With the reign of William III. the military history of England entered on a new phase. Her continental wars had hitherto been, with trifling exceptions, connected with the claim of the English kings to the throne of France. Henceforth she took part in nearly every European war; and thanks to the restless energy of William III. and to the military genius of Marlborough, the part she played was a leading one from the first. It has been argued that England was wrong to concern herself with continental quarrels, when her real interests lay elsewhere, at sea, in North America, at a later date in India, and that she only weakened herself for protecting these interests by intervening in European affairs. Those who take this view leave out of account the essential facts which governed the action of England at the time of this new departure. She had recently expelled her legitimate king, who had still many partisans at home, and who found in France a ready and most powerful ally. Louis XIV. was bound to the Stuarts by every tie of sympathy, religious, political, personal: and though he was not the man to let his sentiments outweigh his interest, the two so far coincided that his schemes for domination in Europe would obviously be furthered by weakening England through civil dissension. The English nation as a whole was passionately attached to its church, to its political liberties, still more perhaps to its independence of foreigners, and saw in France the one dangerous enemy to all three. France had other enemies, arrayed against her for reasons which did not much concern England, and alliance with them was an opportunity worth seizing. The determining motive however was not this calculation, but outraged honour. When Louis XIV. formally recognised the son of the dying James II. as lawful king of England, he committed at once a crime and a blunder: he deliberately broke his word, and insulted England beyond endurance. Those words cost him his supremacy in Europe, and made England henceforth a permanent and ever weightier factor in European affairs.

The military reputation of England had suffered eclipse since the days of Henry V., not altogether deservedly, for the fighting qualities of Englishmen had been conspicuous on many fields, and yet not unnaturally. English troops fighting for the independence of the Netherlands had done excellent service; Cromwell's contingent allied with France in 1658 had mainly contributed to an important victory over Spain. But the few independent expeditions sent by the English government to the continent had been ill managed or ill commanded, and had failed more or less completely. Under William III. they showed all their ancient stubborn valour, but luck was against them. The defeats of Steinkirk and Landen were more glorious to the English infantry than many a victory: the misconduct of their allies in one case, the very superior numbers of the French army and the great skill of its commander in the other case, amply accounted for the failure, but still they were defeats. The great victories of Marlborough, almost as brilliant as Crecy or Agincourt, restored the military credit of England, again not quite deservedly, for the armies of Marlborough were by no means wholly English, and yet very naturally, since the great Englishman was the real conqueror of Louis XIV. The death of William III., just before war actually broke out, left Marlborough, who was all powerful with queen Anne, the real head of the coalition against France.

England thus entered on the war of the Spanish Succession as the ally of continental powers banded together against France, and hampered by having to act in concert with them, as well as supported by their strength. In the patient tact requisite for managing a body of allies with diverging interests, and practically no bond of union except hostility to the enemy, Marlborough was perhaps never excelled. In military skill he was vastly William's superior, being on the whole the first of an age fertile in good generals. The weak point in his position was that it depended on the personal favour of a stupid woman: when his wife lost her influence over queen Anne, his political antagonists in England found no great difficulty in bringing about his disgrace. Marlborough was not a good man; he was greedy of money and of power, and unscrupulous as to the means he adopted for gaining them. As a general however he had the virtues never too common, and almost unknown in his age, of humanity towards the peaceful population even of a hostile country, and of attention to the welfare of his own soldiers. Like Wellington a century later, he was habitually careful of the lives of his men, though he knew how to expend them when the occasion demanded it. Like Wellington also he never lost his patience and coolness of judgment, either in the excitement of battle or in dealing with troublesome allies. In fact the two great Englishmen were conspicuously alike, at least in their military character, though there is no real doubt that Marlborough had the greater genius.

The commencement of the war was uneventful. The king of France had taken possession of Belgium in the name of his grandson Philip, the French claimant of the crown of Spain, which alarmed the Dutch for their homes. In Spain itself the French party was preponderant, but not unopposed. Louis had every motive for standing on the defensive. Marlborough was as yet powerless to move his allies. It was not until the alliance of Bavaria with France opened a road for French armies into the heart of Germany that decisive events occurred. The chief item in the French plans for 1704 was that Marshal Tallard should march from the Rhine into Bavaria, where another army under Marsin had wintered; then the two armies, combined with the Bavarian contingent, were to advance down the basin of the Danube. It was calculated that the Emperor, already greatly hampered by an insurrection in Hungary, would be unable to oppose effectual resistance, and would purchase peace on almost any terms. If this were achieved, the keystone of the alliance against France, the candidature of an Austrian prince in Spain, would be removed, and the whole fabric might be expected to collapse. The plan was well conceived: it was an instance, on the great political scale, of acting upon the fundamental military maxim—strike at the vital point. But for Marlborough it must have succeeded, so far as anything can be safely predicted in war. But for the practice, invariable in that age and perhaps inevitable by reason of the badness of roads and of organised supply, that all military operations should be suspended during the winter half of the year, Marlborough would have had no time to prepare his counter stroke. His plan was indeed fully thought out before the winter, in concert with the imperial general Eugene of Savoy, but he had many obstacles to overcome before it could be carried into operation. Even to the English cabinet he did not venture to disclose his whole purpose, but he succeeded in obtaining a large addition to his own army, and increased money grants. The Dutch had but one idea, to guard their own frontier: they would not even assent beforehand to Marlborough's proposal, intended to conceal his real object from friend and foe alike, that he with part of the German contingents should operate against France from the Moselle, while the Dutch, with the rest of the Germans, defended the Netherlands. Marlborough was obliged to be content with the assurance of his one firm supporter in Holland, the Pensionary Heinsius, that consent should be obtained when the time came. Much trouble had also to be taken with other minor members of the confederacy, but Marlborough attained his ostensible object of being free to move with his own army to the Moselle.

