s of 400 men;
but as the victors lost 300, it is clear that both sides fought
with extreme determination and bravery, such a loss--700 men out of
1700 combatants--being extraordinarily large. The spirit shown by
both sides in this the first fight of the war, was a portent of the
obstinate manner in which all the battles of this great war were
contested. For two months Kaiserwerth nobly defended itself.
Seventy-eight guns and mortars thundered against it night and day.
On the 9th of June the besiegers made a desperate assault and
gained possession of a covered way, but at a cost of 2000 killed
and wounded. A week later the place capitulated after a siege which
had cost the allies 5000 men.

General Boufflers, with his army of 37,000 men, finding himself
unable to raise the siege, determined to make a dash against
Nimeguen, an important frontier fortress of Holland, but which the
supineness of the Dutch Government had allowed to fall into
disrepair. Not only was there no garrison there, but not a gun was
mounted on its walls. The expedition seemed certain of success, and
on the evening of the 9th of June Boufflers moved out from Xanten,
and marched all night. Next day Athlone obtained news of the
movement and started in the evening, his march being parallel with
the French, the hostile armies moving abreast, and at no great
distance from each other.

The cavalry covered the British march, and these were in the
morning attacked by the French horse under the Duke of Burgundy.
The British were outnumbered, but fought with great obstinacy, and
before they fell back, with a loss of 720 men and a convoy of 300
waggons, the infantry had pushed forward, and when the French army
reached Nimeguen its ramparts bristled with British bayonets.
Boufflers, disappointed in his aim, fell back upon the rich
district of Cleves, now open to him, and plundered and ravaged that
fertile country.

Although Kaiserwerth had been taken and Nimeguen saved, the danger
which they had run, and the backward movement of the allied army,
filled the Dutch with consternation.

The time, however, had come when Marlborough himself was to assume
the command, and by his genius, dash, and strategy to alter the
whole complexion of things, and to roll back the tide of war from
the borders of Holland. He had crossed from England early in May, a
few days only after Rupert had sailed; but hitherto he had been
engaged in smoothing obstacles, appeasing jealousie