began to tell upon the councils of the Imperial Headquarters at Tournai.
◆May 23.◆ On the 23rd, Mack, disgusted by the failure of his elaborate
plans, resigned his post as Chief of the Staff, and, having first
expressed his opinion that the reconquest of Belgium was hopeless,
retired for the time into private life. His successor, Waldeck, being a
fellow-conspirator with Thugut, was still more eager for the evacuation
of the Netherlands; and the Emperor was easily tempted to share their
views. ◆May 24.◆ On the 24th a Council of War was held for form’s sake,
wherein the Emperor set forth the situation in such a light as to gain a
ready vote from his Generals that further efforts in the Netherlands
were useless. The Duke of York alone pleaded earnestly for a renewal of
the attack upon Flanders; and, as fate ordained it, his representations
were seconded by unexpected successes of the Allies on the Sambre and in
the Palatinate. On the 24th Marshal Möllendorf and the Prussians
surprised the French about Kaiserslautern and drove them back with a
loss of three thousand men and twenty guns; and on the same day Count
Kaunitz gained a still more important victory on the Sambre. The fact
was that serious differences had arisen at Paris between Carnot on the
one side and Robespierre and St. Just on the other, because Carnot
insisted on keeping the direction of the military operations in his own
hands. Robespierre, to whom the art of war was as incomprehensible as a
Chinese manuscript, was furious with jealousy and rage. “At the first
reverse, Carnot’s head shall fall,” cried the despicable creature,
galled by the cold contempt with which his inflexible colleague rebuffed
his attempts at interference; and to re-establish civil influence at the
seat of war, St. Just, Lebas, and five more Commissioners set out on the
2nd of May for the army of the Sambre. There they introduced the rule of
terror in its worst form, and with it, of course, confusion unspeakable.
They fought with the Generals, they fought among themselves; and in the
midst of this chaos St. Just took upon himself the supreme direction of
the operations whereby the Austrians were to be crushed. ◆May 18, 20,
22, 24.◆ Four several times he ordered the army to pass the Sambre,
wasting the lives of his troops with obstinate imbecility. ◆May 24.◆
Finally he gave Kaunitz the opportunity for a counter-attack, in which,
with inconsiderable loss to themselves, the Austrians routed the French
completely, killing and wounding two thousand men, and capturing three
thousand more, besides fifty pieces of cannon.
This heavy blow to the French right wing offered a fair occasion for
the Allies to renew the offensive in Western Flanders; and the Duke
of York urged this step upon his colleagues with all his might. The
British Government too, reckoning that the troops, promised by Prussia
in return for a British subsidy, must be nearly ready, decided to
send out Lord Cornwallis to concert operations with Möllendorf, and
directed him also to consult the Emperor and the Duke of York on his
way to the Prussian Headquarters. But, as has already been told, King
Frederick William was occupied rather with Poland than France at the
moment; and he had also been much irritated by certain dispositions
which had been proposed for his army by Mack in the middle of May. “I
am astonished at the fashion in which Mack thinks to make use of my
troops,” wrote the King. “Does Mack imagine that we can live on air?”
echoed Möllendorf;[246] both of them being secretly delighted with so
good an excuse for remaining inactive. ◆May 29.◆ Then suddenly, on the
29th of May, the Allied Camp at Tournai was thrown into consternation
by the announcement that the Emperor was about to return to Vienna.
Aided by the defeat of the 18th, Thugut had succeeded in persuading his
imperial master to abandon the Austrian Netherlands; and even Mack, the
unpopular Quartermaster-general, had supported him by recommending not
only the evacuation of the country but the conclusion of peace with
France.
