XIII. 34. Flanders, sive mea Convention. landed at Rotterdam, the Allied army in Flanders, under CHAP. Cobourg, was raised to above ninety thousand men, besides a detached corps of thirty thousand Austrians, 1793. stationed at Namur, Luxembourg, and Treves, to keep Forces of open the communication with the Prussian army destined the Allies in to act against Mayence. Alarmed at the great peril they and defenhad sustained by the defection of Dumourier, and by this sures of the vast accumulation of force, the Convention took the most vigorous measures to provide for the public safety. A camp of forty thousand men was decreed, to form a reserve for the army; the levy of three hundred thousand men, ordered by the decree of 24th February, was directed to be hastened, and sixty representatives of the Convention were named, to serve as viceroys over the generals in all the armies. No less than twelve of these haughty Republicans were commanded to proceed to the Army of the North. No limit existed to their authority. Armed with the despotic powers of the Committee of Public Salvation, supported by a Republican and mutinous soldiery, they, with equal facility, placed the generals on a triumphal car, or despatched them to the scaffold. Disposing with absolute sway of the lives and arms of several millions of Frenchmen, they were staggered by no losses, intimidated by no difficulties. To press on, and bear down opposition by the force of numbers, was the system on which they invariably acted, and, disposing with an unsparing hand of the blood of a bankrupt, but enthusiastic nation in arms, they found resources for the maintenance of such a murderous system of warfare, 1 Jom. iii. which never could have been commanded by any regular Toul. iv. 4. government.1 146, 151. 35. Custine's While these disastrous events were occurring on the northern, fortune was not more propitious to the arms of Defeat on the Republic on its eastern frontier. The forces of the the Rhine of French in that quarter, at the opening of the campaign, projects. were greatly overmatched by those of the Allies; between the Prussians and Austrians, there were not less than XIII. 1793. March 24. CHAP. Seventy-five thousand men on the Rhine in February, besides twenty thousand between Treves and the Meuse; while Custine had only forty-five thousand in the field, twenty-two thousand of these being under his immediate command, the remainder stationed on the Meuse; and the whole forces on the Upper Rhine, including the garrisons, did not exceed forty thousand, of whom not more than a half were available for service in the field. The campaign was opened, after some inconsiderable actions, on the 24th March, by the King of Prussia crossing the Rhine in great force at Rheinfels. An ineffectual resistance was attempted by the army of Custine, but the superiority of the Allied forces compelled him to fall back; and after some days' retreat, and several partial actions, he retired first to Landau, and thence behind the river Lauter, and took post in the famous lines of Weissenburg. Mayence was now left to its own resources, with a great train of heavy artillery, and a garrison of twenty 1 Toul. iii. thousand men ; while Custine, whose force was augmented by the garrisons in Alsace to thirty-five thousand men, remained strictly on the defensive in the Vosges mountains and his fortified position.1 March 31. 322, 325. Jom. iii. 187, 202, 205. 36. Siege of the attack ing army. The Allies immediately made preparations for the reduction of this great fortress; but, by an inconceivable the Allies, fatuity, the superb siege equipage, which was on the road and defeat of from Austria, was sent on to Valenciennes, while the on the cover- supplies requisite for the attack on Mayence were brought from Holland-an exchange which occasioned great delays in both undertakings, and proved extremely injurious to the future progress of the Allied arms. The garrison, though so numerous, was not furnished with the whole artillery requisite for arming the extensive works; but its spirit was excellent, and the most vigorous resistance was to be anticipated. Little progress took place in the operations during the first two months, and on the 17th May, a general attack was made on the covering force by Custine's army, supported by fourteen thousand men from May 17. XIII. 1793. the corps of the Moselle, under General Houchard. But CHAP. the movements of the troops were ill combined; part of them were seized with a disgraceful panic, and the attack proved entirely abortive. After this failure, Custine was removed to the command of the Army of the North, now severely pressed by the Allied forces near Valenciennes ; and the forces in the lines of Weissenburg remained under the orders of Beauharnais, without attempting any thing of importance till a later period of the campaign. The inactivity and irresolution of the Allies in these operations, and the little advantage which they derived 15,16. Jom. from their superiority of force, and the wretched condition 225. Hard. of their opponents, proves how grievously they stood in 259, 298. need of a leader capable of conducting such a contest.1 1 iii. 209, 213, ii. 257,258, ence, and attempting siege. At length the operations of the siege, long delayed 37. from the tardiness in the approach of the heavy train, Fall of Maywere pushed with activity. Trenches having been regu- defeat of the larly constructed, fifteen batteries were armed on the 1st French in July, and a heavy fire from above two hundred pieces of to raise the cannon