The Story of Nations - Holland/Chapter 33

As soon as ever the power of Louis failed to make progress, it began to decline. We know this now by the evidence of facts. But the terror of Europe after the accession of Philip to the throne of Spain, and the apparent union of all Western Europe, Central America, and the west coast of South America under one master head, or at least under one settled policy, was universal and intelligible. No man at the time could have foreseen that the ambition and cupidity of Louis, the success with which he subdued his nobles and people at home, and the success with which he gratified his ambition abroad, would in time bring about by natural and traceable causes, the great catastrophe: which is known in history as the French Revolution. But of all European countries none had so reasonable a fear as the Dutch. The inheritance of Spain included those provinces which William the Silent had nearly gained to the great confederation, and Alva and Parma had securely recovered for Spain. A wealthy, vigorous, and powerful monarch, who had trained all the commanders of Europe, even those who were to be opposed to him, Marlborough and Eugene, had taken the place of the poor, imbecile, and powerless kings of Spain of the Austrian family in the person of Philip's grandson, and the most able opponent of the French king had just died in what should have been the prime of life, worn out by the folly, short-sightedness, and factiousness of the English Parliament. He was succeeded by his wife's sister, Anne, the silliest person who ever sat on the English throne, and was really strong only by the unbounded deference she showed to Sarah, the imperious wife of Marlborough.

Ever since reaching his majority and the conduct of affairs by himself, Louis had been conspiring against the Dutch Republic. He had conspired against them independently, and in concert with Charles, the profligate whom the English aristocracy restored, and whose career inflicted permanent injury on the public and private morality of the people he was allowed to rule over. He had tried as soon as he could to detach the Stadtholder William from all patriotic aims, and it is not improbable that William so far went with his intrigues as to acquiesce in the murder of the De Witts, the tragedy which followed on the unprovoked war of 1672. But as we have seen, when William in this crisis was raised to the Stadtholderate, he became the persistent and active enemy of Louis. He was not strong enough to grapple with him, but he succeeded in checking him, and though the issues of the wars which ended with the peace of Nimeguen, and the treaty of Ryswick, had left the position of Louis to all appearance stronger and more imposing than ever, the successes of the great king would have been more secure and more pronounced had not William stood in his way. And now William was gone.

It is probable that Louis never wished to effect the conquest and annexation of the Dutch Republic, any more than Philip of Macedon wished to effect the subjugation of Athens. But it was all important to make it submissive, or at least, neutral. Had Louis succeeded in his plans, had he secured the frontier of the Rhine, and permanently disorganized the Roman empire, he might have given Holland the boon which the grateful Cyclops in his den offered Ulysses, that of being devoured the last. By the neutrality of Holland he would have deprived the Alliance of one among the Powers who could find money for the war, the other being Great Britain, and the people of Great Britain could hardly have been counted on for all the expense which the Spanish war of succession would be sure to entail. Besides, if Holland were neutral, it would soon be possible to cripple the English trade in the East, and finally to come to close quarters with the Dutch. For nearly a century, the French strove to acquire the British factories in India, and the British plantations in America. In the middle of the eighteenth century, it seemed far from improbable that they would succeed. Clive defeated their aims in India, and the first exploits of Washington were directed against them in America. But the military purposes which were finally baffled in the Seven Years' War were the outcome of projects which were originally vised by the ambition of Louis.

Again the Dutch had reason to be alarmed at the intolerance of Louis, who was as resolute in his attempts to extirpate Protestantism as the Inquisition and Alva had been. Louis was not a moral person, not even, except in outward form, a religious one. Philip of Spain sincerely believed that he was fulfilling the highest duties of a Christian in burning Jews and heretics alive after torture. He would have sacrificed his own family to the Inquisition if any suspicion of heresy could have been brought home to them. He would have given up his own life, so he said, if he had fallen away, through mental aberration, or demoniac possession, from the faith which the council of Trent defined. He was by no means disposed to yield to the Pope or his own bishops in temporal matters, however submissive he was in spiritual things, for he kept the patronage of ecclesiastical offices strictly in his own hands. But Philip sincerely and devoutly believed what he wished to impress on others. Within the circle of orthodoxy he welcomed ascetic and passionate devotion, and was as much a monk himself as his official industry allowed him to be.

