A sharp rebuff had been suffered by the largely Portuguese-manned army, and although a disaster had been avoided they were in no state to do any more active campaigning, especially as the season of hot weather was settling in. The attention of King John turned to the diplomatic field, where rumours of protracted peace negotiations apparently proceeding well spurred Lisbon to despatch an envoy to The Hague to keep an eye on things, and to ensure that the interests of Portugal were not neglected. In the meantime a kind of informal truce was established along the Spanish/Portuguese border so that, although hostilities had not ceased, trade and agriculture could commence once more to mutual benefit. The news of the battle on the Caya inevitably buoyed up the spirits of Philip V and his supporters, and the wider repercussions were soon felt. The Duke of Marlborough in northern France sensed a harder tone in the French emissaries undertaking negotiations for peace at The Hague. It was an open secret that France was in difficulties on many counts, but the Marquis de Rouille arrived from Versailles to take the negotiations for an agreed peace forward with a fifty-page brief from his king metaphorically tucked under his arm – he could give ground but only step by measured step.
In the extremity into which France had fallen, Louis XIV felt that he must accede to the demands of the allies set out in preliminaries for an agreed armistice. However, he could not give way on two clauses, stipulating that he should give up certain key fortresses as surety that his grandson would vacate the throne of Spain within two months. Furthermore, Louis XIV was required to act in co-operation with the allies to remove Philip V from Madrid by force of arms if it proved necessary. In the event that the preliminaries were not successfully fulfilled, hostilities would resume and France would have to fight on having been significantly weakened by the loss of those same fortresses. The Duke of Marlborough wrote to Heinsius on the point. ‘It will be impossible for the French to comply with the article for the giving up of the monarch of Spain.’9 The allied demand was absurd, and incapable of being put into actual effect, but it caused great offence when it became known.
The paradoxical weakness of the allied position, for all their vaunted military successes, was made clear. Their generals had failed in Spain, and they could not with their own efforts displace Philip V from the throne, other than with the connivance and complicity of his grandfather. The suggestion combined arrogance with ignorance, and it was too much to be borne. ‘The French Ministers absolutely refused an amendment which might, they said, possibly engage their master to a condition so unnatural as to make war on his grandson.’10 The preliminaries, which had every appearance of being an ultimatum, were sent to Versailles, and the Marquis de Torcy, the French foreign minister, wrote to his king: ‘Your Majesty is thus entirely free to reject absolutely these conditions, as I trust the state of your affairs will permit; or to accept them if unhappily you conceive it your duty to end the war at any price.’11 Marshal Villars, learnt of the terms when he met Torcy at Douai and sent a message to Versailles that whatever happened, the king could rely on the army. Chamillart, the wearied Minister for War, had been replaced by the more energetic and able Comte de Voysin, and he would ensure that the army had munitions with which to fight on if necessary.
The terms presented by the allies were received in Versailles, and in a tense debate in the king’s council the Dauphin stoutly insisted that his son should not be forced from the throne in Madrid. ‘The Council dealt with the peace proposals of the Allies which were found very hard,’ an observer at the court wrote. ‘The Dauphin opposed them with heat, and so did the Duc de Bourgogne, and a general assured me on good grounds that the council did not think fit to accept them.’12 Louis XIV duly rejected the terms, and everything fell to pieces; the allies, who had been so sure of themselves and their success, were astounded at the outcome. ‘It would be impossible for me,’ the king wrote to Marshal Villars, ‘to accept the conditions which would only give suspension of arms for two months, and which would oblige me to join my armies to those of my enemies to dethrone the King of Spain or to recommence the war against them.’13 What no-one expected or wished for had happened, and the war had to go on.
