During all the time that the allies had been employed upon the siege of Tournai, Marshal Villars had laboured to form an impregnable line of entrenchments, barring all farther advance. Marlborough, however, a day or two previously to the fall of Tournai, sent off the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who by a rapid and most masterly march fell upon the French lines, at a part where the French had no expectation of there being an enemy within thirty miles of them. No opposition was made, and the prince marching rapidly to the plateau of Jemappes, invested Mons on the French side. The rest of the army followed. The effect caused throughout France, and indeed through Europe, by the success of this masterly movement, was immense; and it was evident that a great battle was at hand.
Villars moved his army rapidly up. A detachment of Eugene's troops were left to watch Mons, and the allied army, 93,000 strong, advanced to meet them, and on the night of the 7th bivouacked in a line three miles long, and five from that occupied by the French. Marshal Villars had with him 95,000 men. The forces therefore were as nearly as possible equal; but the allies had 105 guns, against eighty of the French.
The position taken up by Villars was of great natural strength; being a plateau, interspersed with woods and intersected with streams, and elevated from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the meadowland of the Trouville, across which their assailants must pass. Malplaquet stood on this plateau. On the slopes from the plateau to the plain, the woods were extremely thick, and the only access to the plateau, for troops, were two clearings cut through the woods, known as the Trouees de la Louviere, and d'Aulnoit.
On the morning of the 8th, when the French definitely took up their position, Marlborough and Eugene were in favour of making an instant attack, before the French could add to the great natural strength of their position by entrenchments. The Dutch deputies, however, were altogether opposed to an assault on so formidable a front. Finally a compromise was adopted--a compromise which, as is often the case, was the very worst course which could have been adopted. The army should neither fall back, as the Dutch wished; nor attack at once, as Marlborough desired. It was resolved not to abandon the siege of Mons, and to attack the enemy if they would not take the offensive; but to wait until Saint Ghislain, which commanded a passage on the Haine, was taken; and until twenty-six battalions on the march from Tournai arrived.
It was two days before these conditions were fulfilled; and Villars had used these two precious days in throwing up a series of immensely strong works. The heights he occupied formed a concave semicircle, enfilading on all sides the little plain of Malplaquet, and this semicircle now bristled with redoubts, palisades, abattis, and stockades; while the two trouees, or openings, by which it was presumed that the allies would endeavour to force an entrance, were so enfiladed by cross batteries as to be well-nigh unassailable. Half the French army by turns had laboured ceaselessly at the works, during the two days which the cowardly folly of the Dutch deputies had given them; and the result was the works resembled rather the fortifications of a fortress, than ordinary field works. Marlborough and Eugene had seen from hour to hour the progress of these formidable works, and resolved to mask their front attack by a strong demonstration on the enemy's rear. The troops coming up from Tournai, under General Withers, were ordered not to join the main army; but to cross the Haine at Saint Ghislain, and to attack the extreme left of the enemy at the farm of La Folie. Baron Schulemberg was to attack the left flank of the entrenchments in the wood of Taisniere, with forty of Eugene's battalions, supported by as many cannon; while Count Lottum was to attack the right flank of the wood with twenty-two battalions. The rest of the army was to attack in front; but it was from Eugene's attack in the wood of Taisniere that success was chiefly hoped.
At three o'clock on the morning of the 11th the men were got under arms, divine service was performed at the head of each regiment, and then the troops marched to the posts assigned to them in the attack. Both armies were confident, the French enthusiastic.
The allies relied on their unbroken series of victories. Never once since the war begun had they suffered defeat; and with Eugene as well as Marlborough with them, they felt confident of their power to carry a position which, even to the eye of the least instructed soldier, was yet formidable in the extreme.
The French were confident in being commanded by their best and most popular generals, Villars and Boufflers. They were strong in the enthusiasm which the king's appeal had communicated to the whole nation, and they considered it absolutely impossible for any enemy to carry the wonderful series of works that they had erected.
