arms on the Rhine and in Bavaria, and he saw the futility of carrying on a
war of posts and sieges in Flanders, while death-blows to the empire were
being dealt on the Danube. He resolved, therefore, to let the war in
Flanders languish for a year, while he moved with all the disposable forces
that he could collect to the central scenes of decisive operations. Such a
march was in itself difficult; but Marlborough had, in the first instance,
to overcome the still greater difficulty of obtaining the consent and
cheerful cooperation of the allies, especially of the Dutch, whose frontier
it was proposed thus to deprive of the larger part of the force which had
hitherto been its protection.
Fortunately, among the many slothful, the many foolish, the many timid,
and the not few treacherous rulers, statesmen, and generals of different
nations with whom he had to deal, there were two men, eminent both in
ability and integrity, who entered fully into Marlborough's projects and
who, from the stations which they occupied, were enabled materially to
forward them. One of these was the Dutch statesman Heinsius, who had been
the cordial supporter of King William, and who now, with equal zeal and
good faith, supported Marlborough in the councils of the allies; the other
was the celebrated general, Prince Eugene, whom the Austrian cabinet had
recalled from the Italian frontier to take the command of one of the
Emperor's armies in Germany. To these two great men, and a few more,
Marlborough communicated his plan freely and unreservedly; but to the
general councils of his allies he only disclosed part of his daring scheme.
He proposed to the Dutch that he should march from Flanders to the
Upper Rhine and Moselle with the British troops and part of the foreign
auxiliaries, and commence vigorous operations against the French armies in
that quarter, while General Auverquerque, with the Dutch and the remainder
of the auxiliaries, maintained a defensive war in the Netherlands. Having
with difficulty obtained the consent of the Dutch to this portion of his
project, he exercised the same diplomatic zeal, with the same success, in
urging the King of Prussia and other princes of the empire to increase
the number of the troops which they supplied, and to post them in places
convenient for his own intended movements.
Marlborough commenced his celebrated march on May 10th. The army which
he was to lead had been assembled by his brother, General Churchill,
at Bedburg, not far from Maestricht, on the Meuse; it included sixteen
thousand English troops, and consisted of fifty-one battalions of foot, and
ninety-two squadrons of horse. Marlborough was to collect and join with him
on his march the troops of Prussia, Luneburg, and Hesse, quartered on the
Rhine, and eleven Dutch battalions that were stationed at Rothweil. He had
only marched a single day when the series of interruptions, complaints, and
requisitions from the other leaders of the allies began, to which he seemed
subjected throughout his enterprise, and which would have caused its
failure in the hands of anyone not gifted with the firmness and the
exquisite temper of Marlborough.
One specimen of these annoyances and of Marlborough's mode of dealing with
them may suffice. On his encamping at Kupen on the 20th, he received an
express from Auverquerque pressing him to halt, because Villeroy, who
commanded the French army in Flanders, had quitted the lines which he had
been occupying, and crossed the Meuse at Namur with thirty-six battalions
and forty-five squadrons, and was threatening the town of Huy. At the same
time Marlborough received letters from the Margrave of Baden and Count
Wratislaw, who commanded the Imperialist forces at Stollhoffen, near the
left bank of the Rhine, stating that Tallard had made a movement, as if
intending to cross the Rhine, and urging him to hasten his march toward the
lines of Stollhoffen. Marlborough was not diverted by these applications
from the prosecution of his grand design.
Conscious that the army of Villeroy would be too much reduced to undertake
offensive operations, by the detachments which had already been made toward
the Rhine, and those which must follow his own march, he halted only a
day to quiet the alarms of Auverquerque. To satisfy also the Margrave, he
ordered the troops of Hompesch and Buelow to draw toward Philippsburg,
though with private injunctions not to proceed beyond a certain distance.
He even exacted a promise to the same effect from Count Wratislaw, who at
this juncture arrived at the camp to attend him during the whole campaign.
