 |
MODERN HISTORY LIBRARY |
 |
 |
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (1) CAMPAIGNS AND NEGOTIATIONS.
If the action
of Louis XIV in accepting
the will of Charles II of Spain had proved insufficient to rouse England and
the United Provinces to war, at Vienna its effects had been greater. The
Emperor had steadily rejected the compromise of a partition, because he had
always trusted that a will would leave the whole inheritance to the Archduke,
and he was not inclined; to swallow this disappointment without a protest or to
acquiesce without resistance in the accession of Philip V. Yet the prospects of
successfully disputing Philip’s claim were not of the brightest. A great war was impending in the Baltic; the Emperor’s
hereditary dominions were still feeling the strain aud exhaustion of the recent wars in east and west; Hungary, quite recently
reconquered from the Turk, was seething with discontent; and the lukewarmness displayed by the Princes of Germany in the defence of the Empire against Louis promised ill for their
support of Leopold’s claims on the Spanish inheritance. And as, moreover, the
Maritime Powers hung back and compelled the reluctant William III to recognise the new King of Spain, it is not wonderful that a
party among the Emperor’s adv'sers, headed by
Margrave Lewis of Baden-Baden, should have counselled submission. These counsels were, indeed, so far followed that overtures were
made in order to discover if any compensation could be obtained. Moderation and
slight concessions might have avoided war; but Louis, blinded by the success he
had already achieved, adopted an uncompromisingly aggressive attitude, and, by
rejecting the idea of providing a “satisfaction” for the unsuccessful
claimant to the Spanish inheritance, drove the Emperor over to the war party in
his “conference,” of whom Prince Eugene of Saxony and Archdukes Charles and
Joseph were the leaders.
Accordingly,
in the spring and early summer of 1701, while Austria’s diplomats sought to
rouse Europe in the Emperor’s cause, a considerable army was gradually
collected in southern Tyrol to contest the French occupation of Lombardy. Here
the connivance of the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua had enabled the French to
secure the Spanish possessions in the valley of the Po; and Marshal Catinat was able to push ‘forward to
Eugene had
thus scored the first trick in the game; but Catinat might have restored matters, had he either fallen on Guttenstein’s exposed division, which had threatened Chiuse, or
concentrated his troops, and, imitating his adversary’s disregard of the
neutrality which Venice seemed powerless to defend, crossed the Adige to force
a decisive battle on the inferior force opposed to him. He did neither; but,
harassed by Eugene’s feint and unable to discover whether he intended to strike
west across the Adige or southward over the Po against Modena or Naples, he
scattered his army in detachments along the Adige from Rivoli to Carpi, a front of over 60 miles. Eugene did not miss such a chance. On July
9 he fell in force on Saint-Fremont’s division at Carpi, and drove it and the
reinforcements' which Tesse brought up from Legnago back on Nogara with heavy
loss, thus piercing the French line and forcing Catinat to recoil behind the Mincio, where the French
rallied, their right' at Mantua, their left at Goito.
But this position also Catinat failed to maintain. A
move north-west enabled Eugene to rejoin Guttenstein(Julyl5);
and, crossing the Mincio almost unopposed at Peschiera (July 28), he again placed himself on Catinat’s flank, threatening his communications with Milan.
To cover Milan, the French fell back to the Oglio (August 16), Eugene pressing on westward by Brescia, and being on
the point of forcing this line also near Pontoglio,
when he heard (August 24) that Marshal Villeroi had
arrived from France and superseded the unfortunate Catinat.
The Imperialists thereupon fell back to Chiari, where,
on September 1, they sustained the attack of
Meanwhile the
diplomats had not been idle, and, when the campaign of 1702 opened, hostilities
were no longer confined to Italy, but had assumed the dimensions of a general
European war. The arrogance and aggressions of Louis had effected what the
warnings of William III and Heinsius had failed to
do. By securing for French traders the Asiento, or
monopoly of the supply of slaves to Spanish America (August), Louis so roused
England, that William felt able to conclude with the Emperor the Treaty of the
Hague (September 7), which pledged the Emperor and the Maritime Powers to
secure Europe against the union of France and Sppin,
and to obtain territorial compensation for the Habsburgs and commercial
concessions for the Maritime Powers. The recently recognised kingdom of Prussia was already bound by the “Crown Treaty” to support the
Emperor, and during the winter of 1701-2 the majority of the German Princes
were enlisted on the side of the Grand Alliance—among them the Electors of
Mainz and Trier, the Landgraves of Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Darmstadt, and the Electors John William of the
Palatinate and George Lewis of Hanover, with his uncle, Duke George William of
Celle. The Franconian and Swabian Circles at, first contemplated declaring themselves neutral, but they were soon
won over to unite with the two Rhenish Circles, the
Austrian, and the Westphalian.; and a conference of
these Circles held at Nordlingen in March, 1702,
promised to put into the field a, joint force of 54,000 men. The Baltic Powers
held aloof from the Coalition; but, thanks to the intervention of England and
Holland in the conflict between Denmark and Sweden in
Not all the
German Powers, however, were mustered among the adherents of the Coalition.
Hatred of his LUneburg cousins inclined Antony Ulric of Bruns wick-Wolfenbiittel to take the side of Louis, but Celle and
Hanover overpowered him; he was put to an ignominious flight, and his brother
Rudolf Augustus (with whom he ruled conjointly) had to conclude an “accord”
which allowed the Brunswick-
Wolfenbüttel troops to be taken into the Emperor’s service. More useful to Louis were the
two Wittelsbach brothers, Electors Maximilian Emanuel
of Bavaria and Joseph Clement of Cologne. Maximilian, hitherto one of the most
consistent opponents of Louis, had been acting as Governor of the Spanish
Netherlands since 1695; but he had not opposed the occupation of that country
by French troops, and, after carrying on simultaneous negotiations with Louis
and the Coalition, decided, in March, 1701, to throw in his lot
with France, though he was not to commit any overt act of hostility until a
suitable opportunity.
