Tourcoing

by Hilaire Belloc

Now, in the case of Tourcoing, there was none of this, for the French at Tourcoing were surprised.

The surprise was not complete, but it was sufficiently thorough to make the whole of the fighting during the first day, Saturday (at least, the whole of the fighting in the centre of the field), a triumph for the allied advance.

Let us first appreciate exactly how matters looked to Souham when, on the 15th, the Thursday, the blow was about to fall upon him.

He had under his orders, with headquarters now at Courtrai, now at Menin (see sketch map on p. [58]), rather less than 40,000. In that dash upon Courtrai a fortnight before, which had led to the dangerous establishment of so large an advanced body in front of the main French line, one main effect of that advance had been to push back, away to the left beyond the Lys, more than 16,000, but less than 20,000 men under the Austrian General, Clerfayt. With that army, Clerfayt’s body, Souham had remained continually in touch. Detachments of it were continually returning to the valley of the Lys to harass his posts, and, in a word, Clerfayt’s was the only force of the enemy which Souham thought he had need to bear in mind.

The bulk of the Austrian army he knew to be quite four days’ march away to the south, at first occupied in the siege of Landrecies, and later stationed in the vicinity of that fortress.

Of course, lying in his exposed position, Souham knew that a general attack upon him from the south was one of the possibilities of the situation, but it was not a thing which he thought could come unexpectedly: at any rate he thought himself prepared, by the use of his scouts and his spies, to hear of any such advance in ample time.

In case he should be attacked, the attack might take one of many forms. It might try to drive him over the Lys, where Clerfayt would be ready to meet him; or it might be a general attack upon Courtrai as a centre; or it might be (what had, as we have seen, been actually determined) an attempt to cut him and all his 40,000 off from the main French line.

This main French line ran through the town of Lille, and Lille not only had its garrison, but also at Sainghin, outside the fortifications to the south-east, a camp, under Bonnaud, of 20,000 men. If the attack from the south or from the north, or from both, managed to cut Souham off from Bonnaud’s camp, and from the garrison at Lille, he was ruined, and his 40,000 were lost; but he hoped to be kept sufficiently informed of the enemy’s movements to fall back in time, should such an attempt be made, and to provide for it by effecting a junction with Bonnaud before it was delivered.

Pichegru, the Commander of the whole French army of the north, who had ordered the advance on Courtrai, happened to be absent upon a visit to the posts away south upon the Sambre River. Souham was therefore temporarily in full command of all the troops which were to be concerned in the coming battle. But the position was only a temporary one, and that must account for the deference he paid to the advice of the four generals subordinate to him, and for the council which he called at Menin on the critical Saturday night which decided the issue. He himself quotes his commission in the following terms:—“Commander-in-Chief of all the troops from the camp at Sainghin to Courtrai inclusive.”

From the beginning of the week, when a detachment of his troops had but just recovered from a sharp action with the Duke of York’s men towards Tournai, Souham appreciated that the forces of the enemy were gradually increasing to the south of him, and that the posts upon the Scheldt were receiving additional enforcements of men. But neither his judgment nor the reports that came in to him led him to believe that the mass of the Austrian army was coming north to attack him. And in this he was right, for, as we have seen, the Emperor did not make up his mind until Wednesday the 14th, which was the day when orders were sent to the Arch-Duke Charles to march northward.