William Pitt and the Great War Part 19

For by this time the counter-strokes dealt by the Republicans were telling with fatal effect on their adversaries. The failure of the Spanish campaign in Roussillon and the irruption of a French force into Catalonia dashed the spirits of that weak and wavering monarch, Charles IV; and already whispers were heard that peace with France was necessary. The disputes with England concerning Nootka Sound and affairs at Toulon predisposed the King and his people to think with less horror of the regicides of Paris. As for Sardinia, the childish obscurantism of the Court of Turin had nursed to quick life a mushroom growth of Jacobinism. The army defending the Alpine pa.s.ses was honeycombed with discontent; and the suspicious conduct of Austria towards her little ally foreshadowed the divisions and disasters which quickly followed on the advent of Bonaparte at that theatre of the war.

It was clear that only from London could come the impulse which would invigorate this anaemic Coalition. Pitt sought to impart such an impulse in the King's Speech at the opening of the Session of 1794. It had throughout a defiant ring. The capture of three of the northern fortresses of France, the gains in the East and West Indies (they amounted to Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and Tobago, together with Miquelon and St. Pierre), the blow dealt to her navy at Toulon, and the impossibility of her continuing the recent prodigious exertions, were in turn duly emphasized. And on 21st January 1794, when Fox moved an amendment in favour of peace, the Prime Minister spoke even more strongly of the madness of coming to terms with the present rulers of France. Could any statesman not gifted with second sight have spoken otherwise? At that time the Reign of Terror was approaching its climax.

The G.o.ddess of Reason had lately been enthroned in Notre Dame amidst ribald songs and dances. The schism between Robespierre and the atheistical party was beginning to appear; and few persons believed that France would long bend the knee before the lords of the guillotine, whose resources were largely derived from the plunder of churches and banks, forced loans from the wealthy, and a graduated Income Tax resembling the Spartan proposals of Thomas Paine.

In such a case Pitt naturally repeated his statement of the previous session, that he altogether deprecated a peace with France, unless it possessed some elements of permanence, and secured due indemnity to Great Britain. Nay, he declared that he would rather persevere with war, even in the midst of disasters, than come to terms with the present rulers of France, who were alike enemies of order and rabid foes of England. They drove men into battle by fear of the guillotine; they formed rapine and destruction into a system, and perverted to their detestable purposes all the talents and ingenuity derived from the civilization around them. He was careful, however, to correct the mis-statement of Fox, that the Government was struggling for the restoration of the French monarchy. While believing that that nation would live most happily under a King, Pitt denied that a restoration was the object of the present war. We have already seen that he held this view in his correspondence with the Austrian Court. The House supported Ministers by 277 votes to 59.

These declarations, backed by so large a majority, caused great satisfaction at Vienna, and heartened that Government in the midst of its many uncertainties. There was every need of encouragement. In that age, when the great monarchs of the eighteenth century had pa.s.sed, or were pa.s.sing, away, Francis II stood somewhat low among the mediocrities on whom fell the strokes of destiny. He was a poor replica of Leopold II. Where the father was supple and adroit, the son was perversely obstinate or weakly pliable. In place of foresight and tenacity in the pursuit of essentials, Francis was remarkable for a more than Hapsburg narrowness of view, and he lacked the toughness which had not seldom repaired the blunders of that House. Those counsellors swayed him most who appealed to his family pride, or satisfied his other dominant feelings, attachment to the old order of things and a pedantic clinging to established usages. But the weakness of his character soon became so patent as to excite general distrust, especially as he was swayed by the wayward impulses of his consort, a daughter of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Naples. From her mother she inherited a hatred of French principles and the bent towards intrigue and extravagance which wrecked the careers of that Queen and of her sister, Marie Antoinette. Francis II and his consort longed to stamp out the French plague; but they lacked the strength of mind and of will that commands success. Our special envoy at Vienna, Thomas Grenville, questioned whether the Emperor "had steadiness enough to influence the Government."

According to the same competent judge, the Chancellor Thugut was the only efficient Minister, being very laborious in his work, and indeed "the only man of business about the Court."[338] Yet Thugut was rather a clever diplomat and ideal head-clerk than a statesman. In forethought he did not much excel his master. Indeed, his personality and his position alike condemned him to aim at cheap and easy gains. His features and figure were mean. Worse still, he was of low birth, a crime in the eyes of n.o.bles and courtiers who for nearly half a century had seen the prestige of the Chancery enhanced by the lordly airs and whims of Kaunitz. Fear of courtly intrigues ever obsessed the mind of Thugut; and thus, whenever the horizon darkened, this coast-hugging pilot at once made for the nearest haven. In particular, as the recovery of Belgium in the year 1793 brought no financial gain, but unending vistas of war, he sought other means of indemnity, and discovered them in Alsace-Lorraine, South Poland, and Venice. The first was a concession to the pride of the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine; but Thugut saw in Venetia and in the land south of Warsaw the readiest means of indemnifying Austria for the loss of her Belgic Provinces, which after the defeat of Wattignies (October 1793) he probably expected and welcomed.

