War against the Coalition.—In the autumn the war spread to the Rhine. No attempt could be made on Amsterdam until the ice should cover the floods. Turenne was therefore despatched to Westphalia and Condé to Alsace, while a corps of observation was formed on the Meuse to watch the Spanish Netherlands. But the coalition had not yet developed its full strength, and Turenne’s skill checked the advance of the Imperialists under Montecucculi and of the Brandenburgers under the Great Elector. A war of manœuvre on the middle Rhine ended in favour of the French, and the allies then turned against the territories of Cologne and Münster, while William, disappointed in his hopes of joining forces with his friends, made a bold, but in the end unsuccessful, raid on Charleroi (September-December 1672). The allies in Germany were now not merely checked but driven from point to point by Turenne, who on this occasion displayed a degree of energy rare in the military history of the period. The troops of Cologne and Münster formed part of his army, other friends of Louis were preparing to take the field, and after a severe winter campaign, the elector, defeated in combat and manœuvre, was forced back to the Weser, and being but weakly supported by the Imperialists, found himself compelled to make a separate peace (June 6th, 1673). Turenne then turned his attention to the Imperialists who were assembling in Bohemia, and made ready to meet them at Wetzlar. Meanwhile the other French armies were fully employed. Corps of observation were formed in Roussillon and Lorraine. Condé in Holland was to renew his efforts against the Amsterdam defences; during the winter the demands of the war on the Rhine had reduced the French forces in the provinces to the size of a mere army of occupation.[1] Louis’ own army, originally collected for the relief of Charleroi in December, advanced on Maastricht, and after a brief siege, in which Vauban directed the besiegers, captured this most important fortress (June 29th, 1673). But this was the last success of the French armies in the campaign. Condé made no headway against Amsterdam, and William retook Naarden (September 14th). Louis, after the capture of Maastricht led his army southwards into Lorraine and overran the electorate of Trier. But nothing of importance was gained, and Turenne’s summer campaign was wholly unsuccessful.
Capture of Bonn.—From Wetzlar he moved to Aschaffenburg, Louis at the same time keeping back, for the intended conquest of Franche-Comté, many soldiers who would have been more usefully employed in Germany. Soon the Imperialists advanced in earnest, greatly superior in numbers. Marching via Eger and Nuremberg (September 3rd) on the Main, Montecucculi drew Turenne to the valley of the Tauber; then, having persuaded the bishop of Würzburg to surrender the bridge of that place, he passed to the right bank of the Main before Turenne could intervene. The Imperialists soon arrived at Frankfort, and the French position was turned. Montecucculi thus achieved one of the greatest objects of the 17th century strategist, the wearing down of the enemy in repeated and useless marches. The French retreat to the Rhine was painful and costly, and Montecucculi then passed that river at Mainz and made for Trier. Turenne followed, unable to do more than conform to his opponent’s movements, and took post to defend Trier and Alsace. Thereupon Montecucculi turned northward to meet William of Orange, who evaded Condé’s weak army and marched rapidly via Venló (22nd October) on Coblenz. The elector of Trier, who had not forgotten the depredations of Louis’ army in the spring, followed the example of the bishop of Würzburg and gave a free passage at Coblenz. William and Montecucculi joined forces in the electorate and promptly besieged Bonn. This fortress fell on the 12th of November, and the troops of the coalition gained possession of an unbroken line from Amsterdam to the Breisgau, while Louis’ German allies (Cologne and Münster), now isolated, had to make peace at once. William wintered in Holland, Montecucculi in Cologne and Jülich, and the Spaniards, who had served with William, in their own provinces of the Meuse. A century after the outbreak of the War of Independence the Dutch and the Spaniards are thus found making war as allies, a striking proof of the fact that all questions but those of dynastic interests had been effectually settled by the peace of Westphalia. Louis’ allies were leaving him one by one. The German princes and the empire itself rallied to the emperor, Denmark joined the coalition (January 1674), the Great Elector re-entered the war, and soon afterwards England made peace.
