With the spring of 1703, the French prepared to utilise the path to Vienna thrown open to them by Bavaria's action. In March Villars secured Kehl, and, pushing across the Black Forest by Villingen, joined the Bavarian Elector near Ulm (May 9), unimpeded by Lewis of Baden, who lay inactive in his celebrated lines of Stolhofen, watched by another French corps under Marshal Tallard. The Elector would not have been there for Villars to join, had but Styrum, who commanded the troops of the Franconian Circle, cooperated with the 19,000 Austrians under Schlick on the Inn. Their failure to unite had allowed the Elector to capture Ratisbon, and to inflict on Schlick's isolated corps a sharp reverse at Scharding (March 11).
Vienna was now in dire peril. Had Villars and the Bavarian Elector pushed on down the Danube, it is difficult to see how the city could have been saved. Lewis of Baden was helpless, Marlborough fully occupied in the distant Netherlands, Hungary actually in insurrection ; and not even Eugene could prevent the army of Italy from being pressed back through Tyrol by Vendôme's superior forces. But, like his son Charles Albert thirty-eight years later, Maximilian Emanuel missed his chance. Intent on securing communication with much-coveted Milan, he turned aside into Tyrol, leaving Villars, much to the French commander's chagrin, to cover his operations against Lewis of Baden, who had come up from Stolhofen with most of his corps and joined Styrum (June). But the conquest of Tyrol did not prove so easy as the Elector anticipated. Though opposed by the peasantry, he reached Innsbruck (July 2) and even pushed a detachment forward to the Brenner Pass, only to find that Vendôme had not arrived. The latter, indeed, never started for Trent till July 20 ; and, by the time he reached it (September 2), the Bavarians, harassed by the Tyrolese mountaineers, who cut off their detachments and threatened their communications, had given up hope of his coming and had beaten a costly retreat to Bavaria (August). During this time Lewis of Baden and Styrum had let slip the chance of combining their forces against Villars, who, profiting by their separation, parried the Margrave's attack on Augsburg by falling on Styrum's weaker force at Höchstädt (September 20) and completely defeating him. This checked Lewis, who had to abandon Augsburg and retire into winter-quarters, just north of the Lake of Constance. Even at this late point in the campaigning season Villars was anxious to try a dash at Vienna, now seriously menaced by the Hungarian insurgents ; but the Elector's refusal to contemplate the project led to violent quarrels between him and Villars, and to the recall of the latter before the next campaign.
