Background:
The Siege of Bouchain (9 August – 12 September 1711), following the Passage of the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra (5 August 1711), was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the last major victory of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Marlborough broke through the French defensive lines and took Bouchain after a siege of 34 days. Its capture left Cambrai the only French-held fortress between the allied army and Paris.
Throughout the early summer of 1711 Marlborough\\\'s army, having taken the important fortress of Douai the previous year, manoeuvred indecisively in northern France, blocked by the French Lines of Ne Plus Ultra – a massive series of fieldworks stretching from the Channel coast to the Ardennes at Namur. The allied army had been weakened by the withdrawal of Prince Eugene\\\'s army to cover the upper Rhine, as the deposed Elector of Bavaria attempted to take advantage of the disruption caused by the death of the Emperor Joseph. On 6 July, Marlborough captured the small fortress of Arleux, just to the north of the Lines, west of Bouchain, both to deny its use to the French as a sally-port, and to secure the water supply to Douai, which could be cut off by damming the canal that supplied the town. The Duke was then wrong-footed by Villars as the French army crossed the Lines on 22/23 July and retook Arleux, with the allied army too far to the west to intervene in time, and the defences were levelled before the French retreated back across the Lines. Marlborough, initially furious, soon retook the initiative by marching his army as if to assault the Lines near Arras, and carrying out a detailed personal reconnaissance there on 4 August in full view of Villars\\\' covering army. That night the army struck camp, leaving their campfires burning to deceive the French, and marched eastwards to Arleux. At midnight a force from Douai under Cadogan crossed the unguarded French lines, and by 8 am the advance guard of the main army was also crossing over. Villars, arriving on the scene with a few hundred cavalry, realised he had been outmanoeuvred, and though he attempted to offer battle in front of Bourlon Wood, Marlborough declined to attack, the Marshal\\\'s position being even stronger than the one in which he had given Marlborough\\\'s army such a mauling two years earlier at Malplaquet. He thus drew off and attempted to hinder Marlborough\\\'s siege of Bouchain which followed.
To defend the town Bouchain\\\'s governor, de Ravignau, had some 5,000 men against Marlborough\\\'s besieging army of 30,000, and the advantage of one of the strongest fortresses left to France, surrounded by the marshy land of the confluence of the rivers Scheldt and Sensée. In addition, Villars\\\' strong army had taken up position to the west of the allied camp, and had managed to open a tenuous link to the besieged garrison. Marlborough responded by using earthwork gun batteries to counter Villars, used a crack assault force managed by 18 August to once more cut the Marshal\\\'s communication with Bouchain, and established a fieldwork-protected corridor from the siege camp to his main supply port at Marchiennes on the Scarpe. Frequent raids by Villars on both the supply convoys on the Scarpe, and towards Douai, failed to interrupt the siege, and the garrison marched out to become prisoners of war on 13 September 1711.
Bouchain was Marlborough\\\'s last campaign. On the last day of the year he was stripped of his position as Captain-General, and of all his other offices. Command of the army on the continent for the campaign of 1712 was given to the Duke of Ormonde, and strict limitations were placed on his freedom of movement. Particularly he was prohibited from engaging the French in battle, as Anglo-French peace talks were well advanced, and the opportunity of seizing Cambrai and marching on Paris, opened by Marlborough\\\'s gains the year before, was abandoned. Before the year was out, the British army would withdraw from the alliance, leaving the remaining allies, under Eugene of Savoy to be defeated at Denain.

Tindal, Nicolas 1687 – 1774
Nicolas Tindal was the translator and continuer of the History of England published by Paul de Rapin (1661-1725) in 1724. De Rapins publication chronicles the History of Britain from the invasion of the Romans to the death of Charles I. Very few comprehensive histories of England existed at the time and Tindal added his three-volume Continuation, of the Kingdom, from the reigns of James II to George II.
Tindal\\\'s translation of de Rapins History, was first published in 1727. Tindal enlarged the volumes in their second edition (1732) to contain notes, genealogical tables and maps of his own composition. In 1745 Tindal published Tindal’s Continuation of Mr. Rapin’s History of England. Included with this edition was an atlas containing 45 maps, battle and town plans from the Spanish War of Succession (1701-13) that were engraved by Richard William Seale and John Basire.
These maps represent battles that took place during the War of Spanish Succession, concluded by the Treaties of Utrecht. The war resulted from a dispute over who should inherit Spain and its possessions after its Habsburg rulers in 1700. The last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II (d. 1700) had left the throne to his closest relative in female line: Philippe de France, duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV (Felipe V of Spain). The closest relatives in male line, the Habsburgs of Austria, disputed this claim, and many European nations did not want to see French princes reigning over both kingdoms. The Utrecht treaties recognized Felipe V of Spain, but transferred the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands and Italy to Austria and to Savoy. To reach the goal of separating the crowns of France and Spain, the treaties required Felipe V to relinquish all claims to the French throne, and the remaining French princes to relinquish all claims to the Spanish throne.
The War of the Spanish Succession, was also known as Marlboroughs Wars, that was fought in Europe and the Mediterranean, and were the last and the bloodiest of the Wars between England and France under Louis XIV, and the first in which Britain played a major military role in European military affairs.

Paul de Rapin 1661-1725 was born in Castes and educated at the Protestant academy of Saumur. In 1685 after the death of his father he moved to England but after being unable to find employment moved to Holland and enlisted in French volunteers at Utrecht commanded by his cousin Daniel de Rapin. He accompanied the prince of Orange to England in 1688 and participated in the Irish campaigns of the siege of Carrickfergus, Battle of the Boyne and Limerick. Rapin resigned to become tutor to the Earl of Portlands son. He settled in Holland where he began work on The History of England. It was published in Holland in 1724 in 8 volumes. The work was an attempt to be exhaustive in the spirit of the eighteenth century philosophies by treating the subject from prehistoric times up to the date of publication.

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