fault of the national historians which has occasioned this

singular injustice to one of the greatest of British heroes--certainly

the most consummate, if we except Wellington, of British military

commanders. No man has yet appeared who has done any thing like justice

to the exploits of Marlborough. Smollett, whose unpretending narrative,

compiled for the bookseller, has obtained a passing popularity by being

the only existing sequel to Hume, had none of the qualities necessary to

write a military history, or make the narrative of heroic exploits

interesting. His talents for humour, as all the world knows, were

great--for private adventure, or the delineation of common life in

novels, considerable. But he had none of the higher qualities necessary

to form a great historian; he had neither dramatic nor descriptive

power; he was entirely destitute of philosophic views or power of

general argument. In the delineation of individual character, he is

often happy; his talents as a novelist, and as the narrator of private

events, there appear to advantage. But he was neither a poet nor a

painter, a statesman nor a philosopher. He neither saw whence the stream

of events had come, nor whither it was going. We look in vain in his

pages for the lucid arguments and rhetorical power with which Hume

illustrated, and brought, as it were, under the mind's eye, the general

arguments urged, or rather which might be urged by ability equal to his

own, for and against every great change in British history. As little do

we find the captivating colours with which Robertson has painted the

discovery and wonders of America, or the luminous glance which he has

thrown over the progress of society in the first volume of Charles V.

Gibbon's incomparable powers of classification and description are

wholly awanting. The fire of Napier's military pictures need not be

looked for. What is usually complained of in Smollett, especially by his

young readers, is, that he is so dull--the most fatal of all defects,

and the most inexcusable in an historian. His heart was not in history,

his hand was not trained to it; it is in "Roderick Random" or "Peregrine

Pickle," not the continuation of Hume, that his powers are to be seen.

Lord Mahon has brought to the subject of the history of England from the

treaty of Utrecht to that of Aix-la-Chapelle, talents of a kind much

better adapted for doing justice to Marlborough's campaigns. He has

remarkable power for individual narrative. His account of the gallant

attempt, and subsequent hair-breadth escapes of the Pretender in 1745,

is full of interest, and is justly praised by Sismondi as by far the

best account extant of that romantic adventure. He possesses also a fair

and equitable judgment, much discrimination, evident talent for drawing

characters, and that upright and honourable heart, which is the first

requisite for success in the delineation, as it is for success in the

conduct of events. His industry in examining and collecting authorities

is great; he is a scholar, a statesman, and a gentleman--no small

requisites for the just delineation of noble and generous achievements.

But notwithstanding all this, his work is not the one to rescue

Marlborough's fame from the unworthy obscurity into which, in this

country, it has fallen. He takes up the thread of events where

Marlborough left them: he begins only at the peace of Utrecht. Besides

this, he is not by nature a military historian, and if he had begun at

the Revolution, the case would probably have been the same. Lord Mahon's

attention has been mainly fixed on domestic story; it is in illustrating

parliamentary contests or court intrigues, not military events, that his

powers have been put forth. He has given a clear, judicious, and elegant

narrative of British history, as regards these, so far as it is embraced

by his accomplished pen; but the historian of Marlborough must treat him

as second to none, not even to Louis XIV. or William III. Justice will

never be done to the hero of the English revolution, till his Life is

the subject of a separate work in every schoolboy's hands. We must have

a memoir of him to be the companion of Southey's Life of Nelson, and

Napier's Peninsular War.

Voltaire, in his "Siècle de Louis XIV.," could not avoid giving a sketch

of the exploits of the British hero; and his natural impartiality has

led him, so far as it goes, to give a tolerably fair one. It need hardly

be said, that coming from the pen of such a writer, it is lively,

animated, and distinct. But Voltaire was not a military historian; he

had none of the feelings or associations which constitute one. War, when

he wrote, had been for above half a century, with a few brilliant

exceptions, a losing game to the French. In the War of the Succession

they had lost their ascendancy in continental Europe; in that of the

Seven Years, nearly their whole colonial dominions. The hard-won glories

of Fontenoy, the doubtful success of Laffelt, were a poor compensation

for these disasters. It was the fashion of his day to decry war as the

game of kings, or flowing from the ambition of priests; if superstition

was abolished, and popular virtue let into government, one eternal reign

of peace and justice would commence. With these writers the great object

was, to carry the cabinets of kings by assault, and introduce

philosophers into government through the antechambers of mistresses.

Peter the Great was their hero, Catharine of Russia their divinity, for

they placed philosophers at the head of affairs. It was not to be

supposed that in France, the vanquished country, in such an age justice

should be done to the English conqueror. Yet such were the talents of

Voltaire, especially for making a subject popular, that it is on his

work, such as it is, that the fame of Marlborough mainly rests, even in

his own country.

Marlborough, as might be expected, has not wanted biographers who have

devoted themselves, expressly and exclusively, to transmit his fame and

deeds to posterity. They have for the most part failed, from the faults

most fatal, and yet most common to biographers--undue partiality in

some, dulness and want of genius in others. They began at an early

period after his death, and are distinguished at first by that rancour

on the one side, and exaggeration on the other, by which such

contemporary narratives are generally, and in that age were in a

peculiar manner, distinguished. I. An abridged account of his life,

dedicated to the Duke of Montague, his son-in-law, appeared at Amsterdam

in 12mo; but it is nothing but an anonymous panegyric. II. Not many

years after, a life of Marlborough was published, in three volumes

quarto, by Thomas Ledyard, who had accompanied him in many of his later

travels, and had been the spectator of some of the last of his military

exploits. This is a work of much higher authority, and contains much

valuable information; but it is prolix, long-winded, and diffuse, filled

with immaterial documents, and written throughout in a tone of inflated

panegyric. III. Another life of Marlborough, written with more ability,

appeared at Paris in 1806, in three volumes octavo, by Dutems. The

author had the advantage of all the resources for throwing light on his

history which the archives of France, then at the disposal of Napoleon,

who had a high admiration for the English general, could afford; but it

could hardly be expected that, till national historians of adequate

capacity for the task had appeared, it was to be properly discharged by

foreigners. Yet such is the partiality which an author naturally

contracts for the hero of his biography, that the work of Dutems, though

the author has shown himself by no means blind to his hero's faults, is

perhaps chiefly blameable for being too much of a panegyric. IV. By far

the fullest and most complete history of Marlborough, however, is that

which was published at London in 1818, by Archdeacon Coxe, in five

volumes octavo. This learned author had access to all the official

documents on the subject then known to be in existence, particularly the

Blenheim Papers, and he has made good use of the ample materials placed

at his disposal; but it cannot be said that he has made an interesting,

though he certainly has a valuable, work. It has reached a second

edition, but it is now little heard of: a certain proof, if the

importance of his subject, and value of his materials is taken into

account, that it labours under some insurmountable defects in

composition. Nor is it difficult to see what these defects are. The

venerable Archdeacon, respectable for his industry, his learning, his

researches, had not a ray of genius, and genius is the soul of history.

He gives every thing with equal minuteness, makes no attempt at

digesting or compression, and fills his pages with letters and

state-papers at full length; the certain way, if not connected by

ability, to send them to the bottom.

Dean Swift's history of the four last years of Queen Anne, and his

Apology for the same sovereign, contain much valuable information

concerning Marlborough's life; but it is so mixed up with the gall and

party spirit which formed so essential a part of the Dean of St

Patrick's character, that it cannot be relied on as impartial or

authentic.[2] The life of James II. by Clarke contains a great variety

of valuable and curious details drawn from the Stuart Papers sent to the

Prince Regent on the demise of the Cardinal York; and it would be well

for the reputation of Marlborough, as well as many other eminent men of

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, if some of them could be

buried in oblivion. But by far the best life of Marlborough, in a

military point of view, is that recently published by Mr Gleig, in his

"Military Commanders of Great Britain,"--a sketch characterized by all

the scientific knowledge, practical acquaintance with war, and brilliant

power of description, by which the other writings of that gifted author

are distinguished. If he would make as good use of the vast collection

of papers which, under the able auspices of Sir George Murray, have now

issued from the press, as he has of the more scanty materials at his

disposal when he wrote his account of Marlborough, he would write _the_

history of that hero, and supersede the wish even for any other.

The fortunate accident is generally known by which the great collection

of papers now in course of publication in London has been brought to

light. That this collection should at length have become known is less

surprising than that it should so long have remained forgotten, and have

eluded the searches of so many persons interested in the subject. It

embraces, as Sir George Murray's lucid preface mentions, a complete

series of the correspondence of the great duke from 1702 to 1712, the

ten years of his most important public services. In addition to the

despatches of the duke himself, the letters, almost equally numerous, of

his private secretary, M. Cardonnell, and a journal written by his

grace's chaplain, Dr Hare, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, are

contained in the eighteen manuscript volumes which were discovered in

the record-room of Hensington, near Woodstock, in October 1842, and are

now given to the public. They are of essential service, especially in

rendering intelligible the details of the correspondence, which would

otherwise in great part be uninteresting, and scarce understood, at

least by the ordinary reader. Some of the most valuable parts of the

work, particularly a full detail of the battle of Blenheim, are drawn

from Dr Hare's journal. In addition to this, the bulletins of most of

the events, issued by government at the time, are to be found in notes

at the proper places; and in the text are occasionally contained short,

but correct and luminous notices, of the preceding or contemporaneous

political and military events which are alluded to, but not described,

in the despatches, and which are necessary to understand many of their

particulars. Nothing, in a word, has been omitted by the accomplished

editor which could illustrate or render intelligible the valuable

collection of materials placed at his disposal; and yet, with all his

pains and ability, it is often very difficult to follow the detail of

events, or understand the matter alluded to in the despatches:--so

great is the lack of information on the eventful War of the Succession

which prevails, from the want of a popular historian to record it, even

among well-informed persons in this country; and so true was the

observation of Alexander the Great, that but for the genius of Homer,

the exploits of Achilles would have been buried under the tumulus which

covered his remains! And what should we have known of Alexander himself

more than of Attila or Genghis Khan, but for the fascinating pages of

Quintus Curtius and Arrian?