Not until Marlborough with his army had reached Coblenz, did he give any hint of his intentions, except to the two or three persons necessarily in his confidence. Even then he only declared to the Dutch that he found it necessary to go further south; and they, finding that a deaf ear was turned to their remonstrances, let Marlborough take his own course, and even sent reinforcements after him. The distance to be traversed, the necessity of arranging every detail for troops moving by different routes, made his progress necessarily slow. The French did not in the least guess his design, but nevertheless persevered in their plan of reinforcing the army in Bavaria, a process which the Margrave of Baden, who commanded for the allies on the upper Rhine, ought to have rendered much more difficult. Not till Marlborough, ascending the Neckar, began to penetrate the hill country that separates the basins of the Neckar and Danube, was his real purpose apparent. He had before then met Eugene of Savoy, who was as he hoped to command the imperial army destined to co-operate with him: but the Margrave of Baden, who was Eugene's senior in rank, insisted on taking the more important part, and leaving Eugene to command on the Rhine. Marlborough's purpose was something like Napoleon's at the beginning of the famous Austerlitz campaign, to concentrate his army, reaching the Danube by various routes, near Ulm. In Marlborough's time however Ulm was not yet an important fortress: and the Elector abandoned it on the allies appearing in the vicinity, and marched down the Danube to a great intrenched camp near Dillingen. Marlborough's first object was necessarily to secure a point of passage across the Danube: and he determined to seize Donauwerth, a small fortified town lower down. His zeal was quickened by the tidings that the French army under Marshal Tallard was on the point of marching from Strasburg to assist the Elector. He therefore, as soon as his troops had come up in sufficient numbers, without waiting for full concentration, circled round Dillingen, and directed his march on Donauwerth. The Elector divined his intention, and occupying that town, with the hill of the Schellenberg adjoining it, began to put in order the fortifications. Marlborough saw the urgent necessity for haste: a couple of days' delay might render the works on the Schellenberg unassailable, in which case his chance of securing a bridge over the Danube before Tallard arrived would be but small. He therefore ordered an attack immediately on reaching the place, though his men had had a very long march, and it was verging towards evening.[56]

Donauwerth stands on the north bank of the Danube, just below the junction of a tributary, the Wernitz. The Schellenberg, a large flat-topped hill, immediately adjoins the town on the east. A continuous line of works existed, passing along the brow of the hill, and extending to the fortifications of Donauwerth on one side and down to the Danube on the other; only the central portion however was in a state fit for defence, though the enemy was at work on the remainder. Marlborough arrived in person with his cavalry before Donauwerth on the forenoon of July 2. While waiting for the infantry to come up, he caused bridges to be thrown over the Wernitz, and ordered a site for a camp to be marked out, thus giving the enemy the impression that no attack was intended, at any rate until next day. At 6 p.m. however the pick of Marlborough's army assailed the hill: after a long and desperate struggle, in which the allies lost heavily, the enemy were routed, and fled down the reverse slope to the Danube. The crush broke down the bridge, and thousands were precipitated into the rapid stream. Scarcely more than a quarter of the defenders of the Schellenberg reached the Elector's camp. As a consequence of this defeat the Elector abandoned Donauwerth, as well as Dillingen, and retired to Augsburg, where he shut himself up, while Marlborough ravaged Bavaria, in the vain hope of compelling the Elector to abandon the French alliance. Nuremberg became the centre of Marlborough's supply system, which was elaborated in a manner far in advance of his age; and the devastation[57] of Bavaria made him even more dependent on his magazines than he would otherwise have been. As Tallard was now approaching from the Rhine, with a force that Eugene was powerless to stop, the allies found it necessary to abandon the southern bank of the Danube. Marlborough and Eugene persuaded the Margrave of Baden that to capture Ingolstadt, a fortified town lower down the river, would be a higher distinction than to await attack from the French. They themselves united their armies at Donauwerth on the northern bank, and marched up the river towards the enemy, whom they found encamped beyond the Nebel, a small tributary of the Danube.

The line occupied by the French and Bavarians ran nearly north and south, and extended for about four miles. They had naturally formed their camp on the higher ground west of the Nebel, the course of which was marshy along the whole front, troublesome to cross everywhere, and believed by the French to be a much greater obstacle than it really was. Tallard, misconstruing information that he had received, was under the impression that Eugene's army had not joined Marlborough, and that therefore the movement before dawn on August 13, of which he was apprised, was a retreat northwards. The body of cavalry which escorted the allied generals to the Nebel, when they rode in advance of their armies to reconnoitre, was supposed to be detached to cover this retreat. Nothing was further from the minds of the French generals than the expectation of being attacked where they were. Hence they had taken no steps, as they might easily have done, to render their front virtually unassailable. Hence also, when the morning fog cleared off, and discovered columns of infantry at the edge of the higher ground which bordered the valley of the Nebel on the east, they were in too great a hurry to do anything but form line of battle on the ground which they already occupied.

