Marlborough (71 page)

At about midday Villars was strengthening his failing left wing by leaching troops from his centre, the Irish brigade first, with de la Colonie’s Bavarians to follow, hoping to attack Schulenberg’s men when they emerged from the wood. In the process, as Boufflers was to tell Louis, ‘our centre was deprived of infantry by the necessity to send it to the left’.
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Marlborough, prompted by Schulenberg, told Orkney to press on into them, and ordered d’Auvergne and Hesse-Cassel to
prepare to follow him with their cavalry. ‘It was about one o’clock that my 13 battalions got up to the retrenchments,’ wrote Orkney, ‘which we got very easily, for as we advanced they quitted them and inclined to their right.’
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Villars might yet have reaped a dividend from weakening his centre, for he had by now assembled some fifty battalions ready to counterattack the Allies as they emerged from Sars Wood. He had just been told that the redoubts had been lost when he was hit in the knee by a musketball: he tried to retain command, but fainted, and was carried off in a sedan chair. At the same moment another general was killed and Albergotti himself was seriously wounded. Command of the French left wing now passed to Puységur, but he failed to launch the quick counterattack that might have jarred the Allies. However, when Miklau’s ten squadrons of cavalry, which had accompanied Withers’ outflanking force, appeared near La Folie well ahead of the infantry which might have supported it, it was roundly charged by ten squadrons of
carabiniers
and scattered.

In the centre, though, the battle was now turning decisively against the French. The Allied cavalry began to pass through Orkney’s battalions, ‘and formed up’, as he tells us,

under [e.g. covered by] my fire. The enemy were in two lines on the other side of the retrenchment, and there was Boufflers at the head of the Maison du Roi and the gens d’armes. I took care not to fire even when they came pretty near – only some platoons to make them pay us respect, and to give us opportunity to form our horse on the other side of the retrenchments. But, as our horse got on the other side their horse came very near ours. Before we got 80 squadrons out they came down and attacked; and there was such pelting at each other that I really never saw the like. The French fired a little, but ours not at the first. We broke through them, particularly four squadrons of English. Jemmy Campbell, at the head of the grey dragoons, behaved like an angel, and broke through both lines. So did Panton, with little Lord Lumley, at the head of one [squadron] of Lumley’s and one of Wood’s. At first we pushed them, but it did not last long, for they pushed back our horse again so that many of them ran through our retrenchments … However, more squadrons went out, and sometimes they gained a little ground, and were as fast beat back again. I could see however it go better in other places … While the horse were engaged, I had little to do but encourage them, in which I was not idle, but oftentimes to little purpose.
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That genial soldier of fortune Peter Drake, now serving with the
Maison du Roi
, was shot in the calf and received two sword-cuts in the unavailing struggle to hold back the Allied horse. Drake believed that the second Allied cavalry attack worked because cannon had been hauled forward to support it. ‘The success of this last attack was greatly owing to a large number of cannon, and small mortars continually firing and throwing their shells into the woods, which tore down whole trees,’ he affirmed. He tried to surrender to a cavalry officer, but took the wise precaution of keeping his carbine cocked and handy. The officer aimed a pistol at him, and ‘his shot and mine went off instantaneously, I shot the upper part of his head, and he tumbled forward; his ball only gouged my shoulder, and tore the flesh a little’. An officer in the same regiment later accepted Drake’s surrender.
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De la Colonie thought that the first shock of cavalry was violent but indecisive, but that the Allies had the edge after they had rallied and passed through the redoubts again. He admitted that those grey-horsed dragoons – he called them ‘the Scots Guards of the Queen’ – were very good indeed. He reckoned that Villars was wounded during the second phase of the cavalry battle, and argued that if Boufflers had not ordered a retreat the battle might yet have been won, for there were fresh cavalry further back to support the
Maison du Roi.
All the evidence suggests that he was too sanguine, for the French infantry on both flanks had now begun to give way. Puységur’s men had at last been taken in the flank by Withers’ detachment, and the dogged Schulenberg had hauled seven twelve-pounder guns through the wood and begun to gall the French from its southern edge. Puységur knew that it was time to go, and ordered a retreat on Quiévrain. On the French right, d’Artaignan, who had taken command when Boufflers rode to the centre to assume command of the whole army, fell back on Bavay. Some historians suggest that he was forced from his entrenchments by another Dutch assault, but Marlborough admitted that ‘we were afraid to make them advance, having been twice repulsed’. De la Colonie was right to say that this was not broken infantry, seeking safety in flight, but formed brigades coming off, badly mauled but in good order. The Allied cavalry followed the French rearguard to the banks of the little Hogneau, but the chevalier de Luxembourg’s well-handled rearguard kept them at bay, and there was nothing approaching collapse and pursuit. Sensitive to French accusations of ‘our not pressing them in their retreat’, Marlborough told Sarah that ‘we had not foot’ to support the cavalry, as the infantry on his right were too far away and the Dutch on his left were too badly knocked about.
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Most combatants recognised at once that there was something wholly shocking about Malplaquet. The Allies probably lost just over 20,000 killed and wounded, with the burden falling disproportionately on the Dutch, with 8,462 casualties, and the French perhaps 12,000. Later that month Boufflers told Louis that 6,000 of his soldiers were still receiving treatment, and this takes no account of those killed on the spot or who died of wounds in the days after the battle. His official list gave 240 officers killed and 593 wounded, but only seventeen prisoners. Lord Orkney, who had seen many a stricken field, told his brother:

