[Gutenberg 32195] • The Battle of Blenheim

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The General Situation in 1703 Map showing the peril of Marlboroughs Riarch to the Danube beyond the Hills which separate the Rhine from the Danube . Map illustrating Marlboroughs March to the Danube . Map illustrating the Riarch of Riarlborough and Baden across Marcins front, from the neighbourhood of Ulm to Donaumorth . Map showing how Donauworth is the key of Bavaria from the North-West . Map showing Eugenes March on the Dan- ube from the Black Forest Map showing the Situation when Eugene suddenly appeared at IIochstadt, August 5-7, 170-4 . Thc Elements of the Action of Blenheim proper understanding of a battle and of its historical significance is only possible in connection with the campaign of which it forms a part and the campaign can only be understood when we know the political object which it was designed to serve. A battle is no more than an incident in a campaign. However decisive in its im- mediate result upon the field, its value to the general conducting it depends on its effect upon the whole of his operations, that is, upon the campaign in which he is engaged.. A campaign, again, is but the armed effort of one society to impose its mill in some particular upon another society. Every such effort must have a definite political object. If this object is served the campaign is successful. If it is not served the campaign is a failure. Many a campaign which began or even concluded with a decisive action in favour of one of the two belligerents has failed because, in the result, the political object which the victory was attempting was not reached. Conversely, many a campaign, the individual actions of which were tactical defeats, terminated in favour of the defeated party, upon whom the armed effort was not sufficient to impose the will of his adversary, or to compel him to that political object which the adversary was seeking. In other words, military success can be measured only in terms of civil policy. It is therefore essential, before approaching the study of any action, even of one so decisive and momentous as the Battle of Blenheim, to start with a general view of the political situation which brought about hostilities, and of the political object of those hostilities only then, after grasping the measure in which the decisive action in question affected the whole campaign, can we judge how the campaign, in its turn, compassed the political end for which it was designed.The war whose general name is that of the Spanish Succession was undertaken by certain combined powers against Louis SIV. of France and such allies as tliat monarch could secure upon his side in order to prevent the succession of his grnildsoil to the crown of Spain. With the various national objects which Holland, England, the Empire and certain of the German princes, as also Savoy and Portugal, may have had in view when they joined issue with the French monarch, military history is not concerned. It is enough to know that their objects, though combining them against a common foe, were not identical, and the degrees of interest with which they regarded the compulsion of Louis XIV. to forcgo the placing of his grandson upon tlie Spanish throne were very different. It is this which will largely explain the various conduct of the allies during the progress of the struggle but all together souglit the lullliliatioii of Louis, and joined on the common ground of the Spanish Succession...