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| - On 13 September, Feldmarschall Coburg's army accepted the surrender of the fortress of Le Quesnoy from its 4,000 surviving French defenders. The Austrian army moved 24 km east and laid siege to Maubeuge and its 20,000-man garrison under General of Division (MG) Jacques Ferrand on 30 September. Coburg assigned an Austrian-Dutch corps of 20,000 men led by General William V, Prince of Orange to prosecute the siege, while Feldzeugmeister François Clerfayt de Croix's corps covered the operation.
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| abstract
| - On 13 September, Feldmarschall Coburg's army accepted the surrender of the fortress of Le Quesnoy from its 4,000 surviving French defenders. The Austrian army moved 24 km east and laid siege to Maubeuge and its 20,000-man garrison under General of Division (MG) Jacques Ferrand on 30 September. Coburg assigned an Austrian-Dutch corps of 20,000 men led by General William V, Prince of Orange to prosecute the siege, while Feldzeugmeister François Clerfayt de Croix's corps covered the operation. Coburg disposed Clerfayt's covering force of 21,000 astride the Avesnes-Maubeuge road, facing south. The 5,000 troops on the right rested their flank on the Sambre. The 9,000 soldiers of the centre deployed on a ridge in an amphitheatre of woods. The remaining 7,000 men defended the plateau of Wattignies on the left flank. The French revolutionary army gathered at Avesnes-sur-Helpe, 18 km to the south of Maubeuge. The French Committee of Public Safety considered the situation of such critical importance that it sent Carnot to personally order MG Jourdan to the immediate relief of Ferrand's garrison. The long line of woods enabled the Army of the North to deploy unseen. MG Jacques Pierre Fromentin's 14,000 men of the left flank moved to attack the western end of the Austrian line. The 16,000-strong right wing under MG Florent Joseph Duquesnoy advanced towards Wattignies on the east. MG Antoine Balland and 13,000 troops demonstrated in the centre until the other columns had succeeded in their mission. At that time, Balland was to attack. Meanwhile, the Maubeuge garrison was to sally out. However, this part of the programme miscarried. Even without the Maubeuge garrison Jourdan had a two-to-one superiority. But the French were still the undisciplined enthusiasts of the Battle of Hondschoote. Historian Michael Glover presents Carnot as a meddler. He writes of the politically powerful Committee of Public Safety member, Carnot's talents as 'the organizer of victory' are beyond dispute, but his tactical skills were minimal, a defect he concealed by a careful rewriting of history. To drive away a poorly led covering force of 20,000 with the 45,000 available to the Army of the North should have posed no great problem, but the business was sadly bungled. Carnot insisted that there should be a double encircling movement, a favorite maneuver of his, combined with a frontal attack, thus carefully dispersing the French numerical superiority.
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