[Sidenote: 1711.]
The French, fully aware of the political changes in England, had
during the winter made extraordinary exertions to prolong the war
for yet one more campaign, and to that end had covered the northern
frontier with a fortified barrier on a gigantic scale. Starting
from the coast of Picardy the lines followed the course of the
river Canche almost to its source. From thence across to the Gy
or southern fork of the Upper Scarpe ran a line of earthworks,
extending from Oppy to Montenancourt. From the latter point the
Gy and the Scarpe were dammed so as to form inundations as far as
Biache, at which place a canal led the line of defence from the
Scarpe to the Sensée. Here more inundations between the two rivers
carried the barrier to Bouchain, whence it followed the Scheldt to
Valenciennes. From thence more earthworks prolonged the lines to
the Sambre, which carried them at last to their end at Namur.
This was a formidable obstacle to the advance of the Allies, but
no lines had sufficed to stop Marlborough yet, and with Eugene by
his side the Duke did not despair. Before he could start for the
campaign, however, the news came that the Emperor Joseph was dead
of smallpox, an event which signified the almost certain accession
of the Archduke Charles to the Imperial crown and the consequent
withdrawal of his candidature for the throne of Spain. Eugene
was consequently detained at home; and worse than this, a fine
opportunity was afforded for making a breach in the Grand Alliance.
To render the Duke's difficulties still greater, though his force
was already weakened by the necessity of finding garrisons for the
towns captured in the previous year, the English Government had
withdrawn from him five battalions[378] for an useless expedition
to Newfoundland under the command of Mrs. Masham's brother, General
Hill; an expedition which may be dismissed for the present without
further mention than that it was dogged by misfortune from first
to last, suffered heavy loss through shipwreck, and accomplished
literally nothing.
[Sidenote:
April 20
--------
May 1.
]
[Sidenote:
3
June --.
14
]
Nevertheless the Imperial army was present, though without Eugene.
The whole of the forces were assembled a little to the south of
Lille at Orchies, and on the 1st of May Marlborough moved forward
to a position parallel to that of Villars, who lay in rear of the
river Sensée with his left at Oisy and his right at Bouchain.
There both armies remained stationary and inactive for six weeks.
Eugene came, but presently received orders to return and to bring
his army with him. On the 14th of June Marlborough moved away
one march westward to the plain of Lens in order to conceal this
enforced diminution of his army. The position invited a battle, but
Villars only moved down within his lines parallel to the Duke; and
once more both armies remained inactive for five weeks. After the
departure of Eugene the French commander detached a portion of his
force to the Rhine, but even so he had one hundred and thirty-one
battalions against ninety-four, and one hundred and eighty-seven
squadrons against one hundred and forty-five of the Allies.
[Sidenote:
June 25
-------
July 6.
]
We now approach what is perhaps the most remarkable and certainly
the most entertaining feat of the Duke during the whole war.
Villars, bound by his instructions, would not come out and fight;
his lines could not be forced by an army of inferior strength, and
they could therefore be passed only by stratagem. The inundation on
the Sensée between Arras and Bouchain could be traversed only by
two causeways, the larger of which was defended by a strong fort at
Arleux, the other being covered by a redoubt at Aubigny half a mile
below it. Marlborough knew that he could take the fort at Arleux
at any time and demolish it, but he knew also that Villars would
certainly retake it and rebuild as soon as his back was turned. He
therefore set himself to induce Villars to demolish it himself.
With this view he detached a strong force under General Rantzau to
capture the fort, which was done without difficulty. The Duke then
gave orders that the captured works should be greatly strengthened,
and for their further protection posted a large force under the
Prussian General Hompesch on the glacis of Douay, some three miles
distant from the fort.
[Sidenote:
June 28
-------
July 9.
]
[Sidenote:
10
July --.
