Tourcoing Part 5

It was not until two o'clock that the pa.s.sage of the river at Pont-a-Marcq was forced by the Arch-Duke Charles, and that, as the consequence of that pa.s.sage of the stream, the French were taken in reverse in their camp at Sainghin and were compelled to fall back northward, leaving the pa.s.sage at Bouvines free. Kinsky repaired the bridge, and was free to bring his 11,000 over, and the two extreme columns, the fourth and the fifth, would then have joined forces in the mid-afternoon of the Sat.u.r.day, having accomplished their object of forcing the Marque and uniting for the common advance northward in support of Otto and the Duke of York.

Now, had the Arch-Duke Charles' men been machines, this section of the general plan would yet have failed by half a day to keep its time-table: and by more than half a day: by all the useful part of a working day. By the scheme of time upon which the plan was based, the fifth column should have been across the Marque at dawn; by six, or at latest by seven o'clock the French should have been compelled to fall back from Sainghin, and the combined fourth and fifth columns should have been upon their northward march for Mouveaux. It was not seven o'clock, it was _between three and four_ o'clock by the time the Arch-Duke was well across the Marque and the French retired; but still, if the men of this fifth column had been machines, Kinsky was now free to effect his junction across the Bridge of Bouvines, and the combined force would have reached the neighbourhood of Mouveaux and Tourcoing by nightfall, or shortly after dark.

But the men of the fifth column were not machines, and at that hour of the mid-afternoon of Sat.u.r.day they had come to the limits of physical endurance. It was impossible to ask further efforts of them, or, if those efforts were demanded, to hope for success. In the Arch-Duke's column by far the greater part of the 17,000 or 18,000 men had been awake and working for thirty-six hours. All had been on foot for at least twenty-four; they had been actually marching for seventeen, and had been fighting hard at the end of the effort and after sixteen miles of road.

There could be no question of further movement that day: they bivouacked just north of the river, near where the French had been before their retirement, and Kinsky, seeing no combined movement could be made that day, kept his men also bivouacked near the Bridge of Bouvines.[5]

Thus it was that when night fell upon that Sat.u.r.day the left wing of the advance from the Scheldt had failed. And that is why those watching from the head of the successful third column at Mouveaux and Roubaix, under the sunset of that evening, saw no reinforcement coming up the valley of the Marque, caught no sign of their thirty thousand comrades advancing from the south, and despaired of the morrow.

SUMMARY OF SITUATION ON THE SOUTH BY THE EVENING OF SAt.u.r.dAY, MAY 17th.

If we take stock of the whole situation, so far as the advance of the five columns from the Scheldt was concerned, when darkness fell upon that Sat.u.r.day we can appreciate the peril in which the second and third column under Otto and York lay.

The position which the plan had a.s.signed to the four columns, second, third, fourth, and fifth, by noon of that Sat.u.r.day (let alone by nightfall), is that marked upon the map by the middle four of the six oblongs in dotted lines marked B. Of these, the two positions on the _right_ were filled, for the second and third columns had amply accomplished their mission. But the two on the _left_, so far from being filled, were missed by miles of s.p.a.ce and hours of time. At mid-day, or a little after, when Kinsky and the Arch-Duke should have been occupying the second and third dotted oblong respectively, neither of them was as yet even across the Marque. Both were far away back at E, E: and these hopeless positions, E, E, right away behind the line of positions across the Courtrai-Lille road which the plan expected them to occupy by Sat.u.r.day noon, Kinsky and the Arch-Duke pacifically maintained up to and including the night between Sat.u.r.day and Sunday!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ELEMENTS OF TOURCOING]

It is evident, therefore, that instead of all four columns of nearly _sixty_ thousand men barring the road between Souham and Lille and effecting the isolation of the French "wedge" round Courtrai, a bare, unsupported _twenty_ thousand found themselves that night alone: holding Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lannoy, Mouveaux, and thrust forward isolated in the midst of overwhelmingly superior and rapidly gathering numbers.

In such an isolation nothing could save Otto and York but the abandonment during the night of their advanced positions and a retreat upon the points near the Scheldt from which they had started twenty hours before.