was opened upon the body of the place, the garri- July 1. son of which, after a blockade of two months, began to be severely straitened for provisions. On the 16th a great magazine of forage took fire, and was consumed; and the destruction of several mills augmented the difficulties of the besieged, who now found their great numbers the principal difficulty with which they had to contend. A capitulation, therefore, by which the garrison should be withdrawn to some quarter where their services might be of more value to the Republic, was agreed to, and the 22d July fixed on as the day for its accomplishment. While this was going on within the city, the army of Beauharnais, urged by repeated orders from the Convention, was at length taking measures for its deliverance. Early in July, the Republicans broke up from the lines of Weissenburg, and, after a variety of slow movements, a general attack took place on the 19th, on the whole Allied position, over an extent of nearly thirty leagues. XIII. 1793. July 22. CHAP. But the efforts of the French, feeble and ill conducted, led to no result, and, in the midst of their complicated movements, Mayence surrendered on the 22d. The Duke of Brunswick, rejoiced at finding himself extricated, by this event, from a situation which, with more daring adversaries, would have been full of peril, accorded favourable terms to the garrison; they were permitted to march out with their arms and baggage, on condition of not serving against the Allies for a year; a stipulation of ruinous consequences to the Royalist party, as it disengaged seventeen thousand veteran soldiers, who were forthwith sent against the insurgents in la Vendée. The Republicans, finding the city taken, fell back in disorder, and regained the lines of Weissenburg in such confusion as indicated rather a total rout than an indecisive offensive moment.1 1 Hard. ii. 296, 319. Jom. iii. 235, 252. 38. in Flanders 1* While these events were taking place on the Rhine, The French the war was gradually assuming a more decisive character forced back on the Flemish frontier. The congress which had been to Famars. held at Antwerp, for arranging the plan of the campaign, April 25. having at length resolved upon the operations which were to be pursued, and the British contingent having joined the line at the end of April, the Archduke Charles entered in triumph into Brussels, the people of which, with the usual inconstancy of the multitude, gave him as flattering a reception as had attended the entrance of the Republicans a few months before. The Allied generals, however, were far from improving the advantages afforded by the defection of Dumourier, and the extreme dejection of the French army; their forces were not put in motion till the beginning of May, before which the French had so far recovered from their consternation as to have * Already it had become evident that the Prussians were secretly inclined towards the French, and that, after the capture of Mayence, they would withdraw as soon as they could from the contest. During the siege, a negotiation for the exchange of prisoners was carried on between "the French Republic and the King of Prussia ;" and such was the temper of the officers that, when the fortress was taken, they caused the Marseillaise hymn to be sung in the hotels where they lodged.-See HARDENBERG, ii. 303-319. XIII. 1793. actually resumed the offensive. Disposing of a splendid CHAP. army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, Cobourg did nothing to disquiet the retreat of thirty thousand Republicans, disordered and dejected, to their own frontiers, and allowed them, by his extreme tardiness, to be reinforced by numerous levies from the interior before he attempted to follow up his successes. On the 1st May 1. May, a general attack was made by General Dampierre on the Allied position; but the Republicans were driven back to their camp at Famars, with the loss of two thousand men and a large quantity of artillery. On the 8th, a more serious action took place. The French May 8. attacked the Allies along their whole line, extending to nine leagues, with forces greatly inferior; but they were every where unsuccessful except at the wood of Vicogne, where the Prussians were forced back, until the arrival of the English Guards changed the face of affairs. These gallant corps drove back the French with the loss of four thousand men, and re-established the Allies in their position. In this action the brave General Dampierre 1 Toul. iv. was killed. This was the first time that the English 240, 251." and French soldiers were brought into collision in the Jom. iii. war: little did either party contemplate the terrible con- 163. Ann. test which awaited them, before it was terminated, within p. 169. a few miles of the same place, on the plain of Waterloo.1 6. Hard. ii. 149, 160, Reg. 1793, Famars. These repeated disasters convinced the Republicans of 39. the necessity of remaining on the defensive, and striving Storming of only to prevent the siege of those great towns which had the camp at been fortified for the protection of the frontier. But the Allies, having now accumulated eighty thousand men in front of Valenciennes, resolved to make a general attack on the intrenched camp which covered that important city. The assault was fixed for the 23d, and was conducted by two grand columns, seconded by several partial demonstrations. The first column consisted of sixteen thousand men, under the Duke of York; the second, of eleven thousand men, was placed under the orders of General |