Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/398

 defence with the forces at his disposal was impossible, and the Duke therefore arranged that all troops in British pay should be sent to him from West Flanders, and that the Dutch, who were sitting inactive behind their fortresses, should send men to repair and to defend Crevecoeur and Bommel.

The Duke's next effort was to concert offensive operations with Clerfaye, who lay on his left; and he had the greater hopes of a favourable issue, since the new Secretary at War, William Windham, was already on his way to that officer on a mission from London. But the Austrian Commander also had been unfortunate.

On the 17th and 18th General Latour's corps of seven thousand men, which guarded his left on the Ourthe, was driven back by a greatly superior force of Jourdan's right wing under General Schérer; whereupon Clerfaye, who had watched the whole process without moving one soldier of his forty thousand to save Latour, immediately retired behind the Roer, leaving eight thousand men as a garrison for Maastricht. The Austrian General therefore rejected all idea of the offensive as impossible, but consented to maintain communication with the Duke if he would extend his left to Venloo, which, like all the Dutch fortresses, was in miserable repair and without a sufficient garrison. The Duke agreed, and so the matter was arranged; Clerfaye, however, giving the Duke clearly to understand that if his right were turned he should cross the Rhine.

The Duke thereupon made his plans for protecting a line of from seventy-five to ninety-five miles of river with a force of thirty thousand soldiers of all ranks, the sick list having by this time claimed close upon