The year 1793 opened disastrously for the Republic. As a consequence of
Jemappes and Valmy, France had taken the offensive both in Belgium,
which had been overrun by Dumouriez's army, and in the Rhine countries,
where Custine had preached the new gospel to the sentimental and
half-discontented Hessians and Mainzers. But the execution of Louis XVI.
raised up a host of new and determined enemies. England, Holland,
Austria, Prussia, Spain and Sardinia promptly formed the First
Coalition. England poured out money in profusion to pay and equip her
Allies' land armies, and herself began the great struggle for the
command of the sea (see _Naval Operations_, below).
Neerwinden.
In the Low Countries, while Dumouriez was beginning his proposed
invasion of Holland, Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg, the new Austrian
commander on the Lower Rhine, advanced with 42,000 men from the region
of Cologne, and drove in the various detachments that Dumouriez had
posted to cover his right. The French general thereupon abandoned his
advance into Holland, and, with what forces he could gather, turned
towards the Meuse. The two armies met at Neerwinden (q.v.) on the 18th
of March 1793. Dumouriez had only a few thousand men more than his
opponent, instead of the enormous superiority he had had at Jemappes.
Thus the enveloping attack could not be repeated, and in a battle on
equal fronts the old generalship and the old armies had the advantage.
Dumouriez was thoroughly defeated, the house of cards collapsed, and the
whole of the French forces retreated in confusion to the strong line of
border fortresses, created by Louis XIV. and Vauban.[1] Dumouriez,
witnessing the failure of his political schemes, declared against the
Republic, and after a vain attempt to induce his own army to follow his
example, fled (April 5) into the Austrian lines. The leaderless
Republicans streamed back to Valenciennes. There, however, they found a
general. Picot (comte de) Dampierre was a regimental officer of the old
army, who, in spite of his vanity and extravagance, possessed real
loyalty to the new order of things, and brilliant personal courage. At
the darkest hour he seized the reins without orders and without
reference to seniority, and began to reconstruct the force and the
spirit of the shattered army by wise administration and dithyrambic
proclamations. Moreover, he withdrew it well behind Valenciennes out of
reach of a second reverse. The region of Dunkirk and Cassel, the camp of
La Madeleine near Lille, and Bouchain were made the rallying points of
the various groups, the principal army being at the last-named. But the
blow of Neerwinden had struck deep, and the army was for long incapable
of service, what with the general distrust, the misconduct of the newer
battalions, and the discontent of the old white-coated regiments that
were left ragged and shoeless to the profit of the "patriot" corps.
"Beware of giving horses to the 'Hussars of Liberty,'" wrote Carnot,
"all these new corps are abominable."
Assembly of the Allies.
France was in fact defenceless, and the opportunity existed for the
military promenade to Paris that the allied statesmen had imagined in
1792. But Coburg now ceased to be a purely Austrian commander, for one
by one allied contingents, with instructions that varied with the
political aims of the various governments, began to arrive. Moreover, he
had his own views as to the political situation, fearing especially to
be the cause of the queen's death as Brunswick had been of the king's,
and negotiated for a settlement. The story of these negotiations should
be read in Chuquet's _Valenciennes_--it gives the key to many mysteries
of the campaign and shows that though the revolutionary spirit had
already passed all understanding, enlightened men such as Coburg and his
chief-of-staff Mack sympathized with its first efforts and thought the
constitution of 1791 a gain to humanity. "If you come to Paris you will
find 80,000 patriots ready to die," said the French negotiators. "The
patriots could not resist the Austrian regulars," replied Coburg, "but I
do not propose to go to Paris. I desire to see a stable government, with
a chief, king or other, with whom we can treat." Soon, however, these
personal negotiations were stopped by the emperor, and the idea of
restoring order in France became little more than a pretext for a
general intrigue amongst the confederate powers, each seeking to
aggrandize itself at France's expense. "If you wish to deal with the
French," observed Dumouriez ironically to Coburg, "talk 'constitution.'
