charged again with a personal bravery that made him conspicuous before the
whole field, and should make him famous in history, but the task was more
than men could accomplish. The best brigade at the disposal of the French,
that of Navarre, was brought up to meet this second onslaught, broke it,
and the French leapt from the earthworks to pursue the flight of their
assailants. Many of Orange's colours were taken in that rout, and the guns
of his advanced battery fell into French hands. Beyond the wood of Tiry
the extreme right of the Dutch charge had suffered no better fate. It had
carried the central entrenchment of the French, only to be beaten back as
the main body between the wood of Tiry and the wood of Lanière opened.
At this moment, then, after eleven o'clock, which was coincident with the
success of Lottum and Schulemberg in the forest of Sars, upon the right,
the allied left had been hopelessly beaten back from the entrenchments in
the gap, and from the edge of the wood of Lanière.
Marlborough was hurriedly summoned away from his personal command of
Lottum's victorious troops, and begged to do what he could for the broken
regiments of Orange. He galloped back over the battlefield, a mile or so
of open fields, and was appalled to see the havoc. Of the great force that
had advanced an hour and a half before against Boufflers and the French
right, fully a third was struck, and 2000 or more lay dead upon the
stubble and the coarse heath of that upland. The scattered corpses strewn
over half a mile of flight from the French entrenchments, almost back to
their original position, largely showed the severity of the blow. It was
impossible to attempt another attack upon the French right with any hope
of success.
Marlborough, trusting that the forest of Sars would soon be finally
cleared, determined upon a change of plan. He ordered the advance upon the
centre of the position of Lord Orkney's fifteen battalions, reinforced
that advance by drafts of men from the shattered Dutch left, and prepared
with some deliberation to charge the line of earthworks which ran across
the open and the nine redans which we have seen were held by the French
allies and mercenaries from Bavaria and Cologne, and await his moment.
That moment came at about one o'clock; at this point in the action the
opposing forces stood somewhat as they are sketched on the map over page.
The pressure upon the French in the wood of Sars, perpetually increasing,
had already caused Villars, who commanded there in person, to beg
Boufflers for aid; but the demand came when Boufflers was fighting his
hardest against the last Dutch attack, and no aid could be sent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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