THE COALITION FORMED.
In March the government hired troops from Hanover and Hesse Cassel; and during the year, Holland being already an ally, made treaties hostile to France with all the other Christian powers of Europe except Denmark, Sweden, the Swiss, Tuscany Venice, and Genoa, which decided on neutrality. The emperor and the Prussian king agreed to carry on the war in concert with England. Catherine of Russia made a treaty of commerce, and another promising co-operation against the commerce of France. Her army was engaged in Poland, and she took no part in the war beyond carrying out her engagement by means of her fleet. In May, the convention declared war on Spain and the king entered into the coalition. The King of Sardinia was already at war, and the British government granted him a subsidy of £200,000 to enable him to keep up his army, and agreed to send a fleet into the Mediterranean. A treaty for concerted action in the Mediterranean was made with the king of the Two Sicilies, and another treaty with Portugal, our ancient ally, which became of importance after Spain deserted the coalition. The accession of England to the enemies of France gave them a new weapon against her. Great Britain and Russia agreed to prevent neutral ships from supplying her with provisions, and, on June 8, British officers were ordered to stop all ships so engaged and send them to England, where their cargoes would be sold and their freights paid by the government.
The emperor did not relish the idea of a disinterested war; and Grenville agreed that the allies should indemnify themselves, and should make conquests on the Belgian frontier of France, which in Austrian hands would form a strong barrier against her. This met the emperor's views, for an enlargement of the Austrian Netherlands would forward his plan of exchanging them for Bavaria. The proposed exchange, however, was contrary to English policy, for it would have created a weak state on the French frontier. As soon as war was declared, Dumouriez invaded Holland, but was soon called back to Belgium, where the French were losing ground. He was defeated at Neerwinden on March 18, and the French withdrew from the Netherlands. They were unsuccessful on the Rhine, and Mainz was threatened by the Prussians. Dissatisfied with the proceedings of his government, Dumouriez intrigued with the enemy and finally fled to the Austrian camp, but was unable to carry his army with him. On April 8 a conference between representatives of the allies was held at Antwerp. Lord Auckland, the British minister in Holland, appeared for England, accompanied by the king's second son, the Duke of York, who was to command the British and Hanoverian army. The allies agreed to make conquests and keep them. Auckland declared that this was the policy of his court. Austria was to gain places on the frontier which would shut France out from the Netherlands, England would look to the conquest of Dunkirk and the French colonies.[243]
On May 20 the British army with its Hanoverian and Hessian contingents joined the Prince of Coburg, and took a distinguished part in driving the French from their camp at Famars. The smart appearance of the English troops was much admired, but their officers were careless. The French army of the north was disorderly and discouraged. While the regular troops generally behaved well, the volunteers, who had a separate organisation and elected their own officers, were insubordinate and lacking in soldierly qualities; the representatives of the people who accompanied the army, though they did some good, meddled in military matters; the generals were suspected, were constantly displaced, and were fortunate if they escaped the scaffold; and the ministry of war was utterly incompetent. The allies besieged Condé and Valenciennes; Condé surrendered on July 13 and Valenciennes on the 28th, and the Austrians took possession of both. Coburg's allies were anxious to secure territory for themselves, and he had some difficulty in persuading them to join him in an attack on the French at Cæsar's camp, a strong position covered by the Scheldt, the Sensée, and the Agache. The French were driven out and fell back on Arras. France was in sore straits. Mainz capitulated on July 23, and the army of the Moselle retreated behind the Saar. On the Spanish frontier Roussillon was invaded. In the Alps the republican army was driven back near Saorgio, and its best troops were sent off to quell insurrection in the cities of the south; for the country was torn by civil discord. The Girondins were overthrown in June, and the party called the Mountain gained absolute power. Bordeaux was a centre of resistance; Marseilles, Lyons, and Toulon were in revolt, and were supported by the towns of the Jura and Provence. An insurrection which began in the Vendean district of Anjou grew to a formidable height. The army of La Vendée, of 40,000 men, defeated the republican generals, captured Saumur, and threatened Nantes. Between Basle and the sea the allies were 280,000 strong; an advance on Paris in two directions, from the Belgian border by Soissons and from Mainz by Reims, would almost certainly have ended the war. After the capture of Cæsar's camp the way to Paris lay open to Coburg; there was no French force strong enough to arrest the march of the allies.[244]
DISCORDANT AIMS OF THE ALLIES.
