of the Selle, keeping the Fifteenth and Leopold Hussars in advance and
the remainder in support; and at about seven o’clock the four advanced
squadrons came upon a force of French light cavalry of twice or thrice
their strength in a long belt of dwarf coppice, near the village of
Montrecourt, and about two miles east of Villers-en-Cauchies. Being
attacked on their left flank the French horsemen at once retreated with
precipitation for a quarter of a mile, when they rallied, and then
retired steadily westward, covered by a cloud of skirmishers. Finally
they re-formed between Villers-en-Cauchies and Avesnes-le-Sec, fronting
to eastward, and masking a force of unknown strength in their rear.
Otto appears to have followed up this cavalry with great speed, for,
on looking round for his supports, he could nowhere discover them. He
halted the advanced squadrons, but, perceiving that he had already
committed them too deeply, he assembled the officers and told them
briefly that there was nothing for it but to attack. The English and
Austrian officers then crossed swords in pledge that they would charge
home; and it was agreed that the British should attack in front, and
the Austrians on the enemy’s left flank towards Avesnes-le-Sec, which
was already a name of good omen in the annals of the Austrian cavalry.
[Illustration:
AVESNES-LE-SEC, 12 Sep, 1793
VILLERS-EN-CAUCHIES
24 April, 1794
BEAUMONT, 26 April, 1794.
_Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt., London._
]
The Fifteenth led by Captain Aylett now advanced at a rapid trot,
breaking into a gallop at one hundred and fifty yards from the French
cavalry. These did not await the shock but wheeled outwards, right and
left, and retired at speed, unmasking a line of French skirmishers
and guns, which opened fire before their front was clear and killed
several of their own soldiers. In rear of the artillery six French
battalions, or about three thousand men, were massed together in
quadrate formation of oblong shape,[221] with the front rank kneeling.
A volley from the eastern face of this square, together with a
discharge of grape from the guns, checked the attack for a moment; but,
cheered on by their officers, the Fifteenth swept through the battery
and dashed straight upon the bayonets. The French infantry seems to
have stood till the last moment, for Aylett fell with a deep thrust
through the body, and four other officers had their horses wounded
under them; but the onset of the Dragoons was irresistible. One half of
the square was dispersed instantly; and the other half, after firing a
volley, broke up likewise before the charge of the Fifteenth, and fled
in wild disorder. In rear of the square were more French squadrons,
upon which those that retired from the front had been re-formed;
but these had given way before the impetuous attack of the Austrian
Hussars, and for half a mile the sabres of both Austrians and British
dealt terrible havoc among the flying Frenchmen.[222]
Leaving, however, the Austrians to pursue the infantry towards
Cambrai, the Fifteenth, now commanded by Captain Pocklington, passed
on to the road from Villers-en-Cauchies to Bouchain, dispersed a long
line of fifty guns and ammunition-waggons, which were retiring to
the north-west, and continued the chase until the guns of Bouchain
itself opened fire upon them, and a relieving force came out to save
the convoy. Meanwhile not a sign appeared of the supporting squadrons
which might have ensured the capture of the artillery; and Pocklington,
observing other forces of the enemy closing in upon him from every
side, rallied his men and retired at a trot. The blue uniform of the
Light Dragoons, however, caused the French to mistake them for friends;
and it was not until they were close to Villers-en-Cauchies that
Pocklington perceived that he was cut off. The enemy was, in fact,
established in his front, blocking the road with infantry and artillery
at a point where a causeway carried it across a valley, though to the
south of the village there were visible the scarlet coats of Mansel’s
brigade. Wheeling about, therefore, for a short time, Pocklington
checked the pursuers that were following him from Bouchain, and then,
wheeling once more to his proper front, he galloped through the French
amid a heavy fire of grape and musketry with little loss, and safely
rejoined his comrades.
