subject of much complaint both against Knobelsdorf and the Duke of
York, and did not promote good feeling among the Allies in the field.
The battalion was, in fact, lucky to escape annihilation. Murray
blamed Lieutenant-colonel Pennington, who was in command; but it
seems that Knobelsdorf simply told him to enter the wood, which was
full of dense undergrowth, without saying a word of the batteries or
entrenchments hidden within it, though both an Austrian and a Prussian
battalion had already suffered severely in an attempt to carry them.
The Duke of York, who had never contemplated so foolhardy an attack,
wisely thought it best to make no complaint. The battalion itself, to
judge by a letter from one of the officers to Lord Buckingham, was
very indignant with the Duke; and there is every probability that its
complaints reached the ear of Pitt. I mention this, because, though the
matter is in itself a small one, it gives conclusive evidence of the
incessant friction which arose from the indiscipline of the British
officers and from the mistrust which the Allies felt for each other.
It is safe to conjecture that this uninformed criticism of generals
by their subordinate officers continued throughout the campaign; and
the preservation of the letter above mentioned among Lord Grenville’s
papers is proof that such criticism was not disregarded by their
powerful patrons at home. Unfortunately there is too much reason to
fear that this evil even now is not unknown in our Army.[130]
During the following days the Allies were considerably strengthened by
the arrival of successive detachments of Hanoverians and of one brigade
of British cavalry under General Ralph Dundas;[131] but already Murray,
with his American experience, had awoke to his weakness in light
troops, and was recommending the acceptance of two offers to raise
corps of foreign riflemen and Polish Uhlans.[132] The primitive tactics
of the French were beginning to tell. The raw levies understood war to
signify the killing of the enemy—even of one man rather than none at
all—and the saving of themselves. When therefore a mass of them was set
in motion, the bravest men advanced, taking advantage of every shelter
afforded by the ground, and did their utmost to shoot their opponents
down; while the rest ran away or remained at a safe distance, to return
in a fierce tumultuous swarm if the enemy showed signs of wavering, but
not otherwise. ◆May 21.◆ However, on the 21st, Coburg, much rejoiced
by the reinforcement of British and Hanoverians, judged himself strong
enough to pursue his plan of campaign, and decided to drive the
French from their camp at Famars preliminarily to the investment of
Valenciennes. Meanwhile, to the general regret, Mack resigned his post
on Coburg’s staff, owing partly to ill-health, partly to his sense
of Thugut’s antagonism to him;[133] and the Prince of Hohenlohe, a
veteran of seventy-one, was called from Luxemburg to take his place. It
was, however, enough at that time that the attack should be designed by
an Austrian General to ensure that it should be repugnant to all good
sense.
The entrenched camp of Famars embraced two broad parallel plateaux,
divided by the little river Rhonelle, which lie immediately to the
south of Valenciennes. The western plateau, that of Famars, has a
length of about four miles, and abuts on the village of Artres; the
eastern, which is broader and less clearly defined than the other, has
a length of about three and a half miles, and terminates at the village
of Préseau. Both are practically flat upon the summit, unenclosed, and
were covered with crops. The ascent to them is steepest from the west
and south, and the valley dug between them by the Rhonelle, though not
deep, plunges down so abruptly as to present sides of sharp though
short declivity. The ridge of Famars was protected by a series of
detached flêches and redoubts placed on every commanding point on the
northern, western, and southern sides. The passages over the Rhonelle
at Artres, and at Maresches, a mile and a half above it, were defended
by strong entrenchments and batteries, and all the fords on this narrow
but deep and sluggish stream had been destroyed. The eastern ridge was
fortified by a continuous entrenchment with three redoubts, which was
carried for nearly a mile along the length of the summit. The force at
hand for its defence was about twenty-five thousand men, besides which
five thousand men held the fortified position of Anzin; while a small
detachment due west of it at Aubry maintained communication with the
post of Hasnon, still further to north and west.
