Revolutions - 3.27- Advance and Retreat

Episode Date: February 16, 2015

After the Battle of Valmy the French armies advanced on all fronts. 

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 3.27, advance and retreat. As I mentioned at the beginning of last week's episode, the reason the National Convention was able to spend so much time focused on the King's trial was that out on the frontiers, the French armies were not just successfully holding off the Allies, they were positively steamrolling the Allies. After the victory at Valmy, French forces went on the offensive and enjoyed an unbroken string of successes between November 1792 and March 1793 that not only allowed the convention

to emphatically end a thousand years of monarchy by waving Louis severed head around, but also to make a bold new set of claims about what the war was about. No longer was this about a quick punch to the Austrian's nose to prove a point. This was now about burning down the old Europe so that a new revolutionary Europe could rise from the ashes. After the Allied army abruptly turned around following the Battle of Valmy in September 1792, the victorious General Dumurier made no effort to interfere with the retreat. Instead, he followed at a safe distance and then sent emissaries to the Prussian leaders asking if they wanted to cut a deal.

Dumurier was of the opinion that France and Prussia were natural allies, given their mutual hatred of the Austrians. But the Prussian King Frederick William II said that before any negotiations could take place, King Louis would have to be restored to the French throne. Now, as you'll recall, Dumourier was himself a constitutional royalist. He abhorred the insurrection of August 10th and the just-announced abolition of the French monarchy. But for the moment, there was nothing he could do about any of it. So negotiations with the Prussians never got off the ground.

After talks broke down, Dumurier then returned to his original plan, a bold invasion of the Austria-Netherlands. Preparations had obviously been put on hold while he marched down to block the Allied advance, but with the Allies in retreat, Dumourier redoubled his efforts to get the Army of the North in shape for an invasion. In the weeks after Valmy, that Army of the North absorbed tens of thousands of utterly raw volunteers. That was all those enthusiastic Sanku Lott, who had joined up in the wake of the September massacres. These guys clearly had a lot of heart, but didn't know the first thing about soldiering. So D'Mourier spent October drilling his new recruits.

He had no illusions about turning them into some well-oiled machine, but he could maybe teach them to all charge in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time. By early November, D'Murier judged his forces ready enough to cross the frontier into the Austria and Netherlands, which, for simplicity and clarity's sake, I'm just going to start referring to as Belgium, because that's basically what we're talking about here. DeMurier had a very good reason for being confident about his chances, even if his troops weren't professionals. The army he commanded now numbered about 32,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and boasted about 100 heavy guns. The Austrians, meanwhile, had just 20,000 troops

total garrisoning the entire length of the frontier. So when Dumorrier ordered his army to cross the border on November 3rd, there was just no Austrian force large enough to stop him. As long as his new volunteers didn't run away at the first sign of trouble, the weight of their numbers would be irresistible. On November the 6th, Dumurier's army encountered the first concentrated Austrian defenses and they did not run away. The Austrians had stationed just shy of 14,000 men along a five-mile ridge running between the fortified city of Mons and the town of Jemap. With his massively superior forces, D'Mourier divided his army up into two columns and sent them

on a double flanking move to surround the Austrian defenders. But after a morning spent fighting, the uncoordinated waves of French infantry just couldn't dislodge the professional Austrians. So, around noon, Dumourier switched things up. He ordered one giant column to form in the middle and said, you know, just force your way up there. This time, the onslaught was too much for the Austrian defenders. The French captured the middle of the ridge, and then managed to dig in and hold it. With the Austrian army now divided, another French column managed to flank the Austrian right at the town of Jemap, and the Austrians were forced to withdraw all their forces back to Mons.

