those parts which relate to international affairs and foreign policy. | blow at the clergy and to divorce all calculations of time from There is an English translation. None of the general histories of the Revolution above named is really satisfactory. The immense mass of material has not yet been thoroughly sifted; and the passions of that age still disturb the judgment of the historian. More successful have been the attempts to treat particular aspects of the Revolution. The foreign relations of France during the Revolution have been most ably unravelled by A. Sorel in L'Europe et la Révolution Française (8 vols., Paris, 1885-1904) carrying the story down to the settlement of Vienna. Five volumes cover the years 1789-1799. The financial history of the Revolution has been traced by C. Gomel, Histoire financière de l'Assemblée Constituante (2 vols., Paris, 1897), and R. Stourm, Les Finances de l'Ancien Régime et de la Révolution (2 vols., Paris, 1885). The relations of Church and State are sketched in E. Pressensé's L'Église et la Révolution Française (Paris, 1889). The general legislation of the period has been discussed by Ph. Sagnac, La Législation civile de la Révolution Française (Paris, 1898). The best work upon the social life of the period is the Histoire de la société française sous la Révolution, by E. and J. de Goncourt (Paris, 1889). For military history see A. Duruy, L'Armée royale en 1789 (Paris, 1888); E. de Hauterive, L'Armée sous la Révolution, 1789-1794 (Paris, 1894); A. Chuquet, Les Guerres de la Révolution (Paris, 1886, &c.). See also the memoirs and biographies of the distinguished soldiers of the Republic and Empire, too numerous for citation here. Modern lives of the principal actors in the Revolution are numerous. Among the most important are Mémoires de Mirabeau, by L. de Montigny (Paris, 1834); Les Mirabeau, by L. de Loménie (Paris, 1889-1891); H. L. de Lanzac de Laborie's Jean Joseph Mounier (Paris, 1889); B. Mallet's Mallet du Pan and the French Revolution (London, 1902); Robinet's Danton (Paris, 1889); Hamel's Histoire de Robespierre (Paris, 1865-1867) and Histoire de St-Just (2 vols., Brussels, 1860); A. Bigeon, Sieyès (Paris, 1893); Memoirs of Carnot, by his son (2 vols., Paris, 1861-1864). 1890, etc.). For fuller information see M. Tourneux, Les Sources bibliographiques de l'histoire de la Révolution Française (Paris, 1898, etc.), and Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution (Paris, (F. C. M.) French Republican Calendar-Among the changes made during the Revolution was the substitution of a new calendar, usually called the revolutionary or republican calendar, for the prevailing Gregorian system. Something of the sort had been suggested in 1785 by a certain Riboud, and a definite scheme had been promulgated by Pierre Sylvain Maréchal (1750-1803) | in his Almanach des honnêtes gens (1788). The objects which the advocates of a new calendar had in view were to strike a the Christian associations with which they were loaded, in short, to abolish the Christian year; and enthusiasts were already speaking of " the first year of liberty" and "the first year of the republic" when the national convention took up the matter in 1793. The business of drawing up the new calendar was entrusted to the president of the committee of public instruction, Charles Gilbert Romme (1750-1795), who was aided in the work by the mathematicians Gaspard Monge and Joseph Louis Lagrange, the poet Fabre d'Églantine and others. The result of their labours was submitted to the convention in September; it was accepted, and the new calendar became law on the 5th of October 1793. The new arrangement was regarded as begin ning on the 22nd of September 1792, this day being chosen because on it the republic was proclaimed and because it was in this year the day of the autumnal equinox. By the new calendar the year of 365 days was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, every month being divided into three periods of ten days, each of which were called decades, and the tenth, or last, day of each decade being a day of rest. It was also proposed to divide the day on the decimal system, but this arrangement was found to be highly inconvenient and it was never put into practice. Five days of the 365 still remained to be dealt with, and these were set aside for national festivals and holidays and were called Sans-culottides. They were to fall at the end of the year, i.e. on the five days between the 17th and the 21st of September inclusive, and were called the festivals of virtue, of genius, of labour, of opinion and of rewards. A similar course was adopted with regard to the extra day which occurred once in every four years, but the first of these was to fall in the year III., i.e. in 1795, and not in 1796, the leap year in the Gregorian calendar. This day was set apart for the festival of the Revolution and was to be the last of the Sans-culottides. Each period of four years was to be called a Franciade. Some discussion took place about the nomenclature of the new divisions of time. Eventually this work was entrusted to Fabre d'Eglantine, who gave to each month a name taken from some seasonal event therein. Beginning with the new year on the 22nd of September the autumn months