1709]

Malplaquet

425

intended that the army of the Empire should invade Alsace, while Dauphiné was simultaneously attacked by Daun and Victor Amadeus, who had in the previous year secured Piedmont by the capture of Fenestrelles. However, while the Duke of Savoy made no effort to fulfil his share of the scheme, Daun and the Austrian contingent with the Piedmontese could effect nothing unsupported, so that these troops, who might have done good service elsewhere, spent the year in complete inactivity. The usual difficulties delayed the assembly of the army of the Empire so long that the French could safely send detachments to the Netherlands (July), and when at last the Austrians under Mercy impatiently crossed the Rhine near Basel without waiting for the Elector of Hanover, they came to grief at Hüningen (August 26), after which both sides relapsed

into cautious inaction.

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 Tournay. 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 rightand 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 Lasnières. 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 turn 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,

426

Minorca and the Peninsula

[1708-9 and so opened a way for the Allied squadrons. Then followed a great cavalry combat, which fluctuated until the Allies put in the last word in the shape of Eugene's Austrian horse, and the battle was won. Boufflers, with his left turned and his centre pierced, did well in extricating his army in good order, only 16 guns and 500 prisoners being left behind. The most costly of the great battles of the war- for the Allies had nearly 20,000 casualties and the French 12,000 Malplaquet was nevertheless an important success for the Allies, even if the French could fairly claim to have shared the honours. Villars' army, despite the prodigious efforts which it represented, had been ousted from an extremely strong position, and so roughly handled in the process that it could do nothing more for Mons, which had to surrender on October 9; so that the campaign closed with the complete reduction of the French to the defensive, while the Allies were firmly éstablished on the upper Scheldt and their conquests in Brabant and Flanders well covered.

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.

1709-10]

Negotiations at Gertruydenberg

427

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 livres, 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

428

Saragossa and Villa Viciosa

[1710-11 longer likely to direct it. Already in 1709 the course of affairs was undermining a position from which he might otherwise have looked for ward with the highest expectations to the campaign of 1710. He was losing ground at home; Prince George of Denmark, his constant supporter, had died in October, 1708; and now Anne was rapidly slipping away from the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, and signs were not wanting that the country was beginning to tire of the Whig monopoly of office and to grow weary of a War of which the end appeared as far off as ever, in spite of the great efforts made and the great successes won during its course. In the summer of 1710, Marlborough and Godolphin were aware that their downfall was approaching, and showed no intention of attempting, as they had directed the great War, to determine the peace by which it should be concluded.

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.

Even before the Conferences were over, in July, 1710, Starhemberg, whose strength reinforcements from Italy had raised to a total of 25,000, took the offensive, invaded Aragon, beat Philip's army at Almenara (July 27), and more decisively at Saragossa (August 19), after which he pushed on to Madrid, which for the second time in the war was occupied (September 23) by the Habsburg claimant. But, as in 1706, Castile rallied to Philip; no help was forthcoming from Portugal, for Vendôme, sent by Louis to command his grandson's armies, had moved into the Tagus valley by Valladolid, Salamanca (October 6) and Talavera (October 19), interposing between the Allies in Madrid and their friends in Portugal. As in 1706, Madrid soon proved untenable. During the retreat of the Allies to the coast one of their divisions was defeated and forced to capitulate at Brihuega (December 8), the other securing a safe withdrawal by the battle, tactically indecisive, of Villa Viciosa (December 10). Thus once again the Habsburgs were confined to Catalonia, and even this was hardly secure, for in January, 1711, Gerona surrendered to de Noailles.

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

1710-11] The fall of the Whigs. - Death of Joseph I 429

himself instead to build the famous fortified lines from the mouth of the Canche to the Sambre, which he boasted would check even Marlborough. Douay, left unaided, fell on June 26; and, before the end of the campaign, Béthune (August 28), StVenant (September 29) and Aire (November 12) had shared its fate; the whole line of the Lys was in the possession of the Allies; and the chances of a successful invasion in the following year had been greatly improved. These were not very brilliant results to show for the 15,000 casualties which the capture of Vauban's fortresses had cost; but Marlborough had good reason to complain of the slackness of his Allies. The contingents of the German Princes had been late or below their due strength, and Archdeacon Hare wrote that though there were "scarce 40,000 men in all the other armies of France. . . such are our Allies that we hope for nothing from the Rhine or Savoy, though the Empire make the greatest difficulties about peace, and Savoy be the greatest gainer in the war." Moreover, Marlborough's tenure of his command had become so insecure that he feared to run any risk, lest his enemies should make the least mishap an excuse for recalling him. For what he had feared had come about. The Whig Ministry, whose position had been already undermined by Anne's change of favourites, had fallen before the storm raised by the Sacheverell affair, and their places had been taken by Tories, with Harley at their head. Feeling that, with such a Government in power, he could no longer count on cordial support at home, Marlborough contemplated resigning; but, at the urgent entreaties of Eugene and Godolphin, who hoped that another campaign might prove decisive and bring about a satisfactory peace, he decided to retain his post. 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 III'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