On that day Coburg himself, with 6000 men under Feldzeugmeister Kinsky
from the central (Landrecies) group, entered Tournai and took up the
general command, while another reinforcement under the archduke Charles
marched towards Orchies. Orders were promptly issued for a general
offensive. Clerfayt's corps was to be between Rousselaer and Menin on
the 16th, and the next day to force its way across the Lys at Werwick
and connect with the main army. The main army was to advance in four
columns. The first three, under the duke of York, were to move off, at
daylight on the 17th, by Dottignies, Leers and Lannoy respectively to
the line Mouscron-Tourcoing-Mouveaux. The fourth and fifth under Kinsky
and the archduke Charles were to defeat the French corps on the upper
Marque, and then, leaving Lille on their left and guaranteeing
themselves by a cordon system against being cut off from Tournai (either
by the troops just defeated or by the Lille garrison), to march rapidly
forward towards Werwick, getting touch on their right with the duke of
York and on their left with Clerfayt, and thus completing the investing
circle around Souham's and Moreau's isolated divisions. Speed was
enjoined on all. Picked volunteers to clear away the enemy's
skirmishers, and pioneers to make good difficult places on the roads,
were to precede the heads of the columns. Then came at the head of the
main body the artillery with an infantry escort. All this might have
been designed by the Japanese for the attack of some well-defined
Russian position in the war of 1904. Outpost and skirmisher resistance
was to be overpowered the instant it was offered, and the attack on the
closed bodies of the enemy was to be initiated by a heavy artillery fire
at the earliest possible moment. But in 1904 the Russians stood still,
which was the last thing that the Revolutionary armies of 1794 would or
could do. Mack's well-considered and carefully balanced combinations
failed, and doubtless helped to create the legend of his incapacity,
which finds no support either in the opinion of Coburg, the
representative of the old school, or in that of Scharnhorst, the founder
of the new.
Souham, who commanded in the temporary absence of Pichegru, had formed
his own plan. Finding himself with the major part of his forces between
York and Clerfayt, he had decided to impose upon the former by means of
a covering detachment, and to fall upon Clerfayt near Rousselaer with
the bulk of his forces. This plan, based as it was on a sound
calculation of time, space, strength and endurance, merits close
consideration, for it contains more than a trace of the essential
principles of modern strategy, yet with one vital difference, that
whereas, in the present case, the factor of the enemy's independent will
wrecked the scheme, Napoleon would have guaranteed to himself, before
and during its development, the power of executing it in spite of the
enemy. The appearance of fresh allied troops (Kinsky) on his right front
at once modified these general arrangements. Divining Coburg's
intentions from the arrival of the enemy near Pont-a-Marque and at
Lannoy, he ordered Bonnaud (Lille group, 27,000) to leave enough troops
on the upper Marque to amuse the enemy's leftmost columns, and with
every man he had left beyond this absolute minimum to attack the left
flank of the columns moving towards Tourcoing, which his weak centre
(12,000 men at Tourcoing, Mouscron and Roubaix) was to stop by frontal
defence. No role was as yet assigned to the principal mass (50,000 under
Moreau) about Courtrai. Vandamme's brigade was to extend along the Lys
from Menin to Werwick and beyond, to deny as long as possible the
passage to Clerfayt.
This second plan failed like the first, because the enemy's counter-will
was not controlled. All along the line Coburg's advance compelled the
French to fight as they were without any redistribution. But the French
were sufficiently elastic to adapt themselves readily to unforeseen
conditions, and on Coburg's side too the unexpected happened. When
Clerfayt appeared on the Lys above Menin, he found Werwick held. This
was an accident, for the battalion there was on its way to Menin, and
Vandamme, who had not yet received his new orders, was still far away.
But the battalion fought boldly, Clerfayt sent for his pontoons, and ere
they arrived Vandamme's leading troops managed to come up on the other
side. Thus it was not till 1 A.M. on the 18th that the first Austrian
battalions passed the Lys.
