Battle of Caesar's Camp
Battle of Caesar's Camp (1793) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Flanders campaign of the War of the First Coalition | |||||||
Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld planned to crush the French army, but his opponents escaped. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Electorate of Hanover | French Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Prince of Coburg Duke of York Wenzel Colloredo Count of Clerfayt |
Charles Kilmaine | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
43,000 | 35,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
light | light, 3 guns |
The Battle of Caesar's Camp (7–8 August 1793) saw the Coalition army led by
Background
In May 1793,
In the Battle of Famars on 23 May 1793, the Coalition army led by Prince Coburg drove away the French Army of the North under François Joseph Drouot de Lamarche and began the Siege of Valenciennes.[2] Lamarche soon stepped down and was replaced by Custine, who took command on 27 May. Custine reorganized, fully equipped, and better disciplined the French army. However, the Jacobins mistrusted officers who served in the old Royalist army and continually denounced Custine.[3] The Minister of War Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte undermined Custine through his agents in the army.[4] On 12 July, the Siege of Condé ended when the fortress surrendered to the Allies. On 16 July, the Committee of Public Safety summoned Custine to Paris and on 21 July he was arrested and imprisoned.[5] The surrender of Mainz on 23 July and Valenciennes on 27 July[6] doomed Custine in the eyes of the Jacobins and he was executed by guillotine on 27 August.[5]
Jean Nicolas Houchard was selected to replace Custine, but he was not able to assume the command right away. Meanwhile, Kilmaine, who commanded the Army of the Ardennes, had been favored by the representatives on mission for some minor successes. Kilmaine arrived on 15 July 1793 at Cambrai to take temporary command. On 30 July, the Army of the North numbered 129,891, not including two attached divisions of the Army of the Ardennes. These were the 8,682-man 1st Division and the 11,787-strong Maubeuge Division. The Army of the Ardennes only included its 27,287-man 2nd Division, most of which was dispersed in garrisons. Though the two French armies included 177,649 soldiers, most of the troops were widely distributed in various fortresses and camps, so that the main body under Kilmaine consisted of only 35,177 men in the Camp de César (Caesar's Camp).[7]
After taking Valenciennes, the Coalition leaders were seized by indecision about where to strike next. The Austrians had already agreed to lend 10,000 troops to the Duke of York for the purpose of capturing Dunkirk. Coburg did not like this strategy and submitted his own plan which was to advance southeast toward Maubeuge while the Prussian army thrust southwest from Mainz toward Saarlouis. York disagreed with this plan and was sustained by a message from Vienna on 6 August. Johann Amadeus von Thugut, adviser to Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, wished for the Prussian army to cooperate with Austria in the conquest of Alsace, for Coburg to move against Le Quesnoy, and for York to operate against Dunkirk. Coburg grudgingly acquiesced, but it was decided to first bring about a major battle with the French army.[8]
Action
According to historian
Coburg conceived a plan to crush the French army.
It was very hot on 7 August, so that many men
Kilmaine recognized that his army was being enveloped and called a council of war. Representative on mission Pierre Delbrel urged that the French army should leave token forces to observe Clerfayt and Colloredo, and hurl itself on York's column. After smashing York's column, the French could then turn against the other two columns. Kilmaine argued that his troops were not able to carry out such a complicated maneuver, and that he did not have sufficient cavalry strength. Rather than falling back toward Paris, Kilmaine adopted a plan to retreat to the west and assume a new position behind the Scarpe River between Arras and Douai. This would place his army on the flank of any Allied advance toward Paris, while having the fortress of Lille behind him. The French withdrawal began that night.[16]
The French army was in motion at dawn on 8 August. When the York's column reached
In order to get his cavalry across the Agache, York sent some units south to cross at Sains-lès-Marquion. However, that crossing was difficult and time consuming.[11] Two French battalions that retreated from Thun-l'Évêque appeared and were driven into Marquion by the British cavalry. They would have been captured, but Kilmaine heard of their predicament and advanced a large force of cavalry and some artillery.[18] The eight British squadrons available became embroiled in a melee with Kilmaine's cavalry and the two French battalions escaped. The Allied operation only netted 3 guns and 150 prisoners. Unknown to the Allies, a portion of Kilmaine's army suffered a stampede that day. As the retreating column marched toward Arras, the leading troops, those farthest from the enemy, panicked. The rot spread and entire battalions shouted, sauve qui peut (every man for himself) and fled. The artillery park became separated from the rest of the army for 12 hours.[11] If Kilmaine had not blocked York's cavalry with his own cavalry, the day might have ended in a French disaster.[15]
Aftermath
According to Langeron, York returned to Bourlon where he got into an argument with Coburg's chief-of-staff Friedrich Wilhelm, Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Kirchberg, blaming him for the escape of the French.[11] The Austrians blamed York for the escape, even though Coburg had assigned Hohenlohe to York's column in order to oversee its movements. Pulteney wrote this criticism of the operation, "We were not in force to attack the enemy, the duke's [York's] column was a long way from support, and between ourselves we were not sorry to see them go off."[14] The Allies summoned the now isolated fortress of Cambrai to surrender, but its governor Nicolas Declaye refused, saying, "I do not know how to surrender, but I know well how to fight."[18]
Kilmaine redeployed his army behind the Scarpe with his right flank on Arras, his left flank on Douai, and his headquarters at
After the action, Coburg urged York to remain and help capture Cambrai or to make a new attack on the French army, but York had to follow orders from
Notes
- Footnotes
- ^ Cust did not specify which light dragoon or dragoon guard regiments were present. Fortescue listed the light dragoon regiments with the army (Fortescue, p. 49), but not the dragoon guards.
- Citations
- ^ Fortescue 2016, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Phipps 2011, p. 181.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 185–187.
- ^ Fortescue 2016, p. 57.
- ^ a b Phipps 2011, pp. 188–189.
- ^ Smith 1998, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 192–193.
- ^ a b Fortescue 2016, p. 59.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 203–204.
- ^ Smith 1998, pp. 50–51.
- ^ a b c d Phipps 2011, p. 206.
- ^ a b c d Cust 1859, p. 144.
- ^ a b Phipps 2011, p. 204.
- ^ a b c d Fortescue 2016, p. 60.
- ^ a b Phipps 2011, p. 207.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 204–205.
- ^ a b Phipps 2011, p. 205.
- ^ a b c Cust 1859, p. 145.
- ^ Fortescue 2016, p. 49.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 206–207.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 208–210.
- ^ Phipps 2011, pp. 213–214.
- ^ Fortescue 2016, p. 61.
- ^ Fortescue 2016, pp. 70–71.
References
- Cust, Edward (1859). "Annals of the Wars: 1783–1795". pp. 144–145. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-78282-500-5.
- ISBN 978-1-908692-24-5.
- ISBN 1-85367-276-9.