1674.—In 1674 therefore Louis reluctantly evacuated those of the United Provinces occupied by his army. He had derived a considerable revenue from the enemy’s country, and he had moreover quartered his troops without expense. The resources of the French government were almost intact for the coming campaign; the corps of observation in Roussillon was continued, and its commander, Marshal Schomberg, made a successful campaign against the Spaniards, and the war was carried even into Sicily. Condé, in the Spanish Low Countries, opposed with inferior forces the united army of Spaniards, Dutch and Austrians under William, and held the Meuse from Grave to Charleroi on the Sambre. The war in this quarter was memorable for Condé’s last, and William’s first, battle, the desperate and indecisive engagement of Seneffe (August 11th), in which the two armies lost one-seventh of their strength in killed alone. The French, however, in the course of the year lost a few fortresses on the Meuse, including Grave and Huy. The king’s part in the campaign was, as usual, a war of sieges; an army under his personal command overran Franche-Comté in six weeks, and Louis, aided by the genius of Vauban, reduced Besançon in nine days. Turenne’s Rhine campaign began with an invasion of Germany, undertaken to prevent interference with Louis in Franche-Comté. Bournonville, the imperial commander who now replaced Montecucculi, lay in the Cologne and Trier electorates. An army of South Germans in the Breisgau, after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Alsace, moved northward to the Neckar valley with the intention of uniting with Bournonville, who was moving up the Rhine to meet them. Turenne determined to attack the southern army under the duke of Lorraine and Count Caprara before the junction could be effected. He crossed the Rhine at Philipsburg early in June, and on the 16th fell upon the inferior forces of Caprara in their entrenched position of Sinsheim. The result of the battle was a complete victory for the French, who followed up their success by driving a portion of Bournonville’s army (on which the duke of Lorraine had rallied his forces) from the Neckar (action of Ladenburg near Heidelberg, July 7th). Turenne then laid waste the Palatinate, in order that it should no longer support an army, and fell back over the Rhine, ignoring the reproaches of the elector palatine, who vainly challenged him to a duel. This devastation has usually been considered as a grave stain on the character of the commander who ordered it, but Turenne’s conception of duty did not differ in this respect from that of Cromwell, Marlborough, Wellington and the generals of the American Civil War. It was held to be necessary and expedient, and it was accordingly carried out. Bournonville’s army near Frankfort was still to be dealt with, and the Great Elector and his Brandenburgers were rapidly approaching the Main valley. After a slight attempt to invade Lorraine, which Turenne easily stopped, the Imperialists suddenly recrossed the Rhine and marched rapidly into the neighbourhood of the Strassburg bridge.
Turenne’s Winter Campaign in Alsace.—The magistrates of this city were not less amenable than had been the bishop of Würzburg in 1673. Bournonville obtained a free passage, and Turenne was too late to oppose him. The French general, however, determined to fight, as he had done at Sinsheim, to prevent the junction of the two hostile armies. The Great Elector was still in the Neckar valley when the battle of Enzheim (8 m. from Strassburg) was fought on the 4th of October. This time it was indecisive, and Bournonville’s superior forces, soon augmented by the arrival of the elector, spread into Alsace. Turenne steadily retired to his camp of Dettweiler, unable for the moment to do more, and the Germans took up winter quarters in all the towns from Belfort to Strassburg (October-November 1674). But Turenne was preparing for another winter campaign, the most brilliant in the great commander’s career.
First he placed the fortresses of middle Alsace in a state of defence, to deceive the enemy. Then he withdrew the whole of the field army quietly into Lorraine. Picking up on his way such reinforcements as were available, he marched southward with all speed behind the Vosges, and in the last stages of the movement he even split up his forces into many small bodies, that the enemy’s spies might be misled. After a severe march through hilly country and in the midst of snowstorms, the French reunited near Belfort, and without a moment’s delay poured into Alsace from the south. The scattered Imperialists were driven towards Strassburg, every corps which tried to resist being cut off. Bournonville stood to fight at Mülhausen with such forces as he could collect (29th December 1674) but Turenne’s men carried all before them. The advance continued to Colmar, where the elector, who was now in command of the Germans, stood on the defensive with forces equal to Turenne’s own. The battle of Türkheim (5th of January 1675) nevertheless resulted in another and this time a decisive victory for the French; a few days after the battle Turenne could report that there was not a soldier of the enemy left in Alsace. His army now went into winter quarters about Strassburg, and drew supplies from the German bank of the Rhine and even from the Neckar valley (January 1675).
