24 July in military history: Battle of Denain, 1712

24 July 1712 · 314 years ago

Landrecies or Denain

Denain was a battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. By mid-July 1712 the British had left the Allied army: the ADB writes that their government recalled its troops, and Villars's memoirs and the Mémoires militaires record that the Duke of Ormond marched away on 17 July. Prince Eugene of Savoy, commanding the Allies who remained, laid siege to Landrecies, on the Sambre. His supplies came from the depot at Marchiennes, on the Scarpe, along a double line of entrenchments to a fortified camp at Denain, on the Scheldt. The Earl of Albemarle held that camp with ten battalions; the Mémoires militaires add sixteen squadrons.¹

Louis XIV wanted Landrecies saved. On 23 July the war minister, Voysin, wrote to Villars that if he succeeded by attacking the camp at Denain "vous y aurez honneur" ("the honor will be yours"; our translation), but that if Landrecies fell, it seemed he was taking upon himself "l’événement et toutes les suites" ("the outcome and all its consequences"; our translation). Villars's memoirs say he decided on Denain alone and told no one. The Mémoires militaires and the Austrian official history, finding nothing in the war papers, infer from later letters that Marshal Montesquiou persuaded him.²

The night march

Villars covered the move with a feint: his memoirs say Coigny's troops beyond the Sambre were to make a great noise cutting wood for fascines all night, so that an attack on the Landrecies lines would seem certain; the other two accounts also describe demonstrations there. The Marquis de Vieuxpont went ahead with thirty battalions and the pontoons. He left on the evening of 23 July, and the rest of the army followed after dark. Troops who had hoped for a battle toward the Sambre grumbled at what looked to them like a retreat.³

At first light on the 24th Vieuxpont was bridging the Scheldt near Neuville, without opposition. The Comte de Broglie's cavalry crossed first, entered the lines toward Marchiennes, which were all but unmanned, and seized a bread convoy from Marchiennes. Albemarle learned of the French march only at seven in the morning.⁴

"The only fascines"

Eugene hurried to Denain ahead of his army, took the cavalry and baggage back across the river, sent in seven battalions from Thiant, which gave Albemarle seventeen, and rode back to hasten his columns. In his letter to the King dated 24 July, Villars wrote that Eugene had arrived two hours before the action, and the Relation sent to Ormond says the same.⁵

Without waiting for the rest of the army, at about noon Villars and Montesquiou attacked with the troops that had crossed, Villars on the right and Albergotti on the left. When Albergotti proposed making fascines, Villars, in his memoirs, pointed to the enemy army arriving on the river, asked whether it would give them the time, and then told him: "Les seules fascines seront les corps de ceux de nos gens qui tomberont dans le fossé" ("The only fascines will be the bodies of those of our men who fall into the ditch"; our translation). The infantry advanced in columns under canister and volleys and went into the ditch and over the parapet without firing. Villars's memoirs have it march in four lines. Contades, major général of the infantry, wrote the next day that the battalions marched "le fusil sur le pli du bras, sans tirer un seul coup ni se rompre" ("musket in the crook of the arm, without firing a single shot or breaking ranks"; our translation).⁶

Albemarle's men broke and ran for the bridge, which gave way under the fugitives. Albemarle was taken prisoner. Prince Tingry's troops from Valenciennes held the bridge at Prouvy, and Eugene, arriving on the far bank with the head of his army, could not renew the fight. That night he wrote to the Emperor that "zum allen Glück hatte ich mich selbst dahinorts verfüget" and had saved the cavalry and most of the baggage ("by great good fortune I had gone there myself"; our translation).⁷

Counting the cost

Albemarle's infantry is given as seventeen battalions in the Mémoires militaires and the Austrian history, eighteen in the Relation of the battle Villars sent to Ormond, and twenty-four in Villars's memoirs. Villars wrote to the King on 25 July that he did not think two hundred men had got away, the Relation says the same, and the Mémoires militaires, citing Villars, say a hundred. A letter from the Allied camp printed in the 's Gravenhaegse courant says about 1,800 men got away, besides thirty squadrons that had crossed before the attack. The Austrian history writes that many drowned but a large part reached the right bank, and counts 4,080 prisoners brought to Valenciennes. The Mémoires militaires list as prisoners Albemarle, two lieutenant generals, two maréchaux de camp, more than two hundred officers and three thousand soldiers. John Pimlott, in the Oxford Companion to British History, has fewer than four thousand escape, over four thousand taken prisoner and about two thousand French casualties.⁸

The Mémoires militaires give the French losses as one colonel, seven captains and seven lieutenants killed; three colonels, fifty captains and fifty-eight subalterns wounded; and 865 soldiers killed and 1,075 wounded. The Austrian history prints the same 865 and 1,075. The only French colonel killed, Villars's memoirs say, was the young Marquis de Tourville; Contades also reported his death.⁹

From Marchiennes to Bouchain

Villars sent Broglie straight on to Marchiennes. On 26 July, his memoirs record, the French took Saint-Amand, Mortagne and the other Allied posts on the Scarpe. Marchiennes surrendered on 30 July: Villars's memoirs give nearly 4,000 men taken there, the Mémoires militaires 4,500 men and 1,500 Dutch sailors. On 25 July Eugene had written to Heinsius, the Grand Pensionary, that "le fâcheux accident qui est arrivé à ces bataillons, selon mon sentiment, ne doit point changer les résolutions prises" ("the unhappy accident that befell those battalions should not, in my opinion, change the decisions taken"; our translation). In the end he lifted the siege of Landrecies and fell back. The ADB says the Dutch deputies pressed him into the retreat against his will.¹⁰

Douai surrendered on 8 September, its garrison made prisoners of war, and Le Quesnoy followed on 4 October. Villars's memoirs date the surrender of Bouchain to 18 October, the Mémoires militaires to the 19th. All three places passed back into French hands. The ADB writes that these losses so discouraged the Dutch and the Emperor's other allies that they would no longer hear of continuing the war. On 11 April 1713 Britain and the Dutch Republic made peace with France at Utrecht.¹¹