The truth was that jealousy of Prussia had prevailed over all other
considerations, and that the Emperor had decided to offer help to
the Empress Catherine in quelling the Polish insurrection. He hoped,
however, at the same time to delude Prussia into keeping thirty
thousand men upon the Rhine, and England into furnishing a subsidy for
the ostensible prosecution of the war with France; and it was therefore
imperative upon him to conceal his intentions. He accordingly gave
out that the object of his departure was to hasten the recruiting of
his forces; and in his final letter to Coburg, who very unwillingly
retained the command, he gave him only vague instructions to adapt his
action to the exigencies of the campaign and to save his troops as much
as possible. But this duplicity deceived no one, and the less because
Waldeck, before he had succeeded Mack as Chief of the Staff, had openly
declared that the war in Belgium must be ended. The Austrian troops
were profoundly discouraged, and two-thirds of the officers asked
permission to retire. They can hardly be blamed, for the succession
of murderous actions fought by the Allies against the French on the
northern frontier of France, between the 17th of April and the 22nd
of May 1794, has few parallels in the history of war. For a month
Austrians, British, and Germans had contended almost unceasingly
against superior numbers, slaying or taking, not without heavy loss to
themselves, French soldiers by the ten thousand, and capturing French
cannon by the score. Yet all had been to no purpose, partly because
the leaders had deliberately chosen a foolish plan of operations,
partly because they had steadily refused to follow up their successes,
partly because on the 18th of May they had held two-thirds of the
army inactive within sound of the guns which were overwhelming their
comrades. The bravest men will not fight upon such terms. They will not
be butchered to serve the intrigues of politicians whose dishonesty
would disgrace a sergeant, and of potentates whose incapacity would
disqualify a corporal. In days to come Austria ◆May 29.◆ was to pay
dearly in Italy for the 29th of May 1794.[247]
Immediately before the Emperor’s departure came news from Kaunitz that
the French had again crossed the Sambre in force; which compelled
Coburg to send him large reinforcements, and thus to weaken the right
and centre of the Allies in order to strengthen their left. At the
same time, for the sake of keeping the Dutch in good humour, Coburg
was obliged to give the supreme command in that quarter to the Crown
Prince of Orange, to the natural disgust of Kaunitz, who had shown much
ability and achieved great successes. The great safeguard, however,
to eastward was that St. Just insisted upon controlling the French
operations; and it need not be said that against such an adversary
even the Prince of Orange was victorious. But far more serious were
the movements of the French on the western flank. Apprised of Coburg’s
detachment of troops to the Sambre, hoping still to further Carnot’s
projects for invasion of England, and above all conscious of the
advantage offered to French tactics by the enclosed country of Western
Flanders, Pichegru determined to prosecute his operations on that
side. Accordingly, leaving between thirty and forty thousand men in
positions about Mouscron and Menin to hold Coburg in check, he marched
with about the same number on Ypres. ◆June 1.◆ On the 1st of June
about fifteen thousand men surrounded the fortress on the west and
south, and opened their first parallel; while some twenty thousand
more under Souham took post about Passchendaele, about six miles to
the north-east, to cover the siege from Clerfaye, who was lying at
Thielt. On that same day, by a curious irony, Lord Howe defeated the
Brest fleet, taking eight French ships and sinking two more. This
action, in which the regiments on the fleet, and particularly the
Sixty-Ninth,[248] played no inconspicuous part, closed for the present
all Carnot’s projects of an invasion.
The event, however, in no way disturbed the plans of Pichegru. ◆June 4.◆
On the 4th of June Clerfaye contrived to pass two battalions into Ypres
to strengthen the garrison; but he declared himself unable, with the
fifteen thousand men that remained to him, to relieve the place unless
he were reinforced. By express command of the Emperor, who had lingered
at Brussels on his homeward journey, Coburg sent him some ten thousand
men in two detachments, reckoning that, after the recent victory on the
Sambre, he could safely draw a few troops from that quarter. Clerfaye,
however, continued to display the sluggishness which had characterised
his conduct from the beginning of the campaign. ◆June 6.◆ On the 6th,
before his reinforcements had reached him, he made a feeble advance
against Souham in four columns, and was of course unsuccessful; ◆June
10.◆ and on the 10th, when his force had been raised to over twenty
thousand men, he was assailed and defeated with loss by Souham before he
could make up his mind to act. On that same day Coburg had designed to
make a diversion in Clerfaye’s favour, by an attack on Mouscron, upon a
plan calculated so exactly to expose the Duke of York’s column to
destruction, as on the 18th of May, that the Duke refused to accept it
until it was altered. This, however, was of small importance, for the
French, having perfect information of the intended movements, appeared
in every direction in such force that the enterprise was abandoned. The
state of things at the Austrian headquarters was indeed almost beyond
belief. Insensible to all ideas of duty and discipline, the young
staff-officers, described by Craig as “in general the most contemptible
of puppies,” had talked openly of the projected movement in the
coffee-houses at noon, though the Duke of York received no information
of it until ten hours later, nor any orders until four o’clock on the
next morning. “Mack used to keep these gentry in order,” wrote Craig,
“and, had he been here, the prison would have been full of them next
day; but indeed it would never have happened.” ◆June 12.◆ Meanwhile
Clerfaye remained so incurably supine that the Duke of York more than
once entreated Coburg to entrust the relief of Ypres to himself, but in
vain. ◆June 13.◆ Roused by repeated orders to attack, Clerfaye at last
moved against Souham in five columns, gained some advantage at first,
captured ten guns, and then as usual sat still until Souham had gathered
troops sufficient for a counter attack, when he immediately retired to
his old position at Thielt.
