Vienna had been saved by dissension between the two commanders, leading to the brilliant Villars being replaced by the less dynamic Marshal Marsin.

Whilst Allied preparations had progressed, the French were striving to maintain and re-supply Marshal Marsin.

Marshal Tallard, with 34, 000 men, reached Ulm, joining with the Elector and Marsin in Augsburg on 5 August ( although Tallard was not impressed to find that the Elector had dispersed his army in response to Marlborough's campaign of ravaging the region ).

When they saw that the centre had broken, the Elector and Marsin decided the battle was lost and, like the remnants of Tallard's army, fled the battlefield ( albeit in better order than Tallard's men ).

However, it seems that the Duke ’ s favoured scheme was to return to the Moselle valley ( where Marshal Marsin had recently taken command of French forces ) and once more attempt an advance into the heart of France.

" Approval from Louis arrived on 27 June: Tallard was to reinforce Marsin and the Elector on the Danube via the Black Forest, with 40 battalions and 50 squadrons ; Villeroi was to pin down the Allies defending the Lines of Stollhofen, or, if the Allies should move all their forces to the Danube, he was to join with Marshal Tallard ; and General de Coignies with 8, 000 men, would protect Alsace.

" In response to Marlborough's manoeuvres, the Elector and Marsin, conscious of their numerical disadvantage with only 40, 000 men, moved their forces to the entrenched camp at Dillingen on the north bank of the Danube.

However, if he withdrew from the Rhine to the Danube, Villeroi might also make a move south to link up with the Elector and Marsin.

As Tallard consulted with Marsin, more of his infantry was being taken into Blenheim by Clérambault.

Prince Eugene also met with success ; in September, following the departure of Vendôme to shore up the shattered army in the Netherlands, he and the Duke of Savoy inflicted a heavy loss on the French under Orleans and Marsin at the Battle of Turin, driving them out of Italy by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Marlborough's and Baden's forces would combine, totalling 80, 000 men, for the march on the Danube to seek out the Elector and Marsin before they could be reinforced.

Tallard preferred to bide his time, replenish supplies and allow Marlborough's Danube campaign to flounder in the colder weeks of Autumn ; the Elector and Marsin, however, newly reinforced, were keen to push ahead.

The Allied commanders agreed that Marlborough would command 36, 000 troops and attack Tallard's force of 33, 000 on the left ( including capturing the village of Blenheim ), whilst Eugene, commanding 16, 000 men would attack the Elector and Marsin's combined forces of 23, 000 troops on the right wing ; if this attack was pressed hard the Elector and Marsin would have no troops to send to aid Tallard on their right.

" An hour later Tallard, the Elector, and Marsin climbed Blenheim's church tower to finalise their plans.

It was settled that the Elector and Marsin would hold the front from the hills to Oberglauheim, whilst Tallard would defend the ground between Oberglauheim and the Danube.

The French commanders were, however, divided as to how to utilise the Nebel: Tallard's tactic – opposed by Marsin and the Elector who felt it better to close their infantry right up to the stream itself – was to lure the allies across before unleashing their cavalry upon them, causing panic and confusion ; whilst the enemy was struggling in the marshes, they would be caught in crossfire from Blenheim and Oberglauheim.

By 11: 00 Tallard, the Elector, and Marsin were in place.

On the Allied right, Eugene's Prussian and Danish forces were desperately fighting the numerically superior forces of the Elector and Marsin.

Following the departure of Vendôme to shore up the shattered army in the Flanders, Prince Eugène and the Duke of Savoy inflicted a heavy loss on the French under the duc d ' Orléans and Ferdinand de Marsin at the Battle of Turin, driving the French out of Italy by the end of the year.

Nevertheless, Tallard was alarmed by the repulse of the elite Gens d ' Armes and urgently rode across the field to ask Marsin for reinforcements ; but on the basis of being hard pressed by Eugene – whose second attack was in full flood – Marsin refused.

Nevertheless, the Duke could think of no circumstances why the French would leave their strong positions and attack his army, even if Villeroi was first reinforced by substantial transfers from Marsin ’ s command.

In 1704, the French plan was to use Villeroi's army in the Netherlands to contain Marlborough, while Tallard and the Franco-Bavarian army under Max Emanuel and Ferdinand de Marsin, Villars's replacement, would march on Vienna.

On the right of these French and Bavarian positions, between Oberglauheim and Blenheim, Tallard deployed 64 French and Walloon squadrons ( 16 drawn from Marsin ) supported by nine French battalions standing near the Höchstädt road.

Seeing the opportunity, Marsin ordered his cavalry to change from facing Eugene, and turn towards their right and the open flank of Churchill's infantry drawn up in front of Unterglau.

* September 9 – Ferdinand de Marsin, Marshal of France ( mortally wounded at the battle of Turin ) ( born 1656 )

* Ferdinand, Count of Marsin ( 1656 – 1706 ), Marshal of France in 1703

Although the Nebel stream lay between Fugger's and Marsin's squadrons, the French were forced to change front to meet this new threat, thus forestalling the chance for Marsin to strike at Marlborough's infantry.

If he had married her, he'd have been asking for trouble.

They had been seen as soon as they left the ranch, picked out of the darkness by the weary though watchful eyes of two men posted a few hundred yards away in the windless shelter of the trees.

They greeted the news angrily, as though they had been cheated of purpose.

With every leaping stride of the horse beneath him he crossed one more patch of earth that had been his, that he would never see again.

He had been carrying an Enfield rifle and a holstered navy cap-and-ball pistol.

But the luck that had been running their way left him.

His shout had been taken up and repeated.

A sizable supply of powder had been touched off.

The worst part had been the waiting ; ;

The war captain had been badly wounded and was fighting to hold his seat.

And one had been too many.

That afternoon when they had pulled up in front of the broken-down ranch house, his hopes had been high.

The place had been cheap -- just the little he had left after Amelia's burial -- and it would serve its purpose.

I had for some time been hoping, in vain, for one of the dim figures to pass between the fan vents and myself.

Although I had been inside it I had not yet seen it functioning.

No one was behind it, but in the rear wall of the office I noticed, for the first time, a door which had been left partially open.

He had been worried that with Miller and Rankin added to the escape party they would be short.

He had been one of the original Night Riders, one who had escaped the trial.

He had been the auditor for the mining syndicate, and he had stolen fifty thousand dollars of the syndicate's money.

Then the vein had petered out and the whole project had been abandoned.