History of the United Netherlands, 1594 | Page 2

city. Two bridges constructed
across the Donge facilitated the communications between the two
camps, while great quantities of planks and brush were laid down
across the swampy roads to make them passable for waggon-trains and
artillery. The first care of the young general, whose force was not more
than twenty thousand men, was to protect himself rather than to assail
the town.
His lines extended many miles in a circuit around the place, and his
forts, breastworks, and trenches were very numerous.
The river was made use of as a natural and almost impassable ditch of
defence, and windmills were freely employed to pump water into the
shallows in one direction, while in others the outer fields, in quarters
whence a relieving force might be expected, were turned into lakes by
the same machinery. Farther outside, a system of palisade work of
caltrops and man-traps--sometimes in the slang of the day called
Turkish ambassadors--made the country for miles around impenetrable
or very disagreeable to cavally. In a shorter interval than would have
seemed possible, the battlements and fortifications of the besieging
army had risen like an exhalation out of the morass. The city of
Gertruydenberg was encompassed by another city as extensive and
apparently as impregnable as itself. Then, for the first time in that age,
men thoroughly learned the meaning of that potent implement the
spade.
Three thousand pioneers worked night and day with pickaxe and shovel.
The soldiers liked the business; for every man so employed received
his ten stivers a day additional wages, punctually paid, and felt
moreover that every stioke was bringing the work nearer to its
conclusion.
The Spaniards no longer railed at Maurice as a hedger and ditcher.
When he had succeeded in bringing a hundred great guns to bear upon
the beleaguered city they likewise ceased to sneer at heavy artillery.

The Kartowen and half Kartowen were no longer considered "espanta
vellacos."
Meantime, from all the country round, the peasants flocked within the
lines. Nowhere in Europe were provisions so plentiful and cheap as in
the Dutch camp. Nowhere was a readier market for agricultural
products, prompter payment, or more perfect security for the life and
property of non-combatants. Not so much as a hen's egg was taken
unlawfully. The country people found themselves more at ease within
Maurice's lines than within any other part of the provinces, obedient or
revolted. They ploughed and sowed and reaped at their pleasure, and no
more striking example was ever afforded of the humanizing effect of
science upon the barbarism of war, than in this siege of
Gertruydenberg.
Certainly it was the intention of the prince to take his city, and when he
fought the enemy it was his object to kill; but, as compared with the
bloody work which Alva, and Romero, and Requesens, and so many
others had done in those doomed provinces, such war-making as this
seemed almost like an institution for beneficent and charitable
purposes.
Visitors from the neighbourhood, from other provinces, from foreign
countries, came to witness the extraordinary spectacle, and foreign
generals repaired to the camp of Maurice to take practical lessons in the
new art of war.
Old Peter Ernest Mansfeld, who was nominal governor of the Spanish
Netherlands since the death of Farnese, rubbed his eyes and stared
aghast when the completeness of the preparations for reducing the city
at last broke in upon his mind. Count Fuentes was the true and
confidential regent however until the destined successor to Parma
should arrive; but Fuentes, although he had considerable genius for
assassination, as will hereafter appear, and was an experienced and able
commander of the old- fashioned school, was no match for Maurice in
the scientific combinations on which the new system was founded.
In vain did the superannuated Peter call aloud upon his sofa and
governor, Count Charles, to assist him in this dire dilemma. That
artillery general had gone with a handful of Germans, Walloons; and
other obedient Netherlanders--too few to accomplish anything abroad,
too many to be spared from the provinces--to besiege Noyon in France.

But what signified the winning or losing of such a place as Noyon at
exactly the moment when the Prince of Bearne, assisted by the able
generalship of the Archbishop of Bourges, had just executed those
famous flanking movements in the churches of St. Denis and Chartres,
by which the world-empire had been effectually shattered, and Philip
and the Pope completely out- manoeuvred.
Better that the five thousand fighters under Charles Mansfeld had been
around Gertruydenberg. His aged father did what he could. As many
men as could be spared from the garrison of Antwerp and its
neighbourhood were collected; but the Spaniards were reluctant to
march, except under old Mondragon. That hero, who had done much of
the hardest work, and