“Oppose”? Of course that was impossible.

  These Generals who leaned toward the constitutional monarchists were solitary idealists—not a pack of fools too stupid to live. No one had forgotten the phrase “clearing out the troublemakers” that had spread from the Army of Moselle (the central army group) to the Army of the North, nor the remains of the traitor Colonel Gordissal, hung from the streetlamp at the camp gate. By custom, it would dangle there for about ten days, until it became a dried corpse.

  So they had to approve—without hesitation, and in one voice.

  Watching this scene of harmony and goodwill in the meeting room, André looked pleased. The cold, austere authority on his face instantly softened into something almost genial. Smiling, he kept nodding to the Generals, soothing their pitiful hearts, and privately judged that his earlier “kill-the-chicken-to-scare-the-monkeys” display had worked rather well.

  Of course, André did not imagine these men truly obeyed him. They were merely bowing, for the moment, before force. Many of them were likely thinking about when they might see the Representative brought low—preferably by a catastrophic defeat. Once casualties mounted and the army was smashed, André could be removed by the Assembly and the War Ministry, and then hauled before a court-martial.

  For that reason, André concentrated sixty-five percent of the Army of the North’s infantry, cavalry, and artillery in the Centre, placing it under Moncey and Hoche—his own people. The Centre would also bear the main burden of attack and seize the decisive victories the Army of the North most needed.

  The minimum objective André set for the Centre was to take Tournai—the “capital” of the Frankish kingdom in his phrasing—and push the front to the north bank of the Scheldt. If an opening appeared, Moncey and Hoche could take the chance to encircle or cripple the Austrian defensive force, namely the infantry division commanded by General Josef Alvinczy.

  As for the two Austrian cavalry regiments—especially the cuirassier regiment (heavy cavalry), which belonged to the Habsburg royal guard and had repeatedly distinguished itself in the Balkan wars against the Ottoman Empire—its strength was formidable. On the flat terrain of the Flemish plain, cavalry mobility was overwhelming, and Austrian cavalry quality far exceeded that of the French cavalry under Hoche. This was not something that could be suppressed by numbers alone.

  More importantly, the Army of the North’s only two cuirassier formations—the Saxon Cavalry Regiment and the Béchéné Light Cavalry Regiment—had already defected to the enemy in succession. To send light cavalry head-on against heavy cavalry would be an act of pure suicide. Therefore, in Chief of Staff Berthier’s plan, the Centre was required only to guard against Austrian cavalry raids; it was not treated as a primary target.

  Soon, Berthier continued by reading out the left wing’s operational scheme.

  “General Fardel’s force, on the second day after the Centre launches its offensive, will still advance north along the coastline in probing attacks, seeking opportunities to take both Furnes and Koksijde. In addition, through the coordination of Representative on Mission André, the Minister of the Navy, Lacoste, has ordered the French Navy stationed at the port of Dunkirk to dispatch three warships in early to mid-June to support the left wing. By tomorrow afternoon, the commander of the northbound detachment from Dunkirk, Lieutenant Colonel Surcouf, will stand by in the left-wing camp, awaiting General Fardel’s instructions.”

  Before Berthier had even finished, a wave of applause rose in the room. For the first time, General Fardel and the others cast grateful looks toward Representative on Mission André. Everyone knew that even when Marshal de Rochambeau commanded the Army of the North, the old Marshal had failed to persuade the arrogant French Navy to support army operations. Yet on the Representative’s first day at Lille headquarters, he could already prompt the Dunkirk fleet commander to cooperate—plainly, the power he possessed and the methods he displayed could not be described as merely “not to be underestimated.”

  Except for André himself and Chief of Staff Berthier, no one knew that these “three warships from the Dunkirk fleet” were in fact André’s private naval force—the privateer squadron commanded by the newly promoted Brigadier General Allemand: , , and . The first two were a small ship of the line and a cruiser built by the French Navy; at present, they belonged to the Navy’s order of battle in name only. Under André’s arrangements, Robert Charles Surcouf, newly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the Navy (the son of Captain Robert Surcouf, and currently serving in the French Navy), was assigned to command this detachment.

