Part 204

It is the most laconic treaty on record, containing only two Articles, to the effect that Portugal was to admit British cloths, and England to admit Portuguese wines, at one-third less duty than those of France. Don Pedro's accession to the Grand Alliance entirely changed the plans of the allies. Instead of confining themselves to the procuring of a reasonable indemnity for the Emperor, they now resolved to drive Philip V. from the throne of Spain, and to place an Austrian Archduke upon it in his stead. The Emperor and his eldest son Joseph formally renounced their claims to the throne of Spain in favour of the archduke Charles, Leopold's second son, September 12th [1703]; and the Archduke was proclaimed King of Spain, with the title of Charles III. The new King was to proceed into Portugal, and, with the assistance of Don Pedro, endeavour to obtain possession of Spain. Charles accordingly proceeded to Holland, and embarked for England in January 1704; whence, after paying a visit to Queen Anne at Windsor, he finally set sail for Lisbon, February 17th. … In March 1704, the Pretender, Charles III., together with an English and Dutch army of 12,000 men, landed in Portugal, with the intention of entering Spain on that side; but so far were they from accomplishing this plan that the Spaniards, on the contrary, under the Duke of Berwick, penetrated into Portugal, and even threatened Lisbon, but were driven back by the Marquis das Minas. An English fleet under Admiral Rooke, with troops under the Prince of Darmstadt, made an ineffectual attempt on Barcelona; but were compensated for their failure by the capture of Gibraltar on their return. The importance of this fortress, the key of the Mediterranean, was not then sufficiently esteemed, and its garrison had been neglected by the Spanish Government. A party of English sailors, taking advantage of a Saint's day, on which the eastern portion of the fortress had been left unguarded, scaled the almost inaccessible precipice, whilst at the same time another party stormed the South Mole Head. The capture of this important fortress was the work of a few hours (August 4th). Darmstadt would have claimed the place for King Charles III., but Rooke took possession of it in the name of the Queen of England. … The Spaniards, sensible of the importance of Gibraltar, speedily made an effort to recover that fortress, and as early as October 1704, it was invested by the Marquis of Villadarias with an army of 8,000 men. The French Court afterwards sent Marshal Tessé to supersede Villadarias, and the siege continued till April 1705; but the brave defence of the Prince of Darmstadt, and the defeat of the French blockading squadron under Pointis by Admiral Leake, finally compelled the raising of the siege."

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5; chapter 6 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Burton, History of the Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 9 (volume 2)._

_F. Sayer, History of Gibraltar, chapters 6-8._

SPAIN: A. D. 1704. The War of the Succession: Blenheim.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

SPAIN: A. D. 1705. The War of the Succession: The capture of Barcelona.

As if to exhibit, upon a different theatre of the same great warfare, the most remarkable contrast to the patience, the caution, and the foresight of Marlborough, … Charles Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough, took the command of an expedition to Spain. Macaulay calls Peterborough 'the most extraordinary character of that age, the king of Sweden himself not excepted, … a polite, learned and amorous Charles XII.' He sailed from Portsmouth in June, 1705, having the command of 5,000 men; unlimited authority over the land forces, and a divided command with Sir Cloudesley Shovel at sea. At Lisbon, Peterborough was reinforced, and he here took on board the arch-duke Charles, and a numerous suite. At Gibraltar he received two veteran battalions, in exchange for the same number of recruits which he had brought from England. The prince of Darmstadt also here joined Peterborough. The prince and the arch-duke desired to besiege Barcelona. Peterborough opposed the scheme of attempting, with 7,000 men, the reduction of a place which required 30,000 men for a regular siege. With the squadron under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the fleet sailed from Gibraltar. A landing was effected near Valencia; and here the people were found favourable to the cause of the Austrian prince, who was proclaimed, upon the surrender of the castle of Denia, as Charles III., king of Spain and the Indies. Peterborough, encouraged by this reception, conceived the enterprise of dashing upon the capital, whilst all the Spanish forces were on the frontiers of Portugal, or in Catalonia; and king Philip was at Madrid with few troops. Such an exploit had every chance of success, but Peterborough was overruled by a council of war. The troops were landed before Barcelona on the 27th of August. In three weeks there was nothing but dissensions amongst the great men of this expedition. The prince of Darmstadt and the earl of Peterborough had come to an open rupture. The Dutch officers said their troops should not join in an enterprise so manifestly impossible of success for a small force. Peterborough conceived a plan of attack totally opposed to all the routine modes of warfare. The citadel of Montjouich, built on the summit of a ridge of hills skirting the sea, commanded the town. Peterborough gave notice that he should raise the siege; sent his heavy artillery on board the ships; and made every preparation for embarking the troops. With 1,200 foot soldiers, and 200 horse, he marched out of the camp on the evening of the 13th of September, accompanied by the prince of Darmstadt, whom he had invited to join him. They marched all night by the side of the mountains; and before daybreak were under the hill of Montjouich, and close to the outer works. Peterborough told his officers that when they were discovered at daylight, the enemy would descend into the outer ditch to repel them, and that then was the time to receive their fire, leap in upon them, drive them into the outer works, and gain the fortress by following them close. The scheme succeeded, and the English were soon masters of the bastion. … The citadel held out for several days, but was finally reduced by a bombardment from the hills, the cannon having been relanded from the ships. The reduction of Montjouich by this extraordinary act of daring, was very soon followed by the surrender of Barcelona. … The possession of Barcelona, in which king Charles III. was proclaimed with great solemnity, was followed by the adhesion to his cause of the chief towns of Catalonia. Peterborough was for following up his wonderful success by other daring operations. The German ministers and the Dutch officers opposed all his projects." He was able, notwithstanding, to raise the siege of San Mateo and to save Valencia from a threatened siege. "It was soon found that king Charles was incompetent to follow up the successes which Peterborough had accomplished for him."

