Hilaire Belloc - Premium Collection: Historical Works, Writings on Economy, Essays & Fiction. Hilaire Belloc
little wood. Moreover, though there were few places from which one could overlook any considerable view, the “blindness” of the field, as a whole, has been much exaggerated in the attempt to excuse or explain the disaster of which it was the theatre. The southern part of it is open enough, and so is the north-eastern portion, in which the first column operated. Of the soil no particular mention is needed; most of the great roads were paved; the weather had created no difficulty in the going, and the only trouble in this respect lay in the northern part, where Clerfayt’s command was condemned to advance over patches of loose and difficult sand, which made the road, or rather rare lanes, very heavy.
It will at once be perceived that, in view of the operations planned, one principal obstacle exists in the terrain, the River Lys. Few bridges crossed this stream, and for the purpose of turning the French position and coming across the Lys from the north to the neighbourhood of Mouveaux, there was in those days no bridge save the bridge at Wervicq (at the point marked 6 on the plan at the beginning of this section); but this difficulty we have seen to be lessened by the presence in Clerfayt’s command of a section of pontoons.
At first sight one might perceive no other considerable obstacle save the Lys to the general movement of the allied army. But when the peculiar course of the little River Marque is pointed out, and the nature of its stream described, the reader will perceive that it exercised some little effect upon the fortunes of the battle, and might have exercised a much greater one to the advantage of the British troops had not the Duke of York blundered in a fashion which will be later described.
In the first place, it should be noted that this little stream (it is no wider than a canal, will barely allow two barges to pass in its lower course, and will not float one to the southward of Lille) turns up quite close to Roubaix, and at the nearest point is not a mile from the market-place of that town.
Now the significance of such a conformation to the battlefield of Tourcoing lay in the fact that it was impossible for any considerable force to manœuvre between the third column (which was marching upon Roubaix) and the Marque River. Had the Marque not existed, Kinsky, with the fourth column, would have been free to march parallel with York, just as York marched parallel with Otto, while the Arch-Duke with his fifth column, instead of having been given a rendezvous right down south at Pont-à-Marcq (the point marked 5 on my sketch), would have gone up the main road from St. Amand to Lille, and have marched parallel with Kinsky, just as Kinsky would have marched parallel with York. In other words, the fourth and the fifth columns, instead of being ordered along the dotted lines marked upon my sketch (the elbows in which lines correspond to the crossing places of the Marque), would have proceeded along the uninterrupted arrow lines which I have put by the side of them.
The Marque made all the difference. It compelled the fifth column to take its roundabout road, and the fourth, detained by the delay of the fifth, was held, as we shall see in what follows, for a whole day at one of the crossings of the river.
The little stream has a deep and muddy bottom, and the fields upon its banks are occasionally marshy. This feature has been exaggerated, as have the other features I have mentioned, in order to explain or excuse the defeat, but, at any rate, it prevented the use of crossing places other than bridges. The Marque has no true fords, and there is no taking an army across it, narrow as it is, save by the few bridges which then existed. These bridges I have marked upon the sketch.
So far as the terrain is concerned, then, what we have to consider is country, flat, but containing low defensive positions, largely cut up, especially between the Scheldt and Roubaix, by hedges and walls, though more open elsewhere, and particularly open towards the north: a serious obstacle to the advance of one body in the shape of the River Lys; and another obstacle, irritating rather than formidable in character, but sufficient both by its course and its marshy soil to complicate the advance, namely, the little River Marque.
* * * * *
As to the weather, it was misty but fine. The nights in bivouac were passed without too much discomfort, and the only physical condition which oppressed portions of the allied army consisted in the error of its commanders, and proceeded from fatigue.
PART VI
THE ACTION
At about ten o’clock in the morning of Friday the 16th of May, Clerfayt, in his positions right up north beyond the Lys—positions which lay at and in front of the town of Thielt, with outposts well to the south and west of that town—received the orders of the Emperor.
These orders were what we know them to be: he was to march southward and westward and strike the Lys at Wervicq. He was to arrive at that point at or before nightfall, for in the very first hours of the morrow, Saturday, and coincidently with the beginning of the advance of the five columns from their southern posts, he was to cross the Lys and to proceed to join hands with those columns in the following forenoon, when the heads of them would have reached the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and Mouveaux.
Bussche, with the first column, his 4000 Hanoverians, had no task during that day but to proceed the mile and a half which separated Warcoing from the little village of St. Leger, and, with the head of his column in that village, prepare to pass the night and be ready to march forward long before dawn the next day.
Field-Marshal Otto, with the second column, was similarly and leisurely occupied marshalling his 10,000 Austrians and his contingent of British cavalry, so that the head of his column was at Bailleul ready also to advance with the early, dark, small hours of the ensuing morning.
The Duke of York, with his third column of similar numbers, or somewhat less, was performing a precisely similar task, and ordering his men so that the head of that column should reach Templeuve by evening and be ready to march at the same moment as the others did, shortly after midnight.
All these three, then, were absolutely ready, fresh from fatigue and in good order, upon that Friday evening at their appointed posts.
It is here necessary, as we are chiefly concerned with the British forces, to detail the composition of this third column which the Duke of York commanded.
It consisted of twelve battalions and ten squadrons, with a further reserve of sixteen British squadrons under General Erskine, which cavalry lay somewhat south of Templeuve, but ready to follow up the advance when it should begin. It was made of two portions, about equal in numbers, British and foreign. The foreign half was composed of four squadrons of Austrian Hussars and seven battalions of infantry, two Hessian and five Austrian. The British half was composed of a Brigade of Guards counting four battalions, with portions of the 14th, 37th, and 53rd Foot, while the British cavalry accompanying it (apart from the squadrons under Erskine) were six squadrons drawn from the 7th, 15th, and 16th Light Dragoons. It is to the credit of the young commander4 that this third column was the best organised, the most prompt, and, as the event proved, the most successful during the advance and the most tenacious in the subsequent defeat.
The fourth column, under Kinsky, about 11,000 strong, was also ready on that Friday, the 16th of May, concentrated at its point of departure, Froidmont, and ready to move at the same moment as all the others, shortly after midnight. But unlike the other three commanders upon his right, Kinsky was unfortunately handicapped by the position of the fifth column, that great body of 18,000 to 20,000 men, under the Arch-Duke Charles, which lay at St. Amand, which was to advance next day parallel with Kinsky and upon his left, and which it was his duty to keep in touch with, and to link up with the Duke of York’s upon the other side. He was handicapped, I say, by the situation of the fifth column, under the Arch-Duke Charles, the heavy strain already imposed upon which, and the accumulating difficulties it was about to encounter, largely determining the unfortunate issue of the battle.
Kinsky got news on that Friday from the Arch-Duke at St. Amand that it was hardly possible for his great body of men to reach the appointed post of Pont-à-Marcq at the arranged hour of daybreak the next morning. I have already suggested