ploughed.

I have said that the little slow and muddy streamlet called the Nebel must
particularly meet with our attention, because it formed at the beginning
of the action of Blenheim a central line dividing the two hosts, and round
its course may be grouped the features of the terrain upon which the
battle was contested.

_Blindheim_, or, as we always call it, _Blenheim_, lay, as we have seen,
just above the bank of the Danube at the mouth of this stream. Following
up the water (which is so insignificant that in most places a man can
cross it unaided in summer), at the distance of about one mile, is the
village of _Unterglauheim_, lying above the _left_ bank, as Blenheim does
above the right. Further on, another three-quarters of a mile up the
_right_ bank, is the village of _Oberglauheim_; and where the water
dribbles in various small streams from the hills, and at their base, where
the various tiny rivulets join to form the Nebel, at the edge of the
woods, is _Schwennenbach_.

The tiny hamlet of _Weilheim_ may be regarded as an appendix of this last
or of Oberglauheim indifferently. It lies opposite the latter village, but
on the further side of the stream, and about half a mile away.

Right behind Oberglauheim, at the base of the hills to the westward, and
well away from the Nebel, is the larger village of _Lutzingen_.

These names, and that of the Nebel, are sufficient for us to retain as we
follow the course of the battle, remembering as we do so that one good
road, the road by which the allies marched in the morning to the field
from Muenster, and the road by which the Franco-Bavarian forces retreated
after the defeat--the main road from Donauwoerth to Ulm--traversed, and
still traverses, the terrain in its whole length.[7]

* * * * *

It was at two in the morning of Wednesday the 13th of August that the
allies broke camp and began their march westward towards the field of
Blenheim.

That they intended to reach that field was not at first apparent. They
might equally well have designed a retirement upon Noerdlingen, and it was
this that the commanders of the Franco-Bavarian army believed them to
intend. The dense mist which covered the marshes of the river and the
plain above clung to the soil long after sunrise. It was not until seven
o'clock that the advancing columns of the enemy were observed from the
French camp, distant about a mile away, and beginning to deploy in or