THE PLAN OF THE ALLIES
If the reader will look at the map opposite he will see in what
disposition the armies of the allies were, at the end of April and the
first days of May 1794, to carry into effect the plan which I proceed to
describe.
There, in its triangle or advanced wedge, with a base stretching across
Lille and an apex at Courtrai, lay the exposed French division, Souham's.
Clerfayt was to the north of that wedge. The French, in pushing their
wedge up to Courtrai, had thus separated him from the rest of the allies.
Clerfayt lay with his command round about the district of Roulers; he
attempted to return and oust Souham, but he failed, and to the north of
the French wedge, and separated from the rest of the allies by its
intervening thousands, he remained up to, throughout, and after the great
battle that was to follow.
[Illustration]
Right away down south, nearly sixty miles as the crow flies, lay the bulk
of the Austrian army, Coburg's command, round the town which it had just
captured, Landrecies. The Duke of York's command, detached from this main
army of Coburg, had been ordered north, and was, by May 3rd, at Tournai.
To the east lay the Prussian forces together with a small body of
Hanoverians, about 4000 in number, which last could be brought up on to
the Scheldt River when necessary.
It will thus be seen that the allies, at the moment when the plan was
about to be formulated, lay on either side of the French wedge, and that
any scheme for cutting off that wedge from the main French line must
consist in causing a great force of the allies to appear rapidly and
unexpectedly between Courtrai and Lille.
In order to do this, it was necessary to get Clerfayt to march down south
to some point where he could cross the River Lys, while the rest of the
allies were marching north from their southern positions to join hands
with him.
When this larger mass of the allies coming up from the south and the east
should have joined hands with Clerfayt, all the great French body lying
advanced in the valley of the Lys round Menin and Courtrai would be cut
off.
Now the success of such a plan obviously depended upon two factors:
synchrony and surprise. That is, its success depended upon the accurate
keeping of a time-table, and upon carrying it out too quickly and
unexpectedly for Souham to fall back in time.
Clerfayt's force coming down from the north, all the rest of the allies
coming up from the east and the south must march with the common object of
reaching "R," a fixed rendezvous, agreed upon beforehand, and of meeting
there together at some appointed time. If any considerable body lagged
behind the rest, if part of the great force marching up from the south,
for instance, failed to keep in line with the general advance, or if
Clerfayt bungled or delayed, the junction would be imperfect or might even
not take place at all, and the number of men present to cut off the French
when a partial and imperfect junction had been effected, might be too
small to maintain itself astraddle of the French communications, and to
prevent the great French force from breaking its way through back to
Lille.
So much for synchrony: and as for surprise, it is obvious that for the
success of this plan it was necessary to work both rapidly and secretly.
Here was Souham with a body of men which recent reinforcement had raised
to some 40,000, lying much too far ahead of the general French line and in
peril of being cut off. Pichegru was foolish to maintain him in that
advanced position, but, though that was an error, it was an error based
upon a certain amount of calculation. Pichegru, and Souham under his
orders, kept to their perilous position round Courtrai, because it did
after all cut the allies in two, and because they knew that they could
deal with Clerfayt's force upon the north (which was only half their own),
while they also knew that the bulk of their enemies were tied down, far
away to the south, by the operations round Landrecies.
If Souham at Courtrai got news in time of the march northward of that main
southern force, he had only to fall back upon Lille to be saved.
It was not until the 10th of May that the plan was elaborated whereby it
was hoped to annihilate Souham's command, and this plan seems to have
occurred first to the Duke of York upon the evening of that day, after a
successful minor action between his troops and the French just outside
Tournai.
The Duke of York had been at Tournai a week, having come up there from
Landrecies after the fall of that fortress, though the mass of the
Austrian forces still remained away in the south. The week had been spent
in "feeling" the south-eastern front of the French advanced "wedge," and
it was by the evening of the 10th that the Duke of York appears to have
decided that the time was ripe for a general movement.
At any rate, it was upon the morrow, the 11th, that the English Prince
sent word to Clerfayt that he intended to submit to the Emperor, who was
the ultimate authority upon the side of the allies, a plan for the general
and decisive action he desired to bring about. On the next day, the 12th,
a Monday, the Duke of York wrote to Clerfayt that he hoped, "on the day
after the morrow" (that is, upon the Wednesday, the 14th), "to take a
decisive movement against the enemy." And we may presume that the Duke had
communicated to the Emperor the nature of his plan. For on the 13th, the
Tuesday, the Emperor was in possession of it, and his orders, sent out
upon that day, set out the plan in detail.[1] That plan was as follows:--
Clerfayt, with his force, which was rather less than 20,000 all told, was
to march south from Thielt, his headquarters for the moment, and advance
upon the little town of Wervicq upon the River Lys. Here there was a
bridge, and Clerfayt was also in possession of pontoons wherewith to pass
the stream. Meanwhile, the southern mass of the allies was to concentrate
upon the Scheldt in the following manner:
The few thousand Hanoverians, under Bussche, were to take up their
position at Warcoing, just upon and across that river. Two miles further
south, Otto, with a larger Austrian force accompanied by certain English
cavalry (the numbers will follow), was to concentrate at Bailleul.