The victory at the Battle of Jemap, like the victory at Valmy, was immediately seized on as a great victory for the new citizen army of revolutionary France, proof that the old regimes of Europe couldn't possibly withstand the might of a fully mobilized nation. But again, like Valmy, the glory of Jemap was maybe a bit overstated. With supporting reinforcements, the French threw over 40,000 men at a ridge held by just 14,000 defenders. Yes, it was impressive that the French volunteers kept charging up the hill, and yes, it was impressive that the French were able to muster that many men to begin with, but the actual victory really came down to a numbers game. If those same French forces had

only outnumbered their opponents a helpful two to one, instead of an overwhelming three to one, would they still have been able to win? How about a battle between equal forces? That real test still lay ahead. In the aftermath of the Battle of Jamat, it became clear that the Austrians, though, were not prepared to effectively defend Belgium. The forces that had just retreated back to Monz surrendered the city the next day, leaving behind the heavy guns in exchange for safe passage. A few days later, the French marched out of Monz, and the remaining Austrian forces

just got out of their way. Dumourier entered Brussels on November the 14th without firing a shot. Then, as the French fanned out across the countryside, the Austrians just withdrew from the territory back east towards Cologne, where they would spend the winter regrouping. By the end of November, the French were in complete control of Belgium. Down south, the French enjoyed a similar run of success, after facing even less resistance than Dumorier had faced up in Belgium. Along the Mediterranean coast, the old independent feudal territory of Savoy was invaded in September, and the capital, Nice, was capital. Then up along the Rhine, all those little independent German principalities on the west bank of the river found themselves utterly exposed to an attack. When the main Allied army had retreated after Valmy, they just kind of kept going until they were back safe and secure on the east side of the Rhine, which left literally no one protecting those little German principalities on the west side of the Rhine from the advancing French.

A steady stream of aristocrats, high church officials, and wealthy families packed up everything they owned and fled east as the French accepted the wide open invitation to move on in. So how do we explain the sudden turn in the fortunes of war? In less than six weeks, the French had gone from certain annihilation to capturing Belgium, Savoy, and the constellation of principalities along the Rhine. It was an impressive about face, and it shocked the rest of the year. Europe. So how do we explain it? Now, the big overarching explanation is clearly that the Allies had underestimated just how resilient the French would be. The Austrian and Prussian and Prussian strategy had basically been invade France, blow through the disorganized French armies,

and take Paris. Should take a few weeks at the most. So at the outset, the Allies simply weren't prepared to actually fight, and that does explain a lot of this. But that does not explain why the French were able to give them a fight. So what does? Well, first of all, there was the fact that the whole new concept of every citizen, a potential soldier, was working exactly the way it was supposed to. A hundred and eighty thousand Frenchmen volunteered for service in 1792 alone. As we just saw, the raw manpower available to the French was an order of magnitude beyond what the Allies were currently putting together with their traditionally small professional armies.

But who was going to lead all those enthusiastic volunteers? Well, I'll tell you, a French officer corps that was now becoming an advantage rather than a liability. By this point, every disaffected officer who was going to desert their post had already deserted their post. That meant that those who stayed behind were true believers, emotionally committed to the revolution. And those guys were soon joined by experienced NCOs promoted from within the ranks to fill all the vacant officer spots. This reconstituted officer corps was not secretly hoping the Austrians and Prussians would win. They wanted to spend every waking moment make sure that the Austrians and Prussians got their teeth kicked in. So by the time the French army

started pushing out after Valmy, their officers were experienced, dedicated, and passionately committed to the cause. That combination of a hyper-committed officer corps, leading a huge mass of regular soldiers, was a lethal combination. And if the Allies wanted to defeat it, they were going to have to start taking this all a bit more seriously. With all these sudden victories on their hands, the National Convention then started getting a little giddy, and in between debates over the fate of the king, their whole conception of the war began to change.

On November the 19th, they issued the decree of fraternity, which basically said, we will offer aid to any oppressed people looking to recover their lost liberties. Now, since the beginning of the war, Briseau's rhetoric had hinted at the larger ideological themes of a war with Austria, that spreading the gospel of the revolution would be a pretty awesome thing to do. But really, until now, this had just been a lot of talk. But now that it looked like revolutionary France might actually have the power to seize territory from the old European powers, the ideological side of the war began to be talked about more seriously. This shift in focus culminated with a further decree on December the 15th that revolutionary principles would be instituted in all the quote-unquote liberated territories. Clerical and aristocratic lands were to be confiscated. Tithes and feudal dues abolished.

New taxes would be imposed on the rich. All local state functionaries must swear an oath of allegiance to these revolutionary principles. The revolution was now on the march. Robsbier, of course, as usual, was a big stick in the mud about all of this, and he pointed out that this might not all work out the way everyone expected, that the French armies, imposing French principles, might not be wholeheartedly embraced by the citizens of the occupied, excuse me, liberated territories. And he said that liberty can never be founded by the use of foreign force. But as ideology came to play a larger role in the French desire to liberate territory from their enemies, there was a much simpler national interest at stake, an interest that was also now being openly discussed. France securing its natural borders. If you look at a relief map of Europe, It's easy to tell what those natural borders ought to be.

The Alps in the southeast, the Mediterranean in the south, the Pyrenees in the southwest, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the English Channel to the north, and the Rhine River to the east. Of those six, only the west bank of the Rhine remain to be secured. And with the German principalities now stormed, and Belgium in hand, it was really down to whether the French could peel off the requisite Dutch territory to complete the natural circuit, which of course brings us to the British, who had done so much to remain neutral so far, and who now could not avoid getting into the war. The provocation of the British began the minute Dumourier crossed into Belgium. You'll recall that the only reason the Austrians

held that territory in the first place was because the British didn't want the French to control it. And indeed, all through the 18th century, British foreign policy had been all about keeping the low countries in their sphere of political and economic influence and away from the French sphere of political and economic influence. So despite Prime Minister William Pitts fervent desire to remain neutral, the French invasion of Belgium put him in a major bind. The first officially provocative action came on November the 16th when the French declared freedom of navigation on the Scheldt River, which the Dutch had held an exclusive claim to since the end of the 30 years war way back in 1648. Now, access to the river in and of itself wasn't actually a huge deal,

but the flagrant disregard for a century and a half old treaty obligation certainly was. Shortly thereafter, the Austrians evacuated Belgium and French forces were able to advance all the way to the borders with the United Provinces. The Dutch then started jumping up and down and begging London for assistance, assistance that now looked like the British were going to have to provide, unless they wanted to wake up in a few days and discover that revolutionary France now controlled like the entire coast of the continent facing the British Isles. Now luckily for Pitt, the slow turn towards war was generally supported at home.

Now many liberty-loving Brits had cheered on the revolution when it first got going. Thomas Payne's radical The Rights of Man had outsold Edmund Burke's conservative reflections on the revolution in France at like a 10-to-one clip. Even those who were opposed to the revolution did not see any reason to get involved with the madness currently unfolding on the continent. But the insurrection of August 10th, and then most especially the September massacres, turned public opinion in Britain decisively against the revolution. So Pitt knew that if he now decided to take the country into war, war that he was on firm political footing at home. Pitt's emissaries continued to negotiate with the French to avoid war, but when the National Convention executed Louis, the British stopped talking.

Believing their position to be nearly invincible, the National Convention responded by preemptively declaring war on Britain on February 1, 1793. But, of course, the French position was not nearly as invincible as the National Convention now believed, especially since they had just poked the British in the eye with a sharp pointy stick. It did not take long for British diplomats to draw a hostile circle around France. Soon enough, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, and Naples would all join the anti-French coalition. And also soon enough, British money would be going to pay for German mercenaries to grow the ranks of the Allied forces. So far, the French had enjoyed the advantage that comes with being underestimated,

But that was not a mistake their enemies would continue to make. Now, just so you know, this whole series of campaigns from 1792 to 1797 will collectively come to be known as the War of the First Coalition, to be followed subsequently by the War of the Second Coalition, and then the War of the Third Coalition, bridging the transition from the revolutionary era into the Napoleonic era. But though the War of the First Coalition is dated to the Declaration of War, between France and Austria and the spring of 1792, it is really here approaching the spring of 1793

