As regards the breakdown of relations between the British and Austrians in 1794, it is instructive to examine the most notable example of these tactics at the battle of Tourcoing, fought in May of that year.

The allied aim was to dislodge the French from Lille, and accordingly the Austrian staff prepared a plan by which the enemy would be attacked from the north, south and east simultaneously. The Duke of York commanded one of the six columns into which the army had been divided, and was given orders to push forward through the villages of Templeuve to Mouveaux, where it was hoped he would be able to link up with another column from the north under the command of the Austrian General Clerfaye. Several other columns were given the task of protecting the Duke's flanks until a large force commanded by the Archduke Charles could arrive from the south in the French rear.

The plan was greeted with some apprehension by the British, as Craig subsequently informed Nepean "from the moment that I was made acquainted with what was intended, I had my fears as to the termination of an operation which depended upon the success of six different parts. It is impossible ever to bring the Austrians to act otherwise than in small corps." The first day saw the advance of all the allied columns, but by nightfall only the Duke of York's had managed to reach its objective.

Observing the non-arrival of the neighbouring allied troops, the Duke had planned to spend the night in a position around Roubaix and Lannoy, thinking an unsupported advance further into the French lines unwise. However, while the Duke's troops were taking up their positions, the Austrian Emperor arrived and ordered the Duke forward again, though as Craig subsequently wrote in his despatch "His Royal Highness saw clearly the danger & remonstrated against it." Mouveaux was taken without much difficulty, but the Duke's column now occupied a salient in the allied line.

During the night, the French General Souham directed Bonnaud's division to move up from the south (a manoeuvre made possible by the non-arrival of the Archduke Charles) and by the early morning of 18 May the Duke's column was completely encircled.

The column spent most of the day fighting its way through the French lines, and the casualties were understandable heavy. British indignation at the defeat was great, and Craig predicted "the great probability of our being some day destined to become the victims of their folly & ignorance - do not be surprised at my using the latter term. I am every day more & more convinced that they have not AN OFFICER among them."

As he subsequently pointed out, the allies had more than enough men available to defeat the French, but had instead been beaten themselves. In the recriminations after the battle, many in the Austrian army made out that the unfortunate position of the Duke's column had been his fault alone.

Finally, the Emperor issued a general order which provided the Duke with "a decided and unequivocal testimony that your Royal Highness has not made any manoeuvre but what was essential to the general arrangement, and which your Royal Highness was not enjoined to execute by regular messages received during the whole affair from the Monarch himself". (25)

Apart from the allied defeat and the resulting deterioration in Austro-British relations, Tourcoing may be said to mark a turning point in the allied war effort. Within a fortnight, the Austrian Emperor had decided to quit his army in Flanders, despite the representations of Lord Cornwallis and the Duke of York, who had foreseen the adverse effect on morale that was likely to result. The battle also marked the commencement of the allied retreat from the frontiers of France, and it is clear that the failure to break through had finally decided the war-weary Austrians to abandon any serious idea of continuing the campaign. (26)

Aside from the uneasy relations with Austria in 1794, Britain also experienced difficulties with the other major power in the First Coalition, Prussia. Although this had only an indirect effect on the Duke of York, his defeat before Dunkirk on the allied right flank had partly been due to the large Prussian army under the command of Marshal Mollendorf, whose inactivity in Alsace had enabled Carnot to switch men to relieve the threatened port. Despite numerous diplomatic missions to the Prussians, and a huge subsidy (consisting of a lump sum of £300,000 and a monthly payment of £50,000), Mollendorf made continual excuses to do nothing. Had he acted in 1794, it is certain that the allies would have had an unrivalled opportunity for marching on Paris. (27)

Of more importance to the Duke of York was the attitude of the Dutch, in whose country he operated during the second half of 1794. Murray had already registered his opinion of them as early as August 1793, when they had retreated precipitately and exposed the Duke's left flank during the investment of Dunkirk. However, when in Holland a year later, the British were alarmed to find that little had been done to prepare for a French invasion of the country. This had partly been due to a lack of funds, and although the Duke was directed to pay a subsidy to them in mid October, it was too late for any effectual measures to be undertaken.

