Chapter Eight

That Pearl Among Fortresses – The Siege of Lille, July–December 1708

As Marlborough was unable to convince Prince Eugene, or the Dutch generals, of the worth of his plan to advance deep into France, he reluctantly turned aside to assault the great city and citadel of Lille. At first glance this seemed a less promising project, likely to tie down the Allied armies for some months. However, Lille was a prize of considerable worth, and if it seemed likely to fall the French army might have to come out to fight in the open again. The capture of Lille in the 1670s had been one of the high points of Louis XIV’s long military career, a triumph the King cherished, and he had lavishly improved its fortifications, employing all the considerable skills of Marshal Vauban. Captain Robert Parker wrote that:

The [French] King had expended vast sums of money in pulling down the old buildings, and laying out the streets in a most regular and spacious manner. His famous engineer Vauban had exerted his utmost skill, as well in the beautiful and exact model of the new buildings, as in its noble and extraordinary fortifications.

Marlborough, however, was unable to invest Lille properly before Louis XIV became aware of the growing danger to the town, and seized the chance to augment the garrison:

The French had time to supply it with all manner of provisions, and stores in abundance. Marshal Boufflers also had got in with a good body of troops; so that the garrison consisted of 14,000 regular troops, besides a number of inhabitants [militia] that were of service on many occasions.

Any proper attempt at such a formidable fortress required a large siege train, and the Allies were still denied the use of the waterways of northern Flanders. Marlborough wrote: ‘That which hinders us from acting with vigour is that as long as the French are masters of Ghent we cannot make use of either the Scheldt or the Lys.’ Arrangements were made to bring forward the siege guns and ordnance by road from Antwerp through Brussels and on to the army. This was to be a period of great convoys, with hundreds of wagons trundling southwards, while French armies hovered malevolently on either flank of the march. Meanwhile, Marlborough and Eugene had to contend not only with the Duc de Vendôme’s army, still dangerous behind the Ghent-Bruges canal, but with the army of the Duke of Berwick, newly arrived from the Moselle. Vendôme might be winded, but Berwick was always dangerous.

Marshal Boufflers had been sent by Louis XIV to take command of the town and citadel of Lille. The veteran soldier arrived on 29 July 1708, attended by only a small escort, but their saddlebags bulged with louis d’or (gold coins) with which to pay the arrears of the troops of the garrison. Preparations to improve the defences of the place were immediately put in hand, with trees and copses around the town being cleared to a distances of 800 metres. Marlborough wrote on 30 July to Sidney Goldolphin: ‘M. de Boufflers is come to the government of Lille. I hope he will have better success than he had at Namur [which Boufflers failed to hold in 1695], if we were once so happy as to get our cannon.’ Progress in the preparations for the siege was slowed by the persistent lack of access to the waterways of the region while the French held Ghent and Bruges; on 3 August 1708, the Duke wrote to Secretary of State Henry Boyle:

The difficulties we have been struggling with for this fortnight and more, to get the greatest part of our heavy artillery to Brussels, which being happily effected, the prince [Eugene] is going to-day with 25 battalions and 25 squadrons from hence, to strengthen his army, in order to bring the artillery forward.

In such an advanced posture, well inside the borders of France, Marlborough understandably had a constant concern for the rear areas, the regions through which the lines of supply and communication for his army ran. Vendôme, secure behind the Ghent-Bruges canal, was the immediate threat, and Marlborough wrote to William Cadogan in Brussels: ‘For God’s sake, do not risk the cannon, for I would rather come with the whole army than receive an affront.’

By 4 August 1708 Eugene’s 50,000 strong army had moved to Ath to cover the first convoy coming southwards from Brussels. This vast, cumbersome column, hauled by 16,000 horses and mules, set off on 6 August, heading on the road towards Mons but then swinging to the west to link up with the Prince. Marshal Berwick, whose troops lay at Douai, found Vendôme lethargic and almost impossible to work with, and nor could he fathom the Allied moves in time. Marlborough was able to write to the Secretary of State again, on 9 August:

I am very glad to acquaint you that the train of artillery is come safe to Ath, where it has passed the Dender, the enemy not having thought fit to make the least attempt to insult it on the march. I hope it is now past all danger, and that we shall have it in hand in three or four days, the Prince of Savoy, under whose care it is, having with him an army of near fifty thousand men, including the reinforcements he has had from hence. The French are now making lines without the town of Ghent for the security of that place, and it is said they have cannon coming to them from Dunkirk.

The following day the huge convoy was within reach of the Allied army, and the French had lost the chance to strike effectively at the wagons and guns as they trundled forward. Partly through good management and daring, and partly through French ineptitude and misjudgement, the convoy came safely through to Marlborough’s camp, arriving at Menin on the evening of 12 August. In the meantime, the Marquis de Tarazena, so tiresome and troublesome to Marlborough in the victorious aftermath of Ramillies, was once again being rather a nuisance. The Duke, even with so many other demands on his time, felt obliged to write to Colonel Miklau, whose Hessian cavalry had been helping to cover the passage of the convoys:

Having been advised of the protests of M. le Marquis de Tarazena of the necessity to have more cavalry to secure the town of Anvers [where Tarazena was governor], when your squadrons are returned from Brussels, I wish you to send immediately two squadrons of dragoons from your corps to Anvers. p.s. The two squadrons are not to stay at Anvers longer than absolutely necessary.

Eugene moved on with his army to complete the investment of Lille on 13 August, while Marlborough covered the operation. The Duke added a note to a letter written to Count Maffei:

The Prince of Savoy has invested the town of Lille on all sides, and the cannon have arrived at Menin within reach of the siege, which will be pressed with all possible vigour, and this may at last convince the enemy that they have lost the battle of Oudenarde.

The plan was that Eugene would command fifty infantry battalions in the siege operations (of whom at least ten would always be on duty in the trenches) while the Duke led the covering army, fending off attempts by Vendôme and Berwick to disrupt the campaign. Eugene’s engineer officers took advantage of the occasion of escorting a party of ladies in leaving Lille, to scout the defensive works, while Marshal Boufflers allowed the citizens of the town to appeal to Eugene to spare them the full rigours of the bombardment. The Prince’s uncompromising response was that ‘A besieged town ought to be kept very close. But when he should be master of the place, the burghers might be assured of his protection, provided he should be satisfied that they had deserved it, by their impartial carriage during the siege.’ Given that the town-recruited militia were actively engaged in the defensive operations, and the citizens were lawfully the subjects of Louis XIV, this was an impossible request, and it is difficult to see how such impartiality could be demonstrated. On 20 August, Marlborough once again reported progress to the Secretary of State:

On Friday last [13 August] part of the artillery was sent from Menin to the siege, and the rest marched thither this day, having been covered by a detachment of about five thousand men, which I ordered to take posts between Lannor and Pont à Chin, to secure them against any insults from the garrisons of Tournai or the Duke of Berwick’s army. This night the Prince of Savoy designs to open the trenches, which I hope he will do with good success. Hitherto, the French have not made any motion to disturb us, and cannot do it now with the same advantage they might five or six days ago, since we are at liberty to draw off a considerable strength from the siege to reinforce our army upon occasion. M. de Vendôme and the Duke of Berwick are in the same camp, only the latter has drawn to him what troops he could from the neighbouring garrisons.

