Colonel De La Colonie described the hurried efforts of D’Arco’s French and Bavarian corps to improve and complete the rather sketchy defensive works that existed on the Schellenberg:

The time left to us was too short to complete this satisfactorily; we could only place fascines one on the other, sparsely covered with earth, so as to form something of the nature of a parapet, which, moreover, was neither high enough nor wide enough to be of much use. As to the ditch on the enemy’s side, from which works of this sort derive their chief strength, the Imperial force gave us no time even to begin it.

He then comments on the thinly defended stretch of slope between the hill and the old walls of the town, a potentially fatal weak spot in the defensive arrangements:

No attention had been paid hitherto to this flank because the town of Donauworth protected this side more than the other; its glacis so commanded the line of approach to it that a column would have to defile along the edge of the wood to avoid the fire of the fortifications, which thus ought to have formed one of our principal defences.

The Colonel was right, unless of course a commander was on the scene who was determined enough to accept the heavy casualties dictated by the narrow angle of approach, necessary to avoid fire from the town. All defences can be overcome if enough effort is made to do so.

The Margrave of Baden protested at the likely cost of a frontal assault on Donauwörth and the Schellenberg – he quite rightly feared heavy losses – but Marlborough overruled him. D’Arco could not easily be manoeuvred out of his position on the hill, and time was pressing as Tallard was now moving forward. The Duke’s Wing of the army was leading the march and was closer to the town; it would provide the troops for the main assault, led by 5,750 stormers, drawn from the grenadier companies and volunteers from every battalion in the Allied army. Baden at length agreed to bring forward a brigade of Imperial grenadiers to support the attack. Leaving their camp at 3am on 2 July 1704, the Allied columns steadily approached Donauwörth over muddy roads, After crossing the Wörnitz river at Ebermorgen in the early afternoon, the leading Allied troops came in sight of the Schellenberg, on whose slopes the Bavarian and French soldiers could be seen labouring to improve the dilapidated defences. Kit Davies remembered that:

Our vanguard did not come in sight of the enemy’s entrenchments till the afternoon: however, not to give the Bavarians time to make themselves yet stronger, the duke ordered the Dutch General Goor, who commanded the right wing, composed of English and Dutch, with some auxiliary troops, to attack, as soon as possible: thus we did not stay for the coming up of the imperialists..

Colonel Holcroft Blood (whose father had famously attempted to steal the Crown Jewels during Charles II’s reign) got a battery into place between the outlying village of Berg and the foot of the Schellenberg, where the Kaiback stream made the ground boggy. An Imperial battery, sent forward by Baden, soon joined them. The elevation of the field pieces, necessary to reach the defenders on the slopes above, meant that the projectiles skimmed the breastwork and left the Bavarians almost unscathed, but then ploughed through the ranks of the French battalions standing on the higher slopes behind them. Colonel De La Colonie was at that moment giving his men a few words of advice to encourage them for the coming fight:

I had scarcely finished speaking when the enemy’s battery opened fire on us, and raked us through and through. They concentrated this fire on us, and with their first discharge carried off Count de la Bastide, the lieutenant of my own company with whom at the moment I was speaking, and twelve grenadiers, who fell side by side in the ranks, so that my coat was covered in brains and blood. So accurate was the fire that each discharge of the cannons stretched some of my men on the ground. I suffered agonies at seeing these brave fellows perish without a chance of defending themselves but it was absolutely necessary that they should not move from their post.

At about 6pm watchers standing in comparative safety on the smaller hill near to Berg saw the attackers go in. Marlborough’s chaplain, Francis Hare, was among their number and noted the time. He wrote that:

The detachment moved in six lines (viz. four of foot and two of horse) up the rising ground, the English being on the left of all, and close by the wood. The fascines being brought from thence by the horse, every officer and soldier took one, and they were ordered to carry them till they could throw them down in the enemy’s entrenchments, and to move on closely and slowly, forbearing to fire till they came thither. They now proceeded upon the attack, Brigadier Ferguson leading up the first line of foot, Count Horn and the other generals bringing up the rest. Lieut-Gen. Goor commanding the whole.

Lord John Mordaunt (who had once aspired, without success, to the hand of one of Marlborough’s daughters) led the attack with a forlorn hope of eighty men from the 1st English Foot Guards. This party led the way at a smart pace, the troops shouting and cheering with all their might, but the fascine bundles they carried were wastefully thrown into a sunken lane at the bottom of the hill. De La Colonie wrote of the tense wait on the hill for the attackers to show themselves as they came out of the low ground onto the slopes:

The English infantry led this attack with the greatest intrepidity, right up to our parapet, but there they were opposed with a courage at least equal to their own. The little parapet which separated the two forces became the scene of the bloodiest struggle that could be conceived.

