[Sidenote: 1703.]
The force voted by Parliament for the campaign of 1703 consisted,
as in the previous year, of eighteen thousand British and
twenty-two thousand Germans. There had been much talk of an
increase of the Army, and indeed Parliament had agreed to make
an augmentation subject to certain conditions to be yielded by
the Dutch; but when the session closed no provision had been made
for it, and the details required to be settled, as indeed such
details generally were, by Marlborough himself. Four new British
regiments formed part of the augmentation, and accordingly five
new battalions were raised, which, as they were all disbanded
subsequently, remain known to us only by the names of their
colonels, Gorges, Pearce, Evans, Elliott, and Macartney. Finally,
small contingents from a host of petty German states brought the
total of mercenaries to twenty-eight thousand, which, added to
twenty thousand British, made up a nominal total of fifty thousand
men in the pay of England. But none of these additional troops
could take the field until late in the campaign.
Such efforts were not confined to the side of the Allies. The
French successes to the eastward of the Rhine had encouraged them
to projects for a grand campaign, so their army too was increased,
and every nerve was strained to make the preparations as complete
as possible. The grand army under Villeroy and Boufflers, numbering
fifty-four battalions and one hundred and three squadrons, was
designed to recapture the strong places on the Meuse and to
threaten the Dutch frontier. The frontiers towards Ostend and
Antwerp were guarded by flying columns under the Marquis of Bedmar,
Count de la Mothe, and the Spanish Count Tserclaes de Tilly. The
entire force of the Bourbons in the Low Countries, including
garrisons and field-army, included ninety thousand men in infantry
alone.[296] With such a force to occupy the Allies in Flanders and
with Marshal Tallard to hold Prince Lewis of Baden in check at
Stollhofen on the Upper Rhine, Marshal Villars was to push through
the Black Forest and join hands with the Elector of Bavaria.
Finally, the joint forces of France and Savoy were to advance
through the Tyrol to the valley of the Inn and combine with Villars
and the Elector for a march on Vienna.
[Sidenote:
6
March --.
17
]
[Sidenote:
7
May --.
18
]
The design was grand enough in conception; but Marlborough too had
formed plans for striking at the enemy in a vital part. A campaign
of sieges was not to his mind, for he conceived that to bring
his enemy to action and beat him was worth the capture of twenty
petty fortresses; and accordingly on his arrival at the Hague
he advocated immediate invasion of French Flanders and Brabant.
But the project was too bold for the Dutch, whose commanders had
changed and changed for the worse. Old Athlone was dead, and in
his stead had risen up three new generals--Overkirk, who had few
faults except mediocrity and age; Slangenberg, who combined ability
with a villainous temper; and Opdam, who was alike cantankerous
and incapable. Very reluctantly Marlborough was compelled to
undertake the siege of Bonn, he himself commanding the besiegers,
while Overkirk handled the covering army. Notwithstanding Dutch
procrastination, Marlborough's energy had succeeded in bringing
the Allies first into the field; and before Villeroy could strike
a blow to hinder it, Bonn had capitulated, and Marlborough had
rejoined Overkirk and was ready for active operations in the field.
The Duke now reverted to his original scheme of carrying the war
into the heart of Brabant and West Flanders, and with this view
ordered every preparation to be made for an attack on Antwerp.
Cohorn, the famous engineer, was to distract the French by the
capture of Ostend on the west side, a second force was to be
concentrated under Opdam at Bergen-op-Zoom to the north, while
Marlborough was to hold Villeroy in check in the east until all was
ready.
The Duke's own share of the operations was conducted with his usual
skill. Pressing back Villeroy into the space between the heads of
the Jaar and the Mehaigne he kept him in continual suspense as to
whether his design lay eastward or westward, against Huy or against
Antwerp. Unfortunately, in an evil hour he imparted to Cohorn that
he thought he might manage both.[297] The covetous old engineer
had laid his own plans for filling his pockets; and no sooner did
he hear of Marlborough's idea of attacking Huy than, fearful lest
Villeroy should interrupt his private schemes for making money, he
threw the capture of Ostend to the winds, and marched into West
Flanders to levy contributions before it should be too late.