The Nebel emerges from the wooded uneven country to the northwards about a mile east of Luzingen, in which village were the Elector's head-quarters. A little lower down, also on the right bank of the stream, is the village of Oberglauheim. The infantry of the joint army, commanded by the Elector and Marshal Marsin, was drawn up from Luzingen to Oberglauheim, most of its cavalry on the right, extending further to the south. Marshal Tallard's infantry was most of it posted in Blenheim,[58] a village close to the Danube; his cavalry continued the line to the north till they met Marsin's, but had a reserve of infantry behind its centre. The artillery, which was not numerous in proportion, was distributed at intervals. The French apparently believed the Nebel to be impassable from Oberglauheim to Blenheim, where there were some mills on the stream, which however they neglected to occupy: nor had they effectually broken the bridge by which the high-road crosses the Nebel. About Unterglauheim, a hamlet on the left bank half-way between the two, there lies a wide piece of swamp. During a great part of the year, or after heavy rain, the Nebel might no doubt be a very serious obstacle, but in August the difficulty could be overcome. Their want of care to ascertain the truth on this point was the direct cause of their defeat. Their dispositions had two ruinous defects, the Nebel being passable: first, their line was fatally weak in the centre, where for a long distance it consisted almost entirely of cavalry: secondly, they were posted so far back from the stream that there was room for the enemy to form line for attack after struggling through it. The latter error might easily have been remedied by a short advance, but nothing was done. Tallard, it is said, uneasy about the weakness of the centre when he saw the enemy massing at Unterglauheim, urged Marsin to post his reserve of infantry there; but Marsin thought, rightly as the event showed, that his reserves were needed on the left. Why Marshal Tallard did not withdraw from Blenheim several of the useless thousands that crowded it, is a question easier to ask than to answer.

Tallard had plenty of time to correct his dispositions, had he known how, for the battle did not begin for several hours after the allies came in sight. Eugene and Marlborough had agreed that the army of the former should constitute the right, Marlborough's the left, of the line of battle. As their line of march had been near the Danube, and the ground through which Eugene's columns had to make their way was broken and wooded, it was a long time before he was opposite Luzingen, ready to begin the action, and Marlborough was of course obliged to wait for him. The allied generals had discerned the defect in the French position: a vigorous attack on the centre ought to cut the line in half. Their plan was that Eugene should occupy the Elector and Marsin, and that Cutts with Marlborough's left should assail Blenheim directly, while the duke himself undertook the decisive movement. All preparations were duly made while Eugene was on the march: the pontoon train was brought up, and bridges laid at intervals from Unterglauheim downwards: the artillery was posted to command the opposite bank: troops were pushed forward to seize the small existing bridges near Blenheim. Except for a not very serious cannonade, Tallard remained inactive: he had in fact no longer any choice, unless he retreated (for which there was no reason), after he had allowed all the passages of the Nebel to fall into his enemy's hands. About one o'clock came the welcome news that Eugene had completed his march, and the battle began at once on both flanks. Of the conflict on the right very little need be said. The Nebel above Oberglauheim was not a real obstacle, and Eugene attacked directly. The contest was long and obstinate, with considerable vicissitudes: Eugene's troops, exhausted by the long march under a hot sun, were scarcely equal to the exertion required of them. The Elector and Marsin held their ground till Tallard was routed, and then made an orderly retreat, but they could not spare a man to help their colleague. Eugene's share in the action, though not in itself successful, was a necessary and important contribution to the victory.

Cutts made his attack on Blenheim with all the fury which earned for him the nickname of the Salamander. Against the enormous force that was massed in the village it was scarcely possible that he should actually succeed, but he prevented any troops from being withdrawn towards the centre. Here also the vicissitudes of the action were great. The first line of English infantry advanced right up to the palisades covering the village before they fired a shot. While vainly trying to force their way through the defences they were suddenly charged in flank by some French cavalry, and would have been routed but for some Hessian cavalry, which drove back the enemy. A fierce and confused cavalry fight followed, into which was drawn every squadron that Cutts could command, but with no decisive result. Meanwhile Marlborough's centre had been slowly crossing the Nebel, covered by the artillery on the high ground east of the stream, which approached much nearer to it than on the French side. The passage was begun opposite Unterglauheim by the infantry of General Churchill, Marlborough's brother. As soon as they could begin to form on the further bank cavalry pushed across after them, and though charged by the first line of Tallard's cavalry, and driven back, they were rescued by the infantry, now fairly formed, and made good their position. As more and more cavalry crossed the Nebel they extended to the right towards Oberglauheim, which was held in force by the right of Marsin's army. His cavalry fully held their own, driving some of the Danish and Hanoverian squadrons back across the Nebel. The infantry of Marlborough's right now began to cross above Oberglauheim, but being promptly attacked by the French infantry out of that village, the Irish brigade conspicuous among them, suffered heavy loss, and would have been defeated, but for reinforcements brought up by Marlborough in person, which restored the balance.

