Battles of English History

The battle of Naseby merits but little description; it was Marston Moor over again, only with the superiority of numbers greatly on the parliamentary side; and therefore victory was much more easily won. Fairfax drew up his army behind the crest of a line of hills, so that the enemy could not see their numbers till he was committed to an attack. As usual the infantry was in the centre, with Skippon at their head; Cromwell commanded the cavalry on the right wing, Ireton on the left. The royalist infantry was under Sir Jacob Astley, Rupert on the right wing, Langdale on the left, Charles himself headed a small reserve. Fairfax numbered less than 14,000 men, but even so he had nearly double the king's strength. As in all the battles of the war where the ground did not absolutely prevent it, there was a direct attack all along the line, the royalists having the disadvantage of advancing up-hill. The infantry engaged in a fierce struggle, which remained doubtful till the cavalry intervened. Ireton was somewhat hampered by the roughness of the ground, and a great part of his wing was defeated by Rupert's charge and pursued off the field. It seems scarcely credible that Rupert should have been so feather-brained, after repeated experience: but he galloped as far as Naseby village, a mile and more in rear, and would have plundered Fairfax's baggage had not the guard fired on him. Then he awoke to his duty, and returned to the field, but even in that short time the battle was over. Cromwell had had no real trouble in overthrowing the weaker royalist cavalry opposed to him; as they bore down upon the reserve, followed hard by part of Cromwell's force, the king ordered his reserve cavalry to charge the pursuers, and rode forward to place himself at their head. As he did so, one of his suite seized his bridle, and turned his horse round, exclaiming "Will you go upon your death?" It was the best thing Charles could have done, for his own fame and for the cause he represented. He yielded however, and the reserve retreated a little way, and then halted again to await the inevitable. Cromwell, and the unbroken parts of Ireton's wing, were meanwhile charging into the flanks and rear of the royalist infantry. Many surrendered, the rest were cut to pieces: the king's infantry ceased to exist. When Rupert had by a circuit regained the king, there was nothing left but to escape. The king's baggage fell into the hands of the victors, including all his correspondence. The Parliament with excellent judgment instantly published a selection of the letters, under the title of "The King's Cabinet Opened," which did more harm to his cause than the loss of the battle of Naseby. The one unpardonable offence in the eyes of Englishmen has ever been the bringing in of foreigners to interfere in their affairs. And Charles was convicted out of his own mouth of incessant intrigues to get help not only from Irish and Scottish Celts, who though fellow-subjects were detested as semi-savages, but from France, Holland, Lorraine, from any one who could be importuned or bribed (with promises only) to send him aid.

The king with his usual optimism thought all could yet be put right: even the total overthrow of Montrose two or three months later did not impress him. The war was however virtually decided at Naseby, though all hostilities had not quite terminated a year later. The New Model army made short work with the royalists in Somersetshire; the last force which the king had in the open field was crushed at Stow on the Wold; castle after castle surrendered. The king presently shut himself up in Oxford, whence in the spring of 1646 he stole across England and took refuge in the camp of the Scots, to their extreme discomfiture. After an interval the Scots yielded up the king on the demand of the English Parliament. Many months elapsed, filled with negotiations for the restoration of Charles to his throne on terms, negotiations rendered abortive partly by the antagonism between Independents and Presbyterians, mainly by the king's own incurable inability to look facts in the face, or to abide by any plan or promise. An attempt of the moderate party in Scotland to restore him to his throne, by an invasion combined with risings of the English royalists, failed disastrously. The Independents held Charles to be guilty of this wanton bloodshed, and forcibly ejecting their opponents from the House of Commons took possession of the government. Their first act was to bring Charles to trial and public execution: their next to declare the monarchy and the House of Lords abolished, and to confide the executive authority to a council chosen by the Commons. This new experiment in politics worked with very fair success, seeing that they had all the world against them outside England, and were only supported in England itself by a comparatively small minority, who however had the enormous advantage of knowing their own minds. Cromwell was sent over to reduce Ireland to submission, which he did effectively. He had hardly completed the task when he was recalled to make war on Scotland, which had declared for Charles II.

