great, the Austrian General, Batthyany, having no British officer as his peer in command, denied to the British troops the place of honour at the right of the line. It was a trifling matter, but yet sufficient to embarrass counsel, destroy harmony, and delay operations.[223] [Sidenote: June 30/July 11.] [Sidenote: July 13/24.] While the Allies were thus painfully drawing their forces together, the activity of the French never ceased. The Prince of Conti was detached with a considerable force to the Haine, where he quickly reduced Mons and St. Ghislain, thus throwing down almost the last relics of the Austrian barrier in the south. Thence moving to the Sambre, Conti laid siege to Charleroi. It was now sufficiently clear that the plan of the French campaign was to operate on the line of the Meuse for the invasion of Holland. Maestricht once taken, the rest would be easy, for most of the Dutch army were prisoners in the hands of the French; and with the possession of the line of the Meuse communication between the Allied forces of England and of Austria would be cut off. But before Maestricht could be touched Namur must first be captured; and the campaign of 1746 accordingly centred about Namur. [Sidenote: July 6/17.] [Sidenote: July 16/27.] [Sidenote: July 21/Aug. 1.] For the first fortnight of July the Allies remained at Terheyden, a little to the north of Breda, Saxe's army lying some thirty miles south-westward of them about Antwerp. On the 17th of July the Allies at last got on march, still with some faint hopes of saving Charleroi, and proceeded south-eastward, a movement which Saxe at once parried by marching parallel with them to the Dyle between Arschot and Louvain. Pushing forward, despite endless difficulties of transport and forage, through a wretched barren country, the Allies, now under command of Prince Charles of Lorraine, reached Peer, turned southward across the Demer at Hasselt, and by the 27th of July were at Borchloen. They were thus actually on the eastern side of the French main army, within reach of the Mehaigne and not without good hope of saving Namur if not Charleroi. On the 1st of August they crossed the Mehaigne, only to learn to their bitter disappointment that Charleroi had surrendered that very morning. Saxe meanwhile, with the principal part of his army, still lay entrenched at Louvain with detachments pushed forward to Tirlemont and Gembloux. The Allies continued their march before the eyes of these detachments to Masy on the Orneau, and there took up a position between that river and the head-waters of the Mehaigne, fronting to the north-east. This was the line approved through many generations of war as the best for the protection of Namur.[224] [Sidenote: Aug. 18/29.] [Sidenote: Sept. 2/13.]