  After the applause, Berthier’s voice sounded again.

  “On the right, General Beauharnais’s force will hold the mountain pass between Bavai and Saint-Amand, guarding against an Austrian advance. Once the Centre takes Tournai and deals a heavy blow to General Alvinczy’s infantry division, General Beauharnais may, in coordination with General Hoche of the Centre, descend from the pass and seek an opportunity to attack and occupy Mons.”

  Overall, the left and right wings had simple, clear objectives—one could even say they were easy. André did not have his chief of staff assign them tasks they could not execute. Instead, he placed the main pressure on his own men, Moncey and Hoche. At least in that respect, the Generals felt Representative on Mission André was being reasonably fair. In truth, the suspicious Representative did not trust Beauharnais or Fardel. He would rather have his own forces shoulder the decisive fighting, even if it meant taking losses.

  After all, this battle could not be lost—nor could it be afforded. And yet another thought sat heavy in André’s mind: the coming fight also could not be won too decisively; it had to be kept within limits. He feared provoking the Austrians into bringing the Prusso-Austrian coalition’s full firepower down upon the Army of the North—at which point the trouble would be far greater.

  Put more plainly: André volunteered to become the Army of the North’s Representative on Mission not in order to lead France into annexing the Austrian Netherlands and fighting Austria to the death, but in order to seize this army and make it his own instrument.

  After Chief of Staff Berthier finished reading the operational dispositions for each wing, the division- and brigade-level commanders expressed no objections and promised resolute execution of the Representative’s and the chief of staff’s orders. As for the acting commander, General Lameth—no one cared what he thought. In fact, General Lameth had already accepted that he was a puppet.

  As the meeting was about to end, however, General Pichegru, the officer responsible for logistics and supply, voiced complaints. Beginning in late May, he explained, the War Ministry had issued all pay to the Army of the North in assignats rather than in livres as metallic currency. That meant the purchasing power for supplies was quietly cut by one-third—or more. With bad news arriving one after another from three troubled fronts, the Paris financial market was valuing assignats at only sixty to sixty-five percent of face value; in London, the figure was already close to forty percent. If no good news came from the battlefield, assignats could easily fall to thirty percent of face value before September.

  André was prepared for this. He said, “I have already demanded that the War Ministry cancel all further concentration of provincial volunteer units to the Army of the North—in other words, we will not be receiving reinforcements. General Pichegru, with the pay thus saved, how long can the army be supported?”

  “Ninety to one hundred days, Representative—but if operations are frequent, I can only guarantee sixty days,” the quartermaster answered at once.

  The Representative turned his inquiring gaze to the chief of staff. Berthier gave a small nod. André then said, “Good. Two months is enough for us to fight into the rich Flemish plain and take the supplies and pay the army requires. General Pichegru, the hospitable Brabanters will be willing to treat the French army that comes to ‘liberate’ them.”

  At the close of the meeting, André announced the final points: the new offensive would be scheduled for mid-June, and the operational objectives were to be completed before August. In addition, the operational plans of all wings of the Army of the North would be reported to the War Ministry by the army staff headquarters as a unified submission; commanders at every level were forbidden to report military affairs privately to Paris. Violators would be punished without mercy.

  …

  Archduke Charles of Austria returned from Brussels to Tournai on June 11. For the past two months, Tournai had served as the temporary station for the Guard Cuirassiers (heavy cavalry) and the hussar regiment. Before entering the city, the cavalry commander confirmed news from the French side: a man even younger than himself had formally taken control of the Army of the North and, as Representative on Mission, become its supreme commander. He also confirmed that Colonel Gordissal, who had defected to Austria, really had been kidnapped out of Brussels by French agents; and that André had ordered him executed in public, his body hung from a streetlamp until it dried out, and only then buried in haste.

