William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (book club reads txt) 📕

PREFACE

In the former volume, entitled "William Pitt and National Revival," I

sought to trace the career of Pitt the Younger up to the year 1791.

Until then he was occupied almost entirely with attempts to repair the

evils arising out of the old order of things. Retrenchment and Reform

were his first watchwords; and though in the year 1785 he failed in his

efforts to renovate the life of Parliament and to improve the fiscal

relations with Ireland, yet his domestic policy in the main achieved a

surprising success. Scarcely less eminent, though far less known, were

his services in the sphere of diplomacy. In the year 1783, when he

became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer,

nearly half of the British Empire was torn away, and the remainder

seemed to be at the mercy of the allied Houses of Bourbon. France,

enjoying the alliance of Spain and Austria and the diplomatic wooings of

Catharine II and Frederick the Great, gave the law to Europe.

 

By the year 1790 all had changed. In 1787 Pitt supported Frederick

William II of Prussia in overthrowing French supremacy in the Dutch

Netherlands; and a year later he framed with those two States an

alliance which not only dictated terms to Austria at the Congress of

Reichenbach but also compelled her to forego her far-reaching schemes on

the lower Danube, and to restore the _status quo_ in Central Europe and

in her Belgian provinces. British policy triumphed over that of Spain in

the Nootka Sound dispute of the year 1790, thereby securing for the

Empire the coast of what is now British Columbia; it also saved Sweden

from a position of acute danger; and Pitt cherished the hope of forming

a league of the smaller States, including the Dutch Republic, Denmark,

Sweden, Poland, and, if possible, Turkey, which, with support from Great

Britain and Prussia, would withstand the almost revolutionary schemes of

the Russian and Austrian Courts.

 

These larger aims were unattainable. The duplicity of the Court of

Berlin, the triumphs of the Russian arms on the Danube, and changes in

the general diplomatic situation, enabled Catharine II to foil the

efforts of Pitt in 1791. She worked her will on the Turks and not long

after on the Poles; Sweden came to an understanding with her; and

Prussia, slighting the British alliance, drew near to the new Hapsburg

Sovereign, Leopold II. In fact, the events of the French Revolution in

the year 1791 served to focus attention more and more upon Paris; and

monarchs who had thought of little but the conquest or partition of

weaker States now talked of a crusade to restore order at Paris, with

Gustavus III of Sweden as the new Coeur de Lion. This occidentation of

diplomacy became pronounced at the time of the attempted escape of

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the eastern frontier at Midsummer

Their capture at Varennes and their ignominious return to Paris

are in several respects the central event of the French Revolution. The

incident aroused both democrats and royalists to a fury which foredoomed

to failure all attempts at compromise between the old order and the new.

The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands

to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and

hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War

soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were

fruitless; and thenceforth his chief task was to bring to an honourable

close a conflict which he had not sought. It is therefore fitting that

this study of the latter, less felicitous, but equally glorious part of

his career should begin with a survey of the situation in Great Britain

and on the Continent at the time of the incident at Varennes which

opened a new chapter in the history of Europe.

 

In the present volume I have sought to narrate faithfully and as fully

as is possible the story of the dispute with France, the chief episodes

of the war, and the varied influences which it exerted upon political

developments in these islands, including the early Radical movement, the

Irish Rebellion of 1798, and other events which brought about the Union

of the British and Irish Parliaments, the break up of the great national

party at Westminster in 1801, and the collapse of the strength of Pitt

early in the course of the struggle with the concentrated might of

Napoleon.

 

That mighty drama dwarfs the actors. Even the French Emperor could not

sustain the rôle which he aspired to play, and, failing to discern the

signs of the times, was whirled aside by the forces which he claimed to

control. Is it surprising that Pitt, more slightly endowed by nature,

and beset by the many limitations which hampered the advisers of

George III, should have sunk beneath burdens such as no other English

statesman has been called upon to bear? The success or failure of such a

career is, however, to be measured by the final success or failure of

his policy; and in this respect, as I have shown, the victor in the

Great War was not Napoleon but Pitt.

 

To that high enterprise he consecrated all the powers of his being. His

public life is everything; his private life, unfortunately, counts for

little. The materials for reconstructing it are meagre. I have been able

here and there to throw new light on his friendships, difficulties,

trials, and, in particular, on the love episode of the year 1797. But in

the main the story of the life of Pitt must soar high above the club and

the _salon_ to

 

    ... the toppling heights of Duty scaled.

 

Again I must express my hearty thanks to those who have generously

placed at my disposal new materials of great value, especially to His

Grace the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Harrowby, Earl Stanhope, E. G.