To the historian who is to go minutely into the details of Marlborough's

campaigns and negotiations, and to whom accurate and authentic

information is of inestimable importance, it need hardly be said that

these papers are of the utmost value. But, to the general reader, all

such voluminous publications and despatches must, as a matter of

necessity, be comparatively uninteresting. They always contain a great

deal of repetition, in consequence of the necessity under which the

commander lay, of communicating the same event to those with whom he was

in correspondence in many different quarters. Great part of them relate

to details of discipline, furnishing supplies, getting up stores, and

other necessary matters, of little value even to the historian, except

in so far as they illustrate the industry, energy, and difficulties of

the commander. The general reader who plunges into the midst of the

Marlborough despatches in this age, or into those of Wellington in the

next, when contemporary recollection is lost, will find it impossible to

understand the greater part of the matters referred to, and will soon

lay aside the volumes in despair. Such works are highly valuable, but

they are so to the annalist or historian rather than the ordinary

reader. They are the materials of history, not history itself. They bear

the same relation to the works of Livy or Gibbon which the rude blocks

in the quarry do to the temples of St Peter's or the Parthenon. Ordinary

readers are not aware of this when they take up a volume of despatches;

they expect to be as much fascinated by it as they are by the

correspondence of Madame de Sevigné, Cowper, Gibbon, or Arnold. They

will soon find their mistake: the book-sellers will erelong find it in

the sale of such works. The matter-of-fact men in ordinary life, and the

compilers and drudges in literature--that is, nine-tenths of the readers

and writers in the world--are never weary of descanting on the

inestimable importance of authentic documents for history; and without

doubt they are right so far as the collecting of materials goes. There

must be quarriers before there can be architects: the hewers of wood and

drawers of water are the basis of all civilization. But they are not

civilization itself, they are its pioneers. Truth is essential to an

estimable character: but many a man is insupportably dull who never told

a falsehood. The pioneers of Marlborough, however, have now gone before,

and it will be the fault of English genius if the divine artist does not

erelong make the proper use of the materials at length placed in his

hands.

John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, was born on the 5th July

1650, (new style,) at Ash, in the county of Devon. His father was Sir

Winston Churchill, a gallant cavalier who had drawn his sword in behalf

of Charles I., and had in consequence been deprived of his fortune and

driven into exile by Cromwell. His paternal family was very ancient, and

boasted its descent from the _Courcils_ de Poitou, who came into England

with the Conqueror. His mother was Elizabeth Drake, who claimed a

collateral connexion with the descendants of the illustrious Sir Francis

Drake, the great navigator. Young Churchill received the rudiments of

his education from the parish clergyman in Devonshire, from whom he

imbibed that firm attachment to the Protestant faith by which he was

ever afterwards distinguished, and which determined his conduct in the

most important crisis of his life. He was afterwards placed at the

school of St Paul's; and it was there that he first discovered, on

reading Vegetius, that his bent of mind was decidedly for the military

life. Like many other men destined for future distinction, he made no

great figure as a scholar, a circumstance easily explained, if we

recollect that it is on the knowledge of words that the reputation of a

schoolboy, of things that of a man, is founded. But the despatches now

published demonstrate that, before he attained middle life, he was a

proficient at least in Latin, French, and English composition; for

letters in each, written in a very pure style, are to be found in all

parts of his correspondence.

From early youth, young Churchill was distinguished by the elegance of

his manners and the beauty of his countenance and figure--advantages

which, coupled with the known loyal principles of his father, and the

sufferings he had undergone in the royal cause, procured for him, at the

early age of fifteen, the situation of page in the household of the Duke

of York, afterwards James II. His inclination for arms was then so

decided, that that prince procured for him a commission in one of the

regiments of guards when he was only sixteen years old. His uncommonly

handsome figure then attracted no small share of notice from the

beauties of the court of Charles II., and even awakened a passion in one

of the royal mistresses herself. Impatient to signalize himself,

however, he left their seductions, and embarked as a volunteer in the

expedition against Tangiers in 1766. Thus his first essay in arms was

made in actions against the Moors. Having returned to Great Britain, he

attracted the notice of the Countess of Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess

of Cleveland, then the favorite mistress of Charles II., who had

distinguished him by her regard before he embarked for Africa, and who

made him a present of £5000, with which the young soldier bought an

annuity of £500 a-year, which laid the foundation, says Chesterfield, of

all his subsequent fortunes. Charles, to remove a dangerous rival in her

unsteady affections, gave him a company in the guards, and sent him to

the Continent with the auxiliary force which, in those days of English

humiliation, the cabinet of St James's furnished to Louis XIV. to aid

him in subduing the United Provinces. Thus, by a singular coincidence,

it was under Turenne, Condé, and Vauban that the future conqueror of the

Bourbons first learned the art of scientific warfare. Wellington went

through the same discipline, but in the inverse order: his first

campaigns were made against the French in Flanders, his next against the

bastions of Tippoo and the Mahratta horse in Hindostan.

Churchill had not been long in Flanders, before his talents and

gallantry won for him deserved distinction. The campaign of 1672, which

brought the French armies to the gates of Amsterdam, and placed the

United States within a hair's-breadth of destruction, was to him

fruitful in valuable lessons. He distinguished himself afterwards so

much at the siege of Nimeguen, that Turenne, who constantly called him

by his _sobriquet_ of "the handsome Englishman," predicted that he would

one day be a great man. In the following year he had the good fortune to

save the life of his colonel, the Duke of Monmouth; and distinguished

himself so much at the siege of Maestricht, that Louis XIV. publicly

thanked him at the head of his army, and promised him his powerful

influence with Charles II. for future promotion. He little thought what

a formidable enemy he was then fostering at the court of his obsequious

brother sovereign. The result of Louis XIV.'s intercession was, that

Churchill was made lieutenant-colonel; and he continued to serve with

the English auxiliary force in Flanders, under the French generals, till

1677, when he returned with his regiment to London. Beyond all doubt it

was these five years' service under the great masters of the military

art, who then sustained the power and cast a halo round the crown of

Louis XIV., which rendered Marlborough the consummate commander that,

from the moment he was placed at the head of the Allied armies, he

showed himself to have become. One of the most interesting and

instructive lessons to be learned from biography is the long steps, the

vast amount of previous preparation, the numerous changes, some

prosperous, others adverse, by which the mind of a great man is formed,

and he is prepared for playing the important part he is intended to

perform on the theatre of the world. Providence does nothing in vain,

and when it has selected a particular mind for great achievement, the

events which happen to it all seem to conspire in a mysterious way for

its development. Were any one omitted, some essential quality in the

character of the future hero, statesman, or philosopher would be found

to be awanting.

Here also, as in every other period of history, we may see how

unprincipled ambition overvaults itself, and the measures which seem at

first sight most securely to establish its oppressive reign, are the

unseen means by which an overruling power works out its destruction.

Doubtless the other ministers of Louis XIV. deemed their master's power

secure when this English alliance was concluded; when the English

monarch had become a state pensioner of the court of Versailles; when a

secret treaty had united them by apparently indissoluble bonds; when the

ministers equally and the patriots of England were corrupted by his

bribes; when the dreaded fleets of Britain were to be seen in union with

those of France, to break down the squadrons of an inconsiderable

republic; when the descendants of the conquerors of Cressy, Poitiers,

and Azincour stood side by side with the successors of the vanquished in

those disastrous fields, to achieve the conquest of Flanders and

Holland. Without doubt, so far as human foresight could go, Louvois and

Colbert were right. Nothing could appear so decidedly calculated to fix

the power of Louis XIV. on an immovable foundation. But how vain are the

calculations of the greatest human intellects, when put in opposition to

the overruling will of Omnipotence! It was that very English alliance

which ruined Louis XIV., as the Austrian alliance and marriage, which

seemed to put the keystone in the arch of his greatness, afterwards

ruined Napoleon. By the effect, and one of the most desired effects, of

the English alliance, a strong body of British auxiliaries were sent to

Flanders; the English officers learned the theory and practice of war in

the best of all schools, and under the best of all teachers; that

ignorance of the military art, the result in every age of our insular

situation, and which generally causes the four or five first years of

every war to terminate in disaster, was for the time removed, and that

mighty genius was developed under the eye of Louis XIV., and by the

example of Turenne, which was destined to hurl back to their own

frontiers the tide of Gallic invasion, and close in mourning the reign

of the _Grande Monarque_. "Les hommes agissent," says Bossuet, "mais

Dieu les mène."

Upon Churchill's return to London, the brilliant reputation which had

preceded, and the even augmented personal advantages which accompanied

him, immediately rendered him the idol of beauty and fashion. The ladies

of the palace vied for his homage--the nobles of the land hastened to

cultivate his society. Like Julius Caesar, he was carried away by the

stream, and plunged into the vortex of courtly dissipation with the

ardour which marks an energetic character in the pursuit whether of good

or evil. The elegance of his person and manners, and charms of his

conversation, prevailed so far with Charles II. and the Duke of York,

that soon after, though not yet thirty years of age, he obtained a

regiment. In 1680 he married the celebrated Sarah Jennings, the

favourite lady in attendance on the Princess Anne, second daughter of

the Duke of York, one of the most admired beauties of the court, and

this alliance increased his influence, already great, with that Prince,

and laid the foundation of the future grandeur of his fortunes. Shortly

after his marriage he accompanied the Duke of York to Scotland, in the

course of which they both were nearly shipwrecked on the coast of Fife.

On this occasion the Duke made the greatest efforts to preserve his

favourite's life, and succeeded in doing so, although the danger was

such that many of the Scottish nobles perished under his eye. On his

return to London in 1682, he was presented by his patron to the King,

who made him colonel of the third regiment of guards. When the Duke of

York ascended the throne in 1685, on the demise of his brother,

Churchill kept his place as one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and

was raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He was sent by his

sovereign to Paris to notify his accession to Louis XIV., and on his

return he was created a peer by the title of Baron Churchill of

Sandbridge in the county of Hertford--a title which he took from an

estate there which he had acquired in right of his wife. On the revolt

of the Duke of Monmouth, he had an opportunity of showing at once his

military ability, and, by a signal service, his gratitude to his

benefactor. Lord Feversham had the command of the royal forces, and

Churchill was his major-general. The general-in-chief, however, kept so

bad a look-out, that he was on the point of being surprised and cut to

pieces by the rebel forces, who, on this occasion at least, were

conducted with ability. The general and almost all his officers were in

their beds, and sound asleep, when Monmouth, at the head of all his

forces, silently debouched out of his camp, and suddenly fell on the

royal army. The rout would have been complete, and probably James II.

dethroned, had not Churchill, whose vigilant eye nothing escaped,

observed the movement, and hastily collected a handful of men, with whom

he made so vigorous a resistance as gave time for the remainder of the

army to form, and repel this well-conceived enterprise.

