rare in these days, namely, a general engagement without an order
of battle.[47] It was undoubtedly the most hazardous action that
Marlborough ever fought. His troops were much harassed by forced
marches. They had started at two o’clock on Monday morning and had
covered fifty miles, including the passage of two rivers, when they
came into action at two o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. It would be
reckoned no small feat in these days to move eighty thousand men
over fifty miles in sixty hours, but in those days of bad roads and
heavy packs the effort must have been enormous. Finally, the army had
to pass the Scheldt in the face of the enemy, and ran no small risk
of being destroyed in detail. Yet the hazard was probably less than
it now seems to us, and generals in our own day have not hesitated
to risk similar peril with success. The French commanders were at
variance; the less competent of them, being heir-apparent, was likely
to be toadied by officers and supported by them against their better
judgment; and, finally, the entire French army was very much afraid
of Marlborough. Notwithstanding their slight success in Ghent and
Bruges, their elation had evaporated speedily when they found the
Duke before them at Lessines. All this Marlborough knew well; and
he knew also that, if an impromptu action (if one may use the term)
must be fought, there was not a man on the French side who had an
eye for a battlefield comparable to Eugene’s or his own. The event
justified his calculations; for the victory was one of men who knew
their own minds over men who did not. Another hour of daylight, so
Marlborough declared, would have enabled him to finish the war. The
total loss of the Allies in the battle was about three thousand killed
and wounded, the British infantry, though early engaged, suffering
but little, while the British cavalry, being employed to watch the
inactive French left, hardly suffered at all.[48] The French lost
six thousand killed and wounded and nine thousand prisoners only,
but they were thoroughly shaken and demoralised for the remainder of
the campaign. The wearied army of the Allies lay on its arms on the
battlefield, while Marlborough and Eugene waited impatiently for the
dawn. As soon as it was light, forty squadrons, for the most part
British, were sent forward in pursuit, while Eugene returned to his
own army to hasten its march and to collect material for a siege.
◆July 1/12.◆ The main army halted to rest for two days where it lay,
during which time the intelligence came that Berwick ad been summoned
with his army from the Moselle, and was marching with all haste to
occupy certain lines constructed by the French to cover their frontier
from Ypres to the Lys. ◆July 2–3/13–14.◆ At midnight fifty squadrons
and thirty battalions under Count Lottum, a distinguished Prussian
officer, started for these lines; the whole army followed at daybreak,
and, while on the march, the Duke received the satisfactory news that
Lottum had captured the lines without difficulty. Next day the whole of
Marlborough’s army was camped along the Lys between Menin and Commines,
within the actual territory of France.
Detached columns were at once sent out to forage and levy
contributions. The suburbs of Arras were burnt, and no effort was
spared to bring home to the French that war was hammering at their
own gates. But the Allies were still doubtful as to the operations
that they should next undertake. So long as the French held Bruges and
Ghent they held also the navigation of the Scheldt and Lys, so that
it was of vital importance to tempt Vendôme, if possible, to evacuate
those towns. The British Government was preparing a force[49] under
General Erle for a descent upon Normandy by sea, and Marlborough was
for co-operating with this expedition, masking the fortress of Lille,
and penetrating straight into France—a plan which the reader should, if
possible, bear in mind. But the proposal was too adventurous to meet
with the approval of the Dutch, and was judged impracticable even by
Eugene unless Lille were first captured as a place of arms. Ultimately
it was decided, notwithstanding the closing of the Scheldt and Lys,
to undertake the siege of Lille; and all the energies of the Allies
were turned to the collection of sixteen thousand horses to haul the
siege-train overland from Brussels.
During the enforced inaction of the army for the next few weeks, the
monotony was broken only by the arrival of a distinguished visitor,
Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, together
with one of his three hundred and sixty-four bastards, a little boy of
twelve named Maurice, who had run away from school to join the army.
We shall meet with this boy again as a man of fifty, under the name of
Marshal Saxe, at a village some twenty miles distant called Fontenoy.