The attack of the main position was assigned to two principal columns,
of which the left or southern was placed under command of the Duke of
York, with orders to assemble his force on the heights between Préseau
and Maresches, and to assail the right flank of the position. This
column was made up of sixteen battalions, eighteen squadrons, and
thirty-eight reserve-guns,[134] of which the brigade of Guards[135]
and the eight squadrons of Dundas’s brigade were British. The second
principal column consisted of twelve battalions, of which three
were the English of Abercromby’s brigade,[136] twelve squadrons and
twenty-three reserve-guns, with five pontoons, under the Austrian
General Ferraris. His orders were to assemble between Saultain and
Curgies, a little to the north-east of Préseau, to drive the enemy from
their positions east of the Rhonelle, and to cross the river itself,
or at least feint to do so. Besides these, a third column under Count
Colloredo was to observe Valenciennes from between Estreux and Onnaing,
and to protect Ferraris’s right flank; a fourth, further to the right,
under Clerfaye, was to attack the entrenched camp of Anzin; a fifth
still further to the right under Knobelsdorf was to march from St.
Amand against Hasnon; and a sixth and seventh under the Crown Prince
and Prince Frederick of Orange were to move respectively from Tournai
upon Orchies, and from Menin upon Tourcoing. Finally, on the extreme
left or western flank, there were an eighth column, under General Otto,
to protect the Duke of York’s left by an advance by Villerspol upon
Quesnoy, and a ninth to disquiet the French on the Sambre from Bavai.
The scheme was typically Austrian; that is to say, too full of science
to leave room for sense.
[Illustration:
Attack of the Allies
on the
CAMP OF FAMARS
23 May, 1793.
_Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London._
]
◆May 23.◆
The morning broke in dense fog, so that the main attack did not begin
until near seven o’clock, when the Duke of York’s column, after marching
most of the night, made its way with little resistance to Artres. There
failing to force the passage of the river, which was defended by five
batteries, the Duke left his heavy guns with about a third of his force
to engage the French artillery, and proceeded with the rest higher up
the stream to Maresches, where a ford was found, and the passage was
with some trouble and delay accomplished. Meanwhile Ferraris attacked
the long entrenchment on the eastern ridge, opening fire from three
batteries, while Abercromby on the right and four Austrian battalions on
the left advanced to the assault, and carried the works with little
difficulty, capturing seven guns and over one hundred prisoners. Two
French regiments of cavalry, which tried to turn the scale against the
assaulting columns, were most gallantly charged by the Austrian Hussars
and the Hanoverian Life Guards, and actually defeated, notwithstanding
that the victorious troops had all the disadvantage of a steep ascent
against them. Coburg then halted Ferraris’s column, until further news
should come of the Duke of York’s advance. But the Duke, after making a
wide turning movement by Querenaing and driving the French from their
outlying defences, found himself at sunset at the foot of the most
formidable ascent in the whole position, crowned at different points by
four redoubts which flanked each other. Thereupon, since his men had
been on foot for eighteen hours, he decided to defer the attack till
next morning. Elsewhere, the success of the various columns was
indifferent. Knobelsdorf could win no more than the outworks of Hasnon;
Clerfaye failed to take the camp of Anzin; and, though the Prince of
Orange drove the French from Orchies, his brother, Prince Frederick of
Orange, was foiled before Tourcoing. ◆May 24.◆ Coburg gave orders for
renewal of the attack on the entrenchments of Famars and Anzin at
daybreak of the 24th; but it was found that the French, after
reinforcing the garrison of Valenciennes, had evacuated all their
positions and retired to Bouchain. The trophies of the Allies were
seventeen guns, captured at various points, and three hundred prisoners;
and the further loss of the French was set down, doubtless with
exaggeration, at three thousand killed and wounded. Even so the results
of the day were unsatisfactory. The Austrians, of course, blamed the
Duke of York; and Murray, without specifying who was in fault, wrote
privately that a great deal more might have been done.[137] But, in
truth, no one except an Austrian of that period could have looked for
great results from so feeble and faulty a plan of attack.
