May 29
June 9.
June 21
July 2.
July 5-10 16-21 .
July 23
August 3.

We left Villeroy with his army in the Low Countries endeavouring not very successfully to obey the orders which he had received, to watch Marlborough. On the 29th of May, when the Duke had already crossed the Neckar and fixed his quarters at Mondelheim, Villeroy was still at Landau waiting for him to repass the Rhine. On the following day, however, he took counsel with Tallard, with the result that, while Marlborough was marching to the attack of the Schellenberg the French armies were streaming across the Rhine at Kehl. Tallard then moved south towards Fribourg, close to which he received intelligence of the Elector\'s defeat. Thereupon both he and Villeroy entered the defiles of the Black Forest, uniting at Horneberg, from which point Tallard pushed on eastward alone. Advancing to Villingen he wasted five precious days in an unsuccessful effort to take that town, a mistake which was not lost on Marlborough and Eugene. Called to his senses by an urgent message from the Elector, Tallard at last marched on by the south bank of the Danube, encamped before Augsburg on the 23rd of July, and three days later effected his junction with the Elector and Marsin a few miles to the north of the city.
July 26
August 6.

Tallard was no sooner fairly on his way than Eugene, leaving a small garrison to hold the lines of Stollhofen, hurried on parallel with him along the north bank of the Danube, reaching Hochst?dt on the day of the enemy\'s junction at Augsburg. Marlborough meanwhile, at the news of Tallard\'s arrival, had fallen back[430] northward in the direction of Neuburg on the Danube, and was lying at Schobenhausen some twelve miles to the south of the river. Hither came Eugene from Hochst?dt to concert operations. The French and Bavarians were united to the south of the Danube; the Allies were divided on both sides of the river. If Marlborough fell back to Neuburg to join Eugene, the enemy could pass the Lech and enter Bavaria; if Eugene crossed the river to join Marlborough the enemy could pass to the north of the river and cut them off from Franconia, their only possible source of supplies. It was agreed that Prince Lewis of Baden should be detached with fifteen thousand men for the siege of Ingolstadt; and, as it was reported that the French were moving towards the Danube, Marlborough advanced closer to the river, so as to be able to cross it either at Neuburg or by the bridges which he had thrown over it by the mouth of the Lech at Merxheim.
July 29
August 9.
July 30
August 10.
July 31
August 11.

On the 9th of August Prince Lewis marched off to Ingolstadt, to the unspeakable relief of his colleagues, and Eugene took his leave. Two hours later, however, Eugene hurried back to report that the French were in full march to the bridge of Dillingen, evidently intending to cross the river and overwhelm his army. The Prince hastened back and withdrew his army eastward from Hochst?dt to the Kessel. Marlborough, on his side, at midnight sent three thousand cavalry over the Danube to reinforce him, while twenty battalions under Churchill followed them as far as the bridge of Merxheim, with orders to halt on the south bank of the river. Next morning the Duke brought the whole of the army up to Rain, within a league of the Danube, where he received fresh messages from Eugene urging him to hasten to his assistance. At midnight Churchill received his orders to pass the river and march for the Kessel, and two hours later the whole army moved off in two columns, one to cross the Danube at Merxheim, the other to traverse the Lech at Rain and the Danube at Donauw?rth. At five on the same afternoon[431] the whole of them were filing across the W?rnitz; by ten that night the junction was complete, and the united armies encamped on the Kessel, their right resting on Kessel-Ostheim, their left on the village of Munster and the Danube. Row\'s brigade of British was pushed forward to occupy Munster; and then the wearied troops lay down to rest. The main body had been on foot for twenty hours, though it had covered no more than twenty-four miles. Both columns had passed the Danube and the W?rnitz, and the left column the Ach and the Lech in addition. It is easy to imagine how long and how trying such a march must have been; it is less easy to appreciate the foresight and arrangement which enabled it to be performed at all.
August 1 12 .

The artillery, which had perforce been left to come up in the rear of the army, was by great exertions brought up at dawn on the following morning. A little later the Duke and Eugene rode forward with a strong escort to reconnoitre the ground before them, but perceiving the enemy\'s cavalry at a distance, ascended the church-tower of Tapfheim, from whence they descried the French quartermasters marking out a camp between Blenheim and Lutzingen, some three or four miles away. This was the very ground that they had designed to take up themselves, and it was with no small satisfaction that they perceived it to be occupied by the enemy. The French and Bavarian commanders had decided, after their junction on the Lech, that their best policy would be to cross the Danube, take up a strong position, and wait until want of supplies, by which Marlborough had already been greatly embarrassed, should compel the Allies to withdraw from the country. Tallard had no idea of offering battle; Marlborough indeed did not expect it of him, and had not dared to hope that the marshal would allow an action to be forced on him. But now that he had the chance, the Duke resolved not to let it slip. Men were not wanting to urge upon him the dangers of an attack[432] on a superior force. "I know the difficulties," he answered, "but a battle is absolutely necessary, and I rely on the discipline of my troops."

The two camps lay some five miles apart, the ground between them consisting of a plain of varying breadth confined between a chain of woods and the Danube. This plain is cut by a succession of streams running down at right angles to the Danube, no fewer than three crossing the line of the march between the Kessel and the French position. The first of these, the Reichen, cuts a ravine through which the road passed close to the village of Dapfheim; and Marlborough, seeing that at this point the enemy could greatly embarrass his advance, sent forward pioneers to level the ravine, and occupied the village with two brigades of British and Hessian infantry.

Meanwhile the enemy entered their camp, Tallard taking up his quarters on the right, Marsin in the centre, and the Elector of Bavaria on the left. Tallard\'s force consisted of thirty-six battalions and forty-four squadrons of the best troops of France, his colleague\'s of forty-six battalions and one hundred and eight squadrons; yet notwithstanding this unequal distribution of the cavalry, the force was encamped not as one army but as two. The rule that infantry should be massed in the centre and the cavalry divided on each wing was followed, not for the entire host, but for each army independently. Thus the centre was made up of the cavalry of both armies without unity of command; the infantry was distributed on each flank of it; and on each flank of the infantry was yet another body of cavalry. Yet it was an axiom in those days that an army which ran the least risk of an engagement should be encamped as nearly as possible according to the probable disposition for action. This violation of rules was not unperceived by Marlborough.

The camp itself was situated at the top of an almost imperceptible slope, which descends for a mile, without affording the slightest cover, to a brook called the[433] Nebel. Its right rested on the village of Blenheim, little more than a furlong from the Danube; and here were Tallard\'s headquarters. The village having an extended front, and being covered by hedges and palisades, could easily be converted into a strong position. Half a mile above it a little boggy rivulet, called the Maulweyer, which was destined to play an important part in the next day\'s work, rises and flows down through the village to the Danube. About two miles up the Nebel from Blenheim, but on the opposite or left bank of the stream, stands the village of Unterglau; and a mile above this, on the same side of the stream as Blenheim, and about a hundred yards from the water, is another village called Oberglau. This Oberglau was the centre of the position, and Marsin\'s headquarters. A mile upward from Oberglau is another village, Lutzingen, resting on wooded country much broken by ravines. Here were the Elector\'s headquarters and the extreme left of the enemy\'s position. The Nebel, though no more than four yards broad at its mouth, was a troublesome obstacle, its borders being marshy, especially between Oberglau and Blenheim, and in many places impassable. Below Unterglau this swampy margin extended for a considerable breadth, while opposite Blenheim the stream parted in twain and flowed on each side of a small boggy islet. At the head of this islet was a stone bridge, over which ran the great road from Donauw?rth to Dillingen. This had been broken down, or at least damaged, by Tallard; but herewith had ended his measures for obstructing the passage of the Nebel.
August 2 13 .

At two o\'clock on the morrow morning, amid dense white mist, the army of the Allies broke up its camp, and passed the Kessel in eight columns, the two outermost on each flank consisting of cavalry, the four innermost of infantry. For this day the stereotyped formation was to be reversed; the cavalry was to form the centre and the infantry the wings. On reaching Tapfheim the army halted, and the two outlying[434] brigades, reinforced by eleven more battalions as well as by cavalry, formed a ninth column on the extreme left, to cover the march of the artillery along the great road and in due time to attack Blenheim. The new column was conspicuous from the red-coats of fourteen British battalions, with Cutts the Salamander at its head.

Then Marlborough, who commanded on the left, directed his generals to occupy the ground from the Danube to Oberglau, while Eugene\'s should prolong the line from Oberglau upwards to Lutzingen. The columns resumed the advance, spreading out like the sticks of a fan, wider and wider, as the Imperial troops streamed away to their appointed positions on the right. Fifty-two thousand men in all were tramping forward, and fifty-two guns groaning and creaking after them. Far in advance of all Marlborough and Eugene pushed on with a strong escort. At six o\'clock they met and drove back the French advanced posts, and at seven they were on high ground within a mile of the Nebel and in full view of the enemy\'s camp.

