Part 6

The heavy artillery and siege equipage required to be brought up the Scheldt from Ghent, which in the outset occasioned some delay in the operations. Marlborough commanded the attacking, Eugene the covering forces. By the 6th, however, the approaches were commenced; on the 10th, the battering train arrived and the trenches armed; repeated sallies of the enemy to interrupt the operations were repulsed, and several of the outworks carried, between that time and the 21st, on which last occasion the besiegers succeeded in establishing themselves in the covered ways. The breaching batteries continued to thunder with terrible effect upon the walls; and on the 27th, a strong horn-work, called of the Seven Fountains, was carried, and the Allies were masters of nearly the whole line of the counterscarp. Meanwhile, Villars made no serious movement to interrupt the besiegers, contenting himself with making demonstrations between the Scarfe and the Scheldt to alarm the covering forces. Eugene, however, narrowly watched all his proceedings; and in truth the French marshal, far from really intending to disquiet the Allies in their operations, was busied with an immense army of pioneers and labourers in constructing a new set of lines from Douay along the Scarfe to the Scheldt near Condé, in order to arrest the progress of the Allies in the direction they had now taken. Seeing no prospect of being relieved, the governor on the 29th surrendered the town, and retired with the remains of the garrison, still four thousand strong, into the citadel.[21]

On the surrender of the town, no time was lost in prosecuting operations against the citadel, and the line of circumvallation was traced out that very evening. But this undertaking proved more difficult than had been expected, and several weeks elapsed before any material progress was made in the operations, during which Villars made good use of his time in completing his new lines to cover Valenciennes and Condé. The garrison of the citadel, though unequal to the defence of the town of Tournay, was quite adequate to that of the citadel: and the vast mines with which the whole outworks and glacis were perforated, rendered the approaches in the highest degree perilous and difficult. The governor, M. De Surville, proposed, on the 5th August, to capitulate in a month if not relieved; and to this proposition, Marlborough and Eugene with praiseworthy humanity at once acceded: but the King of France refused to ratify the terms proposed, unless the suspension of arms was made general to the whole Netherlands, to which the allied general would not accede. The military operations consequently went on, and soon acquired a degree of horror hitherto unparalleled even in that long and bloody contest. The art of countermining, and of counteracting the danger of mines exploding, was then very imperfectly understood, though that of besieging above ground had been brought to the very highest degree of perfection. The soldiers, in consequence, entertained a great and almost superstitious dread of the perils of that subterraneous warfare, where prowess and courage were alike unavailing, and the bravest, equally as the most pusillanimous, were liable to be at any moment blown into the air, or smothered under ground, by the explosions of an unseen, and therefore appalling, enemy. The Allies were inferior in regular sappers and miners to the besieged, who were singularly well supplied with that important arm of the service. The ordinary soldiers, how brave soever in the field, evinced a repugnance at engaging in this novel and terrific species of warfare: and it was only by personally visiting the trenches in the very hottest of the fire, and offering high rewards to the soldiers who would enter into the mines, that men could be got who would venture on the perilous service.[22]

It was not surprising that even the bravest of the allied troops were appalled at the new and extraordinary dangers which now awaited them, for they were truly of the most formidable description. What rendered them peculiarly so, was, that the perils in a peculiar manner affected the bold and the forward. The first to mount a breach, to effect a lodgement in a horn-work, to penetrate into a mine, was sure to perish. First a hollow rumbling noise was heard, which froze the bravest hearts with horror: a violent rush as of a subterraneous cataract succeeded; and immediately the earth heaved, and whole companies, and even battalions, were destroyed with a frightful explosion. On the 15th August a sally by M. De Surville was bravely repulsed, and the besiegers, pursuing their advantage, effected a lodgement in the outwork: but immediately a mine was sprung, and a hundred and fifty men were blown into the air. In the night between the 16th and 17th, a long and furious conflict took place below ground and in utter darkness, between the contending parties, which at length terminated to the advantage of the besiegers.[23] On the 23d a mine was discovered, sixty feet long by twenty broad, which would have blown up a whole battalion of Hanoverian troops placed above it; but while the Allies were in the mine, congratulating themselves on the discovery, a mine below it was suddenly sprung, and all within the upper one buried in the ruins. On the night of the 25th, three hundred men, posted in a large mine discovered to the Allies by an inhabitant of Tournay, were crushed by the explosion of another mine directly below it; and on the same night, one hundred men posted in the town ditch were suddenly buried under a bastion blown out upon them. Great was the dismay which these dreadful and unheard-of disasters produced among the allied troops. But at length the resolution and energy of Marlborough and Eugene triumphed over every obstacle. Early on the morning of the 31st August the white flag was displayed, and a conference took place between the two commanders in the house of the Earl of Albemarle; but the governor having refused to accede to the terms demanded--that he should surrender prisoners of war--the fire recommenced, and a tremendous discharge from all the batteries took place for the next three days. This compelled the brave De Surville to submit; and Marlborough, in consideration of his gallant defence, permitted the garrison to march out with the honours of war, and return to France, on condition of not serving again till exchanged. On September 3d the gates were surrendered; and the entire command of this strong fortress and rich city, which entirely covered Spanish Flanders, was obtained by the Allies.[24]