  Entering the city, Archduke Charles found the discipline of his Guard Cuirassiers acceptable: they stayed in their quarters and rarely stirred up trouble. But the hussars formerly stationed in the western suburbs were a different story—ragged and unkempt, roaming the streets in small groups with bottles in hand, badly harassing the locals.

  Some hooligans whistled at passing women, shouting obscene jokes and spitting on the pavement; others waved sabres and chased a resident’s white goose, hacking off its honking neck, then tossing the bird onto a fire to roast without plucking it properly or cleaning its entrails.

  Stolen story; please report.

  In an empty house whose owners had fled when the war began, the ill-bred hussars tore the household portraits to shreds. A drunken cavalry officer, slurring nonsense, had pulled a fine white dress from a bedroom and thrown it over himself, then announced with arrogant pride that he meant to mail it to the wife he had not seen in two years. The poor hussar second lieutenant had become a father in May.

  As brigade commander, Archduke Charles had always loathed such undisciplined scum. At first, his face livid, he jumped down from his horse, his boots crunching angrily over broken porcelain and shards of glass. But after hearing the second lieutenant’s complaints, the young commander turned and walked away without another word.

  Archduke Charles knew that second lieutenant: Marcus, with a terrifying scar across his face—said to be a memento from a skirmish outside Belgrade after fighting Turks. By merit, Marcus should have been commissioned two years earlier; only after Archduke Charles took over this cavalry brigade did the promotion become real. Marcus had led as a hussar vanguard, the first to break into a French infantry brigade’s line, and he had captured an infantry flag.

  Hussars (a kind of light cavalry) were common enough in the Austrian army—Bohemia and Hungary produced them in abundance. Their pay and supply were far inferior to those of the Guard cavalry, so most Austrian commanders imposed few disciplinary demands on them, so long as they charged bravely on the battlefield. Unless their crimes became too serious—murder and the like—minor harassment of civilians was treated as tolerable.

  When Archduke Charles had gone, the scar-faced, dark-skinned second lieutenant let out a long breath. The drunken haze vanished at once, replaced by sharp clarity. He tore the woman’s dress off his body and began barking at his men.

  “You damned idiots—you nearly sent me to a court-martial. Verlot, it was your idea to pry this door open, so next week’s wine is on you. And you, Rolf—you laughed the loudest, and you brought General Charles of Austria down on us, so the next three days of meat come out of your pocket. And another thing…”

  After riding into a small square with a fountain, Archduke Charles and his party reached the quarters of the Guard regiment, also the cavalry brigade headquarters: a long-disused Renaissance-era monastery.

  At an outdoor café by the fountain, a small group of royal heavy cavalry in steel helmets lounged at ease, chewing on cooked beef with smug expressions, one hand holding bottles of fine French red wine.

  In front of these vivid, living cuirassiers stood a company of infantry with gaiters, each man shouldering a musket as they strained to roll barrel after barrel of beer into the monastery that served as the cavalry quarters. Because war had nearly severed border trade between the Austrian Netherlands and France, the price of good French wine had multiplied several times over. Forced by necessity, the quartermaster had switched the cavalry’s alcohol ration to cheaper local dark beer.

  As for the soldiers hauling the barrels, they belonged to Tournai’s garrison force—Dutch-speaking Flemings serving as auxiliaries, recruited mainly from the northern districts near the Dutch border. The Flemings were one of the two major peoples of the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium); the other was the French-speaking Walloons, who lived chiefly along the French border, including places like Tournai, Mons, Namur, and Brussels.

  When the Guard cavalrymen on the benches saw General Charles of Austria in the distance, they sprang up like coiled springs. Bottles and mouthfuls of beef fell to the ground. Each man hurriedly put on his helmet, straightened his uniform, and stood rigid. At the command of the highest-ranking officer present, they raised their hands in a formal salute, faces solemn, paying respect to their noble commander.

