By dint of drawing men from the parts of the defences unthreatened by the Allies, the Gallo-Bavarians were able to keep the troops on the north-west of the hill at their full strength: and they repulsed the next assault so heavily that it was found necessary to bring a large number of British cavalry into the thick of the fire to support the shaken, though by no means beaten, infantry. Our enemies were beginning to congratulate themselves on their success, when the remainder of Marlborough’s main body came into action against the west of the hill, where the works had been almost denuded of their garrisons; they took these works with little loss, repulsed a charge of cavalry, and then struck the Gallo-Bavarians in flank. About this time the Allies made another attempt to carry the entrenchment, and were once more beaten back. So serious did things look that the Scots Greys were ordered to dismount and attack the works on foot; but maddened at the thought that cavalrymen were called in to do the work which foot soldiers had failed to accomplish, the infantry then made one final, desperate effort, and surged triumphantly over the parapet from which they had been repulsed so often. Now at length the French and the Bavarians, exhausted by their magnificent defence, driven from their works in front and hard pressed in flank, gave way; and their retreat soon degenerated into a rout, as they rushed towards the river with all the allied cavalry thundering after them. The victory was very complete: of the twelve thousand men who had watched the Allies form for the assault not more than three thousand rejoined their regiments; the remainder were killed, wounded, captured, or drowned in the waters of the Danube; and thirteen standards, fifteen guns, and all the stores at Donauwörth fell into the victors’ hands. But the success was dearly won, for though the engagement lasted less than two hours, it cost the Allies more than five thousand officers and men. The British, as usual, lost very heavily; 33 officers, among whom was a major-general, were killed, and 83 wounded; 420 “sergeants and sentinels” were killed, and 1001 wounded; in all 1537, or “probably more than 33 per cent of the number engaged.”[33] To this total the XVIIIth, out of its detachment of 130 officers and men, contributed 51, or nearly 40 per cent of its numbers. Captain M. Leathes, Ensigns J. Pinsent (or Pensant), S. Gilman, and E. Walsh were wounded; 1 sergeant and 11 men were killed; 3 sergeants and 32 men were wounded.[34]
After the loss of Donauwörth the Gallo-Bavarians fell back upon Augsburg, where they encamped under the guns of the fortress. Marlborough was not strong enough to attack them, and had to content himself with blockading the town while he opened communications with the Elector of Bavaria, to whom he offered tempting terms to abandon Louis and place his excellent troops once more at the disposal of the Allies. The Elector spun out the negotiations until he knew definitely that Marshal de Tallard was coming from the Rhine to his help; then he broke them off suddenly, sending word that he would sooner serve as a private soldier under the King of France than as a general in the Emperor of Austria’s army. As Marlborough now learned from Prince Eugene of Savoy, who commanded a detached force on the Danube, that the French were manœuvring to cut off the allied army from its base of supplies, he at once turned northward, and recrossing the Danube joined hands with Eugene near Donauwörth. The situation had become very serious, for though the immediate pressure on the Emperor of Austria was removed, and the French had made no attempt to invade his territories from Italy, it was essential to bring the Gallo-Bavarians to battle and defeat them before further reinforcements had increased their strength, already greater than that of the Allies. It was with much relief, therefore, that on the morning of the 12th of August Marlborough discovered that the French and Bavarians had moved down the left, or northern bank of the Danube, and were then encamped near the village of Hochstädt, a few miles up stream from his own camping-ground.[35] Their right flank was protected by the Danube, here an unfordable river, and by the village of Blenheim, standing two hundred yards from the water’s edge. The left rested on Lutzingen, a hamlet at the foot of a chain of broken and thickly wooded hills, which guaranteed it against a turning movement. Between these villages stretched a plateau, white with long lines of tents; and along the whole of its eastern front ran the shallow valley of a tributary of the Danube—the Nebel, a formidable obstacle, for though the stream in itself was insignificant the bogs and marshes through which it flowed were very difficult to cross, and the side of the valley rose so gently towards the camp that it formed a natural glacis, well suited to the movements of all arms. Between Blenheim and Lutzingen were two other villages—Unterglau, on the eastern or far side of the Nebel, was occupied as an advanced post; Oberglau, on the western or near side, was part of the main line of defence. To hold this very strong position, about four miles in length, de Tallard who commanded the Gallo-Bavarians could dispose of an army from 56,000 to 60,000 strong, and sixty guns.
