Marlborough's Wars by James Falkner

Author:James Falkner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS037050
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2005-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

So Great a Blessing – Flanders, and the Battle of Oudenarde, 1707–1708

In the wake of Marlborough’s conquest of the Spanish Netherlands in 1706, Emperor Joseph, on behalf of his younger brother, offered the Duke of Marlborough the Governor-Generalship of the province. This was tempting, not just in terms of prestige, for the annual stipend alone was 60,000 Crowns. The Duke refused the offer, primarily because the Dutch were jealous and suspicious of Austrian influence on their borders, both in terms of tax-gathering potential (to help cover their ruinous costs in the war) and the security of the Barrier towns in which they placed such faith. Despite the Duke’s refusal of the lucrative post, the Dutch were resentful of what appeared to be unwarranted Austrian interference on their very border. This was a region conquered for the Grand Alliance largely by the efforts of their own troops during the post-Ramillies campaign, when Imperial troops had been engaged rather unproductively elsewhere.

The Duc de Vendôme had replaced Marshal Villeroi in command of the French field army on the northern border of France. Described by the Duc de St Simon as ‘Of ordinary height, rather stout, but strong, hearty and active’, Vendôme was under orders to keep Marlborough occupied, but to avoid open battle. In this he was to prove quite successful, although Marlborough strove for an aggressive campaign; the old problem of Dutch caution recurred and their field deputies were as unco-operative as ever. Bad news would, before long, come from the Rhine, where the French were on the move, while there was ill-feeling and mistrust between the Imperial Court in Vienna and their field commanders. This can be seen from a rather sad letter, dripping with irony, written to Marlborough by the ailing Margrave of Baden, in the autumn of the previous year:

His Imperial Majesty, my master, seems unconvinced of the truth of the lists [troop numbers] which I have sent to him about the army under my command. I have been made to feel in terms which are plain enough that his Majesty has received contrary accounts from his Quartermaster-General, who has assured him that this army comprises 40,000 combatants equipped with everything. As for the figures I have given, I am sure that I have not made a mistake. I have been forced by his Majesty’s orders to hand over to Field-Marshal Thungen charge of affairs, not doubting that the 40,000 men which the Imperial Court knows with scientific certainty are massed upon the Upper Rhine will succeed in all that is desired of them.

Baden died at his home in Rastadt on 4 January 1707, shunned and villified by the Imperial Court that he had served for so long in a valiant military career. The gunshot wound to his foot, sustained during the valiant flank attack at the Schellenberg fight nearly three years earlier (and mockingly known to the world as ‘the Margrave’s toe’), had festered, and at last killed the doughty old general in the most pitiless and agonising way.

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