The Battle of Luxembourg
From The Campaigns of Modernity, by C. de Villenueve
The Franco-Dutch War began with a series of swift battles and quick surprises, before devolving into number of skirmishes in the Netherlands and along the Rhine. But, after the Battle of Landau, things began moving swiftly again, both on and off the battlefield. In Saint-Cyr, Louis XII’s health had been rapidly deteriorating, and it was becoming harder and harder to suppress the news of a commoner acting as a King. On the Baltic, Scandinavia had signed a separate truce which ended the Battle of the North Sea and promised mutual defense against privateers with England in exchange for giving Prussia Stralsund, which meant that the British were now able to focus their whole fleet on France’s Atlantic coastline. In the Netherlands, Marlborough finally had the breakthrough he had been planning towards for the entire war, and was making plans to crush Vauban’s forces at Luxembourg in order to use it as a base of operations.
Marlborough had been simmering in Amsterdam for three years, frustrated by his inability to break through Vauban’s defensive line. Having been the leader of the French mercenary contingent, he hadn’t been involved in more than three sieges and was unaccustomed to the kind of patient warfare that style of battle required. Worst still, the people of the Northern Netherlands were steadily turning against the English & Valois armies who were taking shelter in their farmland. Over 1685, Marlborough’s whole Dutch contingent was taken up with suppressing revolts in the Frieslands, and even some of the Dutch aristocracy were turning against Johann. Just as Colbert needed the campaign to end, Marlborough was just as desperate for a swift end to the war. As the summer of 1686 turned to fall, Marlborough marched to Luxembourg with 40,000 men.
The Revolts in the Northern Netherlands, from 1684-1686
Marlborough’s search for a swift end to the campaign was blocked by two things: the greatly reinforced walls of Luxembourg, and the efforts of his three erstwhile comrades: Vauban, Turenne, and de Savoie. These three men had fought alongside Marlborough, and had a good awareness of his style of warfare. Marlborough put much stock in the old Louisan style of warfare, which involved a fractured offensive converging on the same target. This had been the defining strategy of the whole of the 16th and 17th centuries, requiring the deftest of strategies and the most skilled of scouts. It had been adapted many times, with the introduction of a long siege wagon to defeat enemy forts and the transition of cavalry into a supporting role, but the strategy had remained essentially the same: if one could attack a set point while keeping one’s force mobile, one’s means of attack is unpredictable, and the only defense against such an attack was a reliance on fixed points of defense, hence the focus in the later 17th century on fort building.
At least, this was the theory in those years. So long as military art remained essentially the same as it did in the era of Louis XII, the strategies of generals would remain the same, and Marlborough was a master at this form of warfare.
This was the problem which concerned Vauban through the whole period of the Franco-Dutch War. If an attack could come in any direction then Vauban was limited to fixed defenses, and if Marlborough’s offensive was split into multiple attacking prongs then it would be difficult to call for reinforcements without their being intercepted. In response to this threat, Vauban came up with a counter-strategy which would change the nature of warfare for the rest of the century. The counter-march, which met the dispersed offensive with a concentrated counter offensive on the flank, turned warfare from a system of rapid offensives and fixed defenses into a constant interplay of march and counter-march.
Turenne had been preparing for an English breakthrough for months, spending time to further drill his soldiers and build depots through northern Flandres. Once news arrived that Limburg had fallen, Turenne split his army in two, with a 20,000 man contingent led by Marshal de Frontenac leading the charge into the northern Netherlands and Turenne moving east to attack Marlborough. The Battle of Saint-Hubert, against Marlborough’s right wing, was a massive success with Althone’s men breaking before charges by grenadiers and dragoons. But instead of charging directly to Marlborough’s center, Turenne marched north towards the rear of Marlborough’s formation.
The sudden presence of an army to the rear of the Anglo-Dutch force precipitated a rapid march towards Luxembourg, and Marlborough’s plans of a month long siege were changed to a full out assault. Through the efforts of Vauban and Turenne, Marlborough’s forces, which encircled Luxembourg, were now themselves encircled.
The Peasant’s Army of France was a part of the massive last push by Vauban to end the war before a palace coup
The Battle of Luxembourg was the culmination of the efforts of each member of the war. Each power, from England to Saxony to France and Switzerland, was stretching their resources far past the breaking point. The recent bankruptcy of the Valois crown starting a chain reaction through the members of the Coalition, and Marlborough’s success in getting a new contingent of men sent to the Army of Amsterdam was hampered by the promise that Parliament would approve no new funds and no new troops. And while Vauban had succeeded in bringing 75,000 men to the front, they wouldn’t arrive soon enough to participate in this battle and, being militia members, were to be on the field only until the beginning of the next harvest season.
