Valmy and the Birth of the Republic

On 20 September 1792, French armies under Dumouriez and Kellermann faced the Prussian army at Valmy in Champagne. The battle was mostly an artillery exchange, with few casualties, but the French line held and the Prussians, troubled by illness, rain and supply problems, withdrew. That same day the newly elected National Convention met in Paris, and on 21 September it abolished the monarchy. From 22 September 1792, documents were dated from 'Year I of the Republic'.

The German writer Goethe, who was with the Prussian forces, later claimed he had told companions that a new era in world history began at that place and day. Valmy's military scale was modest, but its timing gave it immense symbolic weight: a citizen army had stopped a professional one, and the Republic was born with a victory. By November French forces had won at Jemappes and occupied the Austrian Netherlands.