While the main Allied army under the
Duke of Marlborough was operating against French in the
Spanish Netherlands, a French army under
Marshal Claude de Villars in Alsace captured
Wissembourg in early July and attempted to dislodge the Imperials from their position near
Lauterbourg; but the attempt was beaten off by the Imperial Field Marshal Johann Karl von Thüngen who had taken over from the ill
Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden. A French detachment captured
Homburg on 27 July, the
Palatinate garrison agreeing to retire to
Mannheim. On 28 August, the Imperial forces, now commanded by the Margrave of Baden and reinforced by 16,000
Prussian and Palatinate troops in 10 Prussian
infantry battalions and 20 cavalry
squadrons, breached the Lines of Haguenau, a French line of
field fortifications, advanced into
Lower Alsace and laid siege, first to
Drusenheim and then to Haguenau on 27 September, the latter falling on 5 October. After a slender resistance, the French
garrison offered to surrender with conditions but was rebuffed by Thüngen, who demanded their imprisonment. Leaving 400 men and the sick and wounded inside to distract the Allies, the French governor de Péry escaped Haguenau under the cover of night toward
Saverne with some 2,000 of his troops, the incomplete Imperial investment of 20 squadrons of Prussian and
Württemberger infantry failing to stop them. The 400-strong detachment escaped soon after. Louis of Baden was outraged by this failure. The sieges concluded the campaign season, the opposing armies withdrawing to winter quarters later that month. The Imperials had established a
bridgehead across the Rhine. ==References==