Battle of Valmy

Near the village of Valmy in Champagne, on 20 September 1792, a French army under François Kellermann and Charles Dumouriez halted a Prussian-led invasion that was heading for Paris. Little more than an artillery duel, with only a few hundred casualties on each side, it was nonetheless the first major success of revolutionary France's armies. The day after the battle, the newly assembled National Convention abolished the monarchy, and Valmy has been remembered ever since as the moment the French Revolution survived its first great military test.

Europe's monarchies feared that revolutionary ideas would spread beyond France. In 1792 King Frederick William II of Prussia, allied with Austria, sent the Duke of Brunswick into France with a coalition army of around 84,000 men, made up of Prussians, Austrians, Hessians and French royalist émigrés. The invaders captured Longwy on 23 August and Verdun on 2 September and pushed on through the Argonne forest towards the capital, intending to restore the old monarchy.

Dumouriez, who had been preparing to attack the Austrian Netherlands, turned back to meet the threat, and Kellermann marched from Metz to join him. The two armies together numbered about 54,000. Just over half the infantry, nearly all the cavalry and the highly regarded artillery came from the old royal army, giving a professional core to the eager volunteer battalions. The French met at Sainte-Menehould on 19 September, placing themselves behind the Prussians, who now had to turn and fight rather than risk their supply lines.

Brunswick's troops struggled through heavy rain to reach the French. The armies ended up in an odd position, with the Prussians facing east and their backs to Paris, while the French faced towards Germany. Kellermann drew up his force on high ground around an old windmill near Valmy, which he had torn down so enemy gunners could not use it as a marker. As about 34,000 Prussians came out of the woods, a long-range artillery exchange began, and the French batteries had the better of it. The Prussian infantry edged forward across open ground but was repeatedly checked by gunfire. When Prussian shells blew up three French ammunition wagons, Kellermann steadied his men with more guns.

At the critical moment Kellermann raised his hat and cried "Vive la Nation!" The shout ran along the French line, and the soldiers sang the Marseillaise and Ça Ira under fire. To general surprise, Brunswick broke off the action. The two forces had been about equal, roughly 36,000 French against 34,000 Prussians, and losses were tiny for so famous a battle: about 300 French and 200 Prussians.

Historians have long debated the retreat. The usual explanation combines the strong French position, growing French reinforcements, the unexpected determination of the defenders, sickness in the Prussian army, and Prussia's concern over Russian moves in Poland. Rumours that Louis XVI had secretly pleaded for restraint, or that the Prussians were bribed with the crown jewels, have been put forward, but the historian Munro Price found no convincing evidence of bribery. On 30 September Brunswick began withdrawing towards Germany, and the French did not press him hard.

The Convention, which took power on the day of the battle, abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the French First Republic within days. French forces soon took Mainz in October, and Dumouriez won again at Jemappes in November, before defecting to the royalists the following year. Kellermann went on to a long career and was made Duke of Valmy by Napoleon in 1808. Among the officers present was the young Louis Philippe, later king of the French, who would use his service at Valmy to burnish his patriotic image.

The writer Goethe, who was with the Prussian army, later recalled telling his dispirited companions that a new epoch in world history had begun there. Popular memory celebrated Valmy as the victory of citizen-soldiers, though professional gunners did much of the work.

Our 1783 map shows the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Prussia before the revolutionary wars, and our 1800 map shows the expanded French Republic that emerged from them.