which was powerfully expressed to him by | order to appreciate the greatness of Marlthe Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity borough, his position-harassed daily by the was on the point of causing the slavery of jealousies and selfishness of the Allied forces, these provinces, and restoring to France the which he commanded-should be compared power of extending her uncontrollable do- with that of Louis XIV., where all was an minion over all Europe. No hope remained if overwhelming unity of will and purpose, she had retained in bondage the man whom perfect subordination, accompanied by imwe revere as the instrument of Providence to mense military resources and consummate restore independence to the greater part of generalship. The war had, indeed, become the Christian world !" On what apparently already one of awful magnitude; for Louis trivial incidents often depend the greatest XIV. and his advisers could not have failed events that can happen to mankind! Marl- to observe the settled determination of purborough was received with transports in pose, and forecasting sagacity, which charEngland, and raised to the dukedom of acterized their great opponent. Louis Marlborough. The difficulties which the brought all his power and resources to bear Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during upon the plan of a second and magnificent the first campaign, owing, says Mr. Alison, campaign; showing that he felt the gravity to timidity, ignorance of the military art, per- of the situation, and the necessity of making sonal presumption, and the spirit of party, on commensurate efforts. "The great genius several great occasions thwarted the most of Louis XIV., in strategy." says Mr. Alison, decisive measures of Marlborough, but "here shone forth in full lustre. Instead of proved only a foretaste of what was in store confining the war to one of forts and sieges for the harassed commander. Mr. Alison in Flanders and Italy, he resolved to throw gives an interesting letter which Marlborough the bulk of his forces at once into Bavaria, wrote to his Countess, immediately on his and operate against Austria from the heart arrival at the Hague. It is full of the pas- of Germany, by pouring down the valley of sionate fondness of a lover to his mistress; the Danube." "The genius of yet was written by a man of fifty-two to a wife to whom he had been married twentythree years! There are innumerable other instances, in these volumes of the romantic fervor of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. “He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and-alone of the great commanders recorded in historynever sustained a reverse! On many occations throughout the war, he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first to lastan inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul throughout his career. In this first campaign, Marlborough had laid the basis of great operations-which, indeed, followed in rapid succession, each eclipsing its predessor in magnitude of result and splendor of achievement, as to throw its foregoer comparatively into the shade. In Louis," he adds, after a lucid explanation of the projected campaign, which was, indeed, grandly conceived, had outstripped the march of time; and the year 1703 promised the triumphs which were realized on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon in 1805."* It was all, however, in vain, though his plans were carried into execution with infinite skill and energy. Marlborough got intelligence of them; and instantly conceived a masterly counter-plan, which, but for his being thwarted, as usual, by the Dutch deputies, would have been completely successful in the first instance. The resources which Marlborough's genius displayed in this transcendent campaign were prodigious. His rapidity of perception, his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt energy, at length, triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in the glorious battle of Blenheim-than which none more splendid stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very eagerly pressed upon him by his own officers. "I know the danger," said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages." Mr. Alison's description of this battle is equally brilliant and impressive, and we wish we could transfer it entire into our columns. It was a fearful day for Louis XIV. The total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who deserted during the calamitous retreat through the Black Forest, was 40,000,-“a number greater than any subsequently lost by France till the still more disastrous day of Waterloo." "The decisive blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part of Europe. H, at once, destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken Louis XIV., aided by the genius of Turenne and Vauban, so long to construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley of the Danube, and threatening Vienna, as did Napoleon in 1805 and 1809, the French were driven in the utmost disorder across the Rhine. Thus, by the operation of one single campaign, was Bavaria crushed, Austria saved, and Germany delivered, and the Empire, delivered from invasion, was preparing to carry its victorious arms into the very heart of France! Such achievements require no comment. They speak for themselves, and deservedly place Marlborough in the very highest rank of military commanders. The campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no more decisive or important results."