In this confused state of things Louis sent Berwick back, having first
conferred upon him the rank of Marshal of France so that Philip might
treat him with more respect. Inferior in force he was obliged to resort
to the same defensive tactics which had succeeded before. At the same
time he implored Louis to send him more troops, pleading that any
unforeseen accident might be the loss of Spain. The king, hard pressed
as he was by Marlborough and Eugene, contrived to send him a few more
regiments, and now for the first time he found himself equal to the
enemy.
The decisive encounter took place at Almanza. This battle is unique
among battles in that a Frenchman commanded the English, and an
Englishman the French. The general of the English was the ex-count of
Ruvigny a Huguenot who had been driven from France by the revocation of
the edict of Nantes. He had been created Earl of Galway in Ireland. He
was a good soldier and was now fighting with bitter animosity against
the king who had persecuted him.
But to the battle. Berwick led his own right wing. He threw into some
disorder the English left; then instead of following up his advantage
in that direction, he wheeled suddenly to the left, fell upon the
enemy’s centre and crushed it. The victory was complete. An English
account says that out of the thirty thousand men which Galway led into
the field, seventeen thousand either fell or were taken prisoner; and
that they lost all their artillery and baggage.
Philip was restored to his throne. He now sought to make amends to
the devil of an Englishman who would have his own way, by creating
him duke of Liria and Xerica with ample estates. Berwick refused them
for himself, but accepted them for his son who thus became a Spanish
grandee. Philip also offered, if Berwick would leave the service of his
grandfather and enter his, to make him generalissimo of all Spain. He
answered that Louis XIV. was his best friend, and that he would never
serve any other monarch.
Berwick returned to France and joined the army of the duke of Vendôme
who was another of his cousins. Vendôme was grandson and Berwick
great-grandson of Henry IV. They were unlike however: Berwick was
without vices; Vendôme was drunken and debauched. He was a good
general nevertheless, and the year before had kept at bay Marlborough
and Eugene during a whole campaign. Now he listened to a council of
officers, and, Berwick dissenting, risked Oudenarde and was beaten. The
next year Louis sent Berwick to the frontier of Savoy, to practise his
old game of making one battalion appear two to the enemy; and to keep
in check an army which threatened to invade France.
The English landed another army in Spain under General Stanhope, and
the Emperor one under Count Staremberg. Philip called loudly for
Berwick, but Louis could not spare him: he was holding the wolf by the
ears and it would not do to call him off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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