CHAPTER IV CONTINUED. THE PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION, PHASE VI CONTINUED. Parallel to this action on the part of the committee was their sudden attack upon men of the other extreme, the men whose violence, excessive even for that time, threatened to provoke reaction. Herbert was the chief of these, the spokesman of the Commune of Paris, and he also perished. Meanwhile the committee had permitted other persecutions and other deaths, notably that of the Queen. A sane policy would have demanded that she should be kept a hostage. She was sacrificed to the desire for vengeance, and her head fell on the same day on which the decisive battle of wantonies was won. Later the king's sister, Madame Elizabeth, was sacrificed to the same passions, and with her must be countered a certain proportion of the victims whose destruction could be no part of the committee's scheme, and proceeded purely from the motives of an ancient hatred. Though in the case of many of these who were of aristocratic birth or influence, through their wealth, it is not easy to determine how far the possibility of their intrigue with the foreigner may not have led them to the scaffold. In the last four months of the period we are considering in this book. Through April, that is, after the execution of Danton through May and June almost to the end of July, Robespierre appears with a particular prominence. Fads or doctrines of his own are admitted upon the statute of the revolution. Notably his religious dogmas of a personal god and of the immortality of the soul. Nay a public solemnity is arranged in honor of such matters, and he is the high priest therein. The intensity of the idolatry he received was never greater. The numbers that he had shared were perhaps diminishing. It is certain that he did not appreciate how far the supports of his great popularity were failing. It is certain that he saw only the increasing enthusiasm of his immediate followers. The committee still used him as their tool, notably for an increase in the terror in June, but it is possible that for the first time in all these months he began to attempt some sort of authority within the committee. We know for instance that he quarreled with Carnot, who was easily the strongest man therein. In the past they had permitted him to indulge a private policy where it did not interfere with the general military plan. He was largely responsible, not through his own judgment, but from his desire to voice opinion for the trial and execution of the queen. He had temporized when Danton was beginning his campaign against the terror at the end of 1793. It is an ineffacable blot upon his memory and his justly earned reputation for integrity and sincerity that he first permitted and then helped towards Danton's execution. We may presume from the few indications we have that he protested against it in the secret councils of the committee, but he had yielded, and what is more, since St. Just desired to be Danton's accuser, he had furnished St. Just with notes against Danton. Though it was the committee who were morally responsible for the extreme extension of the terror which proceeded during those last few months, Ropes Pierre had the unwisdom to act as their instrument to draft their last decrees and believing the terror to be popular to support it in public. It was this that ruined him. The extreme terrorists who were not yet satiated with vengeance and who hated and feared a popular idol determined to overthrow him. The mass of those who might be the next victims and who, knowing nothing of the secret councils of the committee, imagined Ropes Pierre to be what he posed as being the master of the committee, were eager for his removal. In his fictitious character as the supposed chief power in the state, all the growing nausea against the terror was directed against his person. Coincidentally with such forces, the committee whom relying upon his public position, he had become to interfere with, and probably to check in their military action. He certainly had attempted unsuccessfully to save certain lives against the decisions of his colleagues, determined to be rid of him. The crisis came in the fourth week of July, or as the revolutionary calendar then went in the second week of Thermidor. He was howled down in the parliament, and active and clever conspiracy had organized all the latent forces of opposition to him. He still so trusted in his popularity that the scene bewildered him, and he was still so beloved and so ardently followed that when at the same sitting he was outlawed, his brother sacrificed himself to follow him. St. Just was included in the sentence, and his strict friendly boss voluntarily accepted the same doom. What followed was at first a confusion of authority. Put under arrest, the governor of the prison to which Robespierre was dispatched refused to receive him. He and his sympathizers met in the Hotel de Ville after the fall of darkness, and an attempt was made to provoke an insurrection. There are many and confused accounts of what immediately followed him in night, but two things are certain. The populace refused to rise for Robespierre, and the parliament, with the committee at its back, organized an armed force which easily had the better of the incipient rebellion at the Hotel de Ville. It is probable that Robespierre's signature was needed to the proclamation of insurrection. It is certain that he did not compete it, and presumably that he would not act against all his own theories of popular sovereignty and the general will. And he sat there with the paper before him and his signature still unfinished. The armed forces of the parliament burst into the room. A lad of the name of murder aimed a pistol from the door at Robespierre and shot him in the jaw. The evidence in favor of this version is conclusive. Of his companions some fled and were captured. Some killed themselves, most were arrested. The next day the 10th Thermidor, or 28th of July 1794, at half past seven in the evening, Robespierre with 21 others was guillotined. The irony of history would have it that the fall of this man, which was chiefly due to his interference with the system of the terror, broke all the moral force upon which the terror itself had resided. For men had imagined that the terror was his work, and that, he gone, no excuse was left for it. A reaction began, which makes of this date the true term in that ascending series of revolutionary effort, which had by then discussed every aspect of democracy, succeeded in the military defense of that experiment, and laid down, though so far in words only, the basis of the modern state. The end of Section 19. The end of Phase 6. The end of Chapter 4. Section 20. The French Revolution. This is Librevox Recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The French Revolution by Hilaire Belog. Section 20. Chapter 5. The Military Aspect of the Revolution. The revolution would never have achieved its object. On the contrary, it would have led to no less than a violent reaction against those principles which were maturing before it broke out, and which it carried to triumph. Had not the armies of revolutionary France proved successful in the field. But the grasping of this mere historic fact, I mean the success of the revolutionary armies, is unfortunately no simple matter. We all know that as a matter of fact, the revolution was upon the whole successful in imposing its view upon Europe. We all know that from that success as from a germ has preceded and is still preceding modern society. But the nature, the cause, and the extent of the military success, which alone made this possible, is widely ignored and still more widely misunderstood. No other signal military effort which achieved its object has in history ended in military disaster, yet this was the case with the Revolutionary Wars. After twenty years of advance, during which the ideas of the revolution were sown throughout western civilization and had time to take root, the armies of the revolution stumbled into the vast trap or blunder of the Russian campaign. This was succeeded by the decisive defeat of the democratic armies at Leipzig and the superb strategy of the campaign of 1814. The brilliant rally of what is called the Hundred Days only served to emphasize the completeness of the apparent failure. For that masterly campaign was followed by Napoleon's first abdication. That brilliant rally ended in Waterloo and the ruin of the French army. When we consider the spread of the Russian culture over the east by the parallel military triumph of Alexander, or the conquest of Gaul by the Roman armies under Caesar, we are met by a political phenomena and a political success, no more striking than the success of the revolution. The revolution did as much by the sword as ever did Alexander or Caesar and surely compelled one of the great transformations of Europe, but the fact that the great story can be read to a conclusion of defeat disturbs the mind of the student. Again, that element, fatal to all accurate study of military history, the imputation of civilian virtues and motives, enters the mind of the reader with fatal facility when he studies the Revolutionary War. He is tempted to ascribe to the enthusiasm of the troops, nay to the political movement itself a sort of miraculous power. He is apt to use with regard to the revolutionary victories the word inevitable, which if ever it applies to the reasoned willing and conscious action of men, certainly applies least of all to men when they act as soldiers. There are three points which we must carefully bear in mind when we consider the military history of the revolution. First that it exceeded the revolution regarded as the political motive of its armies won. Secondly, that it succeeded through those military aptitudes and conditions which happened to accompany, but by no means necessarily accompanied, the strong convictions and the civic enthusiasm of the time. Thirdly, that the element of chance which every wise and prudent reasoner will very largely admit into all military affairs worked in favor of the revolution and the critical moments of the early wars. With these points fixed and with the readiness to return to them when we have appreciated the military story, it is well to begin our study by telling that story briefly and upon its most general lines. In doing so, it will be necessary to cover here and there points which have already been dealt with in this book, but that is inevitable where one is writing of the military aspect of any movement, for it is impossible to deal with that aspect, save as a living part of the whole. So knit into the national life is the business of war. When the revolution first approached action, the prospect of a war between France and any other great power of the time, England, Prussia, the Empire, or let us say Russia or even Spain, was such a prospect as might have been entertained at any time during the past two or three generations of men. For pretty well a hundred years, men had been accustomed to the consideration of dynastic quarrels supported by a certain type of army, which in a moment I shall describe. I have called these quarrels dynastic, that is they were mainly quarrels between the ruling houses of Europe, were mainly motivated by the desire of each ruling house to acquire greater territory and revenue, and were limited by the determination of all the ruling houses to maintain certain ideas in violent, as for instance the sacredness of monarchy, the independence of individual states, etc. Though they were in the main dynastic, yet in proportion as the dynasty might represent a united nation, they were national also. The English oligarchy was in this respect peculiar and more national than any European government of its time. It is also true to say that the Russian despotism had behind it in most of its military adventures and all its spirit of expansion, the subconscious agreement of the people. Still however national the wars of the time preceding the revolution moved within a fixed framework of