It was four in the afternoon when the French commenced the action in good earnest. The Duke of Burgundy ordered General Grimaldi to lead Sistern's squadron across the Norken, apparently with the view of feeling his way preparatory to a general attack; but when he arrived on the margin of the stream, and saw the Prussian cavalry already formed on the other side, he fell back to the small plain near the Mill of Royeghorn. Vendôme, meanwhile, directed his left to advance, deeming that the most favourable side to attack, but the Duke of Burgundy, who nominally had the supreme command, and who was jealous of Vendôme's reputation, countermanded this order; alleging that an impassable morass separated the two armies in that quarter. Those contradictory orders produced indecision in the French lines, and Marlborough, divining its cause, instantly took advantage of it. Judging with reason that the real attack of the enemy would be made on his left by their right, in front of the castle of Bevere, he drew the twelve battalions of foot under Cadogan from Heurne and Eynes, which they occupied, and reinforced the left with them; while the bridges of the Norken were strongly occupied, and musketeers disposed in the woods on their sides. Marlborough himself, at the head of the Prussian horse, advanced by Heurne, and took post on the flank of the little plain of Diepenbeck, where it was evident the heat of the action would ensue. A reserve of twenty British battalions, with a few guns, took post near Schaerken, and proved of the most essential service in the struggle which ensued. Few pieces of artillery were brought up on either side; the rapidity of the movements on both having outstripped the slow pace at which those ponderous implements of destruction were then conveyed.[23]
Hardly were these defensive arrangements completed, when the tempest was upon them. The whole French right wing, consisting of thirty battalions, embracing the French and Swiss guards, and the flower of their army, debouched from the woods and hedges near Groemvelde, and attacking four battalions stationed there, quickly compelled them to retreat. Advancing then in the open plain, they completely outflanked the Allied left, and made themselves masters of the hamlets of Barwaen and Banlaney. This success exposed the Allies to imminent danger; for in their rear was the Scheldt, flowing lazily in a deep and impassable current, through marshy meadows, crossed only by a few bridges, over which retreat would be impossible in presence of a victorious enemy; and the success against the Allied left exposed to be cut off from their only resource in such a case, the friendly ramparts of Oudenarde.
Anxiously observing the rapid progress of the French on his left, Marlborough successively drew brigade after brigade from his right, and moved them to the quarter which was now severely pressed. The hostile lines fought with the most determined resolution. Every bridge, every ditch, every wood, every hamlet, every inclosure, was obstinately contested; and so incessant was the roll of musketry, that, seen from a distance, the horizon seemed an unbroken line of fire. Hitherto Marlborough and Eugene had remained together; but now, as matters had reached the crisis, they separated. The English general bestowed on Prince Eugene the command of his right, where the British battalions, whose valour he had often praised, were placed. He himself, with the Prussian horse on the banks of the Norken, kept the enemy's left in check; while with his own left he endeavoured to outflank the enemy, and retaliate upon then the manœuvre which they had attempted against him. This bold movement was attended with severe loss, but it proved completely successful. Eugene was soon warmly engaged, and at first wellnigh overpowered by the superior numbers and vehement onset of the enemy. But Marlborough, whose eye was every where, no sooner observed this, than he dispatched Cadogan with his twelve English battalions to his support. Encouraged by this aid, Eugene moved forward General Natzmer, at the head of the Prussian heavy horse and cuirassiers, to charge the enemy's second lines near the Mill of Royeghem; while he himself renewed the attack on their infantry near Herlehorn. Both attacks proved successful. The enemy were expelled on the right from the enclosure of Avelchens, and the battle restored in that quarter; while, at the same time, their second line was drivers back into the enclosures of Royeghem. But this last success was not achieved without a very heavy loss; for the Prussian horse were received by so terrible a fire of musketry from the hedges near Royeghem, into which they had pushed the enemy's second line, that half of then were stretched on the plain, and the remainder recoiled in disorderly flight.