On July 22, 1650, Cromwell crossed the Tweed, and marched towards Edinburgh. His old coadjutor at Marston Moor, David Leslie, was in command against him, and by skilful manœuvring in the country round the capital, managed to keep Cromwell at bay for several weeks, without being forced to an engagement. Supplies at length began to fail, and Cromwell reluctantly began a retreat by the coast road as far as Dunbar. If supplies could be brought him thither by sea, which depended on the weather, there being no good harbour, he could still hold his ground: if not he must retire into England. Leslie followed at once, further inland; having the shorter distance to go he succeeded in blocking the roads beyond Dunbar, and encamped on the heights to landward of the town, Cromwell occupying the level ground along the seashore. The Scottish position was unassailable, as Leslie's positions had been in Midlothian: moreover there had been a good deal of sickness in the English army, due chiefly to the wet weather, which had reduced its numbers to little more than half those of the enemy. Unless Leslie made a mistake, Cromwell would have to embark, and confess that he had failed totally. It was reported afterwards that the committee of the Presbyterian Kirk pressed Leslie not to allow Cromwell to escape, and that he in consequence made the disastrous move which led to his defeat. There is however no adequate authority for this, any more than for the well-known anecdote that Cromwell, noting Leslie's false move, exclaimed, "The Lord hath delivered them into our hand: " either would be in keeping, and is therefore all the more likely to have been invented. The one excuse for Leslie's blunder lay in the fact that his army was encamped on bare hills in frightful weather, a state of things which could not be continued indefinitely. Confidence in his superior numbers may easily have led him to believe that he could afford to move down and force Cromwell to fight: possibly a safe way of doing this might have been found, but the movement he actually made exposed him to a fatal blow.

A little stream called the Brocksburn flows along the base of the hills on which Leslie was posted, and then northwards across into the sea, a mile or so east of Dunbar, flowing at the bottom of a little ravine which it has hollowed out for itself. There were but two points where the steep banks of this ravine were broken enough to allow even carts to pass, one close under the hills, which was held by Leslie's outposts, the other a little way out into the plain, where the high-road from Dunbar towards Berwick runs. Cromwell's army lay on the Dunbar side of this stream, which formed something of a defence for his front. If Leslie could occupy the spot where the high-road crosses the Brocksburn, he could compel an action when he pleased, besides more effectually blocking any communication with England. In order however to do this, he drew down his whole army on to the narrow strip of ground between the burn and the base of the steep slope, and then edged his whole line somewhat to the right, so that his right wing, with most part of his cavalry, lay beyond the road. Cromwell coming out of Dunbar to his camp late in the afternoon, saw the movement being completed. He instantly perceived the opportunity it gave him, and pointed it out to Lambert his major-general: "to which he instantly replied that he had thought to have said the same thing to me." The opportunity was much like that which Marlborough saw at Ramillies, and was used with equally decisive effect. If Leslie's right wing were attacked with superior force, it could be overpowered before the rest of the army, cramped in the narrow strip of ground between the Brocksburn and the hill, could move to its support. And Cromwell could bring overwhelming strength to bear in spite of his inferiority of numbers, because the enemy could not cross the burn elsewhere to make a counter attack. Under cover of darkness the English troops could be massed opposite the slope giving access across the burn to the enemy's position.54 The assault was to have been made at dawn on September 3, but was a little delayed: the enemy were consequently not surprised. "Before our foot could come up, the enemy made a gallant resistance, and there was a very hot dispute at sword's-point between our horse and theirs. Our first foot after that they had discharged their duty (being overpowered with the enemy) received some repulse, which they soon recovered. For my own regiment under the command of lieutenant-colonel Goffe, and my major, White, did come seasonably in; and, at the push of pike, did repel the stoutest regiment the enemy had there, merely with the courage the Lord was pleased to give. Which proved a great amazement to the residue of their foot; this being the first action between the foot. The horse in the meantime did, with a great deal of courage and spirit, beat back all oppositions; charging through the bodies of the enemy's horse and of their foot: who were, after the first repulse given, made by the Lord of Hosts as stubble to their swords."55 The quality of the English troops was probably superior, and their officers more experienced; they had the impetus of the first rush to help them, and so far as can be judged superior numbers at the critical point. Naturally the struggle, though sharp, was not long. Just as the sun rose over the sea, "I heard Nol say," relates an officer who was in the battle, "in the words of the Psalmist, Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered." The defeated portion of the Scots fled eastwards, abandoning everything; the rest of Leslie's army, taken in flank, and with hardly any cavalry left, was able to make no resistance. Cromwell reported nearly 10,000 prisoners, and 3000 of the enemy killed, while his own loss was but small. The Scottish army was virtually annihilated.

