Thus the Germans in the front and the Neapolitans in the rear had been simultaneously shattered, and rolled together upon the two other regiments, those of Hachicourt and La Barlotte, which were placed between them.  Nor did these troops offer any better resistance, but were paralysed and hurled out of existence like the rest.  In less than an hour the Spanish army was demolished.  Varax himself lay dead upon the field, too fortunate not to survive his disgrace.  It was hardly more than daylight on that dull January morning; nine o’clock had scarce chimed from the old brick steeples of Turnhout, yet two thousand Spaniards had fallen before the blows of eight hundred Netherlanders, and there were five hundred prisoners beside.  Of Maurice’s army not more than nine or ten were slain.  The story sounds like a wild legend.  It was as if the arm of each Netherlander had been nerved by the memory of fifty years of outrage, as if the spectre of their half-century of crime had appalled the soul of every Spaniard.  Like a thunderbolt the son of William the Silent smote that army of Philip, and in an instant it lay blasted on the heath of Tiel.  At least it could hardly be called sagacious generalship on the part of the stadholder.  The chances were all against him, and if instead of Varax those legions had been commanded that morning by old Christopher Mondragon, there might perhaps have been another tale to tell.  Even as it was, there had been a supreme moment when the Spanish disaster had nearly been changed to victory.  The fight was almost done, when a small party of Staten’ cavalry, who at the beginning of the action had followed the enemy’s horse in its sudden retreat through the gap, came whirling back over the plain in wild confusion, pursued by about forty of the enemy’s lancers.  They swept by the spot where Maurice, with not more than ten horsemen around him, was directing and watching the battle, and in vain the prince threw himself in front of them and strove to check their flight.  They were panic-struck, and Maurice would himself have been swept off the field, had not Marcellus Bax and Edmont, with half a dozen heavy troopers, come to the rescue.  A grave error had been committed by Parker, who, upon being ordered by Maurice to cause Louis Laurentz to charge, had himself charged with the whole reserve and left the stadholder almost alone upon the field.  Thus the culprits—­who after pursuing the Spanish cavalry through the pass had been plundering the enemy’s baggage until they were set upon by the handful left to guard it, and had become fugitives in their turn—­ might possibly have caused the lose of the day after the victory had been won, had there been a man on the Spanish side to take in the situation at a glance.  But it is probable that the rout had been too absolute to allow of any such sudden turning to account of the serious errors of the victors.  The cavalry, except this handful, had long disappeared, at least half the infantry lay dead or wounded in the field, while the remainder, throwing away pipe and matchlock, were running helter-skelter for their lives.