ideas, as it were, which no commander and no diplomatist dreamed of exceeding, a. The crowned head of state would have some claims against, b. The crowned head of another state, with regard to certain territories, c. The crowned head or government of a third state would remain neutral or ally himself with either of the two, if he allied himself then as a rule it was with the weaker against the stronger, in order to guarantee himself against two great an increase in the part of a rival. Or again a rebellion would break out against the power of A in some part of his dominions, then would be somewhat reluctantly, as the almost unlimited right of an existing executive was still a strong dogma in men's mind, tend to ally himself with the rebels in order to diminish the power of A. Human affairs have always in them very strongly and permanently inherent the chief character of a sport. The interest at any rate of males in the conduct of human life is always largely an interest of seeing that certain rules are kept and certain points won according to those rules. We must therefore beware of ridiculing the war of the century preceding the revolution under the epithet of a game, but it is true that warfare and honorably true that it attempted limited things in a limited manner. It did not attempt any fundamental change in society. It was not overtly, since the Thirty Years' War at least, a struggle of ideas. It was conducted on behalf of known and limited interests for known and highly limited objects, and the instruments with which it was conducted were instruments artificial and segregated from the general life of the nation. These instruments were what have been called the professional armies. The term is very insufficient and in part misleading. The gentry of the various powers mixed with whom were certain adventurers, not always of gentle blood, were the officers that led these forces, and for the major part of the gentry in most European countries the military career was the chief field of activity. The men whom they led were not a peasantry nor a working class, still less a civic force in which the middle class would find itself engaged. They were the poorest and the least settled. Some would have said the dregs of European life. With the exception here and there of a man, usually a very young man whom the fabled romance of this hard but glorious trade had attracted, and with the exception of certain bodies that followed in a mass and by order the relics of a feudal lordship, the armies of the period immediately preceding the revolution were armies of very poor men who had sold themselves into a sort of servitude, often exciting and even adventurous, but not when we examine it minutely, a career that a free man would choose. The men were caught by economic necessity, by fraud, and in other ways and once caught were held. No better proof of this could be found than the barbarous severity of the punishments attached to desertion or to minor forms of indiscipline. So held they were used for the purposes of the game, not only in what would make them serviceable instruments of war, but also in what would make them pleasing to their masters. Strict alignment, certain frills of parade and appearance, all that is required in a theater or in a pretentious household appear in the military regulations of this time. The end of section 20. Section 21, The French Revolution. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The French Revolution by Hilaire Belock. Section 21, Chapter 5, Continued. I must not in all this be supposed to be belittling that great period between 1660 and 1789, during which the art of war was most thoroughly thought out. The traditions of most of our great European armies fixed, and the permanent military qualities which we still inherit developed. The men so caught as private soldiers could not but enjoy the game when it was actively played, for men of European stock will always enjoy the game of war. They took glory in its recital and in its memories to be a soldier, even under the survival conditions of the time, was a proper subject for pride. And it is further to be remarked that the excesses of cruelty discoverable in the establishment of their discipline were also accompanied by very high and lasting examples of military virtue. The behavior of the English contingents at Fontenoy afforded but one of many examples of what I mean. Still to understand the wars of the revolution, we must clearly establish the contrast between the so-called professional armies, which preceded that movement, and the armies which the revolution invented, used and bequeathed to the modern world. So also to revert to what was said above, we must recall the dynastic and limited character of the wars in which the 18th century had been engaged at the outbreak of the revolution. No other wars were contemplated by men. Had he spoken, for instance, at any moment in 1789, to a statesman, whether of old experience or only introduced to political life by the new movement of the position of Great Britain, he would at once have discussed that position in terms of Great Britain's recent defeat at the hands of France in the affair of the American colonies. Had you discussed with him the position of Prussia, he would at once have argued it in connection with Prussia's secular opposition to Austria and the Empire. Had you asked him how he considered Spain, he would have spoken of the situation of Spain as against France in the light of the fact that Spain was a bourbon monarchy, a light in blood to the French throne, and so forth. No true statesman imagined at the time, nor indeed for many years, that a war of ideas, nor even strictly speaking of nations, was possible. Even when such a war was actually in process of waging, the diplomacy which attempted to establish a peace, the intrigues whereby alliances were sought or neutrality negotiated, were dependent upon the older conception of things, and the historian is afforded, as he regards this gigantic struggle, the ironic satisfaction of seeing men fighting upon doctrines, the most universal conceivable, and yet perpetually changing their conduct during the struggle, according to conception's wholly particular, local, and ephemeral, and soon to be entirely swept away by time. Napoleon himself must needs Mary and Austrian arch-duchess as part of this old prejudice, and for years, brains as excellent as Dantons or Talleyrands conjecture the possibility of treating now England, now Prussia as neutral to the vast attempt of the French to destroy privilege in European society. One may say that for two years, the connection of the revolutionary movement with arms had no aspect saved that of civil war. True wherever a considerable change in progress in society, the possibility of foreign war in connection with it must always arise, were some European state, for instance, to make an experiment in collectivism today, the chance of foreign intervention would certainly be discussed by the promoters of that experiment, but no serious danger of an arms struggle between the French and any of their neighbors in connection with the political experiment of the revolution was imagined by the mass of educated men in France itself, nor without the boundaries of France during those first two years. And I repeat, the military aspect of those years was confined to civil tumult. Nevertheless, that aspect is not to be neglected, the way in which the French organized their civil war. And there was always something of it present from the summer of 1789 onwards profoundly affected the foreign war that was to follow. For in their internal struggles, great masses of Frenchmen became habituated to the physical presence, millions to the discussion of arms. It is as we have seen in another part of this book, that there were repeated and conspicuous error to imagine that the first revolutionary outbreaks were not met sufficiently sternly by royal troops. On the contrary, the royal troops were used to the utmost and were defeated. The populace of the large towns and especially of Paris proved itself capable of military organization and of military action. When to this capacity had been added the institution of militia, called the National Guard, there were already the makings of a nation, holy military. Much of this exceptional and new position must be ascribed to the Gallic character. It may be said that from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present day, that character has been permanently and of its own volition, steeped in the experience of organized fighting. Civil tumult has been native to it, the risk of death in defense of political objects has been equally familiar, and the whole trade of arms, its necessary organization, its fatigues, its limiting conditions, have been very familiar to the population throughout all these centuries. But beyond this, the fact that the revolution prepared men in the School of Civil Tumult was of the first advantage for its later aptitude against foreign powers. It is always well in history to fix a definite starting point for any political development. And a starting point of the Revolutionary Wars may easily be fixed at the moment when Louis, his queen, and the royal children attempted to escape to the frontier and to the army of the center under the command of Boulet. This happened as we have seen in June of 1791. Many factors combined to make that date, the starting point, in the first place until that moment, no actual proof had been apparent in the eyes of European monarchs of the captivity of their chief exemplar, the King of France. The wild march upon Versailles in the days of October 1789 had its parallel in a hundred popular tumults with which Europe was familiar enough for centuries. But the rapidly succeeding reforms of the year 1790, and even the great religious blunder of 1791, had received the signature and the public assent of the crown. The court, though no longer at Versailles, was splendid. The power of the king over the executive still far greater than that of any other organ in the state, and indefinitely greater than that of any other individual in the state. The talk of captivity, of insult and the rest, the outcries of the emigrants, and the perpetual complaint of the French royal family and its private relations, seemed exaggerated, or at any rate, nothing to act upon. There came the shock of the king's attempted flight and recapture. This clinched things, and it clinched them all the more because more than one court, and especially that of Austria, believed for some days that the escape had been successful. Again, the flight and its failure put the army into a ridiculous posture. Action against the revolution was never likely, so long as the discipline and steadiness of the French army were believed in abroad. But the chief command had hopelessly failed upon that occasion, and it was evident that the French-speaking troops could not easily be trusted by the executive government or by their own commanders. Furthermore, the failure of the flight leads the queen with her vivacity of spirit and her rapid, though ill-formed plans to turn for the first time to the idea of military intervention. Her letters suggesting this, in the form of a threat rather than a war, it is true, do not begin until after her capture at Veronese. Finally, coincident with that disaster, was the open mention of a republic, the open suggestion that the king should be deposed, and the first definite and public challenge to the principle of monarchy, which the revolution had thrown down before Europe. We are therefore not surprised to find that this origin of the military movement was followed in two months by the declaration of pilnets. With the political nature of that declaration, one must deal elsewhere. Its military character must here be observed. The declaration of pilnets corresponded as nearly as possible to what in the present day would be an order preparatory to mobilizing a certain proportion of the reserve. It cannot with justice be called equivalent to an order calling out all the reserves, still less equivalent to an order mobilizing upon a war footing the forces of a modern nation, for such an action is tantamount to a declaration of war, as for instance was the action of the English government before the South African struggle, and pilnets was very far from that. The pilnets was certainly as drastic a military proceeding as would be the public intimation by a group of powers that the reserves had been warned in connection with their quarrel against another power. It was for instance quite as drastic as the action of Austria against Serbia in 1908, and it was intended to be followed by such submission as is expected to follow upon the threat of superior force. Such was the whole burden of Marie Antoinette's letter to her brother, who had called the meeting at pilnets, and such was the sense in which the politicians of the revolution understood it. All that autumn and winter, the matter chiefly watched by foreign diplomatists and the clearest of French thinkers, was the condition of the French forces and of their command. Tharbonne's appointment to the war office counted more than any political move. Doumaré's succession to him was the event of the time. Plans of campaign were drawn up and promptly betrayed by Marie Antoinette to the enemy. Manifold occasions for actual hostilities were discovered. The revolution challenged the emperor in the matter of the Alsatian princes. The emperor challenged, through cognates, the revolution, and a letter directly interfering with the internal affairs of France and pretending to a right of integrants therein. And on the 20th of April 1792, war was declared against the empire. Prussia therefore informed the French government that she may common cause with the emperor, and the revolutionary struggle had begun. The war discovered no serious features during its first four months, so slow was the gathering and march of the allies. But the panics into which the revolutionary troops fell in the first skirmishes, their lack of discipline and the apparent breakdown of the French military power, made the success of the invasion in force when it should come seemed certain. The invading army did not cross the frontier until more than a week after the fall of the palace. Long way capitulated at once. A week later, in the five days of August, the great frontier forest of Verdun was summoned. It capitulated almost immediately. The end of section 21, section 22, the French Revolution. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The French Revolution by Hiller Bellach. Section 22, chapter five continued, the military aspect of the revolution. Two. On the 2nd of September, Verdun was entered by the Prussians. And a little outside the gates of town near a village bearing the name of Regret, the ally camp was fixed. Rather more than a week later on the 11th, the allies marched against the line of the Argonne. The reader will remember that this moment, with the loss of the frontier fortress Longway and Verdun, and the evidence of demoralization which that afforded, was also the moment of the September massacres and of the horrors in Paris. Dumarais and the mixed French force which he commanded had been ordered by the ministers of war to hold the line of the Argonne against which the allies were marching. And here it is well to explain what was meant in a military sense by this word line. The Argonne is a long, nearly straight range of hills, running from the south northward, a good deal to the west of north. Their soil is clay, and though the height of the hills is only 300 feet above the plain, their escarpment or steep side is towards the east, once an invasion may be expected. They are densely wooded from five to eight miles broad. The supply of water in them is bad and many parts undrinkable. Habitation with this provision for armies and roads are extremely rare. It is necessary to insist upon all these details because the greater part of civilian readers find it difficult to understand how formidable an obstacle, so comparatively unimportant to feature in the landscape, may be to an army upon the march. It was quite impossible for the guns, the wagons, and therefore the food and ammunition of the invading army to pass through the forest over the drenched clay land of that wet autumn, save where proper roads existed. These were only to be found wherever a sort of natural pass negotiated the range. Three of these passes alone existed. And to this day, there is very little choice in the crossing of these hills. The accompanying sketch will explain their disposition. Through the southernmost went the great high road from the frontier and Verdun to Paris, at the middle one which is called the Gap of Grand Prix. Dumarais was waiting with his incongruous army. The third and northern one was also held but less strongly. The obvious march for an unimpeded invader would have been from Verdun along the high road through the southern pass at Les Islets and so to Chelons on down to Paris. But Dumarais marching down rapidly from the north had set an advanced guard to hold that pass and was lying himself with the mass of the army on the pass to the north of it at Grand Prix. Against Grand Prix, the Prussians marched. And meanwhile, the Austrians were attacking to further pass to the north. Both were forced. Dumarais fell back southwards to Saint-Minehold. Meanwhile, Kellerman was coming up from Metz to join him. And all the while, the main pass at Les Islets through which the great road to Paris went continued to be held by the French. The Prussians and the Austrians joined forces in the plain known as the Champagne Poulis which lies westward of Argonne. It will be seen that as they marched south along this plain to meet Dumarais and to defeat him, their position was a peculiar one. They were nearer the enemy's capital than the enemy's army was. And yet they had to fight with their backs to that capital and their enemy, the French, had to fight with their faces towards it. Moreover, it must be remarked that the communications of the Allied army were now of a twisted roundabout sword which made the conveyance of provisions and ammunition slow and difficult. But they countered upon an immediate destruction of Dumarais' force after that a rapid march on the capital. On September 19, Kellerman came up from the south and joined hands with Dumarais near St. Mynehold. And on the morning of the 20th, his force occupied a roll of land on which there was a windmill and immediately behind which was the village of Vommi. From this village, the ensuing action was to take its name. Must here be insisted upon that both armies had been subjected to the very worst weather for more than a fortnight. But of the two, the Prussian force had suffered from this accident much more severely than the French. Dissentry had already broken out and the length and torturousness of their communications were greatly emphasized by the conditions of the road. On the morning of that day, the 20th of September, a mist impeded all decisive movement. There was an encounter, half accidental, between an advanced French battery and the enemy's guns. But it was not until mid-morning that the weather lifted enough to show each force its opponent. Then there took place an action, or rather a cannonade, the result of which is more difficult to explain perhaps than any other considerable action of the Revolutionary Wars. For some hours, the Prussian artillery, later reinforced by the Austrian, cannonaded the French position, having for its central mark the windmill of Valmy, round which the French forces were grouped. At one moment this cannonade took effect upon the limbers and ammunition wagons of the French. There was an explosion, which all eyewitnesses have remembered as the chief feature of the firing, and which certainly threw into confusion for some moments the illusory troops under Kellerman's command. At what hour this took place, the eyewitnesses who have left us accounts differ to an extraordinary extent. Some will have it at noon, others towards the middle of the afternoon. So difficult is it to have any accurate account of what happens in the heat of an action. At any rate, if not coincidentally with this success, at some moment not far removed from it, the Prussian charge was ordered, and it is here that the difficulties of the historian chiefly appear. That charge was never carried home, whether, as some believe, because it was discovered, after it was ordered, to be impossible in the face of the accuracy and intensity of the French fire, or whether, as it is more probably the case, because the drenched soil compelled the commanders to abandon the movement after it had begun. Whatever the cause may have been, the Prussian force, though admirably disciplined and led, and though advancing in the most exact order, failed to carry out its original purpose. It halted halfway up the slope, and the action remained a mere cannonade without immediate result apparent upon either side. Nevertheless, that result ultimately turned out to be very great, and if we consider its place in history, quite as important as might have been the result of a decisive action. In the first place, the one day's delay which it involved was just more than the calculations of the Allies with their long, impeded light of communications had allowed for. In the next place, a singular increase in determination and moral force was infused into the disheartened and ill-matched troops of the French commanders by this piece of resistance. We must remember that the French force upon the whole expected and discounted a defeat. The private soldier especially had no confidence in the result, and to find that the first action which had been so long threatened and had now at last come, he could stand up to the enemy, produced upon him an exaggerated effect which it would never have had under other circumstances. Finally, we must recollect that whatever causes had forbidden the Prussian charge forbade on the next day a general advance against the French position, and all the time the sickness in the Prussian camp was rapidly increasing. Even that short check of 24 hours made a considerable difference. A further delay of but yet another day during which the Allied Army could not decide whether to attack at once or to stand as they were, very greatly increased the list of inefficience from illness. For a whole week of increasing anxiety and increasing inefficiency, the Allied Army hung thus impotent, though they were between the French forces and the capital. Du Marais ably entertained this hesitation with all its accumulating dangers for the enemy by prolonged negotiations. Until upon the 30th of September, the Prussian and Austrian organization could stand the strain no longer, and its commanders determined upon retreat. It was the genius of Danton as we now know that chiefly organized the withdrawal of what might still have been a dangerous invading force. It is principally due to him that no unwise jingoism was permitted to claim a trial of strength with the invader, that he was allowed to retire with all his guns, his colors, and his train. The retreat was lengthy and unmolested, though watched by the French forces that discreetly shepherd it, but were kept tightly in hand from Paris. It was more than three weeks later when the Allied Army upon which Europe and the French monarchy had counted for an immediate settlement of the revolution, recross the frontier, and in this doubtful and perhaps inexplicable fashion, the first campaign of the European powers against the revolution utterly failed. The end of section 22. Section 23, the French Revolution. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The French Revolution by Hilaire Baloch. Section 23, chapter five continued. Three. Following upon this success, Dumaré pressed on to what had been from the first moment of his power at the head of the army, his personal plan, to wit the invasion of the low countries. To understand why this invasion failed and why Dumaré thought it might succeed, we must appreciate the military and political situation of the low countries at the time. They then formed a very wealthy and cherished portion of the Austrian dominions. They had latterly suffered from deep disaffection, culminating in an open revolution, which was due to the emperor of Austria's narrow and intolerant contempt of religion. From his first foolish policy of persecution and confiscation, he had indeed retreated. But the feeling of the people was still strongly opposed to the government at Vienna. It is remarkable indeed and in part due to the pressure of a strong Protestant and aristocratic state, Holland to the north of them, that the people of the Austrian Netherlands retained at that time a peculiar attachment to the Catholic religion. The revolution was quite as anti-Catholic as the Austrian emperor, but of the persecution of the latter, the Belgians as we now call them, knew something that of the former they had not yet learned to dread. It was therefore Dumeray's calculation that in invading this province of the Austrian power, he would be fighting in friendly territory. Again, it was separated from the political center of the empire. It was therefore more or less isolated politically and even for military purposes, communication with it was not so easy, unless indeed Austria could count on a complete cooperation with Prussia, which power had been for now so long, her ruthless and persistent rival. Favorable, however, as the circumstances appeared for an invasion, two factors telling heavily against the French had to be counted. The first was the formation of their army. The second, the spirit of rebellion against any anti-Catholic government which had given such trouble to Joseph II. Of these two factors by far, the most important was of course the first. If the French forces had been homogeneous in good spirit and well-trained, they might have held what they won. As a fact, they were most unhomogeneous. Great portions of them were ill-trained and worst of all, there was no consistent theory of subordinate command. Men who imagined that subordinate, that is regimental command in an army could be erected from below and that a fighting force could resemble a somewhat lax and turbulent democracy marched alongside of and were actually incorporated with old soldiers who had spent their whole careers under an unquestioned discipline and under a subordinate command which came to them they knew not whence and as it were by fate. The mere mixture of two such different classes of men in one force would have been bad enough to deal with. But what was worse, the political theories of the day fostered the military error of the new battalions, though the politicians dare not interfere with the valuable organization of the old. The invasion of the low countries began with a great, though somewhat informal and unfruitful success in the victory of Jim Apps. It was the first striking and dramatic decisive action which the French, always of an eager appetite for such news, had been given since between 40 and 50 years. The success in America against the English, though brilliantly won and solidly founded, had not presented occasions of this character and Fontaineuil was the last national victory which Paris could remember. Men elderly or old in this autumn of 1792 would have been boys or very young men when Fontaineuil was fought. The eager generation of the revolution with its military appetites and aptitudes as yet had hardly expected victory, though victory was ardently desired by them and peculiarly suitable to their temper. It may be imagined therefore what an effect the news of Jim Apps had upon the political world in Paris. The action was fought just below the town of Mons a few miles over the frontier and consisted in a somewhat ill-ordered but successful advance across the river Haines. Whether because the Austrians with an inferior force attempted to hold too long a line or because the infantry and even the new French volunteer battalions as yet untried by fatigue proved irresistible in the center of the movement. Jim Apps was a victory so complete that the attempts of apologists to belittle it only served to enhance its character. Like many another great and apparently decisive action, however, it bore no lasting fruit. Both the factors of which I have spoken above appeared immediately after the success. Belgium was indeed overrun by the French, but in their overrunning of it with something like 80,000 men, they made no attempt to spare the traditions or to conciliate the sympathies of the inhabitants. Hardly was Jim Apps won when Mons, the neighboring fortified frontier town, was at once endowed with a whole machinery of revolutionary government. Church property was invaded and occasionally rifled and the French paper money, the assonates of which we have heard poured in to disturb and in places to ruin the excellent commercial system upon which Belgium then as now reposed. Jim Apps was fought upon the 6th of November, 1792. Brussels was entered upon the 14th and throughout that winter, the low countries lay entirely in the hands of the French. The commissioners from the convention, though endowing Belgium with Republican institutions, treated it as a conquered country and before the breaking of spring, the French parliament voted its annexation to France. This annexation, the determination of the politicians in Paris that the new Belgian government should be Republican and anti-Catholic, the maltreatment of the church in the occupied country and the increasing ill discipline and lack of cohesion in his army, left du Marais in a position which grew more and more difficult as the new year 1793 advanced. It must be remembered that this moment exactly corresponded with the execution of the king and the consequent declaration of war by or against France in the case of one power after another throughout Europe. Meanwhile, it was decided foolishly enough to proceed from the difficult occupation of Belgium to the still more difficult occupation of Holland and the siege of Maastricht was planned. The moment was utterly ill-suited for such a plan. Every executive in the civilized world was coalescing openly or secretly, directly or indirectly against the revolutionary government. The first order to retreat came upon the 8th of March when the siege of Maastricht was seen to be impossible and when the great forces of the allies were gathered again to attempt what was to be the really serious attack upon the revolution, something far more dangerous, something which much more nearly achieved success than the march of the comparatively small force which had been checked at Wombie. For 10 days, the French retreat continued. When upon the 18th of March, du Marais risked battle at near Wyndon, his army was defeated. The defeat was not disastrous. The retreat was continued in fairly good order but a civilian population understands nothing beside the words defeat and victory. It can appreciate a battle, not a campaign. The news of the defeat coming at a moment of crisis in the politics of Paris was decisive. It led to grave doubts of du Marais' loyalty to the revolutionary government. It shattered his popularity with those who had continued to believe in him. While the general himself could not but believe that the material under his command was rapidly deteriorating. Before the end of the month, the army had abandoned all its conquests and Valenciennes in French territory was reached upon the 27th. The dash upon Belgium had wholly failed. At this moment came one of those political acts which so considerably disturb any purely military conspectus of the revolutionary wars. Du Marais at the head of his army, which though in retreat and defeated was still intact, determined upon what posterity has justly called treason but what to his own mind must have seemed no more than statesmanship. He proposed an understanding with the enemy and a combined march upon Paris to restore the monarchial government and put an end to what seemed to him as a soldier a perfectly hopeless situation. He certainly believed it impossible for the French army in the welter of 1793 to defeat the invader. He saw his own life in peril merely because he was defeated. He had no toleration for the rising enthusiasm or delirium of the political theory which had sent him out and even before he had reached French territory his negotiations with Colberg, the Austrian commander had begun. They lasted long. Du Marais agreed to put the frontier fortress of the French into the hands of the enemy as a guarantee and a pledge and on the 5th of April all was ready for the alliance of the two armed forces. But just as the treason of Du Marais is in the military sense abnormal and disturbing to any general conspectus of the campaign so was the action of his army. The doubtful point of a general command which is political in nature and may be unpopular with a rank and file lies of course in the attitude of the commanders of the units and these unanimously refused to obey the orders of their chief. It was known that Du Marais had been summoned to the bar of the convention which body had sent commissioners to apprehend him. He had arrested the commissioners and had handed them over as hostages and prisoners to Colberg. So far from Du Marais upon the critical day handing over his force to the army or constituting it a part of an allied army to march upon the capital he was compelled to fly upon the 8th of April. All that disappeared with him counting many who later deserted back again to the French colors was less than a thousand men and these foreign mercenaries. The end of section 23. Section 24, The French Revolution. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The French Revolution by Hilaire Belock. Section 24, Chapter 5 continued the military aspects of the revolution. The consequence of this strange passage upon the political history of the time we have already seen. It's consequence upon the military history of it was indirect but profound. The French forces such as they were were still intact but no general officer could in future be trusted by Paris and the stimulus which nations in the critical moments of invasion and of danger during foreign war seek in patriotism in the offering of a high wage to men and of honors and fortunes to their commanders was now sought by the French in the singular novel and abnormal experiment of the terror. Command upon the frontier throughout 1793 and the first part of 1794 during the critical 14 months that is which decided the fate of the revolution and which turned the tide of arms in favor of the French was a task accomplished under the motive power of capital punishment. A blunder was taken as proof of treason and there lay over the ordering of every general movement the threat of the guillotine. What we have now to follow is somewhat over a year of struggle thus have normally organized upon the French side and finally successful through the genius of a great organizer once a soldier now a politician, Carnot. The French succeeded by unshakable conviction which permitted the political leaders to proceed to all extremity in their determination to save the revolution by the peculiar physical powers of endurance which their army displayed and finally of course by certain accidents for accident will always be a determining factor in war. The spring of 1793 the months of April and May formed the first crisis of the Revolutionary War. The attack about to be delivered is universal and seems absolutely certain to succeed. With the exception of the rush at Jim Apps where less than 30,000 Austrians were broken through by a torrent superior in numbers though even there obviously ill organized no success had attended the Revolutionary armies. Their condition was even to the eyes of the layman bad and to the eye of the expert hopeless. There was no unity apparent in direction there were vast lesions in the discipline of the ranks like great holes torn in some rotten fabric. Even against the forces already mobilized against it it had proved powerless and it might be taken for granted to enact more nearly resembling police work than a true campaign the allies would reach Paris and something resembling the old order be soon restored. What remains is to follow the process by which this expectation was disappointed. The situation at this moment can best be understood by a glance at a sketch map on page 178. Two great French advances had been made in the winter of 1792-93. The one on northern advance which we have just detailed the overrunning of Belgium the other at eastern advance right up to the Rhine and to the town of Mayance both had failed. The failure in Belgium culminating in the treason of Dumarais has been read. On the Rhine where Mayance had been annexed by the French Parliament just as Belgium had been the active hostility of the population and the gathering of the organized forces of the allies had the same effect as had been produced in the Low Countries. It was on March 21st 1793 that the Prussians crossed the Rhine at Bacorec and within that week the French commander, Custin, began to fall back. On the 1st of April he was back again in French territory leaving the garrison of Mayance somewhat over 20,000 men to hold out as best as could. A fortnight later the Prussians had surrounded the town and the siege had begun. On the northeastern front stretching from the Ardennes to the sea a similar state of things was developing. There a barrier of fortresses stood between the allies in Paris and a series of sieges corresponding to the siege of Mayance in the east had to be undertaken. At much the same time as the investment of Mayance on April 9th the first step in his military task was taken by the allies moving in between the fortress of Condi and the fortress of Valenciennes. Thence forward it was the business of the Austrians under Coburg with the allies that were to reach him to reduce the frontier fortresses one by one and when his communications were thus secure to march upon Paris. It is here necessary for the reader unacquainted with military history to appreciate two points upon which not a little of contemporary historical writing may mislead him. The first is that both in the Rhine Valley and on the Belgian frontier the forces of the allies in their numbers and their organization were conceived to be overwhelming. The second is that no competent commander on the spot would have thought of leaving behind him a person or even one untaken fortress. It is important to insist upon these points because the political passions roused by the revolution are still so strong that men can hardly write of it without prejudice and bias and two errors continually present in these descriptions of the military situation in the spring of 1793 are first that the allies were weakened by the Polish question which was then active and secondly that the delay of their commanders before the French fortress was unnecessary. Both these propositions are put forward with the object of explaining the ultimate defeat of the enemies of the revolution. Both however great the authority behind them are unhistorical and worthless. The French success was a military success due to certain military factors both of design and accident which will appear in what follows. The allies played their part as all the art of war demanded it to be played. They were ultimately defeated not from the commission of any such gross and obvious error in policy or strategy as historians with too little comprehension of military affairs sometimes pretend but from the military superiority of their opponents. It is true that the Polish question that is the necessity the Austrian and Prussian governments each under of watching that the other was not lessened in importance by the approaching annexations of further Polish territory with the consequent jealousy and mistrust that arose from this between Austria and Prussia was a very important feature of the moment but it is bad military history to pretend that this affected the military situation on the Rhine or in the Netherlands. Every campaign is conditioned by its political object. The political object in this case was to march upon and to occupy Paris. The political object of the campaign was determined the size and the organization of the enemy are calculated and a certain force is brought against it. No much larger force is brought than is necessary to action such a fashion would be in military art what paying two or three times the price of an article would be in commerce. The forces of the Allies upon the Rhine and in the Netherlands were in the opinion of every authority of the time amply sufficient for their purpose and more than sufficient so much more than sufficient that the attitude of that military opinion which had to meet the attack to wit the professional military opinion of the French republican soldiers was that the situation was desperate nor indeed was it attempted to be met saved by violent and as it were irrational enthusiasm. The second point the so-called delay involved in the sieges undertaken by the Allies proves when it is put forward an insufficient acquaintance with the contemporary conditions. Any fortress with a considerable garrison left behind untaken would have meant the destruction of the Austrian or Prussian communications and their destruction at a moment when the Austrian and Prussian forces were actually advancing over a desperately hostile country. Moreover, when acting against forces wholly inferior in discipline and organization an untaken fortress is a refuge which one must take in particular pains to destroy. To throw himself into such a refuge will always stand before the commander of those inferior forces as the last resource. It is a refuge which he will certainly avail himself of, ultimately if it is permitted to him and when he has so availed himself of it, it means the indefinite survival of an armed organization in the rear of the advancing invaders. We must conclude if we are to understand this critical campaign which changed the history of the world that Coburg did perfectly right in laying siege to one fortress after another before he began the one expected to be the necessarily successful advance on Paris. The French despair as one town after another surrendered is an amply sufficient proof of the excellence of his judgment. The End of Section 24 Section 25 The French Revolution This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The French Revolution by Hilaire Balac. Section 25 Chapter 5 continued The military aspect of the Revolution We approached the military problem of 1793 therefore with the following two fields clear before us. One in the northeast and advance on Paris the way to which is blocked is the quadrilateral of fortresses Mons, Maubeg, Condi and Valenciennes with the subsidiary stronghold of Lesquenoy in the neighborhood of last. Mons has been in Austrian hands since Dumaré's retreat. Condi is just cut off from Valenciennes by Coburg's advance but he has not fallen. Valenciennes and the neighboring Lesquenoy are still intact and so is Maubeg. All must be reduced before the advance on Paris can begin. Behind these fortresses is the French army incapable as yet of attacking Coburg's command with any hope of success. Such is the position in the last fortnight of April. Two Meanwhile on the Rhine the French garrison in Mayans is beseeched. Costin the French commander in that quarter has fallen back on the French town of Landau and is drawing up what are known in history as the Lines of Wessenborg. The accompanying sketch map explains their importance. Reposing upon the two obstacles of the rivers of the right and the mountains of the left they fulfilled precisely the same functions as a fortress and those functions we have just described. Until these lines were carried the whole of Alsace may be regarded as a fortress, defended by the mountains and the river on two sides and by the Lines of Wessenborg on the third. A reader unacquainted with military history may ask why the obstruction was not drawn upon the line of the Prussian advance of Paris. The answer is that the presence of a force behind fortifications anywhere in the neighborhood of a line of communication is precisely equivalent to an obstacle lying right upon those lines. No commander can go forward along the line of his advance and leave a large undistroyed force close to one side of that line and so situated that it can come out when he has passed and cut off his communications for it is by communications that an army lives especially when it is marching in hostile country. Casting therefore behind his Lines of Wessenborg and the besieged garrison in Mayans corresponded to the barrier of fortresses on the northeast and delayed the advance of the Prussians under Wormser and Brunswick from the Rhine just as Condi, Valencians and Malberg prevented the advance of Coburg on the northeast. Such in general was the situation upon the eastern frontier at the end of that month of April 1793. 4. Let us first follow the development of the northern position. It will be remembered that all Europe was at war against the French. The Austrians had for allies Dutch troops which joined them at this moment and certain English and Hanoverian troops under the Duke of York who also joined them. At this moment when Coburg found himself increasing strength a tentative French attack upon him was delivered and failed. Dampierre who was in command of the French army of the north was killed and Casteen was sent to replace him. The army of the dorth did not as perhaps it should have done concentrate into one body to meet Coburg's threatened advance. It was perpetually attempting diversions which were useless because its strength was insufficient. Now it fainted upon the right towards Nemours now along the sea coast on the left and these diversions failed in their object. Before the end of the month Coburg to give himself elbow room as it were for the siege which he was preparing compelled the main French force to retreat to a position well behind Valenciennes. It was immediately after this success of Coburg said Casteen arrived to take command of the Belgian frontier his place on the Rhine being taken by Houchard. Casteen was a very able commander of the French army. His plan was the right one to concentrate all the French forces abandoning the Rhine and so form the army sufficiently to cope with Coburg's. The government would not meet him in this and he devoted himself immediately to the reorganization of the army of the north alone. The month of June and half of July was taken up in that task. Meanwhile the Austrian siege work had begun on the subject of its attention. Upon July 10th Condiffel meanwhile Casteen had been recalled to Paris and Valenciennes was invested. Casteen was succeeded by Kilmaine a general of Irish extraction who maintained his position for but a short time and was unable while he maintained it to do anything. The forces of the allies continually increased. The number at Coburg's disposal free from the business the sieging Valenciennes was already larger than the force required for that purpose and yet another 15,000 Hessian troops marched in while the issue of that siege was still in doubt. This great advantage in numbers permitted him to get rid of the main French force that was still present in front of him though not seriously annoying him. This force lay due southwest of Valenciennes and was about a days march distance. He depended for the capture of it upon his English and Hanoverian allies under the Duke of York but that general's march failed. The distance was too much for his troops in the hot summer weather and the French were able to retreat behind the line of the scarps and save their army intact. The Duke of York's talents have been patriotically exaggerated in many a treatise. He always failed and this was among the most signal of his failures. Kilmaine had hardly escaped from York drawn up his army behind the scarps and put it into a position of safety when in his turn was deprived of the command and Houchard was taken from the Rhine just as Castine had been and put at the head of the army of the north. Before the main French