The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

After this we lay still in quarters eight months. For the prince, having secured the whole Milanese for King Philip, and no enemy appearing for some time, had nothing to do but to receive the auxiliary troops of France, and as they came, extend himself every way as he could, in order to keep the imperialists (who were preparing to fall into Italy with a great army) as much at a distance as possible, which he did by taking possession of the city of Mantua, and of most of the towns on that side, as far as the Lake De la Guarda and the river Adige.

We lay in Mantua some time, but were afterwards drawn out by order of the Count de Tesse (after wards Marshal of France), to form the French army, till the arrival of the Duke de Vendôme, who was to command in chief. Here we had a severe campaign, anno 1701, having Prince Eugene of Savoy and an army of forty thousand Germans, all old soldiers, to deal with; and though the French army was more numerous than the enemy by twenty-five thousand men, yet, being on the defensive, and having so many posts to cover, not knowing exactly where the Prince of Savoy, who commanded the imperial army, would attack us, it obliged the French to keep their troops so divided and so remote from one another that the Germans pushed on their design with great success, as the histories of those times more fully relate.

I was at the action of Carpi, July 1701, where we were worsted by the Germans; indeed, were forced to quit our encampment and give up to the prince the whole river Adige, and where our regiment sustained some loss. But the enemies got little by us, and Monsieur Catinat, who commanded at that time, drew up in order of battle the next day in sight of the German army, and gave them a defiance; but they would not stir, though we offered them battle two days together; for, having gained the passage over the Adige by our quitting Rivoli, which was then useless to us, their business was done.

Finding they declined a decisive action, our generals pressed them in their quarters, and made them fight for every inch of ground they gained; and at length, in the September following, we attacked them in their intrenched posts of Chiar. Here we broke into the very heart of their camp, where we made a very terrible slaughter. But I know not by what mistake among our generals, or defect in the execution of their orders, the brigade of Normandy and our Irish Brigade, who had so bravely entered the German intrenchments, were not supported as we should have been, so that we were obliged to sustain the shock of the whole German army, and at last to quit the advantage we had gained, and that not without loss; but, being timely reinforced by a great body of horse, the enemy were in their turn beaten off too, and driven back into their very camp. The Germans boasted of having a great victory here, and indeed, in repulsing us after we had gained their camp, they had the advantage. But had Monsieur de Tesse succoured us in time, as old Catinat said he ought to have done, with twelve thousand foot which he had with him, that day's action had put an end to the war, and Prince Eugene must have been glad to have gone back to Germany in more haste than he came, if, perhaps, we had not cut him short by the way.

But the fate of things went another way, and the Germans continued all that campaign to push forward and advance one post after another, till they beat us quite out of the Milanese.

The latter part of this campaign we made only a party war, the French, according to their volatile temper, being every day abroad, either foraging or surprising the enemy's foragers, plundering or circumventing the plunders of the other side. But they very often came short home, for the Germans had the better of them on several occasions; and indeed so many lost their lives upon these petty encounters that I think, including those who died of distempers gotten by hard service and bad quarters, lying in the field even till the middle of December among rivers and bogs, in a country so full of canals and rivers as that part of Italy is known to be; I say, we lost more men, and so did the enemy also, than would have been lost in a general decisive battle.

The Duke of Savoy, to give him his due, pressed earnestly to put it to a day and come to a battle with Prince Eugene; but the Duke de Villeroi, Monsieur Catinat, and the Count de Tesse were all against it; and the principal reason was, that they knew the weakness of the troops, who had suffered so much on so many occasions that they were in no condition to give battle to the Germans. So after, as I say, about three months' harassing one another with parties, we went into winter quarters.

Before we marched out of the field, our regiment, with a detachment of dragoons of six hundred, and about two hundred and fifty horse, went out with a design to intercept Prince Commercy, a general of note under Prince Eugene of Savoy. The detachment was intended to be only horse and dragoons; but because it was the imperialists' good luck to beat many of our parties, and, as was given out, many more than we beat of theirs, and because it was believed that the prince, who was an officer of good note among them, would not go abroad but in very good company, the Irish regiment of foot was ordered to be added, that, if possible, they might meet with their match.

I was commanded, about two hours before, to pass about two hundred foot and fifty dragoons at a small wood where our general had intelligence that prince would post some men to secure his passage, which accordingly I did. But Count Tesse, not thinking our party strong enough, had marched himself, with a thousand horse and three hundred grenadiers, to support us. And it was very well he did so; for Prince Commercy, having intelligence of the first party, came forward sooner than they expected, and fell upon them, and had entirely routed them had not the Count, hearing the firing, advanced with the thousand horse he had, with such expedition as to support his men in the very heat of the action, by which means the Germans were defeated and forced to retire. But the prince made a pretty good retreat, and after the action came on to the wood where I was posted; but the surprise of his defeat had prevented his sending a detachment to secure the pass at the wood, as he intended.

