Dampierre meanwhile grew less confident as responsibility settled upon his shoulders. Quite unable to believe that Coburg would bury himself in a maze of rivers and fortresses when he could scatter the French army to the winds Dampierre at Valenciennes. by a direct advance, he was disquieted and puzzled by the Austrian investment of Condé. This was followed by skirmishes around Valenciennes, so unfavourable to the French that their officers felt it would be madness to venture far beyond the support of the fortress guns. But the representatives on mission ordered Dampierre, who was reorganizing his army at Bouchain, to advance and occupy Famars camp, east of Valenciennes, and soon afterwards, disregarding his protests, bade him relieve Condé at all costs. His skill, though not commensurate with his personal courage and devotion, sufficed to give him the idea of attacking Coburg on the right bank of the Scheldt while Clerfayt, with the corps covering the siege of Condé, was on the left, and then to turn against Clerfayt—in fact, to operate on interior lines—but it was far from being adequate to the task of beating either with the disheartened forces he commanded. On the 1st of May, while Clerfayt was held in check by a very vigorous demonstration, Coburg’s positions west of Quiévrain were attacked by Dampierre himself. The French won some local successes by force of numbers and surprise, but the Allies recovered themselves, thanks chiefly to the address and skill of Colonel Mack, and drove the Republicans in disorder to their entrenchments. Dampierre’s discouragement now became desperation, and, urged on by the representatives (who, be it said, had exposed their own lives freely enough in the action), he attacked Clerfayt on the 8th at Raismes. The troops fought far better in the woods and hamlets west of the Scheldt than they had done in the plains to the east. But in the heat of the action Dampierre, becoming again the brilliant soldier that he had been before responsibility stifled him, risked and lost his life in leading a storming party, and his men retired sullenly, though this time in good order, to Valenciennes. Two days later the French gave up the open field and retired into Valenciennes. Dampierre’s remains were by a vote of the Convention ordered to be deposited in the Panthéon. But he was a “ci-devant” noble, the demagogues denounced him as a traitor, and the only honour finally paid to the man who had tided over the weeks of greatest danger was the placing of his bust, in the strange company of those of Brutus and Marat, in the chamber of deputies.
Another pause followed, Coburg awaiting the British contingent under the duke of York, and the Republicans endeavouring to assimilate the reinforcements of conscripts, for the most part “undesirables,” who now arrived. Mutiny and denunciations augmented the confusion in the French camp. Plan of campaign there was none, save a resolution to stay at Valenciennes in the hope of finding an opportunity of relieving Condé and to create diversions elsewhere by expeditions from Dunkirk, Lille and Sedan. These of course came to nothing, and before they had even started, Coburg, resuming the offensive, had stormed the lines of Famars (May 24), whereupon the French army retired to Bouchain, leaving not only Condé[2] but also Valenciennes to resist as best they could. The central point of the new positions about Bouchain was called Caesar’s Camp. Here, surrounded by streams and marshes, the French generals thought that their troops were secure from the rush of the dreaded Austrian cavalry, and Mack himself shared their opinion.
