Chapter Seven

So Great a Blessing – Flanders, and the Battle of Oudenarde, 1707–1708

In the wake of Marlborough’s conquest of the Spanish Netherlands in 1706, Emperor Joseph, on behalf of his younger brother, offered the Duke of Marlborough the Governor-Generalship of the province. This was tempting, not just in terms of prestige, for the annual stipend alone was 60,000 Crowns. The Duke refused the offer, primarily because the Dutch were jealous and suspicious of Austrian influence on their borders, both in terms of tax-gathering potential (to help cover their ruinous costs in the war) and the security of the Barrier towns in which they placed such faith. Despite the Duke’s refusal of the lucrative post, the Dutch were resentful of what appeared to be unwarranted Austrian interference on their very border. This was a region conquered for the Grand Alliance largely by the efforts of their own troops during the post-Ramillies campaign, when Imperial troops had been engaged rather unproductively elsewhere.

The Duc de Vendôme had replaced Marshal Villeroi in command of the French field army on the northern border of France. Described by the Duc de St Simon as ‘Of ordinary height, rather stout, but strong, hearty and active’, Vendôme was under orders to keep Marlborough occupied, but to avoid open battle. In this he was to prove quite successful, although Marlborough strove for an aggressive campaign; the old problem of Dutch caution recurred and their field deputies were as unco-operative as ever. Bad news would, before long, come from the Rhine, where the French were on the move, while there was ill-feeling and mistrust between the Imperial Court in Vienna and their field commanders. This can be seen from a rather sad letter, dripping with irony, written to Marlborough by the ailing Margrave of Baden, in the autumn of the previous year:

His Imperial Majesty, my master, seems unconvinced of the truth of the lists [troop numbers] which I have sent to him about the army under my command. I have been made to feel in terms which are plain enough that his Majesty has received contrary accounts from his Quartermaster-General, who has assured him that this army comprises 40,000 combatants equipped with everything. As for the figures I have given, I am sure that I have not made a mistake. I have been forced by his Majesty’s orders to hand over to Field-Marshal Thungen charge of affairs, not doubting that the 40,000 men which the Imperial Court knows with scientific certainty are massed upon the Upper Rhine will succeed in all that is desired of them.

Baden died at his home in Rastadt on 4 January 1707, shunned and villified by the Imperial Court that he had served for so long in a valiant military career. The gunshot wound to his foot, sustained during the valiant flank attack at the Schellenberg fight nearly three years earlier (and mockingly known to the world as ‘the Margrave’s toe’), had festered, and at last killed the doughty old general in the most pitiless and agonising way.

Marlborough joined the army at Anderlecht on 21 May 1707, and six days later advanced to Soignies to challenge the French. Once in the field though, he found the task of catching Vendôme no easy matter. ‘Their camp is very strong, and I believe they will not stay in any place where they may with reason be attacked.’ The Duke wrote on 30 May to Robert Harley in London:

My last to you was on Thursday night [26 May] from Soignies. I went out at four o’clock the next morning, with a strong detachment of horse and dragoons, to endeavour to observe the enemy’s camp and to get certain knowledge of their marches, and found they were marched to the plain of Fleurus, having drained all their garrisons and quitted their lines with a design, in case we should sit down before Mons or any other place, to ravage all Brabant, which they might do in less time than our great artillery and ammunition would be bringing up for a siege. It was therefore thought most advisable to return this way [to Beaulieu near Louvain], and accordingly on Saturday [28 May] the army marched to Lembecq, and yesterday we passed the canal of Brussels, and having now secured the great towns, we shall advance tomorrow to the Dyle, and by our next march approach nearer the enemy, who are generally allowed to be stronger than we, but on the other side I hope the goodness of our troops will balance their numbers. Our hussars have had two lucky recontres more with the enemy’s parties, and have brought in several prisoners with a good booty of horses. The desertion is very great among their troops.

He added, with his usual patience, but not without a hint of weary resignation, the news that the Lines of Stollhofen had been stormed and French forces were flooding into central Germany on a grand raid:

We had an account this morning of the misfortune of the German troops on the Rhine, who had let the French pass that river by surprise and were all dispersed. This must give new courage to the enemy, and certainly put the Empire under great consternation.

Plainly, it suited the French to play for time in Flanders, tying the Duke down with fruitless marching to and fro, while they attacked his less able colleagues and caused havoc elsewhere. Marlborough was obliged to be patient, and watch for whatever moves Vendôme might make. In the meantime, John Deane of the 1st English Foot Guards tells us, he kept the army in fighting trim by reviewing the troops, and having them put through their exercises:

On the 29th of May [O.S] his Grace viewed the English foot, and the Earl of Orkney, posting himself at the head of our battalion of Guards, saluted the Duke. And afterwards all the English foot exercised by signal of colours and beat of drum, and every brigade fired in platoons before his Grace; in which exercise the English got great applause of the foreigners.

