own upon the Upper Danube.

As it was, this plan was, in its inception at least, partially successful,
but only in its inception, and only partially.

For, with the summer of 1702, Marlborough, though hampered by the fears of
the Dutch with whom he had to act in concert, cleared the French out of
Cleves, caused them to retire southward in the face of the great accession
of strength which he brought with the new troops in English pay and the
English contingents. Following the French retirement, he swept the whole
valley of the Meuse,[1] and took its fastnesses from Liege downwards, all
along the course of the stream.

By the end of the year this northern front of the French armies was
imperilled, and Marlborough and his allies in that part hoped to undertake
with the next season the reduction of the Spanish Netherlands.

It must be remembered, in connection with this plan, that France has
always been nervous with regard to her north-eastern frontier; that the
loss of this frontier leaves a way open to Paris: an advance from Belgium
was to the French monarchy what an advance along the Danube was to
Austria--the prime peril of all. As yet, France was nowhere near grave
peril in this quarter, but pressure there marred her general plans upon
the Danube.

Nevertheless, the march upon Vienna by the Upper Danube had been prepared
with some success. While part of the northern frontier was thus being
pressed and part menaced, while the Meuse was being cleared of French
garrisons, and the French fortresses on it taken by Marlborough and his
allies, the Elector of Bavaria had seized Ulm. The French upon the Upper
Rhine, under Villars, defeated the Prince of Baden at Friedlingen, and
established a road through the New Forest by which Louis XIV.'s forces,
combined with those of the Elector of Bavaria, could advance eastward upon
the Emperor's capital. It was designed that in the next year, 1703, the
troops of Savoy, in alliance with those of France, should march from North
Italy through the passes of the Alps and the Tyrol upon Vienna, while at
the same time the Franco-Bavarian forces should march down the Danube
towards the same objective.

When the campaign of 1703 opened, however, two unexpected events
determined what was to follow.

The first was the failure of Marlborough in the north to take Antwerp, and
in general his inability to press France further at that point; the
second, the defection of Savoy from the French all