Part 231

But next year (1676) Louis recovered all his prestige. His navy, under the command of Duquesne and Tourville, fought the Dutch and Spaniards on equal terms, and defeated them twice in the Mediterranean, on the Sicilian coast. On land the main effort of the French was directed against the Netherlands. Condé, Bouchain and Aire were taken by siege; and Maestricht was successfully defended against Orange, who besieged it for nearly eight weeks. But Philippsburg, the most important French post on the Rhine, was lost, surrendering to the Duke of Lorraine. Early in 1677, Louis renewed his attacks on the Spanish Netherlands and took Valenciennes March 17, Cambrai April 4, and Saint-Omer April 20, defeating the Prince of Orange at Cassel (April 11) when he attempted to relieve the latter place. At the same time Crequi, unable to defend Lower Alsace, destroyed it—burning the villages, leaving the inhabitants to perish—and prevented the allies, who outnumbered him, from making any advance. In November, when they had gone into winter-quarters, he suddenly crossed the Rhine and captured Freiburg. The next spring (1678) operations began early on the side of the French with the siege of Ghent. The city capitulated, March 9, after a short bombardment. The Spanish governor withdrew to the citadel, but "surrendered, on the 11th, that renowned castle built by Charles V. to hold the city in check. The city and citadel of Ghent had not cost the French army forty men." Ypres was taken the same month. Serious negotiations were now opened and the Peace of Nimeguen, between France and Holland, was signed August 11, followed early the next year by a general peace. The Prince of Orange, who opposed the peace, fought one bootless but bloody battle at Saint-Denis, near Mons, on the 14th of August, three days after it had been signed.

_H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 1, chapters 5-6._

"It may be doubted whether Europe has fully realised the greatness of the peril she so narrowly escaped on this occasion. The extinction of political and mental freedom, which would have followed the extinction of the Dutch Republic, would have been one of the most disastrous defeats of the cause of liberty and enlightenment possible in the then condition of the world. … The free presses of Holland gave voice to the stilled thought and agony of mankind. And they were the only free presses in the world. But Holland was not only the greatest book mart of Europe, it was emphatically the home of thinkers and the birthplace of ideas. … The two men then living to whose genius and courage the modern spirit of mental emancipation and toleration owes its first and most arduous victories were Pierre Bayle and John Locke. And it is beyond dispute that if the French King had worked his will on Holland, neither of them would have been able to accomplish the task they did achieve under the protection of Dutch freedom. They both were forced to seek refuge in Holland from the bigotry which hunted them down in their respective countries. All the works of Bayle were published in Holland, and some of the earliest of Locke's writings appeared there also; and if the remainder saw the light afterwards in England, it is only because the Dutch, by saving their own freedom, were the means of saving that of England as well. … At least, no one can maintain that if Holland had been annihilated in 1672, the English revolution could have occurred in the form and at the time it did."

_J. C. Morison, The Reign of Louis XIV. (Fortnightly Review, March, 1874)._

ALSO IN: _H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapters 12-13._

_T. O. Cockayne, Life of Turenne._

_Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 12._

See, also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1689. Invasion of England by the Prince of Orange. His accession to the English throne.

See ENGLAND A. D. 1688 (JULY-NOVEMBER), to 1689 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1689-1696. The War of the League of Augsburg, or the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690, to 1695-1696.

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NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D; 1690-1691. The Battle of Fleurus and the loss of Mons.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1692. The Naval Battle of La Hogue.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1692. The loss of Namur and the Battle of Steenkerke.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1692.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1693. The Battle of Neerwinden.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY).

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1694-1696. Campaigns without battles. The recovery of Namur.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1694; and 1695-1696.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick. French conquests restored.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

A. D. 1698-1700. The question of the Spanish Succession. The Treaties of Partition.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1701. Occupied by French troops.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1702. The Second Grand Alliance against France and Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702. The War of the Spanish Succession: The Expedition to Cadiz. The sinking of the treasure ships in Vigo Bay.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1702.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704. The War of the Spanish Succession: Marlborough's first campaigns.

