Note 78 — Chapter XXVII

Battle of Denain, 24 July, 1712. Denain is only about five miles from Cambray. Marlborough was removed from the command of the armies of the Grand Alliance by the intrigues of Oxford and St. John in order to force the allies into the peace of Utrecht. The withdrawal of the British troops in the field a little later was immediately followed by the first really serious defeat sustained by the allies in the central field of the war since Marlborough had assumed the command; Villars cutting up and annihilating an isolated force of 8000 men under the Earl of Albemarle, who were holding a bridge across the Scheldt at Denain to cover Eugene’s force besieging Landrécy. For the clearing up of this passage (left incomplete in the MS.) I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. H. W. Appleton, M.A.