William Pitt and the Great War

by J. Holland Rose

This noble epitaph to the memory of Pitt conveys an impression alike of heroic endeavour and of irretrievable failure. It is the Funeral March of Chopin, not of Handel, and it echoes the feeling of the time. An impenetrable darkness hung over England. Ulm, Austerlitz, the armistice, and the desertion of the Allies by Prussia were successive waves of calamity, which obliterated all landmarks and all means of safety. The dying words of Pitt found response in every breast, with this difference, that, while he was proudly conscious of the correctness of his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had been wretchedly mismanaged, a remark which Malmesbury treated with quiet contempt. Grenville, who was about to move a vote of censure on the Ministry, burst into an agony of tears on hearing that Pitt was at death's door. His distress of mind probably arose from a belated perception of the factiousness of his own conduct and from grief at the unrelieved gloom of the end of a career whose meridian splendour had shed lustre upon him.

The House of Commons did not whole-heartedly accord to the deceased statesman a burial in Westminster Abbey in the tomb of Chatham. A motion to that effect, moved by Lascelles and seconded by the Marquis of Titchfield, was strongly opposed by Fox, George Ponsonby, Windham, and three other speakers. It passed by 258 votes to 59. Still more painful was the discussion in the Common Council of the City of London, where a proposal to erect a monument to Pitt was carried only by 77 votes to 71. It is safe to say that, if the fortune of war had gone against France at Ulm and Austerlitz, Pitt would have been ecstatically hailed as the saviour of Europe, as indeed he was at the Guildhall after Trafalgar. How long was it before it dawned on Auckland, Windham, and the seventy-one councillors of the City of London, that the censures cast on the memory of Pitt ought to have been levelled at the defender of Ulm, the Czar Alexander and his equally presumptuous advisers at Austerlitz, and most of all at the cringing politicians of Berlin?

It is now abundantly clear that Pitt fell a victim to his confidence in the rulers of three great monarchies, whose means were vast, whose promises were lofty, and whose surrender after the first reverses baffled all forecasts. The descendants of Maria Theresa and Catharine tamely retired from the fray after a single adverse blow; and the successor of the great Frederick sheathed his sword after the unpardonable insult at Anspach.

In truth, the career of Pitt came to a climax at a time of unexampled decadence of the ancient dynasties. The destinies of the allied Houses of Bourbon rested upon Louis XVI of France and Charles IV of Spain. To the ineptitude of the former the French Revolution was in large measure due. To the weakness and falsity of the latter we may ascribe the desertion of the royalist cause by Spain in 1795–6, with the train of disastrous results in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In Central Europe Francis of Austria was scarcely more than a tool in the hands of those subtle schemers, Thugut and Cobenzl. The boundless resources of Russia were at the disposal of Paul and Alexander, who, with all their generous impulses, were incapable of steadily applying them to one definite end. Only after weary years of subservience to Napoleon did Alexander develop that firmness of character which finally brought salvation to the Continent. From Frederick William even deeper humiliations failed to evoke any heroic resolve. Among the statesmen of those three monarchies at the time of Pitt there is but one who was a fit compeer to him; and the fates willed that Stein should not control affairs until the year 1807. The age of Pitt was the age of Godoy, Thugut, and Haugwitz—weavers of old-world schemes of partition or barter, and blind to the storm gathering in the West.

The importance of his achievements in curbing their ambitions and saving the smaller States has not received due recognition. He did much to rescue the Dutch Netherlands from anarchy, and Sweden and Turkey from the clutches of powerful neighbours. He failed, indeed, in his diplomatic contest with Catharine; but the duplicity of the Court of Berlin, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, made success impossible; and he had thereafter to look on helplessly at the final Partitions of Poland. Only those who have probed the policy of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the years 1787–92 can fully realize the difficulties which attended his efforts to frame a solid league against Revolutionary France. As well might one attempt out of rubble to build a cannon-proof rampart.

At home Pitt had to deal with George III. Now, even under a limited monarchy the fortunes of a statesman depend largely on the character of his Sovereign. While possessing the initiative which proffers timely advice, it should be under the control of unfailing tact. Dowered with insight into character and foresight as to the trend of events, the Monarch must, for the most part, subordinate energy to self-repression and the prophetic instinct to the warnings of courtly sagacity. Yet the ideal British ruler must at times assert his will, albeit indirectly, and with the personal charm which ensures the smooth working of this delicately poised machine. He should therefore be the embodiment of all the political virtues. Will even the admirers of George claim that he realized that ideal? However excellent as Elector of Hanover, he was a doubtful blessing as King of Great Britain and Ireland.

In truth, the Hanoverian strain in his nature had not been toned to the degree of fineness needful for the kingly office in these islands. In a time of peculiar difficulty he sought to govern almost absolutely by means which ensured the temporary subservience of Parliament, and in a spirit which brought disruption upon the Empire. The former half of Pitt's career was largely occupied in repairing the financial waste consequent on the American War, or in making good long arrears of legislation. Here, indeed, is his most abiding contribution to the national welfare. But his indebtedness to the King on questions of foreign and domestic policy is rarely apparent. Reform, whether Economical or Parliamentary, encountered the more or less declared opposition of the Sovereign. On the other hand, George showed marked ability in the support of corporate interests and the management of men; so that his relations to Pitt were not unlike those of the Duke of Newcastle to Chatham. The Pitts supplied the brain power while the Monarch or the Duke by the award of favours ensured the needful degree of subservience at the polls or in the lobbies of St. Stephens.

After the "surrender" at the close of the American War, the attitude of George towards his British subjects was one of scarcely concealed scorn. Now and again his feelings burst forth uncontrollably. Shortly before his second attack of lunacy, which occurred near the end of the fortieth year of his reign, he astonished the congregation in church by repeating in loud and emphatic tones the response: "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said: 'It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known My ways.'" The tones of the voice betokened the approach of lunacy, but the conviction of the mind was always the same. For the most part, however, scorn was tempered by calculation. His letters to Pitt are full of commendation of the House of Commons when it unquestioningly passed Government Bills or the Supplies; whereas he looked on Fox and Burke as baneful and wearisome talkers, consumers of time, and foes to healthful slumber. Similarly, in his political catechism, the whole duty of Parliament was to help Ministers to govern; while their proper function was to raise the maximum of revenue with the minimum of fuss and change. In short, to maintain the existing social order; to allow no change in a constitution which aroused the wonder or envy of other nations; to use peerages and bishoprics, pocket boroughs and sinecures, as a means of buttressing that fabric, such were the aims of the third George.

Failing materially to weaken the force of this mighty engine of patronage, Pitt was fain to make the best of things as they were. The defeat of his Reform Bill in 1785 was the chief crisis in his early career; for it involved the failure of the Abolition Bill, perhaps also of the schemes for the relief of the poor which he outlined in 1797. In fact, after the year 1785, and still more so after 1790, he had to govern mainly as King's Minister, not as the people's Minister. Worst of all, the centre of political gravity remained dangerously high throughout the storms of the Revolutionary Era. How much of the nation's energy then went forth in justifiable discontent and futile efforts at repression has already appeared. Up to the year 1798 the struggle against France was largely one of the governing class against a nation; and for this the King and the British oligarchy, not Pitt, were responsible. Personal charm and the magnetic gift of evoking enthusiasm have in some monarchs counterbalanced defects of narrowness and intolerance. George was not deficient in courtly grace and tact—witness his remark to Pitt at their first interview after the long separation of the years 1801–1804. When Pitt ventured to compliment the King on his looking better than after the illness of 1801, the latter at once replied: "That is not to be wondered at: I was then on the point of parting with an old friend. Now I am about to regain one." But these gracious remarks came rarely in his closing years, which were marked by increasing harshness to his family, petulance on the most trivial affairs, and an outlook more narrowly personal than ever.

Such a nature chafes its surroundings. It arouses no enthusiasm; it merely begets heat by friction. Pitt has been blamed for spending too much time and energy in speeches about the war. But there was no other way of kindling the nation's zeal. The Princes very rarely spoke in the House of Lords, except under an overmastering fear of the abolition of the Slave Trade. None of the Ministers, except Windham, had the gift of oratory. On Pitt alone devolved the task of arousing a national spirit; and a cruel destiny cut short his life at the very time when his inspiring presence was most needed. How much England then lost can never be known. Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador at London, who had earlier been a bitter enemy of Pitt, now expressed the fervent desire that death had carried off his weary old frame, rather than that of the potential Saviour of Europe. The words are instinct with prescience. The personality and the actions of Pitt were alike a summons to a life of dignity and manly independence. His successors had perforce to take a course not unlike that which they were about to censure in him; and the distrust which the Czar Alexander felt for them in part accounts for the collapse at Tilsit and the ensuing years of bondage to Napoleon.