Churchill's mind was too sagacious, and his knowledge of the feelings of

the nation too extensive, not to be aware of the perilous nature of the

course upon which James had adventured, in endeavouring to bring about,

if not the absolute re-establishment of the Catholic religion, at least

such a quasi-establishment of it as the people deemed, and probably with

reason, was, with so aspiring a body of ecclesiastics, in effect the

same thing. When he saw the headstrong monarch break through all bounds,

and openly trample on the liberties, while he shocked the religious

feelings, of his people, he wrote to him to point out, in firm but

respectful terms, the danger of his conduct. He declared to Lord Galway,

when James's innovations began, that if he persisted in his design of

overturning the constitution and religion of his country, he would leave

his service. So far his conduct was perfectly unexceptionable. Our first

duty is to our country, our second only to our benefactor. If they are

brought into collision, as they often are during the melancholy

vicissitudes of a civil war, an honourable man, whatever it may cost

him, has but one part to take. He must not abandon his public duty for

his private feelings, but he must never betray official duty. If

Churchill, perceiving the frantic course of his master, had withdrawn

from his service, and then either taken no part in the revolution which

followed, or even appeared in arms against him, the most scrupulous

moralist could have discovered nothing reprehensible in his conduct.

History has in every age applauded the virtue, while it has commiserated

the anguish, of the elder Brutus, who sacrificed his sons to the perhaps

too rigorous laws of his country.

But Churchill did not do this, and thence has arisen an ineffaceable

blot on his memory. He did not relinquish the service of the infatuated

monarch; he retained his office and commands; but he employed the

influence and authority thence derived, to ruin his benefactor. So far

were the representations of Churchill from having inspired any doubts of

his fidelity, that James, when the Prince of Orange landed, confided to

him the command of a corps of five thousand men, destined to oppose his

progress. At the very time that he accepted that command, he had, if we

may believe his panegyrist Ledyard, signed a letter, along with several

other peers, addressed to the Prince of Orange, inviting him to come

over, and had actually concluded with Major-General Kirk, who commanded

at Axminster, a convention, for the seizure of the king and giving him

up to his hostile son-in-law. James was secretly warned that Churchill

was about to betray him, but he refused to believe it of one from whom

he had hitherto experienced such devotion, and was only wakened from his

dream of security by learning that his favourite had gone over with the

five thousand men whom he commanded to the Prince of Orange. Not content

with this, it was Churchill's influence, joined to that of his wife,

which is said to have induced James's own daughter, the Princess Anne,

and Prince George of Denmark, to detach themselves from the cause of the

falling monarch; and drew from that unhappy sovereign the mournful

exclamation, "My God! my very children have forsaken me." In what does

this conduct differ from that of Labedoyere, who, at the head of the

garrison of Grenoble, deserted to Napoleon when sent out to oppose

him?--or Lavalette, who employed his influence, as postmaster under

Louis XVIII., to forward the Imperial conspiracy?--or Marshal Ney, who,

after promising at the court of the Tuileries to bring the ex-emperor

back in an iron cage, no sooner reached the royal camp at Melun, than he

issued a proclamation calling on the troops to desert the Bourbons, and

mount the tricolor cockade? Nay, is not Churchill's conduct, in a moral

point of view, worse than that of Ney; for the latter abandoned the

trust reposed in him by a new master, forced upon an unwilling nation,

to rejoin his old benefactor and companion in arms; but the former

abandoned the trust reposed in him by his old master and benefactor, to

range himself under the banner of a competitor for the throne, to whom

he was bound neither by duty nor obligation. And yet such is often the

inequality of crimes and punishments in this world, that Churchill was

raised to the pinnacle of greatness by the very conduct which consigned

Ney, with justice, so far as his conduct is concerned, to an ignominious

death.

"Treason ne'er prospers; for when it does,

None dare call it treason."

History forgets its first and noblest duty when it fails, by its

distribution of praise and blame, to counterbalance, so far as its

verdict can, this inequality, which, for inscrutable but doubtless wise

purposes, Providence has permitted in this transient scene. Charity

forbids us to scrutinize such conduct too severely. It is the deplorable

effect of a successful revolution, even when commenced for the most

necessary purposes, to obliterate the ideas of man on right and wrong,

and leave no other test in the general case for public conduct but

success. It is its first effect to place them in such trying

circumstances that none but the most confirmed and resolute virtue can

pass unscathed through the ordeal. He knew the human heart well, who

commanded us in our daily prayers to supplicate not to be led into

temptation, even before asking for deliverance from evil. Let no man be

sure, however much, on a calm survey, he may condemn the conduct of

Marlborough and Ney, that in similar circumstances he would not have

done the same.

The magnitude of the service rendered by Churchill to the Prince of

Orange, immediately appeared in the commands conferred upon him. Hardly

was he settled at William's headquarters when he was dispatched to

London to assume the command of the Horse Guards; and, while there, he

signed, on the 20th December 1688, the famous Act of Association in

favour of the Prince of Orange. Shortly after, he was named

lieutenant-general of the armies of William, and immediately made a new

organization of the troops, under officers whom he could trust, which

proved of the utmost service to William on the unstable throne on which

he was soon after seated. He was present at most of the long and

momentous debates which took place in the House of Peers on the question

on whom the crown should be conferred, and at first is said to have

inclined to a regency; but with a commendable delicacy he absented

himself on the night of the decisive vote on the vacancy of the throne.

He voted, however, on the 6th of February for the resolution which

settled the crown on William and Mary; and he assisted at their

coronation, under the title of Earl of Marlborough, to which he had

shortly before been elevated by William. England having, on the

accession of the new monarch, joined the continental league against

France, Marlborough received the command of the British auxiliary force

in the Netherlands, and by his courage and ability contributed in a

remarkable manner to the victory of Walcourt. In 1690 he received orders

to return from Flanders in order to assume a command in Ireland, then

agitated by a general insurrection in favour of James; but, actuated by

some remnant of attachment to his old benefactor, he eluded on various

pretences complying with the order, till the battle of the Boyne had

extinguished the hopes of the dethroned monarch, when he came over and

made himself master of Cork and Kinsale. In 1691 he was sent again into

Flanders, in order to act under the immediate orders of William, who was

then, with heroic constancy, contending with the still superior forces

of France; but hardly had he landed there when he was arrested, deprived

of all his commands, and sent to the Tower of London, along with

several of the noblemen of distinction in the British senate.

Upon this part of the history of Marlborough there hangs a veil of

mystery, which all the papers brought to light in more recent times have

not entirely removed. At the time, his disgrace was by many attributed

to some cutting sarcasms in which he had indulged on the predilection of

William for the continental troops, and especially the Dutch; by others,

to intrigues conducted by Lady Marlborough and him, to obtain for the

Princess Anne a larger pension than the king was disposed to allow her.

But neither of these causes are sufficient to explain the fall and

arrest of so eminent a man as Marlborough, and who had rendered such

important services to the newly-established monarch. It would appear

from what has transpired in later times, that a much more serious cause

had produced the rupture between him and William. The charge brought

against him at the time, but which was not prosecuted, as it was found

to rest on false or insufficient evidence, was that of having, along

with Lords Salisbury, Cornbury, the Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Basil

Ferebrace, signed the scheme of an association for the restoration of

James. Sir John Fenwick, who was executed for a treasonable

correspondence with James II. shortly after Marlborough's arrest,

declared in the course of his trial that he was privy to the design, had

received the pardon of the exiled monarch, and had engaged to procure

for him the adhesion of the army. The Papers, published in Coxe, rather

corroborate the view that he was privy to it; and it is supported by

those found at Rome in the possession of Cardinal York.[3] That

Marlborough, disgusted with the partiality of William for his Dutch

troops, and irritated at the open severity of his Government, should

have repented of his abandonment of his former sovereign and benefactor,

is highly probable. But it can scarcely be taken as an apology for one

act of treason, that he meditated the commission of another. It only

shows how perilous, in public as in private life, is any deviation from

the path of integrity, that it impelled such a man into so tortuous and

disreputable a path.

Marlborough, however, was a man whose services were too valuable to the

newly-established dynasty, for him to be permitted to remain long in

disgrace. He was soon liberated, indeed, from the Tower, as no

sufficient evidence of his alleged accession to the conspiracy had been

obtained. Several years elapsed, however, before he emerged from the

privacy into which he prudently retired on his liberation from

confinement. Queen Mary having been carried off by the smallpox on the

17th of January 1696, Marlborough wisely abstained from even taking part

in the debates which followed in Parliament, during which some of the

malcontents dropped hints as to the propriety of conferring the crown on

his immediate patroness, the Princess Anne. This prudent reserve,

together with the absence of any decided proofs at the time of

Marlborough's correspondence with James, seems to have at length

weakened William's resentment, and by degrees he was taken back into

favour. The peace of Ryswick, signed on the 20th of September 1697,

having consolidated the power of that monarch, Marlborough was, on the

19th of June 1698, made preceptor of the young Duke of Gloucester, his

nephew, son of the Princess Anne, and heir-presumptive to the throne;

and this appointment, which at once restored his credit at court, was

accompanied by the gracious expression--"My lord, make my nephew to

resemble yourself, and he will be every thing which I can desire." On

the same day he was re-appointed to his rank as a privy councillor, and

took the oaths and his seat accordingly. So fully had he now regained

the confidence of William, that he was three times named one of the nine

lords justiciars to whom the administration of affairs in Great Britain

was subsequently entrusted, during the temporary absence of William in

Holland; and the War of the Succession having become certain in the year

1700, that monarch, who was preparing to take an active part in it,

appointed Marlborough, on 1st June 1701, his ambassador-extraordinary at

the Hague, and commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Flanders. This

double appointment in effect invested Marlborough with the entire

direction of affairs civil and military, so far as England was

concerned, on the Continent. William, who was highly indignant at the

recognition of the Chevalier St George as King of England, on the death

of his father James II., in September 1701, was preparing to prosecute

the war with the vigour and perseverance which so eminently

distinguished his character, when he was carried off by the effects of a

fall from his horse, on the 19th March 1702. But that event made no

alteration in the part which England took in the war which was

commencing, and it augmented rather than diminished the influence which

Marlborough had in its direction. The Princess Anne, with whom, both

individually and through Lady Marlborough, he was so intimately

connected, mounted the throne without opposition; and one of her first

acts was to bestow on Marlborough the order of the Garter, confirm him

in his former offices, and appoint him, in addition, her plenipotentiary

at the Hague. War was declared on the 15th May 1702, and Marlborough

immediately went over to the Netherlands to take the command of the

Allied army, sixty thousand strong, then lying before Nimeguen, which

was threatened by a superior force on the part of the French.

