Blenheim

Name: Blenheim
Rating: 4.4 (649 reviews)

by Charles Spencer

First published 2004

Amazon

4.4(649)

Blenheim reconstructs the 1704 campaign that culminated in one of the decisive battles of the War of the Spanish Succession. Charles Spencer follows John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Eugene of Savoy as they coordinated an Allied army drawn across European states and moved to counter the Franco-Bavarian threat to Vienna.

The narrative combines strategy, diplomacy and battlefield experience, explaining how Marlborough’s long march to the Danube and the commanders’ cooperation produced the Allied victory at Blenheim on 13 August 1704. Spencer places the battle within the wider struggle over the Spanish succession and Louis XIV’s power, while also examining the soldiers and political calculations behind a campaign that changed the balance of the war.