Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies

Part of French Revolutionary Wars

Date	24 April 1794
Location	Villers-en-Cauchies, Nord, France
Result	Decisive Anglo-Austrian victory

Belligerents

French First Republic

Habsburg Austria

Great Britain

Commanders and leaders

René Chapuis

Rudolf von Otto

Strength

7,000

300

Casualties and losses

1,200 killed, wounded or captured, 5 cannons

95 killed, wounded or missing

In the Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies, fought on 24 April 1794, a small Anglo-Austrian cavalry force routed a vastly more numerous French division during the Flanders Campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars. Villers-en-Cauchies is 15 km south of Valenciennes.

At the beginning of the Flanders Campaign in 1794, the main Coalition army led by the Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld advanced against the French Army of the North under Charles Pichegru. By mid-April the Coalition began the Siege of Landrecies while the observation army took position in a broad semi-circle to cover the operation.

On 23 April a French force was mustered in an attempt to cut off the Allied column of Ludwig von Wurmb from the rest of the observation army which consisted of the corps of François Sébastien de Croix de Clerfayt and Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Wurmb's command lay in a cordon of detachments between Denain and Hellesmes. All the available French troops from Cambrai and Bouchain were assembled under the command of René-Bernard Chapuis, the commandant of Cambrai. These were reinforced by troops that had been dispatched from Caesar's Camp on 21 April by André Drut, comprising 5,000 infantry commanded by Jean Proteau and 1,500 cavalry with four light cannons under Jacques Philippe Bonnaud. The combined command was 15,000 foot and 4,500 horse (Austrian reports estimate them as 30,000). This command crossed the Scheldt River on 23 April and advanced in four columns, the first from Bouchain towards Douchy-les-Mines, the second from Hordain on Noyelles-sur-Selle; the third from Iwuy on Avesnes-le-Sec, and the last from Cambrai against Iwuy. The French debouched onto the heights of Douchy and drove back Wurmb's Austrian outposts before crossing the Écaillon River, then sent detachments towards Le Quesnoy and Valenciennes. This movement had the effect of cutting direct communication between Le Cateau-Cambrésis and Denain, causing Clerfayt to dispatch reinforcements to Wurmb. However the French dared not push further for fear of attacks on their flanks, so they halted their advance and limited themselves to cannonades and skirmishing.

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