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

arrive by 15th April.[65] Four days later, as no answer came, the

Council of Ministers decided on war; and on the next day Louis formally

proposed it to the Assembly, which assented with acclamation.

Secondary causes helped on the rupture. Frederick William encouraged the

young Emperor to draw the sword, and led him to expect Alsace and

Lorraine as his share of the spoil, the duchies of Jülich and Berg

falling to Prussia. Catharine also fanned the crusading zeal at Berlin

and Vienna in the hope of having "more elbow-room," obviously in

Poland.[66] Further, the news from Madrid and Stockholm indisposed the

French Assembly to endure any dictation from Vienna. At the end of

February Floridablanca fell from power at Madrid, and his successor,

Aranda, showed a peaceful front. And, on 16th March Gustavus of Sweden

was assassinated by Anckarström, a tool of the revengeful nobles. This

loss was severely felt. The royalist crusade now had no Tancred, only an

uninspiring Duke of Brunswick.

Though France took the final step of declaring war, it is now known that

Austria had done much to provoke it and nothing to prevent it. The young

Emperor refused to withdraw a word of the provocative despatch; and in

his letter to Thugut at Brussels, he declared he was weary of the state

of things in France and had decided to act and put an end to it; "that

he should march his troops at once, and the French must be amused for

two months until the troops arrived; then, whether the French attacked

him or not, he should attack them."[67] Keith also wrote from Vienna to

Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the

nick of time to furnish the Hapsburgs with the opportunity of throwing

the odium of the war upon France.[68] Other proofs might be cited; and

it seems certain that, if France had not thrown down the gauntlet, both

the German Powers would have attacked her in the early summer of 1792.

Pitt and Grenville, looking on at these conflicting schemes, formed the

perfectly correct surmise that both sides were bent on war, and that

little or nothing could be done to avert it.

                  *       *       *       *       *

We must now trace the policy of Pitt somewhat closely. The question at

issue is, whether he favoured the royalist or the democratic cause, and

was responsible for the ensuing friction between England and France,

which culminated in the long and disastrous strifes of 1793-1801.

Dumouriez, as we have seen, threw down the gauntlet to Austria in the

hope of securing the neutrality of Prussia and the friendship of

England. Accordingly he decided to send Talleyrand on a second mission

to London. That skilful diplomat had recently returned to Paris; and the

Foreign Minister drew up, perhaps in concert with him, a Memoir entitled

"Reflections on a Negotiation with England in case of War," which

provided the text for Talleyrand's discourse to Pitt and Grenville. The

gist of it is that Talleyrand must convince the British Government of

the need of a French attack on the Belgic provinces of Austria as the

sole means of safety. For, while offensive in appearance, it is in

reality defensive. France does not intend to keep those provinces; and,

even if her conquest of them brings about the collapse of the

Stadholder's power in Holland, England will do well not to intervene in

favour of the Orange _régime_. For what good can the Island Power gain

by war with France? She may take the French colonies; but that will mean

a tiresome struggle with the revolted negroes in the West Indies.

France, meanwhile, with her new-born strength, will conquer Central

Europe and then throw her energy into her fleet. The better course,

then, for England will be to remain neutral, even if Holland be

revolutionized, and the estuary of the Scheldt be thrown open to all

nations. Or, still better, England may help France to keep in check the

King of Prussia and the Prince of Orange. In that case the two free

Powers will march hand in hand and "become the arbiters of peace or war

for the whole world."

This remarkable pronouncement claims attention for several reasons.

Firstly, it proves that Dumouriez and Talleyrand believed their sole

chance of safety to lie in the conquest of Austria's Belgic provinces,

where a cognate people would receive them with open arms. That is to

say, they desired war with Austria, and they did not dread the prospect

of war with Prussia, provided that England remained neutral and

friendly. Pitt and Grenville were well aware of this from Gower's

despatches. Our ambassador had warned them that France recked little of

a war with the whole of Europe, provided that England held aloof.

Secondly, this fact disposes of the subsequent charge of Fox against

Pitt, that he ought to have sided with France in 1792 and thereby to

have prevented the attack of the German Powers. For, as we have seen, it

was she who took the irrevocable step of declaring war on Austria; and

further, the details given above prove that all that Frenchmen expected

from Pitt was neutrality. By remaining neutral, while the French overran

Belgium, Pitt was favouring the French plans more than any British

statesman had done since the time of James II. Thirdly, we notice in the

closing sentences of these Reflections signs of that extraordinary

self-confidence which led Girondins and Jacobins to face without

flinching even the prospect of war with England.

What was Pitt's conduct at this crisis? He knew enough of the politics

of Berlin and Vienna to see that those Courts would almost certainly

make war on France. He adopted therefore the line of conduct which

prudence and love of peace dictated, a strict neutrality. But he refused

to proclaim it to the world, as it would encourage France to attack

Austria. At the same time Grenville let it be known that Austria must

not be deprived of her Belgic lands, which England had assured to her,

firstly by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and quite recently by the

Reichenbach Convention. As Grenville phrased it--"The Pays Bas form the

chain which unites England to the Continent, and the central knot of our

relations to Austria and Russia. It would be broken if they belonged to

France." Talleyrand and Dumouriez knew this perfectly well, and

prudently declared that France had no intention of keeping those lands.

Would that the Jacobins and Napoleon had shown the same wise

self-restraint! It was their resolve to dominate the Netherlands which

brought them into irreconcilable opposition to Pitt and his successors

down to the year 1814.