army had taken up this position of safety Valenciennes had fallen. It fell on the 28th of July and its fall, inevitable though it was and as one may say taken for granted by military opinion, was much the heaviest blow yet delivered. Nothing of importance remained to block the march of the armies of the allies, save Mulberg. At about the same moment occurred three very important changes in the general military situation which the reader must know if he is to understand what follows. The first was the sudden serious internal menace opposed to the republican government. The second was the advent of Carnot of Power and the third was the English diversion upon Dunkirk. The serious internal menace which the government of the Republic had to face was the widespread rebellion which has been dealt with in the earlier part of this book. The action of the Paris radicals against the Girondins had raised whole districts in the provinces. Marcellais which had shown signs of disaffection since April and had begun to raise a local reactionary force revolted, so did Bordeaux, Nimes and other great southern towns. Lyons had risen at the end of May and had killed the Jacobin mayor of the town of the period between the fall of Condi and that of Valencians. The troop which Marcellais had raised against the Republic was defeated in the field the day before Valencians fell. But the great seaport was still unoccupied by the forces of the government. The Norman march upon Paris had also failed between those two dates. The fall of Condi and the fall of Valencians. The Norman bark had proved worse than the Norman bite. But the force was so neighboring to the capital that it took a very large place in the preoccupations of the time. This triumphant advance was checked before Nantes, a fortnight before the fall of Condi, was still vigorous and the terrible reprisals against it were hardly begun. Worst of all or at least worst perhaps after the revolt of Lyons was the defection of Toulon. Toulon rose two days before the fall of Valencians and was prepared to hand itself over as Atlastia did hand itself over by the English fleet. The End of Section 25 Section 26 The French Revolution This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org The French Revolution by Hilaire Belock Section 26 Chapter 5 Continued The Military Aspect of the Revolution The dates thus set in their order may somewhat confuse the reader and I will therefore summarize the general position of the internal danger thus A man in the French camp on the shelf listening to the guns before Valencians 15 miles away and hourly expecting their silence as a signal that the city had surrendered would have heard by one post after another how Marseille still held out against the government how the counterattack against the successful Vendians had but doubtfully begun all July was full of disasters in that quarter how Lyons was furiously successful in her rebellion and had dared to put to death the Republican mayor of the town and that the great arsenal and port of Toulon the Portsmouth of France upon the Mediterranean at second of the government and was about to admit the English fleet his only comfort would have been to hear that the Norman Marchand Paris had failed but he would still be under the impression of it and of the murder of Marat by a Norman woman there is the picture of that sudden internal struggle which coincides with this moment of the Revolutionary War the moment of the fall of Condi and of Valencians and the exposure of the frontier the second point the advent of Carnot into the committee of public safety which has already been touched upon in the political part of this work has so preponderating a military significance that we must consider it here also the old committee of public safety it will be remembered reached the end of it's legal term on July 10 it was the committee which the wisdom had controlled the members elected to the new committee did not include Carnot but the military genius of this man was already public he came of that strong middle class which is the pivot upon which the history of modern Europe turns a Burgundian with lineage intensely Republican he had been returned to the convention and had voted for the death of the king a sapper before the Revolution and one thoroughly well grounded in his arm and in general reading of military things he had been sent by the convention to the army of the north on commission he had seen its weakness and had watched its experiments upon his return he was not immediately selected for the post in which he was to transform the Revolutionary War it was not until the 14th of August that he was given a temporary place upon the committee which his talents very soon made permanent he was given a place merely as a stopgap to the odious and incompetent fanatic Saint Andres who was for the moment away on mission but from the day of his admission his superiority in military affairs was so incontestable that he was virtually a dictator therein and his first action after the general lines of organization had been laid down by him was to impose upon the frontier armies the necessity of concentration he introduced what afterwards Napoleon inherited from him the tactical venture of all upon one throw it must be remembered that Carnot's success did not lie in any revolutionary discovery in connection with the art of war but rather in that vast capacity for varied detail which marks the organizer and in an intimate sympathy with the national character he understood the contempt for parade the severity or brutality of discipline the consciousness of immense powers of endurance which are in the Frenchman when he becomes a soldier and he made use of this understanding of his it must be further remembered that this powerful genius had behind him in these first days of his activity the equally powerful genius of Danton for it was Danton and he who gave practical shape to that law of conscription by which the French Revolution suddenly increased its armed forces by nearly half a million of men restored the Roman tradition and laid the foundation of the armed system on which Europe today depends with Carnot virtually commander in chief of all the armies and in able to impose his decisions in particular upon that army of the north which he had studied so recently as a commissioner the second factor of the situation I am describing is comprehended the third as I have said was the English diversion upon Dunkirk the subsequent failure of the allies has led to bitter criticism of this movement had the allies not failed history would have treated it as its contemporaries treated it the forces of the allies on the northeastern frontier were so great and their confidence so secure especially after the fall of Valencians that the English proposal to withdraw their forces for the moment from Coburg's and to secure Dunkirk was not received with any destructive criticism 18 battalions and 14 squadrons of the imperial forces were actually lent to the Duke of York for this expedition what is more even after that diversion failed the plan was fixed to begin again when the last of the other fortresses should have fallen so little was the English plan for the capture of the seaport disfavored by the commander in chief of the allies that diversion on Dunkirk turned out however to be an error of capital importance the attempt to capture the city utterly failed and the victory which needed its repulsion had upon the French that indefinable but powerful moral effect which largely contributed to their future successes the accompanying sketch map will explain the position Valencians and Condi have fallen Lesquinois the small fortress subsidiary to Valencians had not yet been attacked but comes next in the series when the moment was judged propitious by the establishment of the Anglo-Hannoverian force with a certain number of imperial allies to march to the sea it must always be remembered by the reader of history that military situations like the situations upon a chessboard rather happen than are designed and the situation which developed at the end of September upon the extreme north and west of the line which the French were attempting to hold against the allies strategically of this nature when the Duke of York insisted upon a division of the forces of the allies and the attack upon Dunkirk no living contemporary foresaw disaster Coburg indeed would have preferred the English to remain with him and asked them to do so but he felt in no sort of danger through their temporary absence nor as a matter of fact was he in any danger through it again though the positions which the Duke of York took up when he arrived in front of Dunkirk were bad neither his critics at home nor any of his own subordinates nor any of the enemy perceived fully how bad they were it was as will presently be seen a sort of drift bad luck combined with bad management which led to this British disaster and what was all important for the conduct of the war to the first success in a general action which the French had to flatter and encourage themselves with during all that fatal summer the Duke of York separated his force from that of Coburg just before the middle of August besides the British who were not quite 7,000 strong 11,000 Austrians over 10,000 Hanoverians and 7,000 Hessians were under his command the total force therefore was nearly 37,000 strong no one could imagine that opposed by such troops as the French were able to put into the line and marching against such wretched defenses as those of Dunkirk then were the Duke's army had not a perfectly easy task before and the plan which was to take Dunkirk and upon the return to join the Austrian march on Paris was reasonable and feasible it is important that the reader should firmly seize this and not read history backward from future events certain faults are to be observed in the first conduct of the march it began on the 15th of August proceeding from Marcheans to Menenne and at the outset displayed that deplorable lack of marching power which the Duke of York command had shown throughout the campaign from Marcheans to Torgog is a long day's march it took the Duke of York four days and take the march all together nine days were spent in covering less than 40 miles in the course of that march the British troops had an opportunity of learning to despise their adversary they found in Lindsay Elles upon the flank of their advance a number of undisciplined boys who broke the moment the guards were upon them and whose physical condition excited the ridicule of their assailants the army proceeded after this purposeless and unfruitful skirmish to the neighborhood of the sea coast and the seizure of Dunkirk was undertaken under conditions which will be clear to the reader from the following sketch map footnote incidentally it should be noted how true it is that this supreme military quality is a matter of organization rather than of the physical power of the troops in the Napoleonic wars the marching power of the English troops was often proved exceptional perhaps the greatest of all feats accomplished by a small body was that of the like Brigade marching to the succor of Wellington at Talevara the end of section 26 section 27 the French Revolution this is a LibreVox recording all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org the French Revolution by Hilaire Bellach section 27 chapter 5 continued the military aspect of the revolution the date of the 20th of August must first be fixed in the mind on that date the army which was to take Dunkirk was separated into its two component parts the first after the Duke of York was to attack the town itself the second under the aged Austrian general Freitag was to watch the movement of any approaching enemy and to cover the force which was besieging the town two days later the Duke of York was leaving Frenès which he had made his base for the advance and Freitag had with the greatest ease brushed the French posts mainly of volunteers from before him and was beginning to take up the flanking positions south and east of