Read Ebook: A Book of Nimble Beasts: Bunny Rabbit Squirrel Toad and Those Sort of People by English Douglas

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 659 lines and 40626 words, and 14 pages

PART PAGE

TOURCOING

PART I

THE POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCE

The Battle of Tourcoing is one of those actions upon which European history in general is somewhat confused, and English history, in particular, ignorant.

That British troops formed part of those who suffered defeat, and that a British commander, the Duke of York, was the chief figure in the reverse, affords no explanation; for the almost exactly parallel case of Fontenoy--in which another royal duke, also the son of the reigning King of England, also very young, also an excellent general officer, and also in command was defeated--is among the most familiar of actions in this country. In both battles the posture of the British troops earned them as great and as deserved a fame as they had acquired in victory; in both was work done by the Guards in particular, which called forth the admiration of the enemy. Yet Tourcoing remains unknown to the English general reader of history, while Fontenoy is one of the few stock names of battles which he can at once recall.

The reason that British historians neglect this action is not, then, as foreign and rival historians are too inclined to pretend, due to the fact that among the forces that suffered disaster were present certain British contingents.

Again, as will be seen in the sequel, the overwhelming of the Duke of York's forces at Tourcoing, by numbers so enormously superior to his own, was not due to any tactical fault of his, though it is possible that the faulty plan of the whole action may in some measure be ascribed to him.

Now Tourcoing is a battle which Englishmen should know, both for its importance in the military history of Europe, and for the not unworthy demeanour which the British troops, though defeated, maintained upon its field.

The true reason that Tourcoing is so little known in this country is to be discovered in that other historical fact attaching to the battle, which I have mentioned. It occupied but a confused and an uncertain place in the general history of Europe; though perhaps, were its military significance fully understood, it would stand out in sharper relief. For though the Battle of Tourcoing was not the beginning of any great military series, nor the end of one; though no very striking immediate political consequence followed upon it, yet it was Tourcoing which made Fleurus possible, and it was Fleurus that opened the victorious advancing march of the French which, looked at as a whole, proceeded triumphantly thenceforward for nearly eighteen years and achieved the transformation of European society.

What, then, was the political circumstance under which this action was fought?

The French Revolution, by the novelty of its doctrines, by the fierceness and rapidity of its action, and by that military character in it which was instinctively divined upon the part of its opponents, challenged, shortly after its inception, the armed interference of those ancient traditional governments, external to and neighbouring upon French territory, which felt themselves threatened by the rapid advance of democracy.

With the steps that led from the first peril of conflict to its actual outbreak, we are not concerned. That outbreak took place in April 1792, almost exactly three years after the meeting of the first Revolutionary Parliament in Versailles.

The first stages of the war were singularly slow. No general action was engaged in until the month of September, and even then the struggle between the rival armies took the form not so much of a pitched battle as of an inconclusive cannonade known to history as that of VALMY. This inconclusive cannonade took place in the heart of French territory during the march of the invaders upon Paris. Disease, and the accident of weather, determined the retreat of the invaders immediately afterwards. In the autumn of the year, the French forces largely recruited by enthusiastic volunteer levies, but of low military value, poured over the country then called the Austrian Netherlands and now Belgium. But their success was shortlived. A mere efflux of numbers could not hold against the trained and increasing resistance of the Imperial soldiers. In the spring of 1793 the retreat began, and through the summer of that year the military position of Revolutionary France grew graver and graver. Internal rebellions of the most serious character broke out over the whole territory of the Republic. In Normandy, in the great town of Lyons, in Marseilles, and particularly in the Western districts surrounding the mouth of the Loire, these rebellions had each in turn their moment of success, while the great naval station of Toulon opened its port to the enemy, and received the combined English and Spanish Fleets.

Coincidently with the enormous task of suppressing this widespread domestic rebellion, the Revolutionary Government was compelled to meet the now fully organised advance of its foreign enemies. It was at war no longer with Austria and Prussia alone, but with England, with Holland, with Spain as well, and the foreign powers not only thrust back the incursion which the French had made beyond their frontiers, but proceeded to attack and to capture, one after the other, that barrier of fortresses in the north-east which guarded the advance on Paris.

The succession of misfortune after misfortune befalling the French arms was checked, and the tide turned by the victory won at Wattignies in October 1793. After that victory the immediate peril of a successful invasion, coupled with the capture of Paris, was dissipated. But it was yet uncertain for many months which way the tide would turn--whether the conflict would end in a sort of stale-mate by which the French should indeed be left independent for the moment, but the armed governments of Europe their enemies also left powerful to attack and in the end to ruin them; or whether the French should ultimately be able to take the offensive, to re-cross their frontiers, and to dictate to their foes a triumphant peace.

