MARLBOROUGH.*
CHANCE has ordained that Marlborough, after long waiting for a modern biographer, should have two within a few months. The late Mr. Frank Taylor's fascinating volumes on The Wars of Marlborough, left incomplete at the author's death in 1913 and edited by his sister, has been followed by the memoir which Mr. C. T. Atkinson, but for the war, would have published years ago. The two books supplement one another. Mr. Atkinson's finished study of Marlborough's whole career, with special reference to his campaigns, is admirably clear and judicious ; the concise accounts of the battles are excellent, so far as they go, though the maps and diagrams are poor. On the other hand for detailed narratives of the manoeuvres and actions, from the opening of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702 to the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, Mr. Taylor's work is incomparably the best yet written. He had a wonderful knowledge of the battlefields—though he did not foresee that, as Mr. Atkinson is careful to note, British troops would soon be fighting over the same ground as Marlborough's men traversed in Flanders—and the maps provided for his book by Mr. Cribb, with the help of Mr. Fortescue, are superb. It is only fair to add that when Mr. Atkinson, in a preface dated in March last, claims to be the first person to correct the ordinary account of Ramillies, in regard to the advance and retreat of the right wing under Lord Orkney, he has in fact been anticipated by Mr. Taylor. The delay in the publication of Mr. Atkinson's book explains this involuntary mistake, for which he is in no way to blame ; since he wrote the preface, Mr. Taylor's book has appeared with the fall details about Ramillies from the new documents to which Mr. Atkinson refers. The point was that Marlborough would not allow Orkney to develop a successful attack on the French left because he wanted to throw his whole weight into an unexpected onslaught on the other end of Villeror s line.
Mr. Atkinson emphasizes two aspects of Marlborough's mar- vellous career. " He was the first British general to direct the armies of a great European coalition, whose military merits were acknowledged by the commanders of the contingents of our allies to entitle him to the supreme place among them." Moreover, he was the first British commander to lead British regulars with unvarying success, and our standing Army, founded in his boyhood, derives its traditions from his cam- paigns. Since the Hundred Years War ended at Chatillon in 1453, English troops had made few appearances on the Continent, though Vere's men had fought well in the Netherlands in Eliza- beth's reign, and a .contingent of Cromwell's veterans under Lockhart had routed the Spaniards outside Dunkirk in 1658. Under William of Orange, English regiments saw service in Flanders and shared the ill-luck of their royal commander, though they did well at the taking of Namur. But under Marlborough the British Army achieved a European reputation. It seemed to be invincible. No hostile troops could stand against it ; no fortress could resist its attacks. When the red- coats appeared on the battlefield, the French general made haste to reinforce the portion of his line which they threatened to attack. The sight of Orkney's battalions facing his left wing at Ramillies threw Villeroi into such a state of nervous agitation that he overlooked the danger impending on his right until it was too late to avert disaster. The British troops, moreover, seemed superior to fatigue and continually astonished their adversaries by the long and arduous marches Which they performed. The famous march from the Netherlands to the
• marTharesgh and the Rtee o' the British Army. By C. T. AtkInson, bondon Putnam3. [21s. net.]
Danube, in the Blenheim campaign, was only one of many such feats of endurance, made possible by Marlborough's care and forethought in planning the stages and seeing that the men were rested and properly fed. The British Army in short established a moral ascendancy over its opponents, just as its commander did over all the generals who faced him in turn. Mr. Atkinson holds that, though Marlborough was great as a strategist, an organizer and a diplomatist, he was even greater as a leader of men on the battlefield. One of his officers; Parker, noted that the Duke was " peculiarly happy in an invincible calmness of temper and serenity of mind, and had a surprising readiness of thought, even -in the heat of battle." Thus it was that, as Addison put it in The Campaign, Marlborough could " teach the doubtful battle how to rage " and take instant advantage of any successful stroke, or of any mistake on the
part of his adversary. As Vaudemont is said to have told King William, there was " something inexpressible " in Marlborough. Mr. Atkinson rightly directs attention to Marlborough's
understanding of sea-power and of the value of combined oper- ations. The Duke had proposed in the winter of 1705-6 to transfer part of his army, including the British cavalry, to Lombardy and in co-operation with the British fleet to make an attack on Toulon. The plan was too bold for Ministers at home and for the Dutch, but Marlborough, though he gave up the idea of going to Italy, urged the Admiralty to accord full support to Prince Eugene. He advocated the naval expedition which in 1708 gave us Minorca, because he saw that the fleet must have a secure base in the Mediterranean.
" That Marlborough in all the distractions and anxieties of his work as the Allies' commander-in-chief could keep in touch with and direct the naval strategy of England shows, as few other things can, his really extraordinary capacity. Napoleon may have won greater victories than Blenheim and Ramillies, though it may be asked whether even Napoleon would have accomplished more in Marlborough's place and under the con- ditions of Marlborough's day, but if Napoleon had ever shown a little of Marlborough's grasp of naval strategy and of the peculiar difficulties of naval operations, would his plans for naval attack on England have ended in such complete and humiliating failure ? "
Mr. Atkinson examines and refutes most of the charges made against Marlborough by his political enemies, like Swift, and repeated by Macaulay and Thackeray. Yet Mr. Atkinson has allowed himself to be influenced to some extent by the scandalous pamphleteers, on the principle that there is no smoke without fire. The old story—of which Macaulay made so much—that Marlborough betrayed to the French the plans for Tollemache's expedition to Brest in 1694 proves, on examination, to be at least exaggerated ; the incriminating letter attributed to Marl. borough could not have told the French anything that they had not known weeks before. Mr. Atkinson is too ready, we think, to assume the genuineness of the letter. He underrates the ingenuity of the Jacobite plotters, whose evidence against Marlborough may well have been forged. The Duke was a model husband and father, he was temperate in his habits and he was honest, as judged by the standards of his time, in his dealings with public money. If, like other leading statesmen, he sought now and then to keep in touch with the exiled prince who, for all he could tell, might yet come to the throne after Queen Anne's death, it is hardly to be accounted to him as a serious crime. " Corporal John " was only human, but no leading statesman of his day had a cleaner record than he.
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