were Vendémiaire, the month of vintage, Brumaire, the months of fog, and Frimaire, 22 Sept. 1794 1 Pluviose I Ventôse 1 Germinal 22 Oct. 21 Nov. 21 Déc. 20 Janv. 1794 19 Févr. 21 Mars " " " 22 Oct. 21 Nov. 21 Déc. 20 Janv. 1795 19 Févr. 21 Mars 20 Avr. " " " 23 Sept. 1795 23 Oct. 22 Nov. 22 Déc. 21 Janv. 1796 20 Févr. 21 Mars " " " 20 Avr. 1 Prairial 20 Mai " 20 Mai " I Messidor 1 Thermidor 19 Juin 19 Juil. I Fructidor 19 Juin 19 Juil. 20 Mai 19 Juin " 20 Avr. " 21 Avr. 20 Mai " 21 Avr. 19 Juil. 18 Août 19 Juil. " " 21 Mai " 20 Juin 20 Juil. " 19 Août 19 Août 22 AN X. 1801-1802. I Sans-culottides 17 Sept. 1794 17 Sept. 1795 17 Sept. 1796 17 Sept. 1797 17 Sept. 1798 17 Sept. 1799 18 Sept. 1800 18 Sept. 1801 the month of frost. The winter months were Nivôse, the snowy, Pluviôse, the rainy, and Ventôse, the windy month; then followed the spring months, Germinal, the month of buds, Floréal, the month of flowers, and Prairial, the month of meadows; and lastly the summer months, Messidor, the month of reaping, Thermidor, the month of heat, and Fructidor, the month of fruit. To the days Fabre d'Eglantine gave names which retained the idea of their numerical order, calling them Primedi, Duodi, &c., the last day of the ten, the day of rest, being named Décadi. The new order was soon in force in France and the new method was employed in all public documents, but it did not last many years. In September 1805 it was decided to restore the Gregorian calendar, and the republican one was officially discontinued on the 1st of January 1806. It will easily be seen that the connecting link between the old and the new calendars is very slight indeed and that the expression of a date in one calendar in terms of the other is a matter of some difficulty. A simple method of doing this, however, is afforded by the table on the preceding page, which is taken from the article by J. Dubourdieu in La Grande Encyclopédie. Thus Robespierre was executed on 10 Thermidor An II., ie. the 28th of July 1794. The insurrection of 12 Germinal An III. took place on the 1st of April 1795. The famous 18 Brumaire An VIII. fell on the 9th of November 1799, and the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor An V. on the 4th of September 1797. For a complete concordance of the Gregorian and the republican calendars see Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire, tome iii. (Leiden, 1889); also G. Villain, "Le Calendrier républicain," in La Révolution Française for 1884-1885. (A. W. H.*) FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS (1792-1800), the general name for the first part of the series of French wars which went on continuously, except for some local and temporary cessations of hostilities, from the declaration of war against Britain in 1792 to the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815. The most important of these cessations-viz. the peace of 1801-1803-closes the "Revolutionary" and opens the "Napoleonic " era of land warfare, for which see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS, PENINSULAR WAR and WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. The naval history of the period is divided somewhat differently; the first period, treated below, is 1792-1799; for the second, 1799-1815, see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. France declared war on Austria on the 20th of April 1792. But Prussia and other powers had allied themselves with Austria in view of war, and it was against a coalition and not a single power that France found herself pitted, at the moment when the emigration," the ferment of the Revolution, and want of material and of funds had thoroughly disorganized her army. The first engagements were singularly disgraceful. Near Lille the French soldiers fled at sight of the Austrian outposts, crying Nous sommes trahis, and murdered their general (April 29). The commanders-in-chief of the armies that were formed became one after another "suspects "; and before a serious action had been fought, the three armies of Rochambeau, Lafayette and Lückner had resolved themselves into two commanded by Dumouriez and Kellermann. Thus the disciplined soldiers of the Allies had apparently good reason to consider the campaign before them a military promenade. On the Rhine, a combined army of Prussians, Austrians, Hessians and émigrés under the duke of Brunswick was formed for the invasion of France, flanked by two smaller armies on its right and left, all three being under the supreme command of the king of Prussia. In the Netherlands the Austrians were to besiege Lille, and in the south the Piedmontese also took the field. The first step, taken against Brunswick's advice, was the issue (July 25) of a proclamation which, couched in terms in the last degree offensive to the French nation, generated the spirit that was afterwards to find expression in the "armed nation" of 1793-4, and sealed the fate of Louis XVI. The duke, who was a model sovereign in his own principality, sympathized with the constitutional side of the Revolution, while as a soldier he had no confidence in the success of the enterprise. After completing its preparations in the leisurely manner of the previous generation, his army crossed the French frontier on the 19th of August. Longwy