CHAPTER II

The force voted by Parliament for the campaign of 1703 consisted, as in the previous year, of eighteen thousand British and twenty-two thousand Germans. There had been much talk of an increase of the Army, and indeed Parliament had agreed to make an augmentation subject to certain conditions to be yielded by the Dutch; but when the session closed no provision had been made for it, and the details required to be settled, as indeed such details generally were, by Marlborough himself. Four new British regiments formed part of the augmentation, and accordingly five new battalions were raised, which, as they were all disbanded subsequently, remain known to us only by the names of their colonels, Gorges, Pearce, Evans, Elliott, and Macartney. Finally, small contingents from a host of petty German states brought the total of mercenaries to twenty-eight thousand, which, added to twenty thousand British, made up a nominal total of fifty thousand men in the pay of England. But none of these additional troops could take the field until late in the campaign.

Such efforts were not confined to the side of the Allies. The French successes to the eastward of the Rhine had encouraged them to projects for a grand campaign, so their army too was increased, and every nerve was strained to make the preparations as complete as possible. The grand army under Villeroy and Boufflers, numbering fifty-four battalions and one hundred and three squadrons, was designed to recapture the strong places on the Meuse and to threaten the[412] Dutch frontier. The frontiers towards Ostend and Antwerp were guarded by flying columns under the Marquis of Bedmar, Count de la Mothe, and the Spanish Count Tserclaes de Tilly. The entire force of the Bourbons in the Low Countries, including garrisons and field-army, included ninety thousand men in infantry alone.[296] With such a force to occupy the Allies in Flanders and with Marshal Tallard to hold Prince Lewis of Baden in check at Stollhofen on the Upper Rhine, Marshal Villars was to push through the Black Forest and join hands with the Elector of Bavaria. Finally, the joint forces of France and Savoy were to advance through the Tyrol to the valley of the Inn and combine with Villars and the Elector for a march on Vienna.
March 6 17 .
May 7 18 .

The design was grand enough in conception; but Marlborough too had formed plans for striking at the enemy in a vital part. A campaign of sieges was not to his mind, for he conceived that to bring his enemy to action and beat him was worth the capture of twenty petty fortresses; and accordingly on his arrival at the Hague he advocated immediate invasion of French Flanders and Brabant. But the project was too bold for the Dutch, whose commanders had changed and changed for the worse. Old Athlone was dead, and in his stead had risen up three new generals—Overkirk, who had few faults except mediocrity and age; Slangenberg, who combined ability with a villainous temper; and Opdam, who was alike cantankerous and incapable. Very reluctantly Marlborough was compelled to undertake the siege of Bonn, he himself commanding the besiegers, while Overkirk handled the covering army. Notwithstanding Dutch procrastination, Marlborough's energy had succeeded in bringing the Allies first into the field; and before Villeroy could strike a blow to hinder it, Bonn had capitulated, and Marlborough had rejoined Overkirk and was ready for active operations in the field.

[413]

The Duke now reverted to his original scheme of carrying the war into the heart of Brabant and West Flanders, and with this view ordered every preparation to be made for an attack on Antwerp. Cohorn, the famous engineer, was to distract the French by the capture of Ostend on the west side, a second force was to be concentrated under Opdam at Bergen-op-Zoom to the north, while Marlborough was to hold Villeroy in check in the east until all was ready.

The Duke's own share of the operations was conducted with his usual skill. Pressing back Villeroy into the space between the heads of the Jaar and the Mehaigne he kept him in continual suspense as to whether his design lay eastward or westward, against Huy or against Antwerp. Unfortunately, in an evil hour he imparted to Cohorn that he thought he might manage both.[297] The covetous old engineer had laid his own plans for filling his pockets; and no sooner did he hear of Marlborough's idea of attacking Huy than, fearful lest Villeroy should interrupt his private schemes for making money, he threw the capture of Ostend to the winds, and marched into West Flanders to levy contributions before it should be too late.
June 15 26 .