  “At ease, gentlemen,” Archduke Charles replied with a smile and returned the salute. He was delighted. This, he thought, was the Holy Roman Empire’s most loyal and valiant cavalry—not hussar rabble, and certainly not Netherlandish auxiliaries who did not even know how to salute, but merely stared stupidly as royalty passed before them.

  Once Archduke Charles’s party left the square, the furious cuirassiers promptly turned on the clueless auxiliaries and beat them with fists and boots. The farce made the café owner and customers laugh aloud—because the Flemish soldiers from the north loved nothing more than robbing French-speaking Walloons, and in Tournai at least, hardly any locals liked the Flemings.

  …

  Inside the Austrian cavalry brigade headquarters, Colonel Horton—tirelessly—reported on affairs in camp and his worries about the coming campaign to the newly returned Archduke Charles, naturally making the young commander displeased.

  Colonel Horton was a Bohemian (modern Czech), and commander of the hussar regiment. In his early forties, gaunt-faced, his hair already grey, his body covered in scars from long service, he had fought under the Habsburg banners against Prussians, Poles, Sardinians, and Turks—and now the French had been added to the list.

  As the faithful servant of Albert Casimir, Duc de Teschen, Horton—of common birth—owed his rise to cavalry Colonel and hussar commander to the Duc’s powerful support. In fact, in his youth, Horton had been the son of a servant in the Duc’s household, and an illegitimate child.

  Before Archduke Charles led his force south, Colonel Horton and his hussars were transferred to the southern front together with Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg—under orders to protect the Habsburg prince in secret, the sole heir of the Duc de Teschen.

  Perhaps because he was older, and because years of campaigning had made him cautious by habit, Colonel Horton never contradicted the young, hot-blooded Archduke Charles in public. Even so, he still hoped the noble cavalry commander would abandon the idea of crossing the Austro-French border for raiding attacks.

  One spy he had sent to Lille reported that the French camp had received an infantry brigade and a light cavalry brigade, totalling about 10,000 men. Lille’s French strength was now estimated at nearly 30,000—while on their side, only two cavalry regiments were to take part in the attack, with a total striking force of barely 2,000.

  And it was not merely a disparity of numbers. The French were constantly drilling new infantry formations, the spy said—something like a Spanish “great square” or a Macedonian phalanx—supposedly effective against cavalry raids.

  “Ha! A Spanish great square? A Macedonian phalanx? Those ancient, obsolete, useless toys—and the French dare to pick them up and play at them?” Archduke Charles sneered loudly. “We must show the French a little pain, so they understand that those who secretly incite the Netherlanders to revolt against the great Austrian army will pay a heavy price—and that price must be collected by me personally.”

  Archduke Charles raised a hand to cut off Colonel Horton’s continued remonstrance and ordered an adjutant to summon all field-grade officers of the brigade to a meeting. At that meeting, General Charles of Austria announced directly:

  “The cavalry brigade’s counterattack plan has been approved by headquarters under Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg. In three days—on the morning of June 14—we will assemble at 8:00 a.m. on open ground south of Tournai, cross the Austro-French border at around 9:30 a.m., and immediately commence operations…”

  It should be noted that the hollow square had in fact been mentioned more than twenty years earlier—in the Austrian infantry drill regulations of 1769. Yet for a long time, few infantry officers had studied this “new” and tedious contrivance that endlessly tormented soldiers—let alone cavalry commanders like Archduke Charles of Austria or Colonel Horton.

  …

  By coincidence, just as Archduke Charles was drafting his attack plan, General Moncey, commander of the Centre at the Lille camp, was drafting the final date for the northward offensive as well—June 14.