was easily captured; and the Allies slowly marched on to Verdun, which was more indefensible even than Longwy. The commandant, Colonel Beaurepaire, shot himself in despair, and the place surrendered on the 3rd of September. Brunswick now began his march on Paris and approached the defiles of the Argonne. But Dumouriez, who had been training his raw troops at Valenciennes in constant small engagements, with the purpose of invading Belgium, now threw himself into the Argonne by a rapid and daring flank march, almost under the eyes of the Prussian advanced guard, and barred the Paris road, summoning Kellermann to his assistance from Metz. The latter moved but slowly, and before he arrived the northern part of the line of defence had been forced. Dumouriez, undaunted, changed front so as to face north, with his right wing on the Argonne and his left stretching towards Châlons, and in this position Kellermann joined him at St Menehould on the 19th of September. Brunswick meanwhile had passed the northern defiles and had then swung round to cut off Dumouriez from Châlons. At the completed, Kellermann, commanding in Dumouriez's moment when the Prussian manœuvre was nearly Valmy. momentary absence, advanced his left wing and took up a position between St Menehould and Valmy. The result was the world-renowned Cannonade of Valmy (September 20, 1792). Kellermann's infantry, nearly all regulars, stood steady. The French artillery justified its reputation as the best in Europe, and eventually, with no more than a half-hearted infantry attack, the duke broke off the action and retired. This trivial engagement was the turning-point of the campaign and a landmark in the world's history. Ten days later, without firing another shot, the invading army began its retreat. Dumouriez's pursuit was not seriously pressed; he occupied himself chiefly with a series of subtle and curious negotiations which, with the general advance of the French troops, brought about the complete withdrawal of the enemy from the soil of France. Meanwhile, the French forces in the south had driven back the Piedmontese and had conquered Savoy and Nice. Another French success was the daring expedition into Germany Jemappes. made by Custine from Alsace. Custine captured Mainz itself on the 21st of October and penetrated as far as Frankfurt. In the north the Austrian siege of Lille had completely failed, and Dumouriez now resumed his interrupted scheme for the invasion of the Netherlands. His forward movement, made as it was late in the season, surprised the Austrians, and he disposed of enormously superior forces. On the 6th of November he won the first great victory of the war at Jemappes near Mons and, this time advancing boldly, he overran the whole country from Namur to Antwerp within a month. " Such was the prelude of what is called the Great War" in England and the " Epopée" in France. Before going further it is necessary to summarize the special features of the French army-in leadership, discipline, tactics, organization and movement-which made these campaigns the archetype of modern warfare. army, 1792-1796. At the outbreak of the Revolution the French army, like other voluntary "long-service army, augmented armies in Europe, was a to some extent in war by drafts of militia. One of the first problems that the Constituent Assembly took upon itself to solve was the nationalization of this strictly royal and professional force, and as early as October 1789 the word The French Conscription" was heard in its debates. But it was decreed nevertheless that free enlistment alone befitted a free people, and the regular army was left unaltered in form. However, a National Guard came into existence side by side with it, and the history of French army organization in the next few years is the history of the fusion of these two elements. proprietary rights, the serial numbering of regiments throughout The first step, as regards the regular army, was the abolition of the Army, and the disbandment of the Maison du roi. The next was the promotion of deserving soldiers to fill the numerous vacancies caused by the emigration. Along with these, however, there came to the surface many incompetent leaders, favourites in the political clubs of Paris, &c., and the old strict discipline became impossible owing to the frequent intervention of the civil authorities in matters affecting it, the denunciation of generals, and especially the wild words and wild behaviour of "Volunteer" (embodied national guard) battalions. When war came, it was soon found that the regulars had fallen too low in numbers and that the national guard demanded too high pay, to admit of developing the expected field strength. Arms, discipline, training alike were wanting to the new levies, and the repulse of Brunswick was effected by manoeuvring and fighting on the old lines and chiefly with the old army. The cry of La patrie en danger, after giving, at the crisis, the highest moral support to the troops in the front, dwindled away after victory, and the French government contented itself with the half-measures that had, apparently, sufficed to avert the peril. More, when the armies went into winter quarters, the Volunteers claimed leave of absence and went home. But in the spring