Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/215

A.D. 1704.] Meantime prince Eugene had been sharply engaged with the elector of Bavaria at Lutzingen, and after receiving several repulses, had succeeded in driving the elector out of Lutzingen, and, turning his flank, he posted himself on the edge of a ravine to mark the condition of the field in general. He there received a message from Marlborough to say that he was now able to come to his assistance if he needed it; but the prince replied that he had no need of it, for the forces of Marsin and the elector were driven out of Lutzingen and Oberclau, and that his cavalry were pursuing them to Morselingen and Teissenhoven, whence they retreated to Dillingen and Lawingen. Marlborough dispatched a body of cavalry to Eugene near the blazing village of Lutzingen; but the darkness now settling down, the commander, amid the smoke of powder and of the burning village, mistook the troops of Eugene for the Bavarians and wheeled round, so that the opportunity was lost of inflicting fresh injury on the fugitives.



There were still twelve thousand men unsubdued in Blenheim, and Marlborough began to surround the place. These troops had lost their commander, Clerambault, who had been carried away in the rush down the hill and was drowned in the Danube; but the troops still made a vigorous resistance. Every minute, however, they were become more hemmed in by troops and artillery. Fire was set to the buildings, and every chance of escape was cut off. For some time they maintained a killing fire from the walls and houses; but as the flames advanced they made several attempts at cutting through their assailants, but were driven back at every point. They finally offered to capitulate, but Marlborough would hear of nothing but of an unconditional surrender, to which they were obliged to assent. Besides these, whole regiments had laid down their arms, and begged for quarter. "Such," says Voltaire of this signal defeat of his countrymen, "was the celebrated battle which the French call Hochstadt, the Germans Plentheim, and the English Blenheim. The conquerors had about five thousand killed and eight thousand wounded, the greater part being on the side of prince Eugene. The French army was almost entirely destroyed; of sixty thousand men so long victorious, there never assembled more than twenty thousand effective. About twelve thousand kiled, fourteen thousand prisoners, all the cannon, a prodigious number of colours and standards, all the tents and equipages, the general of the army and one thousand two hundred officers of mark in the power of the conqueror, signalised that day! The fugitives dispersed in all directions; more than a hundred leagues of country were lost in less than one month. The whole of Bavaria, falling under the yoke of the emperor, experienced all the rigour of the irritated Austrian government, and all the rapacity and barbarity of a victorious soldiery. The elector, flying for refuge to Brassels, met on the road his brother, the elector of Cologne, driven, like himself, out of his state; they embraced in a flood of tears. Astonishment and consternation seized the court of Versailles, so long accustomed to prosperity. The news of the defeat arrived there in the midst of the rejoicings for the birth of a great grandson of Louis XIV. Nobody dared to inform the king of so cruel a truth. Madame de Maintenon was obliged to tell his majesty that he was no longer invincible."

Thus was annihilated at a blow the invincible army of France, which was to have seized on Vienna, destroyed the empire, and placed all Germany and the continent under the feet of Louis. The event had fully justified the bold design of Marlborough; instead of fighting the enemy in detail he attacked him at his very heart, and closed the campaign by a single master-stroke.

Soon after the battle three thousand Germans, who had been serving in the French army, joined the allies, and on the 19th of August, six days after the battle, Marlborough and Eugene began their march towards Ulm. Three days before that the garrison of Augsburg had quitted that city, and Marlborough and Eugene called on the prince of Baden to leave a few troops at Ingoldstadt to invest it, as it must now necessarily surrender, and to join him with the rest of his forces, that they might sweep the enemy completely out of Germany. Marehal Tallard was sent under a guard of dragoons to Frankfort, and Marlborough encamped at