that the first coalition really takes shape as a pan-European effort to fight revolutionary France. Now, speaking of that pan-European effort, we cannot forget the special role somehow played by Poland in all of this. Now, one of the reasons the Prussians had been so quick to pull out of France after Valmy was because the Russians had gone into Poland and Frederick William, the 2nd prioritized his eastern flank over his western flank. But as aggressive as Catherine the Great was, she was not super interested in going 10 rounds with the Prussian army now massing on the Polish border. So in January 1793, she proposed to Frederick William the 2nd a second partition of Poland. This partition was signed January the 23rd and saw Russia claim the lion's share

of Polish territory, with the Prussians receiving a strategically helpful slice. that really shored up their eastern borders. The Polish Commonwealth, meanwhile, was left just one-third the size that it had been before the first partition back in 1772, which we discussed back in episode 3.6. The upshot of the second partition for us is obviously that the Prussians can now turn their full attention back to the French. So come the spring of 1793, basically all of Europe will be arrayed against France, and the fortunes of war will soon turn again.

Now the other thing that really helped turn the tables against the French was that it turned out Robespierre had been absolutely right. Liberty can never be founded by the use of foreign force. All the people in all those territories that had so recently been liberated quickly discovered that their liberation looked an awful lot like a regular old occupation. The French soldiers now in their midst made themselves right at home, taking what they wanted, drinking what they wanted, sleeping where they wanted. Remember those idealistic decrees about how French armies would always respect the natural liberties

of other peoples and that they would always protect the lives and property of those people? Yeah, neither do the soldiers of the French armies. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Belgium. Dumourier's men had spread themselves across the countryside and were acting as if every farmhouse was their own personal supply depot. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the National Convention's December the 15th decree that imposed revolutionary principles

meant that when the damned French soldiers showed up in your town, they not only took everything that wasn't nailed down, they also desecrated churches, seized property, and generally spit on every traditional community institution they could find. And remember, the Belgians had gone into revolt against the Austrians just a few years earlier, not to overthrow all those institutions, but to protect them. So relations between the local Belgians and the occupying French got testy in a hurry.

Recognizing that things weren't going super smoothly up in Belgium, the convention dispatched no less a man than Dantan himself up to Brussels to try to get a handle on things. His departure to the front in December 1792 is the reason he played almost no part in the main debates over King Louis' fate. Now, one of the other reasons that the great Don Tonne was personally dispatched was because doubts were starting to creep in about the true loyalties of General Dumourier. Sure, his success in the field was undeniable and publicly celebrated, but it was pretty clear he had his own long-term agenda. He was known to not be real happy about anything that had happened in Paris over the past

year, the insurrection of August 10th, the September massacres, the trial of the King. After he ran the Austrians out of Belgium, the convention started getting troubling reports about Dumorier's activities. He was apparently aligning himself with local conservatives, talking openly about raising an army of Belgium, composed of local volunteers, and funded by grants from the local Catholic Church. This all looked an awful lot, like Dumorier was about to turn Belgium into some personal little power base, from which he might do God knows what. So Dantan was sent up to assist with the occupation, and by assist we mean Jesus, please make sure Dumourier doesn't set up some kind of personal little power base to do God knows what.

Dumourier chafed under the supervision, leading to still further resentment about the course of the revolution. Despite the supreme confidence, the National Convention now seemed to have in the inevitability of French victory. They did recognize they could not just rest on their laurels. For one thing, now that the immediate emergency of Paris possibly being sacked had passed, a ton of those volunteer soldiers assumed that they had now done their bit to save the nation and just went home. So day by day, France was losing that overwhelming numerical advantage. For another thing, though the armies had fought pretty well,

this new kind of national army was going to need a structural overhaul to really work properly. The potent mixture of adrenaline and enthusiasm had temporarily carried the revolutionary armies forward. But if they were going to keep moving forward, they were going to have to get better organized. So shortly after the Declaration of War with Britain in February 1793, the Military Committee of the National Convention reported back a reorganization plan known as the amalgamé. The thrust of the amalgam was simple. make sure new volunteers are paired with permanent troops of the line, rather than keeping them separate, as was currently the standard practice. Specifically, brigades would be organized on the principle of one veteran battalion for every

two battalions of volunteers. This would ensure quick assimilation of the new recruits into the daily realities of military life and ensure that there were always no-nonsense veterans around to keep the newbies in line and in shape. And then, of course, once the battle began, the presumably less fidgety veterans would be interspersed with the rookies to prevent mass panic from ever sweeping the lines. These reforms would eventually be implemented to great effect, but unfortunately, they would not be implemented fast enough to stave off the coming disasters of the spring of 1793.

