The Duke operated at once by both wings. On the one wing he detached the Prince of Wirtemberg, with fifteen thousand men, by Pont-a-Tessin to Pont-a-Vendin, where the French lines met the Dyle and the canal of Douay; while Prince Eugene moved forward Count Fels, with a considerable corps, towards Pont Auby on the same canal. The whole army followed in two columns, the right commanded by Eugene, and the left by Marlborough. The English general secured the passage at Pont-a-Vendin without resistance; and Eugene, though baffled at Pont Auby, succeeded in passing the canal at Sant and Courieres without serious loss. The first defences were thus forced; and that night the two wings, having formed a junction, lay on their arms in the plain of Lens, while Montesquieu precipitately retired behind the Scarpe, in the neighbourhood of Vitry. Next morning the troops, overjoyed at their success, continued their advance. Marlborough sent forward General Cadogan, at the head of the English troops, to Pont-a-Rache, to circumscribe the garrison of Douay, on the canal of Marchiennes on the north; while Eugene, encamping on the other side of the Scarpe, completed the investment on the west. The perfect success of this enterprise without any loss was matter of equal surprise and joy to the Duke, who wrote to the Duchess in the highest strain of satisfaction at his bloodless triumph. It was entirely owing to the suddenness and secresy of his movements, which took the enemy completely unawares; for, had the enterprise been delayed four days longer, its issue would have been extremely doubtful, and thousands of men must, at all events, have been sacrificed.[7]
Douay, which was immediately invested after this success, is a fortress of considerable strength, in the second line which covers the French province of Artois. Less populous than Lille, it embraces a wider circuit within its ample walls. Its principal defence consists in the marshes, which, on the side of Tournay, where attack might be expected, render it extremely difficult of access, especially in the rainy season. Access to it is defended by Fort Scarpe, a powerful outwork, capable of standing a separate siege. The garrison consisted of eight thousand men, under the command of the Marquis Albergotti, an officer of the highest talent and bravery; and under him were the renowned Valory, to direct the engineers, and the not less celebrated Chevalier de Jaucourt, to command the artillery. From a fortress of such strength so defended, the most resolute resistance might be expected, and no efforts were spared on the part of the Allied generals to overcome it.
The investment was completed on the 24th, and the trenches opened on the 5th May. On the 7th, the head of the sap was advanced to within two hundred and fifty yards of the exterior palisades; but the besiegers that night experienced a severe check from a vigorous sally of the besieged with twelve hundred men, by which two English regiments were nearly cut to pieces. But, on the 9th, a great train of artillery, consisting of two hundred pieces, with a large supply of artillery, arrived from Tournay; on the 11th, the advanced works were strongly armed, and the batteries were pushed up to the covered way, and thundered across the ditch against the rampart. The imminent danger of this important stronghold now seriously alarmed the French court; and Marshal Villars, who commanded their great army on the Flemish frontier, received the most positive orders to advance to its relief. By great exertions, he had now collected one hundred and fifty-three battalions and two hundred and sixty-two squadrons, which were pompously announced as mustering one hundred and fifty thousand combatants, and certainly amounted to more than eighty thousand. The Allied force was almost exactly equal; it consisted of one hundred and fifty-five battalions and two hundred and sixty-one squadrons. Villars broke up from the vicinity of Cambray on the 21st May, and advanced in great strength towards Douay. Marlborough and Eugene immediately made the most vigorous preparations to receive him. Thirty battalions only were left to prosecute the siege; twelve squadrons were placed in observation at Pont-a-Rache; and the whole remainder of the army, about seventy thousand strong, concentrated in a strong position, covering the siege, on which all the resources of art, so far as the short time would admit, had been lavished. Every thing was prepared for a mighty struggle. The whole guns were mounted on batteries four hundred paces from each other; the infantry was drawn up in a single line along the intrenchment, and filled up the whole interval between the artillery; the cavalry were arranged in two lines, seven hundred paces in rear of the foot-soldiers. It seemed another Malplaquet, in which the relative position of the two armies was reversed, and the French were to storm the intrenched position of the Allies. Every man in both armies fully expected a decisive battle; and Marlborough, who was heartily tired of the war, wrote to the Duchess, that he hoped for a victory, which should at once end the war, and restore him to private life.[8]