On the front of the main allied group the "annihilation plan" was
crippled at the outset by the tardiness of the archduke's (fifth or
left) column. On this the smooth working of the whole scheme depended,
for Coburg considered that he must _defeat_ Bonnaud before carrying out
his intended envelopment of the Menin-Courtrai group (the idea of
"binding" the enemy by a detachment while the main scheme proceeded had
not yet arisen). The allied general, indeed, on discovering the
backwardness of the archduke, went so far as to order all the other
columns to begin by swerving southward against Bonnaud, but these were
already too deeply committed to the original plan to execute any new
variation.
The rightmost column (Hanoverians) under von dem Bussche moved on
Mouscron, overpowering the fragmentary, if energetic, resistance of the
French advanced posts. Next on the left, Lieutenant Field Marshal Otto
moved by Leers and Watrelos, driving away a French post at Lis (near
Lannoy) on his left flank, and entered Tourcoing. But meantime a French
brigade had driven von dem Bussche away from Mouscron, so that Otto felt
compelled to keep troops at Leers and Watrelos to protect his rear,
which seriously weakened his hold on Tourcoing. The third column, led by
the duke of York, advanced from Templeuve on Lannoy, at the same time
securing its left by expelling the French from Willems. Lannoy was
stormed by the British Guards under Sir R. Abercromby with such vigour
that the cavalry which had been sent round the village to cut off the
French retreat had no time to get into position. Beyond Lannoy, the
French resistance, still disjointed, became more obstinate as the
ground favoured it more, and the duke called up the Austrians from
Willems to turn the right of the French position at Roubaix by way of a
small valley. Once again, however, the Guards dislodged the enemy before
the turning movement had taken effect. A third French position now
appeared, at Mouvaux, and this seemed so formidable that the duke halted
to rest his now weary men. The emperor himself, however, ordered the
advance to be resumed, and Mouvaux too was carried by Abercromby. It was
now nightfall, and the duke having attained his objective point prepared
to hold it against a counter attack.
Kinsky meanwhile with the fourth column had made feints opposite
Pont-a-Tressin, and had forced the passage of the Marque near Bouvines
with his main body. But Bonnaud gave ground so slowly that up to 4 P.M.
Kinsky had only progressed a few hundred paces from his crossing point.
The fifth column, which was behind time on the 16th, did not arrive at
Orchies till dawn on the 17th, and had to halt there for rest and food.
Thence, moving across country in fighting formation, the archduke made
his way to Pont-a-Marque. But he was unable to do more, before calling a
halt, than deploy his troops on the other side of the stream.
So closed the first day's operations. The "annihilation plan" had
already undergone a serious check. The archduke and Kinsky, instead of
being ready for the second part of their task, had scarcely completed
the first, and the same could be said of Clerfayt, while von dem Bussche
had definitively failed. Only the duke of York and Otto had done their
share in the centre, and they now stood at Tourcoing and Mouvaux
isolated in the midst of the enemy's main body, with no hope of support
from the other columns and no more than a chance of meeting Clerfayt.
Coburg's entire force was, without deducting losses, no more than 53,000
for a front of 18 m., and only half of the enemy's available 80,000 men
had as yet been engaged. Mack sent a staff officer, at 1 A.M., to
implore the archduke to come up to Lannoy at once, but the young prince
was asleep and his suite refused to wake him.
Matters did not, of course, present themselves in this light at Souham's
headquarters, where the generals met in an informal council. The project
of flinging Bonnaud's corps against the flank of the duke of York had
not received even a beginning of execution, and the outposts, reinforced
though they were from the main group, had everywhere been driven in. All
the subordinate leaders, moreover (except Bonnaud), sent in the most
despondent reports. "Councils of war never fight" is an old maxim,
justified in ninety-nine cases in a hundred. But this council determined
to do so, and with all possible vigour. The scheme was practically that
which Coburg's first threat had produced and his first brusque advance
had inhibited. Vandamme was to hold Clerfayt, the garrison of Lille and
a few outlying corps to occupy the archduke and Kinsky, and in the
centre Moreau and Bonnaud, with 40,000 effectives, were to attack the
Tourcoing-Mouvaux position in front and flank at dawn with all possible
energy.
Battle of Tourcoing.
The first shots were fired on the Lys, where, it will be remembered,
Clerfayt's infantry had effected its crossing in the night. Vandamme,
who was to defend the river, had in the evening assembled his troops
(fatigued by a long march) near Menin instead of pushing on at once.