The Count de Tesse, understanding that we were sent, as above, to the wood, followed them close at the heels, to prevent our being cut off, and, if it were possible that we should give them any check at the wood, to fall in and have another brush with them. It was near night before they came to the wood, by which means they could not discern our number. But when they came up to the wood, fifty dragoons advanced to discover the pass and see if all was clear. These we suffered to pass a great way into the defile, or lane, that went through the wood, and then clapping in between them and the entrance, cut off their retreat so effectually that when they discovered us and fired, they were instantly surrounded and cut in pieces, the officers who commanded them and eight dragoons only being made prisoners.

This made the prince halt, not knowing what the case was or how strong we were, and, to get better intelligence, sent two hundred horse to surround or skirt the wood and beat up our quarter, and in the interim the Count de Tesse appeared in his rear. We found the strait he was in by the noise of our own troops at a distance; so we resolved to engage the two hundred horse immediately. Accordingly our little troop of horse drew up in the entrance of the lane and offered to skirmish, and our foot, lying behind the hedge which went round the wood, stood ready to act as occasion should offer. The horse, being attacked, gave way, and retired into the lane; but the Germans were too old for us there. They contented themselves to push us to the entrance, but would not be drawn into a narrow pass without knowing whether the hedges were lined or no.

But the prince, finding the French in his rear, and not being strong enough to engage again, resolved to force his way through, and commanded his dragoons to alight and enter the wood, to clear the hedges on either side the lane, that he might pass with his cavalry. This they did so vigorously, and were so much too strong for us, that though we made good our ground a long time, yet our men were almost half of them cut in pieces. However, we gave time to the French cavalry to come up, and to fall on the prince's troops and cut them off, and take a great many prisoners, and then we retreated in our turn, opening a gap for our own horse to break in. Three hundred of the dragoons were killed, and two hundred of them taken prisoners.

In the first heat of this action, a German officer of dragoons, well followed, had knocked down three men that stood next me; and, offering me quarter, I was obliged to accept it, and gave him my sword; for our men were upon the point of quitting their post and shifting every one as they could. But the scale was turned, for our cavalry breaking in, as above, the dragoons went to wreck, and the officer who had me prisoner, turning to me, said, "We are all lost." I asked him if I could serve him. "Stand still a little," says he; for his men fought most desperately indeed. But about two hundred French horse appearing in his rear too, he said to me in French, "I will be your prisoner," and returning me my sword, gave me also his own. A dragoon that stood near him was just going to do the like, when he was shot dead, and the horse coming up, the field was cleared in an instant. But Prince Commercy went off with the rest of his party, and was pursued no farther.

There were sixteen or seventeen of our men released, as I was, from being taken; but they had not the luck I had, to take the officer that had them in keeping. He had been so generous to me as not to ask what money I had about me, though I had not much if he had. But I lost by his civility, for then I could not have the assurance to ask him for his money, though I understood he had near a hundred pistoles about him. But he very handsomely at night, when we came to our tents, made me a present of twenty pistoles, and in return I obtained leave for him to go to Prince Eugene's camp upon his parole, which he did, and so got himself exchanged.

It was after this campaign that I was quartered at Cremona, when the action happened there of which I have spoken already, and where our Irish regiment did such service that they saved the town from being really surprised, and indeed beat the Germans out again, after they had been masters of three-quarters of the town six hours, and by which they gained a very great reputation.

But I hasten on to my own history, for I am not writing a journal of the wars, in which I had no long share.

The summer after this our two Irish regiments were drawn out into the field, and had many a sore brush with the Germans; for Prince Eugene, a vigilant general, gave us little rest, and gained many advantages by his continual moving up and down, harassing his own men and ours too; and whoever will do the French justice, and knew how they had behaved, must acknowledge they never declined the Germans, but fought them upon all occasions with the utmost resolution and courage; and though it cost the blood of an infinite number of fine gentlemen, as well as private soldiers, yet the Duke de Vendôme, who now commanded, though King Philip was himself in the army this campaign, made the Prince of Savoy a full return in his own kind, and drove him from post to post, till he was just at the point of quitting the whole country of Italy. All that gallant army Prince Eugene brought with him into Italy, which was the best without doubt, for the goodness of the troops, that ever were there, laid their bones in that country, and many thousands more after them, till, the affairs of France declining in other places, they were forced in their turn to give way to their fate, as may be seen in the histories of those times, as above. But it is none of my business.