At length the preparations for the siege were complete, and the huge
convoy set out from Brussels for its long march. Now, if ever, was
the time for the French to strike a blow. Vendôme in the north at
Ghent and Berwick in the south at Douay had, between them, one hundred
and ten thousand men: the distance to be traversed by the convoy
was seventy-five miles, and the way was barred by the Dender and
the Scheldt. Such, however, was the skill with which the march was
conducted that the French never succeeded even in threatening the vast,
unwieldy columns, which duly reached their destination without the
loss even of a single waggon. ◆Aug. 1/12.◆ Of all the achievements of
Marlborough and Eugene, this seems to have been judged by contemporary
military men to be the greatest.[50]
Lille, the capital of French Flanders, was one of the early conquests
of Lewis the Fourteenth, and, if the expression may be allowed, the
darling town of the Court of Versailles. Situated in a swampy plain
and watered by two rivers, the Deule and Marque, its natural position
presented difficulties of no ordinary kind to a besieging force; and,
in addition, it had been fortified by Vauban with his utmost skill. The
garrison, which had been strengthened by Berwick, amounted to fifteen
thousand men, under the command of brave old Marshal Boufflers, who
had solicited the honour of defending the fortress. To the north, as
we have seen, lay Vendôme, and to the south Berwick, with a joint
force now amounting to about ninety-four thousand men.[51] It was
for Marlborough and Eugene with an inferior strength of eighty-four
thousand men[52] to hold them at bay and to take one of the strongest
fortresses in the world before their eyes.
A detailed account even of so famous a siege would be wearisome, the
more so since the proportion of British troops detailed for regular
work in the trenches was but five battalions,[53] but there are a few
salient features which cannot be omitted. The point selected for attack
was the north side, the first advance to which was opened by a single
English soldier, Sergeant Littler of the First Guards,[54] who swam
across the Marquette to a French post, which commanded the passage
of the stream, and let down the drawbridge. ◆Aug. 2/13.◆ Two days
later the town was fully invested, and Marlborough took post with the
covering army at Helchin on the Scheldt.
The investment had not been accomplished for more than a fortnight,
when the Duke was informed that Berwick and Vendôme were advancing
towards the Dender to unite their forces at Lessines. After manœuvring
at first to hinder the junction Marlborough finally decided to let it
come to pass, being satisfied that, if the French designed to relieve
Lille, they could not penetrate to it in the face of his army on the
east side, but must go round and approach the city from the south.
In this case, as both armies would move in concentric circles around
Lille as a centre, Marlborough, being nearer to that centre, could be
certain of reaching any given point on the way to it before the French.
Moreover, the removal of the enemy from the east to the south would
free the convoys from Brussels from all annoyance on their march to the
siege.
◆Aug. 22./Sept. 2.◆
As he had expected, the French moved south to Tournay, and then
wheeling northward entered the plain of Lille, where they found
Marlborough and Eugene drawn up ready to receive them.[55] Vendôme
and Berwick had positive orders to risk a battle; and there had been
much big talk of annihilating the Allies. Yet face to face with their
redoubtable enemies they hesitated. Finally, after a week’s delay,
which enabled Marlborough greatly to strengthen his position by
entrenchment, they advanced as if to attack in earnest, but withdrew
ignominiously after a useless cannonade, without accepting battle. Had
not Marlborough and Eugene been restrained by the Dutch deputies, the
marshals would have had a battle forced on them whether they liked it
or not, but, as things were, they were permitted to retire. To such
depth of humiliation had Marlborough reduced the proud and gallant
French army.
◆Aug. 27–28./Sept. 7–8.◆
The retreat left Eugene free to press the siege with vigour; but a
great assault, which cost him three thousand men,[56] failed to give
him the advantage for which he had hoped; and a week later Marlborough
was called in from the covering army to give assistance. ◆Sept.
19–20./30–31.◆ For the next attack, on the counterscarp, the Duke lent
the Prince five thousand English, and it is said that English and
French never fought more worthily of their reputation than on that
day; but the assault was thrice repelled, and it was only through
the exertions of Eugene himself that a portion of the works was at
last captured, after a desperate effort and at frightful expense of
life. Altogether the siege was not going well. The engineers had made
blunders; a vast number of men had been thrown away to no purpose; and
ammunition and stores were beginning to run short. Lastly, Boufflers
maintained always a very grand and extremely able defence.
Vendôme and Berwick could now think of no better expedient than to
throw themselves into strong positions along the Scarpe and Scheldt,
from Douay to Ghent, in order to cut off all convoys from Brussels.
