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

reinforcements. It is

mortifying to read the letters of Pitt and the Marquis of Buckingham

early in December, complaining that Moira's force is strangely

inactive.[267] Still more startling is it to read the hurried order of

23rd December (six days after the loss of Toulon), that the 40th

regiment, then unexpectedly detained at Cork, though detached for

service with Lord Moira, should set sail at once for the French

stronghold along with the other regiments also detained at Cork.[268]

What might not have happened, had those troops set sail for Toulon

before the close of November?

 

Hero-worshippers will probably maintain that, even if Toulon had been

held harmoniously by all the troops which the imagination of Pitt and

Dundas conjured up, nevertheless the genius and daring of the little

Corsican would have prevailed. This view is tenable; but the prosaic

mind, which notes the venturesome extension of Bonaparte's batteries in

November-December, until they presented their right flanks to the cliffs

and their rear to the open sea, though at too high a level to be

cannonaded, will probably conclude that, if Hood and Langara had had a

force of 20,000 men, they could have driven the French from those works.

As it was, the Allies, not having enough men, stood on the defensive all

along their very extensive front, and were overpowered at Fort Mulgrave,

which was some miles away from the city. Its garrison of 700 men

(British, Spanish, and a few Neapolitans) was assailed in the stormy

night of 16th-17th December by 7,000 of the best of the Republican

troops. The ensuing conflict will best be understood from the hitherto

unpublished account given by the commander-in-chief. After describing

the heavy cannonade from three French batteries against Fort Mulgrave,

he continues thus:

 

              H.M.S. "Victory," Hières Bay, _Dec. 21, 1793_.[269]

 

    ... The works suffered much. The number of men killed and

    wounded was considerable. The weather was rainy and the

    consequent fatigue great. At 2 a.m. of the 17th, the enemy, who

    had every advantage in assembling and suddenly advancing,

    attacked the fort in great force. Although no part of this

    temporary post was such as could well resist determined troops,

    yet for a considerable time it was defended; but, on the enemy

    entering on the Spanish side, the British quarter, commanded by

    Captain Conolly of the 18th regiment, could not be much longer

    maintained, notwithstanding several gallant efforts were made

    for that purpose. It was therefore at last carried, and the

    remains of the garrison of 700 men retired towards the shore of

    Balaguier, under the protection of the other posts established

    on those heights, and which continued to be faintly attacked by

    the enemy. As this position of Balaguier was a most essential

    one for the preservation of the harbour, and as we had no

    communication with it but by water, 2,200 men had been placed

    there for some time past. On the night preceding the attack, 300

    more men had been sent over, and on the morning of the 17th, 400

    were embarked still further to support it.

 

    When the firing at Balaguier ceased, we remained in anxious

    suspense as to the event, till a little before daylight, when a

    new scene opened by an attack on all our posts on Mt. Pharon.

    The enemy were repulsed on the east side, where was our

    principal force of about 700 men, commanded by a most

    distinguished officer, the Piedmontese Colonel, de Jermagnan,

    whose loss we deeply lament; but on the back of the

    mountain--near 1,800 feet high, steep, rocky, deemed almost

    inaccessible, and which we had laboured much to make so--they

    found means once more to penetrate between our posts, which

    occupied an extent of above two miles, guarded by about 450 men;

    and in a very short space of time we saw that with great numbers

    they crowned all that side of the mountain which overlooks the

    town.

 

In this despatch David Dundas proclaimed his own incompetence. For some

time it had been obvious that the Republicans were about to attack Fort

Mulgrave, which everybody knew to be essential to the defence of the

fleet. Yet he took no steps to strengthen this "temporary post" so that

it might resist a determined attack. He also entrusted one half of the

battery to the Spaniards whom he had declared to be "everything that is

bad." On his own showing, as many as 2,500 allied troops were near at

hand on the Balaguier or Eguilette heights to act as supports, before

Bonaparte's attack began; and 400 more were sent thither soon

afterwards. A spirited attack by those troops on the victors at Fort

Mulgrave on its blind side might have retrieved the day; but a panic

seized part of the supports, whom Sidney Smith describes as rushing like

swine towards the sea though the enemy was only in a condition to attack

"faintly." Hood was furious at this spiritless acceptance of defeat; and

in his despatch to Whitehall censured the troops for not making a timely

effort;[270] but as David Dundas had all along opined that the place was

untenable, he decided to hold a council of war. It registered the wishes

of the desponding chief. The officers decided that it was impossible

either to retake the two positions lost, or to establish a post on the

outer, or Cepet, peninsula, capable of protecting the roadstead from the

cross fires which the French would pour in from the Balaguier and Cape

Brun promontories.

 

During the next three days the evacuation took place amidst scenes of

misery for the royalist refugees that baffle the imagination. As many as

14,877 were crowded on board the British ships, together with some 8,000

troops. At the same time Captains Sidney Smith, Hare, and Edge, with a

picked body of men burnt or otherwise damaged 27 French warships left in

the harbour, while 18 were brought away by the Allies. Eleven of the

twenty-seven were not seriously injured by the fire, and they afterwards

flew the tricolour. But the loss of 34 warships and nearly all the masts

and other valuable stores was a blow from which the French navy did not

recover until Bonaparte before his Egyptian expedition breathed his own

matchless vigour into the administration. In ships and stores, then,

France suffered far more heavily than the Allies. Their losses elude the

inquiries of the statistician. They consisted in the utter discredit of

the royalist cause throughout France, the resentment that ever follows

on clumsy or disloyal co-operation, and the revelation of the hollowness

of the imposing fabric of the First Coalition. In the south of France

four nations failed to hold a single fortress which her own sons had

placed in their power.

 

The Nemesis which waits upon weakness and vacillation has rarely

appeared in more mocking guise than at the close of the year 1793. About

the time when Toulon surrendered, the Austrian Government finally came

to the determination to despatch thither the 5,000 men which it had

formerly promised to send. Grenville received this news from Eden in the

first days of 1794, shortly after the surrender of the fortress was

known. Thereupon he penned these bitter words: "If the first promise had

been fulfilled agreeably to the expectation which His Majesty was

justified in forming, the assistance of such a body of disciplined

troops would have sufficed to ensure the defence of that important post;

and the injury which the common cause has sustained on this occasion can

be ascribed only to the tardiness and indecision which so strongly

characterize the Austrian Government."[271] Most tactfully he bade Eden

refrain from reproaches on this occasion and to use it merely as an

argument for throwing greater vigour into the next campaign.

 

Events pointed the moral far more strongly than Eden could do. As by a

lightning flash, the purblind politicians of Vienna could now discern

the storm-wrack drifting upon them. The weakness of the Piedmontese

army, their own unpreparedness in the Milanese, the friendliness of

Genoa to France, and the Jacobinical ferment in all parts of Italy,

portended a speedy irruption of the Republicans into an almost

defenceless land where they were sure of a welcome from the now awakened

populace. So long as Toulon held out, Piedmont and Milan were safe.

Now, the slackness of Austria enabled her future destroyer to place his

foot on the first rung of the ladder of fame, and prompted those mighty

plans for the conquest of the Italian States which were to ensure her

overthrow and his supremacy.

 

Well might Eden dwell on the consternation prevalent at Vienna early in

For, along with news of the loss of Toulon, tidings of defeat and

retreat came from the Rhineland. Able and vigorous young generals, Hoche

and Pichegru, had beaten back Austrians and Prussians from the hills

around Wörth and Weissenburg; so that the Allies fell back with heavy

losses towards the Rhine. Thus, on the whole, the efforts of Austria,

Great Britain, Prussia, Holland, and some of the smaller German States

had availed merely to capture four fortresses, Mainz, Condé,

Valenciennes, and Quesnoy. It is not surprising that public opinion in

England, even in loyal circles, became clamorous against the conduct of

the war.[272]

 

Not the least of the misfortunes attending the Toulon episode was that

the logic of events, and also the growing savagery of the Reign of

Terror, edged Pitt away from his standpoint of complete neutrality as to

the future government of France. How could the ally of the Toulonese

Royalists profess indifference on that topic? On 5th October he wrote as

follows to Grenville respecting the powers to be granted to Sir Gilbert

Elliot at Toulon:

 

    I do not see that we can go on secure grounds if we treat with

    any separate districts or bodies of men [in France] who stop

    short of some declaration in favour of monarchy: nor do I see

    any way so likely to unite considerable numbers in one vigorous

    effort as by specifying monarchy as the only system in the

    re-establishment of which we are disposed to concur. This idea

    by no means precludes us from treating with any other form of

    regular Government, if, in the end, any other should be solidly

    established; but it holds out monarchy as the only one from

    which we expect any good, and in favour of which we are disposed

    to enter into concert.[273]

 

These words are remarkable. Clearly, in Pitt's view of things,

"security" for England and Holland was the paramount aim; but he was

beginning to feel that the Republican groups which scrambled to power at

Paris over the headless trunks of their enemies, could offer no

adequate security. When the Revolution began to solidify, as it seemed

about to do in 1795-7, he was willing to treat with its chiefs; but

already he was feeling the horns of the dilemma, which may be described

in words adapted from Talleyrand's famous _mot_ of the year 1814:

"Either the Bourbons or the Republic: everything else is an intrigue."

The Toulon episode, more than anything else, bound France to the

regicide cause, and Pitt, albeit unwillingly, to the irreconcilable

Royalists. Thus the event which brought Bonaparte to the front,

shattered the aim of the Prime Minister to effect merely the restoration

of the Balance of Power.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[238] "F. O.," Austria, 33, Grenville to Eden, 11th June; Eden to

Grenville, 26th June.

 

[239] "Dropmore P.," ii, 392, 399, 407, 412. Spain hoped to find her

"indemnity" in Corsica. See too Fortescue, iv, 116, 117.

 

[240] See "Eng. Hist. Rev." for October 1909, p. 748.

 

[241] Pitt MSS., 196.

 

[242] "H. O.," Adm. Medit., 1793.

 

[243] _Ibid._

 

[244] "F. O.," Spain, 28. St. Helens to Grenville, 4th and 11th

September.

 

[245] "W. O.," 6 (10). See Fortescue (iv, pt. i, chs. vi, vii) for

criticisms of these measures.

 

[246] The arguments of Mr. Spenser Wilkinson in "Owens College Essays,"

do not convince me that Napoleon alone devised that plan. Chuquet's

conclusion ("Toulon," 176), "Bonaparte partageait l'avis des

représentants," seems to me thoroughly sound. So, too,