CHAP. this refusal, setting out for Vienna, he entered the Imperial service; but he was still pursued by the enmity of Louvois, who procured from Louis a decree which pronounced sentence of banishment on all Frenchmen in the armies of foreign powers who should fail to return to their country. "I will re-enter France in spite of him," said Eugene; and he was more than once as good as his word. His genius for war was not methodical or scientific, Character of like that of Turenne or Marlborough, nor essentially 26. his warfare, and his first great victory chivalrous like that of the Black Prince or the Great over the Turks. Condé. It was more akin to the terrible sweep of the Tartar chiefs; it savoured more of oriental daring. He was as prodigal of the blood of his soldiers as Napoleon; but, unlike him, he never failed to expose his own person with equal readiness in the fight. He did not reserve his attack in person for the close of the affray, like the French Emperor, but was generally to be seen in the fire from the very outset. It was with difficulty he could be restrained from heading the first assault of grenadiers, or leading on the first charge of horse. His earliest distinguished command was in Italy, in 1691, and his abilities soon gave his kinsman, the Duke of Savoy, an ascendant there over the French. But it was at the great battle of Zenta, on the Teife, where he surprised and totally defeated Cara-Mustapha, at the head of 120,000 Turks, that his wonderful genius for war first shone forth in its full lustre. He there killed or wounded 20,000 of the enemy, drove 10,000 into the river, took their whole artillery and standards, and entirely dispersed their mighty array. Like Nelson at Copenhagen, Eugene had gained this glorious victory by acting in opposition to his orders, which were positively to avoid a general engagement. This circumstance, joined to the envy excited by his unparalleled triumph, raised a storm at court against the illustrious general, and led to his being deprived of his command, and even threatened with a court-martial. The public voice, however, at Vienna, loudly condemned such base ingratitude towards so great a benefactor to the Imperial dominions; and the want of his directing eye being speedily felt in the campaign with the Turks, the Emperor was obliged to restore him to the command, which he, however, only agreed to accept on receiving a carte blanche for the conduct of the war. CHAP. VII. 27. The peace of Carlowetz, in 1699, between the Imperialists and the Ottomans, soon after restored him to a His campacific life, and the study of history, in which, above Italy and any other, he delighted. But on the breaking out of the war of the Succession, in 1701, he was restored to his military duties, and during two campaigns measured his strength, always with success, in the plains of Lombardy, with the scientific abilities of Marshal Catinat, and the learned experience of Marshal Villeroi, the latter of whom he made prisoner during a nocturnal attack on Cremona, in 1703. In 1704, he was transferred to the north of the Alps to unite with Marlborough in making head against the great army of Marshal Tallard, which was advancing, in so threatening a manner, through Bavaria; and he shared with the illustrious paigns in Germany. VII. pro The great abilities CHAP. Englishman the glorious victory of Blenheim, which at once delivered Germany, and hurled the French armies, with disgrace, behind the Rhine. Then commenced that steady friendship, and sincere and mutual regard, between these illustrious men, which continued unbroken till the time of their death, and is not the least honourable trait in the character of each. But the want of his tecting arm was long felt in Italy. of the Duke de Vendôme had well-nigh counterbalanced there all the advantages of the Allies in Germany; and the issue of the war in the plains of Piedmont continued doubtful till the glorious victory of Eugene, on the 7th Sept. 1706, when he stormed the French intrenchments around Turin, defended by eighty thousand men, at the head of thirty thousand only, and totally defeated Marshal Marsin and the Duke of Orleans, with such loss, that the French armies were speedily driven across the Alps. Eugene was now received in the most flattering manAnd with ner at Vienna; the lustre of his exploits had put to 28. Marlborough in Flanders. silence, if not to shame, the malignity of his enemies. "I have but one fault to find with you," said the Emperor when he was first presented to him after his victory, “and that is that you expose yourself too much." He was next placed at the head of the Imperial armies in Flanders; and shared with Marlborough in the conduct, as he did in the glories, of Oudenarde and Malplaquet. Intrusted with the command of the corps which besieged Lille, he was penetrated with the utmost admiration for Marshal Boufflers, and evinced the native generosity of VIL. his disposition, by the readiness with which he granted CHAP. the most favourable terms to the illustrious besieged chief, who had, with equal skill and valour, conducted the defence. When the articles of capitulation proposed by Boufflers were placed before him, he said immediately, without looking at them, "I will subscribe them at once: knowing well you would propose nothing unworthy of you and me." The delicacy of his subsequent attentions to his noble prisoner evinced the sincerity of his admiration. When Marlborough's influence at the English court was sensibly declining, in 1711, he repaired to London, and exerted all his talents and address to bring the English council back to the common cause, and restore his great rival to his former ascendency with Queen Anne. When it was all in vain, and the English armies withdrew from the coalition, Eugene did all that skill and genius could achieve to make up for the great deficiency arising from the withdrawal of Marlborough and his gallant followers; and when it had become apparent that he was overmatched by the French armies, he was the first to counsel his Imperial master to conclude peace, which was done at Rastadt on the 6th March, 1714. 29. ing successes over the Turks. Great as had been the services then performed by Eugene for the Imperialists, they were outdone by those His astonishwhich he subsequently rendered in the wars with the Turks. In truth it was he who first effectually broke their power, and for ever delivered Europe from the sabres of the Osmanlis, by which it had been incessantly threatened for three hundred years. Intrusted with CHAP. VII. 30. Narrow escape from ruin, and wonderful victory at Belgrade. the command of the Austrian army in Hungary, sixty thousand strong, he gained at Peterwardin, in 1716, a complete victory over an hundred and fifty thousand Turks. This glorious success led him to resume the offensive, and in the following year he laid siege, with forty thousand men, to Belgrade, the great frontier fortress of Turkey, in presence of the whole strength of the Ottoman empire. The obstinate resistance of the Turks, as famous then as they have ever since been, in the defence of fortified places, joined to the dysenteries and fevers usual on the marshy banks of the Danube in the autumnal months, soon reduced his effective force to twenty-five thousand men, while that of the enemy, by prodigious efforts, had been swelled to an hundred and fifty thousand around the besiegers' lines, besides thirty thousand within the walls. Every thing presaged that Eugene was about to undergo the fate of Marshal Marsin twelve years before at Turin, and even his most experienced officers deemed a capitulation the only way of extricating them from their perilous situation. Eugene himself was attacked and seriously weakened by the prevailing dysentery, and all seemed lost in the Austrian camp. It was in these circumstances, with this weakened and dispirited force, that he achieved one of the most glorious victories ever gained by the Cross over the Crescent. With admirable skill he collected his little army together, divided it into columns of attack, and though scarcely able to sit on horseback himself, led them to the assault of the Turkish intrenchments. The result was equal to the success of |