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

means of escaping from the pledges plighted at the

Conference of Reichenbach in July 1790. Pitt and Grenville retorted by

ironically refusing all help until he fulfilled those pledges. As we

have seen, they succeeded; and the pacification in the East, as also in

Belgium, was the result.

 

Equally chilling was the conduct of Pitt towards the _émigrés_. The

French Princes at Coblentz had sent over the former French Minister,

Calonne, "to solicit from His Majesty an assurance of his neutrality in

the event ... of an attempt being made by the Emperor and other Powers

in support of the royal party in France." Pitt and Grenville refused to

receive Calonne, and sent to the Comte d'Artois a letter expressing

sympathy with the situation of the King and Queen of France, but

declining to give any promise as to the line of conduct which the

British Government might pursue.[5]

 

No less vague were the terms in which George III replied to a letter of

the King of Sweden. Gustavus had for some little time been at

Aix-la-Chapelle in the hope of leading a royalist crusade into France as

a sequel to the expected escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. As

readers of Carlyle will remember, the Swedish noble, Count Fersen,

chivalrously helped their flight towards Metz; and deep was the chagrin

of Gustavus and his squire on hearing the news from Varennes. They

longed to strike at once. But how could they strike while Leopold,

Catharine, and Frederick William declared that everything must depend on

the action of England? The following significant sentence in Fersen's

diary shows the feeling prevalent at Brussels, as elsewhere, respecting

England: "We must know if that Power regards the continuation of anarchy

in France as more advantageous than order."[6] Fersen had imbibed this

notion at Brussels from Count Mercy d'Argenteau, the Austrian Minister,

whose letters often harp on this string. Thus on 7th March 1791 he

writes: "The worst obstacles for the King of France will always come

from England, which wishes to prolong the horrors in France and ruin

her." A little later he avers that the only way to save the French

monarchy is by a civil war, "and England (unless won over) will support

the popular party."[7]

 

In order to win Pitt over to the cause of neutrality from which he never

intended to swerve, Gustavus and Fersen persuaded an Englishman named

Crawford to proceed to London with letters for George III and Pitt,

dated 22nd July.[8] To the King he described the danger to all

Governments which must ensue if the French revolted with impunity. He

therefore begged to know speedily whether His Majesty would accord full

liberty "to the Princes of Germany and to those, who, owing to the long

distance, can only arrive by sea."[9] Evidently, then, Gustavus feared

lest England might stop the fleet in which he intended to convey Swedish

and Russian troops to the coast of Normandy for a dash at Paris. The

answer of George soothed these fears, and that of Pitt, dated August

1791, was a model of courtly complaisance.

 

Compared with the shrewd balancings of the Emperor Leopold and the cold

neutrality of Pitt, the policy of Frederick William II of Prussia seemed

for a time to be instinct with generosity. Despite the fears of his

counsellors that a _rapprochement_ to Austria would involve Prussia in

the ruin which the friendship of the Hapsburgs had brought on France,

the King turned eagerly towards Vienna; and on 25th July Kaunitz and

Bischoffswerder signed a preliminary treaty of alliance mutually

guaranteeing their territories, and agreeing to further the aims of the

Emperor respecting France. Frederick William was on fire for the

royalist crusade. He even assured Baron Rolle, the agent of the French

princes, that something would be done in that season.[10] Pitt and

Grenville disapproved the action of Prussia in signing this compact,

impairing as it did the validity of the Anglo-Prussian alliance of the

year 1788; but Frederick William peevishly asserted his right to make

what treaties he thought good, and remarked that he was now quits with

England for the bad turns she had played him.[11] On their side, the

British Ministers, by way of marking their disapproval of the warlike

counsels of Berlin and Vienna, decided not to send an envoy to Pilnitz,

the summer abode of the Elector of Saxony, where a conference was

arranged between Leopold and Frederick William.

 

As is well known, the Comte d'Artois and Calonne now cherished lofty

hopes of decisive action by all the monarchs against the French rebels.

But Leopold, with his usual caution, repelled alike the solicitations of

Artois and the warlike counsels of Frederick William, the result of

their deliberations being the famous Declaration of Pilnitz (27th

August). In it they expressed the hope that all the sovereigns of Europe

 

    will not refuse to employ, in conjunction with their said

    Majesties, the most efficient means in proportion to their

    resources, to place the King of France in a position to

    establish with the most absolute freedom, the foundations of a

    monarchical form of government, which shall at once be in

    harmony with the rights of sovereigns and promote the welfare of

    the French nation. In that case [_alors et dans ce cas_] their

    said Majesties, the Emperor and the King of Prussia, are

    resolved to act promptly and in common accord with the forces

    necessary to attain the desired common end.

 

Obviously, the gist of the whole Declaration lay in the words _alors et

dans ce cas_. If they be emphasized, they destroy the force of the

document; for a union of all the monarchs was an impossibility, it being

well known that England would not, and Sardinia, and Naples (probably

also Spain) could not, take up arms. In fact, on that very evening

Leopold wrote to Kaunitz that he had not in the least committed

himself.--"_Alors et dans ce cas_ is with me the law and the prophets.

