CHAPTER X

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,[541] 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weakened by the necessity of finding garrisons for the towns captured in the previous year, the English Government had withdrawn from him five battalions[378] for an useless expedition to Newfoundland under the command of Mrs.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.
April 20
May 1.
June 3 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.
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,[542] 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.
June 28
July 9.
July 10 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;[543] and indeed before he had gone half way he returned with the intelligence that Arleux had surrendered.
July 15 26 .
July 17 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.
July 22
August 2.
July 23
August 3.
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,[544] 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[545] 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.
July 24-25
August 4-5.
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[546] 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 man?uvres 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[547] 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.
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[548] that he was actually obliged to explain why he refused to sacrifice the fruit of his man?uvres 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."
Sept. 2 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 Cre?y; 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.

To face page 548
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1711.

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[549] 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.
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[550] 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[551] 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[552] have learned by a second bitter experience that the patience of the British soldier, though very great, is not inexhaustible.[379]
1713.
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[553] 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.