The part that I bore in these affairs was but short and sharp. We took the field about the beginning of July 1702, and the Duke de Vendôme ordered the whole army to draw the sooner together, in order to relieve the city of Mantua, which was blocked up by the imperialists.

Prince Eugene was a politic, and indeed a fortunate, prince, and had the year before pushed our army upon many occasions. But his good fortune began to fail him a little this year, for our army was not only more numerous than his, but the duke was in the field before him; and as the prince had held Mantua closely blocked up all the winter, the duke resolved to relieve the town, cost what it would. As I said, the duke was first in the field; the prince was in no condition to prevent his raising the blockade by force; so he drew off his troops, and leaving several strong bodies of troops to protect Bersello, which the Duke de Vendôme threatened, and Borgo Fort, where his magazine lay, he drew all the rest of his forces together, to make head against us. By this time the king of Spain was come into the army, and the Duke de Vendôme lay with about thirty-five thousand men near Luzara, which he had resolved to attack, to bring Prince Eugene to a battle. The Prince of Vaudemont lay intrenched with twenty thousand more at Rivalto, behind Mantua, to cover the frontiers of Milan, and there was near twelve thousand in Mantua itself; and Monsieur Pracontal lay with ten thousand men just under the cannon of one of the forts which guard the causeway which leads into the city of Mantua; so that, had all these joined, as they would have done in a few days more, the prince must have been put to his shifts, and would have had enough to do to have maintained himself in Italy; for he was master of no one place in the country that could have held out a formal siege of fifteen days' open trenches, and he knew all this very well; and therefore it seems, while the Duke of Vendôme resolved, if possible, to bring him to a battle, and to that end made dispositions to attack Luzara, we were surprised to find, the 15th of June 1702, the whole imperial army appeared in battalia, and in full march, to attack us.

As it happened, our army was all marching in columns towards them, as we had done for two days before; and I should have told you that, three days before, the duke having noticed that General Visconti, with three imperial regiments of horse and one of dragoons, was posted at San-Victoria, on the Tessona, he resolved to attack them; and this design was carried so secretly, that while Monsieur Visconti, though our army was three leagues another way, was passing towards the Modenese, he found himself unexpectedly attacked by six thousand horse and dragoons of the French army. He defended himself very bravely for near an hour; when, being overpowered, and finding he should be forced into disorder, he sounded a retreat. But the squadrons had not faced about to make their retreat scarce a quarter of an hour, when they found themselves surrounded with a great body of infantry, who had entirely cut off their retreat, except over the bridge of Tessona, which being thronged with their baggage, they could neither get backward or forward; so they thrust and tumbled over one another in such a manner that they could preserve no kind of order; but abundance fell into the river and were drowned, many were killed, and more taken prisoners; so that, in a word, the whole three regiments of horse and one of dragoons were entirely defeated.

This was a great blow to the prince, because they were some of the choicest troops of his whole army. We took about four hundred prisoners, and all their baggage, which was a very considerable booty, and about eight hundred horses; and no doubt these troops were very much wanted in the battle that ensued on the 15th, as I have said. Our army being in full march, as above, to attack Luzara, a party of Germans appeared, being about six hundred horse, and in less than an hour more their whole army, in order of battle.

Our army formed immediately, and the duke posted the regiments as they came up so much to their advantage that Prince Eugene was obliged to alter his dispositions, and had this particular inconvenience upon his hands, viz., to attack an army superior to his own, in all their most advantageous posts; whereas, had he thought fit to have waited but one day, we should have met him half-way. But this was owing to the pride of the German generals, and their being so opinionated of the goodness of their troops. The royal army was posted with the left to the great river Po, on the other side of which the Prince of Vaudemont's army lay cannonading the intrenchments which the imperialists had made at Borgo Fort; and hearing that there was like to be a general battle, he detached twelve battalions and about a thousand horse, to reinforce the royal army; all which, to our great encouragement, had time to join the army, while Prince Eugene was making his new dispositions for the attack. And yet it was the coming of these troops which caused Prince Eugene to resolve to begin the fight, expecting to have come to an action before they could come up. But he was disappointed in the reason of fighting, and yet was obliged to fight too, which was an error in the prince that it was too late to retrieve.

It was five o'clock in the evening before he could bring up his whole line to engage; and then, after having cannonaded us to no great purpose for half-an-hour, his right, commanded by the Prince de Commercy, attacked our left wing with great fury. Our men received them so well and seconded one another so punctually that they were repulsed with a very great slaughter; and the Prince de Commercy being, unhappily for them, killed in the first onset, the regiments, for want of orders, and surprised with the fall of so great a man, were pushed into disorder, and one whole brigade was entirely broke.

But their second line, advancing under General Herbeville, restored things in the first. The battalions rallied, and they came boldly on to charge a second time, and being seconded with new reinforcements from their main body, our men had their turn, and were pushed to a canal which lay on their left flank between them and the Po, behind which they rallied; and being supported by new troops, as well horse as foot, they fought on both sides with the utmost obstinacy, and with such courage and skill that it was not possible to judge who should have had the better could they have been able to have fought it out.

On the right of the royal army was posted the flower of the French cavalry-namely, the gendarmes, the royal carbineers, and the queen's horse-guards, with four hundred horse more-and next them the infantry, among which were our brigade. The horse advanced first to charge, and they carried all before them sword in hand, receiving the fire of two imperial regiments of cuirassiers without firing a shot, and falling in among them, bore them down by the strength of their horses, putting them into confusion, and left so clear a field for us to follow that the first line of our infantry stood drawn up upon the ground which the enemy at first possessed.

In this first attack the Marquis de Crequi, who commanded the whole right wing, was killed-a loss which fully balanced the death of the Prince de Commercy on the side of the Germans. After we had thus pushed the enemy's cavalry, as above, their troops, being rallied by the dexterity of their generals and supported by three imperial regiments of foot, came on again to the charge with such fury that nothing could withstand them. And here two battalions of our Irish regiments were put into disorder, and abundance of our men killed; and here also I had the misfortune to receive a musket-shot, which broke my left arm; and that was not all, for I was knocked down by a giant-like German soldier, who, when he thought he had killed me, set his foot upon me, but was immediately shot dead by one of my men, and fell just upon me, which, my arm being broken, was a very great mischief to me; for the very weight of the fellow, who was almost as big as a horse, was such that I was not able to stir.

Our men were beaten back after this from the place where they stood; and so I was left in possession of the enemy, but was not their prisoner-that is to say, was not found till next morning, when a party being sent, as usual, with surgeons to look after the wounded men among the dead, found me almost smothered with the dead Germans and others that lay near me. However, to do them justice, they used me with humanity, and the surgeons set my arm very skilfully and well; and four or five days after, I had liberty to go to Parma upon parole.

Both the armies continued fighting, especially on our left, till it was so dark that it was impossible to know who they fired at, or for the generals to see what they did; so they abated firing gradually, and, as it may be truly said, the night parted them.

Both sides claimed the victory, and both concealed their losses as much as it was possible; but it is certain that never battle was fought with greater bravery and obstinacy than this was; and had there been daylight to have fought it out, doubtless there would have been many thousand more men killed on both sides.

All the Germans had to entitle them to the victory was, that they made our left retire, as I have said, to the canal, and to the high banks or mounds on the edge of the Po; but they had so much advantage in the retreat-they fired from thence among the thickest of the enemy, and could never be forced from their posts.

The best testimony the royal army had of the victory, and which was certainly the better of the two, was, that, two days after the fight, they attacked Guastalia, as it were in view of the German army, and forced the garrison to surrender, and to swear not to serve again for six months, which, they being fifteen hundred men, was a great loss to the Germans; and yet Prince Eugene did not offer to relieve it. And after that we took several other posts which the imperialists had possession of, but were obliged to quit them upon the approach of the French army, not being in a condition to fight another battle that year.

My campaign was now at an end, and though I came lame off, I came off much better than abundance of gentlemen; for in that bloody battle we had above four hundred officers killed or wounded, whereof three were general officers.

The campaign held on till December, and the Duke de Vendôme took Borgo Fort and several other places from the Germans, who, in short, lost ground every day in Italy. I was a prisoner a great while, and there being no cartel settled, Prince Eugene ordered the French prisoners to be sent into Hungary, which was a cruelty that could not be reasonably exercised on them. However, a great many, by that banishment, found means to make their escape to the Turks, by whom they were kindly received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king's charge.

But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners that Prince Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again whom he had sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.

I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma upon my parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept for an exchange of prisoners.

It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months. The man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and, I know not by what fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry her. This was a piece of honesty on my side which I must acknowledge I never intended to be guilty of; but the girl was too cunning for me, for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to drink, and though I was not so disordered with it but that I knew very well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour I consented to be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog which I had loaded myself with. I could neither stay with her or take her with me, so that I was exceedingly perplexed.