The natural consequence was that Cromwell took possession of Edinburgh unopposed; and though he did not proceed to further conquest, there being political dissension enough among the Scots to render it probable that peaceable measures would suffice, yet to all intents and purposes Dunbar rendered him master of the Lowlands. So matters remained through the winter, Cromwell being personally much hampered by illness, a chill caught on an expedition in February having developed into ague, from which he suffered frequently, and which killed him a few years later. The next summer, the Scottish army, with Charles II. nominally at their head, took advantage of Cromwell's moving into Fife and Perthshire to make a last desperate venture. It is suggested, though it is hardly probable, that Cromwell gave them the opportunity on purpose; whether this were so or not, nothing could have been more advantageous to the cause of the Commonwealth. The Scots marched southwards, crossed the border at Carlisle, and made their way through Lancashire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, meeting with much less support from the English population than the young king's sanguine advisers had expected. By the time they reached Worcester Cromwell was upon them: he had pushed his own cavalry in pursuit as soon as he heard of their march, following himself with the foot by the eastern route, and begging the government to send what troops they could to meet him. The battle of Worcester, fought on the anniversary of Dunbar, was a foregone conclusion: Cromwell had about 30,000 against 20,000 or less, and defeated the enemy with considerable loss. The defeated Scots, far from their own country, nearly all surrendered themselves prisoners. The "crowning mercy," as Cromwell called it, put a final end to the civil war, and led to the complete submission of Scotland, which sent members to all the Parliaments of the Protectorate.

INTERMEDIATE NOTESTANDING ARMIES

In 1658, on the anniversary of his two last victories, which was also his birthday, the great Protector died. With him practically expired the fabric of government which he had built up; and the nation a year and a half later recalled Charles II. The Protector's power had depended greatly on the army, which had been used after his death no longer to support steady if arbitrary government, but to further the interests of individuals or of factions. Naturally at the Restoration there was a strong feeling among the royalists against a standing army, though it is only fair to the best conducted body which ever bore that title, to point out that the many interferences of the army in public affairs, before the abolition of the monarchy and during the Commonwealth, were due to the strong feeling of all ranks, that as being soldiers they were all the more bound to do their duty as citizens, and not to the opposite tendency of soldiers to obey their chiefs in blind indifference to every political consideration. Everywhere except in England standing armies prevailed, and everywhere except in England the kings were absolute. Charles II. had had ample opportunities for imbibing the ideas of his contemporaries, especially of his cousin Louis XIV. He had all the will to be absolute, but would not take trouble to make himself so. Had it rested with him alone, he would no doubt have been glad to maintain a standing army like his neighbours. The cavaliers of the Restoration, however, partly from recent and painful experience, partly imbued with the traditional English jealousy of military force in any shape, were resolute that there should be none. They affirmed positively the principle for which Charles I. had contended, that the king was the sole and uncontrolled head of the armed forces of the state; but they took very good care, in resettling the royal revenue, that the king should not have the means of maintaining an army. Charles nevertheless made a beginning; he took into his service the regiment of General Monk, a prime agent in the Restoration, which has since been known as the Coldstream Guards. To them he added other regiments, one by one as occasion offered, and his brother James followed his example. On the deposition of the latter, Parliament affirmed in the Declaration of Right the maxim, very dubious as a statement of historical fact, but very rational as a principle of government, that "the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace, without consent of Parliament, is illegal."

Nevertheless the art of war had undergone such a transformation that a standing army was a necessity unless England were to abjure all interest in European affairs, almost a necessity if she would preserve her independence. It was no longer possible to extemporise efficient armies, as in the earlier middle ages: the superior strength given by discipline, which takes time and practice, was fully recognised. The providing of artillery, and of ammunition, to say nothing of supplies of other kinds, was become a complicated and expensive business, which could not be properly carried out except under the permanent care of the state. There was no peace till late in William III.'s reign; and by that time the method of voting men and money for the army annually had been introduced. In spite of this, strong pressure was put on William to disband the army altogether, and it was only with great difficulty that he induced Parliament, which saw things too exclusively from the point of view of constitutional checks on the crown, to assent to the retention of a small force. With the accession of Anne came the outbreak of the great European War of the Spanish Succession, and by the end of it the question was decided in favour of a standing army. Some of our present regiments bear on their colours the proud names of Marlborough's victories.

CHAPTER X

MARLBOROUGH

With the reign of William III. the military history of England entered on a new phase. Her continental wars had hitherto been, with trifling exceptions, connected with the claim of the English kings to the throne of France. Henceforth she took part in nearly every European war; and thanks to the restless energy of William III. and to the military genius of Marlborough, the part she played was a leading one from the first. It has been argued that England was wrong to concern herself with continental quarrels, when her real interests lay elsewhere, at sea, in North America, at a later date in India, and that she only weakened herself for protecting these interests by intervening in European affairs. Those who take this view leave out of account the essential facts which governed the action of England at the time of this new departure. She had recently expelled her legitimate king, who had still many partisans at home, and who found in France a ready and most powerful ally. Louis XIV. was bound to the Stuarts by every tie of sympathy, religious, political, personal: and though he was not the man to let his sentiments outweigh his interest, the two so far coincided that his schemes for domination in Europe would obviously be furthered by weakening England through civil dissension. The English nation as a whole was passionately attached to its church, to its political liberties, still more perhaps to its independence of foreigners, and saw in France the one dangerous enemy to all three. France had other enemies, arrayed against her for reasons which did not much concern England, and alliance with them was an opportunity worth seizing. The determining motive however was not this calculation, but outraged honour. When Louis XIV. formally recognised the son of the dying James II. as lawful king of England, he committed at once a crime and a blunder: he deliberately broke his word, and insulted England beyond endurance. Those words cost him his supremacy in Europe, and made England henceforth a permanent and ever weightier factor in European affairs.

The military reputation of England had suffered eclipse since the days of Henry V., not altogether deservedly, for the fighting qualities of Englishmen had been conspicuous on many fields, and yet not unnaturally. English troops fighting for the independence of the Netherlands had done excellent service; Cromwell's contingent allied with France in 1658 had mainly contributed to an important victory over Spain. But the few independent expeditions sent by the English government to the continent had been ill managed or ill commanded, and had failed more or less completely. Under William III. they showed all their ancient stubborn valour, but luck was against them. The defeats of Steinkirk and Landen were more glorious to the English infantry than many a victory: the misconduct of their allies in one case, the very superior numbers of the French army and the great skill of its commander in the other case, amply accounted for the failure, but still they were defeats. The great victories of Marlborough, almost as brilliant as Crecy or Agincourt, restored the military credit of England, again not quite deservedly, for the armies of Marlborough were by no means wholly English, and yet very naturally, since the great Englishman was the real conqueror of Louis XIV. The death of William III., just before war actually broke out, left Marlborough, who was all powerful with queen Anne, the real head of the coalition against France.

England thus entered on the war of the Spanish Succession as the ally of continental powers banded together against France, and hampered by having to act in concert with them, as well as supported by their strength. In the patient tact requisite for managing a body of allies with diverging interests, and practically no bond of union except hostility to the enemy, Marlborough was perhaps never excelled. In military skill he was vastly William's superior, being on the whole the first of an age fertile in good generals. The weak point in his position was that it depended on the personal favour of a stupid woman: when his wife lost her influence over queen Anne, his political antagonists in England found no great difficulty in bringing about his disgrace. Marlborough was not a good man; he was greedy of money and of power, and unscrupulous as to the means he adopted for gaining them. As a general however he had the virtues never too common, and almost unknown in his age, of humanity towards the peaceful population even of a hostile country, and of attention to the welfare of his own soldiers. Like Wellington a century later, he was habitually careful of the lives of his men, though he knew how to expend them when the occasion demanded it. Like Wellington also he never lost his patience and coolness of judgment, either in the excitement of battle or in dealing with troublesome allies. In fact the two great Englishmen were conspicuously alike, at least in their military character, though there is no real doubt that Marlborough had the greater genius.

The commencement of the war was uneventful. The king of France had taken possession of Belgium in the name of his grandson Philip, the French claimant of the crown of Spain, which alarmed the Dutch for their homes. In Spain itself the French party was preponderant, but not unopposed. Louis had every motive for standing on the defensive. Marlborough was as yet powerless to move his allies. It was not until the alliance of Bavaria with France opened a road for French armies into the heart of Germany that decisive events occurred. The chief item in the French plans for 1704 was that Marshal Tallard should march from the Rhine into Bavaria, where another army under Marsin had wintered; then the two armies, combined with the Bavarian contingent, were to advance down the basin of the Danube. It was calculated that the Emperor, already greatly hampered by an insurrection in Hungary, would be unable to oppose effectual resistance, and would purchase peace on almost any terms. If this were achieved, the keystone of the alliance against France, the candidature of an Austrian prince in Spain, would be removed, and the whole fabric might be expected to collapse. The plan was well conceived: it was an instance, on the great political scale, of acting upon the fundamental military maxim – strike at the vital point. But for Marlborough it must have succeeded, so far as anything can be safely predicted in war. But for the practice, invariable in that age and perhaps inevitable by reason of the badness of roads and of organised supply, that all military operations should be suspended during the winter half of the year, Marlborough would have had no time to prepare his counter stroke. His plan was indeed fully thought out before the winter, in concert with the imperial general Eugene of Savoy, but he had many obstacles to overcome before it could be carried into operation. Even to the English cabinet he did not venture to disclose his whole purpose, but he succeeded in obtaining a large addition to his own army, and increased money grants. The Dutch had but one idea, to guard their own frontier: they would not even assent beforehand to Marlborough's proposal, intended to conceal his real object from friend and foe alike, that he with part of the German contingents should operate against France from the Moselle, while the Dutch, with the rest of the Germans, defended the Netherlands. Marlborough was obliged to be content with the assurance of his one firm supporter in Holland, the Pensionary Heinsius, that consent should be obtained when the time came. Much trouble had also to be taken with other minor members of the confederacy, but Marlborough attained his ostensible object of being free to move with his own army to the Moselle.

Not until Marlborough with his army had reached Coblenz, did he give any hint of his intentions, except to the two or three persons necessarily in his confidence. Even then he only declared to the Dutch that he found it necessary to go further south; and they, finding that a deaf ear was turned to their remonstrances, let Marlborough take his own course, and even sent reinforcements after him. The distance to be traversed, the necessity of arranging every detail for troops moving by different routes, made his progress necessarily slow. The French did not in the least guess his design, but nevertheless persevered in their plan of reinforcing the army in Bavaria, a process which the Margrave of Baden, who commanded for the allies on the upper Rhine, ought to have rendered much more difficult. Not till Marlborough, ascending the Neckar, began to penetrate the hill country that separates the basins of the Neckar and Danube, was his real purpose apparent. He had before then met Eugene of Savoy, who was as he hoped to command the imperial army destined to co-operate with him: but the Margrave of Baden, who was Eugene's senior in rank, insisted on taking the more important part, and leaving Eugene to command on the Rhine. Marlborough's purpose was something like Napoleon's at the beginning of the famous Austerlitz campaign, to concentrate his army, reaching the Danube by various routes, near Ulm. In Marlborough's time however Ulm was not yet an important fortress: and the Elector abandoned it on the allies appearing in the vicinity, and marched down the Danube to a great intrenched camp near Dillingen. Marlborough's first object was necessarily to secure a point of passage across the Danube: and he determined to seize Donauwerth, a small fortified town lower down. His zeal was quickened by the tidings that the French army under Marshal Tallard was on the point of marching from Strasburg to assist the Elector. He therefore, as soon as his troops had come up in sufficient numbers, without waiting for full concentration, circled round Dillingen, and directed his march on Donauwerth. The Elector divined his intention, and occupying that town, with the hill of the Schellenberg adjoining it, began to put in order the fortifications. Marlborough saw the urgent necessity for haste: a couple of days' delay might render the works on the Schellenberg unassailable, in which case his chance of securing a bridge over the Danube before Tallard arrived would be but small. He therefore ordered an attack immediately on reaching the place, though his men had had a very long march, and it was verging towards evening.56