"A German army, under Louis, Margrave of Baden, was to be collected on the Upper Rhine, to threaten France from the side of Alsace; a second corps, 25,000 strong, composed of Prussian troops from the Palatinate, and Dutch under the Prince of Sarbruck, was to undertake the siege of Kaiserworth; the main army, under the orders of the Earl of Athlone, 35,000 strong, was destined to cover the frontier of Holland from the Rhine to the Meuse, and at the same time cover the siege of Kaiserworth; a fourth body of 10,000, under Cohorn, the celebrated engineer, was collected near the mouth of the Scheldt, and threatened the district of Bruges.
"The preparations on the part of the French were not less vigorous; and from the more concentrated position of their troops, and unity of action among their commanders, they, in the first instance, were enabled to bring a preponderating force into the field. On the Lower Rhine, a force, under the Marquis Bedmar and the Count de la Motte, were stationed opposite to Cohorn, to protect the western Netherlands from insult; Marshal Tallard was detached from the Upper Rhine, with 13,000 men, to interrupt the siege of Kaiserworth; while the main army, under the command nominally of the Duke of Burgundy, really of Marshal Boufflers, a veteran and experienced officer, was stationed in the bishopric of Liege, resting on the strong fortresses with which that district of Flanders abounded. Not only were the forces under his command superior by a third to those that Athlone had at his disposal, the latter being 45,000, the former only 35,000 strong, but they had the immense advantage of being in possession of the whole strong places of Brabant and Flanders, which were all garrisoned by French or Spanish troops, forming not only the best and most secure possible basis for offensive operations, but an iron defensive barrier, requiring to be cut through in successive campaigns, and at an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure, before by any road the frontiers of France could be reached."21
Such as it was, however, says Mr Alison, the barrier required to be cut through; and Marlborough resolved to commence it with the siege of Kaiserworth, a place of very great importance. He took it – but at a cost of 5000 men; and then took Venloo, and finally Liege – all places, of extreme importance, and desperately defended; and with these feats he concluded the brief but brilliant, campaign which laid the foundation of all his future victories. It stripped the French of many of the chief advantages with which they had opened the war. He had broken through their line, so formidable for offensive and defensive war; he had "thrust his iron gauntlet," says Mr Alison, "into the centre of their resources." And the entire merit was his own, as Lord Athlone, his rival and second in command, thus nobly testified: – "The success of the campaign is entirely owing to its incomparable commander-in-chief; for I, the second in command, was, on every occasion, of an opposite opinion to that which he adopted!" His success was like a bright burst of sunshine over a long-troubled land! But here an incident occurred which might have ruined all. While dropping down the Meuse, on his return to England at the conclusion of the campaign, he was positively taken prisoner by a small French force, – whose commander, however, ignorant of the prize which was within his reach, and skilfully misled by a sagacious device of Marlborough's servant, suffered him to depart! The peril in which he had been spread consternation everywhere, equalled only by joy at his escape, which was powerfully expressed to him by the Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity was on the point of causing the slavery of these provinces, and restoring to France the power of extending her uncontrollable dominion over all Europe. No hope remained, if she had retained in bondage the man whom we revere as the instrument of Providence to restore independence to the greater part of the Christian world!" On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with transports in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough. The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during the first campaign, owing, says Mr Alison, to timidity, ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive measures of Marlborough, – but proved only a foretaste of what was in store for the harassed commander. Mr Alison gives an interesting letter which Marlborough wrote to his Countess, immediately on his arrival at the Hague. It is full of the passionate fondness of a lover to his mistress; yet was written by a man of fifty-two to a wife to whom he had been married twenty-three years! There are innumerable other instances, in these volumes, of the romantic fervour of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and – alone of the great commanders recorded in history —never sustained a reverse! On many occasions throughout the war he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first to last – an inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul throughout his career.
In this first campaign, Marlborough had laid the basis of great operations – which, indeed, followed in such rapid succession, each eclipsing its predecessor in magnitude of result and splendour of achievement, as to throw its foregoer comparatively into the shade. In order to appreciate the greatness of Marlborough, his position – harassed daily by the jealousies and selfishnesses of the Allied forces, which he commanded – should be compared with that of Louis XIV., where all was an overwhelming unity of will and purpose, perfect subordination, accompanied by immense military resources and consummate generalship. The war had, indeed, become already one of awful magnitude; for Louis XIV. and his advisers could not have failed to observe the settled determination of purpose, and forecasting sagacity, which characterised their great opponent. Louis brought all his power and resources to bear upon the plan of a second and magnificent campaign; showing that he felt the gravity of the situation, and the necessity of making commensurate efforts. "The great genius of Louis XIV. in strategy," says Mr Alison, "here shone forth in full lustre. Instead of confining the war to one of forts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, he resolved to throw the bulk of his forces at once into Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by pouring