 Undeniably a capable , possibly brilliant , and popular commander , Pichegru began his second campaign by crossing the Meuse on 18 October , and , after taking Nijmegen , drove the Austrians back across the Rhine . Then , instead of going into winter quarters , he prepared his army for a winter campaign , always a difficult proposition in the eighteenth century . On 27 December , three brigades crossed the Meuse on the ice , and stormed the Bommelerwaard . On 10 January the army crossed the Waal near Zaltbommel , entered Utrecht on 13 January , which surrendered on the 16th . The Prussian and the British armies withdrew behind the IJssel and then fled to the safety of Hanover and Bremen . Pichegru , who succeeded in avoiding the frozen Dutch Water Line arrived in Amsterdam on 20 January , after its revolution . The French occupied the rest of the Dutch Republic in the next month . This major victory , the expulsion of the Coalition from the Low Countries and the successful occupation and alliance with the new Batavian Republic , was marked by unique episodes , such as the capture of the Dutch fleet , which was frozen in Den Helder , by French hussars , and exceptional discipline of the French battalions in Amsterdam , who , although faced with the opportunity of plundering the richest city in Europe , showed remarkable self @-@ restraint . Consequently , when Pichegru then took united command of the armies of the North , the Sambre @-@ and @-@ Meuse , and the Rhine , and crossed the Rhine in force in May 1795 , he held the enviable position as hero of the Revolution . He took Mannheim in May 1795 , but inexplicably he allowed his colleague Jourdan to be defeated ; by 1797 it was well @-@ understood in Paris that he betrayed all his plans to the enemy , and , over the following eighteen months , participated in a conspiracy for the return and coronation of Louis XVIII as King of France . 