Things, however, had not gone well with Mansel and his brigade. Whether
it was by Otto’s fault or by his own that he had gone astray, and
whether he attempted and failed in an attack upon the French who were
obstructing Pocklington’s retreat, is a mystery. We know only that
Craig reported, with great regret, that the brigade had behaved ill;
that he attributed the fault mainly to Mansel, whom after the action
of the 17th he had already reported as an incompetent officer; but
that the troops also were to blame, though the Royals had immediately
recovered themselves and protected the retreat of the other two
regiments. More curious still, the list of casualties shows that the
Third Dragoon Guards suffered the very heavy loss of thirty-eight men
and forty-six horses killed, besides nine more men wounded and missing,
though the casualties of the Royals and the Blues were trifling.[223]
From this I infer that Mansel led his brigade to the sound of the guns,
and, being ordered to attack the fresh division of the enemy that had
come upon the ground, contrived by irresolution and mismanagement to
bring the Third Dragoon Guards under enfilading fire of the French
cannon, and to throw the whole of the six squadrons into confusion. In
any case it is certain that the brilliant attack of the Fifteenth was
insufficiently supported, and that Mansel and his brigade, justly or
unjustly, lay under reproach, until two days later they redeemed their
good name beyond all chance of cavil. The casualties of the French in
this action were eight hundred men killed and four hundred wounded,
besides three guns taken; while the Fifteenth escaped with a loss of
thirty-one men and thirty-seven horses killed and wounded, and the
Leopold Hussars with a loss of ten men and eleven horses killed and
wounded and the same number missing. The Emperor of Austria conferred
on the officers of the Fifteenth a gold medal and the much-coveted
order of Maria Theresa; and the regiment still bears on its
appointments the name of Villers-en-Cauchies. With a little more luck,
or, it may be, a little better management, Otto would have achieved one
of the greatest successes ever recorded of cavalry against infantry,
and annihilated the whole of the force that had moved out from Cambrai.
As matters stood, however, the reverse to the French produced little
effect on Pichegru. Successive reinforcements had more than made good
his losses; and on the 24th of April the combined strength of the
armies of the North and of the Ardennes, not counting fifty thousand
men employed as garrisons, was little short of two hundred thousand men
free for service in the field, or nearly two to one of Coburg’s force.
Relying upon this numerical superiority the French General started for
Lille, in order from thence to direct operations against Clerfaye. At
the same time, however, he set his troops in motion to raise the siege
of Landrecies, directing General Charbonnier with thirty thousand men
of the army of the Ardennes to attack Kaunitz on the extreme left wing
of the Allies, while at the same time General Ferrand with forty-five
thousand from Guise should fall on the covering army on the east and
south, and General Chappuis with thirty thousand men from Cambrai
should assail the Duke of York on the west.
◆April 26.◆
Accordingly, early in the morning of the 26th the French engaged
the covering army simultaneously at all points. On the east General
Fromentin with twenty-two thousand men assailed Maroilles and Prisches,
and after a long and severe struggle captured the latter position,
severing for the time communications between Alvintzy and Kinsky.
Alvintzy himself was disabled by two wounds, and the situation was
for a time most critical until the Archduke Charles, who had succeeded
to the command of Alvintzy’s troops, by a final and skilful effort
recovered the lost ground and drove the French over the Little Helpe.
This enabled him to reinforce the centre under General Bellegarde,
who with some difficulty was defending the line from Oisy to Nouvion
against twenty-three thousand men. Thereupon Bellegarde instantly took
the offensive, completely defeated the French, and captured from them
nine guns.
