Battle of Valenciennes (1656)

Siege

Investment

The garrison of Valenciennes consisted of 2,000 infantry and 300 cavalry soldiers led by Alexander de Bournonville, Count of Henin, which were reinforced gradually by 6,000 armed burghers. The Spanish Tercio of Francisco de Meneses Brito was entrusted the guard of the gate of Anzin, on the citadel, which gave access to the river, while Bournonville's own German regiment was positioned to protect the gates of Lille and Le Quesnoy, the Walloon Tercio of the Count de La Motterie was detached to protect the gate of Mons, and the burghers took care of the gate of Famars, the Tourelle —a small palace belonging to the Society of Jesus on the right bank of the Scheldt— and the redoubt of St. Ignace. The Walloon Tercio of Maestre de Campo Verkeest, which was garrisoning the nearby town of Saint-Amand, tried to reinforce Valenciennes, but could not get across the French lines

The French army invested Valenciennes and started the construction of a circumvallation line. Turenne deployed his troops between the Abbey of Saint-Saulve and the road to Bouchain. He established his quarter with the bulk of the army in the road to Le Quesnoy, since any relief army would likely appear on that side. Southwest of Turenne's quarter, separated from it by a stream called Rhonelle, which flows into the Scheldt at Valenciennes, there were two further quarters garrisoned by the Lorrainer troops led by the Count of Ligneville and the Maison du Roi under Anne de Noailles. A pontoon bridge was built over the Scheldt to connect Turenne's with La Ferté's armies. West of the river, the latter extended his lines from Bourlain to l'Épaix. Four redoubts were built on this section to counter any attempt to relieve the city. However, La Ferté did a serious mistake: not extending the lines to cover the high ground which presided over the whole section.

In order to hamper the French siege works, Bournonville ordered the terrain around the city to be flooded. On 16 June, the defenders breached a dike near the Tourelle, which led to the marshes of Bourlain to be flooded. Next day, the canal of the Cambrai faubourg was obstructed, and, as a consequence, the surroundings of l'Épaix were flooded. The same day, the defenders of the citadel made a sortie in which 150 French soldiers were killed or wounded. On the 18th, the French took the tower of Raismes, a fortified post halfway between Valenciennes and Saint-Amand, and repelled an attempt by troops from the garrison of Bouchain to reinforce Valenciennes across the Lorrainer lines. In order to ease the communications between the two besieging armies, the French sappers started to build a bridge of fascines over the flooded terrain south of Valenciennes. In response, Bournonville ordered another dike to be breached, which increased the water level by three feet. This did not stopped the construction of the bridge, which was finished by 26 June and had a length of 2,000 paces.

Preparations for the relief

Once the circumvallation line was completed on 26 June, the besiegers started to dig trenches in two approaches directed to the citadel from the quarter of Marshal La Ferté. To support the attacks, the French erected two batteries in front of the port of Montoise; one was furnished by seven 34 or 35-pounder heavy cannons, and the other by seven. Over the following days, the Spanish defenders made several sorties that slowed the pace of the attacks and gave time forJohn Joseph of Austria and Condé to prepare the relief. They were then at Douai ahead a force of 10,500 to 10,000 infantry and 5,000 to 5,500 Spanish cavalry, plus 5,800 Condéans. On 27 June, they advanced to Valenciennes from the south and established a fortified camp at Mont Houy, a hill located between the villages of Famars and La Fontenelle with the Scheldt on the right and the Rhonelle on the left. A smaller detachment of 4,000 men under the Count of Marsin positioned itself on the opposite side of Scheldt at Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, north of the French lines.

While the Spanish forces skirmished along the French lines looking for a weak spot, a three-cannon battery was established at Mount Houy to bombard the quarters of Ligneville and Noailles. In turn, the French troops increased the pace of their trench works and, by the night of 1 to 2 July, they were in position to launch an assault over the ravelin of Montoise. That night, the Regiment of Piemont launched an attack on the covertway over the counterscarp, which was repelled by the defenders. The night of 5 to 6 July, a second assault took place, this time by the Regiment of La Ferté. Paillet, its commanding officer, was killed, and the unit lost a third of its strength. The next day, however, the Regiment of Piemont succeeded in the taking counterscarp. Bournonville then wrote a letter to John Joseph to inform him that he would not be able ro resist more than a few days. On 14 July, the prince assembled a war council in which it was decided to attack the French lines and relieve Valenciennes. Next day, the baggage was sent to Bouchain while the bulk of the Spanish Army crossed the Scheldt at Denain to attack the army of La Ferté.

