FIVE

The story of 1794 is but the consequence of what we have just read. It

was the little belt or patch upon the Belgian frontier which was still

in the hands of the enemy that determined the nature of the campaign.

It was not until spring that the issue was joined. The Emperor of

Austria reached Brussels on the 2nd day of April, and a fortnight later

reviewed his army. The French line drawn up in opposition to it suffered

small but continual reverses until the close of the month.

On the 29th Clerfayt suffered a defeat which led to the fall, or rather

the escape, of the small garrison of Menin. Clerfayt was beaten again at

Courtray a fortnight later; but all these early engagements in the

campaign were of no decisive moment. Tourcoing was to be the first heavy

blow that should begin to settle matters, Fleurus was to clinch them.

No battle can be less satisfactorily described in a few lines than that

of Tourcoing, so different did it appear to either combatant, so

opposite are the plans of what was expected on either side, and of what

happened, so confused are the various accounts of contemporaries. The

accusations of treason which nearly always arise after a disaster, and

especially a disaster overtaking an allied force, are particularly

monstrous, and may be dismissed: in particular the childish legend which

pretends that the Austrians desired an English defeat.

What the French say is that excellent forced marching and scientific

concentration permitted them to attack the enemy before the junction of

his various forces was effected. What the Allies say is (if they are

speaking for their centre) that it was shamefully abandoned and

unsupported by the two wings; if they are speaking for the wings, that

the centre had no business to advance, when it saw that the two wings

were not up in time to co-operate.

One story goes that the Archduke Charles was incapacitated by a fit;

Lord Acton has lent his considerable authority to this amusing version.

At any rate, what happened was this:--

The Allies lay along the river Scheldt on Friday, the 16th of May:

Tournay was their centre, with the Duke of York in command of the chief

force there; five or six miles north, down the river, was one extremity

of their line at a place called Warcoing: it was a body of Hanoverians.

The left, under the Archduke Charles, was Austrian and had reached a

place a day’s march south of Tournay called St. Amand. Over against the

Allies lay a large French force also occupying a wide front of over

fifteen miles, the centre of which was Tourcoing, then a village. Its

left was in front of the fortress of Courtrai. Now, behind the French,

up country northward in the opposite direction from the line of the

Allies on the Scheldt was another force of the Allies under Clerfayt.

The plan was that the Allied right should advance on to Mouscron and

take it. The Allied centre should advance on to Tourcoing and Mouveaux

and take them, while the left should march across the upper waters of

the river Marque, forcing the bridges that crossed that marshy stream,

and come up alongside the centre. In other words, there was to be an

attack all along the French line from the south, and while it was

proceeding, Clerfayt, from the north of the French, was to cross the Lys

and attack also.

On the day of the 17th what happened was this: The left of the Allies,

marching from St. Amand, came up half a day late; the right of the

Allies took Mouscron, but were beaten out of it by the French. The

centre of the Allies fulfilled their programme, reaching Tourcoing and

its neighbourhood by noon and holding their positions. It is to the

honour of English arms that this success was accomplished by a force a

third of which was British and the most notable bayonet work in which

was done by the Guards. Meanwhile, Clerfayt was late in moving and in

crossing the river Lys, which lay between him and his objective.

[Illustration: Tourcoing. May 16 to 18, 1794.

The breakdown of the attempt of the Allies to cut off the French near

Courtrai from Lille was due to their failure to synchronise They should

have been in line from A to B at noon of the 17th with Clerfayt at C.]

When night fell, therefore, on the first day of the action, a glance at

the map will show that instead of one solid line advancing against the

French from A to B, and the northern force in touch with it at C, the

Allied formation was an absurd projection in the middle, due to the

success of the mixed and half-British force under the Duke of York: a

success which had not been maintained on the two wings. A bulge of this

sort in an attacking line is on the face of it disastrous. The enemy

have only to be rapid in falling upon either flank of it and the bulge

can be burst in. The French were rapid, and burst in the bulge was. By

concentrating their forces against this one central part of the Allies

they fought three to one.

That same capacity which at Wattignies had permitted them to scorn sleep

and to be indefatigable in marching, put them on the road before three

o’clock in the morning of Sunday, the 18th, and with the dawn they fell

upon the central force of the Allies, attacking it from all three sides.

It is on this account that the battle is called the Battle of Tourcoing,

for Tourcoing was the most advanced point to which the centre of the

Allies had reached. The Germans, upon the Duke of York’s right at

Tourcoing, felt the first brunt of the attack. The Duke of York himself,

with his mixed, half-British force, came in for the blow immediately

afterwards, and while it was still early morning. The Germans at

Tourcoing began to fall back. The Duke of York’s force, to the left of

them, was left isolated: its commander ought not to have hung on so

long. But the defence was maintained with the utmost gallantry for the

short time during which it was still possible. The retreat began about

nine in the morning and was kept orderly for the first two miles, but

after that point it was a rout. The drivers of the British cannon fled,

and the guns, left without teams, blocked the precipitate flight of the

cavalry. Their disorder communicated itself at once to the Guards, and

to the line.

Even in this desperate strait some sort of order was restored, notably

by the Guards Brigade, which were apparently the first to form, and a

movement that could still be called a retreat was pursued towards the

south. The Duke of York himself was chased from spinney to spinney and

escaped by a stroke of luck, finding a bridge across the last brook held

by a detachment of Hessians. In this way were the central columns, who

between them numbered not a third of the total force of the Allies,

destroyed.