The expectation of a peace soon to be agreed was so widespread that arrangements had been put in hand to disband the allied armies. ‘There is no doubt,’ Marlborough had written to his wife with significantly misplaced confidence, ‘of its ending in a good peace.’14 Meanwhile, Louis XIV felt that he must explain how things stood to his provincial governors:
As the hope of an early peace was so widely entertained in my kingdom, I feel that I owe it to the loyalty which my people have displayed towards me throughout my reign to tell them what still prevents them from enjoying the repose which I was trying to secure for them. To bring this about I would have accepted conditions very much opposed to the safety of my frontier provinces, but the more I gave evidence of a readiness and a desire to dispel the distrust that my enemies pretended to have of my power and my intentions, the more they increased their pretensions; in this way, by adding new demands to the original ones, or by working under cover of the Duke of Savoy or of the Princes of the Empire, they left me under no illusion that their sole object was, at the expense of my crown, to enlarge the states on the borders of France, and to open up ways of penetrating to the heart of my kingdom whenever it should suit their interest to begin a new war … I pass in silence over the suggestion made to me that I should join my forces to those of the league [the Grand Alliance] and oblige the King, my grandson, to abdicate if he would not voluntarily consent to live in future without a kingdom … Let us show our enemies that we are still not sunk so low, but that we can force upon them such a peace as shall be consistent with our honour and with the good of Europe.15
It does not do to grind your enemies too small, particularly when they are as robust as the King of France and his resourceful people. There was a certain absurdity in what had been proposed by the Allies, and Marlborough wrote on 22 August: ‘I think it is plain that the French Ministers have it not in their power to recall the Duke of Anjou.’16 In effect, if Philip V refused to leave the Spanish throne, there was very little that the allies could do about it, as they had repeatedly proved to themselves and to their opponents over the preceding six years of war. Taken up with their own cleverness and the fatal illusion of success, the parties to the Grand Alliance had wildly overplayed their hand, and lost what chance there was of a good peace in 1709. When, later in the year, the allies indicated to Louis XIV that the strict terms of the two fatal clauses might not in practice have to be applied, the approach met a cool and dismissive response.
Once it became apparent to everyone that peace was not to be had, hurried preparations were made for the renewed summer campaign. Marlborough and Eugene turned their attention to the fortress of Tournai, which they laid siege to on 27 June, having first decoyed Marshal Villars with his army away to the west. Tournai was a formidable fortress, of modern Vauban style, and held by a garrison commanded by the very capable Marquis de Surville-Hautfois. Marlborough wrote to Sidney Godolphin in London on that same day, with misplaced optimism that ‘we cannot have our cannon brought to us by the Scheldt in less than ten days, but when we have them once on our batteries, I believe it will go very quick’.17 In fact, things went along slowly as the defenders proved particularly aggressive, and fodder and forage was hard to come by in the region after the appalling winter just passed. Godolphin replied with sombre words for the duke: ‘I am glad to find you continue to have so hopeful an opinion of the siege of Tournai; the people are a good deal prejudiced against it here.’18 He took care to add a note of caution, that a success was really necessary otherwise Parliament in London might not vote sufficient funds for the campaign to the end of the year.
It seemed clear that weariness with never-ending war had taken hold, not just in France, although the spirits of Louis XIV’s soldiers were lifted by a neat victory over an imperial German army at Rummersheim in late August.19 This defeat, relatively small in
the overall scale of the war, nonetheless firmly put paid to any hopes of a simultaneous allied advance into eastern France, as had been intended, while Eugene and Marlborough attacked the fortress belt in the north. The French king was hopeful that the allied campaign would yield no positive results, but all the same urged caution on Villars so that he was ‘always to be situated so that you will not be forced to fight unless you enjoy a great advantage’.20 Any such engagement was fraught with risk for France – if a victory was had it could not be followed up with much vigour, the parlous state of the supplies available to Villars preventing it, while a major defeat on the other hand would be disastrous, with northern France laid open to invasion on a grand scale.