A major reason for the non co-operation of the Dutch, and their frequent hostility towards the British and allied troops, was that many sympathised with the French and the ideals of the Revolution. This had not particularly mattered until the middle of 1794, when the allies were retreating north from the borders of France, but became a matter of great importance later in the year when the need for shelter for the troops, food, and other supplies was vital to the survival of the Duke's army. The indignation of at least one officer, Captain L.T. Jones of the 14th Foot, reflected the attitude of most of the army when he recorded "the gross duplicity and treachery of the Dutch" during late 1794.

After the retreat was over and Holland occupied by the French, he consoled himself with the thought that "the judgement of heaven has at last overtaken them, has sufficiently punished their ingratitude, and has now made them (if possible) more despicable in the eye of the world, than they were previous to their fraternization!" However, it was not only with the people of Holland that the Duke was experiencing difficulties. He partly attributed the wave of anti-British feeling to the Prince of Orange, who was seeking to divert attention from his own lack of preparation for the war by blaming the British. The Duke also felt that the Hereditary Prince was affronted at not being given the command of the British army when it was operating in his country.

For whatever reason, the virtual abandonment of the war effort and the souring of relations between the allies, caused by a lack of success in the field, left the AngloGerman army facing considerable French forces alone by the late summer of 1794. (28)

The difficulties of co-ordinating the defence of Holland with the Dutch had repercussions for the Duke even greater than those already mentioned. The unfavourable course of the campaign had finally persuaded William Pitt to approach the King in late August 1794 concerning the recall of the Duke of York.

At a meeting in London on 23 August, Count Mercy, the Austrian Minister at Brussels, had suggested that Lord Cornwallis should be appointed to the command of the army in the Low Countries. This could not be regarded as a serious reflection on the Duke's military skill, though Burne has proposed that the government were seeking a scapegoat for the worsening military situation. However, the immediate difficulty was the need to find a successor to Coburg, whom the British had persuaded to resign. The Austrians placed their troops under General Clerfaye, declaring that no more suitable appointment could be made, but the British Government wished for a more senior general who could unite the combined allied armies and give them a single direction. (29)

Cornwallis was uneasy about the plan from the start, and as time went on became increasingly set in his dislike of it. The principle difficulty was the relationship between the Duke of York and his successor, and as Pitt wished to handle the situation with all possible delicacy, he despatched William Windham, the Secretary at War, to canvas the Duke's opinion. York had in fact agreed in early September to his own supersession by Cornwallis, though he made it clear to the King that this would be no small disappointment to him. In the end, the plan to appoint Cornwallis was dropped due to the opposition of that General, and the feelings of delicacy harboured by Pitt and Windham regarding the King, who though willing to agree to the proposal, was personally not in favour of it. (30)

By October, the Government had thought of suggesting to the Dutch that the Duke of Brunswick should be appointed to the overall command of the allied armies, though little came of this. Pitt had expressed the Government's view in a letter to the King in the middle of that month, "it cannot be dissembled that the extreme urgency of the present crisis calls for the assistance of the utmost military experience and authority, the want of which neither the rank, nor the acknowledged and distinguished zeal and spirit of the Duke of York can be supposed entirely to supply."

The supposed lack of confidence in which the Duke was held by the army had been noted by Windham in September, though it is more than likely that this opinion was founded upon contact with certain dissatisfied elements of the officer corps during his stay at headquarters, a question which will be discussed shortly.