Bavaria's action.—The military situation. [1701-2 In addition
to his Wittelsbach followers, Louis could also reckon
among his allies two States whose adhesion to his cause was dictated by fear
rather than by enthusiasm. Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, true to the family
policy of balancing dangerous neighbours against each
other, had been suspected of supplying information to Eugene as to the
movements of Catinat’s army with which the Savoyard
troops were serving, while Portugal had thrown in her lot with Louis, mainly to
avert attack from Spain. In that kingdom Philip V had been readily
acknowledged, save only in Catalonia, and the resources of Spain’s Indian
possessions were thus placed at the disposal of Louis.
Thus, at the
outset of the War, the forces of the two sides seemed by no means unequally
matched. Against the superior numbers and financial resources of the Coalition
France could set the great advantages of unity of command and purpose, while her
central position gave her the strategic asset of operating on interior lines.
Moreover, certain special features of the strategical situation were greatly in her favour.
By securing
without opposition military possession of the Spanish
Netherlands, she at once
menaced the United Provinces with invasion, and placed herself
in a strong
position on the lines of communication between the Maritime
Powers and Austria.
At the same time, the alliance with Bavaria secured to her
armies an open door
into the Danube valley, the easiest and most direct line of
advance against
Vienna; and, though the alternative route, by the valley of the
Po and the head
of the Adriatic, was disputed by Eugene’s army, the situation in
northern Italy added to the tasks and difficulties of Austria. Further,
though the joint
naval forces of England and Holland considerably outnumbered
those of France,
the fact that the harbours of Spain and the two Sicilies were under French control, and that those of
Portugal were closed to the Maritime Powers through her alliance with France,
seemed to secure Louis against that advent of a superior hostile fleet in the
Mediterranean by which William III had turned the scale against France in the
previous war. On land things were more equals it was not till the later
campaigns of the war that Louis XIV ceased to oppose approximately equal
numbers to the armies of the Grand Alliance; and, even when the
Allies enjoyed a slight numerical superiority, it was balanced by the
advantages of homogeneity. Before 1702 the
The campaign
of 1702 was opened in Italy. Here Eugene, ill supported by the inefficient War
Council at Vienna, found himself outnumbered by Vendome and forced to choose
between evacuating Italy altogether and allowing the French to sever his
communications with Vienna. He chose the latter course; and it was no small
achievement that he nevertheless succeeded in maintaining his position in the Modenese throughout the campaign, even though severed from
his base, subsisting on the produce of the country, and inflicting a sharp
check
Meanwhile
Marlborough had taken the field in the Netherlands (July), where the main body
of the Allies, some 40,000 strong, was lying in front of Nymegen to cover the siege of Kaiserswerth on the lower
Rhine, which 25,000 Dutch and Prussians were assailing, and to protect the
south-eastern frontier of Holland against 60,000 Frenchmen quartered in the
bishopric of Liege under Marshal Boufflers. Skilfully taking advantage of the undue extension of the
French lines, Marlborough drew Boufflers back from
Cleves to the left bank of the Meuse by threatening to cut him off from
Brabant; and, though the intervention of the Dutch deputies twice prevented a
battle when Marlborough seemed to have Boufflers at
his mercy, the French had to withdraw behind the Demer (August 23). Marlborough was thus able to successively besiege and reduce Venloo (September 16), Ruremonde (October 7), and Liege (October 23); Boufflers making
an unavailing attempt to anticipate the Allies at Liege, but retreating at once
when he found the position he had meant to take up occupied by Marlborough’s
covering army. These successes gave the Allies control of the lower Meuse,
while the capture of Kaiserswerth (June 15) and Rheinberg did the same for the lower Rhine, so that the
work of securing the communications between the Maritime Powers and Vienna was
well started. In the next summer, Marlborough invaded the electorate of
Cologne, overrunning it and
With the
spring of 1703, the French prepared to utilise the
path to Vienna thrown open to them by Bavaria’s action. In March Villars
secured Kehl, and, pushing across the Black Forest by Villingen, joined the Bavarian Elector near Ulm (May
9), unimpeded by Lewis of Baden, who lay inactive in his celebrated lines of Stolhofen, watched by another French corps under Marshal Tallard. The Elector would not have been there for Villars
to join, had but Styrum, who commanded the troops of
the Franconian Circle, cooperated with the 19,000 Austriaris under Schlick on the
Inn. Their failure to unite had allowed the Elector to capture Ratisbon, and to inflict on Schlick’s isolated corps a sharp reverse at Scharding (March
11).
Vienna was
now in dire peril. Had Villars and the Bavarian Elector pushed on down the
Danube, it is difficult to see how the city could have been saved. Lewis of
Baden was helpless, Marlborough fully occupied in the distant Netherlands,
Hungary actually in insurrection; and not even Eugene could prevent the army of
Italy from being pressed back through Tyrol by Vendome’s superior forces. But,
like his son Charles Albert thirty-eight years later, Maximilian Emanuel missed
his chance. Intent on securing communication with much-coveted Milan, he turned
aside into Tyrol, leaving Villars, much to the French commander’s chagrin, to
cover his operations against Lewis of Baden, who had come up from Stolhofen with most of his corps and joined Styrum (June). But the conquest of Tyrol did not prove so
easy as the Elector anticipated. Though opposed by the peasantry, he reached
Innsbruck (July 2) and even pushed a detachment forward to the Brenner Pass,
only to find that Vendome had not arrived. The latter, indeed, never started
for Trent till July 20; and, by the time he reached it (September 2), the
Bavarians, harassed by the Tyrolese mountaineers, who cut off their detachments
and threatened their communications, had given up hope of his coming and had
beaten a costly retreat to Bavaria (August). During this time Lewis of Baden
and
Meanwhile, on
the Rhine things had fared ill for the Allies. Thiingen,
whom Lewis of Baden had left at Stolhofen, failed
to prevent Tallard from taking Breisach (September 8) and besieging Landau. Reinforced by a corps from the Netherlands
under the Hereditary Prince Frederick of Hesse-Cassel,
he attempted the relief of Landau, only to suffer a disatrous defeat at Speyerbach (November 13), on which Landau surrendered
(November 21). Thus, with 40,000 French wintering in Bavaria, their
communications with Alsace greatly improved by Tallard’s successes and the fprces of the Maritime Powers
apparently committed to operations in the Netherlands, the prospects for the
Emperor looked bad indeed. The only gleam of satisfaction was that the Duke of
Savoy, always distrustful of the sincerity of his French ally’s promises, had
been in secret communication with the Emperor for some time, and now, urged to
the step by Vendome’s demand that he should hand over
Turin and Susa to the French and suffer the disarming of his troops,
definitively threw in his lot with the Allies and signed a treaty with the
Emperor (October 25). On this, Starhemberg, who had
maintained Eugene’s old position on the lower Po during the summer, hastened
with his
1704] MarlborougKs march to the Danube. But, even so,
Vienna’s peril was great; and, when in April strong reinforcements crossed the
Black Forest by the Hollenthal and joined the Elector
of Bavaria near Dillingen (May 19), unhampered by
Lewis of Baden, it seemed futile to hope that even Eugene, who had replaced Styrum, would be able to stem the advance of the
Franco-Bavarians down the Danube. Tallard, with over
30,000 men, took up a position near Kehl to protect
the French communications with Bavaria and to hold Lewis of Baden in check;
while Villeroi, with yet another army, was expected
to keep Marlborough occupied in the Netherlands. Luckily for the Allied cause,
Marlborough had realised the critical condition of
The first
task before the Allies was to secure a passage over the Danube. To this end
Marlborough moved upon Donauworth, and on July 2 succeeded after a desperate struggle in
storming the strong entrenched camp of the Bavarians on the Schellenberg.
