battle of Valmy

Valmy, battle of (1792). At Valmy on 20 September, French troops repelled a Prussian/Austrian invasion that threatened to extinguish the French Revolution in the late summer of 1792 (see French Revolutionary wars). When war broke out the previous April, French recruits had performed poorly, often breaking in panic. The Duke of Brunswick, who commanded the Allied invasion, incorrectly expected his opponents to run again, but this was not to be. With elements of the Army of the North, Charles-François Dumouriez marched against Brunswick, skilfully manoeuvred, and held up the enemy advance at the Argonne forest. This bought time for François-Christophe Kellermann to bring his Army of the Centre to Valmy. Brunswick, after finally penetrating the Argonne, wheeled south with 30, 000-34, 000 Prussians to confront Kellermann's 36, 000 republican troops.

Cannon decided the battle. The day began with an intense artillery duel, during which the French guns demonstrated their superiority. Although the Prussian infantry advanced a few times, it turned back rather than be decimated. After seeing how steady the French remained, Brunswick calculated that he could ill afford the casualties of a frontal assault and called off his attack. After a week-long face-off, Brunswick began a disastrous retreat to the Rhine.

Bibliography

• Bertaud, Jean-Paul, The Army of the French Revolution, trans. R. R. Palmer (Princeton, 1988)

— John A. Lynn