Pretyman, Esq., M.P., and A. M. Broadley, Esq.; also to the Rev. William

Hunt, D.Litt., and Colonel E. M. Lloyd, late R.E., for valuable advice

tendered during the correction of the proofs, and to Mr. Hubert Hall of

H.M. Public Record Office for assistance during my researches there. I

am also indebted to Lord Auckland and to Messrs. Longmans for permission

to reproduce the miniature of the Hon. Miss Eden which appeared in Lord

Ashbourne's "Pitt, Some Chapters of his Life and Times," and to Mr. and

Mrs. Doulton for permission to my daughter to make the sketch of Bowling

Green House, the last residence of Pitt, which is reproduced near the

end of this volume. In the preface to the former volume I expressed my

acknowledgements to recent works bearing on this subject; and I need

only add that numerous new letters of George III, Pitt, Grenville,

Burke, Canning, etc., which could only be referred to here, will be

published in a work entitled "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies," including

also essays and notes.

 

                                                                                       J. H. R.

MARCH 1911.

 

CHAPTER I (ROYALISTS AND RADICALS[1])

 

 

    Détruire l'anarchie française, c'est se préparer une gloire

    immortelle.--CATHARINE II, 1791.

 

    The pretended Rights of Man, which have made this havoc, cannot

    be the rights of the people. For to be a people and to have

    these rights are incompatible. The one supposes the presence,

    the other the absence, of a state of civil society.--BURKE,

    _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_.

 

    A constitution is the property of a nation and not of those who

    exercise the Government.--T. PAINE, _Rights of Man_, part ii.

 

 

In the midst of a maze of events there may sometimes be found one which

serves as a clue, revealing hidden paths, connecting ways which seem far

apart, and leading to a clear issue. Such was the attempted flight of

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the eastern frontier of France at

midsummer 1791, which may be termed the central event of the French

Revolution, at least in its first phases. The aim of joining the armed

bands of _émigrés_ and the forces held in readiness by Austria was so

obvious as to dispel the myth of "a patriot King" misled for a time by

evil counsellors. True, the moderates, from sheer alarm, still sought to

save the monarchy, and for a time with surprising success. But bolder

men, possessed both of insight and humour, perceived the futility of

all such efforts to hold down on the throne the father of his people

lest he should again run away. In this perception the young Republican

party found its genesis and its inspiration. In truth, the attempted

flight of the King was a death-blow to the moderate party, into which

the lamented leader, Mirabeau, had sought to infuse some of his

masterful energy. Thenceforth, the future belonged either to the

Jacobins or to the out and out royalists.

 

These last saw the horizon brighten in the East. Louis XVI being under

constraint in Paris, their leaders were the French Princes, the Comte de

Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII) and the Comte d'Artois (Charles X).

Around them at Coblentz there clustered angry swarms of French nobles,

gentlemen, and orthodox priests, whose zeal was reckoned by the

earliness of the date at which they had "emigrated." For many months the

agents of these _émigrés_ had vainly urged the Chanceries of the

Continent to a royalist crusade against the French rebels; and it seemed

appropriate that Gustavus III of Sweden should be their only convert.

Now of a sudden their demands appeared, instinct with statecraft; and

courtiers everywhere exclaimed that "the French pest" must be stamped

out. In that thought lay in germ a quarter of a century of war.

 

Already the Prussian and Austrian Governments had vaguely discussed the

need of a joint intervention in France. In fact this subject formed one

of the pretexts for the missions of the Prussian envoy, Bischoffswerder,

to the Emperor Leopold in February and June 1791.[2] As was shown at the

close of the former volume, "William Pitt and National Revival," neither

Court took the matter seriously, the Eastern Question being then their

chief concern. But the flight to Varennes, which Leopold had helped to

arrange, imposed on him the duty of avenging the ensuing insults to his

sister. He prepared to do so with a degree of caution highly

characteristic of him. He refused to move until he knew the disposition

of the Powers, especially of England. From Padua, where the news of the

capture of Louis at Varennes reached him, he wrote an autograph letter

to George III, dated 6th July, urging him to join in a general demand

for the liberation of the King and Queen of France. He also invited the

monarchs of Europe to launch a Declaration, that they regarded the cause

of Louis as their own, and in the last resort to put down a usurpation

of power which it behoved all Governments to repress.[3]

 

The reply of George, dated St. James's, 23rd July, bears the imprint of

the cool and cautious personality of Pitt and Grenville, who in this

matter may be counted as one. The King avowed his sympathy with the

French Royal Family and his interest in the present proposals, but

declared that his attitude must depend on his relations to other Powers.

He therefore cherished the hope that the Emperor would consult the

welfare of the whole of Europe by aiding in the work of pacification

between Austria and Turkey now proceeding at Sistova. So soon as those

negotiations were completed, he would instruct his Ministers to consider

the best means of cementing a union between the Allies and the

Emperor.[4]

 

Leopold must have gnashed his teeth on reading this reply, which beat

him at his own game of _finesse_. He had used the difficulties of

England as a