The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)

by James Falkner

  John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), was born into a family impoverished by the English Civil War, and taken into royal service in 1668 after the restoration of King Charles II. Granted a commission in the King’s Own Company of the 1st English Foot Guards, he saw service at Tangiers, and at the naval battle of Solebay against the Dutch in 1672. Churchill then served in France with the English troops loaned to Louis XIV, and in 1674 was present at the battles of Sinsheim and Entzheim under the great Marshal Turenne. The next year Churchill was granted a commission in the Duke of York’s Regiment, and in 1678 took part in the negotiations with the Dutch States-General for an alliance against France. Four years later he was made Baron Churchill of Aymouth in the Scottish peerage, and had command in 1685 of the royalist infantry at the battle of Sedgemoor which ended Monmouth’s rebellion against King James II. He changed his allegiance to William of Orange at the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and was subsequently made Earl of Marlborough, fighting at the battle of Walcourt in the Low Countries in the following year. Marlborough was sent by Queen Mary to southern Ireland to retake Cork and Kinsale from James II’s troops, later that year, but he fell into royal disfavour for some time, only being reinstated as conflict over the question of the Spanish Succession grew more pressing. Marlborough became General of Infantry in 1701, and on the accession of Queen Anne early in 1702 was made England’s Captain-General, and appointed to command the Anglo-Dutch armies when in the field. Success in the Low Countries in 1702–03 brought a dukedom as reward, but the campaign in Bavaria in 1704, which led to the victory at Blenheim, sealed Marlborough’s reputation as one of the great commanders in history. The duke triumphed again at Elixheim in 1705, Ramillies in 1706, Oudenarde in 1708 and, less emphatically, at the costly battle of Malplaquet in September 1709, and he laid siege to and captured a number of major French fortresses including Menin, Lille, Tournai, Mons, Bethune and Bouchain. His political influence having failed, and being removed from all his posts at the end of 1711, the Duke went to live abroad and only returned to London in 1714 on the accession to the throne of Great Britain of George I (the Elector of Hanover). Re-instated as Captain-General and Master-General of the Ordnance, Marlborough’s age and declining health soon obliged him to retire more and more from public life, and he died at Windsor Lodge in June 1722.

  Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough (1658–1735) began a naval career and served at the Moorish siege of Tangiers in 1680, where he obtained a reputation for high and raffish living. He then entered the Dutch service, and it was said that he first suggested to William of Orange that he might supplant his brother-in-law, staunchly Catholic and increasingly unpopular James II, on the throne on London. Created the 1st Earl of Monmouth in 1688, and a declared supporter and attendant of William III, the king seemed did not trust him or his nature too much, and Queen Mary wrote that ‘Lord Monmouth is mad, and his wife who is madder, governs him’.2 The earl was imprisoned in the Tower of London for three months in 1697, over political differences with the king, and in the same year he became 3rd Earl of Peterborough on the death of his uncle. On the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. His brilliant but capricious talents, most noticeably for blatant self-promotion, earned him the joint command, with Admiral Rooke, of the Anglo-Dutch troops sent to Portugal in 1705, to support the Habsburg cause there. He participated in the daring capture of Barcelona, gallantly taking the command when Prince George was mortally wounded, and successfully extended the campaign into Valencia. Peterborough found it difficult to co-operate successfully with Archduke Charles and his Austrian generals and advisers and his impatient and often high-handed manner caused great resentment; the failure of Charles to move quickly to go to Madrid when it had been vacated by Philip V in 1706, must partly be laid to his contradictory and ill-judged advice. Peterborough left Spain in March 1707, on being recalled, and the archduke was glad to see him go. He travelled to many of the capitals of the parties to the Grand Alliance and attempted, without any formal authority to do so, to influence events. Although criticised for not keeping proper accounts for the huge sums of money he received to fund the military effort in eastern Spain, he received the thanks of Parliament for his service. Becoming a political opponent of the Duke of Marlborough, and loving to intrigue and make mischief, Peterborough was appointed to be the Queen’s Ambassador to the court in Vienna in 1710, and at the Savoyard Court three years later. George I had no use for the Earl and his ways, and he was dismissed in 1714. With a wide circle of friends and admirers, but no political power-base, he travelled widely and died in Lisbon on 21 October 1735 after eating, it was rumoured, too many grapes.

