The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars
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Chapter 6: The War Of Succession.
The war which was about to commence, and which Rupert Hollidaysailed for the Hague to take part in, was one of the grandest andmost extensive struggles that ever devastated Europe, embracing asit did the whole of the central and western nations of thecontinent. In fact, with the exception of Russia, still in thedepths of barbarism, and Italy, which was then a battlefield ratherthan a nation, all the states of Europe were ranged on one side orthe other.
As Charles the Second of Spain approached his end, the liveliestinterest was felt as to his succession. He had no children, and thehopes and fears of all the continental nations were excited by thequestion of the disposal of the then vast dominions of Spain. Theprincipal powers of Europe, dreading the consequences of this greatempire being added to the power of any one monarch, entered into asecret treaty, which was signed at the Hague in 1698, by which itwas agreed that Spain itself should be ceded to the ElectoralPrince of Bavaria, with Flanders and the Low countries; Naples,Sicily, Tuscany, and Guipuscoa were to fall to France; and theDuchy of Milan to the archduke, son of the Emperor of Germany.Holland was to gain a considerable accession of territory. England,one of the signatories to the treaty, was to gain nothing by thedivision.
The contents of this treaty leaked out, and the king of Spain,after a consultation with Austria, who was also indignant at thesecret treaty, made a will bequeathing all his dominions to theElector of Bavaria. Had that prince lived, all the complicationswhich ensued would probably have been avoided; but he died, the 9thFebruary, 1699, and the whole question was thereby again opened.Another secret treaty was made, between England, France, andHolland, and signed on the 13th March, 1700, at the Hague. By thistreaty it was agreed that France was to receive Naples, Sicily,Guipuscoa, and Lorraine; the Archduke Charles Spain, the LowCountries, and the Indies; and the Spanish colonies were to bedivided between Holland and England. As both England and Hollandwere at the time in alliance with Spain, it must be admitted thattheir secret arrangement for the partition of her territories wasof a very infamous character.
Louis of France, while apparently acting with the other powers,secretly communicated the contents of the treaty to Charles II. TheSpanish king was naturally dismayed at the great conspiracy todivide his kingdom at his death, and he convened his council ofstate and submitted the matter to them. It was apparent thatFrance, by far the most powerful of the other continental states,could alone avert the division, and the states general thereforedetermined to unite the interests of France and Spain by appointingthe Duc d'Anjou, grandson of the King of France, sole heir to thevast empire of Spain.
The news that Spain and France were henceforth to be united causedthe greatest consternation to the rest of the States, and allEurope began to arm. Very shortly after signing the bequest, theold King of Spain died, and the Duc d'Anjou ascended the throne.The Spanish Netherlands, governed by the young Elector of Bavaria,as Lieutenant General of Spain, at once gave in their adhesion tothe new monarch. The distant colonies all accepted his rule, as didthe great Spanish possessions in Italy; while the principalEuropean nations acknowledged him as successor of Charles theSecond.
The new empire seemed indeed of preponderating strength. Bavariaunited herself in a firm alliance with France and Spain; and thesethree countries, with Italy and Flanders, appeared capable ofgiving the law to the world. England, less affected than thecontinental powers by the dominance of this powerful coalition,might have remained quiet, had not the French King thrown down thegauntlet of defiance. On the 16th September, 1701, James theSecond, the exiled King of England, died, and Louis at onceacknowledged his son as King of Great Britain and Ireland. This actwas nothing short of a public declaration of war, not only againstthe reigning monarch of England, but against the establishedreligion of our country. The exiled prince was Roman Catholic.Louis was the author of the most terrible persecution of theProtestants that ever occurred in Europe. Thus the action of theFrench king rallied round William the Second all the Protestantfeeling of the nation. Both Houses of Parliament voted loyaladdresses, and the nation prepared for the great struggle beforeit. The king laboured to establish alliances and a plan for commonaction, and all was in readiness, when his sudden death left theguidance of affairs in other hands.
These hands were, happily for England, those of the Earl ofMarlborough, the finest diplomatist, as well as the greatestsoldier, of his time.
The struggle which was approaching was a gigantic one. On one sidewere France and Spain, open to attack on one side only, and holdingmoreover Flanders, and almost the whole of Italy, with the richtreasures of the Indies upon which to draw for supplies. Thealliance of Bavaria, with a valiant population, extended theoffensive power of the coalition into the heart of Austria.
