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

 

    The war is not only unavoidable, but, under the circumstances of

    the case, absolutely necessary to the existence of Great Britain

    and Europe.--PITT, _Speech of 11th March, 1793_.

 

 

In this chapter and the following, dealing with phases of the Great War,

the narrative may seem at times to diverge far from the life of Pitt.

But, in truth, his career now depended upon the issue of this gigantic

strife. Therefore an account merely of his domestic concerns, of the

debates at Westminster, or even of British and Irish affairs, would be a

one-sided and superficial sketch. For in reality his destiny, together

with that of Great Britain and of Europe at large, turned upon the

events that unfolded themselves in Flanders and the Rhineland, at Toulon

and Quiberon, in Hayti, Corsica, and Egypt. As these in their turn were

potently influenced by the policy pursued at Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and

Madrid, we must take a survey, wide but minute, sometimes to all

appearance diffuse, yet in reality vitally related to the main theme. In

order to simplify the narrative, I have sought to disentangle the

strands of war policy and to follow them severally, connecting them,

however, in the chapter entitled "Pitt as War Minister," which will sum

up the results of these studies on the period 1793-8.

 

If proof be needed that Pitt entered upon the French war with regret, it

may be found in the fact that on 5th February he and Grenville empowered

Auckland to discuss the pacific overtures of Dumouriez. Grenville, it is

true, saw in this move merely a device to gain time;[196] and we may

detect in the British reply the sanguine nature of the Prime Minister.

But his hopes ended on 8th February, when news arrived of the

declaration of war by the French Convention against Great Britain and

Holland. Thereupon Pitt entered into the struggle without a shadow of

doubt.[197] For him it was always a struggle to prevent the domination

of the Netherlands by France; and we may note, as a sign of the

continuity of that policy, that on it largely depended the rupture with

Napoleon in 1803. Pitt summed up the object of the war in the word

"security." In his view, as in that of his successor, Castlereagh,

national security was wholly incompatible with the possession of

Holland, or even the Belgic Provinces, by France.

 

In taking this practical view of the crisis Pitt differed sharply from

George III and Burke. They looked on the struggle as one for the

restoration of monarchy. The King on 9th February wrote to Grenville

that he hoped the war would be the "means of restoring some degree of

order to that unprincipled country," and Burke flung into an unquotable

phrase his anger that the war should turn on the question of the

Scheldt.[198] For the present the aggressive conduct of France welded

together these two wings of the royalist party; but events were soon to

reveal the fundamental difference of view. Indeed, it coloured all their

opinions about the struggle. Wilberforce reports Pitt as saying that the

war would be a short war, and certainly ended in one or two campaigns.

"No, Sir," retorted Burke, "it will be a long war and a dangerous war,

but it must be undertaken."[199] In his eyes the struggle was one

between two irreconcilable principles--democracy and monarchy. Certainly

the effort to force 25,000,000 Frenchmen back into the well-worn grooves

was stupendous. Further, the great Irishman, with the idealism and

chivalry which invest his nature with so much charm, urged the Allies to

abjure all thought of indemnifying themselves at the expense of France,

and to declare their sole aim to be the destruction of anarchy and the

restoration of monarchy, a course of action which would range on their

side a large number of Frenchmen and avert all risk of identifying that

nation with the regicide Republic. The new letters of Burke suggest the

advantages of such a declaration and most justly censure the Allies for

avowing their intention of taking land from France. The old man saw

clearly that by so doing they banded Frenchmen together for a national

effort. In the following pages the thoughtful reader will notice the

disastrous effects of this blunder. Here Burke stood on strong ground;

and Pitt was far from guiltless.

 

On the general question, however, whether the war should be for the

restoration of monarchy or the attainment of security, Pitt's position

is unassailable. For the mere suspicion that the Allies intended to

impose Louis XVII on France condemned monarchy in the eyes of patriotic

Frenchmen. Only amidst the exhaustion following on the Napoleonic wars

could an intensely patriotic people accept a king at the sword's point.

In the first glow of democratic ardour absolute destruction seemed

preferable to so craven a surrender. While, then, we join Burke in

censuring the procedure of the Allies, we must pronounce his advice

fatal to the cause which he wished to commend. Further, his was a

counsel of perfection to Austria, England, and the Dutch Republic.

Deeming themselves attacked by France, they were determined to gain

security from the reckless schemes of aggrandizing philanthropy now in

favour at Paris; and, viewing the matter impartially, we must admit that

they were right. The French having been the aggressors, the three States

justly demanded security at that weak point in the European system, the

Flemish border. Further, as Pitt limited his aims to the expulsion of

the French from the Low Countries, he might reasonably hope for a speedy

peace, the task which he set before himself being far smaller than that

of forcing a king back on the French nation.[200] Ultimately the

stiffneckedness of Napoleon brought all the Powers to the latter

solution; but no one in 1793 could foresee the monstrous claim for "the

natural frontiers"--the Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees, and Ocean--which

prolonged the struggle to the year 1814.

 

Pitt's optimism will appear not unnatural, if we review the general

situation early in the year 1793. The political atmosphere was

disturbed by two cyclones, one in the west, the other in the east, of

Europe. That which centred in the French Revolution seemed to have

reached its maximum intensity; and skilled observers augured from the

execution of Louis XVI a relapse into savage but almost helpless

anarchy. The recent successes of the French in the Rhineland and Brabant

were rightly ascribed to the supineness of Prussia and Austria; and

already the armies of Custine and Dumouriez were in sore straits. The

plunder of the liberated peoples by the troops and by commissioners sent

to carry out the decrees of fraternity had led to sharp reprisals all

along the straggling front from Mainz to Bruges; and now Danton's decree

of 31st January, annexing the Belgic provinces to France, exasperated

that people.

