nger of losing any more Italian States.

Though the allies were indignant, and remonstrated against this
transaction, they did not see fit to abandon the war. Immense
preparations were made to invade France from the Netherlands and from
Piedmont, in the opening of the spring of 1707. Both efforts were only
successful in spreading far and wide conflagration and blood. The
invaders were driven from the kingdom with heavy loss. The campaign in
Spain, this year, was also exceedingly disastrous to the Austrian arms.
The heterogeneous army of Charles III., composed of Germans, English,
Dutch, Portuguese, and a few Spanish refugees, were routed, and with the
loss of thirteen thousand men were driven from the kingdom. Joseph,
however, who stood in great dread of so terrible an enemy as Charles
XII., succeeded in purchasing his neutrality, and this fiery warrior
marched off with his battalions, forty-three thousand strong, to drive
Peter I. from the throne of Russia.

Joseph I., with exhausted resources, and embarrassed by the claims of so
wide-spread a war, was able to do but little for the subjugation of
Hungary. As the campaign of 1708 opened, two immense armies, each about
eighty thousand strong, were maneuvering near Brussels. After a long
series of marches and combinations a general engagement ensued, in which
the Austrian party, under Marlborough and Eugene, were decisively
triumphant. The French were routed with the loss of fifteen thousand in
killed, wounded and prisoners. During the whole summer the war raged
throughout the Low Countries with unabated violence. In Spain, Austria
was not able to make any progress against Philip and his forces.

Another winter came, and again the wearied combatants, all of whom had
received about as many blows as they had given, sought repose. The
winter was passed in fruitless negotiations, and as soon as the buds of
another spring began to swell, the thunders of war were again pealing
over nearly all the hills and valleys of Europe. The Austrian party had
resolved, by a gigantic effort, to send an army of one hundred thousand
men to the gates of Paris, there to dictate terms to the French monarch.
On the 11th of September, 1709, the Austrian force, eighty thousand
strong, with eighty pieces of cannon, encountered the French, seventy
thousand in number, with eighty pieces of cannon, on the field of
Malplaquet. The bloodiest battle of the Spanish succession was then
fought. The Austria