Malplaquet 1709

 

11 September 1709
War of the Spanish Succession

Pro-Habsburg Forces under The Duke of Marlborough  approx.86,000* with 113 guns
Pro-Bourbon Forces under le Duc de Villars & le Duc de Boufflers, approx. 74,000* with 80 guns

Location: 50° 22' 10" N, 3° 53' 35" E. or search for Taisnieres-sur-Hon, France, up near the French-Belgian border

Weather: Fog in the morning, clearing about 0730. Otherwise a beautiful day...well...except for all the death and destruction.

 Sunrise:  0538  Sunset:  1615    Moonrise: 1527   Moonset:  2213 waxing 51% half  
(calculated from U.S. Naval Observatory from lat/long and date)

Another horrible 9/11, this battle was the largest fought during the 18th century (at least in Western Europe), and the most devastating in terms of casualties, rivaling even the big Napoleonic battles a century later. Though it was counted as one of Marlborough's victories, since he lost far more men than the French, it was, as they say, a Pyrrhic one; sort of like the Breed's Hill for the British in my last post. As my grandfather used to sarcastically joke whenever we'd watch a war movie together on TV...

"More fun! More people killed!"

By 1709 this war to decide the succession of the vacated Spanish throne by either the Habsburg claimant, Charles III in Vienna, or the Bourbon claimant, Louis XIV's grandson, Philip V (or, as the Allies referred to him, the Duke of Anjou) had been going on for seven long years. By this year the rest of Europe had been at war for eighteen of the previous twenty years (including the unimaginatively named, Nine Years' War, 1688-1697 ). So everybody was getting pretty sick and tired. As Virginia Mayo stomped her foot and said to George Sanders in that awful 1954 movie King Richard and the Crusaders "War! War! That's all you ever think about, Dick Plantagenet!" 

And France itself, by this time, was pretty much broke. So Louie Bourbon was ready to think of something else besides war, war. 

Adding injury to insult, the winter of 1708-9, at the height of the "Little Ice Age", saw France suffering one of the worst frosts in memory and wiped out much of that country's seed harvest. Attempts to purchase corn on credit from the North African Beys was cut off by British sea power and a better offering price from the English. Starvation was ravaging France. Presaging what would happen in eighty years after another bout of famine, the kingdom was on the verge of popular revolution, which would be fatal to the monarchy and turn France into a republic like the Netherlands. The Sun King was, for the first time in his long reign, in the mood to negotiate an end to the war. He couldn't feed his huge army, which had suffered defeat after defeat. And more dangerously, he couldn't feed his subjects, who had just about had it with him. He was ready to accede to almost every territorial demand of his enemies.

The Allied powers, supported by England, were in a slightly better economic condition, and a much better military one. But both Marlborough and the ruling Whig Party in England were ready to negotiate an end. Endless war was till costly, even when you were winning. 

However, the newly formed United Kingdom's allies, the Dutch and the Austrian Habsburgs, wanted not only unconditional surrender of the French, they wanted what they called a Barrier of fortified towns across the Spanish Netherlands (present day Belgium) handed over to them to prevent any future French threat to their country. Moreover, their additions to the treaty proposal, the infamous Articles 9 and 37, demanded that not only would Louis abandon his grandson Philip V's claim to the Spanish throne, he would also contribute troops to war against him, helping to subjugate Spain to Habsburg control. These were clearly "poison pills" the Dutch and Habsburgs knew Louis could not accept, even though he was willing to give in to every other territorial demand. England's two biggest allies didn't want the war to end until the complete humiliation of France. And those last minute demands made sure it would continue for another four bloody years. 

Initial deployment and moves. Note that each battalion and squadron occupies the proportional footprint it would have given its estimated strength and formation. And the coloring of each is according to its uniform coat color. Also, as you study this digital "diorama", note that the sunlight is coming from the lower right, so shadows are taking that into account. I have had comments that the gullies look like ridges because we are accustomed to light coming from the upper left.

A Shrewd Plan

So with all the hopeful negotiating at the beginning of the year, and after the collapse of it due to the #9 and #37 poison pill clauses mentioned above, everybody sighed heavily and the war continued on. But because of the dreadful winter and the lack of supplies, it took longer for military operations to start up again. It wasn't until late June that anybody really began to campaign, about three months after the normal season would've started. So it was promising to be a much shorter year for anything to happen. 

Something remarkable did take place, though. Even in this age of absolute monarchs and minimal patriotism, nearly all of France's aristocracy and the Church melted down their gold and donated millions of livres to the cause. Tens of thousands of ordinary Frenchmen volunteered to fight. But it wasn't for the cause of Philip's claim to the throne of Spain. It wasn't even for their king, necessarily. It was to defend their country from invasion by France's mortal enemies, the English, the Germans, and the Dutch, who were massing on the northern border in the Spanish Netherlands. It anticipated the nationalism of the French Revolution almost a century later, and the Frano-Prussian War a century after that, and the two world wars in the Twentieth Century. They may have been hungry, but they were patriotic and were willing to forego some things to defend their country.  As one French soldier put it, "We need bread, we can do without coats and shirts."

 
At the same time, Louis appointed one of his most aggressive and competent remaining marshals to take command on the northern front,  Claude Louis Hector le Duc de Villars. His previous commanders on that front, like Tallard, Marsin, Villeroi, Vendôme, Bourgogne had all failed when confronting Marlborough. The Sun King wanted someone who wouldn't fall for the same ploys. He wanted a prudent commander who would check Marlborough and Eugene without getting sucked into a catastrophic battle, and thereby keep the border of France secure.

Maréchal le duc de Villars
by Hyacinthe Rigaud 1704

The 56 year-old Villars was also very popular with his men. He was a general who led from the front, who shared the same meager rations with the troops, and took care of them.  He was also not going to make the same mistakes as his predecessors and fall for the same temptations.

Villars's primary concern was to keep France's northern border with the Spanish Netherlands secure. The character of the war for the past seven years in that theater had been one of maneuver and sieges, avoiding big battles. And he was worried that Marlborough would outmaneuver him in the west, making a move on Ypres and then heading for the coast, to Dunkirk, making an end-run into Picardy that way. Marlborough did, in fact, feign moves in that direction, but then, pressured by the Dutch, ended up besieging the great fortress of Tournai in the center. 

