struck at sea. Sir George Rooke and the duke of Ormond made amends for an unsuccessful attack upon Cadiz, by forcing the port of Vigo, and capturing and destroying the fleet of the enemy, together with the galleons containing the treasures from South America.

The year 1703 passed in Flanders without any action of importance. Marlborough took Bonn and Luxembourg, and 'nanœuvred with a view to capture Antwerp and Ostend, without success. More important movements were taking place on the Rhine, where Villars commanded. The object of the French king's pushing the war into Germany, contrary to his usual practice, was to succor his ally, the elector of Bavaria, who was so sorely pressed by the imperialists, that it was feared he would be obliged to abandon the alliance of France. Villars employed the winter months advantageously in making himself master of Kehl, opposite Strasburg. In the spring he succeeded fully in breaking through the imperialist lines, and joining the elector of Bavaria at Ratisbon; thus transferring the seat of war from the Rhine to the Danube. If we are to credit Villars himself, who united with his abilities a habit of vaunting not always favorable to truth, he conceived the idea of marching by Passau upon Vienna; an enterprise, the conception of which was worthy of a later age. The elector, of a more sober school of tactics, could not share the French general's ardor. A difference of opinion, and subsequently coolness, sprung up betwixt them. Even the more sage advice of Villars, to pass the Danube and attack the imperialists before they could be joined by an approaching army, was but reluctantly followed. The mareschal was obliged to shame his ally by threatening to make the attack alone. It took place near Donawert, between Hochstet and Blenheim, and the French were here victorious on a field which was destined to be so fatal to them in the ensuing year. Unable to bring the elector into his designs, Villars proposed to him to invade the Tyrol, and open a communication through that country with the duc de Vendôme, who commanded in Italy. The scheme was unsuccessful. Vendôme was kept in check, not only by prince Eugene, but by the duke of Savoy himself, who had quitted the alliance of France; and the Tyrolese drove the elector from their valley. He made loud complaints against Villars, and that able general in disgust threw up his command.

The elector of Bavaria, however, remained master of the whole course of the Danube as far as Passau. The small army of 20,000 men brought by Villars, but now commanded by mareschal Marsin, swelled his force, whilst mareschal 'Tal

1704.

MARLBOROUGH'S £UCCESSES.

121 lard, with 40,000 men on the Rhine, was ready to march ir the spring of 1704 and join Marsin and the elector. These prospects made the court of Vienna tremble. That govern ment was at the same time pressed by the Hungarian insurgents, so that even the recall of prince Eugene from Italy with all the troops that could be spared from keeping the duke of Vendôme in check, might not prove sufficient for defending the Austrian capital: to such distress was the emperor reduced in the spring of the year 1704.

It was then that Marlborough conceived the bold and generous design of abandoning Flanders, that beaten field, so known and trodden by commanders, so thickly sown with fortresses and cut with lines of defence as to render decisive actions impracticable, and of marching on the Danube, to the relief of the empire. Concealing his intentions, the duke crossed the Rhine at Bonn, the Mein near Frankfort, and marched towards Bavaria. The French had in the mean time mustered another army on the Rhine under Villeroy. Him prince Eugene undertook to observe, whilst Marlborough, seconded by the prince of Baden, undertook to pass the Danube, penetrate into Bavaria, and either force the elector to abandon the French alliance, or punish him for his hostility to the empire. Marlborough lost no time in manœuvring or counter-marches, but advanced straight against the French and Bavarians, who were intrenched at Schellenberg, before Donawert, a town that commands a bridge on the Danube. Marlborough's attack was decisive. The intrenchments were forced, the enemy were defeated and fled, leaving many thousand men and several generals on the field, as well as the passage of the Danube free. The English and imperialists instantly poured over the river, crossed the Lech, and, whilst the elector took refuge in Augsburg, until mareschal Tallard could reinforce him, Marlborough overran Bavaria to the gates of Munich, ravaging and punishing the country for the hostilities of its chief. This wretched and cruel system of warfare, of which Louis XIV. had set the example in twice laying waste the Palatinate, was not productive here of the effect intended; at least it did not bring the elector to terms. It irritated him, however, and drove his temper to seek vengeance in a general engagement.

Unable to subsist south of the Danube in a country which he could not occupy, and which he purposely ravaged, Marlborough withdrew to the north of that river. Hoping to draw the enemy after him, he caused the prince of Baden to lay siege to Ingoldstadt. What he sought, took place. The elector of Bavaria, anxious for revenge, and Tallard, who had joined him, sharing his ardor, they passed the Danube, and

posted themselves åt Hochstet, on the very spot where Villars and the elector had in the last year been victorious. Prince Eugene at the same time contrived to deceive Villeroy, quitting his position, in front of that general, so as himself to arrive with his army in time to join in the action, whilst Villeroy remained perplexed or engaged in uncertain and tedious pursuit.

