the second column under Otto and the third
under York), we discover a record of continuous success throughout the
whole of that day, Saturday the 17th of May, which deserved a better fate
than befell them upon the morrow.

(A) THE SECOND COLUMN UNDER OTTO

The second column under Otto, consisting of twelve battalions and ten
squadrons, certain of the latter being English horse, and the whole
command numbering some 10,000 men, advanced with the early morning of that
same Saturday the 17th simultaneously with Bussche from Bailleul to Leers.
It drove the French outposts in, carried Leers, and advanced further to
Wattrelos. It carried Wattrelos.

It continued its successful march another three miles, still pressing in
and thrusting off to its right the French soldiers of Compere's command,
until it came to what was then the little market-town of Tourcoing. It
carried Tourcoing and held it. This uninterrupted series of successes had
brought Otto's troops forward by some eight miles from their
starting-point, and had filled the whole morning, and Otto stood during
the afternoon in possession of this advanced point, right on the line
between Courtrai and Lille, and having fully accomplished the object which
his superiors had set him.

From the somewhat higher roll of land which his cavalry could reach, and
from which they could observe the valley of the Lys four miles beyond,
they must have strained their eyes to catch some hint of Clerfayt's
troops, upon whose presence across the river on their side they had so
confidently calculated, and which, had Clerfayt kept to his time-table and
crossed the Lys at dawn, would now have been in the close neighbourhood of
Tourcoing and in junction with this successful second column.

But there was no sign of any such welcome sight. The dull rolling plain,
with its occasional low crests falling towards the river, betrayed the
presence of troops in more than one position to the north and west. But
those troops were not moving: they were holding positions, or, if moving,
were obviously doing so with the object of contesting the passage of the
river. They were French troops, not Austrian, that thus showed distinctly
in rare and insufficient numbers along the southern bank of the Lys, and
indeed, as we know, Clerfayt, during the whole of that afternoon of the
17th, was painfully bringing up his delayed pontoons, and was, until it
was far advanced, upon the wrong side of the river.

Otto m