, somewhat less than
70,000 men.

[Illustration: Map illustrating the march of Marlborough and Baden across
Marcin's front from the neighbourhood of Ulm to Donauwoerth.]

At Ulm lay Marcin, and in touch with him, forming part of the same army,
the Elector of Bavaria was camped somewhat further down the river, near
Lauingen.

The combined forces of Marcin and the Elector of Bavaria numbered, all
told, some 45,000 men, and their inferiority to the hostile armies, which
had just effected their junction north of Ulm at Ursprung, was the
determining factor in what immediately followed.

Marcin crossed the Danube to avoid so formidable a menace, and took up his
next station behind the river at Leipheim, watching to see what
Marlborough and the Duke of Baden would do. The Elector of Bavaria, in
command of the bridge at Lauingen, stood fast, ready to retire behind the
stream. The necessity of such a retreat was spared him. The object of his
enemies was soon apparent by the direction their advance assumed.

For the immediate object of Marlborough and Baden was not an attack upon
the inferior forces of the Elector and Marcin, but, for reasons that will
presently be seen, the capture of Donauwoerth, and their direct march upon
Donauwoerth took them well north of the Danube. On the 26th, therefore,
Marcin thought it prudent to recross the Danube. He and the Elector
joined forces on the north side of the Danube, and lay from Lauingen to
Dillingen, commanding two bridges behind them for the crossing of the
stream, and fairly entrenched upon their front. Meanwhile their enemies,
the allies, passed north of them at Gingen. This situation endured for
three days.[4]

When it was apparent that the allied forces of the English general and the
Duke of Baden intended to make themselves masters of Donauwoerth (and the
Elector of Bavaria could have no doubt of their intentions after the 29th
of July, when their march eastward from Gingen was resumed), a
Franco-Bavarian force was at once detached by him to defend that town, and
it is necessary henceforward to understand why Donauwoerth was of such
importance to Marlborough's plan.

It was his intention to enter Bavaria so as to put a pressure upon the
Elector, whose immediate and personal interests were bound up with the
villages and towns of his possessions. The Elector could not afford to
neglect the misfortunes of its civilian inhabitants, even for the ends of
his own general str