rcements
of the French king.

The mountains between the Bavarian army and the French were held by the
enemy, but the Elector hurried westward along the Danube, while Tallard,
with exact synchrony and despatch, hurried eastward; each held out a hand
to the other, as it were, for a rapid touch; the business of Tallard was
to hand over the new troops and provisions at one exact moment, the
business of the Elector was to catch the junction exactly. If it succeeded
it was to be followed by a sharp retreat of either party, the one back
upon the Danube eastward for his life, the other back westward upon the
Rhine.

Tallard had crossed the Rhine on the 13th of May with a huge convoy of
provisionment and over 7000 newly recruited troops. Within a week the
thing was done. He had handed over in the nick of time the whole mass of
men and things to the Elector.[2] He had done this in the midst of the
Black Forest and in the heart of the enemy's country, and he immediately
began his retirement upon the Rhine. Tallard was thus particularly delayed
in receiving daily information of Marlborough's march.

Let us take a typical date.

On the 29th of May Tallard, retiring from the dash to help Bavaria, was
still at Altenheim, on the German bank of the Rhine. It was only on that
day that he learnt from Villeroy that Marlborough had no idea of marching
up the Moselle, but had gone on up the Rhine towards Mayence. Marlborough
had crossed the Moselle and the Rhine on the 26th, but it took Tallard
three days to know it. Tallard, knowing this, would not know whether
Marlborough might not still be thinking of attacking Alsace: to make that
alternative loom large in the mind of the French commanders, Marlborough
had had bridges prepared in front of his advance at Philipsburg--though he
had, of course, no intention at all of going as far up as Philipsburg.

It was on June 3rd, as we have seen, that the foremost of Marlborough's
forces were nearing the banks of the Neckar, and upon the 4th that anyone
observing his troops would have clearly seen for the first time that they
were striking for the Danube. But it was twenty-four hours before Tallard,
who had by this time come down the Rhine as far as Lauterberg to defend a
possible attack upon Alsace, knew certainly that the Danube, and not the
Rhine, would be the field of war.

All this time it was guessed at Versailles, and thought possible by the
French generals at the front, that the Danube w