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
should be a great anniversary for the Fourteenth, Thirty-Seventh, and
Fifty-Third.
It was directly after this action that the course of events in Poland
began to tell upon the councils of the Imperial Headquarters at Tournai.
◆May 23.◆ On the 23rd, Mack, disgusted by the failure of his elaborate
plans, resigned his post as Chief of the Staff, and, having first
expressed his opinion that the reconquest of Belgium was hopeless,
retired for the time into private life. His successor, Waldeck, being a
fellow-conspirator with Thugut, was still more eager for the evacuation
of the Netherlands; and the Emperor was easily tempted to share their
views. ◆May 24.◆ On the 24th a Council of War was held for form’s sake,
wherein the Emperor set forth the situation in such a light as to gain a
ready vote from his Generals that further efforts in the Netherlands
were useless. The Duke of York alone pleaded earnestly for a renewal of
the attack upon Flanders; and, as fate ordained it, his representations
were seconded by unexpected successes of the Allies on the Sambre and in
the Palatinate. On the 24th Marshal Möllendorf and the Prussians
surprised the French about Kaiserslautern and drove them back with a
loss of three thousand men and twenty guns; and on the same day Count
Kaunitz gained a still more important victory on the Sambre. The fact
was that serious differences had arisen at Paris between Carnot on the
one side and Robespierre and St. Just on the other, because Carnot
insisted on keeping the direction of the military operations in his own
hands. Robespierre, to whom the art of war was as incomprehensible as a
Chinese manuscript, was furious with jealousy and rage. “At the first
reverse, Carnot’s head shall fall,” cried the despicable creature,
galled by the cold contempt with which his inflexible colleague rebuffed
his attempts at interference; and to re-establish civil influence at the
seat of war, St. Just, Lebas, and five more Commissioners set out on the
2nd of May for the army of the Sambre. There they introduced the rule of
terror in its worst form, and with it, of course, confusion unspeakable.
They fought with the Generals, they fought among themselves; and in the
midst of this chaos St. Just took upon himself the supreme direction of
the operations whereby the Austrians were to be crushed. ◆May 18, 20,
22, 24.◆ Four several times he ordered the army to pass the Sambre,
wasting the lives of his troops with obstinate imbecility. ◆May 24.◆
Finally he gave Kaunitz the opportunity for a counter-attack, in which,
with inconsiderable loss to themselves, the Austrians routed the French
completely, killing and wounding two thousand men, and capturing three
thousand more, besides fifty pieces of cannon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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