n across
the open and the nine redans which we have seen were held by the French
allies and mercenaries from Bavaria and Cologne, and await his moment.
That moment came at about one o'clock; at this point in the action the
opposing forces stood somewhat as they are sketched on the map over page.

The pressure upon the French in the wood of Sars, perpetually increasing,
had already caused Villars, who commanded there in person, to beg
Boufflers for aid; but the demand came when Boufflers was fighting his
hardest against the last Dutch attack, and no aid could be sent.

Somewhat reluctantly, Villars had weakened his centre by withdrawing from
it the two Irish regiments, and continued to dispute foot by foot the
forest of Sars. But foot by foot and tree by tree, in a series of
individual engagements, his men were pressed back, and a larger area of
the woodland was held by the troops of Schulemberg and Lottum. Eugene was
wounded, but refused to leave the field. The loss had been appalling upon
either side, but especially severe (as might have been expected) among the
assailants, when, just before one o'clock, the last of the French soldiers
were driven from the wood.

[Illustration: Sketch Map showing Marlborough bringing up troops to the
centre for the final and successful attack upon the entrenchments about
one o'clock.]

All that main defence which the forest of Sars formed upon the French left
flank was lost, but the fight had been so exhausting to the assailants in
the confusion of the underwood, and the difficulty of forming them in the
trees was so great, that the French forces once outside the wood could
rally at leisure and draw up in line to receive any further movement on
the part of their opponents. It was while the French left were thus drawn
up in line behind the wood of Sars, with their redans at the centre
weakened by the withdrawal of the Irish brigade, that Marlborough ordered
the final central attack against those redans. The honour of carrying them
fell to Lord Orkney and his British battalions. His men flooded over the
earthworks at the first rush, breaking the depleted infantry behind them
(for these, after the withdrawal of the Irish, were no more than the men
of Bavaria and Cologne), and held the parapet.

The French earthworks thus carried by the infantry in the centre, the
modern reader might well premise that a complete rout of the French forces
should have followed. But he would make this