The front in Southern Germany in July 1704

This map shows the adversaries' maneuveres in southern Germany from the beginning of July. To put things in a wider perspective: One can see that Tallard moves east at about the same time Marlborough does. Tallard then has to take the only available road over the mountains in the Black Forest. (The passes are marked by black triangles). The Alliance then takes these countermeasures: After conquering the Schellenberg Marlborough sends 4,000 cavalry to reinforce Eugen. Eugen moves from the Stollhofen Lines towards Rottweil. From Rottweill 250 men are send to reinforce Villingen.

The general strategic problem for the French was that after the Schellenberg Marlborough was facing the Franco Bavarian army at Augsburg. From there he was destroying the Bavarian country-side, thus blackmailing Max Emanuel to switch sides. Max Emanuel then made it clear to France that he would switch sides if help did not arrive. Because of the urgency of the situation Tallard had to give up his plan to march over Rottweil and Tübingen, and in stead had to march over Villingen-Ulm. This was what led Tallard to besiege Villingen.

This map follows the usual legend for places. French fortresses are blue and Alliance fortresses are Red, and half blue half red squares denote places taken in the time frame this map reflects. However, only the more important places in terms of location or strength are marked as fortified, and in this the distribution of the fortified mark is not fair either. In the area covered by this map there are a lot of towns that did have bastioned fortifications, but are not marked as fortified. Villingen and Rain did not have good fortifications, but are marked as such on the map because they play a role in the story. On the other hand the main part of the fortifications of Augsburg had just been dismantled, while those of Memmingen were undergoing a major modernisation.