British Campaigns in Flanders 1690-1794: Being Extracts from "A History of the British Army"Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
British Campaigns in Flanders 1690-1794: Being Extracts from "A History of the British Army"
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Flanders -- History, Military; Great Britain -- History, Military -- 18th century
Meanwhile the Allies, who were still below their full strength,
occupied the following positions. On their right, that is to say,
to westward, six thousand Dutch and about three thousand Imperial
troops, under the Hereditary Prince of Orange, lay at Furnes, Ypres
and Menin; next to them two thousand five hundred British and about
the same number of Austrians and Prussians, under the Duke of York,
occupied Tournai; next to the Duke of York, Knobelsdorf, with about
eight thousand Prussians, held the line of Maulde, Lecelles and Saint
Amand on the Scarpe; next to Knobelsdorf, Clerfaye, with about twelve
thousand men at Vicoigne and Raismes, and at Bruay and Fresnes, on
the Scheldt, encompassed Condé on the south, while the Prince of
Würtemberg with about five thousand men blockaded it on the north. At
Onnaing, due south of Condé, lay the principal army, about fifteen
thousand strong, with the advance guard at Saint Saulve; and to the
east of the main army General Latour with about six thousand men
occupied Bettignies, in observation of Maubeuge, with a detachment at
Bavai to preserve communication between Bettignies and Onnaing. The
total force of the Allies may thus be taken, roughly, at over sixty
thousand men, not including thirty thousand Imperial troops under the
Prince of Hohenlohe-Kirschberg, which were uselessly detained at Namur,
Trèves and Luxemburg. The English cavalry, the Hanoverians and the
Hessians, had not yet arrived, though the first detachments of the two
former were drawing near to the front; but none the less the Allies
were actually superior to the French in numbers, and very far superior
in quality. The whole of their multitudinous posts were strongly
entrenched; but it will be observed that, besides the essential defect
of the enormous extension of their front, their line was cut in two by
the river Scheldt, which gave the greater opportunity for a successful
attack upon one or other of their wings. The general distribution of
the Allies corresponded in the main with their lines of retreat, that
of the British lying west to the sea, that of the Dutch north-east upon
Antwerp, that of the Austrians east upon Namur; so that a successful
attack upon the British would probably lay bare the Austrian right,
and a decided defeat of the Austrians must certainly uncover the
British left. With their usual jealousy for supreme control, the
Austrians mixed a contingent of their own troops with the Allies in
every section of the army, an arrangement which gave rise to infinite
confusion, since it made even small detachments dependent on two or
three different sources of supply. For each nation made provision for
its own troops in its own way, and, owing to diversities of system and
of differences in calibre of muskets and cannon, it was impossible to
enforce any effort towards uniformity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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