The weather soon proved unkind, with heavy rain and high winds, and this unavoidably exerted a drag on the movements of the armies. Deane recalled that some few weeks later:

About seven o’clock in the evening there happened a very terrible storm of wind, rain and hail to that degree that it did great damage in our camp, especially in the lines, blowing down and tearing to pieces the officers and sutlers tents, driving their beds and bedding, clothes and their effects about the streets. And some of it swimming away with the streams for the fall of water in a small space of time run so fierce off the hilly ground down to the valleys that it was sufficient to have drove a watermill – to the admiration of the army.

In early August it was learned that French troops were being sent from Flanders to the south of France, to deal with Prince Eugene’s offensive against Toulon, and the Duke at last got Dutch agreement to take the field. The Allied army lay at Louvain, with a detachment covering Brussels. Vendôme’s army was now at Genappe. The weather remained unseasonably bad for high summer, and Marlborough wrote to Godolphin on 4 August from camp at Meldert: ‘We have had so much rain, that I can hardly stir out of my quarter, the dirt being up to the horses’ bellies, which is very extraordinary in this month.’ Four days later he could report that:

The duke of Vendome had detached 12 battalions and 9 squadrons [towards the operations at Toulon] but continues still in camp. I hope this detachment will encourage the [Dutch] deputies, so that I may make the march which I have been proposing for these last six weeks.

On 11 August 1707 Marlborough began his advance, attempting to get around the left flank of the French position. Vendôme promptly withdrew from Genappe, and the Dutch cavalry commander, Count Tilly, was sent ahead by Marlborough with a strong force of cavalry and grenadiers to maul his rearguard. Tilly got the message to move too late in the day to act and the French escaped from a potentially very tight spot with relatively slight loss. Jean-Martin De La Colonie remembered the episode:

General Tilly would undoubtedly have attacked our rearguard had he had a chance, but we escaped this owing to the darkness. As it was the whole of our army had not passed by daybreak, a nasty little stream with difficult banks constituted our defile, which M. de Vendome had lined with dismounted dragoons to cover the retirement of our rear-guard in the case of attack by General Tilly. The few that still remained to cross were supported by our dragoons who checkmated the attempts of the enemy to interfere with them.

Vendôme got to a good position near Mons, from which to turn and face the approaching Allied army. Frustrated in this opening move, Marlborough halted his army at Soignies the same day that the French got in place near Mons; the operations were hampered still by the bad weather, which took a toll of the foot soldiers in particular, and the Duke was obliged to bide his time, looking for a weak spot in the French dispositions.

In rather downcast mood, made worse by the persistent rain, the Duke wrote to Sidney Godolphin on 15 August, with details of the campaign so far:

I was in hopes this might have given you an account of some action; for this Friday we marched to Nivelle, and camped about half a league from Seneff, where the French army was encamped. We came too late for attacking them that evening. As soon as it was dark they began to make their retreat, without making the least noise, not touching either drum or trumpet; so that the Count de Tilly, whom I had detached with 40 squadrons and 5000 grenadiers, to attack their rearguard, in case they should march, knew nothing of their marching until daylight, so that there was very little done. Our loss was three officers and some few soldiers. I believe theirs was also very inconsiderable; but by these four days march they have lost very considerably by desertion; for we gave them no rest.

In fact, Tilly’s aides had been unable to find a light with which to read the Duke’s message, when it was received in the middle of a dark and rainy night in a strange orchard. Colonel Cranstoune, whose unit was part of Tilly’s detachment, wrote that ‘It rained heavily, was pitch dark, and no house near.’ The Dutch cavalry commander might be forgiven some hesitation in the circumstances. A measure of confusion and delay was the inevitable result and the French slipped away. Colonel De La Colonie remembered the barely avoided encounter that night rather vividly, as the following morning his own troops almost put an end to his military career for good:

The few that still remained to cross were supported by our dragoons, who checkmated the attempts of the enemy to interfere with them. Our army marched about a league further on after passing this defile, in order to reach the plain of Roeulx, where a halt was made to reassemble the various regiments which had become dispersed, and to bring order into our line of march. The Allies, who were moving on our right, were separated from us by several woods, and seeing us forming up on the plain, and not knowing our motive, took up a battle position in case of accidents. The Duke de Vendôme noticing this thought they intended to attack us, so ranged the men likewise, who meantime discharged their pieces preparatory to re-charging them, in case they got damp. I was at this moment walking with [Captain] Quemin in front of the line when we were startled by the fire brought to bear upon us, for they were all firing in our direction; I believe that I never had a better chance of being killed than on this occasion; a battle even would have been no more dangerous.