The Duke of York's own large force, which had been at Tournai for over a
week, was to go forward a little and concentrate at Templeuve. Five miles
to the south of Templeuve, at Froidmont, a column, somewhat larger than
the Duke of York's, under Kinsky, was to concentrate.
There were thus to be concentrated upon the south of the French wedge
four separate bodies under orders to advance northward together.
The first, under Bussche, was only about 4000 strong, the Hanoverians and
Prussians; the second, under Otto, from about 10,000 strong; the third,
under the Duke of York, of much the same strength, or a little less; and
the fourth, under Kinsky, some 11,000.
These four numbered nearly, or quite, 35,000 men, less than the "nearly
40,000" at which certain French historians have estimated their strength.
To these four columns (which I will beg the reader to remember by their
numbers of first, second, third, and fourth, as well as by the names of
their commanders, Bussche, Otto, York, and Kinsky) a fifth must be added,
the appreciation of whose movements and failure is the whole explanation
of the coming battle.
The fifth column was a body of no less than 16,000 men coming from the
main Austrian body far south, and ordered to be at St Amand upon the
Scheldt somewhat before the concentration of the other four columns, and
to advance from St Amand to Pont-a-Marcq. Upon reaching Pont-a-Marcq this
fifth column would be in line with the other four at Warcoing, Bailleul,
Templeuve, and Froidmont, and ready to take its part in the great forward
movement towards the north.
In order to appreciate the way in which the issue was bound to depend upon
this fifth column, I must now detail the orders given to all six, the five
columns in the valley of the Scheldt, and the sixth body, under Clerfayt,
north of the Lys; for it is these orders which constitute the soul of the
plan.
Bussche, with his small body of 4000 Hanoverians, the first column, had
the task of "holding" the apex of the French wedge when the attack should
begin. That is, it was his task to do no more with his inferior forces
than send one portion up the road towards Courtrai, so that the advanced
French troops there should be engaged while another part of his small
command should attack the little town of Mouscron, which the French held,
of course, for it was within their wedge of occupation. It was obviously
not hoped that this little body could do more than keep the French
occupied, prevent their falling back towards Lille, and perhaps make them
believe that the main attack was coming from Bussche's men.
The second column, under Otto, was to advance upon Tourcoing, in those
days a little town, now a great manufacturing city.
The third column, that under the Duke of York, was to march side by side
with Otto's column, and to make for Mouveaux, a village upon a level with
Tourcoing upon this line of advance, and to be reached by marching through
Roubaix (now also a great manufacturing town, but then a small place).
None of these advances, Bussche's, Otto's, or York's, was of any
considerable length. The longest march through which any of these three
columns had to fight its way was that of the Duke of York from Templeuve
to Mouveaux, and even this was not eight miles.
The fourth column, under Kinsky, had a harder task and a longer march. It
was to carry Bouvines, which was in the hands of the French and nearly
seven miles from Froidmont (Kinsky's point of departure), and when it had
done this it was to turn to the north with one part of its force in order
to shelter the march of the Duke of York from attacks by the French troops
near Lille, while another part of its force was to join with the fifth
column and march up with it until both came upon a level with York and
Otto in the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and Mouveaux.
Now it was to this fifth column, the 16,000 men or more under the
Arch-Duke Charles, that the great work of the day was assigned. From
Pont-a-Marcq they must attack a great French body quite equal to their own
in numbers, even when part of Kinsky's force had joined them, which French
force lay in the camp at Sainghin. They must thrust this force back
towards Lille, pour up northward, and arrive in support of Otto and York
by the time these two commanders were respectively at Tourcoing and
Mouveaux.
In other words, the fifth column, that of the Arch-Duke Charles, was asked
to make an advance of nearly fourteen miles, involving heavy fighting in
its first part, and yet to synchronise with columns who had to advance no
more than five miles or seven.
