"Oudenarde 1708" Topic

"Oh, what the hell! I decided to go ahead and research and do this battle of Marlborough's Big Four since I had already done the other three (Blenheim, Ramilles, and Malplaquet). And as it was the 317th anniversary of the battle, I felt like rounding out the set. I've been asked by some readers of my blog why I didn't do them in chronological sequence. Don't have an answer, other than I decided to do Malplaquet out of order when I did earlier this year because it seemed to stand out as the largest and bloodiest battle of the whole 17th and 18th centuries, rivaling the biggest of Napoleonic and American Civil Wars in the 19th. And, at the time I started on it, it felt particularly parallel to what is going on in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, and Sudan today. I do love analogies in history, in that Edmund Burke warning about those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
This battle, Oudenarde, stands out as one of Marlborough's Big Four in that it was uncharacteristically the only one that could be classified as a modern "encounter" battle. The other three were all set pieces, as classic battles had been up to then; where both sides deployed on a chosen field of battle. Oudenarde came as a complete surprise to the French, who had to hustle up to respond to Marlborough's unexpected crossing of the Scheldt River south of them. And Marlborough had to place his pieces only as they came up throughout the afternoon. So it developed piecemeal…"

Obscure Battles

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Armand

A very nice write-up of the battle. The OBs are particularly useful.

Here is a fairly crude game based on Oudenarde played about 11 years ago:

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