Battle of Malplaquet The Battle of Malplaquet , fought on 11 September 1709 , was one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession , which opposed the Bourbons of France and against an alliance whose major members were the Habsburg Monarchy , Great Britain , the United Provinces and the Kingdom of Prussia . Prelude . After a late start to the campaigning season owing to the unusually harsh winter preceding it , the allied campaign of 1709 began in mid June . Unable to bring the French army under Marshal Villars to battle owing to strong French defensive lines and the Marshal ' s orders from Versailles not to risk battle , the Duke of Marlborough concentrated instead on taking the fortresses of Tournai and Ypres . Tournai fell after an unusually long siege of almost 70 days , by which time it was early September , and rather than run the risk of disease spreading in his army in the poorly draining land around Ypres , Marlborough instead moved eastwards towards the lesser fortress of Mons , hoping by taking it to outflank the French defensive lines in the west . Villars moved after him , under new orders from Louis XIV to prevent the fall of Mons at all costs – effectively an order for the aggressive Marshal to give battle . After several complicated manoeuvres , the two armies faced each other across the gap of Malplaquet , south - west of Mons . Battle . The allied army , mainly consisting of Dutch and Austrian troops , but also with considerable British and Prussian contingents , was led by Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy , while the French and a contingent of Bavarians were commanded by Villars and Marshal Boufflers . Boufflers was officially Villars ' superior but voluntarily serving under him . The allies had about 86 , 000 troops and 100 guns and the French had about 75 , 000 and 80 guns , and they were encamped within cannon range of each other near what is now the France / Belgium border . At 9 . 00am on 11 September , the Austrians attacked with the support of Prussian and Danish troops under the command of Count Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein , pushing the French left wing back into the forest behind them . The Dutch under command of John William Friso , Prince of Orange , on the Allied left wing , attacked the French right flank half an hour later , and succeeded with heavy casualties in distracting Boufflers enough so that he could not come to Villars ' aid . Villars was able to regroup his forces , but Marlborough and Eugène attacked again , assisted by the advance of a detachment under General Withers advancing on the French left flank , forcing Villars to divert forces from his centre to confront them . At around 1 . 00 pm Villars was badly wounded by a musket ball which smashed his knee , and command passed to Boufflers . The decisive final attack was made on the now weakened French centre by British infantry under the command of the Earl of Orkney , which managed to occupy the French line of redan s . This enabled the Allied cavalry to advance through this line and confront the French cavalry behind it . A fierce cavalry battle now ensued , in which Boufflers personally led the elite troops of the Maison du Roi . He managed no less than six times to drive the Allied cavalry back upon the redans , but every time the French cavalry in its turn was driven back by British infantry fire . Finally , by 3 . 00 pm Boufflers , realising that the battle could not be won , ordered a retreat , which was made in good order . The Allies had suffered so many casualties in their attack that they could not pursue him . By this time they had lost over 21 , 000 men , almost twice as many as the French . Villars himself remarked on the enemy ' s Pyrrhic victory via the flip - side of King Pyrrhus ' famous quote : " If it please God to give your majesty ' s enemies another such victory , they are ruined . " First - hand account . A first - hand account of the Battle of Malplaquet is given in the book " Amiable Renegade : The Memoirs of Peter Drake ( 1671 – 1753 ) " on pages 163 to 170 . Captain Peter Drake , an Irishman who spent most of his life as a mercenary in the service of various European armies , served the French cause in the battle and was wounded several times . Drake wrote his memoirs at an advanced age . Aftermath . By the norms of warfare of the era , the battle was an allied victory , because the French withdrew at the end of the day ' s fighting , and left Marlborough ' s army in possession of the battlefield , but with double the casualties . In contrast with the Duke ' s previous victories , however , the French army was able to withdraw in good order and relatively intact , and remained a potent threat to further allied operations . Villars claimed that a few more such French defeats would destroy the allied armies ; and the historian John A . Lynn in his book " The Wars of Louis XIV 1667 – 1714 " terms the battle a Pyrrhic victory but the attempt to save Mons failed , and the fortress fell on 20 October . Nonetheless , news of Malplaquet , the bloodiest battle of the eighteenth century , stunned Europe . The rumour that even Marlborough had died became one of the most popular French folk songs , " Marlbrough s ' en va - t - en guerre " . For the last of his four great battlefield victories , Marlborough received no personal letter of thanks from Queen Anne . Richard Blackmore ' s " Instructions to Vander Beck " was virtually alone among English poems in attempting to celebrate the " victory " of Marlborough at Malplaquet , while it moved the English Tory party to begin agitating for a withdrawal from the alliance as soon as they formed a government the next year .