To make up for the steady loss of troops, a big new recruitment push was an announced on February the 24th, the so-called lave of 300,000. And this is exactly what it sounds like. We need 300,000 new soldiers, and we need them right now. But critically, though the convention wanted these 300,000 to join up voluntarily, they recognized that that might not happen. And so they authorized impressment into service when and where necessary. So the historical significance of the lave of 300,000, has less to do with its impact on the French war effort than its impact on a region that did not feel much like volunteering for service, and we're not about to sit back and let bullies from Paris force them into joining. I speak, of course, of the Vaudet region of the

West, which I have been calling the Vaudi region. That's just because the French have this, like, short vowel sound that my barbarian ears just refuse to recognize. So we're going to be talking a lot about the outbreak of the uprising in the Voday next week, because it is a major, major part of how the revolution will play out over the next few years. But just so you know, the people of Voday are pretty super Catholic and have been pretty super pissed off at anti-clerical Paris for quite a while now. So the LeVé of 300,000 was just a match that lit the giant pile of gasoline-soaked rags. Getting back to the war, unfortunately for the French, none of their military readiness and reorganization efforts were going to kick in fast enough to help them once the fighting recommenced.

Still supremely confident, D'Mourier took the Declaration of War with Britain as a sign that he ought to get going with the next phase of his grand plan. Invade the United Provinces. But unfortunately, this focus on advancing north led D'Mourier to ignore an opportunity to combine with the French armies along the Rhine, to push the Austrians who had evacuated from Belgium completely across the river. This missed opportunity meant that the Austrians could continue to gather in force outside Cologne on the West Bank, from which they would be able to stage a counter-invasion of Belgium. But with the French armies in Belgium, now numbering something like 120,000 total men, it is likely that Dumorier simply believed the Austrians would never be able to push their way back in.

So on February the 16th, he personally led an army of about 20,000 up into Dutch territory. Marching almost due north, DeMorier attacked Breda on February the 21st and took it on February the 24th. He then quickly captured a string of smaller fortresses before getting ready for the big push that would take him through Rotterdam, the Hague, and then on to the big prize, Amsterdam. While Dumorier made this run up the coast, his eastern fly. was supposed to be supported by another French army about 10,000 strong, who were ordered to capture Maastricht and then move up to join him. But Maastricht managed to resist the initial attacks after the French arrived on February the 21st. And no one likes a prolonged siege,

especially new recruits who have never done it before, especially in the middle of a Dutch winter. So the French volunteers started deserting in droves. You know, I signed up to charge headlong at Austrians, not freeze to death getting heckled by the Dutch. So the Siege of Maastricht had to be abandoned March the 3rd. And that was just the beginning of the bad news for the French. The siege of Mostricht was abandoned in part because that Austrian army that had gathered near Cologne had finally started marching west, and they were now something like 40,000 strong. They smashed a much smaller French army at Aldenhoven on March the 1st,

and were looking deadly serious about retaking bell. Belgium. With this army on the move, the National Convention ordered Demurey to abandon his ambitious push up into the United Provinces and instead come down south to lead the defense of Belgium. Dumourier wasn't happy about being bossed around by the convention, but for the moment he did what he was told and he headed south. He arrived outside Brussels on March the 11th and took command of the 45,000 or so men who had rendezvoused to face the Austrians. So let's see what happens when two armies of equal size face off against each other. Upon taking command, Dumourier had two paradoxical thoughts in his head. The first was that his army was invincible and would whip

the Austrians easily. The second was that if he ordered any kind of strategic withdrawal, that his invincible army would disintegrate into a panicked flight. So there was only one thing to do. He ordered a bold advance forward to meet the Austrians head on. The two armies met, across an extended line that roughly centered around the town of Nierrevindon. Dumourier divided his forces into eight columns and identified the Austrian left as the weak link. At dawn, on March the 18th, he ordered three columns on a flanking maneuver. It took all morning, but the French forces successfully took the main high ground and the town of Nervendon and even managed to hold off at least one concerted Austrian attempt to retake the ground.