Bergeuse which covered the siege of Dunkirk two days later on August 24th Freitag had occupied Warmhout and Esquelbeke capturing guns by the dozen doing pretty well what he would with the French post and quite surrounding the town of Bergeuse Wilder was in his headquarters on the same day the 24th the Duke of York had with the greatest ease driven in the advance posts of the French before Dunkirk and shut up the enemy within the town while he formed his besieging force outside of it entrenched in a position which he had chosen beforehand reposing upon the sea at his right his left on the villages of Tendingham he was then about 3,000 yards from the fortifications at Dunkirk such was the situation upon the dawn of the 25th when everything was ready for active operations and here the reader must look upon the map for what ultimately proved the ruin of the situation supposing Freitag round Bergeuse in the position which the map shows the Duke of York in front of Dunkirk as the map also shows him the two forces are in touch across the road and the belt of country which unites Bergeuse and Dunkirk the covering armies and the besieging force which it covers are each a wing of one combined body each communicates with the other each can support the other at the main point of effort and though between the one and the other eastward there stretches a line of marshy country the mirrors which the map indicates yet a junction between the two forces exists westward of these and the two armies can co-operate by the Bergeuse Dunkirk road a factor which the Duke of York may have neglected was the power of flooding all that flat country around the road which the French in Dunkirk being at possession of the sluices possessed they used it at once they drowned the lowlands to the south of Dunkirk upon the very day when the last dispositions of the attacking force were completed but more important and never yet explained was the Austrians abandonment of Cody Cuckoo by this year the main road itself standing above the flood was lost and from being one strong army the force of the allies became two weak ones communication was no longer possible between the Duke of York and Freightags territories and it was of this separation that the French in spite of their deplorable organization and more deplorable personnel took advantage they took advantage of it slowly the Shards gathered all together 40,000 men near Cassell but it was 10 days before they could be concentrated it must again be insisted upon and repeated that large as the number was it was four times as great as Freightags now isolated force whose shards command was made up of men quite two-thirds of whom were hardly soldiers volunteers both new and recent ill-trained conscripts and so forth there was no basis of discipline hardly any power to enforce it the men had behaved disgracefully in all the affairs and outposts they had been brushed away contemptuously by the small Austrian force from every position they had held with all this numerical superiority the attempt which Houchard was about to make was very hazardous and Houchard was a hesitating and uncertain commander furthermore of the 40,000 men one-quarter at least remained out of action through the ineptitude and political terror of Domensi Houchard's lieutenant upon the right it was upon the 6th of September that the French advance began along the whole line it was a mere pushing in of inferior numbers by superior numbers the superior numbers perpetually proving themselves inferior to the Austrians in military value thus the capture of Vold Freightag himself in a night skirmish was at once avenged by the storming of the village near which he had been caught and he was retaken in actual fighting and force for force Houchard's command found nothing to encourage it during these first operations the Austrians in falling back concentrated and were soon one compact body to attack and dislodge it was the object of the French advance but an object hardly to be obtained what happened was not only the unexpected success of this advance but the gaining by the French of the first decisive action in the long series which was to terminate 20 years later at Leipzig the army of Freightag fell back upon the village of Hondeshut and stood there in full force upon the morning of Sunday the 8th of September Houchard attacked it with a force not even lessened but still double that of the defenders so conspicuous however was the superiority of the Austrian regulars over the French raw troops and volunteers that during this morning of the 8th the result was still doubtful by the afternoon however the work was done and the enemy were in a retreat which might easily have been turned into a rout a glance at the map will show that Houchard had he many of his contemporaries might at once have driven the numerically inferior and heavily defeated force it had lost one-third of its men to the right and proceeded himself to cut the communications of the Duke of York and to destroy his army which lay packed upon the waterless sand dunes where the village of Mello S. Baines now stands Houchard hesitated Freightag escaped the Duke of York abandoning his siege pieces to the number and much of his heavy baggage retreated precipitously through the night to Furnace right across the front of the French army and escaped destruction the battle of Honshoot therefore as it is called raised the siege of Dunkirk it was as I have said the first successful decisive action which the revolution could count since the moment of its extreme danger and the opening of the general European war but it was nothing like what it might have been had Houchard been willing to risk a hearty stroke Houchard was therefore recalled condemned to death and executed by the Committee of Public Safety whose pitiless despotism was alone capable of saving the nation he remains the single example of a general officer who has suffered death for military incompetence after the gaining of a victory and his execution is an excellent example of the way in which the military temper of the Committee and particularly of Carnot refused to consider any factor in the war save those that make for military success Carnot and the Committee had no patience with the illusions which a civilian crowd possesses upon mere individual actions what they saw was the campaign as a whole and they knew that Houchard had left the armies opposite him in tact perhaps his execution was made more certain by the continuance of bad news from that more important point of the frontier the direct line of Austrian advance upon Paris here already Valencians had fallen two months before and Condi also Lesquinois, the third point of the barrier line capitulated on the 11th of September and the news of that capitulation reached Paris immediately after the news of hundeshoot no fortress was now left between the allies and the capital but Moabeg Coburg marched upon it at once not only had he that immense superiority and the quality of his troops which must be still insisted upon but numerically also he was three to one when on the 28th of September at dawn he crossed the Sombre above and below Moabeg and by noon of that day had contained the French army and it was secured within the lines of the fortress the situation was critical in the extreme Moabeg was ill-prepared to stand siege it was hardly provisioned its garrison was a varied and on the whole of bad quality in mere vicules it could stand out but for a few days and worst of all it had behind it the continued example of necessary and fatal surrenders which had marked the whole summer the orders of the committee of public safety commander were terse your heads shall answer for Moabeg after the receipt of that message no more came through the lines the end of section 27 section 28 the French Revolution this is Librevox recording all Librevox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librevox.org the French Revolution by Hilaire Belock section 28 chapter 5 continued the military aspect of the revolution the reader if he be unaccustomed to military history does well to note that in every action and in every campaign there is some one factor of position or of arms or of time which explains the result each has a pivot or hinge as it were on which the whole turns it was now upon Moabeg that the Revolutionary War thus depended at risk of over-simplifying a complex story I would lay down as the prime condition for the understanding of the early Revolutionary Wars had Moabeg fallen the road to Paris lay open and the trick was done and here we must consider again the effect in the field of Carnot's genius in the first place he had provided numbers not on paper but in reality the committee though a decree of the assembly had despotically requisitioned men, animals, vehicles and supplies the levy was a reality mere numbers then raw but increasing had begun to pour into the northeast it was they that had told it on chute it was they that were to tell in front of Moabeg footnote I must not in fairness to the reader neglect the great mass of opinion from Jeumne to Fortescu's classic work upon the British Army which lays it down that the allies had but to mask the frontier fortresses and to advance their cavalry rapidly along the Paris road historical hypotheses can never be more than a matter of judgment but I confess that this view has always seemed to me to ignore as purely military historians and especially foreign ones might well ignore the social condition of 93 Cavalry is the weakest of all arms with which to deal with sporadic unorganized but determined resistance to pass through the densely populated country of the Paris road may be compared to the forcing of an open town and Cavalry can never be relied upon for that as for the army moving as a whole without a perfect security in its communications the matter need not even be discussed it must further be remembered that the moment such an advance began an immediate concentration from the north would have fallen upon the ill guarded lines of supply it may be taken that Coburg knew his business when he sat down before this the last of the fortresses secondly as the committee supplied the necessary initiative to provide the necessary personality of war his own will and his own brain would come to one decision in one moment and did so it was he as we shall see who won the critical action he chose Jordin a man whose quaint military career we must reluctantly leave aside in so brief a study as this but at any rate an amateur and put him in Hushard's command over the army of the northern frontier and that command was extended from right away beyond the Ardennes to the sea he ordered and Jordin abide the concentration of men from all down that lengthy line to the right and to the left upon one point guys to leave the rest of the frontier week was a grave risk only to be excused by very rapid action and success both these were to follow the concentration was affected in four days troops from the extreme north could not come in time the furthest called upon were beyond Eras with 65 miles of route between them and guys this division which shall be typical of many not quite 8,000 strong left on receiving orders in the morning of the 3rd of October and entered guys in the course of the 6th the rate of marching and the synchronicity of these movements should especially be noted by anyone who would understand how the revolution succeeded a second division of over 13,000 men followed along the parallel road with a similar timetable from the other end of his line a detachment under Beauregard just over 4,000 men was called up from the extreme right it will serve as a typical example upon the eastern side of this lightning concentration it had been gathered near Carignan a town fully 14 miles beyond Sedan it picked up reinforcements on the way and marched into Fourmilles upon the 11th after covering just 70 miles in the three and a half days with its arrival the concentration was complete and not a moment too soon for the bombardment of Mabeg was about to begin from the 11th to the 15th in