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THE CAMPAIGNS AND HISTORY OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT FROM 1684 TO 1902
by
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL G. LE M. GRETTON
Late 3rd Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment
NAMUR, 1695 OUDENARDE CHINA NEW ZEALAND TEL-EL-KEBIR BLENHEIM MALPLAQUET PEGU AFGHANISTAN, 1879-80 NILE, 1884-5 RAMILLIES EGYPT SEVASTOPOL EGYPT, 1882 SOUTH AFRICA, 1900-02
William Blackwood and Sons Edinburgh and London 1911
Preface
This history of the war services of the Royal Irish regiment has been written at the request of the officers of that very distinguished corps. When I accepted the task, I knew that I had undertaken a delightful but difficult piece of work, for it is no easy matter to do justice to the achievements of a regiment which has fought in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America, and in Australasia. After serving with credit in William III.’s war in Ireland, the Royal Irish won undying laurels in the Siege of Namur in 1695. They formed part of the British contingent in the army commanded by Marlborough in the Low Countries and in Germany, and fought, not only at the great battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, but in the long series of desperate but now forgotten sieges by which fortress after fortress was wrested from the French. A detachment took part in the defence of Gibraltar in 1727: the whole regiment was involved in the disasters of the campaign of 1745: the flank companies encountered foemen worthy of their steel at Lexington and Bunker’s Hill. In the first phase of the great war with France the Royal Irish were in the Mediterranean: they served in the defence of Toulon; they helped Nelson and Moore to expel the French from Corsica, and they were sent to the mainland of Italy where for some months they established themselves firmly at Piombino, a port on the Tuscan coast. A few years later they fought under Abercromby in Egypt, but then their good luck changed, for they were ordered to the West Indies, where they remained till the end of the Napoleonic war.
In 1840, the outbreak of the first war with China re-opened the gates of the Temple of Janus to the XVIIIth; and during the last sixty years almost every decade has seen the regiment employed on active service, for after the Chinese war came the second war in Burma; the Crimea; the Indian Mutiny; the New Zealand war; the second Afghan war; the campaign of Tel-el-Kebir; the Nile expedition; campaigns on the north-west frontier of India; and the war with the Dutch republics in South Africa.
The Historical Committee had hoped that Field-Marshal Lord Wolseley would have written a preface to the history of the regiment, with which throughout his military career he has been associated closely. In Burma he won his spurs leading a charge of infantry among whom were many of the Royal Irish; as an acting Engineer at the siege of Sebastopol he frequently supervised the operations of the regiment in the trenches; in the Tel-el-Kebir campaign and the Nile expedition the Royal Irish formed part of the troops under his command; and for the last thirteen years he has been their Colonel-in-Chief. Ill health unfortunately has prevented Lord Wolseley from writing at any length, but in a letter to the Chairman of the Committee, he expressed his admiration for the regiment in the following words:--
“HAMPTON COURT PALACE, MIDDLESEX, 19th June 1910.
MY DEAR GREGORIE,--I am indeed very glad to hear that the History of the Royal Irish Regiment is soon to be published. Its story cannot fail to be a fine one. Every soldier who like myself, had the honour of fighting, I may say shoulder to shoulder with it, will read this new work with the deepest interest.
Were it to be my good fortune to lead a Storming party this afternoon I should indeed wish it were to be largely composed of your celebrated corps.
Believe me to be, Very sincerely yours, WOLSELEY.”
“To General C. F. GREGORIE, C.B., Royal Irish Regiment.”
A lithographic reproduction of this letter will be found facing page viii.
This history has been prepared, not for the officers alone but for all ranks of the Royal Irish, and the Committee are supplying it to non-commissioned officers and private soldiers at a price so low that even the last joined recruit can buy it, and read of the gallant deeds of his predecessors in the regiment.
As I am fully impressed with the importance of recording the names, not of the officers only, but of all members of the regiment who on active service laid down their lives for their country, I have tried to mention in the Casualty appendix all ranks who were killed, or died from the effects of wounds or sickness in the many wars in which the Royal Irish have taken part. In the campaigns of the seventeenth and the greater part of the eighteenth centuries but few names are to be found, and it is not until the middle of the nineteenth century that those of wounded non-commissioned officers and men can be traced. In other appendices are lists of those who won medals for distinguished conduct in the field, and also those to whom medals for long service and good conduct have been awarded.
It has been my object to write this book as far as possible on the lines of a biography, and by quotations from regimental sources of information to let the Royal Irish describe their doings in their own words. In the wars of William III. and of Anne this was comparatively easy, for though the regiment has preserved no official records for the 17th and 18th centuries, during the first thirty years of its existence it produced four military historians, three of them officers, one a sergeant. Brigadier-General Kane, Captain Robert Parker, and Sergeant John Millner have left books, and Brigadier-General Robert Stearne a manuscript journal describing the events they witnessed. Unfortunately they all wrote for a public far more concerned in the general results of a battle or a siege than in the doings of an individual regiment; and though they gave excellent accounts of an engagement, they failed as a rule to describe the part played in it by the men under their command. Whether their laconic style was due to modesty--for the three officers were all distinguished soldiers--or to want of descriptive power, it is impossible to say, but the fact remains that they have bequeathed to their successors in the Royal Irish accounts singularly deficient in regimental detail. In some cases they failed to record the casualties among the XVIIIth in a battle or a siege, and when they remembered to do so, often forgot to give the names of killed or wounded officers. Their indifference to the losses of the lower ranks is characteristic of all armies in the 17th and 18th centuries; and they tell us nothing of the deaths by disease, or of the drafts of recruits by which the waste of war was made good. Sergeant Millner is equally unenlightening. If, instead of devoting his undoubted talents to the production of a sort of Quartermaster-General’s diary of Marlborough’s movements, he had written an account of the life of the regiment on active service, he would have left behind him a very interesting book, instead of a comparatively dull one.
The adventures of the XVIIIth in the campaign of 1745 in the Low Countries were described in the journal of one of the officers, whose name has not been preserved. For a hundred years the regiment produced no more authors, until, after the end of the first Chinese war, Lieutenant A. Murray wrote an interesting account of the Royal Irish in that campaign.
For the wars in the beginning and middle of Queen Victoria’s reign much valuable material was obtained from private sources by the honorary secretary of the Historical Committee, Lieutenant-Colonel A. R. Savile, who for many years devoted himself to the collection of information from officers who had served with the regiment in these campaigns. Probably no one but the man who has profited by Colonel Savile’s exertions can appreciate adequately the energy and perseverance he displayed in this labour of love for his regiment. He has also prepared two appendices; one giving an epitome of the services of the Colonels of the regiment, the other describing the memorials which have been raised by the officers and men of the Royal Irish to the memory of those of their comrades who died on active service. Nor is this all for which I have to thank him: his collection of historical matter relating to the regiment at all periods of its existence has proved of great help to me:--indeed in all honesty I may say that if this book meets with success a great part of that success will be due to the “spade work,” the results of which Colonel Savile has generously placed at my disposal.
Many of the past and present officers of the Royal Irish regiment have given me great assistance in the later campaigns by preparing for me statements recording their personal recollections, and by lending me their diaries and letters, written at the seat of war; and several non-commissioned officers have supplied me with interesting details about episodes in South Africa.
With the officers who form the Historical Committee I have worked in perfect harmony and identity of views, and I have to thank them warmly for the unfailing support they have given to me during the two years which it has taken me to prepare this book.
I have to express my sense of obligation to the Librarians of the War Office, the India Office, the United Service Institution, and the Royal Colonial Institute, and the officials at the Record Office for their friendly help.
To Mr Rudyard Kipling the warm thanks of the regiment are due for his kindness in allowing the reproduction of his ballad on the second battalion of the Royal Irish in the Black Mountain campaign.
In the compilation of this record very many books have been consulted. Among them stands out pre-eminently the ‘History of the British Army,’ by the Hon. John Fortescue, who, by his masterly descriptions of the campaigns he has dealt with up to the present, has made the path of a regimental historian comparatively smooth.
SHERBORNE, DORSET.
Chapter I
1684-1697.
THE RAISING OF THE REGIMENT: AND THE WARS OF WILLIAM III. 1
Chapter II
1701-1717.
MARLBOROUGH’S CAMPAIGNS IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION 25
Chapter III
1718-1793.
THE SECOND SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR--THE SIEGE OF OSTEND--LEXINGTON-- BUNKER’S HILL 65
Chapter IV
1793-1817.
THE WAR WITH THE FRENCH REPUBLIC: TOULON--CORSICA--EGYPT. THE NAPOLEONIC WAR: THE WEST INDIES 89
Chapter V
1817-1848.
THE FIRST WAR WITH CHINA 120
Chapter VI
1848-1854.
THE SECOND WAR WITH BURMA 145
Chapter VII
1854-1856.
THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA 162
Chapter VIII
1856-1859.
OPERATIONS DURING THE MUTINY IN INDIA 189
Chapter IX
1858-1882.
RAISING OF THE SECOND BATTALION: THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND 193
X. THE FIRST BATTALION
1865-1884.
CHANGE IN ARMY ORGANISATION: THE SECOND AFGHAN WAR 225
XI. THE SECOND BATTALION
1882-1883.
THE WAR IN EGYPT 232
XII. THE FIRST BATTALION
1884-1885.
THE NILE EXPEDITION 253
XIII. THE SECOND BATTALION
1883-1902.
THE BLACK MOUNTAIN EXPEDITION: THE TIRAH CAMPAIGN 288
XIV. THE FIRST BATTALION
1885-1900.
MOUNTED INFANTRY IN MASHONALAND: THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA: COLESBERG AND BETHLEHEM 305
XV. THE FIRST BATTALION
1900-1902.
SOUTH AFRICA (CONTINUED): SLABBERT’S NEK: THE BRANDWATER BASIN: BERGENDAL: MONUMENT HILL: LYDENBURG: THE MOUNTED INFANTRY OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT 332
APPENDICES.
1. THE MOVEMENTS OF THE XVIIIth ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT FROM THE TIME OF ITS FORMATION IN 1684 TO THE END OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 1902, AND THE PLACES WHERE IT HAS BEEN QUARTERED IN TIME OF PEACE 375
2. CASUALTY ROLL 385
3. OFFICERS OF THE 1ST AND 2ND BATTALIONS WHO DIED IN THE WEST INDIES BETWEEN 1805 AND 1816 403
4. ROLL OF OFFICERS, WARRANT OFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND MEN OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT TO WHOM HAVE BEEN AWARDED THE VICTORIA CROSS, MEDALS FOR DISTINGUISHED CONDUCT IN THE FIELD, FOR MERITORIOUS SERVICE, AND FOR LONG SERVICE AND GOOD CONDUCT 404
5. THE TIRAH CAMPAIGN: COLONEL LAWRENCE’S ORDER OF JUNE 8, 1898 414
6. THE SOLDIER’S KIT IN SOUTH AFRICA 416
7. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DEFENCE OF TRAINS 417
8. DIARY SHOWING MOVEMENT OF THE FIRST BATTALION IN THE NORTH OF THE TRANSVAAL BETWEEN APRIL 12, 1901, AND SEPTEMBER 30, 1901 418
9. SUCCESSION OF COLONELS OF THE REGIMENT 422
10. MEMORIALS OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT 431
11. TABLE SHOWING THE FORMER NUMBERS AND PRESENT NAMES OF THE INFANTRY REGIMENTS OF THE REGULAR ARMY 440
INDEX 443
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE NORTH TRANSEPT OF ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN Frontispiece
LITHOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTION OF LORD WOLSELEY’S LETTER facing viii
MEMORIAL TO THOSE WHO DIED IN THE AFGHAN, EGYPTIAN, AND NILE CAMPAIGNS 231
MEMORIALS TO THOSE WHO FELL IN SOUTH AFRICA 305, 374
LIST OF MAPS.
NO. 1. BLENHEIM, RAMILLIES, OUDENARDE, AND MALPLAQUET facing 60
NO. 2. THE LOW COUNTRIES ” 78
NO. 3. BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ” 116
NO. 4-5. CHINA AND BURMA ” 160
NO. 6. THE CRIMEA ” 188
NO. 7. NEW ZEALAND ” 220
NO. 8-9. THE WAR IN EGYPT, 1882--THE NILE EXPEDITION ” 286
NO. 10. SOUTH AFRICA ” 442
CORRIGENDA.
page line 40 24 for Lieut. G. Roberts read S. Roberts. 69 10 ” Colonel Crosby ” Cosby. 70 1 of footnote ” ” ” ” ” 121 10 ” ” Lieut. D. Edwards ” Edwardes. 128 4 ” ” Lieut. C. W. Davis ” G. W. Davis. { 3 ” ” Lieut. H. J. Stephenson ” H. F. Stephenson. 147 {15 ” ” Lieut. G. W. Stackpoole ” G. W. Stacpoole. {17 ” ” Ens. T. E. Esmond ” T. E. Esmonde. 160 28 ” Lieut. W. F. Cockburn ” W. P. Cockburn. 165 4 of footnote ” Capt. G. W. Stackpole ” G. W. Stacpoole.
The Campaigns and History of
The Royal Irish Regiment.
Chapter I
1684-1697.
THE RAISING OF THE REGIMENT: AND THE WARS OF WILLIAM III.
The Royal Irish regiment was raised on April 1, 1684, by Charles II., when he reorganised the military forces of Ireland, which had hitherto consisted of a regiment of foot guards and a number of “independent” troops of cavalry and companies of infantry maintained to garrison various important points in the island. Charles formed these independent troops and companies into regiments of horse and foot; and as many of the officers had seen service on the Continent in foreign armies, and a large number of the rank and file were descendants of Cromwell’s veterans, Arthur, Earl of Granard,[1] when granted the commission of colonel in one of the newly raised infantry regiments, took command not of a mob of recruits with everything to learn, but of a body of soldiers of whom any officer might be proud. Of the corps thus raised all but one had an ephemeral existence. During the struggle between James II. and William III. for the possession of Ireland some followed the example of the foot guards, joined the Stuart king in a body, and then took service in France, while others broke up, officers and men ranging themselves as individuals on the side of the monarch with whose religious or political views they were in sympathy. The one bright exception was the regiment formed by Lord Granard, which under the successive names of Forbes’, Meath’s, Hamilton’s, the Royal regiment of Foot of Ireland, the XVIIIth, and the Royal Irish regiment, has earned undying laurels in every part of the world.
Though brought over to England to help in the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion against James II., Granard’s took no part in the operations by which the rising was crushed at Sedgemoor, and in the autumn of 1685 returned to Ireland,[2] where evil days awaited it. With James’s attempt against the liberties of his English subjects it is not the province of a regimental historian to deal; but it is necessary to explain that the King, desiring ardently to own an army upon which he could count to obey him blindly in the political campaign he was planning, proposed to drive from the Colours all officers and men upon whom he could not rely implicitly to carry out his schemes. He decided to begin operations in Ireland, where he gave the Earl of Tyrconnel unlimited power to remodel the personnel of the troops. In 1686, Tyrconnel summarily dismissed from many regiments all the Protestants in the ranks, whom he stripped of their uniforms and turned penniless and starving upon the world. The officers fared little better: two of Granard’s captains, John St Leger and Frederick Hamilton, were “disbanded” solely on account of their religious beliefs. As a protest against these proceedings Lord Granard resigned his commission, to which his son Arthur, Lord Forbes, was appointed on March 1, 1686. Next year the regiment “underwent a further purge,” thus described by Brigadier-General Stearne,[3] who was then one of Forbes’s officers. “Tyrconnel made a strict review of each troop and company, wherein he found a great many descendants of the ‘Cromelians,’ as he termed them, who must turn out also, and took the name of every man who was to be of the next disbandment, so that every soldier of an English name was marked down. As soon as the camp broke up and the army returned into winter quarters, most of the officers as well as soldiers were disbanded, and only a few kept in for a while to discipline those that supplied their places.” Tyrconnel rid himself of about four thousand of all ranks, or considerably more than half the Irish army; the men he replaced with peasants, good in physique but without discipline or training, while the officers he appointed were of a very inferior class, who in the war of 1690-91 failed in many cases to turn to good account the splendid fighting qualities of their soldiers. It is, however, only fair to Tyrconnel’s memory to mention that while he thus reduced the efficiency of the Irish army, he increased its power of expansion by devising a short service and reserve system by which many thousand men could be recalled to the Colours in case of need.
Thanks to the political influence and strong personality of Forbes, a “bold and daring man,” who had learned the trade of war first in the army of France under the great Turenne, and later in a campaign against the Turks in Hungary, the regiment in the general ruin suffered less than any other corps. In defiance of Tyrconnel, Forbes succeeded in retaining more of his old officers and soldiers than any other colonel, and in 1688, when the regiment, 770 strong, was ordered to England to meet the invasion threatened by the Prince of Orange, it still contained a number of good officers, sergeants, and old soldiers, whose united efforts had welded into shape the mass of recruits recently poured into its ranks. For the next few months the strain upon these veterans must have been great, as they had to keep the young soldiers in order in a country where Irish troops at that time were looked upon with deep suspicion and hostility by the people, and not as now heartily welcomed by all classes. After being stationed for some time in London the regiment marched to Salisbury, where James had concentrated his troops to meet the Prince of Orange; and when the King, deserted by his generals, statesmen, and courtiers, abandoned his army and fled to France, Forbes kept his men together and returned to the neighbourhood of London, where he was quartered at the village of Colnbrook, near Hounslow. From the Prince of Orange, who by this time was actually, though not yet legally, King of England, Forbes received orders to disband the Roman Catholics of his regiment, and after five hundred officers and men had been disarmed and sent to Portsmouth en route for the Isle of Wight, several officers, many sergeants, corporals, and drummers, and about a hundred and thirty private soldiers, remained with the Colours.
Soon after this turning of the tables the regiment had an experience, probably unique in military history--an examination in theology, in which all ranks passed with high honours. The adventure is thus described in Stearne’s journal:--
“A report spread through the whole kingdom that the Irish were murdering, burning and destroying the whole country, insomuch that there was not one town in the whole nation that had not an account they were committing all these cruelties in the very next town or village to them. Sir John Edgworth, who was our major, commanded the regiment at this time (Lord Forbes being with the Prince of Orange in London); he was quartered at Lord Oslington’s house near Colnbrook, and upon the first of this flying report, sent for all the regiment to repair immediately to his quarters where there was a large walled court before the door, in which he drew them up with the design to keep them there until this rumour was over, but the country people, hearing that an Irish regiment was there, came flocking from all parts to knock us on the head: but Sir John bid them at their peril, not to approach, and told them we were not Irish Papists but true Church of England men; and seeing among the crowd a gentleman, called to him and desired he would send to the minister of the parish to read prayers to us, and if the minister did not convince them we were all of the Church of England, we would submit to their mercy. The minister was soon sent for, and to prayers we went, repeating the responses of the Liturgy so well and so exactly that the minister declared to the mob he never before heard the responses of the Church of England prayers repeated so distinctly and with so much devotion, upon which the mob gave a huzza, and cried ‘Long live the Prince of Orange,’ and so returned home.”