of 1793, confronted by a far more serious peril, the government took strong measures. Universal liability was asserted, and passed into law. Yet even now whole classes obtained exemption and the right of substitution as usual forced the burden of service on the poorer classes, so that of the 100,000 men called on for the regular army and 200,000 for the Volunteers, only some 180,000 were actually raised. Desertion, generally regarded as the curse of professional armies, became a conspicuous vice of the defenders of the Republic, except at moments when a supreme crisis called forth supreme devotion-moments which naturally were more or less prolonged in proportion to the gravity of the situation. Thus, while it almost disappeared in the great effort of 1793-1794, when the armies sustained bloody reverses in distant wars of conquest, as in 1799, it promptly rose again to an alarming height. While this unsatisfactory general levy was being made, defeats, defections and invasion in earnest came in rapid succession, and to deal with the almost desperate emergency, the ruthless Universal Committee of Public Safety sprang into existence. "The service levy is to be universal. Unmarried citizens and widowers of the without children of ages from 18 to 25 are to be called up "Amal first," and 450,000 recruits were immediately obtained by gầm." this single act. The complete amalgamation of the regular and volunteer units was decided upon. The white uniforms of the line gave place to the blue of the National Guard in all arms and services. The titles of officers were changed, and in fact every relic of the old régime, save the inherited solidity of the old regular battalions, was swept away. This rough combination of line and volunteers therefore -for the "Amalgam was not officially begun until 1794-must be understood when we refer to the French army of Hondschoote or of Wattignies. It contained, by reason of its universality and also because men were better off in the army than out of it-if they stayed at home they went in daily fear of denunciation and the guillotinethe best elements of the French nation. To some extent at any rate the political arrivistes had been weeded out, and though the informer, here as elsewhere, struck unseen blows, the mass of the army gradually evolved its true leaders and obeyed them. It was, therefore, an army of individual citizen-soldiers of the best type, welded by the enemy's fire, and conscious of its own solidarity in the midst of the Revolutionary chaos. After 1794 the system underwent but little radical change until the end of the Revolutionary period. Its regiments grew in military value month by month and attained their highest level in the great campaign of 1796. In 1795 the French forces (now all styled National Guard) consisted of 531,000 men, of whom 323,000 were infantry (100 3-battalion demi-brigades), 97,000 light infantry (30 demi-brigades), 29,000 artillery, 20,000 engineers and 59,000 cavalry. This novel army developed novel fighting methods, above all in the infantry. This arm had just received a new drillbook, as the result of a prolonged controversy (see INFANTRY) between the advocates of "lines" and "columns," and this drill-book, while retaining the principle of the line, set controversy at rest by admitting battalion columns of attack, and movements at the quick (100-120 paces to the minute) instead of at the "slow march (76). On these two prescriptions, ignoring the rest, the practical troop leaders built up the new tactics little by little, and almost unconsciously. The process of evolution cannot be stated exactly, for the officers learned to use and even to invent now one form, now another, according to ground and circumstances. But the main stream of progress is easily distinguishable. The earlier battles were fought more or less according to the drillbook, partly in line for fire action, partly in column for the bayonet attack. But line movements required the most accurate Tactics. drill, and what was attainable after years of practice with regulars moving at the slow march was wholly impossible for new levies moving at 120 paces to the minute. When, therefore, the line marched off, it broke up into a shapeless swarm of individual firers. This was the form, if form it can be called, of the tactics of 1793-" horde-tactics," as they have quite justly been called-and a few such experiences as that of Hondschoote sufficed to suggest the need of a remedy. This was found in keeping as many troops as possible out of the firing line. From 1794 onwards the latter becomes thinner and thinner, and instead of the drill-book form, with half the army firing in line (practically in hordes) and the other half in support in columns, we find the rear lines becoming more and more important and numerous, till at last the fire of the leading line (skirmishers) | becomes insignificant, and the decision rests with the bayonets of the closed masses in rear. Indeed, the latter often used mixed line and column formations, which enabled them not only to charge, but to fire close-order volleys-absolutely regardless of the skirmishers in front. In other words, the bravest and coolest marksmen were let loose to do what damage they could, and the rest, massed in close order, were