In 1794 Kinsky was sent to the
Austrian Netherlands to fight the
Republican French during the
War of the First Coalition. He served in the Coalition army commanded by
Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in the
Flanders Campaign, leading a division consisting of brigades under von Heister and Anton Ernst Mittrowsky. On 17 May the Coalition columns were ordered to begin moving in order to get into their proper positions. The
Count of Clerfayt with 19,600 soldiers was directed to advance south from
Tielt, cross the
Leie (Lys) River at
Wervik and reach
Tourcoing. The other five columns were ordered to move toward the northwest from the area of
Tournai. Farthest north were Von dem Bussche's 4,000
Hanoverians. Bussche ran into stiff opposition, was drubbed and chased out of the area. Otto held
Tourcoing and York reached
Mouvaux. Kinsky and Charles pushed back Bonnaud's troops but Kinsky did not get farther than
Bouvines and Charles was south instead of east of
Lille. York realized his column was badly exposed because of Bussche's defeat and Kinsky's lack of progress. He appealed to
Emperor Francis to allow his column to pull back to
Lannoy. Permission was denied. Instead, Mack ordered Charles to hurry up and assumed Kinsky would do the same. In fact, Charles had an
epileptic seizure and his staff refused to disturb him. After initial success in the north, Clerfayt's column was blocked by
Dominique Vandamme. On the morning of 18 May, Souham and Bonnaud opened the
Battle of Tourcoing by falling on the columns of Otto and York with 40,000 men. Otto was driven back while York was compelled to cut his way out of the trap with heavy losses in men and guns. As York's command was being mauled, several couriers arrived urging Kinsky to seize
Sainghin-en-Weppes. The general retorted, "Kinsky knows what he has to do", but his soldiers did not participate meaningfully in the battle. It was the same with the archduke's column. When news of the Coalition debacle reached him at 2:00 PM, Kinsky retreated east toward Tournai in company with Charles. Historian
Ramsay Weston Phipps remarked that, "the 29,000 men of these columns might have been a hundred miles away". One authority placed French losses at 3,000 killed and wounded plus seven guns captured out of a total of 82,000 men. The Coalition, which only managed to bring 48,000 troops into action, lost 4,000 killed and wounded plus 1,500 men and six guns captured. However, the French claimed to have captured 32 guns and inflicted nearly 1,900 casualties on York's column alone. ==Later career==