No sooner was Tournay taken than the allied generals turned their eyes to Mons, the next great fortress on the road to Paris, and which, with Valenciennes, constituted the only remaining strongholds that lay on that line between them and Paris. So anxious was Marlborough to hasten operations against this important town, that on the very day on which the white flag was displayed from the citadel of Tournay, he dispatched Lord Orkney with all the grenadiers of the army, and twenty squadrons, to surprise Ghislain, and secure the passage of the Haine. On the 3d, the Prince of Hesse-Cassel was dispatched after him with 4000 foot and 60 squadrons. Lord Orkney, on arriving on the banks of the Haine, found the passage so strongly guarded that he did not deem it prudent to alarm the enemy by attempting to force them. The Prince of Hesse-Cassel, however, was more fortunate. He marched with such extraordinary diligence, that he got over forty-nine English miles in fifty-six successive hours; a rapidity of advance, for such a distance, that had never been surpassed at that, though it has been outdone in later times.[25] By this means he reached the Haine on the other side of Mons, and surprised the passage near Obourg, at two in the morning of the 6th, and at noon he entered the French lines of the Trouille without opposition, the enemy retiring with precipitation as he advanced. He immediately extended his forces over the valley of the Trouille, fixed his headquarters at the abbey of Belian, and with his right occupied in strength the important plateau of Jemappes, which intercepted the communication between Mons and Valenciennes. It was on this height that the famous battle was fought between the French Republicans under Dumourier in 1792: another proof among the many which history affords how frequently the crisis of war, at long distances of time from each other, takes place in the same place. By this decisive movement Marlborough gained an immense advantage;--Mons was now passed and _invested on the side of France_; and the formidable lines, thirty leagues in length, on which Marshal Villars had been labouring with such assiduity during the two preceding months, were turned and rendered of no avail.[26]

While the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, with the advanced guard of the army, gained this brilliant success, Marlborough was rapidly following with the main body in the same direction. The force besieging Tournay crossed the Scheldt at the bridge of that town, and joined the covering force under Eugene. From thence they advanced to Sirant, where they were joined by Lord Orkney with his detachment, which had failed in passing the Haine. On the 6th, having learned of the success of the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, who had turned the enemy's lines, and got between Mons and France, the allied generals pushed on with the utmost expedition, and leaving their army to form the investment of Mons, joined the prince in the abbey of Belian. Both commanders bestowed on him the highest compliments for the advantages he had gained; but he replied, "The French have deprived me of the glory due to such a compliment, since they have not even waited my arrival." In truth, such had been the celerity and skill of his dispositions, that they had rendered resistance hopeless, and achieved success without the necessity of striking a blow. Meanwhile Marshal Boufflers, hearing a battle was imminent, arrived in the camp as a volunteer, to serve under Villars, his junior in military service; a noble example of disinterested patriotism, which, not less than the justly popular character of that distinguished general, raised the enthusiasm of the French soldiers to the very highest pitch.[27] Every thing announced a more sanguinary and important conflict between the renowned commanders and gallant armies now arrayed on the opposite sides, than had yet taken place since the commencement of the war.[28]

