Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book One (Paperback)

As a writer of history, Churchill ranks with Gibbon for his mastery of prose and his ability to use vivid imagery to hold the reader's attention to minute detail. For each year of the Spanish Succession War, Churchill opens with a strategic appreciation of how the Anglo-Austrian forces plotted out each year's campaigns, and goes to great pains to explain the reasons behind Marlborough's various deployments. And he paints on a simply massive canvas: he begins with a detailed account of Charles II's Restoration, of James II's abortive reign (and Marlborough's role in ending it), of William III and Mary II's joint reign (Churchill is NOT a fan of William and Mary) and of the underlying workings of the French monarchy. He is not afraid to address the various failings in Marlborough's character, particularly his secret negotiations with both the enemy and the exiled Stuarts, but does seek to defend Marlborough (and Sarah) from the more libellous charges.

This book was written in the 1930s, politically Churchill's decade of exile (and personally, his worst years of depression). If everyone turned unemployment, financial crisis and depression to such good use, the world would be a far better place.

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WSC gives us a picture of the whole man, including his faults. One of WSC's purposes is to rescue Marlborough's reputation from the attacks of generations of historians. The book becomes a brilliant defense and of course it cannot be unbiased. WSC is Marlborough's defense attorney, not his judge.

By the 1920s, Marlborough had been called miserly, greedy, ambitious, duplicitous, disloyal and treacherous. As he recounts Marlborough's life, WSC continually picks up an episode that seemingly illustrates one of these traits, but turns it around.

Where unsympathetic historians saw miserly habits, WSC saw thrift and WSC goes further. Marlborough was miserly when it came to his own needs, such as when he insisted surgeons cut his stocking along the seem so that it could be resown. Yet he paid his army's bills and wages on time; apparently this was unusual in those days. He paid, from his own discretionary funds, which other generals often pocketed as a matter of course, for military intelligence that proved crucial to securing many of his victories.

Where accusers saw ambition needlessly prolonging a difficult war, WSC presents Marlborough has being bound by duty to achieve the best results possible, and to reject a timid peace, which would have left Europe in the hands of a despot.

WSC has a more difficult, but no less successful time defending Marlborough's continued correspondence with St-Germain, the exiled English court of James II and later his son, as recognized by Louis the XIV. The problem here is that today such acts would indeed be treason, but in the seventeenth century they were part of the normal workings of diplomacy, war time or not. After all, if passports and safe conduits were routinely given to enemies to allow them to rest and confer in between campaigns, it could not have been that unusual to keep in touch with people one knew, even if they were officially enemies.

WSC also presents Marlborough's most important relationships: with his wife Sarah Jennings; with his military ally Prince Eugene, with whom he won at Blenheim; with his political colleague Godolphin, who secured funds for his military work; with the kings and queen of England from James II to George I;

But WSC does accuse Marlborough on occasion of having been unwise. He is particularly critical of the Duke's obsession with his palace at Blenheim (where WSC himself was born). Marlborough didnft want an opulent residence, rather he wanted to leave a monument that would survive centuries and remember his name to future generations. WSC writes that as such Blenheim was a failure: it added nothing to the Duke's reputation and the worries it caused may have taken years from his life. Winston Churchill must have felt his biography was a better memorial to his ancestor.

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Marlborough was charm itself, Wellington coarse and foul-mouthed.

"Corporal John" was very careful with casualties (English, if not French), but the Iron Duke of course was callous to the point of carelessness, constantly calling his men "scum." (He would make a fine modern Russian general - I wonder what kind of impression he made on Kutuzov!). He treated officers differently.

Marlborough was born in straitened circumstances, Wellington in wealth and status.

Marlborough was a courtier all his life, with all the risks that came with such a position - in the end he paid for royal disfavor. Not even falling on his knees - he could have knocked two holes on the marble floor - made much difference to a Queen bent on revenge.....for his wife's misdeeds. Sir Winston calls this episode "painful to record" and an "unnatural spectacle" which "reduces the stature of a soldier [literally!]." (Book Two, p. 796-7) Wellington? The Big Nose treated HIS sovereigns with ill-concealed contempt (for good reasons, I might add) mixed with the occasional insults - unthinkable for Marlborough's character and times.

Last and above all, Marlborough's fame rested on a string of great victories - ten in all I think - while Wellington's one and only victory, a near-run thing even with Bluecher's help, made him immortal. Wellington was further assisted by the fact that Napoleon was not himself that day.

No wonder Marlborough was admired even by Louis XIV, while Napoleon turned purple at the mere mention of Wellington's name. (He did admire Nelson though.) Marlborough and Eugene thwarted Louis's ambitions, but the conqueror of Napoleon was surely Napoleon's own folly.

Why then is Marlborough less famous than Wellington, even in Britain? If I have to guess, it is because of Bonaparte's far greater importance than the Sun King's.

This book will give you hours of pleasure, especially if you keep at the back of your mind the lives of Wellington, Winston Churchill, etc., who are Marlborough's dramatic contrasts in many ways.

Maurice Ashley, who for four years did the bulk of the original research for Winston Churchill in writing this book, wrote his own biography of Marlborough, which I must confess I have not read (it may be available from amazon.com). No doubt it casts the great man in a different, perhaps even more disinterested light.

(Note: what amazon.com presents as "Volume I" is actually "Book One" - this biography is divided into two "books," each of which is subdivided into two "volumes," One and Two, and Three and Four. For me Book One is the more interesting "volume.")

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