England thus entered on the war of the Spanish Succession as the ally of continental powers banded together against France, and hampered by having to act in concert with them, as well as supported by their strength. In the patient tact requisite for managing a body of allies with diverging interests, and practically no bond of union except hostility to the enemy, Marlborough was perhaps never excelled. In military skill he was vastly William's superior, being on the whole the first of an age fertile in good generals. The weak point in his position was that it depended on the personal favour of a stupid woman: when his wife lost her influence over queen Anne, his political antagonists in England found no great difficulty in bringing about his disgrace. Marlborough was not a good man; he was greedy of money and of power, and unscrupulous as to the means he adopted for gaining them. As a general however he had the virtues never too common, and almost unknown in his age, of humanity towards the peaceful population even of a hostile country, and of attention to the welfare of his own soldiers. Like Wellington a century later, he was habitually careful of the lives of his men, though he knew how to expend them when the occasion demanded it. Like Wellington also he never lost his patience and coolness of judgment, either in the excitement of battle or in dealing with troublesome allies. In fact the two great Englishmen were conspicuously alike, at least in their military character, though there is no real doubt that Marlborough had the greater genius.