But Louis was by no means of this mind. He was orthodox, for to his view the unity and strength of France lay in the completeness of its orthodoxy. But he browbeat and insulted the head of his Church with nearly as much persistent bitterness as his ancestor, Philip the Fair did Boniface the Eighth. He despoiled the Pope of his ancient inheritance in France, and never restored it. In consequence of this quarrel a third of the French dioceses were at one time empty, and this in a Church where the offices of a bishop were considered essential to salvation. He hated heartily all pious enthusiasm. The Quietists were orthodox, but they fell under his ban, and were repressed, or exiled. The Jansenists set up a rule of exalted morality, of severe truthfulness, of rigid but not unkindly piety, and Louis was implacable towards them. His own court was entirely orthodox, and profoundly immoral. The fact is, Louis detested singularity. He saw in it a revolt from his authority. No one was to be wiser, stricter, and more virtuous than the King of France was. For this view he had some excuse in the history of the country over which he ruled, for the Huguenot nobles, with all the sternness of their religion, were somewhat turbulent subjects, and Louis, like many other rulers, believed that the repression of opinion was the extinction of opinion.

The Hollanders had now become tolerant, and could not at last be roused to bigotry by the most impassioned and unsparing of their Calvinist preachers. But they could see that a powerful, unscrupulous, and intolerant neighbour, with whom religion was policy, was a danger. In common, too, with most Reformed countries and with not a few of those which were Catholic, they had a hearty aversion to the Jesuits and with reason suspected their purposes. To their intrigues they ascribed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the atrocities that were perpetrated in the Cevennes, and the war of despair, which the Camisards began, a war, the particulars of which were as atrocious as those of the Reign of Terror ninety years later. Now English wits could jest about John Bull, and Lord Strutt, and Louis Baboon, and Nick Frog; but the King of France was a far more serious person to the Hollanders than he was to the English.

But the principal cause of alarm which the European Powers entertained about Louis and his designs was the total want of faith and honour which characterized the great king. He was as perfidious, as treacherous, as lying as an Italian pupil of Machiavelli. He was an intriguer of the fifteenth century, holding a powerful place in Europe in the eighteenth. No oath, no treaty bound him. If people pointed to his solemn renunciations he had an easy expedient at hand. His parliament, otherwise submissive and docile, stiffly stood out against his relinquishing anything. The Popes used to absolve kings from their oaths for a consideration, the French Parliament, high-minded and resolute only in this, affirmed that his oath was no oath, and Louis expected the European Powers to be satisfied with an interpretation of public duty and good faith with which the servile lawyers, who formed what was called the French Parliament, supplied him. Now a sovereign of great power, of solid purpose, of tenacious will, who has large armies and large means for keeping them afoot, is a very dangerous person at all times. But if to these resources he adds habitual perfidy, and an utter disregard for the most solemn pledges; the distrust which he naturally excites is pretty certain to develop a very energetic and persistent hatred. Nor do I doubt that, had it not been for the English Tories, when they finally acquired an ascendency in Parliament, and over the councils of Anne, Marlborough would have dictated the terms of peace to Louis in his own capital, and have rent from him all his acquisitions.

There were persons, indeed, both in England and Holland, who saw that the ambition of Louis was overreaching itself. In a past age the matrimonial alliances of European sovereigns were supposed to confer rights over subjects which it was impious to dispute and treasonable to resist. No Sovereigns had appealed at a more early date to the principle of nationality than the French sovereigns had, and with greater success. The kingdom of France had been consolidated by the policy of seeking to make every inhabitant glory in the name of Frenchman. But the patriotism of a Spaniard was as keen as that of a Frenchman, perhaps keener; for his name, and the departed glories of his name, were all that he had to recall. The house of Austria had effectually destroyed everything else. The Hollanders, too, had emphatically repudiated dynastic rights. The English had changed the succession and had transferred it over twenty or thirty heads to the most remote descendant of the first Stewart king, to a petty German prince, one of the least considerable potentates in that rope of sand, the later German Empire.

