VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER IV
1704.
Meanwhile Parliament had met on the 29th of the previous October, full of congratulations to the Queen on the triumphs of the past campaign. There were not wanting, of course, men who, in the madness of faction, doubted whether Blenheim were really a victory, for the very remarkable reason that Marlborough had won it, but they were soon silenced by the retort that the King of France at any rate had no doubts on the point.[21] The plans for the next campaign were designed on a large scale, and were likely to strain the resources of the Army to the uttermost. The West Indies demanded six battalions and Gibraltar three battalions for garrison; Portugal claimed ten thousand men, Flanders from twenty to twenty-five thousand; while besides this a design was on foot, as shall presently be seen, for the further relief of Portugal by a diversion 1705. in Catalonia. Five millions were cheerfully voted for the support of the war, and six new battalions were raised, namely, Wynne’s, Bretton’s, Lepell’s, Saomes’s, Sir Charles Hotham’s, and Lillingston’s, the last of which alone has survived to our day with the rank of the Thirty-eighth of the Line.[22]
Marlborough’s plan of campaign had been sufficiently foreshadowed at the close of the previous year, namely, to advance on the line of the Moselle and carry the war into Lorraine. The Emperor and all the German Princes promised to be in the field early, the Dutch were with infinite difficulty persuaded to give May 15/26.
June 6/17. their consent, and after much vexatious delay Marlborough joined his army at Trèves on the 26th of May. Here he waited until the 17th of June for the arrival of the German and Imperial troops. Not a man nor a horse appeared. In deep chagrin he broke up his camp and returned to the Meuse, having lost, as he said, one of the fairest opportunities in the world, through the faithlessness of his allies.[23]
His presence was sorely needed on the Meuse. Villeroy, who commanded the French in Flanders, finding no occasion for his presence on the Moselle, May 21. had moved out of his lines, captured Huy, and then marching on to Liège had invested the citadel. The States-General in a panic of fright urged Marlborough to return without delay, and Overkirk, who commanded the Dutch on the Meuse, added his entreaties to theirs. Marlborough, when once he had made up his mind to June 14/25. move, never moved slowly, and by the 25th of June he was at Düren, to the eastward of Aix-la-Chapelle. Here he was still the best part of forty miles from the Meuse, but that distance was too near for Villeroy, who at once abandoned Liège and fell back on Tongres. June 21./July 2. Marlborough, continuing his advance, crossed the Meuse at Visé on the 2nd of July, and on the same day united his army with Overkirk’s at Haneff on the Upper Jaar. Villeroy thereupon retired ignominiously within his fortified lines.
These lines, which had been making during the past three years, were now complete. They started from the Meuse a little to the east of Namur, passed from thence to the Mehaigne and the Little Geete, followed the Little Geete along its left bank to Leuw, the Great Geete from Leuw to the Demer, and the Demer itself as far as Arschot, from which point a new line of entrenchments carried the barrier through Lierre to Antwerp. Near Antwerp Marlborough had already had to do with these lines in 1703, but hitherto he had made no attempt to force them. Villeroy and the Elector of Bavaria now lay before him with seventy thousand men, a force superior to his own, but necessarily spread over a wide front for the protection of the entrenchments. The marshal’s headquarters were at Meerdorp, in the space between the Geete and the Mehaigne, which he probably regarded as a weak point. Marlborough posted himself over against him at Lens-les-Beguines, detaching a small force to recapture Huy, while Overkirk with the Dutch army covered the siege from Vignamont. Thus, as if daring the French to take advantage of the dispersion of his troops, he quietly laid his plans for forcing the lines.
The point that he selected was on the Little Geete between Elixheim and Neerhespen, exactly in rear of the battlefield of Landen. The abrupt and slippery banks of the river, which the English knew but too well, together with the entrenchments beyond it, presented extraordinary difficulties; but the lines were on that account the less likely to be well guarded at that particular point. Marlborough had already obtained the leave of the States-General for the project, but he had now the far more difficult task of gaining the consent of the Dutch generals at a Council of War. Slangenberg and others opposed the scheme vehemently, but were overruled; and the Duke was at length at liberty to fall to work.
June 30./July 11.
