CHAPTER VIII

The successes of the past campaign were sufficient to set 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;[513] 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.
June.
June 15 26 .

The French, now menaced with 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 northwestern 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 of Lille, between two villages, with which the reader will in due time make closer acquaintance, called Lincelles and Fontenoy. Thence they moved south straight upon Villars' 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. 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 over 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.
June 26
July 7.
July 19 30 .
Aug. 23
Sept. 3.

Tournay had been fortified by Vauban and was one[514] of the strongest fortresses in France,[365] 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, and after three weeks, despite the demonstrations of Villars and of incessant heavy rain, Tournay was reduced to surrender.[366] 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.[367] Four English regiments[368] bore their share in this work and suffered heavily in the course of it, until on the 3rd of September the citadel capitulated.

[515]
Aug. 20 31 .
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. 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. 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.
Aug. 26
Sept. 6.

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. Before him lay the river Trouille running down from the south through Mons, and in rear of it a line of entrenchments, thrown up from Mons to the Sambre during the last war 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, despite the weather and the state of the roads, had covered the fifty miles to Obourg in fifty-six hours.
Aug. 27
Sept. 7.

Too late Villars discovered that for the second time he had been duped, and that Marlborough had no[516] intention of forcing his way into France through the lines of La Bassée and the wet swampy country beyond them, when he could pass the lines of the Trouille without loss of a man. He was in a difficult position, for Mons was but slenderly garrisoned and difficult of access, while, if captured, it would be a valuable acquisition to the Allies. The approach to it from the westward was practically shut off by a kind of natural barrier of forest, running, roughly speaking, from St. Ghislain on the Haine on the north to Maubeuge on the Sambre to the south. In this barrier there were but two openings, the Trouée de Boussut between the village of that name and the Haine, and the Trouées d'Aulnois and de Louvière, which are practically the same, some miles further to the south. These will be more readily remembered, the northern entrance by the name of Jemappes, the southern by the name of Malplaquet. Villars no sooner knew what was going forward than he pushed forward a detachment with all speed upon the northern entrance, which was the nearer to him. The detachment came too late. The Prince of Hessen-Cassel was already astride of it, his right at Jemappes, his left at Ciply. The French thereupon fell back to await the approach of the main army of the Allies.
Aug. 26
Sept. 6.
Aug. 27
Sept. 7.

Meanwhile that army had toiled through the sea of mud on the northern bank of the Haine, and crossing the river had by evening invested Mons on the eastern side. On the following day Villars and his whole army also arrived on the scene and encamped a couple of miles to westward of the forest-barrier from Montreuil to Athis. Here he was joined by old Marshal Boufflers, who had volunteered his services at a time of such peril to France. The arrival of the gallant veteran caused such a tumult of rejoicing in the French camp that Marlborough and Eugene, not knowing what the clamour might portend, withdrew all but a fraction of the investing force from the town, and advancing westward into the plain of Mons caused the army to bivouac between Ciply and Quévy in order of battle.

[517]
Aug. 28
Sept. 8.
Aug. 29
Sept. 9.

Villars meanwhile had not moved, being adroit enough to threaten both passages and keep the Allies in doubt as to which he should select. While therefore the mass of the Allied army was moved towards the Trouée d'Aulnois, a strong detachment was sent up to watch the Trouée de Boussut. That night Villars sent detachments forward to occupy the southern passage, and by midday of the morrow his whole army was taking up its position across the opening. Marlborough at once moved his army forward, approaching so close that his left wing exchanged cannon shot with Villars's right. Everything pointed to an immediate attack on the French before they should have time to entrench themselves. Whether the Dutch deputies intervened to stay further movements is uncertain. All that is known is that a council of war was held, wherein, after much debate, it was resolved to await the arrival of the detachment from the Trouée de Boussut and of the troops that had been left behind at Tournay, and that in the meanwhile eighteen battalions should be sent north to the capture of St. Ghislain and the investment of Mons turned into a blockade. Evidently in some quarter there was reluctance to hazard a general action.
Aug. 30
Sept. 10.

Villars now set himself with immense energy to strengthen his position; and, when Marlborough and Eugene surveyed the defences at daybreak of the following morning, they were astonished at the formidable appearance of the entrenchments. Marlborough was once more for attacking without further delay, but he was opposed by the Dutch deputies and even by Eugene. The attack was therefore fixed for the morrow; and another day was lost which Villars did not fail to turn to excellent account.