Such persons argued in England - “What interest have we in the question as to whether Philip of Bourbon or Charles of Austria is to reign in Spain? The Spanish Empire is ready to fall to pieces, but we want no part of it. It is very likely that the Emperor of Germany wants to recover those Italian provinces, which his predecessors claimed, sometimes ruled and finally ruined. Very likely the French king cherishes the dreams of his predecessors, Charles the Eighth and Francis the First, or fancies that he has succeeded to the rights and the designs of his Austrian kinsfolk Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. He is unquestionally bold, unscrupulous, and ambitious. But he will be less able to turn these dreams into realities, if he hampers himself with the defence of his grandson's inheritance. He will be certainly baffled if he tries to despoil him of any part of it. Nothing is more costly, nothing more disappointing, than the attempt to establish a protectorate over a country which is intensely jealous of its independence, even though it takes the money and accepts the military assistance which it cannot provide out of its own resources. It is difficult enough to assist Spain with entirely disinterested motives. If the King of France, who is never disinterested in his objects, but always selfish and grasping, seeks to enlarge his dominions at the expense of Spain, the more he does for his grandson the more will he and his grandson be hated. The poor creature who just lately died was to his people the impersonation of the Spanish Empire, and a Spanish policy, and though he was son-in-law and nephew to Louis, made war on him for these ends. The Spaniards will never consent to be the tools of France, or allow their king to be a viceroy for his grandfather. If Spanish and French interests are at variance, no ties of blood or alliance will prevent a collision between the two kingdoms, and Philip will be either obliged to follow the policy of the country which has accepted him, or be soon driven from the throne.” Events proved that these people reasoned correctly.

In Holland, too, contemporary evidence shows that similar opinions were current. There were public men who saw that Louis was increasing, not lightening his difficulties, that he was engaged, to use a commercial phrase, in doubling his liabilities, indefinitely increasing his expenses, and making no addition to his capital. “Our policy,” they argued, “is to keep out of European and especially out of dynastic complications. Our late Stadtholder looked after our interests, though we had to pay a heavy price. We are now again a free republic. It is our wisdom to protect our frontier, to husband our resources and to increase our trade. We are already heavily in debt for our past wars, and while these belligerents are wasting their means we shall be increasing ours. Besides, the English, partly from selfishness, partly from ignorance, insist that we should contract our trade with Spain and France. We deal in the choicest of products. What were once luxuries are now, thanks to our energy and perseverance, common comforts, and we have a monopoly of this trade. The English people would gladly deprive us of it, under the hypocritical pretence of high policy and military necessity. Our course should be to stand aloof. The English are covetous and enterprising, the Germans are covetous and beggarly, and we should not present our trade to to the one and our florins to the other. We can easily get ample guarantees from France, and a substantial barrier on the Flemish frontier. There is no price which Louis will not pay for our neutrality.” So I find that the Dutch party which was unfriendly to the war argued during the interval between the succession of Philip and the outbreak of war.

In one particular they were certainly in the right. Louis spared no pains, and no offers to secure the neutrality of the Dutch during the war of the Spanish succession. He would even, it seems, have guaranteed that there should be no military operations in Flanders at all, and that ample indemnities should be given to Holland as the price of neutrality. For he saw that if Holland were neutral not only would half the sinews of war be gone, but that it would be difficult for the allies to land a single soldier on Western Europe. He offered through his agent, Barré, to renew his alliance with the States, to guarantee their commerce, to renew the treaties of Munster, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, with any additional security which they might demand, and to pledge himself that the Spanish Netherlands should be occupied with Spanish troops only. On the other hand, Anne despatched the Earl of Manchester within a week after her accession, to assure the Dutch that her resolution was the same as that of her predecessor, and that the interests of Holland and England were identical and equally important to her.

The States of Holland decided to stand by their resolution, for now that there was no Stadtholder, Holland was, to use a modern phrase, the empire state of the United Provinces. They persuaded the States-General, who were summoned for deliberation, to accept the same policy and to repudiate all the offers of Louis. On May 15, 1702, Great Britain, Germany, and Holland, issued the declaration of war, the plea being the ambition and bad faith of Louis. The attitude of the French king showed how deeply he was disappointed at the resolution taken by Holland. He took no offence at the attitude of Great Britain and Germany; but said, “Messieurs, the Dutch merchants, will repent for having provoked so great a king as I am.”