During these rapid and vigorous movements, which entirely turned and broke through his much-vaunted lines of defence, Villars remained with the great body of his forces in a state of inactivity. Aware he was to be attacked, but ignorant where the blow was first likely to fall, he judged, and probably rightly, that it would be hazardous to weaken his lines at any one point by accumulating forces at another. No sooner, however, did he receive intelligence of the march of the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, than he broke up from the lines of Douay, and hastily collecting his forces, advanced towards that adventurous commander. At two in the morning of the 4th, he arrived in front of him with his cavalry; but conceiving the whole allied army was before him, he did not venture to make an attack at a time when his great superiority of force would have enabled him to do it with every chance of success. The movement of Villars, however, and general _feux-de-joie_ which resounded through the French lines on the arrival of Marshal Boufflers, warned the allied leaders that a general battle was at hand; and orders were in consequence given to the whole army to advance at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th. A detachment of Eugene's troops was left to watch Mons, the garrison of which consisted only of eleven weak battalions and a regiment of horse, not mustering above five thousand combatants; and the whole remainder of the allied army, ninety thousand strong, pressed forward in dense masses into the level and marshy plain in the middle of which Mons is situated. They advanced in different columns, headed by Marlborough and Eugene; and never was a more magnificent spectacle presented, than when they emerged from the woods upon the plain, and ascended in the finest order, with their whole cavalry and artillery, as well as infantry, the undulating ground which lies to the south of that town. They arrived at night, and bivouacked on the heights of Quaregnon, near Genly, and thence on to the village of Quevy, in a line not three miles in length, and only five distant from the enemy; so that it was evident a general battle would take place on the following day, unless Villars was prepared to abandon Mons to its fate.[29]

The French marshal, however, had no intention of declining the combat. His army was entirely fresh, and in the finest order; it had engaged in no previous operations; whereas a bloody siege, and subsequent fatiguing marches in bad weather, had sensibly weakened the strength, though they had not depressed the spirits, of the allied soldiers. The vast efforts of the French government, joined to the multitude of recruits whom the public distress had impelled into the army, had in an extraordinary degree recruited his ranks. After making provision for all the garrisons and detached posts with which he was charged, he could bring into the field no less than a hundred and thirty battalions, and two hundred and sixty squadrons; and as they had all been raised to their full complement, they mustered sixty-five thousand infantry, and twenty-six thousand horse, with eighty guns; in all, with the artillery, ninety-five thousand combatants. This vast array had the advantage of being almost entirely of one nation, speaking one language, and animated with one spirit; while the allied force was a motley array of many different faces and nations of men, held together by no other bond but the strong one of military success and confidence in their chief. Both armies were of nearly equal strength, under the command of the ablest and most intrepid commanders of their day; the soldiers of both had acted long together, and acquired confidence in each other; and both contained that intermixture of the fire of young, with the caution of veteran troops, which is of the happiest augury for military success. It was hard to say, between such antagonists, to which side the scales of victory would incline.[30]

The face of the country occupied by the French army, and which was to be the theatre of the great battle which was approaching, is an irregular plateau, interspersed by woods and intersected by streams, and elevated from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the meadows of the Trouille. Mons and Bavay, the villages of Quevrain and Giory, formed the angular points of this broken surface. Extensive woods on all the principal eminences both give diversity and beauty to the landscape, and, in a military point of view, added much to the strength of the position as defensible ground against an enemy. Near MALPLAQUET, on the west of the ridge, is a small heath, and immediately to the south of it the ground descends by a rapid slope to the Hon, which finds its way by a circuitous route by the rear of the French position to the Trouille, which it joins near Condé. The streams from Malplaquet to the northward all flow by a gentle slope through steep wooded banks to the Trouille, into which they fall near Mons. The woods on the plateau are the remains of a great natural forest which formerly covered the whole of these uplands, and out of which the clearings round the villages and hamlets which now exist, have been cut by the hands of laborious industry. Two woods near the summit level of the ground are of great extent, and deserve particular notice. The first, called the wood of Louvière, stretches from Longueville in a north-easterly direction to Cauchie; the second, named the wood Taisnière, of still larger size, extends from the Chaussée de Bois to the village of Bouson. Between these woods are two openings, or Trouées as they are called in the country--the Trouée de la Louvière, and the Trouée d'Aulnoet. Generally speaking, the ground occupied by the French, and which was to be the theatre of the battle, may be described as a rough and woody natural barrier, stretching across the high plateau which separates the Haine and the Trouille, and pervious only by the two openings of Louvière and Aulnoet, both of which are in a very great degree susceptible of defence.[31]