In this orientation of Hapsburg policy Thugut did but follow the impulse first imparted by Hertzberg at Berlin. As we have seen, Frederick William II entered on the French war in one of his chivalrous moods, which pa.s.sed away amidst the smoke of Valmy. The miseries of the retreat Rhinewards, and the incursion of the French into the valley of the Main taught him prudence, while the ease of his conquest of Great Poland early in the year 1793 a.s.sured the victory of statecraft over chivalry.

Morton Eden reported from Berlin that, had the preparations for the Valmy campaign equalled in thoroughness those for the invasion of Poland, events must have gone very differently in Champagne. The circ.u.mspection with which the Prussians conducted the siege of Mainz in the summer of 1793, and the long delays of the autumn, have already been noticed. The result of it was that at Christmastide of the year 1793 Pichegru and Hoche threw back Wurmser in disastrous rout, and compelled Brunswick hurriedly to retire to the Rhine.

As always happens between discordant allies after defeats, Berlin and Vienna indulged in a war of words, amidst which the Coalition would probably have broken up but for the efforts of British diplomacy. The Pitt Ministry had despatched to Berlin the ablest of British diplomatists, Lord Malmesbury, with a view to strengthening the accord between the three Powers; and the mingled charm and authority of his presence did much to thwart the petty prejudices and intrigues prevalent at that capital. He took Brussels and Frankfurt on his way to Berlin, and his diary shows the listlessness or discontent which had infected the officers of the British army. Many of them openly brought against the Duke of York the most outrageous and unfounded charges, and it seems that about fifty of them went on furlough to England, where they spread those slanders and played into the hands of the Opposition.[339]

Malmesbury's converse with the Duke and others at Ath convinced him that the commander-in-chief was striving manfully and generously against a situation full of difficulty.

At Frankfurt, and again at Berlin, Malmesbury found signs that Frederick William was ashamed at the ignominious issue of the campaign, and professed a desire to take up the duties which the Duke of Brunswick had so haltingly fulfilled. The King seemed rather pleased than otherwise at the Austrian reverses in the north of Alsace, but by no means indisposed to renew the attack upon France, always provided that England paid him a sufficient subsidy. He a.s.sured the envoy that his _chef-d'oeuvre_, the Triple Alliance of 1788, was still a reality, but he declared, on the faith of an honest man, that the state of Prussia's finances would not enable him to face a third campaign. In point of fact, out of the reserve fund of 80,000,000 crowns which Frederick the Great had handed on, only 20,000,000 or perhaps only 14,000,000 remained in the early days of 1794.[340]

Other difficulties beset the Prussian monarch. Want of work had driven the weavers of Silesia to a state of frenzy and tumult almost resembling a _Jacquerie_; and there and elsewhere serfs and peasants talked openly of casting off the restraints and burdens of Feudalism. In such a case the veriest autocrat must pause before he commits his country to the risks of a loan (that of 1792 had exhausted Prussia's credit), or to a campaign where the losses were certain and the gains doubtful. On this last topic various schemes had been bandied to and fro between Berlin and Vienna. The debt of honour certainly bade Frederick William help to secure to his rival a counterpart to Prussia's acquisitions in Poland; but, apart from this consideration and the need of stamping out the French pest in the Rhineland, the politicians of Berlin found few reasons for prolonging the war. What wonder, then, that they set on foot intrigues with the regicides of Paris? Marshal Mollendorf, the commander whom Frederick William subst.i.tuted for the weary and disgusted Duke of Brunswick, proved to be a partisan of peace.[341]

Royalist at heart, but beset by advisers and mistresses who fanned his jealousy of Austria and love of ease, Frederick William wavered under the whims of the hour or the counsels of the last comer. Malmesbury thus summed up the question now at issue in his letter to Pitt of 9th January 1794: "Can we do without the King of Prussia or can we not? If we can, he is not worth the giving of a guinea for. If we cannot, I am afraid we cannot give too many." Malmesbury saw no means of keeping Frederick William steady up to the end of the war. Pitt and Grenville, however, devised the following expedient. They offered the sum of 2,000,000 for bringing 100,000 Prussians into the field. Of this sum Great Britain would furnish two fifths (or 800,000), and Austria and Holland each one fifth, the last fifth being advanced by Prussia herself until she reimbursed herself from France at the general peace. The device was suggestive of that of the rustic who tempts his beast of burden onwards by dangling a choice vegetable before his nose.

Frederick William alone might have been attracted by the offer; but his advisers haggled long and obstinately over details. Chief among the objectors was a Councillor of State, Haugwitz, an oily, plausible creature, whose Gallophil leanings were destined finally to place his country under the heel of Napoleon and deal a death-blow to Pitt. For the present, he treated Malmesbury with a moderation and courtesy that deftly veiled a determined opposition. The British envoy was fully his match. Finding that Haugwitz ascribed all difficulties and delays to the Austrian emba.s.sy, he advised him to propose the transfer of the negotiations to The Hague, where these annoyances would cease. Vain and always p.r.o.ne to take the easiest course, Haugwitz swallowed the bait and succeeded in carrying a point which was all in Malmesbury's favour, especially as it saved time in communicating with Downing Street. After annoying delays they set out on 23rd March; and with the aid of twenty-two horses at each post traversed the 326 (English) miles to The Hague in 120 hours during the days, 23rd-30th March, when the campaign ought to have opened.