Order of battle

Spanish army

Excluding the forces that had been left to guard the camp at Mount Houy, the Spanish army numbered about 10,000 infantry, 7,500 cavalry and 300 dragoons. Four or five Spanish tercios were present: the Tercio Viejo de los Estados de Flandes under Diego Goñi de Peralta, the Tercio Viejo de los Estados de Holanda under Juan Antonio Pacheco Osorio, the Tercio Viejo de los Estados de Brabante under Antonio Furtado de Mendonça, the tercio of Gabriel de Toledo and perhaps that of Gaspar Bonifaz. There were also three Italian tercios under Maestres de Campo Carafa, Campi and Bentivoglio. The Spanish and Italian troops were considered to be the finest soldiers in the army. Walloon units, composed by local combatants, included the tercios of the Prince of Steenhuyse, the Count of Megen, the Lord of Richebourg, the Count of Noyelle and Maestre de Campo Verkeest. Two or three Irish tercios were part of the army, namely those under the Count of Tyrone and Sean Murphy, and possibly the Tercio of Thomas Nelson. Five to eight German regiments were also present. A relation published shortly after the battle mentions those of Wolfgang of Bournonville, the Count of Nassau, the Baron of Lesbeguen, the Count of Hornes and the Duke of Aarschot and Count of Arenberg. The army of the Prince of Condé numbered 2,000 infantry, 3,500 cavalry and 300 dragoons, including the French regiments of Persan, Guitaut and Condé, and Irish regiments of Dempsey and O'Meagler, though most of them stayed at the camp of Mount Houy.

French army

The Army of Turenne had from 9,000 to 9,500 infantry soldiers from the French regiments of Gardes Françaises, Gardes Suisses, Bussy-Rabutin, Vervins, Dumbarton, Vandy, La Couronne, Montausier, Rambures, Bretagne, Vendôme, La Marine, Turenne and Picardy, and the Lorrainer regiments of Tornielles, Marasque, Konos, Kusac and de Cascar, plus 7,500 to 8,000 cavalry and up to 40 cannons. Of these men, 9,500 were lodged at Turenne's quarter, 4,000 at Ligneville's quarter, and a further 3,500 at Noailles quarter. La Ferté had 6,000 to 6,500 infantry soldiers from the regiments of Gardes Françaises, Gardes Suisses, Piemont, Espagny, Lignières, La Ferté, Belzunce, La Marine and Manchini, plus 3,500 to 4,000 cavalry and 15 cannons. On 9 July, the Count of Bussy stated in a letter that "order is so good among our troops, and our troops so well intended, that I expect the good success of our enterprise". After one month of siege, however, La Ferté's army was down to 8,000 or 9,000 men, which Bussy would later judge not enough to guard its circumvallation lines.

Battle

The Spanish army positioned for the battle during the late hours of 15 July. A detachment of 1,000 men with cavalry, dragoons and musketeers stayed at Mount Houy with the heavy artillery to mask the manoeuvre of the main army, which was also covered by the high ground. Marsin was instructed to attack the quarter of La Ferté with his small detachment from the north, aiming at Beuvrages, as a feint, while the principal attack would come from the west over the French lines in direction to the village of Anzin. The Spanish right was commanded by the Marquis of Caracena and included six or seven infantry battalions formed by the Spanish and Irish tercios; the Prince of Ligne was in charge of the center, which comprised seven Walloon and Italian infantry battalions, and Condé led the left wing, formed by six German regiments and the Condéan Regiment of Persan. The infantry was deployed in two echelons. 18 cavalry squadrons closed the right wing and 31 the left, while 14 were kept in reserve. In all, the relief force numbered 20 battalions and 63 squadrons. Each infantry battalion included approximately 460 men, while each cavalry squadron had about 120 soldiers. Bournonville, for his part, had been instructed to open several locks to further flood the surrounding area and to attack La Ferté's army from its back using armed boats.

The fire of the Spanish heavy artillery from Mount Houy at 2.00 a.m. gave the signal to attack. Marsin, in command of 6 infantry battalions and 13 cavalry squadrons, 2,500 infantry and 1,500 cavalry in all, assaulted the French lines with vigour. However, he was forced to retreat after several failed attempts at breaching it in face of a strong defense by the Regiment des Gardes Suisses. The main attack proceeded with better success. Each section of the army was headed by a vanguard of musketeers armed with grenades. These men threw grenades over the French lines and then jumped into the ditches to scale the breastworks. On the right, the Spanish and Irish infantry under Caracena succeeded in taking the first and second line of works, as did the Germans under Condé in the left. The Walloons and Italians, however, were stopped by the heavy musketry fire from the Gardes Françaises. While hundreds of sappers worked to fill the ditches, remove the stockades and open ways for the cavalry, the infantry led by the Prince of Ligne launched new attacks on the center and, at the third time, succeeded in taking the second line of works.