In February 1689, the regiment was re-equipped,[4] and in anticipation of the recruits who in a few months began to refill its depleted ranks, weapons were issued for its full establishment. Five hundred and seventy-nine men were to be armed with flint-lock muskets and bayonets, while two hundred and forty were still to carry long pikes for the protection of the musketeers against cavalry on the battlefield and on the march. The pike, however, was a dying weapon, and was soon superseded completely by the bayonet. No mention is made of hand-grenades, though these missiles were already carried by the grenadier company, composed of men chosen from their comrades in the regiment for height, strength, and courage.
During the winter of 1688-89 Lord Forbes resigned his commission, on the ground that having sworn allegiance to James II. he could bear arms for no other king during his old master’s lifetime.[5] For a few weeks Major Sir John Edgworth replaced him, but owing to financial scandals compromising to himself and several of his subordinates he was obliged to retire,[6] and Edward, Earl of Meath, was appointed to the vacancy on May 1, 1689, when William III. completed his arrangements for re-officering the regiment, which was numbered the Eighteenth of the infantry of the line. He issued forty-one new commissions, some to the seniors who had escaped disbandment at Tyrconnel’s hands, others to officers who had been expelled from the army during James’s reign, others again to young men with no previous military experience. The names of the officers are given in the footnote.[7]
One of the results of the revolution by which James II. was deposed and William and Mary placed upon the throne was to plunge England into the vortex of Continental politics. As Prince of Orange, William had been the moving spirit in the coalition of States formed to curb the ambition of the French king, Louis XIV., who throughout his life strove to aggrandise himself at the expense of his neighbours; and when James II. took refuge in France, Louis saw his opportunity to strike a heavy blow at William. By long and careful attention to his navy he had made it superior to the combined fleets of the English and the Dutch--the great naval powers of the time--and, thanks to his command of the sea, was able to land James at Kinsale with five thousand excellent French soldiers to give backbone to the forty thousand men collected by Tyrconnel in anticipation of his Royal master’s arrival. So slow was communication in those days that, though James disembarked at Kinsale in March 1689, the news of the invasion did not reach England for several weeks, when William had already despatched most of his best troops to swell the forces of the Allies facing the French in the Low Countries. William hurriedly raised more regiments, but it was not until August that Marshal Schomberg, the veteran selected for the command of the expedition, landed near Belfast, where in a few days he was joined by Meath’s[8] regiment, which for some months had been quartered in Wales. The army was sent to Ireland utterly unprepared to take the field. There was no transport, the commissariat was wretched, the artillery was short of horses; guns, muskets, and powder, food, clothing, and shoes alike were bad. No wonder, therefore, that after taking the town of Carrickfergus, Schomberg refused to give battle to James, and fell back upon an entrenched camp at Dundalk to await reinforcements of every kind. Before the autumnal rains set in the General ordered his troops to build themselves huts, and the foreigners in William’s pay--old warriors, who had bought their experience in many campaigns--worked with a will; but the English regiments, composed of lazy, careless, and ignorant recruits, whose officers were no better soldiers than their men, would not take the trouble to run up shelters or dig trenches to drain their camping-grounds. Fever soon broke out with appalling results. Out of the 14,000 troops assembled at Dundalk, 1700 died on the spot, 800 perished on the waggons in which the sick were carried to the coast, 3800 died in the hospitals of Belfast. The losses in the XVIIIth regiment are not known, but from Schomberg’s confidential report on the troops under his command it seems to have suffered less than other corps. Writing on October 23, 1689, the Marshal says: “Meath’s (18th Foot), best regiment of all the army, both as regards clothing and good order, and the officers generally good. The soldiers being all of this province, the campaign is not so hard on them as on others.”
Early in November James gave up the attempt to entice Schomberg out of his entrenchments and went into winter quarters. The Marshal promptly followed his example, holding the country between Lough Erne and Belfast with a chain of fortified posts, and establishing his headquarters at Lisburn, where the XVIIIth was placed in charge of his personal safety. The staff of the regiment must have been hard-worked in the spring of 1690, for recruits streamed in so fast that in June it was nearly the strongest corps in the British army, standing on parade six hundred and seventy-eight officers and men. For several months there was constant skirmishing along the line of outposts; but no movements of importance took place until June, when William III. arrived at Carrickfergus with two hundred and eighty-four transports and many vessels laden with stores. Though this great mass of shipping was escorted by a ludicrously small squadron of only six men-of-war, it was not attacked on the voyage, for the French had neglected to send a fleet to cruise in the Irish seas, thus leaving the line of communication across St George’s Channel uninterrupted. When the reinforcements brought by the King had landed, the army in Ireland reached the respectable total of about 37,000 men, of whom 21,000 were British, and the remainder Huguenots, Dutch, and Danes--continental mercenaries whom William had imported to lend solidity to his recently raised English regiments.
The French officers in James’s army had repeatedly urged him to retire into Connaught and defend the line of the Shannon, but on political grounds he declined to accept this excellent advice, and after some manœuvring took up a position on the river Boyne, near Oldbridge and Duleek. Here he entrenched himself, but on the 1st of July William attacked and routed him with considerable loss. As the XVIIIth regiment played no important part in the engagement, if, indeed, it came under fire at all, it is only necessary to say that though some of James’s troops fought with distinguished gallantry in this battle, others did not show the fine qualities they exhibited later at Limerick and Aughrim. Covered by a rear-guard of Frenchmen, the defeated army fell back upon the Shannon. James, for the second time, deserted his soldiers and fled to France, while William occupied Dublin, and matured his plans for the next phase of the campaign. By a great victory over the Anglo-Dutch fleet at Beachy Head the King of France won for the moment the absolute command of the British Channel, and thus could throw reinforcements at will into the south and west of Ireland by the ports of Waterford, Cork, Kinsale, Limerick, and Galway. These towns were, therefore, essential to William; and hardly less important was Athlone, the entrance to the wild districts of Connaught, to which he hoped to confine the future operations of the war. A strong detachment under General Douglas was therefore sent against Athlone, while William himself led the greater part of his army towards Limerick, where a large number of James’s troops had been concentrated. Though these regiments had worked hard to improve the fortifications of the city, its defences were still so imperfect that when the French heard that William was approaching they pronounced the place to be untenable and moved off to Galway, leaving the Irish, about 20,000 strong, to defend it, under the command of General Boisleau, an officer who had learned to appreciate the good qualities of his allies, and Sarsfield, an Irish soldier of great brilliancy and courage. Reinforced by Douglas, whose detachment had failed to make any impression on Athlone, William appeared before Limerick on August 9, and after brushing away the enemy’s skirmishers pitched camp within a quarter of a mile of the city wall, expecting little resistance from a place so weak that the French had declared it “could be taken by throwing apples at it.” In eight days William opened his batteries, though with very inferior ordnance, for by a daring raid Sarsfield had swooped on the convoy bringing up his siege-train and destroyed nearly all his heavy guns. On the 20th the grenadiers of the XVIIIth and Cutts’s regiments greatly distinguished themselves by the capture of a strong redoubt near John’s Gate. A sudden rush from the trenches brought them to the foot of the work, into which they hurled a shower of hand-grenades, and then scrambling over the parapet under heavy fire, dislodged the defenders with the bayonet. As it was known that the redoubt had an open gorge, a quantity of fascines had been collected in the trenches, with which the grenadiers filled up the gap, and then held the redoubt against a determined sally until they were relieved by other troops. The affair cost the victors two hundred and seventy-one killed and wounded; but though it is known that the grenadiers suffered heavily, the only casualty recorded in the XVIIIth is the death of Captain Needham, who was killed by a random shot at the end of the engagement.
This success was followed by the capture of another outlying work; the trenches were pushed close to the walls, and six batteries played upon the defences, which, near John’s Gate, began to crumble under the bombardment. This breach William determined to assault, though he was warned by some of his officers that Limerick was not yet sufficiently shaken to be stormed. According to many historians, his reasons for hurrying on the attack were that his supply of ammunition was running low, and that with the example of Dundalk before him, he could not venture to expose his troops to the terrible rains which had set in. “At times the downpour was such that the men could not work the guns, and to mount fresh batteries soon became an impossibility: the trenches were knee-deep in mud: the soldiers were never dry from morning till night and from night till morning: sickness, which had been prevalent in the camp before, increased to a plague: the tenting ground became a mere swamp, and those who could afford it kept down the overwhelming damp only by burning bowls of spirits under the canvas.”[9] On the 27th the breach appeared to be practicable, and William ordered Douglas to deliver the assault. Half the grenadiers of each regiment, five hundred men in all, were to lead, supported by the XVIIIth and five other infantry corps: on the left of the main attack was another column of infantry: and drawn up in rear stood a strong force of cavalry. At half-past three in the afternoon the grenadiers dashed out of the trenches, hurled themselves against the palisade of the counterscarp, and carried it after fierce fighting; then, gaining the covered way, they dropped into the ditch, scrambled up the breach, and pursued its defenders headlong into the town. So far all had gone well: the impetuous valour of the grenadiers had carried all before it, and victory was within William’s grasp, when a mistaken interpretation of orders ruined the day’s work. The supporting infantry should have followed the grenadiers up the breach, but, allowing themselves to be drawn into pursuit of some of the enemy along the covered way, they left the grenadiers without reinforcements. When the defenders saw that no more troops were pressing up the breach, they rallied, and, excited by witnessing the destruction of one of William’s foreign battalions by an accidental explosion, they drove the remnants of the grenadiers back into the covered way. If the failure to carry the breach was to be redeemed even partially, it was essential that the covered way should remain in the attackers’ hands, and round this part of the fortifications raged a fierce fight, in which both sides showed splendid courage; but, after three hours’ indecisive combat, Douglas found that his men had used nearly all their ammunition, and drew off to camp with a loss of at least five hundred dead and a thousand wounded. In this unsuccessful assault the XVIIIth suffered severely;[10] more than a hundred sergeants, corporals, and “sentinels” (as private soldiers were then termed) were killed or wounded, and, though the officers of the regiment who left accounts of this war are not agreed as to the exact casualties among the commissioned ranks, it appears certain that six were killed and eight wounded.[11] Though all their names have not been recorded, it is known that Captain Charles Brabazon, Lieutenant P. Latham, and Ensign ---- Smith were killed; Lieutenant-Colonel G. Newcomb (or Newcomen) died of his wounds, and Colonel the Earl of Meath, Lieutenants R. Blakeney and C. Hubblethorne, were wounded.
Dispirited by his reverse, William raised the siege, ordered his army into winter quarters, and after handing over the command to Ginkell, a Dutch general, returned to England after a campaign in which he had scored only one marked success--the victory at the Boyne. He had failed to capture Athlone and Limerick, and, with the exception of Waterford, all the ports in the south and west were still open to the French navy. In September, however, the arrival of Marlborough with an expedition from England improved the situation: Cork and Kinsale surrendered, and thus the harbours of Limerick and Galway alone remained available for the enemy’s operations. Ginkell’s first step was to establish himself on a line which, starting at Ballyshannon in the north-west, ran through Enniskillen, Longford, Mullingar, Cashel, and Fermoy to Castletown-Berehaven in the south-west. The regiment was ordered to Mullingar, where it passed the winter--very unpleasantly, according to Stearne, who states that, “in the month of December our garrison being reinforced by several regiments of Horse and Foot, marched towards the enemy’s frontier, where after having fatigued the troops for upwards of three months in this bad season of the year in ravaging and burning the country we returned to our quarters.”
Ginkell opened the campaign of 1691 by an attack on Athlone, a town built on both sides of the Shannon, and enclosed by walls, not in good condition but still by no means to be despised. On the right or Connaught bank a grim old castle frowned down upon a stone bridge, the only permanent means of communication across the river, for though there was a ford it was practicable only in very dry weather. After a short cannonade, Ginkell breached and stormed the defences on the Leinster side of the river, and, driving the enemy before him across the bridge, made himself master of the eastern half of Athlone. But now his real difficulties began. Batteries bristled on the bank above the ford; the guns of the castle commanded the bridge, which was so narrow that a few men could hold it against a regiment; and General St Ruth, a French officer of great experience, from his camp hard by could reinforce the garrison without hindrance from the besiegers. Ginkell rapidly threw up batteries, and opened so vigorous a fire with fifty guns and mortars that one side of the castle crumbled away and the houses on the Connaught bank were knocked to pieces. But until he had crossed the river he could not close with his enemy; his pontoons were far behind him, and he had no transport to bring them to the front; and the defence of the bridge was so stubborn that he gained ground there only a few inches at a time. St Ruth scoffed at the idea of the place being in serious danger, decrying Ginkell as an old soldier who ought to know better than to waste time and men on a hopeless enterprise. “His master,” he said, “ought to hang him for trying to take Athlone, as my master ought to hang me if I lose it.” But the Dutch general determined to ascertain if the river was fordable, and, in the words of Stearne, instead of calling for volunteers,
“promised three Danish soldiers who lay under sentence of death, their lives and a reward if they would attempt fording the river, which they gladly accepted, and at noonday put on armour, and entered the river a little below the bridge, and went at some distance from each other; the enemy took them for deserters, and we from our trenches fired seemingly at them, but over their heads at the enemy; when they had passed the depth of the water, and almost on the other side, they turned back, which when the enemy perceived they fired at them as hard as they could, but our cannon which was reserved for that purpose, as also our small shot, fired so briskly upon them that they could not hold up their heads to take aim at the men, by which they were saved, two being only slightly wounded. The General finding the river fordable (which it had not been for many years) resolved to try and pass it, upon which he gave orders for 40 Grenadiers from each company and 80 choice men out of each Battalion of the whole army to march as privately as possible into the trenches, and the whole army to be under arms to sustain the attack should there be occasion.
“On the 20th June[12] the detachments marched into the trenches (I being one of the Captains who commanded ours) with all the privacy we could, but notwithstanding all our caution, St Ruth had notice of our motion and design by the appearance of crowds of people on the hills to see the action, upon which he marched down his whole army to the bank of his part of the town, and filled the Castle and trenches with as many men as it could well hold; our General perceiving this, put off the attack till another time, ordering our detachments back to Camp, but at the same time gave private orders that not a man should stir from his Regiment, or be put on any other duty, but to be all ready at a minute’s warning. St Ruth seeing us draw off, was persuaded that our General dare not pass the River at this time, and in this security marched his Army back to Camp, leaving only a slight body of men to guard their works and the Castle. The next day a soldier of our Army (whether sent by the General, or he went of himself, I can’t say) went over to the enemy and was carry’d before St Ruth, and told him that the common report in our Camp was that the General finding it was not practicable to pass the River at this time resolved to try what he could do at Banagher which lay ten miles down the River, and that everything was getting ready for the march. St Ruth, easily persuaded with this notion, and finding all things very quiet in our Camp, made a splendid entertainment for all the Ladies and Gentlemen, the Officers of the Town, and the Camp. The same day, being 22nd June, our General sent private orders along the Line for all the detachments to march directly into the trenches, and to keep under all the cover they could, at the same time he posted several sentries on the hills to prevent anybody appearing to the enemy. About 3 o’clock, when St Ruth was at the height of his merryment, we began the attack by jumping into the River, and whilst we were wading over, our Cannon and small shot played with great fury over our heads on the enemy, insomuch that they did us but little hurt in passing, and when we got over they made but little or no resistance but fled immediately.
“At the same time we jumped into the River, part of our detachments attacked the Bridge, and laid planks over the arch that had been broken down upon our taking the first town, so that before St Ruth had any account of our design we were in possession of the town; however he marched his army down to try if he could force us back again, but he committed a grand error which he found out too late, and that was leaving the works at the back of the town stand, which became a fortification against himself, for had it not been for this, we should never have been able to maintain the town against his army, as we were not in possession of the Castle. When St Ruth found there was no forcing us back without a formal siege he returned to his camp, and those in the Castle seeing him march off immediately surrendered at discretion, and next day very early St Ruth decamped and marched off with great precipitation. In this action we had only 27 men killed, and about as many wounded, and not one Officer of note hurt.”
Ginkell now proposed to take the town of Galway and then turn southwards against Limerick, but before this plan could be put into execution it was necessary to dislodge St Ruth from the strong defensive position he had taken up near Ballinasloe, where he was determined to fight a pitched battle in the hope of retrieving the reputation he had lost on the banks of the Shannon. His left rested on the castle of Aughrim, a few miles south of Ballinasloe; his right was marked by the village of Urachree; his centre ran along the slopes of a green and fertile hill, well suited for counter-attacks by horse and foot. Much of the ground he occupied was surrounded by bogs, crossed by a few tracks, of which only two were fit for cavalry, while all were under the fire of his guns. Between the foot of the hill and the bogs were many little patches of cultivation enclosed by hedges and ditches, some of which St Ruth levelled to allow his cavalry free movement, while he left others intact in order to give cover to his marksmen, to break the enemy’s formations, and to conceal the movement of his troops upon the field of battle. The infantry held the centre; the cavalry were on the flanks with a strong reserve in rear of the left under Sarsfield, who had specific instructions not to move without a distinct order from St Ruth himself. On July 11, the armies, each about 20,000 strong, were within touch, but owing to a heavy fog it was not until the afternoon of the 12th that the battle began with a sharp skirmish, which revealed to Ginkell the strength of St Ruth’s position, and convinced him that his only hope of success lay in turning the enemy’s left. He accordingly made a feigned attack upon the Frenchman’s right, launched the remainder of his infantry against the centre and left, and sent his cavalry to force their way past the Castle of Aughrim. The troops directed against the centre were to halt when they had crossed the bog, and on no account to push on until the column on their right was safely over the quagmire and the cavalry had turned the enemy at Aughrim. But when the soldiers, after floundering thigh-deep in mud and slime, reached firm ground they got out of hand, and forgetting their orders rushed forward, carrying everything before them until a sudden charge of cavalry swept them backwards in confusion, while the column for which they should have waited was still struggling in the bog. When this supporting column, of which the XVIIIth regiment formed part, had scrambled through the quagmire and re-formed its ranks, it moved towards the hill over a part of the field apparently deserted by the enemy, but really filled with sharpshooters, who, hidden in hedges and ditches, with admirable coolness held their fire until the leading companies were within twenty yards of them. Then a storm of bullets smote the head of the column; men dropped in scores, and for a moment the advance was checked, but the troops quickly rallied, and hurling themselves against the first hedge carried it against a resolute defence. Hedge after hedge, ditch after ditch, were charged and won, but by the time the last obstacle was surmounted the infantry had fallen into great confusion: the regiments “were so intermingled together that the officers were at a loss what to do,” and at that moment St Ruth’s cavalry came thundering down upon them. Under this charge the disorganised infantry gave way, and were being driven backwards into the bog, when St Ruth’s horsemen were themselves assailed in rear by some of Ginkell’s cavalry, who, after a daring march and still more daring passage of a stream under the walls of Aughrim Castle, reached the battlefield in time to save the foot soldiers from annihilation. During this cavalry combat occurred an interesting instance of the value of steady barrack-square drill. Throughout the winter of 1690-91 the infantry had been practised in regaining its formation rapidly after a charge, and now, when relieved from the pressure of the enemy, the battalions re-formed with comparative ease, and then attacked along the whole line. At this moment victory trembled in the balance, for though the losses on both sides had been heavy, the defenders, on the whole, had had the best of the day, and in Sarsfield’s strong body of cavalry they possessed a reserve which had not yet been called into action. Had Sarsfield then struck into the battle his troopers might have turned the scale, but he was fettered by his instructions not to move except on St Ruth’s own order, and St Ruth, struck down by a stray cannon-ball, was lying a headless corpse upon the ground. The absence of the French general’s directing hand was soon felt, though his death was concealed as long as possible; and when the attacking infantry began to gain ground steadily, and the cavalry turning movement was fully developed, the men who for hours had so valiantly defended their position lost heart and began to fall back in disorder. Then their discipline failed them, and they broke, rushing in panic towards Limerick and Galway, with Ginkell’s cavalry and dragoons spurring fiercely after them.
