Marlborough and Eugene, who had hitherto remained together, now parted, and the Duke handing over eighteen battalions to the Prince entrusted him with the command of the right. This accession of strength enabled Eugene to relieve Cadogan's corps, which had been forced to give way before Groenewald, and even to pierce through the first line of the enemy's infantry. General Natzmar thereupon seized the moment to throw the Prussian cavalry against the second line. His squadrons were received with a biting fire from the hedges as they advanced; and the French Household Cavalry watching the favourable moment for a charge drove back the Prussians with very heavy loss.

Meanwhile Marlborough with the Hanoverian and Dutch infantry was pressing forward slowly on his left, the French fighting with great stubbornness and gallantry, and contesting every inch of ground from hedge to hedge. At last the enemy being forced back to Diepenbeck, a few hundred yards in rear of Schaerken, stood fast, and refused despite all the Duke's efforts to give way for another foot. But Marlborough had still twenty battalions of Dutch and Danes with almost the entire cavalry of the left at his disposal, and he had noticed that the French right flank rested on the air. He now directed Marshal Overkirk to lead these troops under cover of the Boser Couter round the French right and to fall with them upon their rear. The gallant old Dutchman, though infirm and sick unto death, joyfully obeyed. Two brigades were thrown at once on the flank of the troops that were so stoutly opposing Marlborough; while the cavalry advanced quickly on the reverse slope of the Boser Couter,[351] and then wheeling to the right fell on the rear of the unsuspecting French. A part of the Household Cavalry and some squadrons of dragoons tried bravely to stand their ground, but they were borne back and swept away. Overkirk's troops pressed rapidly on; and the French right was fairly surrounded on all sides.

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Now at last an effort was made to bring forward the French left, which through Burgundy's perversity or for some inscrutable reason, had been left motionless on the other side of the Norken; but it was too late. The infantry, though led by Vendôme himself, failed to make the slightest impression, and the cavalry dared not advance. The ground before them was intricate and swampy, and the whole of the British cavalry, withdrawn from their first position by Eugene, stood waiting to plunge down upon them directly they should move. The daylight faded and the night came on, but the musketry flashed out incessantly in an ever narrowing girdle of fire, as the Allies wound themselves closer and closer round the enveloped French right. At length at nine o'clock Marlborough and Eugene, fearful lest their own troops should engage each other in the darkness, with some difficulty enforced the order to halt and cease firing. Vast numbers of the French seized the moment to escape, but presently all the drums of the Allies began with one accord to beat the French retreat, while the Huguenot officers shouted "A moi, Picardie! A moi, Roussillon!" to gather the relics of the scattered regiments of the enemy around them. In this way some thousands of prisoners were gleaned, but the harvest which would have been reaped in another hour of daylight was lost. In the French army all was confusion. Vendôme tried in vain to keep the troops together till the morning, but Burgundy gave the word for retreat; and the whole ran off in disorder towards Ghent.

July 1 12 .
July 2-3 13-14 .

So ended the battle of Oudenarde, presenting on one side a feature rare in these days, namely, a general engagement without an order of battle.[352] It was undoubtedly the most hazardous action that Marlborough ever fought. His troops were much harassed by forced marches. They had started at two o'clock on Monday morning and had covered fifty miles, including the passage of two rivers, when they came into action at two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. It would be reckoned no small feat in these days to move eighty thousand men over fifty miles in sixty hours, but in those days of bad roads and heavy packs the effort must have been enormous. Finally, the army had to pass the Scheldt in the face of the enemy, and ran no small risk of being destroyed in detail. Yet the hazard was probably less than it now seems to us, and generals in our own day have not hesitated to risk similar peril with success. The French commanders were at variance; the less competent of them, being heir-apparent, was likely to be toadied by officers and supported by them against their better judgment; and finally the whole French army was very much afraid of Marlborough. Notwithstanding their slight success in Ghent and Bruges, their elation had evaporated speedily when they found Marlborough before them at Lessines. All this Marlborough knew well, and knew also that if an impromptu action, if one may use the term, must be fought, there was not a man on the other side who had an eye for a battlefield comparable to Eugene's and his own. The event justified his calculations; for the victory was one of men who knew their own minds over men who did not. Another hour of daylight, so Marlborough declared, would have enabled him to finish the war. The total loss of the Allies in the battle was about three thousand killed and wounded, the British infantry though early engaged suffering but little, while the cavalry, being employed to watch the inactive French left, hardly suffered at all.[353] The French lost six thousand killed and wounded and nine thousand prisoners only, but they were thoroughly shaken and demoralised for the remainder of the campaign. The wearied army of the Allies lay on its arms in the battlefield, while Marlborough and Eugene waited impatiently for the dawn. As soon as it was light forty squadrons, for the most part British, were sent forward in pursuit, while Eugene returned to his own army to hasten its march and to collect material for a siege. The main army halted to rest for two days where it lay, during which time the intelligence came that Berwick had been summoned with his army from the Moselle, and was marching with all haste to occupy certain lines constructed by the French to cover their frontier from Ypres to the Lys. At midnight fifty squadrons and thirty battalions under Count Lottum, a distinguished Prussian officer, started for these lines; the whole army followed at daybreak, and while on the march the Duke received the satisfactory news that Lottum had captured the lines without difficulty. Next day the whole of Marlborough's army was encamped along the Lys between Menin and Commines, within the actual territory of France.

July.

Detached columns were at once sent out to forage and levy contributions. The suburbs of Arras were burnt, and no effort was spared to bring home to the French that war was hammering at their own gates. But the Allies were still doubtful as to the operations that they should next undertake. So long as the French held Bruges and Ghent they held also the navigation of the Scheldt and Lys, so that it was of vital importance to tempt Vendôme, if possible, to evacuate them. The British Government was preparing a force[354] under General Erie for a descent upon Normandy by sea, and Marlborough was for co-operating with this expedition, masking the fortress of Lille, and penetrating straight into France—a plan which the reader should, if possible, bear in mind. But the proposal was too adventurous to meet with the approval of the Dutch, and was judged impracticable even by Eugene unless Lille were first captured as a place of arms. Ultimately it was decided, notwithstanding the closing of the Scheldt and Lys, to undertake the siege of Lille; and all the energies of the Allies were turned to the collection of sixteen thousand horses to haul the siege-train overland from Brussels.

During the enforced inaction of the army for the next few weeks, the monotony was broken only by the arrival of a distinguished visitor, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, together with one of his three hundred and sixty-four bastards, a little boy of twelve named Maurice, who had run away from school to join the army. We shall meet with this boy again as a man of fifty, under the name of Marshal Saxe, at a village some twenty miles distant called Fontenoy.