Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/686

Rh 660 EUGENE under the banners of Austria. His first campaign was that of 1683, in which he so distinguished himself that the emperor gave him the command of a regiment of dragoons. After several other campaigns he became major-general; and it was in that capacity that he served at the siege of Belgrade in 1G88. At the instigation of Louvois, a decree of banishment from France was now issued against all Frenchmen who should continue to serve in foreign armies. &quot; I shall return into France in spite of him,&quot; said Eugene, when the news was communciated to him ; and he continued his brilliant career in foreign service, one great stimulus to his ambition being the hope that he might be able to enter his native country as an invader. Prince Eugene s next employment was in a service that re quired diplomatic as well as military skill. He was sent by the emperor Leopold to Italy with the view of binding the duke of Savoy to the coalition against France, and of co-operating with the Italian and Spanish troops. The first engagement with Citinat at Staffarde resulted in the defeat of the coalition ; but in the spring of 1691 Prince Eugene, having secured reinforcements, caused the siege of Coni to be raised, took possession of Carmagnole, and in tbe end completely defeated Catinat. He followed up his success by entering Dauphin^, where he took possession of Embrun and Gap. After another campaign, in which there was little eventful, the further prosecution of the war was abandoned owing to the defection of the duke of Savoy from the coalition, and Prince Eugene returned to Vienna, where he soon afterwards received the command of the army in Hungary. It was about this time that Louis XIV. secretly offered him the baton of a marshal of France, with the government of Champagne which his father had held, and also a pension of two thousand pistoles. But Eugene rejected these offers with indignation, and proceeded to combat the Turks com manded by the sultan Kara-Mustapha in person. After some able marches and skilful manoeuvres, he surprised the enemy (September 11, 1697) at Zentha, on the Theiss, in a camp retrenched en tete de pont ; and, after an attack as vigorous as it was daring, he killed twenty thousand of them, drove ten thousand into the river, made prisoners of the remainder, and took the whole of their artillery and baggage. The victory was one of the most complete and important ever won by the Austrian arms. The earlier historians and biographers of Prince Eugene have generally stated that the battle of Zentha was fought against express orders from the court of Vienna, that Eugene was placed under arrest for violating these orders, and that a pro posal to bring him before a council of war was frustrated only by the threatening attitude assumed by the citizens of Vienna. It is somewhat curious that a story so minute in its details should, as is now agreed on all hands, be utterly devoid of foundation. It is in fact so pure a fabrication that the latest biographers do not even allude to it. Im mediately after the battle Eugene returned to Hungary ; and, after a campaign distinguished by no remarkable event, a treaty of peace was at length concluded with the Turks at Carlo witz, on the 26th January 1699. Prince Eugene s next opportunity of distinguishing him self _in active service came in the war of the Spanish suc cession. At the commencement of the year 1701, he was sent into Italy once more to oppose his old antagonist Catinat. He achieved a rapid success, forcing the French army, after sustaining several checks, to retire behind the Oglio, where a series of reverses equally unexpected and severe led to the recall of Catinat in disgrace. The duke of Villeroi, an utterly inexperienced general who succeeded to the command of which Catinat had been deprived, hiving ventured to attack Eugene at Chiari, in an im pregnable position, was repulsed with great loss. And this first check was only the forerunner of more signal reverses ; for, in a short time, Villeroi was forced to abandon the whole of the Mantuan territory, and to take refuge in Cremona, where he seems to have considered himself as se cure in the midst of his staff. By means of a stratagem, how ever, Eugene penetrated into the city during the night, at the head of 2000 men, and, though he found it impossible to hold the town, succeeded in carrrying off Villeroi as a prisoner. But as the duke of Vendome, a much abler general, replaced the captive, the incursion, daring though it was, proved any thing but advantgeous to the Austrians. The superior generalship of his new opponent, and the fact that the French army had been largely reinforced, while reinforcements had not been sent from Vienna, forced Prince Eugene to confine himself to a war of observation, without important results, though fertile in most useful lessons to students of military science. This campaign was terminated by the sanguinary battle of Luzara, fought on the 1st of August 1702, in which each party claimed the victory. Both armies having entered into winter quarters, Eugene returned to Vienna, where he was appointed president of the council of war. He then set out for Hungary in order to combat the insur gents in that country ; but his means proving insufficient, he effected nothing of importance. The revolt was, how ever, put down by the success which General Heister obtained in another quarter. Prince Eugene accordingly proceeded to Bavaria, where, in 1704, he made his first campaign along with Marlborough. Similarity of tastes, views, and talents soon established between these two great men a friendship which is rarely to be found amongst military chiefs, and which contributed, more than all other causes put together, to the success which the allies obtained. The first and perhaps the most important of these successes was that of Hochstcadt or Blenheim, gained on the 3d of August 1704, where the English and imperial troops triumphed over one of the finest armies that France had ever sent into Germany. But since Prince Eugene had quitted Italy, Vendome, who commanded the French army in that country, had obtained various successes against the duke of Savoy, who had once more deserted France and joined Austria. The emperor deemed the crisis so serious that he recalled Eugene and sent him to Italy to the assistance of his ally. Vendome at first opposed great obstacles to the plan which the prince had formed for carrying succours into Piedmont : but after a variety of marches and counter-marches, in which both commanders displayed signal ability, the two armies met at Cassano (August 16, 1705), where a deadly engagement ensued, and Prince Eugene received two severe wounds, which forced him to quit the field. This accident, decided the fate of the battle, and for the time suspended the prince s march towards Piedmont. Vendome, however, was recalled, and La Feuillade (who succeeded him) was incapable of long arresting the progress of such a com mander as Eugene. After once more passing several rivers in presence of the French army, and executing one of the most skilful and daring marches he had ever performed, the latter appeared before the entrenched camp at Turin, which place the French were now besieging with an army eighty thousand strong. Prince Eugene had only thirty thousand men ; but his antagonist was the duke of Orleans, who, though full of zeal and courage, wanted experience. Besides, by a secret order of Louis XIV., who had, in fact, transferred the command to Marsin, the young prince was restricted to the execution of an ill-conceived plan, which neutralized the advantage of superior numbers, and put it in the power of the enemy to select his point of attack. With equal courage and address, Eugene profited by the misunderstanding which the exhibition of such an order could not fail to produce between the French generals ;