But far more brilliant was the success of the Allies on the west, where
Chappuis led one column along the high-road from Cambrai to Le Cateau,
while a second column of four thousand men advanced upon the same
point by a parallel course through the villages of Ligny and Bertry, a
little farther to the south. Favoured by a dense fog the two columns
succeeded in driving the advanced posts of the Allies from the villages
of Inchy and Beaumont on the high-road, and of Troisvilles, Bertry,
and Maurois immediately to south of them; which done, they proceeded
to form behind the ridge on which these villages stand, for the main
attack. Before the formation was complete the fog cleared; and the
Duke, observing that Chappuis’s left flank was in the air, made a great
demonstration with his artillery against the French front, sent a few
light troops to engage their right, and calling all his cavalry to his
own right, formed them unseen in a fold in the ground between Inchy and
Bethencourt, a village a little to westward of it.[224] The squadrons
were drawn up in three lines, the six squadrons of the Austrian
Cuirassiers of Zeschwitz forming the first line under Colonel Prince
Schwarzenberg, Mansel’s brigade the second line, and the First and
Fifth Dragoon Guards and Sixteenth Light Dragoons the third, the whole
of the nineteen squadrons being under command of General Otto.[225]
In this order they moved off, Otto advancing with great caution,
and skilfully taking advantage of every dip and hollow to conceal
his movements. A body of French cavalry was first encountered and
immediately overthrown, General Chappuis, who was with them, being
taken prisoner. Then the last ridge was passed and the squadrons saw
their prey before them—over twenty thousand French infantry drawn
up with their guns in order of battle, serenely facing eastward
without thought of the storm that was bursting on them from the
north. There was no hesitation, for Schwarzenberg was an impetuous
leader, and the Cuirassiers had been disappointed of distinction at
Villers-en-Cauchies; the Blues, Royals, and Third Dragoon Guards had a
stain to wipe away; the King’s and Fifth Dragoon Guards were eager for
opportunity to show their mettle; and the Sixteenth Light Dragoons,
being the only Light Dragoons present, were anxious to prove that they
could do as well as the Fifteenth. The trumpets rang out, and with
wild cheering white coats, red coats, and blue coats whirled down
upon the left flank and rear of the French. The French guns, hastily
wheeled round, opened a furious fire of grape, while the infantry
began as furious a fire of musketry; but the charging squadrons took
no heed. Mansel, stung by the imputation of cowardice, which had been
thrown out to account for his mishap on the 24th, had vowed that he
would not come back alive, and dashing far ahead of his men into the
thick of the enemy went down at once; but Colonel Vyse, of the King’s
Dragoon Guards, taking command of both brigades, led them as straight
as Mansel. In a very few minutes the whole mass of the French was
broken up and flying southward in wild disorder, with the sabres hewing
mercilessly among them.
The misfortunes of the enemy did not end here, for one of their
detachments, which had been pushed forward to Troisvilles, was driven
back by a couple of British guns under Colonel Congreve, and joined
the rest in flight. Meanwhile Chappuis’s second column had advanced
a little beyond Maurois with its guns, when the appearance of the
fugitives warned them to retire; but in this quarter, too, there was
a vigilant Austrian officer, Major Stepheicz, with two squadrons of
the Archduke Ferdinand’s Hussars and four of the Seventh and Eleventh
British Light Dragoons. Following up the French column he drove its
rearguard in upon the main body a little to westward of Maretz, and
a few miles further on fell upon the main body also, dispersed it
utterly, and captured ten guns. Twelve hundred Frenchmen were killed
in this part of the field alone, so terrible was the Austrian hussar
in pursuit; two thousand more had fallen under the sabres of Otto’s
division, which likewise captured twenty-two guns and three hundred and
fifty prisoners. The shattered fragments of the French infantry fled by
a wide detour to Cambrai; and Pichegru’s attack on this side was not
merely beaten off, but his troops were literally hunted from the field.
So ended the greatest day in the annals of the British horse, perhaps
the greater since the glory of it was shared with the most renowned
cavalry in Europe. The loss of the Austrians was nine officers, two
hundred and twenty-eight men, and two hundred and eight horses; that
of the British, six officers, one hundred and fifty-six men, and two
hundred and eighty-nine horses, killed, wounded, and missing. The
British regiments that suffered most heavily were the Blues and the
Third Dragoon Guards, each of which had sixteen men and twenty-five
horses killed outright; and the determination of the Third to prove
that the harsh criticism of their comrades on the 24th was unjust, is
shown by the fact that five out of the six officers injured in the
charge belonged to them. Mansel, the Brigadier, who was also their
Colonel, died as has been told. Of the Captains one, his own son, was
overpowered and taken in a desperate effort to extricate his father,
and another was wounded. Of the Lieutenants one was killed and another,
if not two more, wounded. The Major in command, however, had the good
fortune not only to escape unhurt but to receive the sword of General
Chappuis. The total loss of the covering army was just under fifteen
hundred men; that of the French was reckoned, probably with less
exaggeration than usual, at seven thousand, while the guns taken from
them numbered forty-one.