Still Marlborough was patient. He had hoped for Ostend first and Antwerp afterwards, but a reversal of the arrangement would serve. Cohorn having filled his pockets returned to the east of the Scheldt at Stabrock; Spaar, another Dutch general, took up his position at Hulst; Opdam remained at Bergen-op-Zoom; and thus the three armies lay in wait round the north and west of Antwerp, ready to move forward as soon as Marlborough should come up on the south-east. The Duke did not keep them long waiting. On the night of the 26th of June he suddenly broke up his camp, crossed the Jaar, and made for the bridge over the Demer at Hasselt. Villeroy, his eyes now thoroughly opened, hastened with all speed for Diest in order to be before him; and the two armies raced for Antwerp.[414] The Duke had hastened his army forward on its way by great exertions for six days, when the news reached him that Cohorn, unable to resist the temptation of making a little more money, had made a second raid into West Flanders, leaving Opdam in the air on the other side of the Scheldt. The Dutch were jubilant over Cohorn's supposed success, but Marlborough took a very different view. "If Opdam be not on his guard," he said, "he will be beaten before we can reach him"; and he despatched messengers instantly to give Opdam warning. As usual he was perfectly right. Villeroy hit the blot at once, and detached a force under Boufflers to take advantage of it. Opdam, in spite of Marlborough's warning, took no precautions, and finding himself surprised took to his heels, leaving Slangenberg to save his army. Thus the whole of Marlborough's combinations were broken up.[298]

The quarrels of the Dutch generals among themselves[415] left no hope of success in further operations. Failing to persuade the Dutch to undertake anything but petty sieges he returned to the Meuse, and after the capture of Huy and Limburg closed the campaign. Thus a second year was wasted through the perversity of the Dutch.
Sept. 9 20 .

Meanwhile things had gone ill with the Grand Alliance in other quarters. The King of Portugal had indeed been gained for the Austrian side and had offered troops for active operations in Spain, an event which will presently lead us to the Peninsula. The Duke of Savoy again had been detached from the French party, and the intended march over the Tyrol had been defeated by the valour of the Tyrolese; but elsewhere the French arms had been triumphant. Early in March Villars had seized the fort and bridge of Kehl on the Rhine, had traversed the Black Forest, joined hands with the Elector of Bavaria, and in spite of bitter quarrels with him had won in his company the victory of Hochst?dt. Tallard too, though he took the field but late, had captured Old Brisach on the Upper Rhine, defeated the Prince of Hessen-Cassel at Spires, and recaptured Landau. The communications between the Rhine and the Danube were thus secured, and the march upon Vienna could be counted on for the next year. With her armies defeated in her front, and the Hungarian revolt eating at her vitals from within, the situation of the Empire was well-nigh desperate.
[1697.]

Marlborough, for his part, had made up his mind to resign the command, for he saw no prospect of success while his subordinates systematically disobeyed his orders. "Our want of success," he wrote, "is due to the want of discipline in the army, and until this is remedied I see no prospect of improvement."[299] Nevertheless a short stay in England seems to have restored him to a more contented frame of mind, while even before the close of the campaign he had begun to plan[416] a great stroke for the ensuing year, and to discuss it with the one able general in the Imperial service, Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frail and delicate in constitution, Eugene had originally been destined for the Church, and for a short time had been known as the Abbé of Savoy, but he had early shown a preference for the military profession and had offered his sword first to Lewis the Fourteenth. It was refused. Then Eugene turned to the Imperial Court, and after ten years of active service against Hungarians, Turks, and French, found himself at the age of thirty a field-marshal. At thirty-four he had won the great victory of Zenta against the Turks, and in the War of the Succession had made himself dreaded in Italy by the best of the French marshals. He was now forty years of age, having spent fully half of his life in war, and fully a quarter of it in high command. Marlborough was fifty-three, and until two years before had never commanded an army in chief.

Marlborough's design was nothing less than to commit the Low Countries to the protection of the Dutch, and, leaving the old seat of war with all its armies and fortresses in rear, to carry the campaign into the heart of Germany. The two great captains decided that it could and must be done; but it would be no easy task to persuade the timid States-General and a factious House of Commons to a plan which was bold almost to rashness.

Marlborough began his share of the work in England forthwith. Without dropping a hint of his great scheme he contrived to put some heart into the English ministers, and so into their supporters in Parliament. The Houses met on the 9th of November, and the Commons, after just criticism of the want of concert shown by the Allies, cheerfully voted money and men for the augmented force that had been proposed in the previous session. Then came a new difficulty which had been added to Marlborough's many troubles in the autumn. The treaty lately concluded with Portugal[417] required the despatch of seven thousand troops to the Peninsula; and these it was decided to draw from the best British regiments in the Low Countries.[300] It was therefore necessary to raise one new regiment of dragoons and seven new battalions of foot,[301] a task which was no light one from the increasing difficulty of obtaining recruits.
1704.
January 15.

