who are in touch with the commander-in-chief,
and with each other, the exact observation of orders on the part of that
isolated body is of supreme importance to the success of the combination.
_They_, all lying in much the same region and able to receive and transmit
orders with rapidity, may correct an error before it has developed evil
consequences. But the isolated commander co-operating from a distance, and
receiving orders from headquarters only after a long delay, is under no
such advantage. Thus the tardiness of the fifth column was, as we have
seen, communicated to the fourth, and the third, second, and first, all in
one line, could or should have easily appreciated the general situation
along the Scheldt. But the sixth body, under Clerfayt, which formed the
keystone of the whole plan, and without whose exact co-operation that plan
must necessarily fail, enjoyed no such advantage, and, if it indulged in
the luxuries of delay or misdirection, could not have its errors corrected
in useful time. A despatch, to reach Clerfayt from headquarters and from
the five columns that were advancing northward from the valley of the
Scheldt, must make a circuit round eastward to the back of Courtrai, and
it was a matter of nearly half a day to convey information from the
Emperor or his neighbouring subordinates in the region of Tournai to this
sixth corps which lay north of the Lys.

Now it so happened that Clerfayt, though a most able man, and one who had
proved himself a prompt and active general, woefully miscalculated the
time-table of his march and the difficulties before him.

He got his orders, as I have said, at ten o'clock on the Friday morning.
Whether to give his men a meal, or for whatever other reason, he did not
break up until between one and two. He then began ploughing forward with
his sixteen thousand men and more, in two huge columns, through the sandy
country that forms the plain north of the River Lys. He ought to have
known the difficulty of rapid advance over such a terrain, but he does not
seem to have provided for it with any care, and when night fell, so far
from finding himself in possession of Wervicq and master of the crossing
of the river there, the heads of his columns had only reached the great
highway between Menin and Ypres, nearly three miles short of his goal.
Three miles may sound a short distance to the civilian reader, but if he
will consider the efforts of a great body of men and vehicles,