While the Spanish attack was on progress, Turenne, on the opposite bank of the Scheldt, realised what was happening and urgently dispatched six infantry regiments to reinforce La Ferté across the fascine platform and the pontoon bridge. In the meantime, La Ferté launched a counterattack with his reserves, which included 18 cavalry squadrons, but the Spanish battalions, reinforced with the cavalry that had entered the battlefield across the ways opened by the sappers, drove them back. Bournonville attacked then from Valenciennes, and the French resistance collapsed. La Ferté was taken prisoner by a gentleman of Condé's entourage, while the survivors fled in disarray. Hundreds of them drowned while trying to cross the Scheldt north of Valenciennes. Just 2,500 men from La Ferté's army managed to escape, yet it was impossible for them to join Turenne, so they had to shelter themselves at the town of Condé. In the south, meanwhile, Caracena redeployed his troops to attack two of the regiments sent by Turenne which had already crossed the river and were quickly destroyed. Two hours after the beginning of the battle, the Spanish cavalry linked with the garrison of Valenciennes.

Realising that the battle was lost, by 6 a.m. Turenne ordered his troops to abandon their encampments leaving behind their artillery and baggage. The victorious Spanish cavalry moved across Valenciennes to fall upon the French infantry which was leaving the trenches. A French cavalry squadron under the Marquis of Resnel skirmished with the pursuers and allowed the foot soldiers to escape. The retreat to Le Quesnoy was covered by 15 squadrons under the Count of Bussy. They were followed just by two squadrons of Croatian cavalry in Spanish service, since the pontoon bridge that would have enabled the Spanish army to cross into the other side of the Scheldt was blocked by abandoned cannons and chariots, which prevented a general chase, Turenne was able to regroup his army by the evening. The French losses amounted to 7,000 to 8,000 men, including 2,500 to 3,000 prisoners, and 46 cannons. Large amounts of powder, bombs, grenades other ammunitions were also taken, plus 9 pontoons, 15 boats and hundreds of chariots. Besides this, 9,000 sacks of flour and several portable campaign mills were found at Turenne's quarter at the Abbey of Saint-Saulve. The booty taken by the Spanish troops, including silver cutlery and luxury clothes, was so big that the days following the battle the streets of Valenciennes were crowded of carts. The Spanish army lost 500 men during the battle and 200 to 300 during the siege.

Aftermath

News of the Spanish victory at Valenciennes arrived at Brussels the same day that the battle was fought. On 21 July, the Council of State in Brussels ordered the raising of the siege to be marked by public celebrations. The city council of Antwerp did the same next day, and by 28 July the journalist Willem Scheybels published a detailed account of the battle. News soon reached The Hague too, where the French defeat was celebrated. In Madrid, Philip IV was informed about the victory on 1 August and attributed it do the divine intervention in a letter to his confidat, sor María Jesús de Ágreda, since 'we could only receive such a great benefit from his infinite goodness'. At Paris, Louis XIV and his court were afflicted by the news. The Queen mother of France, Anne of Austria consoled herself by saying that 'the prayers of the Spaniards sometimes had to obtain graces from heaven'. On the other hand, the many supporters of the Prince of Condé were exultant. A British Royalist in Paris reported to George Radcliffe, advisor to the Duke of York, that 'the consequence of this action is like to be very great. It is scarce credible what joy is in Paris for it out of their extream dislike of cardinal Mazarin'.

The outcome of the battle bolstered the reputation of John Joseph and earned him the respect of the Netherlandish population. Having refreshed his army, he moved immediately to besiege Condé. Cardinal Mazarin instructed Turenne to not lose Condé and Saint-Ghislain, considering that their lost would damage further the French prestige. The two towns, however, were located behind the Spanish lines, and Turenne, now in command of just 17,000 men, considered the Spanish position too strong to attempt a relief. He withdrew his army to Berlaimont and moved soon to Inchy to ravage the Lys basin, aiming at draw the Spanish army away from Condé. John Joseph did not lift the siege, and on 18 August the French garrison of Condé, numbering 2,772 infantry and 536 cavalry soldiers, surrendered to the Spanish Army. On the meantime, Turenne took the town of La Capelle after a brief siege.

Both sides engaged in serious peace talks at Madrid during the summer, since shortly before the battle Mazarin had sent his confidant Hugues de Lionne to discuss peace terms with Philip IV and Luis de Haro. The French crown agreed to retire its support to the rebellious Portugal, as well as well as to evacuate its positions in Catalonia and restitute the Cerdanya, plus the Charolais and the towns of Thionville and Damvillers, in Luxemburg, and Béthune, Le Quesnoy and La Bassée, in Flanders. Philip IV accepted to recognize the French control over Artois and Alsace, and to return to France the towns of Rocroi and Le Catelet. The conversations ultimately failed because of the negative of Mazarin to restore the Prince of Condé his offices, which would enabled Philip to exert a direct influence over the French court, and by the refusal of the Spanish monarch to agree a marriage between her daughter and heir apparent, the infanta Maria Theresa, and Louis XIV.

