It was four o'clock in the morning before the Allied army was fairly in motion. The British cavalry led the way, followed by the Austrian, then came the British infantry and the Austrian infantry after them; and last of all came a strong rear-guard composed of the British Guards, the choicest of the German infantry, and the Hanoverian cavalry; for it was in the rear that an attack of the French was most looked for and most to be dreaded. The apprehensions of a French advance on Aschaffenburg were soon seen to be well founded. The march of the Allies from that town lay across a bend of the Main to the village of Klein Ostheim, and as they approached the river they could see the French on the opposite bank in full march to cross the river behind them and cut off their retreat up the stream. Thus Noailles's dispositions were complete. These troops were to block the Allies to the south, impenetrable woods shut them off from the east, the Main barred their way on the west, and Grammont stood before them at Dettingen on the north. Noailles had caught them, as he said, in a mouse-trap, and might reasonably feel certain that they could not escape. On arriving about seven o'clock at Klein Ostheim, the whole army of the Allies was obliged to file through it by a single road. The cavalry, therefore, when it had passed through the village was halted and wheeled round with its face to the river to wait till the infantry should come up. This again Noailles had foreseen, and he had planted his cannon in exactly the right place to play upon the Allies when they should advance beyond the village. For an hour the cavalry stood halted before the march could be resumed; and now came intelligence from an advanced party in Dettingen that Grammont was in order of battle in front and that an immediate engagement was inevitable. King George hastened to set his army likewise in order of battle; but all the baggage had been massed between the first and second divisions of the column of route, and the confusion for a time was very great. Meanwhile the French troops bound for Aschaffenburg had by this time cleared the front of the first of Noailles's batteries and left the guns free to open fire. The shot soon came humming thick and fast into the heavy mass of waggons and baggage-animals, and the confusion increased. Guns were sent for in frantic haste to silence the French cannon, but the artillery being far in the rear was long in making its appearance: and meanwhile the King capered about on horseback in great excitement, staff-officers galloped to and fro, and the troops marched and counter-marched into their positions, always under the deadly fire of the French battery. Gradually, though with infinite difficulty, the troops were shuffled into their places, for the stereotyped order of battle was useless in a plain that permitted a frontage only of twenty-three battalions and a few squadrons at most. So passed a terrible hour and more, until at