The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)

by James Falkner

  Sure enough, on 26 September it was decided to abandon the expedition and re-embark the troops. A final parting bombardment of Cadiz was considered, but this would have been no more than an act of vindictive frustration, and mercifully it was not carried out. Enough damage had been done, however, amongst the unfortunate local villagers to seriously damage the prospects for a successful allied campaign in much of southern Spain:

  The cause of Charles III became associated in the Spaniards’ minds with the scandalous conduct of Ormonde’s troops, who plundered Santa Maria to the bare walls, sacked the churches with heretical glee, raped women, and even nuns.14

  The officers, it was said ‘even went so far, in their deplorable mean-ness of soul, as to place guards in the street to take the spoil from the privates and store it all away for their superiors’. By 28 September the main body of the allied troops had re-embarked, with some sharp rearguard fighting by the English Foot Guards to hold off an advance by Spanish troops to try and disrupt the evacuation. The next day the fleet weighed anchor and sailed away, Prince George and Paul Methuen returned to Lisbon, while the crowded ships made their way northwards.

  This dismal failure at Cadiz and its environs, and resulting disappointment, was tempered by the news that the Spanish treasure fleet had arrived off the coast of Galicia, evading the attentions of an intercepting naval squadron under Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and had put in to take shelter in Vigo Bay. News of their arrival was given incautiously in idle conversation in Lagos on the Algarve coast to the chaplain of HMS Pembroke, whose captain hurried on to meet Rooke and his squadron with the exciting tidings. The chance to snap up such a vast prize could not be denied, and on 22 October Rooke, having as instructed detached a small squadron for service in the west Indies, successfully entered Vigo Bay on a northerly wind. The treasure fleet consisted of seventeen laden merchantmen, with their escort of fifteen French and three Spanish warships under the command of the Marquis de Châteaurenault, all neatly protected by a stout boom laid across the estuary at its narrowest point at Redondella. Rooke was unwell with gout, and kept to his cabin, but his squadron broke through the boom with HMS Torbay, commanded by Vice-Admiral Hobson, in the van. Ormonde subsequently landed with a party of marines to rush and capture the Spanish Fort Randa that covered the narrows and could have taken the allied warships under a damaging fire:

  He ordered Lord Shannon to put himself at the head of the grenadiers, and march directly to the fort which covered the entrance into the port where the boom was, which was executed with bravery and resolution … Lieutenant-General Churchill’s Regiment, seeing this happy success, marched up to support the grenadiers.15

  Six transports partly laden with treasure and goods were captured, while three Spanish ships of the line and eleven other transports were burnt or sunk. The covering French squadron was also destroyed in the engagement, with ten warships sunk and six more captured and taken into allied service.16

  This was a major blow to France and her hopes of ever mounting an effective naval campaign, for time and money to restore such losses were both lacking. The success was not quite as resounding as it appeared, as much of the silver cargo had been landed before Rooke attacked, and being private property and not that of the Crown, seven million silver pesos were subsequently appropriated by Philip V to finance his campaign to hold onto the throne in Madrid. The sequestration of funds was cloaked in the legal fiction that it represented an advance payment of taxes. For Rooke and his crews, of course, there was still a considerable haul to be taken as booty, valued at the fabulous sum of £1 million sterling, together with payment of prize money for their captures in the bay.17

  The success at Vigo enabled a gloss of a kind to be thrown over the earlier failure at Cadiz and the disgraceful sacking by allied soldiers of Port St Mary. Those charges that were brought against certain offenders were either dropped on the spurious grounds that they could not be pressed in England when the offences occurred abroad, or diluted to trivial charges of officers being ashore without proper permission. Two senior officers were court-martialled – Lieutenant General Sir Henry Belasys and Major-General Sir Charles O’Hara (a ‘one-time highwayman’ according to one detractor).18 Belasys was dismissed and then promptly re-instated, while O’Hara was acquitted of the charges and with his reputation apparently unsullied was promoted two years later to become lieutenant-general.

  Efforts were still in hand to persuade the Portuguese to join the Grand Alliance, but the evident lack of success at Cadiz did nothing to encourage King Pedro to do so, even though the results of the attack at Vigo were reported in Lisbon first. Rooke had decided not to leave ships in Portuguese ports over the winter, although he could have done so by long-standing treaty terms; again, this did not encourage Pedro to take the risk and switch sides. Methuen’s mission to Portugal had born little fruit so far, although Count Waldstein, the imperial ambassador, and the Dutch minister Meinheer Francis Schonenberg were also active there.19 Both Methuen and Schonenberg felt at home in Lisbon, but Waldstein was less comfortable, and the competing interest and inherent rivalries, particularly over matters of trade, between England, Holland and Austria made an effective concerted campaign to bring Portugal over to the allied cause more difficult.