* His reception at the courts of Berlin and Hanover was like that of a sovereign prince; and, on his return home, the nation welcomed him with ecstasy. The Honor and manor of Woodstock were settled upon him; and the erection of the palace of Blenheim was commenced on a magnificent scale. Before the opening of this campaign, he lost his only surviving son, in his seventeenth year-an event which occasioned him a week's paroxysm of grief. Shortly before, two of his daughters, very beautiful women, were married respectively to the Earl of Bridgewater and Lord Monthermer, whose father was subsequently raised to the rank of Duke of Montague. Another daughter had been married to Lord Sunderland, who occasioned the Duke of Marlborough intense mortification, by suddenly opposing his policy in the House of Lords. And, indeed, he seems to have suffered exquisitely during this period, from the animosities with which he was assailed at home by the Tories. He sought permission from the Queen to resign, and retire into private life; and it was only on her sending him a holograph letter, couched in terms of unusual affection, that he was induced to * ALISON, p. 187. abstain from a step which would have been so fatal to the fortunes of his country.* It was in this campaign that Marlborough and Prince Eugene came together—the latter a man of great military genius, and a chivalrously noble and generous character. The intimacy and co-operation of such a man must have cheered the spirit of Marlborough in many a dark hour of trial, difficulty, and dànger. They never had a difference during all the campaigns in which they acted together. "The records of human achievements can present few, if any, greater men; but beyond all question, they can exhibit none in whom so pure and generous a friendship existed, alike unbroken by the selfishness consequent on adverse, and the jealousies springing from prosperous fortune." From this period, the affairs of perplexed and convulsed Europe may be said to have rested upon the Atlantean shoulders of this marvellous man. The impression left on one's mind, after reading these volumes, is that of wonder how human faculties could sustain, and for such a length of time, so vast and constantly increasing a pressure, alike upon his heart and his intellect. Never, perhaps, was greatness so perseveringly harassed by littleness. He may have exclaimed on a thousand occasions— "The times are out of joint! O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set them right!" The great event of his third campaign was the battle of Ramilies, where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. No sooner had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape-his horse fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted another. This was a very great battle, and attended by signal results-the acquisition of nearly all Austrian Flanders! What now was the position of Louis XIV.? After five years of continued effort, he found himself stripped of all his conquests, shorn of his external influence, and compelled to maintain at once on the frontiers of Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy, a contest, from his own resources, with the forces of all Europe. haughty spirit, long accustomed to prosperity, supported with difficulty the weight of ad+ Ibid. i. 247. 66 * ALISON, p. 141. His versity. The war, and all its concerns, was a forbidden subject at court. A melancholy gloom pervaded the halls of Versailles; and frequent bleedings of the monarch himself attested both the violence of his internal agitation and the dread which his physicians entertained of still greater dangers. Overcome by so many calamities, the fierce spirit of Louis was at length shaken, and he was prevailed on to sue for peace!* After the battle of Ramilies, Marlborough was offered the government of the Netherlands, the emoluments of which were no less than £60,000 a year; but he magnanimously refused it, from a regard to the public good, and on every subsequent offer of the same splendid and lucrative post, did the same. On his return to England he met with a rapturous reception-was thanked by Parliament-£5,000 a year was settled on him and his Duchess, and their descendants-and the dukedom extended to heirs female, "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory." Equally indefatigable at home as abroad, in peace as in war, he addressed himself at once to his parliamentary duties, and took a leading part in the great and beneficial measure for uniting Scotland with England. His vast influence in the country, and at court, excited intense jealousy among both Whigs and Tories. The ensuing campaign (A. D. 1707) found Louis XIV. "reduced on all sides to his own resources," and thoroughly wakened from his dream of foreign conquests-seeking only, and that with anxiety and alarm, to defend his own frontier. Here, however, two new actors appear on the chequered scene-the Duke of Marlborough's nephew, the Duke of Berwick, who by his great victory of Almanza counteracted in Spain his uncle's efforts and Charles XII. of Sweden, a "new and formidable actor on the theatre of affairs in Germany." Louis XIV. made desperate efforts to win over Charles XII., but the exquisite adroitness of Marlborough frustrated them altogether. But Louis, encouraged by the gleams of success which had been visible in Spain and elsewhere, made immense efforts to recover his lost ground. Marlborough's energies were equally divided between delicate and perilous negotiations with the various European potentates, and another decisive campaign in the field. Both he and Louis made prodigious ex↑ Ibid. p. 287. ALISON, i. 277, 278. ertions, and at length were on the point of fighting another great battle: "and, by a most extraordinary coincidence, the two armies were of the same strength, and occupied the same ground, as did those of Napoleon and Wellington, a hundred and eight years afterwards!" Marlborough was eager for the fight, confident of a great victory; but, at the eleventh hour, a panic seized his old friends the Dutch deputies, and they compelled him to retire to his former position, and decline the encounter, to his unspeakable mortification. The enemy, showing no disposition to encounter him, at length retreated, Marlborough advancing, but finding it impossible to bring on a general action. Both armies were led into winter quarters, and Marlborough and Marlborough repaired to England, "where his presence had become indispensably necessary for arresting the progress of public discontent, fanned as it was by court and parliamentary intrigues, and threatening to prove immediately fatal to his own influence and ascendency, as well as to the best interests of England."