At half-past seven all was ready, and the fog which had hitherto hung over the low ground cleared up, and the two armies came into view of each other, and the artillery on both sides opened a heavy fire. The whole line advanced; but the left was halted for awhile, while Count Lottum, with his twenty-two battalions formed in three lines, attacked the right of the wood of Taisniere; and Schulemberg, with whom was Eugene himself, attacked their left.
Without firing a single shot, Schulemberg's men marched through the storm of grape which swept them until within twenty paces of the entrenchments, when the musketry fire of the French troops was so terrible that the attacking columns recoiled two hundred yards; where they were steadied, and brought back to the charge by the heroic efforts of Eugene, who exposed himself in front of the line.
While this conflict was raging, some Austrian battalions which had formed the extreme right of Schulemberg's corps, but had been unable to advance, owing to a deep marsh, stole round unperceived into the northeastern angle of the wood of Taisniere, and were soon in conflict with the French. Lottum's division had, with immense bravery, crossed a deep morass under a tremendous fire, and stormed a portion of the entrenchments; but Villars, who was directly in rear, led on a fresh brigade, who drove back the assailants. Marlborough then charged at the head of d'Auvergne's cavalry, and some of Lottum's battalion again forced their way in.
Meanwhile Withers was quietly making his way through the wood from La Folie, and had made considerable progress before the French could muster in force at this point. As this threatened the rear of his front position, Villars fell back from the entrenchments in front of the wood, and took up the second and far stronger position he had prepared on the high ground.
On the left an even more desperate fight had been raging. The Prince of Orange commanded here. The prince was full of courage and impetuosity. The troops under him were Dutch, or auxiliaries in the Dutch pay, among them a Scotch brigade under the Marquis of Tullibardin. The corps advanced in the most gallant manner, the Scotch and Dutch rivalling each other in bravery. Two lines of the enemy's entrenchments were carried at the bayonet; and had there been a reserve at hand, the battle would have been won at this point.
But the prince had thrown his whole force into the attack, and his forty battalions were opposed by seventy French battalions, while the assailants were swept by the fire from the high ground. Tullibardin and General Spau were killed, and the assailants, fighting with extraordinary obstinacy, were yet driven back, with a loss of 3000 killed and twice as many wounded. The French sallied out to attack them, but the Prince of Hesse Cassel charged them with his cavalry, and drove them back into their works.
The news of the terrible slaughter and repulse on the right brought Eugene and Marlborough from the centre and left, where all was going well. Reserves were brought up, and the battle restored.
News now came that Villars, alarmed at the progress made on his left by Withers, had withdrawn the Irish brigade and some other of his best troops from his centre, to drive back the allies' right.
Eugene galloped off with all haste to lead the right and hurry them forward, while Marlborough directed Lord Orkney to attack the weakened French centre with all his strength, and ordered the cavalry to follow on the heels of the infantry. The fight on the right was fierce indeed, for here Villars and Eugene alike led their men. Both were wounded; Villars in the knee. He refused to leave the field, but insisted on being placed in a chair where he could see the battle and cheer on his men. The agony he suffered, however, and the great loss of blood, weakened him so that at last he fainted, and was carried off the field, the command devolving on Marshal Boufflers.
Eugene was wounded in the head. In vain his staff pressed him to retire in order that the wound might be dressed.
"If I am to die here," he said, "of what use to dress the wounds? If I survive, it will be time enough in the evening."
So with the blood streaming over his shoulders, he kept his place at the head of his troops, who, animated by his example and heroism, rushed forward with such impetuosity that the works were carried.
In the centre an even more decisive advantage had been gained. Lord Orkney made the attack with such vigour, that the entrenchments, weakened by the forces which had been withdrawn, were carried; and the horse, following close behind, broke through the openings of the works, and spread themselves over the plateau, cutting down the fugitives. The guns in the works were wheeled round, and opened a tremendous fire on the dense masses of the French drawn up behind other parts of the entrenchments.
Thrown into confusion by the fire, the French began to waver, and Marlborough gave the order for the great battery of forty guns in the allied centre to advance. These advanced up the hill, passed through the entrenchments, and opened a fire right and left upon the French.
Although the French still stro............