“Everybody here is ready to take off his hat when Marlborough’s name is mentioned,” he wrote to Chamillard, on arriving in Flanders. The English and Dutch army occupied all the country from Ostend to Maestricht.
The Duke of Orleans, nephew of the king, had succeeded the Duke of Vendome. He found the army in great disorder, the generals divided and insubordinate, Turin besieged according to the plans of La Feuillade, against the advice of Vauban, who had offered “to put his marshal’s baton behind the door, and confine himself to giving his counsels for the direction of the siege;” the prince, in his irritation, resigned his powers into the hands of Marshal Marsin; Prince Eugene, who had effected his junction with Victor-Amadeo, encountered the French army between the Rivers Doria and Stora. The soldiers remembered the Duke of Orleans at Steinkirk and Neerwinden; they asked him if he would grudge them his sword. He yielded, and was severely wounded at the battle of Turin, on the 7th of September, 1706; Marsin was killed, discouragement spread amongst the generals and the troops, and the siege of Turin was raised; before the end of the year, nearly all the places were lost, and Dauphiny was threatened. Victor-Amadeo refused to listen to a special peace: in the month of March, 1707, the Prince of Vaudemont, governor of Milaness for the King of Spain, signed a capitulation, at Mantua, and led back to France the troops which still remained to him. The imperialists were masters of Naples. Spain no longer had any possessions in Italy.
Philip V. had been threatened with the loss of Spain as well as of Italy. For two years past Archduke Charles, under the title of Charles III., had, with the support of England and Portugal, been disputing the crown with the young king. Philip V. had lost Catalonia, and had just failed in his attempt to retake Barcelona; the road to Madrid was cut off, the army was obliged to make its way by Roussillon and Warn to resume the campaign; the king threw himself in person into his capital, whither he was escorted by Marshal Berwick, a natural son of James II., a Frenchman by choice, full of courage and resolution, “but a great stick of an Englishman, who hadn’t a word to say,” and who was distasteful to the young queen, Marie-Louise. Philip V. could not remain at Madrid, which was threatened by the enemy: he removed to Burgos; the English entered the capital, and there proclaimed Charles III.
This was too, much; Spain could not let herself submit to have an Austrian king imposed upon her by heretics and Portuguese; the old military energy appeared again amongst that people besotted by priests and ceremonials; war broke out all at once at every point; the foreign soldiers were everywhere attacked openly or secretly murdered; the towns rose; a few horsemen sufficed for Berwick to recover possession of Madrid; the king entered it once more, on the 4th of October, amidst the cheers of his people, whilst Berwick was pursuing the enemy, whom he had cornered (rencogne), he says, in the mountains of Valencia. Charles III. had no longer anything left in Spain but Aragon and Catalonia. The French garrisons, set free by the evacuation of Italy, went to the aid of the Spaniards. “Your enemies ought not to hope for success,” wrote Louis XIV. to his grandson, “since their progress has served only to bring out the courage and fidelity of a nation always equally brave and firmly attached to its masters. I am told that your people cannot be distinguished from regular troops. We have not been fortunate in Flanders, but we must submit to the judgment of God.” He had already let his grandson understand that a great sacrifice would be necessary to obtain peace, which he considered himself bound to procure before long for his people. The Hollanders refused their mediation. “The three men who rule in Europe, to wit, the grand pensionary Heinsius, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, desire war for their own interests,” was the saying in France. The campaign of 1707 was signalized in Spain by the victory of Almanza, gained on the 13th of April by Marshal Berwick over the Anglo-Portuguese army, and by the capture of Lerida, which capitulated on the 11th of November into the hands of the Duke of Orleans. In Germany, Villars drove back the enemy from the banks of the Rhine, advanced into Suabia, and ravaged the Palatinate, crushing the country with requisitions, of which he openly reserved a portion for himself. “Marshal Villars is doing very well for himself,” said somebody, one day, to the king. “Yes,” answered his Majesty, “and for me too.” “I wrote to the king that I really must fat my calf,” said Villars.