The marshal had declared that Tournai could hold out for four or five months, and the French defence of the fortress and citadel was certainly well handled, and involved hand-to-hand fighting in the entrenchments. The town was given up at the end of July, with the garrison withdrawing into the citadel to continue the defence; there was extensive mining, an activity at which the allied besiegers were proved to be less adept than their opponents. Marlborough wrote to London on 12 August:
We are obliged to carry on our attack on the citadel with great caution, to preserve our men from the enemy’s mines of which they have already sprung several with little effect. Our miners have discovered one of their galleries at each attack [approach] but dare not advance to make the proper use of the discovery because of the enemy’s continual fire of small shot under ground. We are preparing to roll bombs into these galleries in order to dislodge them.21
Ten days later the Duke added a note: ‘Our miners had the good fortune the day before to discover a mine under this battery, out of which they took eighteen barrels of powder.’22 To the general relief of everyone involved, the Marquis de Surville-Hautfois, after a most gallant defence, submitted on 5 September rather than face a storm of the widening breaches in his citadel walls. As soon as this was clear, Marlborough set his advanced guard marching south and eastwards past St Ghislain to invest the fortress of Mons, from where, once secured, the allied army would be well placed to launch itself still further against the French fortress belt in the coming year. Mons was invested by allied cavalry commanded by the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, on the same day that the Tournai citadel was given up.
Despite his earlier urging of the need for caution, Louis XIV now wrote to Villars, calling on him to save Mons no matter what the cost. ‘Should Mons follow Tournai, our case is undone, you are by every means in your power to relieve the garrison; the cost is not to be considered.’23 Urged on in this way, Villars responded by advancing from his lines of defence to challenge Marlborough and Eugene in the woods near to the village of Malplaquet. There he was able to establish a formidably strong defensive position, and on 11 September 1709 a bloody battle was fought, which obliged Villars to withdraw with his army battered but intact, although thirty-five guns had to be left behind. The scale of the losses suffered by the allied army, at some 20,000 killed and wounded (amongst them Prince Eugene who was once again struck by a spent musket ball), compared with French casualties estimated at 13,000, caused consternation, and attracted a great deal of criticism to Marlborough. Villars was gravely wounded in the knee during the engagement, but his successor in command of the army, Marshal Boufflers, was unable to interrupt the siege of Mons which fell six weeks later, the commander of the garrison capitulating on 20 October. The marshal tried to make the besiegers give up the undertaking by threatening their lines of supply, but his men were lacking bread and without pay: still, St Simon wrote: ‘The Court had become so accustomed to defeats that a battle lost as was Malplaquet seemed half a victory.’24
While the siege of Mons pressed forward, Philip V left Madrid to assume the personal command of his field army which, apart from a small bodyguard of French troops, was now comprised entirely of Spanish units. Some other French soldiers remained in garrisons, their cost met by Spain, but their role was strictly to act on the defensive. ‘The king is preparing to leave tomorrow,’ a courtier wrote, ‘to put himself at the head of the army, for he is determined to die rather than be covered in infamy.’25 Such was the king’s energy at this critical time, that he soon gained the nickname ‘El Animoso’ amongst his soldiers – a valiant king and hero in the old Spanish mould. The more independent tone that Philip V adopted, a consequence of his grandfather having to withdraw from active participation in the campaign in Spain, resulted in him making a direct approach to the allies still in conference at The Hague, to test what terms might be secured in a peace settlement. Count Bergeryck, the Spanish finance minister in the Low Countries, was instructed by Philip to advise the Dutch that ‘My interests now are different from those of France … The Spaniards do not wish France to collaborate in the government of Spain, and I am wholly in agreement with them.’26 To what degree Louis XIV was privy to these sentiments is unclear, but he cannot have been entirely unaware.
