Frederick Engels. Blenheim Ł..
Frederick Engels. Blenheim Ł..[30]
Blenheim, or Blindheim, a village about 23 miles from Augsburg, in Bavaria, the theatre of a great battle, fought Aug. 13., 1704, between the English and Austrians, under Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and the French and Bavarians, under Marshal Tallard, Marsin, and the elector of Bavaria.[3] The Austrian states being menaced by a direct invasion on the side of Germany, Marlborough marched from Flanders to their assistance. The allies agreed to act on the defensive in Italy, the Netherlands, and the lower Rhine, and to concentrate all their available forces on the Danube. Marlborough, after storming the Bavarian intrenchments on the Schellenberg, passed the Danube, and effected his junction with Eugene, after which both at once marched to attack the enemy. They found him behind the Nebel brook, with the villages of Blenheim and Kitzingen strongly occupied in front of either flank. The French had the right wing, the Bavarians held the left. Their line was nearly 5 miles in extent, each army having its cavalry on its wings, so that a portion of the centre was held by both French and Bavarian cavalry. The position had not yet been properly occupied according to the then prevailing rules of tactics. The mass of the French infantry, 27 battalions, was crammed together in Blenheim, consequently in a position completely helpless for troops organized as they were then, and adapted for line fighting in an open country only. The attack of the Anglo-Austrians, however, surprised them in this dangerous condition, and Marlborough very soon drew all the advantages from it which the occasion offered. Having in vain attacked
Maximilian II Maria Emanuel.— Ed.
Blenheim, he suddenly drew his main strength toward his centre, and with it broke through the centre of his opponents. Eugene made light work of the thus isolated Bavarians, and undertook the general pursuit, while Marlborough, having completely cut off the retreat of the 18,000 Frenchmen blocked up in Blenheim, compelled them to lay down their arms. Among them was Marshal Tallard. The total loss of the Franco-Bavarians was 30,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners; that of the victors, about 11,000 men. The battle decided the campaign, Bavaria fell into the hands of the Austrians, and the prestige of Louis XIV was gone.
This battle is one of the highest tactical interest, showing very conspicuously the immense difference between the tactics of that time and those of our day. The very circumstance which would now be considered one of the greatest advantages of a defensive position, viz., the having [of] 2 villages in front of the flanks, was with troops of the 18th century the cause of defeat. At that time, infantry was totally unfit for that skirmishing and apparently irregular fighting which now makes a village of masonry houses, occupied by good troops, almost impregnable. This battle is called in France, and on the continent generally, the battle of Höchstädt, from a little town of this name in the vicinity, which was already known to fame by a battle fought there on Sept. 20 of the preceding year.[301]
can Cyclopaedia First published in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. Ill, 1858
Endnotes
[30] In the battle at Waterloo (Belgium) on June 18, 1815 Napoleon's army was routed by the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies under Wellington and Blücher, and this decided the final victory of the seventh anti-French coalition (Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Spain and other states). Victory was ensured by the endurance of the British infantrymen who rebuffed the numerous attacks of the French, and by Bliicher's army which came in time to the aid of the Anglo-Dutch forces.
[3] The defeat of the Austrian army at Abensberg was an episode in the five-day battle of Regensburg (from April 19 to 23) during the Austro-French war of 1809 (a war waged by France against the fifth European coalition: Austria, Britain, Portugal and Spain). It was followed by the Austrians' defeat at Landshut on April 21 and at Eckmühl on April 22, and their retreat from Regensburg on April 23 under pressure from French troops. Nevertheless, the Austrian army retained its fighting capacity and put up a stubborn resistance to the French advance on Vienna.
[301] At the battle of Höchstädt on September 20, 1703 the allied French and Bavarian troops under Villars, Marshal of France, defeated the Austrian army. This battle and that of Blenheim were fought in the War of the Spanish Succession (see Note 16).