Chapter VII: Part 7

The Prussians still enjoyed the fame which they had won under Frederick the Great, but they had not been improved by the false training observed by Cornwallis at their manœuvres; while their commander, von Knobelsdorf, though full of zeal, was also full of years, having passed his seventieth birthday. Superior to them were the Hessians, the majority of whom had served in America, where they had learned to manœuvre rapidly and to fight in dispersed order, though the lesson had never been practised since their return to their own land.[120] The Hessian Jäger were particularly good light troops, and were armed with rifles. The whole corps, moreover, was the more effective since it was equipped with regimental transport upon a lavish scale, and was therefore mobile and self-dependent.[121] On the whole, the Hessians seem to have been the most valuable fighting men in the army, though they were not exempt from the love of plunder, a failing which mercenary veterans are apt to judge more leniently, at certain times, than other troops. The Hanoverians were then, as always, fine soldiers, but without the advantage of the Hessians in experience and training. The Dutch, being hastily raised, were ill organised, disciplined, trained, and equipped.

The British, with the exception of the Guards, were, in the opinion of foreign critics, very deficient in training and discipline, for precisely the same reason as the Dutch, namely, persistent neglect. The cavalry was of better material than the infantry, and was very well mounted; but both officers and men were so ignorant of their work that, at first, they could not even throw out vedettes and outposts without instruction from foreigners. The field-guns were inferior to those of the rest of the Allies; the ammunition-waggons were heavy and unwieldy; and the horses were harnessed one before the other instead of abreast, which made them difficult to drive, and took up much room on the road. The models of both harness and waggons were, in fact, of Marlborough’s time; while the medical arrangements, or what passed for such, were those of a still remoter age. Discipline for the most part was bad, especially among the officers, who were subject rather to political than military authority, and, though there were still among their infantry good men who had learned their business in America, far too many were absolutely ignorant as well as neglectful of their duty. Hard drinking in all ranks accounted for much both of the indiscipline and the neglect. To the men, of course, drunkenness brought a flogging at the halberts, but to the officers, unfortunately, it did not necessarily mean punishment; nor was it possible that it should, when respectful consideration was shown to both Prime Minister and Secretary of State for War if they appeared incapably drunk at the House of Commons, because the leaders of the Opposition drank even harder than they. This vice of drunkenness was the most formidable with which good officers had to contend throughout the twenty years of the war, simply because it was a fashion set in high places.[122]

It was no easy task to command such a force as the British, Hanoverians and Hessians, under the orders of such a man as Dundas, and the immediate direction of such generals as Coburg and Mack. Frederick, Duke of York, second son of King George the Third, was in 1793 thirty years old. At the age of sixteen he had been sent to Berlin to study the profession of arms under the eye of Frederick the Great himself, and had returned with a practical knowledge which made him later an admirable Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, but also with an undue preference for the weaker points of the stiff and formal Prussian system. In 1791 he had become Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, in which post he had at first shown himself enough of a martinet to excite discontent;[123] and, though he had wisely changed his ways after a year’s experience, he was not at this time popular with his men, while his officers, who had been taught to look for preferment from politicians, resented his authority whether for good or ill. In this respect he was hampered by the same disadvantages as had beset Lord Stair in 1743; and, unfortunately, he did not possess the qualifications to gain the confidence of his troops in the field. He had the cool personal bravery which belongs to his race, but not the higher moral courage which gives constancy and patience in difficulty or misfortune; and hence he was at once sanguine and easily discouraged. He had learned his work, so far as it could be acquired by the industry of a mediocre intellect, but he was slow of apprehension, without sagacity, penetration or width of view, and with so little imagination or resource that an unforeseen emergency confounded him. On the other hand, his dutiful loyalty and submission, in most trying circumstances, towards Coburg on the one hand, and the Cabinet on the other, were beyond all praise. The Ministry had some just doubts as to his fitness to command, but the King had set his heart upon the appointment; and indeed, where so many Serene Highnesses were gathered together, the superior rank of the Duke was a decided advantage. It was hoped, therefore, to make good his deficiencies by joining to him Sir James Murray, better known by the name which he afterwards assumed as Sir James Pulteney, nominally as Adjutant-general, but really as Chief of the Staff and something more; for it was to his correspondence that the Government looked for information and advice.

