The Radiant Republic 125. The Victory of June

In the Second Battle of Tournai, the Austrians launched a sudden strike with two cavalry regints against a French infantry brigade; yet not long after the fighting began, it beca clear that the hunters were the ones being ambushed. The infantry brigade under General Moncey, supported by two horse-artillery companies, held firm with three regintal hollow squares and repelled two successive Austrian cavalry assaults. In the last and fiercest attack, the infantry—through sheer contempt for death and a willingness to be cut down—absorbed the Guards cuirassiers’ mad, wall-like collision. When Colonel Nansouty’s two light cavalry regints entered the field, the battle was decided at once, and the French secured the final victory.

The French deployed 5,000 infantry (including two horse-artillery companies disguised as baggage trains) and 2,500 cavalry against 2,300 Austrian cavalry. In the end, French losses (killed and severely wounded) approached 400 n, including 35 cavalryn and 11 officers, with no one taken prisoner.

As for the Austrians—aside from more than 300 cavalryn who broke out of the encirclent (mostly the more agile hussars)—they were destroyed in full. Austrian dead reached 800, with 1,200 taken prisoner. One standard of the Austrian Royal Guards cavalry was captured, along with 1,100 horses and assorted pistols, carbines, sabres, armor, and other equipnt. Because surgeons were scarce and dicines precious, it was customary for the French, when clearing the battlefield, to put to death those Austrian wounded who could not walk—officers excepted.

The battle proved, once again, that a well-trained hollow square was extrely effective against cavalry. Yet one key to victory was the flexible use of artillery. Without the powerful support of more than ten canister guns, even if the infantry had managed to hold their squares, their losses would have been two to three tis what they were—if not higher. And to turn an infantry defense against cavalry into a great victory, friendly cavalry had to join in. Infantry squares, artillery, and cavalry: none could be missing.

Forty minutes after the battle ended, the camp at Lille, fifteen kiloters away, beca a sea of celebration. The sound of triumph soon reached the city itself. Officials from the provincial administration and the City Hall hurried to the camp to inquire, and André, the Plenipotentiary, found them intolerably troubleso. He simply had Lath, acting commander, and Chief of Staff Berthier receive them and send them away.

At that mont, the precise figures had not yet been tallied, but the nature of the result could not be mistaken—above all because Austria’s most elite unit, the Royal Guards cavalry regint, had been nearly annihilated (its commander, General Charles of Austria, escaping only by chance), and even its standard had fallen into French hands.

The banner—embroidered in its upper-left corner with a red lion beneath a blue crown—had been brought back from the field by Major Suchet of the central army staff and laid, largely intact, upon André’s desk for inspection. That crowned red lion was, by chance, one of the principal emblems of the House of Habsburg.

André ran his hands lightly over the Austrian cavalry standard, which was punctured by several bullet holes. It was made of expensive Eastern silk and felt pleasant to the touch—so supple and smooth that it seed softer than a woman’s body.

When he had toyed with it long enough, André pointed to the banner and said to Major Suchet, who was serving as ssenger, “Now take this standard into Lille and parade it for two hours so everyone can enjoy it. When the detailed report is ready, you will escort it—together with the dispatch—to the Legislative Assembly. I suspect the 600,000 Parisians’ hunger for victory has been waiting a long ti.”

At last André could allow himself a proper sleep. Since the previous night, he had not closed his eyes; he had been obsessing over the outco. After all, the balance of forces was 7,500 against 2,300, with the French outnumbering the Austrians by more than three to one. And Moncey’s infantry brigade consisted of Champagne veterans who had received six months to a year of precious training; most of their officers and non-commissioned officers had also been drilled and steeped in hollow-square doctrine for as long as two years.

André was even convinced that Moncey’s squares were more regular and more practiced than those Napoleon had deployed at the Battle of the Pyramids. Moreover, André trusted that two future Marshals of Napoleon—Moncey and Suchet—together with four outstanding Generals of the First French Empire—Nansouty, Morand, Gudin, Friant, and the rest—should have victory all but guaranteed against an arrogant, inexperienced Archduke Charles of Austria.

Yet battlefields always breed surprises. Fortunately, the surprise André feared never ca to pass. Even so, he insisted on waiting for the report written in General Moncey’s own hand. Five minutes later, André substantially increased—indeed, falsified—the French casualty figures in that report before submitting it to the National Legislative Assembly and the Ministry of War.

“In this action, our engaged strength totaled 7,500 n. Our losses (killed and severely wounded) exceeded 2,000, including 300 cavalryn and 62 officers. Fortunately, none were taken prisoner. The enemy left 800 dead and 1,200 prisoners. We captured one standard of the Austrian Royal Guards cavalry, as well as 1,100 horses and various pistols, carbines, sabres, armor, and other equipnt…”

After the Second Battle of Tournai, the mobile cavalry brigade stationed in the southern Netherlands was almost completely destroyed, leaving most of the region west and south of the Scheldt with only General Josef Alvinczy’s infantry division at Mons, together with several local garrison units composed of northern Netherlanders—Flemings.

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Toward evening, General Moncey’s several thousand infantry and cavalry arrived before Tournai. Before the French encirclent had even fully ford, the commander of the Flemish infantry brigade responsible for the city’s fortifications resolved to send an emissary to negotiate. He had already learned that in the great infantry-cavalry battle a few hours earlier, the two Austrian cavalry regints had been virtually wiped out, and that General Josef Alvinczy, struggling for his own survival, could offer Tournai no relief.

