But the obstacles which were multiplying in Dumouriez’s front were as nothing to the storm that suddenly broke upon his flank. ◆Feb. 20.◆ Miranda had duly moved up to the siege of Maastricht with a force inadequate to the task and, moreover, dangerously dispersed; but the Austrians, declaring themselves too weak to move, still remained torpid in their cantonments, perhaps the more stubbornly because the Prussian Agent at the Austrian headquarters was perpetually urging them to action. ◆Feb. 26.◆ At last, however, Coburg on the 26th began to concentrate his forty thousand men and to pass them in five columns across the river; ◆March 1.◆ and on the 1st of March, to the great surprise of the French, he burst upon their cantonments on the Meuse, and for four days drove them in utter rout before him. Coburg himself and the left wing halted before Liège, but on the right the Archduke Charles, with the impetuosity of twenty-one years and the instinct of a born soldier, followed up the disorderly rabble from Maastricht southward upon Tongres, boldly attacking wherever he met the enemy. Such of the French as had been in action fled in all directions, abandoning everything; ten thousand deserters hurried across the frontier into France; and a small remnant took refuge behind the canal at Louvain, where it was joined by such French divisions as had not been engaged. Had Coburg pursued his advantage and advanced instantly with all his forces, he could have ended the campaign at once, for the people, furious at the exactions of the Jacobins, and, above all, at the theft of the plate from their churches, had turned savagely upon the retreating French. ◆March 5.◆ Instead of this he halted on the 5th, and wasted ten whole days in cantonments between Maastricht and Tongres. The Convention now ordered Dumouriez at once to proceed to Louvain and ◆March 9.◆ assume command, which he did with a very bad grace, leaving General Flers to take his place in Holland. His presence did much to restore confidence in the French army, and he was not a little helped by Coburg’s inaction. Nevertheless the news that reached him was singularly disquieting. Fresh regiments were embarking from England for Helvoetsluis; two reinforcing columns of Austrians were advancing from the Rhine upon Namur; ◆March 11.◆ and eight thousand Prussians, under the Duke of Brunswick-Oels, had arrived at Bois-le-Duc on the 11th, and were moving with five thousand British and Dutch upon Breda, to cut off the troops on the Hollandsdiep from France and Dumouriez’s own soldiers from Antwerp. In so desperate a situation there was no choice but to take the offensive. ◆March 15.◆