Field Armies and Fortresses

   In military history there are two interesting examples where the commander of a field army used an untaken fortress in the rear of an invading enemy army as cover for a flanking manoeuvre which placed the opponent at a disadvantage.  These examples are:-

              (A).  The English campaign against the Scots, including the Battle of Flodden, in 1513;

              (B).  Marlborough’s campaign with the Allied army against the French in 1702.

(A).  Flodden

   In 1511 the Pope Julius II formed a “Holy Alliance” of, principally, Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor;  King Ferdinand II of Aragon;  and Henry VIII of England; plus the Republics of Venice and Switzerland, against the France of Louis XII.  He wished to expel French troops from Italy.

   Henry, who was then 22, invaded France from Calais in June 1513.  He appointed his Queen, Catherine, to rule England in his absence.

   The King of Scotland, James IV, then 40 years old and the brother-in law of Henry, was bound by the Franco-Scottish “Auld Alliance” of 1495 to assist France if it was attacked by England.  With an army of 42,000 men, mostly infantry, and a very powerful modern siege artillery he crossed the River Tweed border at Coldstream on 22^nd August 1513 (Ref. 1).  He did not attack the castle and fortified port of Berwick at the mouth of the Tweed but besieged and captured the Border castles of Wark, Norham (a very strong fortification which had been an obsessive target of Scottish attacks for 4 centuries and which fell after 6 days bombardment by James’ guns), Etal and Ford (see the map below on P.2*).

*The base of this map is necessarily modern, none being available of 1513 date.  Which roads then existed are unknown, except for the old Roman road to Berwick from Corbridge (Corstopitum) passing near Wooler.

   James then took post on top of Flodden Edge, 500 feet AMSL and awaited the expected English attempt to eject him.  Getting his heavy cannon onto the hill must have been a very laborious job.  The biggest required 36 oxen to move it on the level (Ref. 1).  The private comments of his gunners would have been worth hearing! 

   Queen Catherine had appointed the 70-years-old Earl of Surrey to raise a defending army, which arrived at Wooler near Flodden on about 7^th September.  He had 26,000 men, also infantry, and a field artillery of light guns, more easily moved than the Scots guns (Ref. 1).

   Surrey sent a herald to James to invite him to a battle on level ground, which the King naturally refused.  On his part the English commander had no intention of trying to storm Flodden Edge, which would have required a climb of 250 feet in ½ mile.  A daring plan was chosen to outflank the Scots and then cut their communications with Coldstream and home.  This would have been very dangerous if not for the location of the English coastal fortress at Berwick, 15 miles North of Wooler**

**Admittedly, Berwick was then weakly garrisoned and the walls were in poor condition, but it would have provided a strong base if the field army occupied it. See plan below on P4 and details in Ref. 3.  Ships could have brought in any supplies needed or, in the last resort, evacuated the army.

.  On the 8th September, turning their backs on the Scots the English crossed the small River Till, gave a wide berth to the captured castle at Ford and marched North up the old Roman road.  As this road rises up to 400 feet James on the Edge 6 miles distant would have been able to see this movement.  He could have assumed that Surrey meant to reach Berwick to re-supply his army.  After a day’s march the English camped at Barmoor near Lowick.  Had James been of a daring disposition he could have crossed the Till at Ford and attacked them after a march of 6 miles.  He did not.

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 The next day, 9^th September, Surrey showed his hand by directing his march towards the Till bridge at Twizel, 7 miles away (Ref. 1.  See sketch map below) (as the crow flies -the actual route taken is not known, it may have been cross-country (see also the map in Ref. 2)).  Again, should James have attempted to take him in flank, the retreat to Berwick was always open.  His march brings to mind the stanza from Macaulay, suitably adapted:-

                                                         His white hair un-bonneted,

                                                         The Earl of Surrey comes.

                                                         Behind him march the halberdiers,

                                                         Before him beat the drums!

   The most dangerous time was the re-crossing of the Till.  James had redeployed his army 1 ½  miles North to the hill above Branxton at 260 feet AMSL.  He could have advanced further to catch the English divided by the river, although half that army had crossed by fords adjacent to Twizel bridge to minimise the crossing time.  As during the whole march, the retreat to Berwick was possible if a defeat had been suffered.  James made no further forward move, although this left him cut off from Scotland.  No doubt he was thinking that his army (reduced to about 30,000 after men who had completed their 40 days of feudal service had already left for home (Ref.1)) would defeat the English in a downhill charge by his pikemen, armed with 15 feet weapons.  He may have recalled the 200 years previous battle of Bannockburn in the final stage, when Scottish spearmen had forced English cavalry back against the Burn and it caused a retreat to become a rout.

