CHAP. XIII. 1793. 71. of the Allies, of the Convention. to be attached to every army; but this was not adopted by the Convention. The revolutionary army was instantly raised, and composed of the most ardent Jacobins; and the Commission of Subsistence installed in its important and all-powerful sovereignty. The force of the Allies was still above a hundred and Vast forces twenty thousand strong, and displayed a numerous and and firmness splendid array of cavalry, to which there was nothing comparable on the side of the Republicans. But, after taking into account the blockading and besieging forces, and those stationed at a distance, they could not bring above sixty thousand into the field. This army was, early in October, concentrated between Maubeuge and Avesnes, where they awaited the approach of the force destined to raise the siege. This measure had now become indispensably necessary, as the condition of the garrison of Maubeuge was daily growing more desperate, and the near approach of the besiegers' batteries had spread terror in the city, and discouragement among the soldiers. Imitating the firmness of the Roman Senate, the Convention had sold the estates of the emigrants on which the Allies were encamped, and sent the most peremptory orders to Jourdan to attack, without delay, the enemy's force, and drive him out of the French territory. The Duke of York, too, hearing of the concentration of the Republican force, was rapidly advancing with above 118, 121, twenty-five thousand men, and, unless the attack was iv. 135. speedily made, it was certain that his force would be joined to the Allied army.1 1 Jom. iv. 129. Toul. 72. vances to raise the siege. Battle of Impelled by so many motives, Jourdan approached the Jourdan ad- Austrian position, the key of which was the village of Wattignies. After some skirmishing on the 14th, a general battle took place on the 15th October, in which, after Wattignies, varying success, the Republicans were worsted with the of the siege. loss of twelve hundred men. Instructed by this failure, that a change of the method of attack was indispensable, Jourdan, in the night, accumulated his forces against the and raising XIII. 1793. decisive point, and at break of day, on the 16th, assailed CHAP. Wattignies with three columns, while a concentric fire of artillery shattered the troops who defended it. In the midst of the roar of cannon, which were discharged with 16th Oct. uncommon vigour, the Republican airs which rose from the French lines could be distinctly heard by the Austrians. The village was speedily carried by this skilful combination of force, while, at the same time, the appearance of the reserve of Jourdan on the left flank of the Allies completed the discouragement of Cobourg, and induced a general retreat, after sustaining a loss of six thousand men. This resolution was unfortunate and unnecessary, for on other points his army had been eminently successful, and the arrival of the Duke of York, who was within a day's march, would have enabled him to maintain his position, and convert his partial into a total success. It is related by Plutarch, that on one occasion, in Roman story, after a doubtful battle, some god called out in the night that they had lost one man less than their enemies, and in consequence they kept their ground, and gained all the advantages of a victory. How often such tenacious firmness convert an incipient disaster into 136, 138. an important advantage!1 does 1 Hard. ii. Jom. iv.134, 328, 330. 406, 409. 135. Th. v. Toul. iv. 73. this disaster The raising of the siege, and retreat of the Allies beyond the Sambre, exposed to view the gigantic works Causes of which they had constructed for the reduction of the city, to the Allies. and which, with a little more vigour on their part in concentrating their forces, would undoubtedly have proved successful. As it was, the success of the Republicans on this point counterbalanced the alarming intelligence received from other quarters, and allayed a dangerous ferment which was commencing in the capital. advantage gained by them in this action proved how incompetent the old and methodical tactics of the Imperialists were to contend with the new and able system which Carnot had introduced into the Republican armies, and which their immense levies enabled them to execute The XIII. 1793. CHAP. with reckless audacity, and never-failing success. Jourdan had nearly sixty thousand men to raise the siege. By leaving only fifteen thousand to man the works, Cobourg might have opposed to him a nearly equal force; and an action, under such circumstances, from the great inferiority of the French in discipline, would infallibly have led to a defeat, which would speedily have brought about the reduction of the town. Instead of which, by leaving thirty-five thousand round the fortress, he exposed himself, with only thirty thousand men, to the shock of sixty thousand Republicans, and ultimately was compelled to raise the siege.1 1 Jom. iv. 134, 148. Toul. iv. 136. 74. of the cam appointment of the com army. Nothing more of importance was undertaken in FlanConclusion ders before the close of the campaign; a movement of paign, and the French, threatening the right of the Allies towards the sea, was not persisted in, and, after various unimportant changes, both parties went into winter-quarters. mand of the The headquarters of Cobourg were established at Bavay; those of the Republicans at Guicé, where a vast intrenched camp was formed for the protection and disciplining of the Revolutionary masses which were daily arriving for the army, but for the most part in a miserable state of Th. v. 328, equipment and efficiency. Insatiable in their expectations iv. 136, 137. of success, the Committee of Public Salvation removed Jourdan from the supreme command, and conferred it on PICHEGRU, formerly a school-fellow of Napoleon,2 an 332. Toul. Jom.iv. 134, 148. * Charles Pichegru was born at Arbois, in 1761, of obscure parents. He received the rudiments of education in his