Read Ebook: Malplaquet by Belloc Hilaire

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 262 lines and 21717 words, and 6 pages

I FEDERAL RESERVE "BUNKING." 1

II THE BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 4

V CHECK COLLECTION BANDITRY 21

VI THE LOOT OF THE MONSTER 34

X THE PALACES OF THE MONSTER 68

Federal Reserve "Bunking"

THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM--WHAT IT REALLY IS

THE Federal Reserve System is the visible hand of the Invisible Empire picking the pockets of the producers of real wealth. It is the most leviathan parasite engrafted upon--and grafting on--production in the world's history. It is an industrial vampire sucking industry's life blood down its bottomless maw. Its greed is fathomless, its rule is ruthless and its lust for power is insatiate.

It is openly and avowedly run and managed in the interest of a so-called "superior class." It has a cynical contempt for the public--whom it ruthlessly plunders. It believes--and practices the belief--that it was instituted for the promotion and protection of superior privileges; that wealth is produced for its exploitation; that production of values exists for its parasitical plunder; that Shylockery is a virtue and that the fruits of industry belong not to its producers but to its despoilers.

There is nothing with which to compare it for it stands alone in the world's history as the most gigantic plunderbund ever conceived in predacity's womb. Czardom at its height and Kaiserdom at its zenith never held a tithe of the real power held by the Federal Reserve System. It is the perfected fruit and flower of financial high-bindery, industrial plunderbund and applied Shylockery. Under the cloak and mantle of the law it reaches forth its paws of predacity and pouches filcheries which are simply stupendous.

That is briefly what the much touted and saccharinely adulated Federal Reserve System really is. Abraham Lincoln, the greatest human intellect which ever functioned on this planet, prophetically drew its portrait in these words: "It has been indeed a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before even in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

That is the true portrait, drawn by a master hand, of the Federal Reserve System.

In subsequent chapters you will see the birth of the monster, its ruthless methods of plunder, its machinery of despoilment, its monopoly of money and credit, its pawnbrokery and Shylockery and its huge mounds of pillage.

And in looking it over don't overlook the fact that you, you yourself--whatever may be your part in American industry--are laying tribute on the Federal Reserve altar of Mammon. You can't escape its net of pillage. Amid its mounds of gold, currency and securities--the hugest ever massed together on this planet--your contribution is there. Your brain or your brawn, or both, have added to its lootage. If you live and toil in the U.S.A.--in whatever capacity--your "mickle" adds to the "muckle"--of its stored pillage.

THE BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

"SLICKER than an eel in a bucket of soap suds" is a fair description of the accomplished financial accoucheurs who ushered this monster into legal existence. You must understand that the real object was to establish what was in truth and fact a Central Bank which would dominate and control currency issues and bank credits in the United States. To weld those chains upon American industry without appearing to do it was the object in view. It could be done only by encasing dirty hands of real pillage in the white gloves of a "Reserve System." The Invisible Empire must remain invisible. Visibility would defeat its object. The Money Masters had read history and knew that the American people stood four square against a Central Bank. If their monster of pillage were called a Central Bank they knew it would die in the legislative womb.

Two such attempts had been made and had resulted disastrously thusly. The first attempt was the First United States Bank. It was the child of Alexander Hamilton's astute brain. It began business on December 12, 1791. It met violent opposition from its birth. It was branded as a "Money Trust," struggled along with varying fortunes and finally died on March 3, 1811, when its charter expired--with its renewal vainly sought. American industry rebelled at the idea of a Central Bank domination. It savored too much of that aristocracy and oligarchy whose chains they had recently chiseled.

The second attempt to engraft a Central Bank on American industry was the Second Bank of the United States. It was chartered on April 10, 1816, and was a stormy petrel of finance. About it waged a running battle. It was from birth to death the center of a conflict. Against its domination American industry rebelled. Real producers of real wealth constantly fought this parasite of finance. Andrew Jackson was its bitter foe and it went out of existence during his administration "unwept, unhonored and unsung" except in the doleful dirges of the then Money Masters who mourned its demise. The Money Masters of those two eras read the handwriting on the wall. American industry would not endure a Central Bank and the Money Masters of 1914 read the same symbols. History was against them and the genius of American institutions was against them. Their idea of a Central Bank had never changed. It was the very core and center of their scheme to dominate American industry. But to "get it across" or to "put it over" they must re-christen the monster. Twice the people had violently repudiated the Central Bank banditry. Hence in the fertile brainery of predacity was born the idea of the Federal Reserve System--a camouflage, a deception and a mere cloak of Pecksniffian hypocrisy. A clever nation-wide propaganda was at once instituted with every "prop" put under it that wily astuteness could suggest. A subsidized press ballyhooed, touted and paeanized the proposed Federal Reserve System. It was hailed as the Moses which was going to lead America into the Promised Land of industrial freedom. It was paeanized as an absolutely new discovery in finance--when in truth and in fact it was one of predacity's oldest cards soiled in many a game. But it was varnished o'er and played again.