but further attacks and bombardments eventually forced the French to withdraw. Then it was the French's turn to attempt to retake the ground, but their attempt failed, and they had to retreat. Meanwhile, up on the Austrian right slash French left, the day had been spent mostly skirmishing around each other. But late in the day, the Austrians launched a hard cavalry charged at the clearly fatigued French infantry, a charge that turned into an utter route. Dumourier didn't find out that his entire left flank had fallen apart until the next morning,

and when he did, he was forced to order a general retreat. The Battle of Nervendin finally represented an evenly matched fight, and the French had gotten beat and run on all fronts. Then, to make matters worse, the defeat triggered mass desertions, as the men who ran simply did not come back. Within days, Dumourier was leading just 20,000 men, That remaining army lost another engagement on March the 21st to an Austrian army that now outnumbered them two to one. But Dumourier managed to extract himself back through Brussels,

though by now he was clearly formulating a completely new conception of what his next move ought to be. As he passed through Brussels, he opened negotiations with the Austrians and his terms were simple. You can have Belgium back if you let me withdraw all my forces unmolested. The Austrians agreed to the terms, even allowing a trapped French army to pass through their lines on their way out of the territory. The reason for Austrian leniency was due to the hints de Murier dropped about what his next move was going to be. Once I'm out of Belgium, I'm going to turn my armies around, march on Paris, break the National Convention, and restore the Constitution of 1791, all of which sounded pretty good to the Austrians. When the convention got news of all these disasters, they sent a delegation up to confront Dumurier and demand an explanation for the loss at Niervindon and the total evacuation of Belgium.

When this delegation, led personally by the Minister of War, reached Dumurier's camp on April 1st, the general did not mess around trying to pretend like he was still on their side. He arrested the delegation and handed them over to the Austrians. But Dumurier totally underestimated the loyalty of his officers and his officers and his army. his troops. None of them thought highly of the politicians in the National Convention, but as I mentioned, they were all firmly committed to the revolution, and were not about to march on Paris to what, restore the monarchy with the blessing of the Austrians? No, we are not going to do that. Unable to convince his men to follow him, Dumurier's plans fell apart, and like so many before him,

it was time to slip across the lines. On April of 5th, Dumurier went over to the office. On April of 5th, Dumourier went over to the Austrians, and among those who defected with him was the 20-year-old Louis-Philippe d'Orlion, son of Duke Dorlion, and future King Louis-Philippe of France. So obviously, this is all really bad news for the revolutionaries in Paris, as they were once again now facing an imminent Austrian invasion. Which is why they must have been so excited to hear that out west an armed uprising had just broken out in the Vodais. Next time, we will discuss the origins of that major uprising that threatened to destroy the revolution from the inside, just as the European powers were once again threatening to destroy it from the outside. I'll close this week with a few scheduling notes on what's to come in the months ahead. As sharp listeners, no doubt just caught, I said next time, because there is not going to be a show next week. But after I come back, I'll be here every week from now until the next round of Revolution's tours get going in mid-April.

Those tours are going to ultimately keep me away from the show for almost a month. So my plan is to pre-record a few episodes and stagger the releases so that I don't just disappear completely. And oh, by the way, if you want to make a last-minute impulse buy, we still have a few open slots. So by all means, make the impulse buy of your life and come join us. Before now in the tours, though, I will be having the big 250th episode question blowout, which is scheduled right now for March the 15th. I have a ton of great questions from all the wonderful folks who spent more than $150 during the fundraiser, and it is during that episode that I will also be revealing the two winners of the a signan

from among those who bought a t-shirt, t-shirts that are, as we speak, being shipped out. So I hope you're all looking forward to that. And I will see you all in two weeks.