The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars

by G. A. Henty

"I think this soldiering life makes one restless, Master Rupert," Hugh said one day when the time was approaching for their start. "I feel a longing to be with the troop again, to be at work and doing."

"I feel the same, Hugh; but you would not find it so, I think, if you had come home for good. Then you would have your regular pursuits on the farm, while now you have simply got tired of having no work to do. When the war is over, and we have done soldiering, you will settle down on one of the farms of the Chace. Madame says you shall have the first that falls vacant when you come home. Then you will take a wife, and be well content that you have seen the world, and have something to look back upon beyond a six miles circuit of Derby."

The next campaign may be passed over briefly. The parsimony of England and Holland, and the indifference of Germany, spoiled all the plans of Marlborough, and lost the allies all the benefits of the victory of Blenheim. The French, in spite of their heavy losses, took the field in far greater force than the allies; and instead of the brilliant offensive campaign he had planned, Marlborough had to stand on the defensive.

The gallantry of his English troops, and the effect which Blenheim had produced upon the morale of the French, enabled him to hold the ground won, and to obtain several minor successes; one notably at the Dyle, where Villeroi's troops were driven out of lines considered impregnable, but where the pusillanimity and ill will of the Dutch generals prevented any substantial results being obtained; but no important action took place, and the end of 1705 found things in nearly the same state that 1704 had left them.

The non success of the campaign undid some of the harm which the success of that of 1704 had effected. In Flanders the genius of the duke had enabled the allies to maintain their ground; but on the Rhine they had done badly, and in Italy the French had carried all before them. Therefore while after Blenheim an apathy had fallen on the victors, so now the extent of the danger moved them to fresh exertions.

Marlborough, after seeing his army into winter quarters, visited the capitals of Vienna, Berlin, and the Hague, and again by the charm of his manner succeeded in pacifying jealousies, in healing quarrels, and in obtaining the promises of vigorous action and larger armaments in the spring.

The bad conduct of the Dutch generals had created such a general cry of indignation through Europe, that the States General were compelled, by the pressure of public opinion, to dismiss several of the men who had most distinguished themselves by thwarting the plans of Marlborough, and interposing on every occasion between him and victory. Consequently the campaign of 1706 seemed likely to open with far brighter prospects of success than its predecessors had done.

Suddenly, however, all the arrangements broke down. The Imperialists had just suffered another reverse in Italy; and matters looked so desperate there, that Marlborough proposed to pass the Alps with an army of 40,000 men to their assistance, and there, as he would have the warm cooperation of Prince Eugene instead of the cowardice of the Dutch generals, and the incapacity and obstinacy of the Prince of Baden, he anticipated the complete discomfiture of the French.

In these hopes, however, he was thwarted. The Prince of Baden would do nothing beyond defending his own dominion. The cabinets of Berlin and Copenhagen fell to quarrelling, and both refused to supply their promised contingents. The Hanoverians and Hessians had also grievances, and refused to join in any general plan, or to send their troops to form part of the allied army. Thus all ideas of a campaign in the south were destroyed; but Marlborough persuaded the Dutch to send 10,000 of the troops in their pay across the Alps to assist Prince Eugene, under the promise that he with the English and Dutch troops would defend Flanders.

So the campaign commenced; and on the 19th of May Marlborough joined his army, which lay encamped on the Dyle, on the French frontier. On the 22nd a Danish contingent, which had at the last moment been dispatched in answer to an urgent appeal of the duke, arrived; and his army now consisted of 73 battalions and 123 squadrons, in all 60,000 men, with 120 guns. Marshal Villeroi's force, which lay on the other side of the Dyle, consisted of 74 battalions and 128 squadrons--62,000 men, with 130 guns. They had also, as at Blenheim, the advantage that the troops were all of one nationality, and accustomed to act together, while Marlborough's army consisted of troops of three nations, at least half of them new to war, and unused to act with each other.