After the capture of Mayence, and after having gained some trifling advantages in skirmishes on the Rhine, the King of Prussia, impatient to secure his iniquitous acquisitions in Poland, travelled with all speed into that country. The command of his army was given to the Duke of Brunswick, who was to act in concert with a small Austrian army under Wnrihser. These two generals drove the French from several strong posts, and expelled them from their fortified lines at Weissumberg, and from the fortified camp and triple lines a Lauter. The Prussians then laid siege to Landau, while the Austrians invested Strasburg, the capital of the province of Alsace. The Austrians had been invited by the noblesse of Strasburg, and the convention in consequence despatched thither Saint Just and Lebas, who introduced the reign of terror, not only into the town, but also into the whole of Alsace, except where the Austrians were located. General Oustine was sent to Paris to be beheaded, and Saint-Just called young Hoche from Dunkirk and gave him the command of that army, which was now re-inforced by nearly the whole of the army of the Moselle. Wurmser was obliged to retreat, and Strasburg was left to the mercy of the two commissioners of the convention. General Hoche sought to get between Wurmser and the Duke of Brunswick, but he was repulsed and put to flight with the loss of three or four thousand men. The republican general then effected a junction with the French army of the Rhine, and with some troops collected by the commissioners in Alsace, and taking Wurmser by surprise, he defeated the Austrians, making many prisoners. On the 26th of December, aided by Desaix, Pichegru, and Michaud, General Hoche made an attack upon the lines of Weissemberg, and was on the point of driving the Austrians from thence, when he was checked by the Duke of Brunswick, who broke up the siege of Landau, in order to assist his allies. The Duke of Brunswick wished Wurmser, who, on the morrow, withdrew his army from the lines of Weissemberg, to remain on the left bank of the Rhine, until all his artillery and stores should be well advanced on the road towards Mayence; but the Austrian general would not consent to remain a single day, but crossed the Rhine, and left the duke to shift for himself. The duke conducted his army safely to Mayence, but he soon after resigned his command, with many bitter accusations against the Austrians. By the end of this year the French had not only recovered their old frontier lines in this direction, but had the whole of the Palatinate at their mercy. They soon appeared before Manheim, and Germany began to tremble for the safety of its own frontier.

The most energetic opponents with whom the republicans had to contend in this campaign were the Spaniards. Two armies were formed in Spain; one of 30,000 men to invade Rousillon; the other of 25,000, to penetrate France on the side of Bayonne. The former of these two armies, under Don Ricardos, gained several important victories, passed Perpignan, and interrupted the communication between Rousillon and Languedoc. Alarmed at the progress of this, formidable foe, the convention took energetic measures to reinforce their armies. Two divisions were ordered to advance against a corps of Spaniards under Don Juan Courten; and this being defeated, the republicans determined to assault the camp of the Spaniards at Truellas. The intrenchments were carried, and they were on the point of gaining a victory, when Don Ricardos arrived with his cavalry, and turned the fortune of the day: three French battalions laid down their arms, and 4,000 were slain. The French general Davoust, however, having been reinforced by 15,000 men, compelled Don Ricardos to act on the defensive, and to retire to a strongly intrenched camp near Boulon. But Ricardos still showed himself to be a formidable foe. Having received re-inforcements in the beginning of December, he attacked and routed the republican army with a loss of 2,500 men, and this success was followed by the capture of Port Vendre and Collioure. Davoust’s army was so much discouraged that whole battalions disbanded and returned home, and the national guards deserted their colours. The general announced to the convention that he was left with only 8,000 men; but Don Ricardos, ignorant of his opponent’s condition, did not follow up his successes, and the arrival of reinforcements, sent from Toulon in the beginning of the next month, rescued France from peril in this quarter. The other force of the Spaniards, under Don Ventura Caro, crossed the Bidassoa, and on the 1st of May drove the republicans from one of their intrenched camps, taking fifteen pieces of cannon; and on the 6th of June, after storming another camp and taking all its cannon and ammunition, forced the French troops into Saint Pied de Port. Having fortified some posts in the country, they repulsed a vigorous attack made by the Republican forces, and so crippled them that no movement of consequence could be undertaken during the rest of the campaign.