The Spanish campaign in 1710 was confined initially to operations in Aragon. The allied commanders led troops who were now reinforced and re-supplied and, after much delay, regularly paid. The enormous sum of over £1,100,000 had been authorised by Parliament in London to push forward affairs in the peninsula. The allies advanced to take advantage of their new-found strength, with the comforting knowledge that active French support for Philip V was waning. Even the Portuguese cavalry, who had attracted some criticism in the past, especially after the débâcle at Almanza, now found praise. ‘I believe that if their troops were paid and they had [good] officers at the head of them, they would soon be brought into discipline and do good service.’27 Earl Stanhope suggested that an advance into Valencia might be most promising, but with the Archduke’s backing von Starhemberg opted for Aragon instead. It was unfortunate that Prince Henry of Hesse-Darmstadt, younger brother of the deceased Prince George and valiant commander at the siege of Lérida, picked an argument with von Starhemberg and had to be packed off to Italy, robbing the allies of one of their best field commanders and a man who was very popular with the Catalans.
Philip V joined the Marquis de Villadarias and the army early in May, leading a force strong in cavalry but weaker in infantry. ‘He crossed the Sègre river on the 14th May,’ Saint Simon wrote, ‘and advanced towards Balaguier, designing to lay siege to it, but heavy rains falling and causing the waters to rise he was obliged to abandon the project and fall back.’28 Von Starhemberg and Stanhope joined forces at the end of that month, and they manoeuvred to foil a Spanish advance from Lérida. After several weeks of rather inconclusive marching, the two armies met and a very sharp engagement was fought at Almenara on the river Noguera late in the afternoon on 27 July. The allies carried the day in fine style with a dashing cavalry charge, and quickly inflicted heavy losses in casualties, prisoners and baggage on Philip V’s army; the king himself narrowly escaped capture by Stanhope’s cavalry. Archduke Charles was also present at the engagement, and so the two contenders for the throne in Madrid, both proclaimed king and each with all to play for, had the chance at last to face each other across a field of battle. Philip V withdrew with his battered force to Lérida, and summoned the Marquis de Bay to come and replace Villadarias.
With the allies advancing on a broad front once more, Philip V was almost overtaken at Candasnos, but got away after losing some baggage; von Starhemberg reputedly sat down to eat the king’s rapidly cooling dinner in his abandoned tent. Philip and Villadrias fell back to Saragossa, where Bay joined them from Estramadura. There on 20 August another battle was fought, after some preliminary skirmishing across a ravine the action became general at about noon. Stanhope and von Starhemberg had only a slight advantage in numbers, but they drove back repeated charges by the Spanish cavalry, who on at least one occasion pursued their opponents too far, allowing Stanhope to slip troops into the gap in their own line that had been created by their impetuosity. Philip V’s troops fought hard but were beaten in decided fashion on the old Moorish battlefield known
locally as the Barranca de los Muertos (‘Field of the Dead’). As had been seen before, the outdated custom of French and Spanish squadrons halting to fire off their pistols and carbines put them at an acute disadvantage, when their opponents charged with sword in hand. ‘They gave us the fire,’ an allied dragoon remembered, ‘but by the blessing of God we gave them no liberty to let them fire again but were upon them in a moment of time, cutting and hewing them down in hand.’29 A large haul of prisoners, guns, colours, standards and munitions were taken in what was a decided allied victory in open battle, although the success might have been greater if Stanhope had known sooner and for sure of the success gained elsewhere on the field and that he could have pressed the pursuit with more vigour. Still, Philip V had lost 4,000 killed or wounded that day, with another 6,000 unharmed prisoners taken, and it had been an undeniable calamity for the young king.
The victorious allied commanders entered Saragossa the following day, where some prudent but modest enthusiasm was shown at the arrival of the Archduke. Philip V had suffered a much more serious defeat than at Almenara in July, and the immediate result was that much of Aragon now came under the control of Charles’ army, while the road leading to Madrid was invitingly laid open to them. The Duc de Vendôme was making his way from France to take up the command, but had only reached Bayonne by the time the battle; had he been present on the day, the chances of such an allied success would have been much diminished. ‘The King of Spain, who eagerly wished for M. De Vendôme, despatched a courier, begging the King to allow him to come and take command.’30
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) Page 23
