THIS WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1928, Page 6

THIS WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

AUGUST 13.—THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. (Copyrighted.) Iwo hundred and twenty-four years ago, on August 13, 1704, the great Duke of Marlborough won the most memorable of his many victories at the battle of Blenheim.

On May 4, 1702, Queen Anne of England, in conjunction with the rulers of Austria, Holland, 1 russia, Savoy and Denmark, declared war against Louis XIV. of 1 ranee, who, with the aid of the King of Spain and the Elector of Bavaria, was seeking to dominate the Continent of Europe. During the first two years of the war Marlborough, who was in supreme command of the armies of Britain and her allies, directed the military operations in Flanders, but in May, lio4, when Louis commenced his campaign to invade Austria, the British general decided to leave a sufficient force in Flanders to act on the defensive and to move every available man across Europe with a view to forcing a decisive engagement with the enemy on the -Austrian frontiers. On May 19 he commenced his long and difficult march, and on his way he gained a great victory over the Bavarians at Schullenberg on July 2. A month later, after he had been joined by an Austrian army under the command of Prince Eugene, Marlborough came in sight of the enemy, whom he found firmly entrenched in and around the village of Blenheim in Bavaria.

..larlborough's force consisted of 50.000 men and 52 guns, while the army of France and Bavaria numbered 60,000 men and 61 pieces of artillery, so that his inferiority was not numerically great, but the majority of the enemy's men were tried veterans, while his was a mixed force of many different nationalities and languages. He had the further disadvantage of having to expose his troops at the commencement of hostilities, for his attack had to be made from the open, while the enemy had the protection of a sheltered and strongly-fortified position.

On the night of August 12 he encamped within a short distance of the enemy's lines, the River Xebel and some swamps separating the two camps. It was necessary for Marlborough to take immediate action, for "he was in danger of being cut off from his source of supplies by the arrival of enemy reinforcements in the rear, and ho at once prepared to attack.

In the early hours of the morning of August 13 he set his troops in motion, but he was not ahle to reach the enemy until the early afternoon, as he had to bridge the river with planks and to make a road across the swamps with faggots. He launched his first attack against the village of Blenheim on the right of the enemy's lines, but he was repulsed, and. leaving Lord C'utts to mako a pretence of continuing the attack on the village, he concentrated a strong force against the enemy centre, which he rightly judzed to be its weakest point, and sent Prince Eugene to attack the Bavarians, who held the left wing of the line under the command of the Kiector.

The battle raged with varying fortune until five in the afternoon, when Marlborough succeeded in breaking through the centre and split the French force into two sections. Marshal Tallard. who was in command of the right section, was captured and the major portion of his men annihilated, but Marshal Marsin and the Kiector succeeded in escaping from the field with a portion of the left section, and just as night fell Blenheim was stormed and captured, and the victory was complete. Thus was the hitherto invincible army of Louis XIV. routed, and with its defeat were crushed the hopes of the French King to dominate Europe.