Upon the other hand were the troops of Austria, England, Holland,Hanover, Hesse Cassel, and the lesser states of Germany, with acontingent of troops, from Prussia and Denmark. In point of numbersthe nations ranged on either side were about equal; but whileFrance, Spain, and Bavaria formed a compact body under the guidanceof Louis, the allies were divided by separate, and often opposinginterests and necessities, while Austria was almost neutralized bya dangerous Hungarian insurrection that was going on, and by thedanger of a Turkish invasion which the activity of French diplomacykept continually hanging over it. The coalition was weakened in thefield by the jealousies of the commanders of the variousnationalities, and still more by the ignorance and timidity of theDutch deputies, which Holland insisted on keeping at headquarters,with the right of veto on all proceedings.
On the side of the allies the following were the arrangements forthe opening of the campaign. A German army under Louis, Margrave ofBaden, was to be collected on the upper Rhine to threaten France onthe side of Alsace. A second corps, 25,000 strong, composed ofPrussian troops and Dutch, under the Prince of Saarbruck, were toundertake the siege of Kaiserwerth, a small but very importantfortress on the right bank of the Rhine, two leagues belowDusseldorf. The main army, 35,000 strong, under the Earl ofAthlone, was destined to cover the frontier of Holland, from theRhine to the Vecun, and also to cover the siege of Kaiserwerth;while a fourth body, of 10,000 men, under General Cohorn, werecollected near the mouth of the Scheldt, and threatened thedistrict of Bruges.
Upon the other side the French had been equally active. On theLower Rhine a force was stationed to keep that of Cohorn in check.Marshal Tallard, with 15,000 men, came down from the Upper Rhine tointerrupt the siege of Kaiserwerth, while the main army, 45,000strong, under the Duke of Burgundy and Marshal Boufflers, wasposted in the Bishopric of Liege, resting on the tremendous chainof fortresses of Flanders, all of which were in French possession,and strongly garrisoned by French and Spanish soldiers.
At the time, however, when the vessel containing Rupert Hollidayand Hugh Parsons sailed up the Scheldt, early in the month of May,these arrangements were not completed, but both armies were waitingfor the conflict.
The lads had little time for the examination of the Hague, now thedullest and most quiet of European capitals, but then a bustlingcity, full of life and energy; for, with the troops who had arrivedwith them, they received orders to march at once to join the campformed at Breda. Accustomed to a quiet English country life, theactivity and bustle of camp life were at once astonishing anddelightful. The journey from the Hague had been a pleasant one.Rupert rode one of the two horses with which the Earl ofMarlborough had presented him, Hugh the other; and as a portion ofthe soldiers with them were infantry, the marches were short andeasy; while the stoppages at quaint Dutch villages, the solemn waysof whose inhabitants, their huge breeches, and disgust at thedisturbance of their usual habits when the troops were quarteredupon them, were a source of great amusement to them.
Upon reaching the camp they soon found their way to their regiment.Here Rupert presented to Colonel Forbes the letter of recommendationwith which the Earl of Marlborough had provided him, and was at onceintroduced by him to his brother officers, most of them young men,
butall some years older than himself. His frank, pleasant, boyish mannerat once won for him a cordial acceptance, and the little cornet, as hewas called in the regiment, soon became a general favourite.
Hugh, who had formally enlisted in the regiment before leavingEngland, was on arrival handed over to a sergeant; and the two ladswere, with other recruits, incessantly drilled from morning tillnight, to render them efficient soldiers before the day of trialarrived.
Rupert shared a tent with the other two officers of his troop,Captain Lauriston, a quiet Scotchman, and Lieutenant Dillon, ayoung Irishman, full of fun and life.
There were in camp three regiments of British cavalry and six ofinfantry, and as they were far from the seat of war, there was forthe present nothing to do but to drill, and prepare for the comingcampaign. Rupert was delighted with the life, for although the workfor the recruits was hard, the weather was splendid, suppliesabundant--for the Dutch farm wives and their daughters broughtducks, and geese, and eggs into the camp--and all were in highspirits at the thought of the approaching campaign. Every nightthere were gatherings round the fire, when songs were sung andstories told. Most of the officers had before campaigned inHolland, under King William, and many had fought in Ireland, andhad stirring tales of the Boyne, of the siege of Athlone, and offierce encounters with the brave but undisciplined Irish.
