Editing Battle of Tourcoing (section)

===18 May: Clerfayt, Kinsky, and Charles===
[[File:Clairfait.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.6|alt=Sepia print shows a man in a military uniform holding a sword. He has unusually large eyes and the Grand Cross of the Maria Theresa order is on his breast.|Count Clerfayt]]
At 7:00 am, Clerfayt's column crossed the Lys near Wervik. His troops marched toward [[Linselles]] and [[Bousbecque]] where they faced Vandamme's brigade (now on the south bank). Clerfayt drove back Vandamme's right flank and captured 8 guns.{{sfn|Fortescue|2016|p=127}} Desenfans' brigade retreated southwest to [[Bailleul, Nord|Bailleul]] when it might have operated against Clerfayt's western flank.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=301}} An advanced guard composed of one squadron each of the British [[8th Light Dragoons]] and a Hessian cavalry regiment was surrounded by the French. The Coalition troopers gallantly cut their way out of the trap, though they lost two-thirds of their numbers.{{sfn|Cust|1859|p=201}} Vandamme reported that the cavalry got as far as Halluin, causing his artillery to hurriedly withdraw. Two battalions arrived, Vandamme's men steadied, pushed back Clerfayt a distance, and captured a color from the 8th Light Dragoons. Thinking that the French received 5,000 reinforcements, Clerfayt pulled back to [[Wervik]] while hoping to renew the offensive on 19 May. In fact, Vandamme's brigade had fought alone.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=300}}[[File:Jean Victor Marie Moreau (1792).jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.6|alt=Painting shows a young man in a dark blue military uniform with white lapels.|Jean Moreau]]The French formations did not pursue Otto and York, because of the looming threat from Clerfayt. Souham ordered the brigades of Malbrancq, Macdonald, and Daendels to march against Clerfayt on the evening of 18 May. Bonnaud, Thierry, and Compère were left to hold Wattrelos and Lannoy. That night, Clerfayt received notice of the Coalition defeat. He withdrew across the Lys and continued to [[Roeselare]], carrying off 300 prisoners and 7 guns. The French tried to move through Menin to intercept Clerfayt, but Hanoverian cavalry repulsed the leading elements.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=300}}

When Kinsky was urged by the emperor's aide-de-camp to push forward to Sainghin, he replied, "Kinsky knows what he has to do". Nevertheless, his column remained inactive.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=301}} At 6:00 am, one of his subordinates asked for orders and Kinsky announced that he was sick and no longer in command.{{sfn|Fortescue|2016|p=127}} At 2:00 pm, Kinsky heard about the defeat of York and Ott and withdrew.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=301}} Charles received early-morning orders to march to Lannoy, only {{cvt|6|mi|km|0}} distant. Yet, his troops did not move until noon and did not reach the Tournai-Lille highway until 3:00 pm. By then, new orders arrived directing him to fall back to Tournai. Charles later proved himself to be a gifted commander, but the inertia of Kinsky and Charles on this day was so astounding that it led Fortescue to opine that their lack of urgency was encouraged at headquarters by generals in the faction of [[Johann Amadeus von Thugut]], the Austrian prime minister, in an act of deliberate betrayal to sabotage the English so Austria would not be kept in the war against France, and could focus instead on countering Prussia in Poland, his preferred foreign policy priority.{{sfn|Fortescue|2016|p=127}} However, Fortescue's chauvinistic assertion was based on the claim that Austrian headquarters had not urged Kinsky and Charles forward, whereas they actually had tried.{{sfn|Phipps|2011|pp=298–299}}{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=301}}  Phipps wrote of Kinsky and Charles, "As far as the battle was concerned, the 29,000 men of these two columns might have been a hundred miles away".{{sfn|Phipps|2011|p=302}}