However, the Duke's want of experience is harder to justify, since by late 1794 he had been commanding any army in the field for eighteen months. The only other senior officer who had been present throughout the campaign, General Abercromby, had been confined to the command of a brigade until the summer of 1794, and possessed no noteworthy experience of active service prior to 1793 despite being aged 58 in that year. (31)

RECALL

Eventually, Pitt wrote to the King in late November informing him that he finally proposed to recall the Duke as soon as possible, the principle reason being due to his lack of experience. It should be remembered that Britain had originally gone to war in 1793 for the defence of Holland, and now that the country was in imminent danger of being completely over-run by the French, it is likely that the Duke's recall was a final attempt to save an allied power.

Accordingly, Dundas wrote to the Duke of York on 27 November requesting his return home for urgent discussions regarding the strategy to be adopted for the defence of Holland. This was in fact a diplomatic method of ensuring the Duke's return without him appearing to be disgraced, and the pretence was sustained by not removing him from the command of the army in Holland.

After the recall of the Duke, the army was divided between Lieutenant-Generals Harcourt and Walmoden, and therefore in a worse position than it had been when under a single commander. This raises the possibility that the Government realised no more could be done to save Holland, and did not wish for the Duke to be implicated in any major disaster that could befall the army. (32)

In the preceding discussion, the various constraints imposed on the Duke of York by his army, the British Government and his allies, have been examined in turn. It now remains to identify how he gained the reputation of an undistinguished commander in the field. This appears to have originated in two ways.

First, the Duke suffered a significant amount of criticism from certain officers of the army, especially when operations were preceding badly for the allies. This was certainly not unknown in armies of the period, a notable example being Wellington's experience of it in the Peninsular (after the retreat from Burgos in 1812, for instance). However, it was unfortunate for the Duke of York that a higher proportion of his officers could not be regarded as professional soldiers, having obtained their commissions through crimping or political patronage. It is almost certain that their criticisms reached members of the Government, and it appears to have been well known in the army that this was actually the case.

As Windham wrote in late 1793 "these clamours against the Duke of York are for the most part utterly without foundation; and are in all very nearly so. They originate in the mere licentiousness of the officer part of the army." Windham went on to describe his exemplary conduct and his high reputation with the Austrians, and it is unfortunate that the minister altered his opinion during his visit to the Duke's headquarters in September the following year, thus living up to his nickname of `Weathercock' Windham. (33)

It appears that most of this criticism was from the Guards, as noted by the Duke of Portland in a letter to Lord Malmsbury "the licentious, not to say mutinous spirit against the Duke of York which prevails among the troops and which originated in and is even cultivated in the Guards." Malmsbury visited the Duke on his way to Vienna in December 1793, and also met Lord Herbert who "complained very much of the insubordination of the army, that it was greater than could be believed, that the Guards were so beyond measure; that the Duke of York was most unjustly unpopular, and believed the worst used man in the world, as all his foibles were cried out against, and none of his good qualities, which were many, noticed."

It is very likely that this ill feeling stemmed from the first years of his Colonelcy of the Coldstream Regiment when the Duke had displayed too much of the martinetism he had learnt during his stay in Germany. This was compounded by the first action in which British troops were engaged in 1793, at the Forest of Raismes on 8 May. The Coldstream Regiment had been ordered to drive the French from a wood, but advanced too far on the other side and suffered heavy casualties when they attempted to storm a battery. This manoeuvre had been conducted without orders, but the impetuous Guardsmen sought to transfer the blame for their mistake to the Duke, at least in their letters home.

It is clear that many officers of line regiments did not share the feelings of the Guards, and Captain Jones of the 14th Foot recorded that "the army felt themselves very much obliged to their commander," and recorded the general feeling of regret when he was recalled in late 1794. (34)

The Grand Old Duke of York Part II: 1793-4

The Retreat from Dunkirk
Battle of Tourcoing and Recall
Battle of Linselles: 18 August 1793
Footnotes

More Duke of York British Involvement in the Low Countries, 1793-4 (NN # 4)

Introduction
British Expeditionary Force
Strategy and Siege of Dunkirk