nd early next morning detached General Churchill with twenty battalions
across the Danube, to be in a situation to support him in case of need.
He himself immediately after followed, and joined the Prince with his
whole army on the 11th. Every thing now presaged decisive events. The
Elector had boldly quitted Bavaria, leaving his whole dominions at the
mercy of the enemy, except the fortified cities of Munich and Augsburg,
and periled his crown upon the issue of war at the French headquarters;
while Marlborough and Eugene had united their forces, with a
determination to give battle in the heart of Germany, in the enemy's
territory, with their communications exposed to the utmost hazard, under
circumstances where defeat could be attended with nothing short of total
ruin.

The French and Bavarian army consisted of fifty-five thousand men, of
whom nearly forty-five thousand were French troops, the very best which
the monarchy could produce. Marlborough and Eugene had sixty-six
battalions and one hundred and sixty squadrons, which, with the
artillery, might be about fifty thousand combatants. The forces on the
opposite sides were thus nearly equal in point of numerical amount; but
there was a wide difference in their composition. Four-fifths of the
French army were national troops, speaking the same language, animated
by the same feelings, accustomed to the same discipline, and the most of
whom had been accustomed to act together. The Allies, on the other hand,
were a motley assemblage, like Hannibal's at Cannae, or Wellington's at
Waterloo, composed of the troops of many different nations, speaking
different languages, trained to different discipline, but recently
assembled together, and under the orders of a stranger general, one of
those haughty islanders, little in general inured to war, but whose cold
or supercilious manners had so often caused jealousies to arise in the
best cemented confederacies. English, Prussians, Danes, Wirtemburgers,
Dutch, Hanoverians, and Hessians, were blended in such nearly equal
proportions, that the arms of no one state could be said by its
numerical preponderance to be entitled to the precedence. But the
consummate address, splendid talents, and conciliatory manners of
Marlborough, as well as the brilliant valour which the English auxiliary
force had displayed on many occasions, had won for them the lead, as
they had formerly done when in no greater force among the confederates
under Rich