Facing the emissary, Moncey, as the French commander, gave his word that he would treat all who submitted with chivalry, and that he would not place Flemings under the guard of French-speaking Walloons—except for criminals indicted by the joint tribunal.

Half an hour after the emissary returned to the city, the double-headed eagle flag of the Holy Roman Empire was lowered from Tournai’s walls and replaced with a stark, glaring white flag. Soon more than 2,000 Flemish soldiers filed out, surrendered their weapons, and entered the prisoner camp prepared by the French. Before nightfall, the French took control of the city’s fortifications and recovered Tournai—once the capital of the Frankish kingdom 1,500 years earlier.

The next morning, 187 Flemish officers and n were selected from the prisoner camp and escorted to the city prison to stand trial before an ordinary criminal court ford by French gendars and Walloon representatives. The charges included murder, assault, rape, looting, and arson. That evening’s verdict sentenced 35 major offenders to imdiate execution by firing squad; 72 minor offenders received hard labor terms ranging from one to five years; the remainder were declared innocent and released.

On the night of June 15, Moncey summoned Friant to the central army headquarters. The General’s opening line left the Lieutenant Colonel utterly bewildered. Smiling broadly, the commander said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant Colonel Friant. Your regint fought so bravely yesterday that it has been ‘killed to the last man’—you may return to Reims to refit and await orders.”

Only after Moncey’s explanation did Friant understand. His regint had been struck from the rolls of the Army of the North and was being returned to the Marne to receive a new mission. If all went as expected, the 3rd Infantry Regint would be re-equipped, trained in an entirely new mode of fighting, and then assigned to the mountain light rifle brigade under Colonel Lefebvre.

“And there is one more task,” Moncey continued. “Those captured Flemish infantryn will be escorted to Reims by your regint and handed over to Colonel Chassé at the gendarrie headquarters.”

Long Austrian agitation, combined with regional antagonism and ethnic conflict, had made relations between Dutch-speaking Flemings and the French-speaking inhabitants of Tournai exceptionally tense. Even after the public trials of criminal soldiers, the gendars had already arrested dozens of local civilians and troops who tried to take revenge upon the Flemish prisoners near the camp. For that reason, after reporting to André, Moncey decided to have the forr 3rd Infantry Regint escort the prisoners two hundred kiloters away to Reims.

On the very day Moncey recovered Tournai, the follow-on main force under Hoche turned to attack Mons, forty-five kiloters away, seeking to coordinate with General Beauharnais, who commanded the right wing. Under the plan, General Hoche would lead 4,000 cavalry to cut off Alvinczy’s infantry division from the rear, while the left wing would rush down from the passes and strike the Austrian positions. The two armies ant to et beneath Mons in victory.

But events outpaced the plan.

After learning that Archduke Charles of Austria’s cavalry brigade had been destroyed, General Josef Alvinczy did not hesitate—he abandoned Mons once again. Under the pretext of marching west to aid the imperiled Tournai, he ordered his division to leave behind all heavy baggage wagons, all cumberso artillery, and any personal items exceeding 10 kilograms. The troops moved light and made a forced night march north toward Halle, sixty kiloters away, on the outer defensive line of Brussels.

Although Hoche’s cavalry raced hard in an attempt to trap the Austrian infantry division—now lacking mobile cavalry support—they were held back by small delaying detachnts that Alvinczy had left along the route. In the end, the high-spirited French cavalry intercepted the rearguard—half an Austrian infantry brigade—on open ground thirty kiloters south of Halle, and at the cost of more than a hundred casualties, destroyed more than 2,000 infantry.

anwhile, General Beauharnais’s right wing arrived late and “recovered” Mons on the afternoon of June 16—finding not a single Austrian soldier defending it. On the 18th, one detachnt of the right wing was ordered to take over Nivelles, which Hoche’s cavalry had seized.

The left wing under General Fardel crossed the Austro-French border again on June 14. With the assistance of three French warships under Lieutenant Colonel Surcouf, it took Furnes and Koksijde with little effort. Three days later, after hearing of the central army’s brilliant victory, the left-wing commander pushed farther north and captured several more towns, though the number of Austrians destroyed amounted to no more than 1,000.

At one point the left wing advanced its line to Torhout, twenty kiloters south of Bruges. Under sustained Austrian counterattacks, General Fardel abandoned the town and on the 20th fell back to Roeselare, forming a mutually supporting angle with Warem, twenty-five kiloters away, which the central army had just taken.

By June 21, the Army of the North had extended its line to Nivelles—Warem—Torhout—Nieuwpoort on the Atlantic, occupying the central and southern portions of East and West Flanders.

At the sa ti, André, the effective commander of the Army of the North, refused further requests for offensives from General Beauharnais and General Fardel. The Plenipotentiary ordered both left- and right-wing commanders to hold the existing line and not to advance without authorization. Any violation would be punished by court-martial without exception.

And just as the Army of the North ca to a halt, in late June, Talleyrand—acting as André’s private envoy—drove south from Rotterdam day and night to Brussels, one hundred and fifty kiloters away. There, the crippled nobleman would conduct a secret diplomatic eting with the Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands—without any morandum to record it.