Battle of Aldenhoven (1794)-The Daily Ledger

The Battle of Aldenhoven or Battle of the Roer (2 October 1794) saw a Republican French army commanded by Jean Baptiste Jourdan defeat a Habsburg army under François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt which was defending the line of the Roer River. A key crossing was won by the French right wing at Düren after heavy fighting. The Austrian retreat from the Roer conceded control of the west bank of the Rhine River to France. The battle occurred during the War of the First Coalition, part of a wider conflict called the Wars of the French Revolution. Aldenhoven is located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany about 21 kilometres (13 mi) northeast of Aachen.

Background

The Flanders campaign of 1794 saw the French Army of the North and Army of the Ardennes under General Charles Pichegru, and later elements of the Army of the Moselle under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, attack both flanks of the Coalition army facing them.

Battle of Aldenhoven (1794)

After the pivotal battle of Fleurus on 26 June 1794, the Coalition army began what would become a general retreat out of Flanders, as the Austrian government had decided at this point that the Austrian Netherlands were too much trouble to hold on to. As French pressure forced the Coalition army further and further back, it divided into two major forces on divergent routes of retreat dictated by their governments’ political objectives, as the British and Dutch fell back northwards to defend the Dutch Republic, while the Austrians fell back eastwards to defend the Rhine.

Battle of Aldenhoven (1794)

The Austrian Retreat to the Roer

After the battle of Fleurus, the Allied army, then under Prince Coburg, initially withdrew to Mont St. Jean. On 1 July, after the French armies that had defeated them under the battle, now formally constituted as the Army of Sambre-and-Meuse under Jourdan, captured Mons on their flank, they commenced a retreat towards Brussels.

Battle of Aldenhoven (1794)

At this point, although the British and Dutch contingents in the allied army remained nominally under Coburg’s command, the Austrian and the Anglo-Dutch forces functioned essentially separately and with no regard for one another. On 5 July at Waterloo, Prince Coburg and the Duke of York, commander of the British contingent, agreed to defend a line from Antwerp to Louvain, Wavre, Gembloux and Namur, but Coburg promptly cancelled this agreement the next day when attacked by Jourdan and retreated with the Austrians towards Malines (Mechelen) and Louvain (Leuven), vacating Brussels along the way.

Attacked further on 7-8 July, and compelled to relinquish Namur, Coburg moved the Austrians even further back to a line centred on Tirlemont. A week later, French attacks captured Malines and Louvain, prompting Coburg to begin a retreat back across the Meuse, eventually crossing at Maastricht on 24 July, occupying a defensive line on the east bank.

Following this retreat, Coburg had resigned, and was replaced by Count Clerfayt. The Austrians held their position on the Meuse through August, as the Army of Sambre-and-Meuse awaited the return of some 40,000 men that had been detached under Barthelemy Scherer to besiege and recapture Coalition fortified towns that had now been abandoned in the rear following the allied retreat.

Upon Scherer’s return on 4 September, Jourdan, now strong enough, launched an attack that crumpled Clerfayt’s left flank at the battle of the Ourthe, also known as the battle of Sprimont. With his entire position on the Meuse now outflanked and compromised, Clerfayt was forced to retreat further back the Roer river, the last river defence line before the Rhine itself.

French Order of Battle

The French Army of Sambre-and-Meuse that fought at the Roer River was made up of elements from three armies that had been assembled to fight at Fleurus–the right wing of the Army of the North, the Army of the Ardennes, and the left wing of the Army of the Moselle.

Formally constituted as an army on 29 June under the command of Jourdan, the Army after the battle of Sprimont consisted of some 120,000 men in three corps, with the left wing under Jean-Baptiste Kleber, the right under Barthelemy Scherer, and the centre under Jourdan’s personal command.

Days after Sprimont, Jourdan detached some 15,000 men under Philibert Duhesme to besiege Maastricht. The remaining 105,000 men remaining were organised in divisions as follows: