measure to the influence of his wife, this circumstance ought not, i fairness, to be urged in diminution of his merits or his fame. Lord Stanhope has done full justice in general terms to the military genius of Marlborough, but beyond indicating a few points of contrast between our two greatest military chiefs,' has shrunk from the difficult duty of assigning him his precise place amongst the captains or commanders who stand highest on the beadroll of Fame. Yet something of this sort should have been attempted, if only to neutralise the effect of M. Thiers' last and best chapter, in which he passes in review all the warriors, ancient or modern, whom he deems worthy of being named in the remotest relation to Napoleon, including those who have introduced marked improvements in strategy or the art of war, as well as those who have fought and won the decisive battles of the world. He places Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Frederick, and Napoleon in the first rank; Gustavus Adolphus, the princes of Nassau, Condé, Turenne, and Vauban in the second: Marlborough and Wellington are nowhere: they are not so much as named; which, as regards Marlborough, is as unaccountable as it is inexcusable, for Napoleon was one of his most ardent admirers, and actually caused to be written the clearest and most intelligible account of his campaigns.* Some years since, Lord Stanhope published in his Miscellanies' a curious memorandum by the Duke of Wellington, in which he honestly endeavours to cast the balance between Marlborough and himself. The essential points are that, though he himself had no Dutch deputies to control his movements, he had to co-operate with troops on whom he could not rely, had much more difficulty in procuring supplies, and generally commanded an army inferior not only in reference to the description of troops but even in numbers to the enemy; whilst Marlborough experienced no such difficulty, and generally commanded an army superior to his opponent in the field. I quite agree (he states) that the Duke of Marlborough is the greatest man that ever appeared at the head of a British army.' But it happens oddly enough that, in the campaigns by which he won his laurels, the Duke of Marlborough was never at the head of a British army at * Histoire de Jean Churchill, Duc de Marlborough, Prince du Saint Empire, &c., &c., de. A Paris, de L'imprimerie Impériale, 1808.' In three volumes. According to M. de Querard (La France Littéraire), this work was printed by order of the government at the imperial press. It was partly composed by M. Madgett, and completed and edited by the Abbé de Dutens. all. The English contingent formed a small proportion of the allied armies which he successively commanded. At Blenheim, they numbered less than 10,000 in an army of 56,000 (made up of seven nations), opposed to 60,000 French and Bavarians. The allied troops, it must be admitted, were all of excellent quality; whilst no reliance could be placed on more than two-thirds of the socalled English army at Waterloo. Indeed, the Duke is reported to have said that, if it had been composed like his peninsular army, the battle would not have lasted two hours. Assuming their equality in the field, it must be remembered that Marlborough had German princes as well as Dutch deputies to manage; and we constantly find him, before the commencement of a campaign, hurrying from court to court to ensure the required co-operation in his plans. He could not have done what he did without being a great statesman as well as a great commander, and the superiority of his military genius lay in the same direction as Napoleon's, of whom M. Thiers says:- Constantly stretched upon his maps, he did what is too rarely done by military men, what they did still less before his time; he was continually meditating on the disposition of the ground where the war was to be carried on. This was equally the practice of Marlborough; and the plan by which (in 1704) he transferred the scene of operations from the Low Countries to the valley of the Danube, where he won Blenheim, is quite as distinguished by breadth, boldness, and originality, as that in pursuance of which Napoleon suddenly broke up camp at Boulogne and dashed across Germany to the crowning triumph of Austerlitz.' his M. Thiers gives Frederick the Great credit for one of those progressive changes in the art of war which mark the highest order of military genius. Instead of abiding by the traditional proportions and dispositions of the three arms, he increased his infantry and artillery, and ranged his cavalry according to the ground, instead of placing it on the wings.' Neither of the English captains under examination were reformers or inventors. Marlborough was obliged to do his best with the troops at his disposal, and the Iron Duke, a sworn foe to innovation, died in the belief that British glory might be upheld, as it was gained, by Brown Bess. On a cursory perusal of Marlborough's battles, it would seem as if they were gained by personal prowess, by charges