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Although Merci was advancing with an army, Enghien continued the project that had been formed, and, remaining with his own troops to protect Philippsburg, sent Turenne with all his horse and five hundred foot to Worms, which threw open its gates. Oppenheim surrendered without resistance, and he arrived in front of Mayence.
A messenger reached Hector from Turenne with a note scribbled in pencil: We have been beaten. The infantry behaved shamefully, and are hastening, a crowd of stragglers, towards Philippsburg. I shall retire along the Tauber with the cavalry and make for Hesse, do you march with all speed for that river.
Philippsburg stood on the Rhine, which at this point formed a sharp elbow, and the land being low, many morasses surrounded the town, and the approach therefore was exceedingly difficult. Eight hundred paces from the town stood a square fort, which commanded the river, and was connected with the town by a causeway.
They continued their retreat until they arrived at Philippsburg. Here Turenne with the whole of his army took up his position, covered by the guns of the fortress, while Gramont passed the river with the remains of Enghien's army and all the cavalry.
The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had taken Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent the defeat of the English expedition under the Duke of York by General Brune at Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke now, for the first time, made a retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwarow.
This was a bold and successful movement, for had he fallen back with his infantry to Philippsburg the enemy would have possessed themselves of all the towns he had captured, whereas they could not now advance without exposing their line of communication to his attack. The Poitou regiment had, when Turenne advanced to Marienthal, been left at a town some four leagues away.
These with the fifteen hundred horse that had been with him in the battle placed him in a position to make a vigorous defence, but the Bavarians did not venture to attack him. He now sent an officer to rally the scattered infantry, and gave orders that they should at once retreat without a stop to Philippsburg, a distance of seventy miles.
Hector, however, tarried two days longer in Paris, by which time he had received all the clothes that he had ordered. Early on the morning of the third day he mounted and rode away with Paolo and three of his troopers. Hunter had been left behind at Philippsburg for the cure of a wound that he had received at Nordlingen.
Hector's regiment had been left at Philippsburg when Turenne marched away; but the marshal told him that there was no occasion whatever for him to remain with it during the winter.
By the time they find out what my intentions are, it will be too late for them to take advantage of my absence. "Even then they would have to storm Philippsburg or some other strong place before they could cross the Rhine, and before they could do that Wrangel and I would be at their heels.
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