op-zoom was blockaded; and Williamstadt was invested. But here this once triumphant general was destined to experience how precarious the smiles of fortune are in war. Williamstadt was so bravely defended by the garrison under count Botzlaer, reinforced with a brigade of the British guards lately debarked in Holland, and assisted by the English and Dutch gunboats, that Dumouriez was obliged to raise the siege; and, in consequence, he was constrained to evacuate Klundert, and to retreat towards Antwerp. The French arms had been equally unprosperous on the banks of the Maese. Whilst Miranda was vigorously carrying on the siege of Maestricht, the Austrian armies were employed with great success against Valence, who was posted with a strong body of troops to guard Liege. General Clairfait, passing the Roer, made a successful attack on Valence's outposts. The archduke Charles, attacking their batteries, took nine pieces of artillery. And the prince of Saxe Cobourg, who commanded in chief, attacking Valence near Aix la Chapelle, gained a complete victory;† the French general being forced to retreat precipitately to Liege with the loss of 4000 men killed and 1000 taken prisoners.' - These events had great influence on the fortune of the campaign. Miranda, having been foiled in every attack by the firmness of the garrison of Maestricht, commanded by the prince of Hesse, was ordered to raise the siege and form a junction with Valence. Deflers, who was invested with the command of Dumouriez's army, was forced to shut himself up in Breda on the approach of an united army of Dutch and Prussian forces. And Dumouriez, taking the command of Miranda's army, gave battle to the Austrians near Landen. But the disparity of numbers and the animation with which success had inspired the allies baffled all his efforts. His right wing, where he commanded in person, had long the advantage; but not being properly supported by the left, it was at last obliged to give way, on the advance of Clairfait with his corps de reserve. The result was a complete victory to the Austrians. And the plains of Landen or Neerwynde, once a field of glory to France, 4 was now covered with the dead bodies of 4000 of her troops.-The Austrians are said to have lost 2000.The 1793 February 28. + March 8. + March 20. + In 1693. › Ann. Reg. 244. 1793 The ill fortune of this day was imputed by Dumouriez to Miranda's not having done his duty in the engagement. But that general vindicated himself; and founded a suspicion of treachery in Dumouriez on his not having consulted him respecting the order of battle," when it was of the greatest importance that he, who was to command one wing of the army, should be made perfectly acquainted with it. Neither charge may have been well-founded: but the subsequent events confirmed the suspicions entertained of Dumouriez.-He tells us himself, in the words of Plutarch, "that when an action is not honourable, it is time to see its baseness, "and to abandon it." n He was disgusted with the present system of things. He abhorred the idea of being made the instrument of executing the plan now meditated for subjugating, plundering, and oppressing the Flemings, whom the government had, a few months since, invited to partake with the French nation in its freedom. His enterprising mind was full of the glory of relieving his country from a wretched state of anarchy and restoring a limited monarchy. The occasion was favourable; when the convention was divided and embroiled by the rival partisans of Roberspierre, the chief of the jacobins, of Danton who was still at the head of the orleanists and cordeliers, and the incendiary Marat, who was ready to be hired by the faction which would pay him best for his services; and when he was assured of the support of the girondists in any scheme for the destruction of the jacobins, whose enmity towards them was founded on the two strong motives, of rivalship in power and difference of political principles. It is not reasonable to suppose that, at such a crisis, when the success of his political schemes depended on the attachment of the troops to him, he would voluntarily expose himself to the disgrace of a defeat, in order to conciliate the favour of the Austrians, or to bring distress on the French government. The events which ensued immediately after the battle serve to clear him of this imputation. Retiring from the field in good order, he possessed himself successively of advantageous positions to cover Brussels and Louvain, and repulsed the Austrians in their attempts to dispossess him. In the last of these, near Louvain, † where the honour of the day was contested with great valour, he forced the enemy to retire with considerable loss. At this time a disposition to amity appeared between the Austrian and French generals. Colonel Mountjoy being sent by Dumouriez to the prince of Cobourg's camp, to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, proposals for an armistice were made either by that officer or colonel Mack, who was employed to treat with him. In consequence of this, an interview took place between Mack and Dumouriez; where it was settled that the French army, which the government, through jealousy of their commander in chief, had suffered to moulder away till it was become totally unequal to the task of maintaining its conquests, was to be suffered to retire unmolested through Brussels to the French frontier. Becoming daily more apprehensive of danger from the jacobins, Dumouriez determined to make a bold effort for the destruction of their power, with the assistance of the Austrian army. Colonel Mack arriving at his camp near Aeth, it was there agreed "that the French army should remain "some time longer in possession of Mons, Tournay, and Courtray, without being harassed by the imperialists: that general Dumouriez, who did not "conceal from colonel Mack his design of marching against Paris, should, "when their designs were ripe for execution, regulate the motions of the imperialists, who were to act only as auxiliaries in the execution of them: "that, in case of Dumouriez needing no assistance, the imperialists should "not pass the French frontier; and that the total evacuation of Belgium "should be the price of this condescension: but if Dumouriez could not ef"fect the re-establishment of a limited monarchy, (not a counter-revolution) " he should himself indicate the number and kind of troops which the imperialists should furnish, to aid in the project, and should have the entire "direction of them."