Siege of Bouchain (1712)

The Siege of Bouchain (1 October – 19 October 1712), was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession, and a victory for the French troops of Duc de Villars. Villars' army of 20,000 men besieged and captured the Allied-controlled fortifications after an 18-day siege, with the 2,000-strong Dutch-Imperial garrison under Major-General Grovenstein capitulating on 19 October.

Having taken advantage of the overstretched Allied lines of communications by crushing a Dutch-Imperial detachment at Denain in July 1712, Villars' army captured the forts of Marchiennes, Douai and Le Quesnoy over the next three months. Displaying great energy, Villars' advance guard besieged Bouchain on 1 October even before the French siege of Le Quesnoy was complete on 4 October. French casualties during the siege were light, numbering only 400 killed and wounded (2% of their force). Villars' victory nullified the Duke of Marlborough's conquest of Bouchain a year earlier and concluded the Anglo-Dutch portion of the war in the Treaty of Utrecht on terms that kept the fortified zone constructed by Vauban in northern France under French control.