Murray was a singular character. He had served in the Seven Years’ War; he had distinguished himself in the West Indies during the American War of Independence; and he had trained an intellect, which was of no common order, not only by shrewd observation of the world but by solid and extensive study. His knowledge was great, his grasp and outlook wide, his judgment cool and accurate, his indifference to danger and hardship absolute; but he was shy, awkward and diffident, with a dreamy indolence which led him too readily to surrender his own correct opinion, and to amuse himself with speculation upon the incorrect opinions of others.[124] When roused he could sum up a situation with an insight, terseness and vigour which showed how close was his hold upon facts; but he was not the helpmate who could make good the defects of the Duke of York. The situation, indeed, demanded a Marlborough, with the insight to see the one thing that was needed, and the tact and ascendency to bring cautious commanders, intriguing Ministers, narrow-minded potentates and irresolute Cabinets into line, for the one true object,—an immediate march on Paris.

Such a march could undoubtedly not have been made without risk, owing to the dearth of food in France; yet the opportunity was favourable, and the hazard was slight compared with the certain danger of delay. ◆Feb. 19.◆ Already in February the Republic had wantonly made a fresh enemy by declaring war upon Spain; and the campaign in Belgium had produced results for which the most sanguine of her enemies could hardly have hoped. ◆March 8.◆ On the first news of the Austrian successes, the Convention instantly formed a special tribunal for the trial of traitors and conspirators against France, and summoned two of the defeated generals to appear before it. This done, it proceeded to take measures for hastening the levy of the three hundred thousand men, decreed a fortnight before. The scenes of ridiculous enthusiasm, which had become usual in Paris, followed as a matter of course; but the multitude of men who, for various reasons, claimed exemption, was astonishing, and the rascality of many who were enrolled was flagrant. A great many of these rogues made a trade of fraudulent enlistment, receiving a bounty from several corps and selling the arms and clothing received from each of them; while the number of women, who claimed allowances for the removal of their husbands to the army, sufficed to warrant the belief that every recruit was a polygamist. ◆March 10.◆ In the provinces, both north and south, there was violent resistance to the levy; and on the 10th of March, at Saint Florent le Vieil on the Loire, the peasants turned upon the troops which had been brought up to enforce the ballot, and, though armed only with cudgels, dispersed them and drove them from the town. That evening the alarm-bell rang in every church of the surrounding parishes; and five days later bands of peasants drove the National Guards from Chollet, some twenty miles south of Saint Florent, and took that town also. This was the first manifestation of a great counter-revolutionary movement, famous in history as the revolt of La Vendée.

The Convention, however, did not at first realise the importance of this outbreak, in the critical state of things in the north. An attempt to reinforce Dumouriez at Louvain, by calling out ten thousand of the National Guards of the northern provinces, provided only a few worn-out men and boys,[125] whom the General contemptuously dismissed to their homes. Then came the defection of Dumouriez himself, which was well-nigh fatal to all military improvement. The General had disparaged the election of officers by their men; he had urged that the volunteers should be incorporated in the Line; he had tried to enforce discipline upon all; and, finally, he had turned traitor and taken some of his regular troops with him. It was therefore plain that discipline was an abomination, that all his recommendations were vicious, that the regular troops were not to be trusted, and that volunteers only were to be accounted faithful. Never was the regular army of France so near to total dissolution at the hands of its countrymen as at this moment of supreme military peril. ◆April 6.◆ Beurnonville, having tried to abolish abuses, was driven from the War Office; a good Jacobin, Bouchotte, with a still better Jacobin, Vincent, at his elbow, was installed in Beurnonville’s place, and the whole of Pache’s vile following returned with them to office.[126] A camp was ordered to be formed at Peronne, and in it were assembled, not with disgrace but with honour, all the soldiers who had been imprisoned by Dumouriez for misconduct, all the deserters, the cowards and the skulkers, who had fled from the army of Belgium. Further, it was resolved that representatives of the people, with absolute powers, should be sent to rally and reorganise the northern forces, and to set the fortresses in order. If ever a nation seemed bent upon compassing its own destruction by piling madness upon madness, it was the French at this moment.