Thus only one of his battalions had taken part in the defence of Werwick
on the 17th, and the remainder were by this chance massed on the flank
of Clerfayt's subsequent line of advance. Vandamme used his advantage
well. He attacked, with perhaps 12,000 men against 21,000, the head and
the middle of Clerfayt's columns as they moved on Lincelles. Clerfayt
stopped at once, turned upon him and drove him towards Roncq and Menin.
Still, fighting in succession, rallying and fighting again, Vandamme's
regiments managed to spin out time and to commit Clerfayt deeper and
deeper to a false direction till it was too late in the day to influence
the battle elsewhere.
V. dem Bussche's column at Dottignies, shaken by the blow it had
received the day before, did nothing, and actually retreated to the
Scheldt. On the other flank, Kinsky and the archduke Charles
practically remained inactive despite repeated orders to proceed to
Lannoy, Kinsky waiting for the archduke, and the latter using up his
time and forces in elaborating a protective cordon all around his left
and rear. Both alleged that "the troops were tired," but there was a
stronger motive. It was felt that Belgium was about to be handed over to
France as the price of peace, and the generals did not see the force of
wasting soldiers on a lost cause. There remained the two centre columns,
Otto's and the duke of York's. The orders of the emperor to the duke
were that he should advance to establish communication with Clerfayt at
Lincelles. Having thus cut off the French Courtrai group, he was to
initiate a general advance to crush it, in which all the allied columns
would take part, Clerfayt, York and Otto in front, von dem Bussche on
the right flank and the archduke and Kinsky in support. These airy
schemes were destroyed at dawn on the 18th. Macdonald's brigade carried
Tourcoing at the first rush, though Otto's guns and the volleys of the
infantry checked its further progress. Malbrancq's brigade swarmed
around the duke of York's entrenchments at Mouvaux, while Bonnaud's mass
from the side of Lille passed the Marque and lapped round the flanks of
the British posts at Roubaix and Lannoy. The duke had used up his
reserves in assisting Otto, and by 8 A.M. the positions of Roubaix,
Lannoy and Mouvaux were isolated from each other. But the Allies fought
magnificently, and by now the Republicans were in confusion, excited to
the highest pitch and therefore extremely sensitive to waves of
enthusiasm or panic; and at this moment Clerfayt was nearing success,
and Vandamme fighting almost back to back with Malbrancq. Otto was able
to retire gradually, though with heavy losses, to Leers, before
Macdonald's left column was able to storm Watrelos, or Daendels'
brigade, still farther towards the Scheldt, could reach his rear. The
resistance of the Austrians gave breathing space to the English, who
held on to their positions till about 11.30, attacked again and again by
Bonnaud, and then, not without confusion, retired to join Otto at Leers.
With the retreat of the two sorely tried columns and the suspension of
Clerfayt's attack between Lincelles and Roncq, the battle of Tourcoing
ended. It was a victory of which the young French generals had reason to
be proud. The main attack was vigorously conducted, and the two-to-one
numerical superiority which the French possessed at the decisive point
is the best testimony at once to Souham's generalship and to Vandamme's
bravery. As for the Allies, those of them who took part in the battle at
all, generals and soldiers, covered themselves with glory, but the
inaction of two-thirds of Coburg's army was the bankruptcy declaration
of the old strategical system. The Allies lost, on this day, about 4000
killed and wounded and 1500 prisoners besides 60 guns. The French loss,
which was probably heavier, is not known. The duke of York defeated,
Souham at once turned his attention to Clerfayt, against whom he
directed all the forces he could gather after a day's "horde-tactics."
The Austrian commander, however, withdrew over the river unharmed. On
the 19th he was at Rousselaer and Ingelminster, 9 or 10 m. north of
Courtrai, while Coburg's forces assembled and encamped in a strong
position some 3 m. west and north-west of Tournai, the Hanoverians
remaining out in advance of the right on the Espierre.
Souham's victory, thanks to his geographical position, had merely given
him air. The Allies, except for the loss of some 5500 men, were in no
way worse off. The plan had failed, but the army as a whole had not been
defeated, while the troops of the duke of York and Otto were far too
well disciplined not to take their defeat as "all in the day's work."
