On rising the following morning. Marshall Tallard dictated a letter to Louis XIV, which gives a hint of how profoundly he had misunderstood the intentions of Marlborough and Eugene. After commenting on the mist that lay over the plain, he went on ‘The enemy beat the generall at two o’clock, and assembled at three. On sending scouts to view their camp it seems that they will march today. The talk of the countryside is that they will go to Nordlingen.’

Francis Hare left a detailed account of the onset of the battle that morning, Wednesday 13 August 1704, when the leading Allied soldiers:

Discovered the advanced parties of the enemy [actually foragers] before six o’clock in the morning, and these, as our squadrons came up, retired by degrees towards their encampment. About seven our generals halted and took a full view of the enemy’s camp from a rising ground over against it, and found the situation of it to be as follows: their right was on the Danube, having the village of Blenheim (where was Marshal Tallard’s quarters) in front; and their left extended to a wood which covered the village of Lutzingen, where were the quarters of the Elector of Bavaria. All along this front there ran a rivulet [the Nebel stream] twelve feet broad in most places and very difficult to pass, and in several parts the ground near it was very marshy. About the centre was the village of Oberglau (the quarters of Marshal Marsin), situated upon the side of the hill about musket-shot from the rivulet. The enemy were encamped upon this hill, which reached from the Danube to the wood, being of a very easy ascent, and having a command of the whole plain … While viewing these features of the enemy’s position at a short distance, his Grace was also more particularly informed of the nature of them by Major-General Natzmer, of the King of Prussia’s troops, who had been wounded the year before in the defeat at this place of Count Stirum by the Elector of Bavaria and M. d’Usson.

Hare noticed in particular the curious lack of activity in the opposing camp, as the Allied army poured out past the narrow defile at the village of Schwenningen onto the plain of Höchstädt:

All this while, the morning being a little hazy, the enemy might suppose that we had only small parties abroad, and might not be aware that the whole army was in motion. However this may have been, they remained quietly in their camp during this early part of the morning. Our columns began to appear a little after seven, both officers and soldiers advancing cheerfully and showing a firm and glad countenance, and seeming to be confident to themselves of a victorious day.

The Comte de Merode-Westerloo, on the other side of the stream, was among those few in the French and Bavarian camp who seemed to be alarmed at the Allied advance:

I slept deeply until six in the morning when I was abruptly awoken by one of my old retainers who rushed into the barn all out of breath … This fellow, LeFranc, shook me awake and blurted out that the enemy was there. Thinking to mock him I said ‘Where? There?’ and he at once replied ‘Yes-there-there!’ Flinging wide as he spoke the door of the barn and drawing my bed-curtains – the whole area appeared to be covered by enemy squadrons … I rubbed my eyes in disbelief, and then coolly remarked that the enemy must at least give me time to take my morning cup of chocolate. While I was hurriedly drinking this and getting dressed, my horses were saddled and harnessed.

Soon the Comte was getting his men to their feet and their horses ready. He also astutely instructed his servants to take his camp baggage to the rear. ‘There was not a soul stirring as I clattered out of the village, nothing might have been happening,’ he recalled. Tallard hurried past, and called out his congratulation that Merode-Westerloo was so promptly responding to the sudden and alarming development. Observing all this from the far side of the field, Francis Hare tells us that:

The enemy now beat to arms, and fired the signal for their foragers to come in. They also set fire to the villages of Berghausen, Weilheim [farm] and Unterglau, and to the two mills and some other houses near the rivulet, with a view to prevent our passage.

Taken very much by surprise, for all Marsin’s specious claims, the French and Bavarian commanders found that the order in which they had gone into camp was not an ideal disposition from which to prepare for battle. One of Marlborough’s soldiers wrote that ‘We saw all their camp in a motion, their generals and aides de camp galloping to and fro.’ Having viewed the Allied approach from the church tower in Blindheim village, Tallard, Marsin and the Elector made a competent enough appreciation of what best to do; drawing up their cavalry in the cornfields on the open plain, and preparing the villages of Lutzingen, Oberglau and Blindheim for defence with strong garrisons of infantry and dismounted dragoons. The ungathered crops hampered observation, but their batteries were sighted as well as could be, and these soon began to fire on the advancing Allied columns. The Marquis de Montigny-Langost wrote that: ‘The whole great plain was black with troops, and at seven o’clock and three quarters that morning [7.45am, although Marsin thought it was about 9am], the cannonade began very vigorously.’ A soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment became the first Allied casualty that day, when a round-shot knocked him flying.

Marshal Tallard had decided that it was best to allow his opponents to come across the Nebel stream without real interference, intending then to use his powerful cavalry to drive the Allied troops to destruction in the boggy water obstacle at their back. Marsin, however, decided to fight for every yard of ground, and his infantry were formed up at the water’s edge. Neither Marshal was necessarily wrong in the tactical choice they made, but Marlborough’s plan depended upon getting his cavalry across the Nebel in good order, and Tallard’s dispositions allowed him to do so without great difficulty. Frances Hare again:

About eight o’clock, the enemy began to cannonade our army as it advanced. Upon which his Grace ordered Colonel Blood to plant several counter batteries upon the most advantageous parts of the ground, and his Grace visited each battery, and stood by to observe the range of the guns and the effect of their fire.