Meanwhile, Marlborough himself was not less actively engaged on the Allied left. At the head of the Hanoverian and Dutch battalions, he there pressed forward against the hitherto victorious French right. The vigour inspired by his presence quickly altered the state of affairs in that quarter. Barlaney and Barwaen were soon regained, but not without the most desperate resistance; for not only did the enemy obstinately contest every field and enclosure, but, in their fury, set fire to such of the houses as could no longer be maintained. Despite all these obstacles, hovever, the English general fairly drove them back, at the musket's point, fron one enclosure to another, till he reached the hamlet of Diepenbeck, where the resistance proved so violent that he was compelled to pause. His vigilant eye, however, erelong observed, that the hill of Oycke, which flanked the enemy's extreme right, was unoccupied. Conceiving that their right might be turned by this eminence, he directed Overkirk, with the reserve cavalry, and twenty Dutch and Danish battalions, to occupy it. The veteran marshal executed this important, and, as it proved, decisive movement, with his wonted alacrity and spirit. The wooded dells round the castle of Bevere soon rung with musketry; the enemy, forced out of them, was driven over the shoulder of the Bosercanter; soon it was passed, and the mill of Oycke, and the plateau behind it, occupied by the Danish and Dutch battalions. Arrived on the summit, Overkirk made his men bring up their left shoulders, so as to wheel inwards, and form a vast semicircle round the right wing of the French, which, far advanced beyond the centre, was now thrown back, and grouped into the little plain of Diepenbeck. Observing the effect of this movement, Marlborough directed Overkirk to press forward his left still farther, so as to seize the passes of Mullem and mill of Royeghem, by which the communication between the enemy's right and centre was maintained. This order was executed with vigour and success by the Prince of Orange and General Oxenstiern. The progress of the extreme Allied left round the rear of the French right, was observed by the frequent flashes of their musketry on the heights above Mullem, down to which they descended, driving the enemy with loud cheers, which re-echoed over the whole field of battle, before them. The victory was now gained. Refluent from all quarters, enveloped on every side, the whole French right was hurled together, in wild confusion, into the plain of Diepenbeck; where seven regiments of horse, which made a noble effort to stem the flood of disaster, was all cut to pieces or taken.
Seeing his right wing on the verge of destruction, Vendôme made a gallant effort to rescue it. Dismounting from his horse, he led the infantry of his left near Mullem, to the aid of their devoted comrades. But the thick and frequent enclosures broke their array; the soldiers were dismayed by the loud shouts of victory from their right; and when they emerged from the enclosures; and approached the plain of Diepenbeck, the firm countenance of the British horse, drawn up on its edge, and the sturdy array of their infantry under Eugene, which advanced to meet them, rendered the effort abortive. Meanwhile darkness set in, but the battle still raged on all sides; and the frequent flashes of the musketry on the heights around, intermingled with the shouts of the victors, showed but too clearly how nearly the extremity of danger was approaching to the whole French army. So completely were they enveloped, that the advanced guard of the right under Eugene, and the left under the Prince of Orange, met on the heights in the French rear, and several volleys were exchanged between there, before the error was discovered, and, by great exertions of their respective commanders, the useless butchery was stopped. To prevent a repetition of such disasters orders were given to the whole troops to halt where they stood, and to this precaution many owed their safety as it was impossible in the darkness to distinguish friend from foe. But it enabled great part of the centre and left of the French to escape unobserved, which, had daylight continued for two hours longer, would have been all taken or destroyed. Their gallant right was left to its fate; while Eugene, by directing the drums of his regiments to beat the French assemblée, made great numbers of their left and centre prisoners. Some thousands of the right slipped unobserved to the westward near the castle of Bevere, and made their way in a confused body toward France, but the greater part of that wing were killed or taken. Vendôme with charateristic presence of mind formed a rearguard of a few battalions and twenty-five squadrons, with which he covered the retreat of the centre and left; but the remainder of those parts of the army fell into total confusion, and fled headlong in wild disorder towards Ghent.[24]
We have the authority of Marborough for the assertion, that "if he had had two hours more of daylight the French army would have been irretrievably routed, great part of it killed or taken, and the war terminated on that day."[25] As it was, the blow struck was prodigious, and entirely altered the character and issue of the campaign. The French lost six thousand men in killed and wounded, besides nine thousand prisoners and one hundred standards wrested from them in fair fight. The Allied were weakened by five thousand men for the French were superior in number and fought well, having been defeated solely by the superior generalship of the Allied commanders.[26]
No sooner did daylight appear, than forty squadrons were detached towards Ghent in pursuit of the enemy; while Marlborough himself, with characteristic humanity, visited the field of battle, doing his utmost to assuage the sufferings, and provide for the cure of the numerous wounded—alike friend and foe—who encumbered its bloody expanse. Count Lottnow was sent with thirty battalions and fifty squadrons, to possess himself of the lines which the enemy had constructed between Ipres and Warneton, which that officer did with vigour and success, making five hundred prisoners. This was the more fortunate, as, at the moment they were taken, the Duke of Berwick, with the French army from the Moselle, was hastening up, and had exhorted the garrison to defend the lines to the last extremity. At the same time, the corresponding Allied army, commanded by Eugene, arrived at Brussels, so that both sides were largely reinforced. Berwick's corps, which consisted of thirty-four battalions and fifty-five squadrons, was so considerable, that it raised Vendôme's army again to an hundred thousand men. With this imposing mass, that able general took post in a camp behind the canal of Bruges, and near Ghent, which he soon strongly fortified, and which commanded the navigation both of the Scheldt and the Lys. He rightly judged, that as long as he was there at the head of such a force, the Allies would not venture to advance into France; though it lay entirely open to their incursions, as Marlborough was between him and Paris.[27]
