April 11 22 .
June 15 26 .
Aug. 17 28 .
The next object of the opposing faction was to get Marlborough out of England to the Low Countries as soon as possible, which was duly effected, at Harley's instance, by ordering him to take a part in the negotiations for a peace. These negotiations coming to naught, he opened the campaign in April by a rapid movement, which brought him safely over the lines of La Bassée, and laid siege to Douay. The town made a firm defence for two months, but fell on the 26th of June; and Marlborough now proposed to himself either to invest Arras or to advance further into France and cross the Somme. Villars, however, though he had failed to relieve Douay, had made excellent dispositions for the defence of the frontier, and was lying unassailable behind a new series of lines, which he had drawn, as he said later, to be the ne plus ultra of Marlborough. The Duke therefore turned to the siege of Bethune, which surrendered on the 28th of August, and thereafter to the sieges of Aire and St. Venant on the Upper Lys, which closed the campaign. Each one of these fortresses was strong and made a spirited resistance, costing the Allies altogether some fifteen thousand men killed and wounded. The operations, though less brilliant than those of other campaigns, completed the communication with Lille, opened the whole line of the Lys, and increased the facilities for joint action with an expedition by sea, landing at Calais or Abbeville. Another such blow as Ramillies would have gone near to bring the Allies before the walls of Paris. Throughout the campaign, however, Marlborough acted always with extreme caution, abandoning the plans which he had once favoured for concerted operations with the fleet. He knew that the slightest failure would lay him open to overwhelming attack from his enemies at home, whose triumph would mean not only his own fall but, what he dreaded much more, the ascendency of unscrupulous politicians who would sacrifice the whole fruits of the war to factious ends, and bring disgrace, perhaps ruin, upon England.
Meanwhile the Queen, with all the pettiness of a weak nature, kept parading her power by foolish interference with matters which she did not understand. Marlborough had submitted a list of colonels for promotion to general's rank, but as the name of Colonel Hill was not among them she insisted on promoting every colonel of this year, regardless of expense, propriety, justice, or discipline, merely for the sake of including him. In August came a heavier blow in the dismissal of Godolphin and the appointment of Harley as Lord Keeper in his place, which accomplished the long-threatened downfall of the Government. By a refinement of insult the Duke's Secretary-at-War, Adam Cardonnel, was also removed and replaced, without the slightest reference to Marlborough, by Mr. Granville. Finally, shortly after his return from the campaign the Queen, despite his entreaties, definitely dismissed the Duchess from all her posts, and even went the length of ordering the Duke to forbid the moving of any vote of thanks for his services by Parliament.
The example thus set in high places was quickly followed. A few even of the Duke's own officers, such as the Duke of Argyll, to the huge disgust and contempt of the Army, turned against him. The mouth of every libeller and slanderer was opened. Swift and St. John, the only two Englishmen whose intellect entitled them to be named in the same breath with Marlborough, vied with each other in blackening his character. Nothing was too vile nor too extravagant to be insinuated against the greatest soldier, statesman, and diplomatist in Europe. He was prolonging the war for his own ends; he could make peace if he would, but he would not; he delighted in the wanton sacrifice of life; finally, he had neither personal courage nor military talent. "I suppose," wrote Marlborough bitterly, "that I must every summer venture my life in battle, and be found fault with in the winter for not bringing home peace, though I wish for it with all my heart and soul."
He would fain have resigned but for the remonstrances of Godolphin and Eugene, who entreated him to hold the Grand Alliance together for yet a little while, and gain for Europe a permanent peace. They might have spared their prayers had they known the secrets of the Cabinet, for Harley and his gang were already opening the secret negotiations with Lewis which were to dissolve the Alliance and grant to France all that Europe had fought for ten years to withhold from her. For these men, who accused Marlborough of wilful squandering of life, thought nothing of sending brave soldiers forth to lose their lives for a cause which they had made up their minds to betray. But it is idle to waste comment on such creatures, long dead albeit unhanged; though the fact must not be forgotten in the history of the relations of the House of Commons towards the Army. It will be more profitable to accompany the great Duke to his last campaign.
[CHAPTER X]
1711.
The French, fully aware of the political changes in England, had during the winter made extraordinary exertions to prolong the war for yet one more campaign, and to that end had covered the northern frontier with a fortified barrier on a gigantic scale. Starting from the coast of Picardy the lines followed the course of the river Canche almost to its source. From thence across to the Gy or southern fork of the Upper Scarpe ran a line of earthworks, extending from Oppy to Montenancourt. From the latter point the Gy and the Scarpe were dammed so as to form inundations as far as Biache, at which place a canal led the line of defence from the Scarpe to the Sensée. Here more inundations between the two rivers carried the barrier to Bouchain, whence it followed the Scheldt to Valenciennes. From thence more earthworks prolonged the lines to the Sambre, which carried them at last to their end at Namur.