The new ministry had not yet determined to supersede the duke of Marlborough in the command of the army. This was a step which could not be taken without giving umbrage to the Dutch and other allies. He therefore set out for Holland in the month of February, after the queen had assured him that he might depend upon the punctual payment of the forces. Having conferred with the deputies of the states about the operations of the campaign, he, about the middle of April, assembled the army at Orchies, between Lisle and Douay; while mareschal de Villars drew together the French troops in the neighbourhood of Cambray and Arras. Louis had by this time depopulated as well as impoverished his kingdom; yet his subjects still flocked to his standard with surprising spirit and attachment. Under the pressure of extreme misery they uttered not one complaint of their sovereign; but imputed all their calamities to the pride and obstinacy of the allies. Exclusive of all the other impositions that were laid upon that people, they consented to pay the tenth penny of their whole substance; but all their efforts of loyalty and affection to their prince would have been ineffectual, had not the merchants of the kingdom, by the permission of Philip, undertaken repeated voyages to the South Sea, from whence they brought home immense treasures; while the allies took no steps for intercepting these supplies, though nothing could have been more easy for the English than to deprive the enemy of this great resource, and convert it to their own advantage. Had a squadron of ships been annually employed for this purpose, the subjects of France and Spain must have been literally starved, and Louis obliged to submit to such terms as the confederates might have thought proper to impose. Villars had found means to assemble a very numerous army, with which he encamped behind the river Sanset, in such an advantageous post as could not be attacked with any prospect of success. Meanwhile the duke of Marlborough passed the Scarpe, and formed his camp between Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by prince Eugene on the twenty-third day of May. This general, however, did not long remain in the Netherlands. Understanding that detachments had been made from the army of Villars to the Rhine, and that the elector of Bavaria intended to act in the empire, the prince, by order from the court of Vienna, marched towards the upper Rhine with the Imperial and Palatine troops, to secure Germany. The Duke of Marlborough repassing the Scarpe, encamped in the plains of Lens, from whence he advanced towards Aire, as if he had intended to attack the French lines in that quarter. These lines beginning at Bouchain on the Schelde, were continued along the Sanset and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the Upper Scarpe to Canché. They were defended by redoubts and other works in such a manner, that Villars judged they were impregnable, and called them the Ne plus ultra of Marlborough.
This nobleman advancing within two leagues of the French lines, ordered a great number of fascines to be made, declaring he would attack them the next morning; so that Villars drew all his forces on that side, in full expectations of an engagement. The duke, on the supposition that the passage of the Sanset by Arleux would be left unguarded, had ordered the generals Cadogan and Hompesch to assemble twenty battalions and seventeen squadrons from Douay and the neighbouring garrisons, to march to Arleux, where they should endeavour to pass the Sanset. Brigadier Sutton was detached with the artillery and pontoons, to lay bridges over the canal near Groulezen and over the Scarpe at Vitry, while the duke with the whole confederate army began his march for the same place about nine in the evening. He proceeded with such expedition, that by five in the morning he passed the river at Vitry. There he received intelligence that Hompesch had taken possession of the passes on the Sanset and Schelde without opposition, the enemy having withdrawn their detachments from that side just as he had imagined. He himself, with his vanguard of fifty squadrons, hastened his march towards Arleux, and before eight of the clock arrived at Bacá-Bachuel, where in two hours he was joined by the heads of the columns into which he hadj divided his infantry. Villars being certified of his intention, about two in the morning decamped with his whole army, and putting himself at the head of the king’s household troops, marched all night with such expedition, that about eleven in the forenoon he was in sight of the duke of Marlborough, who had by this time joined count Hompesch. The French general immediately retreated to the main body of his army, which had advanced to the high road between Arras and Cambray, while the allies encamped upon the Schelde, between Oisy and Estrun, after a march of ten leagues without halting, scarce to be paralleled in history. By this plan, so happily executed, the duke of Marlborough fairly outwitted Villars, and, without the loss of one man, entered the lines which he had pronounced impregnable. This stroke of the English general was extolled as a masterpiece of military skill, while Villars was exposed to the ridicule even of his own officers. The field-deputies of the states-general proposed that he should give battle to the enemy, who passed the Schelde at Crevecoeur in order to cover Bouchain; but the duke would not hazard an engagement, considering how much the army was fatigued by the long march; and that any misfortune, while they continued within the French lines, might be fatal. His intention was to besiege Bouchain; an enterprise that was deemed impracticable, inasmuch as the place was situated in a morass, strongly fortified, and defended by a numerous garrison, in the neighbourhood of an army superior in number to that of the allies. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, and the dissuasions of his own friends, he resolved to undertake the siege; and, in the meantime, despatched brigadier Sutton to England with an account of his having passed the French lines; which was not at all agreeable to his enemies. They had prognosticated that nothing would be done during this campaign, and began to insinuate that the duke could strike no stroke of importance without the assistance of prince Eugene. They now endeavoured to lessen the glory of his success; and even taxed him with having removed his camp from a convenient situation to a place where the troops were in danger of starving. Nothing could be more provoking than this scandalous malevolence to a great man who had done so much honour to his country, and was then actually exposing his life in her service.
