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Updated: May 1, 2025
Marshal Tallard, who commanded forty-five thousand French at Strasburg, and who had been destined by Louis to march early in the year into Bavaria, thought that Marlborough's march along the Rhine was preliminary to an attack upon Alsace; and the marshal therefore kept his forty-five thousand men back in order to protect France in that quarter.
Thus the French position was very strong at each extremity, but was comparatively weak in the centre. Tallard seems to have relied on the swampy state of the part of the valley that reaches from below Oberglau to Blenheim, for preventing any serious attack on this part of his line.
The question of the Spanish succession was to be mentioned to William at a private audience. Tallard was fully informed of all that had passed in the conferences which the French ministers had held with Portland; and was furnished with all the arguments that the ingenuity of publicists could devise in favour of the claim of the Dauphin.
CORPORAL. And there we found the Duke of Marlborough seated along with Marshal Tallard, who was endeavouring to drown his sorrow over a cup of Johannisberger wine; and a good drink too, my lads, only not to compare to Warwick beer. "Who was the man who has done this?" said our noble General. I stepped up. "How many heads was it," says he, "that you cut off?"
The place was very strongly fortified, though the garrison was small and ill provided with necessaries. In fourteen days the governor surrendered the place, and was condemned to lose his head for having made such a slender defence. The duke of Burgundy returned in triumph to Versailles, and Tallard was ordered to invest Landau.
It was not until Marsin learnt of the defeat of Tallard and of the Elector, that he ceased to pursue his advantages, and commenced his retreat. This retreat he was able to make without being pursued. In the mean time the troops in Blenheim had been twice attacked, and had twice repulsed the enemy.
But the Elector knew that Marshal Tallard, with a powerful French army, was approaching; and, buoyed up by expectation, replied, "Since you have compelled me to draw the sword, I have thrown away the scabbard!" Prince Eugene had hastened from the Rhine to join Marlborough, with a force of eighteen thousand men, and reached the plains of Hochstadt by the time Tallard joined the Elector.
Marshal Tallard, with 15,000 men, came down from the Upper Rhine to interrupt the siege of Kaiserwerth, while the main army, 45,000 strong, under the Duke of Burgundy and Marshal Boufflers, was posted in the Bishopric of Liege, resting on the tremendous chain of fortresses of Flanders, all of which were in French possession, and strongly garrisoned by French and Spanish soldiers.
Besides, the French king, knowing that the peace of Europe would in a great measure depend on the resolutions of the English parliament, is said to have distributed great sums of money in England, by means of his minister Tallard, in order to strengthen the opposition of the house of commons.
Tallard and Marsin, severed from each other, thought only of retreat. Tallard drew up the squadrons of horse that he had left, in a line extended toward Blenheim, and sent orders to the infantry in that village to leave it and join him without delay.
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