THE ACTION
The field of Blenheim has changed in its physical aspect less than any
other of the great battlefields of Europe during the two hundred years and
more that have passed since Marlborough's victory.
He who visits to-day this quiet Bavarian corn-land, with its pious and
happy peasantry, its modest wealth, and its contempt for haste and greed,
sees, if he come in the same late summer of the year, just what the
mounted parties saw who rode out upon that Wednesday before the eight
columns of Marlborough and Eugene under the early morning.
Thus, approaching the field of Blenheim from the east, the view consists
in a low and strangely regular line of closely-wooded hills to the right
and northwards; southwards, and to the left, a mass of undergrowth, the
low trees of the marshes, occasional gaps of rank herbage which make
bright green patches interspersing the woodland, mark the wide and marshy
course of the Danube, with its belt of alluvial soil and swamp on either
side.
Between this stretch of damp river-ground to the south and the regular low
wooded hills to the north lies a plain just lifted above the level of the
river by such few feet as are sufficient to drain it and no more. Crossing
this plain transversely, on their way to the Danube, ooze and trickle
rather than run certain insignificant streams; each rises in the wooded
hills to the north, falls southward, and in the length of a very few miles
reaches the main river. These streams are found, as one goes up the great
valley, at every mile or so. With one, the Nebel, we shall be particularly
concerned, for during the action at Blenheim it formed the only slight
obstacle separating the two armies. This plain, which in August is all
stubble, is some three miles across, such a space separates the hills from
the river, and that distance, or a trifle more, is the full length of the
little muddy brooks which thus occasionally intersect it.
To the eye which takes in that landscape at a first glance, bare of crops
and under a late summer sun, the plain seems quite even and undisturbed by
any hollows or rolls of land. It is, in fact, like most such apparently
simple terrains, slightly diversified: its diversity is enough to affect
in some degree the disposition of soldiers, to afford in certain places
occasional cover, and to permit of opportunities for defence.
But these variations from the flat are exceedingly slight. The hollow
which the Nebel has made, for instance, is not noticed on foot or even in
mechanical traction as one follows the main road which runs the whole
length of the plain, though if one goes across country on foot, one
notices the slight bank of a few feet separating the cultivated land from
a narrow belt of rough grass, which is boggy in wet weather, and which, in
varying breadth, accompanies the course of the stream.
The plain also, as might be expected, rises slightly from its low shelf
just above the Danube swamps and meadows, to the base of the hills. Its
ascent in its whole three miles of breadth is but sixty feet.
Over this level sweep of tilled land rise at intervals the spires of rare
villages, round which scattered houses and gardens of the Bavarian
sort--broad-eaved, flat-roofed, gay with flowers--are gathered. But for
these few human groups there is no break in the general aspect of the
quite open fields.
As might be expected, an interrupted chain of such villages marks the line
of the great river from Donauwoerth to Ulm, each standing just on the bank
and edge of what for long was the flood-ground of the Danube, and is still
in part unreclaimed marsh and water meadow. Each is distant a mile or two
from its next fellow. Thus, nearest Donauwoerth we have Muenster, upon which
the left of the allied army reposed when it lay in camp before the battle.
Next in order come Tapfheim and Schwenningen, through which that army
marched to the field. Further up-stream another group stretches beyond the
Nebel, the hamlet of Sonderheim, the little town of Hochstadt, the village
of Steinheim, etc.; and, in the middle of this line, at the point where
the Nebel falls into the old bed of the Danube, is built that large
village of _Blindheim_, which, under its English form of BLENHEIM, has
given the action the name it bears in this country.
I say "the old bed of the Danube," for one feature, and one alone, in that
countryside has changed in the two hundred years, though the change is not
one which the eye can note as it surveys the plain, nor one which greatly
affects the story of the action. This change is due to the straightening
of the bed of the great river.
At the time when Blenheim was fought, the Danube wound in great loops,
with numerous islands and backwaters complicating its course, and swung
back and forth among the level swamps of its valley. It runs to-day in an
artificial channel, which takes the average, as it were, of these
variations, drains the flood-ground, and leaves the old bed in the form of
stagnant, abandoned lengths of water or reeds, in which the traveller can
trace the former vagaries of the river. Thus Blindheim, which stood just
above the broad and hurrying water at the summit of one such loop, is now
800 yards away from the artificial trench which modern engineering has dug
for the river. But the new channel has no effect upon the landscape to the
eye. The floor on which the Danube runs is still a mass of undergrowth and
weeds and grass, which marks off the cultivated land on the south, as it
has been limited since men first ploughed.
I have said that the little slow and muddy streamlet called the Nebel must
particularly meet with our attention, because it formed at the beginning
of the action of Blenheim a central line dividing the two hosts, and round
its course may be grouped the features of the terrain upon which the
battle was contested.
_Blindheim_, or, as we always call it, _Blenheim_, lay, as we have seen,
just above the bank of the Danube at the mouth of this stream. Following
up the water (which is so insignificant that in most places a man can
cross it unaided in summer), at the distance of about one mile, is the
village of _Unterglauheim_, lying above the _left_ bank, as Blenheim does
above the right. Further on, another three-quarters of a mile up the
_right_ bank, is the village of _Oberglauheim_; and where the water
dribbles in various small streams from the hills, and at their base, where
the various tiny rivulets join to form the Nebel, at the edge of the
woods, is _Schwennenbach_.
The tiny hamlet of _Weilheim_ may be regarded as an appendix of this last
or of Oberglauheim indifferently. It lies opposite the latter village, but
on the further side of the stream, and about half a mile away.
Right behind Oberglauheim, at the base of the hills to the westward, and
well away from the Nebel, is the larger village of _Lutzingen_.
These names, and that of the Nebel, are sufficient for us to retain as we
follow the course of the battle, remembering as we do so that one good
road, the road by which the allies marched in the morning to the field
from Muenster, and the road by which the Franco-Bavarian forces retreated
after the defeat--the main road from Donauwoerth to Ulm--traversed, and
still traverses, the terrain in its whole length.[7]
* * * * *
It was at two in the morning of Wednesday the 13th of August that the
allies broke camp and began their march westward towards the field of
Blenheim.
That they intended to reach that field was not at first apparent. They
might equally well have designed a retirement upon Noerdlingen, and it was
this that the commanders of the Franco-Bavarian army believed them to
intend. The dense mist which covered the marshes of the river and the
plain above clung to the soil long after sunrise. It was not until seven
o'clock that the advancing columns of the enemy were observed from the
French camp, distant about a mile away, and beginning to deploy in order
to set themselves in line of battle. But, though they were then first
seen, their arrival had been appreciated two hours before,[8] and the
French line was already drawn up opposite them on the further bank of the
Nebel as they deployed.[9]
The French order of battle is no longer to be found in the archives,
though we can reconstruct it fairly enough, and in parts quite accurately,
from the separate accounts of the action given by Tallard, by Marcin
himself, by Eugene, and from English sources. The line of battle of the
allies we possess in detail; and the reader can approach with a fair
accuracy the dispositions of the two armies at the moment when the action
began, though it must be understood that the full deployment of
Marlborough and Eugene was not accomplished until after midday on account
of the difficulty the latter commander found in posting his extreme right
at the foot of the hills and in the woods of Schwennenbach; while it must
be further noted that the first shots of the battle sounded long before
its main action began, that is, long before noon--for the French guns upon
the front of their line opened at long range as early as nine o'clock, and
continued a lively cannonade until, at half-past twelve, Eugene being at
last ready, the first serious blows were delivered by the infantry.
All this we shall see in what followed. Meanwhile we must take a view of
the two armies as they stood ranged for battle before linesman or
cavalryman had moved.
The map on following page indicates in general terms the situation of the
opposing forces.
The French stood upon the defensive upon the western bank of the Nebel.
Their camp lay behind their line of battle, a stretch of tents nearly two
miles long.
It is particularly to be noted that though, for the purpose of fighting
this battle, they formed but one army, the two separate commands, that of
the Elector (with Marcin) and that of Tallard, were separately treated and
separately organised. The point is of importance if we are to understand
the causes of their defeat, for it made reinforcement difficult, and put
two loosely joined wings where a strong centre should have stood.
Tallard's command, thirty-six battalions and (nominally) forty-four
squadrons, extended from Blindheim to the neighbourhood of Oberglauheim.
Its real strength may be taken at about 16,000 to 18,000 infantry, and at
the most 5200 cavalry; but of these last a great number could not be
used as mounted men.
[Illustration: The Elements of the Action of Blenheim.]
The village of Oberglauheim itself, and all that stretched to the left of
it up the Nebel as far as the base of the hills, was occupied by the army
of Marcin and the Elector of Bavaria. This force was forty-two battalions
and eighty-three squadrons strong. The cavalry in this second army, the
left of the whole force, had been less severely tried by disease, rapid
marching, and ill provisionment than that of Tallard. We may reckon it,
therefore, at its full or nearly its full strength, and say that Marcin
and the Elector commanded over 20,000 men and close upon 10,000 horse. In
a word, the total of the Franco-Bavarian forces, though we have no
documents by which to estimate their exact numbers, may be regarded, from
the indications we have of the losses of the cavalry, etc., as certainly
more than fifty and certainly less than fifty-three thousand men, infantry
and cavalry combined. To these we must add ninety guns, disposed along the
whole front after the fashion of the time, and these under the general and
separate command of Frezeliere.[10]
This disposition of the guns in a chain along the whole front of the line
the reader is begged especially to note.