[Sidenote:
15
June --.
26
]
Still Marlborough was patient. He had hoped for Ostend first
and Antwerp afterwards, but a reversal of the arrangement would
serve. Cohorn having filled his pockets returned to the east of
the Scheldt at Stabrock; Spaar, another Dutch general, took up
his position at Hulst; Opdam remained at Bergen-op-Zoom; and thus
the three armies lay in wait round the north and west of Antwerp,
ready to move forward as soon as Marlborough should come up on the
south-east. The Duke did not keep them long waiting. On the night
of the 26th of June he suddenly broke up his camp, crossed the
Jaar, and made for the bridge over the Demer at Hasselt. Villeroy,
his eyes now thoroughly opened, hastened with all speed for Diest
in order to be before him; and the two armies raced for Antwerp.
The Duke had hastened his army forward on its way by great
exertions for six days, when the news reached him that Cohorn,
unable to resist the temptation of making a little more money, had
made a second raid into West Flanders, leaving Opdam in the air
on the other side of the Scheldt. The Dutch were jubilant over
Cohorn's supposed success, but Marlborough took a very different
view. "If Opdam be not on his guard," he said, "he will be beaten
before we can reach him"; and he despatched messengers instantly
to give Opdam warning. As usual he was perfectly right. Villeroy
hit the blot at once, and detached a force under Boufflers to
take advantage of it. Opdam, in spite of Marlborough's warning,
took no precautions, and finding himself surprised took to his
heels, leaving Slangenberg to save his army. Thus the whole of
Marlborough's combinations were broken up.[298]
The quarrels of the Dutch generals among themselves left no hope
of success in further operations. Failing to persuade the Dutch to
undertake anything but petty sieges he returned to the Meuse, and
after the capture of Huy and Limburg closed the campaign. Thus a
second year was wasted through the perversity of the Dutch.
[Sidenote:
9
Sept. --.
20
]
Meanwhile things had gone ill with the Grand Alliance in other
quarters. The King of Portugal had indeed been gained for the
Austrian side and had offered troops for active operations in
Spain, an event which will presently lead us to the Peninsula.
The Duke of Savoy again had been detached from the French party,
and the intended march over the Tyrol had been defeated by the
valour of the Tyrolese; but elsewhere the French arms had been
triumphant. Early in March Villars had seized the fort and bridge
of Kehl on the Rhine, had traversed the Black Forest, joined hands
with the Elector of Bavaria, and in spite of bitter quarrels with
him had won in his company the victory of Hochstädt. Tallard too,
though he took the field but late, had captured Old Brisach on
the Upper Rhine, defeated the Prince of Hessen-Cassel at Spires,
and recaptured Landau. The communications between the Rhine and
the Danube were thus secured, and the march upon Vienna could be
counted on for the next year. With her armies defeated in her
front, and the Hungarian revolt eating at her vitals from within,
the situation of the Empire was well-nigh desperate.
[Sidenote: [1697.]]
Marlborough, for his part, had made up his mind to resign the
command, for he saw no prospect of success while his subordinates
systematically disobeyed his orders. "Our want of success,"
he wrote, "is due to the want of discipline in the army, and
until this is remedied I see no prospect of improvement."[299]
Nevertheless a short stay in England seems to have restored him
to a more contented frame of mind, while even before the close
of the campaign he had begun to plan a great stroke for the
ensuing year, and to discuss it with the one able general in the
Imperial service, Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frail and delicate in
constitution, Eugene had originally been destined for the Church,
and for a short time had been known as the Abbé of Savoy, but he
had early shown a preference for the military profession and had
offered his sword first to Lewis the Fourteenth. It was refused.
Then Eugene turned to the Imperial Court, and after ten years of
active service against Hungarians, Turks, and French, found himself
at the age of thirty a field-marshal. At thirty-four he had won the
great victory of Zenta against the Turks, and in the War of the
Succession had made himself dreaded in Italy by the best of the
French marshals. He was now forty years of age, having spent fully
half of his life in war, and fully a quarter of it in high command.