This siege would last for almost the rest of the summer, from 28 June to 5 September. Each side suffered about 3,300 casualties in nightmarish, underground warfare, blowing up mines under each other, fighting with axes and picks in dark tunnels. But after over two months the city finally capitulated. And Marlborough thought he could now move to the west toward the Channel. But he was overruled by the Dutch. They were anxious about their security and wanted to capture all the remaining towns in the Spanish Netherlands, They had no interest in invading France. So Marlborough went along. 

 

During the two month siege of Tournai, Villars had been busy, though. He had his army construct a 140 mile curtain of fieldworks from Saint Venant on the river Lys in the west to Mauberge on the Sambre in the east. At the same time he conducted a pretty vigorous campaign of small raids on the Allies' lines of communications while they were bogged down in their siege . All this aggressive activity not only wore down the Allied force, it reinvigorated the French army, enhancing their morale and giving them confidence in their new commander. The French army felt its strength again. 

 

Campaign map for 1709 up to Malplaquet. You'll note that this little corner of Europe has been the seat of so many battles over five centuries, from the early 16th century to two World Wars. 

 

 

After the surrender of Tournai on 5 September, Villars was still worried that Marlborough would make his move on Ypres and the coast. Though the summer was almost over, there was still time to do this.  Villars knew from his spies in the Allied camp and from indiscrete correspondence intercepted between Marlborough and the Junta of Whigs in the British Government, that this was the English preference; get control of the Channel Coast and make an end-run into France to force Louis to make a separate peace with the U.K. But Villars also learned from his spies that the Dutch and the Imperials had no interest in a coastal campaign. They wanted to secure all the fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands and bottle up France from making any more threats to the Lowlands. 

 

After they took Tournai, the Allies' next target was farther east, Mons, against the Duke's advice. Marlborough had lost much of his authority among the Allies, losing his support from his old friend, Queen Anne (thanks to his irritating wife, Sarah, who had all but burned the last bridge to that "lifelong" BFF), and feeling pressure from the Whig Junta to make a separate peace. He had himself been itching for a knock-down, drag-out battle with France's remaining army in the North to finally end the war, and he knew that this endless obsession with besieging towns would drag the war out for many more years. Open field battles weren't the thing in this era. They were too risky. And no Frenchman wanted to face Marlborough in the field again.

Actually relieved by the investment of Mons so that he no longer had to worry about defending the coast, Villars himself began to concentrate his army about six miles to the southwest of that city inside the gap in the twelve-mile arc of woods near on the French border, near a little village called Malplaquet.  He had reconnoitered this place some time before and on 9 September had his concentrated army start furiously building entrenchments across the open space between the woods of Sars and Lanières, which he called the Aulnoit Gap after one of the villages at the mouth of it.

 

Until now Louis had not given him permission to engage Marlborough in a main battle, but now Villars saw his chance to force a defensive battle on ground of his choosing. And furious at losing Tournai, the Sun King authorized Villars to defend Mons, even if it risked open battle. 

 

Instead of rushing up to the town itself, the marshal, no dummy, saw that he could induce Eugene and Marlborough to attack him in this strong position by threatening their rear as they besieged Mons. It was a shrewd plan.  Much like the strategy against the British in my last post about Breed's Hill in 1775, Villars's position at Malplaquet was to serve as tempting bait for Marlborough and the pro-Habsburg army.

 

Marlborough and Eugene, at the Sars windmill,
observing the French digging in.

Villars's sudden appearance in force to the south of Mons took Marlborough and Eugene completely by surprise. Their whole army had not come over yet to invest Mons when word came back from foraging cavalry to the south about the enemy concentration at Malplaquet, just six miles below Mons. On the afternoon of the 9th, the two commanders went down to the hill near le Moulin de Sars with some cavalry to observe the whole French army frantically digging in across the gap between the Bois de Sars and the Bois de Lanières (see battle map above). Marlborough, his own force on the southern side of Mons and closer to the new threat, started to move it down closer to Villars. As his artillery arrived near the village of Blaregnies, he had them dig in and start a desultory bombardment of the French, who returned it in their own desultoriosity. On the 10th, Eugene moved his own 30,000 men from the north side of Mons to occupy the western wing of the army. The the two generals conferred on whether they should attack the French before they were completely dug in. As they were still awaiting the 10,000 men under Withers, marching from Saint Ghislain, and as all of their artillery had not yet come down from Brussels, they concluded to wait another day. They decided it was better to assemble a superiority of numbers than to attack prematurely. 

Armchair generals have debated whether this waiting a day turned out to be a mistake. They have also criticized Villars himself for not attacking Marlborough on the 9th and then the 10th before Eugene had arrived with his corps., defeating each in detail. But Villars, not sure where Eugene was, didn't want to risk defeat. He reasoned that, even if the enemy built up his force, he had the advantage to absorb an attack onto his fortified position with his flanks anchored in the woods on either side of the gap. Charging Marlborough out on the open plain north of the gap might itself be a trap. Nor did he want to risk losing this one, last great army left to France. His plan was to let the enemy come at him in the woods and behind his entrenchments and hidden batteries and get chewed up themselves.  He had, in effect, built a giant meat-grinder.

 

Marlborough's and Eugene's Plan

 

The two Allied commanders' plan was essentially the same-old-same-old. Basically it was to attack the enemy's wings and compel him to weaken his center. Then, into that vacuum they would launch a massive attack and destroy the center, isolating each wing This had worked at Blenheim and Ramillies,  Why wouldn't it work again? They had also counted on the French being aggressive, launching their own premature attacks and exposing their flanks.

 

Fortunately for the French side, Villars had learned from the mistakes of his predecessors. He wasn't so in awe of Marlborough that he couldn't see the guy was basically a one-trick pony on the battlefield. And he had studied his trick.  

The French used the two-day delay in the Allies starting their own attack to shore up their fortifications. On the far left, in the Bois de Sars, they cut down trees and made a defensive entanglement of these, enhancing them with sharp stakes called abatis, the equivalent of barbed wire in the 18th century. Behind this triangle in the Sars Woods, more fieldworks were erected in front of the village of Erquenne as a rallying point in case the left wing were pushed out of the woods. In the center they had erected nine (some historians say only five) check-shaped redans, supporting each other with crossfire. These were interspersed with gaps to allow for cavalry and guns to filter forward and back. To the right of these were a series of interlocking fortifications below the farm of Bleron, with its own orchards and walls breaking up any attacking formations. These latter they filled with grenadiers and skirmishers to harass the enemy as they approached. On the far right, more abatis were thrown up from cut down trees, and the woods of Lanières were filled with infantry.  Some 50,000 infantry and 80 guns were deployed across the whole three mile front. These were supported by around 24,000 cavalry in three lines in the plain behind. Villars was ready.

 

Maréchal le duc de Boufflers
Villars's second-in-command

He had also been helped by a very capable staff of inspired and inspiring generals, including d'Artagnan (who had been an inspiration in Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers novels over a century later), d'Alberotti, Chèmerault, Puységur, Steckemberg, and, finally, the venerable Maréchal le Duc de Boufflers, hero of the Nine Years War, who had come out of retirement with his old cuirass and deigned to serve under the younger Villars. Villars assigned the senior Boufflers to command the right wing. He was confident that this sixty-five-year old professional soldier would follow orders and hold his position, not launching any impulsive counter-attacks.

 

More Allied troops began to arrive on the afternoon of the 10th, including the bulk of their artillery. Both sides increased heir bombardment and it was reported that several hundred men and horses were killed under this until nightfall. But Marlborough and Eugene continued to wait for Withers and his 10,000 coming from Tournai to arrive. The latter were making a night march from the hold-out fortress of Saint-Ghislain (see campaign map), which they had just taken. 

The French, meanwhile, kept on digging and erecting their fortifications. By morning, the gap between the woods and the flanking woods themselves were bristling with obstacles and trenches. 

William Cadogan
Marlborough's Chief of Staff and
and Chief of Intelligence

 

It was during the evening of the 10th that Gen.d'Albergotti, commanding the French left, sent a messenger over to the Allied side requesting a meeting with an old friend, the Prince of Hesse-Kassel. The messenger was chased back by a shot from a picket but shortly after that came a white flag of truce carried by Prince Hesse and William Cadogan (chief of Marlborough's staff) asking to meet with d'Albergotti. The men all got together and exchanged a smoke. It was so convivial in this age of gentlemen. As the jocular meeting continued a rumor spread along both sides that a peace treaty had been signed at last and that the war was over.Thousands of men who had been trying to kill each other now met in the middle, throwing their arms around each other and drinking toasts to peace. It must have been like a similar scene in the same place two hundred-and-nine years later when the Armistice ending the First World War was announced. 

But this was just a rumor. Misinformation is not just a phenomenon of today's age of social media. Someone on d'Albergotti's  staff (not snitching but it was Count Dauger) noticed that Cadogan (who was a notorious spy of Marlborough's) was looking all around and furtively taking notes. Dauger discretely tried to draw his general's attention to this suspicious behavior, but d'Albergotti tut-tutted it.  After about an hour of this, Villars himself rode up to check on his left flank saw the enemy generals yucking it up together. He was furious and ordered the enemy officers to leave at once. He also gave d'Albergotti a dressing down for fraternizing with the enemy and exposing their defenses. Jeeze! Can't gentlemen be civil before killing each other? What are we, barbarians?

 

Now can we start to kill each other?

 

Marlborough and Eugene's plan had been to launch their attack at dawn, a little past half-past-five. But the morning proved particularly foggy and Withers' corps had just arrived from their long march from Tournai and their battle at Saint-Ghislain, so the original plan to have them march the extra three miles around the back of the Allied line to reinforce the Dutch was changed. Marlborough ordered Withers to rest a bit and then move straight south through the Sars Wood to infiltrate around the French left. He did, however, allow the three battalions of the Dutch Gardes te Voet to keep on to join their brethren in the Dutch wing under the Prince of Orange. 

By about 0730 the fog began to evaporate and the two sides could just make each other out and the opposing artillery started to renew their bombardment of the previous day. At about 0830 Marlborough ordered his central battery of 40 guns to open up, the signal to formally start the battle. 

Prince Eugene of Savoy
by Jacob van Schuppen

According to plan, the opening Allied attack was to start on the west, led by Prince Eugene and General Schulenburg's 19,000 men (40 battalions in three lines) supported by 12 light guns (probably 3 pounder "minions", Bty A on my map) and Württemberg's 9,000 cavalry (in 79 squadrons). This force marched over the roughly 900 yards of marshes and gullies toward the Sars Wood. Their target was d'Albergotti's 9,000 men (21 battalions) and five guns (Bty 1 on my map) behind their prepared emplacements and abatis. 

Meanwhile, to the right of Schulenburg, Gen. Withers was now directed to take his 19 battalions and infiltrate the woods to the left of d'Albergotti, working around to the rear of the French flank.

 

To Withers' right, General Micklau was supposed to take his cavalry of 1,800 (in 23 squadrons) and go clear around the extreme west end of the woods and come on the French from their left. 

 

This battle immediately became carnage as the French held on tenaciously. Schulenburg's men took horrific casualties as they tried to assault the tangled defenses. Though understrength, ill-clad, and underfed, the French infantry held on like furies. Fighting became medieval as the two sides hacked and stabbed each other, asking and giving no quarter. 

 

Shortly after Schulenburg's troops engaged the French on the edge of the Sars Wood, a second attack commenced from the Allied center.  Some 10,000 men (in 24 battalions) under  General Count Carl-Philip Lottum  started their march directly south toward the French center. But as they passed the main Allied battery they suddenly all wheeled right and went right for the southern end of the Sars Wood, striking the nine French battalions holding the southeastern "peninsula" of those woods. 

 

Saint-Hilaire, the French chief of artillery, at once moved fourteen guns up from behind the redans in the center and placed them to enfilade the Prussians and British now marching across their front. Their enfilade fire took out entire ranks. Hundreds died gruesome deaths. The rest broke their charge into a run to quickly get to their target, the abatis in front of the Sars Wood, which they tore at frantically while St.-Hilaire's guns ripped into them from close range.

 

The French in front of that part of the woods (regiments Charost, La Sarre, La Marine, Boufflers, La Reine) for their part, held on desperately, defending their entrenchments, even though they were now outnumbered 3:1 in that sector. Participants later described the fighting as barbaric, with people clubbing, stabbing, slitting throats, and blowing the brains out even of wounded men. One has to wonder if these were the same happy who were hugging each other the night before over the rumor that peace had been declared.

Temple's British troops, of Lottum's division, clearing the abatis from the Sars Wood and srtipping and slaughtering wounded. In the right background you can see French troops still fighting in spite of being outnumbered.  Painting about 1713 by Louis Laguerre in the National Army Museum

 

The Young Prince wreaks havoc.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the battlefield, the plan was for the Prince of Orange, leading the Dutch contingent, to wait half-an-hour after Eugene's initial assault and then commence his own attack on the French right at the Lanières Woods and the Bleron Farm. The idea was to confuse Villars as to the ultimate strategy, drawing his attention to his left and then, a little later, hit him on the right with another distraction. 

Johan Willem Friso
Prince of Orange
definitely looking his age

 

But the 22-year-old Johan Friso, the Prince of Orange, wasn't going to wait. And he didn't consider his mission to be merely a distraction. When he heard the initial salvo from the guns in the center battery, he was going to go all in and annihilate the French. 

 

Orange's official superior, Count Tilly, pretty much withdrew himself from direct command of the Dutch forces at this stage of the battle and let the young prince go at it. Though a skilled and dependable commander (he made significant contributions at Ramillies and Oudenarde, for instance), Tilly was a bitter anti-Orangist from a distasteful incident between him and the Orangists in the coup that overthrew the Dutch Republic in 1672, and there was mutual antipathy between him and the prince's family.

The prince's first attack, however, with his Dutch, Swiss, and Scottish troops (approximately 8,500 supported by 20 guns), crashed onto the fortifications of the French right wing but was broken up by the skirmishers on his flanks in the walled Bleron Farm and the Lanières Woods. Like d'Alberotti had at the French left wing, d'Artagnan had had his troops prepare the woods on this flank with trenches and abatis. He had also created a re-entrant set of fortifications behind the first line up by the Bleron Farm (see battle map above for details). So when the survivors of Orange's attack rolled over the first set of emplacements they found that there was yet another series of entrenchments to the rear of those, and, even more of a nasty surprise; a twenty gun battery hidden in enfilade. Whole ranks were suddenly cut down. All of my sources reported that something like 5,000 men fell in this first attack (which would've amounted to an unbelievable 58% casualty rate in Orange's first wave! But this might be either exaggerated or accounting for the casualty rate for the division for the entire battle.) Orange himself lost his horse and  three-quarters of his immediate entourage but was himself spared. He was undaunted, though. He kept up the charge on foot. 

 View from the start of the Dutch charge toward the French right, the Lanières woods on their left, the Bléron Farm to their right. (from Google Street View)

French POV looking to the Prince of Orange's attack. Bleron Farm on the left, Lanières Woods to the right. (Google Street View)

The Dutch/Scots wing fell back and regrouped, Orange rallied the survivors (3,600?) and managed to talk them into a second attempt, this one joined by Fagel's division of 14 battalions (approx. 7,700). Same slaughter. Same result...or lack thereof. There are paintings of Orange himself at the top of the French redoubts, but each of his attacks were finally driven back by d'Artagnan's regiments and artillery, who outnumbered the Dutch in this sector. 

Below, Prince of Orange seizing the summit of one of the French redoubts. By Charles Rochussen 1867

 Or  this even more dramatic illustration By Arie Luijts in the early 20th century

Marshall Boufflers, in charge of the French right wing, has been criticized by his contemporaries and military historians for not immediately ordering a counter-attack. He had more than enough reserve troops, both foot and horse. In fact, two regiments, Picardie and Navarre, were already forming up after the repulse of Orange's second assault to make a counter-attack. The ground in front of the redoubts was covered in dead and writhing wounded and they had begun to wend their way over the bodies. 

But Boufflers' orders from Villars had been pretty emphatic; he was to hold his ground and not make any attacks himself, even if they had thrown off any by the Dutch.  And he wasn't going to countermand those orders without a specific one from Villars himself. For all he knew, a counter-attack was exactly what Marlborough may have been counting on, to throw the French off guard and draw them into a trap in the open country beyond the woods. Also, they could all see that the Prince of Hesse-Kassel's 18 squadrons of Dutch horse had already moved up to protect the retreating foot (which was their job, after all). And Rantzau had sent over two more fresh Hanoverian battalions from the center to reinforce the Dutch, already rallying for a third attempt.

About 1100, after this had been going on for some two hours Marlborough had personally ridden over to see the carnage wrought on his Dutch allies. Disturbed by it, he politely told the young prince that he had done enough, thus stopping a third banzai charge. He didn't tell him his attacks were just a diversion. That would've been dumb. And poor leadership. In the words of James Cromwell in that adorable movie, Babe, I remember seeing with my little daughter way back, "That'll do, pig." So Orange didn't make a third attack.

It had been an extremely costly operation, which cost both sides thousands. But the French, for their part, managed to hold the line on their right.

As an aside about the Prince of Orange, I think it's sad that this incredibly brave young man, who showed such promise of leadership, would drown tragically just two years later in a dumb boating accident that had nothing to do with fighting the war. They didn't find his body, washed up on the river bank, for eight days. Twenty-three years old. Six weeks later his son was born.

Reminds me of how George S. Patton, the famous general of WWII, died in a stupid car accident right after the war. His last words were, "This is a hell of a way to die."

What was happening back on the other side of the battlefield?

Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg
I know, after awhile, all these portraits
look the same. I think it's the wigs

 

 

Where were we? Oh yeah... Meanwhile, on the western flank, back in the Sars Woods, the fighting had been continuing for over two hours. Both Schulenburg and Lottum had made very slow progress. The French were fighting back ferociously, first from their front line entrenchments, then from a second line of defense in front of the woods that hadn't been cut down, and then step by step back through the woods themselves. Lottum's Prussians were being massacred by the enfilade artillery fire coming from their flank. In the hand-to-hand fighting, no quarter was being asked or given. And the Prussian general was compelled to bring forward his third line, the British brigade of Argyll's to keep the pressure on. 

The regimental organization had deteriorated on both sides so that there were just disordered clumps of soldiers of both sides hacking and shooting at each other. The Allied troops would fight forward a few yards and find yet another line of downed trees tied together to form makeshift abatis (abatii?). As they tore at them to drag the trees out of the way, the undaunted French would fire at them, killing and maiming even more. But they kept on. It has been reported that the Allies had lost some 7,000 men so far in this fight of their original 38,000.

Meanwhile, Villars, in spite swearing he wouldn't do it, was falling into Marlborough's and Eugene's trap. Remember they wanted to attack the French flanks, as they had at Blenheim and Ramillies, to compel the enemy to weaken his center to reinforce them. Villars knew this, but by midday, as there was no evident movement against his center, he had started to order one battalion after another there to abandon their redoubts and hustle over to reinforce the outnumbered d'Albergotti on the left. 

Nevertheless, about noon the Allies had finally managed to push back the French from the woods and into the redoubts behind them around the village of Erquenne. Villars saw that the Allied troops were themselves completely disorganized and  trying to rally within the woods Finally, he emptied all the center entrenchments entirely by ordering the Irish Brigade and the regiment of Champagne), and then the Bavarian Gardes Brigade to hurry to the left and attack the British and Prussians in the flank before they could rally. 

Schulenburg had moved some of his 12-pounder guns through the woods to the southwestern edge to begin bombarding the emplacements in the plain beyond.

Around noon, after Eugene and Marlborough had returned from the left after stopping the Prince of Orange from making a third suicidal attack. They galloped back to the west and entered the Sars Wood to see how it was going there.  The two generals were so close to the front that Eugene was slightly wounded by a shot that grazed his ear (does this sound familiar?), but he shrugged it off, telling his alarmed staff and Marlborough that it was nothing, that if they were defeated it wouldn't matter and if they were victorious there would be time enough afterward to treat it. 

Prince Eugene (center on the white horse) and Marlborough (right center on the other white horse) arriving at the Sars Woods to see how things were progressing. This was before the Eugene's ear was grazed, or maybe the artist hadn't got that tidbit of detail. As in his painting above, this one has people removing downed trees and stripping bodies to rob them.  By Louis Laguerre c 1713

 

Historical Misinformation

There was an anecdote written in the memoirs of one of the soldiers, a Capt.Robert Parker, of Ingoldsby's Foot (later the 18th, Royal Irish Fusiliers), in which he described his redcoats coming up against the redcoats of the Irish Brigade. (He doesn't specify which regiment, other than to say it was of the "Royal Irish Brigade".) The Franco-Irish fired by the first rank (the traditional tactic in most armies of the time). Parker's regiment fired its "first firing", or six platoons of the eighteen, in the newer platoon-firing sequence used at that time by the British and Dutch infantry. Then the enemy fired its next full rank. Then his fired its second six platoons. Then the Franco-Irish fired their third and final rank and retired. Parker said this was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the platoon-firing method of the British and Dutch over the firing-by-ranks of the French and all other armies of the time. (See a detailed and graphic description of these two firing systems in my post on Blenheim, "Platoon Fire vs Fire-by-Ranks".) But he also said that the French bullets were only 2/3 the weight of the British (24/lb vs 16/lb) and so less effective. But Parker also thought this was an interesting coincidence of two Irish regiments (one Catholic and one Protestant) fighting each other in  the same battle. 

What were they thinking?

The dubious part of Parker's narrative, however, is that he wasn't actually with his regiment at this battle and none of the other officers who were there mention the incident in their reports. Also Ingoldsby's regiment was assigned to Withers's division, which was supposed to be attacking on the far western side of Schulenburg's assault. So how did it find itself on the south-eastern side confronting the newly arrived Irish Brigade? Some of the historians I read in researching this battle have rationalized the ironic encounter between the two Irish regiments in convoluted ways; that Ingoldsby's regiment was previous assigned to Argyll's brigade, or that it got lost in the woods and found itself on the other side of Lottum's regiment. But to me this is another example of not trusting historical reports, which tend to be amplified and sustained with each telling. We see this same phenomenon of misinformation living on and on in our own time. Lord knows how historians in three hundred years (if there are still historians--or people) will describe today's events.

Another incident reported in this confusing woodsy combat was when the French Irish Brigade encountered one of the French regiments in the forest.Through the smoke and foliage its red coats were taken as British by the Frenchmen, who let loose a couple of volleys on them, resulting in hundreds of casualties of "friendly fire". This actually seems more plausible since I always thought this predilection for the "Wild Geese" (the nickname of the ex-pat Irish fighting in Continental armies) to insist on wearing the red uniforms of their sworn enemies (the "bloody sassenachs", or Brits) to be an accident waiting to happen. 

Villars is wounded. Everything changes.

By a little after 1200 what was left of  Schulenburg's and Lottum's divisions would have reached the southwestern edge of the Sars Woods. There they would've confronted the third line of French entrenchments around Erquenne. Villars had really insured that his position was well defended. With a sigh, the two Allied commanders went about the process of rallying their exhausted troops to press home their attack. While it has been estimated that they may have lost some 7,000 men in the battle up to and through the woods, they still outnumbered the French in this sector. And they sensed that it was now or never.

Schulenburg had managed to have about seven cannons hauled through the woods and set up on its edge to begin bombarding the French. Their first target was to drive back the massed ranks of cavalry on the ridge behind the village. After those withdrew a hundred yards or so to cover, the next target was to enfilade the redoubts of the enemy infantry around Erquenne.

