Their numbers upon paper were somewhat formidable, it is true, but the license of the Revolution had so loosened the bonds of discipline as to effect an almost complete disorganization.

"It seemed, at this period," says the historian, "as if the operations of the French generals were dependent upon the absence of their enemies: the moment they appeared, the operations were precipitately abandoned." But France had on her eastern frontier a triple line of good fortresses, although her miserable soldiery were incapable of properly defending them.

The several works of the first and second lines fell, one after another, before the slow operations of a Prussian siege, and the Duke of Brunswick was already advancing upon the third, when Dumourier, with only twenty-five thousand men, threw himself into this line, and by a well-conducted war of positions, placing his raw and unsteady forces behind unassailable intrenchments, succeeded in repelling a disciplined army nearly four times as numerous as his own.

Had no other obstacle than the French troops been interposed between Paris and the Prussians, all agree that France must have fallen.
In the campaign, of 1793, the French army in Flanders were beaten in almost every engagement, and their forces reduced to less than one half the number of the allies.

The French general turned traitor to his country, and the National Guards deserted their colors and returned to France.