Battle of Valmy
Although little more than a skirmish that occurred on September 20, 1792, during the French Revolutionary Wars, Valmy was one of history’s decisive battles: a Prussian march on Paris to restore the French monarchy was halted, and the French Revolution was saved. The Prussians and their allies withdrew, allowing the French to renew their invasion of the Austrian Netherlands.
Alarmed by the growing radicalization of the French Revolution, Austria and Prussia signed the Declaration of Pillnitz in August 1791; it threatened military action if the trend toward republicanism in France continued. It served only to encourage the revolutionaries to take more extreme action, which eventually led to the imprisonment of the French monarch, Louis XVI. Prussia and Austria began to mobilize their forces, joined by French émigré Royalists determined to overthrow the revolution. With conflict inevitable, the French government anticipated events by declaring war against Austria on April 20, 1792, and invading the Austrian Netherlands (roughly modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg).
The turmoil of the revolution had seriously affected the efficiency of the French army, with many of its aristocratic officers fleeing abroad and many others executed or imprisoned. The extent of the army’s instability was revealed in the failed invasion of the Austrian Netherlands—some French units broke and fled after killing their officers. The monarchist powers were encouraged by this turn of events, and Prussians, Austrians, German mercenaries, and French émigrés began to assemble their forces. A Prussian army, under the command of the Duke of Brunswick, invaded eastern France in August, capturing the fortress cities of Longwy and Verdun as a preliminary act to a march on Paris itself.
Two small French armies opposed the Prussian advance: the Army of the North, led by General Charles Dumouriez, and the Army of the Center, under the command of General François Kellermann, a distinguished officer in the old royal army. In the manner of eighteenth-century warfare, the two national sides maneuvered against each other until Dumouriez placed his troops against the Prussian line of march. He was joined by Kellermann, who advanced beyond Dumouriez’s Army of the North to take up a position on high ground around the village of Valmy, directly in front of the Prussians. Kellermann set up his command post by a windmill at the center of the French line. The French forces were a combination of enthusiastic but ill-trained volunteers and experienced regulars from the old royal army, supported by the technically proficient French artillery.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the famed German writer, witnessed the Battle of Valmy. “From this day forth begins a new era in the history of the world,” he wrote.
As the mists cleared on September 20, Prussian and French artillery opened fire in a long-range duel that caused few casualties on either side. Brunswick then ordered his troops forward in the hope that the French would break and run at the sight of the famed Prussian infantry. However, the French held firm, and Brunswick withdrew his troops to allow his artillery to continue to soften up the French positions. A second assault was ordered, which coincided with a lucky Prussian cannon shot detonating a French ammunition wagon by the windmill. Although it suffered numerous casualties in the explosion, again the French line did not waver, and, in the face of heavy musketry fire, the Prussians retreated to the cheers of the French line: “Vive la nation!”— Long live the nation!—which would become known as the “cry of Valmy.”
This marked the end of the battle, although the armies remained facing each for some days until the Prussians withdrew from French territory. The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a staunch opponent of the French Revolution, witnessed the battle and prophetically wrote: “From this day forth begins a new era in the history of the world.”
Following imprisonment during a radical revolutionary interregnum, Kellermann served as a general in Napoleon’s army and was made a duke for his services. Following his death in 1820, his heart was interred in the Valmy battlefield.
Losses: French, 200 killed and 500–600 wounded of 32,000 engaged; Prussian, 48 killed and 138 wounded of 34,000.