Battle of Oudenarde

“ For a week the armies lay opposite each other. Marlborough and Eugene were anxious to attack the French, whose position was so bad that Berwick saw nothing but defeat in store for them if they gave battle; but once again the Dutch deputies threw away splendid chances by refusing to allow their troops to fight. The French generals, though under positive orders from Louis to wipe out their disgrace at Oudenarde by winning a great battle near Lille, declined the combat, and withdrew to devote themselves to the safer task of harassing the Allies’ line of communication. ”

“ Having a secret understanding with French partisans in Ghent and Bruges, Vendôme began by threatening first Brussels, and then Louvain, so as to draw Marlborough to that neighbourhood, and then suddenly marching westwards, occupied the two great cities of the Scheldt region, and formed the siege of Oudenarde, in order to complete by its capture his hold on western Flanders. The alarm of the Dutch for their own safety was great, and instead of objecting to active measures, they were eager for a battle, though Marlborough without Eugene was inferior to the enemy in numbers. ”

“ The result of Sir Archibald Alison's Committee was that four of Marlborough's victories were added to the battle honours of the army—Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ramillies, and Malplaquet. What led to the selection of two out of these four names will ever remain a mystery. At Oudenarde the twenty-two regiments present lost but 168 officers and men killed and wounded. At Ramillies the casualties were only slightly heavier. On the other hand, during the same campaign we had lost far more heavily at Ath, Douai, Liège, Lille, Maestricht, Menin, and Namur. ”

“ He commanded the van of the army in the operations which led up to the great battle at Oudenarde on 11 July 1708, on which occasion he commenced the action by crossing the Scheldt and vigorously attacking the village of Hayem, which was carried and four out of seven opposing battalions made prisoners. Afterwards he was employed in convoying supplies from Ostend to the army during the siege of Lille. ”

“ Oudenarde is a strong place; it is defended by many broad ditches, and has a garrison of knights and men-at-arms of the earl, who, as we know, take upon themselves all the defence, knowing that there are men in the town who would fain surrender, and fearing that these would throw open the gates to us, or give us such aid as they could, were there a chance. Still more, the siege goes on but slowly, or rather we may say goes on not at all, for want of a leader. Van Artevelde himself knows nothing whatever of the business of war, nor do any of those about him. ”

“ The following campaign was, however, distinguished by more important events. The enemy assembled an immense army, and advancing from behind their lines, gained possession of Ghent and Bruges (which places had been wrested from them in 1706) , and advanced to Oudenarde, with the design of besieging that town. ”

“ The cavalry, flushed by their success, then advanced under Prince George against the few French squadrons in rear of the village, charged them, routed them, and drove them across the Norken. The Prince had his horse shot under him in this encounter, for his family has never wanted for courage, and he remembered the day of Oudenarde to the end of his life. ”

“ I thought that the siege of Oudenarde was worse conducted than anything I had ever read of, but the siege of Ypres is to the full as faulty. The place is strong and stoutly defended, and it can only be taken by regular works erected against it and machines placed to batter a breach. Nothing of this sort has been attempted. The troops march valiantly against the walls, but they throw away their lives in vain; and if, as is said, the French king is marching to its assistance with a strong army, there will be naught for us but to retreat to the ports unless strong aid arrives from England. ”

“ Siege was presently laid to Oudenarde, where the garrison had been strongly reinforced by a large party of men-at-arms and cross-bowmen, sent by the earl. Every city in Flanders sent a contingent of fighting men to join those of Ghent, and no less than a hundred thousand men were assembled outside Oudenarde. ”

“ The bridge of boats across the Yser was broken, and some of the Dutch regiments, seized by a sudden panic, began to retreat towards the sea; but, finding it impossible to reach the ships, they rallied, and began once more to fight with all the dogged courage of their race. For some hours the battle was continued with equal bravery on both [Pg 126] sides, the Spaniards storming a battery which the Dutch had entrenched amongst the dunes, and the Dutch defending it so desperately that the dead and wounded lay piled in heaps around it. ”

“ In Ostend every place was full of wounded men, who all came walking from the battle-field in groups. Even in those days the fierce fights continued in consequence of the mad attempts to conquer Dunkirk and Calais. Great losses were suffered also by the enormous effect of the British naval guns, against which the German marines had mounted big guns in Ostend and farther along the coast, in order to keep the fleet at a distance. ”

“ For the army CC, concentrating in force toward Audenarde, might fall on the right of B, and, outflanking this wing in the battle, might throw it upon the impassable country toward Antwerp between the Scheldt and the sea,—where there would remain but two things for it to do: either to surrender at discretion, or cut its way through the enemy at the sacrifice of half its numbers. ”

“ O'Donnel, general of the Spaniards, now directed his main efforts to relieve Tortosa, where the Conde de Alacha Miguel Lili, with 7800 brave fellows, who had survived or escaped from the battle of Tudela, made a stout resistance. O'Donnel left nothing undone to impede the operations of the besiegers and raise the blockade; till Macdonald, to distract his attention and favour the operations of Suchet, marched upon Tarragona, a seaport near the mouth of the Francoli. ”

“ Oudenarde was strongly held by the enemy, but the roads leading to Gand were the scene of magnificent exploits by the armoured cars of the Belgian army. Certain Belgian motorists had become national heroes during the past fortnight. An innkeeper in Grammont told with bated breath how one famous driver, helped by a machine-gun crew, was accounting for scores of marauding cavalrymen. “The English and French are beaten, but our fellows are holding them,” he said with a fine air. “When you boys get through you’ll enjoy life. ”

“ Advancing then in the open plain, they completely outflanked the Allied left, and made themselves masters of the hamlets of Barwaen and Banlaney. This success exposed the Allies to imminent dan [Pg 209] ger; for in their rear was the Scheldt, flowing lazily in a deep and impassable current, through marshy meadows, crossed only by a few bridges, over which retreat would be impossible in presence of a victorious enemy; and the success against the Allied left exposed to be cut off from their only resource in such a case, the friendly ramparts of Oudenarde. ”

“ He knows now that he comes upon a city which wished to receive him only as a friend, and he cries, "With my cannon, with my bombs, I will compel you to let me betray you."
The conduct of France—infamous enough before—looks tenfold blacker now that, while the so-called Plenipotentiary is absent with the treaty to be ratified, her army daily assails Rome,—assails in vain. After receiving these answers to his letter and proclamation, Oudinot turned all the force of his cannonade to make a breach, and began, what no one, even in these days, has believed possible, the bombardment of Rome. ”

“ The French retreated in disorder on Ghent (July 11) with a loss of 15,000 men. Nevertheless Oudenarde was in no way decisive, and for the rest of the campaign the two armies wandered to and fro in the usual way. Berwick, recalled from Alsace, manoeuvred about Douay, while Vendôme remained near Ghent, and betweenSiege of Lille. them Marlborough's and Eugene's armies devoted themselves to the siege of Lille. In this town, one of Vauban's masterpieces of fortification, the old Marshal Boufflers had undertaken the defence, and it offered a long and unusually gallant resistance to Eugene's army. ”

“ Great results were evidently expected from these provisions, for the standard of height for recruits was still maintained at five feet five inches, [416] men below that stature being accepted only for marines. So from this year until the close of the war it is possible to study the first trial of short service in England.
Unfortunately abuses seemed only to multiply under the new Act. The campaign of Oudenarde, prolonged as it was into December, drained Marlborough's army heavily, and the spring of 1709 found the forces in want of yet another fifteen thousand recruits. ”

“ Our disasters at Oudenarde were very great. We had many men and officers killed and wounded, four thousand men and seven hundred officers taken prisoners, and a prodigious quantity missing and dispersed. All these losses were, as I have shown, entirely due to the laziness and inattention of M. de Vendome. Yet the friends of that general—and he had many at the Court and in the army— actually had the audacity to lay the blame upon Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne. ”

“ His conduct at the siege of Lille in 1667, where he was wounded, won him promotion to the rank of captain. In the campaigns of 1672 and 1673 he served on the staff of Marshal Luxemburg, and at the siege of Oudenarde in the following year the king gave him command of the Royal Marine regiment, which he held until he obtained a regiment of his own in 1676. In 1688 he served as a brigadier at the siege of Philipsburg, and afterwards led a ravaging expedition into south Germany, where he acquired much booty. ”

“ The prelude to the Ardennes counteroffensive of 16 December can only be reckoned as a gross failure by Allied ground and air intelligence. One of the greatest skills in the practice of the military art is the avoidance of the natural tendency to overrate or underestimate the enemy. ”

“ Not strong enough, as they judged, to risk a pitched battle; their right wing exposed by the defeat of their cavalry; and the probability owing to this unexpected appearance of the British army now being that the Belgians from Antwerp and the British troops from Ghent would get through, they determined to obstruct the British movement by guerrilla tactics, and until their main forces came up to defend in detachments the numerous and almost contiguous villages of the country, taking advantage of its network of canals and railways, and of its tangle of roads and cross roads. ”

“ Men of business and idlers—among all alike it was a custom to carry arms. The black beards of the Mussulmans, and the fierce moustaches of the Rajpoots, added to the warlike effect thus produced. Oude was the great storehouse for recruits for the Company’s native army; and this naturally gave a martial bent to the people. The Company, however, deemed it a wise precaution to disarm the peaceful citizens at the time of the annexation.
Three or four structures in and near Lucknow require separate description. ”

“ Then they were executed merely as feats of manoeuvring and aerial craftsmanship; now they may decide the fate of the battle. I am going to show you youngsters my reliance upon your nerve and steadiness by trusting you to follow my lead. It will be a risky card to play, but if we keep our heads, and carry it through successfully, it may mean the defeat of the whole hostile fleet and the capture of Agrando himself—if he is there, as I believe he is!'
'We 're ready, father!' cried Alondra. 'And you can trust Gerald and Jack. ”

“ The bombardment had been so destructive that large numbers of French soldiers were buried in the trenches. The active defenders that remained were not strong enough in numbers to repel the masses of Germans thrown against them, and the slopes were occupied by the enemy. During the night there was a French counterattack; it was directed by a brilliant officer of the General Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Odent, who had at his own request been assigned the duty of defending this dangerous position. Rallying the men of his regiment, he threw them against the foe. ”

“ On December 6 he advanced and seized Tweedale, a station south of Arundel; on the 7th occupied Arundel, and next day pushed forward with the greater part of his force towards Rensburg. The enemy opened a heavy fire upon the British mounted infantry and cavalry, including the New Zealanders and New South Wales Lancers, but no casualties occurred. With Arundel in the hands of General French, and a cavalry brigade watching the enemy, all danger to De Aar vanished. But the force was too weak to do more than keep the enemy in check until reinforcements should arrive. ”

“ But when he heard of the approaching engagement, the fire-eating soldier could not be held back, and on the eve of the battle he arrived in camp. Duroc chivalrously offered to give up command, but Oudinot, who was satisfied as long as he saw fighting, would not hear of this. "My dear Marshal," he said, "remain at the head of my brave grenadiers; we will fight side by side." After the treaty of Pressburg he was sent to Switzerland, to take possession of Neuchâtel, which had been ceded to France by Prussia, to form a fief for Marshal Berthier. ”