kept under the control of their officers and only exposed to the dissolving influence of the fight when the moment arrived to deliver, whether by fire or by shock, the decisive blow. The cavalry underwent little change in its organization and tactics, which remained as in the drill-books founded on Frederick's practice. But except in the case of the hussars, who were chiefly Cavalry. Alsatians, it was thoroughly disorganized by the emigra- Artillery. tion or execution of the nobles who had officered it, and Engineers. for long it was incapable of facing the hostile squadrons in the open. Still, its elements were good, it was fairly well trained, and mounted, and not overwhelmed with national guard drafts, and like the other arms it duly evolved and obeyed new leaders. In artillery matters this period, 1792-1796, marks an important progress, due above all to Gribeauval (q.v.) and the two du Teils, Jean Pierre (1722–1794) and Jean (1733-1820) who were Napoleon's instructors. The change was chiefly in organization and equipment -the great tactical development of the arm was not to come until the time of the Grande Armée-and may be summarized as the transition from battalion guns and reserve artillery to batteries of "horse and field." The engineers, like the artillery, were a technical and non-noble corps. They escaped, therefore, most of the troubles of the Revolution-indeed the artillery and engineer officers, Napoleon and Carnot amongst them, were conspicuous in the political regeneration of France and the engineers carried on with little change the traditions of Vauban and Cormontaingne (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT). Both these corps were, after the Revolution as before it, the best in Europe, other armies admitting their superiority and following their precepts. In all this the army naturally outgrew its old "linear" organization. Temporary divisions, called for by momentary necessities, placed under selected generals and released from the detailed supervision of the commander-in-chief, soon became, though in an irregular and haphazard fashion, permanent organisms, and by 1796 the divisional system had become practically universal. The next step, as the armies became fewer and larger, was the temporary grouping of divisions; this too in turn became permanent, and bequeathed to the military world of to-day both the army corps and the capable, self-reliant and enterprising subordinate generals, for whom the old linear organization had no room. of modera Ing-point warfare. This subdivision of forces was intimately connected with the general method of making war adopted by the "New French,' as their enemies called them. What astonished the Allies most of all was the number and the velocity of the Repub- The startlicans. These improvised armies had in fact nothing to delay them. Tents were unprocurable for want of money untransportable for want of the enormous number of wagons that would have been required, and also unnecessary, for the discomfort that would have caused wholesale desertion in professional armies was cheerfully borne by the men of 1793-1794.. Supplies for armies of then unheard-of size could not be carried in convoys, and the French soon became familiar with "living on the country." Thus 1793 saw the birth of the modern system of war-rapidity of movement, full development of national strength, bivouacs and requisitions, and force, as against cautious manoeuvring, small professional armies, tents and full rations, and chicane. The first represented the decision-compelling spirit, the second the spirit of risking little to gain a little. Above all, the decision-compelling spirit was reinforced by the presence of the emissaries of the Committee of Public Safety, the "representatives on mission who practically controlled the guillotine. There were civil officials with the armies of the Allies too, but their chief function was not to infuse desperate energy into the military operations, but to see that the troops did not maltreat civilians. Such were the fundamental principles of the "New French" method of warfare, from which the warfare of to-day descends in the direct line. But it was only after a painful period of trial and error, of waste and misdirection, that it became possible for the French army to have evolved Napoleon, and for Napoleon to evolve the principles and methods of war that conformed to and profited to the utmost by the new conditions. Those campaigns and battles of this army which are described in detail in the present article have been selected, some on account of their historical importance-as producing great results; others from their military interest--as typifying and illustrating the nature of the revolution undergone by the art of war in these heroic years. CAMPAIGNS IN THE NETHERLANDS The year 1793 opened disastrously for the Republic. As a consequence of Jemappes and Valmy, France had taken the offensive both in Belgium, which had been overrun by Dumouriez's army, and in the Rhine countries, where Custine had preached the new gospel to the sentimental and halfdiscontented Hessians and Mainzers. But the execution of Louis XVI. raised up a host of new and determined enemies. England, Holland, Austria, Prussia, Spain and Sardinia