Marlborough was fifty-three, and until two years before had never
commanded an army in chief.
Marlborough's design was nothing less than to commit the Low
Countries to the protection of the Dutch, and, leaving the old seat
of war with all its armies and fortresses in rear, to carry the
campaign into the heart of Germany. The two great captains decided
that it could and must be done; but it would be no easy task to
persuade the timid States-General and a factious House of Commons
to a plan which was bold almost to rashness.
Marlborough began his share of the work in England forthwith.
Without dropping a hint of his great scheme he contrived to put
some heart into the English ministers, and so into their supporters
in Parliament. The Houses met on the 9th of November, and the
Commons, after just criticism of the want of concert shown by the
Allies, cheerfully voted money and men for the augmented force
that had been proposed in the previous session. Then came a new
difficulty which had been added to Marlborough's many troubles in
the autumn. The treaty lately concluded with Portugal required
the despatch of seven thousand troops to the Peninsula; and these
it was decided to draw from the best British regiments in the
Low Countries.[300] It was therefore necessary to raise one new
regiment of dragoons and seven new battalions of foot,[301] a task
which was no light one from the increasing difficulty of obtaining
recruits.
[Sidenote: 1704.]
[Sidenote: January 15.]
But while the recruiting officers were busily beating their drums,
and convicted felons were awaiting the decision which should send
them either in a cart to Tyburn or in a transport to the Low
Countries, the indefatigable Marlborough crossed the North Sea in
the bitterest weather to see how the Dutch preparations were going
forward. He found them in a state which caused him sad misgivings
for the coming campaign, but he managed to stir up the authorities
to increase supplies of men and money, and suggested operations
on the Moselle for the next campaign. The same phrase, operations
on the Moselle, was passed on to the King of Prussia and to other
allies, and was repeated to the Queen and ministers on his return
to England. Finally, early in April the Duke embarked for the Low
Countries once more in company with his brother Charles, with
general instructions in his pocket to concert measures with Holland
for the relief of the Emperor.
[Sidenote:
April 24
--------
May 5.
]
[Sidenote:
7
May --.
18
]
Three weeks were then spent in gaining the consent of the
States-General to operations on the Moselle, a consent which the
Duke only extorted by threatening to march thither with the British
troops alone, and in consultation with the solid but slow commander
of the Imperial forces, Prince Lewis of Baden. To be quit of Dutch
obstruction Marlborough asked only for the auxiliary troops in the
pay of the Dutch, and obtained for his brother Charles the rank
of General with the command of the British infantry. In the last
week of April the British regiments began to stream out of their
winter quarters to a bridge that had been thrown over the Meuse
at Ruremonde, and a fortnight later sixteen thousand of them made
rendezvous at Bedbourgh. Not a man of them knew whither he was
bound, for it was only within the last fortnight that the Duke had
so much as hinted his destination even to the Emperor or to Prince
Lewis of Baden.
It is now time to glance at the enemy, who had entered on the
campaign with the highest hopes of success. The dispositions of
the French were little altered from those of the previous year.
Villeroy with one army lay within the lines of the Mehaigne;
Tallard with another army was in the vicinity of Strasburg, his
passage of the Rhine secured by the possession of Landau and Old
Brisach; and the Count of Coignies was stationed with ten thousand
men on the Moselle, ready to act in Flanders or in Germany as
occasion might demand. At Ulm lay the Elector of Bavaria and his
French allies under Marsin, who had replaced Villars during the
winter. The whole of this last force, forty-five thousand men in
all, stood ready to march to the head-waters of the Danube, and
there unite with the French that should be pushed through the Black
Forest to meet it. The Elector, by the operations of the past
campaign, had mastered the line of the Danube from its source to
Linz within the Austrian frontier; he held also the keys of the
country between the Iller and the Inn; and he asked only for a
French reinforcement to enable him to march straight on Vienna.
To the passage of this reinforcement there was no obstacle but a
weak Imperial force under Prince Lewis of Baden, which made shift
to guard the country from Philipsburg southward to Lake Constance.