Marlborough’s Wing of the army could draw up fairly easily on the firm ground near to Blindheim on the left, but Eugene’s Wing was struggling across more difficult country to get into place at the foot of the Waldberg, ready to attack the Bavarians in and around Lutzingen:

The Imperialists had been in march to take their post on the right, and his Grace, in taking leave of Prince Eugene, desired his Highness to give him notice when the right wing was formed, that they might begin the general attack together. But the ground upon the right being found less practicable than it had been represented to be, Prince Eugene was forced on that account to make a greater circuit through the woods upon his right, and had to extend his wing further than had been anticipated. This took up much time.

Donald McBane remembered that: ‘We marched up within shot of the enemy, and halted there upon our arms, until Prince Eugene came through the woods.’ Tallard’s artillery commander, the highly proficient Marquis de la Frequelière, wrote that his guns were soon in action all along the line: ‘One was excited by the extraordinary effect it produced, every shot cutting through their battalions, some of them raking obliquely; and from the very way in which the enemy was deployed, not a round was wasted.’ At this time, a round-shot almost finished the Duke’s career, striking the ground beneath his horse: ‘A large cannon-ball grazed upon the plowed land, close by his horse’s side, and almost covered him with dust’. Marlborough remained unruffled, but he was anxious at the delay in beginning the attack as the hot morning wore on; his opponents might have time to recover their poise, and all the advantage gained by the daring advance the previous day would be lost. The Duke, having seen that Divine Service was held by the regimental chaplains, had his infantry lie down to shelter both from the sun and the French fire. Francis Hare wrote of the artillery duel:

All this while both armies continued to cannonade each other very briskly, but the fire of the enemy’s artillery was not so well answered by the cannon with Prince Eugene as it was by that in the left wing [Marlborough’s]; for his Highness was obliged to sustain the fire of the enemy’s artillery all the while he was drawing up his troops but could not bring his own fieldpieces to bear against them on account of the many ditches and other impediments from one extremity of his wing to the other.

Eugene would not get his guns into action until his troops were already heavily involved in their attacks on the Bavarians in Lutzingen and Marsin’s French cavalry near Oberglau. However, the chaplain goes on:

These difficulties being at length overcome, his Highness sent an aide de camp about half an hour past twelve to let the Duke of Marlborough know that he was ready. Upon this his Grace called for his horse, and sent the young Prince of Hesse [who would one day, upon his marriage, become King of Sweden] with orders to Lord Cutts to begin the attack upon Blindheim.

Marlborough’s plan was that heavy infantry attacks would be thrown upon the fortified villages on either flank of the French and Bavarian position. While these were in progress, his cavalry, amply supported by infantry, would cross the Nebel stream to confront the cavalry of Marshal Tallard, drawn up in the cornfields across the plain between Blindheim and Oberglau. Eugene’s role, with the much smaller Wing of the army, was to tie down Marsin and the Elector of Bavaria between Oberglau and Lutzingen, next to the wooded hills, to prevent any assistance being sent across to Tallard in his crucial battle with Marlborough.

Lord John Cutts (as brave and brainless as the sword at his side in the opinion of Jonathan Swift) had command of a column of twenty British and German battalions on the left of the Allied line. They had driven off de Silly’s cavalry and secured Schwenningen village the previous evening, and these troops now went into action against Blindheim, scrambling across the Nebel stream to get into place. At the same time, Marlborough’s main body of infantry, commanded by Charles Churchill, began to make their way across the stream near Unterglau. Makeshift bridges, made from fascines and wood torn from the smouldering cottages, were used to manhandle artillery pieces forward to support them.

As Cutts’s leading battalions cleared the stream and approached the edge of Blindheim, a blast of French musketry ravaged their ranks. Hare wrote:

It was near one o’clock when Lord Cutts made the first attack upon Blenheim. Brigadier-General Rowe, on foot, led up his brigade which formed the first line, and which was sustained in the second line by a brigade of Hessians [under Wilkes]. Brigadier Rowe had proceeded within thirty paces of the pales [breastwork] about Blenheim before the enemy gave their first fire, by which a great many brave officers and soldiers fell, but that did not discourage their gallant commander from marching directly up to the pales, on which he struck his sword.

The commander of Cutts’s right-hand brigade, Archibald Rowe, was shot down, as were the commanding officer and second-in-command of his own regiment. At the same time Fergusson’s brigade tried to work their way between Blindheim and the waters of the Danube, but were equally robustly repulsed by the squadrons of dismounted French dragoons posted in an orchard there. Colonel Dormer of the 1st English Foot Guards was killed in the attempt. Hare recalled a well-handled French counter-attack that threatened, briefly, to overwhelm Cutts’s column:

While this was doing, some squadrons of the French gens-d’armes fell upon the right flank of Rowe’s brigade, put it partially in disorder, and took one of the colours of Rowe’s Regiment; but the Hessians in the second line, facing to the right, charged these squadrons so briskly that they repulsed them and retook the colour.

The honour of Rowe’s Regiment was restored by these stalwart German troops, but a little later, as Cutts renewed his bloody attacks on the village, his flank was again threatened by an advance of Tallard’s front-line squadrons. The British cavalry and dragoons had already been detached to rejoin the main body near Unterglau, as had two brigades of infantry (one British and one Hanoverian), and their commander, Henry Lumley, now moved smartly to deflect the cavalry thrust against Cutts’s troops. Hare wrote:

Lord Cutts, seeing fresh cavalry of the enemy coming down upon him, sent his aide-de-camp to desire that some of our squadrons should be sent to cover his flank. Lieutenant-General Lumley accordingly ordered Colonel Palmer [actually Palmes] to march over the rivulet with the three squadrons which were nearest the pass, and these were followed by Colonel Leybourg [Sybourg] with two more, all which had no sooner drawn up than eight of the enemy’s squadrons moved down upon them, and ours advanced to meet them. Those of the enemy gave their fire at a little distance, but the English squadrons charged up to them sword in hand, and broke and put them to flight. But being overpowered by fresh squadrons, and galled by the fire of the enemy’s infantry posted about Blenheim, our squadrons were repulsed in their turn and forced to retire.