The coalition was paralysed by discord and by the insistence of its members on the pursuit of different objects. The English ministers made the security of the Netherlands as an Austrian province a prime consideration, and to satisfy them the emperor promised to give up the exchange of the Netherlands for Bavaria. He was to be indemnified by the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine, which were to be conquered by the help of Prussia.[245] Frederick William, however, would not help to conquer territory for Austria, nor assist in the dismemberment of France, unless the emperor assented to the treaty for the partition of Poland secretly arranged between him and Catherine of Russia, and signed on January 23. Baron Thugut, the Austrian minister, who was violently hostile toward Prussia, would not assent to a treaty which aggrandised that power and did not give his master a share in the spoil. While, then, France, distressed by invasion, revolt, and scarcity, seemed an easy prey, Brunswick remained on the Rhine, and refused to co-operate with Austria in Alsace, and Coburg was intent on gaining frontier towns. The English government was anxious to secure its own share in the conquests from France, and, on August 10, acting on instructions from home, York went off with a force of 37,000 men, his own English and German troops with 11,000 Austrians, to lay siege to Dunkirk. About the same time Frederick William ordered 8,000 Prussian troops engaged in Flanders to withdraw to Luxemburg, and Coburg invested Le Quesnoy.
On one side only was full advantage taken of the distress of France. In consequence of the late disputes with Spain and Russia the British navy was in an efficient state. Of 113 ships of the line nearly ninety were in good condition. Howe commanded the channel fleet; he kept it at Spithead, and it did nothing of importance during the year. The Mediterranean fleet under Hood sailed in June and blockaded Toulon. The insurrectionary movement at Marseilles was quelled by the convention, and the royalists at Toulon were threatened by the jacobin forces. Though the town was well supplied with provisions, the chiefs of the royalist party persuaded the people that the only way to escape starvation was to treat with the English. The inhabitants declared for Louis XVII., the son of the late king, and the constitution of 1791, and surrendered the town to Hood, together with the ships in the port, thirty ships of the line, more than a third of the whole French line of battle, and other smaller vessels. Hood received the forts and the ships for King Louis and promised to restore them at the end of the war. He invited the co-operation of the Spanish fleet under Lángara and when it appeared entered the harbour, on August 29. The news was received in England with delight, and Grenville declared his belief that "the business at Toulon" would probably be "decisive of the war". England desired the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, and it was hoped that the occupation of the place would strengthen the movement in that direction in the south. The émigré Count of Provence, the next younger brother of Louis XVI., who had assumed the title of regent, desired the government to allow him to enter the town. As the émigrés aimed at the restoration of absolutism it would have been fatal to the hopes built on the movement in the south in favour of a constitutional monarchy to have granted his request, and it would have been unfair to the Toulonese who stipulated for the acceptance of the constitution of 1791. Besides this, the émigrés were strongly opposed to the policy of conquest adopted at Antwerp; and, though Toulon was not to be taken from France, England could not at that time encourage the count's pretensions. His presence in the town would have been embarrassing to Hood, and he would certainly have interfered with the defence. England did not acknowledge his claim to the regency, and he was not admitted into Toulon.
While the allies were divided in purpose and action, the danger of France and the violation of her territory roused the party in power to energy in her defence. In August the second committee of public safety decreed a levée en masse, and on the 23rd substituted for it a universal conscription. Men were poured into the army, but they had to be turned into soldiers; and efficient generals, and above all a competent military administration, had to be provided. At this crisis Carnot, who was to earn the title of "organiser of victories," took the direction of the war. The new troops were at first worse than useless, but after a while they were brought to order by being drafted into the old battalions; the amalgamation of the volunteers with the regulars was effected early in 1794, and the army of the revolution became a well-ordered fighting machine. While the new levies of August, 1793, were still undisciplined Carnot's genius began to raise the fortunes of France.
HONDSCHOOTE.
When York marched off to the siege of Dunkirk on August 10 he divided his army into two corps, placing one, composed of 14,500 German and Austrian troops, under Marshal Freytag, to act as an army of observation, while he commanded the army of the siege in person. On his march a detachment of his troops surprised and routed a French force at Linselles while engaged in pillaging the place. He summoned Dunkirk on the 23rd. The fleet, which was to have bombarded the town and brought a siege-train, had not arrived. He was only able to invest the town on the east, for the French laid the country between Bergues and Dunkirk under water, and the causeway from Bergues was strongly defended. His army occupied a wretched position, was in want of good water, and was cut off from direct communication with Freytag, who was encamped in front of Bergues.[246] On September 6-8 Freytag's army was attacked by a French army under Houchard of nearly four times its strength. Walmoden, who succeeded Freytag, might have avoided the battle of Hondschoote on the 8th; he fought in obedience to York's orders and was defeated with heavy loss. York hastily retreated to Furnes. If Houchard had followed up his success he might have crushed York's army. He turned aside to attack the Dutch quartered on the Lys and routed them at Menin. Le Quesnoy surrendered to the Austrians on the 11th, and Coburg invested Maubeuge. Jourdan, the new commander of the army of the north, and Carnot, who accompanied him, attacked and defeated the Austrian covering army at Wattignies on October 16, and forced Coburg to raise the siege. This was practically the end of the campaign, which closed far more favourably for France than it had begun.