Beyond this, political machinations were beginning to occur in Saint-Cyr. The Marshals, who were the de facto governing body of France at the time, had kept far from this unpopular war, giving Vauban and the ‘royal faction’ (of which included Louis’ most loyal men, such as de Savoie and Vauban) full reign over the war, especially after Marlborough defected. They had fully expected a defeat, given that France was fighting three of the most disciplined armies in Europe, and they saw distancing themselves from the conduct of the war as a way to gain influence after the death of Louis XIII. The longer the war went on the more that unrest in the higher ranks threatened Colbert’s regime, and Colbert feared that the loss of Luxembourg would serve as a signal to the Marshals that now was the time to overthrow him.
Marlborough sending a dispatch during the Battle of Luxembourg
Vauban had spent this time conscripting as large a portion of Luxembourg city as he could to defend his walls. The threat of an internal disruption had forced him to undertake a great many actions in order to satiate the populace, including opening the granaries and offering full livres to any man willing to take a post on the earthen ramparts outside the de facto city walls. Luxembourg was now festooned with half of all Dutch cannons and well over seven thousand new muskets with socket bayonets. And yet, the city’s walls still had a share of holes from the taking of the fort early in the war and it was this fact that the coalition armies relied on.
The battle began on the 24th of November, 1686, the first day of snow in much of Europe. Marlborough, having posted several rearguards, had waited for von Eilenburg to get close enough to Luxembourg before beginning his assault, and in the meantime had cut off every possible line of supply to the city. After a short preliminary cannonade, von Eilenburg and Marlborough both gave the order to march towards the walls, with ladders and bombs in hand.
This desperate charge towards Luxembourg was one of the most brutal points since the end of the Wars of Religion. Of the 20,000 men sent into the range of Vauban’s guns, it is estimated that 2,000 died within the first hour, and by the capture of the walls of Bonnevoie (a fauxbourg to the south of Luxembourg city), 15,000 men lay dead on both the French and Coalition sides. However, for all that was sacrificed by the English and Saxons, they did take the southern wall, and Luxembourg was on the brink of being captured.
The second day was similarly a brutal slog, with street to street fighting on the border of the city walls, a problem which the Saxons ended up responding to by burning down the whole of Bonnevoie. Eventually, the English fought their way to one of the breaches along the northern wall, and Marlborough’s own son led the charge through the breach. It was at this point that the English were introduced to a group of French innovations, with grenades (previously used on a small scale during the English civil war) pelting down by the dozens, and the chargers met with a combination of musket fire and bayonets previously thought impossible (since early bayonets plugged the musket, making it impossible to fire). As night fell and the charge was repulsed, both the coalition forces and the increasingly outnumbered garrison looked to the next day with fear and trepidation, as the day when the city would unquestioningly be taken.
The Charge of de Savoie’s Cavalry
De Savoie had been spending the last week circumnavigating each of the rearguards von Eilenburg had set up, through night marches, diplomatic agreements with the Rhenish states, and conflicting information he sent in dispatches. The final leg of the Army of the Rhine’s journey was made at night, with de Savoie’s cavalry regiments moving ahead of the main army, arriving on the outskirts of Luxembourg. The snows were becoming fiercer, and the Saxons were all snuggled in their encampments for warmth. A number of men moved into the Saxon encampment and set fire to the barracks, leaving in the darkness of night.
The next day, the Saxons were deeply demoralized, by the sight of their comrades dead in the snow, by the lack of sleep during the cold night, and by the constant struggle their lives had been since the beginning of the year. As von Eidelburg ordered yet another march to the walls, unsettled soldiers began a mutiny, which, while easily defeated, began the day on most inauspicious terms. This only became worse, as the newly hot sun melted the snow turning much of the battlefield into mud. And yet, for an hour the Saxons made a good deal of progress, coming closer and closer to the southern breach in the Luxembourg walls. It was then that de Savoie’s cavalry arrived.
The collapse of von Eilenburg’s rear troops coincided with the arrival of the rest of de Savoie’s force, which brought a total collapse to the Saxon flank of the Siege. Marlborough, a kilometer north, was just getting this news when he found that Turenne, too, had made it to the vicinity of the city. With his troops encircled, Marlborough made a hasty retreat north, leaving a large portion of his men behind.
Eugen de Savoie, at the Battle of Luxembourg
The Battle of Luxembourg gave a decisive end to the Dutch Front of the Franco-Dutch War. While there were small skirmishes afterwards, the process towards a peace was already underway and the collapse of the coalition troops at Luxembourg propelled the process along quite a bit. The War would end in 1687, with the Treaty of Berwick, signed in England, and that treaty brought the beginnings of a new order to the world.
This new order, with an energetic and belligerent France at one of it’s definitive poles, would never be seen by the man who did the most to bring it about. Louis Gaston de Bourbon Orleans, or Louis XIII, died upon hearing the news of Marlborough’s march to Luxembourg.
And with that, we’re at an end to Lords of France: Roads to the Enlightenment! I’m going to post a couple of short things about the death of Louis XIII and the Treaty of Berwick, hopefully before the end of the year, but yeah! Woo! It’s done!
