uveaux and Tourcoing also, of Otto, York, Kinsky,
and the Arch-Duke Charles, should result somewhere about noon in their
joining hands with Clerfayt and forming one great body: a body cutting off
Courtrai from Lille, and the 40,000 under Souham from their fellows in the
main French line.

With such a time-table properly observed, the plan should have succeeded,
and between the noon and the evening of that Saturday, the great force
which Souham commanded should have been at the mercy of the allies.

* * * * *

Such was the plan and such the time-table upon which it was schemed. Its
success depended, of course, as I have said, upon an exact keeping of that
time-table, and also upon the net being drawn round Souham before he had
guessed what was happening. The second of these conditions, we shall see
when we come to speak of "The Preliminaries of the Action," was
successfully accomplished. The first was not; and its failure is the story
of the defeat suffered by the Duke of York in particular, and the
consequent break-down of the whole strategical conception of the allies.

* * * * *

But before dealing with this it is necessary to establish a disputed
point.

I have spoken throughout of the plan as the Duke of York's. Because it
failed, and because the Duke of York was an English prince, historians in
this country have not only rejected this conclusion, but, as a rule, have
not even mentioned it. The plan has been represented as Mack's plan, as a
typical example of Austrian pedantry and folly, the Duke of York as the
victim of foolish foreigners who did not know their business, and it has
even been hinted that the Austrians desired defeat! With the latter
extravagant and even comic suggestion I will deal later in this study; for
the moment I am only concerned with the responsibility of the Duke of
York.

It must, in the first place, be clearly understood that the failure of the
plan does not reflect upon the judgment of that commander. It failed
because Clerfayt was not up to time, and because too much had been asked
of the fifth column. The Duke came of a family not famous for genius; he
was exceedingly young, and whatever part he may have had in the framing of
this large conception ought surely to stand to his credit.

It is true that Mack, the Austrian General, drafted details of the plan
immediately before it was carried into execution, and our prin