Meanwhile, the French besiegers led by Jean Victor Marie Moreau compelled the Coalition defenders to surrender the city.

In 1794 Ypres was part of the Austrian Netherlands, but today it is a municipality in Belgium, located about 120 kilometres (75 mi) west of Brussels.

When the Coalition forces shifted east to defend the line of the Sambre River at the end of May, the left wing of Pichegru's Army of the North laid siege to Ypres.

A week after Ypres fell, the French won a critical victory on the eastern flank at the Battle of Fleurus.

On France's northeast frontier in March 1794 the Army of the North fielded 126,035 troops or 194,930 if all the garrisons were added.

[2] General of Division Jean-Charles Pichegru commanded the Army of the North which held the frontier from Dunkirk on the west, through Lille, Douai and Cambrai to Maubeuge on the east.

Meanwhile, the Coalition armies under Austrian Feldmarschall Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld struck in the center with 85,000 soldiers.

Meanwhile, Pichegru's forces drove back Feldzeugmeister François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt's corps on the west flank, in the area of Kortrijk (Courtrai) and Menen (Menin) at the end of April and early May.

Because the attacking columns were poorly coordinated, the French repelled the Coalition army with heavy losses at the Battle of Tourcoing.

Relations between Coburg and the British Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany became strained and the two could not decide on a common strategy.

On the east flank, the French attacked across the Sambre for the third time at the end of May but were forced to pull back[7] in the Battle of Gosselies.

[12] Worried about the persistent French attacks along the Sambre, the Coalition high command shifted their weight to the east to cover Charleroi, taking troops from the Duke of York's force at Tournai.

The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel units consisted of two battalions each of the Erbprinz, Lossberg and Prinz Karl Infantry Regiments, the Leib Squadron of the Gendarmes and 12 field pieces.

The military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban immediately set about making extensive changes to the defenses that year and later in 1682.

Ironically, Ypres was handed over to the Dutch Republic by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713,[16] along with Veurne (Furnes), Fort Knokke, Menen, Tournai, Mons, Charleroi, Namur and Ghent.

[14] On 6 June 1794 there was a skirmish at Vry-Bosch (Vrijbos) near Houthulst north of Ypres between 5,500 Coalition troops and an unknown number of French soldiers.

Feldmarschall-Leutnant Anton Sztáray led the Austrian forces, which included two battalions each of grenadiers, the Archduke Charles Nr.

38 Infantry Regiments, six battalions of reinforcements under General-major Wilhelm Lothar Maria von Kerpen and three foot artillery batteries.

[15] Digby Smith called Ypres the key to the province of Flanders,[15] while Ramsay Weston Phipps remarked that the Austrians never realized the significance of the fortress.

[13] Part of the victorious Army of the North came into contact with the Duke of York's corps at Oudenaarde on 26 June, but were called away to drive northeast along the coast.

The Dutch and British positioned their forces to defend Holland while the Austrians fell back to Louvain and Tienen (Tirlemont) in order to cover Maastricht and their communications with Cologne and Koblenz.