Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/380

 Demer, while the Austrians retired eastward; and thus the line of the Allies was fairly broken owing to their own divergent plans. The Duke of York had already in these days concerted operations with the Prince of

Orange for the recapture of Malines on the 18th, when he received a letter from Coburg saying that, owing to the loss of that place and of Louvain, he had ordered the troops formerly stationed at the latter city to fall back to Diest, and was himself withdrawing from Tirlemont to Landen. The Duke begged him before doing so to essay a general forward movement, but received only a vague and unsatisfactory reply; and

on the morning of the 20th a staff-officer, while inspecting the left of the Dutch position, discovered that the Austrians at Diest were already retreating south-eastward on Hasselt, Coburg having given them orders to this effect without saying a word of his intentions to the

Duke of York. With his left flank thus again laid bare,

the Duke was obliged to evacuate Antwerp and retire due north from it across the Dutch frontier to Rozendahl. Coburg likewise fell back to eastward, crossed the Meuse at Maastricht, and took up a position about seven miles south and east of that fortress at Fouron le Comte. Thus the British and Austrians were finally parted.

It cannot be said that either of them was sorry to take leave of the other. Even in 1793 their relations had not been too cordial, for the Austrians, in their jealousy, would never allow foreign troops to pass through their fortified towns, even during a forced march; and thus the British were frequently condemned to make long and fatiguing detours. But the betrayal of the Duke of York's column on the 18th of May, and the subsequent operations, deliberately con-*