The Battle of Blenheim (German: Zweite Schlacht bei Höchstädt; French: Bataille de Höchstädt; Dutch: Slag bij Blenheim) fought on 13 August [O.S. 2 August] 1704, was a major battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. The overwhelming Allied victory ensured the safety of Vienna from the Franco-Bavarian army, thus preventing the collapse of the reconstituted Grand Alliance.
Louis XIV of France sought to knock the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold, out of the war by seizing Vienna, the Habsburg capital, and gain a favourable peace settlement. The dangers to Vienna were considerable: Maximilian II Emanuel and Marshal Ferdinand de Marsin's forces in Bavaria threatened from the west, and Marshal Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme's large army in northern Italy posed a serious danger with a potential offensive through the Brenner Pass. Vienna was also under pressure from Rákóczi's Hungarian revolt from its eastern approaches. Realising the danger, the Duke of Marlborough resolved to alleviate the peril to Vienna by marching his forces south from Bedburg to help maintain Emperor Leopold within the Grand Alliance.
A combination of deception and skilled administration – designed to conceal his true destination from friend and foe alike – enabled Marlborough to march 400 km (250 mi) unhindered from the Low Countries to the Danube in five weeks. After securing Donauwörth on the Danube, Marlborough sought to engage Maximilian's and Marsin's army before Marshal Camille d'Hostun, duc de Tallard could bring reinforcements through the Black Forest. The Franco-Bavarian commanders proved reluctant to fight until their numbers were deemed sufficient, and Marlborough failed in his attempts to force an engagement. When Tallard arrived to bolster Maximilian's army, and Prince Eugene of Savoy arrived with reinforcements for the Allies, the two armies finally met on the banks of the Danube in and around the small village of Blindheim, from which the English "Blenheim" is derived.
Blenheim was one of the battles that altered the course of the war, which until then was favouring the French and Spanish Bourbons. Although the battle did not win the war, it prevented a potentially devastating loss for the Grand Alliance and shifted the war's momentum, ending French plans of knocking Emperor Leopold out of the war. The French suffered catastrophic casualties in the battle, including their commander-in-chief, Tallard, who was taken captive to England. Before the 1704 campaign ended, the Allies had taken Landau, and the towns of Trier and Trarbach on the Moselle in preparation for the following year's campaign into France itself. This offensive never materialised, for the Grand Alliance's army had to depart the Moselle to defend Liège from a French counter-offensive. The war continued for another decade before ending in 1714.
Background
By 1704, the War of the Spanish Succession was in its fourth year. The previous year had been one of successes for France and her allies, most particularly on the Danube, where Marshal Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars and Maximilian II Emanuel, had created a direct threat to Vienna, the Habsburg capital. Vienna had been saved by dissension between the two commanders, leading to Villars being replaced by the less dynamic Marshal Ferdinand de Marsin. Nevertheless, the threat was still real: Rákóczi's Hungarian revolt was threatening the Empire's eastern approaches, and Marshal Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme's forces threatened an invasion from northern Italy. In the courts of Versailles and Madrid, Vienna's fall was confidently anticipated, an event which would almost certainly have led to the collapse of the reconstituted Grand Alliance.
To isolate the Danube from any Allied intervention, Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi's 46,000 troops were expected to pin the 70,000 Dutch and British troops around Maastricht in the Low Countries, while General Robert Jean Antoine de Franquetot de Coigny protected Alsace against surprise with a further corps. The only forces immediately available for Vienna's defense were the imperial army under Margrave Louis William of Baden of 36,000 men stationed in the Lines of Stollhofen to watch Marshal Camille d'Hostun, duc de Tallard, at Strasbourg; and 10,000 men under Prince Eugene of Savoy south of Ulm.
Various Allied statesmen and commanders, including the Imperial Austrian Ambassador in London, Count Wratislaw, Johan Wijnand van Goor and the Duke of Marlborough, apprehended the implications of the situation on the Danube. To maintain secrecy, the Allied leadership kept their plans hidden from both the Dutch States General and the Parliament of England. In the Dutch Republic, only a select few – Grand Pensionary Anthonie Heinsius, Simon van Slingelandt, Jacob Hop, and François Fagel – were involved in the decision to march to the Danube. In England, Marlborough confided only in Sidney Godolphin, Queen Anne, and Prince George, her husband. Marlborough, realising that the only way to reinforce the Austrians was by the use of secrecy and guile, pretended to move his troops to the Moselle – a plan approved by the Dutch States General – but having arrived there, he would move further and link up with Austrian forces in southern Germany.
The Dutch diplomat and field deputy Van Rechteren-Almelo would come to play an important role. He made sure that on their 450-kilometre-long march, the Allies would nowhere be denied passage by local rulers, nor would they need to look for provisions, fodder for their horses or new boots. He also saw to it that enough stopovers were arranged along the way to ensure that the Allies reached their destination in good condition. This was of paramount importance, for the success of the operation depended on a quick elimination of the Bavarian elector. However, it was not possible to make the logistical arrangements in advance that would have been indispensable to supply the Allied army south of the Danube. For this, the Allies should have had access to the free imperial cities of Ulm and Augsburg, but the Bavarian elector had taken these two cities. This could have become a problem for Marlborough had the Elector avoided a battle and instead entrenched himself south of the Danube. Had Villeroy then managed to take advantage of the weakening of Allied forces in the Netherlands by recapturing Liège and besieging Maastricht, it would have validated the concerns of some of Marlborough's Dutch adversaries about his military abilities, like the Lord of Slangenburg, who considered Marlborough a lightweight.
Prelude
Protagonists march to the Danube
A scarlet caterpillar, upon which all eyes were at once fixed, began to crawl steadfastly day by day across the map of Europe, dragging the whole war with it. – Winston Churchill
Marlborough's march started on 19 May from Bedburg, 32 km (20 mi) northwest of Cologne. The army assembled by Marlborough's brother, General Charles Churchill, consisted of 66 squadrons of cavalry, 31 battalions of infantry and 38 guns and mortars, totalling 21,000 men, 16,000 of whom were British. This force was augmented en route, and by the time it reached the Danube it numbered 40,000 – 47 battalions and 88 squadrons. While Marlborough led this army south, the Dutch general, Henry Overkirk, Count of Nassau, maintained a defensive position in the Dutch Republic against the possibility of Villeroi mounting an attack. Marlborough had assured the Dutch that if the French were to launch an offensive he would return in good time, but he calculated that as he marched south, the French army would be drawn after him. In this assumption Marlborough proved correct: Villeroi shadowed him with 30,000 men in 60 squadrons and 42 battalions. Marlborough wrote to Godolphin: "I am very sensible that I take a great deal upon me, but should I act otherwise, the Empire would be undone ..."
With Marlborough gone, the Dutch States General had been finally forced to make a decision about who would replace the Earl of Athlone as head of the Dutch States Army. The appointment of Overkirk as Field Marshal provoked strong protests from senior officers such as Ernst Wilhelm von Salisch, Daniël van Dopff and Menno van Coehoorn, who even threatened to resign before being persuaded to remain. The new infantry generals were also displeased: the Lord of Slangenburg resented serving under the less experienced Overkirk, while the Count of Noyelles refused to take orders from the "insupportable" Slangenburg. A further dispute arose over the position of the Prince of Orange. The provinces of Friesland and Groningen demanded that their seventeen-year-old stadtholder be made commander of the infantry, dividing the provinces so deeply that a second Grand Assembly was even discussed. Eventually, under pressure, a compromise was reached: the prince was nominally appointed infantry general after Slangenburg and Noyelles, but would not take active command until the age of twenty.
While the Allies were making their preparations, the French were striving to maintain and re-supply Marsin. He had been operating with Maximilian II against Margrave Louis William, and was somewhat isolated from France: his only lines of communication lay through the rocky passes of the Black Forest. On 14 May, Tallard brought 8,000 reinforcements and vast supplies and munitions through the difficult terrain, whilst outmaneuvering Johann Karl von Thüngen, the Imperial general who sought to block his path. Tallard then returned with his own force to the Rhine, once again side-stepping Thüngen's efforts to intercept him.
On 26 May, Marlborough reached Coblenz, where the Moselle meets the Rhine. If he intended an attack along the Moselle his army would now have to turn west; instead it crossed to the right bank of the Rhine, and was reinforced by 5,000 waiting Hanoverians and Prussians. The French realised that there would be no campaign on the Moselle. A second possible objective now occurred to them: an Allied incursion into Alsace and an attack on Strasbourg. Marlborough furthered this apprehension by constructing bridges across the Rhine at Philippsburg—a ruse that not only encouraged Villeroi to come to Tallard's aid in the defense of Alsace, but one that ensured the French plan to march on Vienna was delayed while they waited to see what Marlborough's army would do.
