Cutis to maintain a feigned attack which kept the French in their post, while he brought all available forces to bear upon the centre of the line. After a long struggle he got his troops across the Nebel, and by a general assault about five p.m. the French cavalry were hopelessly broken and their infantry supports cut to pieces. Part of the troops dispersed to Hochstadt in the rear, while many were driven into the Danube. Tallard himself was surrounded and taken prisoner. The forces in Blenheim were now completely isolated, and surrendered. The enemy's left wing had been driven out of Lutzingen by Eugene after desperate fighting, and fell back through the night towards Lauingen.
A pencil note to the duchess written by Marlborough on the field of battle (facsimile in Coxe) announced the greatest triumph achieved by an English general since the middle ages. The confederates lost 4,500 killed and 7,500 wounded. The loss of the «nemy, including deserters after the battle, was reckoned at forty thousand. Marlborough and Eugene had to dispose of eleven thousand prisoners taken on the field. The whole French army, and with it the combination against the emperor, was ruined.
After a short rest the confederate generals marched to the Rhine. They undertook the siege of Landau. While it proceeded slowly for want of proper material, Marlborough made a sudden advance with twelve thousand men up the valley of the Queich, crossing the 'terriblest country that could be imagined for an enemy with cannon,' and reached the 'camp of St. Wendel, near Trèves, on 26 Oct. A weak French garrison left the fort upon his approach. He occupied the town, ordered the siege of Traeroach, and returned to the camp before Landau. He had thus, 'as he hoped, prepared for a campaign in the following year upon the Moselle. Landau surrendered on 25 Nov. 1704, and Traerbach on 20 Dec. Marlborough was on his way to Berlin before the fall of Landau. The king of Prussia was nervous about the conflict between Sweden and Poland, and wished to have his troops at home. Marlborough succeeded in persuading him to send eight thousand men to Italy for the relief of the Duke of Savoy, who was now in great straits. Marlborough returned to the Hague by Hanover, made arrangements for the future, and returned to England, reaching London 14 Dec. to receive the reward of his victories. The emperor had proposed, even before the storm of Schellenberg, to make him a prince of the empire. The offer was renewed after Blenheim, though the necessity of providing a proper territory delayed the affair till next year, when Joseph, the new emperor (18 Nov. 1705), gave him the dignity and conferred upon mm the principality of Mindelheim. The standards taken at Blenheim were solemnly deposited in Westminster Hall on 8 Jan. 1705. Parliament voted their thanks, though the tory House of Commons ingeniously diminished the compliment by coupling nim with Rooke, the hero of an ambiguous victory off Malaga. They requested the queen, however, to reward Marlborough, and passed an act enabling her to bestow upon him and his heirs the manor of Woodstock with the hundred of Wootton. She accompanied the grant with an order for the construction of the palace of Blenheim. This year Godolphin and Marlborough ventured to give silent votes against the occasional conformity. Kooke was superseded in his command of the fleet by Shovell, a sound whig ; Robert Walpole was appointed to a small office ; and the privy seal transferred from Buckingham to Newcastle. The leaders of the whigs still remained out of office ; but they made a strong claim on behalf of Sunderland. Marlborough until leaving England declined to force his violent son-in-law upon the queen; but in the course of 1705 he yielded to the importunities of the duchess and Godolphin, and Sunderland was at last gratified by an embassy to Vienna.
Marlborough reached the Hague 14 April 1705. He had planned an invasion of France from the Moselle — a scheme which he continued to favour in later years, though he could not overcome the Dutch objections (Marlborough Despatches, iii. 260). The Duke of Lorraine was in favour of the allies ; the French frontier was weakest in that direction ; and he hoped to collect an army of ninety thousand men between the Saar and the Moselle, to besiege Saar-Louis before the French were ready, and then to penet rate by the Moselle, supported by the imperial forces on the Saar. Magazines had been collected during the winter. The Dutch made difficulties ; the cabinet at Vienna wished to send Eugene to Italy ; and the Prince of Baden was jealous and sulky. He discovered that a wound in his leg, received at Schellenberg, must delay his movements. The Emperor Leopold died 5 May, and his successor, Joseph, supported Eugene more cordially. Still the German princes hung back. Marlborough^s troops advanced to Trèves, through so bare a country that the Scots declared that they would be more comfortable in the highlands (Coxe, i. 388). At Trèves Marlborough could at first muster only thirty thousand troops. Villars, who was opposed to him, occupied a strong position on the heights