I have dwelt at length on these particulars, because the decision come to in the spring of 1702 was so momentous in the future fortunes of the Dutch Republic. They were drawn into the European system, and no effort which they made afterwards sufficed to draw them out of it. In this unequal struggle they were finally exhausted, though it must be allowed that other faults of government or policy contributed to this result.

The war resolved on, the question was, who should be commander. Rumour was busy. At one time it was the Landgrave of Hesse. Soon afterwards a story was afloat that Queen Anne had recommended her husband, George of Denmark. It was probably an idle guess. Silly as Anne was, she must have known that her husband was the most incompetent fool in Christendom. Charles the Second had described him and his faculties with some pleasantry. The States-General soon put an end to all rumours by appointing Marlborough. Unhappily the English allowed the Queen to put her husband at the head of the navy, in the capacity of Lord High Admiral. More than once the stupid servility of the English people has put in jeopardy the most important interests, by committing them into the hands of royal fools. The mismanagement of George of Denmark had a very disastrous effect on the early naval operations of the allies.

Marlborough was the son of a poor country knight. He came to the Court of Charles the Second with many personal graces and great natural gifts. He had improved his natural abilities in the art of war by serving under the great Turenne. He had improved his fortunes by his intimacy with the shameless and rapacious Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, the king's mistress, and his position by marrying Sarah Jennings, the favourite and arrogant waiting woman of Princess Anne. His interest was further served by the fact that his sister, Arabella Churchill, was the mistress of James, Duke of York, and the mother of the famous Duke of Berwick, one of the last great generals in the service of Louis, a person whose attachment to his father, and his father's benefactor, was constant and devoted. Berwick, was not only a person of great abilities, but of high character.

It was impossible for John Churchill, with these recommendations, natural, acquired, and incidental, to fail of making his way at Court. He was soon ennobled, and on the accession of James he was trusted. He deserted his master at a crisis, he persuaded the king's daughter to desert her father with him, and he passed over to the service of William. He exhibited his great military abilities under the Dutch king, but soon fell into disgrace, for with him treachery and intrigue were a passion. As long as Mary lived he was a traitor, as soon as she died he became loyal to the English Revolution, for the succession of Anne was now assured, and he ruled Anne through his wife. His fidelity at last squared with his interest, and he remained consistently loyal to the latter. I do not find so much fault with Churchill, when I think of his associations, and of the expedients which he was obliged to adopt in order to save his interests. It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to discover any public man who lived through the vile age of the English Restoration, and under the influences of the Court, who was not thoroughly tainted by the atmosphere which he breathed. But I am disposed to believe that historians would have been more kindly to his faults had it not been for the family which he founded.

Churchill was avaricious beyond experience, and was seconded in his passion for money-getting by his wife. But in military skill he was far in advance of his age, some say of all men. He never lost his head, his temper, or his judgment. His conception of a campaign was faultless, his interpretation of a field of battle perfect. He never made a mistake in the art of war, never gave a chance to an enemy, never failed in a plan, never lost a battle. When he was thwarted by the Dutch deputies, who would be wiser than he was, and could not be expected to anticipate when we now know, he was as deferential to the States as Maurice had been in his better days, and with less reason, for he soon put Louis in such a position as destroyed the reputation of his military system in Europe. He first saved Germany, he then saved Holland, and he might, had time been given him, have brought Louis on his knees before Europe. But for the Dutch deputies, he might have finished the war within a year of its commencement; and again in 1705, for willing as he was to prolong the war, which was filling his pockets, he had the truest instincts of a soldier, which was that the best wars are short wars. But though he was thwarted, his temper was placid, almost angelic. He yielded to them with the greatest grace, and continued, as the custom was, to receive his percentages on their and the British expenditure. He even conceded more than was reasonable to the beggarly German princes, perhaps winked at their embezzling English and Dutch money, of course minus his percentage, and graciously accepted a German patent of nobility. But the tension of his life was too great, and before he reached old age he became imbecile.