As I have said, the great action from which history must date the long series of French triumphs, bears the name of Fleurus; but before Fleurus there came that considerable success which made Fleurus possible, to which history gives the name of TOURCOING , and which provides the subject of these pages.

Fleurus was decided in June 1794. It was not a battle in which British troops were concerned, and therefore can form no part of this series. Tourcoing was decided in the preceding May, and though, I repeat, it cannot be made the fixed and striking starting-point from which to date the long years of the French advantages, yet it was, as it were, the seed of those advantages, and it was Tourcoing, in its incomplete and complicated success, which made possible all that was to follow.

Tourcoing, then, must be regarded as an unexpected, not wholly conclusive, but none the less fundamental phase in the development of political forces which led to the establishment of the modern world. Its immediate result, though not decisive, was appreciable. To use a metaphor, it was felt in Paris, and to a less extent in London, Berlin, and in Vienna, that the door against which the French were desperately pushing, though not fully open, was thrust ajar. The defeat of a portion of the allied forces in this general action, the inefficacy of the rest, the heartening which it put into the French defence, and the moral effect of such trophies gained, and such a rout inflicted, were of capital import to the whole story of the war.

This is the political aspect in which we must regard the Battle of Tourcoing, but its chief interest by far lies in its purely military aspect; in the indiscretion which so nearly led the French forces to annihilation; in the plan which was laid to surround and to destroy those forces by the convergence of the English, Prussian, and Austrian columns; in the way in which that plan came to nothing, and resulted only in a crushing disaster to one advanced portion of the forces so converging.

Tourcoing is rather a battle for military than for civilian historians, but those who find recreation in military problems upon their own account, apart from their political connection, will always discover the accidents of this engagement, its unexpected developments, and its final issue to be of surpassing interest.

PART II

THE GENERAL MILITARY SITUATION

In order to understand what happened at the Battle of Tourcoing, it is first necessary to have in mind the general situation of the forces which opposed each other round and about what is now the Franco-Belgian frontier, in the spring of 1794.

These forces were, of course, those of the French Republic upon the one hand, upon the other the coalition with its varied troops furnished by Austria, by Prussia, by England, and some few by sundry of the small States which formed part of the general alliance for the destruction of the new democracy.

The whole campaign of 1794 stands apart from that of 1793. The intervening winter was a period during which, if we disregard a number of small actions in which the French took the offensive, nothing of moment was done upon either side, and we must begin our study with the preparations, originating in the month of February, for the active efforts which it was proposed to attempt when the spring should break.

Coburg, it was arranged, should be the General in practical command . Prussian troops, in excess of the twenty thousand which Prussia owed as a member of the Empire, were obtained upon the promise of a large subsidy from England and Holland, and with the month of April some 120,000 men were holding the line from Treves to the sea. This passed through and occupied Dinant, Bavai, Valenciennes, St Amand, Denain, Tournai, Ypres, and Nieuport. To this number must be added men in the garrisons, perhaps some 40,000 more. Of this long line the strength lay in the centre.

The central army, under the general command of Coburg, who had his headquarters at Valenciennes, was, if we exclude men in garrisons, somewhat over 65,000 in strength, or more than half the whole strength of the long line. With Coburg in the central army was the Duke of York with some 22,000, and the Prince of Orange with a rather smaller contingent of Dutch.

Over against this long line with its heavy central "knot" or bulk of men under Coburg, in the neighbourhood of Valenciennes, the genius of Carnot had mustered over 200,000 French troops, which, when we have deducted various items for garrisons and other services, counted as effective more than 150,000 but less than 160,000 men. This French line extended from the sea to Maubeuge, passing through Dunquerque, Cassel, Lille, Cambrai, and Bouchain.

It was as a fact a little before the opening of April that the French began the campaign by taking the offensive on a large scale upon the 29th of March.

Pichegru, who was in command of that frontier army, attacked, with 30,000 men, the positions of the allies near Le Cateau, well to the right or south-east of their centre and his, and was beaten back.

After certain actions , actions each of interest, and some upon a considerable scale, but serving only to confuse the reader if they were here detailed, Landrecies fell after eight days' siege, upon the 30th of April. An advance of the Austrian centre, after this success, was naturally expected by the French.

That normal development of the campaign did not take place on account of a curious episode in the strategy of this moment to which I beg the reader to give a peculiar attention. It is necessary to grasp exactly the nature of that episode, for it determined all that was to follow.

