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If ever they do regain Venetia it will be through the blood of our Brandenburghers and Pomeranians, and not their own. During this tirade a little old Belgian in black, with the chain of St. Peter at his buttonhole by way of watchguard, capered off to communicate the grateful news to a group of his ecclesiastical fellow-travellers, shrieking out in ecstasy: 'Rosses, Messieurs!
A smaller army, consisting chiefly of Brandenburghers was encamped not far from Huy. Early in June military operations commenced. The first movements of William were mere feints intended to prevent the French generals from suspecting his real purpose. He had set his heart on retaking Namur. The loss of Namur had been the most mortifying of all the disasters of a disastrous war.
In the meantime, a great army, which was to be led by King William in person, was being collected in England. It consisted of a strange medley, collected from almost every European nation English, Scotch, Irish Protestants, French Huguenots, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Brandenburghers, Swiss, Norwegians, and Hessians. More than half, indeed, were foreigners.
The king's camp was now formed in regular order; he himself taking his place on its right, having near him the Horse Guards, and the Blue Dutch Guards, who were always his main reliance. To the left of these were the English and Dutch regiments, further on the French and Danes, while the Brandenburghers and other German regiments formed the extreme left of the line.
Meanwhile the Brandenburghers, excellently disciplined and excellently commanded, had performed, with no great loss, the duty assigned to them. The Dutch had been equally successful. When the evening closed in the allies had made a lodgment of a mile in extent on the outworks of the castle. The advantage had been purchased by the loss of two thousand men.
They were somewhere on the high ground south of Bazentin-le-Grand when the German Guard had massed for an attack on Contalmaison. These guns had the extraordinary chance of firing with open sights on the dense German masses behind Bazentin-le-Petit and they had inflicted terrible losses on the Brandenburghers.
In Pomerania, the Swedes were so unsuccessful against the Danes and Brandenburghers, that they seemed to be losing apace all those possessions which, with so much valor and good fortune, they had acquired in Germany.
That plan had been communicated to the other chiefs of the allied forces, and had been warmly approved. Vaudemont was left in Flanders with a considerable force to watch Villeroy. The King, with the rest of his army, marched straight on Namur. At the same moment the Elector of Bavaria advanced towards the same point on one side, and the Brandenburghers on another.
In the meantime, a regiment of Brandenburghers had attacked the wall of the battery known as the Black Battery, whose fire was doing great execution upon the assailants. They had brought scaling ladders with them, and with these they succeeded, fighting with great bravery and determination, in gaining the walls.
He was sometimes, it is said, provoked into horsewhipping them out of the range of the French guns; and the story, whether true or false, is very characteristic. On the twentieth of July the Bavarians and Brandenburghers, under the direction of Cohorn, made themselves masters, after a hard fight, of a line of works which Vauban had cut in the solid rock from the Sambre to the Meuse.
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