The Colonel goes on to recount some of the hardships of this campaign, at a time when, as Marlborough had noted, the weather was unseasonably very bad. De La Colonie gives a flavour of the urgency attending the French movements in order to avoid battle with the Allies:

No camp was marked out or tents pitched. Each regiment spent the night under a constant downpour of rain, on the spot where it found itself in the order of march, so as to be the sooner ready to resume the march next day and attain our lines. Success attended our efforts, and the manoeuvres carried out by M. de Vendôme gave the enemy no opportunity of attacking us or even making an attempt to seize any town, for he was ever on the alert, and fore-stalled them everywhere. It is true the army had had to forego the luxury of a baggage column for some time and lacked every comfort, but our country’s safety was assured thereby.

The poor weather cleared at last, and Marlborough was once again on the march, moving from Soignies to cross the Dender river at Ath by 1 September. John Deane wrote rather dismissively that:

As soon as they heard of our marching towards them they began their old trade of setting their camp on fire and running away by the light of it. And to hinder our following them, there being a bridge of stone over the river Dender, at the end of which they had digged a deep trench cross the road and made breastworks on each side, and felled a great many trees across the same as if they had designed a great contest. But of no effect, they being surprised to a great degree, otherwise they would not have left such moveables behind them, as, namely, casks of wine, tubs of beef, and hogsheads of Brazil tobacco and many other things very welcome.

Vendôme fell back once more before the Allied approach, moving towards the shelter of the Scheldt river. His moves at this time, drawing his opponent on, but refusing to give Marlborough the chance to strike at his army, were well thought-out and very effective. They refute some of the criticism routinely levelled at him for indolence and neglect of his military duties. Meanwhile, the Duke wrote again to Godolphin, from Ath:

The enemy decamped in great haste [from Mons], and I believe our march tomorrow will oblige them to pass the Scheldt. The deputies are convinced that if we had made the march to Genappe two months ago, when I pressed for it, the duke of Vendôme would have been obliged to retire as he now does.

The bad news from the south of France, of the abject failure of the Allied attempt on Toulon, reached the Low Countries at this time. On the same day that Marlborough crossed the Dender in pursuit of the French, he wrote to the Comte de Rechteren in rather sombre mood:

I have received the honour of your two letters of 10 and 17 of the last month, the latter of which did not arrive till this morning. I do not doubt you have heard the same news that we have from Paris, that the Duke of Savoy has had to leave the siege of Toulon on 22 August. We have no details yet of his march.

As it turned out, the operations against Toulon, while falling well short of expectations, did have some positive results for the Allies. French troops were drawn away from Spain to counter the operations against the port, so preventing their use in following up their recent success at Almanza properly, and the French fleet was burned or beached in the harbour, to prevent the ships falling into Allied hands.

On 5 September, Marlborough’s army resumed its advance, and the Scheldt was soon safely crossed, under the protection of the guns of the Allied-held fortress of Oudenarde:

We have made three marches in order to pass the Scheldt, which we have done this morning. We shall stay in this camp [Petteghem] to-morrow, and the next day march to Helchin, by which we shall oblige the enemy to eat up [forage in] his own country, which I am afraid is all the hurt we are likely to do them; for I am very confident they will be careful not to give occasion for action.

Marlborough took up a strong advanced position between the Scheldt and Lys, with a flank of his army resting on each river; Vendôme had lost the line of the river beyond hope of early recovery. He was unable to attack the Allies in such a stout position, so on 7 September 1707 the French army had begun to fall back once again, to the protection of the Marque river, near to the great fortified city of Lille well inside the border of France itself. Trading ground for time, the French commander was eating up the season for campaigning very well.

At this time, Donald McBane got a pass to get together a party of volunteers and go out and raid the French outposts, and perhaps gather a little booty at the same time:

That night we went very quietly to try what we could make. Before day we came near the French camp, and hid ourselves in a wood all the next day. At night we went to the rear of the French camp, and hid ourselves as well as we could in a little wood by the highway side. Presently appears a colonel of French dragoons with sixteen horsemen and his own baggage. I desired them to surrender, but they were unwilling which obliged us to fire, wherewith we wounded four, and took the other twelve and the colonel prisoner, and made the best of our way for our own camp.

Three days later, McBane and his band had permission to go marauding again:

I ordered my guide to go to the French camp to see what they were doing or when they went to forage; about twelve at night he returned and told me that the Household [cavalry] of France was to forage near where I and my men lay, they had the best horse in the camp; about five in the morning we removed a little nearer the highway where they were to pass. I thought fit to attack them in the centre, which we did, and took sixty of the horses, one of them fired and wounded one of my lads slightly in the face; we went off with all speed for that shot alarmed the camp.

The enterprising grenadier was able to sell the horses to his officers for a good price, but, as he ruefully admits, he very soon drank, whored and gambled the money away.

Elsewhere in the war, far away from Flanders where Marlborough was having such a lack of success, Allied campaigns were also faring badly. In Spain, the French were securing victories, and the sympathy and support of much of the population was strongly for King Philip V. The grand project to seize the French naval base at Toulon had miscarried, and along the Rhine, French armies had taken fire and sword into central and southern Germany, and were now ravaging those same minor principalities that provided such excellent troops for the Allied armies. Once again, French cavalry watered their horses in the Danube, and some of their officers strolled over the Schellenberg hill, as sightseers of the scene of the dreadful battle there three years earlier.

Most significantly for the Allied war effort in 1707, Marlborough had been unable to fix Vendôme long enough to force a battle. Through the skill of his field commanders, Louis XIV, while actively seeking an advantageous peace for France, was playing his cards rather well. John Deane wrote of the French conduct of the campaign that ‘As we advanced they retracted [retreated] from one place to another, still threatening what they would do, but all proved but wind.’ The season was growing late and the weather worsened yet again. The Duke wrote of his concern to see ‘The poor soldiers march in dirt up to the knees, for we have had a very great deal of rain.’ Robert Parker complained at one point in the campaign that ‘We lay for three weeks weather-bound, before our artillery could be raised off the ground.’ All that could really now be done was to go into winter quarters, and make plans for the next campaign season when, with good fortune, Vendôme might be brought to battle and defeated.

The recently concluded Treaty of Union between England and Scotland saw an expansion in the Scottish army establishment, and Marlborough had responded to an appeal from the eldest son of the Duke of Atholl, to be recommended for the command of a regiment newly raised from among his father’s retainers. The Duke wrote to the Marquis of Tullibardine: ‘I shall readily use my endeavours that justice be done you in relation to the command of your regiment.’ While writing to Major-General Murray on the subject ‘I shall not be wanting in my endeavours that my Lord Tullibardine be easy in the command of the regiment.’ This favour would pay a bleak dividend, one misty autumn day, two years later in the woods at Malplaquet.

The Duke of Marlborough’s plans for his 1708 campaign hinged on combining his army in the Spanish Netherlands with that of Prince Eugene, whose Imperial troops had been operating in the Moselle valley. The Elector of Hanover would remain to hold the front on the Rhine, while Eugene brought his army to combine with the Duke, and confront the French commander in Flanders before he, in turn, could also be reinforced. Not surprisingly, a series of delays, political and practical (mostly, but not entirely, unavoidable) detained the Prince in Vienna and Marlborough was obliged to allow the initiative to pass to the French, for the time being. Vendôme, however, was also confronted with difficulties, as he had to share the command of his army with a royal prince, the Duc de Bourgogne (Burgundy – Louis XIV’s eldest grandson). Colonel De La Colonie wrote of the preparations for the campaign:

It had been discovered that the Allies had a great scheme in hand for an invasion of Flanders with superior forces. The Duke of Burgundy together with the Duke of Berry [his younger brother], now arrived to place themselves at the head of the army of Flanders during the campaign, in joint command with the Duke of Vendome. They arrived about May 20th, but neither our German reinforcements [troops from the Moselle valley], nor those of the Allies [Eugene’s army] were on the ground until the end of June.

Unless the Colonel was speaking with the valuable clarity afforded by hindsight, the plans for Eugene’s march northwards to join Marlborough were plainly an ill-kept secret.

Vendôme (who was never made a Marshal of France) was a formidable campaigner with an army nearly 100,000 men strong. He was also a man of the most sordid personal habits, tolerated at the fastidious court of Louis XIV only because of his ancestry – he was the grandson of an illegitimate offspring of King Henry IV of France – and because of his undeniable skills as a military commander. Vendôme’s infamously idle and gross conduct was described by St Simon:

More than once he was nearly captured by the enemy because he refused to leave headquarters that were comfortable, but isolated, and he often hazarded the success of an entire campaign because he would not move from a camp when once he had settled there. In the field he saw little for himself, relying for information on his staff, whom he more often than not disbelieved.

