The war was commenced by Louis XIV. who suddenly took possession of a number of fortified places in Flanders, which Max Emanuel of Bavaria, then governor of the province, had purposely left unguarded. While the recovery of this territory was left to England and Holland, Prince Eugene undertook to drive the French out of Northern Italy. He made a march across the Alps as daring as that of Napoleon, transporting cannon and supplies by paths only known to the chamois-hunters. For nearly a year he was entirely successful; then, having been recalled to Vienna, the French were reinforced and recovered their lost ground. An important result of the campaign, however, was that Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy (ancestor of the present king of Italy), quarrelled with the French, with whom he had been allied, and joined the German side. The struggle now became more and more confused, and we cannot undertake to follow all its entangled episodes. France encouraged a rebellion in Hungary; the Archbishop of Cologne laid waste the Lower Rhine; Max Emanuel seized Ulm and held it for France; Marshal Villars, in 1703, pressed back Ludwig of Baden (who had up to that time been successful in the Palatinate and Alsatia), marched through the Black Forest and effected a junction with the Bavarian army. His plan was to cross the Alps and descend into Italy in the rear of the German forces which Prince Eugene had left there; but the Tyrolese rose against him and fought with such desperation that he was obliged to fall back on Bavaria. Marshal Villars and Max Emanuel now commanded a combined army of 60,000 men, in the very heart of Germany. They had defeated the Austrian commander, and Ludwig of Baden's army was too small to take the field against them. But the Duke of Marlborough had been brilliantly victorious in Belgium and on the Lower Rhine, and he was thus able to march on towards the Danube. Prince Eugene hastened from Hungary with such troops as he could collect, and the two, with Ludwig of Baden, were strong enough to engage the French and Bavarians. They met on the 13th of August, 1704, on the plain of the Danube, near the little village of Blenheim. After a long and furious battle, the French left 14,000 men upon the field, lost 13,000 prisoners, and fled towards the Rhine in such haste that scarcely one-third of their army reached the river. Marlborough and Eugene were made Princes of the German Empire, and all Europe rang with songs celebrating the victory, in which Marlborough's name appeared as "Malbrook." His proposal to follow up the victory with an invasion of France was rejected by the Emperor, and the war, which might then have been pressed to a termination, continued for ten years longer. [Sidenote: 1705.]