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.
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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.
July 11 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.