Buch lesen: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846», Seite 6

In these desperate circumstances, Boufflers and his brave troops did all that skill or courage could suggest to arrest the progress of the victors, and withdraw from the field without any additional losses. Forming his troops into three great masses, with the cavalry which had suffered least in rear, he slowly, and in perfect regularity, commenced his retreat. The Allies had suffered so much, and were so completely exhausted by the fatigue of this bloody and protracted battle, that they gave them very little molestation. Contenting themselves with pursuing as far as the heath of Malplaquet, and the level ground around Taisnière, they halted, and the men lay down to sleep. Meanwhile the French, in the best order, but in deep dejection, continued their retreat still in three columns; and after crossing the Hon in their rear, reunited below Quesnoy and Valenciennes, about twelve miles from the field of battle.³⁹

Such was the desperate battle of Malplaquet, the most bloody and obstinately contested which had yet occurred in the war, and in which it is hard to say to which of the gallant antagonists the palm of valour and heroism is to be given. The victory was unquestionably gained by the Allies, since they forced the enemy's position, drove them to a considerable distance from the field of battle, and hindered the siege of Mons, the object for which both parties fought, from being raised. The valour they displayed had extorted the admiration of their gallant and generous enemies.⁴⁰ On the other hand, these advantages had been purchased at an enormous sacrifice, and never since the commencement of the contest had the scales hung so even between the contending parties. The Allies lost, killed in the infantry alone, five thousand five hundred and forty-four; wounded and missing, twelve thousand seven hundred and six; in all eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty, of whom two hundred and eighty-six were officers killed, and seven hundred and sixty-two wounded. Including the casualties in the cavalry and artillery, their total loss was not less than twenty thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the number engaged. The French loss, though they were worsted in the fight, was less considerable; it did not exceed fourteen thousand men – an unusual circumstance with a beaten army, but easily accounted for, if the formidable nature of the intrenchments which the Allies had to storm in the first part of the action, is taken into consideration. In proportion to the numbers engaged, the loss to the victors was not, however, nearly so great as at Waterloo.⁴¹ Few prisoners, not above five hundred, were made on the field; but the woods and intrenchments were filled with wounded French, whom Marlborough, with characteristic humanity, proposed to Villars to remove to the French headquarters, on condition of their being considered prisoners of war – an offer which that general thankfully accepted. A solemn thanksgiving was read in all the regiments of the army two days after the battle, after which the soldiers of both armies joined in removing the wounded French on two hundred waggons to the French camp. Thus, after the conclusion of one of the bloodiest fights recorded in modern history, the first acts of the victors were in raising the voice of thanksgiving, and doing deeds of mercy.⁴²

No sooner were these pious cares concluded, than the Allies resumed the investment of Mons: Marlborough, with the English and Dutch, having his headquarters at Belian, and Eugene, with the Germans, at Quaregnon. The Prince of Orange, with thirty battalions and as many squadrons, was intrusted with the blockade. Great efforts were immediately made to get the necessary siege equipage and stores up from Brussels; but the heavy rains of autumn set in with such severity, that it was not till the 25th September that the trenches could be opened. Boufflers, though at no great distance, did not venture to disturb the operations. On 9th October, a lodgement was effected in the covered way; on the 17th, the outworks were stormed; and on the 26th, the place surrendered with its garrison, still three thousand five hundred strong. By this important success, the conquest of Brabant was finished; the burden and expense of the war removed from the Dutch provinces; the barrier which they had so long sought after was rendered nearly complete; and the defences of France were so far laid bare, that by the reduction of Valenciennes and Quesnoy, in the next campaign, no fortified place would remain between the Allies and Paris. Having achieved this important success, the allied generals put their army into winter-quarters at Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, and on the Meuse; while fifty battalions of the French, with one hundred squadrons, were quartered, under the command of the Duke of Berwick, in the neighbourhood of Maubeuge, and the remainder of their great army in and around Valenciennes and Quesnoy.⁴³

