which lay open to attack. This was accordingly done; the trenches were commenced in the middle of September, and the garrison capitulated on the 27th of the same month: a poor compensation for the total defeat of the French army, which would, in all probability, have ensued if the bolder plan of operation he had so earnestly counseled had been adopted.* This terminated the campaign of 1703, which, though successful, had led to very different results from what might have been anticipated if Marlborough's advice had been followed, and an earlier victory of Ramillies laid open the whole Flemish plains. Having dispatched eight battalions to re-enforce the Prince of Hesse, who had sustained serious disaster on the Moselle, he had an interview with the Archduke Charles, whom the allies had acknowledged as King of Spain, and by whom he was presented with a magnificent sword set with diamonds; he went next to the Hague, and from thence proceeded to London to concert measures for the ensuing campaign, and stimulate the British government to the efforts necessary for its successful prosecution.

30. Disasters on

the Upper Bavaria.

Rhine and in

But while success had thus attended all the operations of the allies in Flanders, where the English contingent acted, and Marlborough had the command, affairs had assumed a very different aspect in Germany and Italy, where the principal efforts of Louis had been made. The French were there superior alike in the number and quality of their troops, and, in Germany at least, in the

* Marlborough was much chagrined at being interrupted in his meditated decisive operations by the States General on this occasion. On the 6th of September he wrote to them, "Vos Hautes Puissances jugeront bien par le camp que nous venons de prendre, qu'on n'a pas voulu se résoudre à tenter les lignes. J'a été convaincu de plus en plus, depuis l'honneur que j'ai eu de vous écrire, par les avis que j'ai reçu journellement de la situation des enemies, que cette entreprise n'était pas seulement practicable, mais même qu'on pourrait en espérer tout le succès que je m'étais proposé: enfin l'occasion en est perdue, et je souhaite de tout mon cœur qu'elle n'ait aucune fâcheuse suite, et qu'on n'ait pas lieu de s'en repentir quand il sera trop tard." - MARLBOROUGH aux Etats Généraux, 6 Septembre, 1703. Dispatches, i., 173.

Mar

skill with which they were commanded. Early in June, Marshal Tallard assumed the command of the French forces in Alsace, passed the Rhine at Strasburg on the 16th of July, took Prissac on the 7th of September, and invested Landau on the 16th of October. The allies, under the Prince of Hesse, attempted to raise the siege, but were defeated with consid erable loss; and, soon after, Landau surrendered, thus terminating with disaster the campaign on the Upper Rhine. Still more considerable were the losses sustained in Bavaria. shal Villars commanded there, and, at the head of the French and Bavarians, defeated General Stirum, who headed the Imperialists, on the 20th of September. In December, Marshal Marsin, who had succeeded Villars in the command, made himself master of the important city of Augsburg, and in January, 1704, the Bavarians got possession of Passau. Meanwhile, a formidable insurrection had broken out in Hungary, which so distracted the cabinet of Vienna, that the capital seemed to be threatened by the combined forces of the French and Bavarians after the fall of Passau.

31.

Extreme danger of the empire from

these successes.

No event of importance took place in Italy during the campaign, Count Strahremberg, who commanded the Imperial forces, having with great ability forced the Duke de Vendôme, who was at the head of a superior body of French troops, to retire. But in Bavaria and on the Danube, it was evident that the allies were overmatched; and to the restoration of the balance in that quarter, the anxious attention of the confederates was turned during the winter of 1703–4. The dangerous state of the emperor and the empire awakened the greatest solicitude at the Hague, as well as unbounded terror at Vienna, from whence the most urgent representations were made on the necessity of re-enforcements being sent from Marlborough to their support. But, though this was agreed to by England and Holland, so straitened were the Dutch finances, that they were wholly unable to form the necessary magazines to enable the allies to commence operations. Marlborough, during

