The allies subsequently sustained several severe losses in actions with the enemy, and the Austrians having resolved to abandon the Netherlands, the Duke of York, who had maintained his position in front of Tournay against all opposition, was obliged to make a corresponding movement. The THIRD DRAGOON GUARDS shared, in common with the other regiments, the hardships which this event occasioned. In the subsequent retreat through Holland, which was occasioned in a great measure by the defection of the Dutch people, the incessant fatigue, the inclemency of the season, and the difficulty experienced in procuring supplies, reduced the British troops to a most distressing state of ill health, and occasioned the death of hundreds of brave men. At length the Maese and the Waal were frozen; the French, with their cannon and all the _matériel_ of their army, passed these rivers on the ice: some hard fighting occurred, but the British, in their reduced condition, were unable to oppose effectual resistance. The army retired in the midst of a rigorous winter, through a hostile country covered with ice and snow, without necessaries, and without accommodation: consequently numbers perished from want, and others were frozen to death; yet the survivors preserved a firm and undaunted countenance, and defeated the attacks of the pursuing army. 'Such was the fate of as brave a body of men as ever Great Britain sent into the field. Both men and officers behaved themselves throughout the whole of the campaigns of 1793 and 1794, with a spirit that distinguished them wherever they were employed, and that fully corresponded with that idea of British valour, so justly entertained by foreign nations. It was, however, in the last stages of this unsuccessful campaign that their courage appeared with the most lustre. The undesponding perseverance with which they met and surmounted every hardship and obstacle, arising from the various incidents of war, was the more remarkable, that they contended against an enemy in full possession of every advantage occurring from victory, and whom they could only expect to impress with a sense of their valour. Herein they certainly succeeded.'[54] [Sidenote: 1795] Having arrived at Bremen, in Lower Saxony, the troops there obtained provision and rest. The infantry embarked for England in April, 1795; but the THIRD DRAGOON GUARDS, and several other cavalry regiments, remained in Germany until November, when they returned to England. [Sidenote: 1799] In the summer of 1799 the regiment was encamped near Swinley, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Payne, and was this year ordered to be mounted on nag-tailed horses. [Sidenote: 1800]