Souham was still on the Lys and midway between the two allied masses,
able to strike each in turn or liable to be crushed between them in
proportion as the opposing generals calculated time, space and endurance
accurately. Souham, therefore, as early as the 19th, had decided that
until Clerfayt had been pushed back to his old positions near Thielt he
could not deal with the main body of the Allies on the side of Tournai,
and he had left Bonnaud to hold the latter while he concentrated most of
his forces towards Courtrai. This move had the desired effect, for
Clerfayt retired without a contest, and on the 21st of May Souham issued
his orders for an advance on Coburg's army, which, as he knew, had
meantime been reinforced. Vandamme alone was left to face Clerfayt, and
this time with outposts far out, at Ingelminster and Roosebeke, so as to
ensure his chief, not a few hours', but two or three days' freedom from
interference.
Battle of Tournai.
Pichegru now returned and took up the supreme command, Souham remaining
in charge of his own and Moreau's divisions. On the extreme right, from
Pont-a-Tressin, only demonstrations were to be made; the centre, between
Baisieux and Estaimbourg, was to be the scene of the holding attack of
Bonnaud's command, while Souham, in considerably greater density,
delivered the decisive attack on the allied right by St Leger and
Warcoing. At Helchin a brigade was to guard the outer flank of the
assailants against a movement by the Hanoverians and to keep open
communication with Courtrai in case of attack from the direction of
Oudenarde. The details of the allied position were insufficiently known
owing to the multiplicity of their advanced posts and the intricate and
densely cultivated nature of the ground. The battle of Tournai opened in
the early morning of the 22nd and was long and desperately contested.
The demonstration on the French extreme right was soon recognized by the
defenders to be negligible, and the allied left wing thereupon closed on
the centre. There Bonnaud attacked with vigour, forcing back the various
advanced posts, especially on the left, where he dislodged the Allies
from Nechin. The defenders of Templeuve then fell back, and the
attacking swarms--a dissolved line of battle--fringed the brook beyond
Templeuve, on the other side of which was the Allies' main position, and
even for a moment seized Blandain. Meanwhile the French at Nechin, in
concert with the main attack, pressed on towards Ramegnies.
Macdonald's and other brigades had forced the Espierre rivulet and
driven von dem Bussche's Hanoverians partly over the Scheldt (they had a
pontoon bridge), partly southward. The main front of the Allies was
defined by the brook that flows between Templeuve and Blandain, then
between Ramegnies and Pont-a-Chin and empties into the Scheldt near the
last-named hamlet. On this front till close on nightfall a fierce battle
raged. Pichegru's main attack was still by his left, and Pont-a-Chin was
taken and retaken by French, Austrians, British and Hanoverians in turn.
Between Blandain and Pont-a-Chin Bonnaud's troops more than once entered
the line of defence. But the attack was definitively broken off at
nightfall and the Republicans withdrew slowly towards Lannoy and Leers.
They had for the first time in a fiercely contested "soldier's battle"
measured their strength, regiment for regiment, against the Allies, and
failed, but by so narrow a margin that henceforward the Army of the
North realized its own strength and solidity. The Army of the
Revolution, already superior in numbers and imbued with the
decision-compelling spirit, had at last achieved self-confidence.
But the actual decision was destined by a curious process of evolution
to be given by Jourdan's far-distant Army of the Moselle, to which we
now turn.
The Army of the Moselle had been ordered to assemble a striking force on
its left wing, without prejudicing the rest of its cordon in Lorraine,
and with this striking force to operate towards Liege and Namur. Its
first movement on Arlon, in April, was repulsed by a small Austrian
corps under Beaulieu that guarded this region. But in the beginning of
May the advance was resumed though the troops were ill-equipped and
ill-fed, and requisitions had reduced the civil population to
semi-starvation and sullen hostility. We quote Jourdan's instructions to
his advanced guard, not merely as evidence of the trivial purpose of the
march as originally planned, but still more as an illustration of the
driving power that made the troops march at all, and of the new method
of marching and subsisting them.
Jourdan's movement on Liege.
