The Battle of Blenheim fought on 13 August [O.S. 2 August] 1704, was a major battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. The overwhelming Allied victory ensured the safety of Vienna from the Franco-Bavarian army, thus preventing the collapse of the reconstituted Grand Alliance.
General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, was an English soldier and statesman. From a gentry family, he served as a page at the court of the House of Stuart under James, Duke of York, through the 1670s and early 1680s, earning military and political advancement through his courage and diplomatic skill. He is known for never having lost a battle.
The Battle of Denain was fought on 24 July 1712 as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. It resulted in a French victory, under Marshal Villars, against Dutch and Austrian forces, under Prince Eugene of Savoy.
The Battle of Malplaquet took place on 11 September 1709 during the War of the Spanish Succession, near Taisnières-sur-Hon in modern France, then part of the Spanish Netherlands. A French army of around 75,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Villars, engaged a Grand Alliance force of 86,000 under the Duke of Marlborough. In one of the bloodiest battles of the 18th century, the Allies won a narrow victory, but suffered heavy casualties.
James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, 1st Duke of Liria and Jérica, 1st Duke of Fitz-James was an Anglo-French military leader and the illegitimate son of King James II and VII by Arabella Churchill, sister of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Berwick was a successful general in the pay of Louis XIV of France.
The Battle of Oudenarde, also known as the Battle of Oudenaarde, was a major engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession, pitting a Grand Alliance force consisting of eighty thousand men under the command of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy against a French force of eighty-five thousand men under the command of the Duc de Bourgogne and the Duc de Vendôme, the battle resulting in a great victory for the Grand Alliance. The battle was fought near the city of Oudenaarde, at the time part of the Spanish Netherlands, on 11 July 1708. With this victory, the Grand Alliance ensured the fall of various French territories, giving them a significant strategic and tactical advantage during this stage of the war. The battle was fought in the later years of the war, a conflict that had come about as a result of English, Dutch and Habsburg apprehension at the possibility of a Bourbon succeeding the deceased King of Spain, Charles II, and combining their two nations and empires into one.
The Battle of Schellenberg took place on 2 July 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement was part of the Duke of Marlborough's campaign to save the Habsburg capital of Vienna from a threatened advance by King Louis XIV's Franco-Bavarian forces ranged in southern Germany. Marlborough had commenced his 250-mile (400 km) march from Bedburg, near Cologne, on 19 May; within five weeks he had linked his forces with those of the Margrave of Baden, before continuing on to the river Danube. Once in southern Germany, the Allies' task was to induce Max Emanuel, the Elector of Bavaria, to abandon his allegiance to Louis XIV and rejoin the Grand Alliance; but to force the issue, the Allies first needed to secure a fortified bridgehead and magazine on the Danube, through which their supplies could cross to the south of the river into the heart of the Elector's lands. For this purpose, Marlborough selected the town of Donauwörth.
The siege of Toulon took place between 29 July to 21 August 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession, when a combined Savoyard-Imperial army supported by a British naval force, attacked the French base at Toulon.
The siege of Bouchain, following the Passage of the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra, was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the last major victory of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Marlborough and François Nicolas Fagel broke through the French defensive lines and took Bouchain after a siege of 34 days. Its capture left Cambrai the only French-held fortress between the allied army and Paris.
The Battle of Ekeren, which took place on 30 June 1703, was a battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. A Bourbon army of around 24,000 men, conisting of troops from France, Spain and Cologne, surrounded a smaller Dutch force of 12,000 men, which however managed to break out and retire to safety.
The siege of Mons, 15 March–10 April 1691, was a major operation fought during the Nine Years' War, and was the main French objective for the 1691 campaign in the Spanish Netherlands. The city was besieged and captured before the normal commencement of the campaigning season with minimal losses. The outcome was not in doubt, but in a conflict dominated by siege warfare, neither the French army of King Louis XIV, nor the forces of the Grand Alliance under King William III, could bring about a decisive battle. After the siege the duc de Boufflers bombarded the neutral city of Liège, whilst the duc de Luxembourg captured Halle, and scored a minor victory against the Prince of Waldeck at the Battle of Leuze in September. Strategically, however, little had changed in the war, and both combatants returned to winter quarters at the end of the campaigning season.
The siege of Lille was the salient operation of the 1708 campaign season during the War of the Spanish Succession. After an obstinate defence of 120 days, the French garrison surrendered the city and citadel of Lille, commanded by Marshal Boufflers, to the forces of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene.
The siege of Bonn took place from 3 to 12 November 1673 in Bonn, present day Germany, during the Franco-Dutch War. Having forced the armies of Louis XIV to retreat, the Dutch in 1673 went on the offensive. At Bonn, a garrison consisting of troops from France and the Electorate of Cologne was besieged by a force from the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain. The allied forces captured the garrison following a nine-day siege.
The Battle of Wijnendale took place during the War of the Spanish Succession fought on 28 September 1708 near Wijnendale, Flanders, between an allied force protecting a convoy carrying ammunition for the Siege of Lille (1708) and forces of Bourbon France and Spain. It ended in a victory for the allies, leading to the taking of Lille.
The siege of Bonn took place in 1689 during the Nine Years' War when the forces of Brandenburg-Prussia and the Dutch Republic besieged and captured Bonn. It was part of the Rhineland campaign which Brandenburg was fighting as part of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV of France. Following Louis' incursions into the Rhineland the previous year, a coalition of nations had formed to resist French hegemony.
No Peace Without Spain was a popular British political slogan of the early eighteenth century. It referred to the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) in which Britain was a leading participant. It implied that no peace treaty could be agreed with Britain's principal enemy Louis XIV of France that allowed Philip, the French candidate, to retain the Spanish crown. The term became a rallying cry for opposition to the Tory government of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.
The siege of Zoutleeuw or the siege of Léau was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession. Allied troops with 16 artillery pieces under the command of the English Captain general the Duke of Marlborough, besieged and captured the small French-held Brabantine fortified town of Zoutleeuw in the Spanish Netherlands.
The siege of Ostend took place during the War of the Spanish Succession. In the wake of the Allied victory over the French at the Battle of Ramillies in May 1706, town and cities across the Spanish Netherlands rapidly surrendered to the Duke of Marlborough's victorious forces often without a fight. Ostend, a port on the North Sea coast, offered more resistance.
The siege of Tournai was a siege of the city of Tournai, then part of the Kingdom of France, between 28 June and 3 September 1709. A Grand Alliance army under the British Duke of Marlborough successfully forced the surrender of the French garrison during the War of the Spanish Succession.
The siege of Mons took place between 19 September and 23 October 1709 during the War of the Spanish Succession. It saw a Franco-Spanish garrison in the fortified town of Mons, then in the Spanish Netherlands, besieged by a force of the Duke of Marlborough's Grand Alliance army under the command of the Prince of Orange.
Yves d'Alègre 
Menno van Coehoorn 