Yet there was no battle. The lustre of Blenheim and Ramilies played round Marlborough's bayonets; the recollection of Turin tripled the force of Eugene's squadrons. Villars advanced on the 1st June, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, to within musket-shot of the Allied position; and he had not only the authority but the recommendation of Louis to hazard a battle. He boasted that his force amounted to a hundred and sixty thousand men.[9] But he did not venture to make the attack. To Marlborough's great regret, he retired without fighting; and the English general, at the age of threescore, was left to pursue the fatigues and the labours of a protracted campaign, in which, for the first time in his life, he was doubtful of success, from knowing the malignant eyes with which he was regarded by the ruling factions in his own country. "I long," said he, "for an end of the war, so God's will be done; whatever the event may be, I shall have nothing to reproach myself with, having, with all my heart, done my duty, and being hitherto blessed with more success than was ever known before. My wishes and duty are the same; but I can't say I have the same prophetic spirit I used to have; for in all the former actions I never did doubt of success, we having had constantly the great blessing of being of one mind. I cannot say it is so now; for I fear some are run so far into villanous faction, that it would more content them to see us beaten; but if I live I will be watchful that it shall not be in their power to do much hurt. The discourse of the Duke of Argyle is, that when I please there will then be peace. I suppose his friends speak the same language in England; so that I must every summer venture my life in a battle, and be found fault with in winter for not bringing home peace. No, I wish for it with all my heart and soul."[10]
Villars having retired without fighting, the operations of the siege were resumed with redoubled vigour. On the 16th June, signals of distress were sent up from the town, which the French marshal perceived, and he made in consequence a show of returning to interrupt the siege, but his movements came to nothing. Marlborough, to counteract his movement, repassed the Scarpe at Vitry, and took up a position directly barring the line of advance of the French marshal, while Eugene prosecuted the siege. Villars again retired without fighting. On the 22d, the Fort of Scarpe was breached, and the sap was advanced to the counterscarp of the fortress, the walls of which were violently shaken; and on the 26th, Albergotti, who had no longer any hope of being relieved, and who saw preparations made for a general assault, capitulated with the garrison, now reduced to four thousand five hundred men.[11]
On the surrender of Douay, the Allied generals intended to besiege Arras, the last of the triple line of fortresses which on that side covered France, and between which and Paris no fortified place remained to arrest the march of an invader. On the 10th July, Marlborough crossed the Scarpe at Vitry, and, joining Eugene, their united forces, nearly ninety thousand strong, advanced towards Arras. But Villars, who felt the extreme importance of this last stronghold, had exerted himself to the utmost for its defence. He had long employed his troops on the construction of new lines of great strength on the Crinchon, stretching from Arras and the Somme, and he had here collected nearly a hundred thousand men, and a hundred and thirty pieces of cannon. After reconnoitring this position, the Allied generals concurred in thinking that it was equally impossible to force them, and undertake the siege of Arras, while the enemy, in such strength, and so strongly posted, lay on its flank. Their first intention, on finding themselves baffled in this project, was to seize Hesdin on the Cancher, which would have left the enemy no strong place between them and the coast. But the skilful dispositions of Villars, who on this occasion displayed uncommon abilities and foresight, rendered this design abortive, and it was therefore determined to attack Bethune. This place, which was surrounded with very strong works, was garrisoned by nine thousand men, under the command of M. Puy Vauban, nephew, of the celebrated marshal of the same name. But as an attack on it had not been expected, the necessary supplies for a protracted resistance had not been fully introduced when the investment was completed on the 15th July.[12]
Villars, upon seeing the point of attack now fully declared, moved in right columns upon Hobarques, near Montenencourt. Eugene and Marlborough upon this assembled their covering army, and changed their front, taking up a new line stretching from Mont St Eloi to Le Comte. Upon advancing to reconnoitre the enemy, Marlborough discovered that the French, advancing to raise the siege, were busy strengthening a new set of lines, which stretched across the plain from the rivulet Ugie to the Lorraine, and the centre of which at Avesnes Le Comte was already strongly fortified. It now appeared how much Villars had gained by the skilful measures which had diverted the Allies from their projected attack upon Arras. It lay upon the direct road to Paris. Bethune, though of importance to the ultimate issue of the war, was not of the same present moment. It lay on the flank on the second line, Arras in front, and was the only remaining fortress in the last. By means of the new lines which he