Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852. Various
the Danube."… "The genius of Louis," he adds, after a lucid explanation of the projected campaign, which was indeed grandly conceived, "had outstripped the march of time; and the year 1703 promised the triumphs which were realised on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon in 1805."22 It was all, however, in vain, though his plans were carried into execution with infinite skill and energy. Marlborough got intelligence of them; and instantly conceived a masterly counter-plan, which, but for his being thwarted, as usual, by the Dutch deputies, would have been completely successful in the first instance. The resources which Marlborough's genius displayed in this transcendent campaign were prodigious. His rapidity of perception, his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt energy, at length triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in the glorious battle of Blenheim – than which none more splendid stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very eagerly pressed upon him by his own officers. "I know the danger," said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages."23 Mr Alison's description of this battle is equally brilliant and impressive, and we wish we could transfer it entire into our columns. It was a fearful day for Louis XIV. The total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who deserted during the calamitous retreat through the Black Forest, was 40,000 – "a number greater than any subsequently lost by France till the still more disastrous day of Waterloo." "The decisive blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part of Europe. It at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken Louis XIV., aided by the genius of Turenne and Vauban, so long to construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley of the Danube, and threatening Vienna, as did Napoleon in 1805 and 1809, the French were driven in the utmost disorder across the Rhine. Thus, by the operation of one single campaign, was Bavaria crushed, Austria saved, and Germany delivered … and the Empire, delivered from invasion, was preparing to carry its victorious arms into the very heart of France! Such achievements require no comment. They speak for themselves, and deservedly place Marlborough in the very highest rank of military commanders. The campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no more decisive or important results."24 His reception at the courts of Berlin and Hanover was like that of a sovereign prince; and, on his return home, the nation welcomed him with ecstasy. The Honour and manor of Woodstock were settled upon him; and the erection of the palace of Blenheim was commenced on a magnificent scale. Before the opening of this campaign he lost his only surviving son, in his seventeenth year – an event which occasioned him a week's paroxysm of grief. Shortly before, two of his daughters, very beautiful women, were married respectively to the Earl of Bridgewater and Lord Monthermer, whose father was subsequently raised to the rank of Duke of Montague. Another daughter had been married to Lord Sunderland, who occasioned the Duke of Marlborough intense mortification, by suddenly opposing his policy in the House of Lords. And, indeed, he seems to have suffered exquisitely during this period, from the animosities with which he was assailed at home by the Tories. He sought permission from the Queen to resign, and retire into private life; and it was only on her sending him a holograph letter, couched in terms of unusual affection, that he was induced to abstain from a step which would have been so fatal to the fortunes of his country.25 It was in this campaign that Marlborough and Prince Eugene came together – the latter a man of great military genius, and a chivalrously noble and generous character. The intimacy and co-operation of such a man must have cheered the spirit of Marlborough in many a dark hour of trial, difficulty, and danger. They never had a difference during all the campaigns in which they acted together. "The records of human achievements can present few, if any, greater men; but beyond all question they can exhibit none in whom so pure and generous a friendship existed, alike unbroken by the selfishness consequent on adverse, and the jealousies springing from prosperous, fortune."
From this period the affairs of perplexed and convulsed Europe may be said to have rested upon the Atlantean shoulders of this marvellous man. The impression left on one's mind, after reading these volumes, is that of wonder how human faculties could sustain, and for such a length of time, so vast and constantly increasing a pressure, alike upon his heart and his intellect. Never, perhaps, was greatness so perseveringly harassed by littleness. He may have exclaimed on a thousand occasions —
"The times are out of joint! O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set them right!"
There is something at once exciting and oppressive in the following vivid picture: —
"No adequate idea can be formed of the greatness of Marlborough's capacity, or the overwhelming load of cares with which he was oppressed, if the other contests which, in addition to his own, he was obliged to carry on, are not taken into consideration. It was not merely his own campaigns, often of the most active kind, which he was called on to direct; he was at the same time charged with the almost entire direction of those in every other quarter, and constantly appealed to whenever a difficulty occurred. At the very moment when his blood was heated by combat, and he was obliged to be ten or twelve hours a-day on horseback with his own troops, he was compelled to steal half the night to carry on his multiplied correspondence with the Allied generals or cabinets in every part of Europe. Such was the weight of his authority, the avidity for his direction, that not only was he intrusted with the general design of every campaign, alike in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Flanders, but the details of their execution were constantly submitted to him; and, what was much more vexatious, he was continually called on to adjust by his authority, or heal by his urbanity, the quarrels of the generals, and discord of the cabinets to whom their direction was intrusted. His correspondence affords ample evidence of this. Appeals were made to Marlborough at every time, and from every side: from the Imperial ministers against the inactivity of the Margrave of Baden; from the Margrave against the imbecility of the Imperial cabinet; from Lord Peterborough against the jealousy and tardiness of the Spaniards at the court of the Archduke Charles; from them against the irritability and eccentricity of the English general; from the Hungarian insurgents against the exactions and cruelty of the Imperial government; from them against the restless and rebellious spirit with which the Magyars in every age have been animated.
"The confidence universally reposed, not only in his wisdom and justice, but in his conciliatory manners and irresistible address, was the cause of this extraordinary load of important cares with which, in addition to the direction of his own army, he was daily overwhelmed. From Eugene alone he was assailed by no appeals, except for such addition to his forces as might put him in a condition to measure his strength with the enemy. Their ideas were so identical, their minds so entirely cast in the same mould, their military knowledge and capacity so much alike, that it invariably happened that, what the one of his own accord did, was precisely what the other of his own accord would have recommended. Nor was it enough that foreign affairs of such overwhelming magnitude daily oppressed the English general; he had in addition the divisions of the cabinet at home to heal, and the deadly animosity of faction, increasing with every triumph which he won, to appease. No warrior of modern times, not even excepting Wellington, had such a mass of affairs, both civil and military, to conduct at the same time, and none ever got through them with such consummate ability. The correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon alone, since the days of Cæsar, will bear a comparison with it; but although nothing could exceed the energy and capacity of the French emperor, there was this difference, and it was a vital one, between his position and that of Marlborough – Napoleon commanded, after he attained to greatness, everywhere as a master: he directed his generals with equal authority on the Danube and the Tagus, and dictated to cabinets at Vienna or St Petersburg nearly as effectively as at St Cloud; but Marlborough had not even the uncontrolled direction of his own army, and beyond it had no influence but what had been extorted by exploits or won by condescension."
The great event of this third campaign was the battle of Ramilies, where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. No sooner had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape – his horse fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted another.
Alison, i. p. 125.
Alison, i. p. 159.