It is at this period--time 1702--that the great and memorable, and

withal blameless period of Marlborough's life commenced; the next ten

years were one unbroken series of efforts, victories, and glory. He

arrived in the camp at Nimeguen on the evening of the 2d July, having

been a few weeks before at the Hague; and immediately assumed the

command. Lord Athlone, who had previously enjoyed that situation, at

first laid claim to an equal authority with him; but this ruinous

division, which never is safe, save with men so great as he and Eugene,

and would unquestionably have proved ruinous to the common cause if

shared with Athlone, was prevented by the States-General, who insisted

upon the undivided direction being conferred on Marlborough. Most

fortunately it is precisely at this period that the correspondence now

published commences, which, in the three volumes already published,

presents an unbroken series of his letters to persons of every

description down to May, 1708. They thus embrace the early successes in

Flanders, the cross march into Bavaria and battle of Blenheim, the

expulsion of the French from Germany, the battle of Ramillies, and

taking of Brussels and Antwerp, the mission to the King of Sweden at

Dresden, the battle of Almanza, in Spain, and all the important events

of the first six years of the war. More weighty and momentous materials

for history never were presented to the public; and their importance

will not be properly appreciated, if the previous condition of Europe,

and imminent hazard to the independence of all the adjoining states,

from the unmeasured ambition, and vast power of Louis XIV., is not taken

into consideration.

Accustomed as we are to regard the Bourbons as a fallen and unfortunate

race, the objects rather of commiseration than apprehension, and

Napoleon as the only sovereign who has really threatened our

independence, and all but effected the subjugation of the Continent, we

can scarcely conceive the terror with which a century and a half ago

they, with reason, inspired all Europe, or the narrow escape which the

continental states, at least, then made from being all reduced to the

condition of provinces of France. The forces of that monarchy, at all

times formidable to its neighbours, from the warlike spirit of its

inhabitants, and their rapacious disposition, conspicuous alike in the

earliest and the latest times;[4] its central situation, forming, as it

were, the salient angle of a bastion projecting into the centre of

Germany; and its numerous population--were then, in a peculiar manner,

to be dreaded, from their concentration in the hands of an able and

ambitious monarch, who had succeeded for the first time, for two hundred

years, in healing the divisions and stilling the feuds of its nobles,

and turned their buoyant energy into the channel of foreign conquest.

Immense was the force which, by this able policy, was found to exist in

France, and terrible the danger which it at once brought upon the

neighbouring states. It was rendered the more formidable in the time of

Louis XIV., from the extraordinary concentration of talent which his

discernment or good fortune had collected around his throne, and the

consummate talent, civil and military, with which affairs were directed.

Turenne, Boufflers, and Condé, were his generals; Vauban was his

engineer, Louvois and Torcy were his statesmen. The lustre of the

exploits of these illustrious men, in itself great, was much enhanced by

the still greater blaze of fame which encircled his throne, from the

genius of the literary men who have given such immortal celebrity to his

reign. Corneille and Racine were his tragedians; Molière wrote his

comedies; Bossuet, Fénélon, and Bourdaloue were his theologians;

Massillon his preacher, Boileau his critic; Le Notre laid out his

gardens; Le Brun painted his halls. Greatness had come upon France, as,

in truth, it does to most other states, in all departments at the same

time; and the adjoining nations, alike intimidated by a power which they

could not resist, and dazzled by a glory which they could not emulate,

had come almost to despair of maintaining their independence; and were

sinking into that state of apathy, which is at once the consequence and

the cause of extraordinary reverses.

The influence of these causes had distinctly appeared in the

extraordinary good fortune which had attended the enterprises of Louis,

and the numerous conquests he had made since he had launched into the

career of foreign aggrandizement. Nothing could resist his victorious

arms. At the head of an army of an hundred thousand men, directed by

Turenne, he speedily overran Flanders. Its fortified cities yielded to

the science of Vauban, or the terrors of his name. The boasted barrier

of the Netherlands was passed in a few weeks; hardly any of its

far-famed fortresses made any resistance. The passage of the Rhine was

achieved under the eyes of the monarch with little loss, and

melodramatic effect. One half of Holland was soon overrun, and the

presence of the French army at the gates of Amsterdam seemed to presage

immediate destruction to the United Provinces; and but for the firmness

of their leaders, and a fortunate combination of circumstances,

unquestionably would have done so. The alliance with England, in the

early part of his reign, and the junction of the fleets of Britain and

France to ruin their fleets and blockade their harbours, seemed to

deprive them of their last resource, derived from their energetic

industry. Nor were substantial fruits awanting from these conquests.

Alsace and Franche Comté were overrun, and, with Lorraine, permanently

annexed to the French monarchy; and although, by the peace of Nimeguen,

part of his acquisitions in Flanders was abandoned, enough was retained

by the devouring monarchy to deprive the Dutch of the barrier they had

so ardently desired, and render their situation to the last degree

precarious, in the neighbourhood of so formidable a power. The heroic

William, indeed, had not struggled in vain for the independence of his

country. The distant powers of Europe, at length wakened to a sense of

their danger, had made strenuous efforts to coerce the ambition of

France; the revolution of 1688 had restored England to its natural

place in the van of the contest for continental freedom; and the peace

of Ryswick in 1697 had in some degree seen the trophies of conquests

more equally balanced between the contending parties. But still it was

with difficulty that the alliance kept its ground against Louis--any

untoward event, the defection of any considerable power, would at once,

it was felt, cast the balance in his favour; and all history had

demonstrated how many are the chances against any considerable

confederacy keeping for any length of time together, when the immediate

danger which had stilled their jealousies, and bound together their

separate interests, is in appearance removed. Such was the dubious and

anxious state of Europe, when the death of Charles II. at Madrid, on the

1st November 1700, and the bequest of his vast territories to Philip

Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, and grandson of Louis XIV.,

threatened at once to place the immense resources of the Castilian

monarchy at the disposal of the ambitious monarch of France, whose

passion for glory had not diminished with his advanced years, and whose

want of moderation was soon evinced by his accepting, after an affected

hesitation, the splendid bequest.

Threatened with so serious a danger, it is not surprising that the

powers of Europe were in the utmost alarm, and erelong took steps to

endeavour to avert it. Such, however, was the terror inspired by the

name of Louis XIV., and the magnitude of the addition made by this

bequest to his power, that the new monarch, in the first instance,

ascended the throne of Spain and the Indies without any opposition. The

Spanish Netherlands, so important both from their intrinsic riches,

their situation as the certain theatre of war, and the numerous

fortified towns with which they were studded, had been early secured for

the young Bourbon prince by the Elector of Bavaria, who was at that time

the governor of those valuable possessions. Sardinia, Naples, Sicily,

the Milanese, and the other Spanish possessions in Italy, speedily

followed the example. The distant colonies of the crown of Castile, in

America and the Indies, sent in their adhesion. The young Prince of

Anjou made his formal entry into Spain in the beginning of 1701, and was

crowned at Madrid under the title of Philip V. The principal continental

powers, with the exception of the Emperor, acknowledged his title to the

throne. The Dutch were in despair: they beheld the power of Louis XIV.

brought to their very gates. Flanders, instead of being the barrier of

Europe against France, had become the outwork of France against Europe.

The flag of Louis XIV. floated on Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent. Italy,

France, Spain, and Flanders, were united in one close league, and in

fact formed but one dominion. It was the empire of Charlemagne over

again, directed with equal ability, founded on greater power, and backed

by the boundless treasures of the Indies. Spain had threatened the

liberties of Europe in the end of the sixteenth century: France had all

but proved fatal to them in the close of the seventeenth. What hope was

there of being able to make head against them both, united under such a

head as Louis XIV.?

Great as these dangers were, however, they had no effect in daunting the

heroic spirit of William III. In concert with the Emperor, and the

United Provinces, who were too nearly threatened to be backward in

falling into his views, he laboured for the formation of a great

confederacy, which might prevent the union of the crowns of France and

Castile in one family, and prevent, before it was too late, the

consolidation of a power which threatened to be so formidable to the

liberties of Europe. The death of that intrepid monarch in March 1702,

which, had it taken place earlier, might have prevented the formation of

the confederacy, as it was, proved no impediment, but rather the

reverse. His measures had been so well taken, his resolute spirit had

laboured with such effect, that the alliance, offensive and defensive,

between the Emperor, England, and Holland, had been already signed. The

accession of the Princess Anne, without weakening its bonds, added

another power, of no mean importance, to its ranks. Her husband, Prince

George of Denmark, brought the forces of that kingdom to aid the common

cause. Prussia soon after followed the example. On the other hand,

Bavaria, closely connected with the French and Spanish monarchies, both

by jealousy of Austria, and the government of the Netherlands, which its

Elector held, adhered to France. Thus the forces of Europe were mutually

arrayed and divided, much as they afterwards were in the coalition

against Napoleon in 1813. It might already be foreseen, that Flanders,

the Bavarian plains, Spain, and Lombardy, would, as in the great contest

which followed a century after, be the theatre of war. But the forces of

France and Spain possessed this advantage, unknown in former wars, but

immense in a military point of view, that they were in possession of the

whole of the Netherlands, the numerous fortresses of which were alike

valuable as a basis of offensive operations, and as affording asylums

all but impregnable in cases of disaster. The Allied generals, whether

they commenced their operations in Flanders or on the side of Germany,

had to begin on the Rhine, and cut their way through the long barrier of

fortresses with which the genius of Vauban and Cohorn had encircled the

frontiers of the monarchy.

War having been resolved on, the first step was taken by the Emperor,

who laid claim to Milan as a fief of the empire, and supported his

pretensions by moving an army into Italy under the command of Prince

Eugene of Savoy, who afterwards became so celebrated as the brother and

worthy rival of Marlborough in arms. The French and Spaniards assembled

an army in the Milanese to resist his advance; and the Duke of Mantua

having joined the cause, that important city was garrisoned by the

French troops. But Prince Eugene erelong obliged them to fall back from

the banks of the Adige to the line of the Oglio, on which they made a

stand. But though hostilities had thus commenced in Italy, negotiations

were still carried on at the Hague; though unhappily the pretensions of

the French king were found to be of so exorbitant a character, that an

accommodation was impossible. Marlborough's first mission to the

Continent, however, after the accession of Anne, was of a diplomatic

character; and it was by his unwearied efforts, suavity of manner, and

singular talents for negotiation, that the difficulties which attend the

formation of all such extensive confederacies were overcome. And it was

not till war was declared, on 4th May 1702, that he first took the

command as commander-in-chief of the Allied armies.