St Simon’s detestation of Vendôme, and his prejudice against him, is evident, and he was plainly an easy man to dislike. Still, it has to be admitted that the general was often, if rather erratic in his behaviour, a very successful campaigner and no mean opponent. St Simon goes on:

He was excessively filthy in his habits and boasted of them, his custom was to rise late and at once take his seat upon his chaise-pierce [camp lavatory], and in this curious custom he wrote his despatches and issued his orders for the day. Anyone who had business with him, even general officers and distinguished visitors, found this the best time to talk to him.

Louis XIV was concerned to forestall the junction of the two allied armies. He pressed Vendôme to take the offensive in the Low Countries while there was still time to do so with a superiority in numbers, and the general’s first inclination was to swing to the west, and threaten Marlborough’s lines of communications and supply with Ostend and Antwerp. However, Burgundy expressed a preference for a straightforward advance on Brussels. This would almost certainly entail a stand-up fight with Marlborough, who could field 90,000 troops, on ground more or less of the Duke’s own choosing. Vendôme, resenting the presence of the royal prince with the army, tried to ignore his opinions, and so the French, too, lost time. Meanwhile, in the Allied camp:

The Duke had to be patient while he awaited the arrival of Eugene’s army. With his comparative lack of numbers, and particularly with regard to the French superiority in cavalry, he was unable to venture forward and engage Vendôme with any real chance of success, unless forced to do so.

Marlborough had been too optimistic about the speed with which Eugene could gather his troops, and had to employ patience while waiting for the French to move. John Deane, who commented on the recent arrival in the Low Countries of the 2nd English Foot Guards (the Coldstream) to form a brigade with the 1st Guards for security duties at headquarters, wrote that ‘We lay at Terbanck from 23rd May [O.S.] until the 24th June still waiting the enemy’s motion, who had possessed themselves of very strong ground, so that we could no-ways come at them.’ On 28 June the Duke wrote in some exasperation to Sidney Godolphin:

By letters I received last night from Prince Eugene, he gives me hopes of being in a condition of beginning his march either tomorrow or the day following … Prince Eugene thinks the Elector [of Hanover, later George I] will not approve of his march, which is the reason of his not acquainting him sooner … That which gives me the greatest uneasiness is, that I find Prince Eugene thinks that their horse cannot join me in less than ten days, and that their foot must have fourteen or fifteen days. If they cannot make greater expedition, I fear the horse of the duke of Berwick will get before them, which I have writ to the Prince, by express, this morning.

He was quite right, and once Eugene got his troops on the road northwards, Marlborough’s nephew was hard on their heels with a powerful French force, striving to either overtake the marching columns, or to cut across the route and interrupt their progress. A damaging running battle along the roads leading from the Moselle would disrupt the Allied campaign well enough. Berwick did not have to win such a desperate contest to frustrate the Allied plans; he just had to delay Eugene. So Marlborough prepared to operate without the increment of Eugene’s full strength if need be, even though the odds against success lengthened by doing so; the Duke wrote to his son-in-law, Lord Sunderland, on 2 July:

I expect the Prince himself on Thursday or Friday [5 or 6 July], to concert matters with me, and reckon his horse will not be above two or three days behind him. As soon as they are at hand, we shall begin to move towards the enemy, in hopes to bring them to a battle, which I fear they will avoid.

The Duke was aware that, as his plans could not be disclosed to a wide audience, the seeming inactivity of his army would attract adverse comment in London. So, that same day, he found time to send a note to the Paymaster-General of the Army, James Brydges. After congratulating him on his recent return to parliament as Member of Parliament for Hereford, Marlborough went on:

I believe our long continuance in the camp has been a great disappointment to our friends at home. I assure you it has been no less to me, after the measures I had concerted with the Elector of Hanover and Prince Eugene in April last, but I hope we shall be able in a little time to send you some good news, for I have an account that Prince Eugene’s army has been on the march towards us these four days. The Prince himself designs to be at Maastricht the 4th, in order to come directly to the camp, and the horse three or four days after, and if they can join us before the enemy have their troops from the Saire, I think we need desire nothing more.

At this time, the Duke also set out his plans for the coming campaign in a letter to the States-General in the Hague:

I have imparted to Prince Eugene and to Count Rechteren, that it will be more advantageous to the interests of the common cause, for the army on the Moselle to join us in Brabant, without delay, and entreated them, should they be of my opinion, to communicate the same to the Elector of Hanover, and to begin their march as soon as possible. These measures being taken in conformity with the approbation of the [Dutch] field deputies, I doubt not but they will give notice to your High Mightinesses … His army commenced their march last Friday, the cavalry advancing by long forced marches, which the infantry rapidly followed. We shall move directly upon the enemy, and bring on a battle.

