William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (e book reader for pc .TXT) 📖

the little-known topic of nationality. Distrusting novel

theories, he sought to utilize forces of tried potency. He worked by

diplomatic methods through Governments, not through the tumultuary

efforts of peoples. Dependence on a nation so backward as the Spaniards

would have seemed to him madness. Even if he could have seen the

surprising events of May-June 1808, he would probably have distrusted

the spirit which prompted them. In truth, he lacked the sympathetic

instinct which led Canning at that crisis to side with the Spanish

patriots and thus open a new chapter in the history of Europe.

 

Yet it is but just to remember that Pitt the diplomatic bargainer of

1805 differed from Pitt the upholder of weak States in 1790, only

because the times had completely changed. Against the destructive

schemes of Joseph II, Catharine II, and Hertzberg he worked on the whole

successfully. But now Poland was gone; Sweden and Turkey were safe; the

German tangle had been cut by the Secularizations of Church domains in

Now the danger was from the West. France had swallowed up her

weaker neighbours. Napoleon dominated Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the

Rhenish States, and the Netherlands. Russian policy, subversive under

Catharine, was in a European sense conservative under Alexander. Then

the most damaging thrusts to the European fabric came from Vienna and

St. Petersburg. Now they came from Paris. Pitt therefore sought to

construct a rampart out of the weak States bordering on France. As the

Barrier Treaties of a century earlier were directed against Louis XIV,

so now Pitt sought to inaugurate an enlarged Barrier policy as a

safeguard against Napoleon. The efforts of at least half a million of

trained troops being available, the time had apparently come for a final

effort to preserve the Balance of Power before it was irretrievably

impaired.

 

For a time the Russian and British Governments seemed in complete

accord. Novossiltzoff, on his return to St. Petersburg, wrote to Pitt on

20th March 1805 (N.S.), describing the entire concurrence of his master

with the principles on which they had agreed at London. In about eight

days he would leave for Berlin to put forth his utmost endeavours to

gain the alliance of that Court. He would then proceed to Paris to

present the Czar's ultimatum. A refusal was expected; but his master

believed it more dignified to take all reasonable means of ensuring

peace. The orders for mobilizing the Russian troops would go forth at

the time of his departure for Berlin. Before his arrival at Paris, he

hoped to receive from London full powers authorizing him to speak for

Great Britain as well as for Russia.[718]

 

All this implied the closest union and sympathy. But now Alexander

showed the other side of his nature. He sought to drive a hard bargain

with Pitt. Firstly, he strove to obtain the promise of a larger British

force to form an integral part of a Russian expedition for the

deliverance of the Kingdom of Naples. In view of the paucity of our

disposable forces, Pitt had sought to limit the sphere of action to

Sicily and the neighbouring parts of Calabria, the defence of Sicily,

the key of the Mediterranean and the outwork of Egypt, being now and

throughout the war one of the cardinal aims of British policy. An

expedition under General Sir James Craig was about to set sail for Malta

and Messina; and the Czar required that, when strengthened, it should

act in any part of South Italy, under a Russian general. After wearisome

correspondence, a compromise was arrived at; and on 19th April 1805

Craig set sail from Portsmouth on his perilous voyage over seas now and

again swept by French and Spanish warships. By good fortune he escaped

these many dangers, and reached Malta, there setting free seasoned

troops for operations in South Italy. The hardihood of Pitt in sending

forth this expedition has often provoked criticism. But it was worth

while to run serious risks to save Sicily from the grip of Napoleon, and

to wrest from him the initiative which he had hitherto enjoyed

unchallenged. Besides, the Czar insisted on that effort, and made it

almost a _sine quâ non_ of his alliance. In a military sense the results

were contemptible; in the diplomatic sphere they were very great.[719]

 

Twelve days before Craig set sail, Czartoryski worried or coaxed the

British ambassador at St. Petersburg, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, into

signing a provisional treaty of alliance. The Czar now promised to set

in motion half a million of men (half of them being Austrians, and only

115,000 Russians) so as to drive the French from Italy, Switzerland,

Germany, and the Low Countries, England subsidizing the allied forces at

the rate of £1,250,000 a year for every 100,000 men actually employed.

The liberated lands were to have the right of building their own

fortresses and choosing their own constitutions. But firstly, Alexander

would seek to restore peace to Europe; and to this end he would consent

to Napoleon placing his brother Joseph on the throne of North Italy,

either in Piedmont or in the Italian Republic, shadowy realms being

outlined in the Peninsula for the consolation of the dispossessed King

of Sardinia. But the sting of the proposal was in its tail. Alexander

suggested that, to secure the boon of peace, England should restore her

maritime conquests in the war, and also Malta if Napoleon insisted on

this last, the island being then garrisoned by Russians. In its blend of

hazy theorizings on general topics with astute egotism in Russian

affairs, the scheme is highly characteristic, peace being assured by

means which would substitute Muscovite for British rule at Malta; while

in the event of war, Great Britain was to pay at the rate of £6,250,000

a year for campaigns that would aggrandise the continental States at

the expense of France.[720]

 

What must have been the feelings of Pitt when he perused this Byzantine

offer? While prepared to give way on some parts of the January

proposals, he was determined to hold fast to Malta. The island had not

been named by him and Novossiltzoff, its present destiny being assumed

as irrevocably fixed. But now Alexander swung back to the aims of his

father, the domination of the Central Mediterranean from the impregnable

fortress of Valetta. Probably some of the Knights of the Order of St.