The particular dispositions of the Franco-Bavarian forces must now be
seized, and to appreciate these let us first consider the importance of
the village of Blenheim.
Blenheim, a large scattered village, with the characteristic Bavarian
gardens round each house, lay so close to the course of the Danube as it
then ran that there was no possibility of an enemy's force passing between
it and the river. It formed a position easy to be defended, lying as it
did on a slight crest above the brook Nebel, where that brook joined the
main river.
Blenheim, therefore, if it were soundly held, blocked any attempt to turn
the French line upon that side; but if it were carried by the enemy, that
enemy would then be able to enfilade the whole French line, to take it in
flank and to roll it up. Tallard, therefore, with perfect judgment, posted
in the village a very strong force of his infantry. This force consisted
at first of nine battalions, shortly after, by reinforcement, of sixteen
battalions of foot, and further of four regiments of dragoons
_dismounted_.[11]
Not content with throwing into Blenheim between 8000 and 10,000 men,
Tallard placed behind the village and in its neighbourhood a further
reserve of at least eleven battalions. Of his thirty-six battalions,
therefore, only nine remained to support his cavalry over the whole of the
open field between Blenheim and Oberglauheim, a distance of no less than
3500 yards. Consequently, this great gap had to be held in the main by his
insufficient and depleted cavalry. Eight squadrons of these (of the
red-coated sort called the Gendarmerie) formed the first section of this
line, stretching from Blenheim to the neighbourhood of the main road and a
little beyond it. Further along, towards Oberglauheim, another ten
squadrons of cavalry were lined up to fill the rest of the gap. In a
second line were ten more squadrons of cavalry under Silly; and the nine
battalions of infantry remaining, when those in and near Blenheim had been
subtracted, lay also in the second line, in support of the cavalry of the
first line.
Such was Tallard's disposition, of which it was complained both at the
time and afterwards that in putting nearly the whole of his infantry upon
his right in the village of Blenheim and behind it he far too greatly
weakened the great open gap between Blenheim and Oberglauheim. His chief
misfortune was not, however, lack of judgment in this, but the character
of the man who commanded the troops in Blenheim. This general officer,
whose name was Clerambault, was of the sort to be relied upon when orders
are strict and plain in their accomplishment: useless in an emergency; but
it is only an emergency that proves the uselessness of this kind of man.
The army of the Elector and Marcin, which continued the line, similarly
disposed their considerable force of cavalry in front, along the banks of
the stream; their infantry lay, in the main, in support of this line of
horse and behind it; they had also filled Oberglauheim with a mass of
infantry; but the disposition of this left half of the French line is of
less interest to the general reader, for it held its own, and contributed
to the defeat only in this, that it did not at the critical moment send
reinforcements to Tallard upon the right.
In general, then, we must see the long French line set out in two main
bodies. That on the right, under Tallard, had far the greater part of its
infantry within or in support of Blenheim,[12] while the cavalry, for the
most part, stretched out over the open centre of the field, with Silly's
ten squadrons and what was left of the infantry in reserve. That on the
left, under Marcin and the Elector, had its far more numerous cavalry
similarly disposed upon its front along the brook, most of its infantry
behind, and a great number of these holding the village of Oberglauheim,
with cavalry in front of them also. Along the whole line the ninety guns
were disposed in a chain, as I have described.
Such being the disposition of the French troops, let us now turn to that
of the Imperialists and their English and other allies under Eugene and
Marlborough. These appeared within a mile of the French position by seven
in the morning, and all that part of their left which lay between the
river and the highroad was drawn up within long range of the French
artillery somewhat before nine o'clock. But, as a glance at the map will
show, their right had to march much further in order to come into line
along the course of the Nebel, the course of which leans away from the
line of Marlborough's advance. The difficulty of swampy land under the
hills and of woods made the final disposition of the extreme left
particularly tardy and tedious, nor was it fully drawn up until just after
midday. During all the interval of three hours a brisk cannonade at long
range had been proceeding from the guns in front of the French line--and,
as nearly always the case with artillery before the modern quick-firer,
was doing less damage than the gunners imagined.
When the allied line was finally formed its disposition was as follows:--
On the extreme left six columns of infantry, half of which consisted of
British regiments.[13]
These stood immediately opposite the village of Blenheim, and were
designed for that attack upon it which Marlborough, in his first
intention, desired to make the decisive feature of the action.
