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Home A Period of Foreign Wars, 1689-1714 Part 7 |
Part 7As regards Marlborough's tactics, military critics agree in praising the effective use which he made of all arms. He insisted upon accuracy in infantry shooting, and taught all ranks to fire simultaneously and not, as the French did, consecutively. He made the cavalry, after the example set by Rupert and Cromwell, rely on the momentum of their charge rather than on their firing, and he showed great capacity in utilizing them at the critical moment with decisive effect. He handled the artillery with remarkable skill, more especially at Blenheim, where every gun was laid under his own eye. No less praiseworthy was the quickness with which he saw the weakness of an enemy's position; of this quickness the best example was perhaps at Ramillies. As a strategist, Marl borough was superb. Many of his schemes were upset because of the opposition of the Allies, and more especially of the Dutch; but those that he carried into execution show that Marlborough deserves the distinction of being called the greatest general that this country, or, if we may believe Bolingbroke, any other country, has produced. At all events, of hardly any other general can it be said, as it can be said of Marlborough, that he never fought a battle which he did not win, or besieged a place which he did not take.In order to understand Marlborough's operations, it must be remembered that, at the opening of the war, the French were in possession of the Spanish Netherlands, Marlborough's earlier campaigns, therefore-with the exception of the greatest of them all, that of Blenheim (1704)-had for their objective the expulsion of the French from the Spanish Netherlands. The later campaigns aimed at the conquest of the French barrier fortresses with a view, finally, to an advance into the interior of France, but the story will show that he was recalled before he could complete his task. The history of the campaigns will be more intelligible if it is realized that the rivers in the Netherlands run in three curves roughly parallel with one another; The outside curve is formed by the Moselle and the Rhine, into which the Moselle falls; then comes the curve formed by the Meuse, and, inside that, the curve of the Scheldt. In the first two years of the war (1702-3) no big engagement was fought, but Marlborough succeeded in taking some fortresses and in weakening the position of the French in the valleys of two of these rivers-the Meuse and the Rhine. With 1704 came the first of Marlborough's great campaigns. The position of the Allies was extremely critical. Vienna, the capital of the Austrian dominions, was threatened not only by Hungarian rebels on the east, but by French and Bavarian armies on the west. Marlborough planned a great march from the Netherlands to save Vienna. But his task was complicated. He had to hoodwink the Dutch as to his intentions, for otherwise they would not let him go. He had to make a flank march over difficult country right across the French front. He had to effect a junction with Eugene whilst preventing the junction of all the French armies. And, finally, he had, in order to cross the Danube, to storm a strongly fortified ppsition held by the Bavarians. But he accomplished all these things, and his army and that of Eugene's succeeded in getting between Vienna and the armies of the French. |
Chronology |
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