The Year of Altranstädt

Abstract

The year 1706 in western eyes can with justification be regarded — and by historians of the War of the Spanish Succession has been so regarded — as the year of Ramillies, Marlborough’s second resounding victory in Flanders. The story of that victory, despite his difficulties with the Dutch; of the consequent loss by the French of Brabant and of most of Flanders; of the Allies’ victories in Spain; and of Prince Eugene’s victory at Turin, which led to the French evacuation of Piedmont — all this has been told by a number of writers, and with particular vividness by Winston Churchill in his biography of Marlborough. When the Duke returned to England, ‘amid thunderous salutes of cannon, all the notabilities of British life knelt in thanksgiving in St Paul’s Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, in celebration of “the wonderful year” that had ended’.¹