The British troopers had gone too far and were pretty well cut up. One of their squadron commanders, Major Oldfield, was thrown from his horse and trampled ‘by two or three squadrons’, while another, Richard Creed, was killed. Once again, the brigade of Hessian infantry came forward to help, driving off the French squadrons with their deadly volleys. Three days later, John Creed wrote home to his mother to tell of his older brother’s death:

The enemy forced us to retire and I missing my dearest brother in the retreat I advanced in haste towards the enemy’s squadrons with endeavour to rescue him but, a dismal sight, found him struggling on the ground, and one of the enemy over him with his sword in his hand. I shot the enemy and dismounted and lifted up my brother and brought him off but he never spoke more; he had several wounds, but was at last killed by a shot in the head …. Thank God I escaped unwounded.

The French horsemen were elite Gens d’Armes, and this second repulse caused some consternation in the ranks of the French and Bavarian armies. The adjutant of the Gendarmerie felt compelled by the criticism to write to the War Minister, Michel de Chamillart, in Paris, after the action:

I shall begin by acquainting you with the despair of all the officers, upon the news they receive from Paris, wherein they find that Monsieur de Silly spreads injurious and malicious reports against them. Is it possible, my Lord, that the reputation of a body so well established everywhere, by so many different actions, can depend on the caprice or malice of a private man, without experience. And is it just to believe him, if he has a mind to disgrace so many brave men, who, in the sight, both of friends and enemies have done all that could be expected from men of courage.

The Marquis de Silly, whose brigade had pushed Marlborough’s scouts and pioneers so hard the previous day as they approached the plain of Höchstädt, could hardly, in fairness, be said to be ‘a man without experience’.

On hearing of the repulse of the Gendarmerie the Elector of Bavaria, embroiled in a hectic battle against Eugene’s Imperial cavalry near to Lutzingen, sent the Marquis de Montigny-Langost to stiffen their resolve with the stirring words ‘Go, rally them, tell them I am here in person. Lead them to the charge once again’. The Marquis was wounded before he could reach the Gendarmerie, and taken prisoner soon afterwards; his captor, who had taken charge of the young man’s purse, was then in turn wounded by a stray musket-ball, and so Montigny-Langost got away.

The Allied infantry attacks, both against Lutzingen and Blindheim, were beaten off with heavy loss. On the right Eugene’s Prussian and Danish infantry were driven back across the stream in disorder, and his Imperial cavalry was no more successful. In these exchanges, the left Wing of the French and Bavarian army more than held their own in the slashing fights alongside the Nebel stream; Eugene’s troops took heavy casualties and were undoubtedly badly shaken. Meanwhile, in the meadows beside the Danube, Cutts’s column went into the attack on Blindheim again, regardless of loss. Under this pressure, the French commander in the village, the Marquis de Clérambault, began to pack into the narrow streets every infantry battalion he could lay hands on; before long, the French cavalry of the right Wing was left without sufficient support. This was crucial, for these squadrons, now exposed and isolated, were the real target for Marlborough’s attack. The Duke was contriving a powerful mix of cavalry, infantry and artillery working together in close co-operation on what was, in Robert Parker’s rather apt phrase: ‘A fine plain, without hedge or ditch, for the cavalry on both sides to show their bravery.’

Marlborough could not push his troops forward very far beyond the Nebel stream, while the French infantry in Oberglau, under the confident and capable command of the Marquis de Blainville, remained active. Two Dutch brigades, commanded by the Prince of Holstein-Beck, were sent in to deal with the place, but were very roughly handled by the French and émigré Irish defenders, who put in a sharp counter-attack. Dr Hare goes on:

The Prince of Holstein-Beck was however wounded and taken prisoner in this attack; and the Duke of Marlborough seeing things in some confusion, galloped up, and ordered forward three battalions, commanded by Major-Gen. Averocks to sustain them, and caused a battery of cannon to be brought forward, affairs were re-established at this point.

Count Fugger was nearby, at Weilheim farm, with a brigade of Imperial Swabian cuirassiers. He had not responded to an urgent appeal from Holstein-Beck for help, feeling unable to move from the station allotted to him by Eugene. In a sense he was right, as the boundary between the two Wings of the Allied army was potentially a very weak spot at which the French might strike with good effect. Fugger’s powerful presence at the farm was Eugene’s guarantee against such a mishap to his left flank as he drove in against the Bavarians around Lutzingen. However, Holstein-Beck’s Dutch brigades had been thrown into complete disarray, and had Marlborough not taken a firm grip, a disaster might well have occurred, with Marsin thrusting his powerful corps between the Duke and Eugene, splitting the Allied army clean in two. The Count now responded to Marlborough’s summons, and brought his armoured horsemen cantering down towards the stream, and their menacing approach neatly deterred any attempt by Marsin to take advantage of the temporary Dutch confusion. The rent in the centre of the Allied line was repaired by Averock’s Dutch and the Hanoverians under Hulsen. Francis Hare described the unfolding deployment of Marlborough’s army:

It was now past four o’clock, and the Duke of Marlborough had got the whole of the left wing of the allied army over the rivulet, and our horse were drawn up in two lines fronting that of the enemy; but they did not offer to charge until General Churchill had ranged all the foot also in two lines behind the cavalry.

Remorselessly, the infantry attacks directed against the three strongpoint villages were tying down the troops available to the Elector and the French Marshals. Marlborough retained the initiative with fresh horsemen ready to feed into the action, unlike Tallard, whose squadrons were exposed and increasingly worn out in the scrambling fights along the stream. The time had come for Marlborough’s great effort to destroy the centre of gravity of the whole French and Bavarian effort on the Danube – Tallard’s cavalry:

About five o’clock the general forward movement was made, which determined the issue of this great battle, which until then had seemed to remain doubtful. The Duke of Marlborough, having ridden along the front, gave orders to sound the charge, when all at once our two lines of horse moved on, sword in hand, to the attack. Those of the enemy presented their fusils at some small distance and fired, but they had no sooner done so than they immediately turned about, broke one another, and betook themselves to flight.

It actually took several resolute charges by the Allied cavalry to break the French, but Hare rightly draws attention to their futile and antiquated practice of firing their pistols and carbines at the halt rather than, as the Allied cavalry did, moving to close with their enemy using shock action and cold steel. The adjutant of the Gendarmerie described the efforts of the French cavalry in his plaintive letter to Chamillart, writing that:

All the army knows, that we had charged twice, before the cavalry had approached the enemy; that we faced them until six o’clock in the evening; and that it was in the centre, which was thin and weak, where the enemy pierced through … Our body [the Gendarmerie], as they were posted, could do no more, than sacrifice themselves, as they did, without being able to succeed in their charges, being continually exposed to the fire of a close body of infantry sustained by several ranks … We overthrew, indeed their first line, more than once, but it was still succoured, and animated again, by three others.

Supported by numerous infantry, the Allied cavalry squadrons came on again and again, wearing down the French horsemen. Suddenly, late in the afternoon, all was panic as Tallard’s troopers turned about, disregarding the shouted commands of their officers, and galloped off the field. Merode-Westerloo remembered ‘An unauthorised but definite movement to the rear by my troopers’ and was caught up in the fleeing throng:

So tight was the press that my horse was carried along some three hundred paces without putting hoof to ground, right to the edge of a deep ravine; down we plunged a good twenty feet into a swampy meadow; my horse stumbled and fell. A moment later some more men and horses fell on top of me. I spent several moments trapped beneath my horse.

As the French cavalry fled, Frances Hare described in vivid detail the dreadful destruction of the few battalions of French infantry they left behind on the open plain:

The enemy had intermingled some regiments of foot with their cavalry immediately on the right of Oberglau. He [Marlborough] ordered some Hanoverian regiments of foot to halt and make head against the enemy’s foot; and Colonel Blood was ordered at the same time to march a battery of cannon over the pontoons, and bring it to bear upon the enemy’s battalions. This was done with good success, and made a great slaughter of the enemy. They stood firm, however, for a time, closing their ranks as fast as they were broken, until being much weakened, they were at last thrown into disorder, when our squadrons falling upon them, they were cut down in entire ranks, and were seen so lying after the battle.

Tallard tried to gather together some of his squadrons to make a stand, but all was in confusion. The Marquis de Maisonelle was sent galloping towards Blindheim to get some infantry out of the village, but he was never seen again. Confronted soon afterwards by a group of Hessian dragoons near to Sonderheim, the Marshal was taken to the Prince of Hesse-Cassell, who sent him on to where Marlborough was directing the pursuit of the broken French army. The dignified exchange of courtesies between the two commanders, who were old acquaintances, is well known. Tallard bowed slightly and murmured ‘I congratulate you, on defeating the best soldiers in the world.’ The Duke, equally composed, drily replied ‘Your Lordship, I assume, excepts those troops who have had the honour to beat them.’ Tallard was then ushered into the privacy of Marlborough’s own coach, where he could grieve for the disaster to his army, his loss of reputation, and for the young son he had seen shot down earlier that afternoon. Marlborough’s chaplain wrote that the Marshal had:

Surrendered himself to M. Beinebourg, aide-de-camp to the Prince of Hesse; and along with the marshal were taken some of his aides-de-camp and several other officers of note. They were brought immediately to the Duke of Marlborough, who desired that Marshal Tallard would make use of his coach; and his Grace immediately sent off Colonel Parke with a pencil note to the Duchess of Marlborough containing the announcement of the victory.

The ‘pencil note’ scrawled by the Duke on the back of an old tavern bill borrowed from an aide, was the famous ‘Blenheim Despatch’, and it read:

I have not time to say more, but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know that her army has had this day a glorious victory. M.Tallard and two other generals are in my coach and I am pursuing the rest. The bearer, my aide de camp, Colonel Parke, will give her an account of what has passed and I shall do it in a day or so, by another, more at large.

Eight days later, a travel-weary Daniel Parke, having briefly visited the Duchess, handed the piece of paper to Queen Anne in Windsor Castle. Meanwhile, the Elector of Bavaria was also writing a note, but his message was of more sombre tone. He told his wife, who had once urged him to agree terms with Marlborough, of the catastrophe that had been endured: ‘Wihr haben heute alles verhloren [We have today lost everything].’