Supposing all went well, Clerfayt--crossing the Lys at Wervicq at the same
hour which saw the departure of the five southern columns from Warcoing,
Bailleul, Templeuve, Froidmont, and Pont-a-Marcq respectively, was to
advance southward from the river towards Mouveaux and Tourcoing, a
distance of some seven miles, while the others were advancing on the same
points from the south.
If the time-table were accurately kept and this great combined movement
all fitted in, Clerfayt would join hands with the second, third, fourth,
and fifth columns somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and
Mouveaux, a great force of over 60,000 men would lie between the French
troops at Lille and Souham's 40,000 in the "advanced wedge," and those
40,000 thus isolated were, in a military sense, destroyed.
Such being the mechanism or map of the scheme, we must next inquire the
exact dates and hours upon which the working of the whole was planned.
The Duke of York, as we have seen when he was arranging the business and
writing to Clerfayt and the Emperor, had talked of moving upon the 14th,
by which presumably he meant organising the attack on the 14th, and
setting the first columns in motion from their places of rendezvous in the
early hours of that day, Wednesday, before dawn.
If that was in his mind, it shows him to have been a prompt and energetic
man, and to have had a full appreciation of the place which surprise
occupied in the chances of success. If, indeed, the Emperor got the Duke
of York's message in time on the 12th, if he had at once accepted the
plan, and had with Napoleonic rapidity ordered the bulk of his forces
(which were still right away south and east) to move, he might have had
them by forced marches upon and across the Scheldt, and ready to execute
the plan by the 14th, or at any rate by the morning of the 15th.
But from what we know of the family to which the Duke of York belonged, it
is exceedingly improbable that this younger son of George III. had, on
this one occasion only, any lightning in his brain; and even if he did
appreciate more or less the importance of rapid action, the Emperor did
not appreciate it. He committed the two contradictory faults of delaying
the movement and of asking too much marching of his men, and it was not
until the morning of the Wednesday, May the 14th, that the bulk of the
Austrian army, which still lay in the Valenciennes and Landrecies
district, broke up for its northward march, to arrive at the rendezvous
beyond the Scheldt, and to carry out the plan.[2]
It was not until Thursday the 15th of May that the Emperor joined the Duke
of York at Tournai, and very late upon the same day the Arch-Duke Charles
had brought up the main body of the Austrian forces from the south to the
town of St Amand.
We shall see later what a grievous error it was to demand so violent an
effort from the men of the Arch-Duke Charles' command. From Landrecies
itself to St Amand is 30 miles as the crow flies; and though, of course,
the mass of the troops which the Arch-Duke Charles had been thus commanded
to bring up northward in such haste were most of them well on the right
side of Landrecies when the order to advance reached them, yet the
average march undertaken by his men in little more than twenty-four hours
was a full twenty miles, and some of his units must have covered nearer
thirty. I will not delay further on this point here; its full importance
will appear when we come to talk of the action itself.
The Arch-Duke Charles being only as far as St Amand on the evening of
Thursday the 15th, and his rendezvous, that of the fifth column in the
great plan, being Pont-a-Marcq, a further good sixteen miles
north-westward, it was evident that the inception of that plan and the
simultaneous advance of all the five columns from their five
starting-points of Warcoing, Bailleul, Templeuve, Froidmont, and
Pont-a-Marcq, could not begin even upon the 16th. It would take the best
part of a day to bring the Arch-Duke Charles up to Pont-a-Marcq; his men
were in imperative need of rest during a full night at St Amand, and it is
probable, though I have no proof of it, that he had not even fully
concentrated there by the evening of the 15th, and that his last units
only joined him during the forenoon of the 16th.
The whole of that day, therefore, the 16th, was consumed so far as the
first, second, third, and fourth columns were concerned, in merely
gathering and marshalling their forces, and occupying, before nightfall,
the points from which they were to depart simultaneously in the combined
advance of the morrow. They _had_ to wait thus for the dawn of the 17th,
because they had to allow time for the fifth column to come up.
The time-table imposed upon the great plan by these delays is now
apparent. The moment when all the strings of the net were to be pulled
together round Souham was the space between midnight and dawn of Saturday
the 17th of May. And the hour when all the six bodies of the allies were
to join hands at "R" near Tourcoing was the noon of that day.
Before day broke upon the 17th, Clerfayt was to find himself at Wervicq
upon the River Lys and across that stream, while of the five southern
columns the Arch-Duke Charles was to be attacking the French troops just
in front of Pont-a-Marcq with the fifth column at the same moment; Kinsky,
with the fourth, was to be well on the way from Froidmont to Bouvines
where he was to attack the French also and cross the bridge; the Duke of
York, with the third, was to be well on the way from Templeuve to Lannoy;
Otto, with the second, was to be equally advanced upon his line, somewhere
by Wattrelos in his march upon Tourcoing; while Bussche, with his small
first column, on the extreme north, was to be getting into contact with
the French posts south of Courtrai, which it was his duty to "hold,"
impressing upon Souham the idea that a main attack might develop in that
quarter, and so deluding the French into maintaining their perilously
advanced stations until they were cut off from Lille by the rest of the
allies.