Marlborough reached the Rhine at Coblenz, where he crossed that river, and
then marched along its left bank to Broubach and Mainz. His march,
though rapid, was admirably conducted, so as to save the troops from all
unnecessary fatigue; ample supplies of provisions were ready, and the most
perfect discipline was maintained. By degrees Marlborough obtained more
reinforcements from the Dutch and the other confederates, and he also was
left more at liberty by them to follow his own course. Indeed, before
even a blow was struck, his enterprise had paralyzed the enemy and had
materially relieved Austria from the pressure of the war. Villeroy, with
his detachments from the French Flemish army, was completely bewildered
by Marlborough's movements, and, unable to divine where it was that the
English general meant to strike his blow, wasted away the early part of the
summer between Flanders and the Moselle without effecting anything.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Marshal Villeroy," says Voltaire, "who had wished to follow
Marlborough on his first marches, suddenly lost sight of him altogether,
and only learned where he really was on hearing of his victory at
Donawert."]
Marshal Tallard, who commanded forty-five thousand French at Strasburg, and
who had been destined by Louis to march early in the year into Bavaria,
thought that Marlborough's march along the Rhine was preliminary to an
attack upon Alsace; and the marshal therefore kept his forty-five thousand
men back in order to protect France in that quarter. Marlborough skilfully
encouraged his apprehensions by causing a bridge to be constructed across
the Rhine at Philippsburg, and by making the Landgrave of Hesse advance his
artillery at Mannheim, as if for a siege of Landau.
Meanwhile the Elector of Bavaria and Marshal Marsin, suspecting that
Marlborough's design might be what it really proved to be, forbore to press
upon the Austrians opposed to them or to send troops into Hungary; and they
kept back so as to secure their communications with France. Thus, when
Marlborough, at the beginning of June, left the Rhine and marched for the
Danube, the numerous hostile armies were uncombined and unable to check
him.
"With such skill and science," says Coxe, "had this enterprise been
concerted that at the very moment when it assumed a specific direction the
enemy was no longer enabled to render it abortive. As the march was now to
be bent toward the Danube, notice was given for the Prussians, Palatines,
and Hessians, who were stationed on the Rhine, to order their march so as
to join the main body in its progress. At the same time directions were
sent to accelerate the advance of the Danish auxiliaries, who were marching
from the Netherlands."
Crossing the river Neckar, Marlborough marched in a southeastern direction
to Mundelshene, where he had his first personal interview with Prince
Eugene, who was destined to be his colleague on so many glorious fields.
Thence, through a difficult and dangerous country, Marlborough continued
his march against the Bavarians, whom he encountered on July 2d on the
heights of the Schullenberg, near Donauwoerth. Marlborough stormed their
intrenched camp, crossed the Danube, took several strong places in Bavaria,
and made himself completely master of the Elector's dominions except the
fortified cities of Munich and Augsburg. But the Elector's army, though
defeated at Donauwoerth, was still numerous and strong; and at last Marshal
Tallard, when thoroughly apprised of the real nature of Marlborough's
movements, crossed the Rhine; and being suffered, through the supineness of
the German general at Stollhoffen, to march without loss through the Black
Forest, he united his powerful army at Biberach, near Augsburg, with
that of the Elector and the French troops under Marshal Marsin, who had
previously been cooperating with the Bavarians.
On the other hand, Marlborough recrossed the Danube, and on August 11th
united his army with the Imperialist forces under Prince Eugene. The
combined armies occupied a position near Hoechstaedt,[1] a little higher up
the left bank of the Danube than Donauwoerth, the scene of Marlborough's
recent victory, and almost exactly on the ground where Marshal Villars and
the Elector had defeated an Austrian army in the preceding year. The French
marshals and the Elector were now in position a little further to the east,
between Blenheim and Lützingen, and with the little stream of the Nebel
between them and the troops of Marlborough and Eugene. The Gallo-Bavarian
army consisted of about sixty thousand men, and they had sixty-one pieces
of artillery. The army of the allies was about fifty-six thousand strong,
with fifty-two guns.