You may beat them but you cannot subdue them." And their subjugation was
becoming less and less possible as the days went on and men talked of
the partition of France as a question of the moment like the partition
of Poland--a pretension that even the emigres resented.
Coburg's plan of campaign was limited to the objects acceptable to all
the Allies alike. He aimed at the conquest of a first-class
fortress--Lille or Valenciennes--and chiefly for this reason. War meant
to the burgher of Germany and the Netherlands a special form of _haute
politique_ with which it was neither his business nor his inclination to
meddle. He had no more compunction, therefore, in selling his worst
goods at the best price to the army commissaries than in doing so to his
ordinary customers. It followed that, owing to the distance between
Vienna and Valenciennes, and the exorbitant prices charged by carters
and horse-owners, a mere concentration of Austrian troops at the latter
place cost as much as a campaign, and the transport expenses rose to
such a figure that Coburg's first duty was to find a strong place to
serve as a market for the country-side and a depot for the supplies
purchased, and to have it as near as possible to the front to save the
hire of vehicles. As for the other governments which Coburg served as
best he could, the object of the war was material concessions, and it
would be easy to negotiate for the cession of Dunkirk and Valenciennes
when the British and Austrian colours already waved there. The Allies,
therefore, instead of following up their advantage over the French field
army and driving forward on the open Paris road, set their faces
westward, intending to capture Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, Dunkirk and
Lille one after the other.
Dampierre at Valenciennes.
Dampierre meanwhile grew less confident as responsibility settled upon
his shoulders. Quite unable to believe that Coburg would bury himself in
a maze of rivers and fortresses when he could scatter the French army to
the winds by a direct advance, he was disquieted and puzzled by the
Austrian investment of Conde. This was followed by skirmishes around
Valenciennes, so unfavourable to the French that their officers felt it
would be madness to venture far beyond the support of the fortress guns.
But the representatives on mission ordered Dampierre, who was
reorganizing his army at Bouchain, to advance and occupy Famars camp,
east of Valenciennes, and soon afterwards, disregarding his protests,
bade him relieve Conde at all costs. His skill, though not commensurate
with his personal courage and devotion, sufficed to give him the idea of
attacking Coburg on the right bank of the Scheldt while Clerfayt, with
the corps covering the siege of Conde, was on the left, and then to turn
against Clerfayt--in fact, to operate on interior lines--but it was far
from being adequate to the task of beating either with the disheartened
forces he commanded. On the 1st of May, while Clerfayt was held in check
by a very vigorous demonstration, Coburg's positions west of Quievrain
were attacked by Dampierre himself. The French won some local successes
by force of numbers and surprise, but the Allies recovered themselves,
thanks chiefly to the address and skill of Colonel Mack, and drove the
Republicans in disorder to their entrenchments. Dampierre's
discouragement now became desperation, and, urged on by the
representatives (who, be it said, had exposed their own lives freely
enough in the action), he attacked Clerfayt on the 8th at Raismes. The
troops fought far better in the woods and hamlets west of the Scheldt
than they had done in the plains to the east. But in the heat of the
action Dampierre, becoming again the brilliant soldier that he had been
before responsibility stifled him, risked and lost his life in leading a
storming party, and his men retired sullenly, though this time in good
order, to Valenciennes. Two days later the French gave up the open field
and retired into Valenciennes. Dampierre's remains were by a vote of the
Convention ordered to be deposited in the Pantheon. But he was a
"ci-devant" noble, the demagogues denounced him as a traitor, and the
only honour finally paid to the man who had tided over the weeks of
greatest danger was the placing of his bust, in the strange company of
those of Brutus and Marat, in the chamber of deputies.
Another pause followed, Coburg awaiting the British contingent under the
duke of York, and the Republicans endeavouring to assimilate the
reinforcements of conscripts, for the most part "undesirables," who now
arrived. Mutiny and denunciations augmented the confusion in the French
camp. Plan of campaign there was none, save a resolution to stay at
Valenciennes in the hope of finding an opportunity of relieving Conde
and to create diversions elsewhere by expeditions from Dunkirk, Lille
and Sedan. These of course came to nothing, and before they had even
started, Coburg, resuming the offensive, had stormed the lines of Famars
(May 24), whereupon the French army retired to Bouchain, leaving not
only Conde[2] but also Valenciennes to resist as best they could. The
central point of the new positions about Bouchain was called Caesar's
Camp. Here, surrounded by streams and marshes, the French generals
thought that their troops were secure from the rush of the dreaded
Austrian cavalry, and Mack himself shared their opinion.
Fall of Valenciennes.
Custine now took command of the abjectly dispirited army, the fourth
change of command within two months. His first task was to institute a
severe discipline, and his prestige was so great that his mere threat of
death sentences for offenders produced the desired effect. As to
operations, he wished for a concentration of all possible forces from
other parts of the frontier towards Valenciennes, even if necessary at
the cost of sacrificing his own conquest of Mainz. But after he had
induced the government to assent to this, the generals of the numerous
other armies refused to give up their troops, and on the 17th of June
the idea was abandoned in view of the growing seriousness of the Vendean
insurrection (see VENDEE). Custine, therefore, could do no more than
continue the work of reorganization. Military operations were few.
Coburg, who had all this time succeeded in remaining concentrated, now
found himself compelled to extend leftwards towards Flanders,[3] for
Custine had infused some energy into the scattered groups of the
Republicans in the region of Douai, Lille and Dunkirk--and during this
respite the Paris Jacobins sent to the guillotine both Custine and his
successor La Marliere before July was ended. Both were "ci-devant"
nobles and, so far as is ascertainable, neither was guilty of anything
worse than attempts to make his orders respected by, and himself popular
with, the soldiers. By this time, owing to the innumerable denunciations
and arrests, the confusion in the Army of the North was at its height,
and no further attempt was made either to relieve Valenciennes and
Conde, or to press forward from Lille and Dunkirk. Conde, starved out as
Coburg desired, capitulated on the 10th of June, and the Austrians, who
had done their work as soldiers, but were filled with pity for their
suffering and distracted enemies, marched in with food for the women and
children. Valenciennes, under the energetic General Ferrand, held out
bravely until the fire of the Allies became intolerable, and then the
civil population began to plot treachery, and to wear the Bourbon
cockade in the open street. Ferrand and the representatives with him
found themselves obliged to surrender to the duke of York, who commanded
the siege corps, on the 28th of July, after rejecting the first draft of
a capitulation sent in by the duke and threatening to continue the
defence to the bitter end. Impossible as this was known to be--for
Valenciennes seemed to have become a royalist town--Ferrand's soldierly
bearing carried the day, and honourable terms were arranged. The duke
even offered to assist the garrison in repressing disorder. Shortly
after this the wreck of the field army was forced to evacuate Caesar's
Camp after an unimportant action (Aug. 7-8) and retired on Arras. By
this they gave up the direct defence of the Paris road, but placed
themselves in a "flank position" relatively to it, and secured to
themselves the resources and reinforcements available in the region of
Dunkirk-Lille. Bouchain and Cambrai, Landrecies and Le Quesnoy, were
left to their own garrisons.
With this ended the second episode of the amazing campaign of 1793.
Military operations were few and spasmodic, on the one side because the
Allied statesmen were less concerned with the nebulous common object of
restoring order in France than with their several schemes of
aggrandisement, on the other owing to the almost incredible confusion of
France under the regime of Danton and Marat. The third episode shows
little or no change in the force and direction of the allied efforts,
but a very great change in France. Thoroughly roused by disaster and now
dominated by the furious and bloodthirsty energy of the terrorists, the
French people and armies at last set before themselves clear and
definite objects to be pursued at all costs.
Houchard.
Jean Nicolas Houchard, the next officer appointed to command, had been a
heavy cavalry trooper in the Seven Years' War. His face bore the scars
of wounds received at Minden, and his bravery, his stature, his bold and
fierce manner, his want of education, seemed to all to betoken the ideal
sans-culotte general. But he was nevertheless incapable of leading an
army, and knowing this, carefully conformed to the advice of his staff
officers Berthelmy and Gay-Vernon, the latter of whom, an exceptionally
capable officer, had been Custine's chief of staff and was consequently
under suspicion. At one moment, indeed, operations had to be suspended
altogether because his papers were seized by the civil authorities, and
amongst them were all the confidential memoranda and maps required for
the business of headquarters. It was the darkest hour. The Vendeans, the
people of Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon, were in open and hitherto
successful revolt. Valenciennes had fallen and Coburg's hussar parties
pressed forward into the Somme valley. Again the Allies had the decision
of the war in their own hands. Coburg, indeed, was still afraid, on
Marie Antoinette's account, of forcing the Republicans to extremities,
and on military grounds too he thought an advance on Paris hazardous.
But, hazardous or not, it would have been attempted but for the English.
The duke of York had definite orders from his government to capture
Dunkirk--at present a nest of corsairs which interfered with the Channel
trade, and in the future, it was hoped, a second Gibraltar--and after
the fall of Valenciennes and the capture of Caesar's Camp the English
and Hanoverians marched away, via Tournai and Ypres, to besiege the
coast fortress. Thereupon the king of Prussia in turn called off his
contingent for operations on the middle Rhine. Holland, too, though she
maintained her contingent in face of Lille (where it covered Flanders),
was not disposed to send it to join the imperialists in an adventure in
the heart of France. Coburg, therefore, was brought to a complete
standstill, and the scene of the decision was shifted to the district
between Lille and the coast.
Dunkirk.
Thither came Carnot, the engineer officer who was in charge of military
affairs In the Committee of Public Safety and is known to history as the
"Organizer of Victory." His views of the strategy to be pursued indicate
either a purely geographical idea of war, which does not square with his
later principles and practice, or, as is far more likely, a profound
disbelief in the capacity of the Army of the North, as it then stood, to
fight a battle, and they went no further than to recommend an inroad
into Flanders on the ground that no enemy would be encountered there.
This, however, in the event developed into an operation of almost
decisive importance, for at the moment of its inception the duke of York
was already on the march. Fighting _en route_ a very severe but
successful action (Lincelles, Aug. 18) with the French troops encamped
near Lille, the Anglo-Hanoverians entered the district--densely
intersected with canals and morasses--around Dunkirk and Bergues on the
21st and 22nd. On the right, by way of Furnes, the British moved towards
Dunkirk and invested the east front of the weak fortress, while on the
left the Hanoverian field marshal v. Freytag moved via Poperinghe on
Bergues. The French had a chain of outposts between Furnes and Bergues,
but Freytag attacked them resolutely, and the defenders, except a brave
handful who stood to cross bayonets, fled in all directions. The east
front of Bergues was invested on the 23rd, and Freytag spread out his
forces to cover the duke of York's attack on Dunkirk, his right being
opposite Bergues and his centre at Bambeke, while his left covered the
space between Roosbrugge and Ypres with a cordon of posts. Houchard was
in despair at the bad conduct of his troops. But one young general,
Jourdan, anticipating Houchard's orders, had already brought a strong
force from Lille to Cassel, whence he incessantly harried Freytag's
posts. Carnot encouraged the garrisons of Dunkirk and Bergues, and
caused the sluices to be opened. The _moral_ of the defenders rose
rapidly. Houchard prepared to bring up every available man of the Army
of the North, and only waited to make up his mind as to the direction in
which his attack should be made. The Allies themselves recognized the
extreme danger of their position. It was cut in half by the Great
Morass, stretches of which extended even to Furnes. Neither Dunkirk nor
Bergues could be completely invested owing to the inundations, and
Freytag sent a message to King George III. to the effect that if Dunkirk
did not surrender in a few days the expedition would be a complete
failure.
As for the French, they could hardly believe their good fortune.
Generals, staff officers and representatives on mission alike were eager
for a swift and crushing offensive. "'Attack' and 'attack in mass'
became the shibboleth and the catch-phrase of the camps" (Chuquet), and
fortresses and armies on other parts of the frontier were imperiously
called upon to supply large drafts for the Army of the North.
Gay-Vernon's strategical instinct found expression in a wide-ranging
movement designed to secure the absolute annihilation of the duke of
York's forces. Beginning with an attack on the Dutch posts north and
east of Lille, the army was then to press forward towards Furnes, the
left wing holding Freytag's left wing in check, and the right swinging
inwards and across the line of retreat of both allied corps. At that
moment all men were daring, and the scheme was adopted with enthusiasm.
On the 28th of August, consequently, the Dutch posts were attacked and
driven away by the mobile forces at Lille, aided by parts of the main
army from Arras. But even before they had fired their last shot the
Republicans dispersed to plunder and compromised their success. Houchard
and Gay-Vernon began to fear that their army would not emerge
successfully from the supreme test they were about to impose on it, and
from this moment the scheme of destroying the English began to give way
to the simpler and safer idea of relieving Dunkirk. The place was so
ill-equipped that after a few days' siege it was _in extremis_, and the
political importance of its preservation led not merely the civilian
representatives, but even Carnot, to implore Houchard to put an end to
the crisis at once. On the 30th, Cassel, instead of Ypres, was
designated as the point of concentration for the "mass of attack." This
surprised the representatives and Carnot as much as it surprised the
subordinate generals, all of whom thought that there would still be time
to make the detour through Ypres and to cut off the Allies' retreat
before Dunkirk fell. But Houchard and Gay-Vernon were no longer under
any illusions as to the manoeuvring power of their forces, and the
government agents wisely left them to execute their own plans.
Thirty-seven thousand men were left to watch Coburg and to secure Arras
and Douai, and the rest, 50,000 strong, assembled at Cassel. Everything
was in Houchard's favour could he but overcome the indiscipline of his
own army. The duke of York was more dangerous in appearance than in
reality--as the result must infallibly have shown had Houchard and
Gay-Vernon possessed the courage to execute the original plan--and
Freytag's covering army extended in a line of disconnected posts from
Bergues to Ypres.
Hondschoote.
Against the left and centre of this feeble cordon 40,000 men advanced in
many columns on the 6th of September. A confused outpost fight, in which
the various assailing columns dissolved into excited swarms, ended, long
after nightfall, in the orderly withdrawal of the various allied posts
to Hondschoote. The French generals were occupied the whole of next day
in sorting out their troops, who had not only completely wasted their
strength against mere outposts, but had actually consumed their rations
and used up their ammunition. On the 8th, the assailants, having more or
less recovered themselves, advanced again. They found Wallmoden (who had
succeeded Freytag, disabled on the 6th) entrenched on either side of the
village of Hondschoote, the right resting on the great morass and the
left on the village of Leysele. Here was the opportunity for the "attack
in mass" that had been so freely discussed; but Houchard was now
concerned more with the relief of Dunkirk than with the defeat of the
enemy. He sent away one division to Dunkirk, another to Bergues, and a
third towards Ypres, and left himself only some 20,000 men for the
battle. But Wallmoden had only 13,000--so great was the disproportion
between end and means in this ill-designed enterprise against Dunkirk.
[Illustration: Map of Hondschoote.
Redrawn from a map in Fortescue's _History of the British Army_, by
permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd.]
Houchard despatched a column, guided by his staff officer Berthelmy, to
turn the Hanoverians' left, but this column lost its way in the dense
country about Loo. The centre waited motionless under the fire of the
allied guns near Hondschoote. In vain the representative Delbrel
implored the general to order the advance. Houchard was obstinate, and
ere long the natural result followed. Though Delbrel posted himself in
front of the line, conspicuous by his white horse and tricoloured sash
and plume, to steady the men, the bravest left the ranks and skirmished
forward from bush to bush, and the rest sought cover. Then the allied
commander ordered forward one regiment of Hessians, and these, advancing
at a ceremonial slow march, and firing steady rolling volleys, scattered
the Republicans before them. At this crisis Houchard uttered the fatal
word "retreat," but Delbrel overwhelmed him with reproaches and stung
him into renewed activity. He hurried away to urge forward the right
wing while Jourdan rallied the centre and led it into the fight again.
Once more Jourdan awaited in vain the order to advance, and once more
the troops broke. But at last the exasperated Delbrel rose to the
occasion. "You fear the responsibility," he cried to Jourdan; "well, I
assume it. My authority overrides the general's and I give you the
formal order to attack at once!" Then, gently, as if to soften a rebuke,
he continued, "You have forced me to speak as a superior; now I will be
your aide-de-camp," and at once hurried off to bring up the reserves
and to despatch cavalry to collect the fugitives. This incident, amongst
many, serves to show that the representatives on mission were no mere
savage marplots, as is too generally assumed. They were often wise and
able men, brave and fearless of responsibility in camp and in action.
Jourdan led on the reserves, and the men fighting in the bushes on
either side of the road heard their drums to right and left. Jourdan
fell wounded, but Delbrel headed a wild irregular bayonet charge which
checked the Hanoverians, and Houchard himself, in his true place as a
cavalry leader, came up with 500 fresh sabres and flung himself on the
Allies. The Hanoverians, magnificently disciplined troops that they
were, soon re-formed after the shock, but by this time the fugitives
collected by Delbrel's troopers, reanimated by new hopes of victory,
were returning to the front in hundreds, and a last assault on
Hondschoote met with complete success.
Hondschoote was a psychological victory. Materially, it was no more than
the crushing of an obstinate rearguard at enormous expense to the
assailants, for the duke of York was able to withdraw while there was
still time. Houchard had indeed called back the division he had sent to
Bergues, and despatched it by Loo against the enemy's rear, but the
movement was undertaken too late in the day to be useful. The struggle
was practically a front to front battle, numbers and enthusiasm on the
one side, discipline, position and steadiness on the other. Hence,
though its strategical result was merely to compel the duke of York to
give up an enterprise that he should never have undertaken, Hondschoote
established the fact that the "New French" were determined to win, at
any cost and by sheer weight and energy. It was long before they were
able to meet equal numbers with confidence, and still longer before they
could freely oppose a small corps to a larger one. But the nightmare of
defeats and surrenders was dispelled.
The influence of Houchard on the course of the operations had been
sometimes null, sometimes detrimental, and only occasionally good. The
plan and its execution were the work of Berthelmy and Gay-Vernon, the
victory itself was Jourdan's and, above all, Delbrel's. To these errors,
forgiven to a victor, Houchard added the crowning offence of failure, in
the reaction after the battle, to pursue his advantage. His enemies in
Paris became more and more powerful as the campaign continued.
Menin.
Having missed the great opportunity of crushing the English, Houchard
turned his attention to the Dutch posts about Menin. As far as the
Allies were concerned Hondschoote was a mere reverse, not a disaster,
and was counterbalanced in Coburg's eyes by his own capture of Le
Quesnoy (Sept. 11). The proximity of the main body of the French to
Menin induced him to order Beaulieu's corps (hitherto at Cysoing and
linking the Dutch posts with the central group) to join the prince of
Orange there, and to ask the duke of York to do the same. But this last
meant negotiation, and before anything was settled Houchard, with the
army from Hondschoote and a contingent from Lille, had attacked the
prince at Menin and destroyed his corps (Sept. 12-13).
After this engagement, which, though it was won by immensely superior
forces, was if not an important at any rate a complete victory, Houchard
went still farther inland--leaving detachments to observe York and
replacing them by troops from the various camps as he passed along the
cordon--in the hope of dealing with Beaulieu as he had dealt with the
Dutch, and even of relieving Le Quesnoy. But in all this he failed. He
had expected to meet Beaulieu near Cysoing, but the Austrian general had
long before gone northward to assist the prince of Orange. Thus Houchard
missed his target. Worse still, one of his protective detachments
chanced to meet Beaulieu near Courtrai on the 15th, and was not only
defeated but driven in rout from Menin. Lastly, Coburg had already
captured Le Quesnoy, and had also repulsed a straggling attack of the
Landrecies, Bouchain and other French garrisons on the positions of his
covering army (12th).[4]
Houchard's offensive died away completely, and he halted his army
(45,000 strong excluding detachments) at Gaverelle, half-way between
Douai and Arras, hoping thereby to succour Bouchain, Cambrai or Arras,
whichever should prove to be Coburg's next objective. After standing
still for several days, a prey to all the conflicting rumours that
reached his ears, he came to the conclusion that Coburg was about to
join the duke of York in a second siege of Dunkirk, and began to close
on his left. But his conclusion was entirely wrong. The Allies were
closing on _their_ left inland to attack Maubeuge. Coburg drew in
Beaulieu, and even persuaded the Dutch to assist, the duke of York
undertaking for the moment to watch the whole of the Flanders cordon
from the sea to Tournai. But this concentration of force was merely
nominal, for each contingent worked in the interests of its own masters,
and, above all, the siege that was the object of the concentration was
calculated to last four weeks, i.e. gave the French four weeks unimpeded
liberty of action.
Houchard was now denounced and brought captive to Paris. Placed upon his
trial, he offered a calm and reasoned defence of his conduct, but when
the intolerable word "coward" was hurled at him by one of his judges he
wept with rage, pointing to the scars of his many wounds, and then, his
spirit broken, sank into a lethargic indifference, in which he remained
to the end. He was guillotined on the 16th of November 1793.
After Houchard's arrest, Jourdan accepted the command, though with many
misgivings, for the higher ranks were filled by officers with even less
experience than he had himself, equipment and clothing was wanting, and,
perhaps more important still, the new levies, instead of filling up the
depleted ranks of the line, were assembled in undisciplined and
half-armed hordes at various frontier camps, under elected officers who
had for the most part never undergone the least training. The field
states showed a total of 104,000 men, of whom less than a third formed
the operative army. But an enthusiasm equal to that of Hondschoote, and
similarly demanding a plain, urgent and recognizable objective, animated
it, and although Jourdan and Carnot (who was with him at Gaverelle,
where the army had now reassembled) began to study the general strategic
situation, the Committee brought them back to realities by ordering them
to relieve Maubeuge at all costs.
Wattignies.
The Allies disposed in all of 66,000 men around the threatened fortress,
but 26,000 of these were actually employed in the siege, and the
remainder, forming the covering army, extended in an enormous semicircle
of posts facing west, south and east. Thus the Republicans, as before,
had two men to one at the point of contact (44,000 against 21,000), but
so formidable was the discipline and steadiness of manoeuvre of the old
armies that the chances were considered as no more than "rather in
favour" of the French. Not that these chances were seriously weighed
before engaging. The generals might squander their energies in the
council chamber on plans of sieges and expeditions, but in the field
they were glad enough to seize the opportunity of a battle which they
were not skilful enough to compel. It took place on the 15th and 16th of
October, and though the allied right and centre held their ground, on
their left the plateau of Wattignies (q.v.), from which the battle
derives its name, was stormed on the second day, Carnot, Jourdan and the
representatives leading the columns in person. Coburg indeed retired in
unbroken order, added to which the Maubeuge garrison had failed to
co-operate with their rescuers by a sortie,[5] and the duke of York had
hurried up with all the men he could spare from the Flanders cordon. But
the Dutch generals refused to advance beyond the Sambre, and Coburg
broke up the siege of Maubeuge and retired whence he had come, while
Jourdan, so far from pressing forward, was anxiously awaiting a
counter-attack, and entrenching himself with all possible energy. So
ended the episode of Wattignies, which, alike in its general outline and
in its details, gives a perfect picture of the character, at once
intense and spasmodic, of the "New French" warfare in the days of the
Terror.
To complete the story of '93 it remains to sketch, very briefly, the
principal events on the eastern and southern frontiers of France.
These present, in the main, no special features, and all that it is
necessary to retain of them is the fact of their existence. What this
multiplication of their tasks meant to the Committee of Public Safety
and to Carnot in particular it is impossible to realize. It was not
merely on the Sambre and the Scheldt, nor against one army of
heterogeneous allies that the Republic had to fight for life, but
against Prussians and Hessians on the Rhine, Sardinians in the Alps,
Spaniards in the Pyrenees, and also (one might say, indeed, above all)
against Frenchmen in Vendee, Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon.
On the Rhine, the advance of a Prussian-Hessian army, 63,000 strong,
rapidly drove back Custine from the Main into the valleys of the Saar
and the Lauter. An Austrian corps under Wurmser soon afterwards
invaded Alsace. Here, as on the northern frontier, there was a long
period of trial and error, of denunciations and indiscipline, and of
wholly trivial fighting, before the Republicans recovered themselves.
But in the end the ragged enthusiasts found their true leader in
Lazare Hoche, and, though defeated by Brunswick at Pirmasens and
Kaiserslautern, they managed to develop almost their full strength
against Wurmser in Alsace. On the 26th of December the latter, who had
already undergone a series of partial reverses, was driven by main
force from the lines of Weissenburg, after which Hoche advanced into
the Palatinate and delivered Landau, and Pichegru moved on to
recapture Mainz, which had surrendered in July. On the Spanish
frontier both sides indulged in a fruitless war of posts in broken
ground. The Italian campaign of 1793, equally unprofitable, will be
referred to below. Far more serious than either was the insurrection
of Vendee (q.v.) and the counter-revolution in the south of France,
the principal incidents of which were the terrible sieges of Lyons and
Toulon.
Campaign of 1794.
For 1794 Carnot planned a general advance of all the northern armies,
that of the North (Pichegru) from Dunkirk-Cassel by Ypres and Oudenarde
on Brussels, the minor Army of the Ardennes to Charleroi, and the Army
of the Moselle (Jourdan) to Liege, while between Charleroi and Lille
demonstrations were to be made against the hostile centre. He counted
upon little as regards the two armies near the Meuse, but hoped to force
on a decisive battle by the advance of the left wing towards Ypres.
Coburg, on the other side, intended, if not forced to develop his
strength on the Ypres side, to make his main effort against the French
centre about Landrecies. This produced the siege of Landrecies, which
need not concern us, a forward movement of the French to Menin and
Courtrai which resulted in the battles of Tourcoing and Tournai, and the
campaign of Fleurus, which, almost fortuitously, produced the
long-sought decision.
The first crisis was brought about by the advance of the left wing of
the Army of the North, under Souham, to Menin-Courtrai. This advance
placed Souham in the midst of the enemy's right wing, and at last
stimulated the Allies into adopting the plan that Mack had advocated, in
season and out of season, since before Neerwinden--that of _annihilating
the enemy's army_. This vigorous purpose, and the leading part in its
execution played by the duke of York and the British contingent, give
these operations, to Englishmen at any rate, a living interest which is
entirely lacking in, say, the sieges of Le Quesnoy and Landrecies. On
the other side, the "New French" armies and their leaders, without
losing the energy of 1793, had emerged from confusion and inexperience,
and the powers of the new army and the new system had begun to mature.
Thus it was a fair trial of strength between the old way and the new.
In the second week of May the left wing of the Army of the North--the
centre was towards Landrecies, and the right, fused in the Army of the
Ardennes, towards Charleroi--found itself interposed at
Menin-Courtrai-Lille between two hostile masses, the main body of the
allied right wing about Tournai and a secondary corps at Thielt.
Common-sense, therefore, dictated a converging attack for the Allies and
a series of rapid radial blows for the French. In the allied camp
common-sense had first to prevail over routine, and the emperor's first
orders were for a raid of the Thielt corps towards Ypres, which his
advisers hoped would of itself cause the French to decamp. But the duke
of York formed a very different plan, and Feldzeugmeister Clerfayt, in
command at Thielt, agreed to co-operate. Their proposal was to surround
the French on the Lys with their two corps, and by the 15th the emperor
had decided to use larger forces with the same object.
[Illustration: Sketch of French positions about Courtrai, Tourcoing &
Lille May 16th., 1794]