Tourcoing Part 3

THE TERRAIN

The terrain over which the plan of the allies was to be tested must next be grasped if we are to understand the causes which led to its ultimate failure.

That terrain is most conveniently described as an oblong standing up lengthways north and south, and corresponding to the sketch map overleaf.

That oblong has a base of twenty miles from east to west, a length from north to south of thirty-five.

These dimensions are sufficient to show upon what a scale the great plan of the allies for cutting off Souham at Courtrai was designed.

At its south-eastern corner the reader will perceive the town of St Amand, the furthest point south from which the combined movements of the allies began; while somewhat to the left of its top or northern edge, at the point marked "A," the northern-most body connected with that plan, the body commanded by Clerfayt, was posted at the origin of the movement.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The object of the whole convergence from the Scheldt on one hand, and from Clerfayt's northern position upon the other, being to cut off the French forces which lay at and south of Courtrai from Lille, and the main line of the French army, it is evident that the actual fighting and the chances of success or disaster would take place within a smaller interior oblong, which I have also marked upon the sketch map. This smaller or interior oblong measures about sixteen miles at its base by about twenty-five miles in length, and includes all the significant points of the action.

The points marked 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively are the points at which the five columns advancing from the Scheldt valley northward were to find themselves before dawn on the morning of Sat.u.r.day the 17th of May. We are already acquainted with them. They are Warcoing, Bailleul, Templeuve, Froidmont, and Pont-a-Marcq respectively; while the point marked 6 is Wervicq, from which Clerfayt was to start simultaneously with the five southern columns with the object of meeting his fellows round Tourcoing.

The town of Courtrai will be perceived to lie in the north-eastern angle of this inner oblong, the town of Lille rather below the middle of its western side. In all the country round Courtrai, and especially to the south of it, within the triangle X Y Z, lay the ma.s.s of Souham's command of 40,000 men. There were many posts, of course, scattered outside that triangle, and connecting Courtrai with Lille; but the links were weak, and the main force was where I have indicated it to be.

A large body of French troops being encamped just under the walls of Lille at B (by which letter I mark Sainghin camp), and that fortress also possessing a garrison, the plan of cutting both these off from the 40,000 French that lay in the country near Courtrai involved getting the main part of the allies up from these points of departure on the south, and Clerfayt's body down from its point of departure on the north to meet upon the line drawn between Lille and Courtrai. Upon this line (which also roughly corresponds to the only main road between the two cities) may be perceived, lying nearer Lille than the centre of such line, the small town of Tourcoing and the village of Mouveaux. It was upon these two points that four of the five southern columns were to converge northward, the second and third column reaching them first, the fourth and fifth marching up from the left in aid; and it was also, of course, upon these two points that Clerfayt was to march southward from the post at Wervicq, that had been given _him_ as _his_ point of departure before dawn upon that Sat.u.r.day morning. If everything went perfectly, the great ma.s.s of the allied army should have found itself, by noon of Sat.u.r.day the 17th, as I have said, astraddle of the Lille-Courtrai road, and effectively cutting off the French troops to the north.

What was the nature of the wide countryside over which these various movements were to take place?

It was part of that great plain of Flanders which stretches from the River Scheldt almost unbroken to the Straits of Dover and the North Sea. In the whole of the great oblong represented by my sketch map there is hardly a point 150 feet above the water level of the main river valleys, while the great ma.s.s of that territory is diversified by no more than very broad and very shallow rolls of land, the crests of which are sometimes and exceptionally as much as fifty feet above the troughs, but the greater part thirty, twenty, or even less. Here and there an isolated hummock shows upon the landscape, but the general impression of one who walks across from the valley of the Lys to that of the Scheldt is of a flat, monotonous land in which one retains no memory of ascent or descent, and in which the eye but rarely perceives, and that only from specially chosen points, any wide horizon.

To-day the greater part of this country suffers from the curse of industrialism and repeats--of course, with far less degradation--the terrible aspect of our own manufacturing towns. Roubaix and Tourcoing in particular are huge straggling agglomerations of cotton-spinners and their hands. A ma.s.s of railways and tramways cut the countryside, and the evil presence of coal-smoke mars it everywhere: at least within the region of Lille, Tourcoing, and Roubaix.

In May 1794, though a considerable industry had begun to grow up in Lille itself, the wide, open countryside round the town was entirely agricultural. Much of it was what soldiers call "blind" country: that is, it was cut up into fields with numerous hedges; there were long farm walls and a great number of small watercourses fringed with trees. But, on the other hand, there was very little wood. Moreover, though there were few places from which one could overlook any considerable view, the "blindness" of the field, as a whole, has been much exaggerated in the attempt to excuse or explain the disaster of which it was the theatre. The southern part of it is open enough, and so is the north-eastern portion, in which the first column operated. Of the soil no particular mention is needed; most of the great roads were paved; the weather had created no difficulty in the going, and the only trouble in this respect lay in the northern part, where Clerfayt's command was condemned to advance over patches of loose and difficult sand, which made the road, or rather rare lanes, very heavy.

It will at once be perceived that, in view of the operations planned, one princ.i.p.al obstacle exists in the terrain, the River Lys. Few bridges crossed this stream, and for the purpose of turning the French position and coming across the Lys from the north to the neighbourhood of Mouveaux, there was in those days no bridge save the bridge at Wervicq (at the point marked 6 on the plan at the beginning of this section); but this difficulty we have seen to be lessened by the presence in Clerfayt's command of a section of pontoons.

At first sight one might perceive no other considerable obstacle save the Lys to the general movement of the allied army. But when the peculiar course of the little River Marque is pointed out, and the nature of its stream described, the reader will perceive that it exercised some little effect upon the fortunes of the battle, and might have exercised a much greater one to the advantage of the British troops had not the Duke of York blundered in a fashion which will be later described.

In the first place, it should be noted that this little stream (it is no wider than a ca.n.a.l, will barely allow two barges to pa.s.s in its lower course, and will not float one to the southward of Lille) turns up quite close to Roubaix, and at the nearest point is not a mile from the market-place of that town.

Now the significance of such a conformation to the battlefield of Tourcoing lay in the fact that it was impossible for any considerable force to manoeuvre between the third column (which was marching upon Roubaix) and the Marque River. Had the Marque not existed, Kinsky, with the fourth column, would have been free to march parallel with York, just as York marched parallel with Otto, while the Arch-Duke with his fifth column, instead of having been given a rendezvous right down south at Pont-a-Marcq (the point marked 5 on my sketch), would have gone up the main road from St Amand to Lille, and have marched parallel with Kinsky, just as Kinsky would have marched parallel with York. In other words, the fourth and the fifth columns, instead of being ordered along the dotted lines marked upon my sketch (the elbows in which lines correspond to the crossing places of the Marque), would have proceeded along the uninterrupted arrow lines which I have put by the side of them.

The Marque made all the difference. It compelled the fifth column to take its roundabout road, and the fourth, detained by the delay of the fifth, was held, as we shall see in what follows, for a whole day at one of the crossings of the river.

The little stream has a deep and muddy bottom, and the fields upon its banks are occasionally marshy. This feature has been exaggerated, as have the other features I have mentioned, in order to explain or excuse the defeat, but, at any rate, it prevented the use of crossing places other than bridges. The Marque has no true fords, and there is no taking an army across it, narrow as it is, save by the few bridges which then existed. These bridges I have marked upon the sketch.

So far as the terrain is concerned, then, what we have to consider is country, flat, but containing low defensive positions, largely cut up, especially between the Scheldt and Roubaix, by hedges and walls, though more open elsewhere, and particularly open towards the north: a serious obstacle to the advance of one body in the shape of the River Lys; and another obstacle, irritating rather than formidable in character, but sufficient both by its course and its marshy soil to complicate the advance, namely, the little River Marque.

As to the weather, it was misty but fine. The nights in bivouac were pa.s.sed without too much discomfort, and the only physical condition which oppressed portions of the allied army consisted in the error of its commanders, and proceeded from fatigue.

PART VI

THE ACTION

At about ten o'clock in the morning of Friday the 16th of May, Clerfayt, in his positions right up north beyond the Lys--positions which lay at and in front of the town of Thielt, with outposts well to the south and west of that town,--received the orders of the Emperor.

These orders were what we know them to be: he was to march southward and westward and strike the Lys at Wervicq. He was to arrive at that point at or before nightfall, for in the very first hours of the morrow, Sat.u.r.day, and coincidently with the beginning of the advance of the five columns from their southern posts, he was to cross the Lys and to proceed to join hands with those columns in the following forenoon, when the heads of them would have reached the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and Mouveaux.

Bussche, with the first column, his 4000 Hanoverians, had no task during that day but to proceed the mile and a half which separated Warcoing from the little village of St Leger, and, with the head of his column in that village, prepare to pa.s.s the night and be ready to march forward long before dawn the next day.

Field-Marshal Otto, with the second column, was similarly and leisurely occupied marshalling his 10,000 Austrians and his contingent of British cavalry, so that the head of his column was at Bailleul ready also to advance with the early, dark, small hours of the ensuing morning.

The Duke of York, with his third column of similar numbers, or somewhat less, was performing a precisely similar task, and ordering his men so that the head of that column should reach Templeuve by evening and be ready to march at the same moment as the others did, shortly after midnight.

All these three, then, were absolutely ready, fresh from fatigue and in good order, upon that Friday evening at their appointed posts.

It is here necessary, as we are chiefly concerned with the British forces, to detail the composition of this third column which the Duke of York commanded.

It consisted of twelve battalions and ten squadrons, with a further reserve of sixteen British squadrons under General Erskine, which cavalry lay somewhat south of Templeuve, but ready to follow up the advance when it should begin. It was made of two portions, about equal in numbers, British and foreign. The foreign half was composed of four squadrons of Austrian Hussars and seven battalions of infantry, two Hessian and five Austrian. The British half was composed of a Brigade of Guards counting four battalions, with portions of the 14th, 37th, and 53rd Foot, while the British cavalry accompanying it (apart from the squadrons under Erskine) were six squadrons drawn from the 7th, 15th, and 16th Light Dragoons. It is to the credit of the young commander[4] that this third column was the best organised, the most prompt, and, as the event proved, the most successful during the advance and the most tenacious in the subsequent defeat.

The fourth column, under Kinsky, about 11,000 strong, was also ready on that Friday, the 16th of May, concentrated at its point of departure, Froidmont, and ready to move at the same moment as all the others, shortly after midnight. But unlike the other three commanders upon his right, Kinsky was unfortunately handicapped by the position of the fifth column, that great body of 18,000 to 20,000 men, under the Arch-Duke Charles, which lay at St Amand, which was to advance next day parallel with Kinsky and upon his left, and which it was his duty to keep in touch with, and to link up with the Duke of York's upon the other side. He was handicapped, I say, by the situation of the fifth column, under the Arch-Duke Charles, the heavy strain already imposed upon which, and the acc.u.mulating difficulties it was about to encounter, largely determining the unfortunate issue of the battle.

Kinsky got news on that Friday from the Arch-Duke at St Amand that it was hardly possible for his great body of men to reach the appointed post of Pont-a-Marcq at the arranged hour of daybreak the next morning. I have already suggested that this delay cannot only have been due to the very long march which had been imposed upon the Arch-Duke's command when it had been hurriedly summoned up from the south to St Amand, forty-eight hours before. It must also have been due to the fact that not all its units reached St Amand by the evening of Thursday the 15th. It seemed certain that there must have been stragglers or bad delays on the morning of the 16th, for it was not until long after nightfall--indeed not until ten o'clock in the evening--of Friday the 16th that the Arch-Duke was able to set out from St Amand and take the Pont-a-Marcq road. This unfortunate body, therefore, the fifth column, which had all the hardest work before it, which had but one road by which to march (although it was double any of the others in size), was compelled, after the terrible fatigue of the preceding days, to push forward sixteen miles through the night in a vain attempt to reach Pont-a-Marcq, not indeed by daybreak, for that was obviously impossible, but as soon after as haste and anxiety could command. Kinsky was tied to Froidmont and unable to move forward until that fifth column upon his left was at least approaching its goal. For he had Bonnaud's 20,000 Frenchmen at Sainghin right in front of him, and further, if he had moved, his left flank would have been exposed, and, what is more, he would have failed in his purpose, which was to link up the Arch-Duke on one side with the Duke of York upon the other.

This first mishap, then, must be carefully noted as one prime lack of synchrony in the origins of the combined movement, and a first clear cause of the misfortune that was to attend the whole affair. The delay of the fifth column was the chief cause of the disaster.

Meanwhile, another failure to synchronise, and that a most grave one, was taking place miles away in the north with Clerfayt's command beyond the Lys.

It is self-evident that where one isolated and distant body is being asked to co-operate with comrades who are in touch with the commander-in-chief, and with each other, the exact observation of orders on the part of that isolated body is of supreme importance to the success of the combination.

_They_, all lying in much the same region and able to receive and transmit orders with rapidity, may correct an error before it has developed evil consequences. But the isolated commander co-operating from a distance, and receiving orders from headquarters only after a long delay, is under no such advantage. Thus the tardiness of the fifth column was, as we have seen, communicated to the fourth, and the third, second, and first, all in one line, could or should have easily appreciated the general situation along the Scheldt. But the sixth body, under Clerfayt, which formed the keystone of the whole plan, and without whose exact co-operation that plan must necessarily fail, enjoyed no such advantage, and, if it indulged in the luxuries of delay or misdirection, could not have its errors corrected in useful time. A despatch, to reach Clerfayt from headquarters and from the five columns that were advancing northward from the valley of the Scheldt, must make a circuit round eastward to the back of Courtrai, and it was a matter of nearly half a day to convey information from the Emperor or his neighbouring subordinates in the region of Tournai to this sixth corps which lay north of the Lys.

Now it so happened that Clerfayt, though a most able man, and one who had proved himself a prompt and active general, woefully miscalculated the time-table of his march and the difficulties before him.

He got his orders, as I have said, at ten o'clock on the Friday morning.

Whether to give his men a meal, or for whatever other reason, he did not break up until between one and two. He then began ploughing forward with his sixteen thousand men and more, in two huge columns, through the sandy country that forms the plain north of the River Lys. He ought to have known the difficulty of rapid advance over such a terrain, but he does not seem to have provided for it with any care, and when night fell, so far from finding himself in possession of Wervicq and master of the crossing of the river there, the heads of his columns had only reached the great highway between Menin and Ypres, nearly three miles short of his goal.

Three miles may sound a short distance to the civilian reader, but if he will consider the efforts of a great body of men and vehicles, pushing forward through the late hours of an afternoon by wretched lanes full of loose sand, and finding the darkness upon them with that distance still to do, he would perceive the importance of the gap. If he further considers that it was only the heads of the columns that had reached the high road by dark, and that two great bodies of men were stretched out two miles and more behind, and if he will add to all this the fact that fighting would have to be done before Wervicq, three miles away, could be occupied, let alone the river crossed, he will discover that Clerfayt had missed his appointment not by three miles only in s.p.a.ce, but by the equivalent of half a day in time.

Even so he should have pushed on and have found himself at least in contact with the French posts before his advance was halted. He did not do so. He pa.s.sed the night in bivouac with the heads of his columns no further south than the great high road.

So much for Clerfayt. The Republic would have cut off his head.

While Clerfayt was thus mishandling his distant and all-important department of the combined scheme, the corresponding advance from the valley of the Scheldt northward was proceeding in a manner which is best appreciated by taking the five columns seriatim and in three groups: the first group consisting of the first column (Bussche), the second group of the second and third columns (Otto and York), the third group of the fourth and fifth (Kinsky and the Arch-Duke).

I