Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/153

 like a true pupil of Marlborough, with a new plan of campaign. His advice was that the Allies should turn Saxe's tactics against himself. They should march south to Orchies, between Lille and Tournay, and there encamp, where they would be within reach of half-a-dozen French fortified towns. The French would not dare to leave the fortresses defenceless; and the garrisons necessary to render them secure would absorb the whole of their force in the field. Then the Allies could send detachments into France and lay Picardy under contribution, or possibly carry out the plan, rejected two years before, of a march to the Seine. The King of Prussia's action only made some bold stroke of the kind the more imperative.

Stair had gained over the Austrian general D'Arenberg to this project in 1742; but it was hardly likely to be accepted by him now. Carteret, in forwarding Stair's memorandum to Wade, gave him no positive orders except at least to do something; but poor Wade found it impossible to make the Austrians do anything. The Allies having crossed the Scheldt halted inactive for weeks, and no persuasion could induce D'Arenberg to move. At last the army did march down to the plains of Lille, but without its artillery, so that it could not be said seriously to threaten the French fortresses. The Dutch and Austrians had undertaken to furnish a siege-train, but had taken no step to procure one of the ten thousand horses that were required to transport it. After a short sojourn in the south the Allies marched helplessly northward once more. August passed away and September came, but even in the fourth month of the campaign the Dutch and Austrians were still without