1675.—This opening of the campaign promised well, and Louis as usual took the field as early as possible. In the course of the spring (May-June) the king’s army recaptured some of the lost fortresses of the Meuse and took in addition Liège and Limburg. The expeditionary corps in Sicily also gained some successes in this campaign, and Schomberg invaded Catalonia. On the Rhine was fought the last campaign of Turenne and Montecucculi. The elector having withdrawn his forces to Brandenburg (see [Sweden]: History), Montecucculi resumed command, and between Philipsburg and Strassburg the two great commanders manœuvred for an advantage, each seeking to cover his own country and to live upon that of the enemy. At last Turenne prevailed and had the Imperialists at a disadvantage on the Sasbach, where, in opening the action, he was killed by a cannon-shot (July 27th). The sequel showed how dependent was even the best organized army of the time upon the personality of its commander.
All the advantages won were hastily surrendered, and Montecucculi, sharply following up the retreat of the French, drove them over the Rhine and almost to the Vosges. At the same time the duke of Lorraine defeated Marshal Créqui (August 11th) at Conzer Brücke on the Moselle, and recaptured Trier (September 6th), which, as a set-off against Bonn, Turenne had taken in the autumn of 1673. The situation was more than alarming for the French, but Condé was destined to achieve a last success—for once a success of careful strategy and prudent manœuvre. Luxemburg was left in charge in Flanders, and the prince took command of the remnant of Turenne’s old army and of the fugitives of Créqui’s. Montecucculi’s skill failed completely to shake his position, and in the end the prince compelled him to retire over the Rhine. Condé and Montecucculi retired from their commands at the close of the year, Turenne was dead, and a younger generation of commanders henceforward carried on the war.
1676.—In 1676 the naval successes of France in the Mediterranean enabled the corps under Marshal Vivonne in Sicily to make considerable progress, and he won an important victory at Messina on the 25th of March. Vivonne was made viceroy of Sicily. Louis himself, with his marshals and Vauban, conducted the campaign in the north. The town of Condé fell on the 26th of April, and the king then manœuvred against the prince of Orange in the neighbourhood of Valenciennes. An attempt made by the latter in the summer to besiege Maastricht was frustrated by Marshal Schomberg with a detachment of the king’s army (August). Rochefort meanwhile covered the Meuse country and Luxemburg. Créqui, who had now returned from captivity (he had been taken after the battle of Conzer Brücke) opposed the Imperialists in Lorraine, but he was unable to prevent the fall of Philipsburg, which occurred on the 17th of September. The French now laid waste the land between the Meuse and Moselle for the same reason which brought about the devastation of the Palatinate in 1674, and the year closed with a war of manœuvre on the upper Rhine between the Imperialists under the duke of Lorraine and the French under Luxemburg.
1677.—The chief event of the campaign of 1677 in the Netherlands was the siege of Valenciennes, which fortress was invested by Louis in the first weeks of the campaigning season. Five marshals of France served under the king in this enterprise, but their advice was of less value than that of Vauban, whose plans the king followed implicitly, even so far as to order an assault de vive force against the unanimous opinion of the marshals. This succeeded beyond Vauban’s own expectation; the picked troops entrusted with the attack of an outwork forced their way into the town itself (March 17th). The success was followed by the siege of St Omer and the defeat of William’s relieving army by the duke of Orleans (battle of Mont Cassel, April 11th, 1677). The summer campaign was a contest of skill between Luxemburg and William, which resulted in favour of the French. The prince of Orange failed in an attempt to take Charleroi, and Marshal D’Humières captured St Ghislain.
In Germany the credit of the French successes was due to Créqui, who was no longer the defeated general of Conzer Brücke, but the most successful of Turenne’s pupils. He began by driving back the duke of Lorraine to the Rhine. Another attempt by the Lorraine family to reconquer their duchy was thus foiled, and at the same time a second imperial army under the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, which had crossed the Rhine by Philipsburg, was shut up in an island of the Rhine and forced to make terms with the French. A large reinforcement sent by the duke of Lorraine to the assistance of Saxe-Eisenach was completely defeated by Créqui in the battle of Kochersberg near Strassburg (October 7th) and the marshal followed up his successes by the capture of Freiburg on the 14th of November. During the year there was a brisk war in the West Indies, and also in Catalonia, where the French maintained the ground won by Schomberg in the previous campaign.