nine thousand men under the Austrian General Colleredo, and a third of about twelve thousand under General Clerfaye, were to force the passage of the Scheldt in the front of the position. The remainder of the army, little less than half of it, was uselessly frittered away in posts of observation.
Murray, foreseeing that the French would retire as soon as they perceived the turning movement, begged persistently that more cavalry should be given to the Duke of York, in order to inflict some punishment on them. His request was refused, and the result was exactly that which he had expected. The
Aug. 7. Duke, after a march of eleven hours on a day of extra-*ordinary heat, found his troops too much exhausted to pass the river at Masnières; and Kilmain, withdrawing quietly in the night, made good his retreat upon Arras with little loss, though the British cavalry made a few prisoners. The Austrians, of course, blamed the Duke of York, though Coburg had sent Hohenlohe with him for the express purpose of super-*intending his operations; but the arrangements of the day opened Murray's eyes to the essential vices of the Austrian tactics. "We were not in force to attack the enemy," he wrote; "the Duke's column was a long way from support, and between ourselves we were not sorry to see them go off." It was only after long schooling by disaster that the Austrians at last abandoned a system of which the rottenness was clear to the much despised Briton.[1]
After the engagement, Coburg pressed the Duke of York to remain with him for yet another fort-*night, in order to renew the attack on the French army or to take Cambrai, the last fortress that blocked
- ↑ Ditfurth, i. 69. Witzleben, ii. 263-64. Murray to Dundas (private), 9th August 1793.
