gances he so much admired, "the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them. Indeed, he got the most by them; and, contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep causes for great events, I ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness to those graces. He had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent plain understanding, and sound judgment. But these qualities alone would probably have never raised him higher than they found him, which was page to James the Second's queen. But there the graces protected and promoted him. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible, either by man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that he was enabled, during all the war, to connect the various and jarring powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrong-headedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was often obliged to go to restive and refractory ones), he brought them into his measures. The Pensionary Heinsius, who had governed the United Provinces for forty years, was absolutely governed by him. He was always cool, and nobody ever observed the least variation in his countenance; he could refuse more gracefully than others could grant; and those who went from him the most dissatisfied as to the substance of their business, were yet charmed by his manner, and, as it were, comforted by it."*

6.

Caution which

The same circumstance of necessity imprinted a peculiar character upon the generalship of Marlborough, as it has subsequently done on that of Wellington, the same cause imprinted on and must ever do on the commander who is to head Marlborough's military conthe forces of a great confederacy, especially if pop- duct. ular states enter into its composition. Caution and prudence, in such a situation, are not only important, but indispensable. The jealousies of cabinets are such, their interests are in gen* Lord Chesterfield's Letters, Lord Mahon's edition, i., 221–222.

K

eral so much at variance, that nothing can keep the alliance together for any length of time but either an unbroken career of success, or the presence of some universally-felt and overwhelming danger. Such is the impatience of disaster or taxation, and such the fickleness of disposition in the people of every country, that they can never be brought to carry on a contest for any considerable length of time, if danger is not evident from its cessation, or their imaginations are not excited by a constant series of triumphs. Both these difficulties existed in the case of Marlborough, for he was the general of a free state, which, unless in the excitement of victory, is constantly impatient of taxation, and the leader of the forces of an alliance which it required all his address and all the terrors of Louis XIV. to hinder every year from falling to pieces, from the jealousies and separate views of its members. With him, therefore, a prudent line of conduct was not only advisable, but indispensable. A single defeat would overturn the ministry in England, and dissolve the alliance. Unbroken success was the condition on which alone the contest could be maintained; and the event proved that even this condition, which he constantly secured, could not, in the end, insure its continuance. And from this very success arose a new set of dangers; for it took away the stimulus of fear, and brought into activity the usual selfishness of mankind, which leads every one to strive to throw the burden of efforts for the common cause on his neighbor.

A striking proof of the action of these principles of weak7. ness, inherent in all confederacies, in the alliance Strange fetters of which he was the head, occurred in the very which the alliance imposed on his conduct next campaign. It might have been expected, of the war. that after the march into Bavaria had demonstrated the military genius of the Duke of Marlborough, and the battle of Blenheim had, in so decisive a manner, broken the enemy's power, the principal direction of military affairs would have been intrusted to that consummate commander, and that the allied cabinets, without presuming to interfere in

the management of the campaigns, would have turned all their efforts to place at his disposal forces adequate to carry into execution the mighty designs which he meditated, and had shown himself so well qualified to carry into execution. It was quite the reverse. The allied cabinets did nothingthey did worse than nothing: they interfered only to do mischief. Their principal object after this appeared to be to cramp the efforts of this great general, to overrule his bold designs, to tie down his aspiring genius. Each looked only to his own separate objects, and nothing could make them see that these were to be gained only by promoting the general objects of the alliance. Relieved from the danger of instant subjugation by the victory of Blenheim and the retreat of the French army across the Rhine, the German powers relapsed into their usual state of supineness, lukewarmness, and indifference. No efforts of Marlborough could induce the Dutch either to enlarge their contingent, or even render that already in the field fit for active service. The English force was not half of what the national strength was capable of sending forth. Parliament would not hear of any thing like an adequate expenditure. Thus the golden opportunity, never likely to be regained, of profiting by the consternation of the enemy after the battle of Blenheim, and their weakness after forty thousand of their best troops had been lost to their armies, was allowed to pass away, and the war permitted to dwindle into one of posts and sieges, when, by a vigorous effort, it might have been concluded in the next campaign.*

It was not thus with the French. The same cause which

"C'est le retard de toutes les troupes Allemandes qui dérange nos affaires. Je ne saurais vous expliquer la situation où nous sommes qu'en vous envoyant les deux lettres ci jointes-l'une que je viens de recevoir du Prince de Bade, et l'autre la réponse que je lui fais. En vérité notre état est plus à plaindre que vous ne croyez ; mais je vous prie que cela n'aille pas outre. Nous perdons la plus belle occasion du monde manque des troupes qui devaiant être ici il y a deja longtemps. Pour le reste de l'artillerie Hollandaise, et les provisions qui peuvent arriver de Mayence, vous les arrêterez, s'il vous plait, pour quelques jours, jusqu'à ce que je vou écrive.”—Marlborough à M. Pesters; Treves, 31 Mai, 1705. Dispatches, ii., 60-1.