promptly formed the First Coalition. England poured out money in pro- talked of the partition of France as a question of the moment fusion to pay and equip her Allies' land armies, and herself began like the partition of Poland—a pretension that even the émigrés the great struggle for the command of the sea (see Naval Opera-resented. tions, below). Neerwinden. In the Low Countries, while Dumouriez was beginning his proposed invasion of Holland, Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg, the new Austrian commander on the Lower Rhine, advanced with 42,000 men from the region of Cologne, and drove in the various detachments that Dumouriez had posted to cover his right. The French general thereupon abandoned his advance into Holland, and, with what forces he could gather, turned towards the Meuse. The two armies met at Neerwinden (q.v.) on the 18th of March 1793. Dumouriez had only a few thousand men more than his opponent, instead of the enormous superiority he had had at Jemappes. Thus the enveloping attack could not be repeated, and in a battle on equal fronts the old generalship and the old armies had the advantage. Dumouriez was thoroughly defeated, the house of cards collapsed, and the whole of the French forces retreated in confusion to the strong line of border fortresses, created by Louis XIV. and Vauban.' Dumouriez, witnessing the failure of his political schemes, declared against the Republic, and after a vain attempt to induce his own army to follow his example, fled (April 5) into the Austrian lines. The leaderless Republicans streamed back to Valenciennes. There, however, they found a general. Picot (comte de) Dampierre was a regimental officer of the old army, who, in spite of his vanity and extravagance, possessed real loyalty to the new order of things, and brilliant personal courage. At the darkest hour he seized the reins without orders and without reference to seniority, and began to reconstruct the force and the spirit of the shattered army by wise administration and dithyrambic proclamations. Moreover, he withdrew it well behind Valenciennes out of reach of a second reverse. The region of Dunkirk and Cassel, the camp of La Madeleine near Lille, and Bouchain were made the rallying points of the various groups, the principal army being at the last-named. But the blow of Neerwinden had struck deep, and the army was for long incapable of service, what with the general distrust, the misconduct of the newer battalions, and the discontent of the old white-coated regiments that were left ragged and shoeless to the profit of the " patriot corps. "Beware of giving horses to the Hussars of Liberty,' wrote Carnot, all these new corps are abominable." Coburg's plan of campaign was limited to the objects acceptable to all the Allies alike. He aimed at the conquest of a first-class fortress-Lille or Valenciennes-and chiefly for this reason. War meant to the burgher of Germany and the Netherlands a special form of haute politique with which it was neither his business nor his inclination to meddle. He had no more compunction, therefore, in selling his worst goods at the best price to the army commissaries than in doing so to his ordinary customers. It followed that, owing to the distance between Vienna and Valenciennes, and the exorbitant prices charged by carters and horse-owners, a mere concentration of Austrian troops at the latter place cost as much as a campaign, and the transport expenses rose to such a figure that Coburg's first duty was to find a strong place to serve as a market for the countryside and a depot for the supplies purchased, and to have it as near as possible to the front to save the hire of vehicles. As for the other governments which Coburg served as best he could, the object of the war was material concessions, and it would be easy to negotiate for the cession of Dunkirk and Valenciennes when the British and Austrian colours already waved there. The Allies, therefore, instead of following up their advantage over the French field army and driving forward on the open Paris road, set their faces westward, intending to capture Valenciennes, | Le Quesnoy, Dunkirk and Lille one after the other. at Valen Dampierre meanwhile grew less confident as responsibility settled upon his shoulders. Quite unable to believe that Coburg would bury himself in a maze of rivers and fortresses when he could scatter the French army to the winds Dampierre by a direct advance, he was disquieted and puzzled ciennes. by the Austrian investment of Condé. This was followed by skirmishes around Valenciennes, so unfavourable to the French that their officers felt it would be madness to venture far beyond the support of the fortress guns. But the representatives on mission ordered Dampierre, who was reorganizing his army at Bouchain, to advance and occupy Famars camp, east of Valenciennes, and soon afterwards, disregarding his protests, bade him relieve Condé at all costs. His skill, though not commensurate with his personal courage and devotion, sufficed to give him the idea of attacking Coburg on the right bank of the Scheldt while Clerfayt, with the corps covering the siege of Condé, was on the left, and then to turn against Clerfayt France was in fact defenceless, and the opportunity