But while the recruiting officers were busily beating their drums, and convicted felons were awaiting the decision which should send them either in a cart to Tyburn or in a transport to the Low Countries, the indefatigable Marlborough crossed the North Sea in the bitterest weather to see how the Dutch preparations were going forward. He found them in a state which caused him sad misgivings for the coming campaign, but he managed to stir up the authorities to increase supplies of men and money, and suggested operations on the Moselle for the next campaign. The same phrase, operations on the Moselle, was passed on to the King of Prussia and to other allies, and was repeated to the Queen and ministers on his return to England. Finally, early in April the Duke embarked for the Low Countries once more in company with his brother Charles, with general instructions in his pocket to concert measures with Holland for the relief of the Emperor.
April 24
May 5.
May 7 18 .

Three weeks were then spent in gaining the consent of the States-General to operations on the Moselle, a consent which the Duke only extorted by threatening to march thither with the British troops alone, and in consultation with the solid but slow commander of the Imperial forces, Prince Lewis of Baden. To be quit of Dutch obstruction Marlborough asked only for the auxiliary troops in the pay of the Dutch, and obtained for his brother Charles the rank of General with the [418] command of the British infantry. In the last week of April the British regiments began to stream out of their winter quarters to a bridge that had been thrown over the Meuse at Ruremonde, and a fortnight later sixteen thousand of them made rendezvous at Bedbourgh. Not a man of them knew whither he was bound, for it was only within the last fortnight that the Duke had so much as hinted his destination even to the Emperor or to Prince Lewis of Baden.

It is now time to glance at the enemy, who had entered on the campaign with the highest hopes of success. The dispositions of the French were little altered from those of the previous year. Villeroy with one army lay within the lines of the Mehaigne; Tallard with another army was in the vicinity of Strasburg, his passage of the Rhine secured by the possession of Landau and Old Brisach; and the Count of Coignies was stationed with ten thousand men on the Moselle, ready to act in Flanders or in Germany as occasion might demand. At Ulm lay the Elector of Bavaria and his French allies under Marsin, who had replaced Villars during the winter. The whole of this last force, forty-five thousand men in all, stood ready to march to the head-waters of the Danube, and there unite with the French that should be pushed through the Black Forest to meet it. The Elector, by the operations of the past campaign, had mastered the line of the Danube from its source to Linz within the Austrian frontier; he held also the keys of the country between the Iller and the Inn; and he asked only for a French reinforcement to enable him to march straight on Vienna.

To the passage of this reinforcement there was no obstacle but a weak Imperial force under Prince Lewis of Baden, which made shift to guard the country from Philipsburg southward to Lake Constance. The principal obstruction was certain fortified lines, of which the reader should take note, on the right bank of the Rhine, which ran from Stollhofen south-eastward to Bühl, and, since they covered the entrance into[419] Baden from the north-west, were naturally most jealously guarded by Prince Lewis. From that point southward the most important points were held by weak detachments of regular troops, but a vast extent of the most difficult country was entrusted to raw militia and peasantry. To escort a reinforcement successfully through the defiles from Fribourg to Donaueschingen and to return with the escort in safety was no easy task, but it was adroitly accomplished by Tallard within the space of twelve days. The feat was lauded at the time with ridiculous extravagance, for, apart from the fact that Prince Lewis of Baden was remarkable neither for swiftness nor for vigilance, Tallard had hustled his unhappy recruits forward so unmercifully, along bad roads and in bad weather, that the greater part of them perished by the way.[302] Nevertheless the French had scored the first point of the game and were proportionately elated, while poor Tallard's head was, to his great misfortune, completely turned.
May 8 19 .

Marlborough meanwhile had begun his famous march, the direction lying up the Rhine towards Bonn. On the very day after he started he received urgent messages from Overkirk that Villeroy had crossed the Meuse and was menacing Huy, and from Prince Lewis that Tallard was threatening the lines of Stollhofen, both commanders of course entreating him to return to their assistance. Halting for one day to reassure them, the Duke told Overkirk that Villeroy had no designs against any but himself, and that the sooner reinforcements were sent to join the British the better. Prince Lewis he answered by giving him a rendezvous where his Hessians and Danes might also unite with his own army. This done he continued his march.
May 12 23 .
May 18 29 .
May 21
June 1.
May 20 31 .
May 23
June 3.