Next, towards the main road, came four lines, two of infantry before and
behind, and in the midst two parallel lines of cavalry, the foremost of
which was British, and in which could be distinguished the mounting and
horsemanship of the Scots Greys.[14]
Next again, to the north, and astraddle of the great road, lay the main
force; this it will be remarked was drawn up precisely in front of that
part in the long French line which was the weakest, and which indeed
consisted of little more than the ten squadrons of horse which filled the
gap between the Gendarmerie and Oberglauheim. This main force was also
drawn up in four great lines; the first of infantry, the two next of
cavalry, the rear of infantry: it contained no British troops, and, with
the others already mentioned, formed Marlborough's command. All the rest,
along the north and the east, along the left bank of the Nebel, from
Willheim up into the woods, and the gorge at the source of the brook, was
Eugene's command--not a third of the whole.
As to the total strength of the allied forces which we must attempt to
estimate as we estimated that of the Franco-Bavarians, we know it
accurately enough--it was some 52,000 men. The opposing hosts were
therefore little different in numbers. But it is of great importance to
note the disproportion of cavalry. In that of the Imperialists under
Marlborough and Eugene, not only was the cavalry better mounted and free
from the fatigue and disease that had ravaged Tallard's horses, but it was
nearly double in number that of its opponents. On the other hand, the
artillery of the allies was far inferior. Only sixty-six guns at the
most[15] were opposed to the French ninety.
Blenheim, in the issue, turned out to be a cavalry battle--a battle won by
cavalry, and its effect clinched by cavalry. The poor role played by the
guns and the inability of the French to make use of their numerical
superiority in this arm was a characteristic of the time, which had not
yet learnt to use the cannon as a mobile weapon.
* * * * *
A general action is best understood if the reader is first told the main
event, and later observes how the details of its progress fit in with that
chief character of it.
The main event of the battle of Blenheim was simply this:--
Marlborough first thought to carry Blenheim: he failed. Having failed
before the village of Blenheim, he determined to break through Tallard's
left, which formed the centre of the French line, and was successful in
doing so. By thus breaking through the centre of the French line, he
isolated all Tallard's army upon the right, except such small portion of
it as broke and fled from the field. The remainder crowded into the
village of Blenheim, was contained, surrounded, and compelled to
surrender. The undefeated left half of the French line was therefore
compelled to retire, and did so through Lutzingen upon the Danube,
crossing which river in hurried retreat, it fell back upon Ulm. In one
conspectus, the position at the beginning of the action was this:--
[Illustration]
and at the end of it this:--
[Illustration]
Now let us follow the details of the fight which brought about such a
result.
First, at half-past twelve, when all was ready, came Marlborough's attack
upon Blenheim.
We have seen some pages back how well advised was Tallard to treat
Blenheim as the key of his position, and how thoroughly that large
village, once properly furnished with troops and fortified with palisades,
would guarantee his right. On that very account, Marlborough was
determined to storm it; for if it fell, there would instantly follow upon
its fall a complete victory. The whole French line would be turned.
It may be argued that Marlborough here attempted the impossible, but it
must be remembered, in the first place, that he was by temperament a man
of the offensive and of great risks. His first outstanding action, that of
the Schellenberg, proved this, and proved it in his favour. Five years
later, in one of his last actions, that of Malplaquet, this characteristic
of his was to appear in his disfavour. At any rate, risk was in the
temperament of the man, and it is a temperament which in warfare accounts
for the greatest things.
First and last, some 10,000 men were employed against the one point of
Blenheim; and the assault upon the village, though a failure, forms one of
the noblest chapters in the history of British arms.
It was one o'clock of the afternoon when the serious part of the action
opened by the two first lines of Marlborough's extreme left advancing
under Lord Cutts to pass the Nebel, to cross the pasture beyond, and to
force the palisades of the village. The movement across the stream was
undertaken under a fire of grape from four guns posted upon a slight rise
outside the village. Cutts' body crossed the brook in face of this
opposition, re-formed under the bank beyond, left their Hessian contingent
in shelter there as a reserve, while the British, who were the remainder
of the body, advanced against the palisades.
The distance is one of about 150 yards. The Guards and the four regiments
with them[16] came up through the long grass of the aftermath, Row at
their head. Two-thirds of that short distance was passed in silence. The
guns upon the slope beyond could not fire at a mark so close to their own
troops behind the palisades. The English had orders not to waste a shot
until they had carried the line of those palisades with the bayonet. The
French behind the palisades reserved their fire.