The losses, though heavy, were justifiable; for Tallard was reported to becoming up from the Rhine, and it was important to capture the
post before the garrison could be reinforced. This success gave the Allies Donauworth and its bridge, opening Bavaria to them, and
forcing the Elector and Marsin to abandon the line of
the Danube and retire southward up the Lech. Marlborough was thus enabled to
place himself between the Franco- Bavarians and Vienna, Bavaria being exposed
to his raiding parties. However, reinforcements were on their way to join the
Elector; for no sooner
Thus in the
year 1704 the situation was completely reversed in Germany; Vienna was
delivered; the French invaders were expelled; the Elector of Bavaria was a
fugitive, his dominions being placed under Austrian control by the Convention
of Ilbersheim (November 7); and French prestige
destroyed by a blow without a parallel since Condé had destroyed the Spanish
reputation at Rocroi. Nor could Louis XIV balance
this disaster with any success elsewhere. In Italy, Victor Amadeus, though sore
beset and isolated, still maintained his ground ini Piedmont; in the Netherlands nothing had been done since Villeroi’s departure; and in the new theatre of operations in the Pyrenean Peninsula and
the Mediterranean the advantage had remained with the Allies.
In the
negotiations as to the Partition Treaties the question of the Mediterranean had
been one of the most important issues: William, fresh from the experience of
the last war, had seen that, were Spain tb pass to a
Bourbon, England would be excluded from the Mediterranean unless she could
secure a base within the Straits. He had fought hard to obtain Minorca for
England; and, but for the reluctance of Rooke to
venture out so late in the season, a squadron would probably have been despatched to Cadiz in the autumn of 1701 to forestall the
French in occupying that all-important position. William was pressing on the
preparations for such an expedition, when his death, which threw all
arrangements out of gear, caused a serious delay in its departure. The
instructions issued to Rooke leave no doubt that the
expedition was
1704-5] Gibraltar and Malaga,—The Netherlands. One
important result of Portugal’s change of sides was that, when the Emperor
decided to transfer his rights over Spain to his second son, Archduke Charles,
and to despatch him to the Peninsula to prosecute his
claim, a, good base was secured for the operations of the troops which England
and Holland sent out to assist him (February, 1704). Philip V was, however,
prepared for, the attack; and by land little was accomplished. It was at sea,
not ashore, that took place the principal operations of the Allies in southern
Europe in 1704. Seeing clearly that the capture of Toulon would be the most
damaging blow that could be inflicted on France, Marlborough had planned that,
after Rooke had escorted Archduke Charles to the
Tagus, he should carry his fleet to the Riviera and there gain touch with the
Duke of Savoy, who was to furnish the land forces needed to cooperate with the
British navy in this great enterprise. Unfortunately for the Allies, it was at this
time wholly out of the power of the Duke of Savoy to spare any troops for an
attack on Toulon. Accordingly, Rooke had to fall back on his alternative task of assisting the
operations of the Archduke, and returned to the Straits. On the way home, he unluckily
just failed to intercept the French squadron from Brest, which the Count of
Toulouse was bringing
For the
campaign of 1705 Marlborough had planned an invasion of France by the line he had pretended to be about to use in 1704—that of the Mosells and Saar. His aim was to penetrate to Metz, thereby
turning the fortresses of the Netherlands and also cutting off Alsace from the
interior. However, neither the States General, who had promised to fill his
magazines, nor the Rhenish Electors on whom he was
relying for transport, performed their obligations; and, when the death of the
The next
campaign opened badly for the Imperialists in Italy. In April, 1706, Vendome
made a sudden attack on their cantonments round Brescia, driving them back into
Tyrol in confusion, just as Eugene returned from his labours at Vienna, whither he had gone to obtain reinforcements and a supply of money
for the army in Italy.
