William Pitt and the Great War

by J. Holland Rose

Indirectly Pitt and Dundas were responsible for these disasters. They weakened the British force in Flanders by sending large drafts to the West Indies, as will in due course appear. They also allowed Corsica to be occupied in the spring of 1794, and yet they made little or no use of that island for expeditions against the Riviera, which the royalist natives would readily have undertaken under an inspiring leader. They also relied too much on the Austrians and Prussians, though the former were known to care little for their Netherlands, apart from the prospect of gaining the Barrier fortresses of French Flanders in order to further the Belgic-Bavarian exchange. Above all, as we have seen, Pitt's conduct towards Prussia was annoyingly halting. Malmesbury's treaty could have no effect unless it led the Prussians to move at once. The delay of sixteen days at Whitehall must rank as one of the causes of the failures just recounted; and though Grenville was technically guilty, Pitt must be blamed for not ensuring the needful despatch in an all-important decision. It is curious that he never realized his responsibility. Speaking at a later date of the campaign of Fleurus, he said that it turned upon as narrow a point as ever occurred: that England was unfortunate, but the blame did not rest with her.[354] This probably refers to the surrender of Charleroi and the retreat from Fleurus. But Pitt did not understand that the timely advent of part of the Prussian force on the Meuse, or even its advance into Lorraine, would have changed the situation; and for their inactivity he was in some measure responsible.

At times Pitt lived in dreamland. On 15th July, while the Austrians were quietly withdrawing from Central Belgium, he drew up a Memorandum as to the course of events. By the close of the year Austria was to bring 100,000 men into Flanders, a close alliance being framed on the basis of her acquisition of the French border districts (Valenciennes had not yet surrendered). England was to retain all conquests in the two Indies. The Prussians were to march towards Flanders, which they obstinately refused to do. Dutch and other troops were to be engaged by England, the presumption being that the year 1795 would see the losses of 1794 more than retrieved. The mistake of 10,000 in adding up the totals of the troops (78,000 instead of 88,000) enables one to conjecture at what time of the day this sketch was outlined.[355] One would not take it seriously had not the Foreign Office soon despatched Earl Spencer and Mr. Thomas Grenville as special envoys to Vienna to propose very similar plans, Austria being urged on by the prospect of acquiring the French Barrier fortresses from Lille to Sedan.[356]

They aroused in Thugut a spirit of greed, not of honourable emulation. In a private letter to Pitt, dated Vienna 16th August, Spencer warned him that that Government was "neither possessed of sufficient energy and vigour, nor sufficiently actuated by the true principles on which the cause in which we are engaged ought to be conducted" to justify the demands of Thugut. They included British subsidies for Austria, though she could well support the war, and the sacrifice of British maritime conquests at the general peace as a means of ensuring the recovery of her losses on land. As to Belgium, added Spencer, Thugut looked on it "as irrecoverably lost and not worth regaining, unless with the addition of a very strong and extended barrier, composed of fortresses which he to-day plainly told us he did not think there was the least chance of taking in the course of the war, but that they must be obtained as cessions from France at the peace."[357] Thus Thugut expected that, while the Austrians were ignominiously evacuating the Netherlands, the British fleet should win French colonies valuable enough to induce France both to retire from Belgium, and to surrender to Austria her northern fortresses from Lille to Sedan or Thionville.

The capture of Valenciennes and the slaughter of the émigrés in the Austrian garrison was the retort of the French to these day-dreams (29th August). The fall of Robespierre a month earlier, and the enhanced authority now enjoyed by Carnot enabled the authorities at Paris to press on the conquest of Belgium with an energy which set at defiance the boyish miscalculations of Pitt and the wavering plans of the Hapsburgs.

Towards the close of July Pitt and Grenville saw the need of abating the rigour of their demands on Prussia. For of what use was it to move 60,000 Prussians more than 100 miles to defend West Flanders when that province was lost? Malmesbury therefore was empowered to pay the monthly subsidy of £50,000 on behalf of Great Britain and Holland, provided that Möllendorf's army attacked the French about Trèves, thus lessening the pressure on Coburg's left wing. On 27th July he framed such an agreement with Hardenberg. This statesman was destined to be one of the saviours of the Prussian State in its darkest days, 1810–12; but now, as always, his conduct was shifty; and it is questionable whether he, any more than Haugwitz, dealt honourably with England. It must suffice to say that Möllendorf made not even a demonstration towards Trèves. His inactivity was in part due to the withdrawal of several regiments towards Poland, though Great Britain and Holland still paid for the maintenance of the full quota on the Rhine.