The plan was strategically wise. The lines of La Bass?e proper could not be pierced, but this right extremity of the French positions was backed by easy country; the swamps, canals, and entrenchments of the main line to the north and west were absent. With the defeat of the inferior French forces at this point all obstacle to an advance into the heart of France would be removed.

The plan was as rapidly executed as it was skilfully devised. Actually before the capitulation of the citadel of Tournai, but when it was perceived that that capitulation could only be a matter of hours, Lord Orkney had begun to advance upon the neighbourhood of Mons. Upon the day of the capitulation of Tournai, the Prince of Hesse-Cassel had started for Mons, Cadogan following him with the cavalry. Less than twenty-four hours after Tournai had yielded, the whole allied army was on the march throughout the night. Never was a military operation performed with organisation more exact, or with obedience more prompt. Three days later Mons was contained, and by Monday the 9th of September Villars awaited, some few miles to the west of that fortress, the assault of the allies.

An unexpected enthusiasm lent something to the French resistance; the delay of two days lent something more to their defensive power. As will be seen in the sequel, certain errors also contributed to the result, and the whole day was passed in a series of attacks and counter-attacks which left the French forces intact, and permitted them in the early afternoon to rely upon the exhaustion of the enemy and to leave, in order and without loss, the field to the enemy.

Marlborough's victory at Malplaquet was both honourable and great. The French were compelled to withdraw; the allies occupied upon the evening of the battle the ground upon which the struggle had taken place. It is with justice that Malplaquet is counted as the fourth of those great successful actions which distinguish the name of Marlborough, and it is reckoned with justice the conclusion of the series whose three other terms are Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde. So much might suffice did war consist in scoring points as one does in a game. But when we consider war as alone it should be considered for the serious purposes of history--that is, in its political aspect; and when we ask what Malplaquet was in the political sequence of European events, the withdrawal of the French from the field in the early afternoon of September 11, 1709, has no significance comparable to the fact that the allies could not pursue.

Strategically the victory meant that an army which it was intended to destroy had maintained itself intact; morally, the battle left the defeated more elated than the victors; and for this reason, that the result was so much more in their favour than the expectation had been. In what is most important of all, the general fortunes of the campaign, the victory of the allies at Malplaquet was as sure a signal that the advance on Paris could not be made, and as sure a prevention of that advance as though Marlborough and Eugene had registered, not a success, but a defeat.

Situations of this sort, which render victories barren or actually negative, paradoxical to the general reader, simple enough in their military aspect, abound in the history of war. It is perhaps more important to explain them if one is to make military history intelligible than to describe the preliminaries and movements of the great decisive action.

The "block" of Malplaquet , the unexpected power of resistance which this last of the French armies displayed, and the moral effect of that resistance upon the allies, have an historical meaning almost as high as that of Blenheim upon the other side. It has been well said that one may win every battle and yet lose a campaign; there is a sense in which it may be said that one may win a campaign and suffer political loss as the result.

The Dutch did indeed maintain their uncompromising attitude, but no longer with the old certitude of success; Austria also and her allies did continue the war, but a war doomed to puerility, to a sort of stale-mate bound to end in compromise. But it was in England that the effect of the battle was most remarkable.