The approaching ranks of Allied stormers had been riven by the ferocious Bavarian musketry and discharges of canister-shot from the battery in the hill. The general commanding the assault, Johan Wigand van Goor, was shot in the eye and killed, and the soldiers fell back from the breastwork to recover their order. Donald McBane, who stood in the firing line as one of the stormers, remembered that the attackers soon ‘Filled up their trenches with dead men.’ Exultantly, Bavarian grenadiers vaulted the parapet to pursue them down the slope, but solid volleys from the English Foot Guards and Orkney’s Regiment, just then labouring up the hill into position to support the attack, stopped them soon enough, and drove the defenders back into shelter.

As the assault on the stout defences was renewed, it became apparent that a line of gabions (wicker baskets filled with stones) linking the walls of the town with the defences on the Schellenberg was now unoccupied. The French troops assigned to hold the line there, drawn from the Régiment de Nectancourt, had been directed elsewhere in the battle, and D’Arco’s position was dangerously exposed on his left as a result. De La Colonie remembered:

The town commandant [du Bordet] instead of lining the covered way with his best troops, had withdrawn them all into his main works; he seemed to assume that the best way of ensuring the safety of this place was to shut up his troops and lock the gates.

The Margrave of Baden, standing with his Imperial grenadiers beside the Kaiback stream at the foot of the hill, soon learned of the abandoned works. He hurried his troops along the line of the muddy stream, just out of musket-shot of the walls of Donauwörth. At the line of deserted gabions he formed his troops facing up the hill to where the open flank of D’Arco’s position lay, and steadily they began the breathless climb up grass slopes now being made slippery with light rain. Dr Hare, still an avid observer of the action from the hill at Berg, wrote of this flanking movement by the Imperial Grenadiers:

The Imperial foot, which had gained the trenches [line of gabions] immediately inclined to the left, and took the enemy in the flank to favour and facilitate the attack of the English and Dutch. But for all that the enemy continued to oppose their entrance, and disputed it so obstinately that Lieutenant-General Lumley ordered Lord John Hay’s regiment of dragoons to dismount and charge the enemy on foot.

The remorseless pressure on D’Arco’s troops, both in front and to their left, finally told. Francis Hare goes on: ‘This order was forthwith obeyed by that noble Lord, who dismounted and put himself at the head of his regiment, and was marching up bravely to attack on foot just as the enemy began to give way and our men had entered the trenches.’

De La Colonie was among those in the defences who saw the Imperial troops clambering up the hill to their left, and assumed they were reinforcements sent from the town. Soon the mistake was realised, as Baden’s grenadiers poured heavy volleys of musketry into the flank of the French and Bavarians, who could fairly complain that they did not know which way to turn. All rapidly became confusion, and the Colonel was struck on the jaw by a musket ball and temporarily stunned. The defence fell to pieces as the Allied troops crowded onto the Schellenberg. D’Arco’s army was fleeing towards the rear of the hill and the pontoon bridges over the Danube that offered the elusive chance of escape. Kit Davies, although wounded and unable to participate in the pursuit, remembered that:

A cruel slaughter was made of them, and the bridge over the Danube breaking down, a great number were drowned, or taken prisoners. In the second attack, I received a ball in my hip, which is so lodged between the bones that it can never be extracted. Captain Young who, poor gentleman, was soon after killed, desired me to get off; but, upon my refusal, he ordered two of my comrades to take me up, and they set me at the foot of a tree … We lost, of my acquaintance, Captain Young, Captain Douglas, and Lieutenant Maltary, besides a number of private men. I was carried to the hospital [presumably a rudimentary regimental dressing station] near Schellenberg and put under the care of three surgeons, Mr Wilson, Mr Laurence and Mr Sea, and narrowly escaped being discovered.

The French and Bavarians, outnumbered, out-gunned and outflanked, had broken and were running for their lives. De La Colonie, now back on his feet and not feeling at all well, tried to rally his men, but they were in full flight:

They disappeared like a flash of lightning without ever looking back. I looked on all sides for my drummer, but he had evidently thought fit to look after himself, with the result that I found myself at the mercy of the enemy and my own sad thoughts.