21
]
As fate ordained it Hompesch, thinking himself secure under the
guns of Douay, neglected his outposts and even his sentries, and
was surprised two days later by a sudden attack from Villars, which
was only repulsed with considerable difficulty and not a little
shame. Villars was in ecstasies over his success, and Marlborough
displayed considerable annoyance. However, the Duke reinforced
Hompesch, as if to show the value which he attached to Arleux, and
pushed forward the new works with the greatest vigour. Finally,
when all was completed, he threw a weak garrison into the fort
and led the rest of the army away two marches westward, encamping
opposite the lines between the Canche and the Scarpe. Villars
likewise moved westward parallel to him; but before he started he
detached a force to attack Arleux. The commander of the fort sent
a message to Marlborough that he could not possibly hold it, and
the Duke at once despatched Cadogan with a strong force to relieve
it. It was noticed, however, that Cadogan made no such haste as the
urgency of the occasion would have seemed to require; and indeed
before he had gone half way he returned with the intelligence that
Arleux had surrendered.
[Sidenote:
15
July --.
26
]
[Sidenote:
17
July --.
28
]
Villars was elated beyond measure; and Marlborough for the first
time in his life seemed to be greatly distressed and cast down.
Throwing off his usual serenity he declared in public with much
passion that he would be even with Villars yet, and would attack
him, come what might of it, where he lay. Then came the news that
Villars had razed the whole works of Arleux, over which he had
spent such pains, entirely to the ground. This increased the Duke's
ill-temper. He vowed that he would avenge this insult to his army,
and renewed his menace of a direct attack on the entrenchments.
Villars now detached a force to make a diversion in Brabant; and
this step seemed to drive Marlborough distracted. Vowing that he
would check its march he sent off ten thousand men under Lord
Albemarle to Bethune, and the whole of his baggage and heavy
artillery to Douay. Having thus weakened an army already inferior
to that of the French, he repaired the roads that led towards the
enemy's entrenchments, and with much display of vindictiveness,
sulkiness, and general vexation advanced one march nearer to the
lines. His army watched his proceedings with amazement, for it had
never expected such proceedings from Corporal John.
[Sidenote:
July 22
-------
August 2.
]
[Sidenote:
July 23
-------
August 3.
]
[Sidenote:
July 24
-------
August 4.
]
Villars meanwhile was in a transport of delight. He drew every man
not only from all parts of the lines but also from the neighbouring
garrisons towards the threatened point, and asked nothing better
than that Marlborough should attack. In the height of exultation
he actually wrote to Versailles that he had brought the Duke to
his _ne plus ultra_. Marlborough's strange manner still remained
the same. On the 2nd of August he advanced to within a league
of the lines, and during that day and the next set the whole of
his cavalry to work to collect fascines. At nightfall of the
3rd he sent away all his light artillery, together with every
wheeled vehicle, under escort of a strong detachment, and next
morning rode forward with most of his generals to reconnoitre
the lines. Captain Parker of the Eighteenth Royal Irish, who had
obtained permission to ride with the Staff, was amazed at the
Duke's behaviour. He had now thrown off all his ill-temper and
was calm and cool as usual, indicating this point and that to his
officers. "Your brigade, General, will attack here, such and such
brigades will be on your right and left, such another in support,
and you will be careful of this, that, and other." The generals
listened and stared; they understood the instructions clearly
enough, but they could not help regarding them as madness. So the
reconnaissance proceeded, drearily enough, and was just concluding
when General Cadogan turned his horse, unnoticed, out of the crowd,
struck in his spurs and galloped back to camp at the top of his
speed. Presently the Duke also turned, and riding back very slowly
issued orders to prepare for a general attack on the morrow.
At this all ranks of the army, from the general to the drummer,
fell into the deepest depression. Not a man could fail to see that
direct attack on the lines was a hopeless enterprise at the best of
times, and doubly hopeless now that half of the army and the whole
of the artillery had been detached for other service. Again the
violent and unprecedented outburst of surliness and ill-temper was
difficult to explain; and the only possible explanation was that
the Duke, rendered desperate by failure and misfortunes, had thrown
prudence to the winds and did not care what he did. A few only
clung faintly to the hope that the chief who had led them so often
to victory might still have some surprise in store for them; but
the most part gave themselves up for lost, and lamented loudly that
they should ever have lived to see such a change come over the Old
Corporal.
