"From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history..."
--Johann W. Goethe, on the Battle of Valmy

Early on the morning of September 20, 1792, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his fellow soldiers in the allied armies of Austria and Prussia awoke amid the forested hills of the Argonne in northeastern France and prepared for battle. Somewhere off to the south, concealed by a dense layer of fog and mist, lay the forces of the fledgling French Republic, yet Goethe and his comrades were full of confidence. Thus far the only serious resistance they had encountered during their invasion of France had resulted from bad weather, as heavy rains slowed their supply trains to a crawl and turned their camps into miserable cesspools of mud. The French, meanwhile, had repeatedly fallen back before a series of deft turning movements orchestrated by the Allied commander, the Duke of Brunswick, nephew of the legendary Frederick the Great and widely recognized as the most accomplished soldier in Europe.
By the standards of the day Brunswick was indeed an outstanding commander. Shrewd, painstaking and deliberate, the Duke waged war with the careful calculation of a master strategist, and his record stood proof of the efficacy of his methods. Perhaps his greatest feat of arms had been achieved during an all-but-bloodless campaign in Holland in 1789 in which he had so thoroughly outmaneuvered his foe as to win a war without bringing on a major battle. In fact, Brunswick's reputation was such that early in 1792 the Revolutionary regime in Paris had offered him command of the French armies. Instead, the Prussian aristocrat had opted to lead the monarchist forces of Austria and Prussia in the cause of restoring Bourbon rule in France.
Since entering French territory on 23 August, Brunswick had pursued the military objectives of the campaign with his usual thoroughness. Investing the border fortress at Longwy, he secured his line of supply and advanced eastward, seizing Verdun during the first week of September and consolidating his gains in preparation for a further advance to the Marne. Meanwhile, however, persistent rains had saturated the countryside, washing out roads and threatening to bog down the invading army deep within enemy territory. Brunswick responded to the deteriorating conditions with a prudent change in plans. Instead of continuing west, he proposed to move north against the fortified town of Sedan, secure the line of the Meuse, and go into winter quarters. At this point, however, the Prussian monarch, King Frederich William II, obtruded on Brunswick's careful deliberations with larger political considerations of his own. Eager to score an early victory over the upstart French regime, the king insisted on an immediate advance upon Chalons, convinced that the finest troops in Europe would readily defeat the untried forces that lay before them.
He had good reason to think so. Since the advent of the French Revolution some three years earlier, the army of the new republic had seen thousands of moderate and royalist officers leave the ranks to serve under foreign flags, and the army's organization and leadership were still very much in transition. Indeed, among the more recent departures was no less a personage than the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution. As radical Jacobins assumed growing influence in Paris and within the army itself the aristocratic Lafayette had found himself on difficult political terrain, and when a portion of the National Guard refused to respond to his efforts to restore order in the capital, he left the country to join the growing number of French emigres.
Named to replace him in army command, Charles Dumouriez assumed his new post even as the Austro-Prussian army was advancing upon French territory. And if this did not present difficulties enough, while reviewing his troops in Sedan Dumouriez was greeted by jeers from soldiers still loyal to Lafayette. He responded by drawing his sword on one of his hecklers and offering to fight a duel on the spot. The soldier declined, and in the end Dumouriez managed to win a good measure of respect. Even so, his would be no easy task. "The army is in a most deplorable state," he reported, citing a general lack of discipline as well as a shortage of clothing, boots and guns. Nevertheless he set about to drive back the Austro-Prussian invaders.
Having originally planned to draw off the enemy with his own invasion of the Netherlands, Dumouriez quickly abandoned the scheme upon learning of the fall of Verdun. With the enemy poised to advance on Paris, he rushed his troops south to defend a key defile through the Argonne Mountains, a site whose strategic significance he compared to the Greek pass at Thermopylae, vowing to defend it with better success than the Spartan leader, Leonidas.
Initial contact between the opposing armies took place some 25 miles southwest of Sedan, where an Austrian detachment captured the village of Crois-aux-Bois, outflanking Dumouriez's position at nearby Grandpre and compelling him to withdraw farther south. Thus the natural barrier of the Argonne was quickly breached, and in keeping with the relatively genteel style of warfare he had so thoroughly mastered, Brunswick quickly declared victory, sending an emissary, Colonel Massenbach, to French headquarters in hopes of opening negotiations. On Dumouriez' orders, the colonel was turned away without an audience.
What happened next, however, no doubt gave the French commander second thoughts about rebuffing the enemy's peace overtures, for in the process of falling back upon Ste. Menehoud one of his corps was cut off and set upon by a force of Prussian light cavalry. After warding off an initial attack, the isolated French troops eventually succumbed to abject panic and were soon racing headlong in the direction of Chalons amid cries of "Sauve qui peut!" and "Nous sommes trahis!" Sweeping away a large body of reinforcements in their flight, they sowed panic wherever they went, and with the pessimism of beaten men spread rumors of the collapse of the rest of the army. Indeed, such rumors very nearly proved true, for with French fortunes going from bad to worse, Dumouriez' main force--now drawn up in the vicinity of Valmy--quickly contracted the contagious fear, and the sudden appearance of the enemy might well have stampeded them all the way to the Marne.