"The campaign [of 1702] opened late in the Low Countries, owing, doubtless, to the death of king William. The elector of Bavaria, and his brother the elector of Cologne, took part with France. About the middle of April, the prince of Nassau-Saarbruck invested Keyserwerth, a place belonging to the latter elector, on the Rhine; whilst Lord Athlone, with the Dutch army, covered the siege, in pursuance of the advice of Lord Marlborough to the states. The place was strong; the French Marshal Boufflers made efforts to relieve it; after a vigorous defence, it was carried by assault, with dreadful carnage, about the middle of June. Boufflers, unable to relieve Keyserwerth, made a rapid, march to throw himself between Athlone and Nimeguen, with the view to carry that place by surprise; was defeated by a forced and still more rapid march of the Dutch, under Athlone, to cover it; and moved upon Cleves, laying the country waste with wanton barbarity along his line of march. Marlborough now arrived to take the command in chief. It was disputed with him by Athlone, who owed his military rank and the honours of the peerage to the favour of king William. Certain representatives of the states, who attended the army under the name of field deputies, thwarted him by their caution and incompetency; the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents refused to move without the orders of their respective sovereigns. Lord Marlborough, with admirable temper and adroitness, and, doubtless, with the ascendant of his genius, surmounted all these obstacles. The Dutch general cheerfully served under him; the confederates were reconciled to his orders; he crossed the Meuse in pursuit of the French; came within a few leagues of Boufflers' lines; and, addressing the Dutch field deputies who accompanied him, said, in a tone of easy confidence, 'I will now rid you of these troublesome neighbours.' Boufflers accordingly retreated,—abandoning Spanish Guelderland, and exposing Venloo, Ruremonde, and even Liege, which he had made a demonstration to cover. The young duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV., and elder brother of the king of Spain, had commanded the French army in name. He now returned to Versailles; and Boufflers could only look on, whilst Marlborough successively captured Venloo, Ruremonde, and Liege. The navigation of the Meuse and communication with Maestricht was now wholly free; the Dutch frontier was secure; and the campaign terminated with the close of October. … The duke of Marlborough resumed his command in the Low Countries about the middle of spring. He found the French strong and menacing on every side. Marshal Villars had, like Marlborough, fixed the attention of Europe for the first time in the late campaign. He obtained a splendid victory over the prince of Baden at Fredlingen, near the Black Forest. That prince lost 3,000 men, his cannon and the field. … Villars opened this year's campaign by taking Kehl, passed through the Black Forest into Bavaria, and formed a junction with the elector; whilst the prince of Baden was kept in check by a French army under marshal Tallard. … The imperial general, Count Styrum was now moving to join the prince of Baden with 20,000 men. Villars persuaded the elector to cross the Danube and prevent this junction; attacked the imperialists in the plain of Hochstedt near Donawert; and put them to the rout. The capture of Augsburg followed: the road was open to Vienna, and the emperor thought of abandoning the capital. … Holland was once more threatened on her frontier. Marshal Villeroi, liberated by exchange, was again at the head of an army, and, in conjunction with Boufflers, commenced operations for recovering the ground and the strong places from which Marlborough had dislodged the French on the Meuse. The campaign had opened at this point of the theatre of war with the capture of Rheinberg. It was taken by the Prussians before the duke of Marlborough arrived. The duke's first operation was the capture of Bonne. He returned to the main army with the view to engage the French under Villeroi. That marshal abandoned his camp, and retired within his lines of defence on the approach of the English general. Marlborough was prevented from attacking the French by the reluctance of the Dutch generals and the positive prohibition of the Dutch field deputies. … The only fruit of Marlborough's movement was the easy capture of Huy. Boufflers obtained the slight advantage of surprising and defeating the Dutch general Opdam near Antwerp. Marlborough, still embarrassed by the Dutch field deputies, to whose good intentions and limited views he bowed with a facility which only proves the extent of his superiority, closed the campaign with the acquisition of Limburg and Guelders. … In the beginning of … [1704] the emperor, threatened by the French and Bavarians in the very capital of the empire, implored aid from the queen; and on the 19th of April, the duke of Marlborough left England to enter upon a campaign memorable for … [the] victory of Blenheim. … On his arrival at the Hague, he proposed to the states general to alarm France for her frontier by a movement on the Moselle. {2292} Their consent even to this slight hazard for their own security, was not easily obtained. Villeroi, who commanded in Flanders, soon lost sight of him; so rapid or so well masked were his movements; Tallard, who commanded on the Moselle, thought only of protecting the frontier of France; and Marlborough, to the amazement of Europe, whether enemies or allies, passed in rapid succession the Rhine, the Maine, and the Necker. Intercepted letters, and a courier from the prince of Baden, apprised him that the French were about to join the Bavarians through the defiles of the Black Forest, and march upon Vienna. He now threw off the mask, sent a courier to the states, acquainting them that he was marching to the succour of the empire by order of the queen of England, and trusted they would permit their troops to share the glory of his enterprise. The pensionary Heinsius alone was in his confidence; and the states, though taken by surprise, conveyed to him their sanction and confidence with the best grace. He met Prince Eugene for the first time at Mindlesheim. Marlborough and Eugene are henceforth associated in the career of war and victory."