Its commander was "to keep in mind the purpose of cutting the
communications between Luxemburg and Namur, and was therefore to throw
out strong bodies against the enemy daily and at different points, to
parry the enemy's movements by rapid marches, to prevent any transfer
of troops to Belgium, and lastly to seek an occasion for giving battle,
for cutting off his convoys and for seizing his magazines." So much for
the purpose. The method of achieving it is defined as follows. "General
Hatry, in order to attain the object of these instructions, will have
with him the minimum of wagons. He is to live at the expense of the
enemy as much as possible, and to send back into the interior of the
Republic whatever may be useful to it; he will maintain his
communications with Longwy, report every movement to me, and when
necessary to the Committee of Public Safety and to the minister of war,
maintain order and discipline, and firmly oppose every sort of pillage."
How the last of these instructions was to be reconciled with the rest,
Hatry was not informed. In fact, it was ignored. "I am far from
believing," wrote the representative on mission Gillet, "that we ought
to adopt the principles of philanthropy with which we began the war."
At the moment when, on these terms, Jourdan's advance was resumed, the
general situation east of the Scheldt was as follows: The Allies' centre
under Coburg had captured Landrecies, and now (May 4) lay around that
place, about 65,000 strong, while the left under Kaunitz (27,000) was
somewhat north of Maubeuge, with detachments south of the Sambre as far
as the Meuse. Beyond these again were the detachment of Beaulieu (8000)
near Arlon, and another, 9000 strong, around Trier. On the side of the
French, the Army of the Moselle (41,000 effectives) was in cordon
between Saargemund and Longwy; the Army of the Ardennes (22,000) between
Beaumont and Givet; of the Army of the North, the right wing (38,000) in
the area Beaumont--Maubeuge and the centre (24,000) about Guise. In the
aggregate the allied field armies numbered 139,000 men, those of the
French 203,000. Tactically the disproportion was sufficient to give the
latter the victory, if, strategically, it could be made effective at a
given time and place. But the French had mobility as a remedy for
over-extension, and though their close massing on the extreme flanks
left no more than equal forces opposite Coburg in the centre, the latter
felt unable either to go forward or to close to one flank when on his
right the storm was brewing at Menin and Tournai, and on his left
Kaunitz reported the gathering of important masses of the French around
Beaumont.
Thus the initiative passed over to the French, but they missed their
opportunity, as Coburg had missed his in 1793. Pichegru's right was
ordered to march on Mons, and his left to master the navigation of the
Scheldt so as to reduce the Allies to wagon-drawn supplies--the latter
an objective dear to the 18th-century general; while Jourdan's task, as
we know, was to conquer the Liege or Namur country without unduly
stripping the cordon on the Saar and the Moselle. Jourdan's orders and
original purpose were to get Beaulieu out of his way by the usual
strategical tricks, and to march through the Ardennes as rapidly as
possible, living on what supplies he could pick up from the enemy or the
inhabitants. But he had scarcely started when Beaulieu made his
existence felt by attacking a French post at Bouillon. Thereupon Jourdan
made the active enemy, instead of Namur, his first object.
The movement of the operative portion of the Army of the Moselle began
on the 21st of May from Longwy through Arlon towards Neufchateau.
Irregular fighting, sometimes with the Austrians, sometimes with the
bitterly hostile inhabitants, marked its progress. Beaulieu was nowhere
forced into a battle. But fortune was on Jourdan's side. The Austrians
were a detachment of Coburg's army, not an independent force, and when
threatened they retired towards Ciney, drawing Jourdan after them in the
very direction in which he desired to go. On the 28th the French, after
a vain detour made in the hope of forcing Beaulieu to fight--"les
esclaves n'osent pas se mesurer avec des hommes libres," wrote Jourdan
in disgust,--reached Ciney, and there heard that the enemy had fallen
back to a strongly entrenched position on the east bank of the Meuse
near Namur. Jourdan was preparing to attack them there, when
considerations of quite another kind intervened to change his direction,
and thereby to produce the drama of Charleroi and Fleurus--which
military historians have asserted to be the foreseen result of the
initial plan.
The method of "living on the country" had failed lamentably in the
Ardennes, and Jourdan, though he had spoken of changing his line of
supply from Arlon to Carignan, then to Mezieres and so on as his march
progressed, was still actually living from hand to mouth on the convoys
that arrived intermittently from his original base. When he sought to
take what he needed from the towns on the Meuse, he infringed on the
preserves of the Army of the Ardennes.[6] The advance, therefore, came
for the moment to a standstill, while Beaulieu, solicitous for the
safety of Charleroi--in which fortress he had a magazine--called up the
outlying troops left behind on the Moselle to rejoin him by way of
Bastogne. At the same moment (29th) Jourdan received new orders from
Paris--(a) to take Dinant and Charleroi and to clear the country between
the Meuse and the Sambre, and (b) to attack Namur, either by assault or
by regular siege. In the latter case the bulk of the forces were to form
a covering army beyond the place, to demonstrate towards Nivelles,
Louvain and Liege, and to serve at need as a support to the right flank
of the Ardennes Army. From these orders and from the action of the enemy
the campaign at last took a definite shape.
Charleroi.
When the Army of the Moselle passed over to the left bank of the Meuse,
it was greeted by the distant roar of guns towards Charleroi and by news
that the Army of the Ardennes, which had already twice been defeated by
Kaunitz, was for the third time deeply and unsuccessfully engaged beyond
the Sambre. The resumption of the march again complicated the supply
question, and it was only slowly that the army advanced towards
Charleroi, sweeping the country before it and extending its right
towards Namur. But at last on the 3rd of June the concentration of parts
of three armies on the Sambre was effected. Jourdan took command of the
united force (Army of the Sambre and Meuse) with a strong hand, the
40,000 new-comers inspired fresh courage in the beaten Ardennes troops,
and in the sudden dominating enthusiasm of the moment pillaging and
straggling almost ceased. Troops that had secured bread shared it with
less fortunate comrades, and even the Liegois peasantry made free gifts
of supplies. "We must believe," says the French general staff of to-day,
"that the idea symbolized by the Tricolour, around which marched ever
these sansculottes, shoeless and hungry, unchained a mysterious force
that preceded our columns and aided the achievement of military
success."
Friction, however, arose between Jourdan and the generals of the
Ardennes Army, to whom the representatives thought it well to give a
separate mission. This detachment of 18,000 men was followed by another,
of 16,000, to keep touch with Maubeuge. Deducting another 6000 for the
siege of Charleroi, when this should be made, the covering army destined
to fight the Imperialists dwindled to 55,000 out of 96,000 effectives.
Even now, we see, the objective was not primarily the enemy's army. The
Republican leaders desired to strike out beyond the Sambre, and as a
preliminary to capture Charleroi. They would not, however, risk the loss
of their connexion with Maubeuge before attaining the new foothold.
Meanwhile, Tourcoing and Tournai had at last convinced Coburg that
Pichegru was his most threatening opponent, and he had therefore, though
with many misgivings, decided to move towards his right, leaving the
prince of Orange with not more than 45,000 men on the side of
Maubeuge-Charleroi-Namur.
Jourdan crossed the Sambre on the 12th of June, practically unopposed.
Charleroi was rapidly invested and the covering army extended in a
semicircular position. For the fourth time the Allies counter-attacked
successfully, and after a severe struggle the French had to abandon
their positions and their siege works and to recross the Sambre (June
16). But the army was not beaten. On the contrary, it was only desirous
of having its revenge for a stroke of ill-fortune, due, the soldiers
said, to the fog and to the want of ammunition. The fierce threats of
St Just (who had joined the army) to _faire tomber les tetes_ if more
energy were not shown were unnecessary, and within two days the army was
advancing again. On the 18th Jourdan's columns recrossed the river and
extended around Charleroi in the same positions as before. This time,
having in view the weariness of his troops and their heavy losses on the
16th, the prince of Orange allowed the siege to proceed. His reasons for
so doing furnish an excellent illustration of the different ideas and
capacities of a professional army and a "nation in arms." "The Imperial
troops," wrote General Alvintzi, "are very fatigued. We have fought nine
times since the 10th of May, we have bivouacked constantly, and made
forced marches. Further, we are short of officers." All this, it need
hardly be pointed out, applied equally to the French.
Charleroi, garrisoned by less than 3000 men, was intimidated into
surrender (25th) when the third parallel was barely established. Thus
the object of the first operations was achieved. As to the next neither
Jourdan nor the representatives seem to have had anything further in
view than the capture of more fortresses. But within twenty-four hours
events had decided for them.