It was one of those moments which the eighteenth century, with its
amazingly disciplined professional armies, alone can furnish in all the
history of war, an episode of which the Guards at Fontenoy were, a
generation later, to afford the supreme example, and one depending on that
perfection of restraint for which the English service was deservedly
renowned. When a distance but a yard or two longer than a cricket pitch
separated the advancing English from the palisades, the French volley
crashed out. One man in three of the advancing line fell agonised or dead.
The British regiments, still obedient to Row's instructions, reserved
their fire until their leader touched the woodwork with his sword. Then
they volleyed, and having fired, wrestled with the palisades as though to
drag them down by sheer force. Perhaps some few parties here and there
pressed in through a gap, but as the English soldiers struggled thus,
gripped and checked by the obstacle, the French fire poured in again was
deadly; the British assault was broken, and fled in disorder over the
little field to the watercourse. As it fled, the Gendarmerie charged it in
flank, captured the colours of the 21st, were repelled again by the
Hessians in reserve (who recaptured the flag), and the first fierce moment
of the battle was over.
One-third of Cutts' command had been concerned in this first failure
against Blenheim village. Two-thirds remained to turn that failure into a
success. But before this second two-thirds was launched, there took place
an episode in the battle, not conspicuously noted at the time, and given a
minor importance in all accounts save Tallard's own. It was significant in
the extreme.
As Cutts' broken first line was passing out of range and was effecting its
retirement after the first disorder, and after the Hessians had repelled
the first and partial cavalry charge of the French, the Gendarmerie, eight
squadrons strong, prepared to charge again as a whole. They came upon the
English before these had regained safety. Cutts naturally begged for
cavalry to meet this cavalry danger, and Lumley sent five British
squadrons to cross the stream and check the French charge. The English
horse came to the further bank after some little difficulty with the mud
of the sluggish stream, which difficulty has been exaggerated, and in no
way affected the significance of what followed.[17]
For what followed was the singular sight of eight French squadrons
charging down a slope against only five, those five cramped in the hollow
near a stream bed, and yet succeeding in receiving the shock of the
charge of numbers so greatly superior, and, so far from yielding, breaking
the offensive of their opponents into a confusion.
I repeat, it was but an episode, one that took place early in the day, and
apparently of no weight. But, in a general historical view of the battle,
it is of the first importance, for it showed what different stuff the
opposed cavalries were made of, and that the allied army, which was
already numerically the superior in cavalry--nearly double its
opponents--had also better mounts, better riders, and a better discipline
in that arm. A universal observer, seeing this one early detail in the
battle of Blenheim, might have prophesied that the action would be a
cavalry action as a whole, and that the cavalry of Marlborough would
decide it.
I left Cutts prepared to launch the remaining two-thirds of his force at
Blenheim village, in the hope of accomplishing what the first third had
failed to do.
The whole combined body which the French had estimated at 10,000 men, and
which seems to have been at least of some 8000, surged up in the second
attempt against the palisades of the village. Part of that line and many
of the outer gardens were carried, but the attack could not be driven
home. It was, perhaps, at this moment that Tallard sent in those extra men
which raised the French battalions in Blenheim from nine to sixteen, and
gave the defenders, behind their walls, a force equal to the attackers. At
any rate, the main attack was thrust back as the first had been, and the
great corps of men, huddled, confused, rallied here and there as best they
could be, broke from before the village.
The loss was terrible, and Marlborough having failed, not only failed, but
saw that he had failed. It was his salvation. His subordinates would have
returned to the fruitless attack with troops already shaken and dreading
the ground. Marlborough ordered a false attack to be kept up from the
further bank, upon the village, and, with that elasticity of command which
is the prime factor of tactical success, and which commonly distinguishes
youth rather than middle age in a general, turned all his efforts upon the
centre.[18]
Here the main road crosses the Nebel by a stone bridge. Four other bridges
had been thrown across at other points between this stone bridge and
Unterglauheim. By these the infantry were crossing, which infantry, it
will be remembered (and my frontispiece shows it), stood as to their first
line in front of the cavalry in the main central body. This almost
undisputed passage of the Nebel would not have been possible had not the
distance between Blenheim and Oberglauheim been what it was. The gap was
great, the French line defending it too thin, and the possibility of a
cross fire defending the centre was eliminated by the width of that
centre.
Even as it was, the passage of the Nebel led to one very difficult moment
which might by accident or genius have turned the whole action in favour
of the French; and in connection with this episode it must be remembered
that the French commanders asserted that the passage of the Nebel was no
success on the part of their enemy, but was deliberately permitted to that
enemy in order that he might be overwhelmed upon the opposing slope, with
the marshy stream behind him, when the time for a counter-attack should
come.
