n, the River Lys. Few bridges
crossed this stream, and for the purpose of turning the French position
and coming across the Lys from the north to the neighbourhood of Mouveaux,
there was in those days no bridge save the bridge at Wervicq (at the point
marked 6 on the plan at the beginning of this section); but this
difficulty we have seen to be lessened by the presence in Clerfayt's
command of a section of pontoons.

At first sight one might perceive no other considerable obstacle save the
Lys to the general movement of the allied army. But when the peculiar
course of the little River Marque is pointed out, and the nature of its
stream described, the reader will perceive that it exercised some little
effect upon the fortunes of the battle, and might have exercised a much
greater one to the advantage of the British troops had not the Duke of
York blundered in a fashion which will be later described.

In the first place, it should be noted that this little stream (it is no
wider than a canal, will barely allow two barges to pass in its lower
course, and will not float one to the southward of Lille) turns up quite
close to Roubaix, and at the nearest point is not a mile from the
market-place of that town.

Now the significance of such a conformation to the battlefield of
Tourcoing lay in the fact that it was impossible for any considerable
force to manoeuvre between the third column (which was marching upon
Roubaix) and the Marque River. Had the Marque not existed, Kinsky, with
the fourth column, would have been free to march parallel with York, just
as York marched parallel with Otto, while the Arch-Duke with his fifth
column, instead of having been given a rendezvous right down south at
Pont-a-Marcq (the point marked 5 on my sketch), would have gone up the
main road from St Amand to Lille, and have marched parallel with Kinsky,
just as Kinsky would have marched parallel with York. In other words, the
fourth and the fifth columns, instead of being ordered along the dotted
lines marked upon my sketch (the elbows in which lines correspond to the
crossing places of the Marque), would have proceeded along the
uninterrupted arrow lines which I have put by the side of them.

The Marque made all the difference. It compelled the fifth column to take
its roundabout road, and the fourth, detained by the delay of the fifth,
was held, as we shall see in what follows, for a whole day at one of the
crossings of the river.

The lit