Villars, for his part, was not ready to concede. He still had something like 55 battalions (albeit somewhat depleted), but 17 (about 7,000 men under Puységur) were fresh. The rest still had fight left in them. He was in the process of organizing a counter-attack when he was hit in the leg by a musket ball. At first he though it was a minor wound and kept on issuing orders and inspiring the troops. But soon, after his boot filled with blood, he passed out from blood-loss and pain and had to be taken from the field. This left his second-in-command, d'Albergotti in command, but he too was almost immediately wounded and evacuated. His second, Chémerault, was then killed almost instantly. This left poor Puységur in charge, and apparently he hadn't been apprised of Villars's intent to counter-attack. Instead, he just ordered the infantry to withdraw, which they began to do in stages and in order.

While this was going on, Withers's 19 battalions and the 19 squadrons of Micklau's cavalry had finally found their way through the Sars Wood to the far west (where it was locally called the Bois de Blaugies) and started to come out to reform on the plain in front of the village of La Folie.  But as Micklau's horse were in the process of deploying from column into line in the open, they were attacked by the Carabiniers and dragoons of the extreme French left. Micklau's troopers were slaughtered and driven back into the woods. Unsupported, and with cavalry and riderless horses galloping back through his ranks, Withers decided not to try and form up on the plain in front of the woods in the face of thousands of French dragoons and heavy cavalry.

The coup de grace

George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney
the way he looked in 1700, when he
was 33.

It was about 1300. As Schulenburg was reforming his troops for an attack out of the woods into the French left, Marlborough and Eugene rode up and he expressed his opinion that now might be the time to spring the trap and attack the center...just saying. They could all see that the redans in the center had been abandoned to reinforce the western flank and were just ripe for the picking. Marlborough agreed and sent orders back to Orkney in command of the fifteen British and Hanoverian battalions waiting back behind the Tiry Wood to attack. He also issued orders to d'Auvergne, Wood, von Bülow,  Württemberg, and Hesse-Cassel--the entire Allied cavalry--to be ready to swarm through the center, supported by Orkney's infantry and guns.

Orkney later described his "attack" as a virtual walk in the park. Advancing the 1,400 yards to the empty redans, he claimed they had no casualties. This seems odd since the French still had guns in battery to the right. It is also possible he meant they had no casualties in seizing the redans themselves, since they were empty. He himself had brought ten guns with him and they all occupied the redans (facing the other way, of course). The only French infantry still in the enter were the six battalions of the Gardes Françaises and the Gardes Suisses, the supposed elite of the elite of the French Army. For some mysterious reason, these just bolted as soon as the redcoats came within musket range. Perhaps their officers were confused about why all the Irish and Bavarian regiments to their left had been ordered to abandon their redans and thought the battle was lost. Had no one bothered to tell them? The infantry to their right, however, who had been taking terrible losses but holding back attack after attack from the Dutch, and had held their positions, were probably disgusted by the retreat of the Gardes. They didn't bolt.

Allied cavalry moving forward to support Orkney's attack on the abandoned redans in the French center. by Henri Dupray

At any rate, as soon as the British and Hanoverian regiments had occupied the entrenchments in the center, Marlborough had almost all of his cavalryg--some 20,000 horse in 220 squadrons--filter in wave after wave through the gaps between the redans. 

The French horse, however, was not of the same weak-knees as the foot Gardes. With 24,000 themselves in 247 squadrons, and led personally by the 65-year-old Marshal Boufflers, they counter-attacked, driving the first wave of Allied horse back through those same gaps. Had it not been for the British infantry and their artillery manning those redans, they might have chased the Allied cavalry all the way back to Mons and won the battle.

But it was Orkney who held the critical redoubts and kept the French cavalry at bay. This cavalry battle went on until almost 1500. The French horse held back the Allies for nearly two hours while the rest of the French army was able to withdraw in order, taking most of their artillery with them, back to the previously prepared lines from Mauberge to Valenciennes.

French Carabiniers and Wood's Horse (later 3rd Dragoon Guards) by Richard Simkin

Below: View from the French Cavalry's position behind the redans. That copse of trees on the horizon in the center is all that's left of the Bois Tiry. (from Google Street View)

Okay, we're done.

By 1500 the battle was pretty much over. Boufflers, made aware that Villars was taken wounded from the field, still took his original orders literally and did not rally for a counter-attack. He instead directed an orderly withdrawal, staying with his cavalry until he was sure that all of his infantry and as many of his guns as could be were drawn off (61 of the original 80). Only 500 French were made prisoners. There was no panicked flight. Even the Gardes reformed and marched to the rear in order (though I can imagine the sarcastic taunts that accompanied them).

Tapestry commemorating Marlborough's
"victory" at Malplaquet, Blenheim Palace

While the Allies had occupied the battlefield and the French had withdrawn, Malborough did not order a pursuit. His troops were exhausted. By the genteel rules of Enlightenment Warfare he had "won" since he had the ground. But in modern, strategic terms it is questionable if you can add Malplaquet to his list of victories (even though there is a tapestry commemorating it in Blenheim Palace). But winning the ground meant he was also responsible for cleaning up the carnage. And he had not inflicted such damage on the French army that it was knocked out, as had been at his previous three battles. In fact, the French still had plenty of fight left in them.

In terms of casualties, one could say (and I'm one) that Marlborough actually lost. The Allies suffered 22,939 dead and wounded, or 21-27% (depending on whether 86,000 or 111,000 were engaged). The French lost about 11,000, or less than half that number, or around 15%.  It was a definite pyrrhic victory. In fact, as Marshal Villars reported to Louis, 

"If it pleases God to give your enemies another such victory, they are ruined." 

In fact, I would go farther and say that this was a strategic defeat for Marlborough. One wonders why he fought this devastating battle to begin with. But in context of the failed peace negotiations earlier, his pressure from the Whig government in London to end the war by annihilating the French, and his hope that this would force Louis to finally agree to terms, you can see he might have thought it was worth the gamble.  He had managed, for the first time, to invade France itself (if only by a few hundred yards), and maybe he thought that would bring Louis to terms. And he did resume the siege of Mons, taking it a little over a month later (23 October).