of cavalry which he led in person; and that his cavalry was to him what the Guard (Old or New) was to Napoleon, the arm on which he depended for striking the decisive blow at the critical moment. But it was not dash or brilliancy to which he was indebted for suc- | from the superior artillery of their opponents, cess; he placed no reliance on happy accidents or on his star; and the use he made of his cool intrepidity, his absolute insensibility to danger, his unshaken presence of mind in the most startling emergencies, was to carry out his preconceived plans, to execute the movements which formed part of them, and repair on the instant the errors or misconduct of his allies or subordinates. Again and again we find him hurrying from one part of the field to another to rally a broken squadron or brigade, or bring up fresh troops to fill an unexpected gap in his line, and then calmly resuming the place which he had originally chosen as best adapted for guidance and command "Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul That in the midst of charging hosts unmov'd, and of being charged in detail before they could form on reaching the firmer portion of the plain. Assuming equal generalship, the attack was next to hopeless; yet the position of the allies was such as to render an attack imperative. They must dislodge. the enemy, for their supplies were failing and their communications were threatened. It was a by-word in the French army that every day which passed without a battle, might be counted as a battle gained. Although general after general painted the dangers to be incurred in the strongest colours, Marlborough held firm: I am well aware,' was his uniform reply, of all the difficulties, but the attack is not the less necessary.' He and Eugene ascended a tower to take a careful survey of the field, and they speedily discovered a fatal defect in the dispositions of the French-Bavarian army, the right of which, the French, rested on the Danube; the left, the Bavarians, on the forest; whilst the connecting centre was a long weak line, mostly composed of cavalry. Marlborough saw at once that, if the wings could be ocAnd, pleas'd the Almighty's orders to perform, cupied so as to prevent them from strengthRides on the whirlwind and directs the storm."*ening the centre, the centre might be broken The battle of Blenheim gave occasion for the display of Marlborough's finest qualities as a great soldier, and its main features may be easily grasped. The army of the allies, under Marlborough and Eugene, is computed at about fifty-six thousand men of various nations, English, Dutch, Danes, Prussians, Hanoverians, Wirtembergers, and Hessians, with fifty-one guns. The opposing army, under Marshal Tallard and the Elector of Bavaria, is computed at about sixty thousand, of whom forty-five thousand were French troops of the best quality, with a marked superiority in guns. Lord Stanhope says ninety against sixty-six, the French writer, ninety or a hundred against fifty-two. The two armies confronted each other in a plain or valley, about six miles long and from two to three miles broad at the broadest part, lying between the Danube and a forest. They were separated by two or three small streams with high banks, and by morasses which were impassable without fascines. If the allies, therefore, ventured an attack, they did so at the risk of suffering severely whilst struggling with the difficulties of the ground *The Campaign.'-When the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Boyle) waited on Addison by desire of the Lord Treasurer (Godolphin) to engage him to write this poem, he occupied what Lord Macaulay calls a garret, up three pair of stairs, over a small shop in the Haymarket. and the army cut in two. His plan was formed accordingly; but as it required a simultaneous advance of his whole army, he was obliged to wait until Eugene, who was to encounter the Bavarians, could bring up his forces. This operation required time, and Marlborough gave orders for public prayers. The scene is graphically described by Lord Macaulay, who drew on his own fertile imagination for the details.* According to Lediard, Marlborough declared after the battle, that he had prayed to God oftener on that day than all the chaplains of all the numerous and varying bodies serving under him put together. When the prayers were over, Marlborough rode along the front to inspect the lines. The cannonade had already begun, and a ball struck the ground so close to him as to cover him with the earth, to the great alarm of his staff, until relieved by his unruffled mien. He was at breakfast on the grass, between twelve and one, with his principal officers, when an aide-de-camp came spurring up with tidings that Eugene was ready. Now, * See the essay (reprinted amongst his works) on Mr. Gladstone's The State in its Relations to the Church.' When he speaks of Capuchins encouraging the Austrian squadrons and praying to the Virgin for a blessing on the arms of the holy Roman empire, he forgets that the whole