  In October 1702 Juan Luis Enrique de Cabrera, hereditary Almirante of Castile, having deserted Philip V’s cause, arrived in Lisbon with an impressive retinue, including the Count of Corzona, to add his weight to the arguments. Cabrera had considerable influence not only in Castile, but in Andalusia and Catalonia, and with large estates in Sicily, so his declared support for the Habsburg clamant was very encouraging – a fact not lost on the Portuguese during the protracted negotiations that went fitfully onwards. Cabrera was representative of those grandees of Castile who were still suspicious of the new French-born king in Madrid and what he might do to their treasured privileges; he had been intended to be Philip V’s ambassador to Versailles, largely to keep him out of the way where he could not make mischief. On the road to Paris, however, he took a different turning and went to Lisbon, effectively declaring for Archduke Charles in the process, so his reputation as a rather tricky customer with an inclination to sit on the fence while events unfolded was apparently well merited.20

  A powerful argument in favour of Portugal joining the Grand Alliance, however, was that the French and Spanish naval commanders were losing their war with the allies. This was evident and would become more marked as time went on; the portents for Louis XIV and Philip V, after such setbacks as those in the West Indies and at Vigo bay, were already not good. King Pedro had a number of senior advisers who advocated neutrality, but he was rightly concerned for the security of Portugal’s overseas merchantile interests, and England and Holland could devastate these if they chose – Rooke had been able to bring his fleet to the southern shores of Spain, land an army and then re-embark them without interference, while the approaches to the English Channel had been held firm against any French incursion: Louis XIV could never have done so much. Whether Portugal stayed with its alliance with the French king or tried to become a neutral in the war, her merchantmen would be fair game on the high seas. In effect Portugal had few realistic alternatives but to join the cause against Philip V and make the best of it, unless Pedro could negotiate a position of benevolent neutrality. This seemed increasingly unlikely to happen, and a letter sent from Lisbon to London that October set things out with stark clarity

  The French have no fleets at sea, and we are in possession of these seas, and these people [the Portuguese] can have no trade but under our protection. Though their trade is certainly beneficial to us, yet ’tis so more to Portugal. All their gold, sugars and tobaccos are the returns of our own manufacturers, which our people give them on credit, to be paid for upon the return of the Brazil trade. Three parts of the corn expended here and all the dried fish is imported by the English, so it is plain these people live by us.21

  On 4 October 1702, Methuen tried to force the iss
ue, offering territorial concessions to Portugal in Estremadura and Galicia, together with generous cash subsidies and provision of supplies for troops on campaign, in return for active support of the Grand Alliance. The offer was repeated formally on 13 December, although the notion of territorial gains was quietly dropped as being plainly undeliverable, with such exotic alternatives as the Philippines, the Canary Islands and even Buenos Aires mentioned in passing. French efforts to retain the Portuguese alliance fell flat, although King Pedro had astutely used this and the rivalries between the allied ambassadors, who each with good reason suspected the others at various times of double-dealing, to secure the best terms he could. The treaty between Portugal and the Grand Alliance was signed in Lisbon on 16 May 1703, and ratified in London on 14 July. The terms as concluded between Portugal, England. Austria and Holland allowed for Archduke Charles to be declared as King Carlos III and to come to Lisbon to press his claim to the throne in Madrid by force of arms. When he arrived King Pedro was to declare war on Philip V, and provide an army 15,000 strong, with another 13,000 auxiliaries, maintained with allied subsidies and supplies. The allies would provide 12,000 troops to campaign with the Portuguese, together with a cruising squadron of twelve ships sufficient to fend off any threat from French and Spanish warships. The territorial integrity of Portugal was guaranteed by the Maritime Powers, and amendments favourable to Portugal made to the frontiers on the Amazon and La Plata in the Americas. Such concessions, of course, depended upon the Archduke succeeding in his claim and being in position to honour them; typically Emperor Leopold was slow to ratify the treaty, but eventually did so.22

  Chapter 4

  Campaigning in the Low Countries

  ‘You can guess my impatience I hope for the fame of my armies.’1

  The French commander in the Low Countries, Louis-François de Boufflers, Marshal of France, advanced early in the spring of 1702 to defeat the Dutch army, hoping to strike effectively before Queen Anne’s troops could properly assemble to its support. Had this potentially war-winning stroke been speedily achieved, then the Grand Alliance would have been in utter disarray, with the southern border of Holland laid bare and Louis XIV and his grandson in Madrid soon victorious. Boufflers quickly established his main force at Xanten, from where he could observe the Dutch army, commanded at the time by Godert Rede van Ginkel, the Earl of Athlone. The Dutch had already begun a siege of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and on the king’s instructions the Comte de Tallard was sent with 13,000 French troops to hamper that operation. Early in June Boufflers, encouraged perhaps by the arrival on campaign of the King’s eldest grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, and by the young Duc de Maine, the King’s illegitimate son, advanced to Cleves to confront Ginkel. ‘I should not doubt his courage,’ Louis XIV wrote to the veteran Marshal about Bourgogne, enquiring after his conduct on campaign:

  Those of his blood have never lacked it [courage], but the manner in which it is shown, and the satisfaction of the troops [at his being with the army]. You can guess my impatience I hope for the fame of my armies and that of the Duc de Bourgogne that it will be possible to attack the enemy. It would be glorious for him to win a considerable advantage.2

  The Dutch, and those few of Queen Anne’s troops who had so far joined them, had indeed fallen back in some confusion, to take up a position near to Nijmegen, where Athlone could draw support from the defences of the town. An unexpected raid into western Flanders by the noted Dutch military engineer Meinheer van Coehorn, intended to do little more than to ‘levy contributions’ amongst the populace, proved a worrying distraction, as French troops had to be diverted there to counter the thrust. Boufflers’ hitherto very astute campaign lost some of its sparkle, and, intent on closing with the Dutch army as quickly as possible, he had neglected to try and seize the Dutch fortress of Maastricht on the river Meuse, which lay uncomfortably close his own lines of supply and communication. The strength behind the initial French thrust had also been diluted by the diversion of troops to Kaiserswerth and Flanders, and imperceptibly but definitely the initiative had passed to their opponents.