Had the
Allied commanders been able to have their own way, Eugene would have been
accompanied by Marlborough and a British contingent; for the Duke, ever looking
towards Toulon, hoped in concert with Eugene to sweep the French from northern
Italy, and then, assisted by the British fleet in the Mediterranean, to deal
the blow hitherto forbidden by the want of a land force at his disposal. It was
a scheme more brilliant even than the march to the Danube in 1704 and
exhibiting to the full Marlborough’s strategic insight and comprehensive
grasp. However, just as he seemed about to win the consent of the States General, the sudden retreat of Lewis of Baden behind
the Rhine (April) revived their apprehensions, and prevented the great design
from being carried out. But an English subsidy of £250,000 furnished Eugene
with 24,000 troops from Hesse-Cassel, Brandenburg, Saxe-Gotha
and the Palatinate; and,thus reinforced, he moved
down the left of the Adige (July 5), disregarding Venetian neutrality as in
1701, outflanked Marsin, the new commander of the
French army of Italy, and crossed to the south of the Po
After having
to abandon his scheme for helping Eugene in Italy Marlborough had laid his
plans for forcing the lines of the Dyle behind which Villeroi was lying, as he hardly anticipated that the
French Marshal would take the offensive. However, Villeroi,
hearing that the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents had not yet joined
Marlborough, boldly left his lines on May 19 and pushed across the Great Gheete by Tirlemont to Judoigne on his way towards Liege. A rapid concentration at Bilsen and a forced march southwestward enabled
Marlborough to plant himself across Villeroi’s path,
with over 60,000 men, British, Dutch, and Danes; and, early in the morning of
May 23, the two armies came into contact on the high ground which serves as the
watershed between the Gheete and the Mehaigne. Villeroi, though
surprised to find the Allies on the move, promptly took up his position for
battle, resting his right, mainly composed of cavalry, on the Mehaigne at Taviere, posting his centre at Ramillies and Offuz and his left between Offuz and Autre liglise, its
front being covered by the marshes in which the Gheete rises. The position was strong and the French army hardly, if at all inferior
in numbers to the Allies. But the marshes also forbade a counter-attack by the
French left; and Marlborough, realising this,
contained that wing by a feint with the first line of his right, the rest of
which was diverted under cover of some hills to support the left and centre in their attack on the French right. The move was a
complete success. Tavieres, too far from Ramillies for effectual support, was stormed; a great
cavalry combat on the slopes between the Mehaigne and Ramillies ended in the defeat of the French; and
their effort to form a new line, with its left resting on Ramillies,
was frustrated by the capture of that village. Next, the Allied cavalry,
pushing on, outflanked the new French right in the direction of
In some respects Marlborough’s most brilliant victory, Ramillies was remarkable for the relentless vigour of the pursuit, which did not allow the French to rally behind the Scheldt, but forced them to retire hastily up the Lys to Courtray, to avoid being cut off from France. Within a fortnight of the battle, all Brabant and most of Flanders was in Marlborough’s hands: Antwerp (May 26), Ghent, Binges, and Oudenarde were among the towns which capitulated at the first summons, and the capture of Ostend (July 6) gave him a more direct line of communications with England, which he subsequently secured by the successive reduction of Menin (August 22), Dendermonde (September 5), and Ath (October 2). Moreover, his victory paralysed the French in other quarters. Villars lost his chance of following up the retreat of Lewis of Baden from Alsace, because he had to detach 30,000 men to the Netherlands and was reduced to the defensive: Eugene’s task was made easier, when the recall of Vendome to replace Villeroi left him with only Marsin to face. Peterborough in Spain, [1706-6 In the
Pyrenean Peninsula also things had gone well for the Allies. After Leake’s relief of Gibraltar (March, 1705), Galway advanced
into Estremadura from Portugal, taking Valenza and
forcing Tesse to evacuate Andalusia to save Badajoz.
Meanwhile Shovell’s squadron carried a British force
round to the east coast, where Peterborough was thus enabled to inaugurate his
remarkable career by the escalade of Monjuich (September 12) and the reduction of Barcelona (October 9,1705). This was
followed by the adoption of the Habsburg cause by Catalonia and
Valencia; and, though in the following spring, in the absence from the
Mediterranean of the bulk of the English fleet, a French army under Tesse invaded Catalonia and besieged Barcelona (February),
the return of Leake’s fleet in full strength sent the
Toulon squadron which had been covering the operations flying back to harbour, and forced Tesse to
raise the siege (May 11) and beat a disastrous retreat to France. Valencia was
again cleared of the French; and, on June 26, Madrid passed into the
occupation of the Allies. Galway, with an Anglo-Portuguese force, had taken Ciudad
Rodrigo in May and advanced by Salamanca on Madrid, Marshal Berwick retiring
before him. But outside Catalonia and Valencia hardly a Spaniard was for Charles: Castile rallied to Philip; Berwick returned with
reinforcements; and Galway, after a brief stay, found it necessary to evacuate
Madrid: while, though joined by Peterborough (August 6), he had finally to
retire into Valencia, on the borders of which province he took up
his winter-quarters, Peterborough having, shortly before that, left Spain for
Italy. Still, despite the failure to hold Madrid, 1706 was a great year for the
Allies,
One
circumstance which had encouraged Louis to hold out for better terms than the
Allies would grant him also contributed largely to hamper Marlborough’s
operations in 1707. The course of affairs in north-eastern Europe had established
the victorious army of Charles XII of Sweden within the boundaries of the
Empire at Altranstadt in Saxony; and Louis hoped that
the days of Turenne and Wrangel were come again, and
that the advance of the Swedish veterans into the Austrian dominions might effect what the direct attack on Vienna by the Danube had
failed to do. There, were reasons for this hope. Joseph had infuriated Charles
by assis.jg Augustus II, while the Silesian
Protestants were appealing to the Swedish King for protection against Austrian
oppression and persecution. Throughout central Germany alarm and consternation
prevailed; the Princes prepared to retain for their own defence the troops they would otherwise have hired out to the Maritime Powers; and so
serious was the outlook that Marlborough found it necessary to go in person to Altranstadt to see whether his diplomatic skill could
prevent Charles from intervening in western Europe (April, 1707). However, he
found his cause half won, for Charles, though anxious to do something for the
Silesian Protestants, had preoccupations more pressing than that of embroiling
himself with the Maritime Powers in order to assist Louis XIV; and Marlborough
was soon able to return to the Netherlands, secure in the knowledge that
Charles on breaking up from Altranstadt would not
march on Vienna. Nevertheless, his advance into the Empire had certainly been
of use to
The Flanders campaign of 1707.-Villars on the Rhine. [1707 Elsewhere,
the Allies had done even worse. The campaign of 1706 had been Lewis of Baden’s
twenty-sixth and last; worn out by many years of hard service, he died in
January, 1707. Although his military talents were not of the highest order and
in the school of generals to which he belonged precision and method were apt to
degenerate into pedantry and formalism, he had done good service in trying to reorganise the army of the Empire, and had been unrivalled
as a constructor of fortified lines. Marlborough and Eugene had found him no
very congenial or efficient colleague. Yet his successor in command, Margrave
Charles Ernest of Brandenburg-Baireuth, was certainly
his inferior. The campaign of 1707 on the Rhine illustrates admirably the utter
inefficiency of the defensive arrangements of the Empire. The “Unarmed Members” endeavoured to shirk their obligations to provide
funds; while the “Armed Members” preferred to hire out their troops to the
Maritime Powers rather than employ them at their own cost in the common cause.
