Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/412

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bank of the Waal. On the following day the French

Jan. 5. attacked Tuil itself, whereupon the Dutch gunners at once fled from their batteries on the river; but, advancing from thence against Geldermalsen, the enemy was repulsed with some loss by the Thirty-third, Forty-second, and Seventy-eighth, under the direction of General David Dundas. It was, however, plain that these posts could not be held against a strong attack so long as frost practically neutralised their natural defences; and Walmoden recalled Dundas and all the troops in that quarter to the north side of the Leck, in order to take up a new line of cantonments extending from Arnheim on the east by Wageningen, Reenen, Amerongen, and Wyk-by-Duurstede to Honswyk.

Jan. 6. A sudden thaw on the 6th offered hopes of re-*establishing the old position on the Waal, and orders were issued on the 7th for a reconnaissance in force of the whole line of the French posts on the following

Jan. 8. day; but on the morning of the 8th the frost abruptly set in again, though not before the troops were already in motion beyond power of recall. On the right, Dundas succeeded in driving the enemy from their posts on the Linge to the Waal, and in recovering Buren and Tiel. The brunt of the work fell upon the Fourteenth, Twenty-seventh, and Twenty-eighth under Lord Cathcart; and these drove the enemy in succession from the villages of Buurmalsen and Geldermalsen and captured a gun, not, however, without a loss of one hundred and thirty men to themselves. On the left the orders seem to have miscarried, probably through the confusion due to divided command. Before the operation could be carried any further, Pichegru, finding that the ice on the Waal was stronger than ever,

Jan. 10. on the 10th fell upon the Allied line in great force at three different points between the Pannarden Canal