 

Further, the men in power at Paris had as yet shown no organizing

capacity. The administration of the War Department by "papa" Pache had

been a masterpiece of imbecile knavery which infuriated Dumouriez and

his half-starving troops. We have heard much of the blunders of British

Ministers in this war; but even at their worst they never sank to the

depths revealed in the correspondence of Dumouriez with Pache. In truth,

both Powers began the war very badly; but France repaired her faults far

more quickly, chiefly because the young democracy soon came to award the

guillotine for incompetent conduct over which the nepotism of Whitehall

spread a decent cloak. The discovery by the Jacobins of the law of the

survival of the fittest served to array the military genius of France

against Court favourites or the dull products of the system of

seniority.

 

For the present, the misery of the French troops, the immense extent of

their lines, and the singular ingratitude of the liberated peoples,

promised a speedy reversal of the campaign of 1792. For the re-conquest

of Belgium, the Allies now had ready on or near the Rhine 55,000

Austrians under the Duke of Coburg. On their right were 11,000

Prussians, under Frederick of Brunswick-Oels, and 13,000 Hanoverians,

destined for Guelderland. These last were to be paid by the Maritime

Powers. In reserve were 33,000 Prussians, under Hohenlohe-Kirchberg. For

the invasion of Eastern France, Frederick William of Prussia marshalled,

near Frankfurt, a force of 42,000 of his own troops, together with

14,000 other Germans. Further south was General Wurmser with 24,000

Austrians. And this was not all. The Holy Roman Empire promised a force

of 120,000, whenever its Translucencies, Bishops, Abbesses, and Knights

could muster them; and further east there loomed the hosts of Russia. If

these forces had been used straightforwardly, France must have been

overborne.[201]

 

But the half of them were not used at all. Before the campaign opened,

the eastern cyclone drew to itself the energies which ostensibly were

directed against France. Just one week before the execution of

Louis XVI, five Prussian columns crossed the borders of Poland. This act

aroused a furious outcry, especially as Frederick William preluded it by

a manifesto hypocritically dwelling upon the danger of allowing

Jacobinism to take root in Poland. Fears of Prussian and Muscovite

rapacity had induced Pitt and Grenville to seek disclaimers of partition

at Berlin and St. Petersburg. Assurances enough were forthcoming. On

29th January 1793 Markoff sought to convince Whitworth that no partition

was intended.[202] But in view of the entire passivity of Pitt on the

Polish Question since his surrender to Catharine in 1791 the two Powers

laid their plans for the act of robbery which took place a few months

later.[203]

 

In this they had the rather doubtful acquiescence of Austria, provided

that they furthered the Belgic-Bavarian exchange so long favoured at

Vienna and resisted at Berlin. As we have seen, Pitt strongly opposed

the exchange; but, early in February 1793, Grenville and he heard that

the Emperor Francis II hoped to facilitate the transference of the

Elector of Bavaria from Munich to Brussels by adding Lille and

Valenciennes to his new dominion.[204] These tidings led them to adopt a

decision which was largely to influence the course of the war. They

resolved to commit Austria deeply to war with France by favouring the

acquisition of Lille and Valenciennes by the Hapsburgs provided that

they retained Belgium. This, however, was far from the wishes of that

Court, which longed for parts of Alsace and Lorraine, and viewed Belgium

merely as a sop to be flung to the Elector of Bavaria.[205]

 

Was there ever a more singular game of cross-purposes? Austria pursued

the war with France chiefly with the object of gaining Bavaria and parts

of Eastern France, Belgium (with Lille and Valenciennes) being allotted

to the Elector uprooted at Munich. Prussia and Russia promised to abet

this scheme as a set-off to their prospective plunder of Poland; but,

obviously, after securing their booty in the summer of 1793, they had no

interest in aggrandizing the House of Hapsburg. Further, England entered

on the Flemish campaign with motives widely different from those of

Austria. Pitt and Grenville sought to plant her more firmly at Brussels

by girdling her with the fortresses of French Flanders; but she sought

to recover Belgium only to fling it to the Elector. Finally neither

Russia nor the German Powers cared an iota about the security of

Holland. Their eyes were fixed on Warsaw or Munich. In truth, despite

all their protestations as to the need of re-establishing the French

monarchy, they were mainly bent on continuing the territorial scrambles

of former years. The two aims were utterly incompatible.

 

In comparison with the motives prompting the actions of States, treaties

are of secondary importance. Nevertheless (to finish with these

wearisome details) we may note that on 25th March Grenville and

Vorontzoff signed at Downing Street a treaty of alliance whereby Russia

promised, firstly, to use her forces, along with those of England,

against France; secondly, to prevent neutrals from helping France

indirectly (a clause which involved the lapse of the principles of the

Armed Neutrality), and thirdly, to grant to England a favourable

commercial treaty.[206] Agreement with Prussia and Austria was more

difficult, but at last, on 14th July and 30th August, compacts were

signed with them for military aid in return for subsidies; and in the

spring and summer of 1793 Grenville arranged similar conventions with

Sardinia, Hesse-Cassel, Spain, and Naples. In this haphazard manner did

these States agree to war against France. Their aims being as diverse as

their methods were disjointed, the term "First Coalition" applied to

this league is almost a misnomer.

 

Before describing the first campaign of the war it will be well briefly

to survey the armed forces of the Crown and the organization for war.

Firstly, we must remember that Pitt had devoted great attention to the

navy and to the fortification of Portsmouth and Plymouth. Despite the

hostile vote of the House of Commons in 1785, he had succeeded in

finding money enough to enable the Duke of Richmond to place those

dockyard towns beyond reach of a _coup de main_; and to Pitt