110 MARLBOROUGH AND HIS METHODS OF WARFARE. 
English and the Dutch commanded the sea. Accordingly, if you look 
at the little map, you will observe that it was necessary to take some 
fortresses along the Meuse and Rhine so as to command the Meuse 
and the Lower Rhine, and therefore he took Venloo and Ruremond, 
and in the next year places like Cologne and Bonn. But nothing 
celebrated occurred from the point of view of military history till 
1704; but this year is from a military point of view one of the 
most important dates in the history of the world. I say Marlborough, 
now a Duke, had secured the left flank of Holland, looking south, by 
his victories along the Meuse and the Rhine. But a grand scheme 
was formed against the House of Austria which would probably over- 
whelm it. The Austrian dominion was to be attacked from Hungary 
by Ragotsky ; from the south of the Danube in the direction of Passau 
by the Elector of Bavaria, and the Hlector of Bavaria was to be rein- 
forced by great French armies coming through the Black Forest—by 
Marshal Tallard and Marshal Marsin. Here then the Court of Vienna 
was almost in eatremis. It sent a force north of the Danube under 
Prince Hugene. Eugenio von Savoié he called himself, as beiug a com- 
bination of a Frenchman and an Italian, and by employment an 
Austrian. But he would have been quite unable to cope with the 
French forces coming from the Rhine and the Bavarian forces. 
Marlborough took command of the united Dutch and Hnglish troops 
and the miscellaneous Hessians, Danes, and others in their pay, and he 
drew up a plan of operations which completely deceived the French 
and ultimately saved the House of Austria. Bacon, in another of his 
Essays, says that the helmet of Pluto which enables a politic man to 
go invisible is secrecy in counsel and celerity in execution. With 
regard to secrecy in counsel Marlborough was a past-master, as you 
will see in a moment. He asked the Dutch to defend their country 
against any assault from the Belgian fortresses northward, whereas he 
proposed to go up along the Rhine and thence along the Moselle, and 
to invade France by the valley of the Moselle. This would not take 
the British army very far from Holland and it appeared a feasible 
operation. I hope I convey myself sufficiently clearly by the aid of this 
Belgian map, which is a fairly good one; it is very difficult indeed to 
get really good wall maps. Just look at the relative positions of the 
Meuse, the Belgian fortresses, the Moselle, the Maine, the Neckar, the 
Danube between Ulm and Ratisbon. Marlborough started from 
about Ruremond, he went up the Rhine to Cologne and thence to 
Bonn—he used the Rhine itself for his baggage. Surely, my Lord, and 
gentlemen, it is very interesting to remember that at the beginning of 
the eighteenth century the British army should be advancing up the 
Rhine towards the heart of Southern Germany ; he came to Mayence, 
and had an interview with the Duke of Hesse, and then he wrote to say 
that he would not exactly invade France by the valley of the Moselle ; 
indeed he had already deliberately slipped past the valley of the 
Moselle; but he said that avery good plan would be to go a little further 
up and thence turn inwards to the attack on France. When ke got near 
the Neckar he announced his intention of going to the Danube, and it 
was too late to recall him. Up to that moment nobody, I believe, knew 
of his intention except Godolphin at home and the Dutchman Heinsius. 
