page_title: Jean René Moreaux
section_title: Army command
hierarchical_section_title: Jean René Moreaux / Army command
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Siège de Luxembourg 1794-1795
context_page_description: Jean René Moreaux commanded the French Army of the Moselle during the French Revolutionary Wars. He joined the French Royal Army in 1776 and was badly wounded in the American Revolutionary War two years later. After leaving military service, he married and took over the family business. At the time of the French Revolution he was elected second in command of a volunteer battalion. He was rapidly promoted, emerging as a general officer in May 1793. After another promotion, he led a corps at Pirmasens and a division at Wissembourg. He was appointed commander of the Army of the Moselle in June 1794. In November he was sent with three divisions to invest the fortress of Luxembourg. He caught a fever and died during the Siege of Luxembourg. His surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe.
context_section_description: On 25 June 1794, Moreaux was named commander of the Army of the Moselle, taking over from Claude Ignace François Michaud. In July his army captured Trier and on 23 October it captured Koblenz. Meanwhile, after a series of stunning victories, the army of Jean-Charles Pichegru conquered Flanders while Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse advanced through Liège and Aachen to capture Bonn and Cologne. To the south, the Army of the Rhine captured Kaiserslautern and Worms. French armies stood victorious in the Netherlands and on the west bank of the Rhine. One of Moreaux's divisions led by Rémy Vincent captured Rheinfels Castle on 2 November leaving only Mainz and Luxembourg City in enemy hands on the Rhine's west bank.
  While Michaud's Army of the Rhine received instructions to lay siege to Mainz, Moreaux was ordered to make preparations to capture Luxembourg. The fortress had served the Habsburg Austrians as a major supply base during their military operations against France. Seizing Luxembourg was expected to yield enormous stocks of accumulated military supplies. Since the nearest enemy army was far away on the opposite bank of the Rhine, there was little risk that the Allies might relieve the city. For this mission, Moreaux assembled 19,800 soldiers in the divisions of Jean-Jacques Ambert, Jean-Baptiste Debrun and Guillaume Péduchelle. These were formed into two columns, including one under Debrun which approached on the Liège road starting on 19 November 1794.
  Several clashes ensued between the advancing French and the withdrawing Austrians, one in which future marshal of France Louis-Nicolas Davout was involved. A blockade was established by 21 November and Moreaux's force was renamed the Army before Luxembourg. Moreaux placed Alexandre Camille Taponier's division across the road to Trier, with its right at Dommeldange and its headquarters at Sandweiler. Debrun's division covered the Arlon road with its right on the Longwy road and its left on the Liège road. Ambert's division was posted at Roeser covering the Thionville road with its headquarters at Hesperange. Moreaux located the army headquarters at Weiler-la-Tour. Achille Grigny was his chief of staff and Jean Pierre Alexandre Dieudel commanded the artillery.
  The winter of 1794–1795 was bitterly cold, reaching −20 °C (−4 °F) at one point. Because the roads were in poor condition, it took several weeks before provision convoys began reaching the French camps with regularity. Arrangements were made to bake bread at Grevenmacher and convoy it to the siege lines. Moreaux requested reinforcements in order to tighten the blockade and by 15 December the Army before Luxembourg numbered 25,500 men. In addition, the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse took over positions on the west bank of the Rhine that were formerly the responsibility of the Army of the Moselle. French pickets were pushed to within 300 yards (274 m) of the Luxembourg defenses.
  The 12,000-man Luxembourg garrison was commanded by the octogenarian Feldmarschall Johann von Bender. The fortress commandant was Johann Wilhelm von Schröder and the brigade commanders were Karl Philipp Sebottendorf, Johann von Moitelle and Ernst Beust. The garrison consisted of 10,095 infantry, 670 cavalry, 570 gunners, 88 sappers, 16 engineers and 415 volunteers. Altogether, there were nine Austrian infantry battalions, two battalions of Würzburgers and four squadrons of Austrian cavalry. On 9 January 1795, the garrison mounted a sortie by 3,000 picked volunteers in order to procure firewood from the surrounding villages. The blow fell on the French lines between Merl and Fayencerie. At first the Austrians drove back the besiegers but they were thrown back into Luxembourg by French reinforcements and an artillery piece that Davout brought forward. In this skirmish, the French suffered 11 killed and 25 wounded while the Austrians lost 30 killed, a number of wounded and five cavalrymen taken prisoner.
  At the beginning of February, Moreaux was stricken by a fever at his headquarters at Weiler-la-Tour. He was taken to Thionville where he died on the n
caption: Siege of Luxembourg 1794–1795 by Renoux
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