During the progress of this short but brilliant campaign, Marlborough was more than ever annoyed and disheartened by the evident and increasing decline of his influence at home. Harley and Mrs Masham contrived to thwart him in every way in their power; and scarcely disguised their desire to make the situation of the Duke and Godolphin so uncomfortable, that out of spleen they might resign; in which case, the entire direction of affairs would have fallen into their hands.⁴⁴ Influenced by these new favourites, the Queen became cold and resentful to the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had formerly been so much attached; and the Duke, perceiving this, strongly advised her to abstain from any correspondence with her Majesty, as more likely to increase than diminish the estrangement so rapidly growing between them. The Duchess, however, was herself of too irritable a temper to follow this sage advice; reproaches, explanations, and renewed complaints ensued on both sides; and as usual in such cases, where excessive fondness has been succeeded by coldness, all attempts to repair the breach only had the effect of widening it. Numerous events at court, trifles in themselves, but "confirmation strong" to the jealous, served to show in what direction the wind was setting. The Duchess took the strong and injudicious step of intruding herself on the Queen, and asking what crime she had committed to produce so great an estrangement between them. This drew from her Majesty a letter, exculpating her from any fault, but ascribing their alienation to a discordance in political opinion, adding, "I do not think it a crime in any one not to be of my mind, or blamable, because you cannot see with my eyes, or hear with my ears." While this relieved Marlborough from the dread of a personal quarrel between the Duchess and Royalty, it only aggravated the precarious nature of his situation, by showing that the split was owing to the wider and more irremediable division on political subjects.⁴⁵

Encouraged by this powerful support at court, Harley now openly pursued his design of effecting the downfall of Marlborough, and his removal from office, and the command of the armies. The whole campaign which had terminated so gloriously, was criticised in the most unjust and malignant spirit. The siege of Tournay was useless and expensive; the battle of Malplaquet an unnecessary carnage. It was even insinuated the Duke had purposely exposed the officers to slaughter, that he might obtain a profit by the sale of their commissions. The preliminaries first agreed to at the Hague were too favourable to France; when Louis rejected them, the rupture of the negotiations rested with Marlborough. In a word, there was nothing done by the English general, successful or unsuccessful, pacific or warlike, which was not made the subject of loud condemnation, and unmeasured invective. Harley even corresponded with the disaffected party in Holland, in order to induce them to cut short the Duke's career of victory by clamouring for a general peace. Louis was represented as invincible, and rising stronger from every defeat: the prolongation of the war was entirely owing to the selfish interests and ambition of the allied chief. These and similar accusations, loudly re-echoed by all the Tories, and sedulously poured into the royal ear by Harley and Mrs Masham, made such an impression on the Queen, that she did not offer the smallest congratulation to the Duchess on the victory of Malplaquet, nor express the least satisfaction at the Duke's escape from the innumerable dangers which he had incurred.⁴⁶

An ill-timed and injudicious step of Marlborough at this juncture, one of the few which can be imputed to him in his whole public career, inflamed the jealousy of the Queen and the Tories at him. Perceiving the decline of his influence at court, and anticipating his dismissal from the command of the army at no distant period, he solicited from the Queen a patent constituting him Captain-general for life. In vain he was assured by the Lord Chancellor that such an appointment was wholly unprecedented in English history; he persisted in laying the petition before the Queen, by whom it was of course refused. Piqued at this disappointment, he wrote an acrimonious letter to her Majesty, in which he reproached her with the neglect of his public services, and bitterly complained of the neglect of the Duchess, and transfer of the royal favour to Mrs Masham. So deeply did Marlborough feel this disappointment, that on leaving the Hague to return to England, he said publicly to the deputies of the States – "I am grieved that I am obliged to return to England, where my services to your republic will be turned to my disgrace."⁴⁷

Marlborough was received in the most flattering manner by the people, on landing on 15th November, and he was greeted by the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his great and glorious services. The Queen declared in her speech from the throne, that this campaign had been at least as glorious as any which had preceded it; and the Chancellor, in communicating the thanks of the House of Lords, added – "This high eulogium must be looked upon as added to, and standing upon the foundation already laid in the records of this House, for preserving your memory fresh to all future times; so that your Grace has also the satisfaction of seeing this everlasting monument of your glory rise every year much higher." Such was the impulse communicated to both Houses by the presence of the Duke, and the recollection of his glorious services, that liberal supplies for carrying on the war were granted by both Houses. The Commons voted £6,000,000 for the service of the ensuing year, and on the earnest representation of Marlborough, an addition was made to the military forces.

