For nine years this bloody war had now desolated Europe.  It is not easy to defend the cause of Austria and her allies in this cruel conflict.  The Spaniards undeniably preferred Philip as their king.  Louis XIV. had repeatedly expressed his readiness to withdraw entirely from the conflict.  But the Austrian allies demanded that he should either by force or persuasion remove Philip from Spain, and place the kingdom in the hands of the Austrian prince.  But Philip was now an independent sovereign who for ten years had occupied the throne.  He was resolved not to abdicate, and his subjects were resolved to support him.  Louis XIV. said that he could not wage warfare against his own grandson.  The wretched old monarch, now feeble, childless, and woe crushed, whose soul was already crimsoned with the blood of countless thousands, was so dispirited by defeat, and so weary of the war, that though he still refused to send his armies against his grandson, he even offered to pay a monthly subsidy of two hundred thousand dollars (one million livres) to the allied Austrian party, to be employed in the expulsion of Philip, if they would cease to make war upon him.  Even to these terms, after blood had been flowing in torrents for ten years, Austria, England and Holland would not accede.  “If I must fight either Austria and her allies,” said Louis XIV., “or the Spaniards, led by their king, my own grandson, I prefer to fight the Austrians.”

The returning sun of the summer of 1710, found the hostile armies again in the field.  The allies of Austria, early in April, hoping to surprise the French, assembled, ninety thousand in number, on the Flemish frontiers of France, trusting that by an unexpected attack they might break down the fortresses which had hitherto impeded their way.  But the French were on the alert to resist them, and the whole summer was again expended in fruitless battles.  These fierce conflicts so concentrated the energies of war in the Netherlands, that but little was attempted in the way of invading Spain.  The Spanish nobles rallied around Philip, melted their plate to replenish his treasury, and led their vassals to fight his battles.  The ecclesiastics, as a body, supported his cause.  Philip was a zealous Catholic, and the priests considered him as the defender of the Church, while they had no confidence in Charles of Austria, whose cause was advocated by heretical England and Holland.

Charles III. was now in Catalonia, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain.  He had landed at Barcelona, with a strong force of English and Germans.  He was a man of but little character, and his military operations were conducted entirely by the English general Stanhope and the German general Staremberg.  The English general was haughty and domineering; the German proud and stubborn.  They were in a continued quarrel contesting the preeminence.  The two rival monarchs, with forces about equal, met in Catalonia a few miles from Saragossa, on the 24th of July, 1710.  Though