The approaches to Lille town were quickly cleared, allowing the allies to advance from the north; the fighting opened at the chapel of St Magdalen, in particular, and was vicious and hand to hand. By 21 August the nine mile-long lines of circumvallation (facing outwards from the town) and contravallation (facing inwards) were complete, and the digging of trenches began the next day. There were regular exchanges of artillery fire between besieger and the besieged; the Prince of Orange’s valet had his head taken off by a French round-shot one morning while assisting his master to dress. The young nobleman sensibly moved his quarters to a safer spot, while Eugene’s own breaching bombardment began in earnest on 27 August.

Meanwhile, Vendôme and Berwick had been spurred into action by tart instructions from Versailles to do something to interrupt the preparations for the siege. The Duc de St Simon wrote that:

M. de Vendôme did not budge from the post he had taken up near to Ghent. The King wrote to him to go with his army to the relief of Lille. M. de Vendôme still delayed; another courier was sent with the same result. At this, the King, losing his temper, despatched another courier, with orders for M. de Bourgogne, to lead the army to Lille, if M. de Vendôme refused to do so. At this, M. de Vendôme awoke from his lethargy. He set out for Lille. The King demanded news of the siege from his courtiers, and could not understand why no couriers arrived. It was generally expected that some decisive battle had been fought; each day increased the uneasiness.

On 29 August 1708 the two French armies combined near to Grammont, and two days later they moved to Tournai, but Berwick could not work with Vendôme and resigned his field command; he now accompanied Burgundy as an adviser. Marching southwards through Orchies, by 5 September the French army drew up south of Lille, facing Marlborough’s covering army, which had prepared to receive them, near the hamlets of Ennetières and Seclin. The Duke, with about 60,000 troops, was outnumbered by Vendôme, at least until he could pull reinforcements out from the trenches to support him. So he took up a strong defensive position with flanks secured by the rivers Deule in the west and Marque in the east. Two days later, the armies still confronted each other, and Vendôme, who urged action on his colleagues, wrote to Louis XIV in exasperation: ‘I cannot resist saying that the most part of the general officers of this army care nothing about losing Lille … What I see makes my heart bleed.’ However, it seems that Vendôme was dressing up his own vigour for the benefit of the King. Berwick also wrote at this time to Michel de Chamillart, warning of the dangers of making a frontal attack on the strongly posted Allied army:

With battalions under strength we should risk not only a repulse, but even total overthrow thereafter. It is sad to see Lille taken, but it would be even more sad to lose the only army which now remains to us or which can stop the enemy after the fall of Lille.

Before long, Marlborough, seeing that his opponents were, for the time being, at a standstill, felt confident enough to send back to the trenches those troops Eugene had brought to his support. He wrote to Sidney Godolphin:

M. de Vendôme having drawn out all the troops possible from the garrisons, and having a great train of artillery joined him from Douai, made his own army and ours believe we should have had a battle on the 5th, which was the King of France’s birthday, so that Prince Eugene joined me that morning with seventy-two squadrons and seventy-six battalions; but they not moving from their camp, which is in sight of ours, we sent back the foot the same night to the siege, resolving to entrench the front of our camp which we began to do yesterday. The entrenchment is so far advanced that I have this morning sent him back all his horse, as also a detachment of 2,000 foot, to assist him in the attacking of the counterscarp this night, and for the carrying on of the siege with more vigour than hitherto; for it is certain our engineers find much more work than they expected.

Despite its formidable reputation, the extent and strength of the defences of Lille had, it seemed, taken the Allied commanders by surprise. They had underestimated their opponents, and hard days lay ahead. Steadily, though, the work of Eugene’s big guns produced a breach in the outer walls, and deserters reported that Boufflers was pulling some of his artillery back into the safety of the citadel. So, plans for a great attempt on the outer-works of the town were made, and the assault went in, on the evening of 7 September. It was stoutly resisted and the casualties among the Allied troops were heavy, Kit Davies recalling: ‘A most furious one it was, the enemy’s fire from the outworks, which were not yet demolished, made a dismal havoc.’ One of Eugene’s chief engineers, Des Roques, wrote of the affair three days later:

On Friday, the seventh instant, we made an assault on the counter-scarp, about half an hour past seven in the evening. 2400 grenadiers, and as many fusiliers, sustained by twelve battalions, being commanded to make the lodgement, on the glacis, we attacked the whole front, reaching from the horn-work, before Magdelen’s Gate, along the ravelin and tenailles, as far as the other horn-work, on the right of the lower Deule. After an obstinate fight, of about half an hour, during which, the enemy sprung four great mines, which destroyed abundance of our men, we obliged them to retire into their capital works, from whence they made a terrible fire, for some hours. But, as we had the misfortune, upon the advancing towards the enemy, out of the trenches, to lose the six engineers, who were to direct the workmen, appointed to make the lodgement on the ravelins, and before the breaches, the said workmen, by the favour of the night, dispersed themselves; So that we could not maintain ourselves, but only on the angles of the glacis of the two horn-works, and of the tenaille. This unhappy accident retards the taking of the town, which may yet hold out eight or ten days. We had, in that attack, 2000 men either killed or wounded, among whom are sixteen engineers, either in the ordinary or extraordinary. We have raised two batteries on the glacis of the horn-work, on the right, and of the tenaille; and in a day or two, we shall erect another, in order to ruin the foot of the breach, which the enemy repair every night. Yesterday in the afternoon, the enemy made a sally, in order to ruin a sort of gallery, which we are drawing from the angle of the horn-work, at Magdalen’s Gate. directly to the breach, that we may not be obliged to make a second assault upon the outer-works; But our regiments in the trenches repulsed the enemy with great vigour, killing abundance of their men.

The engineer’s matter-of-fact style cannot entirely disguise the sense of the breathless deathly assault, the noise and the shrieking as hundreds of men strove to seize and hold the French works in the smoky twilight of the autumn evening. Boufflers, in his despatch to Louis XIV describing the repulse of the attack, said that the Allied losses were nearer 4,000, and he may well have been correct. Des Roques went on to comment on the ever-present concern in any besieging army, the maintenance of the supply for the great guns: ‘We expect, with impatience, a convoy of ammunition, which is coming from Brussels, very à propos; For, we are in great want of it.’

In the meantime, the French put in a strong and well executed counterattack on the besiegers, resulting in a mortifying loss to Marlborough’s army. Kit Davies was pursuing her part-time career as a looter, and saw a strong party of French infantry on the move, apparently unobserved by the Allied sentries. She hurried to the Duke of Argyll, who was nearby, to give warning of their approach:

I had observed all the hedges lined [with soldiers] and the cannon ready to play on us … We had scarce got time to get into the lines for safety. Sir Richard Temple’s and How’s regiments were ordered to clear the hedges, and the duke would have gone with them, and probably never returned, had I not prevented him by holding back his horse; for both these regiments were cut to pieces before our horse and train of artillery came up, which soon drove them to the main body of their army.

