XIII. 1793. 29. Disorganisation of retreat of CHAP. at that juncture, in consequence of the undisciplined state of a large part of his forces, and the undisguised manner in which the volunteers left their colours upon the first serious reverse. The national guards openly declared that the French they had taken up arms to save their country, not to get army, and themselves massacred in Flanders; and whole companies Dumourier. and battalions, with their arms and baggage, went off towards the French frontier. To such a height did the discouragement attain, that within a few days after the battle six thousand men had left their colours, and disbanded, spreading dismay over all the roads leading to France. Naturally brave and active, the French troops are the best in the world to advance and gain conquests; but they have not, till inured by discipline and experience, the steadiness requisite to preserve them. By the threatened defection of the volunteer corps, Dumourier was exposed to the loss of more than half his army, while the open plains of Flanders, now destitute of fortified places, offered no points of defence capable of arresting the progress of a victorious army. Influenced by these considerations, the French general every where prepared for a retreat. Orders were despatched to General Harville to throw a garrison of two thousand men into the citadel of Namur, and move with the remainder of his corps, consisting of twelve thousand men, towards Brussels; while the troops advanced, by the imprudent invasion of Holland, as far as Gertruydenberg and Breda, were directed to retire upon Antwerp and Mechlin. Prince Cobourg 1 Jom. iii. in vain urged the Dutch and Prussian troops to disquiet their retreat; contenting themselves with investing Breda 105, 115. and Gertruydenberg, they remained, with a force of thirty thousand men, in a state of perfect inaction.1 121, 125. Dum. iv. 98, 104, 30. Shortly after conferences were opened between DumouConvention rier and the Austrian generals, in virtue of which it was with Prince agreed that the French should retire behind Brussels, without being disquieted in their retreat. It soon appeared how essential such an arrangement was to the Cobourg. СНАР. XIII. 1793. March 23. Republican arms. On the following day, Clairfait, who was ignorant of the convention, attacked General Lamarche, who fell back in confusion behind Louvain, and left an opening in the retreating columns, which, with a more enterprising enemy, might have been attended with ruinous results. The troops then gave themselves up to despair, and openly threatened to disband-a striking proof of the little reliance that can be placed on any but regular and disciplined soldiers, during the vicissitudes of fortune unavoidable in war, and, in an especial manner, of the danger of trusting to levies got together during the fervour of a revolution. Dumourier himself has confessed, that his troops were in such a state of disorder, that, if vigorously pressed, they must have been totally annihilated in the long retreat which lay before them, before they regained the French frontiers. Yet so ignorant was the Austrian commander of the condition of his adversary, that he was unaware of a state of debility, confusion, and weakness, which was notorious to every peasant who beheld the retreating columns. In virtue of the convention, the French March 25 army, without further delay, evacuated Brussels and Mechlin, and retired in good order, by Hall, Mons, and Ath, towards the French frontier. At the same time the Republicans retired along the whole line from Gertruyden- Jom.ii.126, berg to Namur, and withdrew the garrison from the citadal ii. 241, 251. of the latter place.1 and 26. 1 Toul. iii. 295. Dum. iv. 109, 111. 127. Hard. flight of But it soon appeared that in these movements Dumou- 31. rier had more than mere military objects in view. It was Political designs, failat Ath, on the 27th March, that the first conference of a ure, and political nature took place, and it was verbally agreed Dumourier. between the French commander, and Colonel Mack on the part of the Imperialists, "That the French army should repose a little at Mons and Tournay without being disquieted, and that Dumourier, who was to judge of the proper time for marching to Paris, should regulate the movements of the Austrians, who were to act only as auxiliaries; that if he could not, by his single forces, XIII. 1793. CHAP. effect the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, he should fix upon the amount of the Allied forces which he would require; and that the fortress of Condé should be placed in the hands of the Imperialists as a guarantee, to be restored to France after a general peace." Having thus embarked in the perilous undertaking of overturning the republican and re-establishing monarchical government, Dumourier's first care was to secure the fortresses, upon which the success of his enterprise depended. But here his ill fortune began. The officer whom he despatched to take possession of Lille, suffered himself to be made the dupe of the commander of that place, and led a prisoner into the fortress; the garrisons of Condé and Valenciennes successfully resisted all attempts to bring them over to the constitutional party; and the Convention, taking the alarm, despatched Camus, and three other commissioners, with the minister at war, Beurnonville, with orders to the general to appear at the bar of the Convention, and answer for his conduct. After an angry discussion, the particulars of which have been already given,* Dumourier arrested the deputies, and delivered them over to the Austrians; but he was speedily deserted by his own soldiers, narrowly escaped being made prisoner by a detachment of grenadiers faithful to the Convention, commanded by Davoust, and obliged to fly from his camp at St Amand, and take refuge, with fifteen hundred followers, in the Austrian lines. Restrained either by a sense of honour arising from the recent convention, or by the inherent slowness of their disposition, the Austrians made no attempt to improve the opportunity afforded by the defection of the French commander. The Republicans were permitted quietly to retire to Valenciennes, Lille, and Condé ;1 a considerable number formed an intrenched camp at Famars, where, by orders of the Convention, general Dampierre assumed the command, and sedulously endeavoured to restore the discipline and 1 Hard. ii. 217, 219. Toul. iii. 308, 319. Jom. iii. 132, 135, 137, 152. April 5. Ante, chap. XI. § 23, 24. revive the spirit which so many disasters had greatly CHAP. weakened among the soldiers. XIII. 1793. 