1706-7] Turin. - Convention of Milan. Ramillies 415 (July 18). Once on that bank, he pushed on at great speed, outpacing as well as outflanking the French, who moved parallel up the left bank. Not even at Stradella was any resistance offered; and, on August 31, the junction with the Duke of Savoy was effected at Villastellona. It was promptly followed up by an advance on Turin, and by the complete defeat of the investing army after a stubbornly-fought battle (September 7), in which the superior numbers of the French were neutralised by Engene's skilful handling of his troops and prompt improvement of his tactical opportunities. So far as Italy was concerned, the victory was decisive. The French at once evacuated Piedmont, withdrawing to France by Pinerolo and leaving to their own resources their garrisons at Mantua, Alessandria, and in the Milanese. These resisted stoutly, but vainly; and by the end of the year hardly a fortress still held out. The completeness of the French defeat may be judged from the conclusion of the Convention of Milan (March, 1707), by which Louis abandoned northern Italy and withdrew all his troops to France, thereby obtaining a reinforcement which was greatly needed elsewhere, for the French disasters of 1706 had not been confined to Italy. 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 Liége. A rapid concentration at Bilsen and a forced march south-westward 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 Méhaigne. 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 Méhaigne at Tavières, posting his centre at Ramillies and Offuz and his left between Offuz and Autre Église, 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. Tavières, too far from Ramillies for effectual support, was stormed; a great cavalry combat on the slopes between the Méhaigne 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 416 Results of Ramillies.—Peterborough in Spain [1705–6 the Tomb of Ottomond; some British battalions crossed the marshes and assailed Autre Église ; and the whole French army gave way in complete disorder, losing nearly all their guns and suffering treble the 5000 casualties of the Allies. 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, Bruges, 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 Vendôme to replace Villeroi left him with only Marsin to face. 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 Tessé 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 Tessé 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 Tessé 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, 1706-7] The first negotiations. — Charles XII 417 and so early as the middle of August Louis made overtures for peace apparently the first serious overtures which have to be noted in a long succession of efforts. These overtures, which indicated his willingness to consent to the cession of Spain to Archduke Charles, if Philip's rule over Milan, Naples and Sicily were recognised, were addressed through the French diplomatists Chamillart, Torcy, and the veteran d'Avaux, to the States General. They were offered (what to them was of paramount importance) a good "Barrier"-i.e. the surrender into Dutch keeping of a cincture of Belgian fortresses; and ulterior suggestions were added as to the annexation of the "loyal" Provinces as a whole, besides commercial advantages at the expense of all-suffering Spain. On communicating the substance of these proposals to Marlborough, Heinsius was quickly given to understand that England was not prepared — as in truth neither the Whigs, nor the Queen and public opinion, at the time were to listen to any mention of the partition of the Spanish monarchy; while a significant hint was conveyed to him and his Government, that the nature of the ultimate Dutch" Barrier" would largely depend on the fidelity of the 'United Provinces to the Alliance. Thus this first attempt at peace negotiations, which had been repudiated by the Imperial as well as by the English Government, broke down; although, in view of what was to follow, it cannot be said to have been made wholly in vain. 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 Altranstädt 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 assisting 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 Altranstädt 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 Altranstädt would not march on Vienna. Nevertheless, his advance into the Empire had certainly been of use to C. M. H. V. 27 418 Flanders campaign of 1707.- Villars on the Rhine [1707 France; for several of the north-German Princes, dreading this unwelcome neighbour, had failed to produce the contingents that should have served with Marlborough in the Netherlands; so that his force fell short of what was required, and the campaign of 1707 proved disappointingly barren of results. The strength of the French frontiers, all "covered by very strong towns and well fortified," while those of the Allies were open, made it essential that the Allies should outnumber the French by about 25,000 men, in order to provide a besieging force and escorts for convoys and trains over and above the field-force needed to cover sieges. The numerical superiority, however, was with the French, and Vendôme, adopting a most cautious defensive, would give no opportunity for a battle. Moreover, when at last Eugene's invasion of Provence, described below, caused the French to detach troops thither from Flanders, and so transferred the superiority to Marlborough, the untimely intervention of the Dutch deputies prevented him from bringing Vendôme to action on favourable terms, near Waterloo; and soon afterwards unusually wet weather brought the campaign to an abortive close. 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 Würtemberg, 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 1707] Almanza. -Eugene's attempt on Toulon 419 only maintained and paid a great army in it all the year, but by vast contributions sent money into France to help the King's other affairs." 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 co-operate with Eugene in the attack on Toulon, which now seemed at last practicable, Marlborough had dispatched 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 Fréjus, 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 Tessé at Toulon before the arrival of the Allies (July 26). On August 14, Tessé 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 10,000 men in this ill-fated enterprise. Its only fruit was that, in order to prevent their ships falling into the enemy's hands, the French had sunk their whole squadron of more than 50 sail in the harbour, and thereby put it quite out of their power to contest the English control of the Mediterranean. French diplomacy, whose superiority to its rivals in this period was still as incontestable as till recently had been the military pre-eminence of France, had not ceased from its efforts since their failure in the |