The principal obstruction was certain fortified lines, of which the
reader should take note, on the right bank of the Rhine, which ran
from Stollhofen south-eastward to Bühl, and, since they covered
the entrance into Baden from the north-west, were naturally most
jealously guarded by Prince Lewis. From that point southward the
most important points were held by weak detachments of regular
troops, but a vast extent of the most difficult country was
entrusted to raw militia and peasantry. To escort a reinforcement
successfully through the defiles from Fribourg to Donaueschingen
and to return with the escort in safety was no easy task, but it
was adroitly accomplished by Tallard within the space of twelve
days. The feat was lauded at the time with ridiculous extravagance,
for, apart from the fact that Prince Lewis of Baden was remarkable
neither for swiftness nor for vigilance, Tallard had hustled his
unhappy recruits forward so unmercifully, along bad roads and
in bad weather, that the greater part of them perished by the
way.[302] Nevertheless the French had scored the first point of the
game and were proportionately elated, while poor Tallard's head
was, to his great misfortune, completely turned.
[Sidenote:
8
May --.
19
]
Marlborough meanwhile had begun his famous march, the direction
lying up the Rhine towards Bonn. On the very day after he started
he received urgent messages from Overkirk that Villeroy had crossed
the Meuse and was menacing Huy, and from Prince Lewis that Tallard
was threatening the lines of Stollhofen, both commanders of course
entreating him to return to their assistance. Halting for one day
to reassure them, the Duke told Overkirk that Villeroy had no
designs against any but himself, and that the sooner reinforcements
were sent to join the British the better. Prince Lewis he answered
by giving him a rendezvous where his Hessians and Danes might also
unite with his own army. This done he continued his march.
[Sidenote:
12
May --.
23
]
[Sidenote:
18
May --.
29
]
[Sidenote:
May 21
------
June 1.
]
[Sidenote:
20
May --.
31
]
[Sidenote:
May 23
------
June 3.
]
Marlborough's information was good. Villeroy had received strict
orders to follow him to the Moselle, the French Court being
convinced that he meditated operations in that quarter. The Duke
stepped out of his way to inspect Bonn in order to encourage this
belief, and then pushed on in all haste to Coblentz with his
cavalry only, leaving his brother to follow him with the infantry,
while the artillery and baggage was carried up the Rhine to Mainz.
Once again all his movements seemed to point to operations on the
Moselle, unless indeed (for the French never knew what such a
man might do next) he designed to double back down the river for
operations near the sea. But wherever he might be going he did
not linger, but crossing the Rhine and Moselle pushed constantly
forward with his cavalry. Starting always before dawn and bringing
his men into camp by noon he granted them no halt until he reached
the suburbs of Mainz at Cassel. Here he improved his time by
requesting the Landgrave of Hesse to send the artillery, which he
had prepared for a campaign on the Moselle, to Mannheim. Again the
French were puzzled. Was Alsace, and not the Moselle, to be the
scene of the next campaign; and if not, why was the English general
bridging the Rhine at Philipsburg, and why was his artillery moving
up the river? Tallard moved up to Kehl, crossed to the left bank
of the Rhine and took up a position on the Lauter, and Villeroy
sent to Flanders for reinforcements; but meanwhile Marlborough had
crossed the Main, and still, struggling on by rapid and distressing
marches over execrable roads, was within three more days across the
Neckar at Ladenburg and out of their reach.
[Sidenote:
May 26
------
June 6.
]
[Sidenote:
May 30
-------
June 10.
]
[Sidenote:
2
June --.
13
]
His plans were now manifest enough, but it was too late to catch
him. He therefore halted two days by Ladenburg to give orders for
the concentration of the troops that were on march to join him
from the Rhine, and then striking south-eastward across the great
bend of the Neckar, traversed the river for the second time at
Lauffen, and by the 10th of June was at Mondelheim. Halting here
for three days to allow his infantry to come nearer to him, he was
joined by Prince Eugene whom he now met for the first time in the
flesh. The Prince inspected the English horse and was astonished
at the condition of the troops after their long and trying march.
"I have heard much," he said, "of the English cavalry, and find
it to be the best appointed and finest that I have ever seen.
The spirit which I see in the looks of your men is an earnest of
victory." Hither three days later came also a less welcome guest,
Prince Lewis of Baden; and the three commanders discussed their
plans for the future. Marlborough in vain tried to keep Eugene for
his colleague, but it was ultimately decided that Eugene should
take command in the lines of Stollhofen, to prevent the French if
possible from crossing the Rhine, and to follow them at all hazards
if they should succeed in crossing, while Baden should remain on
the Danube and share the command of the allied army by alternate
days with Marlborough.
[Sidenote:
3
June --.
14
]
[Sidenote:
9
June --.
20
]
[Sidenote:
11
June --.
22
]
Then the march was resumed south-eastward upon Ulm; and after one
day's halt to perfect the arrangements for the junction with Prince
Louis, the army reached the mountain-chain that bounded the valley
of the Danube. The Pass of Geislingen, through which its road
lay, could not in the most favourable circumstances be passed by
any considerable number of troops in less than a day, and was now
rendered almost impracticable by incessant heavy rain. To add to
Marlborough's troubles the States-General, learning that Villeroy
was astir, became frightened for their own safety and entreated
for the return of their auxiliary troops. The Duke, to calm them,
ordered boats to be ready to convey forces down the Rhine, and went
quietly on with his own preparations, establishing magazines to the
north of the Danube, and not forgetting to send a reinforcement of
foreign troops to Eugene. At last the news came that Baden's army
was come within reach; the British cavalry plunged into the defile,
and two days later the junction of the two forces was effected at
Ursprung.
[Sidenote:
14
June --.
25
]
The joint armies presently advanced to within eight miles of Ulm,
whereupon the Elector of Bavaria withdrew to an entrenched camp
further down the Danube between Lavingen and Dillingen. The Allies
therefore turned northward to await the arrival of the British
infantry at Gingen; for Charles Churchill, with the foot and the
artillery, had found it difficult to march at great speed in the
perpetual pouring rain. His troubles had begun from the moment when
Marlborough had gone ahead with the cavalry from Coblentz. The
ascent of a single hill in that mountainous country often cost the
artillery[303] a whole day's work, and would have cost more but for
the indefatigable exertions of the officers.[304] Marlborough's
care for the comfort and discipline of these troops was incessant.
A large supply of shoes, for instance, was ready at Heidelberg to
make good defects, while constant injunctions in his letters to his
brother testify to his anxiety that nothing should be omitted to
lighten the burden of the march. Finally, anticipating Wellington
in the Peninsula, he insisted that the men should pay honestly
for everything that they took, and took care to provide money to
enable them to do so. Such a thing had never been known in all the
innumerable campaigns of Germany.
[Sidenote:
18
June --.
29
]
[Sidenote:
June 20
-------
July 1.
]
The joint armies after the arrival of Churchill amounted to
ninety-six battalions, two hundred and two squadrons, and
forty-eight guns; but a large contingent of Danish cavalry was
still wanting, and not all Marlborough's entreaties could prevail
with its commander, the Duke of Würtemberg, to hasten his march.
Nevertheless it was necessary to move at once. Marlborough's
objective had from the first been Donauwörth, which would give
him at once a bridge over the Danube and a place of arms for
the invasion of Bavaria. His move northward had revealed his
intentions; and the Elector of Bavaria had detached Count d'Arco
with ten thousand foot and twenty-five hundred horse to occupy the
Schellenberg, a commanding height which covers Donauwörth on the
north bank of the Danube. Marlborough pressed Baden hard to attack
this detachment before it could be reinforced; and accordingly the
army broke up from Gingen, and advancing parallel to the Danube
encamped on the 1st of July at Amerdingen.
[Sidenote:
June 21
-------
July 2.