But in the midst of all these flattering appearances, the hand of destruction was already impending over the British hero. It was mainly raised by the very greatness and inappreciable nature of his services. Envy, the invariable attendant on exalted merit, had already singled him out as her victim: jealousy, the prevailing weakness of little minds, had prepared his ruin. The Queen had become uneasy at the greatness of her subject. There had even been a talk of the Duke of Argyll arresting him in her name, when in command of the army. Anne lent a ready ear to the representations of her flatterers, and especially Mrs Masham, that she was enthralled by a single family; that Marlborough was the real sovereign of England, and that the crown was overshadowed by the field-marshal's baton. Godolphin, violently libelled in a sermon by Dr Sacheverell, at St Saviour's, Southwark, the Doctor was impeached before the House of Lords for the offence. The government of the Tower, usually bestowed on the recommendation of the commander-in-chief, was, to mortify Marlborough, bestowed without consulting him on Lord Rivers. At length matters came to such a pass, and the ascendency of Mrs Masham was so evident, while her influence was exercised in so undisguised a manner to humiliate him, that he prepared the draft of a letter of resignation of his commands to her Majesty, in which, after enumerating his services, and the abuse which Mrs Masham continued to heap on him and his relations, he concluded with saying – "I hope your Majesty will either dismiss her or myself."⁴⁸

Sunderland and several of the Whig leaders warmly approved of this vigorous step; but Godolphin, who foresaw the total ruin of the ministry and himself, in the resignation of the general, had influence enough to prevent its being sent. Instead of doing so, that nobleman had a long private audience with her Majesty on the subject; in which, notwithstanding the warmest professions on her part, and the strong sense she entertained of his great and lasting services, it was not difficult to perceive that a reserve as to future intentions was manifested, which indicated a loss of confidence. Marlborough declared he would be governed in the whole matter by the advice and opinion of his friends; but strongly expressed his own opinion, "that all must be undone if this poison continues about the Queen."⁴⁹ Such, however, was the agony of apprehension of Godolphin at the effects of the duke's resignation, that he persuaded him to adopt a middle course, the usual resource of second-rate men in critical circumstances, but generally the most hazardous that can be adopted. This plan was to write a warm remonstrance to the Queen, but without making Mrs Masham's removal a condition of his remaining in office. In this letter, after many invectives against Mrs Masham, and a full enumeration of his grievances, he concludes with these words – "This is only one of many mortifications that I have met with, and as I may not have many opportunities of writing to you, let me beg of your Majesty to reflect what your own people and the rest of the world must think, who have been witnesses of the love, zeal, and duty with which I have served you, when they shall see that, after all I have done, it has not been able to protect me against the malice of a bed-chamber woman.⁵⁰ But your Majesty may be assured that my zeal for you and my country is so great, that in my retirement I shall daily pray for your prosperity, and that those who serve you as faithfully as I have done, may never feel the hard return I have met with."

These expressions, how just soever in themselves, and natural in one whose great services had been requited as Marlborough's had been, were not likely to make a favourable impression on the royal mind, and, accordingly, at a private audience which he had soon after of the Queen, he was received in the coldest manner.⁵¹ He retired in consequence to Blenheim, determined to resign all his commands, unless Mrs Masham was removed from the royal presence. Matters seemed so near a rupture, that the Queen personally applied to several of the Tories, and even Jacobites, who had long kept aloof from court, to support her in opposition to the address expected from both Houses of Parliament on the duke's resignation. Godolphin and Somers, however, did their utmost to bend the firm general; and they so far succeeded in opposition to his better judgment, and the decided opinions of the Duchess, as to induce him to continue in office without requiring the removal of Mrs Masham from court. The Queen, delighted at this victory over so formidable an opponent, received him at his next audience in the most flattering manner, and with a degree of apparent regard which she had scarcely ever evinced to him in the days of his highest favour. But in the midst of these deceitful appearances his ruin was secretly resolved on; and in order to accelerate his departure from court, the Queen inserted in her reply to the address of the Commons at the close of the Session of Parliament, a statement of her resolution to send him immediately to Holland, as "I shall always esteem him the chief instrument of my glory, and of my people's happiness." He embarked accordingly, and landed at the Brill on March 18th, in appearance possessing the same credit and authority as before, but in reality thwarted and opposed by a jealous and ambitious faction at home, which restrained his most important measures, and prevented him from effecting any thing in future on a level with his former glorious achievements.

