Battle of Wattignies, 1793: the conscripts who saved Maubeuge

Wattignies was won by an army that its own commander thought was unfit to fight. The Army of the North of October 1793 was full of raw conscripts, many without shoes, led by a general who had been a private before the Revolution and who had tried to refuse the command. Beside him rode Lazare Carnot, the member of the Committee of Public Safety in charge of the war. Two days of hard and often clumsy fighting saved the fortress of Maubeuge and gave the young Republic a victory it badly needed.²

The threat to Maubeuge

By the summer of 1793 the First Coalition, the alliance of Austria, Prussia, Britain, the Dutch Republic and German states against revolutionary France, had driven the French out of Belgium and taken the border fortresses of Condé and Valenciennes, then Le Quesnoy. French victories at Hondschoote and Menin in September eased the danger on the coast, but the Austrian commander, Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, turned on Maubeuge.³ › Battle of Rymnik, 1789

Maubeuge was a key fortress in the line of the frontier and covered a good road toward Paris. World History Encyclopedia puts the besieging force at 26,000 Austrians and Dutch, with a covering force of 37,000 under Count Clerfayt strung out south of the town from Wattignies on the left to Monceau-Saint-Waast on the right, a line of about 13 kilometers. HistoryOfWar.org warns that the sources give anything from 14,000 to 26,000 for the besiegers and 26,000 to 37,000 for the covering army.⁴

Jourdan and Carnot

The Army of the North had already lost two commanders to the guillotine's shadow. Custine had been executed, and Houchard, the victor of Hondschoote, was arrested in September. The Committee gave the army to Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, aged 31, a commoner who owed everything to the Republic. World History Encyclopedia describes an army in disarray, with staff officers arrested, divisions without officers and about three quarters of the men barefoot.⁵

Carnot arrived in early October, found shoes, muskets, horses and food, and pressed Jourdan to march on Maubeuge at once. Jourdan took about 45,000 of his best troops. HistoryOfWar.org notes that he may have had up to 60,000 men near the field by the time of the battle, although that figure may include the garrison of Maubeuge, which did not join the fighting. Clerfayt's line was so long that only about 21,000 Coalition soldiers could take part.⁶

15 October: a failed first day

Jourdan opened on 15 October with attacks on both Austrian flanks. On the right, General Duquesnoy reached Wattignies but was thrown out again by a counterattack, while the division beside him broke at the first sight of Austrian cavalry. On the left, Fromentin's division drifted too far west and was driven back with the loss of guns.⁷

Before the flanks had succeeded, Jourdan sent his center against Clerfayt's grenadiers dug in along the Monceau road. World History Encyclopedia says Carnot urged the attack and Jourdan led it himself against his own judgment; it was cut down by volley fire, at a cost of about 1,500 men. By evening the French had gained nothing.⁸

16 October: Wattignies taken

On the second day the French changed their plan and concentrated about 20,000 to 22,000 men against Wattignies on the Austrian left, leaving the rest of the line to skirmish. Fog covered the field until about nine in the morning; then the French artillery pounded the village. Two assaults were driven back. During one, Austrian cavalry struck the flank of a French brigade and caused a brief panic, which Carnot and Duquesnoy stopped. The third assault, led by Jourdan, broke the defenders and the French took the village.⁹

Coburg expected the French garrison of Maubeuge, 17,000 men in World History Encyclopedia and 20,000 in Phipps, to strike his rear, though in fact they never moved. He gave up the siege and withdrew across the Sambre. The French were too exhausted to pursue, and on 17 October they marched into Maubeuge.¹⁰

Losses and the quarrel over credit

Casualty figures differ widely. World History Encyclopedia gives Austrian losses of 365 killed, 1,753 wounded and 369 missing, and French losses of 3,000 to 5,000. HistoryOfWar.org cites estimates from about 3,000 killed and wounded on both sides together up to 5,000 Allied and 8,000 French casualties, and thinks the French losses were probably the higher, given their repeated frontal assaults.¹¹

The two men who won the battle soon argued over it. Jourdan claimed the plan as his own, which HistoryOfWar.org doubts, since Carnot was with the army. World History Encyclopedia notes that Carnot later claimed the credit, while many historians give the decisive plan of the second day to Jourdan. After Jourdan refused to fight on into the winter and to send troops to the Vendée, he was dismissed in January 1794, on a warrant written by Carnot himself. He came back to win at Fleurus the following June.¹²

Why Wattignies mattered

France hailed the battle as a second Valmy, and the village was renamed Wattignies-la-Victoire. Both sources are more cautious about its strategic weight. Coburg only fell back a short way, and the Coalition armies were still in the field. HistoryOfWar.org sees its real importance elsewhere: it was the first time the new conscript armies of the Republic showed they could maneuver with some skill. The same date in 1813 saw the opening of the far larger Battle of Leipzig.¹³