* Here we are plunged into the vortex of political intrigues,-the principal actors being Harley and St. John and Mrs. Masham on the one side, and on the other the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, whose ascendency over the Queen and the country, and even their own party, the Whigs, is evidently beginning to give way, and rapidly. Mr. Alison here shows his dispassionate character to great advantage, holding the balance evenly between all parties. His candid and luminous statement is equally interesting and instructive; and one thing he brings out in a very striking manner, though not in so many words: we mean the retributive justice with which the Duke's treachery to James II. was brought home to himself, and also to the Duchessthe latter being utterly incredulous of the ingratitude and treachery of Mrs. Masham towards her, and the former equally so in the case of Harley and St. John. How often and how bitterly may such reflections have occurred to the Duke and Duchess! Their position at court had become exceedingly trying; but their treatment of the Queen was highly imprudent, the Duke being doubtless greatly influenced by his imperious and intractable Duchess. Mr. Alison regards her as the "faithful representative of the whole Whig party," whose "arrogant domination and grasping disposition were the real causes of their fall from power, and the total change * Ibid. p. 330. in the foreign policy of England-results not | attributable exclusively to female partiality, or a bed-chamber intrigue, which were, nevertheless, the ultimate agents in the change, and apparently its immediate precursors. The Whigs were haunted as incessantly by dread of a reaction as the Jacobins of France of a counter-revolution, and apprehended from a change of ministry not merely the usual subversion of their party, but serious personal consequences, in respect of the part which had been played to James II." Such is the general conclusion arrived at by Mr. Alison-indicative, undoubtedly, of his candor and moderation. Early in 1708, and while Marlborough was placed in these critical circumstances, occurred the attempt of Louis XIV. to imitate, in some respect, the example of his Allied opponents, by invading Great Britain, in order to place the Pretender on the throne. Louis's terrible antagonist, however, Marlborough, was here again to confront him. As commander-in-chief, the Duke crushed the attempt, and the ambitious Chevalier was forced to creep back to Dunkirk ridiculously the result serving only suddenly to reinstate Marlborough at the summit of popularity, and to silence all slanderous imputations upon his fidelity to the cause of the Revolution. chose-all was, as usual, in vain! Vendôme was here the directing military genius of Louis; and he succeeded in surprising Ghent and Bruges into a surrender, greatly to the vexation of Marlborough. But the latter instantly resolved on a scheme as masterly as it proved successful. He resolved to throw himself on his opponent's communication, and, by interposing between him and the French frontier, compel him to fight with his face towards Paris, and his back to Antwerp. This manoeuvre was executed with a rapidity commensurate with its importance, and Vendôme's skilful plans were entirely disconcerted. He moved off precipitately, followed by Marlborough, who resolved to force him to a decisive action; and succeeded-adding OUDENARDE to his other laurels. This was indeed a fearful affair. Both parties fought with desperation-Vendome with eighty-five thousand men, Marlborough with eighty thousand. Nothing could resist his generalship and valor; and Vendome was defeated, with a loss, including deserters, of fully twenty thousand men. "If I had had two hours more of daylight," said Marlborough, "the French army would have been irretrievably routed, great part of it killed or taken, and the war terminated on that day." The results of this sanguinary but glorious battle were immense, entirely altering the character and fate of the campaign. By his admirable movement in interposing between Vendôme and France, Marlborough had gained the incalculable advantage of throwing his opponent, in the event of defeat, into a corner of Flanders, and so leaving exposed the French frontier, and all its great fortresses. Marlborough's eagle eye, perceiving the capabilities of his new position, resolved to discard all minor objects, pass the whole fortified towns on the frontier, and advance direct on the capital. This daring but prudent design, says Mr. Alison, was precisely that of Wellington and Blucher a century afterwards; but Marlborough was overruled The precarious position of political matters in England, at this crisis, was profoundly appreciated by Marlborough, who said that any considerable reverse on the Continent, or even a campaign as nugatory as the last, would, probably, not only dissolve the Grand Alliance, and undo all that had been done, but place a new administration in power, and possibly seat another dynasty on the throne. He also surveyed, with unerring sagacity and accuracy, the