Yet, amid all the confusion, there appeared the first sign of the powers which by terrible means were to reduce France and, through France, the whole Continent of Europe to discipline and order. On the 6th of April the Convention chose nine of its members, renewable by monthly election, to wield the Dictatorship of France, with the title of the Committee of Public Safety. ◆April 10.◆ On the 10th of April a rough Alsatian officer, Kellerman by name, whose gallantry had raised him from the ranks to a commission during the Seven Years’ War, came forward with a scheme which preserved the famous regiments of the French Line. Finally, among the six representatives despatched to save the wreck of Dumouriez’s army was Captain Lazare Carnot of the Engineers; by birth a younger son in a respectable family of Burgundy, by repute well known in Europe as an original thinker upon military matters in general, and upon the defence of fortresses in particular. Though now forty years of age and of twenty years’ standing in the army, he was still a captain, for his military opinions had given offence in high quarters under the Monarchy; and it was as a simple captain that he was to appoint generals, and to organise victory under the Republic. Deeply read in theology and history, a passionate devotee of mathematics and of science, he had framed for himself high ideals, which, as he thought, the Revolution was appointed to fulfil; and he upheld its principles through good report and evil report, not with the Gallic effervescence that is bred of self-consciousness, but with the austere fanaticism of a Scot who takes his stand upon the Covenant. He believed; and in his faith he had buried all thought of self. Rank, wealth, fame alike were indifferent to this spare, stern, ascetic soldier. To give all that lay in him for the cause, to render faithful account of every trust reposed in him for the cause, to forward all that would further it, to combat all that could impede it—such were the principles that governed his conduct. With these motives to inspire him, with great natural gifts, and with every faculty of mind and body trained to the highest point, it is not surprising that his intellectual grasp was wide, his insight clear, his energy infectious, his industry indefatigable. Such was the man who in the early days of April hurried to the north, his brain teeming with thoughts, long since conceived, as to the training best suited to the French soldier, with his natural aptitude for attack. Five years before, while advocating a scheme of short service, he had written that it is war and not a lifetime in the barrack-yard that makes the old soldier.[127] To General Dampierre, who had been appointed on his recommendation to succeed Dumouriez, Carnot left it to apply this precept, while he himself, with ominous directness, hastened northward to repair the half-ruined fortress of Dunkirk.

VOL. IV. BOOK XII. CHAPTER V

◆1793.◆

The effect of Carnot’s arrival at Dunkirk in overthrowing Pitt’s original plan has already been told. There can be no doubt that the French had full information of the Minister’s designs, for it became a proverb that the most secret projects of the British War Office were always well known to the enemy and to everybody in England.[128] Nevertheless, if the British Cabinet had thereupon frankly abandoned any attempt upon Dunkirk, Carnot’s labours might have been turned to naught. The French army was only slowly assembled during April, and even at the end of the month was of inferior force and scattered over a wide front; for the French were not free from the vices of the cordon-system, nor were likely to be, so long as civilians interfered with their military dispositions. ◆April.◆ Apart from the garrisons of Quesnoy, Valenciennes, Condé, Lille and Dunkirk, Dampierre kept ten thousand men on his right, under General Harville, between Maubeuge and Philippeville: ten thousand more, under General Lamarlière, lay on his left, in an entrenched camp thrown up by Carnot at Cassel and at other points between Lille and Dunkirk: and five thousand at Nomain, Orchies, and Hasnon, covered the interval between Lille and the main army. This last, consisting of thirty thousand men under Dampierre’s immediate command, lay in an entrenched camp at Famars, a little to the south of Valenciennes, with a detachment in another fortified position at Anzin, to the north-west of that town. In all, therefore, he had about fifty thousand men at hand for service in the field.

◆April 23.◆

Meanwhile the Allies, who were still below their full strength, occupied the following positions. On their right, that is to say, to westward, six thousand Dutch and about three thousand Imperial troops, under the Hereditary Prince of Orange, lay at Furnes, Ypres and Menin; next to them two thousand five hundred British and about the same number of Austrians and Prussians, under the Duke of York, occupied Tournai; next to the Duke of York, Knobelsdorf, with about eight thousand Prussians, held the line of Maulde, Lecelles and Saint Amand on the Scarpe; next to Knobelsdorf, Clerfaye, with about twelve thousand men at Vicoigne and Raismes, and at Bruay and Fresnes, on the Scheldt, encompassed Condé on the south, while the Prince of Würtemberg with about five thousand men blockaded it on the north. At Onnaing, due south of Condé, lay the principal army, about fifteen thousand strong, with the advance guard at Saint Saulve; and to the east of the main army General Latour with about six thousand men occupied Bettignies, in observation of Maubeuge, with a detachment at Bavai to preserve communication between Bettignies and Onnaing. The total force of the Allies may thus be taken, roughly, at over sixty thousand men, not including thirty thousand Imperial troops under the Prince of Hohenlohe-Kirschberg, which were uselessly detained at Namur, Trèves and Luxemburg. The English cavalry, the Hanoverians and the Hessians, had not yet arrived, though the first detachments of the two former were drawing near to the front; but none the less the Allies were actually superior to the French in numbers, and very far superior in quality. The whole of their multitudinous posts were strongly entrenched; but it will be observed that, besides the essential defect of the enormous extension of their front, their line was cut in two by the river Scheldt, which gave the greater opportunity for a successful attack upon one or other of their wings. The general distribution of the Allies corresponded in the main with their lines of retreat, that of the British lying west to the sea, that of the Dutch north-east upon Antwerp, that of the Austrians east upon Namur; so that a successful attack upon the British would probably lay bare the Austrian right, and a decided defeat of the Austrians must certainly uncover the British left. With their usual jealousy for supreme control, the Austrians mixed a contingent of their own troops with the Allies in every section of the army, an arrangement which gave rise to infinite confusion, since it made even small detachments dependent on two or three different sources of supply. For each nation made provision for its own troops in its own way, and, owing to diversities of system and of differences in calibre of muskets and cannon, it was impossible to enforce any effort towards uniformity.