existed for the military promenade to Paris that the allied statesmen had-in fact, to operate on interior lines-but it was far from being imagined in 1792. But Coburg now ceased to be a purely Austrian commander, for one by one allied contingents, with instructions that varied with the political aims of the various governments, began to arrive. Moreover, he had his own views as to the political situation, fearing especially to be the cause of the queen's death as Brunswick had been of the king's, and negotiated for a settlement. The story of these negotiations should be read in Chuquet's Valenciennes-it gives the key to many mysteries of the campaign and shows that though the revolutionary spirit had already passed all understanding, enlightened men such as Coburg and his chief-of-staff Mack sympathized with its first efforts and thought the constitution of 1791 a gain to humanity. "If you come to Paris you will find 80,000 patriots ready to die," said the French negotiators. "The patriots could not resist the Austrian regulars," replied Coburg, "but I do not propose to go to Paris. I desire to sce a stable government, with a chief, king or other, with whom we can treat." Soon, however, these personal negotiations were stopped by the emperor, and the idea of restoring Assembly order in France became little more than a pretext of the Allies. for a general intrigue amongst the confederate powers, each seeking to aggrandize itself at France's expense. "If you wish to deal with the French," observed Dumouriez ironically to Coburg, "talk 'constitution.' You may beat them but you cannot subdue them." And their subjugation was becoming less and less possible as the days went on and men 'For the following operations see map in SPANISH SUCCESSION WAR. adequate to the task of beating either with the disheartened forces he commanded. On the 1st of May, while Clerfayt was held in check by a very vigorous demonstration, Coburg's positions west of Quiévrain were attacked by Dampierre himself. The French won some local successes by force of numbers and surprise, but the Allies recovered themselves, thanks chiefly to the address and skill of Colonel Mack,and drove the Republicans in disorder to their entrenchments. Dampierre's discouragement now became desperation,and, urged on by the representatives (who, be it said, had exposed their own lives freely enough in the action), he attacked Clerfayt on the 8th at Raismes. The troops fought far better in the woods and hamlets west of the Scheldt than they had done in the plains to the east. But in the heat of the action Dampierre, becoming again the brilliant soldier that he had been before responsibility stifled him, risked and lost his life in leading a storming party, and his men retired sullenly, though this time in good order, to Valenciennes. Two days later the French gave up the open field and retired into Valenciennes. Dampierre's remains were by a vote of the Convention ordered to be deposited in the Panthéon. But he was a "ci-devant " noble, the demagogues denounced him as a traitor, and the only honour finally paid to the man who had tided over the weeks of greatest danger was the placing of his bust, in the strange company of those of Brutus and Marat, in the chamber of deputies. Another pause followed, Coburg awaiting the British contingent under the duke of York, and the Republicans endeavouring to assimilate the reinforcements of conscripts, for the most part | Bouchain and Cambrai, Landrecies and Le Quesnoy, were left "undesirables," who now arrived. Mutiny and denunciations to their own garrisons. augmented the confusion in the French camp. Plan of campaign there was none, save a resolution to stay at Valenciennes in the hope of finding an opportunity of relieving Condé and to create diversions elsewhere by expeditions from Dunkirk, Lille and Sedan. These of course came to nothing, and before they had even started, Coburg, resuming the offensive, had stormed the lines of Famars (May 24), whereupon the French army retired to Bouchain, leaving not only Condé1 but also Valenciennes to resist as best they could. The central point of the new positions about Bouchain was called Caesar's Camp. Here, surrounded by streams and marshes, the French generals thought that their troops were secure from the rush of the dreaded Austrian cavalry, and Mack himself shared their opinion. Custine now took command of the abjectly dispirited army, the fourth change of command within two months. His first task was to institute a severe discipline, and his prestige was so great that his mere threat of death sentences for offenders produced the desired effect. As to operations, he wished for a concentration of all possible forces from other parts of the frontier towards Valenciennes, even if necessary at the cost of sacrificing his own conquest of Mainz. But after he had induced the government to assent to this, the generals of the numerous other armies refused to give up their troops, and on the 17th of June the idea was abandoned in view of the growing seriousness of the Vendéan insurrection (see VENDÉE). Custine, therefore, could do no more than continue the work of reorganization. Military operations were few. Coburg, who had all this time succeeded in remaining