There was of course an awkwardness which was inherent in the hostilities which the Dutch, the English, and the Germans commenced. The object of the allies was to secure the Spanish throne and the Spanish dominions to the son of the emperor. But they could do this only by subduing the strongholds of the actual king of Spain, and by ravaging or otherwise injuring what they alleged to be the rightful inheritance of his rival. On the other hand, Louis could act on the defensive in Spain and Holland, and on the offensive in Germany, particularly in the South, where the Elector of Bavaria was his ally, and for a considerable time, his only ally. It was therefore (the rear being efficiently protected by the capture or occupations of sufficient forts) advisable at an early date to try conclusions with the armies of Louis in Germany.

In the first of his campaigns, Marlborough got possession of several fortresses on the Flemish frontier which were of great advantage to him in strengthening the base of his operations. But the English Parliament insisted that the Dutch should cease to trade with France and Spain as a condition of their furnishing the allies with an additional 10,000 troops, and the Dutch, though sorely against their will, yielded, but as I suspect not very cordially, and not very thoroughly. Then the English fleet captured or destroyed the Spanish treasure fleet in Vigo Bay, a loss which greatly fell on the Dutch, as the treasure had been already assigned to them in payment of debts incurred. But so enthusiastic were they, that the States of Holland alone voted nine million guilders for the war.

In 1703 Marlborough reduced Bonn, and other places on the Rhine or near it, and would have joined battle with Villeroi, but the Dutch deputies forbad it, on the ground that if the combat was unsuccessful to the allies, Holland would be exposed to a French invasion. It was in this year that Louis had to take active measures against the Camisards of Languedoc.

In 1704, Marlborough marched into the Black Forest, and won the great battle of Blenheim or Hochstadt, over Tallard. The French army was entirely destroyed or captured, Germany was liberated from French troops, and Bavaria was occupied by the others. In the meantime the archduke Charles, son of the emperor, and Austrian claimant of the Spanish crown, came to England, passed over to Portugal, and was welcomed by some of the Spaniards, especially the Catalans. In this year Rooke and the Prince of Darmstadt captured the rock of Gibraltar, a fortress which the English have held ever since, against frequent and desperate sieges.

Early in 1705, the emperor died, and was succeeded by his eldest son Joseph. Villars continued to evade a battle with Marlborough, and later on, when the English general was opposed to Villeroi and could have constrained him to fight, the Dutch deputies again interposed with the plea that the risk was too great. Here, as I have already stated, the patience and address of Marlborough so won on the Dutch that thenceforward they determined to rely on his judgment. In Spain, the forces of Philip were demoralized by the unsuccessful attack on Gibraltar. In the north of that kingdom, Barcelona was captured by the eccentric Lord Peterborough, and the whole of Catalonia and Valentia declared for Charles.

In 1706, early in the year, Marlborough won the battle of Ramillies, over the French general Villeroi. The effect of this victory was the total evacuation of the Low Countries by the French. In September, another French army was destroyed near Turin, and Madrid was occupied by Charles, and for a time Spain seemed to be lost to the French prince. It seemed as though everything was against Louis, his people were oppressed with taxation, the currency was debased, and the French king was constrained to have recourse to an inconvertible paper. He was now sincerely anxious for peace, but the Allies deemed that no peace would be secure, unless France was thoroughly humiliated. There was no reason to believe that Holland wished to continued a struggle which was so exhausting, but the bad faith of Louis had been so conspicuous, that the Dutch naturally resolved that they would have solid guarantees for the future.

Up to this time Louis and his grandson had experienced nothing but reverses, the allies and their protégé Charles, had experienced constant Success. But in Spain the tide began to turn. Spaniards have not infrequently been defeated in pitched battles, but it has always been hard to permanently occupy the country, for it and its inhabitants were singularly suitable for guerilla warfare. It took the Romans a longer time to conquer Spain than it did any other country outside Italy, and tasked the abilities of their most competent generals. Now Charles was not only deficient in courage and daring, but he had come into Spain by the help of a foreign army; while the success of the allies foreshadowed the partition of the Spanish Empire. On April 25th, Berwick, the English exile, joined battle at Almanza with Galway, the French exile, and completely routed him. This was practically the ruin of the Austrian prince.

In 1705 Louis attempted to make a diversion by sending James to Scotland. But as James, called by the English the old Pretender, was at Dunkirk, he was seized with illness, the project got wind, and the port was blockaded by Byng. Louis saw that without Dutch and British subsidies, not one of the other allies could move, and he imagined that the Scotch, with some of whom the act of Union was distasteful, would rise in revolt against the English Government. In July Vendôme lost the battle of Oudenard, and the affairs of Louis became desperate. He feared that he should have to abandon his grandson's cause. Added to the calamities of war, there came two excessively unproductive harvests in succession, which seem to have been even more disastrous in France than they even were in England.

