The Great British Battles - Hilaire Belloc

Скачать книгу

the organisation of the universities, of justice, of the legislature, of the executive, as parts of one social class; the close grasp which that class now had upon the land and capital of the whole country, which it could utilise immediately for interior development or for a war—all this marked the youth and vigour of an oligarchic England, which was for so long to be at once invulnerable and impregnable.

      At what expense in morals, and therefore in ultimate strength and happiness, such experiments are played, is no matter for discussion in a military history. We must be content to remark what vigour her new constitution gave to the efforts of England in the field, while yet that constitution was young.

      England, then, having thrown this great weight into the scale of the Empire, and against France, the campaign of 1702 was entered upon with the chances in favour of the former, and with the latter in an anxiety very different from the pride which Louis XIV. had taken for granted in the early part of his reign.

      * * * * *

      If the reader will consider the map of Western Europe, the effect of England’s joining the allies will be apparent.

      The frontier between the Spanish Netherlands and Holland—that is, between modern Belgium and Holland—was the frontier between the forces of Louis XIV. and those of opponents upon the north. Thus Antwerp and Ostend were in the hands of the Bourbon, for the Spanish Netherlands had passed into the hands of the French king’s grandson, and the French and Spanish forces were combined. Further east, towards the Upper Rhine, a French force lay in the district of Cleves, and all the fortresses on the Meuse, running in a line south of that post, with the exception of Maestricht, were in French hands.

      French armies held or threatened the Middle Rhine. Upon the Upper Rhine and upon the Danube an element of the highest moment in favour of France had appeared when the Elector of Bavaria had declared for Louis XIV., and against Austria.

      Had not England intervened with the great weight of gold and that considerable contingent of men (in all, eighteen of the new forty thousand), France would have easily held her northern position upon the frontier of Holland and the Lower Rhine, while the Elector of Bavaria, joining forces with the French army upon the Upper Rhine, would have marched upon Vienna.

      The Emperor was harried by the rising of the Hungarians behind him; and as the principal forces of the French king would not have been detained in the north, the whole weight of France, combined with her new ally the Elector of Bavaria, would have been thrown upon the Upper Danube.

      As it was, this plan was, in its inception at least, partially successful, but only in its inception, and only partially.

      By the end of the year this northern front of the French armies was imperilled, and Marlborough and his allies in that part hoped to undertake with the next season the reduction of the Spanish Netherlands.

      It must be remembered, in connection with this plan, that France has always been nervous with regard to her north-eastern frontier; that the loss of this frontier leaves a way open to Paris: an advance from Belgium was to the French monarchy what an advance along the Danube was to Austria—the prime peril of all. As yet, France was nowhere near grave peril in this quarter, but pressure there marred her general plans upon the Danube.

      Nevertheless, the march upon Vienna by the Upper Danube had been prepared with some success. While part of the northern frontier was thus being pressed and part menaced, while the Meuse was being cleared of French garrisons, and the French fortresses on it taken by Marlborough and his allies, the Elector of Bavaria had seized Ulm. The French upon the Upper Rhine, under Villars, defeated the Prince of Baden at Friedlingen, and established a road through the New Forest by which Louis XIV.’s forces, combined with those of the Elector of Bavaria, could advance eastward upon the Emperor’s capital. It was designed that in the next year, 1703, the troops of Savoy, in alliance with those of France, should march from North Italy through the passes of the Alps and the Tyrol upon Vienna, while at the same time the Franco-Bavarian forces should march down the Danube towards the same objective.

      When the campaign of 1703 opened, however, two unexpected events determined what was to follow.

      The first was the failure of Marlborough in the north to take Antwerp, and in general his inability to press France further at that point; the second, the defection of Savoy from the French alliance.

      As to the first—Marlborough’s failure against Antwerp. The Spanish Netherlands were now solidly held; the forces of the allies were indeed increasing perpetually in this neighbourhood, but it appeared as though the attempt to reduce Brabant, Hainault, and Flanders, which are here the bulwark of France, would be tedious, and perhaps barren. A sort of “consolation” advance was indeed made upon the Rhine, and Bonn was captured; but no more was done in this quarter.

      The General Situation in 1703.

      As to the second point, the solid occupation of the Upper Danube by the Franco-Bavarians was indeed fully accomplished. The imperial forces were defeated upon the bank of that river at Hochstadt, but the advance upon Vienna failed, for the second half of the plan, the march from Northern Italy upon Austria, through the Tyrol, had come to nothing, through the defection of Savoy. The turning of the scale against Louis by the action of England was beginning to have its effect; Portugal had already joined the coalition, and now Savoy had refused to continue her help of the Bourbons.

      The year 1704 opened, therefore, with this double situation: to the south Austria had been saved for the moment, but was open to immediate attack in the campaign to come; meanwhile, the French had proved so solidly seated in the Spanish Netherlands (or Belgium) that repeated attacks on them in this quarter would in all probability prove barren.

      It was under these circumstances that Eugene of Savoy came to the great decision which marked the year of Blenheim. He determined that it was best—if he could persuade his colleagues—to carry the war into that territory which was particularly menaced. He conceived the plan of marching a great force from the Netherlands right down to the field of the Upper Danube. There could be checked the proposed march upon the heart of the coalition, which was Vienna. There, if fortune served the allies, they would by victory make all further chance of marching a Franco-Bavarian force down the Danube impossible; meanwhile, and at any rate, the new step would alarm all French effort towards the Upper Rhine, weaken the French organisation upon its northern frontier, and so permit of a return of the allies to an attack there at a later time.

      Eugene of Savoy was a member of the cadet branch of that royal house. His grandfather, the younger son of Charles Emmanuel, had founded the family called Savoy Carignan. His father had been married to one of Mazarin’s nieces. Eugene was her fifth son, and at this moment not quite forty years of age.

      His character, motives, and genius must be clearly seized if we are to appreciate the campaign and the battle of Blenheim.

      It was the Italian blood which formed that character most, but he was thoroughly French by birth and training. Born in Paris, and desiring a career in the French army, it was a slight offered to his mother by the French king that gave his whole life a personal hatred of Louis XIV. for its motive. From boyhood till his death, between sixty and seventy, this great captain directed his energies uniquely against the fortunes of the French king. When, later in life, there was an attempt to acquire his talents for the French service, he replied that he hoped to re-enter France, but only as an invader. It has been complained that he lacked precision in detail, and that as an organiser he was somewhat at fault; but he had no equal for rapidity of vision, and for seizing the essential point in a strategic problem. From that day in his twentieth year

Скачать книгу