Charles François Dumouriez (redirected from Charles Dumouriez)

Dumouriez, Charles François 

Born Jan. 25, 1739, in Cambrai, France; died Mar. 14, 1823, in Turville Park, Great Britain. French general and political figure. In military service from 1758.

During the French Revolution, Dumouriez joined the Girondin wing of the Jacobin Club to further his mercenary ambitions. After serving as minister of foreign affairs from March to mid-June 1792, he became war minister. In August he was appointed commander of the army. His army won victories at Valmy and Jemappes in the autumn of 1792, and drove off the first attack of the armies of the Austro-Prussian coalition. In March 1793, having suffered a defeat at Neerwinden, Dumouriez secretly negotiated with the Austrian command and planned a joint campaign against Paris to dissolve the Convention and restore the monarchy. Unable to find support among his troops, Dumouriez fled to the Austrians in April 1793. In 1804 he settled in Great Britain, where he lived on a pension from the English government and avoided politics.

WORKS

La Vie du général Dumouriez, vols. 1-3. Hamburg, 1795.