of the Austrians and Imperialists were struggling through the morasses with Eugene. gentlemen, to your posts,' cried Marlborough, Cutts) was repulsed; his right (under as he rose and mounted his horse. Aide- Eugene) in disorder, and his centre strugtoi et Dieu t'aidera.' It does not appear gling through difficult ground in the face of a whether the French marshal was equally powerful artillery and a numerically superior zealous in his appeals for divine aid, but he force in set array. Lediard relates that Talcertainly exhibited neither the same alertness lard, on being told that the allies were prenor the same knowledge of his profession on paring to pass the stream, exclaimed: If this day. When morning broke, he was so they have not bridges enough, I will send little in expectation of an attack that he had them some; let them pass by all means: the dispatched his cavalry on foraging parties. more that come, the more we shall kill.' He made the worst possible disposition of His countrymen acquit him of this absurdity, his forces; for instead of strengthening his justly observing that certain mots are attricentre, or preparing to dispute the passage buted to person after person similarly situated, of the streams and morasses, he massed his and that this mot has been given to many, best infantry in the village of Blenheim, so amongst others to Marshal de Créqui and St. closely that the advantage of numbers was Ruth. Still, the fact remains that Marlbothrown away. Either from not being aware rough was permitted to draw up his cavalry of the strength of the village thus occupied, in two lines in a meadow on the French side or desirous to mask his movements against of the stream, and choose his own time for the centre, Marlborough made Blenheim the the charge which he led in person about five first object of attack. The assailing division in the evening. The French cavalry were was commanded by Lord Cutts, surnamed ten thousand against eight; they were posted the Salamander from his disregard of fire, on an ascent, and supported by three briand the leading regiment by General Rowe, gades of infantry. They had the advantage who did not give the order to fire until he at first, and drove back the allies sixty had stuck his sword into the palisades. The paces, but on Marlborough's renewed admen were exposed to a severe fire as they vance they unaccountably lost heart, readvanced, and the palisades proving too coiled, and fled in confusion, leaving their strong to be forced or broken down, they infantry to be surrounded and cut to were driven back, leaving a full third of their pieces:— number, including Rowe, his lieutenant-colonel and his major, killed or wounded on the ground. The assault was renewed with various alternations of fortune, until Marlborough, finding that he was sacrificing his best men uselessly, directed Cutts to confine himself to distant platoon firing so as to prevent the troops in the village from being withdrawn, and then proceeded to get the cavalry under his own immediate command across the morass. Eugene in the mean time had not been more successful than Cutts. His cavalry was broken and routed; he narrowly escaped being shot by a Bavarian dragoon in an attempt to rally them, and he was so exasperated by their cowardice that he shot two of the runaways dead with his own hand. Marlborough, quitting his own allotted sphere of action, assisted in rallying Eugene's troops and re-establishing their communication with his own, which at length were ranged on firm ground and about to come to blows on equal terms with the French. There was a time, therefore, when the battle was going against him at all points; when his left (under Blenheim is a corruption of Plintheim, the name of a village on the left bank of the Danube. The battle is called the battle of Hochstett from a neighbouring town and castle, by the French and other continental writers. 'The rout begins, the Gothic squadrons run, Compell'd in crowds to meet the fate they shun. Thousands of fiery steeds with wounds transfix'd, Floating in gore, with their dead masters mix'd Midst heaps of spears and standards driv'n around. Lie in the Danube's bloody whirl-pools drown'd.'* Lord Stanhope makes Marlborough hurry to the support of Eugene before the decisive charge. The French writers say that his victory was already declared when he learnt the precarious condition of his right, which it was necessary to strengthen, if only to confirm his own success and prevent the exposure of his flank; adding that, on being pressed by Marlborough and hearing the entire defeat of Tallard, the Elector and Marsin, who were opposed to Eugene, immediately sounded a retreat, which was effected in good order and with small loss. There remained the 11,000 troops shut up in Blenheim, the best troops of France, as The Campaign.'