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as to leave the road uncovered, and the communication with Brussels unimpeded. Having thus cleared the way, Marlborough sent back Eugene to resume the siege of the citadel of Lille, while he himself, with the greater part of his forces, proceeded on to Brussels, which he entered in triumph on the 29th of November. The Elector of Bavaria was too happy to escape, leaving his guns and wounded behind; and the citadel of Lille at length, despairing of succor, capitulated on the 11th of December. Thus was this memorable campaign terminated by the capture of the strongest frontier fortress of France, under the eyes of its best general and most powerful army.*

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But Marlborough, like Cæsar, deemed nothing done while 58. any thing remained to do. Nihil actum credens, Marlborough dum quid superesset agendum. Though his troops Ghent, 2d Jan., 1709. were exhausted by marching and fighting almost without intermission for five months, and he himself was laboring under severe illness in consequence of his fatigues, he resolved, in the depth of winter, to make an attempt for the recovery of Ghent, the loss of which in the early part of the campaign had been the subject of such deep mortification. The enemy, after the citadel of Lille capitulated, had naturally broken up their army into cantonments, under the belief that the campaign was concluded; but Marlborough suddenly collected his forces, and drew round Ghent on the 18th of December. Eugene formed the covering force with the corps lately employed in the reduction of Lille. The garrison was very strong, consisting of no less than thirty battalions and nineteen squadrons, mustering eighteen thousand combatants. The governor had been instructed by Vendôme to defend this important stronghold to the last extremity; but he was inadequately supplied with provisions and forage, and

*Marlborough to Mr. Secretary Boyle, 17th of December, 1708. Disp., iv., 362.

+ Disp., iv., 315-323-345. Marlborough to Duke de Mole, 10th of December, 1708. Ibid., 346. CoxE, iv., 278.

ance.

the result signally belied the expectations formed of his resistThe approaches were vigorously pushed. On the 24th the trenches were opened; on the 25th a sortie was repulsed; on the 28th of December the fire began with great vigor from the breaching and mortar batteries; and at noon the governor sent a flag of truce, offering to capitulate if not relieved before the 2d of January. This was agreed to; and on the latter day, as no friendly force approached, the garrison opened their gates and marched out, in such strength that they were defiling incessantly from ten in the morning till seven at night!*

59. And Bruges,

concludes the campaign,

and again re

fuses the gov

ernment of

the Nether

Bruges immediately followed this example; the garrison capitulated, and the town again hoisted the Austrian flag. The minor forts of Plassendael and Leffinghen were immediately evacuated by the enemy. With such expedition were these important operations conducted, that before Vendôme could lands. even assemble a force adequate to interrupt the besiegers' operations, both towns were taken, and the French were entirely dispossessed of all the important strongholds they had gained in the early part of the campaign in the heart of Brabant. Having closed his labors with these glorious successes, Marlborough put the army into winter quarters, now rendered secure on the Flemish frontiers, and himself repaired to the Hague to resume his usual contest with the timidity and selfishness of the Dutch allies. Thus had Marlborough the glory, in one campaign, of defeating in a pitched battle the best general and most powerful army possessed by France, and capturing its strongest frontier fortress, the masterpiece. of Vauban, under the eyes of one hundred and twenty thousand men assembled from all quarters for its relief. He put the keystone at the same time into this arch of glory by again declining the magnificent offer of the government of the Low Countries, with its appointment of sixty thousand a year for Marlborough to Mr. Secretary Boyle, 3d of January, 1709. Disp., iv,,

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life, a second time pressed upon him by King Charles, from an apprehension that such an offer might give umbrage to the government of Holland, or excite jealousy in the queen's gov ernment at home.*

60.

sults of the

great ability of

Such was the memorable campaign of 1708, one of the most glorious in the military annals of England, Glorious re- and the one in which the extraordinary capacity campaign, and of the British general perhaps shone forth with Marlborough. the brightest luster. The vigor and talent of Vendôme, joined to the secret communication which he had with those disaffected to the Austrian government in Ghent and Bruges, procured for him, in the commencement of the campaign, a great, and what, if opposed by less ability, might have proved a decisive advantage. By the acquisition of these towns, he gained the immense advantage of obtaining the entire command of the water communication of Brabant, and establishing himself in a solid manner in the heart of the enemy's territory. The entire expulsion of the allies from Austrian Flanders seemed the unavoidable result of such a success, by so enterprising a general at the head of a hundred thousand combatants. But Marlborough was not discouraged; on the contrary, he built on the enemy's early successes a course of maneuvers, which in the end wrested all his conquests from him, and inflicted a series of disasters greater than could possibly have been anticipated from a campaign of unbroken success.

Boldly assuming the lead, he struck such a blow at Ouden

61. arde as resounded from one end of Europe to the His bold offen- other, infused a terror into the enemy from which

sive measures,

and extraordi

of Lille.

nary capture they never recovered during the remainder of the campaign, paralyzed Vendôme in the midst of his success, and reduced him from a vigorous offensive to a pain

* "You will find me, my prince, always ready to renew the patent for the government of the Low Countries formerly sent to you, and to extend it for your life."-King Charles to Marlborough, August 8, 1708. COXE, iv., 245.

ful defensive struggle. While the cabinet of Versailles were dreaming of expelling the allies from Flanders, and detaching Holland, partly by intrigue, partly by force of arms, from the coalition, he boldly entered the territory of the Grand Monarque, laid siege to his chief frontier fortress, and captured it in sight of his greatest army commanded by his best general. In vain was the water communication of the Netherlands interrupted by the enemy's possession of Ghent and Bruges; with incredible activity he got together, and with matchless skill conducted to the besiegers' lines before Lille, a huge convoy fifteen miles long, drawn by sixteen thousand horses, in the very teeth of Vendôme, at the head of a hundred and twenty thousand men. Lille captured, Ghent and Bruges recovered, the allied standards solidly planted on the walls of the strongest fortress of France, terminated a campaign in which the British, overmatched and surrounded by lukewarm or disaffected friends, had wellnigh lost at the outset by foreign treachery all the fruits of the victory of Ramillies..

CHAPTER V..

CONFERENCES OF GERTRUYDENBERG.-LOUIS REFUSES THE ULTIMATUM OF THE ALLIES.-SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF TOURNAY.-BATTLE OF MALPLAQUET.-FALL OF MONS.

1.

culties with the

THE glorious termination of this campaign, and, above all, the addition made to the immediate security of Marlborough's renewed diffi- Holland by the recovery of Ghent and Bruges, allied courts. sensibly augmented Marlborough's influence at the Hague, and at length overcame the timidity and vacillation of the Dutch government. When the English general repaired there in the beginning of 1709, he quickly overawed the adherents of France, regained his wonted influence over the mind of the Pensionary Heinsius, and at length succeeded in persuading the government and the States to augment their forces by six thousand men. This, though by no means so great an accession of numbers as was required to meet the vast efforts which France was making, was still a considerable addition; and by the influence of Prince Eugene, who was well aware that the principal effort of the enemy in the next campaign would be made in the Netherlands, he obtained a promise that the Imperial troops should winter there, and be recruited, so as to compensate their losses in the preceding campaign. Great difficulties were experienced with the court of Turin, which had conceived the most extravagant hopes from the project of an invasion of France on the side both of Lyons and Franche Comté, and for this purpose demanded a large subsidy in money, and the aid of fifty thousand men, under Prince Eugene, to operate on the Upper Rhine.

Marlborough was well aware, from past experience, of the little reliance to be placed on any military operations in

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