Battle of Tourcoing (1794)

Battle of Tourcoing

Battle of Tourcoing

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Units involved

Army of the North

Coalition Army

Strength

70,000

74,000

Casualties and losses

3,000, 7 guns

5,500, 60 guns

The Battle of Tourcoing (18 May 1794) saw a Republican French army directed by Joseph Souham defend against an attack by a Coalition army under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The French army was temporarily led by Souham in the absence of its normal commander Jean-Charles Pichegru. Threatened with encirclement, Souham and division commanders Jean Victor Marie Moreau and Jacques Philippe Bonnaud improvised a counterattack which defeated the Coalition's widely separated and badly coordinated columns. The War of the First Coalition action was fought near the town of Tourcoing, just north of Lille in northeastern France.

The Coalition battle plan drawn up by Karl Mack von Leiberich launched six columns that attempted to envelop a part of the French army holding an awkward bulge at Menen (Menin) and Kortrijk (Courtrai). The French were able to hold off François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt's northern column as the southern columns of Franz Joseph, Count Kinsky and Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen made slow progress. Meanwhile, Souham concentrated his main strength on the three center columns against the overall command of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany and inflicted a costly setback on the Coalition's Habsburg Austrian, British and Hanoverian troops. The action is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Turcoine, a gesture towards the English pronunciation of the town.