Valmy 1792: Kellermann's Cannonade, a Felled Windmill and a New Republic

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In the summer of 1792 the French Revolution looked fragile. Louis XVI had been stripped of power, and Frederick William II of Prussia, backed by Austria and Great Britain, sent about 84,000 men under the Duke of Brunswick, including Prussian and Austrian regulars, Hessian auxiliaries and French royalist exiles, toward Paris. They took Longwy in late August and Verdun in early September. France had about 54,000 men in the Army of the North under Charles Dumouriez and the Army of the Center under François Kellermann. Over half the infantry, nearly all the cavalry and the artillery were veterans of the old royal army. Instead of blocking the road to Paris, the two commanders slipped behind the invaders and cut their supply line, while weeks of freezing rain and dysentery wore Brunswick's army down.

Forced to turn back, Brunswick met the French at Valmy on September 20, 1792, with the armies facing the wrong way: the French with their backs to Germany, the Prussians toward Paris. Kellermann had the windmill on his ridge torn down to deny Prussian gunners a ranging mark. In the long cannonade, standardized Gribeauval guns with prepackaged ammunition stopped the Prussian infantry after about 200 yards. When a Prussian shot blew up three French ammunition wagons, the veterans closed ranks and the volunteers held. Kellermann raised his hat on his sword and shouted Vive la Nation, and his troops sang La Marseillaise and Ça Ira. Brunswick called off the assault and retreated past the Rhine. The monarchy was abolished on September 21 and the Republic declared the next day.

• Thomas Carlyle described the campaign's weather as rain as of the days of Noah.
• Prussia also needed its army intact because Catherine the Great was moving forces into Poland.
• Out of about 70,000 combatants, casualties were roughly 300 French and 200 Prussians.
• Rumors that Brunswick was bribed with the stolen Bourbon crown jewels have no support in the archives.
• Goethe, traveling with the Prussian army, told dejected soldiers that night that a new epoch in world history had begun.