The result of the execution of Louis XVI. was to give a pretext to the countries of Europe which had not yet declared war against the French Republic to do so. Charles IV. of Spain, in the hope of saving the chief of the Bourbon family, maintained his minister at Paris until the last possible moment, and it was with reluctance that he placed his army in the field on the news of the King’s execution. The French Republic accepted the challenge, and early in March declared war against Spain. The war with Holland stood on a different basis. Dumouriez, after his conquest of Belgium, looked on Holland as an easy and particularly wealthy prey. He believed that by conquering Holland, France would have in her hands a means of forcing England to keep the peace. His views were supported by Danton, who was sent on mission to Dumouriez’ headquarters. The contrary was the result. Pitt sincerely wished for peace, and was essentially a peace minister, but he had no idea of allowing the faithful ally of England, Holland, to be overrun and held to ransom by the French. The opening of the Scheldt had crowned the long series of French breaches of international law, and Pitt resented the assumption of the Convention that the law of nature, as interpreted by themselves, was to take the place of the law of nations. Pitt’s hand was also forced in two directions; the philippics of Burke had roused the fears of English property-holders against the spread of French principles; and George III. was as anxious as any Continental monarch to preserve the dignity of kings. Pitt and his foreign minister, Grenville, gradually became convinced that the French meant to fight England, and that war was inevitable, and Chauvelin, the French ambassador, was ordered to leave London. The French leaders were under a misconception with regard to the spread of their ideas in England; they knew that a large body of educated men sympathised with them, and expected a national democratic rising which should overthrow not only Pitt, but the English monarchy. They did not understand that an English parliamentary opposition, in spite of its words, is as staunchly loyal as the ministry, and that it would never foment or encourage insurrection. Under these circumstances and deluded by these misconceptions France declared war against England and Holland on 1st February 1793. Many smaller nations entered on the fray. Sweden under the prudent government of the Regent Duke of Sudermania, Denmark under Christian VII. and Bernstorff, and Switzerland declared their neutrality. But Portugal, where the heir-apparent, afterwards King John VI., had become regent for his mother, Maria Francisca, who was insane; Tuscany, whose Grand Duke, Ferdinand, was a brother of the Emperor; Naples, or rather the Two Sicilies, whose king was a Bourbon, and whose queen was a sister of Marie Antoinette, all declared war on the French Republic. Catherine of Russia wore mourning for Louis XVI. inveighed against the wickedness of the French republicans, and proceeded to take advantage of the occupation of the rest of Europe in the affairs of France to prosecute her schemes on Poland. Last of all, the Holy Roman Empire, which had decreed the armament of the contingents of the circles, on 23d November 1792, after the news of the capture of Mayence, solemnly, and with all the circumlocution inseparable from the movement of the unwieldy machine, declared war against France on 22d March 1793.
Catherine invades Poland.
Second partition of Poland. 24th Sept. 1793.
While regenerated France was at bay with nearly the whole of Europe, regenerated Poland was being conquered by a single power. While Europe pretended to fight France on behalf of the principle of monarchy, Catherine invaded Poland, because by the Constitution of 3d May 1791 it had strengthened its monarchy. France was attacked because it was asserted to be in a state of anarchy, Poland because it had by wise reforms tried to put an end to an historic system of constitutional anarchy. As soon as Catherine had made peace with the Turks at Jassy, and Austria and Prussia were engaged in war with France, she intervened to overthrow the new Polish Constitution. It was not difficult to find Polish nobles who resented the abrogation of the old system, and, under Catherine’s encouragement, Branicki, Felix Potocki, and some others formed the Confederation of Targovitsa, and protested against the abolition of the liberum veto and the reforms of 3d May 1791. They then asked Catherine to send a Russian army to their assistance. She willingly complied, and on 18th May 1792 published a manifesto, stating that she was the guarantor of the ancient Polish Constitution, and stigmatising the reformers of 1791 as Jacobins. Suvórov at once entered Poland at the head of 80,000 Russians and 20,000 Cossacks, and by force of numbers defeated the Polish army under Joseph Poniatowski at Zielencé on 18th June 1792, and under Kosciuszko at Dubienka on 17th July. These defeats caused the reformers of 1791, including Kollontai and Kosciuszko, to go into exile; their place at the Diet was taken by the leaders of the Confederation of Targovitsa, and the Constitution of 3d May 1791 was abrogated. The conquest of the Polish patriots by Russia greatly excited the King of Prussia and the Emperor, and was one of the causes which induced Frederick