The Collected Works of Hilaire Belloc. Hilaire Belloc

without effect. Apart from the inferiority of his force, it was still impossible for him, until the harvest was gathered, to establish a sufficient accumulation of wheat to permit a forward movement. He never had four days’ provision of bread at any one time, nor, considering the length of his line, could he concentrate it upon any one place. He was fed by driblets from day to day, and lived from hand to mouth while the siege of Tournai proceeded to the east of him.

      That siege was entering, with the close of the month, upon the end of its first phase.

It had been a desperate combat of mine and counter-mine even where the general circumvallation of the town was concerned, though the worst, of course, was to come when the citadel should be attacked. The batteries against the place had been increased until they counted one hundred and twelve heavy pieces and seventy mortars. On the night of the 24th of July the covered way on the right of the Scheldt was taken at heavy loss; forty-eight hours later the covered way on the left between the river and the citadel. The horn work in front of the Gate of the Seven Springs was carried on the 27th, and the isolated work between this point and the Gate of Lille upon the following day. Surville in his report, in the true French spirit of self-criticism, ascribed to the culpable failure of their defenders the loss of these outworks. But the loss, whatever its cause, determined the loss of the town. A few hours later practicable breaches had been made in the walls, ways were filled in over the ditches, and on the imminence of a general assault Surville upon the 28th demanded terms. The capitulation was signed on the 29th, and with it the commander sent a letter to Versailles detailing his motives for demanding terms for the civilian population. Finally, upon the 30th,3 Surville with 4000 men, all that was left of his original force of 7000, retired into the citadel and there disposed himself for as a long a resistance as might be. As his good fortune decided, he was to be able to hold with this small force for five full weeks.

To Marlborough is due the honour of the capitulation. The besieging troops were under his command, while Eugene directed the army of observation to the west. Marlborough put some eight thousand men into the town under Albemarle. A verbal understanding was given on both sides that the citadel would not fire upon the civilian part, nor the allies make an attack from it upon the citadel, and the siege of that stronghold began upon the following day, the 21st, towards evening. The operations against the citadel proved far more severe and a far greater trial to Marlborough’s troops than those against the general circumvallation of the town. The subterranean struggle of mine and counter-mine particularly affected the moral of the allies, and after a week a proposal appeared4 that the active fighting should cease, the siege be converted into a blockade, and only the small number of men sufficient for such a blockade be left before the citadel until the 5th of September, up to which date, a month ahead, at the utmost, it was believed the garrison could hold out. Louis was willing to accept the terms upon the condition that this month should be one of general truce. The allies refused this condition, and hostilities were resumed.5

      The force employed for containing the citadel and for prosecuting its siege had no necessity to be very large.

      It was warfare of a terrible kind. Men met underground in the mines, were burned alive when these were sprung, were exhausted, sometimes to death, in the subterranean and perilous labour. The mass of the army was free to menace Villars and his main body.

      But the admirable engineering which had instructed and completed the lines of La Bassée still checked the allies, in spite of superior numbers and provisionment still superior.

      The effect of the harvest was indeed just beginning to be felt, and the French general was beginning to have a little more elbow-room, so to speak, for the disposition of his men through the gradual replenishment of his stores. But even so, Marlborough and Eugene had very greatly the advantage of him in this respect.

      When the siege of the citadel of Tournai had been proceeding a little more than a week, upon the 8th of August the main body of the allies fell suddenly upon Marchiennes. Here the river Scarpe defended the main French positions. The town itself lay upon the further bank like a bastion. The attack was made under Tilly, and, consonantly to the strength of all Villars’ defensive positions, that attack failed. On the night of the 9th Tilly retired from before Marchiennes, after having suffered the loss of but a few of his men.

      This action, though but a detail in the campaign, is well worth noting, because it exhibits in a sort of section, as it were, the causes of Malplaquet.

      Malplaquet, as we shall see in a moment, was fought simply because it had been impossible to pierce Villars’ line, and Malplaquet, though a victory, was a sterile victory, more useful to the defeated than to the victors, because the defence had been kept up for such a length of time and was able to choose its own terrain.

      Now all this character in the campaign preceding the battle is exemplified in the attempt upon Marchiennes upon August 8th and 9th and its failure. Had it succeeded, had the line been pierced, there would have been no “block” at Malplaquet but an immediate invasion of France, just as there would have been had the line been pierced in the first attempt of five weeks before.

      In the next week and the next, Villars continually extended that line. He brought it up solidly as far as St. Venant on his left, as far as Valenciennes on his right. He continually strengthened it, so that at no one place should it need any considerable body of men to hold it, and that the mass of the army should be free to move at will behind this strong entrenchment and dyke, fortified as it was with careful inundation and the use of two large rivers.

      Though the body of the allies again appeared in the neighbourhood of the lines, no general attack was delivered, but on the 30th of August Villars heard from deserters and spies that the citadel of Tournai was at the end of its provisions. Though but a certain minority of the allied army was necessary to contain that citadel, yet once it had fallen the whole of the allied forces would be much freer to act.

      It was upon the 31st of August that Surville, finding himself at the end of his provisionment of food, proposed capitulation. At first no capitulation could be arrived at. Marlborough insisted upon the garrison’s complete surrender; Surville replied by threatening a destruction of the place. It was not until the morning of the 3rd September that a capitulation was signed in the form that the officers and soldiers of the garrison should not be free to serve the king until after they had been exchanged. The troops should march out with arms and colours, and should have safe escort through the French lines to Douai. They reached that town and camp upon the 4th, and an exchange of prisoners against their numbers was soon effected.

      Thus after two months ended the siege of Tournai, a piece of resistance which, as the reader will soon see, determined all that was to follow. Six thousand four hundred men had held the place when it was first invested. Of these, 1709 (nearly a third) had been killed; a number approximately equal had been wounded. The figures are sufficient to show the desperate character of the fighting, and how worthy this episode of war was on both sides of the legends that arose from it.

      III

       THE MANŒUVRING FOR POSITION

       Table of Contents

      With the end of the siege of Tournai both armies were free, the one for unfettered assault, the other to defend itself behind the lines as best it might.

      To make a frontal attack upon Villars’ lines at any point was justly thought impossible after the past experience which Eugene and Marlborough had of their strength. A different plan was determined on. Mons, with its little garrison, should be invested, and the mass of the army should, on that extreme right of the French position, attempt to break through the old lines of the Trouille and invade France.

      Coincidently with the first negotiations for the capitulation of the citadel of Tournai, this new plan was entered upon. Lord Orkney, with the grenadiers of the army and between 2000 and 3000 mounted men, was sent