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 behind him. 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 Auvergne’s men 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, charged the Gendarmerie in their turn. Boufflers, however, was again ready with fresh troops, and falling upon Marlborough with the French Household Cavalry crashed through his two leading lines and threw even the third into disorder. Then Eugene advancing at the head of the Imperial horse threw the last reserves into the mêlée 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. Boufflers now 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.
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,[65] the heaviest sufferers being the Coldstream Guards, Buffs, Orrery’s and Temple’s.[66]
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 yielded 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.
Notwithstanding all blunders, which were none of Marlborough’s making, 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.
It was not until the third day after the fight that the Allies returned to the investment of Mons. Eugene was wounded, and Marlborough not only worn out by fatigue but deeply distressed over the enormous sacrifice of life. The siege was retarded by the marshy nature of the ground and by heavy rain; but on the Sept. 28./Oct. 9. 9th of October the garrison capitulated, and therewith the campaign came to an end. Tournay had given the Allies firm foothold on the Upper Scheldt, and Mons was of great value to cover the captured towns in Flanders and Brabant. The season’s operations had not been without good fruit, despite the heavy losses at Malplaquet.
VOL. I. BOOK VI. 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.
This was a formidable obstacle to the advance of the Allies, but no lines had sufficed to stop Marlborough yet; and with Eugene by his side the Duke did not despair. Before he could start for the campaign, however, the news came that the Emperor Joseph was dead of smallpox, an event which signified the almost certain accession of the Archduke Charles to the Imperial crown and the consequent withdrawal of his candidature for the throne of Spain. Eugene was consequently detained at home; and, worse than this, a fine opportunity was afforded for making a breach in the Grand Alliance. To render the Duke’s difficulties still greater, though his force was already weakened by the necessity of finding garrisons for the towns captured in the previous year, the English Government had withdrawn from him five battalions[67] for an useless expedition to Newfoundland under the command of Mrs. Masham’s brother, General Hill; an expedition which may be dismissed for the present without further mention than that it was dogged by misfortune from first to last, suffered heavy loss through shipwreck, and accomplished literally nothing.
Nevertheless the Imperial army was present, though without Eugene. The whole of the forces were assembled a little to the south of Lille at Orchies; and April 20./May 1. on the 1st of May Marlborough moved forward to a position parallel to that of Villars, who lay in rear of the river Sensée with his left at Oisy and his right at Bouchain. There both armies remained stationary and inactive for six weeks. Eugene came, but presently received orders to return and to bring his troops June 3/14. with him. On the 14th of June Marlborough moved away one march westward to the plain of Lens in order to conceal this enforced diminution of his strength. The position invited a battle, but Villars only moved down within his lines, parallel to the Duke; and once more both armies remained inactive for five weeks. After the departure of Eugene the French commander detached a portion of his troops to the Rhine, but even so he had one hundred and thirty-one battalions against ninety-four, and one hundred and eighty-seven squadrons against one hundred and forty-five of the Allies.