Still, the inactivity of Coburg during April was marvellous. It never occurred to him to overwhelm any one of Dampierre’s isolated divisions of untrained men by concentrating a superior force upon it. He never reflected that, even if both sides adhered to the cordon-system, the French could bring up the whole manhood of their country to make their cordon stronger than his own at every point. He allowed Dampierre to school his troops with impunity by perpetual affairs of outposts, without remembering that the French could more easily replace two men than he could replace one. Finally (but this may be pardoned to him) he did not guess that, while he was wasting a campaign over formal sieges, the French would evolve from the experience of many skirmishes a new system of tactics—that they would abandon the old formal training, and, turning to account the indiscipline which springs from the principle of equality, would grant independence of action to the born fighting men, and trust to the national impetuosity to carry the rest forward in dense masses to the attack.

It is a shameful reproach to the Allies that, overmatched though he was in every respect, the French General took the initiative and made the first move of the campaign. ◆May 1.◆ On the 1st of May he assailed the whole line of the Allies from Saint Saulve to St. Amand; but, the attacks being unintelligent and incoherent, he was beaten back at every point with a loss of two thousand men and several guns. ◆May 8.◆ Urged by the Convention to save Condé, he on the 8th essayed a second attempt, and on this occasion confined himself to demonstrations only upon the flanks of the Allies, concentrating a larger proportion of his force against Clerfaye’s position in the centre. These sounder principles brought him within an ace of success. He himself directed a frontal attack from Anzin against Raismes and Vicoigne, and after four successive repulses carried the position of Raismes, excepting the village. Lamarlière meanwhile with little difficulty made his way towards St. Amand, while one of his divisions, crossing the Scarpe, pressed on unseen through the forest of Vicoigne, nearly to the road which leads from St. Amand to Valenciennes. There this division began to throw up a redoubt and batteries to cannonade Clerfaye’s defences of Vicoigne, so as to cut off communication between him and Knobelsdorf, and to ensure a junction with the garrison of Valenciennes. The situation was critical, for, if the French succeeded in holding possession of the road, the post at Vicoigne was lost, and the whole line of the Allies was broken. Fortunately the Duke of York had moved three battalions of Guards to Nivelle, a little to the north of St. Amand, having promised Knobelsdorf help in case of need; and at five o’clock in the evening the brigade came upon the scene, just as the French were gaining the upper hand of the Prussians. The country to north and west of Valenciennes is a level plain, broken only by the three forests which bear the names of Marchiennes, Vicoigne, and Raismes, so that the Duke could see little or nothing of what was going forward until his troops were actually on the scene of action. The Coldstream, being first for duty, by Knobelsdorf’s order entered the wood, and quickly driving the French back, followed them up to their entrenchments. There, however, they were met by musketry in front and a fierce fire of grape from a masked battery in flank; when, finding themselves unsupported by the Prussians, they fell back in good order with a loss of over seventy killed and wounded. Seeing, however, by the appearance of the red coats, that Knobelsdorf had been reinforced, Lamarlière’s division made no further effort to advance; and Dampierre, while leading a last desperate assault upon Vicoigne from the front, was mortally wounded by a cannon-shot. ◆May 9.◆ This decided the fate of the day: his successor stopped the attack, and on the following morning retreated. On the next day Clerfaye and Knobelsdorf stormed the enemy’s newly-built batteries and captured their garrison of six hundred men, but failed to take the guns, which, according to the French custom of the time, had been withdrawn and kept limbered up for the night, in readiness for escape.[129] The loss of Clerfaye’s and Knobelsdorf’s corps in the two days was little short of eight hundred officers and men; that of the French was far heavier, and was aggravated by the death of Dampierre. It speaks highly for the man that with troops so raw he should have made so fine a fight against some of the best soldiers in Europe.

