MARLBOROUGH AND HIS METHODS OF WARFARE. 115 
. that Englishmen could undertake to do in the time of Queen Anne, the 
people of the United Kingdom can very well undertake to do in the time 
of Victoria (applause). ; 
Gentlemen, the next campaign, 1706, was started in this wise: 
Villeroi was near Louvain; Marlborough came to Bilsen; he gave 
out that he would come down and take Namur—he knew perfectly 
well that Villeroi would try to stop that; accordingly Villeroi, 
as Marlborough came down in a southern direction, marched in 
south-eastern direction. This again was a deliberate stratagem of Marl- 
borough’s ; there was no greater master of ruses and stratagems than 
Marlborough since the time of Hannibal, even if Hannibal himself 
were as great a master. The result was a collision on the field of 
Ramillies. Now, gentlemen, you have before you there but a very 
effective, tangible result of our success ab Ramillies (pointing to a 
gun). Ihave no doubt that some officers will be able to describe this 
piece of ordnance more exactly in the discussion. The French took 
up an exceedingly bad position at Ramillies, what is called a circular 
position ; their line of communications, as you will see on the big map, 
was by Jodoigne to Louvain, and they drew in a half circle like this 
(drawing a picture on the board); there was a little village with a 
marsh in front called Autre Helise, Ottomond’s tomb on the left, 
and Ramillies in the centre, and another little village, Taviéres, 
on the right. Marlborough came up as if he were going to attack 
Higlise; he immediately changed his movement and broke through the 
French front, being very much favoured by the peculiar circular posi- 
tion. We saw that at the battle of Blenheim he broke through the 
French front—we now see that at the battle of Ramilies he broke 
the French front he had not the least plan of attack till he saw the 
positions—he marched as it were to his right, he found it so strong 
that he made a feint on his right and also a movement to his left, not 
intending to do much there; he massed in the centre, and with the 
greatest personal bravery not only broke the centre but so threatened 
the communications on the left of the French that they had nothing to 
do but to get back to Louvain as quickly as possible. The result of 
that was practically the conquest of Belgium and that an English army 
entered into Brussels; an English army had already been at Ulm in 
1704, at Treves in 1705, and now it was in Brussels, the old capital of 
the Austrian Netherlands: town after town fell and practically French 
influence in Belgium was destroyed for a time. 
I have not much more to say about 1706, and if I had I would not 
have time to say it. Nothing very particular took place in the way of 
campaigns in 1707, only another very interesting historical matter—that 
Marlborough prevented an alliance between the celebrated Charles XII. 
of Sweden and the French, and directed his attention eastwards where he 
soon came to grief at the hands of the Russians. We now come to 1708. 
In 1708 another celebrated French general appeared on the scene—Ven- 
dome. His character is so well described in Macaulay’s essay on the 
Spanish Succession that I will not repeat it here; as my time is short. 
Vendéme took possession again of Ghent and Bruges and was threatening 
to take Oudenarde when Marlborough marched across the river Dender 
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