Charles-Francois Dumouriez (25 January 1739 – 14 March 1823) was a French general who served in the French Revolutionary Wars on both the French and Austrian sides.
Biography[]
Dumouriez served Louis XV in various sensitive foreign missions, notably, in organizing the rebel army of the Polish Bar Conederation. Unfortunately, his Poles were trounced by Russian general Alexander Suvorov at the battle of Lanckorona in 1771. The French Revolution rescued him from a dull post as commandant of a provincial city. Plunging into revolutionary politics, he showed a talent for intrigue and was appointed foreign minister in March 1792. In August, he took command of the armies in northeast France. In November, he marched into the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), where he crushed a much smaller Austrian army at Jemappes.
Victory made Dumurirez a popular hero, but he opposed the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 and criticized the oppressive behavior of French revolutionary commissaries in occupied territories. His head was already on the line when he lost to the Austrians at Neerwinden in March, his barely trained troops no match for the Austrian regulars. Facing almost cetrain execution for military failure and political deviance, Dumouriez tried to persuade his troops to march on Paris and restore the monarchy. When they refused, he defected to the Austrian camp. During the Napoleonic Wars, he acted as a military advisor to the British.