Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/126

 and on the left by a forest, known at different points by the names of Taisnières, Sart and Blangies, the greatest length of which ran at right angles to the Trouée. Villars occupied the forest of Laignières with his extreme right, his battalions strengthening the natural obstacles of a thick and tangled covert by means of abatis. From the edge of the wood he constructed a triple line of entrenchments, which ran across the opening for full a third of its width, when they gave way to a line of nine redans. These redans in turn yielded place to a swamp backed by more entrenchments, which carried the defences across to the wood of Taisnières. Several cannon were mounted on the entrenchments, and a battery of twenty guns before the redans. On Villars's left the forests of Taisnières and Sart projected before the general front, forming a salient and re-entering angle. Entrenchments and abatis were constructed in accordance with this configuration, and two more batteries were erected on this side, in addition to several guns at various points along the line, to enfilade an advancing enemy. Feeling even thus insecure, Villars threw up more entrenchments at the villages of Malplaquet and Chaussée du Bois in rear of the wood of Sart, and was still hard at work on them to the last possible moment before the action. Finally in rear of all stood his cavalry, drawn up in several lines. The whole of his force amounted to ninety-five thousand men.

The position was most formidable, but it had its defects. In the first place the open space before the entrenchments was broken at about half a mile's distance by a small coppice, called the wood of Tiry, which could serve to mask the movements of the Allied centre. In the second place the forest of Sart ran out beyond the fortified angle in a long tongue,