The allied army consisted of one hundred and thirty-nine battalions, and two hundred and fifty-three squadrons, with one hundred and five guns; mustering ninety-three thousand combatants. The two armies, therefore, were as nearly as possible equal in point of military strength--a slight numerical superiority on the part of the French being compensated by a superiority of twenty-five guns on that of the Allies. Among the French nobles present at the battle, were no less than twelve who were afterwards marshals of France.[32] The son of James II., under the name of the Chevalier of St George, who combined the graces of youth with the hereditary valour of his race, was there; St Hilaire and Folard, whose works afterwards threw such light on military science, were to be found in its ranks. The Garde-du-corps, Mousquetaires gris, Grenadiers _à cheval_, French, Swiss, and Bavarian guards, as well as the Irish brigade, stood among the combatants. The reverses of Louis had called forth the flower of the nobility, as well as the last reserves of the monarchy.[33]

Early on the morning of the 9th, Marlborough and Eugene were on the look-out at the Mill of Sart, with a strong escort, consisting of thirty squadrons of horse. From the reports brought in, it was soon ascertained that the whole enemy's army was in march towards the plain of Malplaquet, on the west of the plateau, and that Villars himself was occupying the woods of Lasnière and Taisnière. His headquarters were at Blaugnies, in the rear of the centre. The two armies were now only a league and a half separate, and Marlborough and Eugene were clear for immediately attacking the enemy, before they could add to the natural strength of their position by intrenchnents. But the Dutch deputies, Hooft and Goslinga, interfered, as they had done on a similar occasion between Wavre and Waterloo, and so far modified this resolution as to induce a council of war, summoned on the occasion, to determine not to fight till the troops from Tournay were within reach, and St Ghislain, which commanded a passage over the Haine, was taken. This was done next day, the fort being carried by escalade, and its garrison of two hundred men made prisoners; and on the day following, all the reserves from Tournay came up. But these advantages, which in themselves were not inconsiderable, were dearly purchased by the time which Villars gained for strengthening his position. Instead of pushing on to attack the allies, as Marlborough and Eugene had expected, to raise the siege of Mons, that able commander employed himself with the utmost skill and vigour in throwing up intrenchments in every part of his position. The nature of the ground singularly favoured his efforts. The heights he occupied, plentifully interspersed with woods and eminences, formed a concave semicircle, the artillery from which enfiladed on all sides the little plain of Malplaquet, so as to render it literally, in Dumont's words, "une trouée d'enfer." Around this semicircle, redoubts, palisades, abattis, and stockades, were disposed with such skill and judgment, that, literally speaking, there was not a single inequality of ground, (and there were many,) which was not turned to good account. The two _trouées_ or openings, in particular, already mentioned, by which it was foreseen the Allies would endeavour to force an entrance, were so enfiladed by cross batteries as to be wellnigh unassailable. Twenty pieces of artillery were placed on a redoubt situated on an eminence near the centre of the field; the remainder were arranged along the field-works constructed along the lines. Half the army laboured at these works without a moment's intermission during the whole of the 9th and 10th, while the other were under arms, ready to repel any attack which might be hazarded. With such vigour were the operations conducted, that by the night of the 10th, the position was deemed impregnable.[34]

During these two days, which were passed in inactivity, awaiting the coming up of the reinforcements from Tournay, which the council of war had deemed indispensable to the commencement of operations, Marlborough and Eugene had repeatedly reconnoitred the enemy's position, and were fully aware of its growing strength. Despairing of openly forcing such formidable lines, defended by so numerous and gallant an army, they resolved to combine their first attack with a powerful demonstration in rear. With this view, the rear-guard, which was coming up from Tournay under General Withers, of nineteen battalions and ten squadrons, received orders not to join the main body of the army, but, stopping short at St Ghislain, to cross the Haine there, and, traversing the wood of Blangris by a country road, assail the extreme left of the enemy at the farm of La Folie, when the combat was seriously engaged in front. Forty battalions of Eugene's army, under Baron Schulemberg, were to attack the wood of Taisnière, supported by forty pieces of cannon, so placed that their shot reached every part of the wood. To distract the enemy's attention, other attacks were directed along the whole line; but the main effort was to be made by Eugene's corps on the wood of Taisnière; and it was from the co-operation of the attack of Schulemberg on its flank, that decisive success was expected.[35] All the corps had reached their respective points of destination on the evening of the 10th. Schulemberg was near La Folie; Eugene was grouped, in four lines, in front of Taisnière; and the men lay down to sleep, anxiously awaiting the dawn of the eventful morrow.[36]