CHAP. VII. divisions of the army; and orders were in consequence given to the whole army to advance at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th. A detachment of Eugene's 1709. troops was left to watch Mons, the garrison of which consisted only of eleven weak battalions and a regiment of horse, not mustering above five thousand combatants ; and the whole remainder of the allied army, ninety thousand strong, pressed forward in dense masses across the Trouille into the level and marshy plain in the middle of which Mons is situated. They advanced in different columns headed by Marlborough and Eugene; and never was a more magnificent spectacle presented than when the troops, consisting of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, defiled in the finest order from the woods into the plain, and ascended the undulating ground which lies to the south of that town. They arrived at night, and bivouacked rough to Mr in a line stretching along the heights of Quaregnon, near Boyle,Sept. Genly, to the village of Quevy, about three miles in Des. iv. length, and only five distant from the enemy; so that Coxe, v. it was evident that a general battle would take place on Hist. de the following day, unless Villars was prepared to abandon 93, 94. Mons to its fate.1 1 Marlbo Secretary 7/11, 1709. 591, 592. 25, 26. Marlb. iii. 39. tion and the French The French marshal, however, had no intention of declining the combat. His army was entirely fresh, and Composi in the finest order: it had engaged in no previous opera- strength of tions; whereas a bloody siege, and subsequent fatiguing army. marches in bad weather, had sensibly weakened the strength, though they had not depressed the spirits, of the allied soldiers. The vast efforts of the French government, joined to the multitude of recruits which the public distress had impelled into the army, had in an extraordinary degree strengthened its ranks. After making provision for all the garrisons and detached VII. 1709. posts with which he was charged, Villars could bring into the field no less than one hundred and thirty battalions and two hundred and sixty squadrons, all raised to their full complement, mustering sixty-five thousand infantry and twenty-six thousand horse, with eighty guns-in all, with the artillery, ninety-five thousand combatants. This vast array had the advantages of being almost entirely of one nation, speaking one language, and being animated by one spirit; while the allied force was a motley assemblage of many different races and nations of men, held together only by the strong tie of military success and confidence in their generals. Both armies were of nearly equal strength; they were under the command of the ablest and most intrepid commanders of their day; the soldiers of both had long Villars, ii. acted together, and acquired confidence in each other; and each contained that intermixture of the fire of young with the caution of veteran troops, which affords the happiest augury of military success. It was hard 285, 286. to predict, between such antagonists, to which side the scales of victory would incline.1* 1 Mém. de 167-184. Coxe, v. 26-29. Hist. de Marlb. iii. 97, 98. Rousset, ii. 40. The face of the country occupied by the French army, Description soon to be the theatre of the great battle which was of battle. approaching, is an irregular plateau, interspersed by woods, intersected by streams, and elevated from a of the field hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the meadows of the Trouille. Mons and Bavay, the villages of Quevrain and Givry, formed the angular points of this broken surface. Extensive woods on all the principal VII. 1709. eminences gave diversity and beauty to the landscape, CHAP. and, in a military point of view, added much to the strength of the position as defensible ground against an enemy. Near MALPLAQUET, on the west of the ridge, is a small heath, and immediately to the south of it the ground descends by a rapid slope to the Hon, which finds its way to the Trouille, which it joins near Condé, by a circuitous route in the rear of the French position. The streams from Malplaquet to the northward all flow by a gentle slope through steep wooded banks to the Trouille, into which they fall near Mons. The woods on the plateau are the remains of a great natural forest which had formerly covered the whole of these uplands, and out of which the clearings round the villages and hamlets which now exist, have been cut by the hands of laborious industry. Two woods near the summit level of the ground are of a great extent, and deserve particular notice. The first, called the wood of Lanière, stretches from Longueville in a north-easterly direction to Cauchie; the second, named the wood Taisnière, of still larger size, extends from the Chaussée de Bois to the village of Bouson. Between these woods are two openings, or trouées, as they are called in the country— the Trouée de la Louvière and the Trouée d'Aulnoit. Generally speaking, the ground occupied by the French, and which was to be the theatre of the battle, may be described as a rough and woody natural barrier, stretching across the high plateau which separates the Haine and the Trouille, and pervious only by the two openings of Louvière and Aulnoit, both of which were in a very 29, 30. great degree susceptible of defence. 