[Footnote 1: The Battle of Blenheim is called by the Germans and the French
the battle of Hoechstaedt.--ED.]
Although the French army of Italy had been unable to penetrate into
Austria, and although the masterly strategy of Marlborough had hitherto
warded off the destruction with which the cause of the allies seemed
menaced at the beginning of the campaign, the peril was still most serious.
It was absolutely necessary for Marlborough to attack the enemy before
Villeroy should be roused into action. There was nothing to stop that
general and his army from marching into Franconia, whence the allies drew
their principal supplies; and besides thus distressing them, he might, by
marching on and joining his army to those of Tallard and the Elector, form
a mass which would overwhelm the force under Marlborough and Eugene. On
the other hand, the chances of a battle seemed perilous, and the fatal
consequences of a defeat were certain. The disadvantage of the allies in
point of number was not very great, but still it was not to be disregarded;
and the advantage which the enemy seemed to have in the composition of
their troops was striking.
Tallard and Marsin had forty-five thousand Frenchmen under them, all
veterans and all trained to act together; the Elector's own troops also
were good soldiers. Marlborough, like Wellington at Waterloo, headed an
army of which the larger proportion consisted, not of English, but of men
of many different nations and many different languages. He was also obliged
to be the assailant in the action, and thus to expose his troops to
comparatively heavy loss at the commencement of the battle, while the enemy
would fight under the protection of the villages and lines which they were
actively engaged in strengthening. The consequences of a defeat of the
confederated army must have broken up the Grand Alliance, and realized
the proudest hopes of the French King. Alison, in his admirable military
history of the Duke of Marlborough, has truly stated the effects which
would have taken place if France had been successful in the war; and when
the position of the confederates at the time when Blenheim was fought is
remembered--when we recollect the exhaustion of Austria, the menacing
insurrection of Hungary, the feuds and jealousies of the German princes,
the strength and activity of the Jacobite party in England, and the
imbecility of nearly all the Dutch statesmen of the time, and the weakness
of Holland if deprived of her allies--we may adopt his words in speculating
on what would have ensued if France had been victorious in the battle,
and "if a power, animated by the ambition, guided by the fanaticism, and
directed by the ability of that of Louis XIV, had gained the ascendency in
Europe.
"Beyond all question, a universal despotic dominion would have been
established over the bodies, a cruel spiritual thraldom over the minds, of
men. France and Spain, united under Bourbon princes and in a close family
alliance--the empire of Charlemagne with that of Charles V--the power
which revoked the Edict of Nantes and perpetrated the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, with that which banished the Moriscoes and established
the Inquisition, would have proved irresistible, and, beyond example,
destructive to the best interests of mankind.
"The Protestants might have been driven, like the pagan heathens of old by
the son of Pépin, beyond the Elbe; the Stuart race, and with them Romish
ascendency, might have been reestablished in England; the fire lighted by
Latimer and Ridley might have been extinguished in blood; and the energy
breathed by religious freedom into the Anglo-Saxon race might have expired.
The destinies of the world would have been changed. Europe, instead of a
variety of independent states, whose mutual hostility kept alive courage,
while their national rivalry stimulated talent, would have sunk into the
slumber attendant on universal dominion. The colonial empire of England
would have withered away and perished, as that of Spain has done in the
grasp of the Inquisition. The Anglo-Saxon race would have been arrested
in its mission to overspread the earth and subdue it. The centralized
despotism of the Roman Empire would have been renewed on Continental
Europe; the chains of Romish tyranny, and with them the general infidelity
of France before the Revolution, would have extinguished or perverted
thought in the British Islands."
