The Great British Battles. Hilaire Belloc

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      The trick was done. The rapid and secret march of Eugene had been accomplished with complete success, and his force was within speaking distance of Marlborough’s.

      When the news came to the French camp, it was even there evident what a sudden transformation had come over the campaign; but to one who could see, as the historian sees, the moral condition of both forces, the event is more significant still.

      A great commander, whose name was henceforth to be linked most closely with that of Marlborough’s himself, was present upon the Upper Danube. He brought with him troops not only equivalent in number to a third of his colleague’s existing forces, but trained under his high leadership, disciplined in his excellent school, and containing, what will prove essential to the fortunes of the coming battle, a very large proportion of cavalry. Further, the appearance of Eugene at this critical moment permitted Marlborough to rid himself of Louis of Baden, to despatch him to the siege of Ingolstadt in the heart of Bavaria, at once to be free of the clog which the slow decision and slow movements of that general burdened him with, to threaten the heart of the enemy’s country by that general’s departure on such a mission, and to unite himself and his forces with a man whose methods were after his own heart.

      It is true that a minor problem lay before Eugene and Marlborough which must be solved before the great value of the junction they were about to effect could be taken advantage of. Their forces were still separated by the Danube: Marlborough lay a day’s march to the south of it, and were he to cross the Danube at Neuburg he would be two days’ march from Eugene. But each army was free to march towards the other, and all that their commanders had to decide was upon which side of the river the junction should be effected. Were the junction effected to the south—that is, were Eugene to cross the Danube and join Marlborough in Bavaria—Tallard, crossing the Danube at Dillingen, could strike at the great northern line of communications which conditioned all these movements. It was, therefore, the obvious move for Eugene and Marlborough to join upon the northern bank of the Danube, and to move upon and defend that all-important line of communications, point for point, as Tallard might threaten it.

      It was on the 8th, the Friday, as I have said, that Eugene’s presence was known both to Tallard and to Marlborough, for Eugene had ridden forward and met his colleague.

      Upon the 9th, the Saturday, the French marched towards the bridge of Dillingen. Eugene, who was already on the way back to his army, returned to inform Marlborough of this, then rode westward again to his forces, and, while the French made their arrangements for crossing the river on the morrow, he busied himself in conducting his 15,000 eastward down the north bank of the Danube. Three thousand of Marlborough’s cavalry went forward to meet him, and to begin that junction between the two forces which was to determine the day at Blenheim.

      The next day, Sunday the 10th, the Franco-Bavarian army passed the river and lay in the position with which their forces had in the past been so familiar, the position from Lauingen to Dillingen which Marcin and the Elector had held when, six weeks before, Marlborough and Baden had passed across the Franco-Bavarian front to the north in their march upon Donauwörth and the Schellenberg.

      On the same Sunday, the 10th, Marlborough had brought up his main force to Rhain, within an hour of the Danube, and Eugene was drawing up his force at a safe distance from the French position north of the village of Münster, and behind the brook of Kessel, where that watercourse joins the Danube.

      But, though junction with Marlborough was virtually effected, it must be effected actually before Eugene could think himself safe from that Franco-Bavarian force a day’s march behind him, which was three times his own and more. His urgent messages to Marlborough led that commander to march up his men through the night. Before the dawn of August the 11th broke, Churchill, with twenty battalions, had crossed at Merxheim, and the whole army, marching in two columns, was upon the move—the right-hand column following Churchill to the bridge of Merxheim, the left-hand column crossing the Lech by the bridge of Rhain, to pass the Danube at Donauwörth. In the afternoon of that Monday the whole of Marlborough’s command was passing the Wornitz, and long after sunset, following upon a march which had kept the major part of the great host afoot for more than twenty hours, Eugene and Marlborough were together at the head of 52,000 men, established in unison, and defending, with now no possibility of its interruption, the line of communications from the north.

      Every historian of this great business has justly remarked the organisation and the patient genius of the man who made such a concentration possible under such conditions and in such a time, without appreciable loss, at hurried notice, and with a complete success.

      It is a permanent example and masterpiece in that inglorious part of war, the function of transport and of marching orders, upon which strategy depends as surely as an army depends on food.

      Fully accompanied by his artillery, Marlborough’s force could not have accomplished the marvel that it did; yet even this arm was brought up, in the rear of the army, by the morning of Tuesday the 12th, and from that moment, given a sufficient repose, the whole great weapon under the two captains could act as one.

      On that same morning, Tuesday the 12th, the Franco-Bavarian army under Tallard and the Elector were choosing out with some deliberation a camp so situated as to block any movement of their enemy up the valley of the Danube. The situation of the camp was designed to make this advance up the Danube so clearly impossible that nothing would be left but what the strategy of the last few days had imposed upon Marlborough, namely, a retreat upon his base northward, away from the Danube, towards Nördlingen. It was not imagined that the two commanders of the imperial forces would attack this Franco-Bavarian position, and so risk a general action; for by a retreat upon Nördlingen their continued existence as an army was assured, while an indecisive result would do them far more harm than it would do their opponents. Did Marlborough and Eugene force an action, it is doubtful whether Tallard had considered the alternative of refusing it.

      At any rate, on this Tuesday, the 12th of August, Tallard and the Elector had no intention but to take up a position and camp which would make a retreat up the Danube impossible to Marlborough and Eugene; and certainly neither imagined that any attempt to force the camp would be made, since an alternative of retreat and complete safety was offered the enemy towards Nördlingen.

      While the French fourriers were ordering the lines of the encampment—the tents stretching, the streets staking out—the English duke and Eugene overlooked the business from the church tower of Tapfheim and saw what Tallard designed. Between the main of their own forces and the camp which the Franco-Bavarians were pitching was a distance of about five miles. The location of each body was therefore perfectly well known to the other, and rarely have two great hosts lain in mutual presence for full twenty-four hours in so much doubt of an issue, in such exact opposition, and each with so complete an apprehension of his opponent’s power.

      At this point—let us say noon of Tuesday, August 12th—it is essential for us to dwell upon the character of such battles as that upon which Marlborough was already determined; for by the time he had seen the French disposition of their camp, the duke had determined upon forcing an action.

      It is the characteristic of great captains that they live by and appreciate the heavy risk of war.

      When they suffer defeat, history—which soldiers and those who love soldiers so rarely write—contemns the hardiness of their dispositions. When victory, that capricious gift, is granted them, history is but too prone to fall into an opposite error, and to see in their hardihood all of the calculating genius and none of the determined gambler.

      Justice would rather demand that the great captain should be judged by the light in the eyes of his men, by the endurance under him of immense fatigues, by the exact accomplishment of one hundred separate things a day, СКАЧАТЬ