The entrance from the westward to the Trouée d'Aulnois or southern entrance to the plain of Mons is marked by the two villages of Campe du Hamlet on the north and Malplaquet on the south. About a mile in advance of these villages the ground rises to its highest elevation, the opening being about three thousand[518] paces wide, and the ground broken and hollowed to right and left by small rivulets. This was the point selected by Villars for his position. It was bounded on his right by the forest of Laignières, the greatest length of which ran parallel to the Trouée, and on the left by a forest, known at different points by the names of Taisnières, Sart and Blaugies, the greatest length of which ran at right angles to the Trouée. Villars occupied the forest of Laignières with his extreme right, his battalions strengthening the natural obstacles of a thick and tangled covert by means of abattis. From the edge of the wood he constructed a triple line of entrenchments, which ran across the opening for full a third of its width, when they gave way to a line of nine redans. These redans in turn yielded place to a swamp backed by more entrenchments, which carried the defences across to the wood of Taisnières. Several cannon were mounted on the entrenchments and a battery of twenty guns before the redans. On Villars's left the forests of Taisnières and Sart projected before the general front, forming a salient and re-entering angle. Entrenchments and abattis were constructed in accordance with this configuration, and two more batteries were erected on this side, in addition to several guns at various points along the line, to enfilade an advancing enemy. Feeling even thus insecure Villars threw up more entrenchments at the villages of Malplaquet and Chaussée du Bois in rear of the wood of Sart, and was still hard at work on them to the last possible moment before the action. Finally in rear of all stood his cavalry, drawn up in several lines. The whole of his force amounted to ninety-five thousand men.

The position was most formidable, but it had its defects. In the first place the open space before the entrenchments was broken at about half a mile's distance by a small coppice, called the wood of Tiry, which could serve to mask the movements of the Allied centre. In the second place the forest of Sart ran out beyond the fortified angle in a long tongue, which would[519] effectually conceal any troops that might be directed against the extreme left flank. Finally the French cavalry, being massed in rear of the entrenchments, could take no part in the action until the defences were forced, and was therefore incapable of delivering any counterstroke. Marlborough and Eugene accordingly decided to make a feint attack on the French right and a true attack on their left front and flank. Villars would then be obliged to reinforce his left from his centre, which would enable the defences across the open to be carried, and the whole of the allied cavalry to charge forward and cut the French line in twain.
Aug. 31
Sept. 11.

The dawn of the 11th of September broke in dense heavy mist which completely veiled the combatants from each other. At three o'clock prayers were said in the Allied camp, and then the artillery was moved in position. Forty pieces were massed in a single battery in the open ground against the French left, and were covered with an epaulment for defence against enfilading fire; twenty-eight more were stationed against the French right, and the lighter pieces were distributed, as usual, among the different brigades. Then the columns of attack were formed. Twenty-eight battalions under Count Lottum were directed against the eastern face of the salient angle of the forest of Taisnières, and forty battalions of Eugene's army under General Schulemberg against the northern face, while a little to the right of Schulemberg two thousand men under General Gauvain were to press on the French left flank in rear of their entrenchments. In rear of Schulemberg fifteen British battalions under Lord Orkney were drawn up in a single line on the open ground, ready to advance against the centre as soon as Schulemberg and Lottum should have done their work. Far away beyond Gauvain to the French left General Withers with five British and fourteen foreign battalions and six squadrons was to turn the extreme French left at the village of La Folie.

For the feint against the French right thirty-one[520] battalions, chiefly Dutch, were massed together under the Prince of Orange. The cavalry was detailed in different divisions to support the infantry. The Prince of Orange was backed by twenty-one Dutch squadrons under the Prince of Hesse, Orkney by thirty more under Auvergne, Lottum by the British and Hanoverian cavalry, and Schulemberg by Eugene's horse. The orders given to the cavalry were to sustain the foot as closely as possible without advancing into range of grape-shot, and as soon as the central entrenchments were forced to press forward, form before the entrenchments and drive the French army from the field. The whole force of the Allies was as near as may be equal to that of the French.

At half-past seven the fog lifted and the guns of both armies opened fire. Eugene and Marlborough thereupon parted, the former taking charge of the right, the latter of the left of the army. Then the divisions of Orange and of Lottum advanced in two dense columns up the glade. Presently the Dutch halted, just beyond range of grape-shot, while Lottum's column pushed on under a terrific fire to the rear of the forty-gun battery and deployed to the right in three lines. Then the fire of the cannon slackened for a time, till about nine o'clock a salvo of the forty guns gave the signal for attack. Lottum's and Schulemberg's divisions thereupon advanced perpendicularly to each other, each in three lines, Gauvain's men crept into the wood unperceived, and Orkney extended his scarlet battalions across the glade.