However, the ground was now clear for the siege of Valenciennes; and
Coburg, as a compliment to the Duke of York, offered him the command of
the besieging force, including fourteen thousand Austrians. There was
much division in the British Cabinet over this piece of politeness, for
Ministers were still in the dark as to Austria’s general intentions; and
some of them feared that the troops under the Duke of York might be so
much crippled by the siege of Valenciennes as to be unfit for the
subsequent siege of Dunkirk. However, notwithstanding their suspicions
of some sinister design on Austria’s part, the Duke received permission
to accept the command; though Coburg was careful to attach General
Ferraris to his staff with secret orders to take the entire direction of
the operations upon himself.[138] The chief of the English Engineers,
Colonel Moncrieff, was urgent for storming the town without further ado,
and was confident that, if his plans were followed, the place could be
taken within twelve days; but, though Murray was wholly of Moncrieffs
opinion, Ferraris would not hear of it. ◆June 13.◆ A fortnight was
therefore spent in collecting heavy artillery, after which ground was
duly broken on the 13th of June, before a greater and a lesser horn-work
on the east side of the town. About twenty-five thousand men were
actually employed on the siege, while the remainder, about thirty
thousand men, formed the covering army; and, practically speaking,
active operations upon both sides ceased except round the walls of the
beleaguered fortress.
Yet, far away to westward, there had been a movement disquieting to
the British. On the 29th of May forty transports, conveying the second
brigade of British cavalry,[139] came into Ostend; whereupon Captain
Carnot, knowing the slackness of the Dutch garrisons at Furnes and
Nieuport, which covered that place, determined to surprise them from
Dunkirk, and then by a swift march forward to seize and burn the
British shipping. ◆May 30.◆ Moving out accordingly on the night of the
30th, he reached Furnes at daybreak, drove the Dutch headlong from the
town, and was hoping to follow them up to Nieuport, when the whole of
his troops with one accord fell to the plunder of the town, heedless
of their officers, and in a short time were reeling or lying in all
directions, hopelessly drunk. Far from seizing Ostend, he was thankful
that the Dutch did not return and cut his helpless battalions to
pieces.[140]
Nevertheless, the movement fulfilled the useful purpose of frightening
the British Cabinet. Dundas was possessed by a kind of superstition
respecting Ostend, having apparently some idea that it might be held
as the gate of the Austrian Netherlands from the sea, even if the rest
of the country were evacuated. Though the place itself was part of the
Austrian dominions, the guardianship of the whole of the coast, and
indeed of the right flank of the Allied army, was entrusted to the
Dutch; and in spite of all protests the Dutch declined to do anything
for its defence. Ostend was in fact indefensible, being divided by
an unbridged estuary which cut it in two at every flood tide, and
was safe from a French attack only for so long as Menin, Ypres,
and Nieuport were held by the Allies. The Duke of York and Murray
therefore regarded it as of no military value, though of some temporary
convenience, looking upon Antwerp and the Scheldt as their true base
and channel of communication with England. Nothing, however, would
convince Dundas of Ostend’s insignificance. He took the place under
his own control, sent heavy ordnance to be mounted for its defence,
appointed a special officer, General Ainslie, to take command of it,
and plagued Murray so incessantly to fortify it that the Duke of York,
for the sake of peace, consented to raise a few entrenchments on a
small scale. The Duke had hardly done so, however, before he received
a rebuke from Dundas for spending too much money; whereupon he, of
course, suspended the work, being, as Murray said, at a loss to know
how to proceed. This was the beginning of a more minute and persistent
interference of Dundas with the conduct of the operations, with its
inevitable consequence of strained relations between him and the
General in the field.[141]
Meanwhile the siege of Valenciennes went forward slowly and
methodically, much more so, indeed, than seemed necessary either to
Murray or to Moncrieff, though bad weather was accountable in some
measure for the delay. ◆July 10.◆ At length, on the 10th of July, Condé
surrendered after a severe bombardment, and was occupied in the name of
the Emperor Francis. ◆July 22.◆ Twelve days later Mainz opened its gates
to the Prussians, though the garrison was twenty thousand strong, and
had still bread and wine to last for some days. ◆July 26.◆ Finally, on
the 26th, an assault was delivered in three columns upon the two
horn-works of Valenciennes, one column being led by a storming party of
the Guards, and supported by part of Abercromby’s brigade. The attacks
of all three succeeded with little loss, and Murray, after a strong
altercation with the Austrian engineer, insisted, in defiance of
Ferraris’s orders, upon making a lodgment in the greater horn-work.[142]
◆July 28.◆ Thereupon, on the 28th of July, the French General, Ferrand,
capitulated. The place was taken over, like Condé, in the Emperor’s
name, amid the loud applause not only of the citizens but of the
garrison, who trampled the tricolour under foot and hailed the Duke of
York as King of France. All three of the captured garrisons were
permitted to return to their own place, on condition that they should
not fight against the Allies during the remainder of the war.
