William Pitt and the Great War

by J. Holland Rose

THE LAST STRUGGLE

Heavens! What has Prussia to answer for! For nothing less, in my mind, than every calamity which has befallen Europe for more than ten years.—General Paget to Sir Arthur Paget, 24th January 1806.

The opening moves in the great game between Pitt and Napoleon were divided with a curious evenness. As we have seen, the French Emperor's defiant annexation of Genoa obliterated the anger of the Czar at Pitt's insistence on the retention of Malta; and if Pitt's high-handed conduct forced Spain to declare against England, yet, on the other hand, Napoleon wantonly challenged Austria and Russia to a conflict. The first events of the war showed a similar balance. On 20th October the French Emperor compelled the Austrian commander, General Mack, to surrender at or near Ulm in Swabia with almost the whole of an army of some 70,000 men. On the next day Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. So quickly did the forcefulness or ineptitude of four commanders determine the course of events. By the end of October the tricolour waved triumphant over Central Europe; but the Union Jack was thenceforth scarcely challenged by sea; and Britain began to exert that unseen but resistless pressure upon her enemy which gradually edged him to his ruin. Consequently the appalling failures of the Third Coalition on land only delayed the final triumph on which the serene genius of Pitt surely counted.

At first everything seemed to favour his designs. Part of Napoleon's army in its hurried march from North Germany towards Ulm violated the neutrality of the Prussian principality of Anspach, apparently by command of the Emperor. This short cut to success nearly entailed disaster; for it earned the sharp resentment of Prussia at a time when he especially valued her friendship. Indeed, so soon as he resolved to turn the "Army of England" against Austria, he despatched his most trusted aide-de-camp, Duroc, to Berlin, to tempt that Court with that alluring bait, Hanover. Russia and England were, however, making equal efforts in the hope of gaining the help of the magnificent army of Frederick William III. For a time Pitt also hoped to add the South German States, and in all to set in motion a mass of 650,000 men against France, Austria contributing 250,000, Russia 180,000, Prussia 100,000 (later on he bargained for 180,000), Sardinia 25,000, Naples 20,000, Sweden 16,000, and the small German States the remainder. Napoleon, on the other hand, strove to paralyse the efforts of the Coalition by securing the alliance or the friendly neutrality of Prussia. With 200,000 hostile or doubtful troops on her frontier, Austria could do little, and Russia still less. Further, as he still had French troops in one or two fortresses of Hanover, he could utter the words so often on the lips of Bismarck—Beati possidentes. Hanover belonged of right to George III; but Napoleon could will it away to Prussia.

Thus the fortunes of Europe depended largely on Frederick William. Unfortunately he was incapable of rising to the height of the situation; for he utterly lacked the virile qualities which raised the House of Hohenzollern above petty compeers in Swabia to fame and prosperity. Essentially mediocre, and conscious of his slender endowments, he, like Louis XVI, nearly always hesitated, and therefore generally lost. His character was a dull compound of negations. Prone neither to vice nor to passion, he was equally devoid of charm and graciousness. Freezing men by his coldness, he failed to overawe them by superiority; and, with a weak man's dislike of genius and strength, he avoided great men, preferring trimmers like Haugwitz and Lombard, who played upon his foibles, and saved him from disagreeable decisions. The commanding personality of Stein inspired in him nervous dislike which deepened into peevish dread. Only in the depths of disaster, into which his own weakness was to plunge him, did he have recourse to that saviour of Prussia.

By the side of Frederick William was that radiant figure, Queen Louisa, who recalls the contrast between Marie Antoinette and her uninteresting, hapless spouse. For Louisa, too, had ambition and the power of inspiring devotion, though etiquette and jealousy forbade her intervention in affairs of State;[735] otherwise the Prussian Government would have shaken off that paralysing indecision which left its people friendless and spiritless on the bursting of the storm a year later. For the present, the King's chief adviser, Hardenberg, sought to impart to Prussian policy a trend more favourable to England and Russia. Conscious of the need of a better frontier on the west and of the longing of his master for the greater part of Hanover, he sought to attain this end by means not wholly opposed to the feelings of George III and the policy of Pitt. Above all, he strove to end the humiliating subservience of his Court to France, which galled the spirit of all patriotic Prussians. Their great desire was to join the new Coalition even though such a step entailed war with Napoleon. They rejoiced at the news of Admiral Calder's victory off Finisterre, and hailed every sign of war at St. Petersburg and Vienna.[736] On the other hand, the French party was strong at Court. Haugwitz, its head, was still nominally Minister for Foreign Affairs, and, though often absent for long periods on his Silesian domain, resumed the control of them when he returned to Berlin. This singular arrangement enabled the King to keep up the game of political see-saw which brought relief to him, disgust to his would-be allies, and ruin to his country.