True to form, however, the Prussian commander continued his cautious advance, giving the French commander time to consolidate his position and restore ameasure of confidence to his shaken troops. In this he would be greatly aided by the timely arrival of General Kellermann's Army of the Center, which reached Valmy on the evening of the nineteenth. At this point, surprised and rather annoyed to discover the French still holding on in the Argonne, Brunswick decided to advance south from Grandpre with plans to envelop both enemy flanks and force another withdrawal. Once again, however, King Frederick William overruled him. Impatient to cut off a French retreat, the king ordered the army to proceed directly to the Chalons Road west of Ste. Menehoud. Thus, without benefit of advance patrols by which to establish the enemy's precise whereabouts, the long column of the invasion force pressed forward. On the evening of the nineteenth the advancing Allies went into bivouac some five miles northwest of Valmy, the careful planning of their commander having gone by the boards.
The next morning Goethe and his fellow soldiers awoke in fog-shrouded twilight and prepared to continue their march in pursuit of the French. Now deep within enemy territory and effectively blinded by the surrounding mist, they advanced along the muddy roads for several miles before the muffled thunder of French artillery erupted on their left. Forming line of battle, they continued southward, and soon heard more cannon fire in their front. The shot fell short of their position, however, and Allied guns were quickly rushed forward to return fire. Eventually driving off the French guns along their line of march, the Allied troops soon found themselves on high ground immediately north of the Chalons Road. Meanwhile, misliking his original position, General Kellermann had rushed much of his force to a hill just south of Valmy. Here, well in advance of Dumouriez main line his troops had run afoul of each other, becoming badly entangled in the vicinity of a large windmill. With the enemy less than a mile away, Kellermann struggled to sort out the traffic jam as urgent voices and clanking gear echoed eerily in the surrounding mist. To Goethe and the Allied commanders on the hill opposite, the cacophony of sounds seemed to portend another French withdrawal, a perception reinforced by the knowledge that Allied units were even then taking up position on the French flank. Peering intently into the fog, the invaders eagerly awaited the opportunity to see the enemy once again moving off in retreat.
About noon a steady wind arose and the fog cleared away to reveal the entire battlefield beneath a bright blue sky. Instead of finding the enemy in retreat, however, Goethe and the Allied commanders beheld solid lines of French infantry along the face of the opposing hill. Despite considerable confusion, Kellermann's troops had come into position, and in addition Dumouriez had rushed reinforcements forward to protect his flank south of the Chalons Road, where the steady crackle of small-arms fire told of solid resistance to the Allied flanking force. Moments later, in the vicinity of the windmill, Kellermann himself could be seen waving his hat at the tip of his sword as resounding cheers of "Vive la nation! Vive la France! Vive notre general!" echoed along the length of the French ranks.
Next, the heavy guns on both sides opened up, and what followed was a cannonade of epic proportions. In successive volleys that waxed and waned over the next four hours, tens of thousands of shells were fired, creating a din beyond the experience of even the oldest veterans. Amid this withering barrage the troops on both sides remained in formation, providing irresistible targets for the artillery crews. (Things might have been worse, for instead of caroming at length among the troops, the hurtling balls of lead readily buried themselves in the mud, causing the earth to shake violently yet doing a good deal less damage than they might have under dryer conditions.) About two o'clock, a huge explosion was heard in the rear of the French position as a number of ammunition wagons were hit, causing considerable slaughter. A lull in the firing soon followed as the Allies waited expectantly, hoping to see a wave of panic sweep through the French lines and carry them off. When the smoke of the explosion and resulting fires cleared away, however, the French were once again seen holding fast to their positions.
The time had come for Brunswick, who thus far had been overruled on two occasions, to take the final decision--and responsibility--for the attack. When it became clear that the enemy was prepared to stand the final test of arms, however, he prudently called it off, opting to shift southward and stand between the French and their capital. For the next several days, while the two armies remained in position opposite each other, negotiations were carried on in which the Allies sought to convince the French of a defeat they had not suffered. Then, on the night of 30 September, Brunswick slipped away to the east and recrossed the Meuse. Thus, the engagement at Valmy became a French victory by default, a fizzled contest to crown a fizzled campaign.
And yet the abortive battle would have far-reaching implications, for in prevailing against the vaunted might of the Austro-Prussian army the French experienced the first stirrings of an intense national pride that would eventually carry them to victory after victory and ultimately change the nature of warfare. No longer undertaken on behalf of ruling elites, in time to come wars would be waged by increasingly massive national armies (largely on the French model) expressive of the will of whole societies. Above all, perhaps, the style of warfare in which commanders such as Brunswick sought to outmaneuver their opponents in lieu of actually defeating them by force of arms would become a thing of the past. Inspired by the same powerful forces that had given rise to the Revolution, the French would soon set a new standard for offensive warfare in which the spirit of the attack, or elan, would dominate.
At least two eye-witnesses to the encounter at Valmy seemed to recognize in its results an immediate shift in the European status quo. One, the same Colonel Massenbach who had served as Brunswick's emissary, would write of the French: "You will see how those little cocks will raise themselves on their spurs. . . We have lost more than a battle. The 20th September has changed the course of history." The poet and dramatist, Wolfgang Goethe, seeking to cheer up his comrades in wake of the encounter, responded in a more magnanimous vein: "From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history," he told them, "and you can all say that you were present at its birth." A man of rare perception, Goethe had already begun to embrace many of the ideas and attitudes associated with the French Revolution. From his vantage point on the hill at Valmy he had experienced first-hand the power of those new ideas and attitudes in the wildly cheering French soldiers who had opposed him--and all of the feudal arrangements of the past--with such enthusiastic audacity. Deeply affected by the spectacle, Goethe would soon become a devoted admirer of a man who not only mastered the new style of warfare, but who came to symbolize all the energy and idealism of the new age.
That man, of course, was Napoleon Bonaparte.

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