The first operation of the Allies was an attack on the small fort of

Kaiserworth, on the right bank of the Rhine, which belonged to the

Elector of Cologne, which surrendered on the 15th May. The main French

army, nominally under the direction of the Duke of Burgundy, really of

Marshal Boufflers, entered the Duchy of Cleves in the end of the same

month, and soon became engaged with the Allied forces, which at first,

being inferior in numbers, fell back. Marlborough reached headquarters

when the French lay before Nimeguen; and the Dutch trembled for that

frontier town. Reinforcements, however, rapidly came in from all

quarters to join the Allied army; and Marlborough, finding himself at

the head of a gallant force sixty thousand strong, resolved to commence

offensive operations. His first operation was the siege of Venloo, which

was carried by storm on the 18th September, after various actions in the

course of the siege. "My Lord Cutts," says Marlborough, "commanded at

one of the breaches; and the English grenadiers had the honour of being

the first that entered the fort."[5] Ruremonde was next besieged; and

the Allies, steadily advancing, opened the navigation of the Meuse as

far as Maestricht. Stevenswart was taken on the 1st October; and, on the

6th, Ruremonde surrendered. Liege was the next object of attack; and the

breaches of the citadel were, by the skilful operations of Cohorn, who

commanded the Allied engineers and artillery, declared practicable on

the 23d of the same month. The assault was immediately ordered; and "by

the extraordinary bravery," says Marlborough, "of the officers and

soldiers, the citadel was carried by storm; and, for the honour of her

Majesty's subjects, the English were the first that got upon the

breach."[6] So early in this, as in every other war where ignorance and

infatuation has not led them into the field, did the native-born valour

of the Anglo-Saxon race make itself known! Seven battalions and a half

were made prisoners on this occasion; and so disheartened was the enemy

by the fall of the citadel, that the castle of the Chartreuse, with its

garrison of 1500 men, capitulated a few days afterwards. This last

success gave the Allies the entire command of Liege, and concluded this

short but glorious campaign, in the course of which they had made

themselves masters by main force, in presence of the French army, of

four fortified towns, conquered all Spanish Guelderland, opened the

Meuse as far as Maestricht, carried the strong castles of Liege by

storm, advanced their standards from the Rhine far into Flanders, and

become enabled to take up their winter quarters in the enemy's

territory, amidst its fertile fields.

The campaign being now concluded, and both parties having gone into

winter quarters, Marlborough embarked on the Meuse to return to London,

where his presence was much required to steady the authority and direct

the cabinet of the Queen, who had so recently taken her seat on the

throne. When dropping down the Meuse, in company of the Dutch

commissioners, he was made prisoner by a French partisan, who had made

an incursion into those parts; and owed his escape to the presence of

mind of a servant named Gill, who, unperceived, put into his master's

hands an old passport in the name of General Churchill. The Frenchman,

intent only on plunder, seized all the plate and valuables in the boat,

and made prisoners the small detachment of soldiers who accompanied

them; but, ignorant of the inestimable prize within his grasp, allowed

the remainder of the party, including Marlborough, to proceed on their

way. On this occasion, it may truly be said, the boat carried Caesar and

his fortunes. He arrived in safety at the Hague, where the people, who

regarded him as their guardian angel, and had heard of his narrow

escape, received him with the most enthusiastic acclamations. From

thence, having concerted the plan with the Dutch government for the

ensuing campaign, he crossed over to London, where his reception by the

Queen and nation was of the most gratifying description. Her Majesty

conferred on him the title of Duke of Marlborough and Marquis of

Blandford, and sent a message to the House of Commons, suggesting a

pension to him of £5000 a-year, secured on the revenue of the

post-office; but that House refused to consent to the alienation of so

considerable a part of the public revenue. He was amply compensated,

however, for this disappointment, by the enthusiastic reception he met

with from all classes of the nation, which, long unaccustomed to

military success, at least in any cause in which it could sympathize,

hailed with transports of joy this first revival of triumph in support

of the Protestant faith, and over that power with whom, for centuries,

they had maintained so constant a rivalry.

The campaign of 1703 was not fruitful of great events. Taught, by the

untoward issue of the preceding one, the quality of the general and army

with whom he had to contend, the French general cautiously remained on

the defensive; and so skilfully were the measures of Marshal Boufflers

taken, that all the efforts of Marlborough were unable to force him to a

general action. The war in Flanders was thus limited to one of posts and

sieges; but in that the superiority of the Allied arms was successfully

asserted, Parliament having been prevailed on to consent to an

augmentation of the British contingent. But a treaty having been

concluded with Sweden, and various reinforcements having been received

from the lesser powers, preparations were made for the siege of Bonn, on

the Rhine, a frontier town of Flanders, of great importance from its

commanding the passage of that artery of Germany, and stopping, while in

the enemy's hands, all transit of military stores or provisions for the

use of the armies in Bavaria, or on the Upper Rhine. The batteries

opened with seventy heavy guns and English mortars on the 14th May 1704;

a vigorous sortie with a thousand foot was repulsed, after having at

first gained some success, on the following day, and on the 16th two

breaches having been declared practicable, the garrison surrendered at

discretion. After this success, the army moved against Huys, and it was

taken with its garrison of 900 men on the 23d August. Marlborough and

the English generals, after this success, were decidedly of opinion that

it would be advisable at all hazard to attempt forcing the French lines,

which were strongly fortified between Mehaigne and Leuwe, and a strong

opinion to that effect was transmitted to the Hague on the very day

after the fall of Huys.[7] They alleged with reason, that the Allies

being superior in Flanders, and the French having the upper hand in

Germany and Italy, it was of the utmost importance to follow up the

present tide of success in the only quarter where it flowed in their

favour, and counterbalance disasters elsewhere, by decisive events in

the quarter where it was most material to obtain it. The Dutch

government, however, set on getting a barrier for themselves, could not

be brought to agree to this course, how great soever the advantages

which it promised, and insisted instead, that he should undertake the

siege of Limbourg, which lay open to attack. This was accordingly done;

the trenches were commenced in the middle of September, and the garrison

capitulated on the 27th of the same month: a poor compensation for the

total defeat of the French army, which would in all probability have

ensued if the bolder plan of operation he had so earnestly counselled

had been adopted.[8] This terminated the campaign of 1703, which, though

successful, had led to very different results from what might have been

anticipated if Marlborough's advice had been followed, and an earlier

victory of Ramillies laid open the whole Flemish plains. Having

dispatched eight battalions to reinforce the Prince of Hesse, who had

sustained serious disaster on the Moselle, he had an interview with the

Archduke Charles, whom the Allies had acknowledged as King of Spain, who

presented him with a magnificent sword set with diamonds, and set out

for the Hague, from whence he again returned to London to concert

measures for the ensuing campaign, and stimulate the British government

to the efforts necessary for its successful prosecution.

But while success had thus attended all the operations of the Allies in

Flanders, where the English contingent acted, and Marlborough had the

command, affairs had assumed a very different aspect in Germany and

Italy. The French were there superior alike in the number and quality of

their troops, and, in Germany at least, in the skill with which they

were commanded. Early in June, Marshal Tallard assumed the command of

the French forces in Alsace, passed the Rhine at Strasburg on the 16th

July, took Brissac on the 7th September, and invested Landau on the 16th

October. The Allies, under the Prince of Hesse, attempted to raise the

siege, but were defeated with considerable loss; and, soon after, Landau

surrendered, thus terminating with disaster the campaign on the Upper

Rhine. Still more considerable were the disasters sustained in Bavaria.

Marshal Villars there commanded, and at the head of the French and

Bavarians, defeated General Stirum, who headed the Imperialists, on the

20th September. In December, Marshal Marsin, who had succeeded Villars

in the command, made himself master of the important city of Augsburg,

and in January 1704 the Bavarians got possession of Passau. Meanwhile, a

formidable insurrection had broken out in Hungary, which so distracted

the cabinet of Vienna, that that capital itself seemed to be threatened

by the combined forces of the French and Bavarians after the fall of

Passau. No event of importance took place in Italy during the campaign;

Count Strahremberg, who commanded the Imperial forces, having with great

ability forced the Duke de Vendôme, who was at the head of a superior

body of French troops, to retire. But in Bavaria and on the Danube, it

was evident that the Allies were overmatched; and to the restoration of

the balance in that quarter, the anxious attention of the confederates

was turned during the winter of 1703-4. The dangerous state of the

Emperor and the empire awakened the greatest solicitude at the Hague, as

well as unbounded terror at Vienna, from whence the most urgent

representations were made on the necessity of reinforcements being sent

from Marlborough to their support. But though this was agreed to by

England and Holland, so straitened were the Dutch finances, that they

were wholly unable to form the necessary magazines to enable the Allies

to commence operations. Marlborough, during the whole of January and

February 1704, was indefatigable in his efforts to overcome these

difficulties; and the preparations having at length been completed, it

was agreed by the States, according to a plan of the campaign laid down

by Marlborough, that he himself should proceed into Bavaria with the

great body of the Allied army in Flanders, leaving only an army of

observation there, to restrain any incursion which the French troops

might attempt during his absence.

Marlborough began his march with the great body of his forces on the 8th

May, and crossing the Meuse at Maestricht, proceeded with the utmost

expedition towards the Rhine by Bedbourg and Kirpen, and arrived at Bonn

on the 22d May. Meanwhile, the French were also powerfully reinforcing

their army on the Danube. Early in the same month 26,000 men joined the

Elector of Bavaria, while Villeroi with the army of Flanders was

hastening in the same direction. Marlborough having obtained

intelligence of these great additions to the enemy's forces in the vital

quarter, wrote to the States-General, that unless they promptly sent him

succour, the Emperor would be entirely ruined.[9] Meanwhile, however,

relying chiefly on himself, he redoubled his activity and diligence.

Continuing his march up the Rhine by Coblentz and Cassel, opposite

Mayence, he crossed the Necker near Ladenbourg on the 3d June. From

thence he pursued his march without intermission by Mundelshene, where

he had, on the 10th June, his first interview with Prince Eugene, who

had been called from Italy to co-operate in stemming the torrent of

disaster in Germany. From thence he advanced by Great Heppach to

Langenau, and first came in contact with the enemy on the 2d July, on

the Schullenberg, near Donawert. Marlborough, at the head of the

advanced guard of nine thousand men, there attacked the French and

Bavarians, 12,000 strong, in their intrenched camp, which was extremely

strong, and after a desperate resistance, aided by an opportune attack

by the Prince of Baden, who commanded the Emperor's forces, carried the

intrenchments, with the whole artillery which they mounted, and the loss

of 7000 men and thirteen standards to the vanquished. He was inclined to

venture upon this hazardous attempt by having received intelligence on

the same day from Prince Eugene, that Marshals Villeroi and Tallard, at

the head of fifty battalions, and sixty squadrons of their best troops,

had arrived at Strasburg, and were using the utmost diligence to reach

the Bavarian forces through the defiles of the Black Forest.