The time was now come for Marlborough to deliver the decisive attack. His whole army was across the stream, and formed, the cavalry in two lines, the infantry in support with intervals between the battalions, so that the squadrons if repulsed might pass through. His artillery, advanced to the Nebel, played upon the stationary French until the last moment. Tallard had done, could do, nothing to meet the coming storm, except to bring up his reserve infantry, nine battalions, and mingle them with his cavalry. About five o'clock the signal was given, and Marlborough led his horsemen, some 8000 strong, up the gentle slope to the French position. The first charge did not succeed, but some infantry and artillery, brought up in support, took up the action. The French did not venture to charge in their turn, though they had ample numbers for doing so: apparently the feebleness of Tallard was felt throughout his army, and so the last chance was thrown away. Marlborough's second charge completely broke the French cavalry: the infantry intermixed with them were cut to pieces or surrendered. Tallard in vain tried to re-form his cavalry, in order to cover the retreat of his infantry from Blenheim: they did not even stand another charge, but fled in confusion, some westwards, some towards the Danube. Detaching part of his force to pursue the former, Marlborough drove the latter upon the river. Tallard himself, with such of the fugitives as did not try to swim the Danube, was compelled to surrender. Meanwhile General Churchill, advancing in rear of the victorious cavalry, had encircled Blenheim, where nearly 12,000 French, mostly infantry, were still cooped up. After vain attempts to cut their way out, the whole mass surrendered: they had been utterly wasted by the mismanagement of their general.

It was the practice in Marlborough's day to count armies by the number of battalions and squadrons; and as those of course varied in strength, through casualties as well as through unequal original numbers, calculations based on them are a little uncertain. There is very fair agreement as to the battalions and squadrons engaged on both sides, from which it may be reasonably inferred that the allies had about 52,000 men (9000 only being English), of which nearly 20,000 were cavalry, and the French about 56,000, of whom perhaps 18,000 were cavalry. In artillery the French had a decided superiority. With this advantage, and with a position difficult to assail effectually, they ought to have been well able to hold their own. The miserable tactics of Tallard however did more than throw away this advantage. The opinion has been expressed that 4000 men were amply sufficient to hold Blenheim: Tallard left 13,000 there all through the day. The difference, 9000, more than neutralised the French superiority in infantry, and left the allies their preponderance in cavalry. Moreover Eugene had apparently rather inferior forces to those immediately opposed to him. Thus Marlborough was able to carry out, to some extent at least, the cardinal maxim of bringing superior forces to bear at the decisive point.

As might be inferred from the severity of the fighting, the victory cost the allies dear, no less than 4500 killed and 7500 wounded. The French loss was enormous: fully a quarter of their army surrendered themselves prisoners, a still larger number were killed and wounded, or were drowned in attempting to pass the Danube. Their camp and nearly all their artillery fell into the hands of the victors. Roughly speaking it may be said that Tallard's army was annihilated: Marsin's, though it suffered severely, made good its retreat without being disorganised.

Without going so far as Sir E. Creasy, who ranks Blenheim among the fifteen decisive battles of the world, we may still say that its moral results were even more important than the heavy material blow inflicted on France. For half a century France had been much more than the first military nation in Europe. Thanks in the first place to Turenne, but also to the organising skill of Louvois and the engineering genius of Vauban, Louis XIV. had developed a power which, wielded as it was by a despot steadily bent on selfish aggrandisement, had been fully a match for coalition after coalition. A succession of great generals carried on the traditions of Turenne: they were pitted against enemies who on the whole were inferior in skill, in resources, above all in homogeneity. The world had almost come to believe in the natural and permanent military superiority of France, and to accept Louis XIV. on his own estimate of himself. The news of Blenheim broke the spell: the domination of France was over. Louis himself had to admit that he was mortal: during the remainder of the war he stood substantially on the defensive, trying to retain or to recover territories over which he or his grandson, the king of Spain, had some claim, but no longer dreaming of crushing his antagonists. The power of France was by no means broken as yet; thanks to the difficulties inherent in working a coalition, she held her ground for several years more, but the tide, which had turned at Blenheim, set on the whole steadily against her.

Believing France to be more exhausted than she in fact was, Marlborough hoped to achieve great things in 1705 by attacking France from the side of the Moselle. The reluctance of his allies however kept his army so small that he was powerless. Villars, the ablest living French general, was opposed to him with superior forces, and with orders to avoid a battle. After vainly trying for six weeks to find an opportunity—a direct attack on Villars in an intrenched position being beyond his strength—Marlborough returned to the Netherlands, where the incapable Villeroi lay behind a great line of almost continuous fortifications from Antwerp to Namur. It was the fashion of the age to construct these elaborate defences, always open to two fatal objections, that they deprived the army holding them of all mobility, and that they became useless if broken through at any point. So long as the enemy was content to play the game in the fashion that best suited the defence, or was so hindered by bad roads and lack of subsistence that he found it difficult to move promptly, such lines might serve their purpose; and if from the nature of the country they could not be turned, an enemy might deem it too hazardous to break through them. But from Turenne onwards skilful generals turned or pierced them whenever they seriously tried; and Marlborough's easy success in breaking through the French lines at what was deemed their strongest point was a very striking proof of their inutility.[59] Had it not been for the persistent opposition of the Dutch to any decisive action, Marlborough, advancing on Brussels, would have fought a great battle very nearly on the field of Waterloo. Hampered by the Dutch, he could achieve nothing; and the year 1705, though eventful in other parts of the vast theatre of war, ended in the Netherlands much as it began.