The prospects at Vienna were equally gloomy. Morton Eden's reports to Grenville form an unrelieved jeremiad. Even amidst the alarms caused by the disasters at Toulon and in the Palatinate, jealousy of Prussia was the dominant feeling. The utmost efforts of our amba.s.sador failed to convince Francis II and Thugut of the need of humouring Prussia by meeting her demand for an additional subsidy and by guaranteeing bread and forage for the 20,000 men who formed her contingent in the Austrian service. Into these wearisome quarrels we need not enter, further than to note that they were envenomed by the acerbity of the Prussian amba.s.sador at Vienna. The Marquis Lucchesini, born at Lucca in 1752, early entered the service of Frederick the Great, to whom he acted as reader. He advanced rapidly under his successor. His commanding demeanour and vivacity of speech, added to great powers of work, and acuteness in detecting the foibles of others, made him a formidable opponent. Further, his marriage with the sister of Bischoffswerder, until lately the King's favourite adviser, added to his influence, which, as was natural with a foreigner, inclined towards the attractive and gainful course. Long afterwards the saviour of Prussia, Baron vom Stein, cla.s.sed him among the narrow, selfish, insincere men who had been the ruin of nations.[342] Certainly he helped to ruin Poland; and now his conduct at Vienna clogged the efforts of Morton Eden and Malmesbury to strengthen the Coalition against France. Eden complained that he behaved as an intriguing subaltern rather than as an amba.s.sador; and rumour credibly ascribed his tortuous and exasperating conduct to French gold.

In the midst of his irritation against Prussia and her envoy, Thugut heard with astonishment the British proposals, presented at Berlin early in February, to bring 100,000 Prussians into the field. Urgently he remonstrated with Eden, pointing out that Prussia had played them false in two campaigns, and would do so again, witness her late contention that France must not be weakened. On no account, then, must Frederick William head a compact ma.s.s of 100,000 men in the Palatinate. He would be the arbiter of the situation. He would be between the Austrian army in Brabant and the Hapsburg States. Nay, he might march into Swabia, reach the Danube, take boats at Ulm, and, sailing down that stream, have Vienna at his mercy![343] So pressing were these anxieties that, at the close of February, Thugut sent a special request to Catharine II to guarantee the security of Austria's possessions in case Frederick William withdrew from the Coalition.

Despite the utmost efforts of the British Ministry and its envoys, no plan of vigorous co-operation could be arranged between the two German rivals; the sole link connecting them was the clause of the treaty of 1792, whereby Austria, as having been attacked by France, claimed the help of 20,000 Prussians. Frederick William decided that this force must remain at Mainz, in order to guard the Empire from a French raid.

He promised 80,000 more troops to Great Britain and Holland, provided that they were paid for. On one point alone the four Allies came near to agreement, namely, that the main Prussian army should operate in Flanders, so as effectively to defend the Dutch territory, secure conquests in the North of France, and, above all, preclude the quarrels which must ensue if it acted near the Austrians.[344] Thugut of course a.s.sented, his great aim being to remove the Prussians as far as possible from Swabia. Disputes on these subjects went on up to the end of March 1794, the time when an advance into French Flanders promised great results.

The reader will naturally ask--Can this be called a Coalition? A Coalition implies some power of coalescing. But among the four Powers there was far more of disunion than union. In fact, England was the sole link between these wrangling confederates, and that, too, solely by means of what Carlyle called the cash nexus. Grenville, using a more homely metaphor, averred that the German princes turned towards England as an inexhaustible milch-cow. The animal in this case could dictate her terms; and thus the relations of the three Powers resembled those of a rich but somewhat exigent employer to grumbling and distrustful employees. Holland also, in return for her sacrifices in men and money, demanded from Austria a better frontier on the side of Dutch Flanders and Maestricht, to which the Viennese Court opposed a quiet but firm resistance.

It speaks volumes for the confidence inspired by Pitt and Grenville, and for the tactful zeal of Malmesbury and Eden, that they induced the German rivals to make one more effort. The Duke of York also played an important part in the formation of the plan of campaign; for he it was who persuaded Colonel Mack to accompany him to London, and there discuss with Ministers the alternative schemes. The mention of Mack will excite surprise among those who know of him only by the futile Neapolitan campaign of 1799, and the frightful disaster of Ulm. In regard to strategy and the theory of war he displayed much ability; and his administrative talents and energy as Quarter-Master-General in 1793 should have screened him from the criticism that he discoursed brilliantly on war in _salons_, and in the council rhetorically developed specious and elegant plans.[345]

Mack's plan of operations was first submitted to the judgement of the Archduke Charles, the Prince of Coburg, Count Mercy, the Prince of Orange, and the Duke of York, at Brussels. Next, he proceeded, along with Counts Stahremberg and Merveldt to London, and on 13th February unfolded his plan to Pitt, Grenville, and Dundas. The Duke of York had preceded him by two days, but was absent from this conference. It became piquant when Pitt "playfully" remarked to Mack that a great general had recently arrived at London whose appointment to the command of the British force in Flanders would doubtless meet with his warm approval.

