Editing Battle of Aldenhoven (1794) (section)

== The Austrian Retreat to the Roer ==
After the [[Battle of Fleurus (1794)|battle of Fleurus]], the Allied army, then under [[Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld|Prince Coburg]], initially withdrew to Mont St. Jean. On 1 July, after the French armies that had defeated them under the battle, now formally constituted as the [[Army of Sambre and Meuse|Army of Sambre-and-Meuse]] under Jourdan, captured Mons on their flank, they commenced a retreat towards Brussels. 

At this point, although the British and Dutch contingents in the allied army remained nominally under Coburg’s command, the Austrian and the Anglo-Dutch forces functioned essentially separately and with no regard for one another. On 5 July at Waterloo, Prince Coburg and the Duke of York, commander of the British contingent, agreed to defend a line from Antwerp to Louvain, Wavre, Gembloux and Namur, but Coburg promptly cancelled this agreement the next day when attacked by Jourdan and retreated with the Austrians towards Malines ([[Mechelen]]) and Louvain ([[Leuven]]), vacating Brussels along the way.<ref name=Fortescue>>{{Cite book |last=Fortescue |first=Sir John William |title=British Campaigns in Flanders 1690-1794 |publisher=MacMillan and Co. |year=1918 |location=London}}</ref>{{rp|358}}

Attacked further on 7-8 July, and compelled to relinquish Namur, Coburg moved the Austrians even further back to a line centred on Tirlemont. A week later, French attacks captured Malines and Louvain, prompting Coburg to begin a retreat back across the Meuse, eventually crossing at Maastricht on 24 July, occupying a defensive line on the east bank.<ref name=Fortescue></ref>{{rp|363-5}}

Following this retreat, Coburg had resigned, and was replaced by [[François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt|Count Clerfayt]]. The Austrians held their position on the Meuse through August, as the Army of Sambre-and-Meuse awaited the return of some 40,000 men that had been detached under [[Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer|Barthelemy Scherer]] to besiege and recapture Coalition fortified towns that had now been abandoned in the rear following the allied retreat. 

Upon Scherer’s return on 4 September, Jourdan, now strong enough, launched an attack that crumpled Clerfayt’s left flank at the battle of the Ourthe, also known as the [[battle of Sprimont]]. With his entire position on the Meuse now outflanked and compromised, Clerfayt was forced to retreat further back the Roer river, the last river defence line before the Rhine itself.