But Marlborough was prepared for this, and had not captured Ostend
after Ramillies for nothing. England held command of the sea; and
Erle’s expedition, which had effected little or nothing on the coast
of Normandy, was at hand to help in the transport of supplies from the
new base. Erle, who had considerable talent for organisation, soon
set Ostend in order, seized two passages over the Nieuport Canal at
Leffinghe and Oudenburg, and prepared to send off his first convoy. As
its arrival was of vital importance to the maintenance of the siege,
the French were as anxious ◆Sept. 16/27.◆ to intercept as the English
to forward it. Vendôme accordingly sent off Count de la Mothe with
twenty-two thousand men to attack it on its way, while Marlborough
despatched twelve battalions and fifteen hundred horse to Ostend
itself, twelve battalions more under General Webb to Thourout, and
eighteen squadrons under Cadogan to Roulers, at two different points on
the road, to help it to its destination.
◆Sept. 17/28.◆
The convoy started at night, and in the morning Cadogan sent forward
Count Lottum with a hundred and fifty horse to meet it. At noon Lottum
returned to Thourout with the intelligence that he had struck against
the advanced guard of a French force at Ichtegem, two miles beyond
Wynendale and some four miles from Thourout, on the road to Ostend.
Webb at once collected every battalion within his reach, twenty-two in
all, and marched with all speed for Ichtegem, with Lottum’s squadron in
advance. The horse, however, on emerging from the defile of Wynendale,
found the enemy advancing towards them into the plains that lay beyond
it. Lottum retired slowly, skirmishing, while Webb pushed on and
posted his men in two lines at the entrance to the defile. The strait
was bounded on either hand by a wood, and in each of these woods Webb
stationed a battalion of Germans to take the French in flank. The
dispositions were hardly complete when the enemy came up and opened
fire from nineteen pieces of artillery. Lottum and his handful of horse
then retired, while just in the nick of time three more battalions
reached Webb from the rear and formed his third line.
The French cannonade was prolonged for nearly two hours, but with
little effect, for Webb had ordered his men to lie down. At length at
five o’clock the French advanced in four lines of infantry, backed
by as many of horse and dragoons. They came on with great steadiness
and entered the space between the two woods, with their flanks almost
brushing the covert as they passed, serenely unconscious of the peril
that awaited them. Then from right and left a staggering volley crashed
into them from the battalions concealed among the trees. Both flanks
shrank back from the fire, and huddled themselves in confusion upon
their centre. De la Mothe sent forward some dragoons in support;
and the foot, recovering themselves, pressed on against the lines
before them. So vigorous was their attack that they broke through two
battalions of the first line; but, the gap being instantly filled
from the second, they were forced back. Again they struggled forward,
trusting by the sheer weight of eight lines against two to sweep their
enemy away. But the eternal fire on front and flank became unendurable,
and, notwithstanding the blows and entreaties of their officers, the
eight lines broke up in confusion, while Webb’s battalions, coolly
advancing by platoons “as if they were at exercise,” poured volley
after volley into them as they retired. Cadogan, who had hastened up
with a few squadrons to the sound of the firing, was anxious to charge
the broken troops, but his force was considered too weak; and thus
after two hours of hot conflict ended the combat of Wynendale. The
French engaged therein numbered almost double of the Allies, and lost
close on three thousand men, while the Allies lost rather less than a
thousand of all ranks. The signal incapacity displayed by the French
commander did not lessen the credit of Webb, and Wynendale was reckoned
one of the most brilliant little affairs of the whole war.[57]
The safe arrival of the convoy before Lille raised the hope of the
besiegers; and Vendôme, now fully alive to the importance of cutting
off communication with Ostend, marched towards that side with a
considerable force, and opening the dykes laid the whole country under
water. Marlborough went quickly after him, but the marshal would not
await his coming; and the Duke, by means of high-wheeled vehicles
and punts, contrived to overcome the difficulties caused by the
inundation. ◆Oct. 11/22.◆ At last, after a siege of sixty days the town
capitulated; and the garrison retired into the citadel, where Eugene
proceeded to beleaguer it anew.
While the new siege was going forward, the Elector of Bavaria arrived
on the scene from the Rhine, from whence the apathy of the Elector of
Hanover had most unpardonably allowed him to withdraw, and laid siege
to Brussels with fifteen thousand men. ◆Nov. 13/24.◆ This was an
entirely new complication; and, since the French held the line of the
Scheldt in force, it was difficult to see how Marlborough could parry
the blow. Fortunately the garrison defended itself with great spirit,
the English regiments[58] setting a fine example; and the Duke, in no
wise dismayed, laid his plans with his usual secrecy and decision.