Marlborough's information was good. Villeroy had received strict orders to follow him to the Moselle, the French Court being convinced that he meditated operations[420] in that quarter. The Duke stepped out of his way to inspect Bonn in order to encourage this belief, and then pushed on in all haste to Coblentz with his cavalry only, leaving his brother to follow him with the infantry, while the artillery and baggage was carried up the Rhine to Mainz. Once again all his movements seemed to point to operations on the Moselle, unless indeed (for the French never knew what such a man might do next) he designed to double back down the river for operations near the sea. But wherever he might be going he did not linger, but crossing the Rhine and Moselle pushed constantly forward with his cavalry. Starting always before dawn and bringing his men into camp by noon he granted them no halt until he reached the suburbs of Mainz at Cassel. Here he improved his time by requesting the Landgrave of Hesse to send the artillery, which he had prepared for a campaign on the Moselle, to Mannheim. Again the French were puzzled. Was Alsace, and not the Moselle, to be the scene of the next campaign; and if not, why was the English general bridging the Rhine at Philipsburg, and why was his artillery moving up the river? Tallard moved up to Kehl, crossed to the left bank of the Rhine and took up a position on the Lauter, and Villeroy sent to Flanders for reinforcements; but meanwhile Marlborough had crossed the Main, and still, struggling on by rapid and distressing marches over execrable roads, was within three more days across the Neckar at Ladenburg and out of their reach.
May 26
June 6.
May 30
June 10.
June 2 13 .

His plans were now manifest enough, but it was too late to catch him. He therefore halted two days by Ladenburg to give orders for the concentration of the troops that were on march to join him from the Rhine, and then striking south-eastward across the great bend of the Neckar, traversed the river for the second time at Lauffen, and by the 10th of June was at Mondelheim. Halting here for three days to allow his infantry to come nearer to him, he was joined by Prince Eugene whom he now met for the first time in the flesh. The[421] Prince inspected the English horse and was astonished at the condition of the troops after their long and trying march. "I have heard much," he said, "of the English cavalry, and find it to be the best appointed and finest that I have ever seen. The spirit which I see in the looks of your men is an earnest of victory." Hither three days later came also a less welcome guest, Prince Lewis of Baden; and the three commanders discussed their plans for the future. Marlborough in vain tried to keep Eugene for his colleague, but it was ultimately decided that Eugene should take command in the lines of Stollhofen, to prevent the French if possible from crossing the Rhine, and to follow them at all hazards if they should succeed in crossing, while Baden should remain on the Danube and share the command of the allied army by alternate days with Marlborough.
June 3 14 .
June 9 20 .
June 11 22 .

Then the march was resumed south-eastward upon Ulm; and after one day's halt to perfect the arrangements for the junction with Prince Louis, the army reached the mountain-chain that bounded the valley of the Danube. The Pass of Geislingen, through which its road lay, could not in the most favourable circumstances be passed by any considerable number of troops in less than a day, and was now rendered almost impracticable by incessant heavy rain. To add to Marlborough's troubles the States-General, learning that Villeroy was astir, became frightened for their own safety and entreated for the return of their auxiliary troops. The Duke, to calm them, ordered boats to be ready to convey forces down the Rhine, and went quietly on with his own preparations, establishing magazines to the north of the Danube, and not forgetting to send a reinforcement of foreign troops to Eugene. At last the news came that Baden's army was come within reach; the British cavalry plunged into the defile, and two days later the junction of the two forces was effected at Ursprung.
June 14 25 .

The joint armies presently advanced to within eight miles of Ulm, whereupon the Elector of Bavaria withdrew[422] to an entrenched camp further down the Danube between Lavingen and Dillingen. The Allies therefore turned northward to await the arrival of the British infantry at Gingen; for Charles Churchill, with the foot and the artillery, had found it difficult to march at great speed in the perpetual pouring rain. His troubles had begun from the moment when Marlborough had gone ahead with the cavalry from Coblentz. The ascent of a single hill in that mountainous country often cost the artillery[303] a whole day's work, and would have cost more but for the indefatigable exertions of the officers.[304] Marlborough's care for the comfort and discipline of these troops was incessant. A large supply of shoes, for instance, was ready at Heidelberg to make good defects, while constant injunctions in his letters to his brother testify to his anxiety that nothing should be omitted to lighten the burden of the march. Finally, anticipating Wellington in the Peninsula, he insisted that the men should pay honestly for everything that they took, and took care to provide money to enable them to do so. Such a thing had never been known in all the innumerable campaigns of Germany.
June 18 29 .
June 20
July 1.

