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The Great British Battles. Hilaire Belloc
Читать онлайн.Название The Great British Battles
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isbn 4064066383497
Автор произведения Hilaire Belloc
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The surest way of getting Marlborough out of the Upper Danube is to threaten his line of supply. He will then be compelled to fall back northward upon his base. Further (though Tallard did not know it at the moment), there is present the very real difficulty of friction between the two commanders of the army opposing him. Marlborough and Baden are not getting on well together. If it were possible for Marlborough to persuade Baden to go off on some little expedition of his own, withdrawing but a few soldiers, Marlborough would be well content, and Marlborough is by far the more formidable of the two men. But though the opportunity for such a riddance of divided command is open, for Prince Louis of Baden is anxious to besiege Ingolstadt, Marlborough dares not weaken the combined forces, even by a few battalions, now that Tallard has effected his junction with the Elector and with Marcin, and that a formidable force is opposed to him.
These elements in the situation, once clearly seized, the sequel follows from them logically enough.
The above describes the situation on the 5th of August.
On the 6th, Wednesday, the united Franco-Bavarian force began its march northward towards the Danube, a march parallel with Marlborough’s line of supply, and threatening that line all the way, ready to cut it when once the northern bank of the Danube was reached. Marlborough was compelled, in view of that march, to go back northward, step for step with his opponents. The artery that fed him was in danger, and everything else must be neglected.
In the evening of that Wednesday, August the 6th, Tallard and the Elector were at Biberach, Marlborough and Baden at Schobenhausen, which, as the map shows, lies also a day’s march to the north from the last position these troops had held, and was on the way to the crossing of the Danube at Neuburg, as the Franco-Bavarians were on the way to the crossing of the same great river at Dillingen.
On the 7th there was no movement, but on the 8th, the Friday, as the Franco-Bavarian host approached the crossing of the Danube at Dillingen, their leader (if Tallard may be regarded as their leader—he was nominally under the orders of the Elector, but he was the marshal of Louis XIV.) heard suddenly that Eugene had appeared at Hochstadt with thirty-nine squadrons and twenty battalions.
The trick was done. The rapid and secret march of Eugene had been accomplished with complete success, and his force was within speaking distance of Marlborough’s.
When the news came to the French camp, it was even there evident what a sudden transformation had come over the campaign; but to one who could see, as the historian sees, the moral condition of both forces, the event is more significant still.
A great commander, whose name was henceforth to be linked most closely with that of Marlborough’s himself, was present upon the Upper Danube. He brought with him troops not only equivalent in number to a third of his colleague’s existing forces, but trained under his high leadership, disciplined in his excellent school, and containing, what will prove essential to the fortunes of the coming battle, a very large proportion of cavalry. Further, the appearance of Eugene at this critical moment permitted Marlborough to rid himself of Louis of Baden, to despatch him to the siege of Ingolstadt in the heart of Bavaria, at once to be free of the clog which the slow decision and slow movements of that general burdened him with, to threaten the heart of the enemy’s country by that general’s departure on such a mission, and to unite himself and his forces with a man whose methods were after his own heart.
It is true that a minor problem lay before Eugene and Marlborough which must be solved before the great value of the junction they were about to effect could be taken advantage of. Their forces were still separated by the Danube: Marlborough lay a day’s march to the south of it, and were he to cross the Danube at Neuburg he would be two days’ march from Eugene. But each army was free to march towards the other, and all that their commanders had to decide was upon which side of the river the junction should be effected. Were the junction effected to the south—that is, were Eugene to cross the Danube and join Marlborough in Bavaria—Tallard, crossing the Danube at Dillingen, could strike at the great northern line of communications which conditioned all these movements. It was, therefore, the obvious move for Eugene and Marlborough to join upon the northern bank of the Danube, and to move upon and defend that all-important line of communications, point for point, as Tallard might threaten it.
It was on the 8th, the Friday, as I have said, that Eugene’s presence was known both to Tallard and to Marlborough, for Eugene had ridden forward and met his colleague.
Upon the 9th, the Saturday, the French marched towards the bridge of Dillingen. Eugene, who was already on the way back to his army, returned to inform Marlborough of this, then rode westward again to his forces, and, while the French made their arrangements for crossing the river on the morrow, he busied himself in conducting his 15,000 eastward down the north bank of the Danube. Three thousand of Marlborough’s cavalry went forward to meet him, and to begin that junction between the two forces which was to determine the day at Blenheim.
The next day, Sunday the 10th, the Franco-Bavarian army passed the river and lay in the position with which their forces had in the past been so familiar, the position from Lauingen to Dillingen which Marcin and the Elector had held when, six weeks before, Marlborough and Baden had passed across the Franco-Bavarian front to the north in their march upon Donauwörth and the Schellenberg.
On the same Sunday, the 10th, Marlborough had brought up his main force to Rhain, within an hour of the Danube, and Eugene was drawing up his force at a safe distance from the French position north of the village of Münster, and behind the brook of Kessel, where that watercourse joins the Danube.
But, though junction with Marlborough was virtually effected, it must be effected actually before Eugene could think himself safe from that Franco-Bavarian force a day’s march behind him, which was three times his own and more. His urgent messages to Marlborough led that commander to march up his men through the night. Before the dawn of August the 11th broke, Churchill, with twenty battalions, had crossed at Merxheim, and the whole army, marching in two columns, was upon the move—the right-hand column following Churchill to the bridge of Merxheim, the left-hand column crossing the Lech by the bridge of Rhain, to pass the Danube at Donauwörth. In the afternoon of that Monday the whole of Marlborough’s command was passing the Wornitz, and long after sunset, following upon a march which had kept the major part of the great host afoot for more than twenty hours, Eugene and Marlborough were together at the head of 52,000 men, established in unison, and defending, with now no possibility of its interruption, the line of communications from the north.
Every historian of this great business has justly remarked the organisation and the patient genius of the man who made such a concentration possible under such conditions and in such a time, without appreciable loss, at hurried notice, and with a complete success.
It is a permanent example and masterpiece in that inglorious part of war, the function of transport and of marching orders, upon which strategy depends as surely as an army depends on food.
Fully accompanied by his artillery, Marlborough’s force could not have accomplished the marvel that it did; yet even this arm was brought up, in the rear of the army, by the morning of Tuesday the 12th, and from that moment, given a sufficient repose, the whole great weapon under the two captains could act as one.
On that same morning, Tuesday the 12th, the Franco-Bavarian army under Tallard and the Elector were choosing out with some deliberation a camp so situated as to block any movement of their enemy up the valley of the Danube. The situation of the camp was designed to make this advance up the Danube so clearly impossible that nothing would be left but what the strategy of the last few days had imposed upon Marlborough, namely, a retreat upon his base northward, away from the Danube, towards Nördlingen. It was not imagined that the two commanders of the imperial forces would attack this Franco-Bavarian position, and so risk a general action; for by a retreat upon Nördlingen their continued existence as an army was assured, while an indecisive result would do them far more harm than it would do their opponents. Did Marlborough