[CHAPTER II]
1701-1717.
MARLBOROUGH’S CAMPAIGNS IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.
Almost before the troops from Flanders had shaken down into their winter quarters, the anti-military party in England raised the cry of “No standing army” with such vigour that Parliament insisted on the disbandment of many regiments; in each of the remainder three companies were entirely suppressed, and the others cut down to a strength of two sergeants, two corporals, a drummer, and thirty-four private soldiers, while officers at the rate of one for every ten men were allowed to remain with the Colours. In 1701 war again broke out on the Continent. This war, known as that of the Spanish Succession, was but a sequel to the conflict ended at Ryswick, and was again caused by Louis XIV.’s determination to conquer the best part of Europe. Without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities, Louis struck hard and quick; and occupied the fortresses of Ostend, Nieuport, Oudenarde, Ath, Mons, Charleroi, Namur, and Luxemburg, and nearly all the strongholds on the Meuse from Namur to Venloo, thus threatening at once the southern border of Holland and the keys to its south-eastern frontier, the fortresses of Grave, Nimeguen, and Fort Schenk. The Allies again took up arms; in June the XVIIIth and eleven other regiments were sent off to Holland under Marlborough’s command; and Parliament decided that England should furnish a contingent of forty thousand men, of whom eighteen thousand were to be British and the remainder foreigners, taken temporarily into our pay.
Before the English troops settled down into their winter quarters, William III. reviewed the infantry, whose uniform was at that time both comfortable and picturesque. They wore loosely-fitting red coats, cut long enough to protect the thighs from wet and cold; waistcoats, visible when the skirts of the coat were buttoned back to allow the legs free play in marching; breeches with gaiters, buttoning high above the knee, and shoes. Their head-dress was a cocked-hat, like that of a Chelsea pensioner, and their hair was plaited in a pig-tail, which was plastered with powder and tied up with bows.
At the beginning of 1702, the Allies discovered that though Louis had echeloned considerable numbers of troops along the Rhine and the lower Scheldt, his immediate object was to gain possession of the fortresses of Grave, Nimeguen, and Fort Schenk: and a force of 25,000 men, among whom were the XVIIIth and most of the other British regiments, was assembled at Cranenburg, a few miles from Nimeguen, to watch a French army, 60,000 strong, encamped some twenty miles to the southwards. In the absence of Marlborough, who was detained at the Hague by diplomatic business, the army on the Meuse was under the Earl of Athlone, as Ginkell was now called: the French were commanded nominally by the Duke of Burgundy, but really by de Boufflers, who accompanied this royal prince as military adviser. The old Marshal had not forgotten his humiliation at Namur in 1695; and finding out that Athlone’s intelligence department and system of patrolling were equally bad, by a sudden swoop so nearly surprised his camp that his troops had to abandon their camp and baggage and hasten for shelter to Nimeguen, where their reception was the reverse of cordial. The Governor was indignant with the Dutch Government for having promoted Athlone over his head; he was suspected of having sold himself to the enemy, and either from treachery or from the wish to see his rival cut to pieces, shut the gates upon him as he approached the fortress,[26] and refused to take any measures for its defence. The civilian population, however, had no intention of surrendering; they broke open the stores, dragged guns to the ramparts, carried up powder and shot upon their backs, and opened so furious a fire that the French drew off in disgust.