_C. Knight, Crown History of England, chapter 38._

{2995}

The above is substantially, in brief, the account of Peterborough's campaigns given by Mahon, Macaulay, and most of the later historians of the War of the Succession, who drew the narrative largely from a little book published in 1728, called the "Military Memoirs of Captain George Carleton." The story has been recently told, however, in a very different way and to a very different effect, by Colonel Arthur Parnell, who declines to accept the Carleton Memoirs as authentic history. Those Memoirs have been judged by some critics, in·deed, to be a pure work of fiction and attributed to De Foe. They are included, in fact, in several editions of De Foe's works. Colonel Parnell, who seems to have investigated the matter thoroughly, recognizes Captain Carleton as a real personality, and concludes that he may have furnished some kind of a note-book or diary that was the substratum of these alleged Memoirs; but that somebody (he suspects Dean Swift), in the interest of Peterborough, built up on that groundwork a fabric of fiction which has most wrongfully become accepted history. According to Colonel Parnell, it was not Peterborough, but Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt (killed in the assault on Montjouich) and De Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, who were entitled to the credit of the successes for which Peterborough has been laurelled. "In order to extol a contemptible impostor, the memory of this great Huguenot general [Ruvigny] has been aspersed by Lord Macaulay and most English writers of the present century."

_Colonel A. Parnell, The War of the Succession in Spain, preface, chapters 12-18; and appendix C._

ALSO IN: _E. Warburton, Memoir of Peterborough, chapters 7-11 (volume 1)._

_F. S. Russell, The Earl of Peterborough, volume 1, chapters 7-9._

SPAIN: A. D. 1706. The War of the Succession: Rapid changing of kings and courts at Madrid.