The moment came when the greater part of Marlborough's cavalry had
crossed, but before they had fully formed upon the further bank. While
they were still in the disorder of forming, the French cavalry upon their
left--that is, between the main road and Blenheim--charged down the
slight slope, and something like a dismemberment of the whole of
Marlborough's mounted line began. It was checked for a moment by the fire
of the British infantry, during which check Marlborough brought over
certain Danish and Hanoverian squadrons which had remained upon the
further bank. But the French charged again, and though infantry of
Marlborough's which was pouring over the stream up beyond the stone bridge
came up in time to prevent a complete break down, the moment was critical
in the extreme. All Marlborough's centre was pressed and shaken; a further
spurt against it and it would break.
It was such a moment as commanders of rapid decision and quick eye have
always seized; and if it be asked how Tallard should have seized it, the
answer is that there were French guns to mass, there was French infantry
in Blenheim unused, and more in reserve behind Blenheim wholly useless.
There were the ten squadrons of Tallard's second line of cavalry under
Silly, a couple of hundred yards away, to be summoned in a few moments.
Rapid decision and keen sight of this sort would have done the business;
but Tallard was slow of perception; an excellent strategist, but
short-sighted and a great gentleman; one, moreover, who had advanced by
favour rather than by intrigue. He lost the moment.
Marlborough's cavalry managed to form, struggling beyond the brook, and
the last final phase of the action was at hand--for Marlborough's cavalry
would reiterate that general lesson which the whole battle teaches, to
wit, that the horse of the allies was not only far stronger numerically,
but far better trained than the French cavalry before them, and, with
equal chances, must destroy it. Tallard, by missing his moment, had
permitted those equal chances to be restored. Even so, yet one other last
accident favoured the French. The hour was about five, or rather later in
the mid-afternoon. In order to be able to form his cavalry beyond the
Nebel, Marlborough wanted to have a clear right flank, and with that
object he had launched from 6000 to 7000 Hanoverians against Oberglauheim.
The excellent infantry of Blainville, less in numbers, emerged from the
village, threw the Hanoverians into gross disorder, and captured their
commander. At this point there was beginning to be a rout. This new French
success, properly followed up, would again have had a chance to break the
allied centre at its weakest point, just at the link where Marlborough
joined on to Eugene.
Marcin, inferior as was his command, gripped the opportunity, sent cavalry
at once to Oberglauheim, and that cavalry charged. But here the greatness
of Marlborough as a personal commander suddenly appeared. He seized the
whole character of the moment in a way that Tallard on his first chance
had wholly failed to do. He put himself in person at the head of the
Danish brigade that lay in reserve, brought it across the rivulet, and
came just in time to take the charge of the French cavalry. Even as that
charge was preparing, Marlborough sent to Eugene for cavalry at the
gallop. He (Marlborough) must hold fast with his Danes against the French
horse--five minutes, ten, fifteen at the most--till help should come from
the right.
Here, again, another factor in the success of the day appeared--that
Eugene and Marlborough understood each other.
Eugene had just suffered a sharp check upon the extreme right; he was
re-forming for a new attack when he got Marlborough's message. Without the
loss of a moment in weighing his own immediate necessities, he sent Fugger
thundering off, and Fugger, with the imperial cuirassiers, came galloping
full speed upon Marlborough's right flank just as the French charge was at
its hardest pressure upon the Danish line. He took that French charge in
flank, broke its impetus, permitted the Danish infantry to hold their own,
and so compelled the French horse to fall back; within a quarter of an
hour from its inception the peril of a breach in Marlborough and Eugene's
centre was thus dissolved.
Here, then, is yet another incident in the battle, which shows not only on
which side rapidity of perception lay, but also on which side lay sympathy
between commanders, and, most important of all, the discipline and
material eminence of the dominating arm.
It was now nearly six o'clock, and the August sun was red and low in the
face of the English General. The French line still stood intact before
him.
Marlborough's first great effort against Blenheim had disastrously failed
all during the earlier afternoon; he had but just escaped a terrible
danger, and had but barely been saved, by Eugene's promptitude in
reinforcement, from seeing his line cut in two. Nevertheless, he was the
master of the little daylight that remained. His cavalry, and indeed
nearly all his troops, were now formed beyond the Nebel; he had the mass
of his forces now all gathered opposite the weakest part of the French
line. It was his business to pierce that line and to conquer.
As he advanced upon it, the French infantry, then stationed over the long
evening shadows of the slope, though there deplorably few in numbers, met
his advance by so accurate a fire that his own line for a moment yielded.