The French forces round Lille were upon one side of them to the south and west, in number perhaps 20,000. On the other side of them, towards Courtrai, was the ma.s.s of Souham's force which they had hoped to cut off, nearly 40,000 strong. Between these two great bodies of men, the 20,000 of Otto and York were in peril of destruction if the French awoke to the position before the retirement of the second and third columns was decided on.

It is here worthy of remark that the only real cause of peril was the absence of Kinsky and the Arch-Duke.

Certain historians have committed the strange error of blaming Bussche for what followed. Bussche, it will be remembered, had been driven out of Mouscron early in the day, and was holding on stubbornly enough, keeping up an engagement princ.i.p.ally by cannonade with the French upon the line of Dottignies. It is obvious that from such a position he could be of no use to the isolated Otto and York five miles away. But on the other hand, he was not expected to be of any use. What could his 4000 have done to shield the 20,000 of Otto and York from those 40,000 French under Souham's command? His business was to keep as many of the French as possible occupied away on the far north-east of the field, and that object he was fulfilling.

Finally, it may be asked why, in a posture so patently perilous, Otto and York clung to their advanced positions throughout the night? The answer is simple enough. If, even during the night, the fourth and fifth columns should appear, the battle was half won. If Clerfayt, of whom they had no news, but whom they rightly judged to be by this time across the Lys, were to arrive before the French began to close in, the battle would be not half won, but all won. Between 55,000 and 60,000 men would then be lying united across the line which joined the 40,000 of the enemy to the north with the 20,000 to the south. If such a junction were effected even at the eleventh hour, so long as it took place before the 20,000 French outside Lille and the 40,000 to the north moved upon them, the allies would have won a decisive action, and the surrender of all Souham's command would have been the matter of a few hours. For a force cut in two is a force destroyed.

But the night pa.s.sed without Clerfayt's appearing, and before closing the story of that Sat.u.r.day I must briefly tell why, though he had crossed the Lys in the afternoon, he failed to advance southward through the intervening five or six miles to Mouveaux.

CLERFAYT'S COLUMN.

Clerfayt had, in that extraordinary slow march of his, advanced by the Friday night, as I have said, no further than the great high road between Menin and Ypres. I further pointed out that though only three miles separated that point from Wervicq, yet those three miles meant, under the military circ.u.mstances of the moment, a loss of time equivalent to at least half a day.

We therefore left Clerfayt at Sat.u.r.day's dawn, as we left the Arch-Duke at the same time, far short of the starting-point which had been a.s.signed to him.

Whereas the Arch-Duke, miles away over there to the south, had at least pushed on to the best of his ability through the night towards Pont-a-Marcq, Clerfayt did _not_ push on by night to Wervicq as he should have done. He bivouacked with the heads of his columns no further than the Ypres road.

Nor did he even break up and proceed over the remaining three miles during the very earliest hours. For one reason or another (the point has never been cleared up) the morning was fairly well advanced when he set forth--possibly because his units had got out of touch and straggling in the sandy country, or blocked by vehicles stuck fast. Whatever the cause may have been, he did not exchange shots with the French outposts at Wervicq until well after noon upon that Sat.u.r.day the 17th of May.

When at last he had forced his way into the town (the great bulk of which lies north of the river), he found the bridge so well defended that he could not cross it, or, at any rate, that the carrying of it--the chances of its being broken after the French should have retired and the business of bringing his great force across, with the narrow streets of the town to negotiate and the one narrow bridge, even if intact to use--would put him upon the further bank at a hopelessly late hour. Therefore did he call for his pontoons in order to solve the difficulty by bridging the river somewhat lower down. The Lys is here but a narrow stream, and it would be easy, with the pontoons at his disposal, to pa.s.s his troops over rapidly upon a broader front, making, if necessary, two wide bridges. I say "with the pontoons at his disposal." But by the time Clerfayt had taken this decision and had sent for the pontoons, he found that they were not there!

His section of pontoons had not kept abreast with the rest of the army, and their delay had not been notified to him. It was not until quite late in the day that they arrived; it was not until evening that the laying of the pontoons began,[6] nor till midnight that he was pa.s.sing the first of his troops over.