Meanwhile Marshal Tallard was taking things at his ease, and had dispersed his cavalry to gather forage. Even while his vedettes were falling back before Marlborough\'s escort, he was calmly writing that the enemy had turned out early and was almost certainly on the march for N?rdlingen. The morning was foggy, no uncommon thing on the banks of great and marshy rivers, and a dangerous enemy was within striking distance; yet no precautions had been taken against surprise. Then at seven o\'clock the fog rolled away, and there, in great streaks of blue and white and scarlet, were the allied columns in full view, preparing to deploy on the other side of the Nebel. Presently the village of Unterglau and two mills farther down the stream burst into smoke and flame, and the outlying posts of the French came hurrying back across the stream. Then all was hurry and confusion in the French camp. Staff-officers flew off in all directions with orders, signal-guns brought the foragers galloping[435] back, drums beat the assembly from end to end of the line, and the troops fell in hastily before their tents.

Tallard\'s eyesight was very defective, but he had no difficulty in making out the red coats of Cutts\'s column, and he knew by this time that where the British were, there the heaviest fighting was to be expected. He therefore lost no time in occupying Blenheim. Four regiments of French dragoons trotted down to seal up the space between the village and the Danube, and presently almost the entire mass of the infantry faced to the right, and the white coats began striding away towards Blenheim itself. Eight squadrons of horse in scarlet, easily recognisable by Marlborough as the Gendarmerie, began Tallard\'s first line leftward from the village, and other squadrons presently prolonged it to Marsin\'s right wing. More cavalry supported these in a second line, together with nine battalions, which, being raw regiments, were not trusted to stand in the first line. Then the artillery came forward into position, ninety pieces in all, French and Bavarian. Four twenty-four pounders were posted before Blenheim, while a chain of batteries covered the line from end to end.

These dispositions completed, Tallard galloped off to the left, for Marsin had never yet commanded more than five hundred men in the field. Marsin\'s cavalry was already drawn up in two lines; his infantry and the Elector\'s was in rear of Oberglau and to the left of it, and the village itself was strongly occupied. Beyond this the left wing of cavalry stood in front of Lutzingen, and beyond them again a few battalions doubled back en potence protected the Elector\'s extreme left flank.

Marlborough on his side was equally busy. Blenheim and Oberglau were, as he saw, too far apart to cover the whole of the intervening ground with a cross-fire, and the French cavalry on the slope above were too remote to bar the passage of the Nebel. Officers were sent down to sound the stream, the stone bridge was repaired, and five pontoon bridges were laid, one[436] above Unterglau, the rest below it. Cutts formed his column into six lines, the first of Row\'s British brigade, the second of Hessians, the third of Ferguson\'s British brigade, and the fourth of Hanoverians, with two more lines in reserve. The four remaining columns of Marlborough\'s army were deployed between Wilheim and Oberglau in four lines, the first and fourth of infantry, with two lines of cavalry between them. The French esteemed this a "bizarre"[310] formation, but they understood its purport before the day was over.

At eight o\'clock Tallard\'s batteries opened fire, though with little effect. Eugene thereupon took leave of Marlborough and hurried away to the right, while the Duke occupied himself with the posting of his artillery, every gun of which was stationed under his own eye. The chaplains came forward to the heads of the regiments and read prayers; and then the Duke mounted and rode down the whole length of his line. As he passed a round shot struck the ground under his horse and covered him with dust. For a moment every man held his breath, but in a few seconds the calm figure with the red coat and the broad blue ribbon reappeared, the horse moving slowly and quietly as before, and the handsome face unchangeably serene.

The inspection over, the Duke dismounted and waited till Eugene should be ready. The delay was long, and messenger after messenger was despatched to ask the cause. The answer came that the ground on the right was so much broken by wood and ravine that the columns had been compelled to make a long detour, and that formation had been hampered by the fire of the enemy\'s artillery as well as by the necessity for altering preconcerted dispositions. Marlborough waited with impatience, for, whether he hoped to carry Blenheim or not, every hour served to place it in a better state of defence. The French dragoons by the river had entrenched themselves behind a leaguer of waggons, and the infantry in the village had turned every wall[437] and hedge and house to good account. Moreover Marlborough had seen how strong the garrison of Blenheim was, having probably counted every one of the twenty-seven battalions into it, and identified them by their colours as the finest in the French army.

At last, at half-past twelve, an aide-de-camp galloped up from Eugene to say that all was ready. Cutts was instantly ordered to attack Blenheim, while the Duke moved down towards the bridges over the Nebel. By one o\'clock Cutts\'s two leading lines were crossing the stream by the ruins of the burnt mills under a heavy fire of grape. On reaching the other side they halted to reform under shelter of a slip of rising ground. There the Hessians remained in reserve; and the First Guards, Tenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth, with Brigadier Row on foot at their head, advanced deliberately against Blenheim. They were received at thirty paces distance by a ............