Marlborough, whose recent appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the allied forces had created much ill-will among the Dutch generals, now joined the army, and concentrated 60,000 men, of whom 12,000 were British, in the neighbourhood of Nimeguen. Never was a general more sorely tried by incompetent and jealous subordinates than Marlborough in this campaign. He was comparatively an unknown man; he had never commanded a large army in the field; many of his colleagues distrusted him, and took every opportunity of thwarting his plans; and, above all, his footsteps were dogged by two Dutch civilian officials, styled Field Deputies, who had power to refuse him leave to employ the troops of Holland in operations of which they did not approve. Four times, by rapid marches and skilful strategy, he forced the French into positions where they could only fight at great disadvantage; and four times was victory snatched from him by the obstinacy of the Dutch leaders or the timidity of the Field Deputies. The campaign of 1702, however, was by no means barren of results, for Marlborough was allowed to recapture various fortresses on the Meuse. The first place to be invested was Venloo: the Germans sat down before the south and east of the town; to the Dutch and the British was allotted the attack on the north and west, and, after three weeks’ hard work, the British brigade, of which the XVIIIth formed part, sapped up to the foot of the glacis of Fort St Michael, a strong outwork of the main fortress. Prince Nassau, whom Marlborough had deputed to carry on the siege in his absence, then ordered a lodgment to be made on the top of the glacis as a preliminary to a future attack on the covered way. The whole of the XVIIIth moved into the trenches early in the morning: about midday they were joined by three companies of grenadiers and several hundred men from the other regiments in the brigade; and in the course of the afternoon Lord Cutts called the officers together, and, apparently on his own responsibility, enlarged the orders originally issued. The British were not to be satisfied with making a lodgment, but if they found the French “give way with precipitation, they were to jump into their works and follow them, let the consequence be what it would! ‘These were fine orders from a general,’ remarks Kane grimly, ‘but as inconsiderate as they were, we as inconsiderately and rashly followed them.’”
At four o’clock the explosion of a barrel of powder gave the signal for the assault; the artillery opened a heavy fire, and the British advanced. After a short resistance, the French ran back to the covered way, followed by the Royal Irish, who pursued them into a ravelin, where a captain and sixty men fought gallantly till nearly all were disabled. The survivors rushed towards a small wooden bridge, spanning a wet ditch eight or ten feet deep and a hundred feet in width. The end of this bridge was made of loose planks; and had the French done their duty when they crossed it, they would have tossed these planks into the ditch, and thus made a death-trap, into which the leading British soldiers as they followed them would have been thrust by their comrades in rear. But in their panic the French forgot to take this precaution; the XVIIIth got safely across, and chased the enemy to the foot of the wall of the main fortification. The men were wild with delight at their success, but the senior officers realised that the situation was a desperate one: a few hundred British troops were entangled among the unbreached works of a fort, whose garrison, though undoubtedly surprised, had suffered but little in the attack. To retire was out of the question, but to scale the wall looming high and grim above them appeared impossible, until the fugitives, whom the soldiers were chasing with their bayonets, solved the problem by darting to a part of the wall where much grass grew, and hauling themselves up from tuft to tuft. Where a Frenchman could climb an Irishman could follow, and after a desperate scramble, the red-coats began to mount the ramparts, when the enemy, utterly confounded by the unconventionality of the assault, hastily retired into the body of the fort, threw down their arms, and begged for quarter. Their lives were spared, and the booty given to the troops. This capture cost the British two hundred and ninety-seven killed and wounded.[27] The casualties among the XVIIIth are not recorded.
Two days later the siege came to an end in a very curious way. To celebrate a recent victory in another part of Europe, the Allies paraded all their troops and marched close up to the town to fire a feu-de-joie into it with shotted guns and muskets. The inhabitants had suffered much from the bombardment, especially since the cannon of Fort St Michael had been turned against them, and when they saw the movement, feared that the walls were going to be stormed forthwith; some rushed to the Governor to urge him to surrender, while others flocked to the ramparts with white cloths in their hands, crying “Mercy, Mercy, Quarter, Quarter.” The Governor asked to be allowed to capitulate, and, says Parker, “as we had other sieges to carry on this season, the Prince allowed them honourable terms.”
Nassau next took the fortress of Ruremonde after a nine days’ siege, and then joined Marlborough’s main army near Liege, an open town commanded by a citadel and a smaller fort. When the French garrison heard that the Allies were advancing, they sorrowfully exchanged their comfortable billets in the houses of the burghers for the casemates of the forts; and as soon as the enemy had left the town, the inhabitants sent a deputation to Marlborough to offer him the city keys in token of submission, and to entreat him to preserve Liege as far as possible from the horrors of war. Cutts, with ten British regiments, was ordered to occupy the town, while the rest of the army began operations against the forts. The siege, which lasted eighteen days, ran its ordinary course: batteries were thrown up, trenches were dug, outworks were captured, and when the gunners had made a practicable breach the assault was delivered. Millner, in his quaint language, tells us that though the French fought very well,