  James, 1st Earl of Stanhope (1673–1721), as a young man accompanied his father to the court in Madrid, on diplomatic missions for King William III, and gained a great deal of experience both of Spain and the Spanish people. Serving with the king in the Nine Years War he showed considerable flair, and gained a colonelcy at the age of twenty-three. At the capture of Barcelona in 1705 Stanhope fought as a brigadier-general, and on Peterborough being recalled to London in 1707 became major-general and commander-in-chief of the British forces in Spain. His capture of the island of Minorca in 1708 was deftly carried out, but two years later after the occupation of Madrid he advanced too far forward, the allied effort was diffused as a result, and on the subsequent retreat from the capital that December his small, mostly British army was overwhelmed at Brihuega by the Duc de Vendôme. Taken prisoner, he was exchanged in 1712, and although his reputation and popularity remained high, he never held a military command again. Appointed as a Secretary of State by the newly enthroned King George I, Stanhope was very active diplomatically and politically, helping to draft a new treaty between Great Britain and Holland, and became First Lord of the Treasury (and Chancellor of the Exchequer) in 1718, and was created 1st Earl Stanhope that same year. He died of a stroke shortly after debating the causes, and blame, for the South Sea Bubble scandal in Parliament.

  Guidobald von Starhemberg, Field Marshal of Austria (1657–1737), the son of Ernst Rodiger von Starhemberg, accompanied his father as an aide de camp at the defence of Vienna against the Ottoman Turks in 1683, He fought at the victory at Mohacs three years later, at the capture of Belgrade and at Zenta in 1697. A soldier of considerable ability, whose reputation was rather eclipsed by that of Prince Eugene of Savoy, von Starhemberg commanded the imperial troops in northern Italy while the prince was involved in affairs of state in Vienna, and was present at Luzzara in 1702. Made field-marshal in 1704, he was appointed to be the imperial commander in Catalonia in 1708, and campaigned with considerable success sharing the victories at Almenara and Saragossa with Stanhope in 1710, which lead to the occupation of Madrid. Unjustly criticised for not supporting Stanhope in time at the defeat at Brihuega, the Field-Marshal fought the Duc de Vendôme to a standstill at Villaviciosa the following day. Appointed to be the head of the Imperial War Council in 1716, von Starhemberg was also Governor of Slavonia until his death.

  Camille d’Hostun, Duc de Tallard, Marshal of France (1652–1728), served as a young man under Marshal Turenne and the Prince de Condé, and was made lieutenant-general in 1693. Appointed as ambassador to England in 1697, Tallard proved to be an adept diplomat, and his calm influence was of great assistance to both Louis XIV and William III at a time of rising tension over the question of the succession to the Spanish throne. He was dismissed from the English court after the French king acknowledged the Jacobite pretender in 1701, and was given the command the next year of the French army on the Rhine. His very capable handling of the campaign there with the captured the key fortress of Landau, earned him his place as a Marshal of France, Early in 1704, Tallard took a large convoy through the difficult country of the Black Forest to support Marshal Marsin and the Elector of Bavaria in their campaign against Vienna, a very well conducted operation that tends to be overlooked. On the instructions of Louis XIV he then repeated the exploit in July, and having combined f
orces with Marsin and the elector was heavily defeated at Blenheim and taken prisoner in August 1704. His young son, serving as his aide de camp, was killed at his side that day. Taken as an honourable captive of state to England, Tallard was comfortably lodged in Nottingham where he became very popular with the local gentry and introduced celery as a hitherto unknown delicacy to the English. In September 1711 Tallard was released and returned to Versailles, where he was warmly welcomed by the king. Living quietly in retirement, Tallard was a highly cultured man, and a noted patron of the arts.

