Charles François Dumouriez

Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez
French First Republic state institutions Monarchy and royalism France France 1739–1823 ○ Died in Britain in exile

French Revolutionary general and statesman who defected to Austria in 1793

He saved the Revolution at Valmy and Jemappes in 1792, but after defeat at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793 he tried to march on Paris and handed the Convention's envoys over to Austria before crossing to the Austrian side. That defection buried the Girondins.

A general and politician of the French Revolutionary Wars. An officer of the royal army in the Seven Years' War, he later commanded the port of Cherbourg. After the Revolution he joined the Jacobin Club, and with Girondin backing he became foreign minister in March 1792, pushed for the declaration of war on Austria and briefly served as war minister. After a conflict with Louis XVI he resigned, then took command of the Army of the North and, with Kellermann, defeated the Prussians at Valmy (20 September 1792) and won at Jemappes (6 November 1792). Beaten at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793, he attempted to march on Paris, dissolve the Convention and restore the 1791 constitution and constitutional monarchy; lacking the army's support he went over to the Austrian side. He died in Britain after years of exile, and his name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Also known as: Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez

Activities and affiliations

Career Timeline

Related historical events

Exile and service as a British adviser (1793–1823)

After crossing to the Austrian side in April 1793, Dumouriez's life entered a long period of exile. He did not remain with the Austrian army for long, and, unable to return to France, he moved from country to country. The legitimist émigrés, who rejected him as a "constitutionalist", gave him no welcome; turned away in Franconia and Stuttgart, he travelled under an assumed name through Switzerland, Italy and England, but was forbidden to stay wherever he was recognized. He eventually settled near Altona, by Hamburg, then on Danish-held territory.

He was never amnestied under Napoleon. Neither Napoleon as First Consul from 1799 nor as emperor from 1804 lifted the proscription against him. In 1800 he went to Russia to offer his services to Tsar Paul I, without success, and that year he settled in Britain, where the government granted him a pension in return for his advice. At the time of Napoleon's projected invasion of Britain (the Boulogne camp, 1803) he engaged in work connected with British defence; in 1805 he travelled to Prussia, and in 1807 he made contact with King Gustav IV of Sweden, with talk of giving him command of the Swedish army, but the Peace of Tilsit put an end to it. In 1808 he offered his services to Portugal, then under French threat, and toured Spain, passing on a system of guerrilla warfare; his instructions were translated under the title Pardidas de guerillas and are said to have contributed much to the effectiveness of the guerrillas in the war against Napoleon.

From 1812 to 1814 he served as an adviser to the British prime minister Castlereagh and to General Wellington, counselling him before the 1814 invasion of France. After the Bourbon Restoration his work as Wellington's adviser caused Louis XVIII to refuse him permission to return, and in 1814–1815 his attempt to obtain a marshal's baton failed. In March 1822 he left his residence at Little Ealing for Turville in Buckinghamshire, and on 14 March 1823 he died at the age of 84, buried in the church at Henley-on-Thames. According to his biographer Jean-Pierre Bois, his death passed in general indifference.