Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/209

 In other words, Dundas was ready to employ British troops in the Low Countries only for a political campaign, and not for the military purposes of the war—to use them, in fact, primarily to win votes rather than battles. The attitude is but too characteristic of British Ministers for War.

Meanwhile the Allies on the frontiers of France remained inactive; the Austrians, indeed, blockading Condé, where the French kept them engaged with incessant affairs of outposts, but the British contingent still awaiting the orders which Dundas hesitated to give. In the third week of April the chief of the British staff reported that a considerable force of French was entrenched about Dunkirk, too strong to be attacked by the Duke of York's troops, and that there was no operation on which the latter could be employed except in support of the Austrians. We shall presently recognise the unseen hand which had been working at Dunkirk. Ten days more of uncertainty passed

away, and at last, on the 1st of May, Coburg produced a plan of operations. By the middle of May he hoped to have about ninety-two thousand men, to which by the beginning of June would be added thirteen thousand more. He proposed, therefore, to hasten the fall of Condé by a bombardment, and then to advance with fifty-two thousand men to the siege of