October the army was advanced and drawn up in line a day's march in front of guys with its center at a Vesnes and facing the covering army of Coburg which lay entrenched upon a long wooded crest with the valley of the Sambri upon the right and the village of Watanies on a sort of promontory of high land upon the left the Austrian position was recorded upon the 14th and the attack was delivered and badly repelled when darkness fell upon that day few in the army could have believed that Mabeg was a choral it was a question of ours Carnot however sufficiently knew the virtues as the vices of his novel troops the troops of the great Levy stiffened with a proportion of regulars to attempt an extraordinary thing he marched 8,000 from his left and center during the night and in the morning of the 16th his right in front of the Austrian left at Watanies had by this conversion become far the strongest point of the whole line a dense mist covered the end of this operation as the night had covered it in its inception and that missed endured until nearly midday the Austrians upon the heights were only held by three regiments if they expected a renewed attack at all they can only have expected it in the center or even upon the left where the French had suffered most the day before initiative in war is essentially a calculation of risk and with high initiative the risk is high what Carnot gambled upon for Jordan was against the experiment when he moved those young men through the night getting active work out of them after a day's furious action the forced marches of the preceding week and on top of it all a sleepless night of further marching most of the men who were prepared to charge on the French right as the day broadened and the mist lifted on that 16th of October had been on foot for 30 hours the charge was delivered and was successful the unexpected numbers thus concentrated under Watanies carried that extreme position held the height and arrived therefore on the flank of the whole Austrian line which had not the effort of the aggressors exhausted them would have been rolled up in its whole length as it was the Austrians retreated and molested and in good order across the Sainte-Bret the siege of Mont-Berg was raised and the next day the victorious French army entered the fortress thus was successfully passed the turning point of the revolutionary wars two months later the other gate of that country was recovered in the moment when Mont-Berg was relieved the enemy had pierced the lines of Wissenbord it is possible that an immediate and decisive understanding among the allies might then have swept all else's but such an understanding was lacking the disarrayed army of the Rhine was got into some sort of order with the enthusiasm of Hauch and the silent control of Pichigrew at the end of November the Prussians stood on the defensive at Kaisen-Slautern Hauch hammered at them for three days without success or really turned the scale was the floods of men and material that the Levy and the Requisitioning were pouring in just before Christmas the enemy evacuated Hagenau Landau they still held but a decisive action fought upon Boxing Day a true soldier's battle determined by the bayonet settled the fate of the allies on this point the French entered Wissenbord again and Landau was relieved after a siege of four months and a display of tenacity which had done not a little to turn the tide of the war the end of section 28 section 29 revolution this is the Librevox recording all Librevox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librevox.org the French Revolution by Hilaire Baloch section 29 chapter 5 continued the military aspect of the revolution meanwhile the news had come in that the last of the serious internal rebellions was crushed Toulon had been recaptured the English fleet driven out the town, the harbor and the arsenal had fallen into the hands of the French largely through the science of a young major of artillery not captain I have discussed the point elsewhere Bonaparte and this had taken place a week before the relief of Landau the last confused horde of Lavendee had been driven from the walls of Granville in Normandy to which it had aired and drifted rather than retreated at Mans on the 13th of December it was cut to pieces and at 7A on the 23rd three days before the great victory at Alsace it was destroyed along peasants and bandits struggled desperate yet hardly to be called guerrilla continued through the next year behind the hedges of Lower Brittany and of Vendee but the danger to the state and to the revolution was over the year 1793 ended therefore with a complete relief of the whole territory of the Republic save a narrow strip upon the Belgian frontier complete domination of it by at Caesar the committee of public safety with two thirds of a million of men under arms the fear of the great experiment apparently secure the causes of the wonder have been discussed and will be discussed indefinitely primarily they reside in the recreation of a strong central power secondly in the combination of vast numbers and of a reckless spirit of sacrifice the losses on the national side were perpetually and heavily superior to those of the allies in Alsace and we shall better understand the dual when we appreciate that in the short eight years between the opening of the war and the triumph of Napoleon at Marengo there had fallen killed and wounded on the French side over 700,000 men five the story of 1794 is but the consequence of what we have just read it was the little belt or patch upon the Belgian frontier that was still in the hands of the enemy that determined the nature of the campaign it was not until spring that the issue was joined the emperor of Austria reached Brussels on the second day of April and a fortnight later reviewed his army the French line drawn up in opposition to it suffered small but continual reverses until the close of the month on the 29th he suffered a defeat which led to the fall or rather the escape of the small garrison of Menin Clefiat was beaten again at Cortenet a fortnight later but all these early engagements in the campaign were of no decisive moment Torcoing was to be the first heavy blow that should begin to settle matters Flurus was to clinch them no battle can be less satisfactorily described in a few lines than that of Torcoing so different did it appear to either combatant so opposite are the plans of what was expected on either side and of what happened so confused are the various accounts of contemporaries the accusations of treason which nearly always arise after disaster and especially a disaster overtaking an allied force are particularly monstrous and may be dismissed particularly the childish legend which pretends that the Austrians desired an English defeat what the French say is that excellent force marching and scientific concentration permitted them to attack the enemy before the junction of his various forces was affected what the allies say is if they are speaking for their center that it was shamefully abandoned and unsupported by the two wings if they are speaking for the wings that the center had no business to advance when it saw that the two wings were not up in time to cooperate one story goes that the Archduke Charles was incapacitated by a fit Lord Acton has lent his considerable authority to this amusing version at any rate what happened was this the allies lay along the river shelter on Friday the 16th of May to an A was their center with the Duke of York in command of the chief force there five or six miles north down the river was one extremity of their line at a place called Warkoing it was a body of Heneverians the left under the Archduke Charles was Austrian and had reached a place a days march south of Tournai called Saint Amin over against the allies lay a large French force also occupying a wide front over 15 miles the center of which was Tourcoing then a village its right was in front of the fortress of Quartry now behind the French upcountry northward in the opposite direction from the lines of allies on the shield was another force of the allies under Clairfait the plan was that the allied right should advance on to Muscon and to take it the allied center should advance on to Tourcoing and Mavaux and take them while the left should march across the upper waters of the river Marsk forcing the bridges that cross that marshy stream and come up alongside the center in other words there was to be an attack all along the French line from the south and while it was proceeding Clairfait from the north of the French was to cross Lys and attack also on the day of the 17th what happened was this the left of the allies marching from Saint-Amand came up half a day late the right of the allies took Muscon but were beaten out of it by the French the center of the allies fulfilled their program reaching Tourcoing and its neighborhood by noon and holding their positions it is to the honor of English arms as this success was accomplished by a force part of which was British and the most notable bayonet work in which was done by the guards meanwhile Clairfait was late in moving and in crossing the river Lys which lay between him and his objective when night fell therefore on the first day of the action a glance at the map will show that instead of one solid line advancing against the French from A to B and the northern force in touch with it at sea the allied formation was in an absurd projection in the middle due to the success of the mixed and half British force under the Duke of York a success which had not been maintained on the two wings a bulge of this sort in an attacking line is on the face of it disastrous the enemy have only to be rapid and falling upon either flank of it and the bulge can be burst in the French were rapid and burst in the bulge was by concentrating their forces against this one central part of the allies they fought three to one that same capacity which at Wattigniers permitted them to scorn sleep and to be indefatigable in marching put them on the road before three o'clock in the morning of Sunday the 18th and with the dawn they fell upon the central forces of the allies attacking it from all three sides it is on this account that the battle is called the battle of Turcoran for Turcoran was the most advanced point to which the center of the allies had reached the Germans upon the Duke of York's right at Turcoran felt the first brunt of the attack the Duke of York himself with his mixed half British force came in for the blow immediately afterwards and while it was still early morning the Germans at Turcoran began to fall back the Duke of York's force to the left of them was left isolated its commander ought not to have hung on so long but the defense was maintained with the utmost gallantry for the short time during which it was still possible the retreat began about nine in the morning and was kept orderly for the first two miles but after that point it was a rout the drivers of the British cannon fled and the guns left without teams blocked the precipitate flight of the cavalry their disorder communicated itself at once to the guards and to the line even in this desperate straight some sort of order was restored notably by the guards brigade which were apparently the first to form and a movement that could still be called a retreat was pursued towards the south the Duke of York himself was chased from spiny to spiny and escaped by a stroke of luck finding a bridge across the last brook held by a detachment of Hessians in this way were the central columns who between them numbered not a third of the total force of the allies destroyed Claire Fayette had first advanced but far too late to save the center and then retreated the Archduke Charles upon the left was four hours late in marching to the help of the Duke of York the right wing of the allies was not even late it spent the morning in an orderly artillery duel with the French force opposed to it by five in the afternoon defeat was admitted and a general retreat of the allies ordered the end of section twenty