Wurtemburg, on account of his connection with royalty, claimed the command in chief. Marlborough, who was as great a diplomat as he was a general, agreed to command alternately, but he was, all through the operations, the real commander. Students of history will remember that, in after wars on the Continent, Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy commanded on alternate days. But there was a great difference in this case, Eugene having been regarded as nearly as good a general as Marlborough himself. O’Callaghan attributes the failure of the main Irish army to succor the Cork and Kinsale garrisons to the misconduct of Lauzun in deserting Ireland, with his remaining 5,000 French troops, at this critical period. He quotes King James’s and Berwick’s memoirs, the Rawdon papers, and other authorities, to show that the Duke of Berwick had advanced with 7,000 men as far as Kilmallock, in Limerick County, to raise the siege of Cork, when he found himself destitute of cannon, which had been carried off by the French general, and could not expose his inferior force, destitute of artillery, to the formidable force under his uncle, Marlborough. He was, therefore, most reluctantly compelled to abandon the enterprise. Lauzun, it is further claimed, carried off most of the powder stored in Limerick, and, had it not been for Sarsfield’s exploit at Ballyneety, that city must have fallen if a second assault had been delivered by William, as only fifty barrels of powder remained after the fight of August 27th.