and Overkirk’s men meeting fought fiercely, each believing the other to be French.  The mistake was discovered, and to prevent any further mishap of this kind in the darkness, the whole army was ordered to halt where it was and wait till morning.  Had the daylight lasted two hours longer, the whole of the French army would have been slain or taken prisoners; as it was, the greater portion made their way through the intervals of the allied army around them, and fled to Ghent.  Nevertheless, they lost 6,000 killed and wounded, and 9,000 prisoners, while many thousands of the fugitives made for the French frontier.  Thus the total loss to Vendome exceeded 20,000 men, while the allies lost in all 5000.

When morning broke, Marlborough dispatched forty squadrons of horse in pursuit of the fugitives towards Ghent, sent off Count Lottum with thirty battalions and fifty squadrons to carry the strong lines which the enemy had constructed between Ypres and Warneton, and employed the rest of his force in collecting and tending the wounded of both armies.

A few days later the two armies, that of Eugene and that of the Duke of Berwick, which had been marching with all speed parallel to each other, came up and joined those of Marlborough and Vendome respectively.  The Duke of Berwick’s corps was the more powerful, numbering thirty-four battalions and fifty-five squadrons, and this raised the Duke de Vendome’s army to over 110,000, and placed him again fairly on an equality with the allies.  Marlborough, having by his masterly movement forced Vendome to fight with his face to Paris, and in his retreat to retire still farther from the frontier, now had France open to him, and his counsel was that the whole army should at once march for Paris, disregarding the fortresses just as Wellington and Blucher did after Waterloo.

He was however, overruled, even Eugene considering such an attempt to be altogether too dangerous, with Vendome’s army, 110,000 strong, in the rear; and it must be admitted it would certainly have been a march altogether without a parallel.

Finding that his colleagues would not consent to so daring and adventurous a march, Marlborough determined to enter France, and lay siege to the immensely strong fortress of Lille.  This was in itself a tremendous undertaking, for the fortifications of the town were considered the most formidable ever designed by Vauban.  The citadel within the town was still stronger, and the garrison of 15,000 picked troops were commanded by Marshal Boufflers, one of the most skillful generals in the French army.  To lay siege to such a fortress as this, while Vendome, with this army of 110,000 men, lay ready to advance to its assistance, was an undertaking of the greatest magnitude.