The Battle of Courtrai (11 May 1794) saw a Republican French army under Jean-Charles Pichegru oppose Coalition forces commanded by François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt.

As a result of the battle, the French Army of the North maintained their grip on Courtrai and Menin (now Menen) which it had won in late April.

For the spring 1794 campaign, Lazare Carnot of the Committee of Public Safety devised a strategy in which the French Republican Army of the North would attack the flanks of the Coalition forces in the Austrian Netherlands, under Jean-Charles Pichegru.

On the western flank, under Pichegru's personal command, 100,000 troops were ordered to strike first at Ypres, then Ghent, and finally Brussels.

On the eastern flank, 100,000 soldiers would thrust toward Liège and Namur in order to cut off Austrian communications with Luxembourg City.

The defect of this double envelopment strategy was that the Allies might throw the main weight of their forces on either French wing and crush it.

The left wing under Franz Wenzel, Graf von Kaunitz-Rietberg counted 27,000 Austrian and Dutch troops and covered the ground between Bettignies (near Maubeuge) and Dinant.

[4] Under the eyes of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, Coburg's main Coalition army advanced on 17 April and invested the fortress of Landrecies.

[6] On 26 April, Allied cavalry smashed a 20,000-man French column that intended to relieve Landrecies, inflicting 7,000 casualties and capturing its commander René-Bernard Chapuy along with Pichegru's plans for overrunning coastal Flanders.

With Pichegru's plans in his hands, Coburg sent a reinforcement of 12 infantry battalions and 10 cavalry squadrons under Sir William Erskine to the right wing and ordered Clerfayt's 8,000 men from Denain back to Tournai.

[10] Also, Pichegru ordered the 20,000-man division of Jacques Philippe Bonnaud (Chapuy's former command) to move from Cambrai to Sainghin-en-Mélantois, covering Lille.

Other divisions under Maximilian Baillet de Latour, József Alvinczi, and Franz von Werneck went east to support Kaunitz's left wing.

However, Bonnaud was pushed back with loss at the battle of Willems through York's skilful use of cavalry, which led to the withdrawal of the other units involved in the offensive, as the then-prevalent cordon doctrine of warfare dictated that units of an army should advance and withdraw spread out but in line with each other, placing equal pressure on an enemy army at all points.

While victorious, Willems had given York a much clearer idea of just how many French were in his front, and, realising he was badly outnumbered, he withdrew back to Tournai calling for reinforcements.

On 10 May, Clerfayt had encountered a French brigade under Dominique Vandamme, who was guarding the north bank of the Lys at Heule, and drove it back to the outskirts of Courtrai.

[14] However, at this time Malbrancq's brigade was able to join the fighting, the bulk of which was now centred at Lendelede, 4 mi (6 km) north of Courtrai.

According to one source, both sides sustained 1,200 casualties and the Austrians lost Lieutenant Field Marshal Franz Xaver von Wenckheim killed.

[19] Historian Ramsay Weston Phipps wondered why the Allies split their forces before the battle and sent Clerfayt north to Courtrai while York remained near Tournai.

He criticized the British army's lack of horse artillery, which might have broken the French squares at Willems sooner and caused heavier losses.