_Sir J. Mackintosh, The History of England, volume 9, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _L. Creighton, Life of Marlborough, chapters 6-7._

_G. Saintsbury, Marlborough, chapter 5._

_W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 11-22 (volume 1)._

_J. H. Burton, History of the Reign of Queen Anne, chapters 5-6 (volume 1)._

Sec, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1702, and 1703.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1704. The War of the Spanish Succession: The campaign on the Danube and victory at Blenheim.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705. The War of the Spanish Succession: A campaign spoiled.

After his campaign in Bavaria, with its great victory on the field of Blenheim (see GERMANY: A. D. 1704), Marlborough passed the winter in England and returned in the spring of 1705 to the Low Countries, where he had planned to lead, again, the campaign of the year. Prince Eugene was now in Italy, and the jealous, incapable Prince Louis of Baden, commanding the German army, was the coadjutor on whom he must depend. The latter assented to Marlborough's plans and promised co-operation. The Dutch generals and deputies also were reluctantly brought over to his views, which contemplated an invasion of France on the side of the Moselle. "Slight as were the hopes of any effective co-operation which Prince Louis gave, they were much more than he accomplished. When the time came he declared himself sick, threw up his command and set off to drink the waters of Schlangenbad. Count de Frise whom he named in his place brought to Marlborough only a few ragged battalions, and, moreover, like his principal, showed himself most jealous of the English chief. … Marlborough nevertheless took the field and even singly desired to give battle. But positive instructions from Versailles precluded Villars [the commander of the French] from engaging. He intrenched himself in an extremely strong position at Sirk, where it was impossible for an inferior army to assail him. And while the war was thus unprosperous on the Moselle, there came adverse tidings from the Meuse. Marshal Villeroy had suddenly resumed the offensive, had reduced the fortress of Huy, had entered the city and invested the citadel of Liege." Marlborough, on this news, being applied to for immediate aid by the Dutch General Overkirk—the ablest and best of his colleagues—"set out the very next day on his march to Liege, leaving only a 'sufficient force as he hoped for the security of Treves." Villeroy "at once relinquished his design upon the citadel of Liege and fell back in the direction of Tongres, so that Marlborough and Overkirk effected their junction with ease. Marlborough took prompt measures to re-invest the fortress of Huy, and compelled it to surrender on the 11th of July. Applying his mind to the new sphere before him, Marlborough saw ground to hope that, with the aid of the Dutch troops, he might still make a triumphant campaign. The first object was to force the defensive lines that stretched across the country from near Namur to Antwerp, protected by numerous fortified posts and covered in other places by rivers and morasses, … now defended by an army of at least 60,000 men, under Marshal Villeroy and the Elector of Bavaria. Marlborough laid his plans before Generals Overkirk and Slangenberg as also those civilian envoys whom the States were wont to commission at their armies. But he found to his sorrow that for jealousy and slowness a Dutch deputy was fully a match for a German Margrave." He obtained with great difficulty a nominal assent to his plans, and began the execution of them; but in the very midst of his operations, and when one division of the Dutch troops had successfully crossed the river Dyle, General Slangenberg and the deputies suddenly drew back and compelled a retreat. Then Marlborough's "fertile genius devised another scheme—to move round the sources of the river [Dyle] and to threaten Brussels from the southern side. … On the 15th off August he began his march, as did also Overkirk in a parallel direction, and in two days they reached Genappe near the sources of the Dyle. There uniting in one line of battle they moved next morning towards Brussels by the main chaussée, or great paved road; their head-quarters that day being fixed at Frischermont, near the borders of the forest of Soignies. On the French side the Elector and Villeroy, observing the march of the allies, had made a corresponding movement of their own for the protection of the capital. They encamped behind the small stream of the Ische, their right and rear being partly covered by the forest. Only the day before they had been joined by Marsin from the Rhine, and they agreed to give battle sooner than yield Brussels. One of their main posts was at Waterloo. … It is probable, had a battle now ensued, that it would have been fought on the same, or nearly the same ground as was the memorable conflict a hundred and ten years afterwards. … But the expected battle did not take place." Once more the Dutch deputies and General Slangenberg interfered, refusing to permit their troops to engage; so that Marlborough was robbed of the opportunity for winning a victory which he confidently declared would have been greater than Blenheim. This practically ended the campaign of the year, which had been ruined and wasted throughout by the stupidity, the cowardice and the jealousies of the Dutch deputies and the general who counselled them.