In England, where opinion had but tardily accepted the necessity for war nine years before, and where the fruits of that war were now regarded as quite sufficient for the satisfaction of English demands, this negative action, followed by no greater fruit than the capitulation of the little garrison at Mons, began the agitation for peace. Look closely at that agitation through its details, and personal motives will confuse you; the motives of the queen, of Harley, of Marlborough's enemies. Look at it in the general light of the national history and you will perceive that the winter following Malplaquet, a winter of disillusionment and discontent, bred in England an opinion that made peace certain at last. The accusation against Marlborough that he fought the battle with an eye to his failing political position is probably unjust. The accusation that he fought it from a lust of bloodshed is certainly a stupid calumny. But the unpopularity of so great a man succeeding upon so considerable a technical success sufficiently proves at what a price the barrenness of that success was estimated in England. It was the English Government that first opened secret negotiations with Louis for peace in the following year; and when the great instrument which closed the war was signed at Utrecht in 1713, it was after the English troops had been withdrawn from their allies, after Eugene, acting single-handed, had suffered serious check, and in general the Peace of Utrecht was concluded under conditions far more favourable to Louis than would have been any peace signed at the Hague in 1709. The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria, but France kept intact what is still her Belgian frontier. She preserved what she has since lost on the frontier of the Rhine, and the grandson of Louis was permitted to remain upon the Spanish throne.

Such is the general political setting of this fierce action, one of the most determined known in the history of European arms, and therefore one of the most legitimately glorious; one in which men were most ready at the call of duty and under the influences of discipline to sacrifice their lives in the defence of a common cause; and one which, as all such sacrifices must, illumines the history of the several national traditions concerned, of the English as of the Dutch, of the German principalities as of the French.

No action better proves the historical worth of valour.

THE SIEGE OF TOURNAI

When the negotiations for peace had failed, that is, with the opening of June 1709, the King of France and his forces had particularly to dread an invasion of the country and the march on Paris.

The accompanying sketch map will show under what preoccupations the French commander upon the north-eastern frontier lay.

Lille was in the hands of the enemy. There was still a small French garrison in Ypres, another in Tournai, and a third in Mons. These of themselves could not prevent the invasion and the advance on the capital.

It was necessary to oppose some more formidable barrier to the line of advance which topography marked out for the allies into the heart of France.

Some fear was indeed expressed lest a descent should be made on the coasts and an advance attempted along the valley of the Somme. The fear was groundless. To organise the transportation of troops thus by sea, to disembark them, to bring and continue the enormous supply of provisions and ammunition they would require, was far less practical than to use the great forces already drawn up under Marlborough and Eugene in the Low Countries. Of what size these forces were we shall see in a moment.

The barrier, then, which Villars at the head of the French forces proceeded to erect, and which is known in history as "The Lines of La Bass?e," are the first point upon which we must fix our attention in order to understand the campaign of Malplaquet, and why that battle took place where it did.

It must further be noted that from the Scarpe eastward went the old "lines of La Trouille" thrown up in a former campaign, and now largely useless, but still covering, after a fashion, the neighbourhood of Mons.

Toward the end of the month of June Villars awaited the advance of the allies. His forces were inferior by 40,000 to those of his enemy. He had but eight men to their twelve. The season of the year, immediately preceding the harvest, made the victualling of his troops exceedingly difficult, nor was it until the day before the final assault was expected that the moneys necessary to their pay, and to the other purposes of the army, reached him; but he had done what he could, and, acting upon a national tradition which is as old as Rome, he had very wisely depended upon fortification.

The same conditions of the season which produced something like famine in the French camp, though they did not press equally severely upon that of the allies, rendered difficult the provisioning of their vast army also.

It was the first intention of Marlborough and Eugene to attack the lines at once, to force them, and to destroy the command of Villars. But these lines had been carefully reconnoitred, notably by Cadogan, who, with a party of English officers, and under a disguise, had made himself acquainted with their strength. It was determined, therefore, at the last moment, partly also from the fears of the Dutch, to whom the possession of every fortress upon the frontier was of paramount importance, to make but a "feint" upon Villars' lines and to direct the army upon Tournai as its true object. The feint took the form of Eugene's marching towards the left or western extremity of the line, Marlborough towards the eastern or right extremity near Douai, and this general movement was effected on the night of the 26th and 27th of June. In the midst of its execution, the feint was arrested.

A comprehension of this siege of Tournai, which so largely determined the fortunes of the campaign of Malplaquet, will be aided by the accompanying sketch map. Here it is apparent that Marlborough with his headquarters at Willemeau, Eugene with his at Froyennes, the Dutch under Tilly in a semicircle from Antoing to Constantin, completed the investment of the fortress, and that the existing bridge at Antoing which the Dutch commanded, the bridge at Constantin which they had constructed, giving access over the river to the north and to the south, made the circle complete.

Two factors in the situation must first be appreciated by the reader.