Discretion being the better part of valour, the Colonel looked to get out of peril himself, and took off towards the rear of the hill:

The plain [crest of the Schellenberg] was too wide for me to traverse in my big boots at the necessary speed, and to crown my misfortunes was covered with cornfields. So far, the enemy’s cavalry had not appeared on the plain, but there was every reason to believe that they would not long delay their arrival.

Marlborough had now let loose his cavalry, together with the remounted squadrons of dragoons, in a ruthless pursuit of the broken defenders. Such techniques were commonplace after a defeat at the time, with the fugitives chased, harried and cut down without mercy, the blades flicking and slashing among the imploring upturned hands. De La Colonie takes up the story:

I found a convenient path along the bank of the river [Danube], but this was not of much avail to me for, owing to my efforts and struggles to reach it through several fields of standing corn, I was quite blown and exhausted. On my way I met the wife of a Bavarian soldier, so distracted with weeping that she travelled no faster than I did. I made her take off my boots, which fitted so tightly about the legs that it was absolutely impossible to do this for myself.

The French colonel plunged into the wide waters of the river and struck out for the far side: ‘I knew how to swim, although the risk here was very great owing to the breadth and rapidity of the Danube. I threw myself upon the mercy of the stream. Finally, after a very long and hard swim, I was lucky enough to reach the other bank.’ Some Dutch dragoons took shots at him with their carbines, but were more interested in plundering his coat and kit left lying at the river’s edge.

Others were less fortunate and many fugitives were denied quarter, to be cut down by the Allied horsemen, while at least one of the pontoon bridges over the river collapsed, throwing scores of men into the Danube to struggle and drown. It is to be hoped that the Bavarian woman got safely away. Comte D’Arco hurried to Donauwörth town where the garrison commander was, after some delay, induced to admit him and a number of others. The Comte then went off to find the Elector of Bavaria to make his sorry report of the utter destruction of his corps. Colonel Du Bordet attempted to lay waste to Donauwörth that night, to reduce its usefulness as a base for the Allies. Kit Davies recalled that:

That evening having received orders from the elector to burn the town and provisions, to blow up the ammunition, break down the bridges, and to retreat to Augsburg, they [the French] clapped straw into the houses, to which they began to set fire; but had not time to perfect their design, for fear of their retreat being cut off, the allies being got into the suburbs, and laying [pontoon] bridges over the river, which compelled them to withdraw at four o’clock in the morning.

The Allied soldiers helped the citizens to put out the fires started by the retreating garrison. Among the booty taken were nineteen guns (including three found in the town), twelve pontoon bridges, 20,000 pounds of gunpowder, 3,000 sacks of flour and oats, thirteen standards and colours, and all the tentage and camp gear of the defeated army. As Kit Davies commented:

These were the fruits of our victory, which, however, we purchased by the loss of three thousand brave fellows killed and wounded, and, among several other general officers of distinction, General Goor received a musket-ball in the eye, and instantly expired.

De La Colonie had reached the safety of the far bank of the Danube, and, exhausted by his efforts, was luckily able to enlist the aid of some soldiers there:

I found to my relief on the river-bank a quarter-master and a dragoon of the regiment of Fonboiser, who, on their way back from some duty, had stopped there in order to satisfy their curiosity as to what was passing on the other side of the Danube. I landed nearly at their feet, and the quarter-master, who gathered from my waistcoat and linen that I was an officer, came forward most politely to ask who I was and what he could do for me. As soon as he had learned that I was the lieutenant-colonel of the French grenadiers, he immediately dismounted and searched the dragoon’s valise, producing a cap and a shirt, which he made me put on, together with a cloak over-all, and he insisted that I should mount his horse, while he rode that of the dragoon, whom he took up behind him.

The exhausted colonel was taken to the small town of Rain, a few miles away, and learned there that almost all the baggage of the army had been lost in the flight from the hill, either seized by the Allies or tipped into Danube when the bridge broke down. Still, after an uneasy night’s sleep:

I was still in bed when I thought I heard the voice of my valet. I sprang in one jump from my bed to the window to see if I was not mistaken, and sure enough I saw him below me, fussing about to get some miserable carts out of the way in order to let my carriage by.