concentrated, now found himself compelled to extend leftwards towards Flanders,2 for Custine had infused some energy into the scattered groups of the Republicans in the region of Douai, Lille and Dunkirk-and during this respite the Paris Jacobins sent to the guillotine both Custine and his successor La Marlière before July was ended. Both were "ci-devant " nobles and, so far as is ascertainable, neither was guilty of anything worse than attempts to make his orders respected by, and himself popular with, the soldiers. By this time, owing to the innumerable denunciations and arrests, the confusion in the Army of the North was at its height, and no further attempt was made either to relieve Valenciennes and Condé, or to press forward from Lille and Dunkirk. Condé, starved out as Coburg desired, capitulated on the 10th of June, and the Austrians, who had done their work as soldiers, but were filled with pity for their suffering and distracted enemies, marched in with food for the women and children. 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. ! Coburg refrained from a regular siege of Condé. He wished to gain possession of the fortress in a defensible state, intending to use it as his own depot later in the year. He therefore reduced it by famine. During the siege of Valenciennes the Allies appear to have been supplied from Mons. Fall of Valen. ciennes. Henceforth to the end of 1794 both armies were more or less "in cordon," the cordon possessing greater or less density at any particular moment or place, according to the immediate intentions of the respective commanders and the general military situation. 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 régime 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. Jean Nicolas Houchard, the next officer appointed to command, had been a heavy cavalry trooper in the Seven Years' War. His face bore the scars of wounds received at Minden, and Houchard. his bravery, his stature, his bold and fierce manner, his want of education, seemed to all to betoken the ideal sansculotte general. But he was nevertheless incapable of leading an army, and knowing this, carefully conformed to the advice of his staff officers Berthelmy and Gay-Vernon, the latter of whom, an exceptionally capable officer, had been Custine's chief of staff and was consequently under suspicion. At one moment, indeed, operations had to be suspended altogether because his papers were seized by the civil authorities, and amongst them were all the confidential memoranda and maps required for the business of headquarters. It was the darkest hour. The Vendéans, the people of Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon, were in open and hitherto successful revolt. Valenciennes had fallen and Coburg's hussar parties pressed forward into the Somme valley. Again the Allies had the decision of the war in their own hands. Coburg,indeed, was still afraid, on Marie Antoinette's account, of forcing the Republicans to extremities, and on military grounds too he thought an advance on Paris hazardous. But, hazardous or not, it would have been attempted but for the English. The duke of York had definite orders from his government to capture Dunkirk-at present a nest of corsairs which interfered with the Channel trade, and in the future, it was hoped, a second Gibraltar-and after the fall of Valenciennes and the capture of Caesar's Camp the English and Hanoverians marched away, via Tournai and Ypres, to besiege the coast fortress. Thereupon the king of Prussia in turn called off his contingent for operations on the middle Rhine. Holland, too, though she maintained her contingent in face of Lille (where it covered Flanders), was not disposed to send it to join the imperialists in an adventure in the heart of France. Coburg, therefore, was brought to a complete standstill, and the scene of the decision was shifted to the district between Lille and the coast. Thither came Carnot, the engineer officer who was in charge of military affairs in the Committee of Public Safety and is known to history as the "Organizer of Victory." His views of the strategy to be pursued indicate either a purely geographical idea of war, which does not square with his later principles and practice, or, as is far more likely, a profound disbelief in the capacity of the Army of the North, as it then stood, to fight a battle, and they went no further than to recommend an inroad into Flanders on the ground that no enemy would be encountered there. This, however, in the event developed into an operation of almost decisive importance, for at the moment of its inception the duke of York was already on the march. Fighting en route a very severe but successful action (Lincelles, Aug. 18) with the French troops encamped near Lille, the Anglo-Hanoverians entered the district-densely intersected with canals and morasses-around Dunkirk and Bergues on the 21st and 22nd. On the right, by way of Furnes, the British moved towards Dunkirk and invested the east front of the weak fortress, while on the left the Hanoverian field marshal v. Freytag moved via Poperinghe on Bergues. The French had a chain of outposts between Furnes and Bergues, but Freytag attacked them, resolutely, and the defenders,except a brave handful who stood |