  René de Froulai, Comte de Tessé, Marshal of France (1650–1725) was born into a noble family in ‘reduced circumstances,’ but he had the Marquis de Louvois, Louis XIV’s formidable Minister for War, as a patron. This enabled the young man to gain a commission in the army and with his undoubted talents he advanced rapidly so that by 1691 he was governor of the fortress of Ypres. Serving through the major campaigns of the Nine Years War, Tessé was made lieutenant-general in 1692, and Colonel-General of Dragoons, an appointment only once made before. Serving in northern Italy prior to the commencement of the war for Spain, Tessé was successful at the battle of Castiglione in 1701, and two years later was made a Marshal of France and sent to Madrid. Despite his acute organisational and tactical skills, he could not recover Gibraltar for the Bourbon cause, at least in part because of a diffusion of effort while the Duke of Berwick was countering an Anglo-Portuguese advance elsewhere. Lifting the futile siege, he recovered the fortress of Badajoz from Portuguese hands, but was unsuccessful at the siege of Barcelona the next year, having to abandon much of his artillery and equipment, and many of his wounded, when he withdrew into southern France. In 1707 he was active in very skilfully frustrating the allied attempt to seize the port of Toulon, an operation that did him great credit. Being then employed as ambassador to the Holy See in Rome, Tessé was able to deflect much of the efforts of the Grand Alliance to enlist the support of the Pope for the Habsburg cause; his forthright correspondence with the Pope on the subject ultimately did little to further his cause however. After the Treaties of Utrecht, Rastadt and Baden he was sent to Madrid as ambassador to Spain, and was instrumental in persuading Philip V, with whom he had established a close rapport (and who had abdicated in favour of his son, King Louis I), to re-ascend the throne on the death of the younger man. In retirement, Tessé took holy orders, and died having remained something of an enigma, at the age of seventy-five.

  Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme (1654–1712), the grandson of King Henry IV of France, by an illegitimate line, served under Marshal Turenne and Marshal de Crequi, and established a reputation as an aggressive but impetuous soldier, disinclined to listen to advice and the opinion of others. During the Nine Years War his many tactical successes brought him promotion to lieutenant-general, and the appointment of commander-in-chief of the French forces in Catalonia, where he besieged and took Barcelona. Sent to command the French forces in northern Italy in 1702, Vendôme fought two inconclusive battles against Prince Eugene, and was then surprised and his army badly battered at Cassano. He failed to advance northwards through the Alpine passes to join the Elector of Bavaria and Marshal Villars in 1703 despite the urging of King Louis XIV. He was sent to replace Marshal Villeroi in the summer of 1706, in command of French and Spanish forces in the Low Countries, and conducted a generally very astute and skilful campaign, with few resources, to restore French fortunes in the region after the calamity of the battle of Ramillies. His manoeuvres in the following year frustrated the Duke of Marlborough’s attempts to bring him to battle, but Vendôme badly mishandled the 1708 campaign, suffering a heavy defeat at Oudenarde, and then proving incapable of preventing the protracted allied siege of Lille. Temporarily dismissed from the royal service after attempting to blame Louis XIV’s eldest grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, for these failures, Vendôme was sent to Spain in 1710, and recovered Madrid for Philip V, and went on to defeat one allied army at Brihuega and batter another the next day at Villaviciosa. Two years later, while campaigning in Catalonia, Vendôme died of food poisoning. An undeniably gifted soldier, and a formidable opponent, Vendôme’s reputation was unfairly traduced, in particular, by the Duc de St Simon, who heartily disliked him and his rough soldierly manners.

  Victor-Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy (1666–1732) was born in Turin, and came to the ducal title at the age of nine, on the death of his father. A projected marriage to the Infanta of Portugal came to nothing, and in 1684 he married the French princess Anne-Marie d’Orleans, at the urging of her uncle King Louis XIV. Despite French influence and pressure, Victor-Amadeus pursued a subtle and devious foreign policy, playing of opposing sides to best effect, but two of his daughters, Marie-Adelaide and Marie-Louisa, married French Princes of the Blood. Despite these close family ties to Louis XIV, and having fought well alongside the French at the unfortunate battle of Chiari in 1701, the duke joined the allied effort to divide the Spanish empire, hoping in the process to both further his own rather spurious claim to the throne in Madrid (a claim to which no-one paid very much attention), and to expand his territories at the expense of his near neighbours. The duke was a skilful soldier, and fought well in the campaign to save Turin from the French in 1706, but was less successful in attacking the port of Toulon with Prince Eugene the following year. With the Treaty of Utrecht Savoy gained Sicily, and Victor-Amadeus was proclaimed king, but was forced to exchange this territory for Sardinia in 1720. Having carried out considerable reforms to the Savoyard state bureacracy and military, he abdicated in favour of his son in September 1730, and died two years later.

