The operations for the passage of the Dyle were conducted in much the same way as in the forcing of the lines. An advanced detachment was sent forward from each wing of the army, that from the right or English[26] flank being appointed to cross the river under the Duke of Würtemberg at Corbeek Dyle, that from the left under General Heukelom to pass it at Neeryssche. The detachments fell in at five in the evening, reached their appointed destination at ten, and effected their passage with perfect success. The main bodies started at midnight, and went somewhat astray in the darkness, though by three o’clock the Dutch army was within supporting distance of its detachment and the British rapidly approaching it. The river had been in fact forced, when suddenly the Dutch generals halted their main body. Marlborough rode up to inquire the cause, and was at once taken aside by Slangenberg. “For God’s sake, my Lord—” began the Dutchman vehemently, and continued to protest with violent gesticulations. No sooner was Marlborough’s back turned than the Dutch generals, like a parcel of naughty schoolboys, recalled Heukelom’s detachment. Thus the passage won with so much skill was for no cause whatever abandoned, without loss indeed, but also not without mischievous encouragement to the French, who boasted loudly that they had repulsed their redoubtable adversary.
Deeply hurt and annoyed though he was, the Duke, with miraculous patience, excused in his public despatches the treachery and imbecility which had thwarted him, and prepared to effect his purpose in another way. His movements were hastened by news that French reinforcements, set free by the culpable inaction of Prince Lewis of Baden, were on their way Aug. 5/16. from Alsace. Unable to pass the Dyle he turned its head-waters at Genappe, and wheeling north towards the forest of Soignies encamped between La Hulpe and Braine l’Alleud.[27] The French promptly took the alarm and posted themselves behind the river Yssche, with their left at Neeryssche, and their right at Overyssche resting on the forest of Soignies. Marlborough at once resolved to force the passage of the river. On Aug. 6/17. the evening of the 17th of August he detached his brother Charles Churchill with ten thousand foot and two thousand horse to advance through the forest and turn the French right; while he himself marched away Aug. 7/18. at daybreak with the rest of the army and emerged into the plain between the Yssche and the Lasne. The Duke quickly found two assailable points, and choosing that of Overyssche, halted the army pending the arrival of the artillery. The guns were long in arriving, Slangenberg having insisted, despite the Duke’s express instructions, on forcing his own baggage into the column for the express purpose of causing delay. At last about noon the artillery appeared, and Marlborough asked formal permission of the Dutch deputies to attack. To his surprise, although Overkirk had already consented, they claimed to consult their generals. Slangenberg with every mark of insolence condemned the project as murder and massacre, the rest solemnly debated the matter for another two hours, the auspicious moment passed away exactly as they had intended, and another great opportunity was lost. The French reinforcements arrived, and having been the weaker became the stronger force. Nothing more could be done for the rest of the campaign, but to level the French lines from the Demer to the Mehaigne.
Thus for the third time a brilliant campaign was spoilt by the Dutch generals and deputies. Fortunately the public indignation both in England and in Holland was too strong for them, and Slangenberg, though not indeed hanged as he deserved, was deprived of all further command. Jealousy, timidity, ignorance, treachery, and flat imbecility seem to have been the motives that inspired these men, whose conduct has never been reprobated according to its demerit. It was they who were responsible for the prolongation of the war, for the burden that it laid on England, and for the untold misery that it wrought in France. Left to himself Marlborough would have forced the French to peace in three campaigns, and the war would not have been ended in shame and disgrace by the Treaty of Utrecht.[28]
VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER V
1706.
It is now time to revert to England and to the preparations for the campaign of 1706. Marlborough, as usual, directly that the military operations were concluded, had been deputed to visit the courts of Vienna and of sundry German states in order to keep the Allies up to the necessary pitch of unity and energy. These duties detained him in Germany and at the Hague until January 1706, when he was at last able to return to England. There he encountered far less obstruction than in former years, but found, nevertheless, an increasing burden of work. The vast extension of operations in the Peninsula, and the general sickliness of the troops in that quarter, demanded the enlistment of an unusually large number of recruits. One new regiment of dragoons and eleven new battalions of foot were formed in the course of the spring, to which it was necessary to add yet another battalion before the close of the year.[29] Again the epidemic sickness among the horses in Flanders had caused an extraordinary demand for them. The Dutch, after their wonted manner, had actually taken pains to prevent the supply of these animals to the British,[30] though, even if they had not, the Duke had a prejudice in favour of English horses, as of English men, as superior to any other. Finally, the stores of the Ordnance were unequal to the constant drain of small arms, and it was necessary to make good the deficiency by purchases from abroad. All these difficulties and a thousand more were of course referred for solution to Marlborough.
April 14/25.
When in April he crossed once more to the Hague he found a most discouraging state of affairs. The Dutch were backward in their preparations; Prussia and Hanover were recalcitrant over the furnishing of their contingents; Prince Lewis of Baden was sulking within his lines, refusing to communicate a word of his intentions to any one; and everybody was ready with a separate plan of campaign. The Emperor of course desired further operations on the Moselle for his own relief; but, after the experience of the last campaign, the Duke had wisely resolved never again to move eastward to co-operate with the forces of the Empire. The Dutch for their part wished to keep Marlborough in Flanders, where he should be under the control of their deputies; but the imbecile caprice of these worthies was little more to his taste than the sullen jealousy of Baden. Marlborough himself was anxious to lead a force to the help of Eugene in Italy, a scheme which, if executed, would have carried the British to a great fighting ground with which they are unfamiliar, the plains of Lombardy. He had almost persuaded the States-General to approve of this plan, when all was changed by Marshal Villars, who surprised Prince Lewis of Baden in his lines on the Motter, and captured two important magazines. The Dutch at once took fright and, in their anxiety to keep Marlborough for their own defence, agreed to appoint deputies who should receive rather than issue orders. So to the Duke’s great disappointment it was settled that the main theatre of war should once again be Flanders.
Villeroy meanwhile lay safely entrenched in his position of the preceding year behind the Dyle, from which Marlborough saw little hope of enticing him. It is said that an agent was employed to rouse Villeroy by telling him that the Duke, knowing that the French were afraid to leave their entrenchments, would take advantage of their inaction to capture Namur.[31] Be that as it may, Villeroy resolved to quit the Dyle. He knew that the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents had not yet joined Marlborough, and that the Danish cavalry had refused to march to him until their wages were paid; so that interest as well as injured pride May 8/19. prompted the hazard of a general action. On the 19th of May, therefore, he left his lines for Tirlemont on the Great Geete. Marlborough, who was at Maestricht, saw with delight that the end, for which he had not dared to hope, was accomplished. Hastily making arrangements for the payment of the Danish troops, May 9/20. he concentrated the Dutch and British at Bilsen on the Upper Demer, and moved southward to Borchloen. Here the arrival of the Danes raised his total force to May 11/22. sixty thousand men, a number but little inferior to that of the enemy. On the very same day came the intelligence that Villeroy had crossed the Great Geete and was moving on Judoigne. The Duke resolved to advance forthwith and attack him there.
May 12/23.