-The duke of Chartres assisting at this interview, it was supposed by some that Dumouriez intended to place his father, the duke of Orleans, on the throne. But his acting in concert with the Austrians induced others to believe, on better grounds, that his views were favourable to the dauphin's interests. Whatever they might be, his intentions could be no longer concealed, and an open rupture ensued between him + March 27. P Segur. 3. 33. Gifford. 733. 1793 1793 him and the convention. He addressed a letter to Beurnonville, minister at war, charging the government with misconduct in that department, and ascribing to it the loss of his conquests in the Netherlands.—When commissioners were sent to sound his intentions, he openly avowed them; declaring that the convention would ruin France, and that it would not exist three weeks longer. Moreover, when they asked him whether he wished to have a king, he replied without reserve, "we must have one." The hour was now arrived when the merits of Dumouriez's revolutionary project was to be proved; when his eyes were to be opened with respect to his popularity among the troops, which self-flattery had closed.He now perceived, to his mortification, that the enthusiastic fondness which his brilliant exploits had created would not stand the test of adverse fortune; nor was the disapprobation which his troops had expressed of the present system of government a sufficient inducement to unite with a foreign power in subverting it. Such had been the success of the jacobins in impressing all other parties with a fear of their power, that the general's warmest friends, the girondists, were constrained on this occasion to dissemble their sentiments, and affected a disposition to join the jacobins in the means they were taking for punishing his defection.'-He was not, however, intimidated by the desertion of his partisans; but assumed that daring countenance which alone can give success to a revolt. When Beurnonville and the other commissioners came to arrest him at St. Amand, he delivered them up to the prince of Cobourg, to be held as hostages for the safety of the royal family. He then concerted with that general a manifesto to be published; in which they endeavoured to avoid the odium of his confederating with an hostile power by a declaration that the Austrians renounced all idea of conquest, and meant only to assist in restoring the constitution established in 1791. With this liberal manifesto he returned to his camp at Maulde; and, addressing his army, he earnestly exhorted them to share with him in the honour of so glorious an achievement. But he immediately perceived that the officers were disaffected to his cause: and the murmurs which were heard along the line sufficiently discovered the disposition of his troops. Sensible of the danger which threatened him, he lost not a moment to provide provide against it. Decamping suddenly with about 700 men, accompanied by the duke of Chartres, colonel Thouvenot, and some other officers, he escaped to the Austrian army: and being received by colonel Mack, he was escorted by him to Mons. Thus terminated the adventurous career of this enterprising and ambitious man. He was appointed to a commission in the imperial army. But the reproach which attaches itself to treachery, even under the most favourable circumstances, still adhered to him. He was regarded with suspicion; and soon sunk into insignificance. The advocates for peace now hoped that the allies would have seized the present favourable moment, and have made an effort at least to restore that blessing to Europe, when the disordered circumstances of France might dispose it to accede to any terms, except the destruction of the existing republican government. But success, agreeably with its natural effects, breathed different sentiments into the allies. The French had been dispossessed of all the conquests which they had so rapidly made in the Netherlands. They had been repulsed in their attack on Holland. The Prussians had been successful against Custine on the Rhine. They had foiled the efforts of that general to regain his ground, and were now besieging Mentz. In the mean-time, the French government was rent and weakened by faction, and distressed by revolts in different quarters of the kingdom.—It is impossible, said the allies, that they should withstand the forces of so powerful a confederacy as is now formed against them: We will, therefore, avail ourselves of the advantages we possess; and, pursuing our successes, we will force them to establish such a form of government as we may deem essential to the general welfare of Europe. Such appear to have been the sentiments by which the allies suffered themselves to be precipitated into this most destructive war. Unwilling to ascribe success to any other cause than their own superior strength and address, they disregarded the admonitions of experience and the evidences of history, which might have led them to reflect on the disunion which generally soon takes place in confederacies, the energy and enthusiasm inspired by an opinion, even though ill-founded, that men are fighting in defence of their freedom, and the impossibility of dispossessing a nation under such circumstances of the form of 1793 |