"The Courts of Madrid and Versailles, exasperated and alarmed by the fall of Barcelona, and by the revolt of the surrounding country, determined to make a great effort. A large army, nominally commanded by Philip, but really under the orders of Marshal Tessé, entered Catalonia. A fleet under the Count of Toulouse, one of the natural children of Lewis XIV., appeared before the port of Barcelona. The city was attacked at once by sea and land. The person of the Archduke was in considerable danger. Peterborough, at the head of about 3,000 men, marched with great rapidity from Valencia. To give battle, with so small a force, to a great regular army under the conduct of a Marshal of France, would have been madness. … His commission from the British government gave him supreme power, not only over the army, but, whenever he should be actually on board, over the navy also. He put out to sea at night in an open boat, without communicating his design to any person. He was picked up, several leagues from the shore, by one of the ships of the English squadron. As soon as he was on board, he announced himself as first in command, and sent a pinnace with his orders to the Admiral. Had these orders been given a few hours earlier, it is probable that the whole French fleet would have been taken. As it was, the Count of Toulouse put out to sea. The port was open. The town was relieved. On the following night the enemy raised the siege and retreated to Roussillon. Peterborough returned to Valencia, a place which he preferred to every other in Spain; and Philip, who had been some weeks absent from his wife, could endure the misery of separation no longer, and flew to rejoin her at Madrid. At Madrid, however, it was impossible for him or for her to remain. The splendid success which Peterborough had obtained on the eastern coast of the Peninsula had inspired the sluggish Galway with emulation. He advanced into the heart of Spain. Berwick retreated. Alcantara, Ciuadad Rodrigo, and Salamanca fell, and the conquerors marched towards the capital. Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers to remove the seat of government to Burgos. … In the mean time the invaders had entered Madrid in triumph, and had proclaimed the Archduke in the streets of the imperial city. Arragon, ever jealous of the Castilian ascendeney, followed the example of Catalonia. Saragossa revolted without seeing an enemy. The governor whom Philip had set over Carthagena betrayed his trust, and surrendered to the Allies the best arsenal and the last ships which Spain possessed. … It seemed that the struggle had terminated in favour of the Archduke, and that nothing remained for Philip but a prompt flight into the dominions of his grandfather. So judged those who were ignorant of the character and habits of the Spanish people. There is no country in Europe which it is so easy to overrun as Spain; there is no country in Europe which it is more difficult to conquer. Nothing can be more contemptible than the regular military resistance which Spain offers to an invader; nothing more formidable than the energy which she puts forth when her regular military resistance has been beaten down. Her armies have long borne too much resemblance to mobs; but her mobs have had, in an unusual degree, the spirit of armies. … Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estremadura, rose at once; every peasant procured a firelock or a pike; the Allies were masters only of the ground on which they trod. No soldier could wander a hundred yards from the main body of the invading army without imminent risk of being poinarded; the country through which the conquerors had passed to Madrid, and which, as they thought, they had subdued, was all in arms behind them. Their communications with Portugal were cut off. In the mean time, money began, for the first time, to flow rapidly into the treasury of the fugitive king. … While the Castilians were everywhere arming in the cause of Philip, the Allies were serving that cause as effectually by their mismanagement. Galway staid at Madrid, where his soldiers indulged in such boundless licentiousness that one half of them were in the hospitals. Charles remained dawdling in Catalonia. Peterborough had taken Requena, and wished to march from Valencia towards Madrid, and to effect a junction with Galway; but the Archduke refused his consent to the plan. {2996} The indignant general remained accordingly in his favourite city, on the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, reading Don Quixote, giving balls and suppers, trying in vain to get some good sport out of the Valencian bulls, and making love, not in vain, to the Valencian women. At length the Archduke advanced into Castile, and ordered Peterborough to join him. But it was too late. Berwick had already compelled Galway to evacuate Madrid; and, when the whole force of the Allies was collected at Quadalaxara, it was found to be decidedly inferior in numbers to that of the enemy. Peterborough formed a plan for regaining possession of the capital. His plan was rejected by Charles. The patience of the sensitive and vain-glorious hero was worn out. He had none of that serenity of temper which enabled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony with Eugene, and to endure the vexatious interference of the Dutch deputies. He demanded permission to leave the army, Permission was readily granted; and he set out for Italy. … From that moment to the end of the campaign, the tide of fortune ran strong against the Austrian cause. Berwick had placed his army between the Allies and the frontiers of Portugal. They retreated on Valencia, and arrived in that province, leaving about 10,000 prisoners in the hands of the enemy."

_Lord Macaulay, Mahon's War of the Succession (Essays)._

In the Netherlands the Allies won the important victory of Ramillies, and in Italy, Prince Eugene inflicted a sore defeat on the French and rescued Turin.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D.1706-1707; and ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713.

ALSO IN: _C. T. Wilson, The Duke of Berwick, chapters 5-6._

_W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, chapter 14 (volume 1)._

SPAIN: A. D. 1707. The War of the Succession: The fortunes of the Bourbons retrieved at Almanza.

"The enemy [the Allies] began to move again in February. After some weeks of manœuvring on the confines of the kingdom of Valencia and of New Castile, April 25, Galway and Las Minas, wishing to anticipate the arrival of a reinforcement expected from France, attacked Berwick at Almanza. Singularly enough, the English were commanded by a French refugee (Ruvigni, Earl of Galway), and the French by a royal bastard of England [the Duke of Berwick, natural son of James II.]. The enemy numbered, it is said, 26,000 foot and 7,000 horse; the Franco-Castilians were somewhat inferior in infantry, somewhat superior in cavalry and artillery." The battle, decided by the cavalry, was disastrous to the Allies. "The English, Dutch and Portuguese infantry were cut to pieces: the Portuguese foot showed a courage less fortunate, but not less intrepid, than the Spanish cavalry. Another corps had fought with still greater fury, —the French refugees, commanded by Jean Cavalier, the renowned Camisard chieftain. They had engaged a French regiment, and the two corps had almost destroyed each other. Six battalions were surrounded and taken in a body. Thirteen other battalions, five English, five Dutch, and three Portuguese, retired, at evening, to a wooded hill; seeing themselves cut off from the mountains of Valencia, they surrendered themselves prisoners the next morning. Hochstadt [Blenheim] was fully avenged. Five thousand dead, nearly 10,000 prisoners, 24 cannon, 120 flags or standards, were purchased on the part of the conquerors by the loss of only about 2,000 men. Many Frenchmen, taken at Hochstadt or at Ramillies, and enrolled by force in the ranks of the enemies, were delivered by the victory. The Duke of Orleans reached the army the next day. … He marched with Berwick on Valencia, which surrendered, May 8, without striking a blow. The generals of the enemies, both wounded, retired with the wrecks of their armies towards the mouths of the Ebro. The whole kingdom of Valencia submitted, with the exception of three or four places. Berwick followed the enemy towards the mouth of the Ebro, whilst Orleans returned to meet a French corps that was coming by the way of Navarre, and with this corps entered Aragon. Nearly all Aragon yielded without resistance. Berwick joined Orleans by ascending the Ebro; they moved together on the Segre and began the blockade of Lerida, the bulwark of Catalonia." Lerida was taken by storm on the 12th of October, and "pillaged with immense booty. … The castle of Lerida surrendered, November 11. A great part of the Catalan mountaineers laid down their arms. … Fortune had favored the Franco-Castilians on the Portuguese frontier as in the States of Aragon; Ciudad-Rodrigo had been taken by assault, October 4, with the loss of more than 3,000 men on the side of the enemy. The news of Almanza had everywhere reanimated the hearts of the French armies."

_H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _Colonel A. Parnell, The War of the Succession in Spain, chapters 23-26._

_C. T. Wilson, The Duke of Berwick, chapter 7._

SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710. The War of the Succession: Bourbon reverses and final triumph.

"In less than a month after the victory of Almanza, the Bourbon troops had recovered all Arragon, with Valencia and Murcia, excepting the ports of Denia and Alicant; but the war still continued in Catalonia, where General Stanhope now filled the double office of ambassador to Charles and general of the English forces, and prince Staremberg was sent by the emperor Joseph to take the command of the Austrian troops. The Spanish government was reduced to still greater pecuniary distress than it had suffered before, by the success of the English squadron off Carthagena, under the command of Sir Charles Wager, which took three of the great galleons and dispersed fourteen, which were expected to furnish an unusual supply of the precious metals from America. After a short siege of Port Mahon, General Stanhope took possession of Minorca and Majorca [A. D. 1708]; the count of Cifuentes gained Sardinia; and all the efforts, spirit, and talents of the duke of Orleans were insufficient to make the slightest impression in Catalonia. He consequently complained, in his letters to Versailles, that his operations were thwarted or retarded by the intrigues of the Princess Orsini and the ambassador Amelot. He was accused in return, and that not without reason, of forming designs on the crown of Spain, and corresponding with the enemies of Philip on the subject. The fortunes of France and Spain still continued to decline, and Louis felt that peace was the only measure which could stop the progress of that ruin which menaced the house of Bourbon. Conferences were accordingly opened at the Hague, and Louis pretended that he was willing to give up the interest of Philip; at the same time his grandson himself protested that he would never quit Spain, or yield his title to its crown. … {2997} The disastrous campaign of 1710 rendered Louis more desirous than ever of obtaining peace, and though his professions of abandoning his grandson were insincere, he certainly would not have scrupled to sacrifice the Spanish Netherlands and the American commerce to Holland, as the price of an advantageous peace to France. Meantime the Austrians had gained the victories of Almenara and Zaragoza, and had once more driven the Spanish court from Madrid. This time it fled to Valladolid, and the king and queen talked of taking refuge in America, and re-establishing the empire of Mexico or Peru, rather than abandon their throne. But the Castilians once more roused themselves to defend the king; the duke of Vendome's arrival supplied their greatest want, that of a skilful general; and the imprudence of the allies facilitated the recovery of the capital. The disasters of the allies began with their retreat; Staremburg, after a doubtful though bloody battle [Villa Viciosa, December 10, 1710], at the end of which he was victor, was yet obliged to retire with the disadvantages of defeat; and Stanhope, with a small body of English, after a desperate resistance [at Brihuega, December 9, 1710], was taken prisoner."

_M. Callcott, Short History of Spain, chapter 22 (volume 2)._

"As the result of the actions at Brihuega and Villa Viciosa and the subsequent retreat, the Austrians lost 3,600 killed or wounded, and 3,036 prisoners, or a total of 7,536 men; whilst the Bourbon casualties were 6,700 placed hors-de-combat, and 100 captured, or in all 6,800 men. These operations constituted a decisive victory for Vendôme, who thus, in less than four months after the battle of Saragossa, had re-established King Philip and the Bourbon cause."

_Colonel A. Parnell, The War of the Succession in Spain, chapters 27-34._

ALSO IN: _W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, chapters 15-18 (volumes 1-2)._

_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of the War of Succession in Spain, chapters 6-8._

SPAIN: A. D. 1711. The Austrian claimant of the throne becomes Emperor.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.

SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714. The betrayal of the Catalans.