BOUCHAIN REDUCED.
On the tenth day of August Bouchain was invested, and the duke of Marlborough exerted himself to the utmost extent of his vigilance and capacity, well knowing the difficulties of the undertaking, and how much his reputation would depend upon his success. Villars had taken every precaution that his skill and experience could suggest, to baffle the endeavours of the English general. He had reinforced the garrison to the number of six thousand chosen men, commanded by officers of known courage and ability. He made some efforts to raise the siege; but they were rendered ineffectual by the consummate prudence and activity of the duke of Marlborough. Then he laid a scheme for surprising Douay, which likewise miscarried. If we consider that the English general, in the execution of his plan, was obliged to form lines, erect regular forts, raise batteries, throw bridges over a river, make a causeway through a deep morass, provide for the security of convoys against a numerous army on the one side, and the garrisons of Condé and Valenciennes on the other, we must allow this was the boldest enterprise of the whole war; that it required all the fortitude, skill, and resolution of a great general, and all the valour and intrepidity of the confederate troops, who had scarce ever exhibited such amazing proofs of courage upon any other occasion as they now displayed at the siege of Bouchain. In twenty days after the trenches were opened, the garrison were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war; and this conquest was the last military exploit performed by the duke of Marlborough: the breaches of Bouchain were no sooner repaired than the opposite armies began to separate, and the allied forces were quartered in the frontier towns, that they might be at hand to take the field early in the spring. They were now in possession of the Maese, almost as far as the Sambre; of the Schelde from Tournay; and of the Lys as far as it is navigable. They had reduced Spanish Guelderland, Limburg, Brabant, Flanders, and the greatest part of Hainault; they were masters of the Scarpe; and by the conquest of Bouchain, they had opened to themselves a way into the very bowels of France. All these acquisitions were owing to the valour and conduct of the duke of Marlborough, who now returned to the Hague, and arrived in England about the middle of November.
DUKE OF ARGYLE COMMANDS THE BRITISH TROOPS IN SPAIN.
The queen had conferred the command of her forces in Spain upon the duke of Argyle, who was recalled from the service in Flanders for that purpose. He had long been at variance with the duke of Marlborough; a circumstance which recommended him the more strongly to the ministry. He landed at Barcelona on the twenty-ninth of May, and found the British troops in the utmost distress for want of subsistence. The treasurer had promised to supply him liberally; the commons had granted one million five hundred thousand pounds for that service. All their hopes of success were fixed on the campaign in that kingdom; and indeed the army commanded by the duke de Vendôme was in such a wretched condition, that if Staremberg had been properly supported by the allies, he might have obtained signal advantages. The duke of Argyle, having waited in vain for the promised remittances, was obliged, to borrow money on his own credit, before the British troops could take the field. At length Staremberg advanced towards the enemy, who attacked him at the pass of Prato del Key, where they were repulsed with considerable damage. After this action the duke of Argyle was seized with a violent fever, and conveyed back to Barcelona. Vendôme invested the castle of Cardona, which was vigorously defended till the end of December, when a detachment being sent to the relief of the place, defeated the besiegers, killed two thousand on the spot, and took all their artillery, ammunition, and baggage. Staremberg was unable to follow the blow; the duke of Argyle wrote pressing letters to the ministry, and loudly complained that he was altogether unsupported; but all his remonstrances were ineffectual: no remittances arrived; and he returned to England without having been able to attempt any thing of importance. In September, king Charles, leaving his queen at Barcelona, set sail for Italy, and at Milan had an interview with the duke of Savoy, where all disputes were compromised. That prince had forced his way into Savoy and penetrated as far as the Rhine; but he suddenly halted in the middle of his career, and after a short campaign repassed the mountains. Prince Eugene, at the head of the German forces, protected the electors at Frankfort from the designs of the enemy, and Charles was unanimously chosen emperor; the electors of Cologn and Bavaria having been excluded from voting, because they lay under the ban of the empire. The war between the Ottoman Porte and the Muscovites was of short duration. The czar advanced so far into Moldavia, that he was cut off from all supplies, and altogether in the power of his enemy. In this emergency, he found means to corrupt the grand vizier in private, while in public he proposed articles of peace that were accepted. The king of Sweden, who was in the Turkish army, charged the vizier with treachery, and that minister was actually disgraced. The grand seignor threatened to renew the war; but he was appeased by the czar’s surrendering Azoph.