X. the 29th. But before this resolution could be carried CHAP. into execution, intelligence was received, which gave the numerous party in the Prussian cabinet, who longed for 1792. peace, the ascendant. A decree of the Committee of Public Salvation was brought to headquarters, in which Sept. 25. it had been unanimously resolved to enter into no negotiation until the Prussian troops had entirely evacuated the French territory. Advices at the same time arrived from London and the Hague, containing the refusal of the cabinet of St James's and the States-general to join the coalition. The generals now redoubled their representations on the disastrous state of the army; and the Countess Lichtenau, the King's mistress, yielding to a large bribe from the French government, employed her too powerful influence for the same object.1 Assailed at 1 Hard. ii. once in so many different quarters, and overcome by the representations of his generals as to the necessity of the measure, the King at length yielded; and on the 29th the orders given for battle were revoked, and a retreat was resolved on. It was agreed between the generals of the two armies, that the Prussians, on condition of evacuating the fortresses of which they had made them- Sept. 29. selves masters, should not be disquieted in their rear; and Dumourier, delighted at being relieved by his skill and firmness from the overwhelming dangers by which he had been surrounded, wrote to the Convention,-" The Republic owes its salvation to the retreat of the Prussians. Had I not resolved to resist the universal opinion Despatch, of all around me, the enemy was saved, and France in Hard. ii. 2. danger. "2 45. 2 Secret Oct. 1. which in In coming to this determination, the Prussian cabinet 36. were governed, not less by the old standing jealousy of Motives Austria, which at that period so strongly influenced both duced the their councils and the feelings of the people, than by the Allies to prospect of dangers from a further advance. The King, in entering upon the campaign, had contemplated only a rapid march to Paris; but the protraction of the war, retreat. X. 1792. CHAP. and increasing resistance of the French, rendered it evident that that object could not easily be accomplished, and that its prosecution would seriously endanger the long hoped-for Polish acquisitions, while the dethronement and captivity of Louis exposed him to imminent hazard, if the army continued its advance towards the capital. The event soon justified the confidence of the French general. Dumourier was at the head of sixty thousand men, including twelve thousand horse, even after all the losses of the campaign; his artillery was numerous, and his position excellent; while large detachments were rapidly forming at Châlons, Rheims, Soissons, Epernay, and all the towns in the interior. His troops, though 1 St Cyr, i. somewhat affected by the severity of the weather, were ii. 133, 137. upon the whole in good health and condition; and suffiDum.iii. 20. cient supplies arrived for the camp from Sédan and Metz, which still remained in the power of the French.' 80,81. Jom. Th. iii. 120. 37. the Allies, to retire. On the other hand, the condition of the Allied army Distress of was daily becoming more critical. Their convoys, harwho resolve assed by the garrisons of Sédan and Montmedy, and drawn from the remote provinces of Luxembourg and Trèves by the pass of Grandpré, arrived very irregularly ; the soldiers had been already four days without rations, and subsisted on corn steeped in unwholesome water. The plains of Champagne were sterile, destitute alike of water, forage, and provisions. The rains had set in with more than usual severity, and the troops, bivouacked on the open plain, were severely affected with dysenteries, and other contagious maladies, which had already cut off one-third from the effective strength of the army. In these circumstances, to advance further at this late season into the enemy's territory would have been an act of the highest temerity, and might have endangered the safety of the King of Prussia, as well as his whole forces. An attack on the French intrenched camp was of doubtful success; failure in such an enterprise certain ruin. The only rational plan was to retire into the fertile district X. 1792. of the three bishoprics, form the siege of Montmedy, and CHAP. take up their quarters in Lorraine for the winter, retaining as their advanced posts the defiles in the Argonne forest which they had acquired. But this project was inconsistent with the secret convention which had been 80, 82. adopted, and therefore a retreat to the Rhine was solved on.1 1 St Cyr, i. Jom. ii. 133. re- Dum. iii. 20. tion at Paris, treat to Ste But while these perplexities were accumulating on the 38. Allied forces, it was with the utmost difficulty that ConsternaDumourier was able to maintain his position against the from the rereiterated orders of the Convention, and the representa- Menehould. tions of the officers in his own camp. The French government was in the greatest alarm at finding no regular force between the capital and the Allies. The detached corps of the enemy, who spread as far as Rheims, diffused a general consternation