English sailors surprised and captured the
Rock of Gibraltar, which England still holds. In six weeks, too, the
English mastered Valencia and Catalonia for the archduke, under the
redoubtable Peterborough. Affairs went better in Italy (1705); but in
Flanders, Villeroi was rash enough to challenge Marlborough at Ramillies
in 1706. In half an hour the French army was completely routed, and lost
20,000 men; city after city opened its gates to the conqueror; Flanders
was lost as far as Lille. Vendome was summoned from Italy to replace
Villeroi, whereupon Eugene attacked the French in their lines before
Turin, and dispersed their army, which was forced to withdraw from
Italy, leaving the Austrians masters there.

Louis seemed on the verge of ruin; but Spain was loyal to the Bourbon.
In 1707 Berwick won for the French the signal victory of Almanza. In
Germany, Villars made progress. Louis actually designed an invasion of
Great Britain in the name of the Pretender, but the scheme collapsed. He
succeeded in placing a great army in the field in Flanders; it was
defeated by Marlborough and Eugene at Oudenarde. Eugene sat down before
Lille, and took it. The lamentable plight of France was made worse by a
cruel winter.

Louis found himself forced to sue for peace, but the terms of the allies
were too intolerably humiliating. They demanded that Louis should assist
in expelling his own grandson from Spain. "If I must make war, I would
rather make it on my enemies than on my children," said Louis. Once more
an army took the field with indomitable courage. A desperate battle was
fought by Villars against Marlborough and Eugene at Malplaquet. Villars
was defeated, but with as much honour to the French as to the allies.

Louis again sued for peace, but the allies would not relax their
monstrous demands. Marlborough, Eugene, and the Dutch Heinsius all found
their own interest in prolonging the war. But with the Bourbon cause
apparently at its last gasp in Spain, the appearance there of Vendome
revived the spirit of resistance.

Then the death of the emperor, and the succession to his position of his
brother, the Spanish claimant, the Archduke Charles, meant that the
allies were fighting to make one dominion of the Spanish and German
Empires. The steady advance of Marlborough in the Low Countries could
not prevent a revulsion of popular sentiment, which brought about his
recall and the practical withdrawal from the contest of England,