John Deane wrote of this same incident, and the hasty, bungled counter-attack:

August 28th [8 September N.S.] a party of about 300 of the enemy was possessed of a chateau in the front of the two armies, which proved very prejudicial to us … How’s Regiment advancing first, and the way bad, with narrow bridges and close lanes so that but one or two could pass abreast. The enemy advanced out and lined the hedges, and firing on our people did them great damage before they could come up and recover themselves, and after retired into the chateau before Temple’s Regiment could come; but at last we beat them out and took some prisoners. But at length the Earl of Orkney by the Duke’s order commanded the two regiments off with all expedition; which command was very seasonable, otherwise they had cut them all off or taken them prisoners. Major-General How’s regiment suffered very much, having 15 officers and 13 sergeants with 116 soldiers killed and wounded. Brigadier Temple’s lost very considerable likewise. The enemy’s loss was but inconsiderable.

The counter-attack on the French sortie was undoubtedly a rushed and badly mismanaged affair; the British troops went in without proper planning or supports, and had quite rightly been badly cut up. The French, on the other hand, behaved with great dash and gallantry; Boufflers’s garrison were tired, but were proving to be a dangerous lot.

That night the Duke of Argyll moved his quarters to a less exposed location, not too soon by all appearances, and Kit Davies offered to help provide supplies, such as candles, and straw with which to pack the mattresses. Irrepressible as ever, she also helped herself to the Duke’s stock of wine, with which she refreshed some of her cronies in the nearby guard. Davies then took two of the soldiers to a nearby inn, which apparently doubled as a brothel, where, she maliciously remembered ‘One of them was received with so warm an affection, that he must be ungrateful if he ever forgets it, for the favour she bestowed upon him was of a lasting sort.’

In timely fashion, the Earl of Albemarle’s thirty squadrons of cavalry escorted a fresh convoy through on the road from Brussels, now relatively free from French interference, while Vendôme’s army was occupied facing Marlborough to the south of the city. Such a freedom, enabling the Allies to replenish their magazines and so continue the massive bombardment of Lille’s defences, was a welcome bonus to the Duke. On 10 September Vendôme again threatened an attack, and Marlborough once more summoned Eugene to join him with his cavalry. The French commander, after some manoeuvring, found that Marlborough’s dispositions gave little opportunity for success, and rather meekly drew off; moving towards the Scheldt to once again try and cut the Allied lines of supply through Brussels.

Progress in the siege was frustratingly slow, as Marlborough described in a letter to Godolphin, sent on 20 September: ‘It is impossible for me to express the uneasiness I suffer, for the ill conduct of our engineers at the siege where I think everything goes very wrong.’ Meanwhile, the pressing call for supplies and materiel necessary to feed the operations, with the enormous daily expenditure in munitions, had now to be answered with convoys forced through from the Allied-held port of Ostend. On 28 September a large number of wagons and carts set out southwards, heading for Lille, with a powerful escort of horse and foot led by Major-General Henry Webb. The French lay in ambush, under command of the veteran Comte de la Motte, near to Plas-Endael. After an inconclusive encounter at Oudenbourg the previous day, where a fierce battle at bayonet point between Scots and French troops took place in the market square, de la Motte’s force moved to overtake the convoy near to the village of Wynendael. Webb’s own account of his hurried march to receive the approaching French was subsequently printed in London, during an undignified argument over who should have the credit for the action. Rather disconcertingly he referred to himself in the third person:

The seventh and twentieth of September. General Webb (who, as eldest [senior] major-general, commanded in Chief) received advice that Major Savary, of the Regiment of Gethem, had possessed himself of the post of Oudenbourg; whereupon, he sent 600 grenadiers, under the command of Colonel Preston, a battalion of Orkney’s, under the command of Colonel Hamilton, with that of Fune, commanded by Colonel Vogt, the whole under the command of Brigadier Landsberg, to reinforce that post.

After describing how, on the morning of 28 September, William Cadogan with a detachment of cavalry left Lille to meet the convoy, Webb told how his own mounted advanced guard, under Count Lottum, brushed against a strong force of French cavalry and infantry advancing to cut the road at Wynendael:

All the foot, consisting of two and twenty battalions, Count Lottum with his 150 horse, making the advanced guard, with the quarter-masters and grenadiers that were not detached [to march with the wagons and give close protection] were ordered to march immediately, to gain the village of Ictegem, by the way of Wynendale. As soon as the advanced guard got to Wynendale, they perceived the enemy, in the opening of the plain. Whereupon, the quarter-masters and grenadiers were drawn up in order of battle. Major-General Webb and the Count of Nassau-Woudenburg [son of Veldt-Marshal Overkirk] at the head of the 150 horse, advanced to reconnoitre the enemy, giving orders, at the same time, to the foot to advance, and form themselves, as fast as possible, in the plain. The 150 horses were left, to amuse the enemy; and, to embarrass them, the more, the quarter-masters and the grenadiers were posted in a low coppice, on that side of the plain where the enemy were expected to pass.

De la Motte’s attack came in through a small gap between two stretches of dense woodland. His hastily emplaced artillery did manage to fire on the Allied battle-line, but the French commander had no room to manoeuvre properly. Webb described his very neat dispositions, making the best use of the narrow and difficult ground:

We had scarce got six battalions into the opening when the enemy began to cannonade us, with forty pieces of cannon, whereof ten were of three bores. But notwithstanding the great fire of the enemy, the 150 horse kept their ground, which produced the desired effect, in giving the General [Webb] time, to form his foot, in two lines. The left wing was extended beyond the low coppice, as well to prevent the enemy from passing that way, as to cover our flank. On our right flank was posted, in the wood of Wynendale, the Regiment of Heukelum; and, on our flank on the left, the regiment of the Hereditary Prince of Prussia, commanded by Colonel Rhader, with orders not to discover themselves, nor fire until they could take the enemy in flank. Some platoons of grenadiers were advanced forty paces upon the right and left, with the same orders; and the quartermasters were also posted in a road, on the left, that crossed through the aforementioned low coppice.

The attack by the French and their allies came on with great determination: ‘Count Lottum was hereupon ordered to retire and post himself 300 paces behind the foot.’ Not-withstanding the efforts of the French gunners, the Allied musketry was brutally effective, cutting down the leading ranks of attackers with terrible efficiency. The fallen soldiers piled up, hindering and tripping those who pressed on from behind, and the unlucky French were, many of them, jammed together in the narrow pass between the trees, unable to deploy or use their own weapons to proper effect. Colonel De La Colonie acknowledged that the French attacks that day, for all the courage of the soldiers, had been badly handled:

Our troops, who ought to have had detachments detailed for the express purpose of attacking the wagons and cutting the traces whilst the main body attacked the escort, entirely devoted themselves to a combat in the moorlands of Vignandal, and allowed the wagons of the convoy itself to pursue their way in all haste. Owing to this inattention to details we did not profit by our superiority in numbers, whilst the enemy on the other hand, who knew too well how to take advantage of the ground by posting themselves in the woods, always warded off our people, and eventually obliged them to retire with some loss.

