Battle in A Nutshell
Under the temporary leadership of Souham, Maj-Gen Charles Pichegru's Army of the North (Armée du Nord) encountered an Austro-British-German force at Tourcoing. Despite a slight advantage in numbers, the 74,000 Allied troops under Saxe-Coburg were out-led and out-fought by Souham's 70,000 French troops. (However, one authority gives the French total as 82,000.)
Souham devised a strategic pincer movement consisting of his division attacking southwards from Kortrijk (Courtrai) and Maj-Gen Bonnaud's division northeastwards from Lille, thus catching the separated allied columns of Von dem Bussche, Rudolf Ritter von Otto and the Duke of York between them. Meanwhile part of Moreau's command held off the assault of the Count of Clerfayt from the north. It was a sprawling engagement fought out over many square miles of countryside just west of the Scheldt River in Flanders. Together with Maj-Gen Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's victory at the Battle of Fleurus on 16 June, Tourcoing marked the start of the evacuation of the allied forces from Flanders and French supremacy in Western Europe.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Tourcoing
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