◆April 27.◆
On the following day the Emperor ordered his army to devote itself to
singing a _Te Deum_ and to solemn thanksgiving, which was very right
and proper, but might well have been deferred for forty-eight hours
until the full fruits of the victory had been gathered. For although
there were four fortresses, Avesnes, Guise, Cambrai, and Maubeuge,
within easy distance as a refuge for fugitives, another day’s pursuit
would assuredly have swept up many hundred stragglers, while the mere
sight of the Allied troops would probably have sufficed to set the
French levies running once more. There was, however, better excuse than
usual for inaction, for among General Chappuis’s papers had been found
evidence that a most formidable stroke was about to fall, if it had
not already fallen, upon Flanders. It is now necessary to narrate the
course of events in that quarter, namely, on the right or western wing
of the Allies.
◆April 23.◆
On the 23rd of April a force from Cambrai, acting in concert with that
which was beaten on the 24th at Villers-en-Cauchies, had moved northward
against Wurmb’s corps of communication at Denain, and, but for the
arrival of Clerfaye with some eight thousand men from Tournai, would
have driven it across the Scheldt. ◆April 24.◆ On the 24th, 26th, and
27th the harassing of the advanced posts of the Allies about Denain
continued, and meanwhile the true attack was developed, pursuant to
Carnot’s plans, on the extreme left of the French line. On the 24th
Michaud’s division of twelve thousand men marched from Dunkirk, part of
it towards Nieuport on the north, the rest upon Ypres to south-east,
sweeping back the feeble posts between the two places. Simultaneously
Moreau’s division of twenty-one thousand men moved eastward from Cassel
upon Ypres, and drove all the outlying detachments on that side to take
shelter under the ramparts. ◆April 25–27.◆ Then, leaving some of
Michaud’s division at Messines to watch the fortress from the south,
Moreau pursued his way eastward against Menin, and surrounded that
fortress upon all sides. At the same time Souham’s division of thirty
thousand men, under the personal direction of Pichegru, advanced from
Lille north-eastward upon Mouscron, drove back upon Dottignies the weak
detachment that defended it, and captured Courtrai, ◆April 26.◆ which
was practically without a garrison. ◆April 28.◆ General Oynhausen,
however, restored matters somewhat by collecting troops from Tournai at
Dottignies and retaking the position of Mouscron, where reinforcements
arrived in the nick of time to strengthen him.
The papers found upon Chappuis gave Coburg the key to all these
movements; and on the evening of the 26th he sent twelve battalions
and ten squadrons under General Erskine from his own army to St.
Amand, bidding Clerfaye to recall at once to their proper stations the
reinforcements which he had imprudently hurried to Denain. Clerfaye
accordingly hastened by forced marches through Tournai to Mouscron,
which he reached on the 28th, raising the garrison of that place to
ten thousand men, exclusive of about two thousand more in the detached
posts of Coyghem and Dottignies. The relief of Menin was his first
and most urgent object, and he had fully resolved to attempt it on
the 30th; but Pichegru was too quick for him. ◆April 29.◆ On the 29th
the two columns under Generals Souham and Bertin fell, the one upon
Clerfaye’s front, the other upon his left flank and rear, with a
superiority of three to one, and after a hard struggle forced him from
his position. The Austrian General seems to have begun his retreat in
good order, but the movement speedily degenerated into a flight; and
when he rallied his beaten troops at Dottignies he was the weaker by
two thousand men killed and wounded and twenty-three guns. Happily six
of the battalions sent from the army before Landrecies had by that time
reached Dottignies, and, with these to hearten his demoralised force,
he retired eastward to Espierres, on the western bank of the Scheldt.
