The commercial, economical, and pacific spirit was evident, both in England and Holland. On the other side, there was the strong will and infinite dexterity of William. In the last Partition Treaty he had betrayed this weakness of his position, and had given way to the skilled diplomacy of France. Lewis did not believe that he would prevail over the public opinion of his country. And if he did prevail, his position would be less formidable than before. Lewis now had Spain on his side, and all the dependencies of Spain. He also had Bavaria and Savoy. In the last war he had been unsuccessful at sea, and in the Irish expedition, which was carried on beyond the sea by his naval, not his military administration. In the coming war he would trust less to his fleet than to his troops, which had never been unsuccessful in a general action. He resolved to defy the Dutch and the English, and to seize every attainable advantage. The Spanish ambassador had exclaimed, "The Pyrenees have melted away." Lewis now announced that his grandson was not to renounce his right to the throne of France. In the Barrier Fortresses the Dutch held garrisons. Lewis sent them home and occupied the places himself. "Dutchmen were not wanted," he said, "to protect one Bourbon against the other." In August 1701 he obtained for French traders the asiento, the profitable and coveted monopoly in negro slaves. In September he prohibited English imports. Then, on the 16th, he did one thing more, one thing too much even for a nation of economists and calculators.
The acceptance of the Spanish succession by France was the frustration of William's efforts during thirty years. He had striven and made war for peace and civilisation against wilful attack and the reign of force. That good cause was defeated now, and the security of national rights and international conventions was at an end. The craving for empire and the hegemony of Europe had prevailed. The temper of England compelled him, in April 1701, to acknowledge Philip of Anjou. The country, he said, could not understand the refusal to acknowledge a king welcomed by the whole of Spain. He advised the Emperor to have the German princes with him, and to begin the attack. He himself would arm meanwhile, and his own people, before long, would drive him into war. He relied on the arrogance of the French, and this calculation, the measures by which he brought public opinion on to his side, are the greatest achievement of his career.
As it became apparent that England was to lose, not, like Austria, a visionary prospect, but its commercial existence, during the summer of 1701 the spirit of parliament began to be roused. William, watching the flow of the patriotic tide, concluded with Austria and Holland the treaty of The Hague, which divided Europe, for the first time, into a Latin and a German half. Austria was to obtain that which it desired above all things, dominion over Italy. The Maritime Powers were to retain their commercial privileges in Spain, and everything they could make their own in America. France was to be excluded from transatlantic markets; but nothing was said as to Spain. Implicitly, Philip V was acknowledged. The Maritime Powers aimed much more at prosperity than at power. Their objects were not territorial, but commercial. The date of this treaty, which was to cost so much blood, was 7th September.
William was moving more rapidly than public opinion, but public opinion was not far behind. The country was committed to war with France at the very beginning of that fatal September. The treaty had been signed nine days, when James II died at St. Germains. Lewis acknowledged the son as he had acknowledged the father—the one as the other, a king in partibus. It was a platonic engagement, involving no necessary political consequences. Since the treaty of Ryswick, Lewis treated William as king, though there was a James II. He did not cease so to treat him because there was a James III. To a prince who, the week before, had contrived a warlike coalition against him, a coalition which soon proved more formidable than all those which had preceded it, he owed no more than the letter of their agreements. The decisive step towards open hostilities was taken by the King of England, not by the King of France. Parliament had just passed the Act of Succession. Lewis's declaration in favour of the Stuarts appeared to be in defiance of the law in favour of the Guelphs. England had not dared to question the right of the Spaniards to regulate the succession. England could not permit interference with her own.
This declaration of Lewis XIV, imprudent but not unprovoked, gave to William what he wanted. It supplied a strong current of national feeling. The nation was ardent on his side. He had succeeded at last. The war with France, for the partition of the Spanish monarchy, would be carried on with determination under the coming reign. For William knew that Anne would soon be queen. It was also known at Paris, for William had consulted the French king's physician, and there were no illusions. The strange impolicy of Lewis's action may be explained by the belief that another than William of Orange would appear at the head of the allied armies in the next campaign. That the change of commander would be the greatest calamity that had befallen France since Agincourt was not foreseen.
In November 1701 Parliament was dissolved, and a majority was returned prepared for war, prepared to support the policy of the Grand Alliance. What made it formidable was that the Tories themselves were warlike. The Whigs were warlike because it was their nature, since France had declared itself for the Stuarts; also because they and their friends were interested in pushing trade with the oceanic world, which was mainly Spanish. But it was not, at first, a Whig war. On 9th March, 1702 they obtained the majority. They were 235 to 221.
William III was dying. He had borne the accident well by which he broke his collar-bone. He sat at dinner that evening, and was expected to recover in a few weeks. But he fell asleep one day near an open window. Nobody had the courage to shut it, and he caught a chill, of which, in five days, he died. His prestige was lost to the cause of the allies. At the same time, William was a Dutch king, working with Dutchmen only, Heinsius, Bentinck, Keppel, for Dutch as much as for English objects. While he lived there was no danger that the interests of his own countrymen would be made subordinate to those of England. There was no sign of Holland taking the second place, of Holland being sacrificed to England. That security was now over. The leadership passed to England. In the field, the Dutch were far ahead. The understanding was that the English were to be 40,000, the Austrians 90,000, and the Dutch 102,000. But whereas the Dutch ultimately put 160,000 men into line, the English, in the greatest battle of the war, at Malplaquet, were under 8000, or less than one-twelfth of the whole force engaged.
What gave to this country the advantage in the war of the Spanish Succession was the genius and the overwhelming personal ascendency of Marlborough. One of the Dutch deputies, who did not love him, who was not even quite convinced as to his qualities as a soldier, describes him as perfectly irresistible, not so much by energy and visible power, as by his dexterity and charm. And this in spite of defects that were notorious and grotesque. Everybody knows, and perhaps nobody believes, the story of his blowing out the candle when he found that his visitor had no papers to read. Many years later the story was told, when an officer present stated that he was the visitor whom the duke had treated so parsimoniously. It is due to him that England became one of the great Powers of the world, and, next to France, the first of the Powers. And it was not his doing, but the doing of his rivals, that the allies were sacrificed. The Dutch had no such splendid personality, and though they had their full share in the war, they lost by the result. The character of the struggle changed by the death of William and the substitution of Marlborough, who depended, more and more, on the support of the Whigs. In one of his last conversations William had said: "We seek nothing but the security which comes from the balance of power." Our policy was not maintained throughout on that exalted level.
The War of Succession began in Italy, by the attempt of Eugene to recover Milan, which reverted to the empire on the death of Charles II. It was, as it were, a private affair, involving no declaration of war, no formal breach with France. But the French were in Lombardy, and, with the support of the Duke of Savoy, they were able to check the Austrian advance. Eugene went home to Vienna to organise and direct and urge the exertions of his government. On his return, after a very memorable absence, Victor Amadeus had deserted his French alliance, and had attached himself to the Austrians. A French army laid siege to Turin, and Eugene, coming up the right bank of the Po to his rescue, defeated the French, raised the siege, and established for the first time the domination of Austria over Italy. He was repulsed in his attempt on Toulon; but the Italian war was at an end, and the emperor triumphant. In Germany the valley of the Danube, which is the road to Vienna, was open to the French, because the elector of Bavaria was their ally against his father-in-law, the emperor. The Imperialists were in danger, and the Dutch, more solicitous of the Belgian frontier before them than of what went on hundreds of miles away, on the long line from Strasburg to the distant centre of Austria, refused to let Marlborough take their troops away to another seat of war in Southern Germany.
Marlborough, sheltered by the complicity of Heinsius, politely disregarded their orders and started on his famous march, by Ehrenbreitstein and Heilbronn, meeting Eugene on his way. Eugene, at that moment, was the most renowned commander in Europe. Marlborough was better known as a corrupt intriguer, who owed his elevation to the influence of his wife at court, who would disgrace himself for money, who had sought favour at St. Germains by betraying the expedition to Brest. Blenheim altered the relative position of the two men in the eyes of the world. It was known that the day had been won, not by the persistent slaughter of brave soldiers, but by an inspiration of genius executed under heavy fire with all the perfection of art. In the midst of the struggle Marlborough had suddenly changed his order of battle, gathered his squadrons on a new line, and sent them against the French centre, with infantry supports. He did what Napoleon was vainly entreated to do in his last engagement. That is what suggested the simile of the angel, and what Addison meant by the words:—