Coburg had quickly abandoned his intention of closing on his right wing,
and (after the usual difficulties with his Allies on that side) had
withdrawn 12,000 Austrians from the centre of his cordon opposite
Pichegru, and made forced marches to join the prince of Orange. On the
24th of June he had collected 52,000 men at various points round
Charleroi, and on the 25th he set out to relieve the little fortress.
But he was in complete ignorance of the state of affairs at Charleroi.
Signal guns were fired, but the woods drowned even the roar of the siege
batteries, and at last a party under Lieutenant Radetzky made its way
through the covering army and discovered that the place had fallen. The
party was destroyed on its return, but Radetzky was reserved for greater
things. He managed, though twice wounded, to rejoin Coburg with his bad
news in the midst of the battle of Fleurus.
On the 26th Jourdan's army (now some 73,000 strong) was still posted in
a semicircle of entrenched posts, 20 m. in extent, round the captured
town, pending the removal of the now unnecessary pontoon bridge at
Marchiennes and the selection of a shorter line of defence.
Fleurus.
Coburg was still more widely extended. Inferior in numbers as he was, he
proposed to attack on an equal front, and thus gave himself, for the
attack of an entrenched position, an order of battle of three men to
every two yards of front, all reserves included. The Allies were to
attack in five columns, the prince of Orange from the west and
north-west towards Trazegnies and Monceau wood, Quasdanovich from the
north on Gosselies, Kaunitz from the north-east, the archduke Charles
from the east through Fleurus, and finally Beaulieu towards Lambusart.
The scheme was worked out in such minute detail and with so entire a
disregard of the chance of unforeseen incidents, that once he had given
the executive command to move, the Austrian general could do no more. If
every detail worked out as planned, victory would be his; if accidents
happened he could do nothing to redress them, and unless these righted
themselves (which was improbable in the case of the stiffly organized
old armies) he could only send round the order to break off the action
and retreat.
In these circumstances the battle of Fleurus is the sum rather than the
product of the various fights that took place between each allied column
and the French division that it met. The prince of Orange attacked at
earliest dawn and gradually drove in the French left wing to Courcelles,
Roux and Marchiennes, but somewhat after noon the French, under the
direction for the most part of Kleber, began a series of counterstrokes
which recovered the lost ground, and about 5, without waiting for
Coburg's instructions, the prince retired north-westward off the
battlefield. The French centre division, under Morlot, made a gradual
fighting retreat on Gosselies, followed up by the Quasdanovich column
and part of Kaunitz's force. No serious impression was made on the
defenders, chiefly because the brook west of Mellet was a serious
obstacle to the rigid order of the Allies and had to be bridged before
their guns could be got over. Kaunitz's column and Championnet's
division met on the battlefield of 1690. The French were gradually
driven in from the outlying villages to their main position between
Heppignies and Wangenies. Here the Allies, well led and taking every
advantage of ground and momentary chances, had the best of it. They
pressed the French hard, necessitated the intervention of such small
reserves as Jourdan had available, and only gave way to the defenders'
counterstroke at the moment they received Coburg's orders for a general
retreat.
On the allied left wing the fighting was closer and more severe than at
any point. Beaulieu on the extreme left advanced upon Velaine and the
French positions in the woods to the south in several small groups of
all arms. Here were the divisions of the Army of the Ardennes, markedly
inferior in discipline and endurance to the rest, and only too mindful
of their four previous reverses. For six hours, more or less, they
resisted the oncoming Allies, but then, in spite of the example and the
despairing appeals of their young general Marceau, they broke and fled,
leaving Beaulieu free to combine with the archduke Charles, who carried
Fleurus after obstinate fighting, and then pressed on towards
Campinaire. Beaulieu took command of all the allied forces on this side
about noon, and from then to 5 P.M. launched a series of terrible
attacks on the French (Lefebvre's division, part of the general reserve,
and the remnant of Marceau's troops) above Campinaire and Lambusart. The
disciplined resolution of the imperial battalions, and the enthusiasm of
the French Revolutionaries, were each at their height. The Austrians
came on time after time over ground that was practically destitute of
cover. Villages, farms and fields of corn caught fire. The French grew
more and more excited--"No retreat to-day!" they called out to their
leaders, and finally, clamouring to be led against the enemy, they had
their wish. Lefebvre seized the psychological moment when the fourth
attack of the Allies had failed, and (though he did not know it) the
order to retreat had come from Coburg. The losses of the unit that
delivered it were small, for the charge exactly responded to the moral
conditions of the moment, but the proportion of killed to wounded (55 to
81) is good evidence of the intensity of the momentary conflict.