Unfortunately, after the fall of Valenciennes the Allies in Flanders,
far from pressing their advantage, fell to debating what they should
do next. It had been already agreed that the Austrians should give
up ten thousand men to the Duke of York for the siege of Dunkirk;
but Coburg, seeing the danger of the plan, made a last effort to
avert it by submitting a new scheme for taking the offensive in
concert with Prussia; he himself to move south-east upon Maubeuge
from Valenciennes, while the Prussians should advance south-west from
Mainz upon Sarrelouis. King Frederick William gladly assented, but
the Duke of York protested, as under his instructions he was bound
to do; and he was upheld by a messenger who arrived from Vienna at
Coburg’s headquarters on the 6th of August. Thugut had been at work
on one of his usual subtilties. He had soothed Pitt by renouncing the
exchange of Belgium for Bavaria, but had begged that Prussia might not
be informed of the renunciation; for he was still secretly bent on
obtaining Bavaria by some means, and had resolved to purchase it by the
cession of Alsace. Hence it was his wish that the King of Prussia, and
particularly the Austrian troops under General Wurmser who were serving
with him, should move south into Alsace, and that Coburg should pursue
the plan, already agreed upon, of besieging Quesnoy, while the Duke of
York invested Dunkirk. Coburg thereupon gave way, though with no very
good grace; and it was resolved that, before his army was separated
from the Duke’s, a general action should be fought, as an essential
preliminary to the subsequent operations.[143]
The position of the French under General Kilmain was known as that
of Caesar’s Camp, which lies on the left bank of the Scheldt about
two miles above Bouchain; but in reality it formed an irregular
quadrilateral, of which a part of Villars’s famous lines of La Bassée
formed the northern side. Facing due east, Kilmain’s front was covered
by the Scheldt from Bouchain to Cambrai, his rear by the river Agache,
which runs into the Sensée a little to the south of Arleux, his right
by the Sensée, and his left by the wood and heights of Bourlon from
Cambrai to Marquion. All passages over the Scheldt were closed by
entrenchments, and the valley itself was flooded; all passages over
the Sensée were equally defended, while the right from Cambrai to
Agache was strengthened by field-works and abatis. Such a position,
held by sixty thousand men, was formidable, and Coburg accordingly
resolved to turn it by the south. The turning column, consisting of
fourteen thousand men under the Duke of York, was to assemble about
Villers-en-Cauchies and Saint Aubert, and to cross the Scheldt at
Masnières and Crevecœur, about five miles south of Cambrai. A second
column of about nine thousand men under the Austrian General Colloredo,
and a third of about twelve thousand under General Clerfaye, were to
force the passage of the Scheldt in the front of the position. The
remainder of the army, little less than half of it, was uselessly
frittered away in posts of observation.