He did not get nor attempt to get the ma.s.s of his sixteen or seventeen thousand across in the darkness. He bivouacked the remainder upon the wrong side of the river and waited for the morrow.

So that Sat.u.r.day ended, with Otto and York isolated at the central meeting-place round Tourcoing-Mouveaux, which they alone had reached; with the Arch-Duke Charles and Kinsky bivouacked miles away to the south on either side of the Bridge of Bouvines; and with Clerfayt still, as to the bulk of his force, on the wrong side of the Lys.

It was no wonder that the next day, Sunday, was to see the beginning of disaster.

SUNDAY, MAY THE 18TH, 1794.

I have said that, considering the isolated position in which York and Otto found themselves, with no more than perhaps 18,000 in the six positions of Leers, Wattrelos, and Tourcoing, Lannoy, Roubaix, and Mouveaux, the French had only to wake up to the situation, and Otto and York would be overwhelmed.

The French did wake up. How thoroughly taken by surprise they had been by the prompt and exact advance of Otto and York the day before, the reader has already been told. Throughout Sat.u.r.day they remained in some confusion as to the intention of the enemy; and indeed it was not easy to grasp a movement which was at once of such great size, and whose very miscarriage rendered it the more baffling of comprehension. But by the evening of the day, Souham, calling a council of his generals at Menin, came to a decision as rapid as it was wise. Reynier, Moreau, and Macdonald, the generals of divisions that were under his orders, all took part in the brief discussion and the united resolve to which it led. "It was," in the words of a contemporary, "one of those rare occasions in which the decision of several men in council has proved as effective as the decision of a single will."

Of the troops which were, it will be remembered, dispersed to the north of the Lys, only one brigade was left upon the wrong side of the river to keep an eye on Clerfayt; all the rest were recalled across the stream and sent forward to take up positions north of Otto's and Kinsky's columns.

Meanwhile the bulk of the French troops lying between Courtrai and Tourcoing were disposed in such fashion as to attack from the north and east, south and westward. Some 40,000 men all told were ready to close in with the first light from both sides upon the two isolated bodies of the allies. To complete their discomfiture, word was sent to Bonnaud and Osten, the generals of divisions who commanded the 20,000 about Lille, ordering them to march north and east, and to attack simultaneously with their comrades upon that third exposed side where York would receive the shock. In other words, the 18,000 or so distributed on the six points under Otto and York occupied an oblong the two long sides of which and the top were about to be attacked by close upon 60,000 men. The hour from which this general combined advance inwards upon the doomed commands of the allies was to begin was given identically to all the French generals.

They were to break up at three in the morning. With such an early start, the sun would not have been long risen before the pressure upon Otto and York would begin.

When the sun rose, the head of Otto's column upon the little height of Tourcoing saw to the north, to the north-east, and to the east, distant moving bodies, which were the columns of the French attack advancing from those quarters. As they came nearer, their numbers could be distinguished.

A brigade was approaching them from the north and the Lys valley, descending the slopes of the hillock called Mont Halhuin. It was Macdonald's. Another was on the march from Mouscron and the east. It was Compere's. The General who was commanding for Otto in Tourcoing itself was Montfrault. He perceived the extremity of the danger and sent over to York for reinforcement. York spared him two Austrian battalions, but with reluctance, for he knew that the attack must soon develop upon his side also. In spite of the peril, in the vain hope that Clerfayt might yet appear, Mouveaux and Tourcoing were still held, and upon the latter position, between five and six o'clock in the morning, fell the first shots of the French advance. The resistance at Tourcoing could not last long against such odds, and Montfrault, after a gallant attempt to hold the town, yielded to a violent artillery attack and prepared to retreat.

Slowly gathering his command into a great square, he began to move south-eastward along the road to Wattrelos. It was half-past eight when that beginning of defeat was acknowledged.

Meanwhile York, on his side, had begun to feel the pressure. Mouveaux was attacked from the north somewhat before seven o'clock in the morning, and, simultaneously with that attack, a portion of Bonnaud's troops which had come up from the neighbourhood of Lille, was driving in York's outposts to the west of Roubaix.

How, it may be asked, did the French, in order thus to advance from Lille, negotiate the pa.s.sage of that little River Marque, which obstacle had proved so formidable a feature in the miscarriage of the great allied plan the day before? The answer is, unfortunately, easily forthcoming. York had left the bridges over the Marque unguarded. Why, we do not know. Whether from sheer inadvertence, or because he hoped that Kinsky had detached men for the purpose, for one reason or another he had left those pa.s.sages free, and, by the bridge of Hempempont against Lannoy, by that of Breuck against Roubaix, Bonnaud's and Osten's men poured over.

As at Tourcoing, so at Mouveaux, a desperate attempt was made to hold the position. Indeed it was clung to far too late, but the straits to which Mouveaux was reduced at least afforded an opportunity for something of which the British service should not be unmindful. Immediately between Roubaix and the River Marque, Fox, with the English battalions of the line, was desperately trying to hold the flank and to withstand the pressure of the French, who were coming across the river more than twice his superiors in number. He was supported by a couple of Austrian battalions, and the two services dispute as to which half of this defending force was first broken. But the dispute is idle. No troops could have stood the pressure, and at any rate the defence broke down--with this result: that the British troops holding Mouveaux, Abercrombie's Dragoons, and the Brigade of Guards, were cut off from their comrades in Roubaix.

Meanwhile, Tourcoing having been carried and the Austrians driven out from thence, the eastern and western forces of the French had come into touch in the depression between Mouveaux and Roubaix, and it seemed as though the surrender or destruction of that force was imminent. Abercrombie saved it. A narrow gap appeared between certain forces of the French, eastward of the position at Mouveaux, and leaving a way open round to Roubaix. He took advantage of it and won through: the Guards keeping a perfect order, the rear defended by the mobility and daring of the Dragoons. The village of Roubaix, in those days, consisted in the main of one long straight street, though what is now the great town had already then so far increased in size as to have suburbs upon the north and south. The skirmishers of the French were in these suburbs. (Fox's flank command had long ago retired, keeping its order, however, and making across country as best it could for Lannoy.) It was about half-past nine when Abercrombie's force, which had been saved by so astonishing a mixture of chance, skill, coolness, and daring, filed into the long street of Roubaix. The Guards and the guns went through the pa.s.sage in perfect formation in spite of the shots dropping from the suburbs, which were already beginning to hara.s.s the cavalry behind them. Immediately to their rear was the Austrian horse, while, last of all, defending the retreat, the English Dragoons were just entering the village. In the centre of this long street a market-place opened out. The Austrian cavalry, arrived at it, took advantage of the room afforded them; they doubled and quadrupled their files until they formed a fairly compact body, almost filling the square. It was precisely at this moment that the French advance upon the eastern side of the village brought a gun to bear down the long straight street and road, which led from the market square to Wattrelos. The moment it opened fire, the Austrians, after a vain attempt to find cover, pressed into the side streets down the market-place, fell into confusion. There is no question here of praise or blame: a great body of hors.e.m.e.n, huddled in a narrow s.p.a.ce, suddenly pounded by artillery, necessarily became in a moment a ma.s.s of hopeless confusion. The body galloped in panic out of the village, swerved round the sharp corner into the narrower road (where the French had closed in so nearly that there was some bayonet work), and then came full tilt against the British guns, which lay blocking the way because the drivers had dismounted or cut the traces and fled. In the midst of this intolerable confusion a second gun was brought to bear by the French, and the whole mob of ridden and riderless horses, some dragging limbers, some pack-horses charged, many more the dispersed and maddened fragments of the cavalry, broke into the Guards, who had still kept their formation and were leading what had been but a few moments before an orderly retreat.

It is at this point, I think, that the merit of this famous brigade and its right to regard the disaster not with humiliation but with pride, is best established. For that upon which soldiers chiefly look is the power of a regiment to reform. The Guards, thus broken up under conditions which made formation for the moment impossible, and would have excused the destruction of any other force, cleared themselves of the welter, recovered their formation, held the road, permitted the British cavalry to collect itself and once more form a rearguard, and the retreat upon Lannoy was resumed by this fragment of York's command in good order: in good order, although it was subjected to heavy and increasing fire upon either side.

It was a great feat of arms.

As for the Duke of York, he was not present with his men. He had ridden off with a small escort of cavalry to see whether it might not be possible to obtain some reinforcement from Otto, but the French were everywhere in those fields. He found himself with a squadron, with a handful, and at last alone, until, a conspicuous figure with the Star of the Garter still pinned to his coat, he was chivied hither and thither across country, followed and flanked by the sniping shots of the French skirmishers in thicket and hedge; after that brief but exceedingly troubled ride, Providence discovered him a brook and a bridge still held by some of Otto's Hessians. He crossed it, and was in safety.

His retreating men--those of them that remained, and notably the remnant of the Dragoons and the Guards--were still in order as they approached Lannoy. They believed, or hoped, that that village was still in possession of the Hessians whom York had left there. But the French attack had been ubiquitous that morning. It had struck simultaneously upon all the flanks.

At Roubaix as at Mouveaux, at Lannoy as at Roubaix, and the Guards and the Dragoons within musket shot of Lannoy discovered it, in the most convincing fashion, to be in the hands of the enemy. After that check order and formation were lost, and the remaining fragment of the Austrian and British who had marched out from Templeuve the day before 10,000 strong, hurried, dispersed over the open field, crossed what is now the Belgian border, and made their way back to camp.

Thus was destroyed the third column, which, of all portions of the allied army, had fought hardest, had most faithfully executed its orders, had longest preserved discipline during a terrible retreat and against overwhelming numbers: it was to that discipline that the Guards in particular owed the saving from the wreck of so considerable a portion of their body. Of their whole brigade just under 200 were lost, killed, wounded or taken prisoners. The total loss of the British was not quite five times this--just under 1000,--but of their guns, twenty-eight in number, nineteen were left in the hands of the enemy.

There is no need to recount in detail the fate of Otto's column. As it had advanced parallel in direction and success to the Duke of York's, it suffered a similar and parallel misfortune. As the English had found Lannoy occupied upon their line of retreat, so Otto's column had found Wattrelos. As the English column had broken at Lannoy, so the Austrian at Leers. And the second column came drifting back dispersed to camp, precisely as the third had done. When the fragments were mustered and the defeat acknowledged, it was about three o'clock in the afternoon.

For the rest of the allied army there is no tale to tell, save with regard to Clerfayt's command; the fourth and the fifth columns, miles away behind the scene of the disaster, did not come into action. Long before they could have broken up after the breakdown through exhaustion of the day before, the French were over the Marque and between them and York. When a move was made at noon, it was not to relieve the second and third columns, for that was impossible, though, perhaps, if they had marched earlier, the pressure they would have brought to bear upon Bonnaud's men might have done something to lessen the disaster. It is doubtful, for the Marque stood in between and the French did not leave it unguarded.

Bussche, true to his conduct of the day before, held his positions all day and maintained his cannonade with the enemy. It is true that there was no severe pressure upon him, but still he held his own even when the rout upon his left might have tempted him to withdraw his little force.

As for Clerfayt, he had not all his men across the Lys until that very hour of seven in the morning when York at Mouveaux was beginning to suffer the intolerable pressure of the French, and Otto's men at Tourcoing were in a similar plight.

By the time he had got all his men over, he found Vandamme holding positions, hastily prepared but sufficiently well chosen, and blocking his way to the south. With a defensive thus organised, though only half as strong as the attack, Vandamme was capable of a prolonged resistance; and while it was in progress, reinforcements, summoned from the northern parts of the French line beyond Lille, had had time to appear towards the west.

He must have heard from eight o'clock till noon the fire of his retreating comrades falling back in their disastrous retreat, and, rightly judging that he would have after mid-day the whole French army to face, he withdrew to the river, and had the luck to cross it the next day without loss: a thing that the French now free from the enemy to the south should never have permitted.