1* The allied army consisted of 139 battalions and 252 The author has passed over the ground, and can attest the accuracy of the description here given. 1 Coxe, v. CHAP. squadrons, with 105 guns, mustering 93,000 combatants. VII. It was divided into two corps, the one under the imme1709. diate direction of Marlborough, consisting of 104 batNoble force talions and 163 squadrons; the other, under that of 41. on both sides. Eugene, mustered 66 battalions and 108 squadrons. The detachments at the siege of Mons and at Tournay, with the losses previously experienced, reduced the force in the field to the amount above stated. Eugene had the post of honour on the right, Marlborough on the left. The two armies, therefore, were as nearly as possible equal in point of military strength-a slight numerical superiority on the part of the French being compensated by a superiority of twenty-five guns on that of the Allies. Among the French nobles present at the battle were no less than twelve who were afterwards marshals of France.* The son of James II., under the name of the Chevalier de St George, who combined the graces of youth with the hereditary valour of his race, was there; St Hilaire and Folard, whose works afterwards threw such light on military science, were to be found in its ranks. The Garde-du-Corps, Mousquetaires Gris, Grenadiers-àCheval, French, Swiss, and Bavarian guards, as well 1 Mém. de as the Irish Brigade, stood among the combatants. The 280. Coxe, Montmorencies were there, and the De Guiches, the De Grammonts and De Coignys. The reverses of Louis had called forth the flower of the nobility, as well as the last reserves of the monarchy.1 Villars, ii. v. 32, 33. Hist. de Marlb. iii. 49. Early on the morning of the 9th, Marlborough and Eugene were on the look-out at the Mill of Sart, with * Viz., Artagnan, Maréchal de Montesquieu; De Guiche, Maréchal de Grammont; Puysegur, Montmorenci, Coigny, Broglie, Chaulnes, Nangis, Isenghien, Duras, Houdancourt, and Sanneterre. The monarchy never sent forth a nobler array. CHAP. VII. 42. movements sides, and of the puties, a strong escort, consisting of thirty squadrons of horse. From the reports brought in, it was soon ascertained that the whole forces of the French were marching 1709. towards the plain of Malplaquet, on the west of the Preparatory plateau, and that Villars himself was occupying the on both woods of Lanière and Taisnière. The two armies were interference now only a league and a half separate, and Marlborough Dutch deand Eugene were clear for immediately attacking the enemy, before they could add to the natural strength of their position by intrenchments. But the Dutch deputies, Hooft and Goslinga, interfered, as they had done on a similar occasion between Wavre and Waterloo, and strongly insisted on the risk which would be run if a general battle were hazarded with an enemy so strongly posted. "How many men," said they, "shall we sacrifice before we can force an enemy so strongly intrenched, who will fight from one post to another, and if he is worsted can retire without difficulty or design? whereas Marlb. iii. we, in case of defeat, shall be cut up by the garrisons of Rousset, ii. Maubeuge, Condé, Mons, and Valenciennes."1 1 Hist de 98, 99. Marlbo of war, Aware, from long experience, that the Dutch deputies 43. would oppose whatever he appeared eagerly to insist Opinions of for, Marlborough gave his opinion with moderation in rough and Eugene in favour of an immediate attack, without waiting for the the council troops, consisting of twenty-six battalions, which would Sept. 9. arrive the day following from the lines before Tournay. Eugene spoke with more warmth, but still counselled a delay in the attack till the troops came up from Tournay. "Your prudence," said he, addressing the Dutch deputies, "is excessive. The enemy before you is not so strong as he whom you have often defeated. His best soldiers have perished at Hochstedt, at Cassano, at Ramilies, at Turin, at Oudenarde; there are not twenty |