History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814Mignet, M. (François-Auguste-Marie-Alexis)
History
History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814
Mignet, M. (François-Auguste-Marie-Alexis)
France -- History -- 1789-1815; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
In this position, Dumouriez might have stopped the enemy, and himself have
securely awaited the succours which were on their road to him from every
part of France. The various battalions of volunteers repaired to the camps
in the interior, whence they were despatched to his army, as soon as they
were at all in a state of discipline. Beurnonville, who was on the Flemish
frontier, had received orders to advance with nine thousand men, and to be
at Rhétel, on Dumouriez's left, by the 13th of September. Duval was also
on the 7th to march with seven thousand men to the Chêne-Populeux; and
Kellermann was advancing from Metz, on his right, with a reinforcement of
twenty-two thousand men. Time, therefore, was all that was necessary.
The duke of Brunswick, after taking Verdun, passed the Meuse in three
columns. General Clairfait was operating on his right, and prince
Hohenlohe on his left. Renouncing all hope of driving Dumouriez from his
position by attacking him in front, he tried to turn him. Dumouriez had
been so imprudent as to place nearly his whole force at Grandpré and the
Islettes, and to put only a small corps at Chêne-Populeux and Coix-au-
Bois--posts, it is true, of minor importance. The Prussians, accordingly,
seized upon these, and were on the point of turning him in his camp at
Grandpré, and of thus compelling him to lay down his arms. After this
grand blunder, which neutralized his first manoeuvres, he did not despair
of his situation. He broke up his camp secretly during the night of the
14th September, passed the Aisne, the approach to which might have been
closed to him, made a retreat as able as his advance on the Argonne had
been, and concentrated his forces in the camp at Sainte-Menehould. He had
already delayed the advance of the Prussians at Argonne. The season, as it
advanced, became bad. He had now only to maintain his post till the
arrival of Kellermann and Beurnonville, and the success of the campaign
would be certain. The troops had become disciplined and inured, and the
army amounted to about seventy thousand men, after the arrival of
Beurnonville and Kellermann, which took place on the 17th.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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