8.

Vigorous ef

French gov.

ernment.

had loosened the efforts of the confederates, had forts of the inspired unwonted vigor into their councils. The Rhine was crossed by the allies; the French armies had been hurled with disgrace out of Germany; the territory of the Grand Monarque was threatened both from the side of Alsace and Flanders; and a formidable insurrection in the Cevennes distracted the force and threatened the peace of the kingdom. But against all these evils Louis made head. Never had the superior vigor and perseverance of a monarchy over those of a confederacy been more clearly evinced. Marshal Villars had been employed in the close of the preceding year in appeasing the insurrection in the Cevennes, and his measures were at once so vigorous and conciliatory, that before the end of the following winter the disturbances were entirely at an end. In consequence of this, the forces employed in that quarter became disposable; and by this means, and the immense efforts made by the government over the whole kingdom, the armies on the frontier were so considerably augmented, that Villeroi and the Elector of Bavaria took the field in the Low Countries at the head of seventy-five thousand men, while Marshal Marsin, on the Upper Rhine, covered Alsace with thirty thousand. Those armies were much larger than any which the allies could bring against them; for although it had been calculated that Marlborough was to be at the head of ninety thousand men on the Moselle on the 1st of May, yet, such had been the dilatory conduct of the States General and the German princes, in the beginning of June there were scarcely thirty thousand men collected round his standards; and in Flanders and on the Upper Rhine the enemy's relative superiority was still greater.

The plan of the campaign of 1705, based on the supposition 9. that these great forces were to be at his disposal,

Bold plan of

Marlborough concerted between him and Prince Eugene, was in

and Eugene

for the inva- the highest degree bold and decisive. It was fixed that, early in spring, ninety thousand men should

sion of

France.

be assembled in the country between the Moselle and the Saar.

and, after establishing their magazines and base of operations at Treves and Traerbach, they should penetrate, in two columns, into Lorraine; that the column under Marlborough in person should advance along the course of the Moselle, and the other, under the Margrave of Baden, by the valley of the Saar, and that Saar-Louis should be invested before the French army had time to take the field. In this way the whole fortresses of Flanders would be avoided, and the war, carried into the enemy's territory, would assail France on the side where her iron barrier was most easily pierced through. But the slowness of the Dutch and backwardness of the Germans rendered this well-conceived plan abortive, and doomed the English general, for the whole of a campaign which promised such important advantages, to little else but difficulty, delay, and vexation. Marlborough's enthusiasm, great as it was, nearly sank under the repeated disappointments which he experienced at this juncture; and, guarded as he was, his chagrin exhaled in several bitter complaints in his confidential correspondence.* But, like a true patriot and man of perseverance, he did not give way to despair when he found nearly all that had been promised him wanting; but, perceiving the greater designs impracticable, from the want of all the means by which they could be carried into execution, prepared to make the most of the insufficient force which alone was at his disposal.

* Even so late as the 8th of June, Marlborough wrote, “J'ai d'abord pris poste dans ce camp, où je me trouve à portée d'entreprendre la siège de Saar-Louis, si les troupes qui devaient avoir été ici il y a quelques jours m'avaient joint. Cependant je n'ai pas jusqu'ici un seul homme qui ne soit à la solde d'Angleterre ou de la Hollande. Les troupes de Bade ne peuvent arriver avant le 21 au plutôt; quelques-uns des Prussiens sont encore plus en arrière; et pour les trois mille chevaux que les princes voisins devaient nous fournir pour méner l'artillerie et les munitions, et sans quoi il nous sera impossible d'agir, je n'en ai aucune nouvelle, nonobstant toutes mes instances. J'ai grand peur même qu'il n'y ait, à l'heure même que je vous écris celle-ci, des regulations en chemin de la Haye qui détruiront entièrement tous nos projets de ce côté. Cette situation me donne tant d'inquiétude que je ne saurais me dispenser de vous prier d'en vouloir part à sa majesté Impériale."-Marlborough au Comte de Wroteslau, Elft, 8 Juin, 1705. Dispatches, ii., 85.