By this good fortune De La Colonie was one of the few officers from D’Arco’s corps to save his baggage. The Comte himself was not so fortunate, as all his campaign equipment, including his silver dinner service, was seized by the victors of the battle. Captain John Blackader, present with Fergusson’s Cameronian Regiment, walked over the hill that night in the drizzle. The place was a shambles with the dead and wounded lying thickly around on every side: ‘The carcasses were very thick strewed upon the ground, naked and corrupting; yet all this works no impression or reformation upon us, seeing the bodies of our comrades and friends lying as dung upon the face of the earth.’ The grim Scottish soldier constantly despaired of the licentious conduct, as he saw it, of the troops in Marlborough’s army, and now seemed to feel that on those reeking slopes some, at least, had paid in full for their past misdeeds. The Duke of Marlborough wrote to Queen Anne with news of the battle:

I must humbly presume to inform your majesty, that the success of our first attack of the enemy has been equal to the justice of the cause your majesty has so graciously espoused. Mr Secretary Harley will have the honour to lay the relation of yesterday’s action before you. To which I shall crave leave to add, that our success is in great measure owing to the particular blessing of God, and the unparalleled bravery of your troops.

Vienna was soon alive with delight at the outcome. Emperor Leopold wrote a letter to Marlborough in his own hand (a most unusual honour), with congratulation at news of the victory:

Illustrious, Sincerely Beloved. Your deserts towards me, my house, and the common cause, are great and many, and the singular application, care and diligence, which you have expressed, in bringing up and hastening the powerful succours, which the most serene and potent Queen of Great Britain, and the States-General of the United Netherlands, have sent me to the Danube, are not to be ranked in the last place; but nothing can be more glorious than what you have done, after the conjunction of your army with mine, in the most speedy and vigorous attack and forcing of the enemy’s camp at Donawert, the second of this month; since my generals themselves, and ministers, declare that the success of that enterprise (which is more acceptable and advantageous to me, in this present time, than almost any thing else that could befall me) is chiefly owing to your councils, prudence, and execution, and the wonderful bravery and constancy of the troops, who fought under your command. This will be an eternal trophy to your most serene Queen in Upper Germany, whither the victorious arms of the English nation have never penetrated since the memory of man.

The Allied armies now stood between Vienna and the French and Bavarians, and they could deploy greater numbers at any given point than their opponents, for the time being at least. However, many were made sombre by the scale of the casualties sustained in the assault, over 5,400 Allied soldiers having been killed or wounded, a quarter of those taking part. On the other hand, D’Arco’s corps was shattered and only about 3,000 of his men escaped to ever rally to the colours. One facetious critic in London asked ‘Are there not many hills in Germany, and must we fight such a battle for each one?’ The objections raised by the Margrave to the attack were well known, and the Dutch minted a coin in commemoration of the event; but it featured Baden (who had sustained a serious wound to the foot in the fighting) and not Marlborough, whose plan was put into execution and whose victory it truly was. Queen Anne wrote to the Archduke Charles with word of the victory on 14 July:

I received yesterday by an express from the Duke of Marlborough that the Allies have gained a signal victory over the French and Bavarians, who occupied a position near Donauwert. They entirely defeated them and took that village. I think this news will be no less pleasing to you, on the account of the effect such a fine victory must have on Vienna, than it is to me, in giving me joy as much on behalf of the common cause, as because of the part taken by troops in this glorious action, under the command of the said Duke of Marlborough.

With Donauwörth and the Schellenberg safely in Allied hands, Marlborough had his forward base and crossing point over the Danube. The Elector of Bavaria had no choice but to abandon the line of the river. With a numerically inferior army, now weakened by their losses in the battle, he was obliged to leave the strong camp at Dillingen and fall back southwards to Augsburg, where he would have the protection of the Lech river. This was another good barrier, difficult to cross even with the pontoon bridging train that Marlborough had dragged along from the Low Countries, and would offer some measure of security.

Marlborough appeared to exaggerate the strategic effect of the victory over D’Arco’s corps on the slopes above Donauwörth. The Duke was also overoptimistic concerning Eugene’s ability to impede Tallard’s progress on the march from the Rhine, and he wrote to Godolphin on 9 July:

We have heard nothing of Prince Eugene since the 5th, so that we take it for granted that the Marshal de Tallard has not pursued his march, which he began on 2nd of this month [actually the date that Marlborough heard of Tallard’s movement forwards]; and I cannot but be of the opinion that if he has had a true account of what has passed at the Schellenberg, he will be desirous of having fresh orders sent before he advances further.