But Marlborough also had a still intact and formidable French army facing him. He admitted, "The French have defended themselves better in this action than in any battle I've seen." And though the war went on for another four years, Marlborough had been eclipsed politically and diplomatically. He fought no further field battles though, in 1711, he achieved a brilliant campaign of completely outmaneuvering Villars's Line of Defense and taking the reputed impregnable fortress of Bouchain and threatening Paris itself.

But Queen Anne and the British were tired of the war. The sheer carnage of Malplaquet gave the pro-peace Tories a dramatic argument that the war had gone on too long. In 1711 they took back power in Parliament with a landslide election. One of their first acts was to charged Marlborough with corruption (falsely, as it turned out), claiming he was only prolonging the war to make himself rich, and Anne dismissed him. The Dutch were shocked by this as he was their savior and hero, but they themselves were completely broke by the war, as were the Imperials and all the other Allied states. The Tories and the Dutch began to make separate negotiations to end the war to their advantage, which they accomplished by 1713 at Utrecht.

So, in the end Malplaquet, though a tapestry in the Hall of Victories at Blenheim Palace, proved to be a political defeat for Marlborough. And ultimately that proved a victory for Louis XIV, who ended up getting nearly everything he wanted by starting the war in the first place. His grandson, Philip V, was confirmed as King of Spain, which was started the goddam war in the first place. The British got permanent possession of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, the Hudson Bay Terriroty,  Gibralter, and Minorca. The Austrians got the Spanish Netherlands (future Belgium)...now the Austrian Netherlands for a few years. And a bunch of other principalities and lands changed hands...not that the inhabitants cared.

Wargaming Malplaquet

As you may have noticed, there are a number of scenarios about this battle that might be interesting to test in a wargame, decisions or opportunities that were or were not taken.

1. Villars does not weaken his center.
The French player could choose not to denude his center redans to reinforce his left. He would still have reserves under Puységur to do that with, as well as his cavalry on the left. 

2. Boufflers counter-attacks
After the Prince of Orange's failed second assault on the French right, Boufflers ignores his previous orders to stand fast and authorizes d'Artagnan to launch a counter-attack, supported his cavalry.

3.  Villars is not wounded
The only reason Villars did not launch is counter-attack with his left-hand reserves was that he passed out from his wound. See what would've happened had Puységur's fresh troops been used to attack Schulenburg's and Lottum's exhausted and depleted ones. 

4. Villars attacks Marlborough on the 10th
Villars had been criticized for not attacking Marlborough in detail before Eugene and Withers were on the scene. See if this might've worked. 

5. Withers reinforces the Dutch
Another controversy is that Withers, with his 22 battalions and 19 squadrons (under Micklau), was stopped and redirected to wend through the Bois de Sars on the west. See if those troops had been allowed to keep marching to support Tilly on the left (as the Gardes te Voet were)

 6. Marlborough outmaneuvers Villars
Suppose Marlborough distracts Villars with a pinning show of force (of his and Tilly's 48,000) in front of the Auloit Gap and has Eugene and his 38,000 march either around the western end of the Bois de Sars and attack in force from that direction, or around the eastern end of the Bois de Lanières and attack from the southeast.

7. Marlborough does nothing but continues the siege of Mons
Another scenario I had thought about was what would a battle have been like had Marlborough and Eugene just continued their siege of Mons and ignored Villars. It was Louis XIV who ordered Villars to relieve Mons and not let it fall. The Allies still outnumbered the French, so would a battle on the open plain above all those woods have fared differently?   And if Villars, not wanting to risk an open battle, did not interrupt the siege, tens of thousands would not have died and the French border would still have been secure.

Tactical considerations

Different Fire Systems
I know that those of you steeped in tactics of the 17th and 18th centuries are aware of the competing musketry fire systems in this age. How the English and Dutch had pioneered the three-rank, platoon fire system while the French and nearly all the other Continental infantries continued using the fire-by-ranks system, a holdover from the age of arquebuses. Whatever game engine you use, I would encourage you to account for this difference as it would probably make an impact in a wargame.

I would encourage you to see my discussion and graphics on these two systems at the end of my Blenheim post from 12 years ago.

Formations
The British and Dutch forces continued to deploy in three ranks for infantry and two ranks for horse. The other allied forces, including the Prussians, would deploy in four ranks for infantry and three for horse.

The French, the slowest to evolve tactically, still used their formations that had brought them so much success since the Thirty Years War, seventy years before. Officially they were supposed to deploy their infantry into six ranks, but as the frontage was to remain consistent, and since the size of their battalions was, in many cases, half would the authorized strength should be, at Malplaquet they probably deployed in four ranks, like their Continental counterparts. They also deployed their cavalry in three ranks. 

My maps reflect these dimensions in representing individual battalions and squadrons. 

Artillery
At this date, artillery was still manned by small crews of professional gunners. Militarized transport did not yet exist and so the guns were moved to the battlefield by civilian contractors, who would then take their limbers, wagons, and selves back behind the main camp, out of harm's way. Movement on the battlefield itself was done by bricole (dragging by ropes) by the gunners and borrowed infantry from the closest battalions. 

Where time allowed, revetments were thrown up to protect the guns. Otherwise, if there was much movement, they'd be deployed in the open.

Orders of Battle 

These data are based primarily on a combination of the  Kronoskaf's  and MacDowell's OOBs for the battle. The following is a key to each column.

  Command  is the name of the command or regiment, colored in the primary uniform coat color for each regiment. Where known, this is followed by the regimental number it would eventually be known as later in the century, when the more obsessive-compulsive felt the need to numerically organize their armies.  Where I could not find any reference to these uniform details, I have colored them the generic grey of the period.

“Facing”  The command level and type, using standard military symbology . This column is color-coded in the “facing” color of the regiment. During the WSS these would be primarily the colors of the voluminous cuffs.  As with the coat color, where I could not find any information on regimental facings, I've also colored this cell neutral grey.

