timate recovery.

"I'm done for this campaign, old friend," Blackett said with a feeble
smile to George, "and must be sent home for a while. But I hope to
turn up among you another year."

If to follow up a great victory promptly, vigorously, and fully, be
one of the distinguishing marks of a great commander, then the Duke of
Marlborough was certainly one of the greatest generals of whom history
tells. Hardly anything more striking than his long and rapid series of
successes in the weeks after Ramillies can be credited to a military
leader, not even excepting Wellington and Napoleon. Louvain, Brussels,
Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, all fell into his hands. Menin, Ostend,
Dendermonde, and a few other strongholds gave pore trouble, and the
brave Marshal Vendome was sent to their assistance. It was useless;
Vendome turned tail and fled, his men refusing to face the terrible
English Duke. "Every one here is ready to doff his hat, if one even
mentions the name of Marlborough," Vendome wrote to his master Louis.
The remaining towns capitulated, and the Netherlands were lost to the
Spanish. Of the more important fortresses only Mons remained.

But Marlborough's were by no means the only successes that fell to the
Allies that wonderful year. Prince Eugene and the Duke of Savoy, the
former after a rapid march, appeared before Turin, and on the 7th of
September that notable place fell into the hands of the Prince, after
brilliant efforts on both sides. The result was of the utmost
importance; the French were demoralized; Savoy was permanently gained
for the Grand Alliance; while Piedmont was lost to the French, who
were thus cut off from the kingdom of Naples.

George had often wondered what had become of his old friend Fieldsend,
whom he had not seen since the capture of Landau. But in the autumn of
this year, 1706, while Fairburn was quartered at Antwerp, he received
a letter from the lieutenant. It appeared that at his own request
Fieldsend had been allowed to return to Spain, and he had served ever
since under Lord Peterborough. The writer's account of the victories
gained by Peterborough and the Earl of Galway in Spain that year read
more like a fairy tale than real sober history. The sum and substance
of it was that Peterborough had compelled the forces of Louis to raise
the siege of Barcelona, and that Galway had actually entered Madrid in
triumph. Had the Archduke Charles had the wit and the courage to enter
his capital too