Marlborough's words at the council of war, when a battle was resolved on,
are remarkable, and they deserve recording. We know them on the authority
of his chaplain, Mr. (afterward Bishop) Hare, who accompanied him
throughout the campaign, and in whose journal the biographers of
Marlborough have found many of their best materials. Marlborough's words to
the officers who remonstrated with him on the seeming temerity of attacking
the enemy in their position were: "I know the danger, yet a battle is
absolutely necessary, and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the
troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages." In the evening
orders were issued for a general engagement, and were received by the army
with an alacrity which justified his confidence.
The French and Bavarians were posted behind the little stream called the
Nebel, which runs almost from north to south into the Danube immediately in
front of the village of Blenheim. The Nebel flows along a little valley,
and the French occupied the rising ground to the west of it. The village
of Blenheim was the extreme right of their position, and the village of
Luetzingen, about three miles north of Blenheim, formed their left. Beyond
Luetzingen are the rugged high grounds of the Godd Berg and Eich Berg,
on the skirts of which some detachments were posted, so as to secure the
Gallo-Bavarian position from being turned on the left flank. The Danube
secured their right flank; and it was only in front that they could be
attacked. The villages of Blenheim and Luetzingen had been strongly
palisaded and intrenched; Marshal Tallard, who held the chief command, took
his station at Blenheim; the Elector and Marshal Marsin commanded on the
left.
Tallard garrisoned Blenheim with twenty-six battalions of French infantry
and twelve squadrons of French cavalry. Marsin and the Elector had
twenty-two battalions of infantry and thirty-six squadrons of cavalry in
front of the village of Luetzingen. The centre was occupied by fourteen
battalions of infantry, including the celebrated Irish brigade. These were
posted in the little hamlet of Oberglau, which lies somewhat nearer
to Luetzingen than to Blenheim. Eighty squadrons of cavalry and seven
battalions of foot were ranged between Oberglau and Blenheim. Thus the
French position was very strong at each extremity, but was comparatively
weak in the centre. Tallard seems to have relied on the swampy state of
the part of the valley that reaches from below Oberglau to Blenheim for
preventing any serious attack on this part of his line.
The army of the allies was formed into two great divisions, the largest
being commanded by the Duke in person, and being destined to act against
Tallard, while Prince Eugene led the other division, which consisted
chiefly of cavalry, and was intended to oppose the enemy under Marsin and
the Elector. As they approached the enemy, Marlborough's troops formed the
left and the centre, while Eugene's formed the right of the entire army.
Early in the morning of August 13th the allies left their own camp and
marched toward the enemy. A thick haze covered the ground, and it was not
until the allied right and centre had advanced nearly within cannon-shot
of the enemy that Tallard was aware of their approach. He made his
preparations with what haste he could, and about eight o'clock a heavy fire
of artillery was opened from the French right on the advancing left wing of
the British. Marlborough ordered up some of his batteries to reply to
it, and while the columns that were to form the allied left and centre
deployed, and took up their proper stations in the line, a warm cannonade
was kept up by the guns on both sides.
The ground which Eugene's columns Jiad to traverse was peculiarly
difficult, especially for the passage of the artillery, and it was nearly
mid-day before he could get his troops into line opposite to Luetzingen.
During this interval Marlborough ordered divine service to be performed by
the chaplains at the head of each regiment, and then rode along the
lines, and found both officers and men in the highest spirits and waiting
impatiently for the signal for the attack. At length an aide-de-camp
galloped up from the right with the welcome news that Eugene was ready.
Marlborough instantly sent Lord Cutts, with a strong brigade of infantry to
assault the village of Blenheim, while he himself led the main body down
the eastward slope of the valley of the Nebel, and prepared to effect the
passage of the stream.
The assault on Blenheim, though bravely made, was repulsed with severe
loss, and Marlborough, finding how strongly that village was garrisoned,
desisted from any further attempts to carry it, and bent all his energies
to breaking the enemy's line between Blenheim and Oberglau. Some temporary
bridges had been prepared, and planks and fascines had been collected; and
by the aid of these, and a little stone bridge which crossed the Nebel
near a hamlet called Unterglau, that lay in the centre of the valley,
Marlborough succeeded in getting several squadrons across the Nebel, though
it was divided into several branches, and the ground between them was soft,
and, in places, little better than a mere marsh.