This sealed the fate of Ypres, the key of maritime Flanders, the chief
support of the right flank of the Allies, the bulwark which protected
the British communications with Ostend. The Duke of York pleaded hard
for a last effort to save it, by a march of the whole army to join
Clerfaye; but without success. “The truth is,” wrote Craig, “that the
Austrian army is incapable of further action. The men are disheartened
and the officers disgusted and disunited.” It was finally decided that,
to cover Ostend and the Dutch frontier, Clerfaye should take up a
position between the Lys and the Scheldt about Deynse, some ten miles
to the south-west of Ghent; keeping half of his force between Bruges
and Ostend, and sending the Eighth Light Dragoons, Thirty-eighth and
Fifty-fifth, which had formed part of his force, to Ostend. “We are
too weak by ten thousand men to hold this defensive position,” wrote
Craig; “if the French see their chance and push Clerfaye, they will
force us to abandon this position about Tournai and will pass the
Scheldt in spite of us; and then ten to one we shall find ourselves
separated from him and beaten in detail.... Sooner than hold the
defensive position I would concentrate the whole army, eighty thousand
men, march to the Sambre, attack them at any risk and march back
again.... You may expect to hear from us soon in Holland.” Clearly
there was one among the despised British officers who could have taught
the Austrians a lesson.[249]
The situation was indeed a desperate one. The Austrians, having taken no
pains to restore the fortifications of Tournai, had thrown up an
entrenched camp for its protection on the western side. These lines
extended from the city southward along the Scheldt to Maulde, and
required so many men for their defence that few could be spared for
active operations. Some seven thousand Frenchmen at Mons-en-Pévèle kept
the left of the Allies in continual alarm for the safety of Orchies,
which was the key of Maulde and of the passage of the Scheldt at
Mortagne; for if that passage were forced, the communication between
Coburg and the army of the Sambre would be endangered. A little to the
north of Mons-en-Pévèle was the entire garrison of Lille, and still
further to the north, between Lille and Menin, stood from twenty to
thirty thousand more French troops. Behind this screen to westward, from
fifty thousand to sixty thousand of the enemy were engaged as the
besieging and covering armies at Ypres; and far beyond them to the north
lay the right wing of the Allies under Clerfaye, stretched in a weak
attenuated line from Ostend to the Lys, and only maintaining
communication with Tournai by the circuitous route of the Scheldt. On
the eastern flank the French had now some seventy-five thousand men on
the Sambre, with a capable leader in Jourdan, albeit one still hampered
by the interference of St. Just; and this was the only quarter in which
recent events had gone favourably for the Allies. Such a situation could
not last long, and the strain upon Coburg must have been cruelly severe.
◆June 16.◆ On the 16th, however, there came a gleam of hope. The French
on that day again passed the Sambre, but for the fifth time were driven
back with heavy loss; ◆June 18.◆ and Coburg, having summoned four
battalions from that quarter, determined on the 18th to march and join
with Clerfaye in a final attempt to relieve Ypres. The troops were
already in motion, when in the evening the news came that the French had
crossed the Sambre for the sixth time, and successfully invested
Charleroi. Thereupon the enterprise was abandoned. ◆June 19.◆ On the
following day Ypres surrendered, and thus Carnot’s original plan of
turning both flanks of the Allies began, after two months of murderous
fighting, to accomplish itself.
Enabled by the fall of Ypres to turn the whole of his attention to
eastward, Coburg at once proposed that he should march with all the
Austrian troops to Charleroi, and leave the Duke of York to guard the
line of the Scheldt from Tournai to Condé. The Duke answered that
his instructions were to keep the whole of the troops in British pay
together, but that, if ordered, he would gladly lead the whole of them
with Coburg to the Sambre. Since, however, his force was absolutely
inadequate to guard the line of the Scheldt, he insisted that, if it
were left behind, an Austrian garrison should remain at Tournai, and
that he himself should take up a position on the eastern bank of the
Scheldt between that city and Oudenarde, so as to ensure his retreat in
case of mishap.
The offer to march to the Sambre was fair, and it is difficult to
understand why Coburg did not embrace it; for, if the battle on the
Sambre were lost, it would obviously be impossible for the Duke’s
troops to remain isolated in Flanders. Coburg did, however, reject
it, though he consented to station about five thousand Austrians
under General Kray between Denain and Orchies, promising that, if he
succeeded in forcing back the enemy on the Sambre, he would return
without delay, but that, in the event of his failure, he should not
expect the Duke of York to maintain his position on the Scheldt. He
also took the significant step of transferring the Austrian hospitals
and stores at Valenciennes, as well as the magazines about Tournai,
to Brussels and Antwerp; the removal of the stores at Brussels having
begun some time ◆June 21.◆ before.[250] Finally, on the 21st, he
marched away; and the Duke, since the corps in British pay had now
shrunk to seven thousand men, contracted his quarters, and took up a
new position closer to Tournai.
