The Battle of Fleurus, on 26 June 1794, was an engagement during the War of the First Coalition, between the army of the First French Republic, under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, and the Coalition army, commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg, in the most significant battle of the Flanders Campaign in the Low Countries during the French Revolutionary Wars. Both sides had forces in the area of around 80,000 men but the French were able to concentrate their troops and defeat the First Coalition. The Allied defeat led to the permanent loss of the Austrian Netherlands and to the destruction of the Dutch Republic. The battle marked a turning point for the French army, which remained ascendant for the rest of the War of the First Coalition.
Jourdan at Fleurus with the balloon l'Entreprenant in the background. Painted by Mauzaisse in 1837; on display in the Galerie des Batailles, Versailles.
Collecting card (c.1890) celebrating the flight of the first observation balloon
War of the First Coalition
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797, initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.
War of the First Coalition
The British evacuation of Toulon in December 1793
Lord Howe's action or The Glorious First of June. Oil painting by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1795), National Maritime Museum.
Strategic situation in Europe in 1796