  Claude-Louise-Hector de Villars, Marshal of France (1653–1734), a Gascon by birth, served as a young man under the volatile Prince de Condé and Marshal Turenne, and soon established a reputation as a dashing and courageous soldier. After undertaking diplomatic missions amongst the German states, Villars fought against the Ottoman Turks in Hungary in the service of the Elector of Bavaria, before being sent to Vienna as the French ambassador in 1699. After serving with Marshal Catinat in northern Italy in the opening phases of the war for Spain, Villars was given command of a substantial French force sent to support the Elector of Bavaria in 1702, but although he was made a Marshal of France for his successes, the two strong-willed men could not cooperate well enough together and Villars was sent to combat an insurrection in the Cevennes region in southern France. In 1707 he raided central and southern Germany, causing great alarm in the Grand Alliance, and in early 1709 was appointed to command the French forces in Flanders. Villars fought a very astute defensive battle at Malplaquet that September, in the course of which he was gravely wounded in the knee. Although unable to prevent Marlborough from capturing a number of major French fortresses during 1710–11, the marshal was very successful at the battle of Denain in 1712 when he inflicted a heavy defeat on the Dutch. He then went to campaign on the Rhine against imperial forces under the command of Prince Eugene, until peace with Vienna came with the Treaty of Baden in 1714. His mangled leg never fully healed, but Villars was active in court politics and diplomacy, and was appointed to be Marshal-General of France with command of the French forces in Italy in 1733. The veteran old soldier, who had been one of Louis XIV’s best generals, died in Turin on 17 June the following year.

  François de Neufville, Duc de Villeroi, Marshal of France (1643–1730), had been a boyhood friend of King Louis XIV, and an accomplished and witty courtier, with a great reputation amongst the ladies at Court. Present at the battle of Neerwinden in 1693, Villeroi was well known for his personal; bravery, but his skills as an army commander were less evident. Two years later he failed to raise the siege of Namur, going to bombard Brussels instead, a futile act that was much criticised – his long friendship with the king, however, stood him in good stead and he had the command of French forces in northern Italy in 1701, where he replaced Marshal Catinat. Surprised and heavily defeated at the battle of Chiari, Villeroi then suffered the indignity of being taken prisoner at Cremona early
in 1702, although his own brave impetuosity in riding ahead of his escort seemed to be the main reason for this mishap. The support and friendship of Louis XIV remained firm, however: ‘They fall upon Villeroi,’ the king remarked acidly, ‘because he is my favourite.’3 After his release, Villeroi was given the command of the French army in the Low Countries, and was outmanoeuvred and beaten at the hands of the Duke of Marlborough at Elixheim in 1705, and then suffered a catastrophic defeat at Ramillies in May the following year. Although kindly received by the king when he returned to Versailles, the marshal was never entrusted with a military command again, but resumed his elegant career as a, now rather elderly courtier. On the accession of the infant Louis XV in 1714, Villeroi was active in ensuring that the illegitimate sons of the deceased king remained excluded from the succession, but engaging in intrigues and an inveterate gossip, was eventually sent in 1722 by the Regent, the Duc d’Orleans, to be governor of Lyons where he could make less mischief. Eventually recalled to the court when Louis XV gained his majority, Villeroi died in July 1730, in Paris.

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Elliott, Prologue.

  2. Duffy, p. 320.

  3. The exclusion of English and Dutch merchants from trading legitimately with the Spanish empire, and particularly being barred from the slave trade in favour of French shipping, was a particular cause for resentment in both London and at The Hague.

  Chapter 1

  1. Nada, p. 251.

  2. Wolf, pp. 497–8.

  3. Churchill, Book One, p. 456.