At the end of a month's hard work, Rupert began to understand hisduties, for in those days the amount of drill deemed necessary fora trooper was small indeed in proportion to that which he has nowto master. Rupert was already a good rider, and soon learnt wherewas his proper place as cornet in each evolution, and the ordersthat it behoved him to give. The foot drill was longer and moredifficult, for in those days dragoons fought far more on foot thanis now the case, although at this epoch they had already ceased tobe considered as mounted infantry, and had taken their true placeas cavalry. Rupert's broadsword drill lasted but a very short time;upon the drill sergeant asking him if he knew anything of thatweapon, he said that he could play at singlestick, but had neverpractised with the broadsword. His instructor, however, found thata very few lessons were sufficient to enable him to perform therequired cuts and guard with sufficient proficiency, and veryspeedily claimed the crown which Rupert promised him on hisdismissal from the class.
Week after week passed in inactivity, and the troops chafedmightily thereat, the more so that stirring events were proceedingelsewhere. The siege of Kaiserwerth, by a body of 15,000 Germantroops, had begun on the 18th of April, and the attack and defencewere alike obstinate and bloody. The Earl of Athlone with hiscovering forces lay at Cleves, and a sharp cavalry fight between1000 of the allied cavalry and 700 French horse took place on the27th of April. The French were defeated, with the loss of 400 men;but as the victors lost 300, it is clear that both sides foughtwith extreme determination and bravery, such a loss--700 men out of1700 combatants--being extraordinarily large. The spirit shown byboth sides in this the first fight of the war, was a portent of theobstinate manner in which all the battles of this great war werecontested. For two months Kaiserwerth nobly defended itself.Seventy-eight guns and mortars thundered against it night and day.On the 9th of June the besiegers made a desperate assault andgained possession of a covered way, but at a cost of 2000 killedand wounded. A week later the place capitulated after a siege whichhad cost the allies 5000 men.
General Boufflers, with his army of 37,000 men, finding himselfunable to raise the siege, determined to make a dash againstNimeguen, an important frontier fortress of Holland, but which thesupineness of the Dutch Government had allowed to fall intodisrepair. Not only was there no garrison there, but not a gun wasmounted on its walls. The expedition seemed certain of success, andon the evening of the 9th of June Boufflers moved out from Xanten,and marched all night. Next day Athlone obtained news of themovement and started in the evening, his march being parallel withthe French, the hostile armies moving abreast, and at no greatdistance from each other.
The cavalry covered the British march, and these were in themorning attacked by the French horse under the Duke of Burgundy.The British were outnumbered, but fought with great obstinacy, andbefore they fell back, with a loss of 720 men and a convoy of 300waggons, the infantry had pushed forward, and when the French armyreached Nimeguen its ramparts bristled with British bayonets.Boufflers, disappointed in his aim, fell back upon the richdistrict of Cleves, now open to him, and plundered and ravaged thatfertile country.
Although Kaiserwerth had been taken and Nimeguen saved, the dangerwhich they had run, and the backward movement of the allied army,filled the Dutch with consternation.
The time, however, had come when Marlborough himself was to assumethe command, and by his genius, dash, and strategy to alter thewhole complexion of things, and to roll back the tide of war fromthe borders of Holland. He had crossed from England early in May, afew days only after Rupert had sailed; but hitherto he had beenengaged in smoothing obstacles, appeasing jealousies, healingdifferences, and getting the whole arrangement of the campaign intosomething like working order. At last, everything being fairly intrim, he set out on the 2nd of July from the Hague, with full poweras commander-in-chief of the allied armies, for Nimeguen. There heordered the British troops from Breda, 8000 Germans fromKaiserwerth, and the contingents of Hesse and Luneburg, 6000strong, under the Prince of Zell, to join him.
As these reinforcements brought his army up to a strength superiorto that of the French, although Marshal Boufflers had hastily drawnto him some of the garrisons of the fortresses, the Earl ofMarlborough prepared to strike a great blow. The Dutch deputies whoaccompanied the army--and whose timidity and obstinacy a score oftimes during the course of the war thwarted all Marlborough'sbest-laid plans, and saved the enemy from destruction--interferedto forbid an attack upon two occasions when an engagement would, asadmitted by French historians, have been fatal to their whole army.Marlborough therefore was obliged to content himself by outflankingthe French, compelling them to abandon Cleves, to cross the Meuse,and to fall back into Flanders, with some loss, and great haste anddisorder.
In vain the French marshal endeavoured to take post so as to savethe Meuse fortresses, which stood at the gates of Flanders, and bytheir command of the river prevented the allies from using thechain of water communications to bring up supplies. Marlboroughcrossed the line by which his siege train was coming up, and thenpounced upon Venloo, a very strong fortress standing across theMeuse--that is to say, the town was on one side, the fort of SaintMichael on the other.
After this chapter, devoted to the necessary task of explaining thecause and commencement of the great War of Succession, we canreturn to the individual fortunes of our hero.