The victorious army could not make an effective and vigorous pursuit though, partly due to the hard fighting that had taken place, and their resulting exhaustion. The inevitable fog of war so easily clouds operations, as Francis Hare described:

The Duke having collected some squadrons from the pursuit, moved with them towards the flank of the Elector of Bavaria’s wing of the enemy’s army, which Prince Eugene had by a fourth attack succeeded in driving from its position … But the right wing of our army, which was at no great distance behind that of the Elector, being mistaken for a part of his troops marching in good order and in such a direction as might have enabled them advantageously to flank our squadrons had they charged the other part of the Elector’s force; and as it was now growing too dusk to distinguish clearly the several corps, the retreat of the enemy was not further impeded in this direction. All this while the village of Blenheim had been incessantly attacked, but it still held out.

The village of Blindheim was, at this late stage, proving a persistent problem. Cutts had not the strength to force his way in, for he was quite outnumbered by the garrison, although his soldiers’ musketry effectively prevented the French infantry from getting out from the narrow exits between the cottages. Marlborough’s brother now directed the British infantry under George Hamilton, 1st Earl Orkney, which had supported the Allied cavalry on the plain, to swing to the left and take the village from the west:

As soon as General Churchill saw the defeat of the enemy’s horse, he sent to inform Lord Cutts that he was himself coming to attack the village of Blenheim in flank, and requested that his Lordship would make another attack at the same time in front … An attack was at once made accordingly, and the Earl of Orkney and Lieutenant-General Ingoldsby entered the village at two different places at the head of their respective lines, but they were forced to retire.

Many of the cottages were on fire now, and those wounded who had taken shelter in them were in peril. John Deane wrote of the awful scenes in Blindheim as the flames took hold:

We according to command fought our way into the village which was all of a fire, and our men fought in and through the fire and pursued others through it, until many on both sides were burnt to death … The village was set on fire before we came to it by the enemy whereby they thought to have blinded our gunners, but great and grievous were the cries of the maimed, and those suffering in the flames after we entered the village and none is able to express it but those that heard it.

The French infantry and dragoons fought well, although the narrow alleys and yards meant that many were given no chance to use their weapons effectively. Around the walled churchyard a fierce hand-to-hand battle erupted as night drew on, but Orkney took advantage of a local truce, agreed to allow time to rescue wounded men from burning to death in the cottages, to attempt a parley with the defenders. The Duc de St Simon wrote that the Marquis de Blanzac, who assumed the command in the village as Clérambault was nowhere to be found, saw ‘Denonville, one of our officers who had been taken prisoner, coming towards the village, accompanied by an officer who waved a handkerchief and demanded a parley.’ James Abercrombie, an aide de camp who also witnessed the scene while serving with Orkney, wrote:

As Lord Orkney having met with Marquis Denonville, who had commanded the French Regiment Royal [du Roi], but who was already a prisoner, he was suffered to go into the town upon his parole to return immediately. This he did, bringing with him to Lord Orkney several French generals; but as they were discussing the terms of capitulation, General Churchill arrived, and telling them that he had no time to lose (it being now past seven in the evening), and that if they did not lay down their arms immediately, he must renew the attack. They submitted, and were with all the troops in Blenheim made prisoners.

De Blanzac was permitted by Orkney to go to the edge of the cottages, to see for himself that Tallard’s army had disintegrated, while that of Marsin and the Elector was in full flight from the field. ‘He returned to Blenheim, assembled all the senior officers, and told them what he had seen.’ Effectively bluffed into surrender (for Marlborough feared the struggle for the village might have to be renewed in the morning), some 10,000 of France’s best soldiers laid down their arms and gave up their colours, while their officers wept tears of frustration and shame at the humiliation of their plight. Their abilities and courage were never in doubt but, penned into the village all day long, they had little chance to demonstrate their devotion and valour, and for many the unhappy prospect of life as a prisoner of Imperial Austria now loomed ahead, unless an exchange could be arranged with Allied prisoners presently in French hands.

As darkness fell, the weary but victorious Allied soldiers could rest at last, and enjoy some of the fruits of their victory. Francis Hare remembered that the troops:

Quickly possessed themselves of the enemy’s tents, which were left standing, and which were found to contain great quantities of herbs and vegetables; and nearer to the Danube there lay about one hundred fat oxen ready skinned, which were to have been delivered out this day to the French troops, but which proved a welcome booty to the soldiers of the allied army after such long and hard service.

The Comte de Merode-Westerloo, having escaped from the debacle that engulfed the French cavalry, arrived in a very dishevelled state in Höchstädt village square, where he refreshed himself at the well. He was hailed by some French officers of his acquaintance who remarked that he had been slow in getting there, to which the Walloon nobleman waspishly replied that they, by contrast, had got there very quickly. Merode-Westerloo then busied himself with arranging a series of makeshift rearguards on the road to Diesenhofen, so that those troops that could still march had some chance of getting away. Meanwhile, Donald McBane lay wounded on the field of battle, on the outskirts of Blindheim village:

About the middle of the night the Dutch of our army came a plundering, and stripped me of all except my shirt; a little after another came and took the shirt also. I besought him to leave me it, but he gave me a stroke with the butt of his gun.

It would be two days before his friends found the wounded man, and took him to a surgeon to have his injuries tended.