The next year Marlborough formed a plan even more far-reaching and audacious than that which had been brought to so triumphant a conclusion on the field of Blenheim. The French in northern Italy had been pressing their enemies hard: well led by VendÔme, they had gone very near to conquering Piedmont entirely. Marlborough dreamed of marching his own army down into Italy, and relieving the duke of Savoy. Fortunately perhaps for his fame, he found the obstacles insurmountable, and remained in the Netherlands,[60] where the incapable Villeroi soon played into his hands. Believing that Marlborough's army was not yet concentrated, and that therefore he could fight a battle to advantage, Villeroi moved from his intrenched camp at Louvain in the direction of LiÈge, not far from which city were Marlborough's head-quarters. As a matter of fact, Marlborough was not only ready for action, but slightly superior in numbers to Villeroi, and he promptly moved towards the sources of the two small rivers known as the great and little Gheet, in order that Villeroi might not protect himself behind them, if he discovered that he had no chance of fighting with the weight of numbers on his side. Villeroi however was in no way desirous of avoiding a battle, and took up a position facing eastwards, near the source of the little Gheet.

The field of Ramillies is the highest ground in Brabant, and, as is apt to be the case in flat countries where the fall of the ground is extremely gradual, there was a great deal of morass, in some places impassable. Immediately at the source of the little Gheet is the small village of Ramillies; about two miles to the north of it lies another village, Autre Eglise, on the west of the stream, the whole course of which, so far, is very marshy. Just south of Ramillies runs from east to west an old Roman road known as Brunehaut's road, with the small river Mehaigne beyond it, and between the road and the Mehaigne, about south of Ramillies, is the village of TaviÈre. Villeroi's position was on the higher ground behind the little Gheet, whence the slope to the great Gheet, about two miles further west, is rather greater, and along which runs the road by which Villeroi had come from Judoigne on the great Gheet. His left was behind Autre Eglise, his centre behind Ramillies, his right on a barrow called the tomb of Ottomond, close above the Roman road, with a small force thrown forward into TaviÈre. The allied army, marching from the east, arrived in front of this position about noon (May 23, 1706). Marlborough at once saw the opportunity which was afforded him by half of the French front being covered by the morasses of the little Gheet. The left was in fact almost, not quite, unassailable; but inasmuch as the road to Judoigne, Villeroi's most direct line of retreat, ran in rear of the left, this flank was, apart from the obstacle of the marshes, the one which it would be most advantageous for an enemy to attempt to turn. Hence Villeroi was easily led by demonstrations to strengthen his left wing. Marlborough on the other hand, secure that no counter-attack could be effectively made on his right through the marshes, could leave there only just troops enough to continue the demonstration, and mass nearly his whole force towards the left. The curve of the ground enabled him to do this unobserved by Villeroi, who had gone in person to his left wing, on the attack in that quarter being begun. The French were driven out of TaviÈre after a short struggle: then the Dutch and German cavalry charged the famous musketeers, who were posted nearly behind TaviÈre. They broke the first line, but being attacked by the second line when in the confusion of a successful charge, were driven back. Marlborough however came to their support, with the cavalry which he had withdrawn from the right wing; the musketeers were broken, outflanked, and driven in towards the centre, while the allies occupied the tomb of Ottomond, whence their guns could enfilade the whole French line. Meanwhile a fierce contest had been raging in the village of Ramillies. The French there held their ground, though unable to repulse the assailants, until taken in flank from the tomb of Ottomond. The battle was now virtually won: the whole of the French centre and right were crowded together in utter confusion. Villeroi in vain tried to form a new line, with his left still on Autre Eglise, thrown back nearly at a right angle to his former line. Such an attempt, desperate at best in face of a victorious enemy, was rendered entirely hopeless by the ground being blocked with the baggage and ammunition waggons. Some English troops, making their way as best they could through the swamps, assailed the French left behind Autre Eglise, and completed the rout. Seldom, in modern times, has a great victory been so cheaply purchased; the total of killed and wounded on the side of the allies fell considerably short of 4000 men. The loss of the French was naturally greater: but the blow to them was far heavier than the figures would imply. They lost nearly all their artillery and baggage; and most of the army was for the time dissolved into a mob of fugitives, among whom thousands of Walloons, unwilling soldiers at best, took the opportunity of dispersing to their homes. The French army, as at Vittoria, almost ceased for a while to exist as an army, and was even longer in being restored to efficiency. In the completeness of the disorganisation inflicted by defeat, Ramillies has perhaps no superior in modern times except Waterloo.

The victory of Ramillies was followed by the immediate occupation of the whole of Belgium. The great inland cities opened their gates as the defeated French withdrew; both Antwerp and Ostend surrendered without serious resistance. Nothing of importance was left in French hands except the two fortresses of Mons and Namur. So severely was the blow felt that VendÔme was withdrawn from Italy to take the command against Marlborough, with the result that prince Eugene won a great victory at Turin over VendÔme's incapable successors, and drove the French entirely beyond the Alps. In Spain also the allies met with considerable success. Louis XIV., knowing how exhausted France was becoming, offered terms of peace, which were rejected, not altogether unreasonably, though in the event unfortunately, for in 1707 the tide turned back again. The French won the battle of Almanza, which restored their ascendency in Spain, a battle noteworthy for the curious coincidence that the defeated army, partly English, was commanded by a French Huguenot noble who had entered the service of England, while the victors were commanded by an Englishman, James duke of Berwick, natural son of James II., who had shared his father's exile and entered the French service. Prince Eugene's attempt to invade the south of France from Piedmont failed. The lines of Stollhofen on the Rhine were forced by the French as easily as Marlborough had surprised the French lines in Belgium two years before, and the imperial troops suffered a defeat. The Dutch, deeply impressed by these disasters, would consent to no active measures: moreover in the administration of the Spanish Netherlands, which had been entrusted provisionally to Dutch hands, they had rendered themselves highly unpopular. Thus, when in 1708 VendÔme, still in command, re-entered the provinces which Villeroi had been driven to evacuate, he was welcomed by Ghent and Bruges as a deliverer from their new masters.

When the campaign of 1708 opened, Marlborough was still waiting for his allies. His hope was that prince Eugene with an imperial army would come from the region of the Moselle to join him, and that in combination they would be able to complete the conquest of the Netherlands, if not to carry the war into France. The usual dilatoriness of Austria gave time for VendÔme to take the initiative. Having a secret understanding with French partisans in Ghent and Bruges, VendÔme began by threatening first Brussels, and then Louvain, so as to draw Marlborough to that neighbourhood, and then suddenly marching westwards, occupied the two great cities of the Scheldt region, and formed the siege of Oudenarde, in order to complete by its capture his hold on western Flanders. The alarm of the Dutch for their own safety was great, and instead of objecting to active measures, they were eager for a battle, though Marlborough without Eugene was inferior to the enemy in numbers. With great promptitude Marlborough seized a point of passage over the river Dender, which lay between him and the French, and which the latter had intended to employ as the line of defence for covering the siege. Foiled in this purpose by Marlborough's speed, the French generals[61] thought to avoid a battle by relinquishing for the present the siege of Oudenarde, and placing themselves behind the Scheldt. Again Marlborough was too quick for them: as the French were crossing that river on the evening of July 11, they heard that Marlborough, after a march of almost incredible rapidity for that age, was between them and France, and was himself crossing the Scheldt close to Oudenarde. North of Oudenarde there is a sort of natural amphitheatre formed by somewhat higher ground extending in two curved lines, one of them passing close to the city, the other some three miles further off. The space between is, and was, cut up by hedgerows and patches of woods, and covered with small hamlets: hence the battle was much broken up into separate combats; moreover the artillery could find few available positions. VendÔme drew up his army along the side of this basin furthest from Oudenarde, with a detachment occupying a hamlet some distance in front. Cadogan, who commanded Marlborough's vanguard, did not hesitate to attack this force, though no supports were at the moment within reach, in order to gain time for the main body to cross the Scheldt behind him. As often happens, apparent rashness was in reality the most prudent course. Cadogan would have been destroyed if the French had brought their overwhelming numbers to bear on him, whether he attacked or stood on the defensive: but the bolder his attitude, the less likely they were to discover his real weakness, and the more time there would be for the main army to form behind him. After an obstinate struggle, in which prince George of Hanover, afterwards George II., distinguished himself at the head of some Hanoverian cavalry, Cadogan succeeded in forcing back the French advanced guard, which Burgundy, then in a timid mood, would not allow to be reinforced. By the time Marlborough's army was in order of battle, Burgundy had gone to the other extreme, and ordered an advance, without consulting VendÔme, which rendered a general action inevitable. Marlborough's troops had already done a very severe day's work, and possibly he might not have ventured to attack the French standing on the defensive: but Burgundy decided the question for him. Having thrown away, by timidity, the chance of overwhelming Cadogan, and the chance of attacking Marlborough while his army was still crossing the Scheldt, Burgundy now threw away by hastiness the advantage of compelling Marlborough's tired troops to attack a fairly strong position.

Prince Eugene had come in advance of his army, and Marlborough gave him the charge of his right wing, the Dutch general Overkirk commanding the left. At first the French gained some advantage, but Burgundy, finding obstacles to pushing forward his left, ordered that portion of his line to intrench their position, and merely hold their ground, an error by which Marlborough immediately profited. While Eugene, with some cavalry, held the French left in check, Marlborough was able to bring severe pressure to bear on the remainder of the French line, and at the same time to outflank their right. The broken nature of the ground rendered it impossible for the French generals to discern clearly what was happening: when night fell their centre and right were almost surrounded, but the darkness enabled them to escape from being compelled to lay down their arms, and the exhaustion of the victors, who had fought a long battle after an extremely long march, rendered close pursuit impossible. Nevertheless 10,000 prisoners were taken, which with the losses in the action reduced the French to a condition of complete inactivity. Their retreat had from the nature of the case been to the northwards, and though they were able to take up a safe position between Ghent and Bruges, yet they could do nothing to guard the French frontier, which lay open to attack.

