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A.D. 1704.] pass without delay, which would be an advantage to his highness's territory, while their detention would tend to exhaust it. Being joined by various detachments of Prussians, Hessians, Lunenburgers, and others, and also by eleven Dutch battalions, Marlborough, on the 19th of May, commenced his great expedition into the heart of Germany. The very next day, being at Kerpen, he received an urgent dispatch from Auverquerque, imploring him to halt and send him back reinforcements, as the French had crossed the Meuse at Namur, and were menacing Huy. The French, in fact, imagined that he meant to besiege Traerbach, and to attempt an entrance into France along the Moselle, and this movement towards Huy was to draw him off; but he took no notice of it, only encouraging Auverquerque to stand firm, assuring him he was in no danger. At the same time came an equally urgent express from the prince of Baden, desiring him to hasten his march towards the lines of Stollhoffen, as Villeroi was marching on the Rhine. Marlborough was not to be drawn from his own plans. He dispatched letters to Auverquerque and the prince of Baden to appease their alarms, and maintained his march to Kalsecken. He visited the fortifications of Bonn, where he received information that Tallard had passed the Rhine, sent forward to the elector of Bavaria ten thousand men, and then fallen back on his old position near Strasburg. This quickened his motions: on the 26th he was at Coblentz, and from the grand old fortress of Ehrenbreitstein he watched the passage of his army over the Moselle and the Rhine. He wrote to the States-General for fresh reinforcements in order to secure his most important movement, and marched along the banks of the Rhine to Broubach. There he also wrote to the king of Prussia, praising the Prussian troops, and entreating him to send him more of them. While he was at Mainz, he halted a day to rest his troops, and there received the agreeable news that the States were sending after him twenty squadrons, and eight battalions of Danish auxiliaries; but at the same time he was mortified to find that the prince of Baden had managed so badly as to allow the ten thousand troops forwarded by Tallard to join the elector of Bavaria without molestation, and had lost the most tempting opportunities, whilst the elector was marching through narrow defiles, of cutting off his march, and reducing him to extremities. In fact, thirty thousand German troops had allowed the elector to quit his camp at Ulm, to pass the narrow defile of Stochach, where he might have most easily been cut off, and to return to his old position with this powerful reinforcement. It showed the absolute need of some better heads than those of these German princes, to bring the conflict to a successful issue. Marlborough was not, however, discouraged. He pointed out to the neighbouring princes where they were to join him with their respective quotas, obtained from the landgrave of Hesse a quantity of artillery, and pushed on towards the Neckar, which he passed on the 3rd of June, and encamped at Ladenburg.

The French were filled with wonder at this march of Marlborough, out far from the usual scene of the English operations, and could not for some time realise the object of it. At one time they expected only an attack on the Moselle, but that river and the Rhine being crossed, they apprehended that his design was to raise the siege of Landau, and this was confirmed by the advance of the landgrave of Hesse to Manheim. But when he crossed the Neckar and advanced on Erpingen, and was continually strengthened by fresh junctions of Prussians, Hessians, and Palatines, they began to comprehend his real object. He waited at Erpingen for the coming up of General Churchill with the artillery and part of the infantry, and he employed the time in sending a dispatch to warn the prince of Baden that Tallard and Villeroi were about to unite their armies, pass the Rhine, and hasten to the support of the elector of Bavaria. He pressed on the prince the extreme consequence of preventing this passage of the French army. He told him that they must not trouble themselves about any damage that Villeroi might do on the left bank of the Rhine, if he could only be kept there, as in that case he felt assured that six weeks would see the army of the elector of Bavaria annihilated, the empire saved.

Marlborough was anxious to keep the prince of Baden engaged on the Rhine, so that he might himself have the co-operation of the far abler Eugene on the Danube. On the 9th he crossed the Neckar again, marched to Meudelsheim, and on the 10th met for the first time prince Eugene of Savoy, who was destined to be for ever connected with his name in military glory. At Hippach Marlborough reviewed his cavalry in the presence of Eugene, who expressed his utmost admiration at their appearance and discipline. He was equally struck with the lively and ardent expression of the countenances of the English soldiers, which Marlborough flatteringly assured him was caused by their pleasure in seeing so renowned a commander. To the mutual mortification of Eugene and Marlborough, the prince of Baden, whom they were anxious to detain on the Rhine, quitted the post where his presence was so much required, and came up and joined them. He was determined to be in the quarter where the greatest share of reputation was to be won, and from his princely rank he did not hesitate to claim the chief command.

This notion of their princely claims, combined with their mediocrity of military talent, has always been the mischief of a campaign in alliance with the small princes of Germany. The whole plan of Marlborough and Eugene was in danger of defeat, and Eugene was compelled to go to the Rhine, and Marlborough to admit of the prince of Baden taking the command on alternate days. He secretly resolved, however, that any actions of consequence should only be entered upon on his own day. Whilst chagrined by these mortifying circumstances, came the news that Auverquerque had been succeeding very indifferently against the French on the Meuse, and that a detachment of Prussian and Suabian troops, who ought to have joined them, had lost their way, and were not likely to be up for some days. On the other hand, Marlborough was consoled amid his vexations by the arrival of count Wratislaw, with a proposal to create him a prince of the empire, and thus give him a rank equal to those who were continually seeking to supersede him in his command, and to give him a place in the diet. Though nothing could be more flattering to Marlborough, he declined accepting this high honour until he had the consent of his sovereign, and