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

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march, which was fraught with danger after the long delay of Pitt in

ratifying the compact (6th-23rd May); while the postponement in the

payment of the first subsidies gave the Prussians a good excuse for

inaction.[414] His remonstrance to the Prussian envoy in London, at the

close of September 1794, was also unwise. For it exceeded the more

measured protests of Grenville, and furnished the Berlin Court with the

desired excuse for recalling its troops from the Rhine. In short, the

campaign of 1794 failed, not so much because the French were in superior

force at the battles of Turcoing and Fleurus, as because the Allies at

no point worked cordially together. The intrusion of political motives

hampered their generals and turned what ought to have been an

overwhelming triumph into a disgracefully tame retreat.

 

The disasters at Turcoing and Fleurus open up the second stage of the

war. Realizing more and more the difficulty of defending Holland and

Hanover, Pitt seeks to end that campaign and to concentrate on colonial

enterprises and the war in Brittany and la Vendée. Experience of the

utter weakness of his Administration for purposes of war also leads him

to strengthen it at the time of the union with the Old Whigs. They

demanded that their leader, the Duke of Portland, should take the Home

Office. On Dundas demurring to this, Grenville generously assented to

Pitt's suggestion that he should vacate the Foreign Office (6th July).

Fortunately the Duke declined to take it; and Pitt resolved to make

drastic changes, especially by curtailing the functions of the Secretary

of State for Home Affairs, and creating a War Ministry of Cabinet rank.

Some change was clearly requisite; for of late Dundas had supervised

internal affairs, including those of Ireland, as well as the conduct of

the war; as Treasurer of the Navy he managed its finances, and, as

President of the India Board, he sought to control the affairs of that

Empire. As for the War Office, it was a petty office, controlled by a

nonentity, Sir Charles Yonge, who was soon to be transferred to the

Mint.

 

In the haphazard allotment of military business to the

Commander-in-Chief, Amherst, to the head clerk of the War Office, Yonge,

and to the overworked pluralist, Dundas, we discern the causes of

disaster. The war with France being unforeseen, Pitt had to put up with

these quaint arrangements; but the reverses in Flanders and the incoming

of the Portland Whigs now enabled him to reduce chaos to order. He

insisted that the Secretary of State for Home Affairs should cease to

direct the course of the war, but consented that colonial business

should fall to his lot. On the other hand he greatly enlarged the

functions of the War Office. His will prevailed. On 7th July Portland

agreed to become Home Secretary, while his supporter, Windham, came into

the re-organized War Office as Secretary at War, Dundas becoming

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Despite the obvious need of

specializing and strengthening these Departments, the resistance of

Dundas was not easily overcome. His letter to Pitt on this subject

betrays a curious cloudiness of vision on a subject where clearness is

essential:

 

                                  Wimbledon, _July 9, 1794_.[415]

 

    ... The idea of a War Minister as a separate Department you must

    on recollection be sensible cannot exist in this country. The

    operations of war are canvassed and adjusted in the Cabinet, and

    become the joint act of His Majesty's servants; and the Secy of

    State who holds the pen does no more than transmit their

    sentiments. I do not mean to say that there is not at all times

    in H. M.'s Councils some particular person who has, and ought to

    have, a leading and even an overruling ascendency in the conduct

    of public affairs; and that ascendency extends to war as it does

    to every other subject. Such you are at present as the Minister

    of the King. Such your father was as Secretary of State. Such

    you would be if you was Secretary of State, and such Mr. Fox

    would be if he was Secretary of State and the Duke of Bedford

    First Lord of the Treasury. In short it depends, and must ever

    depend, on other circumstances than the particular name by which

    a person is called; and if you was to have a Secretary of State

    for the War Department tomorrow, not a person living would ever

    look upon him, or any other person but you, as the War Minister.

    All modern wars are a contention of purse, and unless some very

    peculiar circumstance occurs to direct the lead into another

    channel, the Minister of Finance must be the Minister of War.

    Your father for obvious reasons was an exception to the rule.

 

    It is impossible for any person to controvert the position I now

    state; and therefore, when you talk of a War Minister, you must

    mean a person to superintend the detail of the execution of the

    operations which are determined upon. But do you think it

    possible to persuade the public that such a separate Department

    can be necessary? Yourself, so far as a general superintendence

    is necessary, must take that into your own hands. If it was in

    the hands of any other, it would lead to a constant wrangling

    between him and the various Executive Boards.

 

The illogicality of this letter would be amusing if it had not been so

disastrous. Because war depends ultimately on money, therefore (said

Dundas) the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to control its operations

and act virtually as Secretary of State for War. Then why not also as

First Lord of the Admiralty? No sooner is the question formulated than

we see that Dundas is confusing two very different things, namely,

general financial control and the administration of military affairs. In

fact, Dundas still clung to the old customs which allotted to the

Secretaries of State wide and often overlapping duties. He did not see

the need of a specialized and authoritative War Office, though the

triumphs achieved by Carnot and the Committee of Public Safety during

the past twelvemonth might have opened his eyes. Fortunately, Pitt

discerned the necessity of strengthening that Department; and, as we

have seen, he made Dundas and Windham War Ministers, with seats in the

Cabinet. Thus from July 1794 military affairs had a chance of adequate

treatment in that body; and Pitt deserves great credit for remodelling

the Cabinet in a way suited to the exigencies of modern warfare.