So passed the afternoon among the tents of the Allies; but
meanwhile Cadogan with forty hussars at his heels had long started
from the camp and was galloping hard across the plain of Lens to
Douay, five leagues away. There he found Hompesch ready with
his garrison, now strengthened by detachments from Bethune and
elsewhere to twelve thousand foot and two thousand horse, and told
him that the time was come. Hompesch thereupon issued his orders
for the troops to be ready to march that night. Still the main
army under Marlborough knew nothing of this, and passed the day
in dismal apprehension till the sun went down, and the drummers
came forward to beat tattoo. Then a column of cavalry trotted
out towards the Allied right, attracting every French eye and
stirring every French brain with curiosity as to the purport of the
movement. Then the drums began to roll; and the order ran quietly
down the line to strike tents and make ready to march immediately.
Never was command more welcome. Within an hour all was ready and
the army was formed into four columns. The cavalry having done
their work of distracting French vigilance to the wrong quarter
returned unseen by the enemy; and at nine o'clock the whole army
faced to its left and marched off eastward in utter silence, with
Marlborough himself at the head of the vanguard.
[Sidenote:
July 24-25
----------
August 4-5.
]
[Sidenote:
July 25
--------
August 5.
]
The night was fine, and under the radiant moonlight the men swung
forward bravely hour after hour over the plain of Lens. The moon
paled; the dawn crept up into the east throwing its ghastly light
on the host of weary, sleepless faces; and presently the columns
reached the Scarpe. So far the march had lasted eight hours, and
fifteen miles had been passed. Pontoon-bridges were already laid
across the river, and on the further bank, punctual to appointment,
stood Brigadier Sutton with the field-artillery. The river was
passed, and presently a messenger came spurring from the east with
a despatch for the Duke of Marlborough. He read it; and words were
passed down the columns of march which filled them with new life.
"Generals Cadogan and Hompesch" (such was their purport) "crossed
the causeway at Arleux unopposed at three o'clock this morning,
and are in possession of the enemy's lines. The Duke desires that
the infantry will step out." The right wing of horse halted to form
the rearguard and bring up stragglers, while a cloud of dust in the
van told that the Duke and fifty squadrons with him were pushing
forward at the trot. Then the infantry shook themselves up and
stepped out with a will.
Villars had received intelligence of Marlborough's march only two
hours after he had started, but he was so thoroughly bewildered
by the Duke's intricate manœuvres that he did not awake to the
true position until three hours later. Then, quite distracted, he
put himself at the head of the Household Cavalry and galloped off
at full speed. So furiously rode he that he wore down all but a
hundred of his troopers and pushed on with these alone. But even
so Marlborough was before him. At eight o'clock he crossed the
lower causeway at Aubanchoeuil-au-bac and passing his cavalry over
the Scarpe barred the road from the west by the village of Oisy.
Presently Villars, advancing reckless of all precautions, blundered
into the middle of the outposts. Before he could retire his whole
escort was captured, and he himself only by miracle escaped the
same fate.
The Marshal now looked anxiously for the arrival of his main body
of horse; but the Allied infantry had caught sight of them on the
other side of the Sensée, and weary though they were had braced
themselves to race them for the goal. But now the severity of the
march and the burden of their packs began to tell heavily on the
foot. Hundreds dropped down unconscious and many died there and
then, but they were left where they lay to await the arrival of the
rearguard; for no halt was called, and each regiment pushed on as
cheerfully as possible with such men as still survived. Thus they
were still ahead of the French when they turned off to the causeway
at Arleux, and, Marlborough having thrown additional bridges over
the Scarpe, they came quickly into their positions. The right wing
of infantry crossed the river about four o'clock in the afternoon,
having covered close on forty miles in eighteen hours; and by five
o'clock the whole force was drawn up between Oisy and the Scheldt
within striking distance of Arras, Cambrai, and Bouchain. So
vanished the _ne plus ultra_ of Villars, a warning to all generals
who put their sole trust in fortified lines.