Entering the wood Schulemberg's Austrians made the best of their way through marshes and streams and fallen trees, nearer and nearer to the French entrenchments. The enemy suffered them to approach within pistol-shot and delivered a volley which sent them staggering back; and though the Austrians extended their line till it joined Gauvain's detachment, yet they could make little way against the French fire. Lottum's attack was little more successful. Heedless of the[521] tempest of shot in their front and flank the Germans pressed steadily on, passed a swamp and a stream under a galling fire, and fell fiercely upon the breastwork beyond; but being disordered by the ground and thinned by heavy losses they were forced to fall back. Schulemberg then resumed the attack with his second line, but with all his exertions could not carry the face of the angle opposed to him. Picardie, the senior regiment of the French Line, held this post and would not yield it to the fiercest assault. The utmost that Schulemberg could accomplish was to sweep away the regiments in the wood, and so uncover its flank.

Lottum, too, extended his front and attacked once more, Orkney detaching three British battalions, the Buffs, Sixteenth, and Temple's, to his assistance, while Marlborough took personal command of Auvergne's cavalry in support. The Buffs on Lottum's extreme left found a swamp between them and the entrenchments, so deep as to be almost impassable. In they plunged, notwithstanding, and were struggling through it when a French officer drew out twelve battalions and moved them down straight upon their left flank. The British brigade would have been in a sorry plight had not Villars caught sight of Marlborough at the head of Auvergne's horse and instantly recalled his troops. So the red-coats scrambled on, and turning the flank of the entrenchment while Lottum's men attacked the front, at length with desperate fighting and heavy loss forced the French back into the wood. Thus exposed to the double attack of Lottum and Schulemberg Picardie at last fell back, but joined itself to Champagne, the next regiment in seniority; and the two gallant corps finding a rallying-point behind an abattis turned and stood once more. Their comrades gave way in disorder, but the wood was so dense that the troops on both sides became disjointed, and the opposing lines broke up into a succession of small parties fighting desperately from tree to tree with no further guidance than their own fury.

[522]

The entrenchments on the French left had been forced; and Villars sent urgent messages to his right for reinforcements. But Boufflers could spare him none. After Schulemberg and Lottum had been engaged for half an hour, the Prince of Orange lost patience and, without waiting for orders, opened not a false but a real attack against the French right. On the extreme left of Orange's division were two Highland regiments of the Dutch service, Tullibardine's and Hepburn's, and next to them King William's favourite Blue Guards. These were to attack the defences in the forest of Laignières, while the rest fell upon the entrenchments in the open; and it was at the head of the Highlanders and of the Blue Guards that Orange took his place. A tremendous fire of grape and musketry saluted them as they advanced, and within the first few yards most of the Prince's staff were struck dead by his side. His own horse fell dead beneath him, but he disentangled himself and continued to lead the advance on foot. A few minutes more brought his battalions under the fire of a French battery on their left flank. Whole ranks were swept away, but still the Prince was to be seen waving his hat in front of his troops; and Highlanders and Dutchmen pressing steadily on carried the first entrenchment with a rush. They then halted to deploy, but before they could advance further Boufflers had rallied his men, and charging down upon his assailants drove them back headlong. On Orange's right, success as short-lived was bought at as dear a price. The Prince still exerted himself with the utmost gallantry, but his attack was beaten back at all points. The loss of the Dutch amounted to six thousand killed and wounded; the Blue Guards had been annihilated, and the Hanoverian battalions, which had supported them, had suffered little less severely. In fact, the Prince's precipitation had brought about little less than a disaster.

The confusion in this part of the field called both Marlborough and Eugene to the Allied left to restore[523] order. Further useless sacrifice of life was checked, for enough and more than enough had been done to prevent Boufflers from detaching troops to Villars. But soon came an urgent message requiring their presence once more on the right. Schulemberg and Lottum had continued to push their attack as best they could; and red-coated English, blue-coated Prussians, and white-coated Austrians were struggling forward from tree to tree, tripping over felled trunks, bursting through tangled foliage, panting through quagmires, loading and firing and cursing, guided only by the flashes before them in the cloud of foul blinding smoke. But now on the extreme right Withers was steadily advancing; and his turning movement, though the Duke and Eugene knew it not, was gradually forcing the French out of the wood. Villars seeing the danger called the Irish Brigade and other regiments from the centre, and launched them full upon the British and Prussians. Such was the impetuosity of the Irish that they forced them back some way, until their own formation was broken by the density of the forest. Eugene hastened to the spot to rally the retreating battalions and though struck by a musket ball in the head refused to leave the field. Then up came Withers, just when he was wanted. The Eighteenth Royal Irish met the French Royal Regiment of Ireland, crushed it with two volleys by sheer superiority of fire, drove it back in disorder, and pressed on.[369] Eugene also advanced and was met by Villars, who at this critical moment was bringing forward his reinforcements in person. A musket shot struck the Marshal above the knee. Totally unmoved the gallant man called for a chair from which to continue to direct his troops, but presently fainting from pain was carried insensible from the field. The French, notwithstanding his fall, still barred the advance of the Allies, but they had been driven from their entrenchments and from the wood on the left, and only held their own by the help of the troops[524] that had been withdrawn from the centre. The moment for which Marlborough had waited was now come.