The year 1709 was signalized by the decisive victory of the Czar Peter over Charles XII. at Pultowa, who was totally routed and irretrievably ruined by the Muscovite forces, commanded by the Czar in person on that disastrous day. This overthrow was one of the most momentous which has occurred in modern times. Not only was a great and dreaded conqueror at once overturned, and erelong reduced to captivity; but a new balance of power was established in the north which has never since been shaken. Sweden was reduced to her natural rank as a third-rate power from which she had been only raised by the extraordinary valour and military talents of a series of warlike sovereigns, who had succeeded in rendering the Scandinavian warriors, like the Macedonians of old, a race of heroes. Russia, by the same event, acquired the entire ascendency over the other Baltic powers, and obtained that preponderance which she has ever since maintained in the affairs of Europe. Marlborough sympathised warmly with the misfortunes of the heroic sovereign, for whose genius and gallantry he had conceived the highest admiration. But he was too sagacious not to see that his disasters, like those of Napoleon afterwards in the same regions, were entirely the result of his own imprudence; and that if he had judiciously taken advantage of the terror of his name, and the success of his arms, in the outset of his invasion, he might have gained all the objects for which he contended without incurring any serious evil.⁵²

Peter the Great, who gained this astonishing and decisive success, was one of the most remarkable men who ever appeared on the theatre of public affairs. He was nothing by halves. For good or for evil he was gigantic. Vigour seems to have been the great characteristic of his mind; but it was often fearfully disfigured by passion, and not unfrequently misled by the example of more advanced states. To elevate Russia to an exalted place among nations, and give her the influence which her vast extent and physical resources seemed to render within her reach, was throughout life the great object of his ambition; and he succeeded in it to an extent which naturally acquired for him the unbounded admiration of mankind. His overthrow of the Strelitzes, long the Prætorian guards and terror of the czars of Muscovy, was effected with a vigour and stained by a cruelty similar to that with which Sultan Mahommed a century after destroyed the Janissaries at Constantinople. The sight of a young and despotic sovereign leaving the glittering toys and real enjoyments of royalty to labour in the dockyards of Saardem with his own hands, and instruct his subjects in shipbuilding by first teaching himself, was too striking and remarkable not to excite universal attention. And when the result of this was seen: when the Czar was found introducing among his subjects the military discipline, naval architecture, nautical skill, or any of the arts and warlike institutions of Europe, and in consequence long resisting and at length destroying the terrible conqueror who had so long been the terror of Northern Europe, the astonishment of men knew no bounds. He was at once the Solon and Scipio of modern times: and literary servility, vying with great and disinterested admiration, extolled him as one of the greatest heroes and benefactors of his species who had ever appeared among men.

But time, the great dispeller of illusions, and whose mighty arm no individual greatness, how great soever, can long withstand, has begun to abate much from this colossal reputation. His temper was violent in the extreme; frequent acts of hideous cruelty, and occasional oppression, signalized his reign. More than any other man, he did evil that good may come of it. He compelled his people, as he thought, to civilisation, though, in seeking to cross the stream, hundreds of thousands perished in the waves. "Peter the Great," says Mackintosh, "did not civilize Russia: that undertaking was beyond his genius, great as it was; he only gave the Russians the art of civilized war." The truth was, he attempted what was altogether impracticable. No one man can at once civilize a nation: he can only put it in the way of civilisation. To complete the fabric must be the work of continued effort and sustained industry during many successive generations. That Peter failed in rendering his people on a level with the other nations of Europe in refinement and industry, is no reproach to him. It was impossible to do so in less than several centuries. The real particular in which he erred was, that he departed from the national spirit, that he tore up the national institutions, violated in numerous instances the strongest national feelings. He clothed his court and capital in European dress; but men do not put off old feelings with the costume of their fathers. Peter's civilisation extended no further than the surface. He succeeded in inducing an extraordinary degree of discipline in his army, and the appearance of considerable refinement among his courtiers. But it is easier to remodel an army than change a nation; and the celebrated bon-mot of Diderot, that the Russians were "rotten before they were ripe," is but a happy expression, indicating how much easier it is to introduce the vices than the virtues of civilisation among an unlettered people. To this day the civilisation of Russia has never descended below the higher ranks; and the efforts of the real patriotic czars who have since wielded the Muscovite sceptre, Alexander and Nicholas, have been mainly directed to get out of the fictitious career into which Peter turned the people, and revive with the old institutions the true spirit and inherent aspirations of the nation. The immense success with which their efforts have been attended, and the gradual, though still slow descent of civilisation and improvement through the great body of the people, prove the wisdom of the principles on which they have proceeded. Possibly Russia is yet destined to afford another illustration of the truth of Montesquieu's maxim, that no nation ever yet rose to durable greatness but through institutions in harmony with its spirit. And in charity let us hope that the words of Peter on his death-bed have been realized: "I trust that, in respect of the good I have striven to do my people, God will pardon my sins."