WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.
. The allies were now, in fact, nearer to Paris than were the French troops themselves; but, as Dumouriez had foreseen, Brunswick deemed it unsafe to march upon the capital with so large a hostile force left in his rear between his advancing columns and his base of operations. The young King of Prussia, who was in the allied camp, and the emigrant princes, eagerly advocated an instant attack upon the nearest French general. Kellermann had laid himself unnecessarily open, by advancing beyond Dampierre's camp, which Dumouriez had designed for him, and moving forward across the Aube to the plateau of Valmy, a post inferior in strength and space to that which he had left, and which brought him close upon the Prussian lines, leaving him separated by a dangerous interval from the troops under Dumouriez himself. It seemed easy for the Prussian army to overwhelm him while thus isolated, and then they might surround and crush Dumouriez at their leisure. Accordingly, the right wing of the allied army moved forward in the gray of the morning of the 20th of September to gain Kellermann's left flank and rear, and cut him off from retreat upon Chalons, while the rest of the army, moving from the heights of La Lune, which here converge semi-circularly round the plateau of Valmy, were to assail his position in front, and interpose between him and Dumouriez. An unexpected collision between some of the advanced cavalry on each side in the low ground warned Kellermann of the enemy's approach. Dumouriez had not been unobservant of the danger of his comrade, thus isolated and involved, and he had ordered up troops to support Kellermann on either flank in the event of his being attacked. These troops, however, moved forward slowly; and Kellermann's army ranged on the plateau of Valmy " projected like a cape into the midst of the lines of the Prussian bayonets. "A thick autumnal mist floated in waves of vapor over the plains and ravines that lay between the two armies, leaving only the crests and peaks of the hills glittering in the early light. About ten o'clock the fog began to clear off, and then the French from their promontory saw emerging from the white wreaths of mist, and glittering in the sunshine, the countless Prussian cavalry, which were to envelop them as in a net if once driven from their position, the solid columns of the infantry, that moved forward as if animated by a single will, the bristling batteries of the artillery, and the glancing clouds of the Austrian light troops, fresh from their contests with the Spahis of the east. The best and bravest of the French must have beheld this spectacle with secret apprehension and awe. However bold and resolute a man may be in the discharge of duty, it is an anxious and fearful thing to be called on to encounter danger among comrades of whose steadiness you can fell no certainty. Each soldier of Kellermann's army must have remembered the series of panic routs which had hitherto invariably taken place on the French side during the war, and must have cast restless glances to the right and left, to see is any symptoms of wavering began to show themselves, and to calculate how long it was likely to be before a general rush of his comrades to the rear would either hurry him off with involuntary disgrace, or leave him alone and helpless to be Cut down by assailing multitudes. On that very morning, and at the self-same hour in which the allied forces and the emigrants began to descend from La Lune at the attack of Valmy, and while the cannonade was opening between the Prussian and Revolutionary batteries, the debate in the National Convention at Paris commenced on the proposal to proclaim France a republic. The old monarchy had little chance of support in the hall of the Convention; but if its more effective advocates at Valmy had triumphed, there were yet the elements existing in France for an effective revival of the better part of the ancient institutions, and for substituting Reform for Revolution. Only a few weeks before, numerously signed addresses from the middle classes in Paris, Rouen, and other large cities had been presented to the king expressive of their horror of the anarchists, and their readiness to uphold the rights of the crown, together with the liberties of the subject. And an armed resistance to the authority of the Convention, and in favor of the king, was in reality at this time being actively organized in La Vendee and Brittany, the importance of which may be estimated from the formidable opposition which the Royalists of these provinces made to the Republican party at a later period, and under much more disadvantageous circumstances.
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