Thus, when, in May, Villars unexpectedly took the offensive, crossing the
Rhine and assaulting the famous lines of Stolhofen (May 22), he found them weakly held, and had little difficulty in capturing
them. This success allowed him to push forward into Swabia, requisitioning and
plundering freely in all directions. His raiding parties spread terror
throughout south-western Germany, levying contributions on Wiirtemberg,
Baden, the Palatinate, and the Swabian Circle.
However, in July, ten battalions and twelve squadrons had to be detached to
Provence; and on the supersession of the incompetent Margrave of Baireuth by the Elector George Lewis of Hanover, who
brought with him some 6000 men, the French retired across the Rhine
(September), having, in the words of an angry colonel in Marlborough’s army,
“overrun the lazy and sleepy Empire and not
But these
reverses on the Rhine were trifling, compared with the disastrous turn affairs
had taken in Spain. Hoping that Galway’s army might be utilised to cooperate with Eugene in the attack on Toulon, which now seemed at last
practicable, Marlborough had despatched reinforcements to the Peninsula. Unfortunately a disagreement between Galway
and Archduke Charles led to a separation; and the Archduke’s departure for
Catalonia left Galway with only 15,000 men, a bare third of whom were British,
while half were Portuguese and the rest Dutch and Huguenots. Endeavouring, with this motley force, to defeat Berwick
before the Duke of Orleans could reinforce him, Galway gave battle at Almanza (April 25, 1707), and, largely through the
misconduct of the Portuguese suffered a complete defeat, which lost Aragon,
Murcia and Valencia to the Allies, and for the rest of the year reduced them to
a mere defensive in Catalonia. Worse than this, no troops could be spared to
assist Eugene’s invasion of Provence, a task which had to be undertaken with
most inadequate forces, inasmuch as the Emperor foolishly insisted on detaching
some 13,000 men under Daun on the quite subsidiary
errand of the reduction of Naples, when success at the critical spot, Toulon,
would have been the surest road to the ultimate acquisition of southern Italy. Daun easily achieved his task; the Neapolitan population
was bitterly hostile to the Bourbons, whose weak garrisons, cut off from all
chance of succour by the English command of the sea,
merely offered a feeble resistance which came to an end in September. But this
success could not compensate for the failure of Eugene’s attack on Toulon.
Moving by the Col di Tenda, Eugene had crossed the Var on July 11, and, although hampered by the negligence
and inefficiency of the Duke of Savoy, had reached Frejus,
and was in touch with Shovell and the British fleet,
by the 16th. But the Duke’s procrastination caused further delays, and gave
time for the troops which Berwick was sending home from Spain to reinforce
Marshal Tesse at Toulon before the arrival of the
Allies (July 26). On August 14, Tesse retook the
all-important heights of Santa Catarina, which the
Allies had stormed a week earlier; and Eugene, finding his retreat menaced and
little chance of taking Toulon, had to abandon his attempt (August 22), and
fall back across the Var, having lost
French
diplomacy, whose superiority to its rivals in this period was still as
incontestable as till recently had been the military preeminence of France, had
not ceased from its efforts since their failure in the
For the
campaign of 1708 it had been proposed that Marlborough should occupy Vendome
and the main French army, over 80,000 strong, in the Netherlands, while a joint
advance was made by George Lewis of Hanover upon Alsace, and by Eugene by the
Saar and Moselle. But George Lewis, through no fault
of his own, could not carry out his share of the design. The failure of many of
the principal German Powers, notably Saxony and Prussia, to provide their
proper contingents made it impossible for the army of the Empire, whose
available force was under
The victory
of Oudenarde exhibits clearly Marlborough’s wonderful
power for fighting an impromptu battle and his remarkable eye for ground. The
physical feat performed by his troops in fighting such a battle, after covering
nearly fifty miles between 2 a.m. on the 9th and 2 p.m. on the 11th, is also
noteworthy; but what is most striking in connexion with his victory of Oudenarde is the daring use to
which Marlborough would have put it, could he have obtained the consent of the
Dutch and of Eugene, who had himself arrived in time to share in the victory,
and whose army arrived a few days after the action. Marlborough would have
boldly pushed on into France, merely masking the great fortress of Lille, and
have thereby transferred the war to French territory; while the descent upon
Normandy of a corps under General Erie would have provided him with a new line
of communications with England. He counted on the invasion of France for
bringing about automatically the evacuation of western Flanders by the remnants
of Vendome’s army. The scheme was, however, too unorthodox even for the
enterprising Eugene; and it was decided that the Prince’s army should proceed
to besiege Lille, Marlborough covering the operation against interference by
Berwick, who had come up from the Moselle with 20,000
men and was endeavouring to join Vendome. About the
middle of August the siege was begun, and, despite the stout defence of the veteran Boufflers,
Siege of Lille.—Negotiations resumed. [1708-9 As in 1706,
so in the spring of 1709 Louis made his first overtures to the Dutch; but Heinsius, who, so late as December, 1708, had declared the
adherence of the States General to the principle of
the renunciation of the entire Spanish monarchy by the House of Bourbon, would
hear nothing of any separate negotiation. Thus, before the pourparlers between Rouille, who was soon joined by Torcy, and the Dutch delegates, Buys and van der Dussen, which began on March 17, had proceeded far, a clear
understanding had been reached between Heinsius and
Marlborough. The concessions which the French envoys were empowered to make
might well have satisfied the Allies, if they had been prepared to entertain
any notion of a partition of the Spanish monarchy. Louis was prepared to be
satisfied with the retention by Philip of Naples and Sicily only; all the rest
of the Spanish inheritance was to be given up; and Mons, Namur, and even Strassburg, were to be surrendered, Lille alone being restored
to France. After an interview at the Hague between Marlborough and Torcy on May 17, at which the French envoy attempted to
obtain lower terms by bribery on a grand scale, he on the 19th informed Heinsius that he was empowered to offer the cession of the
entire Spanish inheritance. Louis XIV had some weeks earlier consented to recognise the Protestant Succession in England, and it was
understood that no objection would ultimately be made to the cession of
Newfoundland to England, on which Marlborough had in addition insisted, or to
the satisfaction of Savoy. The real difficulty lay in the question of the
guarantee which Louis could furnish for Philip’s surrender of the Spanish
monarchy. The Dutch, with unerring instinct, proposed that the three French
towns, Valenciennes, St Omer, and Cambray,
should be pledged to the States General; and this solution was supported at the
Hague by the veteran authority of Portland (Bentinck). But, recognising that it was England upon whom it would devolve to settle affairs in Spain, the
English Government, represented by Townshend at the Hague, demurred; and the
Emperor and Savoy now raised their demands.