In military terms, the Battle of Valenciennes resulted in the lose by France of thousands of veteran soldiers, which, in accordance to the Venetian ambassador in Paris, Giovan Battista Nani, meant that from there on, France was unable to mount fast and decisive campaigns. Since the magnitude of the defeat and the failure of the peace talks sparked a major crisis of confidence among the crown's creditors, Louis XIV's Superintendent of Finances, Fouquet, was forced to raise new revenues to float more loans, which generated agitation on a scale unprecedented since the Fronde, particularly in the Orléanais, Berry and Normandy. On 23 March 1657, the Army of Flanders took Saint-Ghislain after eight days of siege. Turenne invested Cambrai on 28 May, but the Prince of Condé relieved its garrison and forced the French army to retreat. Only the landing at France of 6,000 soldiers from the New Model Army after France allied with the English Commonwealth in March would allow the French to make some gains, namely the capture of Mardyck, yet their armies were defeated at Catalonia and Lombardy in the 1657 campaigns.

Rewards and promotions

Rewards were abundant among the Netherlandish noblemen who had fought at Valenciennes. Philippe-François d'Arenberg, who was shot through his hat when he attacked the French lines ahead his German soldiers, was promoted to general on 17 August 1656. Bournonville was given the title of prince by Philip IV on 12 September 1656. Maestre de Campo Francisco de Meneses, a commoner and a career soldier with more than thirty years of experience at the theaters of Naples, Lombardy, the Netherlands and Catalonia, was far less fortunate. Despite having played a key role at the defense of Valenciennes, his actions went unnoticed at the Spanish court. After Valenciennes, Meneses led the attack over Saint-Ghislain and fought with great distinction at the Battle of the Dunes, after he which he went to Madrid to ask for a promotion. The French ambassador to Philip IV, the Duke of Grammont, was surprised by the fact that 'he was so obscure that while we were in Madrid he was not allowed to speak either with the King or with the Admiral of Castille'.

Legacy

The Battle of Valenciennes became the subject poems, songs, artworks, prints, coins, and publications, including several paintings by Flemish artists like David Teniers II and Pieter Snayers. Teniers, who was the court painter at Brussels, depicted the relief in a canvas using all the topographical, allegorical and rhetorical means of the Baroque imagery. The commanders of the army, including John Joseph, the Prince of Condé and the Marquis of Caracena, were portrayed along a bust of Philip IV. In the painting, John Joseph appears in horseback, performing a levade, a position which makes reference to his leadership abilities. Snayers, a celebrated battle artist, was commissioned to depict the battle in a large canvas. It was owned by the Count of Peñaranda, who had led the Spanish delegation at the Peace of Münster, and, on his death on 1676, it was acquired by Ferdinand Bonaventura von Harrach, Imperial ambassador at the Spanish court. The painting was much celebrated, and the rederijker Cornelis de Bie devoted more space to it in his work Het Gulden Cabinet (1662), a collection of biographical sketches of Flemish and Dutch painters, than to any other painting.

In the field of literature, the siege and the battle were sung in epinicia written by the pupils of the Jesuit colleges in the Netherlands. A theatre play was held at Valenciennes shortly before the relief 'with piquant jokes and sarcasm', as regretted by father François Annat, confessor of Louis XIV. Next year, a play entitled Josué, meant to praise John Joseph of Austria, was performed at Brussels in a great stage. In 1660, after the Peace of the Pyrenees, Juan Bautista Maldonado, rhetoric teacher at the College of Valenciennes, wrote a long poem entitled Palma Valentianae seu Valentiana liberata, praising Philip IV and John Joseph. Medals were another mean to celebrate the triumph. The Brabant medallist Waterloos cast a number of them in gold, silver and bronze, intended to be worn around the neck with a ribbon.

From the religious perspective, the Flemish canon and historian Antonius Sanderus, offered an explanation for the moment chosen by John Joseph to attack the French lines. He emphasized that the Siege of Valenciennes began on 15 June, the Feast of Corpus Christi, and that the French, led by the Protestant Turenne, by starting the siege that day, committed a sacrilege. On the other hand, the Spanish Army launched its attack the same day that the Eucharistic Miracle of Brussels was celebrated. John Joseph ordered the prayers, processions and ceremonies held at Brussels to be devoted to the success of the relief. The divine intervention is reflected as well in Tenier's painting, where, in the heavens above the battlefield, the Sacrament of Miracle appears beneath an enthroned Mary, amid celestial beams of light and angels with captured French flags, and also at Waterloos' medals, which, on the reverse, depicted the reliquary of the Blessed Sacrament of Miracles containing the three hosts, accompanied by an inscription.