Jean-Charles Pichegru, as Général de division and in command of the army of the Rhine, had been tasked with the reconquest of Alsace and the reorganization of the defeated troops of the French Republic, in cooperation with Lazare Hoche and the army of the Moselle.

They had succeeded, as Pichegru had made use of the morale of his soldiers to win numerous skirmishes, and Hoche had forced the lines at Haguenau and relieved Landau.

Hoche had been arrested In March 1793,  probably owing to his colleague’s denunciations, and Pichegru had become commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine-and-Moselle. (Hoche will escape execution, however, though imprisoned in Paris until the fall of Robespierre.)

Pichegru had then been summoned to succeed Jourdan in the army of the North, subsequently fighting three major campaigns of one year.

Pichegru was born at Arbois (or, according to Charles Nodier, at Les Planches, near Lons-le-Saulnier), as the son of a peasant.

The friars of Arbois, having been entrusted with his education, had sent him to the military school of Brienne-le-Château.

In 1783, he had entered the 1st regiment of artillery, where he had rapidly rises to the rank of Adjutant-Second Lieutenant and briefly served in the American Revolutionary War.

When the Revolution erupted in 1789, Pichegru had become leader of the Jacobin Club in Besançon, and had been elected Lieutenant Colonel when a regiment of volunteers of the départment of the Gard marched through the city.

The fine condition of his regiment had been noticed in the French Revolutionary Army section of the Rhine, and his organizing ability had gotten him appointed in the headquarters, and then promoted Général de brigade.

Lazare Carnot and Louis de Saint-Just had been sent In 1793 to find roturier (non-aristocratic) generals who could prove successful.

Carnot had discovered Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, and Saint-Just had discovered Louis Lazare Hoche and Pichegru.

The forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Habsburg Austria hold a strong position along the Sambre to the North Sea.

After attempting to break the Austrian center, Pichegru suddenly turns their right, and defeats the Count of Clerfayt at Cassel, ...

...Menin and Courtrai, while his subordinate ...

Joseph Souham defeats Prince Josias of Coburg in the battle of Tourcoing on May 18, 1794.

Pichegru, after a lull during which he feigns a siege of Ypres, ...

...he again attacks Clerfayt, defeating him at Roeselare and ...

...Hooglede.

The government had soon recalled Jourdan to lead the Army of the Moselle, ordering him north with the left wing of the Army of the Moselle in May.

This force is combined with the Army of the Ardennes and the right wing of the Army of the North to form an army that does not officially become the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse until June 29, 1794.

With seventy thousand soldiers of the new army, Jourdan lays siege to Charleroi on June 12.

A forty-one thousand-man Austrian-Dutch army under William V, Prince of Orange, defeats the French at Lambusart on June 16 and drives them south of the Sambre River.

Casualties number three thousand for each army.

Undeterred, Jourdan immediately marches on Namur to the east-northeast of Charleroi.

Instead of attacking Namur, he suddenly swings west and appears to the north of Charleroi.

After a brief siege, the three thousand-man Austrian garrison of Charleroi surrenders on June 25.

Pichegru begins his second campaign by crossing the Meuse on October 18, and, after taking Nijmegen, drove the Austrians beyond the Rhine.

Then, instead of going into winter quarters, he prepares his army for a winter campaign.

Three brigades cross the Meuse on the ice, and storm the Bommelerwaard on December 27.

France, after seizing the Low Countries in a surprise winter attack, establishes the Batavian Republic as a puppet state.

The king of Prussia had retired from any active part in the war even before the close of 1794, and on April 5, 1795, he concludes with France the Peace of Basel, which recognizes France's occupation of the left bank of the Rhine.

The new French-dominated Dutch government buys peace by surrendering Dutch territory to the south of that river.

A treaty of peace between France and Spain follows in July.

The grand duke of Tuscany had been admitted to terms in February.

The allied coalition thus falls into ruin and France proper will be free from invasion for many years.

Britain attempts to reinforce the rebels in the Vendée by landing French Royalist troops at Quiberon, but fails, and attempts to overthrow the government at Paris by force are foiled by the military garrison led by Napoleon Bonaparte, leading to the establishment of the Directory.

On the Rhine frontier, General Pichegru, negotiating with the exiled Royalists, betrays his army and forces the evacuation of Mannheim and the failure of the siege of Mainz by Jourdan.