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   The time taken in the approach march on 9^th September meant that the English only came in contact with the Scots at 4 p.m. and the fighting went on to dusk.  Surrey having manoeuvred King James out of his near-impregnable position at Flodden Edge, all was now to be decided by the “poor benighted infantry” with push of pike and hack of halbert.  Without going into details, given in Refs 1 & 2, the main battle was lost by the Scots because, on advancing downhill, they encountered an un-reconnoitred marsh in which the essential close cohesion was lost, the long pikes became an encumbrance and were dropped, leaving them with only side-arms to compete unequally with the 5 feet halberds of the English.  A late arrival of English archers on their flank defeated a reserve of un-armoured Highlanders.  This was the last use of the bow in battle.

   It had been ordered that the English troops were to take no prisoners.  King James died with many thousands of his men, including a large number of the Scottish nobility.  Like King Richard III at Bosworth in 1485 he was killed in an attempt to reach the opposing commander.  The Scottish loss was several times that of the English.

Conclusion

   King James would have been better advised to lay siege to Berwick as his first action.  Theoretically Scotland had promised by treaty in 1482 not to attack Berwick again, after years of to-and-fro in possession.  As the “Auld Alliance” was held to be superior in governing Scottish action this need not have prevented an assault.  With his new heavy guns, and a weak place, it could probably have been taken as easily as Norham actually was, long before the English army arrived.  No battle need have been fought.  It could have been a valuable bargaining asset later.

Surrey’s reward

   Surrey was the son of John Howard, the 1^st Duke of Norfolk, who commanded the vanguard of Richard III’s army at Bosworth in 1485 and died in that battle.  Surrey also fought at Bosworth.  After being trusted by Queen Catherine with the defence of England 28 years later and winning he was given the title of his father.

Epilogue

   Berwick was heavily re-fortified in the new Italian style of a bastioned trace from 1560, at vast expense.  This was all wasted in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland rode straight through the defences on his way to reign as James I of England – and begin, with his son Charles I later, 46 years of grief for the nation.

References

1.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Flodden

This includes pictures of Flodden Edge, showing the steepness of the gradient, and of Twizel bridge.

2.  https://www.military-history.org/feature/early-modern/flodden-field.htm

3.  https://berwicktimelines.tumblr.com/post/112450173418/the-medieval-walls

. 

(B).  Marlborough’s mid-1702 Campaign

   The war known to history as that of the” Spanish Succession” began with a series of 4 events late in 1699:-

• The moribund King of Spain Charles II, without a successor of the Royal blood to his vast domains, signed a will on the 7^th October leaving the sovereignty to the younger grandson of King Louis XIV of France, Philip of Anjou.  He had some claim to it by lineage;
• Charles II died on the 1^st November;
• On the 16^th November Louis XIV announced in Versailles that he accepted the will.  This reneged on a “Partition Treaty” he had made with William III of England only 5 months earlier in which they had agreed that on the soon-expected death of Charles II they would support a claim to the Spanish throne by lineage of Archduke Charles, the second son of Leopold I, the Emperor of Austria;

The Spanish Ambassador to France, present at this announcement, exclaimed

                            “Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées !”  [“There are no more Pyrenees”].

That was exactly what William and also the Emperor feared – an adjacent aggregation of might which would create, what would now be called, a Superpower in Europe and the Americas.  The Partition Treaty had specified the proposed Archduke Charles’ accession would be on condition that Spain would never be united with the Empire.

• Anjou succeeded as King Philip V of Spain.

   King William immediately set about forming an alliance to oppose Louis.  The latter, while simultaneously saying he would not use his grandson to increase his own power nevertheless stated that Philip retained his place in the French succession.  Much more, he took pre-emptive action in February 1701 to improve his defences by occupying many fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands (later called Belgium).  By Treaty ending a previous war these “Barrier Fortresses” had been occupied by Dutch troops alongside their Spanish garrisons, Spain having been an ally previously.  Now Philip V gave Louis permission to eject the Dutch.  These did not fight to retain them and were interned (Ref. 4), presumably because there was no declaration of war*. 

*This was a very smart move on the part of Louis.  It took Marlborough and the Allied army 10 campaigns to re-take these fortresses and in that time political changes in England caused support for the war to be exhausted.  At the moment when a direct march on Paris was possible a Tory government in 1712 dismissed Marlborough and treacherously withdrew the English troops from the alliance.

