ruggle between the rival armies took the
form not so much of a pitched battle as of an inconclusive cannonade known
to history as that of VALMY. This inconclusive cannonade took place in the
heart of French territory during the march of the invaders upon Paris.
Disease, and the accident of weather, determined the retreat of the
invaders immediately afterwards. In the autumn of the year, the French
forces largely recruited by enthusiastic volunteer levies, but of low
military value, poured over the country then called the Austrian
Netherlands and now Belgium. But their success was shortlived. A mere
efflux of numbers could not hold against the trained and increasing
resistance of the Imperial soldiers. In the spring of 1793 the retreat
began, and through the summer of that year the military position of
Revolutionary France grew graver and graver. Internal rebellions of the
most serious character broke out over the whole territory of the Republic.
In Normandy, in the great town of Lyons, in Marseilles, and particularly
in the Western districts surrounding the mouth of the Loire, these
rebellions had each in turn their moment of success, while the great naval
station of Toulon opened its port to the enemy, and received the combined
English and Spanish Fleets.

Coincidently with the enormous task of suppressing this widespread
domestic rebellion, the Revolutionary Government was compelled to meet the
now fully organised advance of its foreign enemies. It was at war no
longer with Austria and Prussia alone, but with England, with Holland,
with Spain as well, and the foreign powers not only thrust back the
incursion which the French had made beyond their frontiers, but proceeded
to attack and to capture, one after the other, that barrier of fortresses
in the north-east which guarded the advance on Paris.

The succession of misfortune after misfortune befalling the French arms
was checked, and the tide turned by the victory won at Wattignies in
October 1793. After that victory the immediate peril of a successful
invasion, coupled with the capture of Paris, was dissipated. But it was
yet uncertain for many months which way the tide would turn--whether the
conflict would end in a sort of stale-mate by which the French should
indeed be left independent for the moment, but the armed governments of
Europe their enemies also left powerful to attack and in the end to ruin
them; or whether (as was actually the case) the French should