had constructed, the able French marshal had erected a fresh protection for his country, when its last defences were wellnigh broken through. By simply holding them, the interior of France was covered from incursion, and time gained for raising fresh armaments in the interior for its defence, and, what was of more importance to Louis, awaiting the issue of the intrigues in England, which were expected soon to overthrow the Whig cabinet. Villars, on this occasion, proved the salvation of his country, and justly raised himself to the very highest rank among its military commanders. His measures were the more to be commended that they exposed him to the obloquy of leaving Bethune to its fate, which surrendered by capitulation, with its numerous garrison and accomplished commander, on the 28th August.[13]
Notwithstanding the loss of so many fortresses on the endangered frontier of his territory, Louis XIV. was so much encouraged by what he knew of the great change which was going on in the councils of Queen Anne, that, expecting daily an entire revolution in the ministry, and overthrow of the war party in the Cabinet, he resolved on the most vigorous prosecution of the contest. He made clandestine overtures to the secret advisers of the Queen, in the hope of establishing that separate negotiation which at no distant period proved so successful. Torcy, the Duke's enemy, triumphantly declared, "what we lose in Flanders, we shall gain in England."[14] To frustrate these machinations, and if possible rouse the national feeling more strongly in favour of a vigorous prosecution of the war, Marlborough determined to lay siege to Aire and St Venant, which, though off the line of direct attack on France, laid open the way to Calais, which, if supported at home, he hoped to reduce before the conclusion of the campaign.[15] He entertained the most sanguine hopes of success from this design, which was warmly supported by Godolphin; but he obtained at this time such discouraging accounts of the precarious condition of his influence at court, that he justly concluded he would not be adequately supported in them from England, from which the main supplies for the enterprise must be drawn. He wisely, therefore, resolved, in concert with Eugene, to forego this dazzling but perilous project for the present, and to content himself with the solid advantages, unattended with risk, of reducing Aire and St Venant.
Having takes their resolution, the confederate generals began their march in the beginning of September, and on the 6th of that month, both places were invested. Aire, which is comparatively of small extent, was garrisoned by only five thousand seven hundred men; but Venant was a place of great size and strength, and had a garrison of fourteen battalions of foot and three regiments of dragoons, mustering eight thousand combatants. They were under the command of the Count de Guebriant, a brave and skillful commander. Both were protected by inundations, which retarded extremely the operations of the besiegers, the more especially as the autumnal rains had early set in this year with more than usual severity. While anxiously awaiting the cessation of this obstacle, and the arrival of a great convoy of heavy cannon and ammunition which was coming up from Ghent, the Allied generals received the disheartening intelligence of the total defeat of this important convoy, which, though guarded by sixteen hundred men, was attacked and destroyed by a French corps on the 19th September. This loss affected Marlborough the more sensibly, that it was the first disaster of moment which had befallen him during nine years of incessant warfare.[16] But, notwithstanding this disaster, St Venant was so severely pressed by the fire of the besiegers, under the Prince of Anhalt, who conducted the operations with uncommon vigour and ability, that it was compelled to capitulate on the 29th, on condition of its garrison being conducted to St Omer, not to serve again till regularly exchanged.
Aire still held out, as the loss of the convoy from Ghent, and the dreadful rains which fell almost without intermission during the whole of October, rendered the progress of the siege almost impossible. The garrison, too, under the command of the brave governor, made a most resolute defence. Sickness prevailed to a great extent in the Allied army; the troops were for the most part up to the knees in mud and water; and the rains, which fell night and day without intermission, precluded the possibility of finding a dry place for their lodging. It was absolutely necessary, however, to continue the siege; for, independent of the credit of the army being staked on its success, it had become impossible, as Marlborough himself said, to draw the cannon from the trenches.[17] The perseverance of the Allied commanders was at length rewarded by success. On the 12th November the fortress capitulated, and the garrison, still three thousand six hundred and twenty-eight strong, marched out prisoners, leaving sixteen hundred sick and wounded in the town. This conquest, which concluded the campaign, was, however, dearly purchased by the loss of nearly seven thousand men killed and wounded in the Allied ranks, exclusive of the sick, who, amidst those pestilential marshes, had now swelled to double the number.[18]