  According to the plan, at dawn on the day of the attack, Moncey would personally lead a reorganised infantry brigade as the spearhead, with a light-cavalry brigade screening the infantry’s flank (two regiments, commanded by Colonel Nansouty), plus two artillery companies—clearing the route to Tournai. The remaining cavalry, infantry, and artillery—aside from a small garrison left behind in camp—would be placed under General Hoche and Colonel Macdonald, forming the main body to complete the encirclement of Tournai…

  After hearing Moncey’s report, André frowned and asked, “If I am not mistaken, this is simply the old plan—April 26—General Dillon’s vanguard attack on Tournai, only repeated.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Moncey admitted without concealment that this seemingly disastrous scheme was his own. Among André’s close subordinates, it was customary not to address him as “Representative,” but uniformly as “sir”—a habit preserved since the founding of the Champagne Composite Regiment at Bordeaux, and retained by Moncey, Hoche, and the rest.

  “Fine. Give me your reasons.”

  André did not believe a shrewd, capable man like Moncey would commit such a crude error—especially when his subordinate spoke with firm certainty and calm composure. André trusted the true ability of the Marshal who, in another world, would serve under Emperor Napoleon—who had once led a battered, incomplete Army of the Pyrenees and beaten Spain until it could not resist, forcing it to sign terms beneath the walls and ending a three-year war with France. If Napoleon’s achievements in Italy had not been so dazzling—gold squeezed from Italy used to bribe the Directory and Barras—then General Moncey would have been the most brilliant army-level commander of the First French Republic in the Directory era.

  So André believed Moncey had weighty reasons that could convince him. Although André had stressed at the earlier conference that they should not treat Austria’s highly mobile, hard-fighting cavalry as the primary target, he trusted the judgement of the forward commander even more. Plans, after all, were forever overtaken by events.

  Moncey said, “I want to lure the Austrian cavalry into attacking us.”

  André could not help smiling. “You expect them to step into the same river twice?”

  Moncey nodded without hesitation. “Yes. There must be sufficient profit and advantage—enough that the Habsburg prince cannot refuse. Intelligence from the Military Intelligence Office shows that after the victory on April 26, that ‘Charles’—then a Colonel—was promoted to cavalry Brigadier General. But the truth is that the previous Tournai ambush was outright disobedience on the part of Archduke Charles of Austria. In mid to late April, General Josef Alvinczy had already ordered the prince’s Guard cavalry to abandon Tournai and fall back to the defensive line around Ghent.

  “Yet the outcome became something else. If Archduke Charles of Austria were not the third son of Emperor Leopold II, an important member of the House of Habsburg, and the sole heir of Albert Casimir, Duc de Teschen, then even with his first victory over France, the charge of repeatedly disobeying headquarters orders would have been enough for Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg or General Josef Alvinczy to strip him of all command and send him back to an estate outside Vienna to retire—or simply put him before a court-martial.”

  All of this, André knew. Out of caution, he remained properly wary of enemy commanders whose reputations were already well known. What André had not fully accounted for was that Archduke Charles of Austria was only in his early twenties—too young, lacking steadiness and restraint. A single victory could send him floating, and he was still far from the coalition general who, three years later, would make countless French Generals suffer in Switzerland and Italy, and would even defeat Emperor Napoleon for a time in the Danube campaign.

  Thinking of that, André asked, “You are not going to have infantry hollow squares take repeated charges head-on from Austrian cavalry, are you?”

  Since the very founding of the Champagne Composite Regiment two years earlier, the infantry led by Moncey had repeatedly opposed the cavalry commanded by Hoche. The veterans knew every detail of cavalry raids and every principle of defence. Of course, such experience had been purchased in countless field exercises—including dozens of casualties among officers and men, and the loss of more than 200 horses.

  Moncey smiled. “Of course not. That is why I will have Colonel Nansouty keep a light-cavalry brigade following behind the infantry brigade, conserving strength and waiting. When I give the order to strike, they will attack… In addition, besides the cavalry, my infantry brigade will need two horse-artillery detachments, each with six 4-pounders. Since this is an operation to lure the enemy, those two artillery companies will be our trump card—they will be disguised as supply wagons to conceal them.”