Encouraged by this singular posture of the armies, Marlborough strongly urged upon the Allied council of war the propriety of relinquishing all lesser objects, passing the whole fortified towns on the frontier, and advancing straight towards the French capital.[28] This bold counsel, however—which, if acted on, would have been precisely what Wellington and Blucher did a century after, in advancing from the same country, and perhaps attended with similar success—was rejected. Eugene, and the remainder of the council, considered the design too hazardous, while Vendôme with so great an army lay intrenched in their rear, threatening their communications. It was resolved, therefore, to commence the invasion of the territory of the Grande Monarque, by the siege of the great frontier fortress of Lille, the strongest and most important place in French Flanders, and the possession of which would give the Allies a solid footing in the enemy's territory. This, however, was a most formidable undertaking; for not only was the place itself of great strength, and with a citadel within its walls still stronger, but it was garrisoned by Marshal Boufflers, one of the ablest officers in the French service, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence. On the other hand, Vendôme, at the head of an hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege; and his position there extremely hampered Marlborough in bringing forward the requisite equipage for so great an undertaking, as it interrupted the whole water navigation of the country, by which it could best be effected. The dragging it up by land, would require sixteen thousand horses. Nevertheless it was resolved to undertake the enterprise, sanguine hopes being entertained, that, rather than see so important a fortress fall, Vendôme would leave his intrenched camp, and give the Allies an opportunity of bringing him again to battle on equal terms.[29]
No sooner was the undertaking resolved on, than the most vigorous measures were adopted to carry it into execution. The obstacles which presented themselves, however, were great indeed, and proved even more formidable than had been at first anticipated. Every gun, every waggon, every round of ammunition, required to be transported from Holland; and even the nearest depôt for ordinary and military stores for the Allies, was Brussels, situated twenty-five leagues off. Sixteen thousand horses were requisite to transport the train which brought these stores, partly from Maestricht, partly from Holland; and when in a line of march, it stretched over fifteen miles. Prince Eugene, with fifty-three battalions and ninety squadrons, covered the vast moving mass—Marlborough himself being ready, at a moment's notice, in his camp near Menin, to support him, if necessary. Between these two great men there existed then, as ever, the most entire cordiality.[30] Their measures were all taken in concord, and with such ability, that though Vendôme lay on the flank of the line of march, which extended over above seventy miles, not a gun was taken, nor a carriage lost; and the whole reached the camp at Helchin in safety, on the 12th August, whither Marlborough had gone to meet it. So marvellous were the arrangements made for the safe conduct of this important convoy, and so entire their success, that they excited the admiration of the French, and in no slight degree augmented the alarm of their generals, who had hitherto treated the idea of Lille being besieged, with perfect derision. "Posterity," says the French annalist, Feuqueres, "will scarcely believe the fact, though it is an undoubted truth. Never was a great enterprise conducted with more skill and circumspection."[31]
Prince Eugene was entrusted with the conduct of the siege, while Marlborough commanded the covering army. The former commenced the investment of the place on the 13th August, while Marlborough remained at Helchin, taking measures for the protection of the convoys, which were incessantly coming up from Brussels. At length the whole were passed, and arrived in safety in the camp before Lille, amounting to one hundred and twenty heavy guns, forty mortars, twenty howitzers, and four hundred ammunition waggons. Eugene's army for the siege consisted of fifty-three battalions and ninety squadrons, in all about forty thousand men. Marlborough's covering force was sixty-nine battalions and one hundred and forty squadrons, numbering nearly sixty thousand men. But the force of the French was still more considerable in the field. Vendôme and Berwick united on the 30th, on the plain between Grammont and Lessines, and on the 2d September advanced towards Lille with one hundred and forty battalions and two hundred and fifty squadrons, mustering one hundred thousand combatants, besides twenty thousand left, under Count de la Motte, to cover Ghent and Bruges. But Marlborough had no fears for the result, and ardently longed for a general action, which he hoped would one way or other conclude the war. "If we have a second action," says he, "and God blesses our just cause, this, in all likelihood, will be our last campaign; for I think they would not venture a battle, but are resolved to submit to any condition, if the success be on our side; and if they get the better, they will think themselves masters; so that, if there should be an action, it is like to be the last this war. If God continues on our side, we have nothing to fear, our troops being good, though not so numerous as theirs. I dare say, before half the troops have fought, success will declare, I trust in God, on our side; and then I may have what I earnestly wish for quick."[32]