Biography

Brief Biography of General Charles François Dumouriez
Charles François Du Périer Dumouriez was born in Cambrai, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais roughly 20 miles from the present Belgium (then the Austrian Netherlands) border on January 26th 1739 to "Monsieur Antoine François Dumouriez, esquire, commissary and quartermaster of the department of Cambrai" (Broadley & Rose 4). Patricia Chastain Howe desribes Dumouriez as identifing himself as a "Walloon as well as a Frenchman" ( Howe article 369) and that this had a dramatic impact on his foreign policy decisions during the revolution period. He was a sickly child, but his health stablized in his teens and he attended the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris and recieved many laurels (B&R 5). His father made sure that he learned Spanish, Greek, Italian, English, and German. Inspired by his uncle in the Foreign Office, young Dumouriez sought to become a diplomat and aside from languages studied the customs of other nations with great interest (B&R 6). At the age of 18, the Dumouriez followed his father to Maubeuge near the border at the outbreak of the 7 years war. He served bravely in Bremen and Freisland and quickly stood out as promising officer, receiving promotions and casualties during the course of the war (B&R 7,8). At one point he fought on despite the rout of his army, a broken leg, two fingers severed, and wounds to his eyes and forehead until he was forced to surrender to Austrian forces. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick was so impressed by the young Dumouriez that he sent him back to the french army with a letter of recommendation for a promotion (B&R 8).

Dumouriez came out of the war in 1763 with the rank of captain in the cavalry and with his uncle's connections, became a regular at the court of Louis XV. He managed to use his diplomatic talents again to become a "military observer" and "traveled to Italy, Corsica, the Low Countries, Spain, and Portugul" (Howe book 24). During the 60's, Dumouriez was given the task of advising the Polish military in their war against Russia. He ended up becoming more or less a de facto general of the Polish forces. His political rivals, namely Duke d'Aiguillon cut French support of Dumouriez's Polish mission which according to Howe led to defeat at the hands of the army of the famous russian generalismo Alexander Suvorov (Howe 25). Dumouriez returned to Paris and continued his studies until he was recalled to Paris after the death of Louis XV in 1774. He was promoted to Brigadier General and took up a post in Cherbourg on the north coast with the long term goal of gaining possession of the Channel Isles and defending the northern ports during the period when France was supporting the American colonies (Howe 26). He stayed on at Cherbourg right up until the out break of the revolution in 1789. It was while he was in Cherbourg that he wrote many letters and developed friendships with many of the people who would become leaders of the early revolution (Howe 27).

Gen. Dumouriez was well educated in enlightened ideas, he was a product of the //ancien régime// but Broadley and Rose tell us: "His keen insight into affairs had shown him the vicious spots of the //ancien régime,// and aroused in him a keen desire to clear away its wens from the face of France and Europe. Yet he had the love of monarchy which marked a man of patrician descent and close acquaintance with public business." (B&R 68). Dumouriez supported the policy of Honoré Gabriel Riqueti comte (count) de Mirabeau to create a constitutional monarchy in France. Dumouriez, after the breaking off of the third estate and the creation of the National Constituent Assembly, named himself general of the National Guard (Howe 27). The French Assembly would in March of 1792 make him foreign minister, a post he would hold only until June of that year, resigning it to his like minded compatriot Pierre LeBrun so he could take a military command in the north (Howe 382). This action supports Howe's observation that his time as foreign minister was used to create a "Belgian Plan" in order for Dumouriez to "liberate" his Walloon brethren. While foreign minister, Dumouriez hoped that "When all of Europe is persuaded of our justice and of our moderation, we will become the arbiters and pacifiers of Europe" (Howe 380). Part of his Belgian Plan was to gain promises of neutrality from other European nations like Britain, Spain, Savoy (Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia), the Swiss Confederation, the United Netherlands, and some German states so that he could conduct a war against Austria in Belgium and the Liege (a separate entity at the time) without interference (Howe 387). After taking command of the northern armies, Dumouriez led the French in a moral, yet not tactical victory at Valmy alongside the Center army of François Christophe de Kellerman, a crushing victory at Jemappes, and the defeat at Neerwinden in March of 1793 (B&R 513). This defeat and subsequent invasion by the Austrians in Northern France is the lead into my paper dealing with Dumouriez's politcal standing in Paris with the Jacobins, and Girondins during "The Terror" which led to his attempt at leading a royalist army back into France. His royalist army quickly dematerialized as most of his army went back to the side of the republicans as reconciliation with the constitutional monarchy fell out of favor in Paris. Then his defection to Prince Coburg of Austria. (B&R 183-186).

Dumouriez's defection gained him very little. Most European royal houses viewed him with suspicion and as one would imagine, he found it hard to find a position suited to his abilities (Howe 187). Howe quotes him from his first volume of memoirs written in Hamburg while in exile from England, which he visited briefly in the summer of 1793 before his expulsion, his feelings about his lot in life at this point:

"...to be abandoned by the world; to be the outcast of society; to be compelled to fly from city to city to seek an asylum from the rage and madness of his countrymen who imagine they will serve the public cause and rid the world of a traitor if they can but plunge a dagger into his breast; to avoid the wretch whose avarice would tempt him to gain the price offered for his blood by the Convention. Compelled to live among strangers under the disguise of an assumed name, and to submit to the pain of listening to opinions on his conduct equally severe and unjust, that are indurtriously circulated by praises only on the successful, and everywhere encountering emigrants who detest him with as little reason, and as much ferocity as the Jacobins." (Howe 188)

After drifting around Europe, Dumouriez was finally given an appointment to the War Office of Great Britain to help lay stradegies against Napolean during the War of the Second Coalition. He would live out his days west of London in Turville Park, Oxfordshire until his death on March 14th 1823. Apparently he remained a brilliant conversationalist while in exile, Howe quotes a London journal as noting "a dose of Dumouriez is the unfailing antidote to Bonapartist poisen" (Howe 188). The epitaph on his grave markers reads "Here lieth, awaiting the belated justice of his country, Charles-François Dumouriez born at Cambrai January 25th 1739" (Howe 188). Aged 84