The Duke of Marlborough wrote to the Secretary of State, Robert Harley, from Höchstädt the day after the battle, Thursday 14 August, announcing the details of the victory in rather fuller terms than his famous despatch had done. Explaining the manoeuvres that combined the two Allied armies, the Duke went on:

We resolved to attack them, and accordingly we marched between three and four yesterday morning from the camp at Munster, leaving all our tents standing. About six we came in view of the enemy, who we found, did not expect so early an onset. The cannon began to play about half and hour after eight. They formed themselves in two bodies, the Elector with M. Marsin and their troops on our right, and M. de Tallard with all his on our left; which last fell to my share; they had two rivulets, besides a morass before them which we were obliged to pass over in their view, and Prince Eugene was forced to take a great compass to come to the enemy, so that it was one of the clock before the battle began. It lasted with great vigour till sunset, when the enemy were obliged to retire, and by the blessing of God, we obtained a complete victory. We cut off great numbers of them, as well in the action as in the retreat, besides upwards of twenty squadrons of the French, which I pushed into the Danube, where we saw the greater part of them perish. M. Tallard, with several of his generals being taken prisoners at the same time, and in the village of Blenheim, which the enemy had entrenched and fortified, and where they made the greatest opposition, I obliged twenty-six entire battalions, and twelve squadrons of dragoons, to surrender themselves prisoners at discretion. We took likewise all their tents standing, with their cannon and ammunition, also a great number of standards, kettle-drums, and colours in the action, so that I reckon the greatest part of M. Tallard’s army is taken or destroyed. The bravery of all our troops on this occasion cannot be expressed, the Generals, as well as the officers and soldiers, behaving themselves with the greatest courage and resolution. The horse and dragoons were obliged to charge four or five several times. The Elector and M. de Marsin were so advantageously posted, that Prince Eugene could make no impression on them, till the third attack, near seven at night, when he made a great slaughter of them. But being near a wood-side, a great body of Bavarians retired into it, and the rest of the army retreated towards Lavingen, it being too late, and the troops much too tired to pursue them far.

After asking that the Queen’s wishes for the disposal of the captured prisoners, equipment, ordnance and trophies should be obtained, Marlborough went on to comment on the badly battered state of his own battalions, many of whom had fought a dreadfully hard battle, only a few weeks after the harrowing assault on the Schellenberg hill: ‘You will easily believe that, in so long and vigorous an action, the English, who had so great a share in it, must have suffered as well in officers as men; but I have not yet the particulars.’

The reply sent by Queen Anne to the Duke of Marlborough, on receipt of the brief note brought by Colonel Parke, ran:

The good news Col. Parke brought me yesterday was very welcome, but not more I do assure you, than hearing you were well after so glorious a victory, which will not only humble our enemies abroad, but contribute very much to putting a stop to the ill designs of those at home.

On that same Thursday Marlborough went to see Marshal Tallard, to pay his compliments, and to enquire after his comfort. Dr Hare recorded the visit in his journal:

Reaching the Marshal’s quarters, they [Marlborough and Eugene] found him very much dejected and wounded in one of his hands. His grace humanely enquired how far it was in his power to make him easy under his misfortune, offering him the convenience of his quarters, and the use of his coach. The marshal thankfully declined the offer, saying he did not desire to move, till he could have his own equipage. His grace accordingly despatched one of his own trumpets to the electoral army, with a passport for bringing it to the marshal. At this interview many of the French generals crowded about his grace, admiring his person, as well as his tender and generous behaviour.

During this interview, Tallard let it be known that several Allied prisoners, taken by de Silly’s cavalry in the skirmishing on 12 August, had reported that their army was about to retire northwards to Nordlingen, rather than to advance to the attack on the plain of Höchstädt. Whether this was false information, deliberately planted by Marlborough to delude the French commander, is unsure, although it is sometimes hinted at as being fact.

Jean-Martin De La Colonie, who had missed the battle beside the Danube, as his regiment was now a part of the garrison in Ingolstadt, remembered the news of the defeat coming to the city:

A courier arrived bearing an order from the Electress [of Bavaria], to the effect that the Marquis de Massey was to return with his troops to Munich, by forced marches, so as to ensure the safety of the Electoral family. This courier told us, with tears in his eyes, that all was lost; the army of France had been totally destroyed of the plains of Hochstett, the Elector had fled to the French frontier, the Electress was in the saddest possible condition. It would be out of my power to find words strong enough to express the depression into which we were plunged at so unexpected a piece of news. All our manoeuvres, plans and conquests came to nothing in an instant; it was no longer possible to derive any advantage from our past efforts.

The Colonel commented with cynical, but worldly-wise, perception, that ‘If Marechal de Tallard had been successful, no one would have found fault with him’. De La Colonie goes on to describe the operations necessary to conduct the Electress and her children to safety. The pursuit of the broken French and Bavarian forces towards the west, drawing the main Allied army away from the Danube, gave a kind of breathing space in which this could be accomplished.

The incredible tale of the defeat came to the French King in Versailles soon enough, in fact on the same day that Queen Anne received Parke at Windsor. St Simon remembered:

The King received the cruel news of this battle on the 21st of August by a courier from the Marechal de Villeroi … The entire army of Tallard was killed or taken prisoner, it was not known what had become of Tallard himself. Neither the King or anyone else could understand, from what reached them, how it was that a entire army had been placed inside a village, and had surrendered itself by a signed capitulation. It puzzled every brain … We were not accustomed to misfortune.

The scale of the victory that Marlborough and Eugene gained that hot August day was staggering. Some 20,000 French and Bavarian troops were either killed or wounded, while another 15,000 surrendered as unwounded prisoners, most of them from the garrison penned into Blindheim village. Vast amounts of cannon, infantry colours, cavalry standards, wagons, horses and mules, ammunition and stores were captured as the French army fled from the field. The battle had been hard fought indeed, and the losses in the Allied army were about 13,000 killed and wounded, which gives a flavour of the severity of the fighting on the plain of Höchstädt.

