Tourcoing

by Hilaire Belloc

When the Arch-Duke Charles had let Kinsky know upon the day before, the Friday, that he could not be at the appointed post of Pont-à-Marcq by the next daybreak, he had implied that somewhere in the early morning of that Saturday, at least, he would be there. Exactly how early neither he nor Kinsky could tell. His troops had sixteen full miles to march; they had but one road by which to advance, and they were fatigued with the enormous exertion of that hurried march northward to St Amand, which has already been set down.

Such were the delays at St Amand in preparing that advance, that the night was far gone before the fifth column took the road to Pont-à-Marcq, and the effort that was to be demanded of it was more than should have been justly demanded of any troops. Indeed, the idea that a body of this great size, tied to one road, could suffer the severe effort of the rush from the south to St Amand, followed by a night-march, that march to be followed by heavy fighting during the ensuing morning and a further advance of eight or nine miles during the forenoon, was one of the weakest points in the plan of the allies. No such weakness would have been apparent if the main body of the Austrians under the Arch-Duke had been called up on the 12th instead of the 14th, and had been given two more days in which to cover the great distance. But, as it was, the delay of the Emperor and his staff in calling up that main body had gravely weakened its effective power.

The league-long column thrust up the road through the darkness hour upon hour, with its confusion of vehicles and that difficulty in marshalling all units which is the necessary handicap of an advance in the darkness. Long before their task was so much as half accomplished, it was apparent not only that Pont-à-Marcq would not be reached at dawn, but that the mass of the infantry would not be at that river-crossing until the morning was far spent.

When day broke, though cavalry had been set forward at greater speed, the heads of the infantry column were but under the Hill of Beuvry. It was long after six before the force had passed through Orchies, and though Kinsky learnt, in the neighbourhood of eight o’clock, that the cavalry of the fifth column were up on a level with him and had reached the river, the main force of the fifth column was not available for crossing Pont-à-Marcq until noon, and past noon.

Kinsky, thus tied to the broken Bridge of Bouvines until Pont-à-Marcq should be forced, saw mid-day come and pass, and still his force and that of the Arch-Duke upon his left were upon the wrong side of the stream.

Yet another hour went by. His fourth column and the fifth should already have been nine miles up north, by Mouveaux, and they were not yet even across the Marque!

It was not until two o’clock that the passage of the river at Pont-à-Marcq was forced by the Arch-Duke Charles, and that, as the consequence of that passage of the stream, the French were taken in reverse in their camp at Sainghin and were compelled to fall back northward, leaving the passage at Bouvines free. Kinsky repaired the bridge, and was free to bring his 11,000 over, and the two extreme columns, the fourth and the fifth, would then have joined forces in the mid-afternoon of the Saturday, having accomplished their object of forcing the Marque and uniting for the common advance northward in support of Otto and the Duke of York.

Now, had the Arch-Duke Charles’ men been machines, this section of the general plan would yet have failed by half a day to keep its time-table: and by more than half a day: by all the useful part of a working day. By the scheme of time upon which the plan was based, the fifth column should have been across the Marque at dawn; by six, or at latest by seven o’clock the French should have been compelled to fall back from Sainghin, and the combined fourth and fifth columns should have been upon their northward march for Mouveaux. It was not seven o’clock, it was between three and four o’clock by the time the Arch-Duke was well across the Marque and the French retired; but still, if the men of this fifth column had been machines, Kinsky was now free to effect his junction across the Bridge of Bouvines, and the combined force would have reached the neighbourhood of Mouveaux and Tourcoing by nightfall, or shortly after dark.

But the men of the fifth column were not machines, and at that hour of the mid-afternoon of Saturday they had come to the limits of physical endurance. It was impossible to ask further efforts of them, or, if those efforts were demanded, to hope for success. In the Arch-Duke’s column by far the greater part of the 17,000 or 18,000 men had been awake and working for thirty-six hours. All had been on foot for at least twenty-four; they had been actually marching for seventeen, and had been fighting hard at the end of the effort and after sixteen miles of road. There could be no question of further movement that day: they bivouacked just north of the river, near where the French had been before their retirement, and Kinsky, seeing no combined movement could be made that day, kept his men also bivouacked near the Bridge of Bouvines.[5]

Thus it was that when night fell upon that Saturday the left wing of the advance from the Scheldt had failed. And that is why those watching from the head of the successful third column at Mouveaux and Roubaix, under the sunset of that evening, saw no reinforcement coming up the valley of the Marque, caught no sign of their thirty thousand comrades advancing from the south, and despaired of the morrow.