XIII. 1793. Maestricht; next to invest and regain the city of Mayence, CHAP. the key of the Rhine, and then unite their victorious forces for the deliverance of Flanders. The design, in general, was well conceived; but the details prescribed for the recovery of the Low Countries were vitiated by that division of force, and mutual jealousy of the commanders, which so long proved ruinous to the Allied armies. To carry into execution his project, Dumourier, early in the season, collected a body of about twenty Feb. 5. thousand men at Antwerp, with a view to an attack on Rotterdam. Shortly after his troops entered the Dutch Feb. 17. territory, and established themselves between Breda and Bergen-op-zoom. At first his efforts were attended with unexpected success. After a siege of three days, and when the French were on the point of retiring for want of ammunition, Breda, with a garrison of twenty-five hundred men, capitulated. This advantage was speedily followed by the reduction of Gertruydenberg, after a trifling resistance; and siege was immediately laid to Williamstadt. The French forces, encamped in straw March 3. huts on the shores of the branch of the sea called the Brisboes, were only waiting for the collection of boats sufficient to convey across the troops, in order to undertake the siege of Dort, when information was received by 1 Jom. iii. the general, on the night of the 8th March, of events in Toul. iii. other quarters of Flanders, which immediately led to the iv. 4, 14. abandonment of this enterprise.1 64, 85. 262. Dum. Charles army. Re While Dumourier was absent with part of his forces in 25. Holland, Miranda was prosecuting the siege of Maestricht, Archduke though with forces totally inadequate to so great an joins the undertaking. But while the French were still reposing and dis in fancied security in their cantonments, the Imperialists asters of the were taking active measures to raise the siege. Fifty-two cans. thousand men had been assembled under Prince Cobourg, with whom was the young ARCHDUKE CHARLES, brother of the Emperor Francis,* at the head of the grenadiers. * Charles Louis de Lorraine, Archduke Charles, second brother of the Republi XIII. 1793. March 2 and 3. CHAP. On the 1st and 2d March, the Austrians along the whole line attacked the French cantonments, and, after an inconsiderable resistance, succeeded in driving them back, and in many points throwing them into utter confusion. The discouragement which has so often been observed to seize the French troops on the first considerable reverse, got possession of the soldiers; whole battalions fled in confusion into France; officers quitted their troops, soldiers disbanded from their officers; the siege of Maestricht was raised, the heavy artillery sent back in haste towards Brussels, and the army driven in disorder beyond the Meuse, with the loss of seven thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. On the 4th March, the Republicans were again routed near Liege, and a large portion of the heavy artillery abandoned under that city: a few days after, Tongres was carried by the Archduke Charles, at the head of twelve thousand men ; and the whole army fell back upon Tirlemont, and thence to Louvain, where Dumourier arrived from the Dutch frontier, and resumed the command. The Imperialists then desisted from the pursuit, satisfied with their first success, and not deeming themselves sufficiently strong to force the united corps of the French army in that city.1 March 6. March 8. 1 Toul. iii. 270. Jom. iii. 86, 94, 96, 99. The intelligence of these repeated disasters produced the utmost sensation in the whole of Flanders. The Republican party, already disgusted with the exactions Emperor Francis, was born on the 15th September 1771, so that when he first entered on the career of arms under Prince Cobourg in May 1793, he was not yet twenty-two years of age. His great abilities, not less than his exalted rank, rapidly procured his elevation in command. After the battle of Nerwinde, which restored that rich province to the Imperial power, he was appointed governor of the Low Countries, and was soon after created a field-marshal. In April 1796, he was promoted, on the retirement of Clairfait, to the command of the Imperial armies in Germany, where his military abilities, as will appear in the sequel, shone forth with the highest lustre, and which laid the foundation of his great military reputation. His character will come more fitly to be drawn in a subsequent volume, when his great exploits have been recounted, as well as advantage taken of the luminous and impartial narrative he has left of his campaigns, and the profound views with which he has enriched the science of strategy.-See infra, C. XXVIII. § 92, 93; Biographie des Contemporains, ii. 134. XIII. 26. duced by Flanders, of Dumou and plunder of the French commissioners, now found themselves threatened with the immediate vengeance of their sovereign, and chastisement from the Allied forces. 