slight balance of advantage on Luxemburg’s side, until September,
when William returned to England, leaving Waldeck in command
of the Allied army, with orders to distribute it in winter quarters
amongst the garrison towns. This gave the momentary opportunity
for which Luxemburg had been watching, and at Leuze
(20th Sept.) he fell upon the cavalry of Waldeck’s rearguard
and drove it back in disorder with heavy losses until the pursuit
was checked by the Allied infantry.
In 1692[1] the Rhine campaign was no more decisive than before, although Lorge made a successful raid into Württemberg in September and foraged his cavalry in German territory till the approach of winter. The Spanish campaign was unimportant, but on the Alpine side the Allies under the duke of Savoy drove back Catinat into Dauphiné, which they ravaged with fire and sword. But the French peasantry were quicker to take arms than the Germans, and, inspired by the local gentry—amongst whom figured the heroine, Philis de la Tour du Pin (1645–1708), daughter of the marquis de la Charce—they beset every road with such success that the small regular army of the invaders was powerless. Brought practically to a standstill, the Allies soon consumed the provisions that could be gathered in, and then, fearing lest the snow should close the passes behind them, they retreated.
In the Low Countries the campaign as before began with a great siege. Louis and Vauban invested Namur on the 26th of May. The place was defended by the prince de Barbançon (who had been governor of Luxemburg when that place was besieged in 1684) and Coehoorn (q.v.), Vauban’s rival in the science of fortification.Siege of Namur, 1692. Luxemburg, with a small army, manœuvred to cover the siege against William III.’s army at Louvain. The place fell on the 5th of June,[2] after a very few days of Vauban’s “regular” attack, but the citadel held out until the 23rd. Then, as before, Louis returned to Versailles, giving injunctions to Luxemburg to “preserve the strong places and the country, while opposing the enemy’s enterprises and subsisting the army at his expense.” This negative policy, contrary to expectation, led to a hard-fought battle. William, employing a common device, announced his intention of retaking Namur, but set his army in motion for Flanders and the sea-coast fortresses held by the French. Luxemburg, warned in time, hurried towards the Scheldt, and the two armies were soon face to face again, Luxemburg about Steenkirk,Steenkirk. William in front of Hal. William then formed the plan of surprising Luxemburg’s right wing before it could be supported by the rest of his army, relying chiefly on false information that a detected spy at his headquarters was forced to send, to mislead the duke. But Luxemburg had the material protection of a widespread net of outposts as well as a secret service, and although ill in bed when William’s advance was reported, he shook off his apathy, mounted his horse and, enabled by his outpost reports to divine his opponent’s plan, he met it (3rd August) by a swift concentration of his army, against which the Allies, whose advance and deployment had been mismanaged, were powerless (see Steenkirk). In this almost accidental battle both sides suffered enormous losses, and neither attempted to bring about, or even to risk, a second resultless trial of strength. Boufflers’s army returned to the Sambre and Luxemburg and William established themselves for the rest of the season at Lessines and Ninove respectively, 13 m. apart. After both armies had broken up into their winter quarters, Louis ordered Boufflers to attempt the capture of Charleroi. But a bombardment failed to intimidate the garrison, and when the Allies began to re-assemble, the attempt was given up (19th–21st Oct.). This failure was, however, compensated by the siege and capture of Furnes (28th Dec. 1692–7th Jan. 1693).
In 1693, the culminating point of the war was reached. It began, as mentioned above, with a winter enterprise that at least indicated the aggressive spirit of the French generals. The king promoted his admiral, Tourville, and Catinat, the roturier, to the marshalship, and founded the military order of St Louis on the 10th of April. The grand army in the Netherlands this year numbered 120,000, to oppose whom William III. had only some 40,000 at hand. But at the very beginning of operations Louis, after reviewing this large force at Gembloux, broke it up, in order to send 30,000 under the dauphin to Germany, where Lorge had captured Heidelberg and seemed able, if reinforced, to overrun south Germany. But the imperial general Prince Louis of Baden took up a position near Heilbronn so strong that the dauphin and Lorge did not venture to attack him. Thus King Louis sacrificed a reality to a dream, and for the third time lost the opportunity, for which he always longed, of commanding in chief in a great battle. He himself, to judge by his letter to Monsieur on the 8th of June, regarded his action as a sacrifice of personal dreams to tangible realities. And, before the event falsified predictions, there was much to be said for the course he took, which accorded better with the prevailing system of war than a Fleurus or a Neerwinden. In this system of war the rival armies, as armies, were almost in a state of equilibrium, and more was to be expected from an army dealing with something dissimilar to itself—a fortress or a patch of land or a convoy—than from its collision with another army of equal force.
Thus Luxemburg obtained his last and greatest opportunity. He was still superior in numbers, but William at Louvain had the advantage of position. The former, authorized by his master this year “non seulement d’empêcher les ennemis de rien entreprendre, mais d’emporter quelques avantages sur eux,” threatened Liége, drew William over to itsNeerwinden. defence and then advanced to attack him. The Allies, however, retired to another position, between the Great and Little Geete rivers, and there, in a strongly entrenched position around Neerwinden, they were attacked by Luxemburg on the 29th of July. The long and doubtful battle, one of the greatest victories ever won by the French army, is briefly described under Neerwinden. It ended in a brilliant victory for the assailant, but Luxemburg’s exhausted army did not pursue; William was as unshaken and determined as ever; and the campaign closed, not with a treaty of peace, but with a few manœuvres which, by inducing William to believe in an attack on Ath, enabled Luxemburg to besiege and capture Charleroi (October).
Neerwinden was not the only French victory of the year. Catinat, advancing from Fenestrelle and Susa to the relief of Pinerolo (Pignerol), which the duke of Savoy was besieging, took up a position in formal order of battle north of the village of Marsaglia. Here on the 4th of October the duke of Savoy attacked him with his whole army,Marsaglia. front to front. But the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat’s minute attention to details[3] in arraying them, gave the new marshal a victory that was a not unworthy pendant to Neerwinden. The Piedmontese and their allies lost, it is said, 10,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, as against Catinat’s 1800. But here, too, the results were trifling, and this year of victory is remembered chiefly as the year in which “people perished of want to the accompaniment of Te Deums.”
In 1694 (late in the season owing to the prevailing distress and famine) Louis opened a fresh campaign in the Netherlands. The armies were larger and more ineffective than ever, and William offered no further opportunities to his formidable opponent. In September, after inducing William to desist from his intention of besieging Dunkirk by appearing on his flank with a mass of cavalry,[4] which had ridden from the Meuse, 100 m., in 4 days, Luxemburg gave up his command. He died on the 4th of January following, and with him the tradition of the Condé school of warfare disappeared from Europe. In Catalonia the marshal de Noailles won a victory (27th May) over the Spaniards at the ford of the Ter
- ↑ Louvois died in July 1691.
- ↑ A few days before this the great naval reverse of La Hogue put an end to the projects of invading England hitherto entertained at Versailles.
- ↑ Marsaglia is, if not the first, at any rate, one of the first, instances of a bayonet charge by a long deployed line of infantry.
- ↑ Hussars figured here for the first time in western Europe. A regiment of them had been raised in 1692 from deserters from the Austrian service.
