Battle of Malplaquet
The Battle of Malplaquet was fought near the border of France on 11 September 1709 and was a major engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession. It pitted a French army, commanded by Marshal Duke of Villars and Marshal Duke of Boufflers, against an allied army, led by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. After a string of defeats, failure of the harvest and the prospect of invasion, Louis XIV of France had appealed to French patriotism, recruited fresh soldiers and instructed Villars to use the country's last army to give battle against Marlborough's formidable force. After a series of manoeuvres, Villars settled on a position in which both of his flanks were anchored in woods. Even though the French were outnumbered, Marlborough's familiar tactics of flank attacks to draw off troops from the centre incurred serious attrition by massed French musketry and skillful use of artillery.