If England fails us, the case is non-existent." Further, when the Comte

d'Artois, two days later, urged the Emperor to give effect to the

Declaration by ordering his troops to march westwards, he sent a sharp

retort, asserted that he would not go beyond the Declaration, and

forbade the French Princes to do so.[12]

 

To the good sense and insight of Grenville and Pitt, the Pilnitz

Declaration was one of the _comédies augustes_ of history, as Mallet du

Pan termed it. Grenville saw that Leopold would stay his hand until

England chose to act, meanwhile alleging her neutrality as an excuse for

doing nothing.[13] Thus, the resolve of Catharine to give nothing but

fair words being already surmised, the _émigrés_ found to their

annoyance that Pitt's passivity clogged their efforts--the chief reason

why they shrilly upbraided him for his insular egotism. Certainly his

attitude was far from romantic; but surely, after the sharp lesson which

he had received from the House of Commons in the spring of 1791 during

the dispute with Russia, caution was needful; and he probably discerned

a truth hidden from the _émigrés_, that an invasion of France for the

rescue of the King and Queen would seal their doom and increase the

welter in that unhappy land.

 

Pitt and Grenville spent the middle of September at Weymouth in

attendance on George III; and we can imagine their satisfaction at the

prospect of universal peace and prosperity. Pitt consoled himself for

the not very creditable end to the Russian negotiation by reflecting

that our revenue was steadily rising. "We are already £178,000 gainers

in this quarter," he wrote to George Rose on 10th August.[14] In fact,

the cyclonic disturbances of the past few years now gave place to a

lull. The Russo-Turkish War had virtually ended; Catharine and Gustavus

were on friendly terms; the ferment in the Hapsburg dominions had died

down, except in Brabant; the Poles were working their new constitution

well; and, but for Jacobin propaganda in Italy and the Rhineland, the

outlook was serene.

 

At this time, too, there seemed a chance of a reconciliation between

Louis XVI and his people. On 14th September he accepted the new

democratic constitution, a step which filled France with rejoicing and

furnished the desired excuse for Leopold to remain passive. Kaunitz, who

had consistently opposed intervention in France, now asserted that Louis

had voluntarily accepted the constitution. The action of Louis and Marie

Antoinette was in reality forced. Amidst the Queen's expressions of

contempt for the French Princes at Coblentz, the suppressed fire of her

fury against her captors flashes forth in this sentence written to Mercy

d'Argenteau (28th August)--"The only question for us is to lull them to

sleep and inspire them with confidence so as to trick them the better

afterwards."--And again (12th September)--"My God! Must I, with this

blood in my veins, pass my days among such beings as these, and in such

an age as this?" Leopold must have known her real feelings; but he chose

to abide by the official language of Louis, and to advise the Powers to

accept the new situation.[15]

 

This peaceful turn of affairs sorely troubled the French Princes and

Burke. In August and September 1791 his son Richard was at Coblentz, and

informed his father of the consternation of the _émigrés_ on hearing

that the Emperor declined to draw the sword. Burke himself was equally

agitated, and on or about 24th September had a long interview with Pitt

and Grenville, at the house of the latter. We gather from Burke's

"Letters on the Conduct of our Domestic Parties," that it was the first

time he had met Pitt in private; and the meeting must have been somewhat

awkward. After dining, with Grenville as host, the three men conferred

together till eleven o'clock, discussing the whole situation "very

calmly" (says Burke); but we can fancy the tumult of feelings in the

breast of the old man when he found both Ministers firm as adamant

against intervention in France. "They are certainly right as to their

general inclinations," he wrote to his son, "perfectly so, I have not a

shadow of doubt; but at the same time they are cold and dead as to any

attempt whatsoever to give them effect." The heat of the Irish royalist

failed to kindle a spark of feeling in the two cousins. He found that

their "deadness" proceeded from a rooted distrust of the Emperor

Leopold, and from a conviction that Britain had nothing to fear from

Jacobinical propaganda. Above all they believed that the present was not

the time for action, especially as the imminence of bankruptcy in France

would discredit the new Legislative Assembly, and render an invasion

easier in the near future.

 

Are we to infer from this that Pitt and his cousin looked forward to a

time when the monarchs could invade France with safety? Such an

inference would be rash. It is more probable that they here found an

excuse for postponing their decision and a means of calming an insistent

visitor. Certainly they impressed Burke with a belief in their sincere

but secret sympathy with the royalist cause. The three men also agreed

in suspecting Leopold, though Burke tried to prove that his treachery

was not premeditated, but sprang from "some complexional inconstancy."

Pitt and Grenville, knowing the doggedness with which the Emperor pushed

towards his goal, amidst many a shift and turn, evidently were not

convinced.

 

At this time they had special reasons for distrusting Leopold and his

advisers. The Austrian Government had received a letter, dated Dresden,

27th August (the day of the Declaration of Pilnitz), stating that

England promised to remain neutral only on condition that the Emperor

would not withdraw any troops from his Belgic lands, as they were needed

to uphold the arrangements of which she was a guarantee. This

extraordinary statement grew out of a remark of Grenville to the

Austrian Ambassador in London, that, in view of the unrest in the

Netherlands, it might be well not to leave them without troops.[16] The

mis-statement was not only accepted at Vienna, but was forwarded to

various Courts, the final version being that England might attack

Austria if she withdrew her troops from Flanders, and that therefore

Leopold could not draw the sword against France until his army on the

Turkish borders arrived in Swabia. Some were found who believed this odd

_farrago_; but those who watched the calculating balance of Hapsburg

policy saw in it one more excuse for a masterly inactivity.

 

Still less were our Ministers inclined to unite with Catharine in the

universal royalist league then under discussion at St. Petersburg. The

Czarina having charged her ambassador, Vorontzoff, to find out the

sentiments of Pitt and Grenville on this subject, he replied that

England would persevere in the strict neutrality which she had all along

observed, "and that, with respect to the measures of active intervention

which other Powers might have in contemplation, it was His Majesty's

determination not to take any part either in supporting or in opposing

them." Now Russia, like Austria and Spain, had decided not to act unless

England