_Earl Stanhope, History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 6._

In Spain, a campaign of more brilliancy was carried on by Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, in Catalonia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1705.

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NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707. The War of the Spanish Succession: The Battle of Ramillies and its results.

"The campaign of 1706 was begun unusually late by Marlborough, his long stay on the Continent in the winter and his English political business detaining him in London till the end of April, and when he finally landed at the Hague his plans were still coloured by the remembrance of the gratuitous and intolerable hindrances which he had met with from his allies. … He had made up his mind to operate with Eugene in Italy, which, if he had done, there would probably have been seen what has not been seen for nearly two thousand years—a successful invasion of France from the southeast. But the kings of Prussia and Denmark, and others of the allies whom Marlborough thought he had propitiated, were as recalcitrant as the Dutch, and the vigorous action of Villars against the Margrave of Baden made the States-General more than ever reluctant to lose their sword and shield. So Marlborough was condemned to action on his old line of the Dyle, and this time fortune was less unkind to him. Secret overtures were made which induced him to threaten Namur, and as Namur was of all posts in the Low Countries that to which the French attached most importance, both on sentimental and strategical grounds, Villeroy was ordered to abandon the defensive policy which he had for nearly two years been forced to maintain, and to fight at all hazards. Accordingly the tedious operations which had for so long been pursued in this quarter were exchanged at once for a vigorous offensive and defensive, and the two generals, Villeroy with rather more than 60,000 men, Marlborough with that number or a little less, came to blows at Ramillies (a few miles only from the spot where the lines had been forced the year before) on May 23, 1706, or scarcely more than a week after the campaign had begun. Here, as before, the result is assigned by the French to the fault of the general. … The battle itself was one completely of generalship, and of generalship as simple as it was masterly. It was in defending his position, not in taking it up, that Villeroy lost the battle. … Thirteen thousand of the French and Bavarians were killed, wounded, and taken, and the loss of the allies, who had been throughout the attacking party, was not less than 4,000 men. … The Dutch, who bore the burden of the attack on Ramillies, had the credit of the day's fighting on the allied side, as the Bavarian horse had on that of the French. In hardly any of Marlborough's operations had he his hands so free as at Ramillies, and in none did he carry off a completer victory. … The strong places of Flanders fell before the allied army like ripe fruit. Brussels surrendered and was occupied on the fourth day after the battle, May 28. Louvain and Malines had fallen already. The French garrison precipitately left Ghent, and the Duke entered it on June 2. Oudenarde came in next day; Antwerp was summoned, expelled the French part of its garrison, and capitulated on September 7. And a vigorous siege in less than a month reduced Ostend, reputed one of the strongest places in Europe. In six weeks from the battle of Ramillies not a French soldier remained in a district which the day before that battle had been occupied by a network of the strongest fortresses and a field army of 80,000 men. The strong places on the Lys and the Dender, tributaries of the Scheldt, gave more trouble, and Menin, a small but very important position, cost nearly half the loss of Ramillies before it could be taken. But it fell, as well as Dendermonde and Ath, and nothing but the recrudescence of Dutch obstruction prevented Marlborough from finishing the campaign with the taking of Mons, almost the last place of any importance held by the French north of their own frontier, as that frontier is now understood. But the difficulties of all generals are said to begin on the morrow of victory, and certainly the saying was true in Marlborough's case. … The Dutch were, before all things, set on a strong barrier or zone of territory, studded with fortresses in their own keeping, between themselves and France: the Emperor naturally objected to the alienation of the Spanish-Austrian Netherlands. The barrier disputes were for years the greatest difficulty which Marlborough had to contend with abroad, and the main theme of the objections to the war made by the adverse party at home. … It was in the main due, no doubt, to these jealousies and hesitations, strengthened by the alarm caused by the loss of the battle of Almanza in Spain, and by the threatened invasion of Germany under Villars, that made the campaign of 1707 an almost wholly inactive one. … The campaign of this year is almost wholly barren of any military operations interesting to anyone but the mere annalist of tactics."

_G. Saintsbury, Marlborough, chapter 6._

In Spain, several sharp changes of fortune during two years terminated in a disastrous defeat of the allies at Almanza in April, 1707, by the Duke of Berwick.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1706 and 1707; see, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1706-1711.

_Earl Stanhope, History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 7 and 9._

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709. The War of the Spanish Succession: Oudenarde and Malplaquet.