As to the dead and wounded, I leave you to the public letters: but depend on it, no two battles this war could furnish the like number. You will see great lists of generals and officers. I can liken this battle to nothing so much as an attack of a counterscarp from right to left; and I am sure you would have thought so, if you had seen the field as I did the day after. In many places they lie as thick as ever you saw a flock of sheep; and, where our poor nephew [Colonel Lord] Tullibardine was, it was prodigious. I really think I never saw the like; particularly where the Dutch guards attacked, it is a miracle. I hope in God it may be the last battle I may ever see … The French are very proud they have done so well. I doubt it is with us as it was with the French at the battle of Landen …

There is hardly any general that either is not shot in his clothes or his horse … many had 3, 4 and 5 horses shot under them. None alive ever saw such a battle.
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Major Blackader was soon to become Lieutenant Colonel Blackader, for his commanding officer, Colonel Cranston, had been ‘killed by a cannon-ball … shot in at the left breast and out at the back: he spoke not a word’. The morning after:

I went to view the field of battle … in all my life, I have not seen the dead bodies lie so thick as they were in some places among the retrenchments, particularly at the battery the Dutch guards attacked. For a good while I could not go among them, lest my horse should tread on the carcasses that were lying, as it were, heaped on one another … The Dutch have suffered most in this battle of any. Their infantry is quite shattered; so that it is a dear victory.
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Corporal Matthew Bishop and some comrades had hoped, ‘having no tents to fix’, that they could spend the night in a convenient house, but
found it ‘full of miserable objects, that were disabled and wounded in such a manner that I thought them past all recovery’. They looked elsewhere, but ‘all the hedges and ditches were lined with disabled men … the horrible cries and groans of the wounded terrified my soul, so that I was in tortures and fancied I felt their sufferings’.
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Marlborough himself thought that ‘There never was a battle in which there has been so many killed and wounded as this, for there are very few prisoners, considering the greatness of the action.’
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He told Boyle that this was because ‘in the heat of the battle there was little quarter given on either side … Most of the officers we have taken are wounded.’
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On 13 September he wrote to Villars, lying wounded at Le Quesnoy, to wish him well after ‘the accident which you suffered in the battle’, and to propose measures ‘for the succour of officers and others of your army who have been left on the field of battle, or who have dragged themselves into neighbouring houses’. If Villars was to dispatch wagons to Bavay, the wounded would be collected and could then be sent, on parole, wherever Villars wished. Marlborough intended to send Cadogan there on the fourteenth, at whatever hour Villars thought suitable, to supervise ‘prompt succour and transport’. In case Villars was ‘no longer with the army’, he copied the letter to Boufflers.
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Publicly Marlborough claimed a victory. Strictly speaking he was entitled to do so, for he had forced the French from a well-chosen position, though at appalling cost, and Boufflers himself opened his report to Louis with the words: ‘I am much afflicted, sire, that misfortune compels me to announce the loss of another battle, but I can assure your Majesty that misfortune has never been accompanied by greater glory.’
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On the afternoon of the action Marlborough told Godolphin that ‘we have had this day a very murdering battle … If 110 [Holland] pleases it is now in our power to have what peace we please, and I have the happiness of being pretty well assured that this is the last battle I shall be in.’