The morning would be filled by the advance of Clerfayt from Wervicq
southward upon Mouveaux and Tourcoing, while the corresponding fighting
advance northward upon Mouveaux and Tourcoing also, of Otto, York, Kinsky,
and the Arch-Duke Charles, should result somewhere about noon in their
joining hands with Clerfayt and forming one great body: a body cutting off
Courtrai from Lille, and the 40,000 under Souham from their fellows in the
main French line.
With such a time-table properly observed, the plan should have succeeded,
and between the noon and the evening of that Saturday, the great force
which Souham commanded should have been at the mercy of the allies.
* * * * *
Such was the plan and such the time-table upon which it was schemed. Its
success depended, of course, as I have said, upon an exact keeping of that
time-table, and also upon the net being drawn round Souham before he had
guessed what was happening. The second of these conditions, we shall see
when we come to speak of "The Preliminaries of the Action," was
successfully accomplished. The first was not; and its failure is the story
of the defeat suffered by the Duke of York in particular, and the
consequent break-down of the whole strategical conception of the allies.
* * * * *
But before dealing with this it is necessary to establish a disputed
point.
I have spoken throughout of the plan as the Duke of York's. Because it
failed, and because the Duke of York was an English prince, historians in
this country have not only rejected this conclusion, but, as a rule, have
not even mentioned it. The plan has been represented as Mack's plan, as a
typical example of Austrian pedantry and folly, the Duke of York as the
victim of foolish foreigners who did not know their business, and it has
even been hinted that the Austrians desired defeat! With the latter
extravagant and even comic suggestion I will deal later in this study; for
the moment I am only concerned with the responsibility of the Duke of
York.
It must, in the first place, be clearly understood that the failure of the
plan does not reflect upon the judgment of that commander. It failed
because Clerfayt was not up to time, and because too much had been asked
of the fifth column. The Duke came of a family not famous for genius; he
was exceedingly young, and whatever part he may have had in the framing of
this large conception ought surely to stand to his credit.
It is true that Mack, the Austrian General, drafted details of the plan
immediately before it was carried into execution, and our principal
military historian in this country tells us how "on the 16th, Mack
prepared an elaborate plan which he designed."[3]
Well, the 16th was the Friday.
Now we know that on the 11th of May, the Sunday, the Emperor and his
staff had no intention of making a combined attack to cut off Souham from
Lille, for orders were given to Clerfayt on that day to engage Souham
along the valley of the Lys for the purpose of holding the attention of
the French, and in the hope of recovering Menin--the exact opposite of
what would have been ordered if a secret and unexpected attempt to cut off
Souham by crossing further up the river had been intended. It was at the
same moment that the Duke of York was sending word to Clerfayt on his own
account, to the effect that he intended to submit a plan to the Emperor,
and it is worth noting that in the very order which was sent to Clerfayt
by the Emperor he was told to refer to the Duke of York as to his future
movements.
The archives of the Ministry of War at Vienna have it on record that the
Duke of York made a definite statement of a plan to Clerfayt, which plan
he intended to submit to the Emperor immediately, and a letter dated upon
the Monday, the 12th--four days before there is any talk of Mack's
arranging details,--York writes to Clerfayt telling him that he hopes to
make his decisive movement against the enemy on the Wednesday, the 14th.
On the 13th, Tuesday, the orders of the Emperor to both Clerfayt and the
Duke of York (which are also on record) set down this plan in detail,
mentioning the point Wervicq at which Clerfayt was expected to cross the
river Lys, and at the same time directing the Duke of York to march
northward with the object of joining Clerfayt, and thus cutting off the
French forces massed round Courtrai from their base. Further, in this same
despatch, the initiative is particularly left to the Duke of York, and it
is once more from him that Clerfayt is to await decisions as to the moment
and details of the operation.
The same archives record the Duke of York sending Lieut.-Colonel Calvert
to Clerfayt upon the 14th, to tell him that he meant to attack upon the
morrow, the 15th, and they further inform us that it was on the English
Prince's learning how scattered were Clerfayt's units, and how long it
would therefore take him to concentrate, that action was delayed by some
thirty-six hours.
Evidence of this sort is absolutely conclusive. The plan was not Mack's;
it was York's.