The Marshal had interrupted his progress, but this was to lay siege to the relatively unimportant town of Villingen; an enterprise he abandoned after four days on the approach of Prince Eugene. Tallard was now pressing on towards Ulm and the vital junction with the beleaguered forces of Marsin and the Elector. The Comte de Merode-Westerloo, whose Walloon cavalry brigade was with Tallard’s army, wrote of the march through the Black Forest:

We reached Hornberg at the same time as the rest of the army, to find the fine chateau abandoned, and the small town sacked by our marauders before we arrived. There we camped and rested the space of one day, to await the arrival of the head of our large convoy. Moving on, we next deployed on to the heights above Villingen, and duly invested the town next morning [in all likelihood this was 16 July 1704], as we wished to seize the place and use it for a forward-base. In the meantime the convoy crawled out of the Black Forest passes. In spite of our opening trenches and mounting mortar and cannon batteries, we were eventually forced to abandon the siege [on the approach of Eugene’s army], after wasting much valuable time and material; for the townsfolk and the small garrison defended the place so well, even though it had only a single ancient wall, that we had no choice but to move on and join the Elector of Bavaria.

While Tallard made his way through the wooded passes, Marlborough’s own campaign dragged a little. He had not been able to bring the heavy guns of his siege train on the march up the Rhine; the ordnance had to take a longer and far slower route, away from possible French interference. Baden had assured him that a siege train would be provided, once he got to Bavaria, but this proved not to be the case. Because of such deficiencies, it took the Duke a time-wasting four days to prepare to take the small town of Rain, just to the south of Donauwörth and well garrisoned by French and Bavarian troops. Having written to the Secretary of State, Robert Harley, that the guns were awaited before siege operations could begin, the Duke was still having to employ patience four days later, on 13 July, when he wrote to an acquaintance from the camp at Burkheim:

Now we have met with a disappointment in the want of our artillery from Nuremburg for attacking Rain, wherein the enemy have a garrison of about a thousand men, which we were unwilling to leave behind; but what we expected being now come, or within reach, we shall open the trenches this night and I hope soon make ourselves masters of the place.

Jean-Martin De La Colonie had managed to gather together most of his grenadiers, those that got away from the disaster on the Schellenberg hill, and now found that the onerous task of organising the defence of Rain fell to him. Comte D’Arco wrote from the Elector’s camp near Augsburg with congratulations on his escape, but also:

Having complimented me on the retreat from Schellenberg, he pointed out that His Highness [the Elector] hoped I should show no less zeal in the defence of Rain, which he now placed in my hands, and as the enemy would doubtless attack it, he had ordered a detachment of six hundred men, some cannon, and stores, to join me, which were already on their way. By this time I had about four hundred grenadiers who had managed to save themselves and the colours.

Rain was not properly fortified or really defensible for long, despite the rather meagre reinforcement sent by the Elector to assist De La Colonie. After some stiff fighting, and with the Allied heavy guns at last getting into place, the Colonel was summoned to surrender, but he requested:

A capitulation with all the honours of war, without which I assured them, I would sustain any assault that they might make. They tried cajoling, then threats, but finally, seeing that I refused the bait, granted what I asked … I here had proof how essential it is in all military matters to maintain a firm attitude.

De La Colonie’s garrison was permitted to march away to Munich. Marlborough, having at last got possession of the town, which would otherwise have sat inconveniently on his lines of supply, could turn his full attention to the main French and Bavarian army.

Prince Eugene, it must be said, was not impressed by the pace of the campaign being undertaken by Marlborough and Baden: ‘They amuse themselves laying siege to Rain and burning a few villages instead, according to my opinion, which I have made known to them clearly enough, of advancing directly upon the enemy.’ The Prince’s critical comments must be seen in the light of his own failure to block the French advance from the Rhine, having been decoyed by a clever ruse, so allowing Tallard and his army to slip past on the road to the Danube valley. Eugene had then been obliged to divide his own army; leaving a substantial force behind on the Rhine to hold Villeroi in place, he marched in Tallard’s wake, with troops too few in number, even after reinforcement with Danish troops sent by Marlborough, to seriously impede, much less confront, the Marshal. At this point, not one of the Allied commanders was performing particularly successfully. Their opponents, despite even so serious a reverse as the Schellenberg defeat, could apparently wait for events to unfold as autumn came on; the onset of winter would kill off Marlborough’s campaign soon enough.