◆Nov. 15/26.◆ Spreading reports, which he confirmed by feint
movements, that he was about to place his troops in cantonments, he
marched suddenly and silently eastward on the night of the 26th of
November, crossed the Scheldt at two different points before the enemy
knew that he was near them, took a thousand prisoners, and then
remitting the bulk of his force to the siege of Lille, pushed on with
a detachment of cavalry and two battalions of English Guards to
Alost. ◆Nov. 17/28.◆ On his arrival he learned that the Elector had
raised the siege of Brussels and marched off with precipitation. The
bare name of Marlborough had been sufficient to scare him away.
Meanwhile Eugene’s preparations before the citadel of Lille were in
rapid progress, and Marlborough was already maturing plans for a
further design before the close of the campaign. It had been the
earnest desire of both commanders to reduce Boufflers to unconditional
surrender; but time was an object, so on the 9th of December the
gallant old marshal and his heroic garrison marched out with the
honours of war. ◆Nov. 28./Dec. 9.◆ So ended the memorable siege of
Lille. It had cost the garrison eight thousand men, or more than half
of its numbers, and the Allies no fewer than fourteen thousand
men. The honours of the struggle rested decidedly with Boufflers, and
were paid to him by none more ungrudgingly than Marlborough and
Eugene. Yet as an operation of war, conducted under extraordinary
difficulties in respect of transport, under the eyes of a superior
force and subject to diversions, such as that of the Elector of
Bavaria, this siege remains one of the highest examples of consummate
military skill.
The fall of Lille was a heavy blow for France, but it was not the last
of the campaign. Within eight days Marlborough and Eugene had invested
Ghent, which after a brief resistance surrendered with the honours of
war. The capitulation of Bruges quickly followed, and the navigation of
the Scheldt and Lys having been regained, the two commanders at last
sent their troops into winter quarters.
But even this did not close the sum of English successes for 1708.
From the Mediterranean had come news of another conquest, due to the
far-seeing eye and far-reaching hand of Marlborough. Early in the year
Galway had withdrawn from Catalonia to Lisbon, and the command in
Catalonia had been given at Marlborough’s instance to Field-Marshal
von Staremberg, an Imperial officer of much experience and deservedly
high reputation. Staremberg, however, could do little with but ten
thousand men against the Bourbon’s army of twice his strength; so by
Marlborough’s advice the troops were used to second the operations of
the Mediterranean squadron. Sardinia, the first point aimed at, was
captured almost without resistance; and the fleet then sailed for
Minorca. Here somewhat more opposition was encountered; but after less
than a fortnight’s work, creditably managed by Major-general Stanhope,
the Island was taken at a trifling cost of life.[59] ◆Sept. 13/24.◆
Thus the English gained their first port in the Mediterranean; and the
news of the capture of Minorca reached London on the same day as that
of the fall of Lille.
NOTE.—I have been unable to discover any Order of Battle for the
campaign of 1708. The regiments that bear the name of Oudenarde on
their appointments are the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th Dragoon Guards,
the 2nd Dragoons, 5th Lancers, Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards,
1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 37th
Foot.
VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER VIII
◆1708.◆
The successes of the past campaign were sufficient to put the British
Parliament in good humour, and to prompt it to vote a further increase
of ten thousand German mercenaries for the following year. Nevertheless
political troubles were increasing, and there were already signs that
the rule of Godolphin and Marlborough was in danger. The death of the
Prince Consort had been a heavy blow to the Duke. Prince George may
have deserved Lord Macaulay’s character for impenetrable stupidity, but
there can be little doubt that his heavy phlegmatic character was of
infinite service to steady the weak and unstable Queen Anne.
◆1709.◆
In the spring of 1709, however, it seemed reasonable to hope that
peace, which would have set all matters right, was well-nigh assured.
France, already at the last gasp through the exhaustion caused by the
war, was weakened still further by a severe winter which had added
famine to all her other troubles; and Lewis sought anxiously, even
at the price of humiliation, for peace. He approached Marlborough,
reputed the most avaricious and corruptible of men, with a gigantic
bribe to obtain good terms, but was unhesitatingly rebuffed. The Duke
stated the conditions which might be acceptable to England; and, had
the negotiations been trusted to him, there can be little doubt but
that he would have obtained the honourable peace which he above all
men most earnestly desired. He was, however, overruled by instructions
from home, imposing terms which Lewis could not be expected to grant;
the war was continued; and Marlborough, who had striven his hardest to
bring it to an end, was of course accused of prolonging it deliberately
for his own selfish ends.
