The morning of the 11th of October opened with bad news for the Allies. The French had been admitted into Liége by the inhabitants behind the backs of the Dutch, so that the Prince of Waldeck, who, commanded on the left, was obliged to withdraw eight battalions from Roucoux and post them _en potence_ on his left flank, with his cavalry in support. Thus the defence of Roucoux, as well as of Liers and Varoux, was left to eight battalions of British, Hanoverians, and Hessians only. This made the outlook for the Allied left the worse, since it was evident that the brunt of the French attack would fall upon it. Saxe gave Prince Charles little time for reflection. He had one hundred and twenty thousand men against eighty thousand, and he knew that of the eighty thousand at least one-third were tied to the Austrian entrenchments about the Jaar. He opened the action by a furious assault upon the Dutch on the left flank, his infantry being formed in dense columns, so that the attack could be renewed continually by fresh troops. Simultaneously fifty-five battalions in three similar columns were launched upon Liers, Varoux, and Roucoux. Outmatched though they were, Dutch, Germans, and British all fought splendidly and repelled more than one attack. But, to use Ligonier's words, as soon as two French brigades had been repulsed in each village, a third brigade ran in; and the eight battalions, though they still held Liers, were forced to withdraw both from Roucoux and Varoux. Being rallied, however, by Ligonier, they advanced again and recaptured both villages; and the Nineteenth and Forty-third took up a position in a hollow road which they held to the last. The Dutch now began to retire across the rear of the position from the left, in good order despite heavy losses, while Ligonier checked the enemy in the plain with the British cavalry. When the Dutch had passed he ordered his own men to retreat in the same direction, still covering the movement with the cavalry and with the Thirteenth and Twenty-sixth Foot, which had been sent to the field from the garrison of Maestricht. The Austrians formed a rear-guard in turn when the British and their German comrades had passed, and thus the whole army filed off, unpursued and in perfect order, and crossed the Meuse in safety on the following morning.