that they for the most part acted together, there was never the slightest division between them, nor any interruption of the harmony with which the operations of the allies were conducted. tion and dis with its dan French posi positions, The French position was in places strong, and their disposition for resistance at each point where they were 40. threatened by attack from the allied forces, judicious; but there was a fatal defect in the general conception of their plan. Marshal Tallard was on gers. the right, resting on the Danube, which secured him from being turned in that quarter, having the village of BLENHEIM in his front, which was strongly garrisoned by twenty-six battalions and twelve squadrons, all native French troops. In the center was the village of Oberglau, which was occupied by fourteen battalions, among whom were three Irish corps of celebrated veterans. The communication between Blenheim and Oberglau was kept up by a screen consisting of eighty squadrons, in two lines, having two brigades of foot, consisting of seven battalions, in its center. The left, opposite Prince Eugene, was under the orders of Marshal Marsin, and consisted of twenty-two battalions of infantry and thirty-six squadrons, consisting for the most part of Bavarians and Marshal Marsin's men, posted in front of the village of Lutzingen. Thus the French consisted of sixty-nine battalions and a hundred and thirty-four squadrons, with ninety guns, and they mustered sixty thousand combatants, about five thousand more than the allies, and with a great superiority of artillery. They were posted in a line strongly supported at each extremity, but weak in the center, and with the wings, where the great body of the infantry was placed, at such a distance from each other, that if the center was broken through, each ran the risk of being enveloped by the enemy, without the other being able to render any assistance. This danger as to the troops in Blenheim, the flower of their army, was much augmented by the circumstance that, if their center was forced where it was formed of cavalry only, and the victors turned H sharp round toward Blenheim, the horse would be driven headlong into the Danube, and the foot in that village would run the hazard of being surrounded or pushed into the river, which was not fordable, even for horse, in any part. 41. And advant But, though these circumstances would, to a far-seeing general, have presaged serious disaster in the event of ages. defeat, yet the position was strong in itself, and the French generals, long accustomed to victory, had some excuse for not having taken sufficiently into view the contingencies likely to occur in the event of defeat. Both the villages at the extremity of their line had been strengthened, not only with intrenchments hastily thrown up around them, thickly mounted with heavy cannon, but with barricades erected at all their principal entrances, formed of overturned carts, and all the furniture of the houses, which they had seized upon, as the insurgents did at Paris in 1830, for that purpose. The army stood upon a hill or gentle eminence, the guns from which commanded the whole plain by which alone it could be approached. This plain was low, and intersected on the right, in front of Blenheim, by a rivulet which flows down by a gentle descent to the Danube, and in front of Oberglau by another rivulet, which runs in two branches till within a few paces of the Danube, into which it also empties itself. These rivulets had bridges over them at the points where they flowed through villages, but they were difficult of passage at other points for cavalry and artillery, and, with the ditches cut in the swampy meadows through which they flowed, proved no small impediment to the advance of the allied army. the attack. The Duke of Marlborough, before the action began, visited 42. in person each important battery, in order to ascerDisposition of the allies for tain the range of the guns. The troops under his command were drawn up in four lines; the infantry being in front, and the cavalry behind, in each line. This arrangement was adopted in order that the infantry, who would get easiest through the streams, might form on the other side, and cover the formation of the horse, who up might be more impeded. The fire of cannon soon became very animated on both sides, and the infantry advanced to the edge of the rivulets with that cheerful air and confident step which is so often the forerunner of success. On Prince Eugene's side, however, the impediments proved serious; the beds of the rivulets were so broad that they required to be filled with fascines before they could be passed by the guns ; and when they did get across, though they replied, it was without much effect to the French cannon thundering from the heights, which commanded the whole field. At half past twelve, nevertheless, these difficulties were, by great efforts on the part of Prince Eugene and his wing, overcome, and he sent word to Marlborough that he was ready. During this interval, divine service had been performed at the head of every regiment and squadron in the allied army; Marlborough himself had received the sacrament with great solemnity at midnight on the preceding day. He was seated on the ground, in the midst of his staff, eating a slender meal, when Eugene's aid-de-camp arrived. "Now, gentlemen, to your posts," said he, with the cheerful voice which betokened the confidence of victory, as he mounted his horse, and his aidsde-camp in every direction galloped off to warn the troops to be ready. Instantly the soldiers every where stood to their arms, and the signal was given to advance. The rivulets and marshy ground in front of Blenheim and Unterglau were passed by the first line without much difficulty, though the men were exposed to a heavy fire of artillery from the French batteries; and the firm ground on the slope being reached, they advanced in the finest order to the attack, the cavalry in front having now defiled to a side, so as to let the English infantry take the lead. The French did not expect, and were in a great measure unprepared for, an attack, when the heads of the allied columns were seen advancing against them. Their generals had taken up the idea that the ene 43. Commence ment of the battle. 13th Aug. my were about to retire to Nordlingen, and, as the morning was hazy, the skirmishers of Eugene were close upon them before they were perceived.* Alarm guns were then immediately fired, officers galloped off in every direction, and Tallard and Marsin, hastily mounting their horses, did their utmost to put the troops in proper order. But no plan of defense had previously been arranged, and the troops were hastily thrown into the nearest villages, or such as seemed destined to be first the object of attack. Seven-and-twenty battalions in all were crowded into Blenheim, against which the English column of grenadiers was seen to be steadily advancing. Thirty battalions were posted in and around Oberglau; and Lutzingen was also strongly occupied, while eighteen French and Bavarian battalions were drawn up in an oblique line in the woods in its vicinity, on the extreme left of the cavalry The guns were judiciously posted along the front of the line, in situations the best calculated to impede the enemy's advance. But there was the essential defect already noticed in the position, that its two keys, Blenheim and Oberglau, where the main body of the infantry was posted, were at such a distance from each other, that neither their defenders nor their cannon could render any mutual assistance; while the long intervening space was filled up by a line of horse, for the most part unsupported by foot soldiers, and incapable of resisting a vigorous attack from the united bodies of infantry and cavalry which were posted opposite them on the side of the enemy.† Marlborough's eagle eye at once descried this glaring defect 44. in the enemy's distribution of his forces, and he heim, which is prepared to turn it to the best account. Lord Cutts commanded the division of British which Attack on Blen repulsed. * Ce 13, au point du jour les ennemis ont battu la générale à 2 heures, à 3 l'assemblée. On les voit en bataille à la tête de leur camp, et suivant les apparences ils marcheront aujourd'hui. Le bruit du pays est qu'ils vont à Nordlingen. Si cela est, ils nous laisseront entre le Danube et eux, et par consequent ils auront de la peine à soutenir les établissemens qu'ils ont pris en Bavre.-Marshal Tallard au Roi de France, 13th August, 1704. Campagnes de Tallard, ii., 140. † CoxE, i., 396, 397. CAPEFIGUE, Histoire de Louis XIV., v., 216, 217. |