But the French artillery was not idle. The cannon-balls plunged incessantly
among the advancing squadrons of the allies, and bodies of French cavalry
rode frequently down from the western ridge, to charge them before they had
time to form on the firm ground. It was only by supporting his men by fresh
troops, and by bringing up infantry, who checked the advance of the enemy's
horse by their steady fire, that Marlborough was able to save his army in
this quarter from a repulse, which, succeeding the failure of the attack
upon Blenheim, would probably have been fatal to the allies. By degrees,
his cavalry struggled over the bloodstained streams; the infantry were
also now brought across, so as to keep in check the French troops who held
Blenheim, and who, when no longer assailed in front, had begun to attack
the allies on their left with considerable effect.
Marlborough had thus at length succeeded in drawing up the whole left wing
of his army beyond the Nebel, and was about to press forward with it, when
he was called away to another part of the field by a disaster that
had befallen his centre. The Prince of Holstein Beck had, with eleven
Hanoverian battalions, passed the Nebel opposite to Oberglau, when he was
charged and utterly routed by the Irish brigade which held that village.
The Irish drove the Hanoverians back with heavy slaughter, broke completely
through the line of the allies, and nearly achieved a success as brilliant
as that which the same brigade afterward gained at Fontenoy.
But at Blenheim their ardor in pursuit led them too far. Marlborough came
up in person, and dashed in upon the exposed flank of the brigade with some
squadrons of British cavalry. The Irish reeled back, and as they strove to
regain the height of Oberglau their column was raked through and through by
the fire of three battalions of the allies, which Marlborough had summoned
up from the reserve. Marlborough having reestablished the order and
communications of the allies in this quarter, now, as he returned to his
own left wing, sent to learn how his colleague fared against Marsin and the
Elector, and to inform Eugene of his own success.
Eugene had hitherto not been equally fortunate. He had made three attacks
on the enemy opposed to him, and had been thrice driven back. It was only
by his own desperate personal exertions, and the remarkable steadiness of
the regiments of Prussian infantry, which were under him, that he was able
to save his wing from being totally defeated. But it was on the southern
part of the battle-field, on the ground which Marlborough had won beyond
the Nebel with such difficulty, that the crisis of the battle was to be
decided.
Like Hannibal, Marlborough relied principally on his cavalry for achieving
his decisive successes, and it was by his cavalry that Blenheim, the
greatest of his victories, was won. The battle had lasted till five in the
afternoon. Marlborough had now eight thousand horsemen drawn up in two
lines, and in the most perfect order for a general attack on the enemy's
line along the space between Blenheim and Oberglau. The infantry was drawn
up in battalions in their rear, so as to support them if repulsed, and
to keep in check the large masses of the French that still occupied the
village of Blenheim. Tallard now interlaced his squadrons of cavalry with
battalions of infantry, and Marlborough, by a corresponding movement,
brought several regiments of infantry and some pieces of artillery to his
front line at intervals between the bodies of horse.
A little after five Marlborough commenced the decisive movement, and the
allied cavalry, strengthened and supported by foot and guns, advanced
slowly from the lower ground near the Nebel up the slope to where the
French cavalry, ten thousand strong, awaited them. On riding over the
summit of the acclivity, the allies were received with so hot a fire from
the French artillery and small arms that at first the cavalry recoiled, but
without abandoning the high ground. The guns and the infantry which they
had brought with them maintained the contest with spirit and effect. The
French fire seemed to slacken. Marlborough instantly ordered a charge along
the line. The allied cavalry galloped forward at the enemy's squadrons, and
the hearts of the French horsemen failed them. Discharging their carbines
at an idle distance, they wheeled round and spurred from the field, leaving
the nine infantry battalions of their comrades to be ridden down by the
torrent of the allied cavalry.