of his life in the latter part of April.

It was upon the 5th of May that he left the Hague. He was at Maestricht
till the 14th, superintending every detail and ordering the construction
of bridges over the Meuse by which the advance was to begin. Upon the 16th
he left by the southward road for Bedburg, and immediately his army broke
winter quarters for the great march.

It was upon the 18th of May that the British regiments marched out of
Ruremonde by the bridges constructed over the Meuse, aiming for the
rendezvous at Bedburg.

The very beginning of the march was disturbed by the fears of the Dutch
and of others, though Marlborough had carefully kept secret the design of
marching to the Danube, and though all imagined that the valley of the
Moselle was his objective.

Marlborough quieted these fears, and was in a better position to insist
from the fact that he claimed control over the very large force which was
directly in the pay of England.

He struck for the Rhine, up the valley of which he would receive further
contingents, supplied by the minor members of the Grand Alliance, as he
marched.

By the 23rd he was at Bonn with the cavalry, his brother Churchill
following with the infantry. Thence the heavy baggage and the artillery
proceeded by water up the river to Coblentz, and when Coblentz was reached
(upon the 25th of May) it was apparent that the Moselle at least was not
his objective, for on the next day, the 26th, he crossed both that river
and the Rhine with his army, and continued his march up the right bank of
the Rhine.

But this did not mean that he might not still intend to carry the war into
Alsace. He was at Cassel, opposite Mayence, three days after leaving
Coblentz; four days later the head of the column had reached the Neckar at
Ladenberg, where bridges had already been built by Marlborough's orders,
and upon the 3rd of June the troops crossed over to the further bank.

Here was the decisive junction where Marlborough must show his hand: the
first few miles of his progress south-eastward across the bend of the
Neckar would make it clear that his object was not Alsace, but the Danube.

He had announced to the Dutch and all Europe an attack upon the valley of
the Moselle; that this was a ruse all could see when he passed Coblentz
without turning up the valley of that river. The whole week following, and
until he reached the Neckar, it might still be imagined that he meditated
an attack upon