Custine now took command of the abjectly dispirited army, the fourth change of command within two months. His first task was to institute a severe discipline, and his prestige was so great that his mere threat of death sentences for offenders produced the desired effect. As to operations, he wished for a concentration of all possible forces from other parts of the frontier towards Valenciennes, even if necessary at the cost of sacrificing his own conquest of Mainz. But after he had induced the government to assent to this, the generals of the numerous other armies refused to give up their troops, and on the 17th of June the idea was abandoned in view of the growing seriousness of the Vendéan insurrection (see [Vendée]). Custine, therefore, could do no more than continue the work of reorganization. Military operations were few. Coburg, who had all this time succeeded in remaining concentrated, now found himself compelled to extend leftwards towards Flanders,[3] for Custine had infused some energy into the scattered groups of the Republicans in the region of Douai, Lille and Dunkirk—and during this respite the Paris Jacobins sent to the guillotine both Custine and his successor La Marlière before July was ended. Both were “ci-devant” nobles and, so far as is ascertainable, neither was guilty of anything worse than attempts to make his orders respected by, and himself popular with, the soldiers. By this time, owing to the innumerable denunciations and arrests, the confusion in the Army of the North was at its height, and no further attempt was made either to relieve Valenciennes and Condé, or to press forward from Lille and Dunkirk. Condé, starved out as Coburg desired, capitulated on the 10th of June, and the Austrians, who had done their work as soldiers, but were filled with pity for their suffering and distracted enemies, marched in with food for the women and children. Valenciennes, under the energetic General Ferrand, Fall of Valenciennes. held out bravely until the fire of the Allies became intolerable, and then the civil population began to plot treachery, and to wear the Bourbon cockade in the open street. Ferrand and the representatives with him found themselves obliged to surrender to the duke of York, who commanded the siege corps, on the 28th of July, after rejecting the first draft of a capitulation sent in by the duke and threatening to continue the defence to the bitter end. Impossible as this was known to be—for Valenciennes seemed to have become a royalist town—Ferrand’s soldierly bearing carried the day, and honourable terms were arranged. The duke even offered to assist the garrison in repressing disorder. Shortly after this the wreck of the field army was forced to evacuate Caesar’s Camp after an unimportant action (Aug. 7-8) and retired on Arras. By this they gave up the direct defence of the Paris road, but placed themselves in a “flank position” relatively to it, and secured to themselves the resources and reinforcements available in the region of Dunkirk-Lille. Bouchain and Cambrai, Landrecies and Le Quesnoy, were left to their own garrisons.
With this ended the second episode of the amazing campaign of 1793. Military operations were few and spasmodic, on the one side because the Allied statesmen were less concerned with the nebulous common object of restoring order in France than with their several schemes of aggrandisement, on the other owing to the almost incredible confusion of France under the régime of Danton and Marat. The third episode shows little or no change in the force and direction of the allied efforts, but a very great change in France. Thoroughly roused by disaster and now dominated by the furious and bloodthirsty energy of the terrorists, the French people and armies at last set before themselves clear and definite objects to be pursued at all costs.
Jean Nicolas Houchard, the next officer appointed to command, had been a heavy cavalry trooper in the Seven Years’ War. His face bore the scars of wounds received at Minden, and his bravery, his stature, his bold and fierce manner, Houchard. his want of education, seemed to all to betoken the ideal sans-culotte general. But he was nevertheless incapable of leading an army, and knowing this, carefully conformed to the advice of his staff officers Berthelmy and Gay-Vernon, the latter of whom, an exceptionally capable officer, had been Custine’s chief of staff and was consequently under suspicion. At one moment, indeed, operations had to be suspended altogether because his papers were seized by the civil authorities, and amongst them were all the confidential memoranda and maps required for the business of headquarters. It was the darkest hour. The Vendéans, the people of Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon, were in open and hitherto successful revolt. Valenciennes had fallen and Coburg’s hussar parties pressed forward into the Somme valley. Again the Allies had the decision of the war in their own hands. Coburg, indeed, was still afraid, on Marie Antoinette’s account, of forcing the Republicans to extremities, and on military grounds too he thought an advance on Paris hazardous. But, hazardous or not, it would have been attempted but for the English. The duke of York had definite orders from his government to capture Dunkirk—at present a nest of corsairs which interfered with the Channel trade, and in the future, it was hoped, a second Gibraltar—and after the fall of Valenciennes and the capture of Caesar’s Camp the English and Hanoverians marched away, via Tournai and Ypres, to besiege the coast fortress. Thereupon the king of Prussia in turn called off his contingent for operations on the middle Rhine. Holland, too, though she maintained her contingent in face of Lille (where it covered Flanders), was not disposed to send it to join the imperialists in an adventure in the heart of France. Coburg, therefore, was brought to a complete standstill, and the scene of the decision was shifted to the district between Lille and the coast.