On the side of the Alps, the King of Sardinia, having received some money from England, commenced the campaign with considerable vigour. He was reinforced by some fresh Austrian regiments, under the command of General Devins, and having collected the mass of their forces on the maritime Alps, they resolved to make a descent into the country of Nice, in order to wrest it from the French republicans, it being wholly in their hands. Before they descended, fortified camps were to be made, and sundry fortresses improved or reconstructed, to render it impossible, even in case of a reverse, that the French should force the passes of the mountain, and get into Piedmont on that side. Kellerman held the command in chief of the French army of the Alps, and towards the end of May he ordered Brunet, who commanded in Nice, to push forward to the crests of the maritime Alps, and dislodge the Piedmontese and Austrians, before they should have time to complete their fortifications. Brunet divided his army into four columns, giving them instructions to attack three of the more important points at once, and then to unite and fall upon Fort Raus, which was the strongest of all, and the key to all the country behind. The French columns ascended the steep heights on the 8th of June, and the Piedmontese were driven from every position except Fort Hans; but when they had ascended that loftier mountain, they were repulsed and, finally, driven down the mountain with great loss. The attack was renewed on the 12th; but they were again repulsed from Fort Rtaus, and driven down the mountain, with a loss more dreadful than the first. The French, disheartened by these reverses, were obliged to confine themselves to the low country of Nice, and fearing the descent of the enemy, Kellerman placed strong detachments in the gorges through which they must have descended, and caused trenches to be dug and redoubts raised to impede their progress. But the King of Sardinia did not adhere to his purpose. General Devins was of opinion that while a part of the army should be left on the maritime Alps to keep the French forces in check, the greater part of the army, composed of the Austrians and of the best Piedmontese and Sardinian troops, should march through Savoy, drive the French out of that country, chastise the Savoyard Jacobins, and thence march straight on the populous city of Lyons. The King of Sardinia finally resolved to unite this plan with his own, and to pursue them both at the same time. His son, the Duke of Montferrat, was sent to drive the republicans out of Savoy and the Tarantaise; and though the duke took the field several weeks too late, he drove the French before him, took possession of the Tarantaise, and became master of the whole of Upper Savoy and of a great part of the low country. Instead of advancing rapidly upon Lyons, however, the Duke halted at Aigur Belle; and Kellerman, hearing of his successes, rushed from his camp at Tornns with reinforcements for the French camp at Conflans, and being joined by other republicans from Annecy and the country round Geneva, the Duke of Montferrat was obliged to retrace his steps, and to abandon everything he had gained on the eastern side of the Alps. The King of Sardinia had remained on the maritime Alps, and, like his son, began operations by driving the republicans before him. Descending from the crests of his mountain station, he made himself master of all the advanced posts and works of the French; but on the 18th of October he was repulsed with great loss at the bridge of Giletta, and then he retreated by the roads through which he had come, leaving Nice to the French, and depriving the English and Spaniards, with his other allies at Toulon, of any hope they might have entertained of future assistance from him.

Before war was declared against Great Britain, the French resolved to make use of their sovereignty over the Mediterranean sea. Admiral Truguet was sent with nineteen ships of the line and some frigates to make the conquest of Sardinia, chiefly, it would appear, for the purpose of obtaining corn from that exuberantly fertile island. It was imagined by the French that the Sardinians, who were an unruly and turbulent people, were ripe for revolt, and that, therefore, with their aid, they would throw off the yoke of monarchy. But if the Sardinians were turbulent they were not disaffected; and, moreover, they had a mortal aversion for all changes, all projects, all foreigners, and all interlopers. Truguet soon discovered their temper. He sailed into the bay of Cagliari on the 24th of January; and as soon as he had anchored his great ships in front of the town, he sent an officer and twenty soldiers to summon the place, and to represent the advantages which the islanders would derive from a union with the French republic. No sooner, however, had the boat got within the range of their guns, than the Sardinians opened a fire upon it, and killed the officer and fourteen of his men, and wounding nearly all the rest. Truguet, enraged at such a reception, commanded a bombardment on the town, which lasted three days without any visible effect on its walls; and having suffered great loss from the red-hot shot of the garrison, he was compelled to haul off, and come to anchor at the mouth of the Gulf. About the same time an attack was made with the same ill-success on La Madalena, a small island belonging to the Sardinians in the Straits of Bonifacio, by a small republican force from Corsica, among which was Napoleon Buonaparte, It was months after Truguet’s Sardinian adventure, when the English put to sea for the purpose of encountering the French fleet. On the 14th of July Lord Howe took the command of the channel-fleet; and though he kept cruizing till the 10th of December, and several times descried the French fleet, the services he rendered did not much exceed that of securing the safe arrival of our West-India convoys. The first encounter between two frigates of the hostile nations took place in the Channel; when the Nymph, of thirty-two guns, commanded by Captain Edward Pellew, captured the Cleopatra, of forty guns, commanded by one of the ablest officers in the French service. In the West Indies the French island of Tobago, St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Domingo were reduced; but at Martinique the English met with a repulse. In the East Indies all the small French factories were seized, and Pondicherry, which had been restored at the last peace, surrendered to General Brathwaite.