Clerfayt had first advanced--but far too late to save the centre--and

then retreated. The Archduke Charles, upon the left, was four hours late

in marching to the help of the Duke of York; the right wing of the

Allies was not even late: it spent the morning in an orderly artillery

duel with the French force opposed to it. By five in the afternoon

defeat was admitted and a general retreat of the Allies ordered.

I have said that many reasons are given to account for the disaster of

Tourcoing, one of the very few in which a British force has been routed

upon the Continent; but I confess that if I were asked for an

explanation of my own, I would say that it was simply due to the gross

lack of synchrony on the part of the Allies, and that this in its turn

was taken advantage of by the power both of vigil and of marching which

the French troops, still inferior in most military characteristics, had

developed and maintained, and which (a more important matter) their

commanders knew how to use.

This heavy blow, delivered on the 18th of May, in spite of a successful

rally a week later, finally convinced the Emperor that the march on

Paris was impossible. Eleven days later, on the 29th, it was announced

in the camp of Tournay, upon which the Allied army had fallen back, that

the Emperor had determined to return to Vienna. The Allied army was

indeed still left upon that front, but the French continued to pour up

against it. It was again their numbers that brought about the next and

the final victory.

Far off, upon the east of that same line, the army which is famous in

history and in song as that of the Sambre et Meuse was violently

attempting to cross the Sambre and to turn the line of the Allies.

Coburg reinforced his right opposite the French left, but numbers had

begun to bewilder him. The enthusiasm of Saint-Just, the science of

Carnot, decided victory at this eastern end of the line.

Six times the passage of the Sambre had failed. Reinforcements continued

to reach the army, and the seventh attempt succeeded.

Charleroi, which is the main fortress blocking the passage of the

Sambre at this place, could be, and was, invested when once the river

was crossed by the French. It capitulated in a week. But the evacuation

of Charleroi was but just accomplished when Coburg, seventy thousand

strong, appeared in relief of the city.

[Illustration: Showing effect of _Ypres_, _Charleroi_ and _Fleurus_ in

wholly throwing back the Allies in June 1794.

_Ypres_ captured on June 19 by the French, they march on Oudenarde and

pass it on June 25 to 27. Meanwhile _Charleroi_ has also surrendered to

the French, and when, immediately afterwards, the Austrians try to

relieve it, they are beaten at _Fleurus_ and retire on Brussels.

Thus the English at _Tournai_ and all the Allied Forces at _Condé_,

_Valenciennes_, _Landrecies_, and _Mons_ are imperilled and must

surrender or retire.]

The plateau above the town where the great struggle was decided, is

known as that of Fleurus, and it was upon the 26th of June that the

armies were there engaged. Never before had forces so equal permitted

the French any success. It had hitherto been the ceaseless

requisitioning of men to supply their insufficient training and command,

which had accomplished the salvation of the country. At Fleurus, though

there was still some advantage on the French side, the numbers were

more nearly equal.

The action was not determined for ten hours, and on the French centre

and left was nearly lost, when the Reserves’ and Marceau’s obstinacy in

front of Fleurus village itself at last decided it.

The consequences of the victory were final. As the French right advanced

from Fleurus the French left advanced from Ypres, and the centre became

untenable for the Allies. The four French fortresses which the enemy

still garrisoned in that Belgian “belt” of which I have spoken, were

invested and re-captured. By the 10th of July the French were in

Brussels, the English were beaten back upon Holland, the Austrians

retreating upon the Rhine, and the continuous success of the

revolutionary armies was assured.

* * * * *

While these things were proceeding upon land, however, there had

appeared a factor in the war which modern desire for comfort and, above

all, for commercial security has greatly exaggerated, but which the

student will do well to note in its due proportion. This factor was the

military weakness of France at sea.

In mere numbers the struggle was entered upon with fleets in the ratio

of about two to one, while to the fleet of Great Britain, already twice

as large as its opponent, must be added the fleets of the Allies. But

numbers did not then, nor will they in the future, really decide the

issue of maritime war. It was the supremacy of English gunnery which

turned the scale. This triumphant superiority was proved in the battle

of the 1st of June, 1794.

The English fleet under Lord Howe attacked the French fleet which was

waiting to escort a convoy of grain into Brest; the forces came in

contact upon the 28th of May, and the action was a running one of three

days.

Two examples must suffice to prove how determining was the superiority

of the British fire. The _Queen Charlotte_, in the final action, found

herself caught between the _Montagne_ and the _Jacobin_. We have the

figures of the losses during the duel of these two flagships. The _Queen

Charlotte_ lost forty-two men in the short and furious exchange, the

_Montagne_ alone three hundred. Again, consider the total figures. The

number of the crews on both sides was nearly equal, but their losses

were as eleven to five. It cannot be too often repeated that the initial

advantage which the English fleet gained in the great war, which it

maintained and increased as that war proceeded, and which it made

absolute at Trafalgar, was an advantage mainly due to the guns.

The reader must not expect in a sketch which ends with the fall of

Robespierre any treatise, however short, upon the effect of sea power in

the revolutionary wars. It has of late years been grossly exaggerated,

the reaction which will follow this exaggeration may as grossly belittle

it. It prevented the invasion of England, it permitted the exasperation

and wearing out of the French forces in the Peninsula. But it could not

have determined the fate of Napoleon. That was determined by his Russian

miscalculation and by his subsequent and consequent defeat at Leipsic.

Upon the early success of the Revolution and the resulting establishment

of European democracy, with which alone these pages deal, sea power was

of no considerable effect.