32. French plan

of the campaign in Ger

the whole of January and February, 1704, was indefatigable in his efforts to overcome these difficulties; and the preparations having at length been completed, it was agreed by the States, according to a plan of the campaign laid down by Marlborough, that he himself should proceed into Bavaria with the great body of the allied army in Flanders, leaving only a corps of observation in the Low Countries, to restrain any incursion which the French troops might attempt during his absence. The plan of the campaign which promised these brilliant results to France had been magnificently conceived by the cabinet of Versailles. The great genius of Louis XIV. in strategy there shone forth in full lus- many. ter. Instead of confining the war to one of posts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, it was resolved to throw the bulk of their forces at once into Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by pouring down the valley of the Danube. The advanced post held there by the Elector of Bavaria in front, forming a salient angle, penetrating, as it were, into the Imperial dominions, the menacing aspect of the Hungarian insurrection in the rear, promised the most successful issue to this decisive operation. For this purpose, Marshal Tallard, with the French army on the Upper Rhine, received orders to cross the Black Forest and advance into Swabia, and unite with the Elector of Bavaria, which he accordingly did at Donawerth, in the beginning of July. Marshal Villeroy, with forty battalions and thirty-nine squadrons, was to break off from the army in Flanders and support the advance by a movement on the Moselle, so as to be in a condition to join the main army on the Danube, of which it would form, as it were, the left wing; while Vendôme, with the army of Italy, was to penetrate into the Tyrol, and advance by Innspruck on Salzburg. The united armies, which it was calculated, after deducting all the losses of the campaign, would muster eighty thousand combatants, was then to move direct by Lintz and the valley of the Danube on Vienna, while a large detachment penetrated into Hungary to lend a hand

33.

Plan of the allies to counteract it.

prom

to the already formidable insurrection in that kingdom. The plan was grandly conceived: it extended from Verona to Brussels, and brought the forces over that vast extent to converge to the decisive point in the valley of the Danube. The genius of Louis XIV. had outstripped the march of time; a war of sieges was to be turned into one of strategy, and 1704 ised the triumphs which were realized on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon in 1805.* But if the plan of the campaign was ably conceived on the part of the French cabinet, it presented, from the multiplicity of its combinations, serious difficulties in execution, and it required, to insure success, a larger force than was at their disposal. Attempted with inadequate forces or unskillful generals, it presented the greatest danger to the invading party, and, like all other daring operations in war, staked the campaign on a single throw, in which decisive success or total ruin awaited the unlucky adventurer. Marlborough, by means of the secret information which he obtained from the French head-quarters, had got full intelligence of it, and its dangers to the allies, if it succeeded, struck him as much as the chances of great advantage to them if ably thwarted. His line was instantly taken. He repaired forthwith to the Hague, where his great influence and engaging manners, joined to the evident peril of the empire, procured a ready acquiescence in all his proposals. It was agreed that the English general was to advance vigorously against Villeroy in the Low Countries, and force him either to accept battle, or retire to the Moselle or the Rhine. In either case, as success was not doubted, he was to cross over into Germany by the Electorate of Cologne, advance as rapidly as possible into Bavaria, and either form a junction with Prince Eugene, who commanded the Imperial army in that quarter, or, by threatening the communications of the French army in Swabia, compel it to fall back to the Rhine. The great object was to save Vienna, and prevent the advance of the

*CAPEFIGUE, Hist. de Louis XIV., v., 208, 209.

French into Hungary, where a few of their regiments might fan the sparks of insurrection into an inextinguishable flame. This plan, by weakening the allies in the Low Countries, might expose them, and especially the Dutch, to disadvantage in that quarter, but that was of little consequence. The vital point was in the valley of the Danube: it was there that the decisive blows were to be struck. Marlborough, in resisting the French invasion, proceeded on exactly the same principles, and showed the same decision of mind as Napoleon in 1796, when he raised the siege of Mantua to meet the Austrian armies under Wurmser descending from the Tyrol; or Suwarroff in 1799, when he raised that of Turin to march against Macdonald advancing from Southern Italy toward the fatal field of the Trebbia.

Marlborough began his march with the great body of his forces on the 8th of May, and, crossing the Meuse 34. at Maestricht, proceeded with the utmost expedi- Marlborough's tion toward the Rhine by Bedbourg and Kirpen, into Germany.

cross march

and arrived at Bonn on the 28th of the same month. Meanwhile, the French were also powerfully re-enforcing their army on the Danube. Villeroy, with the French forces on the Meuse, retired before him toward the Moselle, and eluded all attempts to bring him to battle. Early in the same month strong re-enforcements of French troops joined the Elector of Bavaria, while Villeroy, with the army of Flanders, was hastening in the same direction. Marlborough having obtained intelligence of these great additions to the enemy's forces in the vital quarter, wrote to the States General that, unless they promptly sent him succor, the emperor would be entirely ruined.* Meanwhile, however, relying chiefly on himself, he redoubled his activity and diligence. Continuing his march

"Ce matin j'ai appris par une estafette que les ennemis avaient joint l'Electeur de Bavière avec 26,000 hommes, et que M. de Villeroi a passé la Meuse avec la meilleure partie de l'armée des Pays Bas, et qu'il poussait sa marche en toute diligence vers la Moselle, de sorte que, sans un prompt sécours, l'empire court risque d'être entièrement abimé."-MARLBOROUGH aux Etats Généraux; Bonn, 2 Mai, 1704. Dispatches, i., 274.