Charles François Dumouriez

During Monarchy

It made its first countryside at 19 years, like cornet of cavalry in the Régiment of Escars, and it had arrived at the rank of captain. Officer of the Old Mode, it is useful as captain during the Seven Year old Guerre during which it receives twenty-two wounds.

With the peace of 1763, it was included/understood in a many reform, having collected seven years of service only one patent of pension of 600 pounds which was never paid to him and the Croix of Saint-Louis. It is made knight of Saint-Louis the 1763.

In this precarious situation, it went to offer its services to the République of Genoa which made the Corsica war in ; he was refused. He went to find Paoli, which also pushed back it. He then tried to revolutionize Corsica with the profit of the democracy; he did not have more success. Lastly, not having been approved neither by the ones nor by the others, it went to present to the duke of Choiseul a plan for the conquest of the island; the minister pushed back it hard.

But the brother-in-law of the Of Barry made it return in grace; the duke of Choiseul granted to Dumouriez a gratification of 18 thousand books, and an use of secret agent entrusted to him, a secret mission at the court of Madrid.

With the return of this mission, it accepted a patent of general assistant medical officer to go to make the war in Corsica, under Misters of Chauvelin and Devaux. In 1768, one sends it to take part in the occupation Corsica which has just been acquired.

In 1770, one charged it with another secret mission in Poland to militarily support Confédération of Bar. Near the chiefs of the party of independence, joined together with Eperies in Hungary. In these entrefaites, the duke of Choiseul died, and it was without instructions. It was placed then at the head of a party of confederated, attacked 5 000 Russians ordered by Souvarof, which beat and dispersed its troop with Bataille of Lanckorona 1771. Of Pivot, successor of the duke of Choiseul, recalled it in 1772.

It then went to help Gustave III of Sweden in its fight against the Swedish aristocracy. This mission had been given to him by the Duc of Broglie, Minister for the secret correspondence of Louis XV. Of Pivot, which one had not informed, made it stop with Hamburg and lock up with the Bastille, then with the Château of Caen, from where it left only to dead the king, to have undoubtedly diverted part of the funds intended for its missions of secret agent.

Louis XVI returned his rank of colonel to him and the Prussian exercise with the sent it to Lille to teach, then, a little later did it governor of Cherbourg, where it directed during eleven years, with talent and activity, work of the new port.

One had named it during this time sergeant in 1787, Brigadier the March 9th 1788, and ordering national guard of Cherbourg. It became then in 1789 governor of the Château of Caen where it had been locked up fifteen years earlier.

Under the French revolution

When the July 18th, 1789, the Château of Caen was taken by storm by the middle-class men and the plebs of the city, the commander raised without balking the tricolor Cocarde thus bringing back without major incident the calm one in the city. It left Caen then to go to Paris. As of 1789, it adopted with caution the principles of the French revolution and went even until writing in their favor. It made it with same passion that it put to dissipate its money with the play in the gambling dens. It however remains that at the beginning of the Revolution, Charles François Dumouriez did not have much success, failing to be made elect with the general states of 1789. However he at least managed to bind with Armand Gensonné, Fayette or Honore Gabriel Riqueti, count de Mirabeau and to make known himself with the Club of the Jacobins in 1790.

He was made give nevertheless a command in the Vendée in 1791, was named lieutenant-general by seniority and Minister for the foreign relations in February 1792 and becomes ordering national guard of Cherbourg in August of the same year.

He made lay off the constitutional Garde of King Louis XVI. With the support of the Of Gironde, it is Foreign Minister the March 15th 1792, pushes with the war against Austria, it operated the reference of the ministers Roland, Servan and Clavière.

It was charged one moment with the ministry for the war. It is not long in incurring the disgrace of this party, withdraws ministry by resigning the June 15th 1792, and takes again service. It went to order with the Armée with North, under the orders of Luckner, the division of the Camp of Maulde; finally, after the August 10th, by the influence of Danton, his friend, it took the command of the Armée with the Ardennes, that Fayette had just left.

Dumouriez did not have to oppose to the Duc of Brunswick, which had 60 000 men, that approximately 28 000 men. The enemies threatened Verdun: it makes the Campagne of Argonne, it seizes the processions of the Argonne, only means of stopping their walk.

The Prussian army, delayed by several causes, gave time to Kellermann to join Dumouriez, the September 19th, with 27.000 men, and with Beurnonville to bring 10 to him; 000 men. The September 20th 1792, it stops progress of the enemy: the Prussians were attacked and the Bataille of Valmy forced them with the retirement. Dumouriez did not badger this army in retirement, it did nothing but follow it without worrying it, not wanting to remove with Louis XVI, of which he had never been the enemy, any hope to be protected outside.

It even made prevent secretly the King de Prusse that Custine was going to invade its States. With the remainder, its personal interest was in the balance: the Prussia gave up the Belgium to him, which it was to have with the title of Duc of the Brabant.

Dumouriez went to Paris, was made give the command of the Armée with North, made appear the October 26th, with Valencian, a proclamation which excited the Belgians to be raised against the Austria. It enters in Belgium the October 27th.

It was laid out, the November 3rd, to attack the Austrian army on the strengthened heights of Jemmapes; but they are the Austrians themselves which attack it. It beats the Austrians under the orders of the duke Albert of Saxony-Teschen to Jemmapes the November 6th, and the Belgium is conquered. Supporting the idea of an independent Republic in Belgium Dumouriez is opposed to the Convention.

Dumouriez set out again for Paris, to try to save Louis XVI during his lawsuit, has it says, but its ambitious projects occupied it more. He wanted to secure the command, to make ratify certain markets with the Belgians, etc Mal received of the Montagnard S, he stuck to the Girondins. They counted on him, hoped to him on them. The January 26th 1793, it left Paris. Arrived at Amiens, it learned the rupture there from France with the England, and consequently with the Holland.

It begins at the moment the invasion of this republic with 13.500 men badly equipped. Bréda and Berg-COp-Zoom falls in its capacity. It pushes back the prince Frederic Josias of Saxony-Cobourg, and delivers the Bataille of Neerwinden (March 18th 1793), where the French troops, while remaining main battle field, tested a true failure. This battle which had for him all the consequences of the most complete defeat, reversed all its projects.

From this reverse, he sees himself in hillock with many attacks. The Convention, within which a crowd of charges had protested against him, issued that it would be translated with its bar. Seeing itself threatened to be translated with the bar of this Parliament, it accepts openings to prince de Cobourg, and proposes to him to join him to restore the constitution, given by the National Assembly, and to dissolve Convention. But its projects having perspired, Convention sent (April 2nd) at its general headquarter (with the borough of Saint-Amand), the minister Beurnonville and the deputies Armand-Gaston Camus, Jean Henri Bancal of Issarts, François Lamarque and Nicolas-Marie Quinette, to suspend it and order to him to come to give an account of its control.

Dumouriez, given up by most of its soldiers, continued by the other like traitor, escaped only with sorrow from the very-sharp Mousqueterie which almost accompanied it until the cuttings off by the Austrian army, and was joined little days afterwards by approximately 1 500 men, that the prince Frederic Josias of Saxony-Cobourg took with the pay of Austria. Dumouriez made stop the police chiefs. It passes then to the enemy, involving with him his staff. It makes stop, deliver to the Austrians and throw in the prisons of Olmütz the Minister for the war Beurnonville and its four police chiefs, where they remain thirty months. He wants to go on Paris; but it is abandoned of its soldiers, and constrained to gain into fugitive the enemy camp.

Dumouriez left the Austrian camp. As from this time, it carried out a life errante : driven out everywhere, he wanders through Europe. He went in Franconie, from where he was gotten rid of hard by the Électeur of Cologne, then to Stuttgart, where he was not accommodated better, then, under a supposed name, in Suisse, Italy, England; but any stay was prohibited to him as soon as he was recognized. Lastly, it was fixed at Nériss, close to Hamburg, on the Danish territory.

Under the Consulate and the First Empire

In 1800, it went in Russia to offer to Paul Ier of Russia his services against France, but Paul decided suddenly for France against England.

In 1800, it ends up being fixed at the the United Kingdom, whose government made him a pension for price of the councils that it gave him. In 1803, at the time of the Camp of Boulogne, it went to live England for which it makes espionage. In 1805, it went on a journey in Prussia. In 1807, it had bound with Gustave of Sweden, and it was a question of giving him the command of the Swedish army, when the Paix of Tilsitt forced it to turn over to England.

In 1808, it went to offer its services to the Portugal threatened by France. He traversed the Spain, gave to the Spaniards the system Guérilla S, and composed for them a work which, translated under the title of Pardidas of guerillas , was a long time their handbook.

Of 1812 with 1814, he was the adviser of the ministry Castlereagh and Wellington. One shows it to have provided plans to the British in the war of Spain and to Alliés during the invasion of France in 1814.

Under the Restoration

For its councils given to Arthur Wellesley de Wellington, he sees himself refusing his authorization to return to France by the Bourbons. It remained in England and continued to receive a pension of 1 200 pounds sterling. and an annual sum of 40 000 francs, that one of his/her former friends made him give until his death.

In March 1822, it left its residence of Little-Ealing and went to remain with Turville-Park, in the Comté of Buckingham. A herd, cows was bought to him… It was 84 years old.

He died the March 14th 1823. Its remainders are deposited in the church of Henley.

Its name is reproduced on the Triumphal arch of the Star in Paris.

Publications

Dumouriez wrote much on the Revolution. It published its Mémoires under this title: Life and works of the general Dumouriez , Hamburg, 1795. And also: STATE PRESENT OF the KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL in year MDCCLXVI Lausanne: at François Grasset and comp., 1775.

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