The Battle of Wattignies (October 15–16, 1793) sees a Republican French army commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan attack a Coalition army directed by Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

After two days of combat, Jourdan's troops compel the Habsburg Austrian covering force led by François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt to withdraw.

The War of the First Coalition victory allows the French to raise the Siege of Maubeuge.

At a time when failed generals are often executed or imprisoned, Jourdan has to endure interference from Lazare Carnot from the Committee of Public Safety.

The village, renamed Wattignies-la-Victoire in honor of the important success, is located nine kilometers (six miles) southeast of Maubeuge.

Coburg's main army encircles twenty-five thousand French soldiers in Maubeuge while about twenty-two thousand Austrians under Clerfayt are formed in a semi-circle, covering the southern approaches to the fortress.

On the first day, forty-five thousand French soldiers mount a clumsy attack that is easily repulsed, except near the village of Wattignies.

On the second day, Jourdan concentrates half his army at Wattignies and after a tough fight, forces Coburg to concede defeat.

Though the Coalition army is better trained than the French, its units are spread out too thinly and the different nationalities fail to cooperate.

Soon the Coalition army goes into winter quarters, finishing a campaign that had started with great promise and ends in disappointment.

Carnot rewrites history so that he and the political representatives get most of the credit for the triumph; Jourdan is dismissed in January 1794.