But meanwhile the news that Ostend was in danger had, as usual, stirred
Dundas to unwonted exertion in England. He still made a fetish of the
place, and his original intention seems to have been to defend it,
without any particular reference to the Duke of York’s operations. On
the 17th of June, therefore, he ordered Lord Moira’s force in the Isle
of Wight and the Channel Islands to sail for Ostend at once, together
with drafts of recruits and three fresh regiments from Ireland, making
in all a reinforcement of about ten thousand men. On the 20th Moira’s
troops embarked, and on the 21st the Eighth, the Forty-fourth, and the
recruits arrived at Ostend. The drafts, it must be remarked, arrived
without arms or military appointments of any kind; and it was only a fog
at sea that prevented a whole regiment, the Ninetieth, from being also
landed there without either arms or clothing, Dundas having ordered it
to embark without enquiry as to these details.[251] But Pichegru
meanwhile did not remain idle, and leaving Ypres on the 20th marched
upon Clerfaye’s position at Deynse. ◆June 23.◆ The Austrian General,
after a short defence of his entrenchments, retired, with the loss of
not a few men and three guns, first to Ghent, and then beyond it,
finally taking up a position on the north side of the canal that runs
from Ghent to Sluys, ◆June 24.◆ where he was presently joined by his
detachments from Bruges. ◆June 25.◆ On the 25th of June there arrived at
Ostend, after a voyage of nineteen days from Cork, one squadron of the
Fourteenth Light Dragoons and the Thirty-third regiment, the latter
under the command of an officer whose name it still bears, but who was
then an impecunious younger son of five-and-twenty, possessed indeed of
some skill in playing the violin, but still distinguished by no higher
title than that of Colonel Arthur Wellesley. ◆June 26.◆ On the morrow
Moira with the last of the reinforcements[252] also reached Ostend,
where he found an advanced guard of the French within four miles of the
town, a large force of several thousand men close behind it, and the
Commandant very wisely embarking his garrison with a view to retreat.
The whole district was in a state of panic; but Moira promptly landed
the whole of his men, and having observed the difficulties of defending
Ostend, and the military worthlessness of the place, quietly selected
his fighting ground outside it. “I am not at all satisfied with my
position,” he wrote calmly to Dundas, “but since you appear to attach
importance to the town I will do my best to maintain it.” “The defences
are so detestable,” he added cheerfully to Nepean, “that I shall go into
the open field if we must come to blows. If you are to lose everything
it does not signify if you are beaten into the bargain.”[253] It is
dangerous for a General, be he even so able as Moira, to address an
English Minister of War in this strain; for, in the event of mishap, the
words may be brought up as evidence against him in Parliament to prove
that he was reckless, careless, neglectful, or despondent.
During these days the Duke of York remained in painful suspense at
Tournai, until the news of Clerfaye’s defeat on the 23rd warned him to
move northward without delay. As Craig had perceived, the French by
crossing the Scheldt at Oudenarde could prevent the Duke of York from
joining Clerfaye, crush both armies in detail, and then, passing
eastward, could annihilate Coburg. ◆June 24.◆ The Duke therefore called
in Kray’s Austrians for the defence of Tournai, and marched
north-eastward on the right bank of the Scheldt to Renaix, where he
learned that on the same day a French corps had summoned Oudenarde.
◆June 25.◆ On the morrow Pichegru crossed the Lys at Deynse with the
main body of his army, and striking south from thence encamped on the
27th at Huysse, ◆June 27.◆ between four and five miles north of
Oudenarde. On that same night came a message from Coburg to the Duke of
York that on the previous day he had made his attack on the French about
Charleroi and had failed. ◆June 26.◆ This was the battle of Fleurus,
which had been suddenly broken off by the Austrian commander before
decisive advantage had been gained by either side; and it is still a
question whether Coburg’s action was dictated by the requirements of
Thugut’s policy or by his own military judgment. ◆June 27.◆ However that
may be, he retreated in good order upon Brussels, halting on the 27th in
a position running from Soignies on the west through Braine L’Alleud to
Gembloux on the east. This movement uncovered the Duke of York’s left
rear, and placed him in a most dangerous position. He had with him
barely ten thousand men, nearly half of them cavalry, which in so close
a country were of little service; and from the church-tower at Oudenarde
he could see thirty thousand of the enemy in his front. The French, by
passing the Scheldt, could at any time cut off his retreat to the north,
in which case his only line of safety lay eastward towards Grammont; and
this in its turn would be closed if Coburg should continue his
retrograde movement towards Namur, which was his first stage on the road
to Vienna.