Encouraged by Marlborough's promise to return to the Netherlands if a French attack developed there, transferring his troops up the Rhine on barges at a rate of 130 km (80 mi) a day, the Dutch States General agreed to release the Danish contingent of seven battalions and 22 squadrons as reinforcements. Marlborough reached Ladenburg, in the plain of the Neckar and the Rhine, and there halted for three days to rest his cavalry and allow the guns and infantry to close up. On 6 June he arrived at Wiesloch, south of Heidelberg. The following day, the Allied army swung away from the Rhine towards the hills of the Swabian Jura and the Danube beyond. At last Marlborough's destination was established without doubt.
Strategy
On 10 June, Marlborough met for the first time the President of the Imperial War Council, Prince Eugene – accompanied by Count Wratislaw – at the village of Mundelsheim, halfway between the Danube and the Rhine. By 13 June, the Imperial Field Commander, Margrave Louis William of Baden, had joined them in Großheppach. The three generals commanded a force of nearly 110,000 men. At this conference, it was decided that Prince Eugene would return with 28,000 men to the Lines of Stollhofen on the Rhine to watch Villeroi and Tallard and prevent them going to the aid of the Franco-Bavarian army on the Danube. Meanwhile, Marlborough's and Margrave Louis William's forces would combine, totalling 80,000 men, and march on the Danube to seek out Maximilian II and Marsin before they could be reinforced.
Knowing Marlborough's destination, Tallard and Villeroi met at Landau in the Palatinate on 13 June to construct a plan to save Bavaria. The rigidity of the French command system was such that any variations from the original plan had to be sanctioned by Versailles. The Count of Mérode-Westerloo, commander of the Flemish troops in Tallard's army, wrote "One thing is certain: we delayed our march from Alsace for far too long and quite inexplicably." Approval from King Louis arrived on 27 June: Tallard was to reinforce Marsin and Maximilian II on the Danube via the Black Forest, with 40 battalions and 50 squadrons; Villeroi was to pin down the Allies defending the Lines of Stollhofen, or, if the Allies should move all their forces to the Danube, he was to join with Tallard; Coigny with 8,000 men would protect Alsace. On 1 July Tallard's army of 35,000 re-crossed the Rhine at Kehl and began its march.
On 22 June, Marlborough's forces linked up with the Imperial forces at Launsheim, having covered 400 km (250 mi) in five weeks. Thanks to a carefully planned timetable, the effects of wear and tear had been kept to a minimum. Captain Parker described the march discipline: "As we marched through the country of our Allies, commissars were appointed to furnish us with all manner of necessaries for man and horse ... the soldiers had nothing to do but pitch their tents, boil kettles and lie down to rest." In response to Marlborough's maneuvers, Maximilian and Marsin, conscious of their numerical disadvantage with only 40,000 men, moved their forces to the entrenched camp at Dillingen on the north bank of the Danube. Marlborough could not attack Dillingen because of a lack of siege guns – he had been unable to bring any from the Low Countries, and Margrave Louis William had failed to supply any, despite prior assurances that he would.
The Allies needed a base for provisions and a good river crossing. Consequently, on 2 July Marlborough stormed the fortress of Schellenberg on the heights above the town of Donauwörth. Count Jean d'Arco had been sent with 12,000 men from the Franco-Bavarian camp to hold the town and grassy hill, but after a fierce battle, with heavy casualties on both sides, Schellenberg fell. This forced Donauwörth to surrender shortly afterward. Maximilian, knowing his position at Dillingen was now not tenable, took up a position behind the strong fortifications of Augsburg.
Tallard's march presented a dilemma for Prince Eugene. If the Allies were not to be outnumbered on the Danube, he realised that he had to either try to cut Tallard off before he could get there, or to reinforce Marlborough. If he withdrew from the Rhine to the Danube, Villeroi might also make a move south to link up with Maximilian and Marsin. Prince Eugene compromised – leaving 12,000 troops behind guarding the Lines of Stollhofen – he marched off with the rest of his army to forestall Tallard.