Charles-François Dumouriez

Charles-François Dumouriez, Général en chef de l'Armée du Nord (1739–1823) , posthumous portrait of Jean Sébastien Rouillard, Paris 1834.
Dumouriez's signature:

Charles-François du Périer du Mouriez , called Dumouriez , (born January 25 or 27, 1739 in Cambrai , † March 14, 1823 in Turville Park near Henley-on-Thames ) was a French general who, after initial successes in the First Coalition War switched sides and committed treason .

Training and first career in the French army

His father was a member of the royal army and provided his son with a good and broad education. The boy continued his studies at the Collège Louis-le-Grand and began his military career in 1757 as a volunteer at the Battle of Roßbach . In the later German campaigns in the Seven Years' War he fought with distinction; but after the peace treaty he was retired with a small pension and the Ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis .

Secret Service and Captivity

Dumouriez then traveled to Italy, Corsica, Spain and Portugal, and his writings to Étienne-François, Duke of Choiseul, on Corsican affairs led to his re-employment on the staff of the French Expeditionary Force that was sent to the island; for this he received the rank of lieutenant colonel . Then he became a member of the Secret du roi , the secret service under Louis XV. In 1770 he was sent on a mission to Poland, where, in addition to his political business, he organized a Polish militia. The fall of Choiseul led to his recall, and a little later he was imprisoned in the Bastille , where he spent six months studying literature. He was then taken to Caen , where he stayed until Louis XVI ascended the throne . stopped. After his release in 1774, he married his cousin Mademoiselle de Broissy, but he was negligent and unfaithful, and in 1789 the couple separated, with his wife taking refuge in a convent. In the meantime Dumouriez had devoted his attention to the internal state of his country, and among the numerous memoranda that he sent to the government was one on the defense of Normandy and its ports, which secured him command of Cherbourg in 1778 , which he successfully ten years long managed. In 1788 he became Maréchal de camp .

Career during the French Revolution

Ascent

At the outbreak of the French Revolution , Dumouriez went to Paris , seeing an opportunity for his career, and joined the Jacobin Club . Mirabeau's death on April 2, 1791, on which he had bet, was a major setback for him. After he rose to the position of lieutenant-général and commanding officer of Nantes , an opportunity arose after the attempt of the royal family to flee abroad , in June 1791, when he attracted attention by an offer of help to the National Assembly . He now joined the Girondist party and was appointed Foreign Minister on March 15, 1792. He was largely responsible for the declaration of war on Austria (April 20); the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands was planned by him. After the dismissal of Jean-Marie Roland , Étienne Clavières and Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey on June 13, he took over the Ministry of War from the latter, but resigned two days later after the king refused to come to an agreement with the National Assembly. Now he joined the army of Nikolaus von Luckner and was appointed commander of the central army after the storm on the Tuileries of August 10 and Lafayette's escape.

General of the Republic

At the same moment the coalition went on the offensive. Dumouriez responded immediately. His subordinate François Christophe de Kellermann fought back the Prussians at Valmy (September 20, 1792), and he himself defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes (November 6). Both battles were of great psychological importance, as Dumouriez's troops, which consisted to a large extent of volunteers, had withstood the best soldiers in Europe at the time. Nevertheless, they were not decisive for the war, since Dumouriez had both times renounced to pursue the withdrawing troops of the enemy and to rub them up. Dumouriez's troops continued to advance and captured Antwerp on November 29th . All of Belgium was then occupied by the French.

When the general returned to Paris on January 1, 1793, he was greeted with tumultuous applause. His efforts to get the execution of Louis XVI. prevent, which the National Convention debated in January 1793, made him suspicious of the radical revolutionary; In addition, Dumouriez found himself in a dispute with the minister of war Jean-Nicolas Pache , who leaned towards the mountain party , who tried to centralize the supply of the armies in a separate directory in order to limit the influence of private army suppliers, some of whom made enormous profits. However, Dumouriez's army was existentially dependent on their supplies. To investigate these problems, the convent sent the prominent Cordelier Georges Danton to Belgium with Jean-François Delacroix , Armand Gaston Camus and Eugène Constant Joseph César Gossuin in November 1792 , but they were unable to achieve anything. Dumouriez, with the help of the Girondins, ensured that Pache had to resign at the end of January 1793.