The losses in this battle were very heavy. In William’s army 73 officers were killed and 109 wounded; of the other ranks 600 were killed and 908 wounded. The XVIIIth escaped lightly: only one officer, Captain ---- Butler was killed; a major, a captain, and two subalterns were wounded; among the non-commissioned officers and men seven were killed and eight wounded.[13] On the subject of the casualties in the army commanded by St Ruth historians differ widely; but 7000 appears to be the number fixed upon by those least given to exaggeration. Whatever the actual figures were, however, there can be no doubt that James’s soldiers were so completely routed that in their retreat they strewed the roads with their discarded weapons. A reward of sixpence was offered for every musket brought into Ginkell’s camp; in a short time so many waggon-loads were collected that the price was reduced to twopence, and great numbers of firearms still came in.[14] The dispersal of St Ruth’s army was the death-blow to the Stuart cause: Galway made little resistance, and though the garrison of Limerick fought stoutly for a month it was obliged to surrender on October 3, 1691. The French officers were allowed to return to their own country, accompanied by those of James’s soldiers who wished to enter the French army, and with their departure ceased all organised opposition in Ireland to the rule of William III., who was thus free to transfer his troops to the Low Countries.
The regiment, however, did not go abroad at once. After wintering at Waterford it was ordered in the spring of 1692 to Portsmouth, to reinforce the garrison of England against an invasion threatened by Louis XIV., and after the French fleet had been beaten at the battle of Cape La Hogue the XVIIIth was one of the regiments selected for a raid against the seaport towns of France; but the coast proved so well guarded that it was impossible to land, and the transports sailed to the Downs and thence to Ostend, where the troops disembarked and marched towards the towns of Furnes and Dixmude, which the French evacuated without waiting to be attacked. While employed in strengthening the walls of Dixmude the XVIIIth had a curious experience: there was an earthquake, so violent that the soldiers thought the French were blowing up the place with hidden mines, while the Flemish peasants, who were working as navvies, became paralysed with terror and declared that the end of the world was come. In a few weeks the greater part of the troops re-embarked for England, but not all reached land in safety, for a great storm scattered the transports, several of which went to the bottom. The XVIIIth regiment, however, was fortunate enough to escape all loss.
In the course of the winter Lord Meath retired,[15] and was succeeded in the colonelcy by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Hamilton; Major Ormsby became Lieutenant-Colonel, and Captain Richard Stearne was promoted to the Majority. In 1693, the regiment, which now was known as Frederick Hamilton’s, was turned for a few months into a sea-going corps.
“In May, 1693, we marched to Portsmouth, and embarked on board the Grand Fleet, commanded by three joynt Admirals (viz., Sir Ralph Delaval, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and Admiral Killigrew) when we served this summer as Marines. Our rendezvous was Spithead; in June we sailed to Torbay, where we waited for the Fleet which was to go under the command of Sir George Rooke who had twenty Men of War to convoy them up the Mediterranean. About the latter end of June Sir George joyned us, and the whole Fleet set sail together, and was looked upon to be the greatest that had been in one sea for many years; there being in all with Men of War and Merchantmen, English and Dutch, near 800 sail: the Men of War with their tenders stretching in one line between the Coast of France and the Merchantmen. The Grand Fleet kept Sir George company till they passed the Bay of Biscay, being the utmost limits of our Admirals’ orders, notwithstanding they very well knew that the French Fleet had sailed out of Brest, and was lying before them to intercept Sir George. Yet their orders were such that they dare not sail any farther, but then parted and returned to Torbay.
“The French, who never wanted intelligence from our Courtiers, had an exact account to what degree our Grand Fleet had orders to convoy Sir George, therefore lay by with their Grand Fleet about eighteen hours sail beyond the limit of our Grand Fleet; they upon first sight believed that our Grand Fleet had still kept Sir George company, which put them into such a consternation that for some time they stood away, which gave Sir George an opportunity of making signals to his Merchant ships to shift for themselves and make the best of their way back, whilst he with his Men of War sailed after them in very good order. As soon as the Enemy discovered their mistake they made all sail they could after him, but Sir George, keeping astern of his Merchant ships, made a running fight of it, by which means he saved his whole fleet except a few heavy sailers which were picked up by their Privateers.
“After this the French Fleet made the best of their way to Brest, and the account coming to our Court, orders were sent to the Grand Fleet to sail immediately in quest of them, upon which our Admirals sailed immediately to Brest to try if they could get there before the enemy, but in vain, for they had got in several days before we left Torbay. This affair being over we returned to our port, and in September the Land Forces were put on shore. Our Regiment was landed part at Chatham and part at Southampton, and joyned at Norwich in October. In December we marched to London, and were reviewed in Hide Park by the King; two days after we embarked at Red House, and sailed for Flanders and landed at Ostend in December 1693.”[16]
The regiment was now to play a distinguished part in the war with France, which with a breathing space of five short years lasted until 1712. With the exception of the campaign of 1704 in Germany, the fighting in which the XVIIIth was concerned took place chiefly in the country now called Belgium, but then known as Flanders.[17] Its soil was fertile, and cultivated by a large and industrious population. Its numerous cities were celebrated throughout Europe for the wealth of their traders, whose merchandise was carried to the sea over a network of canals and navigable rivers. Every town was walled, and the whole country was studded with fortresses, with many of which the regiment was to become well acquainted in the course of the next twenty years. On the French side of the frontier a chain of forts stretched from Dunkirk to the Meuse, and Louis had further strengthened his border by a great line of field-works, in the hope of making an invasion of France impossible. In a country so highly fortified the war necessarily became one of sieges. Each side tried to breach the other’s line of defences by capturing fortresses. There were ceaseless marches and counter-marches, and gigantic attempts to relieve the besieged strongholds, met by equally strenuous efforts to prevent the relieving forces from fulfilling their mission. Flanders, however, was by no means the only part of Europe affected by the war, for sooner or later the French armies invaded nearly every country unfortunate enough to be within their reach. To describe the whole of Louis’s struggle for supremacy, and to explain the means by which he induced some of the Allies to abandon the coalition and range themselves on his side, would be far outside the scope of a regimental history. It is enough to say that though the conflict raged from the shores of the North Sea to the south of Spain, where a few thousand British soldiers served for several years, it was in Flanders that Marlborough won most of his splendid victories over the French.
The XVIIIth’s first campaign on the Continent--for the few weeks spent at Dixmude in 1692 cannot be dignified by this name--was uneventful. There were no great battles, and the only operation of importance was the siege of Huy, where the regiment was employed with the covering force. In the spring of 1694 the order of precedence among the regiments of the British army was settled in a way very displeasing to Hamilton’s officers and men, who ever since the camp at Dundalk had claimed for their corps the numerical position due to its having been raised in April 1684.[18] Kane chronicles the decision in a few words.
“A Dispute arose about the Rank of our Regiment in particular, which were (sic) regimented 1 April 1684 from the old Independent Companies in Ireland, and had hitherto taken Rank of all the Regiments raised by King James the Second, but now those Regiments disputed Rank with us: the King referred the Affair to a Board of General Officers; and most of them being Colonels of those Regiments, would not allow us any other Rank than our first coming into England, which was some time before the King landed, when he came over Prince of Orange on the Revolution, by which we lost Rank of eleven Regiments, taking Rank after those raised by King James, and before all those raised by King William. The King thought the General Officers had acted with great Partiality, but as he had referred the Affair to them, he confirmed it.”
The whole question of precedence was re-opened in 1713, and the colonel of the XVIIIth made a strong effort to obtain rank for the regiment from the date of its formation in 1684, but without success.
When William III. took the field in 1695, he commanded an army of 124,000 men, composed of contingents from England, Holland, Denmark, and many of the German States. The British numbered about 29,000, and as the King employed them on every occasion when desperate courage and bull-dog tenacity were needed, it is clear that, however much he despised the English politicians who intrigued against him with Louis XIV., he appreciated his British soldiers at their true worth. As his object was the recapture of the fortress of Namur, taken by the French three years before, he began a series of manœuvres designed to decoy Marshal de Villeroi, the French Commander-in-Chief, so far into the western half of the theatre of war that the Allies would be able to dash upon Namur and invest it before their intention was discovered. William was so far successful that he was able to surround the fortress on June 23, but not before the French had thrown in strong reinforcements under Marshal de Boufflers, who took command of the garrison of thirteen or fourteen thousand excellent troops. The citadel stands on a rocky height at the end of the tongue of land formed by the junction of the rivers Sambre and Meuse. The town is built on the left bank of the Sambre; and in the fortification of both citadel and town the highest military art had been displayed--first, by the Dutch engineer Cohorn, who planned and built the works; and later, by his French rival Vauban, who had extended and improved them so greatly that Namur was now considered to be impregnable. A hundred and twenty-eight guns and mortars were mounted on its walls, and its arsenals and storehouses were well supplied in every way. On June 28th, William began his trenches, and five days later opened fire upon the town, which after desperate fighting surrendered on July 24, one of the conditions being that the garrison should be allowed to retire into the citadel with full power to take part in its defence.
During this, the first phase of the siege, the XVIIIth was part of the covering detachment of 20,000 men with which the Prince de Vaudemont, one of William’s trusted lieutenants, protected the operations of the besiegers so successfully that during several weeks he engrossed the attention of the French Commander-in-Chief’s vastly superior force of 90,000 troops. Before quoting Kane’s interesting account of the way de Vaudemont “sparred for time,” it must be explained that the French were in no hurry to relieve Namur, where they thought de Boufflers could hold his own indefinitely. De Villeroi accordingly marched against de Vaudemont, who had entrenched himself on the river Lys, nine or ten miles south of Ghent; but
“finding him stand his Ground, he proceeded with the more Caution, and halted about two Leagues short of him, till he had sent to Lille for some Battering-Cannon. This took up some Time which was what Vaudemont wanted to keep him in Play till the King could fix himself before Namur. At length Villeroy advanced within less than half a League of us, and finding the Prince still keep his Ground, ordered a great many Fascines to be cut in order to attack us early next Morning. He also sent Lieutenant-General Montal with a strong Body of Horse round by our Right, to fall in our Rear, and cut off our Retreat from Ghent, which was three Leagues in the Rear of us. Now the Prince had three trusty Capuchin Fryars for his Spies, one of whom kept constantly about Villeroy’s Quarters, who found Means to inform himself of all his Designs; the other two plied constantly between both Camps without ever being suspected, who gave Vaudemont an Account of everything. Now the Prince having drawn Villeroy so near him, thought it high Time to make his Retreat; he therefore, as soon as Villeroy appeared, sent off all the heavy Baggage and Lumber of the Camp to Ghent, and about Eight in the Evening he ordered part of the Cavalry to dismount and take the Intrenchments, and the Infantry to march privately off with their Pikes and Colours under-hand, lest the Enemy should discover us drawing off; and as soon as it grew duskish the Cavalry mounted and marched after the Foot. Soon after Villeroy’s Advance-Guard finding our Works very quiet, ventured up to them; who finding the Birds fled, sent to acquaint the General; on which they marched after us as fast as they could. Montal, who by this time had got into our Rear, finding us marching off, thought to have fallen on our Flank; but Sir David Collier, with two Brigades of Foot, gave them so warm a Reception, that they were obliged to retire with considerable Loss. Next Morning all our Army got safe under the Works of Ghent, at which Time the Enemy’s Horse began to appear within a Mile of us; whereupon we past the Canal that runs from thence to Bruges, along which a Breast-Work had been thrown up.... Vaudemont had now a very difficult Part to act in Defence of this Canal against so powerful an Army. Villeroy marched immediately down to the Canal, where, for upwards of three Weeks, by Marches and Countermarches he harassed our small Army off their Legs; however, he could not make the least Movement, or form any Design, but the Prince had timely Notice of it; which was very surprising if we consider the Canal that was between us, so that the French said he dealt with the Devil.[19] Villeroy finding he could not pass the Canal on the Prince, at length turned towards Dixmude, where the Prince could give no manner of Assistance; here he succeeded beyond his most sanguine Expectations.”
After an easy victory at Dixmude, which the Governor surrendered without firing a shot, de Villeroi turned towards Brussels, where the wealth of the citizens promised much loot to his soldiers; but here he was again foiled by de Vaudemont, who out-marched him and took up a position which saved the city from capture, though not from a savage and unnecessary bombardment. After his artillery had devastated a large part of Brussels, de Villeroi drew off to await orders from Paris, thus giving the covering detachment the opportunity of joining hands with the main army before Namur, where William was assiduously battering the citadel with a hundred and thirty-six heavy guns and fifty-eight mortars, whose fire towards the end of the siege cost de Boufflers three hundred men a day. On the 10th of August, the XVIIIth and three other British regiments were transferred to the besieging force, to replace corps shattered in the earlier operations, and at once began duty in the trenches. A few days later de Villeroi advanced, hoping to defeat William in a pitched battle, and thus to relieve the garrison which he had so long neglected, but he found the King so well posted and the covering army so heavily reinforced by the besieging troops that he did not venture to attack. While the French Commander-in-Chief was beginning to realise that in leaving de Boufflers so long unrescued he had made an irreparable mistake, William gave orders for a general assault upon the citadel, where the works had been breached in several places. During the night of the 19th, six thousand men from the covering detachment filed into the trenches, where before daybreak they were joined by the greater part of the besiegers. Seven hundred British grenadiers and four regiments--the 17th,[20] the XVIIIth, and Buchan’s and Mackay’s, two corps which have long since disappeared from the Army List,--under the command of General Lord Cutts, were to assault the work called the Terra Nova; while the Bavarians, Hessians, Brandenburgers,[21] and Dutch were to make simultaneous attacks on the other breaches. As the trenches could not hold all the troops poured into them, the XVIIIth and Buchan’s were sent to conceal themselves in the abbey of Salsine, about half a mile from the foot of the Terra Nova breach.
At 10 A.M. on August 20, the explosion of a barrel of gunpowder gave the signal for the attack, and from Cutts’s trenches began to emerge the red coats, to whom the most dangerous duty had, as usual, been entrusted; four sergeants, each followed by fifteen picked men, led the column; the grenadiers were close behind them; the 17th and Mackay’s followed in support, with the XVIIIth and Buchan’s in reserve. It was a desperate enterprise. Between the trenches and the Terra Nova was a stretch of several hundred yards of ground--smooth, coverless, and swept by frontal and cross fire, and before the grenadiers had crossed it they had left behind them a long trail of killed and wounded. Owing to a mistake in the organisation of the attack, the grenadiers and the 17th assailed the breach before the other regiments were at hand to support them, and by the time the XVIIIth came up the assault had been repulsed with heavy loss; many of the officers had been hit, and Cutts, the idol of the troops, was wounded and for the moment incapable of giving orders. Undismayed by the confusion and depression around them, the Irishmen with a yell rushed at the breach. At first they had to scramble over the bodies of those who fell in the first attempt, but half-way up they reached the grenadiers’ high-water mark, and thence struggled upwards over ground covered by no corpses but those of the XVIIIth. From the neighbouring works they were tormented by cross fire, but yet pushed on, to the admiration of their foes who through the clouds of smoke watched them gradually winning their way up the breach, the Colours high in air, despite the carnage among the officers who carried them. Mad with excitement, determined to win at all cost, the regiment by a splendid effort reached the top of the breach, where the Colours were planted to show the King, who from a hill behind the abbey eagerly watched the progress of his British troops, that the Terra Nova was his. But as the men surged forward they found themselves faced by a retrenchment undamaged by the bombardment. The officers, holding their lives as nothing for the honour of their country and their corps, led rush after rush against this retrenchment, but in vain. They could not reach it; guns posted on the flank of the breach mowed down whole ranks; infantry fired into them at close range. All that men could do the XVIIIth had done, but nothing could withstand such a torrent of lead; the second attack failed, and the remnants of the regiment were driven backwards down the breach, and then charged by a counter-attack of horse and foot which the French let loose upon them.
Shaking themselves clear of the enemy, the survivors fell back towards the spot where Cutts, on resuming the command after his wound was dressed, had ordered his broken regiments to reassemble. While the British were retreating they learned that the Bavarians had not fared much better than themselves; badly led, they had missed their proper objective, the breach in a work called the Coehorne, and had attacked the covered way at a spot where the garrison was in great force; and after two hours’ hard fighting they reported that unless help came at once they could not hold their ground. Cutts, who from his love of a “hot fire” had earned for himself the nickname of the Salamander, instantly determined to go to the rescue of the Bavarians, and halting, turned towards the Coehorne and re-formed his column. To the onlookers it seemed impossible that troops fresh from the costly failure at the Terra Nova would face another breach, but Cutts knew what British soldiers could do, and his call for volunteers for a forlorn hope was answered by two hundred men, who headed this fresh attack, followed by Mackay’s, with the XVIIIth and the other regiments behind them in support. The assault was successful; the covered way was seized and held by the British, and all along the line victory smiled upon the Allies, who by five o’clock in the afternoon were lodged solidly within the enemy’s works.
To reward the XVIIIth for the magnificent courage it showed at the Terra Nova the King formally conferred upon it the title of the Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland, with the badge of the Lion of Nassau and the motto “Virtutis Namurcensis Præmium.”[22] In the year 1832, the Royal Irish received the somewhat belated official permission to emblazon this motto on their Colours; and it was not until 1910, two hundred and fifteen years after the capture of the fortress, that the regiments who took part in the siege were allowed to add Namur to their battle honours. In these matters our Government does not move with undue haste; it was only in 1882, that the Royal Irish were granted leave to commemorate on their Colours the fact that they had shared in the glories of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, the last of which was won in 1709!
The distinctions given by William were dearly earned, for though the authorities differ as to the actual numbers of the casualties in the XVIIIth, all agree that they were enormous. According to the army chaplain D’Auvergne, who wrote one of the best accounts of William III.’s wars in Flanders, the regiment lost twenty-five officers and two hundred and seventy-one non-commissioned officers and men. Parker and Kane give the same figures, but as both these officers were severely wounded it is probable that the returns had been sent in long before they came back to duty, and that in their books they adopted D’Auvergne’s numbers without investigation. In Stearne’s unpublished journal he states that twenty-six officers (whose names he does not mention) and three hundred and eighty of the other ranks were killed or wounded; and as Stearne was one of the few senior officers left with the regiment on the evening of the 20th of August, he must have had every opportunity of knowing the exact numbers. Two theories have been advanced to explain this discrepancy: the first, that Stearne included in his total all who were wounded, while the other historians took count only of the men who were gravely injured and admitted into the base hospital at Liege; the other is that among his four hundred and six casualties were the officers and men hit in the trenches after the XVIIIth joined the besieging army and before the day of the assault, or in other words that his figures show the regiment’s losses during the whole of the siege. But even taken on the lower, and therefore safer estimate, the percentage of loss is astonishingly high. At the beginning of a campaign a regiment was seldom more than 600 strong; indeed, many historians consider that 500 was the average strength. Since the XVIIIth had taken the field in June it had done much marching and some work in the trenches, so that Hamilton’s ranks cannot have been quite full when he gave the order to storm the breach; but assuming that Hamilton had with him about 600 men, more than 49 per cent, or very nearly half the regiment, were killed or wounded on August 20, 1695. If the strength be taken at 500, the percentage shows that about six men out of every ten were hit; while if Stearne’s casualties are adopted the percentage is 81, more than eight men killed or wounded out of every ten who went into action. As it is impossible to ascertain definitely the strength of the XVIIIth, or to pronounce on the accuracy of the rival chroniclers, it is enough to say that the regiment suffered more heavily than any of the other British corps in Cutts’s column, whose losses, including those of the grenadiers, amounted at the least to thirteen hundred and forty-nine officers and men.[23]
In the XVIIIth Lieutenant-Colonel A. Ormsby; Captains B. Purefoy, H. Pinsent, and N. Carteret; Lieutenants C. Fitzmorris and S. Ramme; Ensigns A. Fettyplace, ---- Blunt, H. Baker, and S. Hayter were killed. Captain John Southwell, Ensign B. Lister (or Leycester), and an officer whose name cannot be traced, died of their wounds. Colonel Frederick Hamilton; Captains R. Kane, F. Duroure, H. Seymour, and W. Southwell; Lieutenants L. La Planche, T. Brereton, C. Hybert (or Hibbert), and A. Rolleston; Ensigns T. Gifford, J. Ormsby, and W. Blakeney were wounded.[24]
The result of the assault convinced de Boufflers that he could not resist a renewed attack, and early on the 22nd he made signals of distress to de Villeroi, who finding it impossible to relieve him, retired to Mons, leaving the garrison of Namur to make the best terms it could. De Boufflers accordingly ordered his drummers to beat the Chamade, the recognised signal that a fortress desired to parley with the enemy, and after two or three days’ negotiations surrendered: the troops were to be allowed to return to France, the citadel, artillery, and stores remaining in the hands of the victors. On the 26th, the French, reduced by the two months’ siege to less than five thousand effectives, marched out with all the honours of war--drums beating, Colours flying, and arms in their hands--and after filing through a double line of the allied troops were escorted to Givet, the fortress to which they had safe conduct. With the fall of Namur the campaign of 1695 virtually came to an end, for though there was some marching and counter-marching nothing came of these manœuvres, and the Allies went into winter quarters early in the autumn.
The campaigns of 1696 and 1697 were spent in operations unproductive of any affairs of importance, and the finances of all the combatants were so much exhausted by the strain of this long war that peace was signed at Ryswick in September of the latter year. The British contingent was sent to Ostend to await ships from England to take them home, and on December 10, the XVIIIth sailed on an adventurous voyage, thus described by Stearne.
“The ship I was in, with one more, having got near the Coast of Ireland, there came up with us a Sallee Man of War of about 18 guns, carrying Zealand colours.[25] When the master of our ship saw her bearing down upon us, he called up all the Officers and told us what danger we were in of being made slaves for ever. We thought it a very hard case after getting over so many dangers as we had gone through, upon which we all resolved to die rather than be taken, and having got all our men to arms, we made them lye close under the gunnel, that they might not discover what we were, and called to the other ship, and told them that in case she boarded us, that then they should lay her on board the other side, and that we would do the like in case they boarded them; and our Seamen were to be all ready with ropes to lash us together as soon as they laid us on board. At the same time we were to jump into her, and so take our fate. By the time she came up with us we had got everything ready to put our design in execution, but she fell in the wake of us, we being much the larger ship, and hailed our Master to go on board her, who answered that he would not leave his ship, and so kept on his course. The Sallee Man of War kept us company about an hour, and was once, as we thought, coming up to board us; however, she thought better of it, fell astern, and stood off without firing a shot, being prevented by the wind which blew very fresh, so that they could not put a gun out of their ports.
“This affair had not been long over when we made the Land, but it put our Master in such a fright, that he went quite out of his course, so that the Old Head of Kinsale which was the first land we made, he took to be the Highlands of Dungarvon, which made him stand away to the Southward, instead of directly in to the Shore, untill our Master was quite got out of his knowledge, and night coming on we were obliged to stand out to sea, the wind rising till it blew a storm, insomuch that we were in great danger of foundering at sea in an old rotten ship. Next morning we stood in towards the shore, the wind still continuing very high, and not a soul on board knew where we were, and though we made signals of Distress, yet the wind was so high that no boat dare venture out to our relief, and had it not been for one of our Lieutenants who had been formerly in the West Indies, and who remembered something of the Coast, we should certainly have perished the night following; by his directions we made shift to get into Bantry Bay before night, and very fortunate it was, for that night the wind blew so violent that it was with much difficulty our Ship could ride it out, with all the anchors and cables we had. Next day, being the 24th December, we landed at Bantry, and from there marched to Cork, where the other part of the Regiment landed some days before.”
Chapter II
1701-1717.
MARLBOROUGH’S CAMPAIGNS IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.
Almost before the troops from Flanders had shaken down into their winter quarters, the anti-military party in England raised the cry of “No standing army” with such vigour that Parliament insisted on the disbandment of many regiments; in each of the remainder three companies were entirely suppressed, and the others cut down to a strength of two sergeants, two corporals, a drummer, and thirty-four private soldiers, while officers at the rate of one for every ten men were allowed to remain with the Colours. In 1701 war again broke out on the Continent. This war, known as that of the Spanish Succession, was but a sequel to the conflict ended at Ryswick, and was again caused by Louis XIV.’s determination to conquer the best part of Europe. Without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities, Louis struck hard and quick; and occupied the fortresses of Ostend, Nieuport, Oudenarde, Ath, Mons, Charleroi, Namur, and Luxemburg, and nearly all the strongholds on the Meuse from Namur to Venloo, thus threatening at once the southern border of Holland and the keys to its south-eastern frontier, the fortresses of Grave, Nimeguen, and Fort Schenk. The Allies again took up arms; in June the XVIIIth and eleven other regiments were sent off to Holland under Marlborough’s command; and Parliament decided that England should furnish a contingent of forty thousand men, of whom eighteen thousand were to be British and the remainder foreigners, taken temporarily into our pay.
Before the English troops settled down into their winter quarters, William III. reviewed the infantry, whose uniform was at that time both comfortable and picturesque. They wore loosely-fitting red coats, cut long enough to protect the thighs from wet and cold; waistcoats, visible when the skirts of the coat were buttoned back to allow the legs free play in marching; breeches with gaiters, buttoning high above the knee, and shoes. Their head-dress was a cocked-hat, like that of a Chelsea pensioner, and their hair was plaited in a pig-tail, which was plastered with powder and tied up with bows.
At the beginning of 1702, the Allies discovered that though Louis had echeloned considerable numbers of troops along the Rhine and the lower Scheldt, his immediate object was to gain possession of the fortresses of Grave, Nimeguen, and Fort Schenk: and a force of 25,000 men, among whom were the XVIIIth and most of the other British regiments, was assembled at Cranenburg, a few miles from Nimeguen, to watch a French army, 60,000 strong, encamped some twenty miles to the southwards. In the absence of Marlborough, who was detained at the Hague by diplomatic business, the army on the Meuse was under the Earl of Athlone, as Ginkell was now called: the French were commanded nominally by the Duke of Burgundy, but really by de Boufflers, who accompanied this royal prince as military adviser. The old Marshal had not forgotten his humiliation at Namur in 1695; and finding out that Athlone’s intelligence department and system of patrolling were equally bad, by a sudden swoop so nearly surprised his camp that his troops had to abandon their camp and baggage and hasten for shelter to Nimeguen, where their reception was the reverse of cordial. The Governor was indignant with the Dutch Government for having promoted Athlone over his head; he was suspected of having sold himself to the enemy, and either from treachery or from the wish to see his rival cut to pieces, shut the gates upon him as he approached the fortress,[26] and refused to take any measures for its defence. The civilian population, however, had no intention of surrendering; they broke open the stores, dragged guns to the ramparts, carried up powder and shot upon their backs, and opened so furious a fire that the French drew off in disgust.
Marlborough, whose recent appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the allied forces had created much ill-will among the Dutch generals, now joined the army, and concentrated 60,000 men, of whom 12,000 were British, in the neighbourhood of Nimeguen. Never was a general more sorely tried by incompetent and jealous subordinates than Marlborough in this campaign. He was comparatively an unknown man; he had never commanded a large army in the field; many of his colleagues distrusted him, and took every opportunity of thwarting his plans; and, above all, his footsteps were dogged by two Dutch civilian officials, styled Field Deputies, who had power to refuse him leave to employ the troops of Holland in operations of which they did not approve. Four times, by rapid marches and skilful strategy, he forced the French into positions where they could only fight at great disadvantage; and four times was victory snatched from him by the obstinacy of the Dutch leaders or the timidity of the Field Deputies. The campaign of 1702, however, was by no means barren of results, for Marlborough was allowed to recapture various fortresses on the Meuse. The first place to be invested was Venloo: the Germans sat down before the south and east of the town; to the Dutch and the British was allotted the attack on the north and west, and, after three weeks’ hard work, the British brigade, of which the XVIIIth formed part, sapped up to the foot of the glacis of Fort St Michael, a strong outwork of the main fortress. Prince Nassau, whom Marlborough had deputed to carry on the siege in his absence, then ordered a lodgment to be made on the top of the glacis as a preliminary to a future attack on the covered way. The whole of the XVIIIth moved into the trenches early in the morning: about midday they were joined by three companies of grenadiers and several hundred men from the other regiments in the brigade; and in the course of the afternoon Lord Cutts called the officers together, and, apparently on his own responsibility, enlarged the orders originally issued. The British were not to be satisfied with making a lodgment, but if they found the French “give way with precipitation, they were to jump into their works and follow them, let the consequence be what it would! ‘These were fine orders from a general,’ remarks Kane grimly, ‘but as inconsiderate as they were, we as inconsiderately and rashly followed them.’”
At four o’clock the explosion of a barrel of powder gave the signal for the assault; the artillery opened a heavy fire, and the British advanced. After a short resistance, the French ran back to the covered way, followed by the Royal Irish, who pursued them into a ravelin, where a captain and sixty men fought gallantly till nearly all were disabled. The survivors rushed towards a small wooden bridge, spanning a wet ditch eight or ten feet deep and a hundred feet in width. The end of this bridge was made of loose planks; and had the French done their duty when they crossed it, they would have tossed these planks into the ditch, and thus made a death-trap, into which the leading British soldiers as they followed them would have been thrust by their comrades in rear. But in their panic the French forgot to take this precaution; the XVIIIth got safely across, and chased the enemy to the foot of the wall of the main fortification. The men were wild with delight at their success, but the senior officers realised that the situation was a desperate one: a few hundred British troops were entangled among the unbreached works of a fort, whose garrison, though undoubtedly surprised, had suffered but little in the attack. To retire was out of the question, but to scale the wall looming high and grim above them appeared impossible, until the fugitives, whom the soldiers were chasing with their bayonets, solved the problem by darting to a part of the wall where much grass grew, and hauling themselves up from tuft to tuft. Where a Frenchman could climb an Irishman could follow, and after a desperate scramble, the red-coats began to mount the ramparts, when the enemy, utterly confounded by the unconventionality of the assault, hastily retired into the body of the fort, threw down their arms, and begged for quarter. Their lives were spared, and the booty given to the troops. This capture cost the British two hundred and ninety-seven killed and wounded.[27] The casualties among the XVIIIth are not recorded.
Two days later the siege came to an end in a very curious way. To celebrate a recent victory in another part of Europe, the Allies paraded all their troops and marched close up to the town to fire a feu-de-joie into it with shotted guns and muskets. The inhabitants had suffered much from the bombardment, especially since the cannon of Fort St Michael had been turned against them, and when they saw the movement, feared that the walls were going to be stormed forthwith; some rushed to the Governor to urge him to surrender, while others flocked to the ramparts with white cloths in their hands, crying “Mercy, Mercy, Quarter, Quarter.” The Governor asked to be allowed to capitulate, and, says Parker, “as we had other sieges to carry on this season, the Prince allowed them honourable terms.”
Nassau next took the fortress of Ruremonde after a nine days’ siege, and then joined Marlborough’s main army near Liege, an open town commanded by a citadel and a smaller fort. When the French garrison heard that the Allies were advancing, they sorrowfully exchanged their comfortable billets in the houses of the burghers for the casemates of the forts; and as soon as the enemy had left the town, the inhabitants sent a deputation to Marlborough to offer him the city keys in token of submission, and to entreat him to preserve Liege as far as possible from the horrors of war. Cutts, with ten British regiments, was ordered to occupy the town, while the rest of the army began operations against the forts. The siege, which lasted eighteen days, ran its ordinary course: batteries were thrown up, trenches were dug, outworks were captured, and when the gunners had made a practicable breach the assault was delivered. Millner, in his quaint language, tells us that though the French fought very well,
“the Allies after one Hour’s very hot and sharp Dispute beat the Enemy from off the Breach, and entered the Fort amongst them with Sword in Hand, killing all before them; and had killed all therein, had not the French instantly thrown down their arms, and earnestly beg’d for Quarter, which our People soon after granted, being always prone to give Mercy, when Need most requires.... Much of the Honour of this Action may be attributed to Lord Cutts’ good Conduct, in sending up speedily an assistance of Twelve Hundred Men from the ten Battalions in the Town, which suddenly rushed in on the side of the Citadel next to the City, in the very greatest heat of the action, before the Enemy was aware thereof, contrary to their Expectation; the which did very much surprize and daunt the Enemy, and made them quit the Breach much sooner than could otherwise have been expected.”
Next day the smaller fort surrendered, and thus, on October 23, 1702, Liege was recovered from the French at a cost of about twelve hundred killed and wounded, of whom nearly half were British. Though none of the regimental historians mention any casualties in the XVIIIth, it by no means follows that there were none among the regiment, for Stearne and Kane, Parker and Millner were all such confirmed fire-eaters that, as a rule, they appeared to consider it beneath their dignity to mention any but very heavy losses. The fall of Liege marked the end of the campaign, and the British contingent marched back to Holland, where the XVIIIth again went into quarters at Huesdon, the town where they had spent the winter of 1701-2.
The year 1703 brought no laurels to the British in Flanders. Dutch incapacity and obstinacy again hampered Marlborough’s movements; he failed to bring the French to battle, and accomplished little beyond the retaking of a few small fortresses. At the sieges of two of these places, Huy and Limberg, the XVIIIth was present. The regiment spent the first part of the winter at Breda, then reinforced the garrison of Bergen-op-Zoom, and afterwards returned to Breda, whence it sent a strong detachment to Maestricht.
But if little of importance happened on the shores of the North Sea during this campaign, great events took place in the south of Germany, where the Elector of Bavaria had deserted the coalition and attached himself to the fortunes of Louis XIV. The Gallo-Bavarians, as the troops of the new alliance were called, captured several fortified towns belonging to the Emperor of Austria, and defeated the Imperialists at the battle of Hochstädt.[28] Encouraged by these successes, Louis evolved a plan of campaign almost Napoleonic in its grandeur. Its main object was the capture of Vienna. One army was to force its way from Italy through the Tyrol to Austria; another was to march from Strasburg on the Upper Rhine into South Germany, reinforce the 45,000 Gallo-Bavarians, and join hands with the troops from Italy; while to harass Austria from the rear a strong detachment was to be sent to Hungary to help the inhabitants in their chronic rebellion against the Emperor. In Flanders de Villeroi was to remain on the defensive, while on the Moselle 10,000 troops stood ready to reinforce either flank.
On his side Marlborough had also conceived a daring scheme. As a soldier, he saw clearly that a mere war of sieges would produce no decisive results; as a politician, he saw equally clearly that the coalition would go to pieces unless Austria was delivered from the Gallo-Bavarian peril,--and he decided that the best way of helping the Emperor was to leave to the Dutch the defence of the Low Countries, and to carry the war into the heart of Germany. As he knew that the Dutch would oppose his project to the uttermost, he took only two or three of his officers into his confidence; he wrung a reluctant consent from the Dutch Government to the withdrawal of troops from Holland by pretending that he was about to attack the French on the Moselle, and for several weeks after he had set his army in motion the troops had no idea to which part of the Continent they were heading.
On May 19, 1704, Marlborough began his celebrated march; his force included 16,000 British troops, among whom were the headquarter companies of the XVIIIth, joined a few days later by the detachment from Maestricht. Disregarding the protests of the Dutch and of the petty princelings whose territories were being threatened by the French, he pushed resolutely forward, and covering from twelve to fifteen miles a-day worked up the right bank of the Rhine from Coblentz.[29] As each of the French generals formed different theories to account for Marlborough’s unexpected movement, they failed to combine against him; on the 3rd of June he crossed the Necker, and then turned south-east towards Donauwörth, a town on the Danube, which he had decided to make his advanced base for the invasion of Bavaria.