Murray, foreseeing that the French would retire as soon as they
perceived the turning movement, begged persistently that more cavalry
should be given to the Duke of York, in order to inflict some
punishment on them. His request was refused, and the result was
exactly that which he had expected. ◆Aug. 7.◆ The Duke, after a march
of eleven hours on a day of extraordinary heat, found his troops too
much exhausted to pass the river at Masnières; and Kilmain, withdrawing
quietly in the night, made good his retreat upon Arras with little
loss, though the British cavalry made a few prisoners. The Austrians,
of course, blamed the Duke of York, though Coburg had sent Hohenlohe
with him for the express purpose of superintending his operations; but
the arrangements of the day opened Murray’s eyes to the essential vices
of the Austrian tactics. “We were not in force to attack the enemy,”
he wrote; “the Duke’s column was a long way from support, and between
ourselves we were not sorry to see them go off.” It was only after long
schooling by disaster that the Austrians at last abandoned a system of
which the rottenness was clear to the much despised Briton.[144]
After the engagement, Coburg pressed the Duke of York to remain with him
for yet another fortnight, in order to renew the attack on the French
army or to take Cambrai, the last fortress that blocked the way into
France. But the Duke could only obey his instructions as to Dunkirk,
which had lately been reiterated by Dundas;[145] and the two armies
accordingly parted. Coburg, weakened by the withdrawal of nine thousand
Prussian troops, and not yet compensated by the restoration of fourteen
thousand Austrians from the Rhine, resolved to besiege Quesnoy, and
meanwhile spread his force in several detachments from Denain to
Bettignies. ◆Aug. 13.◆ The Duke assembled his whole force of about
thirty-seven thousand men[146] at Marchiennes on the Scarpe on the 13th
of August, and on the 15th marched in two columns north-west by Baisieux
and Tourcoing upon Menin. From Baisieux the route lay across the front
of the great fortress of Lille, and of the French fortified posts
extending from that city to Dunkirk; ◆Aug. 18.◆ and on the morning of
the 18th, soon after the advanced guard of the southern column had moved
from Tourcoing, heavy firing was heard in the direction of Linselles,
about two miles to the west of that place. The Prince of Orange, for
reasons best known to himself, had seized the opportunity to sally out
from Menin, and surprise the French posts of Blaton and Linselles, which
being accomplished, he left two weak battalions to hold them, and
retired. About mid-day the French returned with five thousand men and
drove out the Dutch; and an hour or two later an aide-de-camp came
galloping into Menin to ask for help. The Duke of York at once ordered
out the brigade of Guards, which had just arrived at Menin after a
severe march, with a few guns, under General Lake. The three battalions,
without their flank companies, and therefore little over eleven hundred
strong, at once turned out, and traversed the six miles to Linselles in
little more than an hour, but, on reaching it, found not a Dutchman
there. They were, however, saluted by a heavy fire of grape from
batteries which they had supposed to be in possession of the Dutch; and
thereupon Lake determined to attack at once.
The hill, on which the village of Linselles stands, is fairly steep on
its northern face, and was further strengthened by two redoubts before
the village itself and by a barrier of palisades on the road, while its
flanks were secured by woods and ditches. Lake at once deployed into
line under a heavy fire of grape, and, after firing three or four
volleys, charged with the bayonet and drove the French from the redoubts
and village. He then halted and re-formed on the southern side of the
hill, not without apprehensions lest the enemy should rally and make a
counter attack while he was still unsupported. Fortunately, however,
the French were not equal to the attempt, being still of the inferior
quality which was inevitable under the foolish administration of the
Jacobins, and so puny in stature that the Guards cuffed and jostled them
like a London mob, without condescending to kill them.[147] Lake was
therefore left unmolested on his ground, until at nightfall six
battalions of Hessians arrived, in reply to his urgent messages for
reinforcement, to relieve him. His trophies were twelve guns, seventy
prisoners, and a colour, but his losses amounted to one hundred and
eighty-seven officers and men killed and wounded; and no real object
whatever was gained. The action was undoubtedly most brilliant, and the
conduct of the men beyond all praise; while Lake’s swift decision to
escape from a most dangerous situation by an immediate attack stamps him
as a ready commander. But it is a grave reflection upon the Duke of York
that he should so thoughtlessly have exposed some of his best troops to
needless danger, leaving them isolated and unsupported for several
hours. It is still less to his credit that, when he finally relieved
them by a detachment of Hessians, he actually left these also isolated
and unsupported within striking distance of a superior enemy during the
whole night, for no better purpose than to rase some paltry French
earthworks which a few hours would suffice to throw up again. Because
the Prince of Orange was guilty of one act of signal foolishness, there
was no occasion to outdo him by another.