Even then the day might have been retrieved if the French cavalry under
Tallard's command had been capable of a charge. To charge--if we may trust
the commander's record--they received a clear order. As a point of fact,
charge they did not. A failure to comprehend, a tardy delivery of the
dispatch, fatigue, or error was to blame--we have no grounds on which to
base a decision. There was a discharge of musketry from the saddle, an
abortive attempt to go forward, which in a few minutes was no more an
attempt but a complete failure, and in a few more minutes not a failure
but a rout. The words of Tallard himself, who saw that almost incredible
thing, and who writes as an eye-witness, are sufficiently poignant. They
are these:--
"I saw one instant in which the battle was won if the cavalry had not
turned and abandoned the Line."
What happened was that the incipient, doubtful, and confused French charge
had broken before a vigorous and united counter-charge of Marlborough's
cavalry: the French horse backed, turned, bunched, fell into a panic; and
when the mass of their cavalry had fled in that panic, the French centre,
that is, the thin line of infantry still standing there, were ridden
through and destroyed.
They lay in heaps of dead or wounded, cut down with the sword, for the
most part unbroken in formation, their feet eastward whence the charge had
come, and their faces to the sky. Over and beyond those corpses rode the
full weight of Marlborough's cavalry, right through Tallard's left, which
was the centre of the French line, while Tallard vainly called for troops
to come out of Blenheim and check the fury, and as vainly sent for
reinforcements to come from Marcin on the left, which should try and dam
the flood that was now pouring through the bulwark of his ranks. On the
left, Marcin heard too late. As to the messenger to Blenheim on the right
he was taken prisoner; Tallard himself, hastening to that village, was
taken prisoner in turn.
What followed, at once something inevitable and picturesque, must not be
too extended in description for the purpose of a purely military recital.
The centre being pierced, while the left under Marcin and the Elector
still held its own against Eugene, the right, that is, the huddled
battalions--now twenty-seven--within Blenheim village, and the four
mounted regiments of dragoons therein, were the necessary victims of the
victory. The piercing of the centre had cut them off from all aid. They
were surrounded and summoned to surrender.
Clerambault, their commander, had already drowned himself in despair, or
had been drowned in a deplorable attempt at flight--at any rate, was dead.
Blausac, an honest man, the second in command, refused to surrender.
British cavalry rode round to prevent all egress from the village upon its
western side. Churchill brought up the mass of Marlborough's infantry.
Upon the side towards the Danube the churchyard was stormed and held.
Still Blausac would not ask for terms.
It looked for a moment, under the setting sun of that fatal day, as though
the 11,000 thus isolated within the streets of Blenheim would be massacred
for mere glory, for Blausac was still obstinate. A subordinate officer,
who saw that all was lost, harangued the troops into surrender, and the
last business of the great battle was over.
[Illustration: Plate II. _The Battle of Blenheim._
_To face page 143._]
As darkness gathered, the undefeated left under Marcin and the
Elector--the half now alone surviving out of the whole host, the other
half or limb being quite destroyed or surrendered--retreated with such few
prisoners and such few colours as they had taken. They retreated hastily
with all their train and their artillery, abandoning their camp, of
course, and all through the night poured towards the Danube and built
their bridges across the stream.
Darkness checked the pursuit. Some few remnants of Tallard's escaped to
join the retreat. The rest were prisoners or dead.
Of the fifty odd thousand men and ninety guns that had marshalled twelve
hours before along the bank of the Nebel, 12,000 men had fallen, 11,000
had surrendered, and one-third of the pieces were in the hands of the
enemy.
The political consequences of this great day were more considerable by far
than was even its character of a military success. It was the first great
defeat which marked the turn of the tide against Louis XIV. It was the
first great victory which stamped upon the conscience of Europe the genius
of Marlborough. It wholly destroyed all those plans, of which the last
two years had been full, for an advance upon Vienna by the French and
Bavarian forces. It utterly cleared the valley of the Danube; it began to
throw the Bourbons upon the defensive at last. It crushed the hopes of the
Hungarian insurrection. It opened that series of successes which we couple
with the names of Marlborough and Eugene, and which were not to be checked
until, five years later, the French defence recovered its stubbornness at
Malplaquet.
FINIS
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Footnotes:
[1] It was this success which to Marlborough's existing earldom added the
high dignity of Duke, by letters patent of December 16, 1702.
[2] As the French dispatch goes, 7500 men, every horse, and all the
waggons, save 120, which had got into difficulties on the way; Fortescue's
note suggesting that 1500 men only reached the Franco-Bavarians (vol. i.
p. 42) is based on Quincy.
[3] It is, of course, an error to say, as is too often done in our school
histories and the official accounts of our universities, that the French
commanders had no idea of a march upon the Danube. A child could have seen
that the march upon the Danube was one of the possible plans open to
Marlborough, and Villeroy expressly mentions the alternative in his letter
of the 30th of May. The whole point of Marlborough's manoeuvres was to
leave the enemy in doubt until the very last moment as to which of the
three, the Danube, the Moselle, or Alsace, he would strike at; and to be
well away upon the road to the former before the French had discovered his
final decision.