 Flag  A miniature of the regimental flag, if known. If unknown, this cell is left blank. You'll note that the British flags for this period had officially changed from the previous WSS battles in that there were the Acts of Union between Scotland and England passed by their parliaments in 1707, creating the nation we now know as Great Britain. So the flags of each country (the red cross on white of St George and and the white X on blue of St Andrew) were hybridized into the form familiar (or almost) to the modern flag we know today.

“Nationality”  Since each army was composed of allies, I've listed the country of origin of each unit. Now that the Scots and English were one people, I've called them British. But Scots and Irish and Germans were also incorporated in the French cause, so I've listed these regiments' ethnicity here too.

“Strength”  These are approximations, I took the authorized full establishment of each regiment at the time. However, I could not find a common, definitive overall present-for-duty for each unit in my sources and I assume that each army was not operating at full strength. While Chandler gives the Allies 110,000, for instance, Wikipedia (with its different sources) cites only 86,000. Chandler gives the French 80,000, Kronoskaf  gives them 95,000, and Wikipedia only 75,000. For computing strengths for your own wargame OOBs, I recommend applying a standard deviation from these full-strength ones.

“Guns”  The number of guns of all calibers.

“Bns/Sdns”  The reported number of subunits (Battalions for Foot, and Squadrons for Horse). The number of foot battalions present at the battle is fairly reliable based on my references, but the number of squadrons is conjectural--I've used the Kronoskaf estimate for this.

References

In writing this post--and jumping to the ridiculous conclusions I did--I used the following references, both physical books and online links. Some were for narrative, some for orders of battle, some for research on tactics and formations, and some were for uniform and flag details. As always I created the maps from scratch using as reference a combination of Google Maps (satellite view), contemporary maps, and descriptions of the battlefield from the following sources.

Paper/Digital:

Barthorp, Michael & Mcbride, Angus, Marlborough's Army 1702-11, Men-at-Arms #97, 1980, Osprey Press, London, ISBN: 0-85045-346-1

Chandler, David, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough, 1994, Sarpedon, New York, ISBN: 1-885119-14-13

Chandler, David, Marlborough as Military Commander, 1984, Spellmont, Staplehurst, Kent, UK, ISBN: 0-946771-12-X

Chartrand, Rene, Louis XIV's Army, Men-at-Arms #203, 1988, Osprey Press, London, ISBN: 0-85045-850-1 

Churchill, Sir Winston S., Marlborough, His Life and Times, Vol 4., 1938, reprint 1967,Sphere Books Ltd, London (sorry, published before the ISBN system), this is a link to buy a used set. Since it seems to be out of print, too, you can also read it online at Internet Archive.

Falkner, James, Marlborough's Battlefields, 2008, Pen & Sword Books ISBN: 978-1-84415-632-0

Grant, Charles Stewart, From Pike to Shot, 1685-1720, 1986, Wargames Research Group, ISBN 0904417395

Greiss, Thomas E., et. al., The Dawn of Modern Warfare, The West Point Military History Series, 1984, Avery Publishing, ISBN: 0-89529-263-7

Hall, Robert and Iain Stanford and Yves Roumegoux, Uniforms and Flags of the Dutch Army and the Army of Liege, 1685-1715, 2013, Pike & Shot Society, ISBN 1902768523, CD-ROM from On Military Matters. This source was also extremely diligent in describing uniforms, flags, organization, tactical deployment, and the changing regimental names by date for the Dutch and it's mercenary forces.

Jorgensen, Christer, et.al., Fighting Techniques of the Early Modern World, AD 155- AD 1763. 2005, St Martin's Press, New York, ISBN: 0-312-34819-3 

MacDowell, Simon, Malplaquet 1709: Marlborough's Bloodiest Battle, 2020, Osprey Press, ISBN 978-1-4728-4123-0

Nosworthy, Brent, The Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics 1689-1763, 1990, Hippocrene Books, New York, ISBN: 0-87052-785-1 Wagner, Eduard, European Weapons & Warfare 1618-1648, 1979, Octopus Books, London, ISBN 0-7064-1072-6   While this book covers a generation or two before Ramillies, it has a very informative section on the types and use of artillery throughout the 17th century, which our characters would have still employed in 1706. Military technology was not moving as fast in the early modern period as it would in the late modern, though, as Nosworthy explains, the introduction of the flint musket with bayonet replaced the old arquebus and pike of the 17th century and encouraged the introduction of fewer ranks in the infantry.

Online:

More and more, when I research one of these battles online via Google, its AI tries to offer help. But it has yet to be at all useful, and is frequently wrong. So I use the following:

Kronoskaf https://kronoskaf.com/wssindex.phptitle=1709-09-11_%E2%80%93_Battle_of_Malplaquet   Best site for the most reliable and comprehensive source for the War of the Spanish Succession: armies, regiments, battles, personalities.

Wikipedia (obviously) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Malplaquet, 

This map from the Royal Collection Trust, done by an anonymous map maker in Britain during the reign of George I (1714-1727), was my main and definitive source for creating my maps. It was the most recent and detailed map of the battle I could find and I gave it much more credence than the other, more generalized charts, particularly in the location of the gun batteries and French fortifications. https://militarymaps.rct.uk/war-of-the-spanish-succession-1701-14/map-of-the-battle-of-malplaquet-1709-malplaquet-nord-pas-de-calais-france-50deg1911n-03deg5156e 

British Battles Site   https://www.britishbattles.com/war-of-the-spanish-succession/battle-of-malplaquet/ 

Penant, Daniel, French Account of the Battle of Malplaquet   https://www.jstor.org/stable/26899866?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Mouillard, for contemporary uniform and flag references on the French Army during the 18th centuryhttp://pfef.free.fr/Anc_Reg/Unif_Org/Mouillard/mouillard.htm  

Bacchus painting guide for uniform references https://www.baccus6mm.com/PaintingGuides/WSS/ 

 
The War Office, UK, for detailed information about Danish forces during the WSS 
http://www.thewaroffice.co.uk/Blenheim/DanishUniforms1699-1720.pdf   

Tacitus, https://www.tacitus.nu/english.html   more detailed information on Danish, Prussian, Saxon, Holstein-Gottorp regiments during the WSS from Örjan Martinsson