The astounding news of such an unprecedented, and wholly unexpected, victory over the French, caused feverish celebration in London. John Evelyn noted in his diary:

This week there was brought over the happy news of the French and Bavarian armies’ defeat by the Confederates, and especially by the valour and conduct of the Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, who vanquished them and took Marshall Tallard, their general, prisoner. This news was immediately brought to the Queen, during the yet pursuit of the enemy, written by the Duke of Marlborough in such extreme haste that he could not particularly describe the rest of the circumstances and event, which we hourly expect. But this has so exceedingly overjoyed in that there is nothing but triumphs and demonstrations in the city, and everywhere.

A few weeks later Evelyn was able to write about the formal celebrations held in London to mark the victory:

This day was celebrated the thanksgiving for the late great victory, with the utmost pomp and splendour by the Queen, Court, Great Officers, Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, [livery] Companies etc … The Foot Guards; the Queen in a rich coach with eight horses, none with her but the Duchess of Marlborough in a very plain garment, the Queen full of jewels.

Back in the Danube valley, due to the exhaustion of the victorious Allied army, the pursuit of the broken French and Bavarian forces was less rigorous than might have been desired. This was unavoidable, as masses of prisoners had also to be catered for. Marsin and the Elector, by abandoning much of their ordnance and baggage train (although the Marshal reported getting 18 guns away from the field of battle), and by leaving important towns like Munich, Ingolstadt and Ulm to their fate, got back towards the Rhine, to combine their shattered army with that of Villeroi in Alsace, and to await there the approach of Marlborough and Eugene.

The Dutch States-General, so often unappreciative of the Duke’s efforts, were loud in their praise of the triumph beside the Danube. They had:

Never dared to carry our hopes so far, as to think of so glorious and complete a victory as you have gained over the enemy. The action that day has placed your merit in its true lustre. A day whose glory might have been envied by the greatest captains of past ages, and whose memory will endure throughout all ages to come.

Prince George, Queen Anne’s husband and consort, wrote to Marlborough in warm and unmistakably sincere tones:

I give you a thousand thanks for the great good news you send me, and assure you that nobody can rejoice more sincerely with you than I do, not only for the public good, but on your own particular being very sensible, after such disappointments as you have met with this year, success must be a double satisfaction to you. That you may never meet with any ill-fortune, but always make a glorious end of this campaign, is most heartily wished by your very affectionate friend.

Despite the weakened state of his own army, Marlborough moved quite promptly to breach the defences of the French frontier along the Rhine, while their field armies were in disarray. However, the Duke’s health was far from good, perhaps a result of the strains of this daring campaign through the summer. On Sunday 17 August he wrote to Godolphin: ‘Ever since the battle I have been so employed about our own wounded men and the prisoners, that I have not had one hour’s quiet, which has so disordered me, that if I were in London I should be in my bed in a high fever.’ A week later, although racked with a headache, the Duke looked forward to a continuation of the pursuit of his broken opponents:

I am suffered to have so little time to myself that I have a continual fever on my spirits, which makes me very weak; but when I go from hence, I am resolved to go in my coach until I come to the Rhine, which I do not doubt will restore me to perfect health.

The pursuit of the battered French and Bavarian armies was, inevitably, not without occasional excitements, particularly as the Rhine was neared. John Deane remembered one incident on 28 August 1704, when the camp followers with the army were put into a state of great alarm:

A partizan [foraging patrol or raid] of the enemy fell upon some of our sutlers and plundered them and so made them off, and our battalion of Guards marched by themselves that day and aforesaid sutlers coming thundering back and desiring our battalion to advance, swearing that all the French army was coming upon us, struck us into such a consternation yet we were in a wood also knowing that we were all alone and a great distance from the army. In short it put us into great confusion; and at last it proved nothing but a strong partizan party and some parties of French Hussars who appeared. Our Grey Dragoons [Royal Scots Greys] followed them, came up with them and cut them down, and we marched by them and see them afterwards.

The Comte de Merode-Westerloo, who was still nursing his wounds from the recent battle, wrote of the retreat of the battered French and Bavarian army through the Black Forest, where Marshal Villeroi was coming forward to support them:

We were on our way, passing Villingen [where Tallard had lost four days in trying to take the place in June] below us to the right. We re-entered the gorges, finding Villeroi’s men in full control of the passes. His army formed our rearguard. When we eventually emerged from the mountains, I was given leave on account of my wounds to ride ahead of the army, and I reached Strasbourg in one day … The army reached Strasbourg three or four days later, and there it rested.

The Comte then told, with rather grim, possibly unintentional, humour, of how the fugitive Elector of Bavaria was received in the town: ‘The Elector was housed in the Governor’s residence, built overlooking the river, and there that very same night he was serenaded by the mayor from some boats. I do not think this was very well received on his part.’

At the beginning of September the Allied army began crossing the Rhine, using the pontoon bridges laid on Marlborough’s orders during his march southwards to the Danube valley. The Margrave of Baden, convalescent still from his Schellenberg wound, and smarting with indignation at having been deliberately excluded (as he saw it) from the day of glory in August, moved with his Imperial troops to invest the town of Landau. Once again, as in July, the lack of a proper siege train hampered operations, as did the poor weather and sickness in the Allied camp. This was particularly so among the cavalry horses, and Captain Richard Pope wrote of Schomberg’s Regiment of Horse that ‘The left wing is entirely ruined, we have not above twenty horses or troops left, and probably not ten of those able to march.’

