Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/362

 events in Poland began to tell upon the councils of the

Imperial Headquarters at Tournai. On the 23rd, Mack, disgusted by the failure of his elaborate plans, resigned his post as Chief of the Staff, and, having first expressed his opinion that the reconquest of Belgium was hopeless, retired for the time into private life. His successor, Waldeck, being a fellow-conspirator with Thugut, was still more eager for the evacuation of the Netherlands; and the Emperor was easily tempted to share their

views. On the 24th a Council of War was held for form's sake, wherein the Emperor set forth the situation in such a light as to gain a ready vote from his Generals that further efforts in the Netherlands were useless. The Duke of York alone pleaded earnestly for a renewal of the attack upon Flanders; and, as fate ordained it, his representations were seconded by unexpected successes of the Allies on the Sambre and in the Palatinate. On the 24th Marshal Möllendorf and the Prussians surprised the French about Kaiserslautern and drove them back with a loss of three thousand men and twenty guns; and on the same day Count Kaunitz gained a still more important victory on the Sambre. The fact was that serious differences had arisen at Paris between Carnot on the one side and Robespierre and St. Just on the other, because Carnot insisted on keeping the direction of the military operations in his own hands. Robespierre, to whom the art of war was as incomprehensible as a Chinese manuscript, was furious with jealousy and rage. "At the first reverse, Carnot's head shall fall," cried the despicable creature, galled by the cold contempt with which his inflexible colleague rebuffed his attempts at interference; and to re-establish civil influence at the seat of war, St. Just, Lebas, and five more Commissioners set out on the 2nd of May for the army of the Sambre.