On the 17th June, without communicating his designs to any one, or even without saying a word of the alarming intelligence he had received, he ordered the whole army to be under arms at midnight, and setting out shortly after, he marched, without intermission, eighteen miles to the rear. Having thus gained a march upon the enemy, so as to avoid the risk of being pursued or harassed in his retreat, he left General D'Aubach with eleven battalions and twelve squadrons to cover the important magazines at Treves and Saarbruck; and himself, with the remainder of the army, about thirty thousand strong, marched rapidly in the direction of Maestricht. He was in hopes of being able, like the Consul Nero, in the memorable cross march from Apulia to the Metaurus in Roman story, to attack the enemy with his own army united to that of Overkirk, before he was aware of his approach; but in this he was disappointed. Villeroi got notice of his movement, and instantly raising the siege of the citadel of Liege, withdrew, though still superior in number to the united forces of the enemy, within the shelter of the lines he had prepared and fortified with great care on the Meuse. Marlborough instantly attacked and carried Huys on the 11th July. But the satisfaction derived from having thus arrested the progress of the enemy in Flanders, and wrested from him the only conquest of the campaign, soon received a bitter alloy. Like Napoleon in his later years, the successes he gained in person were almost always overbalanced by the disasters sustained through the blunders or treachery of his lieutenants. Hardly had Huys opened its gates, when advices were received that D'Aubach, instead of obeying his orders, and defending the magazines at Treves and Saarbruck to the last extremity, had fled on the first appearance of a weak French detachment, and burned the whole stores which it had cost so much time and money to collect. This was a severe blow to Marlborough, for it at once rendered impracticable the offensive movement into Lorraine, on which his heart was so set, and from which he had anticipated such important results. It was no longer possible to carry the war into the enemy's territory, or turn, by an irruption into Lorraine, the whole fortresses of the enemy in Flanders. The tardiness of the German powers in the first instance, the terrors of the Dutch, and misconduct of D'Aubach in the last, had caused that ably conceived design entirely to miscarry. Great was the mortification of the English general at this signal disappointment of his most warmly cherished hopes; it even went so far that he had thoughts of resigning his command.[4] But instead of abandoning himself to despair, he set about, like the King of Prussia in after times, the preparation of a stroke which should reinstate his affairs by the terror with which it inspired the enemy, and the demonstration of inexhaustible resources it afforded in himself.