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General Charles François Dumouriez (1791).

Man and his motherland art … intransigent components within the grand, clockwork scheme of the gods. A man bereft of a country he may call home is a pitiful creature indeed, prone to wallow in the crueller sensibilities of the perpetual exile imposed upon him by mishap of birth. The spiritual vagrant is known to wander the darker corners of these Europid lands, leading a life of incessant self-grief and susceptible to petty-pillage and rapine – for with national commonality comes a moral principle that transcends even Christendom. In the way of property, he knows only his worn iron dagger, an ill-begotten copper for investment at the next alehouse, and the solitude he lugs over his right shoulder like a heavy knapsack. He dies clad in rags and tatters on the provincial roadside, devoid of anything to implicitly constitute a last wish or testimony, survived only by a late-night a-creaking on the floorboard of his favourite flophouse.

Likewise, a state claimed as home by many is nought but an open gaol if it is not subsidiary to the collective will of the people. The French republican institution is a peculiar one, for it embraces a man’s right to autonomy, encapsulated with such common eloquence in that great revolutionary triad – Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – whilst overseeing the affairs of a nation surrounded to the east and west by the age-old champions of the feudal pyramid. The toiler of Saxony or Lancashire is a cowed, apprehensive character, accepting no reality beyond that of the archaic obligations thrust upon him and his circle by a callous master. The peasant of Brittany and Silvia is a different character. He is valued not for his ability to withhold grimaces when subjected to a flogging, or his compliance in turning over the surplus winter stock to ill-intentioned keepers. He is bound by accord to a lessor fully accountable to the magistrate; and, when he works the plough and drains the herd, he is doing so, first and foremost, in the name of France.

The sovereign of England is a George or William. The sovereign of France is Pierre the swineherd, Auguste the tailor, Bruno the presbyter – cohesive units behind the red, white and blue cockade in all its ceremonious glory!
- Victor Courtemanche, The Depositions of Protector-General Dumouriez [1819]

18th March, 1793 – Battle of Neerwinden. Attempting to withdraw to a safer position, Austrian forces under Prince Josias of Coburg are overwhelmed by the otherwise motley French contingent of Charles François Dumouriez. They find themselves unable to fall back and reorganize along a wider front, ill-fatedly resolving to make a stand in the hillocks and villages. The ensuing battle is chaotic and bloody, with both sides accruing heavy losses – but, once the delirium of combat has subsided, the Austrians have been routed. Acknowledging the extraordinary implications of this otherwise costly victory, Dumouriez hastily rallies his remaining 41,000 troops, intending to march northward and secure the Southern Netherlands.

20th March, 1793 – Word reaches the French camp of a huge Coalition relief effort massing on the Rhine, overseen by the Duke of Brunswick. Dumouriez aborts his plan to strike a decisive victory against the Austrians, opting instead for a flight southward. He establishes a defensive parameter along the cusp of Hainaut, requesting urgent reinforcements from Paris. Arguably, the reluctance of Austro-Hanoverian forces to cross the border, in hope of a diplomatic settlement, averted the humiliating defeat the French dreaded.

24th March, 1793 – 25,000 troops, largely drawn from the reservist Armée des côtes de La Rochelle, arrive in Hainaut. Rejuvenated, the French ready themselves for a Coalition assault.

26th March, 1793 - Battle of Châtelet. Encountering Dumouriez' army on open knolls, Duke Charles William Ferdinand commissions a pincer movement, the 15,000-strong Hanoverian contribution enveloping from the wooded right flank whilst the Austrians navigate exposed ground on the left. Although heavily burdened by the attack, a far more fluid, panicked affair than the Neerwinden encounter, the French hold firm, a clear advantage provided by the craggy terrain. By the end of the day, they have snatched victory on a whim, the opposition having failed to dislodge them from their strategic position. 6,000 lie dead on the battlefield.

28th March, 1793 – The Armée du Nord makes a dramatic press north, the scattered Coalition remnants unable to take an adequate stand. Compelled by his superiors, Dumouriez sends a detachment to buttress Francisco de Miranda's decimated force in the east.

1st April, 1793 – Advancing into Holland, Dumouriez halts at the Waal River. Stadtholder William V writes to the encumbered Prince of Coburg, calling for immediate intervention to push the French out of the Dutch Republic. The rump of the Austrian army begins to mass west of the Rhine.

4th April, 1793 – Large numbers of irregular Dutch republican fighters, the Exercitiegenootschapen, flock to the French banners in the Netherlands, after years in exile in Pas-de-Calais. Bearing a Francized version of the Statenvlag, they declare themselves paramilitary representatives of the 'Batavian state and citizenry'. Dumouriez, ever the internationalist, welcomes the patriotic insurrectionists, despite the insistence of the National Convention that he claim and occupy the Low Countries in the name of France.


Aftermath of the clashes in Amsterdam.

7th April, 1793 – An Anglo-Prussian garrison in Amsterdam comes under attack from a riotous mob. The crowd murders a fusilier and parades his head through the city streets, provoking a vicious response from foreign and metropolitan authorities. Outright revolt ensues.

10th April, 1793 – The Armée du Nord encounters a concerted, bold, but ultimately futile spate of civilian resistance in the town of Tiel, a stone's throw across the Waal on the road to Amsterdam. After three hours of relentless fighting, Dumouriez bids the place torched to the ground, with dozens of pro-government militiamen and noncombatants summarily executed in the nearby woods. The 'Bloody Ninth' incident, destined to become the propaganda basis of subsequent anti-French dissent in the Netherlands, epitomized the most brutal shade of the General's character, sitting uncomfortably with his typical restraint and attested sense of duty - indeed, there is credible evidence to suggest the whole affair was a calculated move to circumvent the suspicions of the Paris regime, whom had recently singled out Dumouriez as a potential traitor to the revolutionary cause.


The infamous 'poison pamphlet'.

13th April, 1793 – The first of seven 'poison pamphlets' appears in western and central French cities. These crude, illiterate tracts level a series of increasingly absurd charges against prominent Girondins and military staff, inciting the public, with a rhetorical violence reminiscent of Jean-Paul Marat, to root out and kill alleged traitors. Senior Montagnards would later stand accused of mass-producing the articles as means of eliminating the moderate opposition, although the veracity of this claim cannot be established. Dumouriez is portrayed in a highly defamatory light:
ACCUSED! - Charles François Dumouriez

Enemy of the Revolution, Jew, monarchist, sympathetic to the Austrian throne. Defended the traitor Louis and his despicable brood before a court of the people. Worked within a cabal to overthrow the Republic and restore the Bourbon puppet-crown. Betrayed hero General Miranda to the enemy. Dines with counter-popularist elements in the officer corps, permits his men to go hungry. Wages war behind a map, his uniform too shiny and expensive for the battlefield. Conspired with the enemy to stage the defeat of the army entrusted to him ...

With what items shall we bludgeon this snake?
16th April, 1793 - As turmoil reigns behind the city walls, Dumouriez lays siege to Amsterdam. On the same day, an Anglo-Dutch naval venture intercepts the skeleton of the French North Sea fleet off Adinkerke, Belgium, pursuing and sinking four vessels. It is the first seaborne action of the Revolutionary Wars, and, regardless of their success on land, a dismal setback for the Republic.
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