To His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The Memorable Attack upon the French Camp on the Hills of Famars near Valenciennes by the Hanoverian Corp de Garde & Combined Armies Under the Command of His Ro

A heroic battlefield scene of the victory of Famars, near Valenciennes, France. On the left, surrounded by his staff is the 2nd son of George III, Frederick Duke of York, Commander in Chief, astride his charger in the foreground. On the outbreak of war with France in 1793 George III insisted that York should take command of the English contingent despatched to Flanders to co-operate with the Austrian army under the Prince of Coburg. The campaigns of 1793, 1794, and 1795 in Flanders served to prove that the English army was unable to cope with the enthusiastic French Republicans, and that York was not a born military commander. His staff, and especially his adjutant and quartermaster-generals, Craig and Murray, were chiefly responsible; the Duke showed himself brave but inexperienced, indulging too freely in the dissipations of his officers. In 1793 the Allied army drove the French army out of Belgium, defeated it at Tournay and Famars, and took Valenciennes on 26th July. Then came a difference between the generals; the Prince of Coburg wished to march on Paris, while York was ordered to take Dunkirk. The armies separated, and Carnot at once concentrated all the best French troops and attacked the Duke in his lines before Dunkirk. After severe fighting at Hondschoten on 6th and 8th Sept. the English had to fall back, and, after the defeat of the Austrians at Wattignies, finally joined them at Tournay, where both armies went into winter quarters.