After a little more fencing, Pitt gave the name of the Marquis Cornwallis, who had just returned from his Viceroyalty in India. Mack by no means welcomed the proposal, and made the irreverent remark that the best General, after fighting elephants in India, would be puzzled by the French. Pitt thereupon observed that the Duke of York had not the confidence of the army, to which Mack and Merveldt replied by praising his character, and decrying his critics as a set of influential but inexperienced youths.

The matter then dropped, and the Duke was present at the conference on the morrow. Finally, Austria and England bound themselves to make great efforts, the latter with at least 40,000 men, either British or German auxiliaries. The Prussian and Dutch forces were to be increased so as to bring the grand total to 340,000 men. Of this large number 170,000 were to operate in Flanders with a view to a march on Paris; 35,000 held the country along the right bank of the Meuse; 15,000 protected Luxemburg; 65,000 Prussians prolonged the line eastwards to the Rhine, which was guarded by 55,000 Austrians. Certainly the plan called for a third of a million of men, if all the frontier strongholds of Flanders were to be taken before the march to Paris began. In regard to details, Pitt, Grenville, and Dundas urged that Cornwallis should command the British and subsidiary forces defending West Flanders--a suggestion which George III warmly approved, on condition that the Duke of York, serving with the main body nearer the centre of the long line, had a number of troops proportionate to his rank and talents.

Thus the effort of Pitt and his colleagues to shelve the Duke of York was foiled. On another and weightier matter he had his way. Coburg's conduct had been so languid and unenterprising as to lead to urgent demands for his recall; and it was understood that the Emperor Francis would take the command, with Mack as Chief-of-Staff and virtual director of the campaign. Pitt expressed to Mack his marked preference of this arrangement to the alternative scheme, the appointment of the Archduke Charles; for the extreme youth of the Archduke might hinder a good understanding between him and his subordinate and senior, the Duke of York. Seeing, then, that Mack declined absolutely to serve under Coburg,[346] nothing but the presence of the Emperor could end the friction in Flanders.

But alas for the monarchical cause! At the very time when the Kaiser was to set out for Brussels, alarming news came from Cracow. The temper of the Poles, heated by the wrongs and insults of two years, burst forth in a rising against the Russian and Prussian authorities. Kosciusko, the last hope of Poland, issued an appeal which nerved his countrymen to dare the impossible. Rushing to arms, they astonished the world by exhibiting in the last throes of their long agony a strength which, if put forth in 1791, might have saved their land from spoliation. Even now their despairing struggles turned towards Warsaw much of the energy which should have trended towards Paris; and thus, once again, and not for the last time, did the foul crimes of 1772 and 1793 avenge themselves on their perpetrators. The last struggles of Poland helped on the French Republic to its mighty adolescence. Finally, on 2nd April, Francis II departed for Brussels. Thugut set out nine days later; and in the interval, on the plausible pretext that Prussia would seize more Polish land, he stopped the reinforcements destined for Flanders. He also urged the Czarina on no account to allow a part.i.tion of Poland.[347]

While the Continental States were thus pulling different ways, British diplomacy won two notable triumphs at The Hague. By dint of threatening Haugwitz with the rupture of the whole negotiation, Malmesbury induced that Minister to countermand the order for the retirement of the Prussian troops, which had already begun. He thereby saved the Allies in the Palatinate and Flanders from very serious risks in view of the gathering ma.s.ses of the French.[348] Further, on 19th April, he induced Haugwitz to sign a treaty which promised to revivify the monarchical cause. Prussia agreed to furnish, by 24th May, 62,400 men, who were to act conjointly with the British and Dutch forces in Flanders. For this powerful succour the two Maritime States would pay a subsidy of 50,000 a month, besides the cost of bread and forage, reckoned at 1 12_s._ per man per month, and 300,000 for initial expenses. As Great Britain and Holland wholly supported this army, they prescribed the sphere of its operations, and retained any conquests that it might make. The treaty was for the year 1794; but its renewal was stipulated in a separate article. Prussia of course still supplied to Austria the 20,000 men due by the treaty of 1792.

If Malmesbury had not induced Haugwitz to sign the treaty then, it would never have been signed at all. Almost alone in the Court of Berlin, Frederick William desired to continue the struggle. His uncle, Prince Henry, had always opposed war with France, and long before Valmy, had prophesied that her untrained but enthusiastic levies would be a match for any professional army. His influence and that of the Duke of Brunswick, Lucchesini, and Mollendorf, were still cast against the western crusade, so that Grenville believed Prussia to be dragging on the negotiation solely in order to embarra.s.s her Allies by throwing it up early in the campaign.[349] Moreover, Malmesbury's treaty contained its own death warrant. A Great Power can ill afford to hire out its troops to non-military States, unless they lessen the humiliation of such a proceeding by according the utmost possible freedom. But the Hague Convention specified that the subsidized Prussian army must operate where the paymasters directed; and they now decided on removing it from the Palatinate to the valley of the Meuse near Dinant, or even further west, provided that Austria could fill up the gap thus left in the Palatinate.[350] In pa.s.sing, I may note that this important decision was due to George III, as appears in Grenville's final instruction to Malmesbury: "The King's determination is finally taken not to agree to any plan by which the Prussians would be employed more to the left than the country of the Meuse."[351] No one who knows the rigour of the King's resolves can doubt that he was responsible for a determination fraught with unexpected issues.

It is alien to my purpose to recount the ensuing disputes. I can glance only at the part played by Pitt. At one point his conduct was weak and dilatory. Early in May, when Malmesbury proceeded to London for the purpose of securing the ratification of the treaty and the payment of the first subsidy to Prussia, he encountered most annoying delays. Pitt and Grenville left him severely alone, probably because they were then so occupied with the coercion of the English Jacobins as to have no time for the plans which promised the overthrow of the French Jacobins.

Another topic engaging their attention was the hoped-for coalition with the Portland Whigs, which shrouded from their gaze the needs of the European Coalition. However we may explain the fact, it is certain that during sixteen days (6th to 22nd May) Malmesbury, despite his urgent entreaties to Grenville, could procure neither instructions as to his future conduct, nor a promise for the payment of the first Prussian subsidy. News of a British disaster in Flanders at last quickened the laggards of Whitehall. On the 23rd Malmesbury gained his heart's desire, and set out for the Prussian headquarters on the following day.[352]

Meanwhile, owing to this long delay (one of the most discreditable incidents in the careers of Pitt and Grenville), Prussia took no steps to carry out the terms of the compact. It so happened that on 24th May her army in the Palatinate, commanded by Mollendorf, gained a victory over the French at Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate; but that event set them the more against Malmesbury's treaty, which implied a march of some 120 miles through difficult country, and across an enemy's front.

Moreover, as has been hinted, reverses had by this time overtaken the right wing of the Allies, in West Flanders. At the centre, near the Sambre, the campaign opened with promise, the British cavalry gaining a brilliant success at Bethencourt. But Carnot, having drawn upon the French troops in Lorraine and the Palatinate, threw his heaviest columns at points on the extreme west of the French front, the result being that at Turcoing the Republicans shattered the isolated corps of the Duke of York and General Otto (18th May). The successes of the Prussians and of the Austrian army, on the Sambre, saved the situation for a time. But the prospects even in that quarter were overclouded by the resolve of the Emperor Francis to leave his army and return to Vienna. News of the critical state of affairs in Poland prompted this decision, the results of which soon appeared in quarrels at headquarters and discouragement in the rank and file. The Austrian soldiery saw in the withdrawal of the Kaiser the end of his rule in the Netherlands. They were right. The counsels of Thugut had now prevailed. South Poland was to be the prize of the Hapsburgs. The tiresome and distant Netherlands were to be given up, the pecuniary support of England, however, being a.s.sured as far as possible by a feint of defending them.

Here we have the explanation of the half-hearted effort made by the Austrians at Fleurus. There was every reason why Coburg, now again the commander of the main Austrian force, should strike vigorously at the French force besieging Charleroi. A decisive victory in front of Charleroi would not only save that place, but would give pause to the French forces further west, now advancing rapidly towards Ghent.

Accordingly Coburg, advancing as far as Fleurus, hard by the village of Ligny, attacked the Republicans. He had on the whole the best of the fight, when the arrival of news of the surrender of Charleroi led him most tamely to call off his men and fall back. The retirement took place in discreditably good order, not a single gun being lost (25th June 1794). A bold leader would have beaten the enemy and probably would have saved Charleroi. With the same excess of prudence Coburg conducted his retreat, several positions and strongholds being abandoned in craven fashion.

Meanwhile Pitt and Dundas made great efforts to save West Flanders. In haste they despatched reinforcements to Ostend; and among the regiments which landed there on 25th and 26th June was the 33rd, commanded by Colonel Wellesley. The future Duke of Wellington found the small garrison of Ostend in a state of panic; and his chief, the Earl of Moira, deemed it best to meet the French in the open. By great good fortune Moira, with most of the regiments, reached Bruges, and beyond that town came into touch with Clerfait's force. Wellesley, taking ship, sailed round to Antwerp and reached that column by a safer route and earlier than his chief. His action is characteristic of a judgement that never erred, a will that never faltered. In this campaign, as he afterwards said, he learnt how not to make war. But success not seldom crowns the efforts of him who has the good sense to probe the causes of failure. Certainly it rarely comes to British commanders save after very chastening experiences; and Wellesley now took part in what was, for the Austrians, a fore-ordained retreat. Despite the manly appeals of the Duke of York, Coburg declined to make a stand on the fateful ridge of Mount St. Jean; and the name of Waterloo appears in the tepid records of 1794 at the head of a plan for arranging the stages of the retreat (5th July) which the nervousness of Coburg soon condemned to the limbo of unfulfilled promises.[353] Is it surprising that, two days later, the Duke of York declared to him that the British were "betrayed and sold to the enemy"? Worse still, the garrisons of Valenciennes, Conde, Quesnoy, and Landrecies, amounting to nearly 11,000 men, were now left to their fate.

Indirectly Pitt and Dundas were responsible for these disasters. They weakened the British force in Flanders by sending large drafts to the West Indies, as will in due course appear. They also allowed Corsica to be occupied in the spring of 1794, and yet they made little or no use of that island for expeditions against the Riviera, which the royalist natives would readily have undertaken under an inspiring leader. They also relied too much on the Austrians and Prussians, though the former were known to care little for their Netherlands, apart from the prospect of gaining the Barrier fortresses of French Flanders in order to further the Belgic-Bavarian exchange. Above all, as we have seen, Pitt's conduct towards Prussia was annoyingly halting. Malmesbury's treaty could have no effect unless it led the Prussians to move at once. The delay of sixteen days at Whitehall must rank as one of the causes of the failures just recounted; and though Grenville was technically guilty, Pitt must be blamed for not ensuring the needful despatch in an all-important decision. It is curious that he never realized his responsibility.

Speaking at a later date of the campaign of Fleurus, he said that it turned upon as narrow a point as ever occurred: that England was unfortunate, but the blame did not rest with her.[354] This probably refers to the surrender of Charleroi and the retreat from Fleurus. But Pitt did not understand that the timely advent of part of the Prussian force on the Meuse, or even its advance into Lorraine, would have changed the situation; and for their inactivity he was in some measure responsible.

At times Pitt lived in dreamland. On 15th July, while the Austrians were quietly withdrawing from Central Belgium, he drew up a Memorandum as to the course of events. By the close of the year Austria was to bring 100,000 men into Flanders, a close alliance being framed on the basis of her acquisition of the French border districts (Valenciennes had not yet surrendered). England was to retain all conquests in the two Indies. The Prussians were to march towards Flanders, which they obstinately refused to do. Dutch and other troops were to be engaged by England, the presumption being that the year 1795 would see the losses of 1794 more than retrieved. The mistake of 10,000 in adding up the totals of the troops (78,000 instead of 88,000) enables one to conjecture at what time of the day this sketch was outlined.[355] One would not take it seriously had not the Foreign Office soon despatched Earl Spencer and Mr. Thomas Grenville as special envoys to Vienna to propose very similar plans, Austria being urged on by the prospect of acquiring the French Barrier fortresses from Lille to Sedan.[356]

They aroused in Thugut a spirit of greed, not of honourable emulation.

In a private letter to Pitt, dated Vienna 16th August, Spencer warned him that that Government was "neither possessed of sufficient energy and vigour, nor sufficiently actuated by the true principles on which the cause in which we are engaged ought to be conducted" to justify the demands of Thugut. They included British subsidies for Austria, though she could well support the war, and the sacrifice of British maritime conquests at the general peace as a means of ensuring the recovery of her losses on land. As to Belgium, added Spencer, Thugut looked on it "as irrecoverably lost and not worth regaining, unless with the addition of a very strong and extended barrier, composed of fortresses which he to-day plainly told us he did not think there was the least chance of taking in the course of the war, but that they must be obtained as cessions from France at the peace."[357] Thus Thugut expected that, while the Austrians were ignominiously evacuating the Netherlands, the British fleet should win French colonies valuable enough to induce France both to retire from Belgium, and to surrender to Austria her northern fortresses from Lille to Sedan or Thionville.

The capture of Valenciennes and the slaughter of the _emigres_ in the Austrian garrison was the retort of the French to these day-dreams (29th August). The fall of Robespierre a month earlier, and the enhanced authority now enjoyed by Carnot enabled the authorities at Paris to press on the conquest of Belgium with an energy which set at defiance the boyish miscalculations of Pitt and the wavering plans of the Hapsburgs.

Towards the close of July Pitt and Grenville saw the need of abating the rigour of their demands on Prussia. For of what use was it to move 60,000 Prussians more than 100 miles to defend West Flanders when that province was lost? Malmesbury therefore was empowered to pay the monthly subsidy of 50,000 on behalf of Great Britain and Holland, provided that Mollendorf's army attacked the French about Treves, thus lessening the pressure on Coburg's left wing. On 27th July he framed such an agreement with Hardenberg. This statesman was destined to be one of the saviours of the Prussian State in its darkest days, 1810-12; but now, as always, his conduct was shifty; and it is questionable whether he, any more than Haugwitz, dealt honourably with England. It must suffice to say that Mollendorf made not even a demonstration towards Treves. His inactivity was in part due to the withdrawal of several regiments towards Poland, though Great Britain and Holland still paid for the maintenance of the full quota on the Rhine.

So flagrant was the breach of faith as to elicit heated protests from Malmesbury; and Pitt, justly indignant at the use of British money for what was virtually a part.i.tion of Poland, decided to remonstrate with Jacobi, the Prussian amba.s.sador at London. Summoning him to Downing Street, at the end of September, he upbraided him with this dishonourable conduct, declaring that, unless the Prussians moved forward at once, the British and Dutch subsidy for October would be withheld. Much as we may sympathize with this indignant outburst, we must p.r.o.nounce it unwise. For firstly, Pitt was intruding upon the sphere of Grenville in making this declaration, which was far more acrid than the despatches of the Foreign Secretary. Secondly, it was made in the presence of Dundas, with whom Grenville was already on bad terms. Is it surprising that the Foreign Secretary wrote sharply to Pitt protesting against his acting on a line different from that previously taken at Downing Street? In his despatch of 30th September to Berlin, Grenville was careful to make the withdrawal of the subsidy strictly conditional, and his protest was probably less sharp than that which Pitt addressed to Jacobi.

