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Upper Bavaria, July 1704

They had come here by stealth to carry the war deep into the south. An army of many nations: English and Scots, Hanoverians and Prussians, Hessians, Danes and Dutch. They had but one purpose: the defeat of France and her ally, Bavaria. The French King, Louis XIV, they knew to be a power-mad maniac, styling himself the Sun King. It was clear that he would not be content until he possessed all Europe, from Spain to Poland. And so it was, on this sultry day in early July, as afternoon drifted into evening, that fate brought these many thousands of men to Donauwö rth, a little Bavarian town with its ancient high walls and ramparts.

Above it, at the top of a steep slope, stood a fort whose hill, inspired by its distinctive shape, the local people had long ago christened ‘Schellenberg’ – The Hill of the Bell. It was abundantly and worryingly clear to all the soldiers who now stood in its shadow, that before any decisive victory could be won, before they could bring the French to battle, drive them back to Paris and remove forever the Sun King’s threat, that this hill and its little fort would have to be taken.