this year, was also exceedingly disastrous to the Austrian arms.  The heterogeneous army of Charles III., composed of Germans, English, Dutch, Portuguese, and a few Spanish refugees, were routed, and with the loss of thirteen thousand men were driven from the kingdom.  Joseph, however, who stood in great dread of so terrible an enemy as Charles XII., succeeded in purchasing his neutrality, and this fiery warrior marched off with his battalions, forty-three thousand strong, to drive Peter I. from the throne of Russia.

Joseph I., with exhausted resources, and embarrassed by the claims of so wide-spread a war, was able to do but little for the subjugation of Hungary.  As the campaign of 1708 opened, two immense armies, each about eighty thousand strong, were maneuvering near Brussels.  After a long series of marches and combinations a general engagement ensued, in which the Austrian party, under Marlborough and Eugene, were decisively triumphant.  The French were routed with the loss of fifteen thousand in killed, wounded and prisoners.  During the whole summer the war raged throughout the Low Countries with unabated violence.  In Spain, Austria was not able to make any progress against Philip and his forces.

Another winter came, and again the wearied combatants, all of whom had received about as many blows as they had given, sought repose.  The winter was passed in fruitless negotiations, and as soon as the buds of another spring began to swell, the thunders of war were again pealing over nearly all the hills and valleys of Europe.  The Austrian party had resolved, by a gigantic effort, to send an army of one hundred thousand men to the gates of Paris, there to dictate terms to the French monarch.  On the 11th of September, 1709, the Austrian force, eighty thousand strong, with eighty pieces of cannon, encountered the French, seventy thousand in number, with eighty pieces of cannon, on the field of Malplaquet.  The bloodiest battle of the Spanish succession was then fought.  The Austrian party, guided by Marlborough and Eugene, justly claimed the victory, as they held the field.  But they lost twenty thousand in killed and wounded, and took neither prisoners nor guns.  The loss of the French was but ten thousand.  All this slaughter seemed to be accomplishing nothing.  Philip still stood firm upon the Spanish throne, and Charles could scarcely gain the slightest foothold in the kingdom which he claimed.  On the side of the Rhine and of Italy, though blood flowed like water, nothing was accomplished; the plan of invading France had totally failed, and again the combatants were compelled to retire to winter quarters.