Believing France to be more exhausted than she in fact was, Marlborough hoped to achieve great things in 1705 by attacking France from the side of the Moselle. The reluctance of his allies however kept his army so small that he was powerless. Villars, the ablest living French general, was opposed to him with superior forces, and with orders to avoid a battle. After vainly trying for six weeks to find an opportunity—a direct attack on Villars in an intrenched position being beyond his strength—Marlborough returned to the Netherlands, where the incapable Villeroi lay behind a great line of almost continuous fortifications from Antwerp to Namur. It was the fashion of the age to construct these elaborate defences, always open to two fatal objections, that they deprived the army holding them of all mobility, and that they became useless if broken through at any point. So long as the enemy was content to play the game in the fashion that best suited the defence, or was so hindered by bad roads and lack of subsistence that he found it difficult to move promptly, such lines might serve their purpose; and if from the nature of the country they could not be turned, an enemy might deem it too hazardous to break through them. But from Turenne onwards skilful generals turned or pierced them whenever they seriously tried; and Marlborough's easy success in breaking through the French lines at what was deemed their strongest point was a very striking proof of their inutility.[59] Had it not been for the persistent opposition of the Dutch to any decisive action, Marlborough, advancing on Brussels, would have fought a great battle very nearly on the field of Waterloo. Hampered by the Dutch, he could achieve nothing; and the year 1705, though eventful in other parts of the vast theatre of war, ended in the Netherlands much as it began. [Illustration: _Map XI._ _Battle of Ramillies._ _23^{rd}. May 1706._]