it is certain that
during sixteen days (6th to 22nd May) Malmesbury, despite his urgent
entreaties to Grenville, could procure neither instructions as to his
future conduct, nor a promise for the payment of the first Prussian
subsidy. News of a British disaster in Flanders at last quickened the
laggards of Whitehall. On the 23rd Malmesbury gained his heart's desire,
and set out for the Prussian headquarters on the following day.[352]
Meanwhile, owing to this long delay (one of the most discreditable
incidents in the careers of Pitt and Grenville), Prussia took no steps
to carry out the terms of the compact. It so happened that on 24th May
her army in the Palatinate, commanded by Moellendorf, gained a victory
over the French at Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate; but that event set
them the more against Malmesbury's treaty, which implied a march of some
120 miles through difficult country, and across an enemy's front.

Moreover, as has been hinted, reverses had by this time overtaken the
right wing of the Allies, in West Flanders. At the centre, near the
Sambre, the campaign opened with promise, the British cavalry gaining a
brilliant success at Bethencourt. But Carnot, having drawn upon the
French troops in Lorraine and the Palatinate, threw his heaviest columns
at points on the extreme west of the French front, the result being that
at Turcoing the Republicans shattered the isolated corps of the Duke of
York and General Otto (18th May). The successes of the Prussians and of
the Austrian army, on the Sambre, saved the situation for a time. But
the prospects even in that quarter were overclouded by the resolve of
the Emperor Francis to leave his army and return to Vienna. News of the
critical state of affairs in Poland prompted this decision, the results
of which soon appeared in quarrels at headquarters and discouragement in
the rank and file. The Austrian soldiery saw in the withdrawal of the
Kaiser the end of his rule in the Netherlands. They were right. The
counsels of Thugut had now prevailed. South Poland was to be the prize
of the Hapsburgs. The tiresome and distant Netherlands were to be given
up, the pecuniary support of England, however, being assured as far as
possible by a feint of defending them.

Here we have the explanation of the half-hearted effort made by the
Austrians at Fleurus. There was every reason why Coburg, now again the
commander of the main Austrian force, should strike vigorously at the
French