Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845

It is at this period – time 1702 – that the great and memorable, and withal blameless period of Marlborough's life commenced; the next ten years were one unbroken series of efforts, victories, and glory. He arrived in the camp at Nimeguen on the evening of the 2d July, having been a few weeks before at the Hague; and immediately assumed the command. Lord Athlone, who had previously enjoyed that situation, at first laid claim to an equal authority with him; but this ruinous division, which never is safe, save with men so great as he and Eugene, and would unquestionably have proved ruinous to the common cause if shared with Athlone, was prevented by the States-General, who insisted upon the undivided direction being conferred on Marlborough. Most fortunately it is precisely at this period that the correspondence now published commences, which, in the three volumes already published, presents an unbroken series of his letters to persons of every description down to May, 1708. They thus embrace the early successes in Flanders, the cross march into Bavaria and battle of Blenheim, the expulsion of the French from Germany, the battle of Ramillies, and taking of Brussels and Antwerp, the mission to the King of Sweden at Dresden, the battle of Almanza, in Spain, and all the important events of the first six years of the war. More weighty and momentous materials for history never were presented to the public; and their importance will not be properly appreciated, if the previous condition of Europe, and imminent hazard to the independence of all the adjoining states, from the unmeasured ambition, and vast power of Louis XIV., is not taken into consideration.

Accustomed as we are to regard the Bourbons as a fallen and unfortunate race, the objects rather of commiseration than apprehension, and Napoleon as the only sovereign who has really threatened our independence, and all but effected the subjugation of the Continent, we can scarcely conceive the terror with which a century and a half ago they, with reason, inspired all Europe, or the narrow escape which the continental states, at least, then made from being all reduced to the condition of provinces of France. The forces of that monarchy, at all times formidable to its neighbours, from the warlike spirit of its inhabitants, and their rapacious disposition, conspicuous alike in the earliest and the latest times; 4 4 "Galli turpe esse ducunt frumentum manu quærere; itaque armati alienos agros demetunt." – Cæsar. its central situation, forming, as it were, the salient angle of a bastion projecting into the centre of Germany; and its numerous population – were then, in a peculiar manner, to be dreaded, from their concentration in the hands of an able and ambitious monarch, who had succeeded for the first time, for two hundred years, in healing the divisions and stilling the feuds of its nobles, and turned their buoyant energy into the channel of foreign conquest. Immense was the force which, by this able policy, was found to exist in France, and terrible the danger which it at once brought upon the neighbouring states. It was rendered the more formidable in the time of Louis XIV., from the extraordinary concentration of talent which his discernment or good fortune had collected around his throne, and the consummate talent, civil and military, with which affairs were directed. Turenne, Boufflers, and Condé, were his generals; Vauban was his engineer, Louvois and Torcy were his statesmen. The lustre of the exploits of these illustrious men, in itself great, was much enhanced by the still greater blaze of fame which encircled his throne, from the genius of the literary men who have given such immortal celebrity to his reign. Corneille and Racine were his tragedians; Molière wrote his comedies; Bossuet, Fénélon, and Bourdaloue were his theologians; Massillon his preacher, Boileau his critic; Le Notre laid out his gardens; Le Brun painted his halls. Greatness had come upon France, as, in truth, it does to most other states, in all departments at the same time; and the adjoining nations, alike intimidated by a power which they could not resist, and dazzled by a glory which they could not emulate, had come almost to despair of maintaining their independence; and were sinking into that state of apathy, which is at once the consequence and the cause of extraordinary reverses.

The influence of these causes had distinctly appeared in the extraordinary good fortune which had attended the enterprises of Louis, and the numerous conquests he had made since he had launched into the career of foreign aggrandizement. Nothing could resist his victorious arms. At the head of an army of an hundred thousand men, directed by Turenne, he speedily overran Flanders. Its fortified cities yielded to the science of Vauban, or the terrors of his name. The boasted barrier of the Netherlands was passed in a few weeks; hardly any of its far-famed fortresses made any resistance. The passage of the Rhine was achieved under the eyes of the monarch with little loss, and melodramatic effect. One half of Holland was soon overrun, and the presence of the French army at the gates of Amsterdam seemed to presage immediate destruction to the United Provinces; and but for the firmness of their leaders, and a fortunate combination of circumstances, unquestionably would have done so. The alliance with England, in the early part of his reign, and the junction of the fleets of Britain and France to ruin their fleets and blockade their harbours, seemed to deprive them of their last resource, derived from their energetic industry. Nor were substantial fruits awanting from these conquests. Alsace and Franche Comté were overrun, and, with Lorraine, permanently annexed to the French monarchy; and although, by the peace of Nimeguen, part of his acquisitions in Flanders was abandoned, enough was retained by the devouring monarchy to deprive the Dutch of the barrier they had so ardently desired, and render their situation to the last degree precarious, in the neighbourhood of so formidable a power. The heroic William, indeed, had not struggled in vain for the independence of his country. The distant powers of Europe, at length wakened to a sense of their danger, had made strenuous efforts to coerce the ambition of France; the revolution of 1688 had restored England to its natural place in the van of the contest for continental freedom; and the peace of Ryswick in 1697 had in some degree seen the trophies of conquests more equally balanced between the contending parties. But still it was with difficulty that the alliance kept its ground against Louis – any untoward event, the defection of any considerable power, would at once, it was felt, cast the balance in his favour; and all history had demonstrated how many are the chances against any considerable confederacy keeping for any length of time together, when the immediate danger which had stilled their jealousies, and bound together their separate interests, is in appearance removed. Such was the dubious and anxious state of Europe, when the death of Charles II. at Madrid, on the 1st November 1700, and the bequest of his vast territories to Philip Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, and grandson of Louis XIV., threatened at once to place the immense resources of the Castilian monarchy at the disposal of the ambitious monarch of France, whose passion for glory had not diminished with his advanced years, and whose want of moderation was soon evinced by his accepting, after an affected hesitation, the splendid bequest.

Threatened with so serious a danger, it is not surprising that the powers of Europe were in the utmost alarm, and erelong took steps to endeavour to avert it. Such, however, was the terror inspired by the name of Louis XIV., and the magnitude of the addition made by this bequest to his power, that the new monarch, in the first instance, ascended the throne of Spain and the Indies without any opposition. The Spanish Netherlands, so important both from their intrinsic riches, their situation as the certain theatre of war, and the numerous fortified towns with which they were studded, had been early secured for the young Bourbon prince by the Elector of Bavaria, who was at that time the governor of those valuable possessions. Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, the Milanese, and the other Spanish possessions in Italy, speedily followed the example. The distant colonies of the crown of Castile, in America and the Indies, sent in their adhesion. The young Prince of Anjou made his formal entry into Spain in the beginning of 1701, and was crowned at Madrid under the title of Philip V. The principal continental powers, with the exception of the Emperor, acknowledged his title to the throne. The Dutch were in despair: they beheld the power of Louis XIV. brought to their very gates. Flanders, instead of being the barrier of Europe against France, had become the outwork of France against Europe. The flag of Louis XIV. floated on Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent. Italy, France, Spain, and Flanders, were united in one close league, and in fact formed but one dominion. It was the empire of Charlemagne over again, directed with equal ability, founded on greater power, and backed by the boundless treasures of the Indies. Spain had threatened the liberties of Europe in the end of the sixteenth century: France had all but proved fatal to them in the close of the seventeenth. What hope was there of being able to make head against them both, united under such a head as Louis XIV.?