In 1709 Louis renewed his negotiations for peace, but with their successes the claims of the allies became more exacting. The French king was not only to abandon his grandson, but to abandon the frontier which he had created, and be content with that which had been given to France by the treaty of Westphalia. Louis appealed to his people, collected a fresh army, and the French, under Villars, fought the fourth great battle at Malplaquet. It was lost, and Louis again had recourse to negotiations. But the demands of the allies increased, they now insisted that Louis should dethrone his grandson by force. In 1710 both parties were exhausted, though the allies took several towns on the French frontier, and Marlborough certainly intended to make his next campaign in France itself. Meanwhile, Spain was again lost and won. In July and August Philip was defeated in two battles and fled from Madrid. In December Vendôme drove Charles and his allies from Castile, captured the army at Brihuega, and won a battle at Villaviciosa. Meanwhile, a great change was coming over English opinion. The Tories gained a majority in both houses, at the end of the year, and determined to displace Marlborough and bring about a peace.

The long continuance of the war, the sufferings of the people, and the added calamity of the two years' famine had developed a peculiarly malignant kind of smallpox. It frequently happens after very destructive and protracted wars, that the world, even that part of it which has taken no part in the struggle, is afflicted with new and fatal pestilences. In 1711 death was busy. Louis of France lost from his own family the Dauphin, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, his great grandson and his brother, all from the same disease. In the same year it was fatal to the Emperor Joseph, and the titular King of Spain became Emperor of Germany. There remained only one infant two years old, between Philip of Spain and the throne of France, and if effect was to be given to the purposes of the allies, Germany and Spain were to be again united as they had been under Charles the Fifth.

In effect the smallpox brought the war of the Spanish succession to an end. As I have said, had Marlborough been continued in his command, he would have certainly invaded France, and have enforced as far as the French frontier was concerned, the proposals which Louis rejected in 1709. But the Tories were resolved to recall Marlborough. His wife had been supplanted in the Queen's favour by her own waiting woman, and it is probable that Anne and her advisers had planned to restore the Pretender Ormond was sent to supersede Marlborough, and was soon instructed to become inactive. The emperor and the German princes were furious; they had been long used to English subsidies. But the new Government answered with some show of reason that Germany and Spain united were as a great violation of the balance of power, as Spain and France united could be, and that it was the interest of Europe that the government of the three countries should be and always remain distinct. The object of Europe then was to extort a renunciation of the kingdom of France from Philip, a renunciation of the kingdom of Spain from the French princes.

On April 11, 1713, the treaty of Utrecht was signed. It embraced Great Britain, Holland, Prussia, and Savoy. But the emperor stood aloof from it, and continued the war with France alone. Some losses which he suffered at the hands of Villars, and were inevitable, when he had his own resources only to depend on soon brought him to reason, and the peace of Rastadt was signed on March, 1714. The most scandalous act in connection with this peace, was the abandonment of the Catalans to the vengeance of France and Spain. The allies had incited the revolt of these northern Spaniards, had supplied them with foreign forces, and had now deserted them.

In this famous peace France agreed to recognize the Hanoverian succession, to demolish Dunkirk, and to cede its American possessions on the north-east of the Plantations. It yielded the Low Countries to Holland, to hold as trustees till peace was concluded with the emperor, the revenue, derivable from them, being secured to the Elector of Bavaria till such time as his hereditary dominions were restored to him. It engaged to admit Dutch garrisons into eleven frontier towns, a million florins being paid annually from the Netherland revenues for the purpose of maintaining this garrison. The Duke of Savoy had an enlargement of territory, and the Elector of Brandenburg was recognized as the King of Prussia with certain rectifications of frontier. Besides these general engagements Spain yielded to England, Port Mahon, and the island of Minorca, with a regulated share under the Assiento treaty in the slave trade, for the Spanish conquerors of the New World had exhausted the natives by compulsory labour in the mines, and had introduced negro slaves into America in order to fill up the void.