William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

In the following letter, dated The Hague, 7th March, he sought to win over Lord Grenville to his views:

It appears from these despatches that we have nothing to expect from the Danish Ministry, which is immoveably devoted to Russia; and that Sweden, unless previously purchased by the Empress, would possibly undertake one campaign against her upon payment of £1,500,000. [He names other expenses amounting to another £1,500,000.].... In plain truth, this phantom of Oczakow has appeared to me for some time to beckon us towards an abyss of new debts and endless difficulties at a moment of general fermentation in the world when it may be essential perhaps to the very existence of our Government and of many other civilized States that we should maintain our own internal peace and the uninterrupted course of our prosperity.[988]

Auckland’s chief opponent, Ewart, now had the ear of the Cabinet. On 8th March he frankly informed Auckland that his health had so far recovered as to permit him to return to Berlin; but he believed his duty to lie in London where he frequently saw the chief Ministers. He added that the meeting of the Cabinet, which was to decide as to the means of coercing Russia, would take place very shortly; further, that Ministers “have admitted my statement of facts to be just; so that the whole can be reduced to a simple calculation. I can venture to assure your Lordship in the most positive manner that nothing is to be apprehended from the present state of the Prussian Cabinet; and I will answer for its being much better than ever it was, provided we go on.”[989] Clearly, then, Ewart had some difficulty in convincing Pitt and his colleagues that Russia would give way if the Allies showed a determined front.

Pitt himself was now beset by doubts whether the Oczakoff district was worth the risk of a war. As will shortly appear, Catharine had left the extent of her territorial demands discreetly vague, so that the Whigs were able to assert that Russia wanted merely the barren strip of land around Oczakoff. The town itself was held to be a valuable possession because it commanded the entrance to the large estuary called the Liman, which is formed by the Rivers Dnieper and Bug. Auckland, however, brought to judgement an able witness, a Dutch admiral, Kingsbergen, who, after serving in the Russian navy several years in those waters, declared that Oczakoff was of little importance either to the Turks or the Russians. Pitt took up this question with alacrity, and on 7th March wrote to Auckland for definite answers to these inquiries. Whether the Turks, if they resumed possession of Oczakoff, could hinder the junction of Russian squadrons sailing from Kherson and Sevastopol, and thereby hamper the preparations for an attack on Constantinople? Whether the retention of Oczakoff by Russia would not enable her to command the southern exit of Polish commerce, namely, down the River Dniester to the Black Sea? Also, whether Oczakoff could not be so strengthened (rumour described it as in part demolished) as once again to defy a Russian attack?[990]

To these searching questions Admiral Kingsbergen made the following replies. Oczakoff did not command the entrance to the Liman, as that was four cannon-shot wide, and the navigable channel was nearer to the Kinburn, or Russian, side than to Oczakoff. Neither of these places was a port; and the value of Kherson (the naval station on the Dnieper) was much overrated. Russia would do well to spend all her energies on Sevastopol or Balaclava, to which places she could easily bring all the naval stores from the Don or Dnieper district. Those ports would be the best starting points for an attack on Constantinople, which the Turks, even if masters of Oczakoff, could in no wise prevent. When he (Kingsbergen) in 1773 prepared a plan for attacking Constantinople he took little thought of the Turkish garrison at Oczakoff. Indeed that town must always be isolated and a source of expense, even of danger, to the Porte. The admiral felt unable to say whether the cession of Oczakoff and its district to Russia would adversely affect the trade of Poland to the Black Sea, and he opined that it would not much extend the power and population of Russia in the south.[991]

In this last conjecture the admiral was wholly wrong. We can now see that the acquisition by Russia of the valuable territory in question, on which now stands the port of Odessa, opened up to her almost boundless possibilities of controlling the Balkan Peninsula and of strangling Poland. On the naval matters referred to by Pitt, Kingsbergen’s answer bore the stamp of experience and authority. It proved that Oczakoff in itself was of little worth; but it did not prove that the whole district up to the Dniester was equally valueless.

We have proof of Pitt’s anxiety to probe this question thoroughly. In the Pitt MSS. is a long memorandum which aims at showing that the growth of Russia’s power and trade in the Baltic was to our advantage, as she supplied us with much needed naval stores, through a sea over which we could exercise some measure of control. But her progress to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean was greatly to be deprecated; for she would then furnish those stores to our rivals, France and Spain, through ports which were never blocked by ice. Further, if she gained the Oczakoff district, she could shut out the trade of the Poles from the Black Sea, while extending her own markets through the Levant and the Mediterranean, to our detriment. The prospects of her gaining Constantinople are also dwelt upon; and the conclusion of the anonymous writer is that we ought at all costs to hinder her southward march, even while we hailed her as a friend in the Baltic.[992] Doubts of various kinds also beset the mind of the Duke of Leeds. On 11th March he wrote thus to Auckland:

... The present situation of affairs is, I confess, by no means pleasant, and perhaps, all things considered, the most perplexing point is to extricate ourselves from the risk of a war, salvo honore. We are in my opinion so far committed as to render this, however desirable, extremely difficult, if not impracticable. [He then states that the successes of the Russians make it difficult now to insist on the absolute status quo, of which he had never wholly approved.] Yet in my mind [he continues] it behoves us (considering the part we have so decidedly, tho’ perhaps not very wisely, taken,) more than ever to abide by our former determination, or the Empress’s ambition will be gratified, not only at the expense of the Turkish territory, but of the reputation of this Government. So much for the engagements (thanks to Prussia) we have entered into. I will now beg to call your Lordship’s attention to the extent of the Russian conquests, which I think deserving the most serious attention on our part. Oczakow and its district, it seems is (or at least was) all the Empress in her moderation will insist on keeping. This district by the bye (according to Woronzow’s language, as well as my own suspicion) includes the whole tract of country from the Bog [sic] to the Dniester. However barren the soil may be, the command of the latter river, its embouchure being at the mercy of Russia, will operate a considerable change in the influence of that Power in the Black Sea, whether with a view to hostile operations or to commercial engagements, and completely shut out Poland from her southern débouché.[993]...

Nothing is more singular in this letter than the confession of the Foreign Minister that he does not know exactly what extent of land the Empress demands—a matter infinitely favourable to the Opposition in Parliament. Certainly the Duke of Leeds and Whitworth had not manœuvred skilfully in leaving this all-important question in doubt.

To resume, then, we find that neither Pitt nor his colleague knew the extent of the Czarina’s demands, which, at the request of Prussia, they were about to oppose; that Leeds secretly doubted the wisdom of this policy; that Pitt found out by 19th March the comparative unimportance of Oczakoff itself, however valuable the whole territory might be to Polish merchants; that the Dutch were most reluctant to take any part in the dispute; that Austria was playing a dilatory and threatening game at Sistova; and last, but not least, that Prussian policy began to show signs of weakness and wavering.[994]