]
The next day was Marlborough's turn for command. It had not yet
dawned when Quartermaster-General Cadogan was up and away with a
party of cavalry, pioneers, and pontoons. At three o'clock marched
six thousand men from the forty-five battalions of the left
wing,[305] three regiments of Imperial Grenadiers, and thirty-five
squadrons of horse. At five o'clock the rest of the army, excepting
the artillery, followed in two columns along the main road towards
a height that overhangs the river Wörnitz between Obermorgen and
Wörnitzstein. By eight o'clock Cadogan was at Obermorgen, had
driven back the enemy's picquets, and was engaged in marking out a
camp; and at nine appeared the Duke himself, who, taking Cadogan's
escort, went forward to reconnoitre the position.
The Schellenberg, as its name implies, is a bell-shaped hill,
some two miles in circumference at the base and with a flat top
about half a mile wide, whereon was pitched the enemy's camp.
On the south side, where the hill falls down to the Danube, the
ascent is steeper than elsewhere; on the north-west the slope is
gradual and about five hundred yards in length. To the south-west
the hill joins the town of Donauwörth, from the outworks of which
an entrenchment had been carried for nearly two miles round the
summit to the river. This defence was strongest and most complete
to the north-east, where a wood gave shelter for the formation of
an attacking force; and at this point was stationed a battery of
cannon. To the north-west the works though incomplete were well
advanced, and were strengthened by an old fort wherein the enemy
had mounted guns. Marlborough, as he conned the position, could see
that the enemy before him was so disposed as if expecting an attack
on the northern and western sides. But looking to his right beyond
Donauwörth, and across the Danube, he could see preparations of
a more ominous kind, a camp with tents pitched on both wings and
a blank space in the centre, sure sign that cavalry was already
present and that infantry was expected. Closer and closer he drew
to the hill, Prince Lewis and others presently joining him; and
then puffs of white smoke began to shoot out from various points in
the enemy's works as his batteries opened fire.
Finishing his survey undisturbed, Marlborough turned back to meet
the advanced detachment of the army; for it was plain to him
that the Schellenberg must be carried at once before more of the
enemy's troops could reach it. So bad, however, was the state of
the roads, that though the distance was but twelve miles, the
detachment did not reach the Wörnitz until noon. It was then halted
to give the men rest, for there were still three miles of bad road
before them, and to allow the main body to come up. The cavalry
was sent forward to cut fascines in the wood, pontoon bridges
were thrown across the Wörnitz, and at three o'clock the advanced
detachment passed the river. While this was going forward a letter
arrived from Eugene that Villeroy and Tallard were preparing to
send strong reinforcements to the Elector; and this intelligence
decided Marlborough to take the work in hand forthwith. Without
waiting for the rear of the main body to arrive he drew out sixteen
battalions only, five of them British,[306] and led them and the
advanced detachment straight on to the attack. The infantry of the
detachment was formed in four lines, the English[307] being on the
extreme left by the edge of the wood, and the cavalry was drawn up
in two lines behind them. Eight battalions more were detailed to
support the detachment or to deploy to its right if need should be,
and yet eight more were held in reserve.
It was six o'clock in the evening before Marlborough gave the order
to attack. Every foot-soldier took a fascine from the cavalry, and
the columns, headed by two parties of grenadiers from the First
Guards under Lord Mordaunt and Colonel Munden, marched steadily
up the hill. The hostile batteries at once opened a cross-fire of
round shot from the intrenchment and from the walls of Donauwörth,
but the columns pressed on unheeding to within eighty yards of the
intrenchment before they fired a shot. Then the enemy continued the
fire with musketry and grape, and the slaughter became frightful.
The grenadiers of the Guards fell down right and left, and very
soon few of them were left. Still Mordaunt and Munden, the one with
his skirts torn to shreds and the other with his hat riddled by
bullets, stood up unhurt and kept cheering them on. General Goor, a
gallant foreigner who commanded the attack, was shot dead, and many
other officers fell with him under that terrible fire. The columns
staggered, wavered, recovered, and went on. But now came an unlucky
accident. In front of the intrenchment ran a hollow way worn in
the hill by rain, into which the foremost men, mistaking it for
the intrenchment, threw down their fascines, so that on reaching
the actual lines they found themselves unable to cross them. Thus
checked they suffered so heavily that they began to give way;
and the enemy rushed out rejoicing to finish the defeat with the
bayonet. But the English Guards, though they had suffered terribly,
stood immovable as rocks, the Royal Scots and the Welshmen of the
Twenty-third stood by them, and the counter-attack after desperate
fighting was beaten back.