32. Congress at decide on of the war. A congress was assembled at Antwerp of the ministers of the Allied powers, which was attended by Counts Metternich and Stahrenberg on the part of Austria, Antwerp to Lord Auckland on that of England, and Count Keller the conduct on that of Prussia. Such was the confidence inspired by recent events, that these ministers all imagined that the last days of the Convention were at hand and in truth they were so, if the Allied cabinets had communicated a little more vigour and unanimity into the military operations. Inspired by these ideas, and irritated at the total failure of Dumourier's attempt to subvert the anarchical rule in that country, the plenipotentiaries came to the resolution of totally altering the object of the war, and the necessity was now openly announced of providing indemnities and securities for the Allied powers; in other words, partitioning the frontier territories of France among the invading states. The effect of this resolution was immediately conspicuous in a proclamation which Prince Cobourg issued to the French people, in which he openly disavowed, on the part of his government, those resolutions to abstain from all aggrandisement which he had announced only a few days before, and declared that he was ordered to prosecute the contest by might of arms with all the forces at his disposal.+ The effects of this * Father of the great statesman of the same name, who rose to such eminence during the Revolutionary war. + In his first proclamation, on 5th April, issued during the conferences with Dumourier, Cobourg declared, "Desirous only of securing the prosperity and glory of a country torn by so many convulsions, I declare that I shall support, with all the forces at my disposal, the generous and beneficent intentions of General Dumourier and his brave army. I declare that our only object is to restore to France its constitutional monarch, with the means of rectifying such experienced abuses as may exist, and to give to France, as to Europe, peace, confidence, tranquillity, and happiness. In conformity with these principles, I declare on my word of honour, that I enter the French territory without any intention of making conquests, but solely and entirely for these purposes. I declare also, on my word of honour, that if military operations should lead to any place of strength being placed in my hands, I shall regard it in no other light than as a sacred deposit; and I bind myself in the most solemn manner to restore it to the government which may be XIII. 1793. CHAP. unhappy resolution were soon apparent. When Valenciennes and Condé were taken, the standard, not of Louis XVII., but of Austria, was hoisted on the walls, 3rd and the Allied ministers already talked openly of indemnities for the past, and securities for the future.1 Hard. ii. 238, 241. 33. No step in the early stages of the war was ever attended Disastrous with more unfortunate consequences. It at once changed system then the character of the contest-converted it from one of resolved on. liberation into one of aggrandisement, and gave the effects of the 2 Hard. ii. 238, 241. Burke, Reg. Peace. Jacobins of Paris too good reason for their assertion, that the dismemberment of the country was intended, and that all true citizens must join heart and hand in resisting the common enemy. The true principle to have adopted would have been that so strongly recommended by Mr Burke, and which afterwards proved so successful in the hands of Alexander and Wellington, viz., to have separated distinctly and emphatically the cause of France from that of the Jacobin faction which had enthralled it : to have guaranteed the integrity of the former, and denounced implacable hostility only against the latter ; and thus afforded the means to the great body of patriotic citizens who were adverse to the sanguinary rule of the Convention, of extricating themselves at once from domestic tyranny and foreign subjugation.2 The British contingent, twenty thousand strong, having established in France, or as soon as the brave general with whom I make common cause shall demand it." These are the principles of the true antirevolutionary war; but they were strangely departed from in the proclamation issued a few days later by the same general, after the determination of the Congress at Antwerp had been taken. Prince Cobourg there said," The proclamation of the 5th instant was the expression only of my personal sentiments; and I there announced my individual views for the safety and tranquillity of France. But now that the results of that declaration have proved so different from what I anticipated, the same candour obliges me to declare that the state of hostility between the Emperor and the French nation is unhappily re-established in its full extent. It remains for me, therefore, only to revoke my said declaration, and to announce that I shall prosecute the war with the utmost vigour. Nothing remains binding of my first proclamation, but the declaration, which I renew with pleasure, that the strictest discipline shall be observed by my troops in all parts of the French territory which they may occupy." Stronger evidence of the unhappy change of system cannot be imagined. See HARDENBERG, ii. 231, 233, 241, 243. |