It is now
known that on July 10,1709, writing most confidentially to Heinsius,
Marlborough, whose ambition has been held largely accountable for the
unreasonable demand made on Louis XIV by the Allies, avowed that “were he in
the place of the King of France, he should venture the loss of his country much
sooner than be obliged to join his troops for the forcing his grandson.” The
accusation, commonly preferred against Marlborough, of having prolonged the war
for his own benefit, is untenable; but he had not at the right moment asserted
his more rational views against the obduracy of Townshend, the calculations of
the Dutch, and the self-centred obstinacy of the
Emperor, who is probably to be held largely responsible for the breakdown. It
must, however, be allowed that the cession of the Spanish monarchy— which was
still regarded as an indispensable condition of peace—was nugatory without
guarantees. While both in Holland and in England there was an outburst of
indignation against the defiant resolution of France, Marlborough and Prince
Eugene were, not perhaps very fairly, blaming Dutch statesmanship for having
found no better way of securing from Louis a satisfactory guarantee of the
Spanish cession; and Heinsius was exhibiting his
The first Barrier Treaty.—Villars' preparations. [1709 Meanwhile, in
the negotiations which still dragged their length along, the question of a Dutch
“Barrier” of Belgic fortresses remained as if it were a fixed point. It will,
perhaps, be most convenient to review the whole question of this provision for
the protection of the Dutch frontier in connexion with the third and final Barrier Treaty of 1715. Here, therefore, it
will
suffice to say that the first Treaty known by this name with the
States General
was signed by Townshend on October 29, 1709. It was, so to
speak, an open
secret. The United Provinces by it acquired the right of
garrisoning nine
fortified places in the Spanish Netherlands, together with ten
others, should
they be retaken from the French; and were thus constituted by
England the guardians of southern Belgium—and, as it seemed to Prince
Eugene, the eventual
masters of the whole of the Belgic provinces. The protests of
the Emperor were
made in vain, ;for it was quite clear from this time onwards
that, if the
Maritime Powers held out by each other, the House of Habsburg
was reduced to
passivity as to this part of any ultimate settlement.
The
exorbitant demands of the Allies had in the early summer of
After the
fall of Tournay (September 3) the Allied forces were
immediately set in motion towards Mons, the movement being covered by a feint
on Douay to distract Villars. But the Marshal was not to be deceived; and,
though the Allies anticipated him in seizing the passage (September 7) by Jemmappes through the great forest which lies westward of
Mons, he was able to seize the southern passage by Malplaquet,
occupying so threatening a position that the Allies found they must drive him
away before they could form the siege. Unfortunately, Marlborough’s proposal to
attack immediately was not adopted; Eugene seems to have believed that Villars
was merely demonstrating and would not fight, and the Dutch deputies urged that
the attack should be deferred until the arrival of the last detachment of the
besiegers of Toumay. Hence the attack was not made
till two days later (September 11), and Villars had utilised the delay to the best purpose, erecting field-works of a most formidable
character to cover his naturally advantageous position. His main body was
posted on a ridge less than two miles long, flanked to the right and the left
by the woods of Lasnières and Taisnières,
while the wood of Sart projecting in front of his
left flanked and enfiladed the direct advance against his front. Seeing that
this wood of Sart was the key to the French position,
Marlborough and Eugene resolved to make their main attack in this quarter,
merely demonstrating on their left against the wood of Lasnieres.
Unfortunately, a blunder of the Prince of Orange converted this demonstration
into a real attack, which resulted in a disastrous repulse for his Dutchmen,
who lost very heavily. This allowed Villars to reinforce his hard-pressed left
from his right, and a counter-attack drove the Allies back until it in turp was checked by a column under Withers, which had
worked round through the woods and now fell upon the extreme left of the
French. Boufflers, now in command as Villars had been
badly wounded, had therefore to weaken his right centre in order to hold Withers in check; and this gave Marlborough his opportunity.
Orkney’s British and Hanoverian infantry were pushed forward against the French
entrenchments, carried them,
Minorca and the Peninsula. [1708-9 Meanwhile,
the events of 1708 and 1709 had done little to shake Philip’s hold on Spain.
Early in 1708 Galway had returned from the east coast to Portugal, as it had
been resolved to employ in Catalonia in place of the untrustworthy Portuguese
German troops set free by the armistice in Italy. However, before the Germans
under Starhemberg could arrive, the Franco-Spaniards
had taken Tortosa (July 15, 1708) and cut the
communications between Catalonia and Valencia; and even when the Germans did arrive
they failed to prevent the reduction of Denia (November, 1708) and of Alicante (April, 1709), the only places left to Charles
in Valencia. The one success gained by the Allies in this region in 1708 was
the capture of Minorca by Leake and Stanhope (September
14-30,1708)—a well-conducted enterprise, which at a small cost secured for the
English fleet the one thing of which it had hitherto stood in need, a harbour in the Mediterranean where a squadron could winter
and be properly refitted. For Marlborough, seeing the ill-success of his
designs on Toulon, had fallen back on the less satisfactory expedient of maintaining
a squadron permanently in the Mediterranean, to mask the Toulon fleet and so
furnish the Allied generals with that secure naval support for which they were
always asking. The expedition had been undertaken at his urgent request, and
the equipment of Port Mahon with the stores and appliances needed for a
dockyard was at once set on foot. However, little was done in 1709 to advance
the Habsburg cause in the Peninsula: even after all the French troops had been
recalled from Spain to succour Louis in his great
emergency (August) Starhemberg effected nothing
beyond the capture of Balaguer (September), which
facilitated the next year’s advance; while Galway, invading Spanish
Estremadura, suffered a sharp reverse on the Caya (May 17), through the rashness of his Portuguese colleague, de Fronteira. Philip’s hold on the Peninsula was unshaken, and
even the successes of the Allies in 1710 only served to confirm it.
Thus, in the
course of the campaigns of 1709 there seemed to be a balance of loss and gain
between the adversaries such as might justify renewed attempts at negotiating
peace. Spain was practically out of the control of the Allies; and the
Government of the United Provinces, with its own future secured by the Barrier
Treaty, was for peace; though the question of the ultimate definition of the
Barrier made it less feasible than ever for the States General to proceed to a
settlement without their Maritime Ally. Thus the overtures made by Torcy in November, 1709, as to a resumption of negotiations
on the basis of the May Preliminaries, led to a meeting of Dutch and French
plenipotentiaries at the Hague (January 18, 1710) and to a declaration by Louis
(February) that he was prepared to assent to the proposed basis, subject to a
fresh consideration of the question as to the guarantees of the cession. On
March 10 conferences were actually opened in nominal secrecy at Gertruydenberg (or rather on a yacht between that place and Mierdyk), and they were continued at intervals till
near the end of April. France was represented by Marshal d’Huxelles and the Abbé (afterwards Cardinal) de Polignac, who
found more than their match in Buys and van der Dussen.
England and the Emperor at first held aloof; though the former Power still
controlled the action of her Maritime Ally. It is, however, tolerably clear
that from the outset Marlborough and Townshend agreed with the Dutch statesmen
in contemplating a partial cession only on the part of Philip, and that even
the Whig Government at home was wavering. The Emperor’s estrangement from the
Maritime Powers increased in proportion as England’s attitude altered. Joseph,
very unreasonably, objected to a partition of the Spanish monarchy, and the
proposal to give Sicily to Philip was vehemently opposed by Savoy— though
Godolphin and Marlborough, as well as Heinsius, would
have agreed to this. Moreover, the wish, certainly cherished at this time by
Louis, that his grandson should yield, met with no response on the part of
Philip; and no result seeming attainable at Gertruydenberg,
the conferences were, on the proposal of the Dutch, interrupted for some time.
The campaigns of 1710 had already begun, when Louis went so far as to offer the
Allies a monthly subsidy of 150,000 limes, to be eventually doubled, for their
coercive operations in the Pyrenean Peninsula. The proposal was rejected by the
Dutch plenipotentiaries on their return to Gertruydenberg.
It was more clear than ever that the result depended on the decision of
England, whether in return for liberal trade concessions by Spain and the
transfer of Newfoundland by France, she would assent to a partition of the
Spanish monarchy which would leave Spain alone to Philip. The Dutch would in
the end be content with a good Barrier; and the Emperor would have to be
content with what he could get. Savoy, who vehemently opposed the cession of
Sicily to Philip, could not turn the balance.
But, though
the decision lay with England, Marlborough was no
Thus, in
July, 1710, the inflexible attitude of Buys and van der Dussen rendered a continuation of the Gertruydenberg Conferences hopeless; and the French plenipotentiaries withdrew with an angry
protest, to which the States General replied by an elaborate argument
representing the King of France as alone responsible for the continuance of the
struggle. But a memorandum handed in by the French was not without its effect
upon the peace party in the United Provinces; and both there and in England the
feeling grew that the real reason for the breakdown of the negotiations had
been the excessive demands of the Maritime Powers.
Saragossa and Villa Viciosa. [1710-1 Even before
the Conferences were over, in July, 1710, Starhemberg,
whose strength reinforcements from Italy had raised to a total of
Operations
had begun in the Netherlands with a sudden concentration of the Allies at Tournay (April 19), followed by a dash across the lines of
La Bassée, which caught the French unprepared and
allowed Marlborough to form the siege of Douay (May 5). The place made a most
gallant defence, but Villars could give it no help;
he could not risk the last army of France in a pitched battle, and therefore
set
Before,
however, the operations of 1711 could be opened, the best chance of a decisive
campaign had vanished with the sudden death (April 17) of the Emperor Joseph.
This event completely altered the European situation, as it left Archduke
Charles the head of the Habsburg family and the obvious successor on the
Imperial throne. It was hardly possible that the Grand Alliance, which had been
formed in order to prevent a cadet of the Bourbon family from ascending the
Spanish throne, should continue the war to reunite the dominions of Charles V
under the head of the Austrian Habsburgs. Joseph’s death thus provided the Tory
Ministry with an additional justification for their determination to bring the
war to an end, and to meet the growing feeling that an annual expenditure which
had steadily risen in the course of ten years from nearly four to nearly seven
millions sterling had become intolerable. According to William Ill’s settlement
England had bound herself to furnish two parts out of every five of the land
forces required of the war, and five parts out of every eight of the sea
forces; and yet it was estimated that above these quotas, England from first to
last expended twenty millions sterling to cover the military and naval
deficiencies of her Allies.
Yet, though
there could be no pretence that the war was any
longer
I711] Marlborough the "non plus ultra" Apart from
its influence upon the diplomatic situation, the death of Joseph had seriously
interfered with the Allied plan of campaign for
The death of
Joseph I, though it had thus neither created the desire for peace, nor been the
starting-point of the negotiations to that end, justified the indifference of
England—and of Holland, if but her “Barrier” were secured—to the continuance
of the Grand Alliance. Lord Raby (soon afterwards
Earl of Strafford), who had superseded
Yet its
approaching meeting was announced in the Queen’s Speech of December 11, in
terms implying the existence of the most perfect harmony of purpose between the
members of the Grand Alliance. It has been seen elsewhere how the address of
the House of Lords declaring against any peace which should leave Spain and the
Indies in the possession of the House of Bourbon was answered by the creation
of twelve new Peers (December 31). Prince Eugene landed in London January 16,
1712; but he soon began to doubt the probability of success, though he
continued his efforts to secure joint action on the part of the Emperor, the States General, Hanover, and the Whigs, and presented
memorandum upon memorandum to the English Government. The last of these
demanded a change in the Preliminaries of the Congress which—as a
It was on
January 1, 1712, that the open negotiations between the Allies and France began
at Utrecht. The efforts of Count Gallas, the
over-impetuous Austrian ambassador, had failed to shake the determination of
the Tories and only produced his own recall; and Eugene’s two months in London
had been spent to no purpose. However, the meeting of the Conferences was not
accompanied by an armistice, and in planning his operations for the summer
Eugene still counted on the assistance of the English and their auxiliaries,
now under the Duke of Ormond. His scheme was to turn the French lines at the
head of the Sambre, besiege Quesnoy and Landrecies, and so open up the way to Paris by
the valley of the Oise. In May he proceeded to put this plan into operation,
and laid siege to Quesnoy, Ormond’s corps covering the
siege. Quesnoy fell on July 4; but, just as Eugene
was about to invest Landrecies, he was informed by
Ormond (July 16) that an armistice had been concluded between Great Britain and
France, and that in conformity with its terms he was about to withdraw his
troops to Dunkirk, which was to be handed over to Great Britain as a pledge of
French good faith. But when Ormond gave orders to his corps to quit the Allied
camp only the contingents of Holstein, Liege and Saxe-Coburg,
little more than 3000 men, followed him; the rest of the auxiliaries, some 118
squadrons and 44 battalions, of whom 6200 men were Danes, 10,400 Hanoverians,
4000 Hessians, 8700 Prussians and 5900 Saxons, all refused to leave Eugene and
remained with him to the end of the campaign, although, on learning of their
refusal to obey Ormond, England at once ceased to pay the subsidies for their
support. Thanks to this action on the part of the German auxiliaries, Eugene,
who had about 150 squadrons and 80 battalions of Austrians and Dutch, felt
himself strong enough to continue his operations, and accordingly invested Landrecies (July 18). It was a somewhat hazardous
proceeding; for the departure of the English transferred the numerical
superiority to Villars, who was able to safely call up troops from other points
thus made secure; moreover, the refusal of the Dutch deputies to let the
principal depot of the Allies be moved from Marchiennes to Quesnoy compelled Eugene to extend his lines
beyond prudent limits. Still, to have remained inactive would have certainly
discouraged his men, and it would have equally encouraged the French had he
seemed disheartened. Villars was not slow to see his opportunity, and, after
drawing off Eugene’s attention by feinting at the main position of the Allies
on the Escaillon, he hurled strong forces against the
Dutch, who were guarding the bridge at Denain (July
24), and thereby covering the great magazine at Marchienne.
Surprised and outnumbered, the Dutch made but a feeble resistance to Villars’
vigorous attack, and, long before Eugene could bring up reinforcements, they
had given way in disorder and were
The change of
affairs in the field naturally affected the course of the negotiations at
Utrecht. The Dutch were already weary of the war, and intent upon ending it if
satisfied as to their “Barrier.” The conclusion of a peace was further
advanced, when Louis induced his grandson to abandon formally his claims on
France, which had recently acquired increased importance through the deaths of
the Dauphin (April, 1711) and of the Dukes of Burgundy (February, 1712) and Britanny (March, 1712). With this renunciation Bolingbroke
(St John) also had to be content; though he would probably have preferred to
see Victor Amadeus at Madrid. But Philip’s hold on Spain was too secure to be
shaken; and, in August, 1712, a suspension of hostilities in the Peninsula was
arranged, though it was not till the following autumn that Starhemberg and his men finally evacuated Catalonia. Long before this the Peace of Utrecht
had been signed. The patent divisions in the Allied camp, the knowledge that
the English Ministry had made up their minds to conclude peace, and the
improvement in his position wrought by Villars’ success, allowed Louis to
assume a stiffer attitude and to reduce the concessions he had to make; and,
though the Emperor—Charles had been duly elected in October, 1711—was somewhat
unreasonable in refusing to give up his claims on Spain and to content himself
with the ample possessions offered him in Italy, it is easier to sympathise with his obstinacy than to condemn it. Finally,
on April 11, 1713, the Peace (which is analysed elsewhere) was signed without the Emperor’s assent.
On the
conclusion of the Peace Eugene removed the Austrian forces, 67 squadrons of
cavalry and 14 battalions of infantry, from the Netherlands to the upper Rhine
to cooperate with the army of the Empire, which he found very much below its
proper strength. Almost the only
In June
French detachments pushed over the Rhine, occupying Speier and Mannheim, and so covering the siege of Landau, which Villars began on June
24. It proved a protracted affair; for, despite Eugene’s inaction, the fortress
held out till August 26 before surrendering. Villars then crossed the river at Strassburg, stormed the lines constructed to cover the
Freiburg Pass over the Black Forest (September 20), and, pressing hard on the
heels of the fugitives, invested the town. Again Eugene, too weak to risk a
battle, had to be a passive spectator of a gallant but unavailing defence. Freiburg resisted till well into October; the
castle held out till November 17. To blame Eugene for his inactivity would be
absurd; like Wellington on the Portuguese frontier in 1810, he could not risk a
fight because for political reasons he could not afford to be beaten; and the
slackness of the German Princes, which left him in so hopeless a numerical
inferiority, condemned him without appeal to the defensive.
But it was
not on Austria only that the strain of war was telling; France was equally in
need of a rest, and it was actually from Louis XIV that the next overtures for
peace came. This time Eugene managed to wring from Charles VI permission to
negotiate; and, thanks to the good offices of the Elector Palatine, a
conference was ultimately opened at Rastatt on
November 26 between Eugene and his old opponent, Villars. The negotiations were
long and complicated, the chief obstacles to peace being the questions of the
fortifications on the
Rastatt and Baden.—Marlborough as a general, [1714 In the War
which thus, after many vicissitudes, at last came to an end there is one figure
which certainly stands out preeminent. Marlborough had been the bond which had
held the Grand Alliance together; and, if England can with some justice claim
to have had the chief share in the defeat of Louis, it is on her great
general’s account. His army had, as a rule, contained but a modest contingent
of Englishmen, averaging about
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT AND THE SUPPLEMENTARY
PACIFICATIONS.
|
 |
