Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/618

 582 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1705-6. tria and the empire saved ; the elector took refuge in France. Louis of Baden was able now to cross the Rhine ; Landau again fell into German hands ; Marlborough returned to the Moselle, taking Trarbach and Treves. The war drew nearer to the frontiers of France, and Germany ran no fur ther risk of invasion. ,JIn 1705 the duke s plans for an attack on France were neutralized by the slowness and jealousy of Louis of Baden, who did not care to play second to &quot; the handsome English man.&quot; The Cevennes insurrection being now over, Villars was free to face the allies, and did so with such skill and success that Marlborough was obliged to fall back towards the Netherlands. On the other hand, Louis XIV. weak ened Villars in order to strengthen Villeroy in the Nether lands ; so that the campaign of 1705 ended without any decisive operations. Not so 1706, the great year of the The cam- succession war. Louis XIV. fully intended that the Nether- paigns of lands campaign should have in this year decisive results. 1706. jj. was un f or tunate for him that his personal likings led him to place in command on that side the incompetent Villeroy, who had to grapple with the victorious troops and masterly generalship of Marlborough. The result was that the duke easily won the great victory of Ramillies (23d May, 1706), which was as decisive as Blenheim ; for as Blenheim swept the French out of Bavaria, so Ramillies made them power less in the Netherlands. The allies took Louvain, Brussels and Malines, Ghent aud Bruges, all in the name of the archduke Charles, whom they proclaimed king of Spain as Charles III. Antwerp, Oudenarde, all Brabant, accepted him at once. His fortunes seemed equally good elsewhere. The alliance between England and Portugal in 1703 had War in given a turn to warfare in the Peninsula. The archduke in Spain. 1704 tried to penetrate into Spain from the Portuguese frontier; this failed, partly from the difficulties of the country, and partly from the ability of the duke of Berwick, a natural son of James II., and nephew of the duke of Marlborough, one of the few real soldiers in the service of the king of France at this time. On the other hand the English fleet under Kooke, which was waiting on the arch duke, by a stroke of happy audacity surprised Gibraltar (4th August 1704), and occupied it in strength. The ut most efforts of the French, under the count of Toulouse, one of the natural sons of Louis XIV., failed to recover this all- important rock. The battle of Malaga, though the French fleet had the best of it, damaged their navy so seriously that they could attempt no more; and in the exhaustion of France it proved impossible to refit the ships, or continue the struggle on the seas. In 1705 Charles III, unmolested by them, sailed round Spain, and landed at Barcelona. The Catalans and Aragonese were inclined to support him, while proud Castile held by Philip V. These were the days of the romantic career of the earl of Peterborough. In 1706 the French and Castilian siege of Barcelona came to nothing ; the party of Charles took heart, and supported by English, Portuguese, and French refugees, drove Philip out of Madrid, and placed their candidate on the throne. In Italy, the death of the emperor Leopold having called Prince Eugene away, Vendome with unwonted energy de feated the Austrians at Calcinato, and swept the allies out of all the Milanese territory. Turin alone remained in the hands of Victor Amadeus II., and was the object of a fierce siege. Prince Eugene, however, returned in time to save the capital; for Vendome, after Ramillies, had been ordered to the Netherlands, and the change of commanders was everything to the allies. Prince Eugene attacked the French lines at Turin ; differences sprang up between Marsin and the duke of Orleans (the nephew of Louis XIV.), and the Austrians won a great victory. Marsin was killed; the French army would not obey the duke ; the whole force melted away, and Italy fell completely into the hands of the allies. Thus in the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, their 17 fortunes by the autumn of 1706 seemed to be completely triumphant. In Spain, however, the Castilians succeeded in ejecting Charles III., and in replacing their favourite Philip V. ; and in the opening of 1707, the victory of Almanza, gained by Berwick over Ruvigny, a French refugee officer of ability, finally settled the Spanish ques tion in favour of the Bourbon dynasty. A treaty of neutrality for Italy, by which the emperor Joseph I. secured his conquests there, also released Louis XIV. from some of his anxieties. The campaigns of 1707 were as unimportant as those of 1706 had been decisive. The appearance of Charles XII. of Sweden in Germany paralysed both sides a while ; Villars, in command on the Rhine, stormed the Stolhofen lines, and pushed into Bavaria, hoping that the Swede would join him with his invincible Scandinavians. Charles, however, cared not to unite his fortunes to the Catholic side, and after some delay marched eastward towards Poland. Villars fell back to the Rhine ; Vendome quietly watched Marl- borough ; on the sea Duguay-Trouin, the most brilliant of French captains, harassed the Anglo-Dutch commerce, and won very considerable advantages over the English fleet. In 1708 an expedition for Scotland failed completely; and in the Netherlands the duke of Burgundy and Vendome were caught by Marlborough and Eugene at Oudenarde (llth July 1708), and utterly defeated. The allies crossed the French frontier and sat down before Lille, Eugene besieging, Marlborough protecting. By the end of the year the place had fallen into their hands, after a brilliant defence, which, though unsuccessful, won for Marshal Boufflers the distinction of duke and peer of France. Ghent and Bruges, with all Flanders, were secured by the allies ; their light cavalry overran northern France, and appeared almost at the gates of Versailles. The fortunes of France now seemed to be at their worst : 1 famine and a bitter winter closed the disastrous year ; every- thing was at a stand-still, trade completely ruined, finance in I a dreadful state ; even the king began to despair, and to negotiate for peace. He had felt his way thitherwards in vain in 1706; now in 1709 he made serious offers. The allies treated his proposals with great severity; he wasii willing to dismantle Dunkirk and ruin its port if Lille were I restored to France, to give up his grandson s throne of* Spain if Philip might have Naples ; he did not absolutely refuse to abandon the electors of Bavaria and Cologne. With such concessions peace was not impossible. The allies, however, insisted on stipulations which touched the old king s personal honour, declaring that as Louis had placed Philip V. on the Spanish throne, he must, with his own troops, if necessary, dispossess him of it again. They also demanded the cession to Germany of Strasburg aud Breisach, the erection of a new line of barrier-fortresses between Holland and France, and other lesser matters. To these Louis would not consent, and the negotiations broke down. He appealed warmly to the country to support him, and was answered by an outburst of patriotism which enabled him to send Villars. at the head of a good army, into the Netherlands. There hs fought the great battle of Malpla- ) quet (llth September 1709), in which Marlborough and Prince Eugene were again victorious, though their losses &quot; t were tremendous, as they had been obliged to attack a very strong position held by a powerful army. The fall of Mons was the only advantage which resulted to the allies ; with that the campaign came to an end. While the battle actu ally restored the spirit of the French soldiers, who had been skilfully and successfully withdrawn from the field by Mar shal Boufflers, it produced a very bad feeling in England. There men were very weary of the war, and the carnage at Malplaquet had been terrible. Louis again offered large