27 October to 2 December 1792
Jemappes and the conquest of Belgium
After Valmy the French armies go over to the offensive. They occupy Savoy and Nice, and in October General Adam Philippe de Custine takes Speyer, Worms and Mainz on the Rhine and reaches Frankfurt. Dumouriez first relieves Lille, besieged by the Austrians, and on 27 October invades the Austrian Netherlands. He concentrates most of his army before Valenciennes and marches on Mons and the road to Brussels.
The combat of Boussu on the road to Mons, 3 November 1792, painting by Hippolyte Lecomte, 1845Wikimedia Commons, Hippolyte Lecomte, Public domain (Lecomte - Combat de Boussu (3 novembre 1792).jpg)
Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, the governor of the Austrian Netherlands, defends the Cuesmes ridge west of Mons with 11,600 infantry, 2,170 cavalry and 56 guns. Dumouriez has 32,000 infantry, 3,800 cavalry and 100 guns, a mix of regulars, volunteers and national guards, and expects 4,000 more men under General Harville on his right. On 6 November the French attack the entrenched ridge from dawn in a series of enthusiastic but ill-coordinated assaults. At noon the Duke of Chartres, the future King Louis-Philippe, leads a large column against the centre of the ridge and gains a foothold that the Austrians cannot retake, and Saxe-Teschen withdraws through Mons.
The Battle of Jemappes, painting by Horace Vernet, 1821Wikimedia Commons, Horace Vernet, Public domain (Bataille de Jemmapes, 6 novembre 1792.jpg)
The French report about 650 killed and 1,300 wounded. The Austrians report 305 killed and 513 wounded, and lose 423 men and five guns captured. Mons opens its gates the next day, Dumouriez enters Brussels on 14 November, and Namur falls on 2 December after an eleven-day siege. By the winter the French hold the whole of the Austrian Netherlands.
Sources
- David G. Chandler, Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars (1979).
- Digby Smith, The Napoleonic Wars Data Book (1998).
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