Statesmanlike though the aims of Dumouriez were, they suffered not a

little in their exposition. Talleyrand, the brain of the policy, was not

its mouthpiece. In the French embassy at Portman Square he figured

merely as adviser to the French ambassador, the _ci-devant_ Marquis de

Chauvelin, a vain and showy young man, devoid of the qualities of

insight, tact, and patience in which the ex-bishop of Autun excelled his

contemporaries. Had this sage counsellor remained in London to the end

of the year, things might have gone very differently. The instructions

issued to Chauvelin contain ideas similar to those outlined above; but

they lay stress on the utility of a French alliance for England, in

order to thwart the aims of a greedy Coalition and to ensure her own

internal tranquillity, which, it is hinted, France can easily ruffle.

Talleyrand is also charged to offer to cede the small but valuable

island, Tobago, which we lost in 1783, provided that the British

Government guaranteed a French loan of £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, to be

raised in London; and he is to suggest that, if the two Powers acted

together, they could revolutionize Spanish America and control the

world.[69]

Our curiosity is aroused as to the reception which Pitt and Grenville

gave to these schemes. It is not certain, however, that Chauvelin and

Talleyrand showed their hand completely; for events told against them

from the outset. Chauvelin bore with him an autograph letter from

Louis XVI to George III, couched in the friendliest terms, and

expressing the hope of closer relations between the two peoples.[70] But

before he could present it to the King at St. James's, it appeared in

the Paris papers. This breach of etiquette created a bad impression; for

it seemed that the letter was merely a bid for an alliance between the

two peoples. It is quite possible that Dumouriez, with his natural

impulsiveness, allowed it to gain currency in order to identify

Louis XVI with French democracy, and that in its turn with public

opinion in England. Further, we now know that Marie Antoinette, in her

resolve to paralyse the policy and the defensive power of France, wrote

at once to Fersen at Brussels that her consort's letter was very far

from speaking his real sentiments.[71] This news, when passed on to

London, must have made it clear that the two envoys represented the

Girondin Ministry, but not the King of France. Then again tidings soon

arrived of the disgraceful flight of the French troops on the Belgian

frontier, the new levies, at sight of the Austrian horse, rushing back

to Lille in wild disorder and there murdering their General, Theobald

Dillon. George III and Grenville wrote of this event in terms of disgust

and contempt.[72] It is therefore not surprising that the reception of

Chauvelin was far from promising; and Talleyrand doubtless felt that

the time was not ripe for discussing an Anglo-French _entente_ for the

control of the world.

In fact, the envoys were received coolly from the outset. The outbreak

of war on the Continent had caused almost a panic in the City. The Funds

dropped sharply, and Pitt ordered an official denial to sinister reports

of a forthcoming raid by the press-gang. A little later he assured a

deputation of merchants that England would hold strictly aloof from the

war. Chauvelin reported these facts to his Government along with the

assurance that the Cabinet had definitely resolved on neutrality. How he

came to know of that decision is a mystery; and it is scarcely less odd

that a copy of his despatch reporting it should be in the Pitt

Papers.[73] On the whole, then, France had good reason to be satisfied

with Pitt. Austria, on the other hand, disliked his conduct. Kaunitz,

with his usual acerbity, gave out that England was secretly hostile to

the House of Hapsburg; and Keith, finding his position increasingly

awkward, begged for his recall.

The first sign of friction between England and France arose out of the

King's proclamation against seditious writings, which we noticed in the

last chapter. Chauvelin complained of some of its phrases, and stated

that France waged war for national safety, not for aggrandizement.

Grenville thereupon loftily remarked that Chauvelin had no right to

express an opinion on a question which concerned solely the King's

Government and Parliament. The British reply irritated by its curt

correctness.

Equally unfortunate were some incidents in the ensuing debates on this

topic. Some members emphasized their loyalty by adverting tartly to the

connections of Thomas Paine and English reformers with the French

Jacobins. On 31st May the Duke of Richmond charged that writer with

being an emissary from abroad, because he had advised the destruction of

the British navy.[74] There is no such passage in the "Rights of Man";

and the Duke must have read with the distorting lens of fear or hatred

the suggestion that, if England, France, and the United States were

allied, a very small navy would be needed, costing not more than half a

million a year.[75] But this incident is typical of the prejudice that

was growing against France. Grenville in the same debate declared that

the Corresponding Societies avowed their connection with foreign clubs

and were engaged in circulating pamphlets. The conclusion was obvious,

that close relations with France must be avoided. As to the feeling of

the Royal Family, it was manifested in an effusively loyal speech by the

Prince of Wales, his first speech at Westminster. In it he marked his

entire severance from Fox on this question.

Grenville's complaisance to the French envoys was perhaps little more

than a blind to mask his contempt for them and their principles. On 19th

June he wrote to Auckland respecting the "ignorance and absurdity of the

French mission," but suggested that the picking a quarrel with France

would only help the English Jacobins to introduce French notions. Even

if this mission were got rid of, some one else might come who might make

even more mischief. These expressions refer to the connections which

Chauvelin and Talleyrand had formed with the Opposition. As Bland Burges

remarked: "Talleyrand is intimate with Paine, Home Tooke, Lord

Lansdowne, and a few more of that stamp, and is generally scouted by

every one else." George III's words were equally contemptuous and marked

his resolve to have as little as possible to do with France.[76] Pitt

did not state his opinions on this topic; but he