John who had sought refuge in Russia gained the ear of Alexander in the

spring of 1805, and produced the startling change in his policy just

described. Whatever the cause, Pitt's answer could be none other than a

firm refusal. In Count Simon Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador at London,

he found a secret sympathizer, who entered heartily into his plans for

the salvation of Europe, foreseeing that only by the retention of Malta

for the Union Jack could the Mediterranean be saved from becoming a

French lake; and that if either Gower or Pitt wavered on this question,

the country would disown them.[721] Official etiquette, of course,

compelled him to proffer Alexander's demand, and to declare that, unless

Pitt gave way about Malta, there was an end of all hope of the alliance.

Here Pitt intervened with the statesmanlike remark: "It will not save

Europe. The Mediterranean, the Levant and Egypt, will be in the power of

France the moment a British squadron ceases to have for base a good port

protected by formidable fortifications.... So, whatever pain it causes

us (and it is indeed great) we must give up the hope of seeing the

alliance ratified, since its express condition is our renunciation of

Malta. We will continue the war alone. It will be maritime."

 

Thus Malta, the final cause of the Great War, now promised to limit that

war. Vorontzoff prevailed on Pitt to defer reporting his refusal to St.

Petersburg. But on 27th May he stated that the last ray of hope had

disappeared, as neither Court would give way. On 5th June, then,

Mulgrave penned for Gower a despatch summarizing Pitt's reasons why

England must retain Malta. She was ready to restore her valuable

conquests in the East and West Indies, but the key of the Mediterranean

she must not and would not surrender. Neither would she relax her

maritime code as the Emperor of Russia now insisted; for experience had

shown it to be necessary for the equipment of the British fleets and the

crippling of the enemy's naval construction. In the maintenance of these

fleets lay the only hope of assuring the salvation of Europe. A more

convincing exposition of the importance of Sea Power has never gone

forth from a Government office.[722]

 

The deadlock was therefore complete. But now, as happened more than once

in the development of the Coalitions, Napoleon himself came to the

rescue. Whether he was aware of the breakdown of the Anglo-Russian

negotiation is uncertain; but his remark to Fouché--"I shall be able to

strike the blow before the old Coalition machines are ready"--and his

conduct in Italy in the months of May and June 1805 bear the imprint of

a boundless confidence, which, on any other supposition, savours of

madness. He well knew that no continental ruler but Gustavus of Sweden

desired war with him. Austria maintained her timid reserve. Alexander

was ready to negotiate with him through the medium of Novossiltzoff, who

was now at Berlin awaiting permission to proceed to Paris. The

predilections of Frederick William of Prussia for France were notorious;

for Hanover was his goal; and he and his counsellors saw far more hope

of securing it from Napoleon than from King George.[723]

 

Prudence and patience were therefore peculiarly necessary for Napoleon

at this juncture. He had the game in his hands if he would but

concentrate all his energies against England and leave severely alone

the land which then most interested Russia and Austria, namely, Italy.

But, either from the ingrained restlessness of his nature, which chafed

at the stalemate at Boulogne, or from contempt of "the old Coalition

machines," or from an innate conviction that Italy was his own political

preserve, he now took two steps which aroused the anger of the Russian

and Austrian Emperors. On 26th May 1805 he crowned himself King of Italy

in the cathedral of Milan, thereby welding that populous realm

indissolubly to his Empire. On 4th June he annexed outright the Genoese

or Ligurian Republic. Both acts were flagrant infractions of his Treaty

of Lunéville with Austria of four years before; and they contemptuously

overturned the Balance of Power which Alexander was striving to

re-establish. The results were soon apparent. "This man is insatiable,"

exclaimed Alexander; "his ambition knows no bounds; he is a scourge of

the world: he wants war; well, he shall have it, and the sooner the

better."

 

Novossiltzoff left Berlin for St. Petersburg; and his despatches of 10th

July to Vorontzoff and to Hardenberg, Foreign Minister at Berlin, prove

conclusively that it was Napoleon's annexation of Genoa which ended all

hope of peace on the Continent.[724] The French Emperor himself admitted

as much a few years later when he visited Genoa. Looking down on that

beautiful city, he exclaimed: "Ah! It was worth a war." In order to work

French patriotism up to the necessary pitch he on 30th May 1805 ordered

Fouché to have caricatures made at Paris depicting John Bull, purse in

hand, entreating the Powers to take his money and fight France. Insults

to Russia and England make up the rest of that angry and almost

illegible scrawl.[725] In his heart he knew that the war sprang from his

resolve to make the Mediterranean a French lake and Italy an annexe of

his imperial fabric.

 

The sequel may be told very briefly. On 28th July the Court of St.

Petersburg agreed to Pitt's version of the Anglo-Russian compact; and on

9th August the British ambassador at St. Petersburg pledged his country

to join the two Empires if Napoleon rejected the conditions of peace

still left open to him. In that case Gower promised to assure the

advance of five months' subsidy at the rate mentioned above.[726] It is

needless to say that Napoleon rejected all thought of compromise; and

Austria began to hurry her troops up the banks of the Danube for the

Bavarian campaign.[727] Thus Pitt won the diplomatic game. Or rather,

his opponent gave it to him by the last reckless move at Genoa. The

wrath of Alexander at this affront obliterated his annoyance at the

retention of Malta by Great Britain; and both he and the Emperor

Francis now prepared to enter the lists against Napoleon.

 

                  *       *       *       *       *

 

Meanwhile, Pitt sought to strengthen his Ministry in view of the

desertion of the Addingtonians. Two of them, Hiley Addington and Bond,

spoke bitterly against Melville during the debates of June, which led

Gillray to represent them as jackasses about to kick a wounded lion. So

annoyed was Pitt as to refuse them promotions which they expected,

whereupon Sidmouth and Buckinghamshire tendered their resignations. The

old friends parted sorrowfully after a final interview at Pitt's house

on Putney Heath (7th July). Camden now became President of