Throughout the party manoeuvring at Westminster, the government deliberately stood rock-still in foreign affairs, insisting that Britain would remain neutral provided its treaty obligations were respected – in other words, the territorial integrity of Prussia and Holland. In May, Catherine II sent a huge Russian army into Poland. When the Poles mounted a brave resistance they found themselves invaded at the beginning of 1793 by the Prussians from the west. Poland would again be partitioned in a tragedy analogous to that of 1939. Britain had sought her as an ally little more than a year before. Now she was abandoned to her fate, since there was nothing practical any other nation could do to help.
Neutrality was one leg of Pitt’s design for continued peace for Britain; the other leg was the effective maintenance of order within the British Isles. The Royal Proclamation of May had produced, as it was intended to, a vast number of loyal addresses from throughout the kingdom expressing support for the government. New army barracks were built near the main manufacturing towns, such as Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham, to ensure that troops could be more rapidly on the scene in the event of violent disorder. Troop dispositions in and around London were also strengthened. As it happened, the immediate threat diminished. Across the Channel, French forces had fared badly in their attempted invasion of the Austrian Netherlands. Ministers could be reasonably confident that their peace policy would hold. George III closed the parliamentary session on 15 June, expressing the government’s priority to secure the ‘uninterrupted blessings of peace’.
In fact, the largest spark of all was about to fly into the Continental tinderbox. Prussia declared war on France, and prepared an invasion force to be commanded by the Duke of Brunswick. His manifesto of 25 July was uncompromising and inflammatory: the authority of Louis XVI would be restored, those who defended French territory would face reprisals, and the revolutionary National Guards would not be given the respect of the normal rules of war. The near-universal belief across Europe was that the Revolution would now be crushed by the Prussian and Austrian armies who would sweep into a divided and defenceless France. Ministers in London even worried about the result of such a French defeat, and the possibility that a grateful Louis XVI would join the other imperial powers of Europe in a formidable alliance.
The reality was to be very different. The imminent threat of invasion, combined with Louis XVI’s earlier dismissal of the Girondin Ministers, radicalised the French Revolution. On 10 August the Tuileries was stormed, the Swiss guards defending it slaughtered, Louis XVI taken into custody and the monarchy suspended. The elected representatives had now lost control to the direct democracy of the crowds. Liberty was replaced by fear, as Parisians watched the first slicing of the guillotine. The demand was for all traitors to be killed. In the first week of September the prisons were invaded and several thousand of their occupants grotesquely butchered, those from aristocratic families or the Catholic Church meeting particularly terrible deaths. Fired by revolutionary zeal, 50,000 French soldiers blocked the invading army’s route to Paris.
Brunswick had evidently expected a relatively easy march to the capital, with a minimum of organised resistance. Having easily mopped up the frontier fortresses such as Verdun, he was in for a shock. At Valmy, east of Reims, the Prussians found themselves outnumbered by the French and at the wrong end of a formidable cannonade. They withdrew from the field, and facing extended supply lines and an epidemic of sickness, Brunswick decided to pull out of France entirely for that year. The invasion had started too late in the year for a conventional military campaign to succeed.
Whatever the military merits of withdrawal may have been from the Prussian point of view, it was a political catastrophe for the imperial powers and the French monarchy. Auckland commented, ‘I never recollect any event which occasioned so great and so general an astonishment,’29 and the confidence of the revolutionaries in Paris rose dramatically. Militarily and politically, the French now went onto the offensive. They invaded the Austrian Netherlands afresh, and sent an army into Savoy (which belonged to the King of Sardinia, who had also joined the war against them). They swept all before them. By 14 November Brussels was in their hands. On 16 November the French issued a decree asserting their right to pursue Austrian troops wherever they fled, a direct threat to Dutch territory. On the nineteenth they promulgated a fresh decree offering fraternity and assistance to all other nations which wished to recover their ‘freedom’ and ordered it to be translated and distributed abroad. On 27 November they declared the permanent annexation of Savoy, and a week later put Louis XVI on trial for his life.
At the same time, signs of serious discontent became apparent in Britain and Ireland. The wet weather of 1792 had produced another poor harvest. Now the popular Societies were mushrooming in numbers and were talking of forming a national Convention. Some of them sent congratulatory addresses to France on the military victories and the overthrow of the monarchy. Scotland in particular was in ferment, with riots in the major cities and a General Convention of scores of bodies and Societies called for December. Ireland saw food riots, and urban areas of England were said to be ‘ripe for revolt’.30 Rumours abounded of the activities of French agents and secret shipments of arms.