On the 1st of July the Allies encamped at Amerdingen, and at three o’clock next morning Marlborough marched upon his objective, fifteen miles off. He rode with the advance-guard--thirty-five squadrons, three regiments of Austrian grenadiers, and six thousand Continental and British infantry, among the latter being a detachment of the XVIIIth, about a hundred and thirty of all ranks.[30] The main body of the army followed two hours later. Pushing on with an escort of cavalry the Duke began his personal reconnaissance about 9 A.M., and found that the town of Donauwörth lay in a valley on the north, or left bank of the Danube, and was commanded by a steep and flat-topped hill. This hill, the Schellenberg, was the key of the position: the Gallo-Bavarians had connected it with the town by field-works, and twenty-five hundred horse and ten thousand foot were encamped upon its summit. During the day Marlborough learned that Louis XIV. had ordered strong columns from Flanders and the Upper Rhine to move upon South Germany; and his keen eyes detected on the farther bank of the river preparations for the immediate reception of a large body of men. He accordingly decided to attack the hill at once, without waiting for the whole of his main body to come up: but owing to vile roads and broken bridges it was not until six o’clock that the troops were formed for battle at the foot of the slope, about five hundred yards in length, which led up to the works on the north-west side of the Schellenberg. The infantry of the advance-guard were drawn up in four lines, with the cavalry behind them in two lines; eight battalions were in support, and an equal number were in reserve. During the day the cavalry had made fascines, with which the enemy’s ditches were to be filled up, and as soon as these great bundles of faggots had been distributed among the infantry the advance began. Under a cross fire of artillery, the columns breasted the hill without stopping to fire a shot until they were within eighty yards of the entrenchments, when a sudden outburst of grape and musketry made havoc among the crowded ranks. For a moment the men recoiled before this hail of missiles; then recovering themselves, they pushed on until their leaders reached a hollow road, which in the excitement of the moment was mistaken for the ditch in front of the works they were to storm. Before the blunder was discovered the fascines had been thrown in, and consequently when the heads of the columns reached the real ditch they had no means of crossing it, and were exposed to such a hurricane of bullets and hand-grenades that when the enemy made a furious counter-attack with the bayonet some of the troops gave way. Three British regiments saved the situation;[31] they stood like rocks; the partially broken corps rallied on them, and then after a hard struggle drove back their gallant foes into their entrenchments.
A French officer who commanded one of the battalions that fought so stoutly on the 1st of July, 1704, has left a lurid picture of the combat.
“The English infantry led this attack with the greatest intrepidity, right up to our parapet, but they were opposed with a courage at least equal to their own. Rage, fury and desperation were manifested by both sides, with the more obstinacy as the assailants and the assailed were perhaps the bravest soldiers in the world. The little parapet which separated the two forces became the scene of the bloodiest struggle that could be conceived.... It would be impossible to describe in words strong enough the carnage that took place during the first attack, which lasted a good hour or more. We were all fighting hand to hand, hurling them back as they clutched at the parapet; men were slaying, or tearing at the muzzles of guns and the bayonets which pierced their entrails; crushing under their feet their own wounded comrades, and even gouging out their opponents’ eyes with their nails, when the grip was so close that neither could make use of their weapons. I verily believe that it would have been quite impossible to find a more terrible representation of Hell itself than was shown in the savagery of both sides on this occasion.”[32]
By dint of drawing men from the parts of the defences unthreatened by the Allies, the Gallo-Bavarians were able to keep the troops on the north-west of the hill at their full strength: and they repulsed the next assault so heavily that it was found necessary to bring a large number of British cavalry into the thick of the fire to support the shaken, though by no means beaten, infantry. Our enemies were beginning to congratulate themselves on their success, when the remainder of Marlborough’s main body came into action against the west of the hill, where the works had been almost denuded of their garrisons; they took these works with little loss, repulsed a charge of cavalry, and then struck the Gallo-Bavarians in flank. About this time the Allies made another attempt to carry the entrenchment, and were once more beaten back. So serious did things look that the Scots Greys were ordered to dismount and attack the works on foot; but maddened at the thought that cavalrymen were called in to do the work which foot soldiers had failed to accomplish, the infantry then made one final, desperate effort, and surged triumphantly over the parapet from which they had been repulsed so often. Now at length the French and the Bavarians, exhausted by their magnificent defence, driven from their works in front and hard pressed in flank, gave way; and their retreat soon degenerated into a rout, as they rushed towards the river with all the allied cavalry thundering after them. The victory was very complete: of the twelve thousand men who had watched the Allies form for the assault not more than three thousand rejoined their regiments; the remainder were killed, wounded, captured, or drowned in the waters of the Danube; and thirteen standards, fifteen guns, and all the stores at Donauwörth fell into the victors’ hands. But the success was dearly won, for though the engagement lasted less than two hours, it cost the Allies more than five thousand officers and men. The British, as usual, lost very heavily; 33 officers, among whom was a major-general, were killed, and 83 wounded; 420 “sergeants and sentinels” were killed, and 1001 wounded; in all 1537, or “probably more than 33 per cent of the number engaged.”[33] To this total the XVIIIth, out of its detachment of 130 officers and men, contributed 51, or nearly 40 per cent of its numbers. Captain M. Leathes, Ensigns J. Pinsent (or Pensant), S. Gilman, and E. Walsh were wounded; 1 sergeant and 11 men were killed; 3 sergeants and 32 men were wounded.[34]
After the loss of Donauwörth the Gallo-Bavarians fell back upon Augsburg, where they encamped under the guns of the fortress. Marlborough was not strong enough to attack them, and had to content himself with blockading the town while he opened communications with the Elector of Bavaria, to whom he offered tempting terms to abandon Louis and place his excellent troops once more at the disposal of the Allies. The Elector spun out the negotiations until he knew definitely that Marshal de Tallard was coming from the Rhine to his help; then he broke them off suddenly, sending word that he would sooner serve as a private soldier under the King of France than as a general in the Emperor of Austria’s army. As Marlborough now learned from Prince Eugene of Savoy, who commanded a detached force on the Danube, that the French were manœuvring to cut off the allied army from its base of supplies, he at once turned northward, and recrossing the Danube joined hands with Eugene near Donauwörth. The situation had become very serious, for though the immediate pressure on the Emperor of Austria was removed, and the French had made no attempt to invade his territories from Italy, it was essential to bring the Gallo-Bavarians to battle and defeat them before further reinforcements had increased their strength, already greater than that of the Allies. It was with much relief, therefore, that on the morning of the 12th of August Marlborough discovered that the French and Bavarians had moved down the left, or northern bank of the Danube, and were then encamped near the village of Hochstädt, a few miles up stream from his own camping-ground.[35] Their right flank was protected by the Danube, here an unfordable river, and by the village of Blenheim, standing two hundred yards from the water’s edge. The left rested on Lutzingen, a hamlet at the foot of a chain of broken and thickly wooded hills, which guaranteed it against a turning movement. Between these villages stretched a plateau, white with long lines of tents; and along the whole of its eastern front ran the shallow valley of a tributary of the Danube--the Nebel, a formidable obstacle, for though the stream in itself was insignificant the bogs and marshes through which it flowed were very difficult to cross, and the side of the valley rose so gently towards the camp that it formed a natural glacis, well suited to the movements of all arms. Between Blenheim and Lutzingen were two other villages--Unterglau, on the eastern or far side of the Nebel, was occupied as an advanced post; Oberglau, on the western or near side, was part of the main line of defence. To hold this very strong position, about four miles in length, de Tallard who commanded the Gallo-Bavarians could dispose of an army from 56,000 to 60,000 strong, and sixty guns.
Though de Tallard had risen to be a Marshal of France, he was by no means a clever man, and by his mistakes at Blenheim he played into Marlborough’s hands. He failed completely to fathom his adversary’s mind: because it was the object of the French to starve the allies out of South Germany rather than to expel them by force of arms, de Tallard did not want to fight a battle, and it did not occur to him that Marlborough, with his inferior force of 52,000 men and 52 guns, might take the offensive. Again, in the disposition of his troops he misinterpreted the military axiom of his period, which warned the chief of an army encamped on ground where it might possibly become engaged, to place his troops in the order in which they would be called upon to fight. In drawing up an army the infantry was usually posted in the centre of the line, with the cavalry on its flanks. To this normal or “sealed-pattern” formation Tallard blindly adhered; but by treating his wings as distinct units and not as part of a great army he produced much confusion; in the centre of the whole line the cavalry of both wings met, but without unity of command: and on each side of this mass of 10,000 horsemen were infantry, with more cavalry on their outer flanks.
As soon as Marlborough had reconnoitred the enemy’s position he returned to camp, and settled the outline of the plan of the battle which he intended to force upon the French and Bavarians next day. As their flanks were unassailable he decided to deliver a frontal attack along their whole line: Eugene, with the right wing, was to assail the Elector and Marshal de Marsin, who had made the villages of Lutzingen and Oberglau their respective headquarters; the Duke was to carry Blenheim, where de Tallard had established himself, and break through the enemy’s centre between that village and Oberglau. The night was spent in marshalling the troops into their places in the nine columns in which they were to move against the enemy, and at two o’clock on the morning of August 13, 1704, Marlborough began to advance. A thick white mist overhung the valley of the Danube, and though it delayed his march, concealed his movements so effectually that it was six o’clock before the French vedettes discovered that the Allies were upon them; and when an hour later the mist lifted, de Tallard to his astonishment saw a great army preparing to deploy on the far side of the Nebel, the cavalry in the centre, the infantry on the flanks. While Eugene was marching to the ground allotted to him, Marlborough’s troops took up their appointed places. Opposite Blenheim, on the extreme left, stood a column under General Cutts, consisting of fourteen British regiments and several German corps: and on Cutts’s right was the remainder of the left wing, drawn up in four lines, the first and fourth of cavalry, the second and third of infantry. The Gallo-Bavarians, as soon as they had recovered from their surprise, snatched up their arms and fell in before their tents; and when de Tallard saw a mass of dull red uniforms at the head of the column threatening Blenheim he realised that hard fighting was to be expected near the village, and crowded into it twenty-six regiments of his best infantry, who were so tightly packed that large numbers of the soldiers did not fire a shot throughout the battle. The French rapidly put Blenheim into a state of defence--the walls were loopholed, the garden fences (or palisades as they were called by the historians of the time) were strengthened; the entrances were barricaded with carts, gates, furniture from the houses; while twelve squadrons of cavalry, sent to hold the two hundred yards of ground between the village and the Danube, entrenched themselves behind a “laager” of waggons. Between Blenheim and Oberglau de Tallard drew up his cavalry in two lines, with a third line in support, composed partly of horsemen, partly of nine battalions of infantry whose steadiness was doubtful. Some French writers say that these shaky troops were Piedmontese, taken prisoners in Italy and forced to join Louis XIV.’s service.[36] In the centre de Marsin occupied Oberglau with a strong detachment; behind the hamlet were posted his infantry and that of the Elector, and in front of Lutzingen stood a strong body of cavalry.
While his troops were marching into their places the French Commander-in-Chief added to his many mistakes that of abandoning to the Allies the natural glacis already mentioned, and thus giving them a foothold on which to re-form after they had crossed the Nebel. Parker shall tell the story in his own words. While the Allies were preparing to deploy,
“the Elector, Tallard and Marsin went to the top of the steeple of Blenheim, from whence they had a fair view of their army: the Elector and Marsin were for drawing the Army, as close to the marshy Ground they had in their Front as possible, and not suffer a man over but on the Points of their Bayonets; but Tallard (a haughty proud Frenchman) was on a different Opinion, and said, that would be no more than making a drawn Battle of it: that the only way to get a compleat Victory would be to draw up their army at some small Distance from the Morass, and suffer us to come over, and the more there came over the more they were sure to kill. Neither the Elector nor Marsin could persuade him out of this Notion; they both were very much dissatisfied, and dreading the consequence, left him, and went to their Posts.”[37]
Marlborough had formed for battle long before Eugene was able to do so, for bad roads, broken ground, and many unexpected difficulties greatly retarded the march of the right wing towards the left of the French line. Until Eugene was prepared to attack, Marlborough could not advance without running the risk of being crushed by vastly superior forces; and for several hours his horse and foot were condemned to inactivity while his guns hotly engaged those of the French, which were brought forward towards the Nebel, and fired at every target within their range. The XVIIIth, as usual, must have been well to the front, for Parker mentions that the first cannon-ball “was aimed at our regiment, but it fell short; the second killed one man, which was the first blood drawn that day.” After the Duke had carefully inspected his batteries, he ordered the chaplains to read prayers at the head of every regiment, and as soon as the Service was over, to satisfy himself that all was well with his troops and to steady them under the enemy’s bombardment, he rode slowly along the whole length of his line, exposing himself with perfect calmness to the projectiles of the French. His extraordinary talents, his charm of manner, his unfailing courtesy, his absolute indifference to danger had already endeared him to the strangely mixed body of soldiery under his command; and when by a miracle he escaped all injury from a cannon-ball which struck the ground between his horse’s legs, a great sigh of relief went up from the hearts of Britons and Danes, Germans and Dutch.
It was not until twelve o’clock, four hours after the artillery duel had begun, that an aide-de-camp galloped up to tell Marlborough that Eugene was ready. Then the signal was given, and Cutts, on the extreme left of the line, moved forward to the attack of Blenheim. Under a sharp artillery fire, two of his brigades--one of British, under Row, the other of Hessians--succeeded in crossing the Nebel near the village, and halted under cover to re-form their ranks; then leaving the Hessians in support behind the bank of the stream, Row’s five regiments advanced to the assault of a position held by the cream of the French infantry. Until our leading ranks were within thirty paces of the enemy not a shot was fired on either side. The British had been ordered to carry Blenheim with the bayonet if possible, and in no case to burn a cartridge until their General could actually touch the palisades. The French waited till their assailants were so close to them that the worst shot could not fail to bring down his man. Then so tremendous a burst of musketry fell upon the head of the column that the French expected to see the red-coats break and flee; but our men rushed forward through the smoke, cheered on by Row, who succeeded in striking a palisade with his sword before he fell mortally wounded. The British gave one volley, and then attempted to storm--some tried to scale the palisades, others to pull them down, while others again lunged fiercely through the loopholes at the French marksmen, who fired so fast and straight that in a few minutes a third of the brigade was killed or wounded, and the remainder were in retreat, hotly pursued by a body of cavalry. Now followed some wild fighting. The Hessians struck in with great gallantry, and recaptured Colours which had been lost in the mêlée; five British squadrons floundered over the Nebel to the rescue of the infantry, and beat back the French horsemen; but pursuing with more ardour than judgment, they were decoyed under the fire of the infantry in Blenheim and suffered severely. The French followed up their success by bringing up more batteries to sweep the crossing of the Nebel by which the British had advanced; but Cutts soon drove away this audacious artillery and, returning to the charge, delivered a series of desperate but ineffectual assaults upon the village until Marlborough ordered him to make no further efforts to storm it, but to fire volleys into it so continuously that the French would be pinned to their defences, and therefore unable to reinforce their right centre, which he was himself attacking. Parker gives a quaint account of this phase of the battle. After describing a gallant but fruitless assault, he says--
“The rest of the Foot coming up, they renewed the charge; and those that had been repulsed, having soon rallied, returned to the charge, and drove the enemy from the skirts of the village, into the very heart of it. Here they had thrown up an intrenchment, within which they were pent up in so narrow a compass, that they had not room to draw up in any manner of order, or even to make use of their arms. Thereupon we drew up in great order about 80 paces from them, from which we made several vain attempts to break in upon them, in which many brave men were lost to no purpose; and after all, we were obliged to remain where we first drew up. The enemy also made several attempts to come out upon us: but as they were necessarily thrown into confusion in getting over their trenches, so before they could form into any order for attacking us, we mowed them down with our platoons in such numbers, that they were always obliged to retire with great loss; and it was not possible for them to rush out upon us in a disorderly manner, without running upon the very points of our Bayonets.”
While this fierce combat was raging at Blenheim, Marlborough had succeeded, though slowly and with great difficulty, in throwing a considerable number of troops over the Nebel near Oberglau. In the morning the French generals had sneered at the Duke for placing great bodies of infantry between his first and second lines of horse; in the afternoon they discovered that there was method in the Englishman’s madness. Foreseeing that the cavalry would arrive on the far side of the stream with their horses blown and their ranks broken, he sent a large number of battalions to lead the way, with orders to push far enough up the enemy’s side of the valley to leave room for the allied cavalry to re-form behind their fire. The French horsemen charged down upon the disordered squadrons, but even where momentarily successful they were forced ultimately to retire by the musketry of the infantry, and failed to prevent Marlborough’s second line of cavalry from crossing the Nebel. During this stage of the battle, eleven battalions of Hanoverians attempted to capture the village of Oberglau, but were met by a magnificent counter-attack of the Irish Brigade--the men who after the surrender at Limerick had joined the army of the King of France. The Irishmen annihilated two battalions, and smashed through the remainder of the column; but then dashing on too far, were thrown into confusion by a charge of cavalry, and finally driven back with great loss by the fire of three fresh battalions which Marlborough threw against their flank.
On the right, meanwhile, things were not going well for the Allies. The Elector, disregarding de Tallard’s order to keep the troops high up on the slope, had moved his infantry right down to the edge of the broken ground near the Nebel, and thus met Eugene’s men while they were scattered and exhausted by the difficulties of the crossing; thrice did the Prince of Savoy make a formidable attack upon the Bavarians, and thrice was he beaten back. On the left, however, Cutts was fulfilling his mission admirably, for his rolling musketry detained within the entrenchments of Blenheim the enormous mass of infantry, whose presence on other parts of the field might have turned the scale in favour of the French. But the fate of the battle was to be decided in the centre, where Marlborough had now succeeded in placing eight thousand cavalry in two long lines on the lower slope of the natural glacis which de Tallard had abandoned so unaccountably to his enemy. To meet this danger, the French Commander-in-Chief called up the nine battalions which in the morning he had considered unfit to use in the forefront of the battle, and posted them level with the first line of his cavalry. The Duke met this move by bringing to his front a battery and three battalions of Hanoverians, who engaged the French infantry at short range, and so greatly shook them that they were unable to withstand a charge of cavalry which swept them away, leaving a huge gap in de Tallard’s line. That general now had to pay for the vicious dispositions by which the cavalry in his centre had been posted without proper arrangements for combined action. The horsemen of de Marsin’s right wing played, not for the safety of the whole French army, but for that of their own commander, and instead of flinging themselves into the breach and presenting an unbroken front to Marlborough, wheeled backwards in order to protect the flank of the column to which they belonged. De Marsin had his hands too full to be able to spare a man to help de Tallard, and before any of the infantry from Blenheim could come to the rescue the Duke’s eight thousand troopers were charging up the slope; for a moment the French cavalry stood, then seized with a mad panic they wheeled about and galloped furiously for the river, riding down everything they met in their haste to escape from the German horsemen, who sabred hundreds of them and drove hundreds more into the Danube.
