| After Hon. J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd. |
But the French were not reinforced from their right wing as Villars expected. The prince of Orange, far from merely observing the hostile right as he had been ordered to do, committed his corps, very early in the battle, to a serious assault upon it, which Boufflers repulsed with enormous loss. The Dutch infantry never recovered from its casualties on this day, and the memory of Malplaquet was strong even at Fontenoy nearly forty years afterwards. Some Hanoverian troops which took part in this futile attack suffered equally heavily. The only advantage to the Allies—an advantage which, as it happened, counted for much—was that Boufflers did not dare to send reinforcements to the hard-pressed left wing. Thanks to this the Austrians and Prussians, with the English detached to their aid, made steady progress in the wood of Taisnière. Villars launched the “Irish brigade” to check the advance of the Allies, and this famous corps charged into the forest. Villars, Eugène and Marlborough personally led their troops in the encounter which followed. Eugène was wounded, but refused to quit the field. Villars was more seriously hurt, and after trying in vain to direct the fighting from a chair was carried insensible from the field. At this crisis General Withers, who commanded the force that had been ordered to turn the French extreme left, and had fought his way through the forest, appeared on the scene. The British 18th regiment (Royal Irish), encountering the French Royal Irlandais, put it to the rout, and Villars’s counterstroke was at an end. The French maintained themselves on this side only by the aid of troops drawn from the centre and right, and this gave the Allied centre the opportunity which the prince of Orange had so rashly anticipated. The great attack over the open was carried out, in spite of the previous repulse, with the greatest determination. Preceded by forty guns, the corps of the prince of Orange and Lord Orkney swiftly carried the first line of works. The Allied cavalry then pushed out to the front, and horse, foot and artillery were combined in the last advance. Boufflers’s cavalry masses, coming into play for the first time, fought hard, and the struggle fluctuated with the arrival of successive reserves on either side, but in the end, shortly before 3 p.m., Boufflers (who had been in command since Villars’s fall) decided to retreat. The Allies had no troops left intact for the pursuit, and those engaged had expended their last efforts. Moreover Boufflers, experienced soldier as he was, drew off his men before they had lost their order and discipline.
Thus this “very murdering battle” as Marlborough called it—the last and greatest pitched battle of the war—was almost barren of results. The Allies lost not less than twenty thousand men, or nearly a quarter of the whole force, the thirty battalions of the Dutch infantry losing half their numbers. On the French side there were some twelve thousand casualties. If further evidence were necessary to prove that the French fought their hardest, it could be found in the fact that whereas in almost every other battle, from 1660 to 1792, there were deserters and prisoners by the thousand, at Malplaquet only 500 of the French fell into the hands of the victors unwounded.
MALSTATT-BURBACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province on the right bank of the Saar (Sarre), which separates it from Saarbrücken. Pop. (1900), 31,195. It lies in the midst of an important coal-mining and industrial district, and is itself little more than a long and narrow row of manufactories and workmen’s houses. The largest factories are engaged in the production of iron, steel and cement. There is a large wharf on the river for the export of coal.
Malstatt received municipal rights in 1321. These, however, were afterwards resigned to the newer town of Saarbrücken, and in 1818 Malstatt and Burbach were two small villages with a joint population of only about 800. About the middle of the century the population began to increase rapidly, in consequence of the development of the mining industry of the district and the extension of the railway system, and in 1874 the two villages were united to form a town.
MALT (O. Eng., mealt; O. Sax., malt; O. Teut., maltos; Mod. Ger., Malz; Scand., malt; probably derived from the Sanskrit mrdu, soft, thus having reference to the fact that malt is raw grain rendered soft or tender), the name given to grain in which germination has been caused to proceed to a certain stage and has then been arrested by the removal of water and the application of heat. During this limited germination enzymes are developed (see [Fermentation]), and the constituents of the grain modified so that the finished malt, when ground and submitted to the mashing process (see [Brewing]), differs from the original raw grain in that the greater portion dissolves. This solubility is, however, a direct one to a slight extent only; it is due for the most part to the action of the malt enzymes, diastase, &c. on the constituents of the grain, the main portion of which are of themselves insoluble. Thus starch, the main constituent of all graminaceous seeds, probably exists in the same condition in raw grain and in malt. When however the malt is mashed, the starch is attacked by the enzyme diastase, and converted by the process of hydrolysis into a mixture of soluble compounds, e.g. the crystalline sugar, maltose, and a number of gummy substances known as maltodextrins. But to a certain extent starch and other carbohydrate substances are rendered directly soluble and diffusible during the malting process, some of the products serving the respiratory needs of the growing germ, others being assimilated by the plantlet and reconverted into reserve carbohydrates in the tissues of the germ and rootlets, whilst the remaining portions are retained as such in the finished malt. Similarly certain of the nitrogenous constituents of the grain, the proteïns, are broken down and rendered soluble by proteolytic enzymes, the products being assimilated to a certain extent by the germ and rootlets, by the cells of which they are again built up into complex proteïns, whilst others remain in their simplified form. It is now known that proteolytic enzymes exist in finished malt, and that, when the mashing process is conducted under certain conditions, these are able to degrade and render soluble some of the higher proteïns present in the malt. When germination is allowed to proceed as it does when the grain is planted in the soil, the whole of the contents are rendered soluble by degrees and in turn assimilated by the growing plantlet. By the limited germination which constitutes the malting process, however, the balance of soluble compounds left in the finished malt is from 15 to 25% of the total weight of the corn.
Although other seeds of the natural order Gramineae are occasionally malted, the greater portion of malt is made from the various species of Hordeum, known by the name of barley (q.v.), bigg, or bere. Indeed ordinary beer derives its characteristic flavour to the greatest extent from barley malt. A small proportion of malted oats or malted wheat is sometimes used in conjunction with barley malt for certain kinds of beer, whilst rye, maize, and even rice are occasionally malted. Barley is, however, the grain best adapted for making malt intended for brewing beer, and accordingly some space will be devoted to a description of those varieties of this grain which are used by the brewer.