William to order Brunswick to retreat after his trifling check at Valmy. The Polish patriots appealed to Prussia for help under the terms of the alliance of 1790, but the King only answered that he had not recognised the Constitution of 3d May 1791, and that the Polish leaders were Jacobins and imitators and allies of the French revolutionary leaders. A Prussian army, therefore, entered Poland to co-operate with the Russians and to share the spoil. A treaty of partition was signed by Catherine and Frederick William on 4th January 1793, by which Russia was to annex eastern Poland, including the whole of Minsk, Podolia, Volhynia, and Little Russia, and Prussia was to have Posen, Gnezen, Kalisch, and the cities of Dantzic and Thorn. Austria was too hotly engaged in the war with France to be able to claim a share, but the conduct of Prussia at this time in excluding her from the partition of Poland was never forgotten nor forgiven, and increased the hereditary feeling of distrust between the two powers. The Emperor Francis regarded himself as duped, and Prussia by acting alone broke the solemn engagements entered into with Leopold, and commenced the policy which was to end in the conclusion of the Treaty of Basle with the French Republic. Though the second partition of Poland was agreed upon in 1792, it was not consummated until the following year. A Diet was called at Grodno, and there, in the presence of the Russian soldiers, Stanislas Poniatowski and the Diet consented in silence, on 24th September 1793, to the arrangements made between Russia and Prussia. On 16th October Catherine signed a treaty, guaranteeing the liberty of Poland, that is, the abuses of the old Constitution, which were certain to give Russia the opportunity of finishing the work of blotting out the Poles as an independent nationality from the map of Europe.
The close of the year 1792 thus witnessed at the same time the overthrow of Poland and France in arms against foreign aggression. Each country was to make a violent effort for independence. The French were to be successful, because under the influence of personal and political freedom every Frenchman felt it his duty to resist foreign interference; Poland was to fail, because it was not the Polish people, but only the enlightened Polish nobles and bourgeois, who appreciated the situation.
CHAPTER IV
1793–1795
France at War with Europe—Altered Character of the War—The Revolutionary Propaganda—First Campaign of 1793—Battle of Neerwinden—Desertion of Dumouriez—Creation of the Committee of Public Safety—Insurrection in La Vendée—Creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal—Struggle between the Girondins and the Mountain—Overthrow of the Girondins—Second Campaign of 1793—Loss of Valenciennes and Mayence—Civil War in France—Royalist and Federalist Risings—Loss of Toulon—Constitution of 1793—The work of the first Committee of Public Safety—The Great Committee of Public Safety—Growth of its Power—Position of Robespierre—The Reign of Terror—The Committee of General Security, the Deputies on Mission, the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Laws of the Suspects and the Maximum—Results of the Terror—Battles of Hondschoten, Wattignies, and the Geisberg—Relief of Maubeuge—Recovery of Lyons and Toulon—Fall of the Hébertists and the Dantonists—Campaign of 1794—Battles of Fleurus, Kaiserslautern, and 1st June 1794—Fall of Robespierre—Rule of the Thermidorians: First Phase: the Survivors of the Mountain—Conquest of Holland—The Batavian Republic—Successes on the Rhine, in Savoy, Italy, and Spain—Insurrection in Poland—The Campaign of Kosciuszko—Third and Final Partition of Poland—Contrast between the Polish and French Revolutions—Its Causes—Change in the Attitude of the Continental Powers to the French Republic—Rule of the Thermidorians: Second Phase: the Survivors of the Girondins and Deputies of the Centre—Insurrections of 12th Germinal and 1st Prairial in Paris—The Constitution of the Year iii. (1795)—The Treaties of Basle—France again enters the Comity of Nations.
France at War with Europe.
The first months of 1793 found France at war with Europe. Though such minor states as Denmark and Sweden and Venice declared their neutrality, they manifested no desire to assist the French Republic, and their neutrality was but of slight service. It was otherwise with the neutrality of Switzerland. The Swiss cantons had nearly been drawn into the general war by the support given to the revolutionary party in the Republic of Geneva by the French ministry, which included among its members Clavière, a Genevese exile. The canton of Berne went so far as to occupy the city of Geneva, and it was only by the exercise of much diplomatic skill that open war was avoided. The neutrality of Switzerland made the land blockade of the French Republic of no avail. Through secret agents in Switzerland, arms, provisions, and necessaries were obtained from Southern Germany, and diplomatic relations were maintained with the democrats residing in the states of the belligerent powers. The declaration of war by the Holy Roman Empire completed the armed opposition of the greater countries of Europe against France. Of these countries Russia alone sent no army or fleet against the Republic, and Catherine satisfied herself with stating that she was engaged in conquering Jacobins in Poland.