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

the lower Loire, everything favoured the defence. The hardy peasants

were ably led by that born leader of men, the chivalrous Marquis de

Larochejaquelein, who had inspired the men of his neighbourhood with the

words: "If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, slay me; if I fall,

avenge me." With him was his cousin, Lescure, not less brave, but of a

cooler and more calculating temper. The ardently Catholic peasantry of

the west furnished as leaders a carter, Cathelineau, of rare ability and

generosity of character, and Stofflet, a gamekeeper, of stern and

vindictive stamp. Nerved by fanatical hatred against the atheists and

regicides of Paris, these levies of the west proved more than a match

for all the National Guards, whole columns of whom they lured into the

depths of the Bocage and cut down to the last man. As Victor Hugo has

finely said: "It was a war of the town against the forest." At first the

forest-dwellers threatened to overrun the towns. On 11th June they took

Saumur, a town on the Loire, after a desperate fight, and sought to open

communication with the coast and the British fleet by seizing Nantes.

This attempt, however, failed; and it is generally admitted that they

erred in not marching on Paris after their first successes. After

gaining a sure base of operations, they should have strained every nerve

in order to strike at the heart. And if distance and lack of supplies

and equipment shortened their reach, they might at least have carried

the war into the rich central provinces, on which the capital subsisted.

But the mistake of these poor peasants was venial when compared with

those of the Allies. On the capture of Mainz, Condé, and Valenciennes,

the Prussian, Austrian, and British commanders did not enforce an

unconditional surrender, but offered to allow the garrisons to march out

with the honours of war on condition of not serving against them for a

year. A better example of shirking present problems at the cost of

enhanced difficulties in the future cannot be imagined. By this

improvident lenity the Allies enabled the regicides to hurl fully 25,000

trained troops against the royalists of the West and deal them terrible

blows. In September and October the Republicans gained considerable

successes, especially at Cholet. Soon the Vendéan War became little more

than a guerilla strife, which Pitt fed by means of arms and stores, but

not in the energetic manner desired by Burke and Windham.

These ardent royalists constantly pressed him to help the men of Poitou

and Brittany, but had to deplore the wearisome delays which then clogged

all military and naval operations. Most bitterly did Burke write to

Windham, early in November 1793, that Ministers were so eager in seeking

to win indemnities from France that they had hardened the national

resistance of that nation, and meanwhile had not sent a single shipload

of stores to the brave men of Poitou. Of course it was less easy than

Burke imagined to get stores across a sea not yet fully commanded by the

British fleet, and through inlets and harbours closely watched by the

enemy. But the inaction of a force entrusted to the Earl of Moira for

the support of the French royalists is certainly discreditable to him

and to Ministers. Among them the Duke of Richmond, Master of Ordnance,

distinguished himself by his incapacity and his ridiculous orders.

Another obvious misfit was Lord Chatham at the Admiralty. But how can we

explain the inactivity of four regiments in the Channel Islands all the

summer? Surely they could have seized St. Malo or the Quiberon

Peninsula.[228] Such a diversion would have been highly effective. For

the Bretons and Vendéans, when supplied with arms, could have marched

eastwards and roused the royalists of Normandy, Maine, and Touraine.

With so potent a foe near to Paris, must not the regicides have been

overborne by Coburg in Flanders? Everything tends to show that the

Republicans feared the royalists of the West more than the Austrians in

the North. But, as will appear in a later chapter, Pitt and Dundas

decided to throw their strength into the West Indies. On 26th November

1793, Sir John Jervis sailed for that deadly bourne with 7,000 troops.

Events were soon to reveal the seriousness of this mistake. It was far

more important to strike at Paris through Brittany than to occupy even

the richest of the French West Indies. For a triumphant advance of the

Bretons and Vendéans must not only have lessened the material resources

of the Republic but also have deprived its defenders of one of their

chief advantages. Hitherto the Republicans had been better massed

together, while their assailants were spread over wide spaces. It is a

well-known principle in war that an army operating on an inner arc, or

what are termed interior lines, has a great advantage over forces spread

over the outer circumference. The Allies then held the Pyrenees, the

Maritime Alps, the Rhine, and most of Flanders, Brittany, and parts of

the South. The defenders, possessing the central provinces, could mass

their units far more quickly and choose the point on that outer curve

against which they would aim their blow.

This principle was thoroughly understood by Carnot. Near the centre of

the circle he massed the levies that were to save the Republic, and,

confiding them to zealots who were resolved to conquer or die, he soon

had on foot armies which, however contemptible as units, were formidable

from their weight and their enthusiasm. As in mechanics the mass

multiplied by the speed gives the effective force, so in the campaign of

1793 the _levée en masse_ multiplied by enthusiasm and impelled by the

brain power of Carnot begot a momentum which, when brought to bear on

light, scattered, and almost stationary bodies, proved to be

irresistible. For while Carnot trusted to concentration, the Allies

either sank into inertia, or made ex-centric movements which ultimately

played into their opponents' hands. The Prussians, after taking Mainz,

did little more than rest on their laurels, their only move being

towards Luxemburg. Coburg was inclined to follow their example on the

ground that an advance to Paris would unite all the French parties

against him, while the siege of the remaining fortresses in the North

would allow anarchy to run riot at the centre.[229] The argument is a

good example of political _finesse_ applied to a military problem, with

disastrous results. Coburg therefore set about the siege of Quesnoy.

