ue, from whence he again returned to London to concert
measures for the ensuing campaign, and stimulate the British government
to the efforts necessary for its successful prosecution.

But while success had thus attended all the operations of the Allies in
Flanders, where the English contingent acted, and Marlborough had the
command, affairs had assumed a very different aspect in Germany and
Italy. The French were there superior alike in the number and quality of
their troops, and, in Germany at least, in the skill with which they
were commanded. Early in June, Marshal Tallard assumed the command of
the French forces in Alsace, passed the Rhine at Strasburg on the 16th
July, took Brissac on the 7th September, and invested Landau on the 16th
October. The Allies, under the Prince of Hesse, attempted to raise the
siege, but were defeated with considerable loss; and, soon after, Landau
surrendered, thus terminating with disaster the campaign on the Upper
Rhine. Still more considerable were the disasters sustained in Bavaria.
Marshal Villars there commanded, and at the head of the French and
Bavarians, defeated General Stirum, who headed the Imperialists, on the
20th September. In December, Marshal Marsin, who had succeeded Villars
in the command, made himself master of the important city of Augsburg,
and in January 1704 the Bavarians got possession of Passau. Meanwhile, a
formidable insurrection had broken out in Hungary, which so distracted
the cabinet of Vienna, that that capital itself seemed to be threatened
by the combined forces of the French and Bavarians after the fall of
Passau. No event of importance took place in Italy during the campaign;
Count Strahremberg, who commanded the Imperial forces, having with great
ability forced the Duke de Vendome, who was at the head of a superior
body of French troops, to retire. But in Bavaria and on the Danube, it
was evident that the Allies were overmatched; and to the restoration of
the balance in that quarter, the anxious attention of the confederates
was turned during the winter of 1703-4. The dangerous state of the
Emperor and the empire awakened the greatest solicitude at the Hague, as
well as unbounded terror at Vienna, from whence the most urgent
representations were made on the necessity of reinforcements being sent
from Marlborough to their support. But though this was agreed to by
England and Holland, so straitened were the Dutch finances, that they
were wholly unable