Despite the desperate valour of the French infantry, the Allied musketry, hitting them both in front and from either flank, continued to break up their attacks, although some of the attackers got close enough to club and bayonet their way through the front rank, before being slaughtered by Webb’s reserve battalions, which were just then hurrying into place. Kit Davies spoke of the action in which her man played an active part:

The enemy appeared in sight. They formed the infantry into four lines, and the horse in as many, and entered the defile to attack the escort; but they were no sooner within the ambush but they were saluted with a general discharge on either hand, which put their right and left into a thorough disorder. The enemy pushed on, and put two of our battalions in disorder; but the Swiss Regiment of Albemarle, under the command of Colonel Hirtzell, advancing upon their horse, that were endeavouring to penetrate, engaged them long enough to give time to the General, and Count Nassau, to bring up the Regiments of Bernsdorf, Gauvain and Lindeboom … The enemy, supported by so many lines, made another attempt to penetrate.

Meanwhile the precious wagons of the convoy trundled along southwards, often in sight, glimpsed through the trees, of the striving French soldiers. Cadogan had come up with his cavalry, and suggested a counter-attack on de la Motte’s disordered force, but Webb decided against this:

Major-General Cadogan, who came up some time after the action began, offered to charge the enemy, in their disorder, with two squadrons of horse, the other four, which he had sent for, not being arrived until seven at night; but it was not thought advisable to expose so small a number to charge the enemy, who had brought up all their horse to favour their retreat. The battle lasted two hours, and was very hot, in which we had 912 officers and soldiers killed or wounded.

This was plainly no minor affair, with close on 1,000 Allied casualties, and the losses among the French and their allies were much higher, being put at over 3,000, including hundreds of prisoners. Kit Davies was able to take part in the looting of the dead as the two armies, one tired but victorious, the other battered and defeated, went their separate ways: ‘I got a fine bay horse with silver-capped pistols and laced housings and pistol bags. I sold the horse to Colonel [Gustavus] Hamilton for nine pistoles, and my pistols to Captain Brown for five crowns.’

The battle at Wynendael was a significant success, not only because the convoy delivered enough powder and shot for two weeks more bombardment, but de la Motte’s effort was almost the first venture out of entrenchments by the French since the defeat at Oudenarde, at least one that led to an action. Unfortunately, offence was unintentionally given to Webb, whose success it truly was, because Marlborough’s dispatch to London, which described the action, rather carelessly mentioned the involvement of Cadogan and his detachment of cavalry in a disproportionately prominent way. Prince Eugene had been wounded earlier in the month, and Marlborough was now both commanding the covering army and supervising the siege operations in the trenches. The hastily written dispatch, which caused such ill-feeling, may have been a result of this work overload. However, on 29 September the Duke had written to Webb with generous praise for the outcome of the battle:

Mr Cadogan is just now arrived, and has acquainted me with the success of the action you had yesterday in the afternoon against the body of troops commanded by M. de la Motte at Wynendale, which must be attributed chiefly to your good conduct and resolution. You may assure yourself I shall do you justice at home, and be glad on all occasions to own the service you have done in securing this convoy upon which the success of our siege so much depends.

Webb was not mollified, and the snub he felt that he had been given was never quite forgotten. Not everyone in his small army had performed as well as might have been expected though, as a subsequent court-martial heard that an officer had ‘Been seen to bow himself down close to the ground for a long time’ during the exchanges of fire.

On the same day that this battle was fought in the woods at Wynendael, Marshal Boufflers, whose own expenditure of artillery ammunition and powder had also been enormous, attempted a desperate measure to resupply his gunners. Robert Parker described the exploit:

The Duke of [Chevalier de] Luxembourg undertook it. He took 2,000 choice horse, each of which carried behind him a bag of powder, containing almost 100 weight. The [troopers] put green boughs in the hats [the Allies’ field symbol], and marched with the Duke in great order from Douai. About the dusk of the evening they came up to the outer barrier of our circumvallation line, and pretending to be a party of German horse, that had been out on an expedition, and were returned with some prisoners, the officer opened the barrier, and let them in; from thence they rode on gently to the next officer’s guard, where there was no barrier, and asking some questions which the Duke did not like, they clapped spurs to their horses, and rode in full gallop through the intervals of our camp towards the town, but the officer ordering his guard to fire, it gave the alarm, and the Quarter-Guards turning out, and the soldiers of the camp running to their arms, all fired upon them. This set many of the powder-bags on fire, and the fire in the crowd, catching from one to another, many of them were blown up. In the end Luxembourg with about 1,000 of them got safe into the town.

The success at Wynendael, which ensured much needed supplies for the Allied army, and Luxembourg’s simultaneous desperate resupply exploit, illustrates very well the problems under which the opposing commanders laboured. The lines of supply and communication for Marlborough, in particular, were dreadfully vulnerable, for he was operating deep in French territory, with powerful enemy forces lying in the rear of his army, held off only by his own constant vigilance. At the beginning of October he wrote to Duchess Sarah:

By the French having taken all the posts along the Scheldt, makes it almost impossible for our letters to go that way without falling into their hands; and that by Ostend is very near as dangerous, so that we are obliged to be on our guard of what we write, if we would not have them know it; so that you must not expect particulars as to news.

On 4 October the Allies attempted once again to force the defences of Lille, taking advantage of an untypical lapse in vigilance on the part of the garrison. An officer’s letter giving a report of the assault was reported in the Amsterdam Gazette five days later:

Yesterday, a little after noon we carried sword in hand the rest of the two tessailes and the ravelin. A sergeant of the Royal Regiment of Scots [Orkney’s] advancing the foremost, observed that the French were not on their guard, as not expecting to be attacked, and called to our engineers and workmen to hasten to him, upon which the grenadiers advanced and found little resistance from the French, who were surprised, part of them were put to the sword and several of them who attempted to escape by swimming, were drowned so that very few of ’em got into the town. The captain and forty men who were in the tenaille, were made prisoners. We found in the works 5 pieces of cannon, 100 pounds of powder, 2,000 weight of ball, 250 rations of bread and other provisions. We immediately attempted to make a lodgement but before we could cover ourselves, the enemy fired so terribly from the ramparts, that we had 50 men killed and 100 wounded, among the latter are Lieutenant-General Wilkins, Brigadier Wassemaar, and Colonel Zeden, but neither dangerously. This brave action of the sergeant who was also slightly wounded, was seen by the Prince of Nassau [Orange] and other generals, and the prince recommended him to the Duke of Marlborough, who made him a lieutenant that same day.