[Sidenote:
July 27
--------
August 7.
]
Marlborough halted for the next day to give his troops rest and to
allow the stragglers to come in. Fully half the men of the infantry
had fallen out, and there were many who did not rejoin the army
until the third day. Villars on his side moved forward and offered
Marlborough battle under the walls of Cambrai; but the Duke would
not accept it, though the Dutch deputies, perverse and treacherous
to the last, tried hard to persuade him. Had the deputies marched
in the ranks of the infantry with muskets on their shoulders and a
kit of fifty pounds' weight on their backs, they would have been
less eager for the fray. Marlborough's own design, long matured
in his own mind, was the capture of Bouchain, and his only fear
was lest Villars should cross the Scheldt before him and prevent
it. Then the deputies, who had been so anxious to hurry the army
into an engagement under every possible disadvantage, shrank from
the peril of a siege carried on by an inferior under the eyes
of a superior force. But Marlborough, even if he had not been
able to adduce Lille as a precedent, was determined to have his
own way, and carried his point. At noon on the 7th of August he
marched down almost within cannon-shot of Cambrai, ready to fall on
Villars should he attempt to cross the Scheldt, halted until his
pontoon-bridges had been laid a few miles further down the stream,
and then gradually withdrawing his troops passed the whole of them
across the river unmolested.
It is hardly credible that a vast number of foolish civilians,
Dutch, Austrian, and even English, blamed Marlborough for declining
battle before Cambrai, and that he was actually obliged to explain
why he refused to sacrifice the fruit of his manœuvres by attacking
a superior force in a strong position with an army not only smaller
in numbers at its best, but much thinned by a forced march and
exhausted by fatigue. "I despair of being ever able to please all
men," he wrote. "Those who are capable of judging will be satisfied
with my endeavours: others I leave to their own reflections, and go
on with the discharge of my duty."
[Sidenote:
2
Sept. --.
13
]
It is possible that Villars only refrained from hindering
Marlborough's passage of the Scheldt in deference to orders from
Versailles, of which the Duke was as well aware as himself; but
it is more than doubtful whether he ever intended him to capture
Bouchain. Though inferior in numbers, however, Marlborough covered
himself so skilfully with entrenchments that Villars could not
hinder him, and met all attempts at diversion so readily that
not one of them succeeded. Finally, the garrison surrendered as
prisoners of war under the very eyes of Villars. The Duke would
have followed up his success by the siege of Quesnoi, the town
before which English troops first came under the fire of cannon in
the year of Creçy; but by this time Lewis, with the help of the
contemptible Harley, had succeeded in detaching England from the
Grand Alliance. Though, therefore, the English ministers continued
to encourage Marlborough in his operations in order to conceal
their own infamous conduct from the Allies, yet they took good
care that those operations should proceed no further. So with
the capture of Bouchain the last and not the least remarkable of
Marlborough's campaigns came, always victoriously, to an end.
[Illustration: THE CAMPAIGN OF 1711.
_To face page 548_
]
The most brilliant manifestation of military skill was, however,
powerless to help him against the virulence of faction in England.
The passage of the lines was described as the crossing of the
kennel, and the siege of Bouchain as a waste of lives. In May the
House of Commons had addressed the Queen for inquiry into abuses
in the public expenditure, and when the Duke arrived at the Hague
in November he found himself charged with fraud, extortion, and
embezzlement. The ground of the accusation was that he had received
in regular payment from the bread-contractors during his command
sums amounting to £63,000. Marlborough proved conclusively that
this was a perquisite regularly allowed to the commander-in-chief
in Flanders as a fund for secret service, and he added of his own
accord that he had also received a deduction of two and a half per
cent from the pay of the foreign troops, which had been applied
to the same object. But this defence, though absolutely valid and
sound, could avail him little. His reasons were disregarded, and on
the 31st of December he was dismissed from all public employment.
[Sidenote: 1712.]
Three weeks later the House of Commons voted that his acceptance of
these two perquisites was unwarrantable and illegal, and directed
that he should be prosecuted by the Attorney-General. This done,
the Ministry appointed the Duke of Ormonde to be commander-in-chief
in Marlborough's place, and confirmed to him the very perquisites
which the House had just declared to be unwarrantable and
illegal. Effrontery and folly such as this are nothing new in
representative assemblies, but it is significant of the general
attitude of English civilians towards English soldiers, that not
one of Harley's gang seems to have realised that this vindictive
persecution of Marlborough was an insult to a brave army as well as
a shameful injustice to a great man, nor to have foreseen that the
insult might be resented by the means that always lie ready to the
hand of armed and disciplined men.
It is not necessary to dwell on the operations, if such they may
be called, of the Duke of Ormonde. He did indeed take the field
with Eugene, but under instructions to engage neither in a battle
nor a siege, but virtually to open communications with Villars.
By July the subservience of the British Ministry to Lewis the
Fourteenth had been so far matured that Ormonde was directed to
suspend hostilities for two months, and to withdraw his forces from
Eugene. Then the troubles began. The auxiliary troops in the pay
of England flatly refused to obey the order to leave Eugene, and
Ormonde was compelled to march away with the British troops only.
Even so the feelings of anger ran so high that a dangerous riot was
only with difficulty averted. The British and the auxiliaries were
not permitted to speak to each other, lest recrimination should
lead either to a refusal of the British to leave their old comrades
or to a free fight on both sides. The parting was one of the most
remarkable scenes ever witnessed. The British fell in, silent,
shamefaced, and miserable; the auxiliaries gathered in knots
opposite to them, and both parties gazed at each other mournfully
without saying a word. Then the drums beat the march and regiment
after regiment tramped away with full hearts and downcast eyes,
till at length the whole column was under way, and the mass of
scarlet grew slowly less and less till it vanished out of sight.
At the end of the first day's march Ormonde announced the
suspension of hostilities with France at the head of each regiment.
He had expected the news to be received with cheers: to his
infinite disgust it was greeted with one continuous storm of hisses
and groans. Finally, when the men were dismissed they lost all
self-control. They tore their hair and rent their clothes with
impotent rage, cursing Ormonde with an energy only possible in an
army that had learned to swear in the heat of fifty actions. The
officers retired to their tents, ashamed to show themselves to
their men. Many transferred themselves to foreign regiments, many
more resigned their commissions; and it is said, doubtless with
truth, that they fairly cried when they thought of Corporal John.
More serious consequences followed. The march was troublesome,
for the Dutch would not permit the retiring British to pass
through their towns, and the troops were consequently obliged to
cross every river that barred their way on their own pontoons.
Again, all the old contracts for bread had been upset by Harley
and his followers through their prosecution of Marlborough: it
was nothing to them that an army should be ill-fed, so long as
they gained power and place. St. John, it must be noted, was a
principal accomplice in this rascality--St. John, who alone of
living Englishmen had intellect sufficient to measure the gigantic
genius of Marlborough; who, moreover, as Secretary-at-War during
the greatest of the Duke's campaigns, had gained some insight into
those prosaic details of supplies and transport which are all in
all to the organisation of victory. Ormonde, a thoroughly mediocre
officer, was not a man to grapple with such difficulties. Bad bread
heightened the ill-feeling of the soldiers towards him. Agitators
insinuated to the worst characters in the army that they would lose
all the arrears of pay that were due to them; and the story found
ready and reasonable credence from recollection of the scandals
that had followed the Peace of Ryswick. The good soldiers, then
as always a great majority, refused to have anything to do with
a movement so discreditable, and reported what was going forward
to their officers; but either their tale was disbelieved or, as
is more likely, apathy and general disorganisation prevented the
nipping of the evil in the bud. Finally, three thousand malcontents
slipped away from the camp, barricaded themselves in a defensive
position, and sent a threatening message to the commander-in-chief
demanding good bread and payment of arrears. Then discipline
speedily reasserted itself. The mutineers were surrounded and
compelled to surrender. A court-martial was held; ten of the
ringleaders were executed on the spot and the mutiny was quelled
once for all. Fortunate it was that the outbreak took place while
the troops were still abroad, or the House of Commons might have
learned by a second bitter experience that the patience of the
British soldier, though very great, is not inexhaustible.[379]
[Sidenote: 1713.]
