On the evening of September 20, Dumouriez and Kellermann, agreeing that the position was dangerous, decided to evacuate Yvron and Valmy during the night, to cross the Auve and deploy between Dampierre and Voilemont. On the 21st, Kellermann, in his new position covered by the Auve and the Yevre confidently awaited a fresh Prussian attack, which, however, was never delivered. Discouraged, and anxious as to the health of his troops, the Duke of Brunswick, after ten days of vacillation, decided to retreat. Thanks to his clever negotiations, which misled Dumouriez, he succeeded in saving his army and in regaining the frontier without being pursued; but fatigue, hunger, and dysentery had decimated his forces. Of the 42,000 Prussians who invaded France in the previous August, barely 20,000 recrossed the frontier.
The moral effect of the victory of Valmy was considerable. It was the first victory won by the Armies of the Revolution over the Allies. It humbled the pride of the Prussians and gave the French unshakable faith in the future of their arms.
The German poet, Goethe, who followed the operations, said, in speaking of Valmy: “On that day and at that place began a new era in the history of the world.”
THE FIRING-LINE IN ARGONNE DURING THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE (1914)
In 1814 Blucher went round the Argonne. In 1870 the Third Prussian Army (the Army of the Meuse) crossed it without much difficulty.