Campaigning in Bavaria
 |
| Battle of Schellenberg |
In March
1703 Marlborough returned to the Netherlands for the beginning of the spring
campaign and by 24th April the army was preparing to besiege Bonn[i]. The French capitulated on
12th May when the walls had been breached, prior to the assault
planned for the following day.
The troops
then marched to join the main Allied army at Maastricht, following the
manoeuvres of Boufflers and Villeroy. The Dutch army was defeated at the Battle of Ekeren on 30th June; but much of the summer was
spent observing the French.
The
following campaigning season saw the Allied army divided into two; one under Field Marshall van Nassau Ouwerkerk was to fight the French in the Low
Countries[ii]. The other under
Marlborough set off for the Danube. During the march the Duke of Marlborough took
soldiers, unable to march further, into his own coach. Villeroy took 20,000 men
to reinforce the Elector of Bavaria, who installed himself in a strong position
at Donauwörth[iii]. 
Duke of Wurttemberg
The Battle of Schellenberg was fought on 2nd July
1704; Marlborough’s intention was to reduce the threat of Villeroy’s army to
Vienna.
‘The slaughter, which was
very great, had lasted above an hour, when the Duke
of Wirtenberg had the good fortune, with seven squadrons,
to enter the enemy’s trenches, by the covered way of Donawert, and fell upon
their rear.’[iv]
During the
fighting Christian was wounded;
‘In
the second attack, I received a ball in
my hip, which is so lodged between the bones that it can never be extracted; to
this day the wound is open, and has almost deprived me of the use of my leg and
thigh.’[v]
Christian
was taken to a hospital near Schellenberg, but the issue of her sex was not
discovered by her doctors. She received her share of the plunder, which the
Duke of Marlborough had ordered was to be distributed amongst all the soldiers.
Blenheim and After
Battle of Blenheim
Following
this victory the Allies took the towns of Rain and Aicha[vi] and laid waste to the
Bavarian countryside. The French arrived at Augsburg at the beginning of
August. The Allies were joined by Prince Eugene of Savoy, who had been shadowing the French
troops. Part of the army besieged Ingolstadt, drawing the French from their
entrenched positions. The resultant battle at Hochstadt[vii] ensured that the French would not
capture Vienna.
Christian
was used to guard prisoners after the battle, having survived coming under
heavy fire. The prisoners were marched towards Breda; en route the column
halted, allowing the prisoners to refresh themselves. The prisoners and their
guards were greeted by their womenfolk; one of whom caressed a man who
Christian thought she recognised.
‘I observed a woman, with
visible joy in her face, make up to a man, whom, by his side face, I fancied I
had known……and perfectly knew him, to my unspeakable grief, to be my perfidious
husband.’[viii]
With the
realisation that her husband did not know that she had been searching for him
since 1693, albeit desultorily, Christian overcame her sorrow. She told her
comrades that she had just caught sight of her brother, to explain her
confusion. One of them approached Richard Welsh for her, who had been fighting
in the Earl of Orkney’s foot regiment, to ascertain his
identity. At this point the prisoners were ordered to fall in; the march to
Breda restarted.
Face to Face
There were
so many prisoners that many were placed in work houses. Many of the Allied
soldiers were housed in public houses. Going to the public house where Richard
Welsh was quartered, Christian found him with his Dutch partner. Hiring a
private room Christian had Richard shown in to see her. Recognising his wife
Richard was, naturally, astounded.
‘’Oh heavens!’ cried he. ‘Is
this possible? Is it not a delusion? Do I really see my dear Christian? May I
believe my eyes?’ He ran to me, clasped me in his arms, kissed me in raptures,
and bedewed my cheeks with tears of joy.’[ix]
Richard was
engaged to marry the Dutch woman and Christian informed her that Richard was
already married with three children. Once the poor woman had departed in floods
of tears, Christian informed her husband that she enjoyed soldiering and was
resolved to stay in the army, passing as her husband’s brother.
Richard was
not pleased that Christian was not prepared to take up her duties as his wife
again
‘[I] gave my husband a piece
of gold, telling him, he would find me a kind and generous brother, but that he
must not think of enjoying his wife, while I could remain concealed, and the
war lasted.’[x]
To Winter Quarters
Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria
After the
great victory at Hochstadt imperial troops were left to invest Ulm[xi], whilst leaving a detachment
of the Allied army continuing the siege at Ingolstadt. Marlborough and Prince
Eugene moved on to Landau, which was invested on 13th September.
Gradually the Elector of Bavaria’s possessions were seized from him and his
family were taken prisoner. The Electorate was placed under the imperial
governor, Count Löwenstein-Wertheim.
Christian
was involved in this despoiling of the region;
‘We miserably plundered the
poor inhabitants of this electorate, I had left the hospital time enough to
contribute to their misery, and to have a share in the plunder. We spared
nothing, killing, burning, or otherwise destroying whatever we could carry off.
