t as the French charge was at
its hardest pressure upon the Danish line. He took that French charge in
flank, broke its impetus, permitted the Danish infantry to hold their own,
and so compelled the French horse to fall back; within a quarter of an
hour from its inception the peril of a breach in Marlborough and Eugene's
centre was thus dissolved.

Here, then, is yet another incident in the battle, which shows not only on
which side rapidity of perception lay, but also on which side lay sympathy
between commanders, and, most important of all, the discipline and
material eminence of the dominating arm.

It was now nearly six o'clock, and the August sun was red and low in the
face of the English General. The French line still stood intact before
him.

Marlborough's first great effort against Blenheim had disastrously failed
all during the earlier afternoon; he had but just escaped a terrible
danger, and had but barely been saved, by Eugene's promptitude in
reinforcement, from seeing his line cut in two. Nevertheless, he was the
master of the little daylight that remained. His cavalry, and indeed
nearly all his troops, were now formed beyond the Nebel; he had the mass
of his forces now all gathered opposite the weakest part of the French
line. It was his business to pierce that line and to conquer.

As he advanced upon it, the French infantry, then stationed over the long
evening shadows of the slope, though there deplorably few in numbers, met
his advance by so accurate a fire that his own line for a moment yielded.
Even then the day might have been retrieved if the French cavalry under
Tallard's command had been capable of a charge. To charge--if we may trust
the commander's record--they received a clear order. As a point of fact,
charge they did not. A failure to comprehend, a tardy delivery of the
dispatch, fatigue, or error was to blame--we have no grounds on which to
base a decision. There was a discharge of musketry from the saddle, an
abortive attempt to go forward, which in a few minutes was no more an
attempt but a complete failure, and in a few more minutes not a failure
but a rout. The words of Tallard himself, who saw that almost incredible
thing, and who writes as an eye-witness, are sufficiently poignant. They
are these:--

"I saw one instant in which the battle was won if the cavalry had not
turned and abandoned the Line."

What happened was that the incipient, doubtful, and confused French charge
ha