In the opposing camp, Vendôme and Burgundy still could not agree on the best course of action, so the matter was referred to Versailles for consideration. In the meantime, the French commander could manoeuvre to put Marlborough off-balance, while nurturing a plan put to him by the French War Minister, Michel de Chamillart. It was generally known that the civilian population of the Spanish Netherlands were resentful of Dutch occupation, and particularly of the heavy taxation imposed on them by the States-General. The important towns of Ghent and Bruges, in particular, were susceptible to French persuasion. The waterways of northern Flanders, so useful to the Allies when transporting supplies and heavy ordnance, were controlled by these two places, and Vendôme planned to seize them right out from under Marlborough.

The Comte de Merode-Westerloo claimed to have warned Marlborough of what the French commander was intending to do:

I received news from a reliable source advising me to take good care of Ghent and Bruges, which were soon to be betrayed to the enemy. This information came to me from Lille, and from such a quarter that its validity could not be doubted. [Marlborough] treated my news as something of no account, telling me that it was impossible, and I could say nothing to make him change his mind.

Marlborough did not entirely trust the Comte, a man who had quite recently left the service of his opponents, and it was understandable that he should treat his advice with some caution. Soon afterwards, though, on 4 July 1708, the French army sprang into action, with flying columns under Comte de la Motte and the Marquis de Grimaldi riding ahead to try and surprise the small and unprepared Allied garrisons in the two towns. At Ghent, the next day, the French advanced party under Brigadier-General la Faille bluffed their way in and disarmed the town guard. Summoning the magistrates before him, La Faille flourished under their noses a pardon from the Governor-General, the Elector of Bavaria, absolving them of blame for defecting so promptly two years earlier to the Austrian claimant to the throne in Madrid. The cowed citizens, understandably fearing for their necks, yielded to the bold coup, and a party of la Faille’s soldiers took possession of the citadel. Too late, a column of Allied troops were seen approaching to secure the place, but they drew off when they found the French already securely in occupation.

Meanwhile, de la Motte was cantering headlong with a column of cavalry and dragoons towards Bruges, which he took by surprise later that same day. The town of Damme, nearby, shut out his troops and resisted the summons, but de la Motte quickly went on to seize Plas Endael, a small but important fort on the road leading southwards from Ostend. De La Colonie wrote of the audacious stroke:

We took by surprise the towns of Ghent and Bruges. M. de Fouille, a leader of the Walloon troops, who had been Grand Bailly of the first-named place when the enemy took it [in 1706], entered the town, in company with ten officers in his confidence, disguised as peasants. With the connivance of the burghers they managed to introduce a detachment of our troops by a gate which they at once seized and thereby secured the town … The Count de la Motte with a body of troops approached Bruges on the same day, and this town, which found itself at the time unprepared, capitulated on the same conditions as the Fort of Ghent.

Marlborough, undeniably wrong-footed on this occasion, had written to Major-General Bothmar on 6 July urging that Bruges be reinforced:

I have received your letter written at seven o’clock last evening, and it is well that the commandant of Dendermonde has listened to your advice to send another detachment to the garrison in the citadel of Ghent. I am writing now to be assured that the place is sufficiently provisioned.

The Duke was too late, as the place was in French hands already. On 7 July a letter arrived from Major-General Murray, whose brigade it was that had been unable to prevent the French seizure of Ghent:

I had the account of the enemy’s being entered Ghent at seven o’clock that morning [5 July], and at eight o’clock I was before the Bruges port [gate] with four hundred dragoons, and had ordered all the foot to be ready to follow; and when I called myself to the burghers at the barriers to open the ports, otherwise the Grand Bailiff and all of them should answer for it with their heads; but they answered, in the presence of the Baron d’Audignuies and several other officers, that they would open the ports for no man; and as I am informed since, there were only six dragoons of the enemy within at that port who kept guard with the ordinary guard of the burghers, so it is clear that the burghers were resolved to assist the enemy.

Colonel De La Colonie wrote of the Allied response to this French success: ‘It was not long after we had taken these two towns that we learned of the junction effected by the Allies at the camp at Anderlecht.’ The Colonel was mistaken, as only Prince Eugene would join Marlborough at this time. Meanwhile, the Duc de St Simon remembered how the glad news reached Fontainebleau:

We took Ghent and Bruges by surprise and the news of these successes was received with unbridled joy. It appeared easy to profit by these two conquests, obtained without difficulty, by passing the Escaut [Scheldt], burning Oudenarde, closing the country to the enemies, and cutting them off from all supplies. Ours were very abundant, and came by water.

Vendôme’s main army was now marching towards the Dender river to combine with the flying columns, and to cover these conquests. Marlborough, temporarily on the tactical back foot, was pushing his troops to overtake him and regain the initiative. He also sent Prendergast’s Regiment and Waleff ’s Dragoons to reinforce Oudenarde on 7 July, under the stern command of Brigadier-General Chanclos, the Governor of Ath. The Brigadier promptly explained to the citizenry where their loyalty and interests lay, and these fresh troops successfully entered the town before the French could intervene. Adam Cardonnel, Marlborough’s secretary, had replied on 8 July to Murray’s letter of explanation of the failure to prevent the seizure of Ghent, as the Duke was unwell:

His Grace sees that the burghers of Ghent have chiefly contributed to our misfortune in the loss of that place. I hope before the campaign is over we may be able to make them repent it … We have just now an express from Brigadier Chanclos, that he has got into Oudenarde, and also some reinforcements from Ath. p.s. We march at two in the morning towards Ath.

However, Marlborough could not catch and overwhelm the French rearguard on the march, other than to engage in a skirmish at the Dender river crossings, and Vendôme was able to retire in good order towards the Scheldt. Once over that river, he would have leisure to select a strong position from which to defy the Allies, while covering Ghent and Bruges, and simultaneously awaiting the arrival of Berwick’s army from the Moselle.

On 7 July 1708 Eugene arrived at last in the Allied camp at Alost, but he was accompanied only by a small cavalry escort of dragoons and Imperial hussars. His arrival cheered Marlborough, who was quite unwell with headaches and a high temperature; he was also understandably downcast at the loss of the two important towns. The Allied operations had dragged rather up to this point. The Duke’s chaplain, Dr Francis Hare, wrote: ‘His Grace has been confined to his bed all day by his fever-fit, but something he took this afternoon carried it off, with a gentle sweat, and he was much mended.’ Eugene’s arrival was timely and fortunate, for once in conference with his close friend the Duke’s spirits revived rapidly, and decisive steps were agreed to engage the French army before it could be reinforced, even if this meant bringing on a battle before the Prince’s own troops arrived from the Moselle.

The French success in northern Flanders, and their necessary march to cover their conquests, put their army in a position where their extended lines of supply and communication with France were exposed to Allied attack. Until the French decided on their next move, Marlborough’s army was now closer to their frontier than Vendôme. The French commander had plans to besiege Oudenarde, but Burgundy now preferred to move against Allied-held Menin, comfortingly closer to their depots and magazines in northern France. The decision had to be referred to Versailles as the two could not agree; in the meantime, they could manoeuvre to cover the line of the Dender river, and prevent any attempt at a crossing by Marlborough.

While the French decided what to do next, Marlborough’s army was on the march against them, and the move was too fast for Vendôme to counter. The Duke left the Earl of Albemarle with a strong force of cavalry to guard the rear of the army along the road from Brussels, and put his advance guard, under William Cadogan, across the Dender at Lessines on 10 July 1708, only a couple of hours before the French cavalry got there. The Duke wrote to Godolphin the same day:

The head of the army is got hither. I have received advice this morning from the governor of Oudenarde, that he was invested on both sides of his town yesterday morning. I should think myself happy, since I am got into this camp, if they continue their resolution of carrying on that siege [as that would fix the French army in position there while the Allies closed up to strike at them].

Having lost the line of the Dender, Vendôme now had no option but to fall back behind the Scheldt; a siege of Oudenarde was no longer practical as Marlborough drew nearer, but Menin could still be a target, while stout French garrisons were left to hold on to Ghent and Bruges in the north.

Marlborough was driving forward now; he sent Cadogan and his detachment on ahead at a fast pace, and by mid-morning on 11 July, his pioneers were bridging the Scheldt a mile or so downstream from Oudenarde; the French army was also crossing the river, at a leisurely pace, about six miles away at Gavre. Vendôme was, at first, unaware of the Allied approach. John Deane wrote:

The front of our army passed that river and as fast as they came over was drawn up in brigades, in order of battle … The enemy having passed the Scheldt at Gavre marched at the same time towards Oudenarde to dispute our passing that river, little dreaming of our having so strong a detachment over.

As Vendôme and Burgundy were hardly on speaking terms, it is not surprising that the direction of the French forces in this sudden confrontation alongside the Scheldt was a poorly co-ordinated affair. The Marquis de Biron had been sent to cover the left flank of the army as it moved away from the crossing place at Gavre towards the higher ground at Huyshe. He had two brigades of Swiss infantry under command, together with a detachment of French cavalry. The leading brigade, led by Major-General Pfeiffer, headed towards the small villages of Heurne and Eyne, just downstream from Cadogan’s own crossing place at Eename, an area described by Robert Parker as being ‘A marshy piece of ground, full of trees and brushwood.’

By midday Cadogan had got his pontoon bridges across the river and his Dutch and British infantry were swarming across to the far bank. Marlborough and Prince Eugene joined the advanced guard at the pontoon bridges at about this time. The Duke approved Cadogan’s arrangements and went to scout the higher ground near Oudenarde. A French dragoon officer, whose letter home was found in abandoned baggage later on in the campaign, wrote that:

The action was ill-managed on our side. At 11 in the morning we let them come over the river quietly, which they would not have ventured to do, had we, in any tolerable manner, offered to dispute their passage; but seeing us standing still, they were encouraged to prosecute their design, and begin to pass over two bridges, which they had laid. As fast as their horse and foot came over, they ranged themselves in order of battle against us.

Four Prussian battalions under Brigadier-General Evans were left at the pontoon bridges as guard, while pioneers were sent into Oudenarde town to help Chanclos lay additional bridges so that Allied troops could use that route also, and lessen the pressure on the pontoons at Eename. Jorgen Rantzau’s Hanoverian cavalry also crossed the river and pressed forward to the Ghent road and the line of the marshy Diepenbeek stream, which ran to its confluence with the Scheldt near to Eyne.

At about 1pm that afternoon, 11 July 1708, Cadogan’s infantry were ordered forward to clear the village, and so expand the Allied bridgehead to allow the troops pouring down the road from Lessines to deploy properly. Joseph Sabine’s British and Plattenberg’s Dutch brigade moved smartly forward. Almost immediately they clashed with the forward companies of Pfeiffer’s Swiss, and a savage firefight broke out along the boggy Diepenbeek stream. John Deane wrote that: ‘They throwed one brigade into a village near the Scheldt to keep our detachments in action … Thinking to have beat us before we were drawn up in any order.’ In fact, there was no such neat French plan, as Pfeiffer’s brigade, not fearing that the Allied troops were nearby in any strength, just drifted into an action with Cadogan’s force. The Swiss did, however, try and erect a barricade of a kind to strengthen their rather inadequate position, Robert Parker recalling that ‘They cut down a number of trees, and laid them in such a manner to prevent our coming at them.’ As the noise of musketry grew louder, the Marquis de Biron came forward towards Eyne to see for himself what was happening and, thoroughly alarmed at what he found, hurried back to Heurne to summon his reserve brigade into action.

The Duc de Vendôme and his entourage were at this point enjoying a brief luncheon at the roadside – Burgundy and his elegant party were nearby – as the army marched past towards the high ground. Once there, if it was necessary, they could turn and take up a firm defensive position and defy Marlborough to come at them. There appeared to be no urgency, for the Allied army was thought to be many miles distant, at Lessines. Now, messengers came to Vendôme, that his flank guard was being driven in by Dutch and British infantry; the mutter of musketry from the direction of the town a few miles away was swelling to a roar, and, if it had been giving concern to the French commander at all up to that time, it plainly no longer indicated some insignificant affair of outposts. Taking to his saddle, Vendôme rode towards Heurne, and was able to see for himself the dust rising above the hills beyond the Scheldt; a large force was on the march towards the river, and tactically his own army, caught unawares, was suddenly quite off-balance. Yet Jean-Martin De La Colonie felt that the battle need not have taken place: ‘As the time of day was somewhat advanced, it was possible, had it been wished, to have avoided giving battle.’

Despite the shock of the audacious Allied approach – ‘If they are there, the Devil must have carried them’ – had been Vendôme’s scornful exclamation, his actual response was swift and correct. Rapid action to crush the impudent Allied bridgehead over the river should set all things right. Instructions were sent to Biron to use his Swiss brigades to drive back the Allied infantry from Eyne and the shelter of the Diepenbeek stream, while the cavalry of the left Wing of the army moved forward to support their attack. Vendôme had no notion that Pfeiffer’s brigade was already in broken retreat from that stream, with the Hanoverian cavalry harrying them ruthlessly as they fell back.

The Marquis de Biron was now moving forward with the reserve Swiss brigade to help Pfeiffer, when Marshal Puységur, Vendôme’s chief of staff, rode up and commanded him to halt his troops, not far from Heurne. The ground ahead, he declared, was too marshy and impassable for cavalry, so that any further advance would be unsupported and bound to fail. They were then joined by Marshal Matignon, who was looking for a camping ground for the night, and he agreed with Puységur, ordering Biron to go no further. Vendôme then came up, with the leading squadrons of cavalry summoned to the support of the Swiss attack, and he angrily demanded to know why the infantry were not pressing forward. Deferring to Puységur’s apparently superior knowledge of the state of the ground ahead, he reluctantly countermanded the order for Biron to advance, and went off to find Burgundy, to try and co-ordinate a proper attack against the Allied bridgehead.