So annoyed was Grenville at Pitt's interference during his own temporary absence that he wrote to express his willingness to retire from the Foreign Office if this would solve the difficulties caused by the appointment of Earl Fitzwilliam to the Irish Viceroyalty. To that topic I shall recur in a later chapter on the Irish troubles which now became acute. Here it must suffice to say that Pitt declined to accept Grenville's offer, and affairs at Downing Street righted themselves.[358] But at Berlin the mischief was irremediable. Jacobi, a born intriguer, and ever hostile to England, represented the words of Pitt in the worst possible light. Accordingly Frederick William affected great indignation at the conduct of Pitt, accused him of ending the alliance, and discovered in his own ruffled feelings the pretext for giving rein to the dictates of self-interest. He gave orders to end the campaign on the Rhine; and though Grenville sought to patch matters up, compromise was clearly impossible between Allies who had lost that mutual confidence which is the only lasting guarantee of treaties.

At the autumnal equinox of 1794 Pitt was confronted by a far more serious crisis than at the beginning of the war in February 1793. The Republicans, after throwing back Clerfait beyond the River Roer, towards Aix-la-Chapelle, compelled the Duke of York to abandon the natural line of defence of Holland, the River Waal; and in the early days of October the British retired behind Bergen-op-zoom and other Dutch fortresses.

These were found to be totally unprepared to sustain a siege. The sluggishness of the Orange party, dominant in Holland since 1787, stood in marked contrast to the eagerness of the Dutch Patriots to help the invaders. Consequently in a few weeks the friends of the Stadholder saw their hopes fade away.

There was but one chance of rescue. The Duke of Brunswick, who so skilfully led the Prussians to Amsterdam in 1787, might be expected to impart some courage to the Dutch garrisons and some show of discipline to the disordered relics of York's and Clerfait's forces now drifting slowly northwards. His position as a Field-Marshal of the Prussian army also promised to interest the Court of Berlin in recovering some part, at least, of the supremacy of the Allies in the Dutch Netherlands. As the crisis in Holland had served to unite the two great Protestant Powers, so now it might prevent the dissolution of that salutary compact. Further, George III, though greatly disliking the subst.i.tution of Cornwallis for the Duke of York, favoured the appointment of the veteran Brunswick to the supreme command. Family considerations, always very strong in the King, here concurred with reasons of state. Not only had Brunswick married the sister of George III; but their daughter, the Princess Caroline, was now the reluctant choice of the Prince of Wales.

The parents, both at Windsor and at Brunswick welcomed the avowal by the royal prodigal of the claims of lawful wedlock. The d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick fell into raptures at the brilliant prospects thus opened out for her daughter; and it seemed that both Hymen and Mars, for once working in unison, conspired to bring from his inglorious retreat at Brunswick the man whom that age still acclaimed as its war-lord.

Malmesbury therefore proceeded to Brunswick for the double purpose of arranging the marriage and urging the Duke to take the command of the allied forces on the Lower Rhine. Overjoyed at leaving the atmosphere of intrigue at Mollendorf's headquarters, the envoy journeyed into the northern plain in hopes of a.s.suring the safety of part of Holland. Early in November Pitt and his colleagues received a refusal from the Duke, but now they sent through Malmesbury an offer to subsidize a corps of 20,000 or 30,000 Austrians in that quarter. These, along with the British, Hanoverian, and Hessian troops, when marshalled by Brunswick, might surely be trusted to stay the French advance. The crisis was momentous. Brunswick well understood that in reality the fate of North Germany was at stake; for the French, if masters of the Rhine and Ems valleys, could easily overrun the northern plain, including his own duchy. Self-interest, pride in the German name, hatred of French principles, and, finally, satisfaction at the marriage alliance, bade the Duke draw his sword before it was too late.

But here again the malign influence of Berlin thwarted the plans of Pitt. In vain did Malmesbury ply the Duke with arguments and the d.u.c.h.ess with compliments. On 25th November the Duke informed him that, as a Prussian Field-Marshal, he was bound to consult Frederick William: and "the answer he had received was not of a nature which allowed him to accept of an offer otherwise so highly honourable and flattering to him." He then handed to the envoy his formal refusal.[359]