Though de Tallard had risen to be a Marshal of France, he was by no means a clever man, and by his mistakes at Blenheim he played into Marlborough’s hands. He failed completely to fathom his adversary’s mind: because it was the object of the French to starve the allies out of South Germany rather than to expel them by force of arms, de Tallard did not want to fight a battle, and it did not occur to him that Marlborough, with his inferior force of 52,000 men and 52 guns, might take the offensive. Again, in the disposition of his troops he misinterpreted the military axiom of his period, which warned the chief of an army encamped on ground where it might possibly become engaged, to place his troops in the order in which they would be called upon to fight. In drawing up an army the infantry was usually posted in the centre of the line, with the cavalry on its flanks. To this normal or “sealed-pattern” formation Tallard blindly adhered; but by treating his wings as distinct units and not as part of a great army he produced much confusion; in the centre of the whole line the cavalry of both wings met, but without unity of command: and on each side of this mass of 10,000 horsemen were infantry, with more cavalry on their outer flanks.
As soon as Marlborough had reconnoitred the enemy’s position he returned to camp, and settled the outline of the plan of the battle which he intended to force upon the French and Bavarians next day. As their flanks were unassailable he decided to deliver a frontal attack along their whole line: Eugene, with the right wing, was to assail the Elector and Marshal de Marsin, who had made the villages of Lutzingen and Oberglau their respective headquarters; the Duke was to carry Blenheim, where de Tallard had established himself, and break through the enemy’s centre between that village and Oberglau. The night was spent in marshalling the troops into their places in the nine columns in which they were to move against the enemy, and at two o’clock on the morning of August 13, 1704, Marlborough began to advance. A thick white mist overhung the valley of the Danube, and though it delayed his march, concealed his movements so effectually that it was six o’clock before the French vedettes discovered that the Allies were upon them; and when an hour later the mist lifted, de Tallard to his astonishment saw a great army preparing to deploy on the far side of the Nebel, the cavalry in the centre, the infantry on the flanks. While Eugene was marching to the ground allotted to him, Marlborough’s troops took up their appointed places. Opposite Blenheim, on the extreme left, stood a column under General Cutts, consisting of fourteen British regiments and several German corps: and on Cutts’s right was the remainder of the left wing, drawn up in four lines, the first and fourth of cavalry, the second and third of infantry. The Gallo-Bavarians, as soon as they had recovered from their surprise, snatched up their arms and fell in before their tents; and when de Tallard saw a mass of dull red uniforms at the head of the column threatening Blenheim he realised that hard fighting was to be expected near the village, and crowded into it twenty-six regiments of his best infantry, who were so tightly packed that large numbers of the soldiers did not fire a shot throughout the battle. The French rapidly put Blenheim into a state of defence—the walls were loopholed, the garden fences (or palisades as they were called by the historians of the time) were strengthened; the entrances were barricaded with carts, gates, furniture from the houses; while twelve squadrons of cavalry, sent to hold the two hundred yards of ground between the village and the Danube, entrenched themselves behind a “laager” of waggons. Between Blenheim and Oberglau de Tallard drew up his cavalry in two lines, with a third line in support, composed partly of horsemen, partly of nine battalions of infantry whose steadiness was doubtful. Some French writers say that these shaky troops were Piedmontese, taken prisoners in Italy and forced to join Louis XIV.’s service.[36] In the centre de Marsin occupied Oberglau with a strong detachment; behind the hamlet were posted his infantry and that of the Elector, and in front of Lutzingen stood a strong body of cavalry.
While his troops were marching into their places the French Commander-in-Chief added to his many mistakes that of abandoning to the Allies the natural glacis already mentioned, and thus giving them a foothold on which to re-form after they had crossed the Nebel. Parker shall tell the story in his own words. While the Allies were preparing to deploy,
“the Elector, Tallard and Marsin went to the top of the steeple of Blenheim, from whence they had a fair view of their army: the Elector and Marsin were for drawing the Army, as close to the marshy Ground they had in their Front as possible, and not suffer a man over but on the Points of their Bayonets; but Tallard (a haughty proud Frenchman) was on a different Opinion, and said, that would be no more than making a drawn Battle of it: that the only way to get a compleat Victory would be to draw up their army at some small Distance from the Morass, and suffer us to come over, and the more there came over the more they were sure to kill. Neither the Elector nor Marsin could persuade him out of this Notion; they both were very much dissatisfied, and dreading the consequence, left him, and went to their Posts.”[37]
Marlborough had formed for battle long before Eugene was able to do so, for bad roads, broken ground, and many unexpected difficulties greatly retarded the march of the right wing towards the left of the French line. Until Eugene was prepared to attack, Marlborough could not advance without running the risk of being crushed by vastly superior forces; and for several hours his horse and foot were condemned to inactivity while his guns hotly engaged those of the French, which were brought forward towards the Nebel, and fired at every target within their range. The XVIIIth, as usual, must have been well to the front, for Parker mentions that the first cannon-ball “was aimed at our regiment, but it fell short; the second killed one man, which was the first blood drawn that day.” After the Duke had carefully inspected his batteries, he ordered the chaplains to read prayers at the head of every regiment, and as soon as the Service was over, to satisfy himself that all was well with his troops and to steady them under the enemy’s bombardment, he rode slowly along the whole length of his line, exposing himself with perfect calmness to the projectiles of the French. His extraordinary talents, his charm of manner, his unfailing courtesy, his absolute indifference to danger had already endeared him to the strangely mixed body of soldiery under his command; and when by a miracle he escaped all injury from a cannon-ball which struck the ground between his horse’s legs, a great sigh of relief went up from the hearts of Britons and Danes, Germans and Dutch.
It was not until twelve o’clock, four hours after the artillery duel had begun, that an aide-de-camp galloped up to tell Marlborough that Eugene was ready. Then the signal was given, and Cutts, on the extreme left of the line, moved forward to the attack of Blenheim. Under a sharp artillery fire, two of his brigades—one of British, under Row, the other of Hessians—succeeded in crossing the Nebel near the village, and halted under cover to re-form their ranks; then leaving the Hessians in support behind the bank of the stream, Row’s five regiments advanced to the assault of a position held by the cream of the French infantry. Until our leading ranks were within thirty paces of the enemy not a shot was fired on either side. The British had been ordered to carry Blenheim with the bayonet if possible, and in no case to burn a cartridge until their General could actually touch the palisades. The French waited till their assailants were so close to them that the worst shot could not fail to bring down his man. Then so tremendous a burst of musketry fell upon the head of the column that the French expected to see the red-coats break and flee; but our men rushed forward through the smoke, cheered on by Row, who succeeded in striking a palisade with his sword before he fell mortally wounded. The British gave one volley, and then attempted to storm—some tried to scale the palisades, others to pull them down, while others again lunged fiercely through the loopholes at the French marksmen, who fired so fast and straight that in a few minutes a third of the brigade was killed or wounded, and the remainder were in retreat, hotly pursued by a body of cavalry. Now followed some wild fighting. The Hessians struck in with great gallantry, and recaptured Colours which had been lost in the mêlée; five British squadrons floundered over the Nebel to the rescue of the infantry, and beat back the French horsemen; but pursuing with more ardour than judgment, they were decoyed under the fire of the infantry in Blenheim and suffered severely. The French followed up their success by bringing up more batteries to sweep the crossing of the Nebel by which the British had advanced; but Cutts soon drove away this audacious artillery and, returning to the charge, delivered a series of desperate but ineffectual assaults upon the village until Marlborough ordered him to make no further efforts to storm it, but to fire volleys into it so continuously that the French would be pinned to their defences, and therefore unable to reinforce their right centre, which he was himself attacking. Parker gives a quaint account of this phase of the battle. After describing a gallant but fruitless assault, he says—
“The rest of the Foot coming up, they renewed the charge; and those that had been repulsed, having soon rallied, returned to the charge, and drove the enemy from the skirts of the village, into the very heart of it. Here they had thrown up an intrenchment, within which they were pent up in so narrow a compass, that they had not room to draw up in any manner of order, or even to make use of their arms. Thereupon we drew up in great order about 80 paces from them, from which we made several vain attempts to break in upon them, in which many brave men were lost to no purpose; and after all, we were obliged to remain where we first drew up. The enemy also made several attempts to come out upon us: but as they were necessarily thrown into confusion in getting over their trenches, so before they could form into any order for attacking us, we mowed them down with our platoons in such numbers, that they were always obliged to retire with great loss; and it was not possible for them to rush out upon us in a disorderly manner, without running upon the very points of our Bayonets.”