Divisional-General Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez (French: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa dy peʁje dymuʁje]; 26 January 1739 – 14 March 1823) was a French Army officer and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of War in the Constitutional Cabinet of Louis XVI. Born in Cambrai, Dumouriez joined the French Royal Army in 1757 and served with distinction in the Seven Years' War. Following a spell as a diplomat in Louis XV's Secret du Roi and brief imprisonment due to financial misconduct, he was named commandant of Cherbourg and oversaw the development of the port city.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Dumouriez went to Paris and joined the Jacobin Club. With the Girondins' support, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1792. He then briefly served as Minister of War but resigned due to conflict with Louis XVI, after which he assumed command of the Army of the North in its campaign against Austria and Prussia. Alongside François Christophe de Kellermann, he achieved a major victory at Valmy, forcing an invading Prussian army to withdraw.
Dumouriez then launched an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands and scored another victory at Jemappes. In early 1793, he advanced into the Dutch Republic but was driven back to the Austrian Netherlands before suffering a major defeat at Neerwinden. A monarchist at heart, Dumouriez had long disagreed with the direction the revolution had taken and was increasingly coming into conflict with radical deputies such as Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat. After Neerwinden, he attempted to march on Paris, overthrow the National Convention and restore the constitutional monarchy, but the plot was foiled and he subsequently defected to the Austrians. Dumouriez spent the rest of his life in exile, wandering through Europe until settling in England, where he died in 1823. His name is among the ones inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.
Dumouriez was born in Cambrai, on the Scheldt River in
northern France, to parents of noble rank. His father, Antoine-François du Périer, served as a commissary of the royal army, and educated his son most carefully and widely. He continued his studies in Paris at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and was then sent to his uncle in Versailles for a year. In 1757 began his military career as a volunteer and served in six campaigns of the Seven Years' War. In the Battle of Rossbach, he served as a cornet in the Régiment d'Escars. He was stationed in Emden, Münster, Wesel and carried a small library with him. He received a commission for good conduct in action, with distinction (receiving 22 wounds during the battle of Corbach). In 1761 he recovered in the baths at Aachen. After the peace of Hubertusburg he retired at Abbeville as a captain, with a small pension (which was never paid), a love affair with his niece and the cross of St Louis.
Dumouriez then visited Italy, Spain and Corsica, and his memoranda to the duc de Choiseul on Corsican affairs at the time of the Corsican Republic led to his re-employment on the staff of the French expeditionary corps sent to the island, for which he gained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1769 Choiseul gave Dumouriez a military command as deputy quartermaster general to the army under the Marquis de Chauvelin. After two campaigns on the island, he became a member of the Secret du Roi, the secret service under Louis XV, which gave full scope to his diplomatic skills. The fall of Choiseul (1770) brought about Dumouriez's recall. In 1770 he undertook a mission into Poland, where, in addition to his political business, he organized a Polish militia for the Bar Confederation. There he met with Jozef Miaczinsky, the commander of a regiment. His Polish soldiers were pushed back by the Russian forces of General Alexander Suvorov in the first clash but Suvorov failed in the second clash. On 21 May 1771, Dumouriez' Polish soldiers were smashed in the third clash.
In 1772, upon returning to Paris, Dumouriez sought a military position from the marquis de Monteynard, Secretary of State for War, who gave him a staff position with the regiment of Lorraine writing diplomatic and military reports. In 1773, he was arrested in Hamburg and then imprisoned in the Bastille for six months, apparently for diverting funds intended for the employment of secret agents into the payment of personal debts. During his captivity Dumouriez occupied himself with literary pursuits. He was sent to Caen, where he remained in detention until the accession of Louis XVI in 1774. Dumouriez was then recalled to Paris and assigned to posts in Lille and Boulogne-sur-Mer by the comte de Saint-Germain, the new king's Minister of War.
Upon his release, Dumouriez married his cousin, a certain Mademoiselle de Broissy. In the meantime, Dumouriez had turned his attention to the internal state of his own country, and amongst the very numerous memoranda which he sent to the government was a project on the defence of Normandy and Cherbourg navy port, which procured for him in 1778 the post of commandant of Cherbourg. He administered it with much success for more than ten years. The construction of the fortifications and dikes began in 1779/1782 and extended in 1786. He used a plan by Vauban to create an outer port. The city grew and even the King came to La Manche see it. For his ingenuity in fortifying he became a maréchal de camp in 1788. After the Storming of the Bastille he became commander of the National Guard in July 1789, but his ambition was not satisfied. Business and trade dropped in Cherbourg. He proved a neglectful and unfaithful husband, and the couple separated. Madame Dumouriez took refuge in a convent.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, seeing the opportunity for carving out a new career, he went to Paris, where he joined the Jacobin Club. In 1790, Dumouriez was appointed French military advisor to the newly established United Belgium States and remained dedicated to the cause of an independent Belgian Republic. In 1791 he was sent to the coast. The death of Mirabeau, to whose fortunes he had attached himself, proved a great blow. However, opportunity arose again when, in his capacity as a lieutenant-general and the commandant of Nantes, he offered to march to the assistance of the National Constituent Assembly after the royal family's unsuccessful flight to Varennes. Minister of War, Louis Lebègue Duportail, promoted Dumouriez from president of the War Council to major-general in June 1791 and attached him to the Twelfth Division, which was commanded by General Jacques Alexis de Verteuil.
Dumouriez then attached himself to the Girondist party and on 15 March 1792 was appointed the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In March 1792 he selected Pierre Henri Hélène Marie Lebrun-Tondu as his first officer for Belgian and Liégeois affairs. The relationship between the Girondists and Dumouriez was not based on ideology, but rather based on the practical benefit it gave to both parties. Dumouriez needed people in the Legislative Assembly to support him, and the Girondists needed a general to give them legitimacy in the army. He played a major part in the declaration of war against Austria (20 April), and he ordered General Dillon, commander of Lille, to attack Tournai, and the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands. His foreign policy was greatly influenced by Jean-Louis Favier. Favier had called for France to break its ties with Austria.
On the king's dismissal of Roland, Clavière and Servan (13 June 1792), he took Servan's post of Minister of War, but resigned it a few days later on account of Louis XVI's refusal to come to terms with the National Constituent Assembly, concerning his suspensive veto. Within a week he joined the army of the North under Marshal Luckner. After the émeute of 10 August 1792 and Lafayette’s flight, he gained appointment to the command of the "Army of the Centre". At the same moment, France's enemies assumed the offensive. Dumouriez acted promptly from Sedan, Ardennes.