Malplaquet ranks as the most sanguinary conflict of the four, and the loss of life almost exceeded the total of the other three. Among the distinguished historical names of the combatants is that of the “Chevalier de St. George,” who, as Marshal Boufflers says in his despatch, “behaved himself during the whole action with all possible bravery and vivacity,” and led twelve charges of the Household troops. Courage was common, therefore, to both aspirants for the British throne. The loss on both sides was heavy, that on the part of the Allies has been variously put at between 35,000 and 18,000 men (Villars); while the French loss was 15,000. Many of the veterans of these wars lived up to the present century, and one, Henry Francis of New York, died in 1820, aged 134. Of all these battles, Blenheim offers the best type of the “order of battle” of the times. In a story that simply proposes to tell how our army came to be, and how and why it increased, any detailed reference to the causes of and even sequence of the successive wars is beyond its province. It will be sufficient, therefore, to recall to mind that the campaign in which Blenheim was the distinguishing feature arose, in the beginning, from the offensive action on the part of Louis XIV. in supporting the Stuarts, and in the support he gave to the claims of his grandson Philip to the throne of Spain. The _odium theologicum_ was also a serious factor in the game. It was the ever recurring battle between the Catholicism of Rome and that of the other sections of Christianity antagonistic to the claims of the Romish Church. It was nominally a coalition against France; at the bottom of it all was religious antagonism, and this notwithstanding the nature of the alliance. The Dutch wanted to preserve their frontiers, to protect their faith. The Imperial army wanted to check French aggression and support the Austrian candidature to the Spanish throne; while the alliance of Bavaria with France left the heart of Germany open to these allies. The defeat of the Emperor would destroy the Austrian hopes, and therefore the French, under Tallard, moved towards the valley of the Danube. Hence it was that Marlborough, grasping the situation and seeing the importance of the defeat of the main Franco-Bavarian army, decided on concentrating the allied forces in the valley of the Danube, as Napoleon did later at Ulm.[20] Thus, after some unimportant tactical and strategical operations, the opposing armies found themselves approaching each other near the village of Blenheim, or Blindheim, between Dillingen and Donauwerth, on the north bank of the great river.