GEORGE III. 1793-1794

During the month of July Vice Admiral Lord Hood entered the Mediterranean with a small fleet, and presented himself before Toulon. Many old officers of the French navy were in this city, and they entered into a correspondence with Lord Hood suggesting the separate measures, of surrendering their fleet to him, and putting him in possession of the ports and forts. As a proof of their loyalty and sincerity, Hood called upon them to acknowledge Louis the Seventeenth, and upon that condition he promised the people of Toulon, together with those of Marseilles and other towns, all the support in his power. The sections met to deliberate upon this proposal; and notwithstanding the fierce opposition of the Jacobins, it was carried. Thus victorious, the majority put to death the president of the Jacobin club; persecuted and imprisoned many of their persecutors; and re-revolutionized everything. They committed themselves so deeply that they felt they had nothing to expect from the republicans but destruction; and as they were victorious at Marseilles, the counter-revolutionists concluded their treaty with Lord Hood; and thus the most important maritime place of the kingdom, with immense magazines, and with a fleet of seventeen ships of the line and five frigates, fell, without a stroke of the sword, into the hands of the English. Lord Hood, however, had scarcely put the port in order and taken possession of the town, before General Cartaux arrived with his victorious army from Marseilles, and cantoned himself in the surrounding villages and bastides. He was subsequently joined by volunteers and other corps; and Lord Hood, sensible that the most desperate efforts would be made to recover the place, and that his sailors and the French royalists would be unequal to its defence, applied in all directions for assistance. He was joined by the Spanish Admiral Langara, by some Neapolitan and Sardinian troops, and by other ships of the line and frigates from England, and subsequently by some troops from Gibraltar. Before active operations commenced General Cartaux was succeeded in the command of the republican forces by General Dugommier. But there was one in his army who was more skilful than Dugommier himself. This was Napoleon Buonaparte, who had served at Nice during the summer as a young officer of artillery, and in whom Dugommier placed the greatest confidence. Buonaparte was also in favour with the Jacobin commissioners of the convention; and though but a youth, he obtained the command of the whole besieging artillery. The executive at Paris sent a plan of attack to Dugommier, and the commander-in-chief assembled a council upon it. Dugommier thought the plan a good one, but Buonaparte suggested a better. He remarked: “All that you want is to force the English to evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them in the town, which must involve a long series of operations, try and establish batteries which shall sweep the harbour and the roadstead. If you can only drive away the ships, the troops will not remain.” Buonaparte contrived to conduct the works according to his own plan, and his genius decided the fate of Toulon. After a series of operations, Lord Hood was compelled to evacuate the town, and its wretched inhabitants were left to the mercy of their furious republican conquerors. Dugommier subsequently strongly recommended Buonaparte to the notice of the convention, remarking, “that, if neglected, he would assuredly force his own way up.” On this recommendation he was placed on the list for promotion, and confirmed in a provisional appointment of chef-de-battaillon in the army of Italy.

The capture of Toulon crushed all hope of resistance to the Jacobins in the south of France. Every danger to the republican government of Paris, indeed, arising from an ill-converted and ill-directed confederacy, had been warded off in all quarters. At the commencement of the contest the allies had the advantage both in numbers and discipline; but this advantage was no match for that spirit which the revolution had infused into their opponents. Moreover, their adherence to the old system of warfare, and the policy of merely keeping up their contingents, soon exposed them to dispersion or annihilation, as the overthrow of all pacific employments in France enabled the convention to send out armies in large masses wherever danger was discovered.

Revolutionized France, therefore, was left free to act and to conquer. And how fearfully the republicans acted, how cruelly they treated their vanquished foes, the pages of history unfolds. It has before been stated that in all the revolted provinces their arms during the year were finally victorious—wherever they conquered there followed vengeance. The most fearful scenes wore enacted in the Vendée. The inhabitants of this department, which is situated in the old province of Poitou, were terrified at the idea of liberty, which had never come before their understanding, and they repeated the execrations that priests and nobles threw out against the revolution and its leaders. From small beginnings a terrible storm arose: the insurrection which began in Lower Poitou extended the whole length of the Loire, both north and south of that river. In the space of one month there were forty thousand men under arms, and two months later, thrice that number threatened death to the republicans. In many bloody engagements the republican troops were defeated by them. During the battle-cry, “Vive Louis XVII! Vive Jesus Christ!” they rushed upon the soldiers of the republic, and in their native country appeared invincible. Alarmed at their valour and success, the convention, upon the proposal of Barrère, decreed the extermination of the Vendée within twenty-one days; and in order to carry this decree into execution they poured their troops from all sides into that doomed country. The decisive battle was won near Chollet: D Elbée and Beauchamp, two of their most noble leaders, fell, and then their soldiers, seized with terror, fled, and the republic celebrated the most bloody triumph. Humanity shudders at the atrocities which then ensued. The convention had proscribed the whole population of the Vendée, and its generals executed the dreadful proscription with tiger rage;—children, old men, and women were pitilessly massacred, and ruin marked the path of the victors. The bulk of the Vendee army had passed the Loire, where it was reinforced by many malcontents arriving from Bretagne, and after several victories intended to march upon Paris; whilst Charette with a small force occupied the most inaccessible parts of the Vendée, and conquered the islands of Boccin and Noirmoutier. But it was in vain that they struggled against the masses which the convention soon poured forth against them.

