Qualla: Battle of Tourcoing

Battle of Tourcoing: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Djmaschek, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Austrian chief of staff Karl Mack von Leiberich called it the Vernichtungsplan — the Annihilation Plan — and he meant it. Six Coalition columns, sixty-two thousand men, would converge from three different directions on the French salient north of Lille, pin the Republican Army of the North against the Lys river, and destroy it. On the morning of 17 May 1794, the plan went into motion. By the evening of 18 May, two of the columns had been smashed, two more had simply not turned up, and Mack had resigned. The town of Tourcoing was still French. So was Flanders. So, by lunchtime, was the future of the Revolution.

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Image: Djmaschek | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Tourcoing: How a Revolution Defends Itself

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JÄNNICK Jérémy, Public domain. By the spring of 1794, the French Revolutionary Republic had been at war for almost two years against most of the monarchies of Europe — Austria, Britain, Prussia, the Dutch Republic. Its armies were strange new things: large, drafted by the levée en masse, poorly trained but pol...

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Image: JÄNNICK Jérémy | Public domain

Battle of Tourcoing: Six Columns, Bad Coordination

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unidentified painter, Public domain. Mack's plan looked beautiful on paper. Six columns under six commanders would close on the French salient simultaneously: Bussche's Hanoverians from the north, the Austrian Otto from the northeast, Frederick Duke of York with his British Guards from the east, Kinsky from the sout...

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Image: Unidentified painter | Public domain

Battle of Tourcoing: The Counterstroke

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unsigned, Public domain. In Pichegru's absence, the French army was commanded by General of Division Joseph Souham — a former private soldier of the old royal army, promoted by the Revolution, working from a council of war held the evening of 17 May at Menen with Jean Victor Marie Moreau and Étienne Macd...

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Image: unsigned | Public domain

Battle of Tourcoing: The Duke of York's Bad Day

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Harry Wood at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of George III, would later become the Grand Old Duke of York of the nursery rhyme — the one who marched his ten thousand men up and down a hill. The hill in the song is sometimes said to be Cassel, not far from Tourcoing. ...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Harry Wood at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Tourcoing: What Followed

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VVVCFFrance, CC BY-SA 4.0. Coalition losses came to about four thousand killed and wounded and fifteen hundred captured, plus sixty guns. French losses, around three thousand. The casualties were not catastrophic in themselves; what mattered was the moral and strategic effect. Mack resigned within a week. ...

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Image: VVVCFFrance | CC BY-SA 4.0