Huy fell on the 11th of July, but to the general surprise the besieging force was not recalled. Six days later Overkirk and the covering army crossed the Mehaigne from Vignamont, and pushed forward detachments to the very edge of the lines between July. Meffle and Namur. Villeroy fell into the trap, withdrew troops from all parts of the lines and concentrated forty thousand men at Meerdorp. Marlborough then recalled the troops from Huy, and made them up to a total of about eight thousand men, both cavalry and infantry,[24] the whole being under the command of the Count of Noyelles. The utmost secrecy was observed in every particular. The corps composing the detachment knew nothing of each other, and nothing of the work before them; and, lest the sight of fascines should suggest an attack on entrenchments, these were dispensed with, the troopers only at the last moment receiving orders to carry each a truss of forage on the saddle before them.
July 6/17.
At tattoo the detachment fell in silently before the camp of the right wing, and at nine o’clock moved off without a sound in two columns, the one upon Neerhespen, the other upon the Castle of Wanghe before Elixheim. An hour later the rest of the army followed, while at the same time Overkirk, under cover of the darkness, crossed the Mehaigne at Tourines and joined his van to the rear of Marlborough’s army. The distance to be traversed was from ten to fifteen miles; the night though dry was dark; and the guides, frequently at fault, were fain to direct themselves by the trusses dropped on the way by the advanced July 6–7/
17–18. detachment. Twelve years before to the very day, a French army had toiled along the same route, wearied out and stifled by the sun, and only kept to its task by an ugly little hunch-backed man whom it had reverenced as Marshal Luxemburg. Now English and Dutch were blundering on to take revenge for Luxemburg’s victory at the close of that march. The hours fled on, the light began to break, and the army found itself on the field of Landen, William’s entrenchment grass-grown before it, Neerwinden and Laer lying silent to the left, and before the villages the mound that hid the corpses of the dead. Then some at least of the soldiers knew the work that lay before them.
Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London.
Lines of the Geete July 7/18 1705.
July 7/18.
At four o’clock the heads of the columns halted within a mile of the Geete, wrapped in a thick mist and hidden from the eye of the enemy. The advanced detachment quickly cleared the villages by the river, seized the bridge before the Castle of Wanghe, which had not been broken down, and drove out the garrison of the Castle itself. Then the pontoniers came forward to lay their bridges; but the infantry would not wait for them. They scrambled impatiently through hedges and over bogs, down one steep bank of the river and up the other, into the ditch beyond, and finally, breathless and dripping, over the rampart into the lines. So numerous were the hot-heads who thus went forward that they forced three regiments of French dragoons to retire before them without attempting resistance. Then the cavalry of the detachment began to file rapidly over the pontoon-bridges; but meanwhile the alarm had been given, and, before the main army could cross, the French came down in force from the north, some twenty battalions and forty squadrons, in all close upon fifteen thousand men, with a battery of eight guns.
The enemy advanced rapidly, their cavalry leading, until checked by a hollow way which lay between them and the Allies, when they halted to deploy. Marlborough took in the whole situation at a glance. Forming his thirty-eight squadrons into two lines, with the first line composed entirely of British, he led them across the hollow way and charged the French sword in hand. They answered by a feeble fire from the saddle and broke in confusion, but, presently rallying, fell in counter-attack upon the British and broke them in their turn. Marlborough, who was riding on the flank, was cut off and left isolated with his trumpeter and groom. A Frenchman galloped up and aimed at him so furious a blow that, striking the air, he fell from his horse and was captured by the trumpeter. Then the allied squadrons rallied, and charging the French once more broke them past all reforming, and captured the guns. The French infantry now retired very steadily in square, and the Duke sent urgent messages for his own foot. But by some mistake the battalions had been halted after crossing the Geete, so that the French were able to make good their retreat.
By this time Villeroy, who had spent the night in anxious expectation of an attack at Meerdorp, had hurried up with his cavalry, only to find that the Duke was master of the lines. Hastily giving orders for his scattered troops to pass the Geete at Judoigne, he began his retreat upon Louvain. Presently up came Marlborough’s infantry at an extraordinary pace, the men as fresh and lively after fifteen hours of fatigue as if they had just left camp. The Duke was anxious to follow up his success forthwith, a movement which the French had good reason to dread, but the Dutch generals opposed him, and Marlborough was reluctantly constrained to yield. The loss of the French seems to have been about two thousand men, most of them prisoners, a score of standards and colours, of which the Fifth Dragoon Guards claimed four as their own, and eighteen guns, eight of which were triple-barrelled and were sent across the Channel to be copied in England.[25]
July 8/19.