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He took the same line with Sarah, telling her: ‘I have every minute the account of the killed and wounded, which grieves my heart, the numbers being considerable, for in this battle the French were more opinaitre [Fr: stubborn, obstinate] than in any other of this war. I hope and believe it will be the last I shall see, for I think it impossible for the French to continue the war.’
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With the French field army beaten, the Allies went on to besiege and capture Mons, which was no mean prize, although Cadogan was hit in
the neck by a musketball on the night of 26 September when the besiegers opened their trenches before the fortress. ‘I hope he will do well,’ wrote Marlborough,

but till he recovers it will oblige me to do many things, by which I shall have very little rest. I was with him this morning when they dressed his wound. As he is very fat their greatest apprehension is growing feverish. We must have patience for two or three dressings before the surgeons can give their judgement. I hope in God he will do well, for I can entirely depend upon him.
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The real results of Malplaquet were political rather than military. As Marlborough hoped, it did bring Louis back to the conference table, although as he had feared, the Allies still pitched their terms too high. An Anglo-Dutch agreement, the first Barrier Treaty, signed that October, bound the Dutch to support the British demand for ‘No Peace without Spain’, and in return Britain supported Dutch territorial claims in the Netherlands, agreed to relinquish trading concessions secured by a secret treaty with Charles III, and to give up Minorca. Godolphin backed the treaty, but Marlborough, correctly recognising that it would cause trouble in Parliament because of the damage that the Tories feared it would do to British economic interests, refused to sign it.

The negotiations, carried on at Gertruydenberg in the spring of 1710, eventually hit the same sticking point as the peace talks of 1709: the future of Spain. Louis would not use troops to force Philip off his throne, and attempts to procure his voluntary withdrawal in return for compensation elsewhere, which might have moved him, failed because Charles would not make concessions. Marlborough, well aware that Spain had wrecked the 1709 talks, had no doubt that it would ruin those of 1710 too. Although publicly he toed the government line, privately he warned Heinsius:

I think it very unreasonable to press France to do so treacherous a thing as to deliver three towns in Spain, I think that they should deposit the three towns formerly mentioned: Thionville, Valenciennes and Cambrai, and that for the rest the preliminaries should continue as they are except the 37th article … If I could flatter myself that Holland were willing and able to continue for three years longer the war, you might then reject what is now proposed, and be assured that in that time and with the blessing of the Almighty you might impose
what conditions you should see fit; but if the war can’t be continued, then this is a properer time [to make peace] than the [next] winter.
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The fact that Malplaquet eventually emerged as an empty victory was not Marlborough’s fault, and he took the field in the spring of 1710 with a heavy heart. By now the political balance at home was tilting against him, and he asked Sarah, ‘Am not I to be pitied that am every day in danger of exposing my life, for the good of those who are seeking my ruin?’ A few days later, recognising that negotiations at Gertruydenberg would indeed founder, he confessed unhappily: ‘I never in my life wished for peace more than I do now, being extremely dissatisfied with everything that is doing.’
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