After changing results, the death-blow was given to them at Maus, in the month of December: 20,000 then fell in the field of battle, and, soon after, the remnant of their army was annihilated. Again vengeance fell upon the inhabitants of the Vendée: columns sur-named “Infernal” inarched through the country in all directions, destroying thousands of its inhabitants, and carrying thousands more as prisoners to Nantes, where they were delivered over to the tiger-fangs of the monster Carrier. Doomed to death, they were there either crushed in bodies by the cannon’s thunder, slain with the sword, or drowned by hundreds in the Loire. Similar atrocities filled Lyons, the ornament of the south of France; and Bordeaux and Marseilles suffered the like hard fate.

Nor was Paris, the seat of the revolution, free from scenes of slaughter. As it has been said of Rome, she did “fearful execution on herself.” After the fall of the Girondists, their mortal foes, the Jacobins, proceeded to establish the most democratic constitution that ever existed. From that time the committee of public safety, now composed of decimvirs under the infamous, Robespierre, exercised all the powers of government, ruling the provinces, generals, and armies, with despotic sway, by means of its commissioners, and exercising, by the revolutionary tribunal, supreme authority over both property and life. Every section of the community was held in terror by this miscalled “committee of public safety.” Even the representatives of the people, which thought itself called to liberate the world, and with them the whole people, trembled before these few tyrants, who, elevated from the dust by the power of accidents more than by that of genius, displayed a hideousness never yet beheld. “The whole people was in fearful excitement by anger, by fear, and love of liberty; and the terrorists, grasping at the terrible as the only means of salvation, manifested hereby the fever convulsions of the nation.” The prisons in Paris were, during this year, filled with all that yet remained of dignity or virtue in the republic; while thousands upon thousands perished by the blood-stained guillotine. The “committee of public safety,” consisting of Robespierre, Barrère, Billaud, Varennes, Callot d’Herbois, Carnott, Prieux, Lindet, Couthon, Saint Just, and Jean Bon Saint André, sat almost uninterruptedly, dealing destruction to all around. A law, to the application of which an unlimited extension was given, exposed even the suspicious to the mercy of this revolutionary tribunal. Every day new victims, both in Paris and in the provinces, were sent to the guillotine. Among the more afflicting tragic scenes of these fearful times was the execution of Marie Antoinette. She,—the once all-powerful queen of France, she,—the daughter of Maria Theresa, sister of three emperors, and aunt of one emperor still living,—after she had languished many months in prison, was finally dragged before the criminal tribunal, condemned, and carried in a cart to the place of execution. So perished the innocent Princess Elizabeth, the sister of the slain monarch; and so fell the criminal Duke of Orleans. But the terrorists murdered not only princes and royalists, but also acknowledged friends of the revolution. The “Mountain” party even turned its rage against itself: Chaumette, Hébert, and Anarcharsis Cloots, all fierce demagogues and heads of the common-council of Paris, were arrested by order of the “committee of public safety,” and executed with sixteen of their partisans. Thus perished also their violent enemies the Cordeliers, among whom were Danton and Desmoulins; and thus fell several of the most successful generals of the republic. This unheard-of tyranny continued for eighteen months, during which space of time one million of persons perished, as is proved by detailed calculations, by the hand of the assassin and the executioner: others died of grief and misery. Many of these perished in the provinces, for the furious “Sansculottes” were commissioned to march through the bleeding kingdoms carrying along with them a movable guillotine, beneath which thousands perished. And these made war, not only upon their species, but upon the arts and sciences, which they regarded as allies of the aristocracy. Scenes of folly alternated with those of rage and brutality: Vandalism obtained the possession of the beautiful country of France. The fine tone of society was superseded by the rudest manners; and even the better sort affected them that they might not be suspected of favouring aristocracy. As a climax to their folly and madness, the republicans even assailed religion. First, the republican calendar was substituted for the Christian calendar; then, the celebration of the Christian festivals was restricted; and, finally, the ordinary worship gave place to the so-named “service of reason,” as the emblem of which prostitutes were placed upon the altar. Such was the liberty for which the French had contended—such the liberty for which some in England would even at the close of this year have obtained, at the price of the blessings which they enjoyed under a monarchical and free constitution.