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   King William, with the Earl of Marlborough now always by his side, worked away and brought allies to the cause of containing Louis, but before this was formalised he died of a riding injury and worn out by his labours in resisting that war-monger on 8^th March 1702.  He was succeeded by Anne, the daughter of the King whom he had displaced in 1688.  It therefore fell to Marlborough to conclude the “Grand Alliance” whose principals were England, the Netherlands (Holland) and the Empire of which Austria was the core.  The allies declared war on France on the 4^th May (15^th by the new Gregorian calendar) 1702

   Marlborough, appointed previously by William as commander of the English troops assembling in Holland, was accepted by them as also commander of the Dutch troops.  Unfortunately, a Dutch law required their commander to be accompanied on campaign by two members of their government (“Field Deputies”) who had the power to veto actions of which they disapproved. 

The French opening move

   Marshal Boufflers, with 60,000 men, advanced from Belgium into the “peninsula” formed by the rivers Meuse and Rhine with the intention of besieging Nimwegen (now Nijmegen).  All the fortresses on the two rivers, bar Maestricht were held by the French.  That strong place, with a garrison of 14,000 men and containing vast supply depots, was Dutch (see plan on P.7).  Boufflers probably believed that, if he took Nimwegen and advanced into Holland, Maestricht would “wither on the vine”.

   The French were opposed by the Anglo-Dutch army of which Marlborough took field command on 1^st July.  His force was built up to 60,000 men, including German soldiers hired from Prussia and Hanover.  He then had to overcome the reluctance of the Dutch government to allow offensive action.  This took until the 25^th July, when the situation was as shown on Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

   The matter was put to the test on the 26^th July.  Taking 50,000 men Marlborough crossed the Meuse by 3 pontoon bridges and marched steadily Southwards for 6 days, to halt after 40 miles on the opposite side of the Meuse from Ruremonde.  Meanwhile Boufflers had seen immediately the threat to his position, hurriedly broke camp and marched to Ruremonde.  As Marlborough had promised the anxious Dutch beforehand, the French threat to Nimwegen had been withdrawn by his forward movement because the French had realised too late the mistake they had made in leaving Maestricht untaken in their rear.                                                          

   Boufflers new problem was that to regain communication with Belgium he would have to make a flank march in front of the Allied army (see Fig. 2).  With difficulty Marlborough had obtained permission from the Dutch Field Deputies to fight a battle under those extremely favourable circumstances.  The ground was a heath, very suitable for a battle.  Unfortunately, on the morning of 2^nd August when all preparations had been made for conflict and when the French were starting on their march across his front, the Deputies begged him not to put things to the hazard.  He had to comply.  The best chance in 10 campaigns he had of beginning a battle with a huge advantage was thrown away.

Fig. 2

Marlborough’s battles

   The Dutch Field Deputies were actually being sensible in holding back Marlborough in what would have been his first battle in command of an army.  They had accepted him because their own Prince of Orange had chosen him, and he had proved clever in strategical manoeuvring but battle involved factors which could not be measured and so were risky.  Marlborough was sufficiently confident, in the courage of his men, in their weapons and in their skill in using them, to believe he could judge those factors correctly.  In the next 7 years he proved that to be true in 4 major victories:-

• 1704 at Blenheim, a pitched battle i.e. one with a formal array of forces beforehand and a definite plan of action.  He defeated Marshal Tallard while his comrade-in-arms Prince Eugene, the chief soldier of the Empire, held the associated army of Marshal Marsin to a draw.
• 1706 at Ramillies, another pitched battle where, with clever use of “interior lines”, he won an enormous cavalry melée (risking his life in it) and pursued the defeated army of Marshal Villeroy ruthlessly.

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• 1708 at Oudenarde. An “encounter battle” i.e. where elements of each army came into contact from approach marches in succession.  No plan was possible, needing a seeing eye and quick decision-making by Marlborough and Eugene to defeat thoroughly Marshal Vendôme.  The “débris of the Grand Army” was found to be of no use for the rest of the campaign.
• 1709 at Malplaquet, a pitched battle where the French under Marshal Villars had thrown up field fortifications.  Marlborough and Eugene drove them from these at great cost of Dutch lives but, after Villars was wounded, the old veteran Marshal Boufflers (who Marlborough had out-manoeuvred from Nimwegen in 1702) led the French in a retreat which the Allies were too exhausted to pursue.

   Of these battles probably the one with which he was most satisfied was Ramillies.  The entire credit of command was his, he had borne the danger of ordinary soldiers, which must certainly have raised still further their admiration for him, and after the complete defeat of the French he had been able to capture easily a large part of Belgium, including the capital Brussels*, and many strong fortresses.

*Two hundred and thirty-eight years later a British army, moving very rapidly in the opposite direction after the defeat of the German army in Normandy, liberated Brussels.  In 1706, 1815, 1914 and 1944 British blood was spent on Belgian soil.

References

4.  Marlborough, His Life and Times Vol.II  W. Churchill  Harrap  1934.