The bells of the churches we broke to pieces that we might bring them away with
us.’[xii]
The dragoons
went into winter quarters in Holland, while Richard was left in Germany with
his fellow foot soldiers. Christian visited Den Haag, flirting with a pretty
girl on the boat to Delft and thence to Amsterdam[xiii].
The 1705 Campaign
Liege
The 1705
campaigning season started with the fall of Huys to the French and their
besieging Liège. The main Allied army had marched off to the Moselle, to join
the Germans. On arrival in the Moselle area the Duke of Marlborough found a
want of ordinance; this coupled with the news from the Low Countries resulted
in him returning back with his troops.
With the
arrival of the Allies the French raised the siege of Liege and withdrew back
behind their lines. Huys was retaken in a few days. An attack by the Allies on
the French lines in late July caused the French to retreat towards Namur and
Louvain.
At the end
of August the Allies invested Leeuwen[xiv], which capitulated on 5th
September. Sanduliet[xv] was besieged on 26th
October and three days later too capitulated. The Dutch were turning against
the war; much of the fighting was taking place on their lands. Many of the
engagements this season were inconclusive and Marlborough was battling his Tory
enemies at home, only too willing to belittle his achievements.
Campaigning in 1706
Leopold Duke of Lorraine
The French
had been reinforcing their entrenchments over the winter and when Marlborough arrived
in Holland on 25th April he received a letter from the Duke of Lorraine,
who hoped that his country would be left in peace. Lorraine claimed to have no
interest in the Spanish succession and hoped to avoid the horrors of war and
the resultant loss of income.
The Allies
were not inclined to accept the Duke’s proposition, being aware that the French
had been fortifying Nancy. Garrisons were placed in all the region’s fortified
towns and the Duke was obliged to pay the French subsidies towards the cost of
the war. 
Prince Eugene of Savoy
In Italy
Prince Eugene and the imperial army were being held in Turin, while the French
overran Savoy and were laying siege to Eugene’s capital Turin. The loss of
Savoy would leave the French able to concentrate the majority of their forces
on fighting in the Low Countries and Germany. But Marlborough was unable to
overcome the logistical problems of transporting an army overland nearly one
thousand miles and had to leave Savoy to fight on his own.
Discovery
Initial Positions
The French
advance in the Low Countries, under the generalship of Villeroy, led them to
Ramillies[xvi].The
battle, which was fought on 23rd
May, was the second of Marlborough’s great victories. The French lost 13,000
dead and 6,000 prisoners, to the Allies 1,066 dead and just over 2,500 wounded;
one of whom was Christian.
‘I escaped unhurt, though in
the hottest of the battle, till the French were entirely defeated; when an
unlucky shell from a steeple, on which, before the battle, they had planted
some mortars and cannon, which played all the time of the engagement, struck
the back part of my head, and fractured my skull.’[xvii]
Christian
was carried to a small town near Louvain, where she was trepanned; taking ten
weeks to recover.
‘Though I suffered great
torture by this wound, yet the discovery it caused of my sex, in the fixing of
my dressing, by which the surgeon saw my breasts, and, by the largeness of my
nipples, concluded I had given suck, was a greater grief to me.’[xviii]
News of the
discovery rapidly spread and it was not long before Lord John Hay visited
Christian and then questioned her closest comrade, who had no suspicion of
Christian’s gender. Lord John then cross questioned Richard Welsh, who
recounted his and his wife’s adventures. Lord John ordered that Christian’s pay
be continued while she recovered from her wound.
Bibliography
Mother Ross
– Daniel Defoe, Oakpast Ltd 2011
Queen Anne –
Edward Gregg, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980
The
Marlboroughs – Christopher Hibbert, Penguin Books 2002
Marlborough
– Richard Holmes, Harper Perennial 2009
Marlborough
– JR Jones, Cambridge University Press 1993
[i]
The Elector of Cologne had allowed the French to garrison the city
[ii]
The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg
[iii]
In Swabia, where the Danube and Wörnitz
rivers meet
[iv]
Mother Ross- Defoe
[v]
Ibid
[vi]
These two towns, along with Neuberg and Donauwörth,
gave the Allies flexible means of crossing the Danube and Lech rivers
[vii]
Known in England as the Battle of Blenheim
[viii]
Mother Ross – Defoe
[ix]
Ibid
[x]
Ibid
[xi]
Which capitulated once the besiegers batteries were in place
[xii]
Mother Ross - Defoe
[xiii]
Claiming to be a virtuous girl of good family, a friend of Christian’s unmasked
the girl as a prostitute, much to Christian’s annoyance
[xiv]
A former municipality in Dutch Gelderland; now divided into two villages
[xv]
In Flanders, presumably in the vicinity of Herentals; I have been unable to
positively identify where this town and the town of Huys were located.
[xvi]
In the Walloon province of Brabant
[xvii]
Mother Ross - Defoe
[xviii]
Ibid
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