Positioned forward of the line the hamlet of Oberglau was held by 14 battalions including the three Irish regiments in the French service.
If an attack had been expected it may be that more troops would have been moved out of the villages into the intervening ground. The lack of infantry and a unified command at this point was to prove fatal for the French and Bavarians. On the evening of 1st August the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene studied the terrain between the armies from a church steeple. They saw that the ground was cut by a number of tributary streams flowing North West to South East into the Danube and that the village of Blenheim lay beyond the point where one of the streams, the Nebel joined the main river.
The road from Donauworth to Dillingen passed through Blenheim, crossing the Nebel by a stone bridge now partly destroyed. At 2am on 2nd August the British and their allies broke camp, crossed the Kessel stream in eight columns and began their advance against the French and Bavarians.
Once on the plain the army formed up with the cavalry in the centre and the infantry on the flanks, the ground by the river being unsuitable for mounted action. The artillery column wound its way along the highway. With one third of the approach march completed a further column of infantry formed on the bank of the Danube comprising among other nationalities 14 British battalions. Command of this column fell to Lord Coutts.
At around 6am the first skirmishes of the battle took place with the French pickets driven in. It was a foggy morning and in spite of the fights between the cavalry vedettes Marshall Tallard remained convinced that Marlborough was on the march north to restore his lines of communications, not seeking a general action.
Many of the French and Bavarian cavalry regiments were dispersed across the countryside on the perennial chore of gathering forage for their horses. At 7am the fog lifted revealing to the French commanders the attacking army deployed on the far side of the Nebel River, just half a mile distant. Drums beat, trumpets sounded and the cavalry foragers were hastily recalled as the regiments formed up and the artillery bombardment began. Marlborough deployed the rest of his force away to the centre and right in four lines; foot, cavalry, foot and then again cavalry.
On the extreme right Prince Eugene hurried to complete his extended deployment against the Bavarian flank, finding his movement impeded by the irregular nature of the ground.
At 8am the French artillery opened fire returning the bombardment from the British and German guns. At The British Foot was ordered not to return the fire, so as not to delay the advance, until the brigadier himself struck the first fortification. The Foot was then to storm the village at the point of the bayonet. Memorably Brigadier Row stuck his sword into the wooden barricade and was promptly shot down together with his staff and around one third of his battalions.
Storming into the outskirts of Blenheim they engaged in hand to hand fighting with the French Foot but were unable to make further progress into the village. On the right centre the Prince of Holstein-Beck launched his infantry assault in the direction of the fortified village of Oberglau.
Holstein-Beck led forward the German Brigades of Wulwen and Heigdenbregh, but had considerable difficulty crossing the Nebel stream, here closely defended by French Foot positioned behind the stream, well forwarded of the main French position in Oberglau. The two German regiments were nearly annihilated. The Prince of Holstein-Beck was severely wounded and some 2, Allied soldiers captured during the attempted assault on Oberglau.
Further to the Allied right Prince Eugene struggled to maintain his position against the Elector of Bavaria, three vigorous attacks being beaten back by the Bavarian troops, also positioned well forward on the edge of the Nebel River.
Tallard launched his horse on the British cavalry, disordered after the troublesome river crossing. The British were relieved by the counter attack of the Prussian cavalry of General Bothmar, driving the French back from the stream.
In the confusion Marshall Tallard was wounded and captured and many of his men drowned in their attempt to escape across the Danube. The French sought terms that would enable their regiments to leave with honour but only complete submission was acceptable and 24 battalions of French Foot with 4 regiments of dragoons surrendered to Marlborough, the Regiment of Navarre burning its colours rather than deliver them to the British.
Orkney's infantry, Hamilton's English brigade and St Paul's Hanoverians moved across the trampled wheat to the cottages. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting gradually forced the French towards the village centre, in and around the walled churchyard which had been prepared for defence.
Colonel Belville's Hanoverians were fed into the battle to steady the resolve of the dragoons, and once more went to the attack. The Allied progress was slow and hard, and like the defenders, they suffered many casualties. Many of the cottages were now burning, obscuring the field of fire and driving the defenders out of their positions.
Hearing the din of battle in Blenheim, Tallard sent a message to Marlborough offering to order the garrison to withdraw from the field.
The French infantry fought tenaciously to hold on to their position in Blenheim, but their commander was nowhere to be found. In the middle ground the Allied cavalry are breaking through, pushing Tallard's squadrons from the battlefield. The foreground depicts the fierce fighting in and around Blenheim.
By now Blenheim was under assault from every side by three English generals: Cutts, Churchill, and Orkney. The French had repulsed every attack with heavy slaughter, but many had seen what had happened on the plain and what its consequences to them would be; their army was routed and they were cut off. During these events Marlborough was still in the saddle conducting the pursuit of the broken enemy.
Pausing for a moment he scribbled on the back of an old tavern bill a note addressed to his wife, Sarah : "I have no time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen, and let her know her army has had a glorious victory. French losses were immense: over 30, killed, wounded and missing. For one thing they had too good an opinion of their own ability Another point was their faulty field dispositions, and in addition there was rampant indiscipline and inexperience displayed It took all these faults to lose so celebrated a battle.
