to oppose some more formidable barrier to the line of advance which topography marked out for the allies into the heart of France.

 

 

[Pg 28]

Sketch Map showing how the Allies holding Lille thrust the French back
on to the defensive line St Venant-Valenciennes, and thus cut off the
French garrisons of Ypres, Tournai, and Mons.

 

 

[Pg 29]Some fear was indeed expressed lest a descent should be made on the coasts and an advance attempted along the valley of the Somme. The fear was groundless. To organise the transportation of troops thus by sea, to disembark them, to bring and continue the enormous supply of provisions and ammunition they would require, was far less practical than to use the great forces already drawn up under Marlborough and Eugene in the Low Countries. Of what size these forces were we shall see in a moment.

The barrier, then, which Villars at the head of the French forces proceeded to erect, and which is known in history as “The Lines of La Bassée,” are the first point upon which we must fix our attention in order to understand the campaign of Malplaquet, and why that battle took place where it did.

It was upon the 3rd of June that Louis XIV. had written to Villars telling him that a renewal of the war would now be undertaken. On the 14th, Villars began to throw up earth for the formation of an entrenched camp between the marshy ground of Hulluch and that of Cuinchy. Here he proposed to[Pg 30] concentrate the mass of his forces, with La Bassée just before him, the town of Lens behind. He used the wat