The “block” of Malplaquet (to use the metaphor which is common in French history), the unexpected power of resistance which this last of the French armies displayed, and the moral effect of that resistance upon the allies, have an historical meaning almost as high as that of Blenheim upon the other side. It has been well said that one may win every battle and yet lose a campaign; there is a sense in which it may be said that one may win a campaign and suffer political loss as the result.
Malplaquet was the turning-point after which it was evident that the decline of the French position in Europe would go no further. As Blenheim had marked the turn of the tide against Louis, so Malplaquet marked the slack water when the tide was ready to turn in his favour. After Blenheim it was certain that the ambition of Louis XIV. was checked, and probable that it would wholly fail. After Malplaquet it was equally certain that the total destruction of Louis’ power was impossible, that the project of a march on Paris might be abandoned, and that the last phases of the great war would diminish the chances of the allies.
The Dutch (whose troops in particular had been annihilated upon the left of the field) did indeed maintain their uncompromising attitude, but no longer with the old certitude of success; Austria also and her allies did continue the war, but a war doomed to puerility, to a sort of stale-mate bound to end in compromise. But it was in England that the effect of the battle was most remarkable.
In England, where opinion had but tardily accepted the necessity for war nine years before, and where the fruits of that war were now regarded as quite sufficient for the satisfaction of English demands, this negative action, followed by no greater fruit than the capitulation of the little garrison at Mons, began the agitation for peace. Look closely at that agitation through its details, and personal motives will confuse you; the motives of the queen, of Harley, of Marlborough’s enemies. Look at it in the general light of the national history and you will perceive that the winter following Malplaquet, a winter of disillusionment and discontent, bred in England an opinion that made peace certain at last. The accusation against Marlborough that he fought the battle with an eye to his failing political position is probably unjust. The accusation that he fought it from a lust of bloodshed is certainly a stupid calumny. But the unpopularity of so great a man succeeding upon so considerable a technical success sufficiently proves at what a price the barrenness of that success was estimated in England. It was the English Government that first opened secret negotiations with Louis for peace in the following year; and when the great instrument which closed the war was signed at Utrecht in 1713, it was after the English troops had been withdrawn from their allies, after Eugene, acting single-handed, had suffered serious check, and in general the Peace of Utrecht was concluded under conditions far more favourable to Louis than would have been any peace signed at the Hague in 1709. The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria, but France kept intact what is still her Belgian frontier. She preserved what she has since lost on the frontier of the Rhine, and (most remarkable of all!) the grandson of Louis was permitted to remain upon the Spanish throne.
Such is the general political setting of this fierce action, one of the most determined known in the history of European arms, and therefore one of the most legitimately glorious; one in which men were most ready at the call of duty and under the influences of discipline to sacrifice their lives in the defence of a common cause; and one which, as all such sacrifices must, illumines the history of the several national traditions concerned, of the English as of the Dutch, of the German principalities as of the French.
No action better proves the historical worth of valour.