The Duke of York's Army in Flanders during 1793 was under the overall command of an Austrian General Prince Frederick of Saxe-Coburg, and reinforced in the beginning of the war by press-ganged and bribed men who were totally untrained, totally bewildered and totally unfitted for service.

The campaign conducted by Coburg was a model of how it should have been done by the Allies had they been fighting the armies of Louis XIV, a stately siege and reduction of fortified towns with no boldness, initiative or strategic foresight just a dull, methodical and outdated practice of military drills. All of which took no account of the new nature of warfare, or of the opportunities presented by the difficulties in which the french often found themselves. It was, only redeemed, because the commanders including the Duke of York learned what was wrong with the Army and how not to go about making war on the french, Among those who benefited from this exercise was the soon to be great, Arthur Wellesley.

On 1st May 1793 Coburg bean his ponderous advance towards the frontier between the Austrian Netherlands and France, there was very little to hinder him from advancing into France, but Coburg had no intention of doing so. His progress was sluggish and uninspired, with every possible route the french might take against him picketted and every strongpoint, no matter how insignificant reduced. By the time his army reached the fronter, spread out between Ostend and Mauberge, he decided that only the reduction of the Valencinnes and Condé fortresses would allow him to proceed. By the end of July, Valencienes had fallen, and the Prussians had finally taken Mainz. The Duke of York was repulsed in his attacks on Dunkirk, at Hoondschote.

At this time, Lazare-Marguérite Carnot, a Captain of engineers supplied ideas to the French command which would turn the tide in favour of the french as well as give time for the mass mobilization of France to total war. Carnot proposed to strike a blow in the north, where the Allies were still dithering and wrest the advantage from them there. This meant weakening the Armies in the east, but Prussia seemed more occupied with POland than France, he devised a plan to distract the Allied advance towards Mauberge by sending a force of some 2,000 under Houchard and Jourdan in a raid to Ostend. During this operation, the French overcame the Hanoverians under the Duke of York at Hoondschoote, forcing the Duke to withdraw northwards abandoning heavy guns and stores.

These were the new French tactics in play. In front of the main french columns would advance a flood of Tirailleurs, swift sharp-shooting skirmishers, reconnoitring the enemy's positions and disrupting them; then would come the dense, packed columns of the main body, whose sheer numbers would make up for inferior training and whose concentrated fervour would quickly penetrate the defenders' lines which lacked the necessary depth to slow them down and stop them. This was a strategy which would prove itself time and again, and which the British would watch with envy as Pitt spread the British Army all over the globe.

As the Allies continue to dither, Carnot acted. he suppressed the rebels in the Rhone valley and captured lyons, preventing Austrian troops from infiltrating over the Alps. Mounted an offensive in Flanders during October 1973, in the east defeating the Austrians at Wattignes, and in the west driving through Ypres and Nieuport, forcing the Duke of York's army to retire to its base at Ostend. With the Allied armies sitting in winter quarters, Carnot was able to turn his attention to eliminating the Vendeans. Carnot also re-took Toulon with 35,000 troops who included among them, a young artillery captain named napoleon Bonaparte. The defending British marines and soldier, French royalists and Spanish and Piedmontese troops were overwhelmed and the defences were broken on 17th December. Lord Hood evacuated the city that night, taking as many Toulonese refugees as he could.

In Flanders, The Duke of York's army was routed at Tourcoing while attempting to support the Austrians. The Allies now retreated, with the french following them and retaking all the frontier fortresses. The Duke of York's Army behaved with disgraceful indiscipline as they retreated, the campaign finally ending in March 1795.