Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/268

 the many already struck at the army. The troops were greatly demoralised by the continual change of commanders, whom the Commissioners of the Convention promoted or deposed at their arbitrary pleasure; and the commanders themselves were not less demoralised by the certain prospect of death if they failed to achieve the impossible with troops that were neither fed, nor clothed, nor paid, nor disciplined. The Allies, therefore, could still reasonably look for success from a concentration of their whole army and a vigorous offensive.

Dundas, since the failure at Dunkirk, had become suddenly an advocate for keeping the whole of the forces together, and for making an attack upon the enemy before undertaking any further enterprise; but with what precise object a general action was to be fought he did not say, for the very sufficient reason that he did not know. The British Ministers, so far as they favoured any operations at all in Flanders, would have preferred a second attempt upon Dunkirk; but they gave, or professed to give, a free hand to the commanders, flattering themselves that, if the attempt were abandoned, the British troops would be the sooner released for service at Toulon and, above all, in the West Indies. Coburg, on the other hand, had already put forward what was at any rate a definite plan, though upon the old lines. He wished to besiege Maubeuge, which was certainly an important point, since it formed the chief link in the communications between the French armies of the north about Lille, and of the Ardennes about Givet and Philippeville, while its entrenched camp made it a point for a formidable concentration of the French forces at large. Moreover, it obstructed