native town at the college of the Minimes, where he early evinced an extraordinary talent for the exact sciences. So much were the worthy monks who presided over that establishment struck with his abilities in this respect, that they sent him to the military college of Brienne, where he was at the time Napoleon entered it, to whom he was for some years a sort of preceptor, like the monitors in the Lancasterian schools. At the age of twenty he enlisted as a private in the 1st regiment of artillery, with which he served in the last campaigns of the American war, and studied, alike in his own regiment and in the ranks of his enemies, the theory and practice of artillery. From the English marine service, in particular, to which he was often opposed, he adopted several important improvements; the knowledge of which gave him such an advantage over his other comrades, that, on his return, he was made adjutant of his regiment, which rank he held when the Revolution broke out. Conscious of talents which had not yet attained their proper sphere of action, he immediately and vehemently adopted its officer distinguished in the campaign of the Rhine, a favourite of Robespierre and St Just, and possessed of the talent, activity, and enterprise suited to those perilous times, when the risk was greater to a commander from domestic tyranny than foreign warfare. on CHAP. XIII. 1793. 75. of the Prus the French at Pirma After the capture of Mayence, the Imperialists, reinforced by forty thousand excellent troops, who had been Campaign employed in the siege of that city, could have assembled Rhine. one hundred thousand men for offensive operations in the Inactivity plains of the Palatinate, while those of the enemy did not sians, but exceed eighty thousand. Every thing promised success are defeated to vigorous operations; but the Allies, paralysed by intes- sens. tine divisions, remained in an inexplicable state of inactivity, and separated their fine army into four corps, which were placed opposite to the lengthened lines of their adversaries. The Prussians were chiefly to blame for this torpor. They had secretly adopted the resolution, now that Mayence, the barrier of Northern Germany, was secure, to contribute no further efficient aid to the prosecution of the war. For two months they remained there in perfect inactivity, the jealousy of the sovereigns concerning the affairs of Poland being equalled by the rivalry of the generals for the command of the armies. Both monarchies had bitter cause afterwards to lament this policy; for never again were their own armies on the principles; but from the very first abstained from the innumerable crimes which were committed in its name. He frequented the Jacobin clubs which, in imitation of the great one at Paris, had arisen in all the departments, and was president of that at Besançon, when, on the formation of a battalion of volunteers in that town in April 1792, he was by acclamation chosen its chief. Pichegru found his men a motley crowd of ardent politicians, who were discussing all subjects, civil and military, with the same license as in the Jacobin club; and it was with no small difficulty, and only by the combined influence of a great character and superior acquaintance with military affairs, that he succeeded in reducing them to some degree of subordination. His first campaign was on the Upper Rhine, at the head of his battalion, in 1792; but at the close of that year he was appointed, from his great abilities, to a situation on the staff, and he was rapidly promoted to the rank of general of brigade and of division. In October 1793, he received the command of the army on the Upper Rhine from St Just and Lebas, the Commissioners of the Convention, and from thenceforward his name became blended with the stream of European history.—See Biographie Universelle, xxxiv. 274, 275. XIII. 1793. Sept. 14. CHAP. Rhine so formidable, or those of the Republicans in such a state of disorganisation. Wearied at length with the torpor of their opponents, and pressed by the reiterated orders of the Convention to undertake something decisive, the French general, Moreau, who commanded the army of the Moselle, commenced an attack on the Prussian corps posted at Pirmasens. The Republican columns advanced with intrepidity to the attack, but when they approached the Prussian redoubts, a terrible storm of grape arrested their advance. At the same time their flanks were turned by the Duke of Brunswick, and a heavy fire of artillery carried disorder into their masses, which soon fell back, and precipitated themselves in confusion into the neighbouring ravines. In this affair, the Republicans lost four thousand men, and twenty-two pieces of cannon; a disaster which might have proved fatal to the campaign, had it been as much improved as it was neglected by the Allied commanders.1 1 Jom. iv. 75, 88, 91. Toul. iv. 138, 140. Hard. ii. 342. 76. are stormed burg. They routed. Oct. 13. The King of Prussia, a few days after, left the army Their lines to repair to Poland, in order to pursue, in concert with at Weissen- Russia, his plans of aggrandisement at the expense of that are totally unhappy country; and the Allies, having at length agreed on a plan of joint operations, resumed the offensive. The French occupied the ancient and celebrated lines of Weissenburg, constructed in former times for the protection of the Rhenish frontier from German invasion. They stretched from the town of Lauterburg on the Rhine, through the village of Weissenburg to the Vosges mountains, and thus closed all access from that side into Alsace. For four months that they had been occupied by the Republicans, all the resources of art had been employed in strengthening them. The recent successes of the Allies had brought them to the extreme left of this position, and they formed the design of attacking it from left to right, and forcing an abandonment of the whole intrenchments. A simultaneous assault was made by the Prussians, under the Duke of Brunswick, on the left of |