The French, now menaced by an invasion and a march of the Allies to
Paris, had strengthened their army enormously by withdrawing troops
from all quarters to Flanders, and had set in command their only
fortunate general, that very able soldier and incomparable liar,
Marshal Villars. To cover Arras, the north-eastern gate of France,
Villars had thrown up a strong line of entrenchments from the Scarpe
at Douay to the Lys, which were generally known, after the name of his
headquarters, as the lines of La Bassée. There he lay, entrenched to
the teeth, while Marlborough and Eugene, after long delay owing to the
lateness of the spring, encamped with one hundred and ten thousand men
to the south-east of Lille,◆ between two villages, with which the
reader will in due time make closer acquaintance, called Linselles and
Fontenoy. ◆June. Thence they moved south straight upon Villars’s
lines, with every apparent preparation for a direct attack upon them
and for forcing their way into France at that point. The heavy
artillery was sent to Menin on the Lys; report was everywhere rife of
the coming assault, and Villars lost no time in summoning the garrison
of Tournay to his assistance. ◆June 15/26.◆ On the 26th of June, at
seven in the evening, Marlborough issued his orders to strike tents
and march; and the whole army made up its mind for a bloody action
before the lines at dawn. To the general surprise, after advancing
some time in the direction of the French, the columns received orders
to change direction to the left. After some hours’ march eastward they
crossed a river, but the men did not know that the bridge lay over the
Marque and that it led them towards the battlefield of Bouvines; nor
was it until dawn that they saw the gray walls and the four spires of
Tournay before them, and discovered that they had invested the city.
Tournay had been fortified by Vauban and was one of the strongest
fortresses in France,[60] but its garrison had been weakened by the
unsuspecting Villars, and there was little hope for it. The heavy
artillery of the Allies, which had been sent to Menin, went down the
Lys to Ghent and up the Scheldt to the besieged city, the trenches
were opened on the 7th of July, ◆June 26./July 7.◆ and after three
weeks, despite of the demonstrations of Villars and incessant heavy
rain, Tournay was reduced to surrender.[61] ◆July 19/28.◆ Then
followed the siege of the citadel, the most desperate enterprise yet
undertaken by the Allied troops, inasmuch as the subterraneous works
were more numerous and formidable than those above ground. The
operations were, therefore, conducted by mine and countermine, with
destructive explosions and confused combats in the darkness, which
tried the nerves of the soldiers almost beyond endurance. The men did
not object to be shot, but they dreaded to be buried alive by the
hundred together through the springing of a single mine.[62] Four
English regiments[63] bore their share in this work and suffered
heavily in the course of it, until on the 3rd of September the citadel
capitulated. ◆Aug. 23./Sept. 3.◆
Before the close of the siege Marlborough and Eugene, leaving a
sufficient force before Tournay, had moved back with the main army
before the lines at Douay. They had long decided that the lines were
far too formidable to be forced, but they saw no reason for
communicating this opinion to Villars. ◆Aug. 20/31.◆ On the 31st of
August Lord Orkney, with twenty squadrons and the whole of the
grenadiers of the army, marched away silently and swiftly eastward
towards St. Ghislain on the Haine. ◆Aug. 23./Sept. 3.◆ Three days
later, immediately after the capitulation of the citadel of Tournay,
the Prince of Hessen-Cassel started at four o’clock in the afternoon
in the same direction; at nine o’clock Cadogan followed him with forty
squadrons more, and at midnight the whole army broke up its camp and
marched after them. Twenty-six battalions alone were left before
Tournay to superintend the evacuation and to level the siege-works,
with orders to watch Villars carefully and not to move until he did.
The Prince of Hessen-Cassel soon overtook Orkney, from whom he learned
that St. Ghislain was too strongly held to be carried by his small
force. The Prince therefore at once pushed on. Rain was falling in
torrents, and the roads were like rivers, but he continued his advance
eastward, behind the woods that line the Haine, almost without a halt,
till at length at two o’clock on the morning of the 6th of September
he wheeled to the right and crossed the river at Obourg three miles to
the north-east of Mons. ◆Aug. 26./Sept. 6.◆ Before him lay the river
Trouille curving round to the south by Mons, and in rear of it a line
of entrenchments, thrown up during the last war, from Mons to the
Sambre, to cover the province of Hainault. A short survey showed him
that the lines were weakly guarded; and before noon he had passed them
without opposition. His force, notwithstanding the weather and the
state of the roads, had traversed the fifty miles to Obourg in
fifty-six hours.