take Mouscron
if he could and hold it, and if that had been the main object of the
orders given him, it would indeed have been folly to weaken his already
weak body by the detaching of a whole third of it four miles away upon the
high road to the eastward. But the capture of Mouscron was not the main
object set before Bussche. The main object was to "hold" the large French
forces in the Courtrai district and to give them the impression of a main
attack coming in that direction, and with _that_ object in view it was
very wise so to separate his force as to give Souham the idea that the
French northern extremity was being attacked in several places at once.

With the early morning, then, of Saturday the 17th, Bussche sent rather
less than 1500 men up the high road towards Courtrai, and, with rather
more than 2500, marched boldly up against Mouscron, where, considering the
immensely superior forces that the French could bring against him, it is
not surprising that he was badly hammered. Indeed, but for the fact that
the French were unprepared (as we saw in the section "The Preliminaries of
the Battle"), he could not have done as much as he did, which was, at the
first onslaught, to rush Mouscron and to hold it in the forenoon of that
day. But the French, thoroughly alarmed by the event (which was precisely
what the plan of the allies intended they should be), easily brought up
overwhelming reinforcements, and Bussche's little force was driven out of
the town. It was not only driven out of the town, it was pressed hard down
the road as far as Dottignies within a mile or two of the place from which
it had started; but there it rallied and stood, and for the rest of the
day kept the French engaged without further misfortune. A student of the
whole action, careful to keep its proportions in mind and not to
exaggerate a single instance, will not regard Bussche's gallant attempt
and failure before Mouscron as any part of the general breakdown. On the
contrary, the stand which his little force made against far superior
numbers, and the active cannonade which he kept up upon this extreme edge
of the French front, would have been one of the major conditions
determining the success of the allies if their enormously larger forces in
other parts of the field had all of them kept their time-table and done
what was expected of them.

II

THE SECOND AND THIRD COLUMNS UNDER OTTO AND THE DUKE OF YORK

On turning to the second group (