This brilliant opening of the German campaign was soon followed by

substantial results. A few days after Rain surrendered, Aicha was

carried by assault; and, following up his career of success, Marlborough

advanced to within a league of Augsburg, under the cannon of which the

Elector of Bavaria was placed with the remnant of his forces, in a

situation too strong to admit of its being forced. He here made several

attempts to detach the Elector, who was now reduced to the greatest

straits, from the French alliance; but that prince, relying on the great

army, forty-five thousand strong, which Marshal Tallard was bringing up

to his support from the Rhine, adhered with honourable fidelity to his

engagements. Upon this, Marlborough took post near Friburg, in such a

situation as to cut him off from all communication with his dominions;

and ravaged the country with his light troops, levying contributions

wherever they went, and burning the villages with savage ferocity as far

as the gates of Munich. Thus was avenged the barbarous desolation of the

Palatinate, thirty years before, by the French army under the orders of

Marshal Turenne. Overcome by the cries of his suffering subjects, the

Elector at length consented to enter into a negotiation, which made some

progress; but the rapid approach of Marshal Tallard with the French army

through the Black Forest, caused him to break it off, and hazard all on

the fortune of war. Unable to induce the Elector, by the barbarities

unhappily, at that time, too frequent on all sides in war, either to

quit his intrenched camp under the cannon of Augsburg, or abandon the

French alliance, the English general undertook the siege of Ingolstadt;

he himself with the main body of the army covering the siege, and Prince

Louis of Baden conducting the operations in the trenches. Upon this, the

Elector of Bavaria broke up from his strong position, and, abandoning

with heroic resolution his own country, marched to Biberbach, where he

effected his junction with Marshal Tallard, who now threatened Prince

Eugene with an immediate attack. No sooner had he received intelligence

of this, than Marlborough, on the 10th of August, sent the Duke of

Wirtemburg with twenty-seven squadrons of horse to reinforce the prince;

and early next morning detached General Churchill with twenty battalions

across the Danube, to be in a situation to support him in case of need.

He himself immediately after followed, and joined the Prince with his

whole army on the 11th. Every thing now presaged decisive events. The

Elector had boldly quitted Bavaria, leaving his whole dominions at the

mercy of the enemy, except the fortified cities of Munich and Augsburg,

and periled his crown upon the issue of war at the French headquarters;

while Marlborough and Eugene had united their forces, with a

determination to give battle in the heart of Germany, in the enemy's

territory, with their communications exposed to the utmost hazard, under

circumstances where defeat could be attended with nothing short of total

ruin.

The French and Bavarian army consisted of fifty-five thousand men, of

whom nearly forty-five thousand were French troops, the very best which

the monarchy could produce. Marlborough and Eugene had sixty-six

battalions and one hundred and sixty squadrons, which, with the

artillery, might be about fifty thousand combatants. The forces on the

opposite sides were thus nearly equal in point of numerical amount; but

there was a wide difference in their composition. Four-fifths of the

French army were national troops, speaking the same language, animated

by the same feelings, accustomed to the same discipline, and the most of

whom had been accustomed to act together. The Allies, on the other hand,

were a motley assemblage, like Hannibal's at Cannæ, or Wellington's at

Waterloo, composed of the troops of many different nations, speaking

different languages, trained to different discipline, but recently

assembled together, and under the orders of a stranger general, one of

those haughty islanders, little in general inured to war, but whose cold

or supercilious manners had so often caused jealousies to arise in the

best cemented confederacies. English, Prussians, Danes, Wirtemburgers,

Dutch, Hanoverians, and Hessians, were blended in such nearly equal

proportions, that the arms of no one state could be said by its

numerical preponderance to be entitled to the precedence. But the

consummate address, splendid talents, and conciliatory manners of

Marlborough, as well as the brilliant valour which the English auxiliary

force had displayed on many occasions, had won for them the lead, as

they had formerly done when in no greater force among the confederates

under Richard Coeur-de-Lion in the Holy War. It was universally felt

that upon them, as the Tenth Legion of Caesar, or the Old Guard of

Napoleon, the weight of the contest at the decisive moment would fall.

The army was divided into two _corps-d'armée_; the first commanded by

the duke in person, being by far the strongest, destined to bear the

weight of the contest, and carry in front the enemy's position. These

two corps, though co-operating, were at such a distance from each other,

that they were much in the situation of the English and Prussians at

Waterloo, or Napoleon and Ney's corps at Bautzen. The second, under

Prince Eugene, which consisted chiefly of cavalry, was much weaker in

point of numerical amount, and was intended for a subordinate attack, to

distract the enemy's attention from the principal onset in front under

Marlborough.[10] With ordinary officers, or even eminent generals of a

second order, a dangerous rivalry for the supreme command would

unquestionably have arisen, and added to the many seeds of division and

causes of weakness which already existed in so multifarious an array.

But these great men were superior to all such petty jealousies. Each,

conscious of powers to do great things, and proud of fame already

acquired, was willing to yield what was necessary for the common good to

the other. They had no rivalry, save a noble emulation who should do

most for the common cause in which they were jointly engaged. From the

moment of their junction it was agreed that they should take the command

of the whole army day about; and so perfectly did their views on all

points coincide, and so entirely did their noble hearts beat in unison,

that during eight subsequent campaigns that they for the most part acted

together, there was never the slightest division between them, nor any

interruption of the harmony with which the operations of the Allies were

conducted.

The French position was in places strong, and their disposition for

resistance at each point where they were threatened by attack from the

Allied forces, judicious; but there was a fatal defect in its general

conception. Marshal Tallard was on the right, resting on the Danube,

which secured him from being turned in that quarter, having the village

of BLENHEIM in his front, which was strongly garrisoned by twenty-six

battalions and twelve squadrons, all native French troops. In the centre

was the village of Oberglau, which was occupied by fourteen battalions,

among whom were three Irish corps of celebrated veterans. The

communication between Blenheim and Oberglau was kept up by a screen

consisting of eighty squadrons, in two lines, having two brigades of

foot, consisting of seven battalions, in its centre. The left, opposite

Prince Eugene, was under the orders of Marshal Marsin, and consisted of

twenty-two battalions of infantry and thirty-six squadrons, consisting

for the most part of Bavarians and Marshal Marsin's men, posted in front

of the village of Lutzingen. Thus the French consisted of sixty-nine

battalions and a hundred and thirty-four squadrons, and were posted in a

line strongly supported at each extremity, but weak in the centre, and

with the wings, where the great body of the infantry was placed, at such

a distance from each other, that, if the centre was broken through, each

ran the risk of being enveloped by the enemy, without the other being

able to render them any assistance. This danger as to the troops in

Blenheim, the flower of their army, was much augmented by the

circumstance, that if their centre was forced where it was formed of

cavalry only, and the victors turned sharp round towards Blenheim, the

horse would be driven headlong into the Danube, and the foot in that

village would run the hazard of being surrounded or pushed into that

river, which was not fordable, even for horse, in any part. But though

these circumstances would, to a far-seeing general, have presaged

serious disaster in the event of defeat, yet the position was strong in

itself, and the French generals, long accustomed to victory, had some

excuse for not having taken sufficiently into view the contingencies

likely to occur in the event of defeat. Both the villages at the

extremity of their line had been strengthened, not only with

intrenchments hastily thrown up around them, thickly mounted with heavy

cannon, but with barricades at all their principal entrances, formed of

overturned carts and all the furniture of the houses, which they had

seized upon, as the insurgents did at Paris in 1830, for that purpose.

The army stood upon a hill or gentle eminence, the guns from which

commanded the whole plain by which alone it could be approached; and

this plain was low, and intersected on the right, in front of Blenheim,

by a rivulet which flows down by a gentle descent to the Danube, and in

front of Oberglau by another rivulet, which runs in two branches till

within a few paces of the Danube; into which it also empties itself.

These rivulets had bridges over them at the points where they flowed

through villages; but they were difficult of passage in the other places

for cavalry and artillery, and, with the ditches cut in the swampy

meadows through which they flowed, proved no small impediment to the

advance of the Allied army.

The Duke of Marlborough, before the action began, in person visited each

important battery, in order to ascertain the range of the guns. The

troops under his command were drawn up in four lines; the infantry being

in front, and the cavalry behind, in each line. This arrangement was

adopted in order that the infantry, which would get easiest through the

streams, might form on the other side, and cover the formation of the

cavalry, who might be more impeded. The fire of cannon soon became very

animated on both sides, and the infantry advanced to the edge of the

rivulets with that cheerful air and confident step which is so often the

forerunner of success. On Prince Eugene's side the impediments, however,

proved serious; the beds of the rivulets were so broad, that they

required to be filled up with fascines before they could be passed by

the guns; and when they did get across, they replied without much effect

to the French cannon thundering from the heights, which commanded the

whole field. At half-past twelve, however, these difficulties were, by

great efforts on the part of Prince Eugene and his wing, overcome, and

he sent word to Marlborough that he was ready. The English general

instantly called for his horse; the troops every where stood to their

arms, and the signal was given to advance. The rivulets and marshy

ground in front of Blenheim and Unterglau were passed by the first line

without much difficulty, though under a heavy fire of artillery from the

French batteries; and the firm ground on the slope being reached, the

first line advanced in the finest order to the attack--the cavalry in

front having now defiled to a side, so as to let the English infantry

take the lead. The attack must be given in the words of Dr Hare's

Journal.

"Lord Cutts made the first attack upon Blenheim, with the English

grenadiers. Brigadier-general Rowe led up his brigade, which formed

the first line, and was sustained in the second by a brigade of

Hessians. Rowe was within thirty paces of the palisades about

Blenheim when the enemy gave their first fire, by which a great

many officers and men fell; but notwithstanding this, that brave

officer marched direct up to the pales, on which he struck his

sword before he allowed his men to fire. His orders were to enter

at the point of the bayonet; but the superiority of the enemy, and

the strength of their post, rendered this impossible. The first

line was therefore forced to retire; Rowe was struck down badly

wounded at the foot of the pales; his lieut.-colonel and major were

killed in endeavouring to bring him off, and some squadrons of

French gens-d'armes having charged the brigade while retiring in

disorder, it was partially broken, and one of the colours of Rowe's

regiment was taken. The Hessians in the second line upon this

advanced briskly forward, charged the squadrons, retook the colour,

and repulsed them. Lord Cutts, however, seeing fresh squadrons

coming down upon him, sent to request some cavalry should be sent

to cover his flank. Five British squadrons accordingly were moved

up, and speedily charged by eight of the enemy; the French gave

their fire at a little distance, but the English charged sword in

hand, and put them to the rout. Being overpowered, however, by

fresh squadrons, and galled by the fire which issued from the

enclosures of Blenheim, our horse were driven back in their turn,

and recoiled in disorder.

"Marlborough, foreseeing that the enemy would pursue this

advantage, resolved to bring his whole cavalry across the rivulets.

The operation was begun by the English horse. It proved more

difficult, however, than was expected, especially to the English

squadrons; as they had to cross the rivulet where it was divided,

and the meadows were very soft. However, they surmounted those

difficulties, and got over; but when they advanced, they were so

severely galled by the infantry in Blenheim firing upon their

flank, while the cavalry charged them in front, that they were

forced to retire, which they did, under cover of Bulow and

Bothmer's German dragoons, who succeeded them in the passage.

Marlborough, seeing the enemy resolute to maintain the ground

occupied by his cavalry, gave orders for the whole remainder of his

cavalry to pass wherever they could get across. There was very

great difficulty and danger in defiling over the rivulet in the

face of an enemy, already formed and supported by several batteries

of cannon; yet by the brave examples and intrepidity of the

officers, they were at length got over, and kept their ground on

the other side. Bulow stretched across, opposite to Oberglau, with

the Danish and Hanoverian horse; but near that village they were so

vigorously charged by the French cavalry, that they were driven

back. Rallying, they were again led to the charge, and again routed

with great slaughter by the charges of the horse in front, and the

dreadful fire from the inclosures of Blenheim. Nor did the attack

on Oberglau to the British right, under Prince Holstein, succeed

better; no sooner had he passed the rivulet, than the Irish

veterans, posted there, came pouring down upon them, took the

prince prisoner, and threw the whole into confusion. Upon this,

Marlborough galloped to the spot at the head of some squadrons,

followed by three battalions, which had not yet been engaged. With

the horse he charged the Irish battalions in flank, and forced them

back; the foot he posted himself, and having re-established affairs

at that point, returned rapidly to the left, where he found the

whole of his corps passed over the streams, and on firm ground on

the other side. The horse were drawn up in two lines fronting the

enemy; the foot in two lines behind them; and some guns, under

Colonel Blood, having been hurried across by means of pontoons,

were brought to bear upon some battalions of foot which were

intermingled with the enemy's horse, and made great havoc in their

ranks.

"It was now past three, and the Duke, having got his whole men

ready for the attack, sent to Prince Eugene to know if he was ready

to support him. But the efforts of that gallant prince had not been

attended with the same success. In the first onset, indeed, his

Danish and Prussian infantry had gained considerable success, and

taken six guns, and the Imperial cavalry had, by a vigorous charge,

broken the first line of the enemy's horse; but they failed in

their attack on the second line, and were driven back to their

original ground; whereupon the Bavarian cavalry, rushing forward,

enveloped Eugene's foot, who were forced to retire, and with

difficulty regained their original ground. Half an hour afterwards,

Prince Eugene made a second attack with his horse; but they were

again repulsed by the bravery of the Bavarian cavalry, and driven

for refuge into the wood, in the rear of their original position.

Nothing daunted by this bad success, the Prince formed his troops

for a third attack, and himself led his cavalry to the charge; but

so vigorous was the defence, that they were again repulsed to the

wood, and the victorious enemy's dragoons with loud cheers charged

the Prussian foot in flank, and were only repelled by the admirable

steadiness with which they delivered their fire, and stood their

ground with fixed bayonets in front.

"About five the general forward movement was made which determined

the issue of this great battle, which till then had seemed

doubtful. The Duke of Marlborough, having ridden along the front,

gave orders to sound the charge, when all at once our lines of

horse moved on, sword in hand, to the attack. Those of the enemy

presented their carbines at some distance and fired; but they had

no sooner done so than they wheeled about, broke, and fled. The

gens-d'armes fled towards Hochstedt, which was about two miles in

the rear; the other squadrons towards the village of Sondersheim,

which was nearer, and on the bank of the Danube. The Duke ordered

General Hompesch, with thirty squadrons, to pursue those who fled

to Hochstedt; while he himself, with Prince Hesse and the whole

remainder of the cavalry, drove thirty of the enemy's squadrons

headlong down the banks of the Danube, which, being very steep,

occasioned the destruction of the greater part. Vast numbers

endeavoured to save themselves by swimming, and perished miserably.

Among the prisoners taken here were Marshal Tallard and his suite,

who surrendered to M. Beinenbourg, aid-de-camp to the Prince of

Hesse. Marlborough immediately desired him to be accommodated with

his coach, and sent a pencil note to the duchess[11] to say the

victory was gained. Others, seeing the fate of their comrades in

the water, endeavoured to save themselves by defiling to the right,

along its margin, towards Hochstedt, but they were met and

intercepted by some English squadrons; upon seeing which they fled

in utter confusion towards Morselingen, and did not again attempt

to engage. The victorious horse upon this fell upon several of the

enemy's battalions, who had nearly reached Hochstedt, and cut them

to pieces.

"Meanwhile Prince Eugene, by a fourth attack, succeeded in driving

the Elector of Bavaria from his position; and the Duke, seeing

this, sent orders to the squadrons in pursuit, towards Morselingen,

to wheel about and join him. All this while the troops in Blenheim

had been incessantly attacked, but it still held out and gave

employment to the Duke's infantry. The moment the cavalry had

beaten off that of the enemy, and cleared the field between the two

villages of them, General Churchill moved both lines of foot upon

the village of Blenheim, and it was soon surrounded so as to cut

off all possibility of escape except on the side next the Danube.

To prevent the possibility of their escape that way, Webb, with the

Queen's regiment, took possession of a barrier the enemy had

constructed to cover their retreat, and, having posted his men

across the street which led to the Danube, several hundreds of the

enemy, who were attempting to make their escape that way, were made

prisoners. The other issue to the Danube was occupied in the same

manner by Prince George's regiment: all who came out that way were

made prisoners or driven into the Danube. Some endeavoured to break

out at other places, but General Wood, with Lord John Hay's

regiment of _grey_ dragoons (Scots Greys) immediately advanced

towards them, and, cantering up to the top of a rising ground, made

them believe they had a larger force behind them, and stopped them

on that side. When Churchill saw the defeat of the enemy's horse

decided, he sent to request Lord Cutts to attack them in front,

while he himself attacked them in flank. This was accordingly done;

the Earl of Orkney and General Ingoldesby entering the village at

the same time, at two different places, at the head of their

respective regiments. But so vigorous was the resistance made by

the enemy, especially at the churchyard, that they were forced to

retire. The vehement fire, however, of the cannon and howitzers,

which set fire to several barns and houses, added to the

circumstance of their commander, M. Clerambault, having fled, and

their retreat on all sides being cut off, led to their surrendering

at discretion, to the number of six-and-twenty battalions. Thus

concluded this great battle, in which the enemy had 5900 more than

the Allies,[12] and the advantage of a very strong position,

difficult of attack."[13]

In this battle Marlborough's wing lost 3000 men, and Eugene's the same

number, in all 6000. The French lost 13,000 prisoners, including 1200

officers, almost all taken by Marlborough's wing, besides 34 pieces of

cannon, 26 standards, and 90 colours; Eugene took 13 pieces. The killed

and wounded were 14,000 more. But the total loss of the French and

Bavarians, including those who deserted during their calamitous retreat

through the Black Forest, was not less than 40,000 men,[14] a number

greater than any which they sustained till the still more disastrous day

of Waterloo.

This account of the battle, which is by far the best and most

intelligible which has ever yet been published, makes it quite evident

to what cause the overwhelming magnitude of this defeat to the French

army was owing. The strength of the position consisted solely in the

rivulets and marshy grounds in its front; when they were passed, the

error of Marshal Tallard's disposition of his troops was at once

apparent. The infantry was accumulated in useless numbers in the

villages. Of the twenty-six battalions in Blenheim, twenty were useless,

and could not get into action, while the long line of cavalry from

thence to Oberglau was sustained only by a few battalions of foot,

incapable of making any effective resistance. This was the more

inexcusable, as the French, having sixteen battalions of infantry more

than the Allies, should at no point have shown themselves inferior in

foot soldiers to their opponents. When the curtain of horse which

stretched from Blenheim to Oberglau was broken through and driven off

the field, the 13,000 infantry accumulated in the former of these

villages could not avoid falling into the enemy's hands; for they were

pressed between Marlborough's victorious foot and horse on the one side,

and the unfordable stream of the Danube on the other. But Marlborough,

it is evident, evinced the capacity of a great general in the manner in

which he surmounted these obstacles, and took advantage of these faulty

dispositions; resolutely, in the first instance, overcoming the numerous

impediments which opposed the passage of the rivulets, and then

accumulating his horse and foot for a grand attack on the enemy's

centre, which, besides destroying above half the troops assembled there,

and driving thirty squadrons into the Danube, cut off, and isolated the

powerful body of infantry now uselessly crowded together in Blenheim,

and compelled them to surrender.

Immense were the results of this transcendent victory. The French army,

lately so confident in its numbers and prowess, retreated "or rather

fled," as Marlborough says, through the Black Forest; abandoning the

Elector of Bavaria and all the fortresses on the Danube to their fate.

In the deepest dejection, and the utmost disorder, they reached the

Rhine, scarce twelve thousand strong, on the 25th August, and

immediately began defiling over by the bridge of Strasburg. How

different from the triumphant army, which with drums beating, and

colours flying, had crossed at the same place six weeks before!

Marlborough, having detached part of his force to besiege Ulm, drew near

with the bulk of his army to the Rhine, which he passed near Philipsburg

on the 6th September, and soon after commenced the siege of Landau, on

the French side; Prince Louis with 20,000 men forming the besieging

force, and Eugene and Marlborough with 30,000 the covering army. Ulm

surrendered on the 16th September, with 250 pieces of cannon, and 1200

barrels of powder, which gave the Allies a solid foundation on the

Danube, and effectually crushed the power of the Elector of Bavaria,

who, isolated now in the midst of his enemies, had no alternative but to

abandon his dominions, and seek refuge in Brussels, where he arrived in

the end of September. Meanwhile, as the siege of Landau was found to

require more time than had been anticipated, owing to the extraordinary

difficulties experienced in getting up supplies and forage for the

troops; Marlborough repaired to Hanover and Berlin to stimulate the

Prussian and Hanoverian cabinets to greater exertions in the common

cause, and he succeeded in making arrangements for the addition of 8000

more Prussian troops to their valuable auxiliary force, to be added to

the army of the Imperialists in Italy, which stood much in need of

reinforcement. The Electress of Bavaria, who had been left Regent of

that State in the absence of the Elector in Flanders, had now no

resource left but submission; and a treaty was accordingly concluded in

the beginning of November, by which she agreed to disband all her

troops. Trarbach was taken in the end of December; the Hungarian

insurrection was appeased; Landau capitulated in the beginning of the

same month; a diversion which the enemy attempted on Trêves was defeated

by Marlborough's activity and vigilance, and that city put in a

sufficient posture of defence; and the campaign being now finished, that

accomplished commander returned to the Hague, and London, to receive the

honour due for his past services, and urge their respective cabinets to

the efforts necessary to turn them to good account.