On the morning of the 30th of August, the French and Bavarians drew up before their camp. Their armies did not mingle, but remained separate; that of Tallard on the right touching the Danube, that of Marsin and the elector in continuance of the line on the left. Before the front of Tallard was the village of Blenheim, on a rising ground, occupied by nis infantry. At some distance in advance of the French and Bavarians ran a rivulet with marshy banks, on the other side of which were drawn up the imperialists, the Dutch and English; Marlborough commanding the latter next the Danube, prince Eugene the former. The elector committed a capital fault in not posting his army near to the rivulet, se as either to dispute its passage or to attack the enemy when they had partially crossed it. But he did not suspect an intention to fight on the part of Marlborough. Eugene began the action by attacking the elector and Marsin, from whom he met with a stubborn resistance. Marlborough in the mean time crossed the rivulet, and formed a strong body of infantry opposite the centre of his antagonists. This centre was composed of cavalry; for Tallard and the elector, remaining separate, had each drawn up his army, according to rule, with its horse upon the wings. But these wings, united, formed the centre of the combined army. And thus a body of cavalry, destined by its nature to act offensively, was posted in the principal, the central, the fixed position of the army. Tallard no doubt reckoned that Marlborough would attack Blenheim, and, as Condé would have done, spend a world of lives and heroic efforts to master the position. Tallard knew this would cost hours; and he accordingly rode off to the left to see how the elector was faring, whilst his antagonists were drawing up, after having crossed the rivulet. Marlborough in the mean time did dispatch troops to attack Blenheim, with the view of distracting Tallard from the principal movement. This was his advance upon the centre, the weak, divided centre of cavalry. In fact it made no resistance. Marlborough rushed in betwixt the elector and Tallard, cutting the French and Bavarian line in two. This manœuvre decided the victory. The elector with Marsin, taken in flank, gave up the advantage they had gained over Eugene, wavered, retreated, fled:

1705.

THE CAMIȘARDS.

123

whilst Tallard's army, hemmed betwixt the English and the Danube, ended by laying down their arms and surrendering. As for the marshal himself, he was taken whilst endeavoring to return from the elector's division of the army to his own. The entire glory of this victory was Marlborough's; and he enhanced it by that modesty, and those attentions towards the vanquished, which had so redounded to the fame of the Black Prince after Poitiers. From French writers we learn that Marlborough first set the example of treating prisoners not only with clemency, but with the politeness due to misfortune; a trait that redeems those ravages in Bavaria which the custom of war had unjustly sanctioned. The battle of Blenheim, in which from 60,000 to 80,000 men were engaged on either side, cost to the vanquished 12,000 men killed, besides a greater number made prisoners. The quantity of cannon, colors, and other trophies, was immense. But its effects were greater than all. The French armies were obliged to evacuate Germany altogether, abandon Bavaria, and retire behind the Rhine. Marlborough proved to Vienna another Sobieski. His victory re-established the imperial throne; nor was the house of Austria ungrateful.

War was in the mean time raging in the Spanish peninsula. The archduke Charles had been enabled by England to land with a respectable force in that country, which he continued to dispute against Philip, the grandson of Louis. Portugal had been won over to the side of England and the archduke, and her aid proved of the greatest importance. It was singular to observe in this campaign the armies of France and Spain commanded by an Englishman, the duke of Berwick, while Ruvigny, created earl of Galway, a native of France and a Huguenot émigré, commanded the English forces. Sir George Rooke took Gibraltar in the same year in which the victory of Blenheim was won. Louis XIV. saw his power contested even in the heart of his dominions. The Protestant mountaineers of the Cevennes, the descendants of those Albigenses who had escaped the sword of De Montfort, now defied the edicts of the present monarch. Vexed by the new capitation tax, in addition to the persecution which they suffered for their religion, they flew to arms; met with such success, and inspired such terror, that mareschal Villars himself was sent against them. Admiring their valor, which rendered all hopes of subduing them by force hopeless, the mareschal treated with their chiefs, and was obliged to grant them tolerance.

Marlborough had delivered Germany from the Frénch, and driven them beyond the Rhine: he then turned his attention

to the north, and aimed at expelling them from those provinces of Spanish Flanders which they had taken possession of in the beginning of the war. During the entire campaign of 1705, the duke manœuvred. in vain to attain this object by bringing the French to action. A signal victory could alone enable him to reduce a host of strong towns by a single blow; long watching for this opportunity, it did not offer till the spring of the year 1706. The mareschal Villeroy, a favorite both of the king and of De Maintenon, took the command in Flanders, and with orders to give battle. Louis was weary of the tedious war, so many enemies besetting him; the mere expense of resisting on every side being sufficient to crush the monarchy. He was no longer in a condition to wait the effect of Louvois's preparations, or Turenne's manœuvres. Experience, sagacity, or skill, no longer presided over either his councils or his armies: Louis cried out for something decisive-for battle; like the gamester, whom prudence has deserted, and who is anxious to stake all in a decisive throw, which may relieve or ruin him. He bade Villeroy, therefore, give battle. He had even selected Villars for the important task! But Villars was an indifferent courtier, being rude, independent, and proud. The "short-geniused and superb Villeroy" was preferred, and dispatched on the difficult errand of giving battle to Marlborough.

The French army, of about 80,000 men, reached the banks of the Mehaigne near Ramillies, about half distance betwixt Namur and Tirlemont, on the 23d of May, 1706. Despite the king's order and his own ardor to fight, it was Marlborough who marched to the attack. Villeroy was waiting to be joined by Marsin; but knowing himself to have a force stronger than the English general, he resolved to await the attack, drawing up his army in the position that chance had placed it, at an acute angle with the Mehaigne. The French right wing was near this river, with the village of Ramillies on a rising ground in front of it, precisely as Blenheim had been with respect to the French army, in the action called by that name. Villeroy's left was here covered by a little marshy river called the Gheete, which rendered it unassailable indeed, but also rendered it useless unless as supporting his right. Marlborough did not arrive with his army till it was already past noon; he reconnoitred, drew up in line corresponding to the French, and the cannonade began. The duke in an instant had perceived that the Gheete covering the enemy's left rendered engagement on that side impossible; he therefore drew all his force from that side, and drafting it in the most concealed manner possible behind the troops about to