The Austrian and Anglo-Allied armies successfully threatened the French occupation of Belgium and Holland in the spring of 1794, with a counteroffensive forcing them to withdraw their armies to the French frontiers. The Committee of Public Safety dispatched the bloodthirsty deputy St Just to ensure the armies and their commanders understood the severity of the situation. General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, temporarily removed from command in 1793, was appointed general-in-chief of the new Army of the Sambre et Meuse. Jourdan crossed the Sambre at the end of June, besieged Charleroi and deployed his army in a semicircle to prevent the Austrian relief army from reaching the city. On 26 June, the Prince of Sachsen-Coburg attacked Jourdan around Fleurus. After a desperate battle in which Jourdan’s flanks broke, his ability to rapidly deploy his reserves, combined with the steadfastness of his centre, forced the allies to withdraw from the field with heavy casualties.

The campaign in Belgium, which culminated in the battle of Fleurus, occurred at the moment when the radical revolution in France, the Reign of Terror, achieved its domestic goals of purging its enemies from the National Convention. The Committee of Public Safety, the executive committee of the National Convention, composed of 12 representatives, was responsible for safeguarding the security of the revolution against its domestic and foreign enemies. Lazare Carnot, one of the 12, presided over the war ministry and established a sense of order and centralized direction to French war efforts. It was commonplace for the Convention to dispatch representatives to the various armies on the frontiers to ensure their patriotic fervour and keep a watchful eye on the generals. The Committee had made a habit of calling generals to Paris to answer for their failures or lack of determination to press the campaign as demanded by the Convention. Victorious commanders such as the Comte de Custine (1740-93) and Jean Houchard (1739-93) were denounced before the republican government in 1793 and executed. Jourdan had commanded the Army of the North in Belgium in 1793 when Carnot was the representative en mission. Jourdan’s victory at Wattignies was won with Carnot’s direct interference, and shortly thereafter Jourdan was dismissed from command. In June 1794, Carnot restored him to the army as commander of the ‘Sambre and Meuse’. It was a new army composed of the right wing of the Army of the North, the Army of the Ardennes and most of the ‘Rhine and Moselle’. With the Sambre and Meuse were six future Napoleonic marshals: Jourdan (its commander), François Lefebvre (1755-1820), Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (1763-1844), Edouard Mortier (1768-1835), Nicolas Soult (1769-1851) and Michel Ney (1769-1815).At the time, the last two were junior officers; the first three were generals.

 

The Anglo-Imperial armies in Belgium were divided between an Anglo-Austrian army under Frederick (1763-1827), Duke of York, and the Count of Clerfayt (1733-98) and the main Habsburg army under the Prince of Sachsen-Coburg (1737-1815). The coalition forces in Belgium outnumbered the French. However, the Duke of York drew his army ever closer to the Channel coast, as General Charles Pichegru’s (1761-1804) Army of the North pressed towards the city of Tournai. Although it is possible to believe that Pichegru’s move was a deliberate plan to draw the Allied armies apart, only the British left wing was within operational distance of Coburg’s army. Coburg detached forces under General Jean Pierre Beaulieu (1725-1819) to protect Namur from a French advance along the Meuse, while he concentrated his forces around Quatre Bras to the west, covering the strategic city of Charleroi.

 

The French had consistently failed to cross the Sambre and take Charleroi. The city’s defences were considerable, and the proximity of Coburg’s army prevented the French from carrying out a formal siege before they had defeated it. Carnot considered Charleroi a principal objective, since it would enable further French forces to move unmolested along a parallel axis with the Army of the North. Indeed, in 1815, during the first days of the Waterloo campaign Napoleon saw Charleroi as his gateway to Belgium and seized it quickly, before the British or Prussian armies could take it. The Revolutionary authorities therefore created Jourdan’s Army of the Sambre and Meuse in order to concentrate sufficient force to take the city and press into Belgium. The presence of Louis de Saint Just (1767-94) with the army was a clear indication of the critical importance the Committee collectively placed upon the city’s capture and the subsequent defeat of Allied forces. Jourdan crossed the Sambre on 18 June. He bombarded Charleroi and tasked General Jacques Maurice Hatry’s (1742-1802) division with the siege. He deployed the remainder of the army, six divisions, in a semi-circle 1.6-3.2km (1-2 miles) from Charleroi. Saint-Just busied himself providing motivation and oversight for the siege, while Jourdan prepared for the imminent arrival of Coburg’s relief army.

 

The Austrian columns were divided, however, with Beaulieu covering Namur to the east, while the preponderance of Coburg’s forces lay to the northwest towards Brussels. The Duke of York refused to bring his force further inland and leave Ostend, his lifeline to England, unprotected against Pichegru’s army. The Prince of Orange (1748-1806), commanding Austrian and Dutch troops, however, moved east to unite with Coburg. All told, the Allied army had 45,700 men and 98 artillery pieces. Jourdan’s strength was greater, some 72,000 men.