Soon after the battle Eugene's army arrived, and the two generals, instead of waiting to recover Ghent and Bruges, resolved on carrying the war into France. The great fortress of Lille, deemed the masterpiece of Vauban, barred the way, and the losses of Oudenarde had been made good to the French army. Marlborough, who had learned under Turenne that it was not necessary to follow the traditional routine of the age, and take every fortress before advancing further, if it was feasible to mask it, desired to apply this principle to Lille. Even Eugene however shrunk from so audacious a proceeding, which would have been ruinous if unsuccessful: and the siege of Lille was therefore undertaken by Eugene while Marlborough covered the siege. The transport of siege train, ammunition, and supplies requisite for besieging a fortress large enough to contain a garrison of 15,000 men, was for that age a task of enormous difficulty: the French still holding part of Flanders, it was necessary to bring everything from Ostend, the naval strength of Great Britain making it a matter of certainty that all could be landed there. All difficulties were however overcome, though a severe action had to be fought at Wynendael to prevent the French from intercepting one important convoy,[62] and before the end of 1708 the first great conquest of Louis XIV. had been taken from him. Again the French made proposals for peace, and would have agreed to very unfavourable terms. But the allies demanded that Louis should go the length of compelling his grandson to relinquish the throne of Spain, in which country the arms of France were in the ascendant, and the general feeling of the nation was favourable to the French claimant of the crown. Marlborough has been blamed for this, but apparently without reason: his own personal advantage lay in continuing the war, and party hatred was ready to impute to him any baseness. The utmost that can be said against him, or the English government, in the matter is, that they did not insist on this demand being abandoned.

Rather than submit to this ignominy, Louis XIV. for the first time in his life appealed to the patriotism of his people, who responded zealously. Villars, the only French general of high repute whom Marlborough had not yet defeated, was placed in command, in spite of his being not unreasonably disliked at court. Villars was undeniably the ablest French soldier living, and fully justified the confidence somewhat tardily placed in him. Standing at first on the defensive, he waited till the allies advanced to besiege Mons, the capital of Hainault, which now that Lille had fallen was the chief defence of the French frontier. He was unable to prevent them from forming the siege, but soon approached with a large army, in order if possible to relieve the place. Whether Villars would have attacked, if the allies had taken up a defensive position to cover the siege, may perhaps be doubted. Whether Marlborough was really guilty of fighting a great battle against his military judgment, in the hope of supporting by another victory his failing influence at home, may be doubted also. If Marlborough had had his way, he would have attacked Villars immediately on his arrival in the neighbourhood of Mons, without allowing time for him to strengthen his position; but he unfortunately yielded to Eugene's wish that approaching reinforcements should be waited for, and so enabled Villars thoroughly to intrench a position very strong by nature. On September 11, 1709, was fought the battle of Malplaquet, the last, the least creditable, and the most costly of all Marlborough's victories. It consisted mainly in a direct attack on the French army posted on a wooded ridge, their centre occupying the only gap in the woods. By sheer hard fighting the allies were just able to compel the enemy to abandon their position, but the French retired in perfect order, the victors gaining nothing but the battle-field, while their losses far exceeded those of the French. So frightful was the slaughter that public feeling in England blamed Marlborough for the losses incurred far more than it rejoiced in the victory. Not even the capture of Mons, which resulted from the failure of Villars' attempt to relieve it, atoned for what was described as the needless butchery of Malplaquet.

The rest of the war offers no features of interest. The Tories in England succeeded in gaining Anne's favour, and in overthrowing Marlborough, and they inclined to peace both because their great opponent had all the glory of the war, and also because the Jacobite sympathies of many of them disposed them favourably towards France, the mainstay of the Jacobite cause. Presently the Austrian claimant of the crown of Spain succeeded, by his brother's unexpected death, to the Empire, and to the whole Austrian dominions. This changed the whole situation, and fully justified the English government in seeking peace, though nothing could justify their conduct towards their allies. Thanks to political intrigues mainly, but partly also to his own faults of a non-military kind, the career of the greatest genius among English generals had a feeble and almost ignominious close.

INTERMEDIATE NOTE
LINE VERSUS COLUMN

The order of battle (acies) has always been in some sense a line, for a permanent and obvious reason. None but those who are in front can fight, and the natural desire is to encounter the enemy with as great strength as possible. What will be the depth of the formation must depend upon many considerations, among which the nature of the weapons of the period is the most obvious, though others, such as the training of the men and their national traditions, are far from unimportant. A body of men drawn up more than four deep could hardly however be called a line. Similarly the order of march (agmen) has always been the converse of the order of battle: four men abreast require a fairly wide road. It is not necessary that a whole army shall move by a single road, in modern times they do not. But until armies grew very large it was not needful that they should separate: until roads grew plentiful and maps were available it was not safe, unless where no collision with the enemy was possible.

The acies and agmen are then, in their simplest form, the same thing looked at from two different points of view. The thin line drawn up to face the enemy may be imagined turning to the right or left and marching off. Of course it is not meant to be implied that such, and such only, were actually the primitive methods. Just as a mechanical problem is solved by assuming the absence of friction, a condition which in fact can never be realised, and correcting the result afterwards on account of friction, so one may for the moment leave out of sight all subsidiary things, in order to bring out in its simplicity the fundamental idea of an order of battle. Historically, no doubt, by the time men had advanced far enough to comprehend the value of combining to form a line, they had attained also to diversity of weapons, which would tend at once to interfere with this bare simplicity. Every fresh change, especially the introduction of war-chariots or of horse-soldiers, would further complicate the acies. So too, as soon as an army carries anything with it, the simple idea of the agmen is encroached on. Nevertheless both acies and agmen are rooted, so to speak, in the nature of things: the former can be traced in every battle, the latter in every march.

