Arriving at Poperinge on 20 August, Hessian troops under Freytag's command drove the French from Oost-Cappel and Rexpoëde back to Bergues. This fortified town was, two days later, surrounded by a corps moving south of Bergues and taking Wormhout and Esquelbecq. The corps was then spread in a thin military cordon. Its left lay at Poperinge, its right at Houtkerque. Freytag's command was split into a number of small outposts in the occupied villages. Freytag was an experienced commander and had seen much service in the seven years war commanding light troops, however at Hondschoote his trust in the cordon system of linked army outposts was to prove fatal.