Certainly he could urge in excuse that the British Government now

insisted on the resumption of its favourite plan, the capture of that

nest of privateers, Dunkirk. On receipt of the news of the surrender of

Valenciennes, an order was sent to the Duke of York to begin the siege

of that once important stronghold, and capture it for Great Britain,

though it might be allowed finally to fall to the Emperor as one of his

new Barrier fortresses, provided that we gained indemnities in other

parts of the world. French and German historians, with their usual bias

against Great Britain, have assumed that she had resolved to keep

Dunkirk. The contrary is proved by the despatches of Dundas to Murray,

and by a letter of Sir Gilbert Elliot whom Pitt appointed commissioner

to regulate affairs at Dunkirk. Writing to Lady Elliot on 10th

September Sir Gilbert says: "No further conquests are to be made in that

quarter in the name of Great Britain, nor is it intended to retain

Dunkirk after the peace."[230] A speedy capture of Dunkirk was evidently

expected, for the same despatch ordered that the Hessian corps, some

8,000 strong, then with the Duke, must be held in readiness to depart to

some other destination.[231] This referred either to the expedition in

the Mediterranean (soon to be noticed) or to another, also in course of

preparation, against Brittany. The Duke of York disapproved of the

divergence towards Dunkirk, and the withdrawal of troops from his

command.[232]

We here touch upon the weak side of Pitt's war policy. His aims at first

had been merely to defend England from invasion, and to use the fleet

and as many troops as could well be spared, to threaten various points

along the coast of France and to capture her colonies. From these

comparatively simple aims he had been drawn aside into a continental

campaign, owing to the desirability of re-establishing Austria firmly in

the Pays Bas. That is to say, a political aim drew him away from the

simple and effective plan of a maritime and colonial war. Or rather it

would be more correct to say that he tried to carry on a limited

continental campaign as well as the coast expeditions which promised to

paralyse the activities of large numbers of Frenchmen.

Accordingly, Pitt and his colleagues, instead of concentrating their

activities on Flanders, prepared also to harass the coasts and colonies

of France, and to withdraw part of the Duke of York's force for service

in the Mediterranean or the West Indies. Instructions to this effect

annoyed both the duke and Coburg. Most reluctantly did the latter

consent to the divergence of the British towards Dunkirk; but, as he had

already decided to spend the rest of the campaign in reducing the border

fortresses, the division of forces had none of those appalling results

which Alison and others have detected. The duke's corps, then, turned

off to the right, and, after gaining some successes over bodies of the

French, set about the siege of Dunkirk. If his siege train had arrived

in time, the town would probably soon have surrendered. But now Carnot

was able to utilize some of the forces raised in the _levée en masse_.

By the beginning of September the French relieving army amounted to

45,000 men under General Houchard; while the Hessians and Hanoverians

covering the siege operations did not exceed 9,000 men. These made a

most obstinate and skilful defence in the village of Bambeke, and

thereafter at Hondschoote; but the inequality of force was too great;

and they were outflanked and driven back towards Furnes and Nieuport

with the loss of 2,600 men (6th to 8th September). The garrison also

attacked the besiegers and received much assistance from French gunboats

moored near the shore. It was an unfortunate circumstance that a storm

on 1st September had compelled a British frigate and a sloop to leave

their moorings. Even so, the duke's force beat back their assailants

into the town. But the defeat of the covering army at Hondschoote placed

it between the French, the walls of Dunkirk, and the sea. Only by a

speedy retreat could he save his men; and at midnight he drew off,

leaving behind 32 siege guns and large quantities of stores.[233]

At once there arose an outcry against our naval and transport

authorities for not sending a squadron to cover the right flank of the

Duke of York opposite Dunkirk. Elliot reports that the duke violently

censured Richmond, head of the Ordnance Department, and Chatham, First

Lord of the Admiralty, the latter of whom was universally allowed to be

incompetent. Elliot adds: "I have seen Dundas and Pitt since the bad

news. Dundas seems much dismayed. Pitt tried to carry it off

better."[234] Certainly the delay in sending ships and stores was

discreditable to all concerned. But the decisive action was that of

Hondschoote, six miles distant from the coast, and that reverse was due

to the inability of Coburg to spare the reinforcements which Murray

pressed him to send. On its side the French Government was ill satisfied

with the success at Hondschoote. Censuring Houchard for not pressing his

advantage to the utmost and capturing the duke's whole army, it replaced

him by his young and energetic subaltern, an ex-draper named Jourdan,

who was destined to become one of Napoleon's marshals, while Houchard

speedily went to the guillotine. By these drastic methods France found

leaders who could conquer. For them the inspiring thought was--victory

or the guillotine.

The news of the failure at Dunkirk shattered Pitt's hope of a speedy end

to the war. That he faced the prospect of a second campaign with his

usual buoyancy appears from some notes which bear the date 16th

September [1793] and are headed: "Force to be employed in Flanders, or

on the coast of France in the Channel and the Ocean." He proposes to

increase 9 regiments at home to 800 men apiece, to raise 8 new

regiments; and these, along with Guards and troops from Ireland would

number at least 20,000. He also hoped that at least 20,000 more

Austrians and about 25,000 Bavarians would be available for Flanders,

raising the total force in that quarter to 175,000 men.[235] These

roseate views are apt to provoke derision; but we must remember that not

until the close of the year 1793 did the Republic put forth her full

strength and beat back her enemies at all points.

It would be tedious to follow in detail the rest of Coburg's operations

in