Threatened with encirclement, Souham and division commanders Jean Victor Marie Moreau and Jacques Philippe Bonnaud improvised a counterattack which defeated the Coalition's widely separated and poorly coordinated columns.

The Coalition battle plan drawn up by Karl Mack von Leiberich launched six columns that attempted to envelop part of the French army holding an awkward bulge at Menen (Menin) and Kortrijk (Courtrai).

On 18 May, Souham concentrated his main strength on the two center columns under the command of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany and Rudolf Ritter von Otto, inflicting a costly setback on the Coalition's Austrian, British, Hanoverian, and Hessian troops.

Franz Wenzel, Graf von Kaunitz-Rietberg led 27,000 Austrian and Dutch troops on the left wing at Bettignies.

The Allies inflicted 7,000 casualties on the French and captured their commander René-Bernard Chapuy with Pichegru's plans for attacking coastal Flanders.

Jean Victor Marie Moreau's 21,000-strong division from Cassel swept past Ypres and laid siege to Menen (Menin).

The two Coalition forces joined at Tournai: York led 18,000 soldiers, Clerfayt commanded 19,000 troops (though one British brigade was still en route), and Johann von Wallmoden had 4,000–6,000 men.

[11] The two Coalition commanders worked out a plan where Clerfayt would attack Courtrai from the north while York would strike from the direction of Tournai and cut off the French from Lille.

[15] After the fall of Landrecies, the Coalition high command was torn between moving the army west to save coastal Flanders or east to assist Kaunitz on the Sambre River.

On 13 May, Kaunitz won the Battle of Grandreng so the next day the emperor decided the main army must move west toward Flanders.

The plan's stated goal was, "to act upon the enemy's communications between Lille and Menin and Courtrai, to defeat his armies that he has advanced upon the Lys and to drive him out of Flanders".

[23] The sixth column under Clerfayt counted 19,600 men and was instructed to move south from Tielt to Wervik, cross the Lys, and press southeast toward Tourcoing.

[28][note 2] Bonnaud's division was made up of the brigades of Jean-Baptiste Salme, Nicolas Pierquin, and Pierre Nöel, while the cavalry was grouped under Antoine-Raymond Baillot-Faral.

[29] Moreau had only the brigades of Dominique Vandamme and Nicolas Joseph Desenfans, and the latter unit was observing Ypres and not in close contact.

Charles' advance forced Bonnaud to abandon Sainghin and withdraw to Lille, allowing Kinsky to repair the bridge at Bouvines.

Therefore, the Guards brigade under Ralph Abercromby assaulted the village with the bayonet, driving the French from their well-fortified positions and capturing 3 cannons.

[35][note 3] Simply put, Moreau would defend the line of the Lys against Clerfayt's advance while Souham struck southwest from Courtrai and Bonnaud attacked northeast from Lille.

[27] Moreau remarked, "It would require a piece of good fortune, on which we cannot count, to prevent half my division and myself being sacrificed according to this plan, but still it is the best which can be proposed, and consequently it should be adopted.

At 3:00 am, Mack sent a fresh set of orders instructing Charles to leave 10 battalions and 20 squadrons to watch Lille, and march with Kinsky to Lannoy.

York's column was spread out with Abercromby's Guards brigade and the 7th and 15th Light Dragoons at Mouvaux,[41] 4 Austrian battalions and the 16th Light Dragoons defended Roubaix, 2 Hessian battalions held Lannoy, and Henry Edward Fox's brigade (14th, 37th, and 53rd Foot) deployed west of Roubaix, watching Lille.

The Austrian commander at Tourcoing, Eugen von Montfrault took a defensive position east of the town, but he was compelled to retreat when a French battery opened fire from the north.

At Mouvaux, the defenses faced east with the line bent back to the hamlet of Le Fresnoy to defend against attack from the north.

These units were soon swept away by the French assault[45] partly because Bonnaud's troops moved through the gaps left by the two missing battalions.

Unknown to the horsemen, the artillery train ahead of them had been ambushed and the drivers panicked,[47] abandoning their guns and limbers in the road and fleeing with the horses.

[48] After riding 300 to 400 yd (274 to 366 m), the cavalry plowed into the artillery blockade, throwing horses and riders to the ground, as the French peppered them with musketry.

Though continually harassed by French skirmishers, cannon fire, and cavalry,[46] the British brigade managed to reach Leers and safety.

Finding himself cut off from the forces of Abercromby and Fox, and seeing his Austrian battalions melting away, he took a small escort from the 16th Light Dragoons and rode toward Wattrelos.

Two battalions arrived, Vandamme's men steadied, pushed back Clerfayt a distance, and captured a color from the 8th Light Dragoons.

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.

[54] H. Coutanceau believed that York's column lost 53 officers, 1,830 men, and 32 guns, while T. J. Jones only admitted a loss of 65 killed and 875 wounded and missing.