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 The ground before them was intricate and swampy, and the whole of the British cavalry, withdrawn from their first position by Eugene, stood waiting to plunge down upon them directly they should move.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 “À moi, Picardie! À moi, Roussillon!” to gather the relics of the scattered regiments of the enemy around them. In this way some thousands of prisoners were gleaned, though 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 mass ran off in disorder towards Ghent.

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.[47] 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 entire French army was very much afraid of Marlborough. Notwithstanding their slight success in Ghent and Bruges, their elation had evaporated speedily when they found the Duke before them at Lessines. All this Marlborough knew well; and he knew also that, if an impromptu action (if one may use the term) must be fought, there was not a man on the French side who had an eye for a battlefield comparable to Eugene’s or 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 British cavalry, being employed to watch the inactive French left, hardly suffered at all.[48] 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 on 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 July 1/12. where it lay, during which time the intelligence came that Berwick ad 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 July 2–3/
13–14. 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 camped along the Lys between Menin and Commines, within the actual territory of France.

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 those towns. The British Government was preparing a force[49] under General Erle 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.

At length the preparations for the siege were complete, and the huge convoy set out from Brussels for its long march. Now, if ever, was the time for the French to strike a blow. Vendôme in the north at Ghent and Berwick in the south at Douay had, between them, one hundred and ten thousand men: the distance to be traversed by the convoy was seventy-five miles, and the way was barred by the Dender and the Scheldt. Such, however, was the skill with which the march was conducted that the French never succeeded even in threatening the vast, unwieldy columns, which duly Aug. 1/12. reached their destination without the loss even of a single waggon. Of all the achievements of Marlborough and Eugene, this seems to have been judged by contemporary military men to be the greatest.[50]

Lille, the capital of French Flanders, was one of the early conquests of Lewis the Fourteenth, and, if the expression may be allowed, the darling town of the Court of Versailles. Situated in a swampy plain and watered by two rivers, the Deule and Marque, its natural position presented difficulties of no ordinary kind to a besieging force; and, in addition, it had been fortified by Vauban with his utmost skill. The garrison, which had been strengthened by Berwick, amounted to fifteen thousand men, under the command of brave old Marshal Boufflers, who had solicited the honour of defending the fortress. To the north, as we have seen, lay Vendôme, and to the south Berwick, with a joint force now amounting to about ninety-four thousand men.[51] It was for Marlborough and Eugene with an inferior strength of eighty-four thousand men[52] to hold them at bay and to take one of the strongest fortresses in the world before their eyes.

A detailed account even of so famous a siege would be wearisome, the more so since the proportion of British troops detailed for regular work in the trenches was but five battalions,[53] but there are a few salient features which cannot be omitted. The point selected for attack was the north side, the first advance to which was opened by a single English soldier, Sergeant Littler of the First Guards,[54] who swam across the Marquette to a French post, which commanded the passage of the stream, and let down the drawbridge. Aug. 2/13. Two days later the town was fully invested, and Marlborough took post with the covering army at Helchin on the Scheldt.

The investment had not been accomplished for more than a fortnight, when the Duke was informed that Berwick and Vendôme were advancing towards the Dender to unite their forces at Lessines. After manœuvring at first to hinder the junction Marlborough finally decided to let it come to pass, being satisfied that, if the French designed to relieve Lille, they could not penetrate to it in the face of his army on the east side, but must go round and approach the city from the south. In this case, as both armies would move in concentric circles around Lille as a centre, Marlborough, being nearer to that centre, could be certain of reaching any given point on the way to it before the French. Moreover, the removal of the enemy from the east to the south would free the convoys from Brussels from all annoyance on their march to the siege.

Aug. 22./​Sept. 2.

As he had expected, the French moved south to Tournay, and then wheeling northward entered the plain of Lille, where they found Marlborough and Eugene drawn up ready to receive them.[55] Vendôme and Berwick had positive orders to risk a battle; and there had been much big talk of annihilating the Allies. Yet face to face with their redoubtable enemies they hesitated. Finally, after a week’s delay, which enabled Marlborough greatly to strengthen his position by entrenchment, they advanced as if to attack in earnest, but withdrew ignominiously after a useless cannonade, without accepting battle. Had not Marlborough and Eugene been restrained by the Dutch deputies, the marshals would have had a battle forced on them whether they liked it or not, but, as things were, they were permitted to retire. To such depth of humiliation had Marlborough reduced the proud and gallant French army.