◆June 28.◆
On the morning of the 28th the enemy appeared in force before
Oudenarde, showing every sign of making the dreaded movement across
the river; and the Duke despatched orders to Moira to join Clerfaye
immediately. For two days Pichegru continued his menaces on the
Scheldt, and then suddenly on the evening of the 30th he retired,
having received orders from Paris to occupy Nieuport, Ostend, and the
island of Walcheren in force, with a view to the invasion of England.
◆June 30.◆ Ostend, which, together with Nieuport, Henry Dundas had kept
under his own orders, was evacuated in good time, while directions to
that purport were still on their way from England. Moira’s instructions
extended no further than to the defence of Ostend, but, in the critical
circumstances of the case, he proposed to join his force to Clerfaye,
and to act with him against the French left. Clerfaye at first welcomed
the offer, but, on hearing of the misfortune of Fleurus, declared
that he could make no engagement with the British whatever. This was
unpleasant for Moira, who had counted on the help of the Austrians in
protecting the transport of his camp-equipage on the canal from Bruges
to Ghent. The situation was dangerous, for the French were in force at
three different places within two hours’ march of the canal, bent upon
preventing his junction with Clerfaye. Without a moment’s hesitation
Moira sent his baggage northward to Sluys, and by a rapid march made
his way to Ghent, just in time to anticipate a movement made by the
French to intercept him. Thus a valuable reinforcement was secured to
the Allies; and three more perilous days were passed without mishap,
thanks rather to the Committee of Safety at Paris than to the Austrian
commanders in the field.[254]
◆June 30.◆
On the evening of the 30th the Duke of York rode over from Renaix to
Braine L’Alleud to consult Coburg; and it was then agreed that
Clerfaye’s force should change places with the Duke’s, so as to bring
the Austrian corps nearer to its own main army, and the British
contingent nearer to the sea. At the actual conference both Coburg and
the Archduke Charles declared that, having no orders from the Emperor to
evacuate the Austrian Netherlands, they felt bound in honour to defend
them. Waldeck indeed opposed even a withdrawal from the line of the
Scheldt. ◆July 2.◆ All this, however, was mere trifling, for two days
later Coburg wrote that his right wing had been driven back from
Soignies, and that the Duke would do well to retire to a position
appointed him between Brussels and Antwerp. The fall of Mons on the 1st
of July having also laid bare the Duke’s left flank and rear, he took
the hint, and while protesting against the desertion of the country,
gave his orders for retreat in the morning by way of Grammont and thence
upon Alost. Tournai, through the courtesy of the French, was peaceably
evacuated by the Austrians, though Condé, Valenciennes, Landrecies, and
Quesnoy were held. The line of the Scheldt was abandoned, and the Duke
of York’s troops were withdrawn from every garrison except Nieuport.
◆July 2.◆ As to this last the Duke, as in duty bound, asked for Dundas’s
orders, saying that, if the Government wished to reconquer Flanders, the
place should be kept; otherwise the garrison, which included five
hundred French emigrants, should not for pity’s sake be exposed to the
risk of capture.
Then followed a miserable tragedy. Dundas, apparently before
the receipt of this letter, wrote on the 3rd of July to General
Diepenbrock, the Commandant at Nieuport, promising to send transports
for the embarkation of the garrison, if necessary, but adding that the
Government attached great importance to the retention of the place.
Within two days the French had broken ground before the miserable
little port, where the water was so shallow that ships could not
come near the shore; ◆July 16.◆ and less than a fortnight later
the unfortunate garrison, which included a few British troops, was
compelled to surrender. Forthwith the French massed the emigrants
in the ditch of the fort and played upon them with grape-shot until
the whole of them were destroyed. It was well known that this would
inevitably be the fate of those unhappy men if they fell into the hands
of the Republicans; and German authors have not hesitated to censure
the Duke of York because, according to the current, though unjust,
opinion, he neglected to order the evacuation of Nieuport while there
was yet time. It were, indeed, devoutly to be wished that the Duke
had respected Dundas less, and had withdrawn the garrison without
consulting him, though it is manifest that he would thereby have drawn
upon himself the censure of the Government. The blame, therefore, for
this shameful business must remain with Dundas; and it was a very great
misfortune for England that he was not called to account for it.[255]