So flagrant was the breach of faith as to elicit heated protests from Malmesbury; and Pitt, justly indignant at the use of British money for what was virtually a partition of Poland, decided to remonstrate with Jacobi, the Prussian ambassador at London. Summoning him to Downing Street, at the end of September, he upbraided him with this dishonourable conduct, declaring that, unless the Prussians moved forward at once, the British and Dutch subsidy for October would be withheld. Much as we may sympathize with this indignant outburst, we must pronounce it unwise. For firstly, Pitt was intruding upon the sphere of Grenville in making this declaration, which was far more acrid than the despatches of the Foreign Secretary. Secondly, it was made in the presence of Dundas, with whom Grenville was already on bad terms. Is it surprising that the Foreign Secretary wrote sharply to Pitt protesting against his acting on a line different from that previously taken at Downing Street? In his despatch of 30th September to Berlin, Grenville was careful to make the withdrawal of the subsidy strictly conditional, and his protest was probably less sharp than that which Pitt addressed to Jacobi.

So annoyed was Grenville at Pitt's interference during his own temporary absence that he wrote to express his willingness to retire from the Foreign Office if this would solve the difficulties caused by the appointment of Earl Fitzwilliam to the Irish Viceroyalty. To that topic I shall recur in a later chapter on the Irish troubles which now became acute. Here it must suffice to say that Pitt declined to accept Grenville's offer, and affairs at Downing Street righted themselves.[358] But at Berlin the mischief was irremediable. Jacobi, a born intriguer, and ever hostile to England, represented the words of Pitt in the worst possible light. Accordingly Frederick William affected great indignation at the conduct of Pitt, accused him of ending the alliance, and discovered in his own ruffled feelings the pretext for giving rein to the dictates of self-interest. He gave orders to end the campaign on the Rhine; and though Grenville sought to patch matters up, compromise was clearly impossible between Allies who had lost that mutual confidence which is the only lasting guarantee of treaties.

At the autumnal equinox of 1794 Pitt was confronted by a far more serious crisis than at the beginning of the war in February 1793. The Republicans, after throwing back Clerfait beyond the River Roer, towards Aix-la-Chapelle, compelled the Duke of York to abandon the natural line of defence of Holland, the River Waal; and in the early days of October the British retired behind Bergen-op-zoom and other Dutch fortresses. These were found to be totally unprepared to sustain a siege. The sluggishness of the Orange party, dominant in Holland since 1787, stood in marked contrast to the eagerness of the Dutch Patriots to help the invaders. Consequently in a few weeks the friends of the Stadholder saw their hopes fade away.

There was but one chance of rescue. The Duke of Brunswick, who so skilfully led the Prussians to Amsterdam in 1787, might be expected to impart some courage to the Dutch garrisons and some show of discipline to the disordered relics of York's and Clerfait's forces now drifting slowly northwards. His position as a Field-Marshal of the Prussian army also promised to interest the Court of Berlin in recovering some part, at least, of the supremacy of the Allies in the Dutch Netherlands. As the crisis in Holland had served to unite the two great Protestant Powers, so now it might prevent the dissolution of that salutary compact. Further, George III, though greatly disliking the substitution of Cornwallis for the Duke of York, favoured the appointment of the veteran Brunswick to the supreme command. Family considerations, always very strong in the King, here concurred with reasons of state. Not only had Brunswick married the sister of George III; but their daughter, the Princess Caroline, was now the reluctant choice of the Prince of Wales. The parents, both at Windsor and at Brunswick welcomed the avowal by the royal prodigal of the claims of lawful wedlock. The Duchess of Brunswick fell into raptures at the brilliant prospects thus opened out for her daughter; and it seemed that both Hymen and Mars, for once working in unison, conspired to bring from his inglorious retreat at Brunswick the man whom that age still acclaimed as its war-lord.