The Elector of Bavaria, in the meantime, was made anxious by the unexpected ferocity of Marlborough’s campaign. He had watched the destruction of D’Arco’s corps on the Schellenberg hill from the far side of the Danube, and attempted now to deflect the worst effects of his own duplicity by some sly negotiation with his opponent. As it turned out, despite hints to Marlborough that he would return to his allegiance to the Emperor and break with Louis XIV, it soon became apparent that the Elector was just playing for time, while the fresh French army under Tallard drew near. The Duke wrote to Secretary of State, Charles Hedges, on 16 July:

I was in some hopes that I might by this post have given you an account of the Elector of Bavaria’s having embraced the interest of the Allies, matters being brought so far that he had appointed to meet Count Wratislaw yesterday in order to sign the Articles that had been agreed upon. But instead of complying with his promises, he sent his secretary to acquaint him [Wratislaw] that being informed Comte Tallard was marching with an army of 35,000 men to his relief it was not in his power or consistent with his honour to quit the French interest. While this has been in agitation we have been attacking the town of Rain, which has been obliged this day to capitulate.

Marlborough, frustrated at the prevarication of the Elector, concerned at reports of Tallard’s approach, and apprehensive of valuable time passing unproductively while summer sped by, now opened a new and controversial campaign. In the same letter to Hedges he wrote: ‘We are going to burn and destroy the Elector’s country to oblige him to hearken to terms.’

The horrors of the religious wars of the early and mid-seventeenth century had brought a supposedly more civilised approach to warfare in Europe (despite the enthusiastic French devastation of the Palatinate in the 1680s), and the Duke’s decision to lay waste to Bavaria aroused protest and criticism. Baden refused to take part, until bluntly ordered to do so, and Marlborough wrote rather defensively to the Duchess at this time that the English troops took no part in the burnings. Whatever the truth of this, the soldiers themselves had little, if any, objection to the work, and it did reduce the Elector’s ability to use his own lands as a base for future operations, however ruthless the devastation may have seemed to those far away. Also, the Bavarian army was dispersed to protect the Elector’s estates from attack, and this significantly reduced the strength of Marlborough’s opponents on the field of battle when the crucial moment came. Private John Deane commented in his journal that the district was ‘Still burning all round by the Emperor’s orders’, while Adam Cardonnel wrote of the campaign that: ‘Our last march was all in fire and smoke. I wish to God it were all over that I may get safe out of this country.’ Kit Davies, though, was in typically robust mood after recovering from her Schellenberg wound, and made no complaint about being employed in the raiding forays across Bavaria: ‘The allies sent parties on every hand to ravage the country, who pillaged above fifty villages, burnt the houses of peasants and gentlemen, and forced the inhabitants, with what few cattle had escaped, to seek refuge in the woods.’

Colonel De La Colonie, whose own remustered regiment was now near Munich, wrote that his troops were sent out to feel for the Allied raiders, and to assess the level of destruction being caused:

I followed a route through several villages said to have been reduced to cinders, and although I certainly found a few burnt houses, still the damage was as nothing compared with the reports current throughout the country. By means of the woods I was able to push on from village to village in the direction of the enemy’s army, and found there even less evidence of damage; the villages seemed practically entire, and it was only on entering them that it was possible to see any trace of burning in a house here and there.

He added a comment that vividly shows the severity of this kind of warfare: ‘We came across marauders on our road, who were promptly shot.’ The Colonel then recounts an incident when the Grenadiers Rouge became engaged in a vicious running battle with the Imperial Schvein Regiment, illustrating very well that warfare in the early eighteenth century was nowhere near as formal and rigid as is often thought:

I started in pursuit with the first half of the regiment that had passed over [a river], and left an order for the rest to follow us. We were now in hard chase of the enemy’s rearguard, and came up with it a good quarter of a league from the village, owing to their march having been hindered by the woods and my extreme diligence in pursuit. I first caught sight of them retiring over the brow of a wooded ridge, when I gave my grenadiers orders to fix bayonets and not to fire without permission from me. We then hastened our pace, and the enemy seeing us on the point of falling upon them, halted, turned about, and opened fire upon us, with the result that a number of my men were killed on either side of my horse without, strange to say, even wounding him.

De La Colonie’s mount became so agitated and unmanageable by the musketry that the Colonel was forced to dismount and lead his men forward on foot:

After delivering this volley, the enemy continued their retirement with even more precipitation than before, and without reloading. Here, then was our turn in the game. We let ourselves go headlong upon them, and every one of our shots told … My grenadiers followed eagerly, slaying them with bayonet thrust and gunshot, giving no quarter, so as not to delay the advance.

