In 1710 Villars lay entrenched behind a new series of lines, which he called Ne plus ultra and which ex tended from Valenciennes to the sea. Marlborough made no at tempt to invade France from the side of Mons, for Villars at the head of the army which had been through the ordeal of Malpla quet was too terrible an opponent to pass by with impunity. In England, too, the anti-Marlborough party was gaining the upper hand in the queen's council. So Marlborough took no risks, and returning to the Lille side, captured Douai (June 26) and Bethune (Aug. 26). No attack was attempted upon the lines. In Dauphine, Berwick repulsed the Austrians and Piedmontese.
The year 1711 was Marlborough's last campaign, and it was remarkable for the capture of the Ne plus ultra lines by ma noeuvres that must be recorded as being the ne plus ultra of the 18th century way of making war by stratagem. In May the sud den death of the emperor completely altered the political outlook, for his successor Charles was the coalition's claimant to the throne of Spain, and those who were fighting for the "Balance of Power" could no more tolerate a new Charles V. than they could see Louis XIV. become a Charlemagne.
accordance with a strategic policy of passive endurance the marshal Villars remained on the defensive behind his lines, and Marlborough determined to dislodge him. What force could not achieve, the duke trusted to obtain by ruse. The lines extended from the sea along the Canche, thence to Arras, and along the Sensee to Bouchain on the Scheldt. As the western part of the lines, besides being strong, were worthless from the invaders' point of view because their capture could not lead to anything, Marlborough determined to pass the barrier between Arras and Bouchain. On July 6 Marlborough marched away to the west, as if to attack the lines between Arras and the headwaters of the Canche. Villars followed suit. The plot of the comedy now thickened. Marlborough lost his usual serenity, and behaved in so eccentric a manner that his own army thought him mad. He sent off one part of his forces to Bethune, another back to Douai, and ordered the small remainder to attack the lines between the Canche and Arras, where, as every one knew, Villars's whole army was massed. In the night of Aug. 4-5 the main army slipped off west ward, at the highest possible speed. The Scarpe was crossed and then the pace was increased, though thousands of the infantry fell out and scores died from exhaustion. Five hours ahead of the French army the allies crossed the great lines unresisted. The troops concentrated at Cambrai when Marlborough, declining Vil lars's offer of a battle, manoeuvred still farther to the east and invested Bouchain. The siege, covered by a strong "line of circumvallation" which Villars did not attempt to attack, ended with the surrender of the place on Sept. 13, and so terminated a series of manoeuvres so extraordinary as to be almost incredible. In December Marlborough was dismissed the service in disgrace.
But Holland and Austria determined to make one last effort to impose their own terms on Louis. Eugene's army, which had been used in 1711 to influence the imperial election instead of to beat Villars, was brought back to the Low Countries. Reading the meaning of Marlborough's fall, he quietly made preparations to take over the various allied contingents into Imperial or Dutch pay. So when England seceded, Ormonde only marched away with 12,000 sullen men, while i oo,000 remained with the prince.
Misfortunes at Versailles helped Eugene in his first operations, for two successive heirs apparent to the crown died within a month and all was in confusion, not to speak of the terrible misery that prevailed in the country. But the old king's courage rose with the danger and he told Villars that if the army were beaten he would himself join it and share in its fate. Villars, though suffering still from his Malplaquet wound, took command on April 20, and spun out time on the defensive until the end of May, when Ormonde's contingent withdrew. Eugene, as the defection of England had made further operations near the sea unprofitable, took Le Ques noy (July 4) and moved thence on to Landrecies, which was closely invested. Then followed the last serious fight of the war, the battle of Denain, which saved the French monarchy and completed the disintegration of the coalition.
In order to protect his camps around Landrecies, Prince Eugene constructed the usual lines of circumvallation with such speed that Villars, on coming up, found that they were too formidable to attack. Villars anxiously looked out for an oppor tunity of breaking through. At Denain, the besiegers' route crossed the Scheldt and he resolved to attack them there. The enterprise, like Marlborough's forcing of the Ne plus ultra lines, involved an extraordinary combination of force and fraud—for the point of attack was far away and the opposing army almost within cannon-shot. Some days were spent by Villars in deceiv ing Eugene and his own army as well, as to his real intentions. Then on the night of July 23 the French army moved off silently, and by 9 A.M. on the 24th had completely deployed on the north bank of the Scheldt. Eugene galloped away to bring up his army from Landrecies. But, long before it arrived, Villars's troops stormed the lines. A mass of Dutch troops—spiritless since Mal plaquet—were huddled into the narrow avenue between the two entrenchments and forced back against a broken bridge. Their generals were taken. The broken mob of fugitives tamely sur rendered. Eugene arrived on the other bank with some brigades of the imperial infantry, but failed to reopen the passage. Villars followed up his victory at once, capturing Marchiennes and St. Amand, and in these places all Eugene's reserve stores, pontoons and guns. On Aug. 2 Eugene broke up the siege of Landrecies and retreated by a roundabout route to Mons, while Villars's lieuten ants retook Douai and Bouchain (September–October). Before the next campaign opened the treaty of Utrecht had been signed, and although the emperor continued the struggle alone for another year, the enfeebled combatants were content to accept Villars's captures of Landau (July 22, 1713) and Freiburg (Nov. 21) as decisive. The treaty of Rastatt, between Austria and France, was signed on March 7, 1714, Eugene and Villars being the negotiators.
W. Fortescue, Hist. British Army, vol. i. (London, 1899) lives of Marlborough (especially Frank Taylor's) ; the Austrian official Feldziige des Prinzen Eugen (Vienna, 1871-1892) ; Roder v. Diersburg's Markgraf Ludwig von Baden (Karlsruhe, 185o) ; Arneth's Prinz Eugen; Memoires militaires relatifs a la succession d'Espagne (1835; ed. De Vault) ; detailed histories of the French army, and monographs in the French general staff's Revue d'histoire. (X.)