1793. The decree of the Convention, uniting the Flemish pro- Great senvinces to the French Republic, had excited the utmost sation prodiscontent in the whole country; the spoliation of the them in churches, forced requisitions, imprisonments, and abuses and efforts of every kind, which had gone on during the winter, had rier. roused such a universal spirit of resistance, that a general insurrection was hourly expected, and a body of ten thousand peasants had already assembled in the neighbourhood of Ghent, and defeated the detachments of the garrison of that city which had been sent against them. To endeavour to remedy these disorders, and restore the shaken attachment of the Flemings, was the first care of Dumourier. For this purpose he had a conference at Louvain, shortly after his arrival, with Camus, and the other commissioners of the Convention; but it ended in nothing but mutual recriminations. Dumourier reproached them with having authorised and permitted the exactions and disorders which had roused such a ferment in the conquered provinces; and they retaliated by accusing him of entertaining designs subversive of the liberty of the people. It concluded thus: "General," said Camus, "you are accused of wishing to become Cæsar: could I feel assured of it, I would act the part of Brutus, and stab you to the heart."- My dear Camus," replied he, "I am neither Cæsar, nor are you Brutus; and the menace you have uttered is, to me, a passport to immortality." Dumourier found the army-which, notwithstanding the March 13. detachment of twenty thousand men in Holland, twelve thousand at Namur, and five thousand in another direction, was still forty-five thousand strong, including four thousand five hundred cavalry-in the utmost state of disorder; the confusion of defeat having been superadded to that of Republican license. He immediately reorganised it in a different manner, and, in order to restore the 66 XIII. 1793. 1 Dum. iv. CHAP. confidence of the soldiers, resolved to commence offensive operations. In a few days the French advanced guard defeated the Austrians near Tirlemont, with the loss of 66, 67, 80, twelve hundred men; an event which immediately restored confidence to the whole army, and confirmed the general in his resolution to risk a general action.1 81. Toul. iii. 272. 27. Battle of Neerwin den. The Imperialists had thirty-nine thousand men, of whom nine thousand were horse, posted near Tirlemont. Nerwinde or Resolved not to decline a combat, they concentrated their forces along a position, about two leagues in length, near the village of NERWINDE OF NEERWINDEN. The right, commanded by the Archduke Charles, was posted across the chaussée leading to Tirlemont; the left, under the orders of Clairfait, extended towards Oberwinden; the centre, in two lines, was under the command of General Colloredo and the Prince of Würtemberg. On the other hand, the French army was divided into eight columns; three of which, under Miranda, were destined to attack the right; two, under the Duke of Chartres, to force the centre; and three, under Valence, to overwhelm the left. The action began by an attack on the Austrian left, by the troops under the command of Valence, which advanced in dense columns, and at first succeeded in carrying the villages immediately in front of their position; but the Austrians having directed a severe and concentric fire of artillery on that point, the advance of the masses was checked, and disorder and irresolution introduced into their ranks. Meanwhile, the village of Nerwinde was Cobourg's carried by the Republicans in the centre, but was shortly Dum. iv. 88, after regained by the Austrians; and after being frequently iii. 105,110. taken and retaken, it was finally evacuated by the French, who were unable to sustain the severe and incessant fire of the Imperial artillery.2 2 Prince Despatch, 97. Jom. Toul. iii. 279. 28. Defeat of the French. Dumourier, upon this, formed his line a hundred yards in rear of the village, when the Austrians immediately pushed on and assailed the infantry by two columns of cuirassiers but the first was repulsed by the murderous XIII 1793. fire of grape from the French artillery; and the second CHAP. checked, after a severe engagement, by the Republican cavalry. The combat now ceased on the right and centre; but on the left affairs had taken a very different turn. The French, under Miranda, there endeavoured in vain to debouch from the village of Orsmael, which they had occupied; the heads of their columns, as fast as they presented themselves, were swept off by the fire of the Austrian artillery, placed on the heights immediately behind; and shortly after the Archduke Charles, at the head of two battalions, stormed the villages; and Prince Cobourg, perceiving this to be the important point, attacked the French columns with a small body of cavalry and infantry, under the Duke of Würtemberg, in flank, while the Archduke pressed their front. The result was, that the French left wing was routed, and would have been totally destroyed, had the Duke of Würtemberg charged with the whole forces under his command, instead of the inconsiderable part which achieved this important success. The Republicans, however, alarmed at this disaster, retired from the field of battle, and regained, with some difficulty, the ground they had occupied before the engagement. In this battle the Austrians lost two thousand men, and the French two thousand five hundred killed and wounded, and fifteen hundred prisoners; but it decided the fate of the campaign. Dumourier, aided by the young Duke of Chartres, conducted the retreat in the evening with much ability, and in good order, without being seriously disquieted by the enemy. A few days 101. Jom. after the Austrians advanced, and on the 22d, under iii. 105,111, cover of a thick mist, made an unexpected attack on the Toul. iii. French rearguard; but they were repulsed, after a trifling 290, 293. success, with loss.1 The position of the French commander, however, was now extremely critical. To conduct a long retreat with discouraged troops, in the face of a victorious enemy, all times dangerous; but it was in an especial manner so VOL. III. C is at Dum. iv. 88, 90, 97, 112.117. 279, 288, |