The Allies halted for the night at Tirlemont, and advancing next day upon Louvain struck against the rear of the French columns and captured fifteen hundred prisoners. That night they encamped a mile to the east of Louvain, while the French, once again distributing their force along a wider front, lined the left bank of the Dyle from the Demer to the Yssche, with their centre at Louvain. Marlborough had hoped to push on at once, but was stopped by heavy rains that rendered the Dyle impassable; and it was not until ten days later that, after infinite trouble with the Dutch, he was able to pursue his design.
July 18/29.
The operations for the passage of the Dyle were conducted in much the same way as in the forcing of the lines. An advanced detachment was sent forward from each wing of the army, that from the right or English[26] flank being appointed to cross the river under the Duke of Würtemberg at Corbeek Dyle, that from the left under General Heukelom to pass it at Neeryssche. The detachments fell in at five in the evening, reached their appointed destination at ten, and effected their passage with perfect success. The main bodies started at midnight, and went somewhat astray in the darkness, though by three o’clock the Dutch army was within supporting distance of its detachment and the British rapidly approaching it. The river had been in fact forced, when suddenly the Dutch generals halted their main body. Marlborough rode up to inquire the cause, and was at once taken aside by Slangenberg. “For God’s sake, my Lord—” began the Dutchman vehemently, and continued to protest with violent gesticulations. No sooner was Marlborough’s back turned than the Dutch generals, like a parcel of naughty schoolboys, recalled Heukelom’s detachment. Thus the passage won with so much skill was for no cause whatever abandoned, without loss indeed, but also not without mischievous encouragement to the French, who boasted loudly that they had repulsed their redoubtable adversary.
Deeply hurt and annoyed though he was, the Duke, with miraculous patience, excused in his public despatches the treachery and imbecility which had thwarted him, and prepared to effect his purpose in another way. His movements were hastened by news that French reinforcements, set free by the culpable inaction of Prince Lewis of Baden, were on their way Aug. 5/16. from Alsace. Unable to pass the Dyle he turned its head-waters at Genappe, and wheeling north towards the forest of Soignies encamped between La Hulpe and Braine l’Alleud.[27] The French promptly took the alarm and posted themselves behind the river Yssche, with their left at Neeryssche, and their right at Overyssche resting on the forest of Soignies. Marlborough at once resolved to force the passage of the river. On Aug. 6/17. the evening of the 17th of August he detached his brother Charles Churchill with ten thousand foot and two thousand horse to advance through the forest and turn the French right; while he himself marched away Aug. 7/18. at daybreak with the rest of the army and emerged into the plain between the Yssche and the Lasne. The Duke quickly found two assailable points, and choosing that of Overyssche, halted the army pending the arrival of the artillery. The guns were long in arriving, Slangenberg having insisted, despite the Duke’s express instructions, on forcing his own baggage into the column for the express purpose of causing delay. At last about noon the artillery appeared, and Marlborough asked formal permission of the Dutch deputies to attack. To his surprise, although Overkirk had already consented, they claimed to consult their generals. Slangenberg with every mark of insolence condemned the project as murder and massacre, the rest solemnly debated the matter for another two hours, the auspicious moment passed away exactly as they had intended, and another great opportunity was lost. The French reinforcements arrived, and having been the weaker became the stronger force. Nothing more could be done for the rest of the campaign, but to level the French lines from the Demer to the Mehaigne.
Thus for the third time a brilliant campaign was spoilt by the Dutch generals and deputies. Fortunately the public indignation both in England and in Holland was too strong for them, and Slangenberg, though not indeed hanged as he deserved, was deprived of all further command. Jealousy, timidity, ignorance, treachery, and flat imbecility seem to have been the motives that inspired these men, whose conduct has never been reprobated according to its demerit. It was they who were responsible for the prolongation of the war, for the burden that it laid on England, and for the untold misery that it wrought in France. Left to himself Marlborough would have forced the French to peace in three campaigns, and the war would not have been ended in shame and disgrace by the Treaty of Utrecht.[28]