Thus by the operations of one single campaign was Bavaria crushed,

Austria and Germany delivered. Marlborough's cross-march from Flanders

to the Danube, had extricated the Imperialists from a state of the

utmost peril, and elevated them at once to security, victory, and

conquest. The decisive blow struck at Blenheim, resounded through every

part of Europe; it at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it

had taken Louis XIV., aided by the talents of Turenne, and the genius of

Vauban, so long to construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley

of the Danube, and threatening Vienna, as Napoleon afterwards did in

1805 and 1809, the French were driven in the utmost disorder across the

Rhine. The surrender of Trarbach and Landau gave the Allies a firm

footing on the left bank of that river. The submission of Bavaria

deprived the French of that great outwork, of which they have made such

good use in their German wars, the Hungarian insurrection, deprived of

the hoped-for aid from the armies on the Rhine, was pacified. Prussia

was induced by this great triumph to co-operate in a more efficient

manner in the common cause; the parsimony of the Dutch gave way before

the tumult of success; and the empire, delivered from invasion, was

preparing to carry its victorious arms into the heart of France. Such

results require no comment; they speak for themselves, and deservedly

place Marlborough in the very highest rank of military commanders. The

campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no more decisive or glorious results.

Honours and emoluments of every description were showered on the English

hero for this glorious success. He was created a prince of the Holy

Roman empire,[15] and a tract of land in Germany erected into a

principality in his favour. His reception at the courts of Berlin and

Hanover resembled that of a sovereign prince; the acclamations of the

people, in all the towns through which he passed, rent the air; at the

Hague his influence was such that he was regarded as the real

Stadtholder. More substantial rewards awaited him in his own country.

The munificence of the queen and the gratitude of Parliament conferred

upon him the extensive honour and manor of Woodstock, long a royal

palace, and once the scene of the loves of Henry II. and the fair

Rosamond. By order of the Queen, not only was this noble estate settled

on the duke and his heirs, but the royal comptroller commenced a

magnificent palace for the duke on a scale worthy of his services and

England's gratitude. From this origin the superb palace of Blenheim has

taken its rise; which, although not built in the purest taste, or after

the most approved models, remains, and will long remain, a splendid

monument of a nation's gratitude, and of the genius of Vanbrugh.

Notwithstanding the invaluable services thus rendered by Marlborough,

both to the Emperor of Germany and the Queen of England, he was far from

experiencing from either potentate that liberal support for the future

prosecution of the war, which the inestimable opportunity now placed in

their hands, and the formidable power still at the disposal of the enemy

so loudly required. As usual, the English Parliament were exceedingly

backward in voting supplies either of men or money; nor was the cabinet

of Vienna inclined to be more liberal in its exertions. Though the House

of Commons agreed to give £4,670,000 for the service of the ensuing

year; yet the land forces voted were only 40,000 men, although the

population of Great Britain and Ireland could not be at that period

under ten millions, while France, with about twenty millions, had above

two hundred thousand under arms. It is this excessive and invariable

reluctance of the English Parliament ever to make those efforts at the

commencement of a war, which are necessary to turn to a good account the

inherent bravery of its soldiers and frequent skill of its commanders,

that is the cause of the long duration of our Continental wars, and of

three-fourths of the national debt which now oppresses the empire, and,

in its ultimate results, will endanger its existence. The national

forces are, by the cry for economy and reduction which invariably is

raised in peace, reduced to so low an ebb, that it is only by successive

additions, made in many different years, that it can be raised up to any

thing like the amount requisite for successful operations. Thus disaster

generally occurs in the commencement of every war; or if, by the genius

of any extraordinary commander, as by that of Marlborough, unlooked-for

success is achieved in the outset, the nation is unable to follow it up;

the war languishes for want of the requisite support; the enemy gets

time to recover from his consternation; his danger stimulates him to

greater exertions; and many long years of warfare, deeply checkered with

disaster, and attended with an enormous expense, are required to obviate

the effects of previous undue pacific reduction.

How bitterly Marlborough felt this want of support, on the part of the

cabinets both of London and Vienna, which prevented him from following

up the victory of Blenheim with the decisive operations against France

which he would otherwise have undoubtedly commenced, is proved by

various parts of his correspondence. On the 16th of December 1704, he

wrote to Mr Secretary Harley--"I am sorry to see nothing has been

offered yet, _nor any care taken by Parliament for recruiting the army_.

I mean chiefly the foot. It is of that consequence for an early

campaign, that without it _we may run the hazard of losing, in a great

measure, the fruits of the last_; and therefore, pray leave to recommend

it to you to advise with your friends, if any proper method can be

thought of, that may be laid before the House immediately, without

waiting my arrival."[16] Nor was the cabinet of Vienna, notwithstanding

the imminent danger they had recently run, more active in making the

necessary efforts to repair the losses of the campaign--"You cannot,"

says Marlborough, "say more to us of the _supine negligence of the Court

of Vienna_, with reference to your affairs, _than we are sensible of

every where else_; and certainly if the Duke of Savoy's good conduct and

bravery at Verue had not reduced the French to a very low ebb, the game

must have been over before any help could come to you."[17] It is ever

thus, especially with states such as Great Britain, in which the

democratic element is so powerful as to imprint upon the measures of

government that disregard of the future, and aversion to present efforts

or burdens, which is the invariable characteristic of the bulk of

mankind. If Marlborough had been adequately supported and strengthened

after the decisive blow struck at Blenheim; that is, if the governments

of Vienna and London, with that of the Hague, had by a great and timely

effort doubled his effective force when the French were broken and

disheartened by defeat, he would have marched to Paris in the next

campaign, and dictated peace to the _Grand Monarque_ in his gorgeous

halls of Versailles. It was short-sighted economy which entailed upon

the nations the costs and burdens of the next ten years of the War of

the Succession, as it did the still greater costs and burdens of the

Revolutionary War, after the still more decisive success of the Allies

in the summer of 1793, when the iron frontier of the Netherlands was

entirely broken through, and their advanced posts, without any force to

oppose them, were within an hundred and sixty miles of Paris.

This parsimony of the Allied governments, and their invincible

repugnance to the efforts and sacrifices which could alone bring, and

certainly would have brought, the war to an early and glorious issue, is

the cause of the subsequent conversion of the war into one of blockades

and sieges, and of its being transferred to Flanders, where its progress

was necessarily slow, and cost enormous, from the vast number of

strongholds which required to be reduced at every stage of the Allied

advance. It was said at the time, that in attacking Flanders in that

quarter, Marlborough took the bull by the horns; that France on the side

of the Rhine was far more vulnerable, and that the war was fixed in

Flanders, in order by protracting it to augment the profits of the

generals employed. Subsequent writers, not reflecting on the difference

of the circumstances, have observed the successful issue of the

invasions of France from Switzerland and the Upper Rhine in 1814, and

Flanders and the Lower Rhine in 1815, and concluded that a similar

result would have attended a like bold invasion under Marlborough and

Eugene. There never was a greater mistake. The great object of the war

was to wrest Flanders from France; when the lilied standard floated on

Brussels and Antwerp, the United Provinces were constantly in danger of

being swallowed up, and there was no security for the independence

either of England, Holland, or any of the German States. If Marlborough

and Eugene had had two hundred thousand effective men at their disposal,

as Wellington and Blucher had in 1815, or three hundred thousand, as

Schwartzenberg and Blucher had in 1814, they would doubtless have left

half their force behind them to blockade the fortresses, and with the

other half marched direct to Paris. But as they had never had more than

eighty thousand on their muster-rolls, and could not bring at any time

more than sixty thousand effective men into the field, this bold and

decisive course was impossible. The French army in their front was

rarely inferior to theirs, often superior; and how was it possible in

these circumstances to adventure on the perilous course of pushing on

into the heart of the enemy's territory, leaving the frontier

fortresses, yet unsubdued, in their rear? The disastrous issue of the

Blenheim campaign to the French arms, even when supported by the

friendly arms and all the fortresses of Bavaria, in the preceding year,

had shown what was the danger of such a course. The still more

calamitous issue of the Moscow campaign to the army of Napoleon,

demonstrated that even the greatest military talents, and most enormous

accumulation of military force, affords no security against the

incalculable danger of an undue advance beyond the base of military

operations. The greatest generals of the last age, fruitful beyond all

others in military talent, have acted on those principles, whenever they

had not an overwhelming superiority of forces at their command.

Wellington never invaded Spain till he was master of Ciudad Rodrigo and

Badajos; nor France till he had subdued St Sebastian and Pampeluna. The

first use which Napoleon made of his victories at Montenotte and Dego

was to compel the Court of Turin to surrender all their fortresses in

Piedmont; of the victory of Marengo, to force the Imperialists to

abandon the whole strongholds of Lombardy as far as the Adige. The

possession of the single fortress of Mantua in 1796, enabled the

Austrians to stem the flood of Napoleon's victories, and gain time to

assemble four different armies for the defence of the monarchy. The case

of half a million of men, flushed by victory, and led by able and

experienced leaders assailing a single state, is the exception, not the

rule.

Circumstances, therefore, of paramount importance and irresistible

force, compelled Marlborough to fix the war in Flanders, and convert it

into one of sieges and blockades. In entering upon such a system of

hostility, sure, and comparatively free from risk, but slow and

extremely costly, the alliance ran the greatest risk of being

shipwrecked on the numerous discords, jealousies, and separate

interests, which, in almost every instance recorded in history, have

proved fatal to a great confederacy, if it does not obtain decisive

success at the outset, before these seeds of division have had time to

come to maturity. With what admirable skill and incomparable address

Marlborough kept together the unwieldy alliance will hereafter appear.

Never was a man so qualified by nature for such a task. He was courtesy

and grace personified. It was a common saying at the time, that neither

man nor woman could resist him. "Of all the men I ever knew," says no

common man, himself a perfect master of the elegances he so much

admired, "the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the

highest degree, not to say engrossed them. Indeed he got the most by

them, and contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always

assign deep causes for great events, I ascribe the better half of the

Duke of Marlborough's greatness to those graces. He had no brightness,

nothing shining in his genius. He had most undoubtedly an excellent

plain understanding, and sound judgment. But these qualities alone would

probably have never raised him higher than they found him, which was

page to James the Second's queen. But there the grace protected and

promoted him. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible,

either by man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that

he was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and jarring

powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of

the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies,

and wrongheadedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was often obliged

to go to restive and refractory ones) he brought them into his measures.

The pensionary Heinsius, who had governed the United Provinces for forty

years, was absolutely governed by him. He was always cool, and nobody

ever observed the least variation in his countenance; he could refuse

more gracefully than others could grant, and those who went from him the

most dissatisfied as to the substance of their business, were yet

charmed by his manner, and, as it were, comforted by it."[18]