The entrenchments on the French left had been forced; and Villars sent urgent messages to his right for reinforcements. But Boufflers could spare him none. After Schulemberg and Lottum had been engaged for half an hour, the Prince of Orange lost patience and, without waiting for orders, opened not a false but a real attack against the French right. On the extreme left of Orange's division were two Highland regiments of the Dutch service, Tullibardine's and Hepburn's, and next to them King William's favourite Blue Guards. These were to attack the defences in the forest of Laignières, while the rest fell upon the entrenchments in the open; and it was at the head of the Highlanders and of the Blue Guards that Orange took his place. A tremendous fire of grape and musketry saluted them as they advanced, and within the first few yards most of the Prince's staff were struck dead by his side. His own horse fell dead beneath him, but he disentangled himself and continued to lead the advance on foot. A few minutes more brought his battalions under the fire of a French battery on their left flank. Whole ranks were swept away, but still the Prince was to be seen waving his hat in front of his troops; and Highlanders and Dutchmen pressing steadily on carried the first entrenchment with a rush. They then halted to deploy, but before they could advance further Boufflers had rallied his men, and charging down upon his assailants drove them back headlong. On Orange's right, success as short-lived was bought at as dear a price. The Prince still exerted himself with the utmost gallantry, but his attack was beaten back at all points. The loss of the Dutch amounted to six thousand killed and wounded; the Blue Guards had been annihilated, and the Hanoverian battalions, which had supported them, had suffered little less severely. In fact, the Prince's precipitation had brought about little less than a disaster.
The confusion in this part of the field called both Marlborough and Eugene to the Allied left to restore order. Further useless sacrifice of life was checked, for enough and more than enough had been done to prevent Boufflers from detaching troops to Villars. But soon came an urgent message requiring their presence once more on the right. Schulemberg and Lottum had continued to push their attack as best they could; and red-coated English, blue-coated Prussians, and white-coated Austrians were struggling forward from tree to tree, tripping over felled trunks, bursting through tangled foliage, panting through quagmires, loading and firing and cursing, guided only by the flashes before them in the cloud of foul blinding smoke. But now on the extreme right Withers was steadily advancing; and his turning movement, though the Duke and Eugene knew it not, was gradually forcing the French out of the wood. Villars seeing the danger called the Irish Brigade and other regiments from the centre, and launched them full upon the British and Prussians. Such was the impetuosity of the Irish that they forced them back some way, until their own formation was broken by the density of the forest. Eugene hastened to the spot to rally the retreating battalions and though struck by a musket ball in the head refused to leave the field. Then up came Withers, just when he was wanted. The Eighteenth Royal Irish met the French Royal Regiment of Ireland, crushed it with two volleys by sheer superiority of fire, drove it back in disorder, and pressed on.[369] Eugene also advanced and was met by Villars, who at this critical moment was bringing forward his reinforcements in person. A musket shot struck the Marshal above the knee. Totally unmoved the gallant man called for a chair from which to continue to direct his troops, but presently fainting from pain was carried insensible from the field. The French, notwithstanding his fall, still barred the advance of the Allies, but they had been driven from their entrenchments and from the wood on the left, and only held their own by the help of the troops that had been withdrawn from the centre. The moment for which Marlborough had waited was now come.
The forty-gun battery was moved forward, and Orkney leading his British battalions against the redans captured them, though not without considerable loss, at the first rush. Two Hanoverian battalions on their left turned the flank of the adjoining entrenchments, and Orange renewing his attack cleared the whole of the defences in the glade. The Allied cavalry followed close at their heels. Auvergne's Dutch were the first to pass the entrenchments, and though charged by the French while in the act of deploying succeeded in repelling the first attack. But now Boufflers came up at the head of the French Gendarmerie, and drove them back irresistibly to the edge of the entrenchments. Here, however, the French were checked, for Orkney had lined the parapet with his British, and though the Gendarmerie thrice strove gallantly to make an end of the Dutch, they were every time driven back by the fire of the infantry. Meanwhile the central battery, which had been parted right and left into two divisions, advanced and supported the infantry by a cross-fire, and Marlborough coming up with the British and Prussian horse fell upon the Gendarmerie in their turn. Boufflers, however, was again ready with fresh troops, and coming down upon Marlborough with the French Household Cavalry crashed through his two leading lines and threw even the third into disorder. Then Eugene coming up with the Imperial horse threw the last reserves into the melée and drove the French back. Simultaneously the Prince of Hesse hurled his squadrons against the infantry of the French right, and with the help of the Dutch foot isolated it still further from the centre. Then Boufflers saw that the day was lost and ordered a general retreat to Bavay, while he could yet keep his troops together. The movement was conducted in admirable order, for the French though beaten were not routed, while the Allies were too much exhausted to pursue. So Boufflers retired unmolested, though it was not yet three o'clock, honoured alike by friend and foe for his bravery and his skill.
To face page 524
Thus ended the battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest ever fought by mortal men. Little is known of the details of the fighting, these being swallowed up in the shade of the forest of Taisnières, where no man could see what was going forward. All that is certain is that neither side gave quarter, and that the combat was not only fierce but savage. The loss of the French was about twelve thousand men, and the trophies taken from them, against which they could show trophies of their own, were five hundred prisoners, fifty standards and colours and sixteen guns. The loss of the Allies was not less than twenty thousand men killed and wounded, due chiefly to the mad onset of the Prince of Orange. The Dutch infantry out of thirty battalions lost eight thousand men, or more than half of their number; the British out of twenty battalions lost nineteen hundred men,[370] the heaviest sufferers being the Coldstream Guards, Buffs, Orrery's and Temple's.[371]
The more closely the battle is studied the more the conviction grows that no action of Marlborough's was fought less in accordance with his own plans. We have seen that he would have preferred to fight it on either of the two preceding days, and that he deferred to Eugene against his own judgment in suffering it to be postponed. Then again there was the almost criminal folly of the Prince of Orange, which upset all preconcerted arrangements, threw away thousands of lives to no purpose, and not only permitted the French to retreat unharmed at the close of the day but seriously imperilled the success of the action at its beginning. Nevertheless there are still not wanting men to believe the slanders of the contemptible faction then rising to power in England, that Marlborough fought the battle from pure lust of slaughter.
Still, in spite of all blunders, which were none of Marlborough's, Malplaquet was a very grand action. The French were equal in number to the Allies and occupied a position which was described at the time as a fortified citadel. They were commanded by an able general, whom they liked and trusted, they were in good heart, and they looked forward confidently to victory. Yet they were driven back and obliged to leave Mons to its fate; and though Villars with his usual bluster described the victory as more disastrous than defeat, yet French officers could not help asking themselves whether resistance to Marlborough and Eugene were not hopeless. Luxemburg with seventy-five thousand men against fifty thousand had only with difficulty succeeded in forcing the faulty position of Landen; yet the French had failed to hold the far more formidable lines of Malplaquet against an army no stronger than their own. Say Villars what he might, and beyond all doubt he fought a fine fight, the inference could not be encouraging to France.
Sept. 28
Oct. 9.