While the fate of Landrecies still hung in the balance, and before the surrender of the town, Pichegru had, in another part of the long line, scored one of those successes which in any game or struggle are worse than losing a trick or suffering a defeat. It was one of those successes in which one gets the better of one's opponent in one chance part of the general contest, but so triumphs without a set plan, with no calculation upon what should follow upon the achievement, and therefore with every prospect of finding oneself in a worse posture after it than before.

To take an analogy from chess: Pichegru's error, which I will presently describe, might be compared to the action of a player who, taking a castle of his opponent's with his queen, thereby leaves his king unguarded and open to check-mate.

Wherever men are opposed one to the other in lines, each line having the mission to advance against the other, it is a fatal move to get what footballers call "'fore side": to let a portion of your forces advance too far from the general line held by the whole, and to have the advanced part of that portion thus isolated from the support of its fellows. Such a formation invites a concentration of your opponents against the isolated body, and may lead to its destruction.

It was precisely in this position that Pichegru placed a portion of his forces by the ill-advised advance he made down the valley of the Lys to Courtrai.

Taking advantage of the way in which the main forces of the allies were tied to the siege of Landrecies, the French commander wisely moved forward the whole of his forces to the north and west, pushing the enemy back before him to the line Ypres-Menin, and besieging Menin itself. But most unwisely he not only permitted to advance, but himself directed and led, a body of 30,000 men far forward of this general movement: he actually carried it on as far as the town of Courtrai.

The accompanying sketch map shows how much too far advanced this wedge of men was beyond the general line, and, to repeat the phrase I have just used, a metaphor which best expresses my meaning, Souham and his division, by Pichegru's direct orders, had got "'fore side."

The only excuse that can be pleaded for Pichegru's folly in this matter, was the temptation presented by the weak garrison of Courtrai, and the bait which a facile temporary success always holds out for a man who has formed no consistent general plan. But that very excuse is the strongest condemnation of the inexcusable error, and this strategical fault of Pichegru's was soon paid for by the imperilling of all the great body of French troops within that rashly projected triangle.

For the moment Pichegru may have foolishly congratulated himself that he had done something of military value, as he had certainly done something striking. Menin fell to the French on the same day that Landrecies did to the Austrians, and this further success doubtless tempted him to remain with the head of his wedge at Courtrai, when every consideration of strategy should have prompted him to retrace his steps and to recall the over-advanced division back into line.

This isolated position down the valley of the Lys, this wedge thrust out in front of Lille, positively asked the allies to attack it.

The enemy was a fortnight developing his plan, but his delay was equalled by Pichegru's determination to hold the advanced post he had captured; and when the allies did finally close in upon that advanced post, nothing but a series of accidents, which we shall follow in detail when we come to the story of the action, saved Souham from annihilation. And the destruction of Souham's division, considering its numbers and its central position, might have involved the whole French line in a general defeat.

As I have said, it was at the end of April that this false success of Pichegru's was achieved, and a whole fortnight was to elapse before the allies concentrated to take advantage of that error, and to cut off Souham's division.

That fortnight was full of minor actions, not a few of them interesting to the student of military history, and one again remarkable as a feat of English horse. I deliberately omit all mention of these lest I should confuse the reader and disturb his conception of the great battle that was to follow.

That battle proceeded upon a certain plan thought out in detail, perfectly simple in character, and united in conception. It failed, as we shall see; and by its failure turned what should have been the cutting-off and destruction of Souham's command into a signal French victory. But before we can understand the causes of its failure, we must grasp the plan itself in its major lines, and with that object I shall discuss it in my next section under the title of "The Plan of the Allies."

THE PLAN OF THE ALLIES

If the reader will look at the map opposite he will see in what disposition the armies of the allies were, at the end of April and the first days of May 1794, to carry into effect the plan which I proceed to describe.

There, in its triangle or advanced wedge, with a base stretching across Lille and an apex at Courtrai, lay the exposed French division, Souham's.

Clerfayt was to the north of that wedge. The French, in pushing their wedge up to Courtrai, had thus separated him from the rest of the allies. Clerfayt lay with his command round about the district of Roulers; he attempted to return and oust Souham, but he failed, and to the north of the French wedge, and separated from the rest of the allies by its intervening thousands, he remained up to, throughout, and after the great battle that was to follow.

Right away down south, nearly sixty miles as the crow flies, lay the bulk of the Austrian army, Coburg's command, round the town which it had just captured, Landrecies. The Duke of York's command, detached from this main army of Coburg, had been ordered north, and was, by May 3rd, at Tournai. To the east lay the Prussian forces together with a small body of Hanoverians, about 4000 in number, which last could be brought up on to the Scheldt River when necessary.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet