Defiance was thus cast by forty-five thousand men to one hundred ten thousand soldiers of the coalition.
Continuing Europe’s First Battle Against Republican France,
our selection from Alphonse M. L. Lamartine. The selection is presented in seven easy 5 minute installments.
Previously in Europe’s First Battle Against Republican France.
Time: 1792
Place: Valmy, France (village)
At the same moment Dumouriez, recalling his isolated detachments, prepared for a struggle, by concentrating all his scattered forces. General Dubouquet had retired to Châlons with three thousand men, where he also expected to find Dumouriez, but had only found in the city ten battalions of fédérés and volunteers, who had arrived from Paris, and, hearing of the retreat of the army, mutinied against their chiefs, cut off the head of one of their officers, taking others with them, plundered the army stores, murdered the colonel of the regiment of Vexin, and then, in confused masses, took the road to Paris, proclaiming everywhere Dumouriez’s treason and demanding his head. Dumouriez was alarmed lest these ruffians should come in contact with his army, for such bands sowed sedition wherever they went.
General Stengel, after having ravaged the country between Argonne and Sainte-Menehould, in order to cut off all supplies from the Prussians, fell back beyond the Tourbe, and posted himself with the vanguard on the hills of Lyron, opposite the heights of La Lune, where the Duke of Brunswick was posted.
Dampierre’s camp, separated from that of Dumouriez by the trenches and shallows of the Auve, was assigned to Kellermann, but he passed beyond this spot, and posted his entire army and baggage on the heights of Valmy, in advance of Dampierre, on the left of that of Sainte-Menehould. The line of Kellermann’s encampment, nearer to the enemy, on its left, touched on its right the line of Dumouriez, and thus formed with the principal army an angle, against which the enemy could not send forth its attacking columns without being at once overwhelmed by the French artillery in both flanks. Dumouriez, perceiving in a moment that Kellermann, who was too much involved and too much isolated on the plateau of Valmy, might be turned by the Prussian masses, sent General Chazot, at the head of eight battalions and eight squadrons, to post them behind the heights of Gizaucourt, and be under Kellermann’s orders. He next desired General Stengel and Beurnonville to advance to the right of Valmy with twenty-six battalions — his rapid coup d’oeil assuring him that this would be the Duke of Brunswick’s point of attack.
This plan displayed at a glance the intelligence of the warrior and the politician. Defiance was thus cast by forty-five thousand men to one hundred ten thousand soldiers of the coalition.
The French army had its right flank and retreat covered by the Argonne, which was impassable by the enemy, and defended by its ravines and forests. The centre, bristling with batteries and natural obstacles, was impregnable. The army faced the country toward Champagne, leaving behind it the road clear to Châlons and Lorraine.
“The Prussians,” argued Dumouriez, “will either fight or advance on Paris. If the former, they will find the French army in an intrenched camp as a field of battle. Obliged, in order to attack the centre, to pass the Auve, the Tourbe, and the Bionne, under the fire of my redoubts, they will take Kellermann in flank, who will crush their attacking columns between his battalions, charging down from Valmy and the batteries of my corps d’armée. If they leave the French army, and cut off its retreat to Paris by marching on Châlons, the army, facing about, will follow them to Paris, increasing in number at every step. The reënforcements of the army of the Rhine and army of the North, which are on the march; the battalions of scattered volunteers, which I shall assemble as I cross the revolted provinces, will swell the amount of my armed troops to sixty thousand or seventy thousand men. The Prussians will march across a hostile country, and make every step with hesitation, while each advance will give me fresh troops. I shall await them under the walls of Paris. An invading army, placed between a capital of six hundred thousand souls, who close their gates, and a national army, which cuts off their retreat, is a destroyed army. France will be saved in the heart of France, instead of on the frontiers; but still she will be saved.”
Thus reasoned Dumouriez, when the first sounds of the Prussian cannon, resounding from the heights of Valmy, came to announce to him that the Duke of Brunswick, having perceived the danger of advancing, and thus leaving the French army behind him, had attacked Kellermann. It was not the Duke of Brunswick, however, but the young King of Prussia, who had commanded the attack. The Prussian army, which the generalissimo wished to extend gradually from Rheims to Argonne, parallel to the French army, received orders to advance in a body on Kellermann’s position. On the 19th it marched to Somme-Tourbe, and remained all night under arms. The report was spread in the head-quarters of the King of Prussia that the French were meditating a retreat on Châlons, and that the movements perceptible in their line were only intended to mask this retrograde march. The King was vexed at a plan of a campaign which always allowed them to escape. He thought he should surprise Dumouriez in the false position of an army which had raised his camp. The Duke of Brunswick, whose military authority began to suffer with the failure of his preceding manoeuvres, in vain sought the intervention of General Koeler to moderate the ardor of the King. The attack was resolved upon.
On the 20th, at 6 A.M., the Duke marched at the head of the Prussian advanced guard upon Somme-Bionne, with the intention of attacking Kellermann, and cutting off his retreat by the high road of Châlons. A thick autumnal fog floated over the plain into the marshy grounds where the three rivers flow, in the hollow ravines which separated the two armies, leaving only the points of the precipices and the crests of the hills shining in the light above this ocean of fog. An unexpected shock of the cavalry of the two advanced guards alone revealed, in this darkness, the march of the Prussians to the French. After a rapid mêlée and some firing, the advanced guard of the French fell back upon Valmy, and warned Kellermann of the enemy’s approach. The Duke of Brunswick continued to advance, reached the high road to Châlons, crossed it, and then deployed his whole army. At ten o’clock, the mist having suddenly disappeared, showed to the two generals their mutual situation.
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