Plainly, rewards could come for valiant service, and the ranks of the officers of the Allied army contained numbers of men of quite humble origins. The assault on Lille went remorselessly on, and John Deane wrote that:

On the 19th [September O.S.] in the morning we made another attack upon the remainder of the outworks as yet un-taken, except a ravelin into which several of the enemy retired as fast as they was beat out of the other works. On the 22nd of Sept [O.S.], a detachment of 8 grenadiers of a [each] company throughout the army made an attack about 11 a clock in the forenoon upon the same ravelin; we blowed up a mine in the middle of them, they were so surprised that they made but small resistance, our people rushing so furiously upon them which drove them into the water so that very few escaped, but what was either drowned or blown up. We had likewise a great many killed and wounded, the enemy firing so prodigiously from the walls of the town.

Gradually, under such pressure, day in and day out without a rest, Boufflers’s defences were crumbling; he beat a parley on 22 October 1708, and surrendered the town three days later. The weary survivors of his garrison moved into the immensely strong citadel. The Duc de St Simon wrote that ‘Marshal Boufflers offered a discharge to all the soldiers who did not wish to enter the citadel, but not one of the 6,000 he had left to him accepted it.’ Eugene, greatly impressed by the valour of the defenders, granted the Marshal good terms for the capitulation of the town, without even reading the document in detail. ‘Marshal Boufflers can demand nothing of me that he should not ask, or that I should not grant’, he declared. John Deane, in rather more down-to-earth fashion, wrote with some feeling of the rigours of the siege experienced so far:

We have paid dear; for this murdering siege, it is thought, has destroyed more than [the siege of] Namur did last war, and those that were the flower of the army. For what was not killed or drowned were spoiled by the hellish inventions of throwing bombs, boiling pitch, tar, oil and brimstone with scalding water and such like combustables upon our men from the outworks, and when our men made any attack. Especially the English grenadiers [who took a foremost part in assaults] have scarce six sound men in a company.

During the course of these operations, 67 year-old Veldt-Marshal Overkirk died, and his place as the field commander of the Dutch troops was taken by Claude-Frederick de Tserclaes, Count Tilly.

On the same day that the town of Lille was surrendered, the French stormed the Allied-held outpost at Leffinghe, lying on the valuable supply route from Ostend. This reverse, although minor compared with the success at Lille, caused considerable consternation in the Allied camp, as the garrison was reportedly taken quite unawares, and a number of the soldiers were butchered after having surrendered. However, the French operation was very well handled, and the loss of Leffinghe, although only temporary, added to Marlborough’s concerns over the continued supply of his army. The Duke wrote to Major-General Erle, in command at Ostend, in the second week of November:

I did not receive your packet of the 2nd forwarded by M. Veglin till yesterday, and see by it you have but an imperfect account as yet of what passed at Leffinghe, though it appears too plain, particularly by Capt. Wynne’s letter to his uncle, that our people were surprised, and had made no disposition for their defence. As soon as they can be exchanged, it must be strictly examined into, that those who are to blame may be punished according to their deserts. I am very sorry to see so many of your men sick, but I hope this fair weather, while they have little or no duty, may recover them apace.

The reports of the loss of Leffinghe, in fact, were rather unfair on the garrison, as the French had assaulted the barricaded front of the village, while pushing a strong party of grenadiers around the rear of the position, thereby taking the defenders by surprise. The officers may have been hungover after a late-night drinking bout, as was rumoured, but the small garrison had fought until overwhelmed.

The difficulties in provisioning the Allied army persisted, and were a constant worry. On 7 November Marlborough wrote from camp at Rousselaer to Brigadier-General Evans, whose detachment had been gathering ‘contributions’ in the vicinity of Ypres since 21 October:

Our necessities for corn increasing every day, I have ordered my Lord Stair to march to Dixmunde to see what can be got from thence and the country on the other side of the river [Yser], and therefore desire you will order seven battalions of your corps to march thither immediately under the command of a colonel to observe his orders. They will be joined by three battalions and four squadrons from Courtemarcq, besides the horse his lordship takes from hence. You will use all the diligence you can in sending the forage to the camp, because I know not how long I may be able to leave you at Langemarcq.

The Duke also wrote to Baron Fagel with orders to send three battalions and four squadrons, under command of two colonels, to support Stair’s foraging expedition. As he plainly intended, Evans took the command of the troops sent out across the river, and the following day Marlborough found himself patiently answering queries on the practical steps needed to gather the crops, writing to the Brigadier-General again:

I have received yours of last night, and have given orders that sacks be sent immediately, either by the bread-waggons or the troopers, from hence for each of the five hundred horse with you; so that as the corn comes I pray you will let it be sent hither from time to time, under the care of a careful officer.

However, the ill-discipline of some of the troops so engaged caused Marlborough to issue a steely rebuke to Stair on 10 November regarding his apparent lack of control of the operation:

Having since seen a letter from your quarter complaining of the great looseness and disorderly conduct of the troops that are with you, particularly the horse, in plundering the churches, and all the whole country round about, I cannot forbear sending you this to desire that all possible care may be taken to prevent it, and that some examples may be made immediately by execution, and public notice of it given to the country that they shall be indemnified, otherwise I fear we may in great measure be disappointed of the hopes we had of a good quantity of corn from your parts. I believe it would likewise be necessary that a guard be posted at the bridge with a careful, severe officer to search the troopers and others, and to take from them whatever they have plundered in the country, in order to its being restored to the owners.

Despite such exhortations, Stair had hatched a plan to use the troops collected for the gathering of supplies to try to surprise one or other of the rather isolated French garrisons in the area. Marlborough wrote to him again on 11 November, with a word of caution:

The endeavouring to surprise Furnes, or Knock, would, I fear, but interrupt our main business, which is the getting of corn, and it is great odds if you succeed. If you could surprise Gravelines it would be of much greater consequence, by opening us a communication with England; but I am afraid it is too far out of your reach.

All the while, the foraging expedition was having to spread its activities ever wider, so great was the demand by the besieging troops for sustenance, which was not coming through either from Ostend or Brussels in sufficient quantities. Reports came in that the French were again trying to disrupt the gathering of supplies, and Marlborough wrote to Baron Fagel on 12 November: ‘Should the enemy approach with a large corps, you shall reinforce my Lord Stair with such troops that you consider are required.’ The Duke remained concerned at the lack of discipline in Stair’s detachment, writing the same day to the Earl:

The provost shall march tomorrow to Dixmude, whither you may send him your orders, and pray acquaint the officers with you that, as this service is of the greatest consequence, I expect they should be doubly diligent in keeping their people under good discipline and punishing all offenders with the greatest severity. As to what you mention of Furnes [the attempt to surprise the garrison], we may think of it when this main business is near an end.

