win a victory in half-a-dozen Cabinets before he could put a single soldier on the march. He had to persuade Dutch deputies, English ministers, and Imperial statesmen to consent to his strategy, and he obtained that consent by concealing its real scale from them almost as completely as he did from Louis XIV. himself. Only, perhaps, to Prince Eugene, a soldier of like spirit to himself, now in command of the Austrian armies, to Heinsius, his faithful ally in Holland, and to Godolphin, his brother-in-law at the English Treasury, did Marlborough unfold his complete design. The Dutch would never have consented to fight the French on the remote Danube; but they were lured into the scheme of a march to Coblentz, for the purpose of a campaign on the Moselle.

Marlborough's movements curiously puzzled the French generals. When he reached Coblentz, everybody believed he was going to fight on the Moselle. When he reached Mayence it was guessed that he was about to attack Alsace. But when he crossed the Neckar, and kept on his steadfast march through Würtemberg, his plan stood disclosed. There was

wrath in Holland, alarm in Paris, and much agitated riding to and fro betwixt the head-quarters of the various French armies; but it was too late for the Dutch to object, and also too late for the French generals to intercept his movement, and it was clear that the combination of three French armies under Tallard, Marsin, and the Bavarian Elector, Max Emanuel, on the Danube, would be met by a counter concentration of three armies under Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Margrave Louis.

Marlborough's march to the Danube was a grand scheme grandly executed. Part of the route crossed the great chain of rugged hills in Würtemberg known. by the name of the Rauhe Alp-the rugged Alps-but through wild passes, across swift rivers, and, in spite of tempestuous weather, the steadfast Englishman pressed on. The strength of Marlborough's force consisted of 16,000 British, sturdy infantry, equal in endurance and warlike temper to Wellington's Light Division in the Peninsula, or to the foot guards who held the Sandbag battery at Inkermann. Amongst the British cavalry was a regiment of Scots Greys and another of Royal Dragoons, equal in valour to those who, more than a century afterwards, charged across the sunken road upon the French cuirassiers at Waterloo. Their officers were men like Cutts and Rowe and Kane and Ingoldsby, not, perhaps, great generals, but soldiers who, in fighting quality, in the stubborn bulldog pluck that never recognises defeat, were equal to the Pictons, and Craufurds, and Colin Campbells of a later date.

Marlborough crossed the Rhine on May 26; on June 10, at Mondelsheim, he met Prince Eugene, and began one of the most loyal and memorable friendships in military history. Three days later the junction with Margrave Louis was effected at Grossheppach.

The tree still stands under which, nearly two hundred years ago, the three commanders sat and planned the campaign which ended at Blenheim. Of that historic three the Englishman was, no doubt, intellectually the greatest, and certainly stands highest in fame. He was fifty-four years of age; he had won no first-class battle yet, but during the next seven years

he was to win a series of the greatest victories in British He lacked, perhaps, Wellington's fighting

history. impulse. Marlborough, during ten campaigns, fought only ten pitched battles; Wellington, in seven, fought fifteen. But Marlborough never fought a battle he did not win, nor besieged a fortress he did not take, and in many respects he is the greatest military genius the British race has produced.

The Margrave Louis of Baden owed his place in the group under the historic tree at Grossheppach rather to his rank than to his military skill; but Prince Eugene of Savoy was in every respect a great soldier. As Stanhope puts it, he was an Italian by descent, a Frenchman by training, and a German by adoption; and in his signature, “Eugenio von Savoye," he used to combine the three languages. A little man, blackhaired, black-complexioned, with lips curiously pendulous, and mouth semi-open; but with eyes through which looked a great and daring spirit. Eugene was a soldier as daring as Ney or Murat, and with their delight in the rapture of the onfall, the thunder of galloping hoofs, and the loud challenge of the cannon. But he was also one of the most loyal and generous of men, and if Marlborough was the brain of the great campaign just beginning, Eugene was its sword.

There is no space to dwell on the intermediate movements, nor even on the desperate fight round the Schellenberg, and the stern courage with which the British at last carried it, but carried it at a loss of nearly one-third their number. On August 11, 1704, the two great armies confronted each other at Blenheim.

Blenheim is a little village on the bank of the Danube; a stream called the Nebel, gathering its sources from the roots of the wooded hills to the west, runs in its front, and, curving round, so that its course is almost from north to south, falls into the Danube. From Lutzingen, on the lower slope of the hills, to

Blenheim on the Danube is a distance of four and a half miles. Blenheim formed the right wing of the French, and in it Tallard had packed nearly 16,000 infantry, the flower of his troops, fortifying the village with strong palisades. Lutzingen, on the extreme left, was held by Marsin and the Bavarian Elector, and, from the nature of the ground, was almost impregnable.

Betwixt these two positions was a marshy plain through which the Nebel flowed; in the middle of it stood a village called Oberglauh, held by fourteen battalions, amongst which were three Irish regiments destined to play a great part in the fight. Tallard covered his centre by a long screen of cavalry, strengthened by two brigades of infantry. His position thus was of great strength at either extremity, but his centre, though covered by the Nebel, and strengthened by the village of Oberglauh, was of fatal weakness, and through it Marlborough burst late in the fight, winning his great victory by a stupendous cavalry charge. It is curious, however, that Marlborough, though he had a military glance of singular keenness, did not discover the flaw in his opponent's line till the battle had been raging some hours.

Eugene, with 18,000 men, was to attack Tallard's left; Marlborough himself, with his best troops, nearly 30,000 strong-9000 of them being British-was to attack Blenheim and try and turn the French right. His cavalry was to menace the centre. Tallard had under his command 60,000 men, with ninety guns; Marlborough had 56,000 men and sixty-six guns. Marlborough's weakness lay in the strangely composite character of his forces. The battle, in this respect, has scarcely any parallel in history. To quote the historian Green, "The whole of the Teutonic race was represented in the strange medley of Englishmen, Dutchmen, Hanoverians, Danes, Würtembergers, and Austrians who followed Marlborough and Eugene." Nothing less than the warlike genius and masterful will of Marlborough could have wielded into effectiveness an army made up of such diverse elements.