The Grenadiers Rouge were soon be sent to Ingolstadt to bolster the garrison there, but De La Colonie was exasperated at the lack of wisdom of the Elector’s chosen course, dispersing his army widely to counter the Allied raiding parties:

What astonished me, and what no one has been able to explain to me, was that on leaving his entrenchments [at Augsburg] he did not recall at least fifteen thousand men from the Bavarian army, including our own detachment. Such a considerable reinforcement might well have given us victory, for the valour of these troops was beyond question.

Marlborough, of course, would be well aware of the pressure his campaign of destruction put upon his opponent, and must have viewed the continued dispersion of the Bavarian army with satisfaction. At this time, he received a letter from Comte D’Arco, who was making some attempt to rebuild the strength of the Bavarian army after the disaster at the Schellenberg, and his reply was dated 23 July 1704:

I have received the honour of your letter regarding the exchange of prisoners of war … Have the goodness to send me the lists of those who you have of ours who are taken since I arrived in this country, we will send a similar number for exchange, man for man, according to their rank.. If you want to have a list of those [French and Bavarian] wounded at Donauwörth, you do not have to send a list of equal size, they can be returned at your request.

The Duke then shifted tack a little, perhaps becoming reluctant to help the Bavarians in restoring their capability. Three days later he was writing again to D’Arco:

I have received the honour of your letter with the lists of our prisoners which you have with your army, which I have sent to the Prince [Margrave] of Baden; we are ready to send you in exchange the same numbers from your wounded at Donauwörth.

Marlborough relented later in the week, plainly wanting to have the care of the enemy wounded off his hands if he could, writing to D’Arco ‘I have sent a letter to the commander in Donauwörth, concerning one of your wounded officers who, if you desire, will leave with the soldiers there under his parole.’

By 29 July the Duke’s campaign to batter the Elector into submission was in full brutal flow. He wrote to London:

Since the advance of M. Tallard he [the Elector] would not hear of any accommodation, though I have not been wanting on my part, and am sorry he has at last obliged us to extremities, the Comte de la Tour [the Imperial cavalry commander] being gone out this morning with strong detachment of horse and dragoons to destroy and burn the country about Munich, as I fear we shall be forced to do in other parts, to deprive the enemy as well of present subsistence as future support on this side.

Those Allied soldiers not thus engaged were kept in good fettle with parades and reviews. The camp bulletin the following day ran ‘On Monday my Lord Duke of Marlborough reviewed all the troops of the left Wing of the army, which appeared in very good order.’

On 6 August 1704, Marshal Tallard, having delivered his precious supply convoy to the hungry, empty, depots in Ulm, moved to combine his army with that of the Elector and Marsin, near to Augsburg. Eugene reached the area of Höchstädt, north of the Danube, at about the same time, and the Prince rode to confer with Marlborough and Baden near to Rain. The Allies still had a superiority in numbers, although Eugene’s force was rather exposed as it stood to the west of the main Allied army. The Margrave, feeling eclipsed by the closeness of his two colleagues, suggested that he should take his own army and besiege the important crossing place over the Danube at Ingolstadt, twenty miles downstream from Donauwörth. This move had been considered earlier in the campaign, but shelved as insufficient troops had been available. The suggestion was promptly approved by Marlborough, who was not reluctant to get the obstructive, and possibly unreliable, Imperial general out of the way, even though it meant giving up his numerical advantage over his opponents. On 9 August Baden marched eastwards with 15,000 troops to begin the siege, and the Duke and Eugene could begin their moves against the Elector of Bavaria and his French colleagues in earnest.

In the opposing camp, meanwhile, it was rumoured but not yet known for certain that Baden had gone to Ingolstadt. Tallard appears to have preferred to bide his time, and wait for the Allied campaign to wither away in the mists of autumn. He was concerned, as was Marshal Marsin, at the continued wasteful dispersion of the Bavarian army, and urged the Elector, in vain, to concentrate his army’s strength without further delay. Tallard later wrote to the French War Minister that ‘There was a total ignorance of the enemy’s strength, and M. de Bavière [the Elector] having all his troops, except five battalions and about twenty-three squadrons, spread about the country.’ The commanders on neither side had an exact figure of their opponents’ strength, as the numbers present in individual battalions and squadrons would vary quite considerably. In any case, the superiority in numbers now enjoyed by the Elector and his French colleagues was not sufficient to ensure that they could simply overwhelm Marlborough and Eugene if they were in a good defensive position. Marsin and the Elector, however, wanted to act decisively and without delay. They saw, correctly, that Eugene’s small army, still north of the Danube, was a tempting target, rather isolated, while Marlborough was several days’ march away to the south of the river. Accordingly, on 10 August the French and Bavarian armies closed up to the Danube and began crossing to the north bank on pontoon bridges laid at the derelict camp near Dillingen.