This defeat decided the fate of Menin. The garrison consisted of
rather more than two thousand men, chiefly Hanoverians, but in part
French Emigrants, which latter if captured could expect nothing but
the guillotine. The commandant, Count Hammerstein, therefore decided
to cut his way out through the besiegers, and with the fortune that
favours the brave, ◆April 30.◆ succeeded during the night of the 30th
in forcing his passage northward to Thourout and thence to Bruges.
Thus Menin and Courtrai, the two gates of the Lys, were lost, and a
gap was broken in the long cordon of the Allies. Along the whole of
the right wing there was something like a panic, and the roads were
choked with long trains of supplies and stores flying northward to
Brussels and Ghent. At Ostend there had lately arrived the Eighth Light
Dragoons and the Thirty-eighth and Fifty-fifth Foot, sadly belated,
since the infantry, with Dundas’s usual wisdom, had been embarked at
Bristol; but General Stewart, the commandant at Ostend, did not think
it prudent after Clerfaye’s defeat to send them down country.[226]
Happily Pichegru did not pursue his advantage as he ought. ◆May 3.◆ He
did indeed push a detachment northward from Menin upon Roulers, which
was attacked and defeated with a loss of two hundred men and three
guns by three squadrons of the Allied cavalry;[227] but there his
activity ceased; and he solemnly sat himself down about Moorseele on
the left bank of the Lys, with one flank resting on Menin and the other
on Courtrai, as if to allow time for Coburg’s army to come up in his
front.[228]
Coburg meanwhile had passed through no enviable days. ◆April 28.◆ On the
28th news reached him that Kaunitz on his left wing had been forced back
by overwhelming numbers to the Sambre, while on his right wing Pichegru
had made his way to Courtrai; but, however serious the outlook, he was
still tied for the present to the miserable and useless fortress of
Landrecies. By a strange irony Mack on that very day submitted a plan of
future operations, whereby Bouchain, Cambrai, Avesnes, and Maubeuge were
in succession to be besieged;[229] but circumstances on the occasion
were too strong for pedantry. ◆April 30.◆ Landrecies fortunately fell on
the 30th, and Coburg on the same day ordered the Duke of York to lead
the rest of his force with all speed to Clerfaye’s assistance, and to
drive the French from Flanders.
Heavy rain, however, delayed the Duke’s progress; ◆May 3.◆ and it was
not until the 3rd of May that he reached Tournai, where he reunited
Erskine’s force with his own and pushed forward a strong detachment
three miles westward to Marquain and Lamain, releasing five thousand
men, which had hitherto held those points, to join Clerfaye. The front
thus occupied by the Allies, from Tournai in the south to Espierres in
the north, was from seven to eight miles long and faced due west, their
objective being the right flank and communications of the French left
wing. The British brigade at Ostend, namely the Twelfth, Thirty-eighth,
and Fifty-fifth under Major-general Whyte, and the Eighth Light
Dragoons, were by this time on their way to Clerfaye’s army; and the
united force of Clerfaye and the Duke of York was now reckoned at about
forty thousand men.[230] Pichegru, on the other hand, had from forty to
fifty thousand between Menin and Courtrai, and twenty thousand more
under General Bonnaud (who had succeeded Chappuis) at Sainghin, about
five miles south-east of Lille, to act as a reserve. At Clerfaye’s
proposal it was agreed that on the 5th of May he himself should cross
the Lys a little below Courtrai and fall upon that place from the north,
while simultaneously the Duke of York should move eastward to cut it off
from Lille. After all, however, Clerfaye, whether from diffidence or
mere frowardness, would not venture on the attempt. ◆May 8–9.◆ Appeal
was made to the Emperor Francis to give him positive orders to attack,
but meanwhile Bonnaud concentrated over twenty-five thousand men between
Bouvines and Anstaing, a little to the west of Marquain, as if to
threaten the Duke’s left. When the Emperor’s orders at last reached
Clerfaye, he first wasted four days in reconnoitring, and at last made
but a feeble attack on the 10th, contenting himself with the capture of
the outermost fringe of Courtrai.
◆May 10.◆