[4] It is worthy of remark that the opportunity for victory which the weak
forces under Marcin and the Elector of Bavaria offered at this moment to
the superior forces of the allies would have led to an immediate attack of
the last upon the first when, two generations later, war had developed
into something more sudden and less formal, through the efforts of the
Revolution.
Marlborough and the Duke of Baden, with their superior forces, would have
attacked Marcin and the Elector had they been their own grandsons.
Napoleon, finding himself in such a situation as Marlborough's a hundred
years later, would certainly have fallen on the insufficient forces to his
south, for it was known that reinforcements were coming over the Black
Forest to save the Franco-Bavarian forces. To break up those forces before
reinforcement should come was something which a sudden change of plan
could have effected, but not even the genius of Marlborough was prepared,
in his generation, for a movement necessitating so great a disturbance of
calculations previously made. Donauwoerth was his objective, and upon
Donauwoerth he marched, leaving intact this inferior hostile force which
watched his advance from the south.
[5] As a fact, the advance along this "isthmus" on to the Schellenberg is
slightly downhill, and against artillery of modern range and power the
Schellenberg could not be held.
[6] Of seventeen officers of the Guards, twelve were hit; of the total
British force at least a third fell; more than a third of these, again,
were killed.
[7] The railway from Ulm to Donauwoerth follows the line of this road
exactly, and is almost the only modern feature upon the field.
[8] Mr Fortescue (vol. i. p. 436) writes as though this were not the case.
He has overlooked Tallard's letter to the minister of war of the 4th of
September.
[9] A small body was left at Unterglauheim, but withdrawn as the allies
advanced; and outposts lay, of course, upon the line of Marlborough's
advance, and fell back before it.
[10] Mr Fortescue gives the total force of cavalry under Marcin and the
Elector at one hundred and eight squadrons and the infantry at forty-six
battalions. The French official record gives forty-two battalions (not
forty-six) and eighty-three squadrons in the place of one hundred and
eight. Mr Fortescue gives no authority for his larger numbers; and, on the
general principle that, in a contested action, each force knows best about
its own organisation, I have followed these official records of the French
as the most trustworthy.
[11] It is essential to note this point. Mr Fortescue talks of the
dragoons "trotting" to "seal up the space between the village and the
Danube." If they trotted it was as men trot in their boots, for they were
on foot. The incident sufficiently proves the ravages which disease
accompanying an insufficiently provided march had worked in Tallard's
cavalry.
[12] Nearly all the English authorities and many of the French authorities
speak of the whole twenty-seven battalions out of Tallard's thirty-six as
being in Blenheim from the beginning of the action, and Mr Fortescue adds
the picturesque, but erroneous, touch that "Marlborough" (before the
action) "had probably counted every one of the twenty-seven battalions
into it" (Blenheim).
This error is due to the fact that at the close of the battle there
actually were twenty-seven battalions within the village, but they were
not there at the beginning of the action; and Marlborough cannot,
therefore, have "counted" them going in. The numbers, as I have said, were
first nine battalions, with four regiments of dismounted dragoons; then, a
little later, another seven, making sixteen; then, _much later_, and when
the French were hard pressed, yet another _eleven_, lying as a reserve
_behind_ Blenheim, were called into the village by the incompetence of
Clerambault who commanded in Blenheim. He should have sent them to help
the centre--as will be seen in the sequel.
[13] 1st battalion Royal Scots; 1st battalion First Guards; 8th, 20th,
16th, 24th, and 10th Foot; 3rd battalion 23rd Royal Welsh, 21st Royal
Scots Fusiliers.
[14] From one to three squadrons each of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 17th
Dragoon Guards, 5th Royal Irish Dragoons, and a squadron of the Scots
Greys.
[15] This is the number given by Eugene. Fortescue (p. 436) and most
English authorities give fifty-two.
[16] The 10th, 21st, 23rd, and 24th.
[17] For some reason or other, the exaggeration of this feature--the
marshiness of the banks of the Nebel--mars many an English account of the
action. The Nebel, of course, was something of an obstacle, slight as it
was, and in places the meadows on its bank widen out and are soft even in
the dry weather which had as a whole distinguished the three weeks before
Blenheim. But the crossing of that obstacle by the cavalry was nothing in
the story of the battle. It was what the cavalry did _after they crossed_
that counted.
[18] Marlborough was at this moment fifty-four years and two months old.
Transcriber's Note: Spelling variations are presented as in the original.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Battle of Blenheim, by Hilaire Belloc