Meanwhile the enemy, finding the western face of the hill
unthreatened, withdrew the whole of their force from thence to
the point of assault. Their fire increased; the attacking columns
wavered once more, and General Lumley was obliged to move up
the entire first line of cavalry into the thick of the fire to
support them. So the fight swayed for another half-hour, when the
remainder of the Imperial army at last appeared on Marlborough's
right, and finding the intrenchments deserted passed over them
at once with trifling loss. Repulsing a charge of cavalry which
was launched against them, they hurried on and came full on the
flank of the French and Bavarians; yet even so this gallant enemy
would not give way, and the allied infantry still failed to carry
the intrenchment. Lumley now ordered the Scots Greys to dismount
and attack on foot; but before they could advance the infantry
by a final effort at last forced their way in. Then the Greys
remounted with all haste and galloped forward to the pursuit,
while Marlborough, halting the exhausted foot, sent the rest of
the cavalry to join the Greys. The rout was now complete. Hundreds
of men were cut off before they could reach Donauwörth, many were
driven into the Danube, many more, flying to a temporary bridge
to cross the river, broke it down by their weight and miserably
perished. Of twelve thousand men not more than one-fourth rejoined
the Elector's army.
[Illustration: SCHELLENBERG
June 21^{st}
----------- 1704
July 2^{nd}
_To face page 426_
]
The whole affair had lasted little more than an hour and a half,
but the loss of the Allies in overcoming so gallant a defence cost
them no fewer than fourteen hundred killed and three thousand eight
hundred wounded. The losses of the British[308] were very heavy,
amounting to fifteen hundred of all ranks, or probably more than a
third of the numbers engaged. The First Guards, Royal Scots, and
the Twenty-third suffered most severely, every battalion of them
having lost two hundred men or more, while the Guards at the close
of the day could count but five officers unhurt out of seventeen.
Of these five, wonderful to say, were Mordaunt and Munden, the
one with three bullets through his clothes, the other with five
through his hat, but neither of them scratched; but of eighty-two
men whom they led to the assault only twenty-one returned. When it
is remembered that the main body had been on foot fourteen hours,
and the advanced detachment for sixteen hours, the exhaustion of
the troops at the end of the day may be imagined. Nevertheless
Donauwörth was taken and the enemy was not only beaten but
demoralised.
[Sidenote:
11
July --.
22
]
The Elector of Bavaria on hearing the news broke down the bridge
over the Lech, and entrenched himself at Augsburg. Marlborough
on his part crossed the Danube, and set himself to cut off the
Elector's supplies. The passage of the Danube he severed at
Donauwörth, the road to the north by the capture of Rain, and that
to the north-east by an advance south-eastward to Aichach, from
which he presently moved on to Friedberg, hemming his enemy tightly
into his entrenched camp. The Elector was at first inclined to come
to terms, but hearing that the French were about to reinforce him
he thought himself bound in honour to hold out. Marlborough was
therefore compelled to put pressure on him by ravaging the country,
a work which his letters show that he detested but felt obliged in
duty to perform. The destruction was carried to the very walls of
Munich; indeed, nothing but want of artillery, for which Prince
Lewis of Baden was responsible, prevented an attack upon the city
itself.[309] The prospect of the arrival of a French army gave the
Duke little disquiet: if Bavaria were to become the seat of war,
so much the worse for Bavaria and for the cause of the Bourbons.
So after sending thirty squadrons to reinforce Eugene, he prepared
in the interim for the siege of Ingolstadt, which would give him
command of the Danube from Ulm to Passau, and free access at all
times into Bavaria. The Elector's country should feel the stress of
war at any rate, and if fortune were propitious the French might
feel it also. It is now time to return to the movements of those
French.