Thither came Carnot, the engineer officer who was in charge of military affairs In the Committee of Public Safety and is known to history as the “Organizer of Victory.” His views of the strategy to be pursued indicate either a purely geographical idea of war, which does not square with his later principles and practice, or, as is far more likely, a profound disbelief in the capacity of the Army of the North, as it then stood, to fight a battle, and they went no further than to recommend an inroad into Flanders on the ground that no enemy would be encountered there. This, however, in the event developed into an operation of almost decisive importance, for at the moment of its inception the duke of York was already on the march. Fighting en route a very severe but successful action (Lincelles, Aug. 18) with the French troops encamped near Lille, the Anglo-Hanoverians entered the district—densely intersected with canals and morasses—around Dunkirk and Bergues on the 21st and 22nd. On the right, by way of Furnes, the British moved towards Dunkirk and invested the east front of the weak fortress, while on the left the Hanoverian field marshal v. Freytag moved via Poperinghe on Bergues. The French had a chain of outposts between Furnes and Bergues, but Freytag attacked them resolutely, and the defenders, except a brave handful who stood to cross bayonets, fled in all directions. The east front of Bergues was invested on the 23rd, and Freytag spread out his Dunkirk. forces to cover the duke of York’s attack on Dunkirk, his right being opposite Bergues and his centre at Bambeke, while his left covered the space between Roosbrugge and Ypres with a cordon of posts. Houchard was in despair at the bad conduct of his troops. But one young general, Jourdan, anticipating Houchard’s orders, had already brought a strong force from Lille to Cassel, whence he incessantly harried Freytag’s posts. Carnot encouraged the garrisons of Dunkirk and Bergues, and caused the sluices to be opened. The moral of the defenders rose rapidly. Houchard prepared to bring up every available man of the Army of the North, and only waited to make up his mind as to the direction in which his attack should be made. The Allies themselves recognized the extreme danger of their position. It was cut in half by the Great Morass, stretches of which extended even to Furnes. Neither Dunkirk nor Bergues could be completely invested owing to the inundations, and Freytag sent a message to King George III. to the effect that if Dunkirk did not surrender in a few days the expedition would be a complete failure.
As for the French, they could hardly believe their good fortune. Generals, staff officers and representatives on mission alike were eager for a swift and crushing offensive. “’Attack’ and ‘attack in mass’ became the shibboleth and the catch-phrase of the camps” (Chuquet), and fortresses and armies on other parts of the frontier were imperiously called upon to supply large drafts for the Army of the North. Gay-Vernon’s strategical instinct found expression in a wide-ranging movement designed to secure the absolute annihilation of the duke of York’s forces. Beginning with an attack on the Dutch posts north and east of Lille, the army was then to press forward towards Furnes, the left wing holding Freytag’s left wing in check, and the right swinging inwards and across the line of retreat of both allied corps. At that moment all men were daring, and the scheme was adopted with enthusiasm. On the 28th of August, consequently, the Dutch posts were attacked and driven away by the mobile forces at Lille, aided by parts of the main army from Arras. But even before they had fired their last shot the Republicans dispersed to plunder and compromised their success. Houchard and Gay-Vernon began to fear that their army would not emerge successfully from the supreme test they were about to impose on it, and from this moment the scheme of destroying the English began to give way to the simpler and safer idea of relieving Dunkirk. The place was so ill-equipped that after a few days’ siege it was in extremis, and the political importance of its preservation led not merely the civilian representatives, but even Carnot, to implore Houchard to put an end to the crisis at once. On the 30th, Cassel, instead of Ypres, was designated as the point of concentration for the “mass of attack.” This surprised the representatives and Carnot as much as it surprised the subordinate generals, all of whom thought that there would still be time to make the détour through Ypres and to cut off the Allies’ retreat before Dunkirk fell. But Houchard and Gay-Vernon were no longer under any illusions as to the manœuvring power of their forces, and the government agents wisely left them to execute their own plans. Thirty-seven thousand men were left to watch Coburg and to secure Arras and Douai, and the rest, 50,000 strong, assembled at Cassel. Everything was in Houchard’s favour could he but overcome the indiscipline of his own army. The duke of York was more dangerous in appearance than in reality—as the result must infallibly have shown had Houchard and Gay-Vernon possessed the courage to execute the original plan—and Freytag’s covering army extended in a line of disconnected posts from Bergues to Ypres.
Against the left and centre of this feeble cordon 40,000 men advanced in many columns on the 6th of September. A confused outpost fight, in which the various assailing columns dissolved into excited swarms, ended, long after Hondschoote. nightfall, in the orderly withdrawal of the various allied posts to Hondschoote. The French generals were occupied the whole of next day in sorting out their troops, who had not only completely wasted their strength against mere outposts, but had actually consumed their rations and used up their ammunition. On the 8th, the assailants, having more or less recovered themselves, advanced again. They found Wallmoden (who had succeeded Freytag, disabled on the 6th) entrenched on either side of the village of Hondschoote, the right resting on the great morass and the left on the village of Leysele. Here was the opportunity for the “attack in mass” that had been so freely discussed; but Houchard was now concerned more with the relief of Dunkirk than with the defeat of the enemy. He sent away one division to Dunkirk, another to Bergues, and a third towards Ypres, and left himself only some 20,000 men for the battle. But Wallmoden had only 13,000—so great was the disproportion between end and means in this ill-designed enterprise against Dunkirk.
| Redrawn from a map in Fortescue’s History of the British Army, by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd. |
Houchard despatched a column, guided by his staff officer Berthelmy, to turn the Hanoverians’ left, but this column lost its way in the dense country about Loo. The centre waited motionless under the fire of the allied guns near Hondschoote. In vain the representative Delbrel implored the general to order the advance. Houchard was obstinate, and ere long the natural result followed. Though Delbrel posted himself in front of the line, conspicuous by his white horse and tricoloured sash and plume, to steady the men, the bravest left the ranks and skirmished forward from bush to bush, and the rest sought cover. Then the allied commander ordered forward one regiment of Hessians, and these, advancing at a ceremonial slow march, and firing steady rolling volleys, scattered the Republicans before them. At this crisis Houchard uttered the fatal word “retreat,” but Delbrel overwhelmed him with reproaches and stung him into renewed activity. He hurried away to urge forward the right wing while Jourdan rallied the centre and led it into the fight again. Once more Jourdan awaited in vain the order to advance, and once more the troops broke. But at last the exasperated Delbrel rose to the occasion. “You fear the responsibility,” he cried to Jourdan; “well, I assume it. My authority overrides the general’s and I give you the formal order to attack at once!” Then, gently, as if to soften a rebuke, he continued, “You have forced me to speak as a superior; now I will be your aide-de-camp,” and at once hurried off to bring up the reserves and to despatch cavalry to collect the fugitives. This incident, amongst many, serves to show that the representatives on mission were no mere savage marplots, as is too generally assumed. They were often wise and able men, brave and fearless of responsibility in camp and in action. Jourdan led on the reserves, and the men fighting in the bushes on either side of the road heard their drums to right and left. Jourdan fell wounded, but Delbrel headed a wild irregular bayonet charge which checked the Hanoverians, and Houchard himself, in his true place as a cavalry leader, came up with 500 fresh sabres and flung himself on the Allies. The Hanoverians, magnificently disciplined troops that they were, soon re-formed after the shock, but by this time the fugitives collected by Delbrel’s troopers, reanimated by new hopes of victory, were returning to the front in hundreds, and a last assault on Hondschoote met with complete success.