Water Line - 1794
If the low land (as in Holland) is aided by inundations, the resistance may become absolute, and defy every attack. The winter is, no doubt, the natural enemy of this means of defence, as the French had shown in 1794 and 1795, but it must be a severe winter.
The sanguinary proceedings in France - but more especially the dreadful and revolting fate of Louis XVI., on the 21st of January, 1793, excited universal indignation and horror; and England and Spain, together with Holland, armed at once against the French republic, which had declared war against them.
At the commencement of the year 1794 the allies united all their forces in the Netherlands, under the orders of the duke of Coburg, and the emperor Francis himself joined the camp, in order by his presence to encourage the troops. On the 7th of April they gained a complete victory near Cateau-Cambresis, and on the 30th of the same month they made themselves masters of the town of Landrecies. Fortune, however, now changed. Carnot, who properly understood how to employ the system of war by which a nation in arms might obtain victory, issued his orders forthwith to the grand armies, commanded by Pichegru and Jourdan, to attack the allied army with the most daring impetuosity and without ceasing, so that not a single day might pass without constant hard fighting. the Austrians and their allies, the Englisn, Dutch, and Hanoverians, harassed ana overcome with fatigue, were ultimately defeated on the 22d of May near Tournay by Pichegru, and on the 26th of June al Fleurus, by Jourdan, in two sanguinary battles.
After this victory the success of tb«, French arms continued without interruption ; nothing could check their progress either in Holland or on the Rhine. All the places taken from them in France- Landrecies, Le Quesnoy, Valenciennes, and Conr'e, were reconquered one after the othei besides which, the republicans took possession of Brussels on the 9th of June, and in the autumn they commanded the rivers Meuse and Vahal. These success however, appeared to have reached the term of their duration.
This more especially as the sluices of all the canals throughout Holland had been opened, in order, by a general inundation, to rescue that country from the French arms. But nature herself came to the aid of the invaders, by converting these very waters into a secure passage for their troops, inasmuch as the winter of this year, 1794, becoming extremely severe, they were all completely frozen, and to such a depth was the ice, that, by means of these natural, seasonable bridges, soldiers, artillery, and baggage-trains, were enabled to ad. vance, and penetrate into the very heart of Holland ; thus, on the 17th of January, 1795, they were in possession of Utrecht, and on the 19th they took Amsterdam. The stadtholder was forced to seek refuge with his family in England, and Holland was forthwith converted into a republic.
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