Whether the elderly Duke of Brunswick could have withstood the impetuous onset of the ill-clad, half-starved, but unconquerable peasants now following the French tricolour in its progress through Holland, who shall say? The exploits of Pichegru and his levies border on the miraculous until we remember that half of the Dutch laboured on their behalf, while the troops of York and Clerfait distrusted or despised those leaders. This consideration it was that led Pitt to take a step which he deemed most necessary for the public service as well as for the reputation of the Duke of York. On Sunday, 25th November, he wrote at Holwood a very lengthy letter to the King, setting forth most deferentially the reasons which impelled him and his colleagues to request the withdrawal of the Duke from Holland.[360] He touched with equal skill and firmness on the unfortunate feeling prevalent in the army respecting the Duke of York; and, while eulogizing His Royal Highness, expressed the conviction of the Cabinet that, in his own interests as well as those of the country, he should be recalled from a sphere of action where the difficulties were wellnigh insuperable. Pitt also suggested to the King the advisability of transferring the British forces to a more promising sphere, Brittany or la Vendee. The King's answer evinced considerable irritation, a proof that he saw little but the personal aspects of the case. Pitt, however, held to his point, and the Duke was recalled in order to become a little later commander-in-chief, a position for which he was far better suited than for a command in the field. At the close of the year Pitt showed his regard for the public service by requesting from the King leave to displace his brother, the Earl of Chatham, from the Admiralty, where his lethargy had several times hindered the naval operations. Lord Spencer became First Lord, the Earl of Chatham succeeding to Spencer's position as Lord Privy Seal.

Pitt's magnanimous resolve to brave the royal displeasure rather than keep a royal prince in a situation for which he was unfit met with general approval. The times were too serious to admit of pedantic trifling or unmanly shrinking. In quick succession there arrived news of the definite refusal of the Duke of Brunswick to come forward, of the incredible apathy of the Dutch, and of the demoralization of the Allies in their continued retreat. To add to their misfortunes, nature gripped that land of waters in a severe frost, so that the Dutch loyalists were unable, even if they had the hardihood, to let loose the floods against the invaders. In endless swarms these pressed on from the South, determined now to realize Dumouriez' dream of conquering Holland in order to appropriate its resources, pecuniary, naval, and colonial.

Pichegru it was who won immortal fame by this conquest, which in truth needs not the legendary addition of his cavalry seizing a Dutch squadron in the Zuyder Zee. A singular incident attended the journey of Malmesbury with the future Princess of Wales towards Helvoetsluys, on their way to England. Unaware of the inroads of the French horse, they had to beat a speedy retirement, which, unfortunately for the Prince of Wales, placed them out of reach of the raiders. A little later the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick were fain to pack up their valuables and leave their capital in haste.

Such was the French conquest of Holland and part of Hanover in the winter of 1794-5. So speedy was it that Pitt and Dundas took no timely means to ensure the carrying off the Dutch fleet. As no small part of it was loyal to the Prince of Orange, who now fled to England, the oversight is to be censured. Surely Flushing or the Brill could have been secured. The Cabinet, however, as we shall see later, prepared to rescue from the general ruin the most valuable of the Dutch colonies, the Cape of Good Hope, the importance of which, for the safety of India, Pitt and Dundas rated most highly. Meanwhile, under the command of Abercromby, Harcourt, Cathcart, and Walmoden, the British and subsidized German forces fell back towards the River Ems, and thence to the Weser.

Pitt, as we have seen, desired to recall the British regiments for service in the West of France. But various considerations told against this plan; and, as will appear later, the King obstinately opposed the withdrawal of the British cavalry from the confines of his beloved Electorate until the autumn of 1795. In April of that year the infantry, now reduced to some 6,000 effectives by the rigours of winter, embarked at Bremen.

Thus ended an expedition unprecedentedly fatal to the British arms. The causes of the disaster are not far to seek. The campaigns of 1793-4 were undertaken heedlessly, in reliance upon the strength of a Coalition which proved to have no strength, and upon the weakness of the French Republic which proved to be unconquerably strong. The Allies were powerful enough to goad France to fury, too weak to crush its transports. Their ill-concealed threats of part.i.tion bound France to the cause of the Jacobins, which otherwise she would have abjured in horror.

Thus the would-be invaders drove France in upon herself, compelled her to organize her strength to the utmost; and that strength, when marshalled by Carnot, was destined to shatter the Coalition and overrun neighbouring lands. She then learnt the fatal secret that she could conquer Europe.

In a later chapter I propose to survey Pitt's conduct as War Minister.

Here I need only point out that his mistakes resulted mainly from his unquenchable hopefulness. A singular proof of this admirable but dangerous quality is seen in his effort during the months of February and March 1795 to frame one more plan of co-operation with the Court of Berlin, which had so cynically deceived him. To this proposal Grenville offered unflinching opposition, coupled with a conditional threat to resign. Pitt persuaded him to defer action until the troubles in Ireland were less acute. But the King finally agreed with Pitt, and Grenville was on the point of retiring when news arrived of the defection of Prussia.[361] For some time she had been deep in negotiations with France, which had the approval of Mollendorf and the officers of her Rhenish army.[362] The upshot of it all was a treaty, which Hardenberg signed with the French envoy at Basle on 5th April 1795. By this discreditable bargain Frederick William of Prussia enabled France to work her will on the lands west of the Rhine, on condition of his acquiring a general ascendancy over North and Central Germany, which now became neutral in the strife. Austria and the South German States remained at war with France for two years longer, by which time the tottering Germanic System fell beneath the sword of Napoleon Bonaparte.