All were congratulating themselves
on the narrow escape, when a mine placed below that they had
discovered exploded, burying all in the upper mine in the ruins.
On the 25th, 300 men posted in a large mine which had been
discovered, were similarly destroyed by the explosion of another
mine below it; and the same night 100 men posted in the ditch were
killed by a wall being blown out upon them.
In resisting the attack upon one side of the fortress only,
thirty-eight mines were sprung in twenty-six days, almost every one
with fatal effect. It is no detriment to the courage of the troops
to say, that they shrank appalled before such sudden and terrible a
mode of warfare, and Marlborough and Eugene in person visited the
trenches and braved the dangers in order to encourage the men.
At last, on the 3rd of September, the garrison, reduced to 3000
men, surrendered; and were permitted to march out with the honours
of war, and to return to France on the promise not to serve again.
This siege cost the allies 5000 men.
Chapter 27: Malplaquet, and the End of the War.
During all the time that the allies had been employed upon the
siege of Tournai, Marshal Villars had laboured to form an
impregnable line of entrenchments, barring all farther advance.
Marlborough, however, a day or two previously to the fall of
Tournai, sent off the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who by a rapid and
most masterly march fell upon the French lines, at a part where the
French had no expectation of there being an enemy within thirty
miles of them.
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