ture), and when it had
done this it was to turn to the north with one part of its force in order
to shelter the march of the Duke of York from attacks by the French troops
near Lille, while another part of its force was to join with the fifth
column and march up with it until both came upon a level with York and
Otto in the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and Mouveaux.

Now it was to this fifth column, the 16,000 men or more under the
Arch-Duke Charles, that the great work of the day was assigned. From
Pont-a-Marcq they must attack a great French body quite equal to their own
in numbers, even when part of Kinsky's force had joined them, which French
force lay in the camp at Sainghin. They must thrust this force back
towards Lille, pour up northward, and arrive in support of Otto and York
by the time these two commanders were respectively at Tourcoing and
Mouveaux.

In other words, the fifth column, that of the Arch-Duke Charles, was asked
to make an advance of nearly fourteen miles, involving heavy fighting in
its first part, and yet to synchronise with columns who had to advance no
more than five miles or seven.

Supposing all went well, Clerfayt--crossing the Lys at Wervicq at the same
hour which saw the departure of the five southern columns from Warcoing,
Bailleul, Templeuve, Froidmont, and Pont-a-Marcq respectively, was to
advance southward from the river towards Mouveaux and Tourcoing, a
distance of some seven miles, while the others were advancing on the same
points from the south.

If the time-table were accurately kept and this great combined movement
all fitted in, Clerfayt would join hands with the second, third, fourth,
and fifth columns somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tourcoing and
Mouveaux, a great force of over 60,000 men would lie between the French
troops at Lille and Souham's 40,000 in the "advanced wedge," and those
40,000 thus isolated were, in a military sense, destroyed.

Such being the mechanism or map of the scheme, we must next inquire the
exact dates and hours upon which the working of the whole was planned.

The Duke of York, as we have seen when he was arranging the business and
writing to Clerfayt and the Emperor, had talked of moving upon the 14th,
by which presumably he meant organising the attack on the 14th, and
setting the first columns in motion from their places of rendezvous in the
early hours of that day, Wednesday, before dawn.

If that was in his mind, it shows him to have bee