command continued to be fought ardently and stedfastly, and he was almost surrounded by the enemy when a party of Guiscard’s and Carpenter’s dragoons insisted on his withdrawing along with them. Our hero has been blamed for fighting when the army of the enemy was in numbers at least double. But the ideas of that age rather favoured a daring attack in such circumstances. The Observator (an English paper), for August 26, 1704, expresses the English feeling:— “Don't tell me of numbers; they are cowards that tell noses. The Duke of Marlborough is none of those reckoning generals. Pray, had not the French twice the number at Donawart? — and did not the duke there thrash their jackets to their hearts’ content?” Bishop Burnet, in his thanksgiving sermon on 27th June 1706, thus panegyrized British soldiers:— “They run to battles with so bold an intrepidity that we seem to be near the state promised that one shall chase a thousand. Our men go to action as assured of victory, being resolved to conquer or die.” The general opinion as to Almanza was that if the Portuguese cavalry had not stood still, and then decamped, the day would have been ours; in which case Lord Galway’s glory would have been uppermost, and have overborne military criticism.
King Charles and Noyelles at first exulted over Lord Galway’s misfortune. The “great misfortune” (according to the British Government’s opinion) included the cause of the defeat, namely, the dispersion of all the Spanish troops and some others in garrisons throughout Arragon and Catalonia, and the consequent weakening of the confederate army in Valencia. Once more the Emperor and his brother’s waywardness and neglect had led them to disdain to fight for Spain.
Letters reached Marlborough with insinuations to the effect “that there is a general contempt and anger towards Lord Galway,” “that he is neither an officer nor zealous” — “that he has also grown very proud and passionate, which (says the Duke to Godolphin) you know is very different from the temper he formerly had.” None, however, felt this contempt and anger, but men who had nursed it before — his rivals and personal enemies, — men, whose consciences told them that they themselves were to blame, and whose tongues had a brief opportunity of rancorously speaking out, when silence best expressed the grief of true British and Christian patriots. But Stanhope and Tyrawley, and the majority of good officers felt towards him, as did their younger comrade, Captain (afterwards Sir Thomas) De Veil, who, though hearing those expressions of contempt, cherished and recorded the opinion that Lord Galway was “very brave in his person, and had all the abilities requisite to fill his employments.”
The malcontent officers, some of whom (like the Earl of Peterborough) were interested rivals and opponents, others (like the Duke of Ormond) being Jacobites and sympathisers with the Duke of Berwick, toasted this fitz-regal duke as “the brave English general who had beaten the French [i.e., Ruvigny].” They formed a party, in which were some young officers, strangers to Lord Galway, and unacquainted with the secrets of their commanders. As the youthful soldiers grew to be oracles among a still younger generation, a tradition arose that the Duke of Berwick obtained a ludicrously easy victory at Almanza. In confutation of this, I can say that I have read the Duke’s narrative, and that that was not his opinion — (the narrative which ends with the statement, that “Milord Galloway, General des Anglois, y perdit un oeil; il devoit meme etre pris, mais il trouva moyen de s’échapper.”) He evidently considered it an immense effort both in plan and in execution. “According to Berwick’s own account,” says Macfarlane [" Pictorial History of England,” vol. iv., p. 202], “his horse was repeatedly repulsed by those steady columns of foot, and even when the French and Spaniards seemed victorious on both wings, their centre was cut through and broken, and the main body of their infantry completely beaten.” In the “Military Memoirs of the Marquis de Fouquiere, containing Maxims of Warfare, illustrated by Instructive Examples”, the “Bataille d'Almanza” is methodically described as a good, well-fought battle. Petavius in his “Rationarium Temporum,” has chronicled the same opinion, and has immortalized Lord Galway by the name of “Gallovidius” in the classical tongue of Caesar [p. 489], “Anno 1707, Infelicior hujus anni expeditio Foederatis in Hispania fuit. Gallovidio enim, A.D., 7, Kalendas Maii ad Almanzam cum Gallis signa conferente, acerrime quidem pugnatum est, sed cessit ille tandem loco, et in Catalaumiam se subduxit, amissa exercitûs magna parte.”
The fool’s laugh of Noyelles was soon exchanged for stupid amazement; and Lord Galway, by his defence of Catalonia, and by recruiting the army — achievements which were left to his management — showed who was the best officer and general. The Duke of Berwick’s pursuit, instead of completing his victory, subtracted from it. Lord Galway had caused the Bridge of Tortosa to be so well fortified, and it was so