De Marsin and the Elector were in no condition to continue the battle after the rout of Tallard’s wing; they retired in fair order, pursued by Eugene’s troops. To turn their retreat into a rout Marlborough called off his Germans from the congenial task of cutting their enemies to pieces, and sent them to fall upon de Marsin’s flank: but it was now late in the evening; the Germans overtook not de Marsin’s column but Eugene’s; in the growing darkness each side thought the other was the enemy and halted to prepare to fight, and by the time that the mistake had been discovered and mutual apologies presented and accepted the Gallo-Bavarians’ right wing had gained so long a start that further pursuit was hopeless. The battalions in Blenheim were less fortunate, for the Allies blocked every egress with cavalry, and called up infantry to storm the village, when the luckless Frenchmen reluctantly agreed to surrender, and twenty-four battalions of infantry and four regiments of dragoons laid down their arms, and filing through a double line of troops were guarded throughout the night by the British regiments.
History records few defeats more crushing than that of the French and Bavarians at Blenheim. On the morning of the 13th of August Tallard commanded about 60,000 troops, of whom not more than 20,000 ever found their way back to the armies of France or of Bavaria. The carnage in the battle itself was very great, and in the flight large numbers of the French were drowned in the Danube or murdered by the peasants, who, with many old scores to settle, showed no mercy to small parties of disbanded soldiers unable to protect themselves. Among the 11,000 prisoners was Marshal de Tallard; and many guns and mortars, 171 standards, 129 pairs of colours, much bullion, hundreds of pack animals, and the whole of the camp equipage fell into the hands of the conquerors. The victory, however, cost the Allies about 12,500 officers and men, or roughly twenty-four per cent of the force with which Marlborough began the battle. The British casualties, according to Millner’s return,[38] amounted to two thousand three hundred and twenty-four of all ranks.
As a bounty was granted to those who took part in the battle the names of the officers present have been preserved. The Colonel, Frederick Hamilton, was in charge of a brigade, and drew £72. The regiment was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel R. Stearne, and the Major was Richard Kane: the former received £51, and the latter £90. To each of the Captains--John Moyle, Peter d’Offranville, Jos. Stroud, F. de la Penotière, N. Hussey, Henry Browne, A. Rolleston, and W. Vaughan (or Vauclin), £30 was paid. The Captain-Lieutenant, Thos. Laughlin, and the Lieutenants--George Hall, James Lilly, Robert Parker, Wm. Leathes, Ben. Smith, Wm. Blakeney, W. Weddall (or Weddell), Saml. Roberts, and John Harvey, drew £14 a head; while £11 was the sum awarded to each of the Ensigns--John Blakeney, Henry Walsh, John Cherry, W. Rolleston, Samuel Smith, R. Tripp, Edward Walsh, and W. Moyle. The Quartermaster, Edm. Arwater, was rated as a lieutenant, and the Adjutant, W. Blakeney, at £2 less; the Surgeon, R. Weldon, received £12; his mate, R. Taylor, was considered only worth £7, 10s.; and as the Chaplain, the Reverend Henry Reynolds, drew £20, or rather more than the combined bounties of both doctors, it would seem that in Marlborough’s army the care of the soul was better paid than that of the body. There were a hundred and sixty-six casualties in the XVIIIth, or about thirty per cent of those present. Among the officers Captains H. Browne and A. Rolleston and Ensign W. Moyle were killed: Captain W. Vaughan (or Vauclin) was mortally wounded: Major R. Kane, Captains F. de la Penotière and N. Hussey, Lieutenants W. Weddall (or Weddell), S. Roberts, J. Harvey, B. Smith, W. Blakeney, and Ensign R. Tripp were wounded. In the other ranks five sergeants were killed and nine wounded; fifty-two private soldiers were killed and eighty-seven wounded.[39]
The morning after the battle Marlborough marched a few miles up the river, and then encamped for four days to rest his weary troops, to set his hospitals in order, and to dispose of his prisoners, of whom Millner speaks as “a luggage that retarded our progress.” During this respite from organised pursuit the French hurried back to the Rhine, whither they were followed by the Allies, who laid siege to the fortress of Landau. The XVIIIth was employed in the covering army, and in the middle of October, a few weeks before the place was taken, all the British infantry were embarked on river boats and floated down the Rhine to Nimeguen, where after a ten days’ voyage they disembarked, so greatly reduced by their losses in the campaign that for administrative purposes the fourteen regiments were treated as seven provisional battalions. The troops marched to their winter quarters to enjoy a well-earned rest and to discipline the recruits who joined them from home. While the XVIIIth was at Ruremonde, where it spent several months, Brigadier Frederick Hamilton retired from the service,[40] and was succeeded as Colonel by Lieutenant-General R. Ingoldsby, from the 23rd regiment of Foot.
The year 1705 afforded the XVIIIth no opportunities of adding to its laurels, for as far as the regiment was concerned the campaign was one of hard marching, great fatigue, and no fighting. Marlborough had planned an invasion of France, and again entrusting to the Dutch the defence of the Low Countries led his British contingent and a large number of their Continental Allies towards the Moselle, whence he hoped to overrun Lorraine and then carry the war into the enemy’s country. He expected to be joined by a strong body of Germans under the Prince of Baden, a general from whose jealousy and stupidity he had suffered acutely in the operations of 1704; but after waiting many weeks for reinforcements which never came, Marlborough determined to return to Flanders, where the enemy had begun to show alarming signs of activity. Though Marshal de Villars, one of the best soldiers of France, was watching his movements closely, Marlborough broke up his camp and slipped away unmolested by the French, who were nearly double his strength. With the elaborate politeness of the time, he wrote to de Villars to apologise for retreating without giving battle. “Do me the justice,” said he, “to believe that my defeat is entirely owing to the failure of the Prince of Baden, but that my esteem for you is still greater than my resentment for his conduct.”[41]
When de Villeroi, who commanded the French in Flanders, heard that Marlborough was coming back from the Moselle, he hastily retired to a series of fortified lines stretching from Namur to Antwerp. These lines the Duke determined to force, and by a series of brilliant manœuvres and rapid marches succeeded in driving de Villeroi from them, with much loss to the French and little to the Allies. But to inflict a decisive blow upon the enemy a great battle was necessary. Marlborough twice placed the French in situations where they would have to fight at a disadvantage, and twice the Dutch generals, in their insane jealousy of the British Commander-in-Chief, forbade the action by refusing to allow their soldiers to engage. The XVIIIth appears to have spent much of the campaign in levelling the captured lines, and when the work was finished, wintered at Worcom, where in January, 1706, Lieutenant-Colonel Stearne received his brevet of Colonel.
The opening of the campaign of 1706 found Marlborough more determined than ever to defeat de Villeroi in a pitched battle; and in order to draw the French general from his fortified lines on the river Dyle, he gave him to understand through a secret agent that, as the Allies realised the Marshal was afraid of them, they were about to besiege Namur, one of the fortresses of which Louis had repossessed himself by his vigorous action in 1701. The bait took. Stung by this insult, de Villeroi quitted the shelter of his fortifications and marched to Tirlemont, apparently heading for Namur. When Marlborough heard the welcome news, he pushed south-west from Maestricht, with an army little inferior in numbers to de Villeroi’s 60,000 troops, and on the 22nd of May encamped at Coswaren, where he learned that de Villeroi was moving upon Judoigne. The Duke decided to attack the French there, and at 1 A.M. on Whitsunday, May 23, 1706, he sent an advance party under his Quartermaster-General, Cadogan, to select a camping-ground near the village of Ramillies, which lies on the eastern edge of the highest table-land in this part of Belgium.[42] Owing to a heavy mist, it was not until eight o’clock that Cadogan discovered that there were hostile troops upon the plateau. Two hours later the sun came out, and revealed to each army the presence of the other, the French moving eastward across the plateau, the Allies advancing from the opposite direction.
The main body of Marlborough’s troops had marched two hours after the Quartermaster-General’s detachment, but the Duke had overtaken Cadogan early in the day, and began to array his eight columns for battle. De Villeroi, who had the advantage of a thorough knowledge of the ground, took up a defensive position, marked on the right by the village of Taviers, in the centre by Ramillies and Offuz, and on the left by a hamlet known as Autre-Eglise or Anderkirche. A few hundred yards to the south of Taviers the river Mehaigne ran from west to east through bogs and marshes; from Taviers northwards to Ramillies, a distance of about a mile and a half, the soil was firm and well suited for cavalry, but along the remainder of the French line, about a mile and a quarter in length, the Little Geete meandered in a shallow valley through morasses which opposite Autre-Eglise were almost impassable. These villages were strongly held by infantry and artillery, twenty battalions and twenty-four guns being allotted to the defence of Ramillies alone. On the extreme left, between Autre-Eglise and Offuz, were infantry supported by cavalry; from Offuz to Ramillies the line was composed of infantry, while a hundred and twenty squadrons, “interlaced” with a few battalions, were massed between that village and Taviers.
Marlborough decided to attack the French right, between Ramillies and the Mehaigne; and as his reconnaissance showed him that de Villeroi had concentrated the greater part of his force upon this part of his line, he determined, by demonstrating against the Marshal’s left, to induce him to send reinforcements to that flank, and thus weaken the remainder of his position. An imposing number of battalions accordingly marched towards the Little Geete, descended into the valley opposite Autre-Eglise and Offuz, and made ostentatious preparations for throwing pontoon bridges over the stream. On the extreme right of the allied infantry were several British regiments, which the French staff easily identified by their uniforms and their Colours; and when the Marshal heard that the soldiers whom he so greatly feared were facing the left of his line, he drew largely from his right and centre to strengthen the threatened spot. The Duke had successfully “bluffed” de Villeroi; it now remained for him to transfer the greater part of the infantry employed in this demonstration to the points where they were really wanted. On the eastern side of the valley of the Little Geete are hillocks, high enough to conceal the ground beyond them from observers on the plateau; and over these hillocks the leading battalions retired gradually; disappeared, and once out of the enemy’s sight, hastened to the centre of the line. The British brought up the rear, but were ordered to halt at the top, turn about and face the enemy: and there throughout the battle several regiments remained, not firing a shot, but by their mere presence immobilising the French left wing, and effectually preventing it from giving the help urgently needed elsewhere.
By one o’clock the Duke’s preparations were finished, and after a preliminary cannonade four Dutch battalions were launched against Taviers; twelve battalions of the same nationality attacked Ramillies; while a great body of Dutch cavalry stood waiting to advance when one or other of these villages had fallen into the hands of the infantry. The garrison of Taviers fought well, but owing to the blundering of a French staff officer the reinforcements sent to its support did not arrive in time to prevent its capture, and as soon as the Dutch cavalry saw that their left flank could not be enfiladed from the village they charged the French horse, crashed through the first line, and then were so roughly handled by the second that Marlborough had to bring up many squadrons to their help. But these fresh squadrons did not turn the scale, and before the Dutchmen could be induced to rally, Marlborough--the Commander-in-Chief of the allied army, on whose life depended not only the issue of the battle, but of the whole war--had to plunge into the thick of the mêlée and exert his personal influence with the troopers, to all of whom he was well known by sight. But his face and figure were familiar also to the enemy. Some French dragoons broke from their ranks to surround him. He was unhorsed, and would have been killed or captured had not his aide-de-camp mounted him on his own charger. The Dutch then recovered themselves, and the timely arrival of twenty more squadrons turned the tide against the French. While this cavalry fight was in progress, the Danish Horse and the Dutch Guards forced their way through the marshes on the bank of the Mehaigne, turned the French right flank, and fell furiously upon their rear. Encouraged by this good news the main body of Dutch cavalry returned to the charge, and with a final effort shattered the enemy in front of them. Thus assailed on three sides, the cavalry of de Villeroi’s right wing lost heart, left the infantry to shift for themselves, and galloped madly off the field.
The battalions who defended the village of Ramillies, mindful of the fate of their comrades at Blenheim, determined to retire before they were completely hemmed in, but as they “could not get out but in great disorder our Horse fell in with them and cut most of them to pieces.”[43] The Duke then ordered the brigades of infantry which were massed round Ramillies to bring up their left shoulders and advance against the still unbroken troops at Offuz; but the French did not await their attack; and a couple of British regiments from the extreme right worked through the swamps near Autre-Eglise, and drove the enemy from that hamlet. Though a few of the best French cavalry regiments fought hard to cover the retreat, the greater part of de Villeroi’s army was routed and fled in panic, hotly pursued by Marlborough’s horsemen, among whom the British squadrons were well to the front.
The French lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners about 11,000 men, 80 standards and colours, 50 guns, and much of the baggage of their army. The Allies on their side lost between 4000 and 5000 men, chiefly among the Dutch and the Danes, to whom the honour of this great victory is mainly due.
There is a curious conflict of evidence as to the part played by the Royal Irish in this battle. According to Kane and Parker, the XVIIIth was among the British regiments which, on the extreme right of the allied line, stood all day on a hill without firing a shot. Stearne, on the other hand, records in his journal that the regiment was “greatly mauled” at the attack on the village of Ramillies; and Millner, at the end of his casualty return (in which the losses of the different nationalities are not given), mentions that “upwards of three hundred of our Horse and Dragoon horses were killed or disabled at the head of the Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland.” If Stearne and Millner are correct, it would appear that the XVIIIth was not only employed in the attack on Ramillies, but was also in close support of the mounted troops during some part of the pursuit.[44]
Marlborough’s enemies had blamed him for slackness in not profiting by his victory at Blenheim; but not even his most virulent political opponents could impute want of vigour to him after Ramillies. Although his infantry had paraded before 3 A.M., had marched many miles and had won a great victory, he gave them no rest till 1 A.M. on the 24th, when they were allowed to halt for two hours; then they trudged on “with all the expedition they could without observing any other order than this, that every regiment kept their men as close together as they possibly could, and none of them halted above an hour at a time.”[45] Marlborough drove the French back into their own country, and within a fortnight of the battle all the great trading towns had opened their gates to the Allies, while very few fortresses in Flanders remained in the hands of Louis XIV.’s troops. Over the walls of Ostend, Dendermonde, and Menin the French flag still flew, but these towns were attacked and taken in the course of a few weeks.
At the capture of Menin, one of Vauban’s masterpieces of fortification, the XVIIIth won much glory. In July the Duke detached 20,000 troops to besiege it; and though the garrison of 5000 men fought admirably and disputed every inch of ground, by the end of the month most of the guns were dismounted, and the approaches of the British brigade had reached the foot of the glacis. The next step was to capture the covered way and counterscarp; and about eight o’clock on the evening of the 7th of August, nine complete battalions, of which the XVIIIth was one, delivered the assault. As Stearne remarks, “this proved warm service,” for, as the Allies were swarming up the glacis, two mines were sprung upon them; and when the inevitable confusion was over and the attack was resumed, the French fired venomously at the crest of the glacis, where the British were covering the advance of the working parties bringing wool-packs and fascines with which to throw up entrenchments. The Royal Irish and Lauder’s, an unnumbered corps since disbanded, appear to have been at the head of the column, and were so much annoyed by this musketry that without orders they began to reply to it. The flashes of their firelocks gave the French a target, and before the officers could stop the firing the losses in these two regiments had been great. Stearne, who was in command of the XVIIIth, says that the action cost him six officers and more than eighty of the other ranks killed and wounded. Parker, the adjutant of the regiment, mentions that two captains and five subalterns were killed and eight other officers wounded, but is silent about the casualties among the sergeants and private soldiers. Millner agrees with the adjutant about the officers and with the colonel about the men.[46] Notwithstanding their losses, the Allies held the crest of the glacis until eight o’clock next morning, when the working parties had finished the entrenchments; then fresh batteries began to play upon the walls, and in a short time the resistance was fairly beaten down and the garrison surrendered on honourable terms. The siege lasted thirty-one days, and cost the French eleven hundred officers and men, while the Allies’ strength was diminished by two thousand six hundred combatants.
In the spring of 1707, the Allies assembled at Bethlehem, where the British contingent was joined by the Royal Irish from their winter quarters at Ghent. Owing to the underhand conduct of the Emperor of Austria, who for his private ends made a secret treaty with Louis XIV. for the neutralisation of Italy, the French were able to withdraw their troops from that country and largely reinforce the Marshal de Vendôme, who had succeeded de Villeroi in command of their “army of Flanders.” But de Vendôme had no wish to fight Marlborough, and a long spell of very bad weather helped him to evade all the Duke’s efforts to bring him to battle. Stearne in his journal mentions that “there fell such rain that our men were not able to draw their legs after them, neither could they keep their arms or ammunition dry.” On one occasion the Allies were struggling over nine miles of country, along which the French had just retreated, “but what with the enemy marching before us, and our Horse which followed them, and the rain continuing the roads were so deep and miry that the most part of our infantry were not able to reach the camp that night, and it was three or four days before the rear came up, and several of them perished by the way.”[47]
In the hope of raising a rebellion in North Britain, Louis XIV. attempted early in 1708 to land the Pretender in Scotland, with a handful of French soldiers to train the partisans who were expected to flock to the standard of the Stuart Prince. The expedition sailed long before the campaign opened on the Continent; to meet it the XVIIIth and nine other regiments were hurriedly shipped off to Shields, where the transports anchored while their escort of men-of-war joined in the chase of the enemy’s vessels, which were driven back to France. As soon as the danger was over the troops were sent off to Ostend, where they arrived in full time to rejoin Marlborough’s army.
Early in the year it became evident that Louis intended to make a great effort to regain the ground he had lost in Flanders, for he assembled a hundred thousand men behind his frontier fortresses, and placed them under the command of his grandson the Duke of Burgundy, with de Vendôme as his military tutor and adviser. As Marlborough had but eighty thousand troops at his immediate disposal, he arranged that Eugene, the Prince of Savoy, who was in charge of the allied forces on the Rhine, should support him whenever he wanted help. This help was soon required, for the French took the initiative, and at the end of May advanced to the forest of Soignies. While Marlborough concentrated at Hal, de Vendôme rapidly despatched detachments to Bruges and Ghent, where the civil authorities were in his pay; and when Louis’ soldiers appeared outside the walls, the gates stood open before them. Having thus secured two very important points in the system of waterways connected with the Lys and the Scheldt, de Vendôme next threatened Brussels; and by forcing Marlborough to move to Asche for its protection, gained time to prepare for the attack on Oudenarde, the capture of which would make him master of the greater part of the Scheldt. He proposed to cover the siege operations from Lessines, a place about thirteen miles south-east of Oudenarde, and hoped to establish his main body there before Marlborough had grasped his plan; but the Duke’s secret service agents did not fail him, and when he learned that de Vendôme was to move southwards from his camp at Alost on July 9, he determined to outstrip him by starting from Asche long before dawn on the same day. As the reinforcements from the Rhine had not yet arrived, in point of actual numbers the Allies were considerably weaker than the French; but Eugene, leaving his own troops many marches behind him, had recently joined the English general--and the mere presence of Eugene was in itself worth many thousand men. In a straight line the Allies and the French had about the same distance, twenty miles, to march, but by the roads followed by the Allies the mileage was nearly fifty per cent greater. Almost without a pause, Marlborough’s troops tramped steadily from 2 A.M. till noon, when, with fifteen miles to their credit, they halted till the evening, though Cadogan’s detachment of eight squadrons and as many battalions was allowed only four hours’ rest before starting for Lessines, thirteen miles farther on. Throughout the night the main body pressed forward and reached their destination to find that their exertions had not been thrown away--they had outmarched the French: no enemy was in sight, and Cadogan, who had struggled into Lessines at midnight, had already thrown several pontoon bridges across the river Dender. Not until the Allies had reached their camping ground did the heads of the French columns begin to show on the horizon; and when de Vendôme and the Duke of Burgundy realised that Marlborough lay between them and France, they abandoned all hope of besieging Oudenarde, and fell back on the Scheldt to secure the safety of Bruges.
Marlborough decided to follow them, and Cadogan with eleven thousand troops of all arms, including Sabine’s brigade of the 8th, XVIIIth, 23rd, and 37th regiments, quietly left the camp in the small hours of July 11. The duty of this advance-guard was to make all preparations for the crossing from the right bank of the Scheldt to the left by the main body, which was due to arrive at Oudenarde a few hours after Cadogan. Between 10 and 11 A.M. its cavalry scouts had crossed the river a few hundred yards below the town, and were riding up to the thickly enclosed table-land between the principal stream and its northern affluent, the Norken,[48] when they saw to their front a number of French troopers scouring the country for forage. Vendôme had marched down the right bank to Gavre, a few miles below Oudenarde, and was then in process of crossing the Scheldt. These foraging parties were part of the French advance-guard, for de Vendôme, who apparently had taken no steps to watch the movements of the Allies, was so unconscious of danger that many of his men had been allowed to disperse. The French Horse, however, quickly recovered from their surprise at finding Marlborough on their heels, and drove back our scouts, discovering in the course of the pursuit that a body of his cavalry was on the plateau near the village of Eyne, and that some of the bridges over the river near Oudenarde were in his hands.
As soon as de Vendôme realised the situation he decided to form along the slopes overlooking the Scheldt; the line was to stretch from Heurne on his left to Mooregem on his right, and after ordering a detachment of cavalry and seven battalions to occupy Heurne, he rode back to report his dispositions to the Duke of Burgundy, whom he found at breakfast. French writers say that the Prince greatly disliked any interruption at his meals, and the news that the Allies were on the same bank of the river as himself was very unwelcome. There was already great friction between the Prince and his military “bearleader”; and to vent his spleen upon the Marshal the Duke of Burgundy peremptorily rejected the veteran’s plan, and insisted on preparing to give battle, not close to the bank of the Scheldt, where there was a good chance of crushing Marlborough’s columns as they came piece-meal into action, but two miles farther back, on the far side of the Norken, with his left at Asper and his right at Wannegem. From that moment things began to go wrong with the French. In the confusion caused by the rejection of the Marshal’s scheme no one thought of recalling the cavalry and infantry ordered to Heurne: and these luckless troops marched steadily towards a village which they believed to be Heurne, though it proved to be the hamlet of Eyne, well within the reach of Cadogan’s infantry.
While the French generals were laboriously forming their army behind the Norken, Cadogan was throwing pontoon bridges over the Scheldt, and anxiously scanning the horizon for the clouds of dust which would herald the march of the main body of the Allies. But the day was stifling, the roads narrow and bad; it was not until two o’clock in the afternoon that the heads of the columns began to reach the river, and thus set Cadogan free to secure for his chief a good foothold on the left bank. The first thing to be done was to drive the French out of Eyne; and a body of Hanoverian cavalry and three brigades of infantry from the advance-guard were ordered to attack the village. Sabine’s brigade of British was in front, and as it was led by the Royal Irish, the XVIIIth was the first regiment under fire at the battle of Oudenarde. Though the garrison of Eyne were conscious that they had been stranded in an impossible position, so far in advance of their main line that they could not hope to be reinforced, they fought well at first; but when they realised that they were heavily outnumbered they lost heart: three battalions surrendered: the others were hustled out of the village at the point of the bayonet, and then fell into the hands of the Hanoverians, who after cutting them to pieces charged the detachment of French cavalry posted near Eyne and chased it into the marshes of the Norken.[49] Cadogan followed up his success by pushing two Prussian regiments towards Groenewald, thus to some extent protecting the right flank of the main body as it crossed the Scheldt.
The French troops who had been powerless to help their comrades at Eyne became clamorous to avenge them, and the Duke of Burgundy, seeing how slowly the Allies defiled over the bridges, determined to take the offensive, and ordered his right and centre to advance. About five o’clock a formidable mass of infantry threatened Groenewald, where the Prussians would have fared badly had they not been reinforced at once by twelve battalions of the advance-guard, who, as they came into action, prolonged the line to the left--i.e., southwards, towards the hamlet of Schaerken. But as the French continued to gain ground on this part of the field twenty battalions from the main body were flung into the fray, and by continuing to extend to the left as they joined the fighting line, repulsed a dangerous attempt by the enemy to turn the left of the Allies at this point.
In the enclosures round Groenewald every hedge and ditch became a miniature fortress, taken and retaken as the tide of battle ebbed and flowed; and near the village of Schaerken the Allies could hardly keep the enemy in check until the Duke reinforced this part of the line. Then slowly, and with great difficulty, the Dutch and Hanoverians forced the French back a few hundred yards to Diepenbeck; but there they met with so stubborn a resistance that they could gain no further ground. Some writers say that the French infantry had fallen back to a belt of abattis prepared earlier in the day; be that as it may, the fact remains that at this point de Vendôme’s infantry fought magnificently, and brought Marlborough’s foot soldiers to a standstill. Fortunately the Duke had in hand a reserve of some twenty battalions and many squadrons, all of whom had so recently crossed the river that they had not yet come into action; and with these troops he turned the right of the enemy’s line, drove in the outer flank of their infantry, and after dispersing a body of de Vendôme’s cavalry fell upon the right rear of the French army. About this time, but far too late to influence the issue of the battle, the Duke of Burgundy ordered his left to move forward; but his foot soldiers did nothing, and his horsemen were paralysed by the sight of the British regiments of cavalry, drawn up on the far side of the swamp across which they were called upon to advance. Thus the combat resolved itself into a struggle round the villages of Groenewald and Diepenbeck, and as night fell the flashes of the muskets showed that the French line, ever growing thinner and narrower, was hour by hour more closely hemmed in on front and flank and rear by Marlborough’s infantry. Soon it became too dark to distinguish friend from foe, and after parties from the right and left wings of the Allies had met in rear of the French position and fired into each other, Marlborough ordered his weary troops to break off the battle, to halt where they stood, and be ready to resume the combat at dawn next day. But at daybreak there was no enemy to fight. When the French right flank was turned the Duke of Burgundy again quarrelled fiercely with de Vendôme. The General tried to keep the army together; the Prince insisted on an immediate retreat; the troops lost their discipline, and following the example of Louis XIV.’s grandson, a mass of runaways--generals and private soldiers, horse, foot and artillery--streamed off the field. Not all the French broke, however: by dint of de Vendôme’s personal exertions he rallied enough officers and men to form the rear-guard, with which he covered the “stampede” to Ghent.
The French lost about 6000 killed and wounded, and 9000 prisoners;[50] and (according to Millner) we took from them 10 guns, 56 pairs of colours, 52 standards, and 4500 horses. The casualties among the Allies were about 3000 killed or wounded, more than half of which were among the Dutch. The British suffered very little, 53 officers and men being killed and 177 wounded. The Royal Irish, though the first regiment to come in action, were extremely lucky in losing only a lieutenant and 8 private soldiers killed and 12 wounded.[51]
While Marlborough’s troops were enjoying forty-eight hours’ well-earned rest, an audacious project was forming itself in their great leader’s brain. He knew that an expedition was being prepared in England for a descent on the coast of Normandy, and that to meet it many battalions would be drawn off from the centre of France. The Duke of Burgundy’s army was reeling under the stroke of Oudenarde, and would take weeks to recover itself. Why should not the Allies profit by this favourable combination of circumstances, and leaving a detachment to watch the garrison of Lille, neglect that great frontier fortress and carry the war into the very heart of France? But the scheme was too daring, even for Eugene, who insisted that Lille must be captured as a preliminary to a serious invasion. So the Duke made up his mind to reduce Lille, and marching across the French frontier formed a camp near Commines, levying large contributions from the neighbouring towns, while he began his preparations for the siege. A single detail will be enough to show how enormous these preparations were--the staff had to collect 16,000 horses to drag the big guns and ammunition over the seventy-five miles of villanous road between Lille and Brussels, where the heavy ordnance was stored.
The arrival of the Duke of Berwick[52] with large reinforcements from the Rhine raised the Duke of Burgundy’s strength to at least 100,000 combatants. To meet them Marlborough had only 84,000 troops; but when after many weeks’ delay his huge convoy started from Brussels, he manœuvred so brilliantly that the enemy was never able to come within striking distance of its cumbrous length. It was not until the 22nd of August that the Allies broke ground before Lille, which every Frenchman regarded as impregnable, for on its fortification Vauban had lavished all his skill, 150 guns and mortars frowned from its works, and Marshal de Boufflers commanded its garrison of 15,000 picked men. The siege was to be carried on by Eugene, while from Helchin on the Scheldt Marlborough covered the operations with the field army. Among Eugene’s troops the British were not strongly represented: “only five regiments were detailed for regular work in the trenches”[53]--the 16th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, and as hard knocks were to be expected, it is scarcely necessary to add, the XVIIIth also. The Duke had hardly finished his lines of circumvallation, or, in modern language, the works protecting his own front and Eugene’s rear, when he learned that the Duke of Burgundy was advancing to the relief of Lille. 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. By taking up and holding strongly positions running along the Scheldt and the Scarpe from Ghent to Douai, they hoped to intercept all convoys from Brussels, at that time the Duke’s chief source of supply, but they forgot that in Ostend, which Marlborough had recaptured two years before, he possessed on the open sea a port within easy distance of England. The troops which had just returned from the expedition to Normandy--an expedition as futile as most of our similar enterprises seemed fated to be--were landed at Ostend, where they were employed most usefully in forming a new base.
The chief interest in this part of the campaign is centred in Marlborough’s success in keeping the besiegers supplied with food and ammunition, for the French could range at will over the greater part of the country between Ostend and Lille, and they had possession of the sluices that could inundate the districts through which the convoys had to pass. After the brilliant little fight at Wynendal, where a valuable convoy fought its way through a very superior force, de Vendôme laid the neighbourhood of Ostend under water; but the Duke organised a service of punts in which, despite the attentions of French gunboats, stores were transported over the deepest part of the flood, and then transferred to vehicles fitted with very high wheels to keep their loads above the level of the water.[54]
The strain upon the Commander-in-Chief at this time must have been indescribable, for in addition to the constant anxiety about his commissariat, things did not always go well at Lille, where de Boufflers defended himself in a masterly manner: Eugene was so badly wounded that for some weeks he could not direct the operations: the engineers made mistakes, and the supply of ammunition was always scanty. When to these troubles was added the arrival from the Rhine of a large body of the enemy under the Elector of Bavaria, who laid vigorous siege to Brussels, the nerves of most men would have suffered; but with unbroken serenity Marlborough prepared to rescue Brussels from the danger threatening it. After misleading the French by false reports about his movements, he burst through their line of defences on the Scheldt, and so alarmed the Elector that he hurriedly decamped, leaving behind him his sick, his wounded, and his guns.
The details of the doings of the XVIIIth in the siege of Lille are very scanty; but it is known that in a great, though not very successful assault on September 7, when Eugene lost about 3000 men, his five British regiments between them had 350 casualties, or from a fifth to a sixth of their whole strength.[55] In a desperate attack on the counterscarp a fortnight later, Eugene was followed by a number of British troops, among whom were some regiments lent for the occasion by the covering army. In his memoirs he relates that after two assaults had been repulsed with great slaughter, he spoke a few words in English to the brave fellows who rallied round him, and then led them back to the fire, where a musket-ball knocked him senseless. The men thought he was dead; but an intelligent soldier remembered that he was a great friend of the Duke’s, and after looking for some conveyance on which to transport him to his quarters, carried him back on a dung cart! On the 9th of December de Boufflers surrendered on excellent terms, granted him as a proof of Marlborough’s admiration for his splendid defence, which had cost France 8000 men, and the Allies about 14,000 in killed and wounded alone. The returns of the British losses are incomplete: Millner states that from the beginning of the siege to October 22, when the French abandoned the town and retreated in the citadel, the five British regiments in Eugene’s force lost 1600 officers and men; the casualties for the remainder of the siege he was unable to obtain. Stearne briefly dismisses the services of the XVIIIth at Lille in the following words: “Our regiment suffered very much, having two captains and three subalterns killed: our major, with several other officers wounded, and upwards of 200 men killed and wounded.”[56]
It would be deeply interesting to know how many of the Royal Irish who watched the garrison of Lille march out with all the honours of war had seen the ceremonial at Namur thirteen years before. Unfortunately it occurred to none of the literary officers of the XVIIIth to record the numbers. The mental attitude of these old warriors is very curious: they seem to have grown tired of writing about battles and sieges, and as the war went on cut their descriptions shorter and shorter, though they were ready to dilate on any departure from the usual routine of warfare. Thus, for example, they all give accounts of a daring attempt to throw reinforcements of powder into Lille. Two thousand cavalrymen started from Douai, carrying large bags of powder behind them, and wearing in their hats “boughs of trees,” in imitation of the Germans who always decorated themselves in this way when on an expedition--or as the British soldier would now express it, “when on the job.” In the dusk they rode up to the outer barrier of the line of circumvallation, gave over the pass-word, and stating they were a detachment of German Horse with prisoners, were allowed to enter. Then they rode on undetected, until one of the party, to use modern slang, “gave the show away,” by remarking in French to a comrade that they had got through the barrier very easily. A watchful sentry overheard him, drew his own conclusions, and by promptly firing at the speaker gave the alarm. The troops, says Millner,
“instantly turned out of their Tents in only their Shirts and Cartridge Boxes with their Ammunition, and seiz’d their Arms from their Belts, and in a Trice form’d themselves into as good Order as could be expected, and with undaunted Courage, though in the Dark, fired amongst the thickest of the Enemy putting them in great Disorder and Confusion, so that in the Hurly-Burly thereof, several of the Bags of Powder fell off on a Causeway, and was broke; the which by the prancing of the Horses’ Feet, took Fire, and thereby blowed up and tore to pieces upwards of one Hundred Men of them, and likewise destroyed a good many of their Horses; but in the interim thereof, a few of them slipt into the City with some Ammunition also; but the major Part was obliged to retire, and that in very great Haste, Disorder and Confusion back again to Tournai.... The Besieged made a great Huzzaing that Night because they had got those few in with some Relief of Powder.”
While de Boufflers was discussing with Marlborough the terms of capitulation, the other French Generals, thinking that the Duke was as much worn out by the campaign as they were themselves, sent their men into winter quarters and went off to Paris. But they reckoned without their host. Marlborough sprang at Ghent, and invested it, repulsed a great sortie on Christmas Day, and accepted the surrender of the garrison on January 2, 1709. The French troops in Bruges did not wait to be attacked, but abandoned the town and citadel: and then, but not till then, the Allies were allowed to disperse to their winter quarters.
During the greater part of the year 1708 the regiment was deprived of the services of the adjutant, Captain Robert Parker, who was specially selected to act as instructor in discipline and drill to the regiments at that time quartered in Ireland. To any officer the compliment would have been great; but in Parker’s case it was especially flattering, because he was a self-made man who had risen from the ranks. His story is an interesting one. His father was a farmer near Kilkenny, where the boy was sent to a school which boasted of a company of cadets (as we should now call them), who were “armed with wooden guns and took great delight in marching and exercising.” These cadets must have been a remarkable set of lads, as more than thirty of them obtained commissions, and some indeed became General officers. Parker soon discovered that soldiering was the trade for him, and running away from home, enlisted in an independent company commanded by Captain Frederick Hamilton, the future Colonel of the XVIIIth Regiment. During the Tyrconnel troubles both Hamilton and Parker were disbanded, but April, 1689, found them in Meath’s regiment, the one a major, the other a full private. Parker joined with a strong determination to get on in his profession. “I determined to be very circumspect in my behaviour, by which I gained the esteem of my Major and most of the officers of the regiment. I applied myself diligently to the use of arms, and soon became expert in it.” Whether he had risen to be a sergeant in the Irish wars is not known: all he tells us about himself at that time is that at Athlone in throwing up an entrenchment he “received a favourable shot on the crown of the head; the ball only grazed on a good thick skull and went off”; and that at the end of the siege he was much injured by a stone dropped on him by the defenders of the castle. He must have been a non-commissioned officer in 1695; desperately wounded at Namur, he found when he returned to duty after seven months in hospital, that he had been gazetted to a commission, with seven ensigns junior to him. Eleven years later he was Captain-Lieutenant and Adjutant, and after receiving at Menin “a contusion on the side of the head which was likely to be fatal,” was promoted to be captain of the grenadier company. Parker was so successful in disciplining the infantry in Ireland that, when after two years he returned to duty with the regiment in Flanders, Government made him a present of two hundred pounds.
Though Louis had suffered heavily in 1708, the enormous resources of his kingdom enabled him to send large numbers of fresh troops to the Marshal de Villars, whom early in 1709 he placed in command of the army of Flanders. De Villars’ first care had been to secure the safety of Arras, the key to the north-east of France, by throwing up to the east of the town a great line of works which stretched from the Lys to Douai; and from behind these works, known as the lines of La Bassée, he watched the Allies, who owing to the lateness of the season did not take the field till June. Marlborough’s first move was to make open, even ostentatious preparations to force the lines; de Villars concentrated to resist them, calling up as reinforcements a large portion of the garrison of Tournai, a fortress some sixteen miles east of Lille. As Tournai was Marlborough’s immediate objective, he marched swiftly upon it, and invested it before de Villars discovered how completely he had been outwitted. At the beginning of the siege the XVIIIth took part in an expedition to reduce various small forts in the neighbourhood, and after marching night and day returned “greatly fatigued,”[57] but in time to help to storm the breaches of the ravelin, and to repulse a determined sortie by the garrison, who strove to make up for the weakness of their numbers by the vigour of their defence. Up to the time that the town surrendered and the troops retired into the citadel, the siege had run on normal lines; but when the attack on the citadel began things became very different, for this stronghold was celebrated throughout Europe for its subterranean defences, and the ground outside its walls was honeycombed with casemates, mines, and secret passages. To reach these hidden works the besiegers had to sink deep shafts, and then to drive tunnels fathoms deep under the earth, at any moment liable to be blown sky-high by the explosion of a mine. The desperate work done by the XVIIIth in this phase of the siege is well described by Stearne.
“The enemy and we met several times underground and fought it out with bayonet and pistol, and in twelve days the French sprang sixteen mines, which blew up a great many of our men; and one mine did so much execution that it blew up part of the town wall, two branches of our trenches with a parallel between them, and ruined two of our mines, with a Captain and Lieutenant of our regiment and another officer and forty men, all of which happened on our attack.... Our miners discovered the branches of another mine, and as they were busy in finding out the mine itself, they heard the enemy at work in one of their galleries, whereupon a Lieutenant and twenty Grenadiers were ordered to dislodge them, but the Lieutenant being killed at the first onset the Grenadiers retired immediately; after that another officer with a fresh detachment was ordered for that service, but the enemy throwing a great many grenades and making a great smoke with combustible stuff, forced them to retire being suffocated. The next day, the miners being supported by a Lieutenant and sixteen Grenadiers, were at work, to pierce through a gallery they had discovered, but upon their breaking into it, the enemy threw in upon them a great quantity of straw, hemp, powder and other combustible matter, and being set on fire the Lieutenant and ten of the Grenadiers were stifled. After this manner was this terrible siege carried on, till by degrees we wrought ourselves almost into the ditch. The enemy sprang a mine which was their last effort, with which we had near four hundred men killed, but notwithstanding we lodged ourselves that night on our attack near their palisades, where we raised a prodigious quantity of cannon.”
The citadel capitulated on the 3rd of September, after more than 3000 French officers and men had fallen. The besiegers’ casualties are given in Millner’s return as 1233 killed, 4055 wounded, or a grand total of 5288. Millner is not as clear as usual about the loss of the British, but it seems probable that 178 were killed and 521 wounded, or 699 of all ranks. To what extent the Royal Irish suffered it is impossible to say, but it is probable that in such continuous fighting more officers and men were placed hors de combat than are mentioned in Stearne’s narrative.[58]
As soon as Marlborough saw that the defence of Tournai was weakening, he marched a large force towards the lines of La Bassée; again demonstrated against de Villars, whom he puzzled completely, and then, after a march of forty-nine miles in fifty-six hours, in pouring rain over roads knee-deep in mud, swooped upon Mons, a town important to the French, though at that time only weakly held. When de Villars slowly realised that the Duke had no intention of wasting his strength in storming highly fortified lines, he advanced with 95,000 men, and entrenched himself at the Trouée d’Aulnoit, one of the few gaps in a belt of woodland which lay a few miles to the south of Mons. He outnumbered the Allies so greatly that they decided not to attack him until the troops left to level the siege-works at Tournai had rejoined headquarters, and thus made Marlborough’s numerical strength equal to that of his opponent. These troops, among which were the XVIIIth and several other British regiments, were ordered up at once, but while they were on the march de Villars, by working night and day, rendered his position very formidable. His right rested on the forest of Laignières, half a mile from the village of Malplaquet,[59] which has given its name to the battle of the 11th of September, 1709: his centre ran across the southern end of the gap, which was open, fairly level, and about 2000 yards in width: his left was thrown forward into the continuous series of woods known respectively as those of Taignières, Blangies, and Sart. Across his centre he built long lines of trenches, gun emplacements, chains of abattis, and many strong redans; the woods on his flanks were similarly protected, and when the attackers had forced their way through the abattis which fringed the edges they came under the fire of field-works hidden in the depths of the forest. The weak point of the position was that cavalry could only act offensively on the plain--i.e., the gap between the woods; and as this open ground was covered with defences Villars had to draw up his Horse in rear of the rest of his troops, where they would be unable to come into action unless the Allies broke through some part of the front line.
For the attack of this position, which from the nature of its fortifications had virtually become a fortress, the Duke issued the following orders: The Prince of Orange with thirty-one battalions, most of which were Dutch, was to make a demonstration against the right of the French line; sixty-eight battalions were to assail the northern and eastern faces of the woods of Taignières and Sart; while General Withers, with five British and fourteen foreign battalions, was to strike and turn the extreme left of the enemy’s line at the village of La Folie. As the pressure on the French left became intense, the Duke expected (as did actually happen) that de Villars would draw largely from his centre to reinforce the point of danger; then fifteen British battalions and other infantry, till then held back in the centre, were to be launched at the works in the gap, capture them, and thus win a passage for the allied cavalry, which was then to crash through Villars’ centre and cut his army in twain. The heavier guns were massed into two great batteries--one playing on the enemy’s right, the other on his left.
Though the advanced parties of the hostile armies watched each other throughout the night at little more than a musket’s shot distance, nothing happened to disturb the few hours’ rest which the Duke allowed his men.[60] Long before daylight the troops were under arms, and when morning service had been read at the head of every regiment, the Duke rode through his army, correcting faulty dispositions and sending to their places in the line of battle the horse and dragoons who during the night had arrived from Tournai. They had left behind them on the road the infantry, who came on as best they could, the last to reach the battlefield being the Royal Irish, whose march was retarded by the slow-moving guns they had to escort.[61] After an hour’s artillery duel Marlborough began to carry his plan into effect, and launched his infantry columns against Villars’ flanks. At first things went well. His right made some progress, though in the woods of Taignières and Sart the French fought superbly, disputing every inch of ground, and by vigorous counter-attacks often sending their assailants reeling back upon their supports; and on his left the Prince of Orange kept the enemy occupied in the forest of Laignières by his feigned attack. Suddenly, in direct defiance of his orders from the Duke, this General took upon himself to attack in real earnest; but the French fell upon his column with such resistless energy that the Dutch, stubborn fighters as they were, were driven back with hideous slaughter. Marlborough received this startling news with composure; he directed the Prince of Orange to content himself with holding the French without again attacking them; and confident of ultimate success, in no way altered his original dispositions.
While the Prince of Orange was being buffeted on the left, Eugene, who commanded on the right flank, was forcing the French backwards through the woods. The process, though slow and very costly, was sure; and when de Villars, who had taken charge of the French left, heard that the red-coats of Withers’ column were appearing on his flank at La Folie, he did exactly what Marlborough expected him to do, and weakened his centre to reinforce his left. Three brigades, one of them composed of the Irishmen who had done so well at Blenheim, hurried up to de Villars’ help, plunged into the wood, and drove the Allies back on their supports. In this charge the Irish Brigade with reckless valour pursued so far that they lost their formation, and the whole or part of one of its battalions found itself alone in a glade, where it was attacked by the Royal Irish. The XVIIIth had come so late into action that it had been sent off to the extreme right of the whole army, where, in modern phraseology, it seems to have acted “on its own,” and according to Parker marched on till it came
“to an open in the wood. It was a small plain, on the opposite side of which we perceived a battalion of the enemy drawn up. Upon this Colonel Kane who was then at the head of the regiment, having drawn us up and formed our Platoons, advanced gently towards them, and the six Platoons of our first fire made ready. When we had advanced within a hundred yards of them, they gave us a fire of one of their ranks, whereupon we halted, and returned them the fire of our six Platoons at once; and immediately made ready the six Platoons of our second fire, and advanced upon them again. They then gave us the fire of another rank, and we returned them a second fire, which made them shrink; however they gave us the fire of a third rank after a scattering manner, and then retired into the wood in great disorder, on which we sent our third fire after them, and saw them no more. We advanced cautiously up to the ground which they had quitted and found several of them, killed and wounded; among the latter was one Lieutenant O’Sullivan, who told us the battalion we had engaged was the Royal Regiment of Ireland in the French service.”
In this skirmish the XVIIIth, or Royal regiment of Foot of Ireland, had but few casualties; while the Iro-Gallic regiment, as “their opposite number” in Louis’ army was termed, is said to have lost several officers and about forty men.[62]
While the Irishmen were settling their quarrel, the climax of the battle was approaching. Eugene had rallied his infantry in the wood of Taignières, and was struggling to hold his own against the fresh troops which de Villars in person led against him. Both generals were wounded--Eugene was struck on the head by a musket-ball, but refused to leave the fighting line to have his injury attended to by a surgeon; de Villars, hard hit in the leg, made a gallant effort to direct the battle from a chair, but swooning from pain was carried away insensible to the nearest village. Though deprived of their leader, the French fought obstinately, and on the right of the allied line the combat raged without any decisive result, neither side knowing that when the three brigades were moved from the centre to the left of de Villars’ line, Marlborough had ordered the Dutch forward on his left, and had hurled himself against the heart of the French position. Orkney’s fifteen battalions of British infantry, who for many hours had been waiting for their chance, were let loose against the redans across their front, and carrying them after a sharp fight, promptly lined with marksmen the reverse parapets--i.e., those looking backwards into the enemy’s second line. On the left, the Dutch infantry atoned for their mistake in the morning by capturing not only the wood of Laignières, but the abattis and trenches connecting it with the works now in the hands of the red-coated battalions, and the Dutch cavalry poured through the openings won by their infantry comrades. But in the scramble over shelter trenches and abattis their ranks became disordered, and before they had time to re-form they were attacked by the Gendarmerie, and forced to take shelter under the muskets of Orkney’s battalions, whose steady shooting beat off the French and gained time for Marlborough to come up with the British and Prussian horse. These were driving the Gendarmerie backwards, when a splendid counter-attack of the French Household troops crashed through their first line, penetrated the second, and threw the third into confusion. At that moment Eugene, dashing up bloodstained from his wound, threw his last squadrons against the enemy’s flank; Louis’ Bodyguard wavered and gave way, and de Boufflers, on whom the command had devolved after de Villars was wounded, seeing that his centre was pierced, his right dislodged, and his left beaten though not routed, ordered a retreat.
His retirement was quite unmolested by the Allies, who were too much exhausted to pursue an enemy who after such a desperate struggle was still able to retire in good order. Marlborough had begun the engagement with about 95,000 troops, but by three o’clock in the afternoon twenty thousand of his men were killed or wounded. Millner’s analysis of the casualties shows that the Germans lost 5321 officers and men; the Prussians, 1694; the Hanoverians, 2219; the Dutch (thanks to the Prince of Orange’s untimely movement), 8680; and the British, 1783. In the British contingent 32 officers were killed and 111 wounded; among the other ranks, 492 were killed and 1073 wounded. Of the XVIIIth, two officers were wounded, four men killed and six wounded.[63] Though the French lost the day, only twelve thousand of their men fell; and the only trophies of the victory left in the hands of the Allies were sixteen guns, five hundred prisoners, and many standards.
Three days after the battle the Duke resumed the siege of Mons, where the Royal Irish were among the regiments of the covering force, and when the fall of the fortress brought the campaign to an end, the XVIIIth returned to its usual winter quarters in the town of Ghent.
Though no great battle occurred in 1710, the army in Flanders was by no means idle. As Marlborough failed to induce Villars to try conclusions with him in the field, he began to prepare for a future invasion of France by the successive capture of the fortresses of Douai, St Venant, Bethune, and Aire. The XVIIIth was in the besieging force at Aire, where the small garrison defended itself gallantly for nearly ten weeks, not surrendering until it had lost about 1400 men and inflicted nearly five times as many casualties on the attackers. Nothing is known of the work done in this siege by the XVIIIth; Stearne and Parker contented themselves with recording that owing to the capture of a convoy food was very scarce in camp,[64] and that the regiment had three officers killed and five wounded, with about eighty casualties among the other ranks.[65]
During the winter of 1710-11 the French made gigantic efforts to protect their country against the threatened invasion, and threw up fresh lines, which ran from Namur to a point on the English Channel a few miles south of Boulogne, using rivers and canals, swamps, and artificial inundations as barriers against the general whom they feared so greatly. Before Marlborough was ready to open the campaign of 1711, his trusted friend and invaluable colleague, Prince Eugene, was recalled to Austria with a large body of troops, but though left with forces greatly inferior in numbers to those of de Villars, he resolved to carry out the first task he had already set himself, the capture of Bouchain. As this fortress was protected by the new lines, which were far too strong to be carried by force, the Duke determined to decoy Marshal de Villars from the opening in the works at Arleux, where he intended to cross. He advanced and retired; threatened first one part of the lines and then another; issued contradictory orders; pretended to be cast down at the loss of a weak detachment intentionally thrown away as a bait to his adversary; simulated alternately rage, dejection, rashness; and deceived not only the French spies in his camp, but also his own army, who began to fear that their beloved “Corporal John” had lost his judgment. By acting apparently like a madman, but really with the profound skill of a great master of war, he lured de Villars forty miles to the westward of Arleux, and on the morning of August 4, ostentatiously reconnoitred the Marshal’s position, explaining in unusual detail to the generals who accompanied him the part each was to play in the assault which was to be delivered on the morrow: then he returned to camp and issued orders for the coming battle. At tattoo the word was passed to strike tents and fall in at once, and in an hour the troops were in motion. At first they thought they were merely taking up ground for the attack next day, but when hour after hour they plodded steadily eastward, they were fairly puzzled until, just before dawn, the message ran down the column: “The cavalry have reached Arleux and have passed the lines, and the Duke desires that the infantry will step out.” And step out they did! They forgot the fatigue of the fifteen miles they had marched already with heavy muskets on their shoulders and fifty pounds’ weight upon their backs, and without a halt for rest or food trudged manfully over an apparently endless plain. When the sun grew hot the work began to tell, and it became a question of the survival of the fittest. The weaker men dropped exhausted on the ground, first by scores, then by hundreds, and later in the day literally by thousands; but without stopping to help their comrades, those soldiers who still had the strength to keep their places in the ranks set their teeth and staggered on, determined not to be beaten in the race by the French, whose horsemen they could see on the other side of the lines hurrying in the same direction as themselves. Early in the afternoon the leading battalions reached Arleux and reinforced the cavalry, who were already in possession of the entrance to the works. The XVIIIth came up about 4 P.M.; apparently the discipline and the marching powers of the regiment had brought it there fairly intact, but when the men realised that the prize was won and Arleux safe in the Duke’s hands, the reaction, inevitable after so prolonged a strain, set in, and half of the Royal Irish collapsed, dead beat and unable to walk another yard. Barely fifty per cent of the infantry had kept up with the army in this forced march, when nearly forty miles was covered in eighteen hours. Numbers of men were found dead from exhaustion, and it was fully three days before all the stragglers had rejoined the Colours.
Marlborough now laid siege to Bouchain, and handled the covering force so well against de Villars’ superior numbers that the French failed to interfere with his operations, and on the 13th of September had the mortification of seeing the garrison surrender. The investing force was desperately hard worked during the siege. For thirteen days consecutively the Royal Irish marched and dug trenches all day, and at night stood to their arms, ready to fight at any moment. “This,” says Parker, “was the greatest fatigue I ever underwent at any one time of my life.” Though the French surrendered before the breach was stormed, they inflicted heavy losses on the besiegers, whose casualties amounted to 4018, of which 1154 were among the fifteen British battalions employed in the siege. The Royal Irish were fortunate: only four officers were wounded, and about forty of the other ranks killed or wounded.[66] It is said that an officer of the XVIIIth, whose courage was as high as his stature was low, was nearly drowned in wading across a deep inundation, so he had himself hoisted on the shoulders of the biggest of the grenadiers of his party, and when safely landed at the foot of the parapet led an assault upon the enemy’s works.
The capture of Bouchain was the last service the Duke of Marlborough was allowed to render to his country. Political intrigues had long been directed against him, and when he returned to England in the autumn he was coldly received by Queen Anne, insulted in the House of Lords, prosecuted for peculation by the House of Commons, and deprived of all his offices. Nay, more, to such a height did party pamphleteers rouse popular indignation against him, that the General “who never fought a battle that he did not gain nor sat down before a fortress he did not take” was forced to go to the Continent to escape from the jeers of the London mob. Even before his fall, the Ministers in power had begun secret negotiations with Louis, by which England was to desert her Allies and make a separate peace with France; and when the Duke of Ormond, his successor in command of the British forces in Flanders, joined the army in the spring of 1712, he understood that he was on no account to cross swords with de Villars. During several months the British troops were in a very miserable position; for being still, at least in name, part of the allied army, to the supreme command of which Eugene had now succeeded, they followed its operations, but in a novel and humiliating capacity: they were no longer chief actors, but spectators--soldiers whom their Government would not allow to fight; and when Ormond announced to them that the suspension of hostilities between England and France was signed, the news filled them with profound grief. In July they turned their backs upon their former comrades and returned to Ghent and Bruges, after a gloomy march past Douai, Tournai, Bouchain, Lille, and Oudenarde, places which they had helped to take, but to which the Dutch garrisons now contemptuously refused them admittance.
After twenty years of almost uninterrupted fighting, every army requires careful handling at the beginning of peace, but more especially one sore at the ill-treatment of its beloved Chief, sorer still at the loss of its honour by its desertion of its comrades in the time of need. Ormond did not manage his men well, and neglected their commissariat; the garrison of Ghent lost their discipline, listened to the words of agitators, and formed a mad scheme to rise; loot and burn the town, and then disperse over the Netherlands. The plot was discovered, but two or three thousand men seized part of the town, where they barricaded themselves, holding out until field-guns were brought against them. Soon after this mutiny was put down the troops were withdrawn to England, but the Royal Irish and another regiment were left to garrison the town until political questions regarding it had been settled. Their detention at Ghent gave them the opportunity to see Marlborough once more, for when he passed through the town at the end of 1712 the whole garrison was on foot to do him honour.
To many of the officers and men of the XVIIIth Ghent must have been more familiar than their own homes in Ireland, for they had wintered there for many years during the war, and did not finally leave it until the autumn of 1715, when the regiment returned to England. A few months later it was quartered at Oxford, where “the scholars and the soldiers did not agree,” until the officers ordered their men to leave their weapons behind them when they went out at night, taking instead stout cudgels with which to teach the undergraduates good manners. This stopped the trouble, and all was quiet until, on the Prince of Wales’ birthday, the officers lit a bonfire outside the Post Office, and then went to supper. While they were at table stones began to come in through the window; a number of soldiers rushed to the defence of their officers, and broke the windows of the house from which the supper party had been pelted. Then arose a furious row: the townsmen turned out; so did the soldiers from their quarters, and headed by a Lieutenant of grenadiers, who “was a little elevated,” a mass of Royal Irishmen went through the town breaking every window they could reach that was not illuminated in honour of the Royal birthday. Patrols were sent out to stop the window-breaking, but it is possible they were not very zealous--at any rate, much damage was done before the rioting was stopped. The Dons announced that they would have every officer in the regiment cashiered for this insult to the University, and solemnly complained to the Privy Council, who at once asked for “reasons in writing,” or their equivalent at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Then the House of Lords debated the matter at great length, and finally decided in favour of the officers, charging the University with disloyalty for not celebrating properly the Prince of Wales’ birthday. Thus the affair ended without detriment to the regiment, and to the great benefit of the Oxford glaziers who had to replace £500 worth of broken glass.
In January, 1712, Lieutenant-General Ingoldsby died. Brigadier-General Richard Stearne, his successor, made over the regiment in 1717 to Colonel William Cosby.[67]