Valenciennes, under the energetic General Ferrand, 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 regime 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.
Houchard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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