The Duke went on to stress, once again, the importance to the army of the expedition. Perhaps appreciating that Stair’s adventurous nature inclined him to more aggressive action against the various French outposts, rather than just mundane crop gathering, he held out the prospect of a further, more congenial, task:

I am very glad the country-people seem so well affected to us, for by their means you cannot want intelligence of the enemy’s motions from Nieuport or other parts, which must be watched. I have sent Hookwater, one of the commissioners for the bread, who will be to-morrow morning at Dixmude, to bespeak the two thousand sacks and to give receipts to the country-people for the corn in order to its being paid for. He is to observe your orders, and I must take leave to repeat to your Lordship that not one minute’s time be lost in transporting it thither.

Marlborough’s concern grew, as reports of French troop movements towards the foraging parties continued to come in. In a letter to Stair on 13 November, from the camp at Rousselaer, he wrote:

We have just now advice of some [French] troops, both horse and foot, that are marched from Bruges to Nieuport, that you may be upon your guard, though you must have heard of it before now, and I do not doubt will take proper measures. I have sent this morning a thousand horse to Dixmude for corn, and shall send more as I hear it comes in.

Three days later, the Duke, in his anxiety, could not refrain from writing again to Stair:

I had this morning from M. Montagnes, who is with you before now, that you were drawing all your troops together the better to enable you to oppose any designs of the enemy, for which purpose M. Fagel has likewise sent you a reinforcement, but that this motion of the troops had hindered any corn from being brought in to Dixmude all day yesterday, upon which your Lordship must give me leave to continue my insistances that you use the utmost diligence in sending the corn by all possible means while this fair weather lasts, as a matter you know to be of the last consequence to us.

The corn was safely delivered in the end, but not without some alarms and stiff skirmishing, and Marlborough wrote to Stair on 15 November after receiving news of one such action: ‘If you take any more prisoners, you should not give them leave to go home so soon; it can only tend to the giving intelligence to the enemy, and hatching mischief against us.’

Finding that he could not starve Marlborough and Eugene out, even when they were sitting deep in French territory, the Duc de Vendôme now rather belatedly undertook an audacious project to draw the Allied army off from the citadel of Lille. He moved to threaten Brussels and Antwerp, putting his troops in position at all the crossing places over the Scheldt. The loss of the two cities would place the southern provinces of Holland in fresh danger, and the States-General would be sure to demand the return of Marlborough’s army to restore their security. All the Duke’s campaign plans, even at this late stage, might yet fall into ruins. The Elector of Bavaria, now returned to the campaign in Flanders, fondly hoped that the citizens of Brussels, in particular, retained an affectionate memory of him as Governor-General, and would respond to his summons. Marlborough, however, was neither to be daunted by the new threat, nor distracted from the pushing forward of the siege, and he rose to the occasion with one of his masterpieces of grand tactics. The Allied army was put on the march towards the Scheldt, leaving a scratch force in the siege trenches. Colonel Molesworth wrote that Marlborough took care not to let his opponents know of his intentions:

It was given out that the army was to move to the neighbourhood of Courtrai and from thence to be distributed into cantonments where they might refresh until the citadel of Lille were over, and then that the passage of the [Ghent–Bruges] canal would certainly be attempted. This farce was so well managed that our whole army was imposed upon by it, and I am confident all our Generals, except those few whom it was necessary to admit into the bottom of the design, really thought it was intended (as was given out) to cantoon and refresh the army for a while.

In fact, the Allied army was soon coming on in four great columns, one commanded by Eugene and three by Marlborough, towards the river crossings. The Colonel went on to describe the passage of the river:

It was so ordered that when any one of these bodies had made their passage and lodged themselves on the other side, whichever of the others met with more than ordinary difficulties and opposition should repair to the bridges of that body that had passed, and likewise make their passage there.

Kit Davies, serving still as sutleress with her husband’s regiment, remembered that:

The Duke of Marlborough, who had found means to pass the river at Kirkhoven [Kerkhoff], attacked the enemy so briskly at Berchem, that two hundred were slain, six hundred made prisoner and the rest put to flight. The Allies had a free passage to march to the relief of Brussels.

While Marlborough and Eugene marched forward, on 22 November the Elector of Bavaria imperiously summoned the Governor of Brussels, Colonel Pascal, to surrender or face bombardment, a storm, and the sack of the city. The Elector drew attention to the lack of numbers of the garrison, and the poor state of the defences: ‘His Electoral Highness knows, that the commandant is not in a condition to defend himself, with the few troops he has; wherefore if he obliges His Electoral Highness, to begin the attack, he shall have no capitulation, for himself, or his garrison.’ Pascal, a tough soldier, was not to be bullied, and replied with admirable and forthright coolness:

The commander of Brussels is very unfortunate in not having the honour of knowing Your Electoral Highness. He dares assure you that he will do all that a man of honour ought to do, that he is satisfied with his garrison, and that he has the honour, with profound respect, to be Monseigneur, Your Electoral Highnesses’ most humble servant.

The Elector’s bombardment was of short duration and failed to impress Pascal. Donald McBane had been in Brussels, recovering from wounds received in the siege operations before Lille. He found himself drafted into service with an artillery battery, hastily set up to help defend the city:

I had sixteen men to assist me; the French broke ground very near our works, which obliged us to stand to it; we continued five days cannonading one another; they burned several houses with their bombs; the sixth day they stormed us with twelve hundred men; we beat them off and killed an hundred and sixty of the French. We sallied out upon them and levelled a great deal of their works; after this the enemy desired the favour of General Murray who commanded our forces to grant a parley until they carried off their dead men, which was granted.

On 27 November, as the Allied army poured over the crossings of the Scheldt, the Elector had to withdraw towards Mons, and did so in such haste that he abandoned both his guns and his wounded. With Brussels no longer under real threat, Marlborough could turn back to the siege of the citadel of Lille; the Duke’s lines of supply were, at last, free of serious interference. Meanwhile, in London, Queen Anne was mourning the death of her husband, Prince George of Denmark, and another of Marlborough’s staunch supporters had left the scene. The sorrowing Queen had written on 20 November: ‘You too [as I] have lost in him a true friend, who cherished your interests on every occasion.’

The defence of the citadel of Lille could not last. Marshal Boufflers signed the articles of capitulation in the evening of 9 December 1708. The 64-yearold Marshal and his surviving troops were accorded the honours of war in recognition of their fine performance and, two days later, were permitted to march away to Douai without giving their parole. Kit Davies remembered:

The garrison marched out, following their baggage; the marshal, who was in the rear, conversed near half an hour with the Prince of Frise [John Friso, Prince of Orange]; all the officers saluted him with their half-pikes, which salutes he returned with his hat.