The inexhaustible elasticity and marvellous resources of France were enough to restore some hope in 1707. The invasion of Provence by Victor-Amadeo and Prince Eugene, their check before Toulon, and their retreat, precipitated by the rising of the peasants, had irritated the allies; the attempts at negotiation which the king had entered upon at the Hague remained without result; the Duke of Burgundy took the command of the armies of Flanders, with Vendome for his second; it was hoped that the lieutenant’s boldness, his geniality towards the troops, and his consummate knowledge of war, would counterbalance the excessive gravity, austerity, and inexperience of the young prince so virtuous and capable, but reserved, cold, and unaccustomed to command; discord arose amongst the courtiers; on the 5th of July Ghent was surprised; Vendome had intelligence inside the place, the Belgians were weary of their new masters. “The States have dealt so badly with this country,” said Marlborough, “that all the towns are ready to play us the same trick as Ghent, the moment they have the opportunity.” Bruges opened its gates to the French. Prince Eugene advanced to second Marlborough, but he was late in starting; the troops of the Elector of Bavaria harassed his march. “I shouldn’t like to say a word against Prince Eugene,” said Marlborough, “but he will arrive at the appointed spot on the Moselle ten days too late.” The English were by themselves when they encountered the French army in front of Audernarde. The engagement began. Vendome, who commanded the right wing, sent word to the Duke of Burgundy. The latter hesitated and delayed; the generals about him did not approve of Vendome’s movement. He fought single-handed, and was beaten. The excess of confidence of one leader, and the inertness of the other, caused failure in all the operations of the campaign; Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough laid siege to Lille, which was defended by old Marshal Boufflers, the bravest and the most respected of all the king’s servants. Lille was not relieved, and fell on the 25th of October; the citadel held out until the 9th of December; the king heaped rewards on Marshal Bouffers: at the march out from Lille, Prince Eugene had ordered all his army to pay him the same honors as to himself. Ghent and Bruges were abandoned to the imperialists. “We had made blunder upon blunder in this campaign,” says Marshal Berwick, in his Memoires, “and, in spite of all that if somebody had not made the last in giving up Ghent and Bruges, there would have been a fine game the year after.” The Low Countries were lost, and the French frontier was encroached upon by the capture of Lille. For the first time, in a letter addressed to Marshal Berwick, Marlborough let a glimpse be seen of a desire to make peace; the king still hoped for the mediation of Holland, and he neglected the overtures of Marlborough: “the army of the allies is, without doubt, in evil plight,” said Chamillard.
The campaign in Spain had not been successful; the Duke of Orleans, weary of his powerlessness, and under suspicion at the court of Philip V., had given up the command of the troops; the English admiral, Leake, had taken possession of Sardinia, of the Island of Minorca, and of Port Mahon; the archduke was master of the isles and of the sea. The destitution in France was fearful, and the winter so severe that the poor were in want of everything; riots multiplied in the towns; the king sent his plate to the mint, and put his jewels in pawn; he likewise took a resolution which cost him even more; he determined to ask for peace.
“Although his courage appeared at every trial,” says the Marquis of Torcy, “he felt within him just sorrow for a war whereof the weight overwhelmed his subjects. More concerned for their woes than for his own glory, he employed, to terminate them, means which might have induced France to submit to the hardest conditions before obtaining a peace that had become necessary, if God, protecting the king, had not, after humiliating him, struck his foes with blindness.”
There are regions to which superior minds alone ascend, and which are not attained by the men, however distinguished, who succeed them. William III. was no longer at the head of affairs in Europe; and the triumvirate of Heinsius, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene did not view the aggregate of things from a sufficiently calm height to free themselves from the hatreds and, bitternesses of the strife, when the proposals of Louis XIV. arrived at the Hague. “Amidst the sufferings caused to commerce by the war, there was room to hope,” says Torcy, “that the grand pensionary, thinking chiefly of his country’s interest, would desire the end of a war of which he felt all the burdensomeness. Clothed with authority in his own republic, he had no reason to fear either secret design or cabals to displace him from a post which he filled to the satisfaction of his masters, and in which he conducted himself with moderation. Up to that time the United Provinces had borne the principal burden of the war. The emperor alone reaped the fruit of it. One would have said that the Hollanders kept the temple of peace, and that they had the keys of it in their hands.”
The king offered the Hollanders a very extended barrier in the Low Countries, and all the facilities they had long been asking for their commerce. He accepted the abandonment of Spain to the archduke, and merely claimed to reserve to his grandson Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily. This was what was secured to him by the second treaty of partition lately concluded between England, tine United Provinces, and France; he did not even demand Lothringen. President Rouille, formerly French envoy to Lisbon, arrived disguised in Holland; conferences were opened secretly at Bodegraven.
The treaties of partition negotiated by William of Orange, as well as the wars which he had sustained against Louis XIV. with such persistent obstinacy, had but one sole end, the maintenance of the European equilibrium between the houses of Bourbon and Austria, which were alone powerful enough to serve as mutual counterpoise. To despoil one to the profit of the other, to throw, all at once, into the balance on the side of the empire all the weight of the Spanish succession, was to destroy the work of William III.‘s far-sighted wisdom. Heinsius did not see it; but led on by his fidelity to the allies, distrustful and suspicious as regarded France, burning to avenge the wrongs put upon the republic, he, in concert with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, required conditions so hard that the French agent scarcely dared transmit them to Versailles. What was demanded was the abdication, pure and simple, of Philip V.: Holland merely promised her good offices to obtain in his favor Naples and Sicily; England claimed Dunkerque; Germany wanted Strasburg and the renewal of the peace of Westphalia; Victor-Amadeo aspired to recover Nice and Savoy; to the Dutch barrier stipulated for at Ryswick were to be added Lille, Conde, and Tournay. In vain was the matter discussed article by article; Rouille for some time believed that he had gained Lille. “You misinterpreted our intentions,” said the deputies of the States General; “we let you believe what you pleased; at the commencement of April. Lille was still in a bad condition; we had reason to fear that the French had a design of taking advantage of that; it was a matter of prudence to let you believe that it would be restored to you by the peace. Lille is at the present moment in a state of security; do not count any longer on its restitution.” “Probably,” said the States’ delegate to Marlborough, “the king will break off negotiations rather than entertain such hard conditions.” “So much the worse for France,” rejoined the English general; “for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks. The allies will never unsay their preliminary demands.” And he set out for England without even waiting for a favorable wind to cross.