Oddly enough, Pitt had passed most of that autumn relatively at ease by comparison with much of the previous five years. He had spent seven weeks out of London, taking in visits to his mother in Somerset and to his new residence of Walmer Casde. At the beginning of November Grenville too had been away from the capital, a sign that the dramatic escalation of events at home and abroad was not expected by Ministers. In October the French had still been looking for an alliance with Britain, although formal diplomatic relations had been ruptured by the overthrow of the monarchy. In early November Grenville was still insisting that Britain would be able to remain neutral. By the thirteenth, however, Pitt and his colleagues were alarmed. Pitt wrote to Cabinet colleagues summoning them back to London, saying to the Marquis of Stafford:
The strange and unfortunate events which have followed one another so rapidly on the Continent are in many views matter of serious and anxious consideration … However unfortunate it would be to find this country in any shape committed, it seems absolutely impossible to hesitate as to supporting our ally [Holland] in case of necessity, and the explicit declaration of our sentiments is the most likely way to prevent the case occurring …
Perhaps some opening may arise which may enable us to contribute to the termination of the war between different powers in Europe, leaving France (which I believe is the best way) to arrange its own internal affairs as it can. The whole situation, however, becomes so delicate and critical, that I have thought it right to request the presence of all the members of the Cabinet …31
On the same day Grenville asked Auckland in The Hague to make clear that there would be ‘no hesitation as to the propriety of his assisting the Dutch Republic, as circumstances might require against any attempt made on the part of any other power to invade its dominions or to disturb its government’.32 As in 1787, Britain was prepared to fight for Dutch independence.
Historians can only speculate about whether the French would have gone ahead with their aggressive decree of 16 November if they had known of Grenville’s instructions of the thirteenth.33 The slowness of eighteenth-century communication meant that by the time the French knew that Britain had drawn a line in the sand, they had already decided to cross it. Shortly afterwards, French warships entered the Scheldt, and the attitude of British Ministers changed sharply. Grenville summoned the Marquis de Chauvelin, the French Ambassador in London (who was no longer officially accredited but was still present), to make clear the importance Britain attached to her obligations to the Dutch. Naval mobilisation was begun. The policy of ‘peace and plenty’ was about to run aground.
War was now a likely, although not a certain, prospect. What Ministers knew for certain was that they must suppress and reverse the apparent tide of popular agitation. Disturbed by the rad
icalism of the press, Ministers ensured that a loyal and supportive new newspaper, the Sun, was established in October. In November loyal Associations opposed to the pro-revolutionary Societies were springing up all over the country, the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers being the most prominent. At the beginning of December Pitt recalled Parliament, necessitated by a fresh Royal Proclamation which called out the militia in many counties. Thomas Paine was tried and found guilty of seditious libel in his absence in France, and an Aliens Bill was announced to regulate the movement of foreigners in Britain. Pitt drew back from other measures such as suspending Habeas Corpus, and by mid-December the atmosphere had become calmer amidst every sign that the weight of popular opinion was loyal to the King and the government.
The social and political condition of Britain in the late eighteenth century was radically different from that of revolutionary France, and Pitt has always been criticised for an overreaction to discontent, but he and his colleagues would have felt themselves to be in entirely uncharted territory, and were without the benefit of a leisurely socio-economic analysis to reassure them. There had been riots before, sometimes at the same time as the approach of hostilities overseas, but never before accompanied by the rapid spread throughout the nation of radical political ideas inspired by the example of revolution in a neighbouring country.
In early December a shaken Dundas was returning from Scotland when a letter from Pitt found him at Northallerton in Yorkshire. Pitt wrote:
The impression here from calling out the Militia is as favourable as we could wish, and people who a few days ago were inclined to despond begin to tell us that we shall only be attacked for having made so great an exertion when there was so little real danger. I believe myself that the chief danger at home is over for the present, but I am sure there is still mischief enough afloat not to relax any of our preparations, and things abroad still wear such an aspect that nothing but our being ready for war can preserve peace.
Pitt’s hardline approach did nothing for the unity of the Whigs. Fox had outraged conservative opinion on 1 December by proposing a toast at the Whig Club to ‘equal liberty to all mankind’. He saw the actions of the government as a further step in the destruction of civil and political liberties, adding to the constitutional outrage of 1784. He told the Commons that the danger of popular insurrection did not exist, and that ‘we are come to the moment, when the question is, whether we shall give to the king, that is, to the executive government, complete power over our thoughts’.34 This was too much for the Whig grandees, many of whom supported Pitt’s measures. Not for nothing would George III regard Portland in particular as a ‘true lover of order’.35 They refused to vote with Fox in the December debates, with the result that he went down to defeat in the Commons by the crushing margin of 290 to fifty. The break-up of the Whigs now seemed inevitable. Over Christmas the indecisive Portland was pressed by his friends to announce a formal division in the party. He hesitated, but Pitt thoughtfully stuck a knife into the wound on 4 January 1793 by again offering Loughborough the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor. This time he accepted. Pitt’s determination to split the Whigs was at last bearing fruit. His determination to keep the country out of the war, however, was proving of little avail.
There can be no doubting the sincerity with which Pitt and Grenville sought in December 1792 to avoid war. For a long time their hopes and plans had rested on it. They held meetings that month with a variety of French intermediaries, particularly de Chauvelin and a senior French diplomat, Hugues Bernard Maret, some of which offered hope of reassurance and conciliation. The authority of the French representatives was, however, often unclear, and their assurances of French intentions towards Holland were belied by the apparent build-up of French troops on the Dutch frontier. Certain sticking points could not be overcome: the British wanted clear guarantees of Dutch territory; the French could not give them convincingly, and insisted on recognition of the revolutionary government.
