CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| William III.’s Campaigns | [1–37] |
| Marlborough’s Campaigns— | |
| 1701–2 | [38] |
| 1705 | [51] |
| 1706 (Ramillies) | [62] |
| 1707–8 (Oudenarde) | [77] |
| 1709 (Malplaquet) | [103] |
| 1711 | [122] |
| War of The Austrian Succession— | |
| Campaigns of 1744–5 (Fontenoy) | [133] |
| Campaigns of 1746–7 (Lauffeld, Roucoux) | [158] |
| War of the French Revolution | [177] |
| Campaign of 1793 (Linselles) | [207] |
| Preparations for the Campaign of 1794 | [261] |
| Campaign of 1794 (Villers-en-Cauchies, Beaumont, Willems, Tourcoing) | [295] |
| Campaign of 1794 (Continued) | [343] |
| End of the Campaign of 1794 | [366] |
MAPS AND PLANS
| PAGE | |
| [Steenkirk], 23rd July (3rd Aug.) 1692 | 13 |
| [Landen], 19th (29th) July 1693 | 27 |
| [Lines of the Geete], 7th (18th) July 1705 | 55 |
| [Ramillies], 12th (23rd) May 1706 | 67 |
| [Oudenarde], 30th June (11th July) 1708 | 85 |
| [Malplaquet], 31st Aug. (11th Sept.) 1709 | 111 |
| The Campaign of [1711] | 125 |
| [Fontenoy], 30th April (11th May) 1745 | 143 |
| [Roucoux], 30th Sept, (11th Oct.) 1746 | 163 |
| [Lauffeld], 21st June (2nd July) 1747 | 171 |
| Attack of the Allies on the Camp of [Famars], 23rd May 1793 | 217 |
| [Dunkirk] and Environs, showing the Position of the Allies from 24th Aug. to 6th Sept. 1793 | 237 |
| Campaign of [April 1794] | 299 |
| [Avesnes-le-Sec], 12th Sept. 1793; Villers-en-Cauchies, 24th April 1794; Beaumont, 26th April 1794 | 303 |
| [Willems], 10th May 1794 | 319 |
| [The Netherlands] in the 18th Century | At end |
VOL. I. BOOK V. CHAPTER II
I pass now to Flanders, which is about to become for the second time the training ground of the British Army. The judicious help sent by Lewis the Fourteenth to Ireland had practically diverted the entire strength of William to that quarter for two whole campaigns; and though, as has been seen, there were English in Flanders in 1689 and 1690, the contingents which they furnished were too small and the operations too trifling to warrant description in detail. After the battle of the Boyne the case was somewhat altered, for, though a large force was still required in Ireland for Ginkell’s final pacification of 1691, William was none the less at liberty to take the field in Flanders in person. Moreover, Parliament with 1690. October. great good-will had voted seventy thousand men for the ensuing year, of which fully fifty thousand were British,[1] so that England was about to put forth her strength in Europe on a scale unknown since the loss of Calais.
But first a short space must be devoted to the theatre of war, where England was to meet and break down the overweening power of France. Few studies are more difficult, even to the professed student, than that of the old campaigns in Flanders, and still fewer more hopeless of simplification to the ordinary reader. Nevertheless, however desperate the task, an effort must be made once for all to give a broad idea of the scene of innumerable great actions.
Taking his stand on the northern frontier of France and looking northward, the reader will note three great rivers running through the country before him in, roughly speaking, three parallel semicircles, from south-east to north-west. These are, from east to west, the Moselle, which is merged in the Rhine at Coblentz, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, all three of which discharge themselves into the great delta whereof the southern key is Antwerp. But for the present let the reader narrow the field from the Meuse in the east to the sea in the west, and let him devote his attention first to the Meuse. He will see that, a little to the north of the French frontier, it picks up a large tributary from the south-west, the Sambre, which runs past Maubeuge and Charleroi and joins the Meuse at Namur. Thence the united rivers flow on past the fortified towns of Huy, Liège, and Maestricht to the sea. But let the reader’s northern boundary on the Meuse for the present be Maestricht, and let him note another river which rises a little to the west of Maestricht and runs almost due west past Arschot and Mechlin to the sea at Antwerp. Let this river, the Demer, be his northern, and the Meuse from Maestricht to Namur his eastern, boundary.
Returning to the south, let him note a river rising immediately to the west of Charleroi, the Haine, which joins the Scheldt at Tournay, and let him draw a line from Tournay westward through Lille and Ypres to the sea at Dunkirk. Let this line from Dunkirk to Charleroi be carried eastward to Namur; and there is his southern boundary. His western boundary is, of course, the sea. Within this quadrilateral, Antwerp (or more strictly speaking the mouth of the Scheldt), Dunkirk, Namur, and Maestricht, lies the most famous fighting-ground of Europe.
Glancing at it on the map, the reader will see that this quadrilateral is cut by a number of rivers running parallel to each other from south to north, and flowing into the main streams of the Demer and the Scheldt. The first of these, beginning from the east, are the Great and Little Geete, which become one before they join the main stream. It is worth while to pause for a moment over this little slip of land between the Geete and the Meuse. We shall see much of Namur, Huy, Liège, and Maestricht, which command the navigation of the greater river, but we shall see still more of the Geete, and of two smaller streams, the Jaar and the Mehaigne, which rise almost in the same table-land with it. On the Lower Jaar, close to Maestricht, stands the village of Lauffeld, which shall be better known to us fifty years hence. On the Little Geete, just above its junction with its greater namesake, are the villages of Neerwinden and Landen. In the small space between the heads of the Geete and the Mehaigne lies the village of Ramillies. For this network of streams is the protection against an enemy that would threaten the navigation of the Meuse from the north and west, and the barrier of Spanish Flanders against invasion from the east; and the ground is rich with the corpses and fat with the blood of men.