"The Anglo-Russian Helder campaign, 1799 " Topic

"In the middle of October 1799, forty thousand British and Russian troops camped in the shelter of the Zijpe Canal across the very northernmost tip of Holland's Helder Peninsula. Rain pock-marked the surface of the Groote Sloot that ran through the centre of the small village of Schagerbrug, and pounded off the narrow, muddy street outside the burgemeester's house.

Here the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the allied British and Russian forces, had summoned an important meeting of his Council of War. Around the table were some of the most senior generals of the Allied army: Lieutenant-Generals Sir Ralph Abercromby, David Dundas, and James Pulteney; Major-General Lord Chatham; and the acting Russian commander, General Ivan Essen. As the rain continued to fall, the Council pondered the question of whether or not to abandon the campaign.

The expedition to the Helder had been planned as part of the Second Coalition during the war with revolutionary France. Britain had come out of three years of continental isolation to ally with Austria and Russia, who were currently pressing the French hard in the Rhineland and northern Italy. The Helder expedition was a joint venture between Britain and Russia with the aim of opening a second front in Holland (currently in French hands), overturn the "Batavian Republic", and restore the House of Orange. Such sketchy intelligence as William Pitt's government had managed to acquire suggested the Dutch people would rise in favour of a royal restoration…"

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