whole position of Louis XIV., and saw that he was preparing for yet one more grand demonstration of force. Marlborough took his plans accordingly; and on the 12th April, 1708, in concert with the in--Eugene for once concurring in regarding it comparable Eugene, arranged the plan of operations. Marlborough resolved to use the precious opportunity yet available, before the accession of the Tory ministry, for the purpose of striking a tremendous blow. And he did what he purposed; for this campaign was signalized by most resplendent results, glorious to Marlborough almost beyond parallel, and equally disastrous to Louis XIV. Bring what forces the latter might into the field-array them under what consummate generals he pleased, and let him select his site, and mature his plan of operations as he as too hazardous; and it was resolved to commence the invasion of the territories of the Grand Monarque, by laying siege to the inestimably-important frontier fortress of LILLE, the strongest place in French Flanders, and which could give the Allies a solid footing, a commanding position, in the territories of Louis. The undertaking, however, was most formidable-"for not only was the place itself the masterpiece of Vauban, of great strength, but the citadel within its walls was still stronger; and, moreover, it was garrisonled by the celebrated Marshal Boufllers, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence."* Besides all this, Vendôme and the Duke of Berwick, at the head of more than a hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp, covered by the canal of Bruges, completely fortified, between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege. But of what avail? Marlborough sate down before Lille, and it fell. To avert that event, Vendôme and Berwick led forth their magnificent army, a hundred and ten thousand men, preceded by two hundred pieces of cannon, in the finest order, to within a quarter of a league of Marlborough -"everybody expecting the greatest battle on the morrow, which Europe had ever seen." Thus grandly they advanced: but as ridiculously retired without firing a shot! Marlborough, however, was of a different humor, and resolved to follow and fight them; and the Duke. of Berwick himself has told us what the issue would have been -that Marlborough would have utterly routed his enemy, and probably finished the war that day. But the Dutch deputies again! They interposed, and Marlborough's heart nearly burst as he beheld the foe retire unmolested. "If Cæsar or Alexander," said Eugene, "had had the Dutch deputies by their side, their conquests would have been less rapid." The siege went on a ball striking Eugene on the head, and wounding him severely, whereby the whole burthen of directing and sustaining the vast operations fell on Marlborough alone, till Eugene's recovery. After sixty days' siege, Boufflers was compelled to capitulate, being treated very nobly by his captors. Still the citadel remained-but that also fell; and so fell the strongest frontier fortress of France, under the eyes of its best generals and most powerful army! A siege perhaps the most memorable, and also one of the most bloody, in modern Europe, standing forth, as Mr. Alison elsewhere remarks, in solitary and unapproachable grandeur in European warfare. The Allies were now within reach of the very heart of France; and Louis XIV. was trembling in his halls at Versailles.§ Before Marlborough could close his campaign, however, he recovered Ghent and Bruges. Such was the campaign of 1708, one of the most glorious in the military annals of England, and one in which the extraordinary capacity of the English general shone forth with perhaps the brightest lustre. The strife of opinion, the When the laurelled victor returned to England, he received no favor from the Queen, and was treated with studied coldness at court. Faction and intrigue had been and were then busy at their foul work. This was doubtless hard to bear; but what was the situation of the great Louis? His fortunes were desperate; his Exchequer was beggared; the land was filled with lamentation; and the horrors of famine were superadded. Then Louis supplicated for peace to those whom he had so long striven to crush and annihilate: a bitter humiliation! And in this extremity he bethought himself of bribing his great conqueror; offering him, directly, no less a sum than nearly a quarter of a million sterling, as the price of his influence for the purpose of obtaining terms advantageous to France. It need not be said that the attempt was scornfully repulsed. The triumphant Allies insisted on terms of compromise which Marlborough himself, with noble disinterestedness, condemned, and Louis could do nothing but repudiate. Once again, therefore, he took the field, with an enormous army of 112,000 men, under his renowned marshal, Villars; and all France was animated, at this momentous crisis, by the conviction that then "it behoved every Frenchman to conquer or die." Marlborough commenced the campaign with 110,000 men; and great results were looked for, from "the contest of two armies of such magnitude, headed by such leaders, and when the patriotic ardor of the French nation, now raised to the uttermost, was matched against the military strength of the Confederates, matured by a series of victories so long and brilliant." So confident was Villars in the strength of his army, and his intrenched position, that he sent a trumpeter to the Allies' head-quarters, to announce that "they would find him behind his lines; or, if they were afraid to attack, he would level them, to give entrance!" With consummate prudence Marlborough declined the invitation, and besieged Tournay-which he took, after a siege of almost unequalled horrors; but he * ALISON, i. p. 448. |