The joint armies after the arrival of Churchill amounted to ninety-six battalions, two hundred and two squadrons, and forty-eight guns; but a large contingent of Danish cavalry was still wanting, and not all Marlborough's entreaties could prevail with its commander, the Duke of Würtemberg, to hasten his march. Nevertheless it was necessary to move at once. Marlborough's objective had from the first been Donauw?rth, which would give him at once a bridge over the Danube and a place of arms for the invasion of Bavaria. His move northward had revealed his intentions; and the Elector of Bavaria had detached Count d'Arco with ten thousand foot and twenty-five hundred [423] horse to occupy the Schellenberg, a commanding height which covers Donauw?rth on the north bank of the Danube. Marlborough pressed Baden hard to attack this detachment before it could be reinforced; and accordingly the army broke up from Gingen, and advancing parallel to the Danube encamped on the 1st of July at Amerdingen.
June 21
July 2.

The next day was Marlborough's turn for command. It had not yet dawned when Quartermaster-General Cadogan was up and away with a party of cavalry, pioneers, and pontoons. At three o'clock marched six thousand men from the forty-five battalions of the left wing,[305] three regiments of Imperial Grenadiers, and thirty-five squadrons of horse. At five o'clock the rest of the army, excepting the artillery, followed in two columns along the main road towards a height that overhangs the river W?rnitz between Obermorgen and W?rnitzstein. By eight o'clock Cadogan was at Obermorgen, had driven back the enemy's picquets, and was engaged in marking out a camp; and at nine appeared the Duke himself, who, taking Cadogan's escort, went forward to reconnoitre the position.

The Schellenberg, as its name implies, is a bell-shaped hill, some two miles in circumference at the base and with a flat top about half a mile wide, whereon was pitched the enemy's camp. On the south side, where the hill falls down to the Danube, the ascent is steeper than elsewhere; on the north-west the slope is gradual and about five hundred yards in length. To the south-west the hill joins the town of Donauw?rth, from the outworks of which an entrenchment had been carried for nearly two miles round the summit to the river. This defence was strongest and most complete to the north-east, where a wood gave shelter for the formation of an attacking force; and at this point was[424] stationed a battery of cannon. To the north-west the works though incomplete were well advanced, and were strengthened by an old fort wherein the enemy had mounted guns. Marlborough, as he conned the position, could see that the enemy before him was so disposed as if expecting an attack on the northern and western sides. But looking to his right beyond Donauw?rth, and across the Danube, he could see preparations of a more ominous kind, a camp with tents pitched on both wings and a blank space in the centre, sure sign that cavalry was already present and that infantry was expected. Closer and closer he drew to the hill, Prince Lewis and others presently joining him; and then puffs of white smoke began to shoot out from various points in the enemy's works as his batteries opened fire.

Finishing his survey undisturbed, Marlborough turned back to meet the advanced detachment of the army; for it was plain to him that the Schellenberg must be carried at once before more of the enemy's troops could reach it. So bad, however, was the state of the roads, that though the distance was but twelve miles, the detachment did not reach the W?rnitz until noon. It was then halted to give the men rest, for there were still three miles of bad road before them, and to allow the main body to come up. The cavalry was sent forward to cut fascines in the wood, pontoon bridges were thrown across the W?rnitz, and at three o'clock the advanced detachment passed the river. While this was going forward a letter arrived from Eugene that Villeroy and Tallard were preparing to send strong reinforcements to the Elector; and this intelligence decided Marlborough to take the work in hand forthwith. Without waiting for the rear of the main body to arrive he drew out sixteen battalions only, five of them British,[306] and led them and the advanced detachment straight on to the attack. The infantry[425] of the detachment was formed in four lines, the English[307] being on the extreme left by the edge of the wood, and the cavalry was drawn up in two lines behind them. Eight battalions more were detailed to support the detachment or to deploy to its right if need should be, and yet eight more were held in reserve.