To tilt the balance in favour of the Coalition was now the chief aim of Pitt. And who shall say that, if Prussia, with strength still unimpaired, had played the part which her enfeebled people insisted on taking up in 1813, the doom of Napoleon might not have been assured in the autumn and winter which we associate with the names of Ulm and Austerlitz? All this was possible, nay, probable, had Frederick William surveyed the situation with the sound judgement of Pitt. But the British statesman laboured under one great disadvantage. He could not offer to Prussia what she most wanted. He could do no more than promise to extend her western confines to Antwerp and Ostend; and she far preferred Hanover, as solidifying her straggling western lands, without bringing her near to France. Here was an almost insuperable obstacle; and we can imagine that, like his father, he cursed Britain's connection with Hanover. His chief hope was, that Prussia would discern her true interest in acquiring less by honourable means than very much from Napoleon, whose gifts were often perilous. Russia, too, at that time seemed to adopt the British view of the Hanoverian question; and in the early autumn that Power mustered her second army on the borders of Prussia in a highly threatening manner. Finally, the Czar declared that if his troops were refused a passage through Silesia, he would make his way by force, the Pitt Cabinet informing him that, in that case, the liberal subsidies intended for Prussia, would be added to those already on their way to St. Petersburg. But even threats failed to bring Frederick William to a decision; and Hardenberg announced that a forcible entry of the Russians would involve war with Prussia.[737]

While Frederick William fumed at the Muscovite threats, came news of the violation of his Anspach domain on 3rd October. At once he declared his intention to avenge the insult and to expel Duroc from Prussian territory. He also raised high the hopes of the Allies by allowing the Russians to enter Silesia, and by favouring Pitt's plan of a joint expedition of the Allies to Hanover with a view to the liberation of Holland; and when he ordered the mobilization of the whole Prussian army, there appeared good grounds for expecting the speedy accession of at least 150,000 troops trained in the school of Frederick the Great. Even Haugwitz now suggested that if war came England must give Prussia a subsidy.[738] The Anglophil party at Berlin raised its head in triumph at the approach of the Russian Emperor; and when on 28th October he entered Berlin with enthusiastic greetings from the populace, Europe seemed about to be leagued against Napoleon. Chivalry and prudence alike counselled such a union, for on the morrow arrived news of the annihilation of Mack's army. Nothing but prompt action could save Germany from the Napoleonic deluge.

The first rumours of the disaster at Ulm did not reach London until 2nd November. Lord Malmesbury was dining with Pitt and mentioned the report to him, whereupon the Prime Minister exclaimed in loud and angry tones, "Don't believe a word of it: it is all a fiction."[739] But on the morrow a Dutch newspaper was brought, and Malmesbury translated the account, which was so clear and detailed as to leave little room for doubt. Pitt's countenance changed. There came over him that look which his friends saw imprinted more deeply with every week of deepening gloom. For a brief space it passed away. On 6th November London heard the joyful yet painful news of Trafalgar. It reached Downing Street at 3 a.m. Pitt was so moved by conflicting emotions that he, the soundest of sleepers, could not find repose, but roused himself for work. The Stock Exchange registered the swift oscillations from confidence to doubt, for though all fear of the French and Spanish fleet was at an end, yet, as Nelson perished, national security seemed imperilled, and Consols sank.

The contrast between the victorious constancy of Britain and the wavering and hapless counsels of the Germanic States inspired Pitt with one of the most magnanimous utterances of that age. At the Lord Mayor's banquet on 9th November, that dignitary proposed his health as the Saviour of Europe. Pitt concentrated his reply into these two memorable sentences: "I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example." In its terseness and strength, its truth and modesty, its patriotism and hopefulness, this utterance stands unrivalled. The effect must have been all the greater because Pitt then bore on his countenance signs of that anxious forethought in which now lay the chief hope of European independence.