Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/266

 half disciplined, had been seriously shaken by their losses. He therefore reinforced the garrisons of Bergues and Dunkirk, and, in the hope of relieving Quesnoy, fell with thirty thousand men upon the flank of the Dutch cordon from Poperinghe and upon its front from Lille. His success was at first encouraging,

for he defeated his opponents completely with the loss of forty guns and three thousand men, and captured Menin. General Beaulieu, who had been despatched with over four thousand Austrians to the assistance of the Dutch, for some reason refused to act with them, but checked the advance of the French beyond Menin, and occupied Courtrai. The Dutch fled in disorder to Bruges and Ghent; and for the moment it seemed as though communication between the Duke of York and Coburg was hopelessly severed.

The Duke, after leaving a detachment under Abercromby at Furnes, had withdrawn to the rear of the canal between Nieuport and Dixmuyde, in order to secure his retreat to Ostend; but he now ordered

Abercromby back to Nieuport, and marched with the bulk of his force eastward to Thorout, where he was joined by two battalions from England. From

thence on the 15th he moved southward to Roulers; and on that day the situation underwent a total change.

Beaulieu, being attacked by Houchard before Courtrai, waited only for a reinforcement which the Duke had hurried forward to him, when, taking the offensive, he utterly routed the French, who fled in the wildest confusion, and, pursuing them to Menin, recaptured the town. The Duke entered Menin on

the following day, where he received letters from Coburg who was already at Cysoing, not more than eighteen miles to the south, reporting that since the