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TOURCOING
[Illustration]
TOURCOING
BY
HILAIRE BELLOC
MCMXII
STEPHEN SWIFT AND CO., LTD.
16 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
LONDON
CONTENTS
PART PAGE
I. THE POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCE 9
II. THE GENERAL MILITARY SITUATION 17
III. THE PLAN OF THE ALLIES 28
IV. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE BATTLE 49
V. THE TERRAIN 57
VI. THE ACTION 67
TOURCOING
PART I
THE POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCE
The Battle of Tourcoing is one of those actions upon which European
history in general is somewhat confused, and English history, in
particular, ignorant.
That British troops formed part of those who suffered defeat, and that a
British commander, the Duke of York, was the chief figure in the reverse,
affords no explanation; for the almost exactly parallel case of
Fontenoy--in which another royal duke, also the son of the reigning King
of England, also very young, also an excellent general officer, and also
in command was defeated--is among the most familiar of actions in this
country. In both battles the posture of the British troops earned them as
great and as deserved a fame as they had acquired in victory; in both was
work done by the Guards in particular, which called forth the admiration
of the enemy. Yet Tourcoing remains unknown to the English general reader
of history, while Fontenoy is one of the few stock names of battles which
he can at once recall.
The reason that British historians neglect this action is not, then, as
foreign and rival historians are too inclined to pretend, due to the fact
that among the forces that suffered disaster were present certain British
contingents.
Again, as will be seen in the sequel, the overwhelming of the Duke of
York's forces at Tourcoing, by numbers so enormously superior to his own,
was not due to any tactical fault of his, though it is possible that the
faulty plan of the whole action may in some measure be ascribed to him.
Now Tourcoing is a battle which Englishmen should know, both for its
importance in the military history of Europe, and for the not unworthy
demeanour which the British troops, though defeated, maintained upon its
field.
The true reason that Tourcoing is so little known in this country is to be
discovered in that other historical fact attaching to the battle, which I
have mentioned. It occupied but a confused and an uncertain place in the
general history of Europe; though perhaps, were its military significance
fully understood, it would stand out in sharper relief. For though the
Battle of Tourcoing was not the beginning of any great military series,
nor the end of one; though no very striking immediate political
consequence followed upon it, yet it was Tourcoing which made Fleurus
possible, and it was Fleurus that opened the victorious advancing march of
the French which, looked at as a whole, proceeded triumphantly
thenceforward for nearly eighteen years and achieved the transformation of
European society.
What, then, was the political circumstance under which this action was
fought?
The French Revolution, by the novelty of its doctrines, by the fierceness
and rapidity of its action, and by that military character in it which was
instinctively divined upon the part of its opponents, challenged, shortly
after its inception, the armed interference of those ancient traditional
governments, external to and neighbouring upon French territory, which
felt themselves threatened by the rapid advance of democracy.
With the steps that led from the first peril of conflict to its actual
outbreak, we are not concerned. That outbreak took place in April 1792,
almost exactly three years after the meeting of the first Revolutionary
Parliament in Versailles.
The first stages of the war (which was conducted by Austria and Prussia
upon the one side, against the French forces upon the other) were
singularly slow. No general action was engaged in until the month of
September, and even then the struggle between the rival armies took the
form not so much of a pitched battle as of an inconclusive cannonade known
to history as that of VALMY. This inconclusive cannonade took place in the
heart of French territory during the march of the invaders upon Paris.
Disease, and the accident of weather, determined the retreat of the
invaders immediately afterwards. In the autumn of the year, the French
forces largely recruited by enthusiastic volunteer levies, but of low
military value, poured over the country then called the Austrian
Netherlands and now Belgium. But their success was shortlived. A mere
efflux of numbers could not hold against the trained and increasing
resistance of the Imperial soldiers. In the spring of 1793 the retreat
began, and through the summer of that year the military position of
Revolutionary France grew graver and graver. Internal rebellions of the
most serious character broke out over the whole territory of the Republic.
In Normandy, in the great town of Lyons, in Marseilles, and particularly
in the Western districts surrounding the mouth of the Loire, these
rebellions had each in turn their moment of success, while the great naval
station of Toulon opened its port to the enemy, and received the combined
English and Spanish Fleets.
Coincidently with the enormous task of suppressing this widespread
domestic rebellion, the Revolutionary Government was compelled to meet the
now fully organised advance of its foreign enemies. It was at war no
longer with Austria and Prussia alone, but with England, with Holland,
with Spain as well, and the foreign powers not only thrust back the
incursion which the French had made beyond their frontiers, but proceeded
to attack and to capture, one after the other, that barrier of fortresses
in the north-east which guarded the advance on Paris.
The succession of misfortune after misfortune befalling the French arms
was checked, and the tide turned by the victory won at Wattignies in
October 1793. After that victory the immediate peril of a successful
invasion, coupled with the capture of Paris, was dissipated. But it was
yet uncertain for many months which way the tide would turn--whether the
conflict would end in a sort of stale-mate by which the French should
indeed be left independent for the moment, but the armed governments of
Europe their enemies also left powerful to attack and in the end to ruin
them; or whether (as was actually the case) the French should ultimately
be able to take the offensive, to re-cross their frontiers, and to dictate
to their foes a triumphant peace.
As I have said, the great action from which history must date the long
series of French triumphs, bears the name of Fleurus; but before Fleurus
there came that considerable success which made Fleurus possible, to which
history gives the name of TOURCOING (from the town standing in the midst
of the very large and uncertain area over which the struggle was
maintained), and which provides the subject of these pages.
Fleurus was decided in June 1794. It was not a battle in which British
troops were concerned, and therefore can form no part of this series.
Tourcoing was decided in the preceding May, and though, I repeat, it
cannot be made the fixed and striking starting-point from which to date
the long years of the French advantages, yet it was, as it were, the seed
of those advantages, and it was Tourcoing, in its incomplete and
complicated success, which made possible all that was to follow.
Tourcoing, then, must be regarded as an unexpected, not wholly conclusive,
but none the less fundamental phase in the development of political forces
which led to the establishment of the modern world. Its immediate result,
though not decisive, was appreciable. To use a metaphor, it was felt in
Paris, and to a less extent in London, Berlin, and in Vienna, that the
door against which the French were desperately pushing, though not fully
open, was thrust ajar. The defeat of a portion of the allied forces in
this general action, the inefficacy of the rest, the heartening which it
put into the French defence, and the moral effect of such trophies gained,
and such a rout inflicted, were of capital import to the whole story of
the war.
This is the political aspect in which we must regard the Battle of
Tourcoing, but its chief interest by far lies in its purely military
aspect; in the indiscretion which so nearly led the French forces to
annihilation; in the plan which was laid to surround and to destroy those
forces by the convergence of the English, Prussian, and Austrian columns;
in the way in which that plan came to nothing, and resulted only in a
crushing disaster to one advanced portion of the forces so converging.
Tourcoing is rather a battle for military than for civilian historians,
but those who find recreation in military problems upon their own account,
apart from their political connection, will always discover the accidents
of this engagement, its unexpected developments, and its final issue to be
of surpassing interest.