The main conflict between Dumouriez and the radical revolutionaries was rooted in the expansionist policy of the Convention, which aimed to annex all areas within the supposedly " natural borders of France " . The decree of December 15, 1792 also provided for the inflation- prone assignats to be introduced into the conquered areas and the church property there to be expropriated. Dumouriez protested: According to his ideas, the inhabitants of Belgium should form their own republic and be burdened as little as possible by the occupation, which he could not get through. Large parts of the population of Belgium, which they actually wanted to liberate, began to defend themselves against the French occupation: After Dumouriez's return he found the country in open uprising.

Confrontation with the Jacobins and high treason

The execution of the king and the French declaration of war on Great Britain and the Netherlands increasingly prompted Dumouriez to follow his own plans: he wanted to install non-Jacobean rule in the Netherlands, then restore self-government in Belgium and throw the radical revolutionaries out of the country, to then negotiate a peace treaty based on a return to the French constitution of 1791 , which had established a constitutional monarchy . If the National Convention should oppose this, it would march on Paris and put the nineteen-year-old Duke of Chartres, later King Louis-Philippe , on the throne.

Dumouriez had long been pressing for the war to be extended to the Republic of the Netherlands . On February 16, 1793 the time had come: The French troops invaded Holland, and on February 25, Breda was occupied. The unexpectedly strong Austrian counter-attack led to the loss of Aachen and Liège . So the convention ordered Dumouriez to withdraw from the Netherlands. He obeyed, but wrote an angry and presumptuous letter on March 12th, which is considered to be his "declaration of war on the Convention". Shortly afterwards he had the Jacobins and sans-culottes arrested in Belgium. On March 18, 1793, his troops suffered another defeat against the Austrian army in the Battle of Neerwinden . Rumors spread in Paris that Dumouriez would join forces with the enemy, whereupon the Convention again sent Delacroix and Danton to Dumouriez's headquarters in Saint-Amand to investigate his warfare and to get the general to withdraw his "declaration of war". After a lengthy conversation with him, Danton returned to Paris on March 23 without receiving a clear answer, and only four days later did he publicly announce that Dumouriez should be left in his post as the only successful general the Republic had. This contributed to repeated suspicions that he was in cahoots with Dumouriez or acting out of selfish financial interest. Perhaps it was also important to him to reconcile himself with the Girondists. However, Danton was unable to get his way on the Defense Committee, too many witnesses to prove the treasonous plans of the general. On March 30, 1793, the convention therefore decided to send four commissioners and Minister of War Pierre Riel de Beurnonville to Dumouriez to persuade him to abandon his plans and to bring him to Paris for further interrogation. He had the five men arrested and handed over to the Austrians. His plan to seize all of Belgium and to march on Paris together with the Austrians, about which he negotiated with Colonel Karl Mack von Leiberich around April 1, 1793 , proved to be impracticable because many of his soldiers were staunch Republicans and several of his officers turned against him. Therefore, on April 5, 1793, Dumouriez moved with the Duke of Chartres, his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, and the 4 ^e régiment de hussards to the Austrian camp near Mons .

This open high treason contributed to the delegitimization of the Girondins in Paris, who had always supported him until then. In the election of the first welfare committee on April 7th, not a single Girondist received enough votes. As early as April 3, the spokesman of the mountain party Maximilien de Robespierre declared the whole war as a game between Dumouriez and Jacques Pierre Brissot , the spokesman for the Girondins, with the aim of overthrowing the republic:

“Brissot was and still is Dumouriez's intimate friend; […] Brissot is connected to all the threads of the Dumouriez ' conspiracy . […] I declare that there has not been an occasion where Brissot did not defend Dumouriez. Dumouriez's plan was to embroil us in an ominous and dangerous war and then turn it against our freedom. Dumouriez and Brissot were the first to propose war against Austria. And remember what we told you: Before we declare war on Europe, slaughter the royal court and replace your generals! "

emigration

Now he moved from country to country. He was repeatedly in intrigues with Louis XVIII. involved or in intrigue to establish an Orléanist monarchy (see Ludwig Philip and Orléanists ). He eventually settled in England in 1804, where the government granted him a pension of £ 1,200 a year. He became a valuable advisor to the War Ministry in connection with the conflict with Napoleon ; the extent of this activity was not known until many years later. In 1814 and 1815 he tried to get from Louis XVIII. to be appointed Marshal of France was refused.

Dumouriez died near London on March 14, 1823. His name is recorded on the triumphal arch in Paris on the north pillar in the 3rd column.

swell

Dumouriez 'memoirs were published in two volumes in Hamburg in 1794; In the same year a German translation was published in Berlin:

• Charles François Dumouriez: Mémoires du général Dumouriez, écrits par lui-même, 2 volumes, Hamburg / Leipzig 1794.
• Memories of General Dumouriez, together with the portrait of the author, written by himself, with notes by Christoph Girtanner. 2 volumes, Berlin a. a. 1794.

An expanded edition of the memoir was published in Paris in 1822/23:

• La vie et les mémoires du général Dumouriez, avec des notes et des éclaircissemens historiques par [Saint-Albin] Berville et [Jean-François] Barrière. 4 volumes, Paris 1822 f. (Also published as a microfiche edition by Georg Olms, Hildesheim 1994–1998.)

Also noteworthy:

• Cyrus Valence: Lettres du Général Valence pour servier de suite aux mémoires du général Dumouriez. Frankfurt am Main 1794.
• Développement succint des principes constitutionnels par les faits des Jacobins au général Dumouriez d'après ses mémoires de 1794, par un gentilhomme de la province d'Auvergne. cit. [1794].
• Correspondance inédite de Mademoiselle Théophile de Fernig, aide de camp du général Dumouriez ..., avec introductions et notes par Honoré Bonhomme. Paris 1873 (in a letter to Beurnonville , Dumouriez wrote about the Fernig sisters: "Leur présence au sein de notre armée est fort agréable, mais ces demoiselles ont abandonné à la guerre ce qu'elles avaient de plus précieux!" Henry, Dumouriez, p. 372)).

literature

• Jean-Pierre Bois: Dumouriez, héros et proscrit: un itinéraire militaire, politique et moral entre l'Ancien Régime et la Restauration. Paris 2005, ISBN 2-262-02058-2 .
• Patricia Chastain Howe: Foreign policy and the French Revolution. Charles-Francois Dumouriez, Pierre Lebrun, and the Belgian Plan, 1789–1793 . Palgrave Macmillan, London 2008.
• Isabelle Henry: Dumouriez, général de la Révolution (1739–1823): biography. Paris 2002, ISBN 2-7475-2199-0 (modern biography with strongly novel-like features).

Web links

• Literature by and about Charles-François Dumouriez in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Louis Bergeron , François Furet , Reinhart Koselleck : The Age of the European Revolution 1780–1848 (= Fischer World History . Volume 26). Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 60.
2. ↑ Patricia Chastain Howe: Foreign policy and the French Revolution. Charles-Francois Dumouriez, Pierre Lebrun, and the Belgian Plan, 1789–1793 . Palgrave Macmillan, London 2008, p. 109.
3. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), pp. 496 f.
4. ^ Frédéric Bluche: Danton. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988, pp. 211-214.
5. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), pp. 499 f.
6. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), pp. 497 f.
7. ↑ Albert Soboul : The Great French Revolution. An outline of their history (1789–1799) , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1983, p. 253 f.
8. ^ Frédéric Bluche: Danton. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988, p. 238.
9. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), p. 502.
10. ↑ Albert Soboul : The Great French Revolution. An outline of their history (1789–1799) , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1983, p. 263.
11. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), pp. 504 ff.
12. ^ Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792-1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), pp. 506 f.
13. ^ “Brissot a été et est encore l'intime ami de Dumouriez; [...] Brissot est lié à tous les fils de la conspiration de Dumouriez. […] Je déclare qu'il n'y a pas une seule circonstance où Brissot n'ait pris la défense de Dumouriez. Le système de Dumouriez a été de nous engager dans une guerre funeste et périlleuse, afin de la faire tourner contre la liberté. Dumouriez et Brissot furent les premiers à proposer la guerre contre l'Autriche. Et remarquez que nous leur disions: Avant de déclarer la guerre à l'Europe, abattez la cour et remplacez vos généraux. ” Robespierre's speech of April 3, 1793 ( Memento of the original of May 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.munseys.com, accessed May 12, 2014, quoted from Richard Munthe Brace: General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792–1793 . In American Historical Review 56, No. 3, (1951), p. 508. 

predecessor	Office	successor
Claude Antoine Valdec de Lessart	Foreign Minister of France March 15, 1792-13. June 1792	Pierre Paul de Méredieu, baron de Naillac
Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey	Minister of War of France June 13, 1792-18. June 1792	Pierre August Lajard