 

Coburg Arrives

The battle of Fleurus illustrates the flexibility of the French divisional system compared with the eighteenth-century ad hoc column, and its benefit to the command and control of armies. On 25 June, Coburg’s army approached Charleroi. Coburg intended to assail Jourdan’s position, pressing him front and flank with five separate columns. The Prince of Orange with 13,000 men on the right, General Peter Quasdanovich (1738-1802) with 6400 men in the centre and, towards Coburg’s left, two columns (15,500 men) under the command of the Archduke Charles (1771-1847) would advance through Fleurus towards Charleroi. On Coburg’s far left was Beaulieu’s column of 10,300 men, brushing the Sambre. Jourdan arrayed his divisions 4.8km (3 miles) from the city. General Jean-Baptiste Kéber’s (1753-1800) corps d’armee of two divisions were in front of Courcelles, facing the Prince of Orange. A brigade defended the Sambre at Landelies, south of Kléber’s position. To the east, along the Sambre, General François Marceau’s (1769-96) weak division held the woods beyond Lambusart. Jourdan personally directed the centre with two divisions, between Gosselies and Heppignies, which he fortified with a redoubt and heavy guns. Lefebvre’s division took up an entrenched position between Wagnee and Fleurus. Although Jourdan outnumbered Coburg, his position was extended, with a besieged city to his rear. Fortunately the garrison of Charleroi had surrendered the city the previous day, allowing Jourdan to deploy Hatry’s division in reserve, with the cavalry around the town of Ransart.

 

The Prince of Orange led the Allied attack, moving his battalions and squadrons across the Piéton stream in three smaller columns; one advancing on Fontaine l’Eveque, and the other two towards Courcelles. General Anne Charles Basset de Montaigu’s (1751-1821) division, holding the French flank, came under immense pressure, and under heavy fire withdrew upon Courcelles. General Charles Daurier’s (1761-1833) brigade at Landelies advanced against Orange’s columns, only to be assailed by cavalry, artillery fire and infantry. They too withdrew. By 10 a.m. Orange was threatening to roll up the left flank. Montaigu and Daurier, south of Courcelles, re-formed and counterattacked, halting the Austrians. Kléber, with General Guillaume Duhesme’s (1766-1815) division northeast of Courcelles, detached a brigade and rushed it to the flank. Fighting raged for the next two hours. Kléber fed Bernadotte’s brigade into the battle and, by 2 p.m., he had compromised Orange’s position and forced the prince to order a general withdrawal back across the Piéton.

 

While Kléber fought to hold the left flank, Jourdan faced a greater crisis on his right. Quasdanovich’s column moved forward from Frasnes on the French centre. General Antoine Morlot’s (1766-1809) division bore the brunt of the attack. After heavy fighting for much of the day, Morlot was forced back towards Gosselies. Quasdanovich occupied Jourdan’s front as the Archduke Charles and Beaulieu threw their weight against the divisions of Lefebvre, Marceau and General Jean Etienne Championnet (1762-1800). The Archduke Charles’s columns vigorously assailed the French entrenchments between Fleurus and Heppignies. A redoubt with 18 heavy guns supported Championnet’s 140 position. The Austrian column attacking there floundered in the face of artillery fire and musketry. Lefebvre, too, held his own against Charles’s other column. A crisis, however, soon threatened the entire right flank, as Beaulieu’s column broke Marceau’s division, which fled through Lambusart, leaving Lefebvre’s right in the wind. Shortly thereafter Charles renewed his attack, supported by concentrated artillery fire plus cavalry. Championnet lost the redoubt and fell back beyond Heppignies.

 

Lefebvre was in a desperate situation. He detached Colonel Soult with three battalions and some cavalry, refusing the flank and occupying entrenchments at Campinaire. Beaulieu’s column ran headlong into Soult’s troops, now supported by the remnants of Marceau’s division.

 

Jourdan observed his centre press back, and Austrian battalions in two lines advance from Heppignies towards Ransart. He immediately directed General Paul-Alexis Dubois’ (1754-96) Cavalry Reserve against their serried ranks. The Austrian first line broke against the charge, while the second formed square. Championnet advanced to support and the Austrians withdrew, leaving all their light artillery. Lefebvre was still barely holding his position against Charles and Beaulieu. With the centre stable, Jourdan ordered Hatry’s division to the flank. Reinforced, Lefebvre repelled Charles’s column and advanced upon Lambusart, retaking it from Beaulieu. By evening, with no sign of a decisive outcome, Coburg withdrew his army, having suffered heavily.

 

Jourdan nearly lost at Fleurus. If Coburg had been his equal in numbers, it is likely the result would have been different. As it was, Coburg’s concentric attack by columns did not permit him to control the battle adequately, let alone coordinate his forces with those of the Prince of Orange. Jourdan’s victory can be attributed to the impressive skill of his divisional generals and their ability to manipulate their divisions and brigades on the battlefield in quick order when faced with rapidly changing situations. Jourdan’s position in the centre allowed him to feed Hatry and the Cavalry Reserve under Dubois to support Championnet and Lefebvre, preventing the Allies from breaking those divisions. Coburg’s column commanders, however, had no larger organization than the battalion, severely restricting their ability to react to circumstances.