the details of the fight which brought about such a
result.

First, at half-past twelve, when all was ready, came Marlborough's attack
upon Blenheim.

We have seen some pages back how well advised was Tallard to treat
Blenheim as the key of his position, and how thoroughly that large
village, once properly furnished with troops and fortified with palisades,
would guarantee his right. On that very account, Marlborough was
determined to storm it; for if it fell, there would instantly follow upon
its fall a complete victory. The whole French line would be turned.

It may be argued that Marlborough here attempted the impossible, but it
must be remembered, in the first place, that he was by temperament a man
of the offensive and of great risks. His first outstanding action, that of
the Schellenberg, proved this, and proved it in his favour. Five years
later, in one of his last actions, that of Malplaquet, this characteristic
of his was to appear in his disfavour. At any rate, risk was in the
temperament of the man, and it is a temperament which in warfare accounts
for the greatest things.

First and last, some 10,000 men were employed against the one point of
Blenheim; and the assault upon the village, though a failure, forms one of
the noblest chapters in the history of British arms.

It was one o'clock of the afternoon when the serious part of the action
opened by the two first lines of Marlborough's extreme left advancing
under Lord Cutts to pass the Nebel, to cross the pasture beyond, and to
force the palisades of the village. The movement across the stream was
undertaken under a fire of grape from four guns posted upon a slight rise
outside the village. Cutts' body crossed the brook in face of this
opposition, re-formed under the bank beyond, left their Hessian contingent
in shelter there as a reserve, while the British, who were the remainder
of the body, advanced against the palisades.

The distance is one of about 150 yards. The Guards and the four regiments
with them[16] came up through the long grass of the aftermath, Row at
their head. Two-thirds of that short distance was passed in silence. The
guns upon the slope beyond could not fire at a mark so close to their own
troops behind the palisades. The English had orders not to waste a shot
until they had carried the line of those palisades with the bayonet. The
French behind the palisades reserved their fire.

It was one of those moments which the eighteent