The French, who outnumbered their opponents by about three-to-one, launched a series of enthusiastic but uncoordinated attacks against the Austrian position on a ridge.

In the summer of 1792 Charles Dumouriez, the French foreign minister and commander of the Armée du Nord, had believed that the best way to prevent an Austrian and Prussian invasion of France was to invade the Austrian Netherlands, but the Allies had launched their invasion before Dumouriez was ready to move, and he had been forced to move south.

The Allied invasion had been at Valmy on 20 September where the French army stood up to an artillery bombardment, and proved that it would not flee at the first sign of opposition.

The Allied commander, the Duke of Brunswick, was not willing to risk a full-scale assault on the French line, and withdrew after it.

This left Dumouriez free to move north, to first raise the siege to Lille in late September and into early October, and then to launch his long-planned invasion of the Austrian Netherlands.

His original plan for a three-pronged invasion had to be changed, as the promised resources to achieve it proved unavailable, and instead, at the end of October, he concentrated most of his men in front of Valenciennes and marched towards Mons, and the way to Brussels.

With this power, he tried to defend the 5-mile (8.0 km) long Cuesmes ridge which ran from Mons in the Austrian left to Jemappes on the right side.

The most obvious example was the commander of the French center, the Duke of Chartres, who had assumed the name of General Egalite, and would later become King Louis-Philippe of France.

[2] The north end of the position, defended by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz Freiherr von Lilien, was anchored on the village of Jemappes.

Feldzeugmeister Count Clerfayt commanded the center and Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann Peter Beaulieu led the left wing.

He expected to be joined by an additional 4,000 troops on the right under General Louis Auguste Juvénal des Ursins d'Harville.

However, in the context of the situation in 1792, with the French army in chaos due to exile of many of its experienced officers, it was a great success.

The victory at Jemappes, achieved by inexperienced volunteers over the Austrian regulars, greatly increased the confidence of the revolutionary government in Paris, and encouraged their tendency to aggressive warfare.

In 1793 Dumouriez was forced to flee into exile, but his victory at Jemappes was an important step in the direction of the military triumphs of the French Republic.