The first is that the inferiority of Villars' force made it impossible for him to do more than demonstrate against the army of observation. He was compelled to leave Tournai to its fate, and, indeed, the king in his first instructions, Villars in his reply, had taken it for granted that either that town or Ypres would be besieged and must fall. But the value of a fortress depends not upon its inviolability , but upon the length of time during which it can hold out, and in this respect Tournai was to give full measure.

Secondly, it must be set down for the allies that their unexpectedly long task was hampered by exceptional weather. Rain fell continually, and though their command of the Scheldt lessened in some degree the problem of transport, rain in those days upon such roads as the allies drew their supplies by was a heavy handicap. The garrison of Tournai numbered thirteen and a half battalions, five detached companies, the complement of gunners necessary for the artillery, and a couple of Irish brigades--in all, counting the depleted condition of the French units at the moment, some six to seven thousand men. Perhaps, counting every combatant and non-combatant attached to the garrison, a full seven thousand men.

The command of this force was under Surville, in rank a lieutenant-general. Ravignon and Dolet were his subordinates. There was no lack of wheat for so small a force. Rationed, it was sufficient for four months. Meat made default, and, what was important with a large civil population encumbering the little garrison, money. Surville, the bishop, and others melted down their plate; even that of the altars in the town was sacrificed.

The first trench was opened on the night of the 7th of July, and three first attacks were delivered: one by the gate called Marvis, which looks eastward, another by the gate of Valenciennes, the third at the gate known as that of the Seven Springs. A sortie of the second of these was fairly successful, and upon this model the operations continued for five days.

The discipline maintained in the great camps of the besiegers was severe, and the besieged experienced the unusual recruitment of five hundred to six hundred deserters who penetrated within their lines. A considerable body of deserters also betook themselves to Villars' lines, and the operations in these first days were sufficiently violent to account for some four thousand killed and wounded upon the side of the allies. Villars, meanwhile, could do no more than demonstrate without effect. Apart from the inferiority of his force, it was still impossible for him, until the harvest was gathered, to establish a sufficient accumulation of wheat to permit a forward movement. He never had four days' provision of bread at any one time, nor, considering the length of his line, could he concentrate it upon any one place. He was fed by driblets from day to day, and lived from hand to mouth while the siege of Tournai proceeded to the east of him.

That siege was entering, with the close of the month, upon the end of its first phase.

It had been a desperate combat of mine and counter-mine even where the general circumvallation of the town was concerned, though the worst, of course, was to come when the citadel should be attacked. The batteries against the place had been increased until they counted one hundred and twelve heavy pieces and seventy mortars. On the night of the 24th of July the covered way on the right of the Scheldt was taken at heavy loss; forty-eight hours later the covered way on the left between the river and the citadel. The horn work in front of the Gate of the Seven Springs was carried on the 27th, and the isolated work between this point and the Gate of Lille upon the following day. Surville in his report, in the true French spirit of self-criticism, ascribed to the culpable failure of their defenders the loss of these outworks. But the loss, whatever its cause, determined the loss of the town. A few hours later practicable breaches had been made in the walls, ways were filled in over the ditches, and on the imminence of a general assault Surville upon the 28th demanded terms. The capitulation was signed on the 29th, and with it the commander sent a letter to Versailles detailing his motives for demanding terms for the civilian population. Finally, upon the 30th, Surville with 4000 men, all that was left of his original force of 7000, retired into the citadel and there disposed himself for as a long a resistance as might be. As his good fortune decided, he was to be able to hold with this small force for five full weeks.

To Marlborough is due the honour of the capitulation. The besieging troops were under his command, while Eugene directed the army of observation to the west. Marlborough put some eight thousand men into the town under Albemarle. A verbal understanding was given on both sides that the citadel would not fire upon the civilian part, nor the allies make an attack from it upon the citadel, and the siege of that stronghold began upon the following day, the 21st, towards evening. The operations against the citadel proved far more severe and a far greater trial to Marlborough's troops than those against the general circumvallation of the town. The subterranean struggle of mine and counter-mine particularly affected the moral of the allies, and after a week a proposal appeared that the active fighting should cease, the siege be converted into a blockade, and only the small number of men sufficient for such a blockade be left before the citadel until the 5th of September, up to which date, a month ahead, at the utmost, it was believed the garrison could hold out. Louis was willing to accept the terms upon the condition that this month should be one of general truce. The allies refused this condition, and hostilities were resumed.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet