The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

Nor was the relative support of the three arms of battle better understood. If in the past the men-at-arms formed the mainstay of the attack, so here, with a slight difference, is the same result apparent. Much as the infantry had improved and come to the front, it was, apparently, not even now recognised that it was a principal arm of battle, to which all others are accessory. Then, when the decisive moment of the day, about 5 p.m., came, the cavalry, some 8000 strong, were led by the duke himself against the French position. There was still personal leadership of men rather than the direction of them that the general showed. “The infantry were in support, with intervals between the battalions, so that the squadrons, if repulsed, might pass through.” The admixture of the dissimilar arms of infantry and cavalry in the same fighting line is still curious. Similarly, says General Kane, “the Gens d’armes ... began the battle by a most furious charge, and broke through part of the front line” of Cutts’ division.

The probable fact is that the cavalry, being more mobile than the infantry, whose fighting power depended on the fire-action, which was necessarily slow, were used for the real attack, as the infantry were less able to take a vigorous offensive. Besides, the enemy’s centre was composed chiefly of the mounted arm. The artillery, slow moving like the infantry, were brought up in support of the more mobile body. It was only therefore when the ground was hopelessly bad for the mounted arm, as at Oudenarde and Malplaquet, that the decisive blow was given by infantry, and then the fight was more prolonged, more bloody, more stubbornly contested and less resultful. Good as the infantry was,—so good that “Salamander Cutts” advanced his regiments right up to the palisades of Blenheim without firing a shot, and he contained and held therefore in the village the mass of troops that finally had to surrender there,—it was not the principal arm yet. The infantry supported the main attack of the cavalry, and completed the victory. Time was to come when the cavalry were to reverse these tactics, and complete the success that the infantry had begun.

The proportion of the cavalry to infantry again proves the case; nowadays it would be absolutely abnormal. Of the 52,000 Allies (9000 of whom were English), there were 20,000 cavalry. Of the 56,000 French, 8000 were cavalry. It is a stage in the tactical history, and that is all. The artillery took the preparatory part of the battle, and practically stopped there. The infantry finished what the cavalry had begun by Marlborough’s “decisive attack” with his two lines of cavalry; but the value of artillery to support such an advance and its increased mobility is foreshadowed by the advance of the guns across the Nebel.

How history repeats itself backwards and forwards! In a war of pure aggression, with, at its bottom, racial and religious hatred, Shouvaloff, after the capture of Ismail in 1790, “with bloody hands” writes his first despatch, and in it says, “Glory to God and the Empress, Ismail’s ours!” So, in, 1870 Emperor William telegraphs to his Queen, “Thanks be to God!” Here too, at Blenheim, Marlborough says in his despatch to Queen Anne: “So with the blessing of God we obtained a complete victory. We have cut off great numbers of them as well in the action as in the retreat, besides upwards of thirty squadrons of the French which I pushed into the Danube.” The assumption that Providence is on the winning side, or on that of the “big battalions,” is common throughout the military history of all time.

The victory of Blenheim was certainly most complete. The French were not defeated only, but routed and dispersed by the central attack, as Napoleon defeated his adversaries at Austerlitz later on, by a similar tactical blow. “The best troops in the world had been vanquished,” said the marshal mournfully; but, replied Marlborough, “I think my own must be the best in the world, as they have conquered those on whom you bestow so high an encomium.”

And, says another writer of the time, speaking of the anxious and dreadful side of war, “A great general—I mean such as the Duke of Marlborough, weak in his constitution and well stricken in years—would not undergo those eating cares which must be continually at his heart, the toils and hardships he must endure, if he has the least spark of human consideration; I say he could not engage in such a life, if not for the sake of his Queen, his country, and his honour.”

Meanwhile, other warlike operations had been conducted elsewhere on the Continent, though their glories and disasters were overshadowed by the more tremendous conflicts in the northern theatre of war. An allied Anglo-Dutch force under the Earl of Peterborough had been despatched to the Spanish Peninsula in support of the claim of Charles III. to the Spanish throne; and in consequence of the maritime nature of the operations, battalions for sea service as marines were raised, so to the three already in existence were added the 30th, 31st, and 32nd Regiments of the line. The first success was the capture of Barcelona, in which Colonel Southwell of the 6th Foot distinguished himself, and where two Marine colonels, Birr and Rodney, disagreed on landing to such an extent that they thereupon fought in front of the line, and the latter was wounded unto death. Birr finally commanded the 32nd.

But one of the rare disasters in our military annals befell us in this campaign at Almanza, where the Guards, the 2nd, 6th, 9th, 11th, 17th, 28th, 33rd, 35th, and 36th Regiments, the 2nd Dragoon Guards, 3rd, 4th, and 8th Hussars, besides other regiments since disbanded, were present, and where the new Union Jack, with the two crosses of St. Andrew and St. George only, was first carried; but the British were heavily outnumbered by the fifty-two battalions and seventy-six squadrons of the enemy, led by the Duke of Berwick, the son of James II. and Arabella Churchill, and were practically dispersed, with the loss of all their guns, 620 colours, and 10,000 prisoners. To counterbalance this was the gallant defence of the castle of Alicante, and the brilliant “affair” of Saragossa, when 30 standards were taken; and the 6th Foot claim the right of wearing their badge of the antelope from the date of this battle, in which one of the standards taken by them bore that emblem.

Meanwhile, Marlborough retired to France after the treaty of Utrecht, to return when George I. ascended the throne, as Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, Colonel of the 1st Foot Guards, and Master of the Ordnance. But he did not survive the receipt of his new honours and return to power long. He died in 1722, at the age of seventy-three years, and a grateful nation interred him in Westminster Abbey.

Whatever estimate may be formed as to the private character of Churchill, there can be but one opinion as to his military career. Few great generals have had a more difficult task to perform than he, hampered as he was by alliances which often prevented his carrying to its full end the instincts and direction of his military genius. He was, besides being a skilful and scientific general, a brave man, and a leader of men. He never lost a battle or a siege. His recognition of the enemy’s weakness in the centre at Blenheim is only equalled by the similar penetration that Napoleon displayed at Austerlitz, and which proved once more that piercing the centre, if possible and successful, necessarily involves the temporary dispersion of the defeated army. His quick eye for “ground” is equally shown in his grasping the weakness of the French defensive position at Ramilies, and his seeing that the enemy’s left, being powerless for rapid offence, could be checked and held in place, while the weight of the rest of his army was thrown against the other wing.