This heavy blow to the French right wing offered a fair occasion for the Allies to renew the offensive in Western Flanders; and the Duke of York urged this step upon his colleagues with all his might. The British Government too, reckoning that the troops, promised by Prussia in return for a British subsidy, must be nearly ready, decided to send out Lord Cornwallis to concert operations with Möllendorf, and directed him also to consult the Emperor and the Duke of York on his way to the Prussian Headquarters. But, as has already been told, King Frederick William was occupied rather with Poland than France at the moment; and he had also been much irritated by certain dispositions which had been proposed for his army by Mack in the middle of May. “I am astonished at the fashion in which Mack thinks to make use of my troops,” wrote the King. “Does Mack imagine that we can live on air?” echoed Möllendorf;[246] both of them being secretly delighted with so good an excuse for remaining inactive. ◆May 29.◆ Then suddenly, on the 29th of May, the Allied Camp at Tournai was thrown into consternation by the announcement that the Emperor was about to return to Vienna. Aided by the defeat of the 18th, Thugut had succeeded in persuading his imperial master to abandon the Austrian Netherlands; and even Mack, the unpopular Quartermaster-general, had supported him by recommending not only the evacuation of the country but the conclusion of peace with France. The truth was that jealousy of Prussia had prevailed over all other considerations, and that the Emperor had decided to offer help to the Empress Catherine in quelling the Polish insurrection. He hoped, however, at the same time to delude Prussia into keeping thirty thousand men upon the Rhine, and England into furnishing a subsidy for the ostensible prosecution of the war with France; and it was therefore imperative upon him to conceal his intentions. He accordingly gave out that the object of his departure was to hasten the recruiting of his forces; and in his final letter to Coburg, who very unwillingly retained the command, he gave him only vague instructions to adapt his action to the exigencies of the campaign and to save his troops as much as possible. But this duplicity deceived no one, and the less because Waldeck, before he had succeeded Mack as Chief of the Staff, had openly declared that the war in Belgium must be ended. The Austrian troops were profoundly discouraged, and two-thirds of the officers asked permission to retire. They can hardly be blamed, for the succession of murderous actions fought by the Allies against the French on the northern frontier of France, between the 17th of April and the 22nd of May 1794, has few parallels in the history of war. For a month Austrians, British, and Germans had contended almost unceasingly against superior numbers, slaying or taking, not without heavy loss to themselves, French soldiers by the ten thousand, and capturing French cannon by the score.