It had been an epic defensive operation, and the victorious Allied army paid a severe, possibly too high, price for the city – ‘That pearl among fortresses’ – a fact acknowledged by Louis XIV when he wrote handsomely to Boufflers on 13 December 1708:

The Marquis de Coesquen gave me last evening the letter that you wrote to me from the citadel of Lille on the 10th of this month, with the copy of the capitulation that you signed in accordance with the orders which you received from me in my letter of the 1st of the month. It is what I could wish in the extremity in which you find yourself, and Prince Eugene has done justice to you and the whole garrison. I cannot sufficiently praise your vigour, and the pertinacity of the troops under your command. To the very end they have backed up your courage and zeal. I have given the senior officers special proof of my satisfaction with the manner in which they have defended the town. You are to assure them, and the whole of the garrison, that I have every reason to be satisfied with them. You are to report to me as soon as you have made the necessary arrangements for the troops. I hope these will not detain you, and that I shall have the satisfaction of telling you myself that the latest proof you have given of your devotion to my service strengthens the sentiments of respect and friendship which I have for you.

The French had, of course, not been able to save Lille, the capture of which was a significant achievement for Marlborough and Eugene. Still, the Allied effort, admirable though it was, had been enormous, expensive in men, munitions and time, and had not won the war for them. Boufflers returned to Versailles where he was warmly received by the King; his defence of Lille had tied down the Allied army for over four months. This in itself was a major tactical victory for the French – they had again traded ground for time, allowing their army, so exhausted and disconsolate after the shameful mismanagement of Oudenarde, to recover, in some measure, its fighting spirit. In London, the news of the fall of Lille was received on the same day as that of the capture of Minorca by Earl Stanhope, but there was not the same jubilation that had accompanied earlier victories.

As winter came on the pace of operations slackened, but soon after the fall of Lille, Kit Davies recounts an incident that caused considerable consternation and gossip throughout both armies when it became known:

I observed an officer strolling backwards and forwards in the intervals of the camp; I fancied he had a mind to steal some of our horses, and for that reason watched him narrowly; at length I saw him lead off a mare, belonging to a poor woman, into a ditch, and with her commit, by means of the bank, the most detestable sin that can enter the thoughts of man. Colonel Irwin and another officer, that belonged to Ingoldsby’s regiment, happening at that instant to pass by, caught him in this act, seized and gave him into the custody of the provost, where he remained till the duke, who had left the army, returned, when he was tried, condemned to the gallows, and executed accordingly. The mare which this officer was enamoured with, was shot.

The Allied army now moved, in rapidly deteriorating winter weather, to retake the towns of northern Flanders, which governed the important waterways of the region. Davies again:

Winter was already begun, and the frosts very sharp. We, who imagined it would be carried no further, found ourselves deceived; for the duke could not think of leaving Ghent and Bruges in the possession of the French … While everything was preparing for opening the trenches [at Ghent], which was done on the 13th, and on the 14th, a detachment was sent to attack the Red-house on the canal of Sas van Ghent, where, as it is a place of importance, the French had left a garrison of two hundred men. These forces immediately raised their batteries, and made so furious a fire on the 15th, that the garrison having in vain offered to surrender, on condition that they might go off, were compelled to yield as prisoners of war.

She goes on to recount an incident that shows the perils present in even such fairly secondary operations, at a time when the year’s campaign seemed to most to be almost at an end:

My husband in the siege [of Ghent] was one of the forlorn hope, a body of men under the command of a lieutenant, ordered to lay ropes and direct the cutting of the trenches … The ropes being lain, he with his companions were retired into a turnip field, and lay flat on their bellies, expecting the trench, which the workmen were throwing up, to cover them.

Kit had equipped herself with some beer, spirits and bread to refresh the men in the field, and made her way forward with her basket and bundle. She was accosted there by a young officer of her acquaintance, who was in something of a state:

A spent musket-ball had grazed on, and scratched, his forehead, which his fright magnified to a cannon-ball. He desired I would show him to a surgeon, but his panic was so great, that I believe, had he been examined at both ends, he stood more in need of having his breeches shifted than his wound dressed. In his fright he left his hat and wig, but they being found and restored to him, and he at length assured his wound was no way dangerous, recovered his small share of spirits, but never his reputation.

The unfortunate officer was certainly not the first, or the last, man to foul his pants under enemy fire. Davies at last got to reach her husband and his comrades as they shivered in the frost among the turnips, and there they stayed with the bottles ‘very comfortable’, until the trench was ready.

Louis XIV plainly expected the French garrison in Ghent to make something of a fight for possession of such an important place. On 6 December 1708, as the capitulation of the citadel at Lille loomed nearer, the French war minister, Michel de Chamillart, had written to Comte de la Motte, the French commander north of the Ghent-Bruges canal, with rather pointed encouragement to hold onto the town as long as he could:

The preservation of Ghent is of so great an importance that you can never take too many precautions. Although not strong in itself, Ghent can be attacked only by narrow and difficult passages; you have sufficient troops to enable you to sell this conquest at a dear price to the allies, should they persist in their design. You have good officers, capable of seconding you; you have had the misfortune to have commanded at Ostend when the enemy reduced it in a few days [in 1706 after Ramillies], and the misfortune of not having succeeded in the combat at Wynendael; it is for your interest, in the present occasion, to merit, by your conduct, the rewards of his Majesty to which you have been so long aspiring. If you are besieged, you must use all possible means to protract the siege, insomuch that it may cost the Allies very dear, and dispute the ground inch by inch, as Marshal Boufflers has done at Lille. I know the difference betwixt the fortifications of Lille, and those of Ghent; but there is in the latter a good covered way, which is equally good everywhere. I tell you nothing as to the preservation of the troops; you have in my opinion, a long time before you ought to think of their preservation, and I have reason to believe that they will serve with so much distinction and affection under your command.

Despite this exhortation to great deeds, and the reminder, both of his own failure at Wynendael in September, and of the strategic importance of these two towns, de la Motte, apparently despairing of relief by Burgundy or Vendôme, rather tamely evacuated the area at the end of December. Marlborough could now write to Godolphin announcing the delayed, but successful, outcome of his army’s operations:

I sent yesterday [30 December 1708] an express to Ostend to acquaint her majesty that the troops of Ghent were to march out on Wednesday, if not relieved before. This place will secure the conquest of Lille, and give us great advantage for the next campaign … I have this morning sent a trumpet with letters to the governor and town of Bruges, offering the same capitulation as given to Ghent.

Three days later the Duke, content to have brought an exhausting campaign to a close, was able to give further information to his friend in London:

I was yesterday from ten in the morning till six at night, seeing the garrison of Ghent and all that belonged to them march by me. It is astonishing to see so great numbers of good men, to look on, and suffer a place of this consequence to be taken, at this season [mid-winter, when operations were most difficult] with so little loss. As soon as they knew I had possession of the gate of this town, they took the resolution of abandoning Bruges. This campaign is now ended to my heart’s desire.

With the return of the two towns into Allied hands, the campaign could at last be brought to an end. As John Deane put it ‘Thus, after a very long, tiresome, mischevious and strange, yet very successful campaign, we are safe arrived in garrison.’ It was none too soon, as the bitterest winter in memory had settled over Western Europe, the land being gripped by a terrible frost, and major rivers frozen over. Famine raged through France, and Louis XIV and his Marshals were in despair at the military situation; Marlborough, with an army significantly smaller than his opponent’s, had not only triumphed in open battle, but had invaded France and seized her second city; this at a time when the Captain-General was quite unwell, in the grip of migraine headaches. It was plain to the French King that peace had to be obtained, no matter what the cost to France.

