York would receive the
shock. In other words, the 18,000 or so distributed on the six points
under Otto and York occupied an oblong the two long sides of which and the
top were about to be attacked by close upon 60,000 men. The hour from
which this general combined advance inwards upon the doomed commands of
the allies was to begin was given identically to all the French generals.
They were to break up at three in the morning. With such an early start,
the sun would not have been long risen before the pressure upon Otto and
York would begin.

When the sun rose, the head of Otto's column upon the little height of
Tourcoing saw to the north, to the north-east, and to the east, distant
moving bodies, which were the columns of the French attack advancing from
those quarters. As they came nearer, their numbers could be distinguished.
A brigade was approaching them from the north and the Lys valley,
descending the slopes of the hillock called Mont Halhuin. It was
Macdonald's. Another was on the march from Mouscron and the east. It was
Compere's. The General who was commanding for Otto in Tourcoing itself was
Montfrault. He perceived the extremity of the danger and sent over to York
for reinforcement. York spared him two Austrian battalions, but with
reluctance, for he knew that the attack must soon develop upon his side
also. In spite of the peril, in the vain hope that Clerfayt might yet
appear, Mouveaux and Tourcoing were still held, and upon the latter
position, between five and six o'clock in the morning, fell the first
shots of the French advance. The resistance at Tourcoing could not last
long against such odds, and Montfrault, after a gallant attempt to hold
the town, yielded to a violent artillery attack and prepared to retreat.
Slowly gathering his command into a great square, he began to move
south-eastward along the road to Wattrelos. It was half-past eight when
that beginning of defeat was acknowledged.

Meanwhile York, on his side, had begun to feel the pressure. Mouveaux was
attacked from the north somewhat before seven o'clock in the morning, and,
simultaneously with that attack, a portion of Bonnaud's troops which had
come up from the neighbourhood of Lille, was driving in York's outposts to
the west of Roubaix.

How, it may be asked, did the French, in order thus to advance from Lille,
negotiate the passage of that little River Marque, which obstacle had
proved so formidable a feature in the miscarriage of