over the whole country. Courier after courier was despatched to the general, with orders to quit his position, and draw near to Paris, and in these representations Kellermann and the other officers of the army warmly joined. The great concentration of forces soon occasioned a want of provisions in the camp; the soldiers were at last two or three days without bread; and attempts at mutiny were already beginning, especially in the battalions of Fédérés, recently arrived from Paris. Even the superior officers began to be impressed with the necessity of retreating; and Kellermann urged such a movement with so much. earnestness that the general was obliged to promise, like Columbus, that if the object of his wishes was not attained in a given number of days, he would retire. But the firmness of Dumourier triumphed over every obstacle; and it was by impressing upon his soldiers the truth, that whichever of the parties could fast longest 2 Dum. iii. would prove victorious, that he inspired them with reso-i. 116. lution to surmount all their privations.2 An armistice of the limited sort above mentioned, which stipulated only that the Allies should not be 54, 60. Th. X. 1792. 39. the retreat sians, who retire. Sept. 30. CHAP. molested in their rear during their retreat, and left the French at perfect liberty to harass the flanks of the invading army, was instantly taken advantage of by Conferences Dumourier. On the same day on which it was conopened for cluded, he detached several corps, which forced back the of the Prus- most advanced parties of the enemy, which had spread such dismay through the interior, and, gradually pressing round their flanks, at length hemmed in their rear, cut off their detachments, and intercepted their convoys. Experience seldom teaches nations wisdom; an error of precisely the same nature was committed by Napoleon, with still more disastrous consequences, in the armistice between Murat and Kutusoff, near Moscow, in the Russian campaign. On the 30th September the Allies commenced their retreat, and repassed the defiles of the Argonne forest without molestation on the 2d and 3d October. Kellermann in vain urged the commander to adopt more vigorous measures to harass their march, and strongly recommended the immediate detachment of a large body upon Clermont. In consequence of the secret understanding with the enemy, and of a distrust of his own troops in field movements in presence of so disciplined a force as the Prussians, Dumourier allowed them to retreat in perfect tranquillity, and in the most leisurely manner. On the first day they retired only three miles, and without abandoning any of their equi1 Jom. ii. page; and it was not till the defile of Grandpré was 1122, passed, and the Prussians were fifteen leagues in advance, Toul. ii. 345, that Kellermann was detached in pursuit. The Allies iii. 63, 65. withdrew in the finest order, and in the most pacific manner, though dreadfully weakened by disease.' 138, 139. 349. Dum. 40. Their unmolested retreat. Relieved by the retreat of the Prussians from the pressing danger which had obliged him to concentrate his forces, Dumourier conceived himself at liberty to resume his favourite project of an invasion of Flanders. Leaving, therefore, Kellermann with forty thousand men to follow the retiring columns, he sent thirty thousand to X. 1792. the army of the north, under Beurnonville, and he him- CHAP. self repaired to Paris. The force with which the Prussians retired was about fifty-six thousand men,* the remainder of their force having remained behind or fallen sick. Their retreat was conducted throughout in the most imposing manner, taking position and facing about on occasion of every halt. It was impossible, consequently, for the French general, with his inconsiderable force, to make any impression on the retiring mass; and the French generals, satisfied with saving the Republic, appear to have been rather disposed to make a bridge of gold for a flying enemy. In virtue of the secret understanding already mentioned, no molestation was offered to the invaders in their retreat. Verdun and Longwy were successively abandoned. In the end of October the Allies evacuated France, and the troops of Kellermann went into cantonments between the bastions of Longwy and the Moselle. On getting possession of the ceded fortresses, the commissaries of the Convention took a bloody revenge on the royalist party. A number of beautiful young women, who had presented garlands of flowers to the King of Prussia during the advance of the army, were sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and condemned to death. The Prussians left behind them, on 1 Bert. de their route, the most melancholy proofs of the disasters of Moll. Hist. the campaign. All the villages were filled with the dead x. 41. Toul. and dying. Without any considerable fighting, the Jom. ii. 141. Allies had lost, by dysentery and fevers, twenty-five iii. 180. thousand men, or more than a fourth of their numbers.1 While these decisive events were taking place in the central provinces, operations of minor importance, but yet material to the issue of the campaign, were going on Cavalry. de la Rév. ii. 351, 357. 142. Th. ... |