So ended the battle. Coburg had by now learned definitely that Charleroi
had surrendered, and while the issue of the battle was still
doubtful--for though the prince of Orange was beaten, Beaulieu was in
the full tide of success--he gave (towards 3 P.M.) the order for a
general retreat. This was delivered to the various commanders between 4
and 5, and these, having their men in hand even in the heat of the
engagement, were able to break off the battle without undue confusion.
The French were far too exhausted to pursue them (they had lost twice as
many men as the Allies), and their leader had practically no formed body
at hand to follow up the victory, thanks to the extraordinary
dissemination of the army.
Tourcoing, Tournay and Fleurus represent the maximum result achievable
under the earlier Revolutionary system of making war, and show the men
and the leaders at the highest point of combined steadiness and
enthusiasm they ever reached--that is, as a "Sansculotte" army.
Fleurus was also the last great victory of the French, in point of
time, prior to the advent of Napoleon, and may therefore be considered
as illustrating the general conditions of warfare at one of the most
important points in its development.
The sequel of these battles can be told in a few words. The Austrian
government had, it is said, long ago decided to evacuate the
Netherlands, and Coburg retired over the Meuse, practically unpursued,
while the duke of York's forces fell back in good order, though
pursued by Pichegru through Flanders. The English contingent embarked
for home, the rest retired through Holland into Hanoverian territory,
leaving the Dutch troops to surrender to the victors. The last phase
of the pursuit reflected great glory on Pichegru, for it was conducted
in midwinter through a country bare of supplies and densely
intersected with dykes and meres. The crowning incident was the
dramatic capture of the Dutch fleet, frozen in at the Texel, by a
handful of hussars who rode over the ice and browbeat the crews of the
well-armed battleships into surrender. It was many years before a
prince of Orange ruled again in the United provinces, while the
Austrian whitecoats never again mounted guard in Brussels.
The Rhine campaign of 1794, waged as before chiefly by the Prussians,
was not of great importance. General v. Mollendorf won a victory at
Kaiserslautern on the 23rd of May, but operations thereafter became
spasmodic, and were soon complicated by Coburg's retreat over the
Meuse. With this event the offensive of the Allies against the French
Revolution came to an inglorious end. Poland now occupied the thoughts
of European statesmen, and Austria began to draw her forces on to the
east. England stopped the payment of subsidies, and Prussia made the
Peace of Basel on the 5th of April 1795. On the Spanish frontier the
French under General Dugommier (who was killed in the last battle)
were successful in almost every encounter, and Spain, too, made peace.
Only the eternal enemies, France and Austria, were left face to face
on the Rhine, and elsewhere, of all the Allies, Sardinia alone (see
below under _Italian Campaigns_) continued the struggle in a
half-hearted fashion.
The operations of 1795 on the Rhine present no feature of the
Revolutionary Wars that other and more interesting campaigns fail to
show. Austria had two armies on foot under the general command of
Clerfayt, one on the upper Rhine, the other south of the Main, while
Mainz was held by an army of imperial contingents. The French, Jourdan
on the lower; Pichegru on the upper Rhine, had as usual superior
numbers at their disposal. Jourdan combined a demonstrative frontal
attack on Neuwied with an advance in force via Dusseldorf, reunited
his wings beyond the river near Neuwied, and drove back the Austrians
in a series of small engagements to the Main, while Pichegru passed at
Mannheim and advanced towards the Neckar. But ere long both were
beaten, Jourdan at Hochst and Pichegru at Mannheim, and the investment
of Mainz had to be abandoned. This was followed by the invasion of the
Palatinate by Clerfayt and the retreat of Jourdan to the Moselle. The
position was further compromised by secret negotiations between
Pichegru and the enemy for the restoration of the Bourbons. The
meditated treason came to light early in the following year, and the
guilty commander disappeared into the obscure ranks of the royalist
secret agents till finally brought to justice in 1804.