Some of the departures from the principle of the line are rather apparent than real. A reserve is no exception, even when it becomes a whole second, or even third line: for the reserve ex hypothesi is not fighting: when it is wanted to fight it is brought up to the front, and ceases to be in reserve. Foot-soldiers standing on the defensive, especially as against horsemen, present the largest amount of front in the safest way by forming a closed figure, the ring of the Northmen and of the Scots, or the familiar square of modern infantry in the days before the rifle. Nevertheless modifications are liable to be introduced, so to speak, from both sides. The order of battle is deepened, with the idea of giving greater impetus to a charge, from the weight of men behind backing up the front ranks. Epaminondas, using this device unexpectedly at Leuctra, defeated the Spartans, whose superior discipline and physique made them invincible so long as both sides used the same formation. His success led to the adoption of the Macedonian phalanx, and the abandonment of the line for the time being, until the Romans reverted successfully to the natural order. The order of march, for a real journey, cannot well be modified, because roads do not allow it. But for short marches, over open ground, there was much to be gained by massing men more closely together. They could hear orders better, and could be moved in any direction with more ease and precision. Hence arose the column, which is strictly speaking a series of short lines ranged one behind the other, and which, as military evolutions were developed, became the natural formation for manoeuvring, as distinguished from fighting. Then obvious convenience would suggest keeping the troops as long as possible in the more handy formation of columns, even on the field of battle. Until the actual shock was impending, it was better to leave them so formed that they could be readily moved if necessary to another part of the field. Until artillery became really effective, the risk of increased loss, from cannon-balls passing through a solid body, instead of a line, was not very serious. Until the bayonet was introduced, the necessity for pikemen and musketeers acting together would tend to make deep formations, which are columns without their mobility, a virtual necessity. Thus in more ways than one column came to be regarded as the ordinary formation, line as the exception. And generals were led by the real convenience of mobility and facility of command, perhaps also by other calculations, to make attacks in column, with or without the intention of extending into line after the enemy's front had been pierced.

No words are required to show that troops armed with the short-range musket and bayonet, fighting against opponents similarly armed, are more effective in proportion as their depth can be safely reduced. More men can fire on the enemy, fewer are liable to be hit by the hostile bullets. This holds good alike for attack and for defence, and is indeed so obvious that when one finds great masters of the art of war adopting the column as the formation for attack, one begins to look for some latent flaw in the reasoning. There is none however from the material point of view: the real or supposed advantage of the column is moral only. When a mass of men formed in a deep column advances to attack a line, the front ranks of the column have the (imaginary) support of the ranks behind them. The imagination of the line is meant to be impressed by the spectacle of the heavy mass about to impinge on it. Both notions are really baseless: the line has no assailants except the front ranks of the column, who not only are not helped by those behind, but become the targets for the concentrated fire of the line. But imagination is a very real force in war, as in other human affairs: the generals who have formed heavy columns for attack, need not be supposed to have made a gross blunder: they may have adopted the method best suited to the qualities and traditions of their men. All that can fairly be concluded is that the line is enormously more effective for those who can bear the strain. And England may be congratulated alike on having the requisite toughness of material, and on having had generals who knew how to utilise it.

From the beginning of English history, as the foregoing pages have shown, the English modes of fighting have always led to the adoption of a thin line. Harold's house-carls must have stood in a single rank. The archers of Crecy cannot have been in more than two. The dismounted men-at-arms were drawn up, we are told on one or two occasions, four deep: and seeing that they had to sustain the momentum of mailed horsemen charging, they could not well have had less. The bodily strength and toughness of the English race, perhaps their lack of imagination, qualified them to bear the shock of battle well: and the habit of victory engendered a confidence of superiority, which was doubtless arrogant, but was also calculated to realise the expectation. Thus the national qualities and traditions were favourable to the adoption in later ages of a thinner line than other nations saw their way to employ.

The evidence of the drill books seems to be clear that in England the fighting formation in the seventeenth century was three deep, that in the war of American independence the practice of skirmishing in two ranks began, and that in the Peninsula the formation in two ranks for all fighting was finally adopted. A thinner line still is to all intents and purposes impossible. Whether the adoption of this system was the carrying out in full of the fundamental theory of the line, namely that it is the mode in which the largest proportion of force can be brought to bear on the enemy at once, or was suggested by virtual necessity, it is hard to tell. Given two very unequal forces opposed to each other, it is obvious that the smaller can form an order of battle tolerably equal to the larger only by making its line very thin. It is also obvious that this can be done safely only if the men are not to be daunted by feeling the lack of support. These conditions existed, in extreme form, in the early English wars in India. The soldiers of Clive and Coote, whether English or sepoys, were infinitely superior in discipline and equipment, if not in courage, to their enemies, and they were outnumbered many times over. It is quite possible that the first impulse to the two-deep formation came from India. However this may be, it is certain that England, and England alone, adopted a century ago the line of two ranks only; it seems to be also the case that at a much earlier period it was the English practice to fight in line, while other nations made more use of the column. And it is certain too that England gained enormously by being able to do so. The whole Peninsular war forms a commentary on this text, with Waterloo for a crowning lesson.