The forty-gun battery was moved forward, and Orkney leading his British battalions against the redans captured them, though not without considerable loss, at the first rush. Two Hanoverian battalions on their left turned the flank of the adjoining entrenchments, and Orange renewing his attack cleared the whole of the defences in the glade. The Allied cavalry followed close at their heels. Auvergne's Dutch were the first to pass the entrenchments, and though charged by the French while in the act of deploying succeeded in repelling the first attack. But now Boufflers came up at the head of the French Gendarmerie, and drove them back irresistibly to the edge of the entrenchments. Here, however, the French were checked, for Orkney had lined the parapet with his British, and though the Gendarmerie thrice strove gallantly to make an end of the Dutch, they were every time driven back by the fire of the infantry. Meanwhile the central battery, which had been parted right and left into two divisions, advanced and supported the infantry by a cross-fire, and Marlborough coming up with the British and Prussian horse fell upon the Gendarmerie in their turn. Boufflers, however, was again ready with fresh troops, and coming down upon Marlborough with the French Household Cavalry crashed through his two leading lines and threw even the third into disorder. Then Eugene coming up with the Imperial horse threw the last reserves into the melée and drove the French back. Simultaneously the Prince of Hesse hurled his squadrons against the infantry of the French right, and with the help of the Dutch foot isolated it still further from the centre. Then Boufflers saw that the day was lost and ordered a general retreat to Bavay, while he could yet keep his troops together. The movement was conducted in admirable order, for the French though beaten were not routed, while the Allies were too much exhausted to pursue. So Boufflers retired unmolested,[525] though it was not yet three o'clock, honoured alike by friend and foe for his bravery and his skill.

To face page 524
MALPLAQUET
Aug. 31st Sep. 11th 1709.

Thus ended the battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest ever fought by mortal men. Little is known of the details of the fighting, these being swallowed up in the shade of the forest of Taisnières, where no man could see what was going forward. All that is certain is that neither side gave quarter, and that the combat was not only fierce but savage. The loss of the French was about twelve thousand men, and the trophies taken from them, against which they could show trophies of their own, were five hundred prisoners, fifty standards and colours and sixteen guns. The loss of the Allies was not less than twenty thousand men killed and wounded, due chiefly to the mad onset of the Prince of Orange. The Dutch infantry out of thirty battalions lost eight thousand men, or more than half of their number; the British out of twenty battalions lost nineteen hundred men,[370] the heaviest sufferers being the Coldstream Guards, Buffs, Orrery's and Temple's.[371]

[526]

The more closely the battle is studied the more the conviction grows that no action of Marlborough's was fought less in accordance with his own plans. We have seen that he would have preferred to fight it on either of the two preceding days, and that he deferred to Eugene against his own judgment in suffering it to be postponed. Then again there was the almost criminal folly of the Prince of Orange, which upset all preconcerted arrangements, threw away thousands of lives to no purpose, and not only permitted the French to retreat unharmed at the close of the day but seriously imperilled the success of the action at its beginning. Nevertheless there are still not wanting men to believe the slanders of the contemptible faction then rising to power in England, that Marlborough fought the battle from pure lust of slaughter.

Still, in spite of all blunders, which were none of Marlborough's, Malplaquet was a very grand action. The French were equal in number to the Allies and occupied a position which was described at the time as a fortified citadel. They were commanded by an able general, whom they liked and trusted, they were in good heart, and they looked forward confidently to victory. Yet they were driven back and obliged to leave Mons to its fate; and though Villars with his usual bluster described the victory as more disastrous than defeat, yet French officers could not help asking themselves whether resistance to Marlborough and Eugene were not hopeless. Luxemburg with seventy-five thousand men against fifty thousand had only with difficulty succeeded in forcing the faulty position of Landen; yet the French had failed to hold the far more formidable lines of Malplaquet against an army no stronger than their own. Say Villars what he might, and beyond all doubt he fought a fine fight, the inference could not be encouraging to France.
Sept. 28
Oct. 9.

It was not until the third day after the fight that the Allies returned to the investment of Mons. Eugene was wounded, and Marlborough not only worn out by[527] fatigue but deeply distressed over the enormous sacrifice of life. The siege was retarded by the marshy nature of the ground and by heavy rain; but on the 9th of October the garrison capitulated, and therewith the campaign came to an end. Tournay had given the Allies firm foothold on the Upper Scheldt, and Mons was of great value as covering the captured towns in Flanders and Brabant. The season's operations had not been without good fruit, despite the heavy losses at Malplaquet.