  On 30 June 1702, the Earl of Marlborough arrived to take command of the 60,000-strong Anglo-Dutch army, despite some lingering resentment amongst other commanders, notably Ginkel, who felt that they had a better claim to the role. Despite his relative lack of experience, the earl was well known to the Dutch and his confident handling of the army soon allayed any misgivings about his appointment. Marlborough was sure that an early and forthright move to drive the French back was necessary, but some of the Dutch generals were inclined to be more cautious. The earl was aware that he now had a superiority in numbers over Boufflers once Tallard had gone to Kaiserswerth, and wrote from his camp on 13 July:

  We ought to have marched from hence three or four days ago; but the fears the Dutch have for Nijmegen and the Rhine created such difficulties when we were to take the resolution that we were forced to send to The Hague, and the States [General] would not come to any resolution, but have made it more difficult, by leaving it to the general officers, at the same time recommending, in the first place, the safety of the Rhine and Nijmegen.3

  However, two days later the Anglo-Dutch army moved forward to Grave on the Meuse, and went into camp only seven miles from the main French force. Boufflers meanwhile was in communication with Frederick-Wilhelm, the King in Prussia (previously the Elector of Brandenburg) in an attempt to wean him away from the Grand Alliance. Wilhelm was offered the whole of the province of Liège and that of Cologne, in exchange for turning his coat and laying Holland open to attack, but he wisely treated the approach with caution, kept the French marshal in uncertainty as to his intentions, and the Dutch in some alarm, while trying to get better terms for the support he gave the allies. Before long it had become clear to Boufflers that nothing would come of this attempt, by which time he had more pressing concerns to engage his attention.

  Although the Hanoverian and Prussian troops in the army had orders not to cross to the west of the Meuse, Marlborough managed to persuade his commanders that a move to threaten the French communications would not be too hazardous, and on 26 July he moved southwards towards Lille St Hubert. Boufflers was caught off-guard by this march, and hurriedly fell back towards Venlo and Ruremonde on the Meuse to try and recover his tactical poise. A promising opportunity to maul the withdrawing French troops was missed at the Heaths of Peer on 2 August, much to Marlborough’s dismay. ‘This was very fortunate for us,’ James FitzJames, the Duke of Berwick, wrote, ‘for we were posted in such a manner, that we should have been beaten.’4 Still, despite the missed opportunity to do more damage, the French had been forced away from the lower Rhine, Tallard having been recalled from the attempt to disrupt the siege of Kaiserswerth, and Boufflers no longer posed an immediate threat to the security of the Dutch border. The allies had in the process demonstrably wrong-footed their French opponents, and gained valuable room in which to manoeuvre for the coming campaign.

  Louis XIV sent firm instructions that the fortresses along the Meuse were to be held, as in that way the supply and maintenance of the Anglo-Dutch army in Brabant would be hampered. An attempt was made on 16 August to intercept an allied supply convoy of 700 wagons making its laborious way forward, but Marlborough manoeuvred to catch the French as they advanced, and a week later only a perfectly-avoidable delay by the Dutch general Opdham in getting his troops into position saved Boufflers from a serious and damaging defeat. Marlborough wrote: ‘The ten thousand men upon our right did not march as soon as I sent the orders, which if they had, I believe we should have had an easy victory, for their whole left was in disorder … Venlo will be invested tomorrow.’5 The French king wrote to Boufflers, ‘If they take Venlo, then Guelders will be lost, and in the end you will be driven from the whole territory of Cologne.’6

  The allied army proceeded to lay formal siege to Venlo, Stevensweert and Ruremond. Liège was under threat and Louis XIV again wrote to his army commander in some alarm. ‘If they tak
e Liège the Elector of Cologne will have to come to terms with them … This would put them to begin next year’s campaign with the siege of Namur, perhaps Luxembourg, and then frontiers of my country.’7 Despite such exhortations, Liège fell to the allies at the end of October, the earnest efforts of Marshal Boufflers to save the place proving ineffective; one of the main magazines in the citadel blew up, which hardly helped the French defence. Marlborough, having taken the 1,700-strong garrison as prisoners of war, wrote to London with the news:

  The post not being gone, I could not but open this letter to let you know that, by the extraordinary bravery of the officers and soldiers, the citadel has been carried by storm, and, for the honour of Her Majesty’s subjects, the English were the first that got upon the breach, and the Governor [the Marquis de Violane] was taken by a lieutenant in Stewart’s Regiment.8