To make matters worse, a further French decree of 15 December stated that occupied territories would be incorporated into France, that all rivers should be declared open to all nations, and that any country hostile to the French principles of republican government would be regarded as an enemy. The British response was clear: ‘England never will consent that France shall arrogate the power of annulling at her pleasure, and under the pretence of a … natural right, of which she makes herself the only judge, the political system of Europe, established by solemn treaties, and guaranteed by the consent of all the powers.’36 The communication of this at the end of December was accompanied by British messages to capitals around Europe, proposing that France be asked to return to her pre-war frontiers and pledge not to foment trouble in other countries; in return the French Republic would be recognised and left in peace.
These proposals came too late to make a difference, and they were not in any case put directly to the French by the British government, partly because formal diplomatic relations had ceased and partly because Pitt needed the cooperation of the other powers in order to make them credible. He was to be criticised later for not communicating this initiative more clearly to the French, but had already discovered over Ochakov the hazards of pressing a concerted policy before it had been agreed. Indeed, the initiative was an echo of the status quo ante bellum proposals of 1790–91. It was too late, but it is at least clear that British Ministers genuinely wanted peace. It has been observed that the striking feature of British policy at the end of 1792 is the reluctance to take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to join with all the other powers of Europe in attacking France and her interests. Until the last moment, British policy remained pacific.37
There was probably little more that Pitt and Grenville could have done to stop the slide into war. Negotiations with diplomats lacked credibility when any commitments entered into could be overturned by dramatic and all-encompassing decrees issued to popular acclaim in Paris. The revolutionaries were fired up by their successes and in the business of making sweeping political statements, without necessarily understanding or even noticing the diplomatic consequences of their actions. To the extent that French policy towards Britain was calculated at all, it was almost certainly based on a misreading of British opinion: French agents were greatly encouraged by signs of unrest without understanding the solidity and responsiveness of the British state. The crucial and historical importance of Dutch territory to British strategic interests was also not appreciated in the heady atmosphere prevailing in Paris.
For their part, British leaders were similarly to misread the situation and the capabilities of the French. It was thought that if war came it would be short, and that the hopeless financial situation of the French government would soon limit its ability to wage war. In fact, both the countries now contemplating hostilities against their traditional foe possessed a capacity for warmaking they had never before known: Britain because of an emerging Industrial Revolution which provided factories and finance, and France because of a quickening political revolution which mobilised its huge population and placed the vast resources of state, Church and aristocracy at the disposal of revolutionaries. Both sides were capable of sustaining war for many years to come. Neither understood that this was so.
In early January 1793, Grenville’s peace proposals were rejected in the French Convention amidst passionate speeches. The war Pitt had hoped so desperately to avoid now seemed certain.
* * *
*These sections are written in a ‘book code’, often used in the eighteenth century. Without longer samples or knowledge of the relevant book, they are almost impossible to decipher.
PART THREE
17
A Tutorial in War
‘The more monstrous and terrible the system has become, the greater is the probability that it will be speedily overthrown. From the nature of the mind of man, and the necessary progress of human affairs, it is impossible that such a system can be of long dur
ation; and surely no event can be looked for more desirable than a destruction of that system, which at present exists to the misery of France, and the terror of Europe.’
WILLIAM PITT, 21 JANUARY 17941
‘I particularly represented to Mr. Pitt that … by undertaking too much He would do nothing well.’
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND2
THE EVENT WHICH TOOK PLACE in France on 21 January 1793 was almost beyond the imagination of those who had known the power of French Kings, the splendour of their courts, and the absolutism of their rule. On that day, shortly after ten o’clock in the morning, Louis XVI laid his head on the block beneath the guillotine. Moments later the exultant crowds cheered the execution of their King. This was the unequivocal answer of the French Revolution to the enmity of the imperial powers of Europe. A reprieve had been rejected in the ruling Convention by 380 votes to 310, Danton later declaiming: ‘Let us fling down to the Kings the head of a King.’3 The rulers of the other nations of Europe were aghast. For them, this act, ‘the foulest and most atrocious deed’,4 in Pitt’s words, represented the overthrow of all law and authority. The execution of Louis XVI symbolised the confidence and zeal of the revolutionaries: it defied the monarchies of Europe to do their worst.
Pitt’s horror at Louis XVI’s death was no doubt genuine, but that was not what was causing him to prepare for war that January. For Pitt, the coming conflict was not about monarchists against republicans or the internal affairs of France, but was necessitated by the French assault on the balance of power in Europe in general and on the security of the Low Countries in particular. Of course these factors were intimately connected: the Revolution had created foreign hostility which in turn fuelled both the paranoia and the determination of the revolutionaries – France must take the war to its enemies and ensure that those who would impose a monarchy in Paris would find their own monarchies overthrown. This in turn directly challenged the strategic interests of countries which otherwise preferred to stay aloof, particularly Holland and Britain.
William Pitt the Younger: A Biography Page 38