Eugene was alerted to the French and Bavarian advance almost immediately, as his forward posts were being overrun. He plainly had insufficient strength to maintain his exposed position, and wrote urgently to Marlborough:

The enemy have marched. It is almost certain that the whole army is passing the Danube at Lauingen. They have pushed a Lieutenant-Colonel that I sent to reconnoitre back to Höchstädt. The plain of Dillingen is crowded with troops. I have held on here all day; but with 18 battalions I dare not risk staying the night. I quit however, with much regret [the position] being good and if he takes it, it will cost us much to get it back. I am therefore marching the infantry and part of the cavalry this night to a camp I have marked out before Donauwörth. I shall stay here as long as I can … Everything, Milord, consists in speed and that you put yourself forthwith in movement to join me to-morrow, without which I fear it will be too late.

The Duke moved smartly to his friend’s support, and despatched that very night twenty-seven squadrons of Imperial cavalry, under command of the Duke of Württemberg. They were followed closely by Charles Churchill, with twenty battalions of infantry, to march westwards and effect a junction with Eugene’s army. This was successfully achieved near to Münster, just to the west of Donauwörth, on 11 August, as the remainder of Marlborough’s army and the train of artillery moved to the north bank of the Danube. In this way, nearly a week after the French and Bavarian armies combined, their opponents did the same. An anxious period for Marlborough, when his opponents had a fleeting chance to overwhelm one of the detachments of his army, had passed.

The French Marshals and the Elector, in the meantime, were becoming careless. Their confident approach, even though they had not caught Eugene, brought them to the plain of Höchstädt, which seemed a perfect spot to encamp, certainly better than the boggy ground of the Pulver and Brunnen streams near the town of Höchstädt itself. Some four miles wide, from the Danube in the south to the Swabian Jura hills to the north, the whole area was open and even, thick with the still ungathered harvest of late summer. The flanks of the army were secured by the river and the hills, while the whole frontage was protected by the normally marshy Nebel stream; however, this was, according to the Marquis de Montigny-Langost who served with Tallard, rather meagre on account of the recent warm weather, and far less of an obstacle than it appeared to be: ‘Only a stream of two feet in width, which formed a small marsh very dried up because of the warm weather, which greatly deceived our generals, who believed it very difficult. This stream comprised the only obstacle.’ Marshal Marsin’s comment on this stream, on the other hand, was that is was ‘A morass, which our engineers thought impassable.’ Anyway, in the course of 12 August, the French and Bavarian armies set up their tents, dug latrines, arranged their horse lines, and sent out foragers. The senior officers made themselves comfortable in the barns and cottages of the small villages which dotted the plain, little suspecting that they might soon have to fight a battle on that very same ground.

The combined armies of Marlborough and Eugene had now begun moving towards the west, rapidly closing the gap between themselves and the plain of Höchstädt. In the afternoon of 12 August, the two Allied commanders were able to complete their own close reconnaissance by climbing the tower of Tapfheim church, from where they were able to clearly see their opponents’ camp. While this was going on, the Marshals and the Elector of Bavaria, all experienced commanders with worthy records, remained in blissful ignorance of their intentions. Marsin wrote afterwards that ‘On the twelve [August] we called a Council of War, to consider whether we should stay for the enemy, who was marching towards us, and resolved we should.’ If this really were so, their lack of awareness that they might actually be attacked, and the failure to prepare for the following morning, is simply astonishing.

As the Allied army marched, Marlborough found it necessary to have his pioneers improve the tracks through the woods alongside the road. This noisy activity did not fail to attract the attention of the French, and cavalry patrols under the Marquis de Silly came forward to see what was going on. Some stiff outpost fighting took place before the troopers were driven off, but the French and Bavarian commanders felt no real concern at these developments. The Comte de Merode-Westerloo tried to take part in this skirmishing action, and remembered that: ‘I rode out beyond Blindheim village into the corn-filled plain – taking care not to stray too far away from my escort which I might well have needed. When I saw our troops falling back, I also returned to camp.’ No alarm was taken, the fine evening passed, and the French and their allies settled comfortably into their tents for the night.