It was six o'clock in the evening before Marlborough gave the order to attack. Every foot-soldier took a fascine from the cavalry, and the columns, headed by two parties of grenadiers from the First Guards under Lord Mordaunt and Colonel Munden, marched steadily up the hill. The hostile batteries at once opened a cross-fire of round shot from the intrenchment and from the walls of Donauw?rth, but the columns pressed on unheeding to within eighty yards of the intrenchment before they fired a shot. Then the enemy continued the fire with musketry and grape, and the slaughter became frightful. The grenadiers of the Guards fell down right and left, and very soon few of them were left. Still Mordaunt and Munden, the one with his skirts torn to shreds and the other with his hat riddled by bullets, stood up unhurt and kept cheering them on. General Goor, a gallant foreigner who commanded the attack, was shot dead, and many other officers fell with him under that terrible fire. The columns staggered, wavered, recovered, and went on. But now came an unlucky accident. In front of the intrenchment ran a hollow way worn in the hill by rain, into which the foremost men, mistaking it for the intrenchment, threw down their fascines, so that on reaching the actual lines they found themselves unable to cross them. Thus checked they suffered so heavily that they began to give way; and the enemy rushed out rejoicing to finish the defeat with the bayonet. But the English Guards, though they had suffered terribly, stood immovable as rocks, the Royal Scots and the Welshmen of the Twenty-third[426] stood by them, and the counter-attack after desperate fighting was beaten back.

Meanwhile the enemy, finding the western face of the hill unthreatened, withdrew the whole of their force from thence to the point of assault. Their fire increased; the attacking columns wavered once more, and General Lumley was obliged to move up the entire first line of cavalry into the thick of the fire to support them. So the fight swayed for another half-hour, when the remainder of the Imperial army at last appeared on Marlborough's right, and finding the intrenchments deserted passed over them at once with trifling loss. Repulsing a charge of cavalry which was launched against them, they hurried on and came full on the flank of the French and Bavarians; yet even so this gallant enemy would not give way, and the allied infantry still failed to carry the intrenchment. Lumley now ordered the Scots Greys to dismount and attack on foot; but before they could advance the infantry by a final effort at last forced their way in. Then the Greys remounted with all haste and galloped forward to the pursuit, while Marlborough, halting the exhausted foot, sent the rest of the cavalry to join the Greys. The rout was now complete. Hundreds of men were cut off before they could reach Donauw?rth, many were driven into the Danube, many more, flying to a temporary bridge to cross the river, broke it down by their weight and miserably perished. Of twelve thousand men not more than one-fourth rejoined the Elector's army.

To face page 426
SCHELLENBERG
June 21st July 2nd 1704

The whole affair had lasted little more than an hour and a half, but the loss of the Allies in overcoming so gallant a defence cost them no fewer than fourteen hundred killed and three thousand eight hundred wounded. The losses of the British[308] were very heavy,[427] amounting to fifteen hundred of all ranks, or probably more than a third of the numbers engaged. The First Guards, Royal Scots, and the Twenty-third suffered most severely, every battalion of them having lost two hundred men or more, while the Guards at the close of the day could count but five officers unhurt out of seventeen. Of these five, wonderful to say, were Mordaunt and Munden, the one with three bullets through his clothes, the other with five through his hat, but neither of them scratched; but of eighty-two men whom they led to the assault only twenty-one returned. When it is remembered that the main body had been on foot fourteen hours, and the advanced detachment for sixteen hours, the exhaustion of the troops at the end of the day may be imagined. Nevertheless Donauw?rth was taken and the enemy was not only beaten but demoralised.
July 11 22 .

The Elector of Bavaria on hearing the news broke down the bridge over the Lech, and entrenched himself at Augsburg. Marlborough on his part crossed the Danube, and set himself to cut off the Elector's supplies. The passage of the Danube he severed at Donauw?rth, the road to the north by the capture of Rain, and that to the north-east by an advance south-eastward to Aichach, from which he presently moved on to Friedberg, hemming his enemy tightly into his entrenched camp. The Elector was at first inclined to come to terms, but hearing that the French were about to reinforce him he thought himself bound in honour to hold out. Marlborough was therefore compelled to put pressure on him by ravaging the country, a work which his letters show that he detested but felt obliged in duty to perform. The destruction was carried to the very walls of Munich; indeed, nothing but want of artillery, for which Prince Lewis of Baden was responsible, prevented an attack upon the city itself.[309] The prospect of the arrival of a French army gave the Duke little disquiet: if Bavaria were to[428] become the seat of war, so much the worse for Bavaria and for the cause of the Bourbons. So after sending thirty squadrons to reinforce Eugene, he prepared in the interim for the siege of Ingolstadt, which would give him command of the Danube from Ulm to Passau, and free access at all times into Bavaria. The Elector's country should feel the stress of war at any rate, and if fortune were propitious the French might feel it also. It is now time to return to the movements of those French.