As the operations against Landau dragged on, the French were able to recover their poise, draw troops out of other garrisons and move them into the Moselle valley, guarding against any fresh Allied offensive there. Marlborough soon decided that to wait for the place to fall would be unwise. He wrote on 26 October ‘I came this afternoon from Landau, where I have been ever since Tuesday. That siege goes on so very slowly, that I can give no news when it is likely to end.’ Leaving Eugene to besiege Landau, the Duke’s detachment was now threading its way through difficult country to invest Treves on the Moselle. On 20 October he wrote to Sidney Godolphin of his movements:

I have gone through the terriblest country that can be imagined for the march of an army with cannon. Had it rained, we would have left our baggage and cannon behind us …. If the siege of Landau had been ended, I should have marched with all the troops under my command; so that I might have been almost sure of success in this expedition. But as I have been obliged to leave one half of the Hessians, all the Hanoverians, and the English with Prince Eugene, I am now exposed to the enemy if they will venture, which I hope they will not [an uncharacteristic note for the Duke]. I should not have ventured to march with these troops, but I think the taking our winter quarters on the Moselle is as necessary for the good of the common cause as any thing that has been done this campaign [post Blenheim]. I shall have the satisfaction to know that I have acted for the best.

Marlborough was able to write to the Secretary of State, Robert Harley, on 31 October 1704 with news of more progress:

I marched before break of day this morning, with all the horse and four battalions, and as soon as our vanguard appeared the enemy quitted the fort [St Martin, overlooking Treves], and retired over the Moselle, after throwing much provision and ammunition into the river.>

Adam Cardonnel, the Duke’s private secretary, wrote of his daring advance with only a sketchy force under command:

It was very lucky that my lord duke hastened his march, for on the same day [29 October] Monsieur d’Allegre came with a detachment of horse within two leagues of Treves, having ordered a good body of troops to follow him, but on notice of our being here, he immediately retired.

On 3 November 1704, Marlborough’s small army, which was still distinctly inferior in numbers to the forces the French could muster against him, had they been alert enough to combine and do so, was reinforced at last by the arrival at Bernkastel of twelve fresh Dutch battalions. The weakly-held town of Trarbach, further down the Moselle valley, could now be screened and the winter quarters for his own troops made secure. With cold weather coming on, the Duke felt he had accomplished enough; he wrote to Godolphin: ‘I reckon this campaign is well over, since the winter quarters are settled on the Moselle, which I think will give France as much uneasiness as anything that has been done this summer.’ The oblique reference to the victory at Blenheim, as being of only equal importance to lodging his army for the winter within arm’s reach of this weak spot in France’s frontier barrier, is striking, and illustrates Marlborough’s acute grasp of strategic imperatives very well. Leaving his army in the Moselle valley in this way would leave a dagger pointing deep into the heart of France, ready for use early in the campaign to come in the following spring.

Coming so soon after the dramatic triumph on the banks of the Danube in August 1704, this daring and arduous advance to the Moselle, with the French generals, although numerically superior, wrong-footed at every turn, is often overlooked. This is a pity, as the Duke of Marlborough’s abilities as a military commander of the first rank, able to discern strategic opportunities and seize them in good time and good order, are rarely seen to better advantage.

However, such successes were attended by frustrations and disappointment, as can be seen in a letter sent by the Duke from Landau, where he had hurried from the Moselle operations to bring the siege to a close before winter set in. On 7 November 1704, he wrote to the Prince of Hesse:

I have arrived here last evening, but I do not find our arrangements are as advanced as those involved would wish. We are masters of the counter-scarp, and tomorrow all the batteries begin to fire on the breach, which should be widen enough by Wednesday [9 November]; then the enemy will be summoned to surrender; if not, the siege is likely to drag on another ten or twelve days.

Even this timetable was not achieved, for the garrison under the inspired command of the blind Marquis de Laubanie did not surrender until 29 November, on honourable terms, granted as they had held out for more than a very creditable seventy days.

On 15 November Marlborough left the army and travelled to Berlin, to confer with the Prussian king on ways to prosecute the war to best effect in the coming year. The Great Northern War, and the threat posed by the volatile King Charles XII of Sweden was a continuing worry; the Allies were concerned that Prussian troops would soon be leaving the Rhine and marching towards the Baltic. Frederick I was reassured by the Duke, and committed his troops to the service of the Grand Alliance for the next year at least; as evidence of this a strong Prussian contingent was soon moving to the support of Savoy.

Marlborough then travelled to Hanover to pay his respects to the Electress Sophia and her son, George. News came that Landau had at last fallen to Eugene, and the Duke could go on to the Hague, where he received the adulation of the States-General for his victory at Blenheim. Moving on to London, he landed at Greenwich on 14 December 1704, in company with the captive Marshal Tallard and several of his senior officers. The Duke was received in triumph for the unbelievable success gained four months earlier on the cornfields of the plain of Höchstädt.

The Comte de Merode-Westerloo though, was thoroughly disillusioned with life on campaign, after the rigours of the summer in the Danube valley. He wrote that: ‘Since the battle [Blenheim] I had lost more than sixty horses, all my baggage had been burned; my personal expenditure during the campaign had been frightful. I just had no idea how I could honour my debts.’ Meanwhile, Donald McBane had recovered from the wounds he received in the battle, and wrote of the close of the campaign that year:

Our army marched to Holland. I had the good fortune to go to my old quarters, where I set up my old trade [fencing master and brothel keeper]; at this time her majesty Queen Anne, for our good service in that campaign, ordered every man two Guineas, which we called Smart Money.

In the light of the extraordinary successes in 1704, the new year would, by comparison, prove to be rather a frustrating disappointment for the Allied cause, although the Duke was to have, as shall be seen, a moment of undiluted glory.