The losses suffered by the Coldstream Guards on the 8th were made the 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.

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.

At Menin the army was parted into two divisions. The first, consisting of the Hanoverians, ten British squadrons and foreign troops, or about fourteen thousand five hundred men, under the Hanoverian Marshal Freytag, was to form the covering army; the other, of nearly twenty-two thousand men, including the rest of the British troops, under the Duke in person, was appointed to besiege Dunkirk. ◆Aug. 19.◆ On the 19th, Freytag marched from Menin by Ypres upon Poperinghe, which he occupied with his main body on the ◆Aug. 20.◆ 20th, at the same time pushing his advanced guard further north-west to Rousbrugge on the Yser. ◆Aug. 21.◆ On the following day a detachment of Hessians, with great skill and at small cost to themselves, drove the French from Oost Capel and Rexpoede into the fortress of Bergues, with the loss of eleven guns and some four hundred men; and Freytag then took up his line of posts to cover the besieging army. His left was stationed at Poperinghe, covered by the fortress of Ypres; and from thence the chain ran north-west to Proven on the Yser, and westward up that stream by Bambecque to Wylder, where it turned north, and passing midway between Bergues and Rexpoede rested its right on a point called the White House, hard by the canal that runs from Bergues ◆Aug. 23, 24.◆ to Furnes. On the 23rd and 24th Freytag drove the French from Wormhoudt and Esquelbecque with the loss of nineteen guns, and surrounded Bergues by detachments at Warhem to east, Coudekerque to north, Sainte Quaedypre to south, and Steene to west. From this last an outer chain of posts was extended southward to Esquelbecque, and thence east by Wormhoudt and Herzeele to the Upper Yser at Houtkerque. The whole circuit thus embraced measured about twenty-one miles; from which it will be concluded that Freytag was a believer in the cordon-system.

◆Aug. 20.◆

Meanwhile the Duke of York marched on the 20th to Furnes; ◆Aug. 22.◆ and on the 22nd, moving thence parallel with the strand, he drove in the enemy’s advanced posts upon the entrenched camp of Ghyvelde, which the French abandoned in the night. ◆Aug. 24.◆ On the 24th, after several hours of sharp fighting, which cost the Allies nearly four hundred men,[148] the French were forced back from the suburb of Rosendahl into the town; whereupon the Duke entrenched himself in his chosen position, with his right resting on the sea and his left at Tetteghem, facing full upon the eastern side of the town and about two miles distant from the walls.

The field of operations for the Duke’s army may be described roughly as a quadrilateral, of which the sea forms the northern side, the canal from Dunkirk to Bergues the west, the canal from Bergues to Furnes the south, and a line drawn from Furnes to the sea the east. From east to west the ground thus enclosed was divided roughly into two parallel strips; the northern half consisting of the sandhills known as the Dunes, together with a narrow plain of level sandy ground within them; and the southern half of a huge morass called the Great Moor, which consisted partly of standing water, partly of swamp, but was all open to inundation by admitting the tidal water from the sluices of Dunkirk. Tetteghem, which formed the left of the Duke’s position, rested upon this swamp, and commanded the only road that led across it to the White House, and so to Freytag’s army. The position itself was in many respects disadvantageous. It was much broken up by innumerable little ditches, hedges, and patches of brushwood, all of which the troops had to clear away with their side-arms for want of better tools; it was wholly destitute of drinking water, that in the canals being brackish, and that found in the wells unpalatable; and, finally, it lay open to the minutest inspection from the tower of Dunkirk Cathedral. But this was not the worst. The Duke had looked for a fleet to cover his right flank, which had suffered from the enemy’s gunboats during the march upon Ghyvelde, and for transports bringing heavy artillery and other materials for the siege; and so far there was not a sign of them. “The principal object is to have what is wanted and to have it in time,” Murray had written to Dundas in July; and Dundas had replied that he was preparing artillery for Dunkirk, but was in great want of gunners.[149] ◆Aug. 27.◆ At last, on the 27th, the transports came with gunners, but without guns; ◆Aug. 29.◆ on the 29th a frigate, the _Brilliant_, and a few armed cutters appeared off the coast; ◆Aug. 30.◆ and on the 30th Admiral Macbride arrived to concert operations, but without his fleet.