der the title of "The Plan of the Allies."

PART III

THE PLAN OF THE ALLIES

If the reader will look at the map opposite he will see in what
disposition the armies of the allies were, at the end of April and the
first days of May 1794, to carry into effect the plan which I proceed to
describe.

There, in its triangle or advanced wedge, with a base stretching across
Lille and an apex at Courtrai, lay the exposed French division, Souham's.

Clerfayt was to the north of that wedge. The French, in pushing their
wedge up to Courtrai, had thus separated him from the rest of the allies.
Clerfayt lay with his command round about the district of Roulers; he
attempted to return and oust Souham, but he failed, and to the north of
the French wedge, and separated from the rest of the allies by its
intervening thousands, he remained up to, throughout, and after the great
battle that was to follow.

[Illustration]

Right away down south, nearly sixty miles as the crow flies, lay the bulk
of the Austrian army, Coburg's command, round the town which it had just
captured, Landrecies. The Duke of York's command, detached from this main
army of Coburg, had been ordered north, and was, by May 3rd, at Tournai.
To the east lay the Prussian forces together with a small body of
Hanoverians, about 4000 in number, which last could be brought up on to
the Scheldt River when necessary.

It will thus be seen that the allies, at the moment when the plan was
about to be formulated, lay on either side of the French wedge, and that
any scheme for cutting off that wedge from the main French line must
consist in causing a great force of the allies to appear rapidly and
unexpectedly between Courtrai and Lille.

In order to do this, it was necessary to get Clerfayt to march down south
to some point where he could cross the River Lys, while the rest of the
allies were marching north from their southern positions to join hands
with him.

When this larger mass of the allies coming up from the south and the east
should have joined hands with Clerfayt, all the great French body lying
advanced in the valley of the Lys round Menin and Courtrai would be cut
off.

Now the success of such a plan obviously depended upon two factors:
synchrony and surprise. That is, its success depended upon the accurate
keeping of a time-table, and upon carrying it out too quickly and
unexpectedly for Souham to fall back in time.

Clerfayt's force coming d