 

Why did he not appoint that experienced soldier, the Marquis Cornwallis,

Secretary of State for War? The answer is that he designed him as

successor to the Duke of York in Flanders. As has already appeared, Pitt

framed this resolve in February 1794, on the return of Cornwallis from

India; and, though rebuffed then, he continued to revolve the matter

until the beginning of the autumn, when the opposition of George III and

of Francis II of Austria prevented the appointment of that experienced

soldier to the supreme command of the Allies. As for the accession of

Windham to the War Department, it seems to have been merely a device to

satisfy the Old Whigs. Probably the question was not even discussed

until 4th July, when the Duke of Portland first named it to Windham. As

it finds no place in the Pitt-Grenville letters until 7th July, we may

infer that Pitt and Dundas accepted Windham with some reluctance as an

ardent partisan of Burke and the _émigrés_. Windham now persistently

urged an expedition to Brittany; and the Quiberon and Yeu enterprises

were largely due to him. Pitt and Dundas, after their experience of the

_émigrés_, had no great hope in these efforts; and after the defection

of Spain they discerned the increasing need of concentrating their

efforts on home defence and operations which safeguarded British

interests in the East and West Indies. To these causes may be ascribed

their decision to withdraw the British force from the island of Yeu. The

indignant letters of Windham to Pitt in 1796-8 show that, after the Yeu

fiasco and the beginning of the peace negotiations with France, his

advice was slighted. His moanings to Mrs. Crewe over the degeneracy of

the age also tell their tale. In October 1796 he merely "drags on" at

the War Office until he sees what turn things will take.

 

Pitt's determination to ensure efficiency in the services appears from

two incidents of the closing weeks of 1794. He deposed Lord Chatham from

the Admiralty in favour of the far more efficient Lord Spencer; and he

removed the Duke of York from the command in Holland. Another change

remains to be noted, namely, the retirement of the Master General of the

Ordnance. The Duke of Richmond had for some time ceased to attend the

meetings of the Cabinet. During six months Pitt put up with this

peevishness; but on the receipt of alarming news from Holland, he

exerted his authority. On 27th January 1795 he informed Richmond that

his long absence from the Cabinet and his general aloofness would make

his return unpleasant and "embarrassing to public business. This

consideration," he added, "must decide my opinion ... and at this

critical time it seems indispensable to make some such arrangement as

shall substitute some other efficient military aid in so important a

Department."[416] This cutting note produced the desired result.

Richmond resigned and Cornwallis took his place at the Ordnance and in

the Cabinet. No change was more beneficial. During the next three years

the Ministry had the advice of the ablest soldier of the generation

preceding that of Wellington. Unfortunately the Cornwallis letters are

so few that his share in the shaping of war policy is unknown; but it is

clear that he helped Ministers finally to override the resolve of the

King to keep the relic of the British force for the defence of

Hanover.[417]

 

To conclude the survey of these changes, we may note that the Duke of

York, after returning from Holland, became Commander-in-Chief of the

British army, a situation in which he earned general approbation. Thus,

when it is asserted that Pitt altogether lacked his father's power of

discerning military talents, the reply must be that he rendered an

incalculable service by organizing a competent War Ministry, that he

put the right men in the right place, though at the cost of offending

the King, the Duke of York, a powerful nobleman, and his own brother;

and that he quickly noted the transcendent abilities of Moore even when

under censure for acts of disobedience in Corsica. The results attained

by the elder Pitt were far more brilliant; for he came to the front at a

time when the problems were far less difficult and illusory than those

of the Revolutionary Era; but, if the very diverse conditions of their

times be considered, the services of Pitt will not suffer by comparison

even with those of his father.

 

                  *       *       *       *       *

 

The torpor of the Dutch in defending their country and the refusal of

the Duke of Brunswick to organize the defence of North Germany virtually

ended the war on that side. In one respect the defection of Prussia in

April 1795 proved beneficial; for she undertook to keep the States of

North and Central Germany entirely neutral. Had George III condescended

at once to place his Electorate under her covering wing, the whole

British and subsidized force might have been withdrawn in the spring of

that year. Pride, however, for some time held him back from that politic

but humiliating step. Consequently several battalions remained in

Hanover for so long a time as to weaken the blow dealt at Paris through

Quiberon. This was highly prejudicial to the Breton movement, which

would have found in the troops detained in Germany the firm nucleus that

was so much needed. Even after the ghastly failure at Quiberon, had the

French _émigré_ corps arrived at Spithead at the end of July instead of

August, the expedition to the Vendéan coast might have ended

differently. It is usual to blame Pitt or Dundas for the delay in those

preparations. But George must be held finally responsible. As to the

Quiberon disaster, it has been proved to result from the hot-headedness

of Puisaye, the criminal carelessness of Hervilly, and the ceaseless

schisms of the Royalists.

 

With the alliance of the Dutch and French Republics in May 1795, and the

almost open avowal of the French cause by the Court of Madrid in July,

the war entered upon a third phase. Thenceforth the colonial motive was

paramount at Westminster, for Pitt and his colleagues questioned the

wisdom of holding Corsica. On the other hand they sought to safeguard

India by seizing the Cape of Good Hope, and to preserve Hayti from the

inroads of the French, to whom Spain handed over her possession,