By the Treaty of Ilbersheim , signed 7 November , Bavaria was placed under Austrian military rule, allowing the Habsburgs to utilise its resources for the rest of the conflict. The remnants of the Elector of Bavaria's and Marshal Marsin's wing limped back to Strasbourg, losing another 7, men through desertion. Their commander-in-chief that day, Marshal Tallard — who, unlike his subordinates, had not been ransomed or exchanged — was taken to England and imprisoned in Nottingham until his release in The campaign lasted considerably longer than usual as the Allies sought to wring out maximum advantage.
Realising that France was too powerful to be forced to make peace by a single victory, however, Eugene, Marlborough and Baden met to plan their next moves. For the following year the Duke proposed a campaign along the valley of the River Moselle to carry the war deep into France. This required the capture of the major fortress of Landau which guarded the Rhine, and the towns of Trier and Trarbach on the Moselle itself.
Marlborough returned to England on 14 December O. S to the acclamation of Queen Anne and the country. In the first days of January the cavalry standards and the infantry colours that were taken during the battle were borne in procession to Westminster Hall.
Military Wiki Explore. Popular pages. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Battle of Blenheim. Edit source History Talk 0. Oil by Robert Alexander Hillingford. Date 13 August [1] Location Blindheim Engl.
War of the Spanish Succession : Europe. Further information: Blenheim order of battle. The Julian calendar as used in England in differed by eleven days. In this article, 'OS' is used to annotate Julian dates with the year adjusted to 1 January. See the article Old Style and New Style dates for a more detailed explanation of the dating issues and conventions.
Some sources put the Allied strength at 56, and the Franco-Bavarian forces at 60, The number of squadrons and battalions within each army differs depending on the source. The lines ranged 20 miles 32 km between Stollhofen, a small village on the Rhine, to the Black Forest. The barrier was designed to stop the French marching down the Rhine from Strasbourg. The initial force of 21, men were accompanied by 1, supply carts drawn by 5, draught horses.
The artillery needed as many more. Barnett and Coxe states 45 squadrons and 36 battalions. Eugene had doubts about Baden's reliability, for he was a close friend of the Elector of Bavaria. It was even suspected that Baden was secretly corresponding with his old comrade. Lynn states that the march-rate was not unprecedented for the period, averaging 7. What stands out was the total distance, and the fine condition of the troops when they arrived.
The Allied march had not been without loss: French spies reported that sick had been left at Kassel. Lynn states Tallard reached Augsburg on 3 August. However, Marlborough had assured Heinsius that the siege made perfect sense, and there is no direct evidence that they deliberately contrived his absence. The French had captured four prisoners. Several sources Churchill, Chandler suggest that Marlborough had planted this corroborative 'evidence' on Tallard.
Rowe's own regiment lost their colours, but they were soon retrieved by the Hessians. In his account after the battle, Tallard explains his defeat — "first, because the Gendarmerie were not able to break the five English squadrons.
Tallard later recorded — "At this moment I saw the hope of victory. The message was carried to London by Colonel Daniel Parke. After Blenheim. The Golden Treasury. Barnett, Correlli. Wordsworth Editions Limited A Guide to the Battlefields of Europe. Wordsworth Editions Limited, Marlborough as Military Commander.
Spellmount Ltd Marlborough: His Life and Times , Bk. University of Chicago Press, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough: vol. London, Falkner, James. Blenheim Marlborough's Greatest Victory. Marlborough: England's Fragile Genius.
Longman Prince Eugene of Savoy. Thames and Hudson Ltd. Blenheim: Battle for Europe. Phoenix Blenheim The Duke of Marlborough's Masterpiece. Osprey Publishing Ltd, Indiana University Press. ISBN Text on the Column of Victory in the grounds of Blenheim Palace. Cancel Save. The importance of Marlborough himself is demonstrated by the swift decline of this reputation after he was replaced as commander in The conflict in which Marlborough played such a decisive part was the War of the Spanish Succession.
Raging from to , it engulfed all the major European powers in a single armed dispute, in a way that would not be replicated until the Napoleonic Wars nearly a century later. As with that later war, there was a huge amount at stake, with armies tens of thousands strong marching across the Low Countries and western Germany.
In the late spring of , Britain and her allies were on the defensive. Their opponents, consisting of France, Bavaria and one faction among the divided Spanish, had gained the initiative. To counter this, Marlborough decided to make a swift march into Germany to threaten the Bavarians.
Starting on the 19th May, he marched his army from the Spanish Netherlands to the Danube, to meet up with Austrian forces. Though the march would mostly be through friendly territory, it would face the constant threat of enemy action and the challenge of supplying thousands of men while maintaining a speedy march. Neither England nor Scotland — the two countries were constitutionally separate until — had a standing professional army on anything like the scale required for this war.
As a result, the ranks were often filled with prisoners, from the most hardened felons to malnourished debtors, none of them particularly inclined to good military discipline.
The officer corps was little better. Commissions in the British armies were bought and sold rather than being awarded on the basis of merit. Though many officers were consummate professionals, just as many spent their time drinking, gambling, duelling and generally neglecting their duties.
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