-The catastrophe is thus they were described by Tallard, who, although some of them did their devoir bravely, fell short of the expectations of their countrymen. When the Baron de Sirot, who commanded the French reserve at Rocroy, was told that the battle was lost, he exclaimed, No, no; it is not lost, for Sirot and his companions have not yet fought.' Unluckily M. de Clérambault, who commanded in Blenheim, was of a different temperament. He had gone in the emergency to ask for orders, and on finding that the Commander-in-Chief was a prisoner, he took fright, lost his head, plunged into the Danube, and was drowned. His absence did not prevent a brilliant display of French valour on the part of his subordinates, one of whom, M. de Dénonville, the colonel of a crack regiment, beat back the English and kept them at bay till he was overpowered and compelled to surrender to Lord Cutts. After the defeat of the centre, without waiting for the surrender of the troops in Blenheim, Marlborough wrote and despatched a pencil note to the Duchess : 'I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know her army has had a glorious victory. Monsieur Tallard and two other Generals are in my coach; and I am following the rest. The bearer, my aide-de-camp Colonel Parke, will give her an account of what has passed. I shall do it in a day or two by another more at large. 'MARLBOROUGH.' 'This note' (adds Coxe) is preserved in the family archives at Blenheim as one of the most curious memorials which perhaps exists. It was written on a slip of paper, which was evidently torn from a memorandum book, and contains on the back a bill of tavern expenses. The book may probably have belonged to sort commissary, as there is an entry relative to bread furnished to the troops.' In a subsequent letter to the Duchess, Marlborough states that he was seventeen hours on horseback,-two more than the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo; and in the course of a visit of condolence which the two victorious commanders paid to their prisoner Marshal Tallard, Eugene said, 'I have not a squadron or battalion which did not charge four times, at least.' The battle of Ramillies was won nearly in the same manner by adroitly taking advantage of the faulty dispositions of the enemy. The French, according to Lord Stanhope, may be reckoned at 60,000, and the allies at 62,000. The French historians state that the troops of Villeroy were disposed as Marlborough himself would have desired. The whole of the left wing, covered and inclosed by a small river and morasses, was absolutely useless: it could neither attack nor be attacked; it resembled James I. in his padded silk armour, when he congratulated himself that nobody could hurt him and he could hurt nobody. Besides this radical defect, the rest of the army was arranged in the form least adapted for cooperation and support. Seeing at a glance that he had nothing to apprehend from the French left, Marlborough, before the battle began, drew off a large portion of the forces originally opposed to it, with the view of outnumbering and overpowering their right. To describe the disposition of the two armies (remarks M. Madgett) is to announce beforehand that no triumph was in store for Villeroy. A lieutenant-general, M. de Gassion, vehemently remonstrated with him: All is lost if you do not change your order of battle: weaken your left to strengthen your right; close up your lines; a minute more and there will be no resource left.' Now, it is curious that none of the English writers lay stress on this faulty disposition of the French left; only one of them (Gleig) even incidentally alludes to it. They one and all make the battle turn on the brilliant manœuvres of the Duke, including a feint against the French left, which (they say) induced Villeroy to draw off more troops from his right and centre-the real objects of attack. Lord Stanhope goes the length of saying that Villeroy was well prepared' to receive his assailants, and that, whilst he was drawing out his army, he was joined by his colleague, the Elector of Bavaria, who' approved the selection' and acknowledged the strength of the ground. One thing is clear, the battle was won by superiority of tactics, by the concentration of a superior force on the point, or successive points, of attack; by bringing the whole of the allied army effectively into action, whilst a full third of the French stood motionless till they were required to cover the retreat. Voltaire states that, when Villeroy presented himself at Court, the great King's first words were: เ Monsieur le Maréchal, on n'est plus heureux à notre age.' This was one of the occasions in which the descendant of St. Louis contrasts most favourably with the parvenu Emperor. Nothing could be finer or bolder than the plan of operations which led to the battle of Oudenarde. It included the crossing of the Scheldt after a toilsome march of fifteen miles, and the immediate attack of an army superior in numbers with every advantage of ground. It consequently involved great risks, which were fortunately averted by the divided counsels of the adversaries. Commander-in-Chief of the French-Bavarian army was the Duke of Burgundy, the grand The son of Louis, a young prince unacquainted with war, who was expected to submit to the guidance of the Duc de Vendôme, one of the ablest generals of the age. Unluckily they differed in everything, and cordially disliked each other, so that whatever Vendôme proposed, was either disregarded or reluctantly and ineffectively carried out. The allies, coming up by detachments, were placed for a time in much the same condition as the English at Quatre Bras, and Vendôme proposed to attack their vanguard before the arrival of the main body. He was overruled, and when he sent an order to charge the allied left before it was joined by the rearguard, the order was countermanded by his superior, under the pretence that there was a non-existent morass to pass. 