[Sidenote:
March 31
--------
April 11.
]
The negotiations so infamously begun with King Lewis shortly
after found as infamous an end in the Peace of Utrecht, which not
only sacrificed every object for which the war had been fought,
but branded England with indelible disgrace. Five months earlier
Marlborough had left England, to all intent a banished man. Before
his departure he had endured incredible insults in the House of
Lords, the worst and falsest of them from one of his own officers,
the Duke of Argyll. The defection and ingratitude of Argyll,
however, only brought out the more strongly the general loyalty
of the Army towards its great chief. Marlborough's most prominent
officers were of course subjected to the same degradation as
himself. Cadogan, for instance, was removed from the Lieutenancy
of the Tower to make room for Brigadier Hill; and even the Duke's
humble secretary, Adam Cardonnel, was not too small an object
for the malignant spite of the House of Commons. But honourable
men, such as Lord Stair, the colonel of the Scots Greys, threw up
their commissions in disgust; and plain, honest officers, such as
Kane and Parker, have left on record the immense contempt wherein
Argyll, brave soldier though he was, was held in the Army. The
Dutch also rose, though too late, to the occasion. When Marlborough
sailed into Ostend at the end of November, 1712, the whole garrison
was under arms to receive him, and when he left it, it was under
a salute of artillery. At Antwerp, in spite of his protests,
his reception was the same; the cannon thundered in his honour,
and all ranks of the people turned out to meet him with joyful
acclamations. He took the most secluded road to Maestricht, but go
whither he would, fresh parties of horse always appeared to escort
him. Above all, he was comforted by the unchanging confidence and
sympathy of Eugene.
There for the present we must leave him till the time, not far
distant, shall come to tell of his restoration. That the welcome
given to him by the Dutch may have been a consolation to him we
can hardly doubt, and yet he cannot but have felt that these same
Dutch had been his undoing. For, despite the shameful perfidy of
the English politicians who drove Marlborough from England and
concluded the Treaty of Utrecht, the main responsibility for the
catastrophe rests not with them but with those unspeakable Dutch
deputies who, by wrecking the Duke's earlier campaigns, prolonged
beyond the limits of the patience of the House of Commons the War
of the Spanish Succession.
AUTHORITIES.--The literature of the War of the Spanish Succession
is, as may be guessed, not slender. On the English side there
are the lives of Marlborough by Lediard and Coxe, as well as the
French life, in three volumes, which was written by Napoleon's
order. There are also the journals of Archdeacon Hare for the
campaign of Blenheim, and a valuable letter from him respecting
Oudenarde; the narratives of General Stearne, of Kane, Parker,
and Sergeant Millner, all unfortunately of one regiment, the 18th
Royal Irish; and, for the campaign of 1708 only, the journal of
Private John Deane of the 1st Guards (privately printed 1846).
Dumont's _Histoire Militaire_ gives admirable maps and plans.
Many curious items are also to be found in Lamberti. I have not
failed to study the archives of the War Office preserved at
the Record Office, with results that will be seen in the next
chapter, and I have been carefully through the contemporary
newspapers. Minor authorities, such as Tindal's _History_ and
the like, are hardly worth mention. Marlborough's _Despatches_,
though decried by Lord Mahon (Preface to _History of England_), I
have found most valuable. On the French side Quincy remains the
chief authority, together with the _Archives Militaires_ in the
printed collection. The _Mémoires_ of St. Simon, Villars, Millot,
and others have also been consulted, and good and pertinent
comment is always to be found in Feuquières.
For the war in Spain see at the close of Chapter VI.