All now seemed certain for a victory dictated by the Grand Alliance; France was virtually bankrupt, the harvest in 1708 had failed, and there was unrest in many hungry towns. Supplies of corn had been purchased in north Africa, but these had fallen into the greedy hands of the Royal Navy ships prowling the Mediterranean out of the newly captured ports of Gibraltar and Port Mahon. The French armies, most significantly those along the northern borders, had been outwitted and outfought. Louis XIV was prepared to agree to all the onerous terms with which he was presented by the Allies, except for one. This was Clause 37, clumsily included in the peace preliminaries which were presented to his envoys, and requiring the French King to use his own troops to depose his grandson, if Philip V refused to vacate the throne in Madrid. Despite his desperation, Louis XIV rejected the terms entirely on that one point, and the war went on: ‘A French King may make war upon his enemies, but should not do so on his grandchildren.’ Even Marlborough recognised that the Clause was an arrogant and clumsy error; he wrote ‘If I were in the place of the King of France I should venture the loss of my country much sooner than be obliged to join my troops for the forcing of my grandson.’

The terrible winter of 1708–1709 at length gave way to a sodden spring, Christian Davies remembering that ‘Not a man in the army had a dry thread on his back.’ In the opposing camp the Duc de Vendôme did not survive in his command in Flanders, now that Lille was lost and Ghent and Bruges so tamely given up. The veteran campaigner was summoned to Versailles where, St Simon remembered, the Marquis de Puységur had been complaining to the King about his recent behaviour and conduct:

On his return from Flanders, Vendôme had audience with the King, but only one, and that a short one. The King, who knew and had proved by long experience not only Puységur’s ability but his honesty and exactness, had his eyes suddenly opened to the true character of the man who had so artfully been represented as the hero and guardian angel of France. He was mortified and ashamed of his gullibility. The end came swiftly, Vendôme was thrown out of the service, sold his military equipment, dismissed his household, and retired.

However, Vendôme was reinstated shortly afterwards, and went to campaign, quite successfully it must be said, in Spain before dying of food poisoning in 1711. The French army in the Low Countries was now under the command of flamboyant Claude-Louis-Hector, Duc de Villars, who arrived to find the soldiers in a sorry state. St Simon wrote:

In Flanders, the armies were lacking in everything. All possible efforts were made during the early part of July to send money and transport wheat by sea from Brittany and by road from Picardy. Nevertheless the money and the bread arrived only in small quantities, and for long periods the army was left to forage for itself on a much narrowed frontier.

In order to pay for the armies in the coming campaign, there was a call for the nobility to patriotically give up their silver plate to the Treasury. As St Simon remembered ‘All this talk about silver made a great stir. No one dared not to offer.’ The Chancellor, Pontchartrain, disliked the notion because:

He represented the loss of prestige to the government, who might appear to be using this shift as a last resource. The King read the list [of those who gave up their silver] with care, and promised, again verbally and in general terms, to return an equal weight to the donors when his affairs permitted (which no-one believed).

On the exposed northern border of France, Villars was just the man for such a precarious moment. Careless of convention, and irrepressibly energetic, the Marshal commandeered civilian bread and wheat supplies to feed his troops, and pledged his own credit to see them paid. Slowly the spirits of the men revived, and recruits began to flock to the colours – soldiers had to be fed after all. Villars was luckily unhampered by having an opinionated and ineffective royal prince at his side, and robust enough to ignore most of those instructions from Versailles that did not fit his plans, as Robert Parker remembered:

He would not accept the command, if the Duke of Burgundy was sent with him; for Vendôme had laid on him the load of all the misfortunes of the last campaign. Villars was looked on at this time as the best general in the French service. He was certainly a gallant, enterprising man. He was intolerably vain and full of himself.

On the other side of the tactical hill, the Allied armies were gathering for their summer campaign. The failure of the peace negotiations (a surprise to everyone including Marlborough) had delayed preparations for a new campaign, when it seemed there would be no need for one. The late close to the previous operations meant that there was precious little time to achieve anything very much before the fresh onset of cold weather. So, late in 1709, no plan for a deep thrust into the heart of France was practical, but there were several important French fortresses to be reduced, clearing the way for a possible grand advance in 1710. Also, the potential loss of a major fortress, Mons perhaps, Douai or Tournai, might tempt the French army out into the open to give battle. A victory in the field over the French would yield high dividends for Marlborough, and his critics might be silenced. This would be some compensation for having to adopt rather modest objectives in this short campaign season of 1709, which compared sadly with the magnificent vistas that had appeared to stretch before his victorious army in the golden aftermath of the triumph at Oudenarde the previous July.

At about this time, as the Comte de Merode-Westerloo recalled in his memoirs, one of his subordinates bungled a minor operation. The Comte was obliged to engage in urgent negotiations, and exercise some legal niceties, in order to save the necks of those of his soldiers who had fallen into French hands in the sorry affair:

The enemy wanted to hang two of my dragoons that they had taken prisoner, as sometime soldiers in the Spanish army [that of King Philip V, before the battle of Ramillies]. I at once sent off a trumpet to claim their release on the grounds that they had changed their allegiance by due forms of law, but they were already awaiting court-martial. I sent my trumpet back to Count Bergeyck [the local French commander] with a message that if he had the men hung, who had been formally confirmed in their present allegiance by the legal powers of their legitimate sovereign, I would for my part hang all those who had not quitted the enemy’s service as men who had failed to return to their proper duty [in other words, prisoners who had remained loyal to Philip V rather than declare for Charles III]. It so happened that a few days before we had captured a [French] cornet of horse and two troopers. He was dining at my table that particular day, and after I had risen from the table I said to him very gravely – that I regretted I had some bad news for him. I was going to have him hanged on the morrow.

The cornet was promptly given pen, ink and paper with which to plead to the French commander for an exchange, which was agreed to within a few hours. As the Comte remembered: ‘The outcome of this incident was to give our troops a certain assurance that [they] would otherwise have lacked.’

Meanwhile, the Duke of Marlborough’s position and influence in London was increasingly fragile. Sidney Godolphin was unwell and out of favour; he could not last long in his position as Lord Treasurer. The Duchess had, for some years now, been losing the friendship of Queen Anne, partly as a result of her fiery and seemingly uncontrolled temper. Clever and jealous enemies, fearful of the influence and power of the Duke, had now become the friends and confidantes of the Queen, and were active in Parliament. Duchess Sarah was dismissed from all her offices and appointments at Court, and the Duke, for all his pleading with the Queen on her behalf, could not get her reinstated.

Those envious of Marlborough’s success and position, and suspicious of his motives, grew stronger. A good campaign in the Low Countries, a smashing victory in the style of Blenheim or Ramillies, was required in 1709, and would perhaps restore everything for the Duke’s position and reputation in London.