'Your Majesty,' wrote Vendôme in his report, will be so good as to observe that this place, which was called impassable, was passed by the enemy without hindrance, and had not upon it either a thicket or a ditch.' Again, as at Blenheim and Ramillies, a large part of the French army was not brought into action at all; and a high French authority, Feuquières, says: This battle is of the second kind of great actions, since there was in it but a front of our army, which necessarily attacked a front stronger and more extended than ours.' Vendôme wished to renew the battle next morning, and reluctantly consented to the retreat. Gleig prefaces an animated and detailed account of the battle of Malplaquet, by remarking, that, since the commencement of the war, two such armies had never been brought into the field, adding, that all the chivalry of Europe seemed to have taken part on one side or the other.* According to Lord Stanhope, they were nearly equal in numbers, each more than 90,000 strongGleig thinks 100,000. The French assert that they were outnumbered by at least 10,000 and inferior in artillery, but they were strongly entrenched behind field-works and abbatis of trees, so strongly that the allied troops were heard to murmur, 'So we have still to make war upon moles.' Marlborough and Eugene were opposed to Villars and Boufflers. Their plan was to turn the left and break through the centre. They succeeded, after a prolonged struggle, and remained masters of the field; but their loss very much exceeded that of their adversaries, being computed at not less than 20,000 killed and wounded against 12,000 *Lives of the Most Eminent British Military Commanders. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig (the Chaplain-General). In Lardner's Cabinet Encyclopædia.' on the side of the French. Villars, whose extravagant computation was 30,000 to 6000, wrote to Louis: If God vouchsafes us the grace of losing another such battle, your Majesty may reckon on your enemies being destroyed.' Boufflers wrote more modestly that never had misfortune been accompanied with more glory: It is blood usefully shed; it should count for much to have re-established the national honour.' Bolingbroke's remark in his 'Letters on History' is: 'A deluge of blood was spilt to dislodge them, for we did no more at Malplaquet.' We hardly know whether we ought to smile or feel sad at finding the condition of mind to which the great Commander had been reduced by his termagant wife when he fought this battle. He wrote to her the day before: 'I can take pleasure in nothing so long as you continue uneasy and think me unkind. I do assure you, upon my honour and salvation, that the only reason why I did not write was that I am very sure it would have had no other effect than that of being shown to Mrs. Masham. In the mean time I cannot hinder saying to you that though the fate of Europe, if these armies engage, may depend upon the good or bad success, yet your uneasiness gives me much greater trouble.' On the evening of the battle he added by way of postscript: 'I am so tired that I have but strength enough to tell you that we have had this day a very bloody battle; the first part of the day we beat their foot and afterwards their horse. God Almighty be praised it is now in our power to have what peace we please, and I may be pretty well assured of never being in another battle, but that, nor nothing in the world, can make me happy if you are not kind.' The English capram of the age who came next to Marlborough was Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough. Indeed, in military genius, originality of conception, fertility of resource, and chivalrous intrepidity, this eccentric personage has been rarely equalled, never excelled. A striking parallel might be drawn between him and the late Earl of Dundonald, better known as Lord Cochrane, the hero of Basque Roads, of whom it was said that he performed greater actions, with smaller means, than any other captain or commander recorded in history. Take, for example, the capture of a Spanish frigate (the Gamos') of thirty-two heavy guns and 319 men, with the Speedy' of 158 tons, fourteen 4-pounders, and a crew of fortyseven, officers and boys included. The frigate was carried by boarding, a portion of the boarders being directed to blacken their เ |