Cæsar would have overthrown France, and decided the CHAP. fate of Europe. XIII. 1793. 122. of the con one of con III. Every thing conspires to indicate the ruinous effects which followed the resolution taken at the Congress at Fatal effects Antwerp, to convert the war, heretofore undertaken for version of the overthrow of the Jacobins, into one of aggression and the war into conquest of France itself. The great objects of the Alliance quest. should have been to have separated the cause of that fearful faction from that of the country, and joined in willing bands, to the standards of the Allies, the heroes of la Vendée and the generous citizens of Lyons. By that resolution they severed them for ever, and at length brought all the subjects of the Republic to range themselves cordially and sincerely round the tricolor flag. The subsequent disasters of the war, the divisions which paralysed the combined powers, the unanimity which strengthened the French, may in a great degree be traced to that unhappy deviation from its original principle. And it is remarkable that victory never again was permanently chained to their standards, till, taught by misfortune, they renounced this selfish policy, and recurred, in the great coalition of 1813, to the generous system which had been renounced at Antwerp twenty years before. 123. tance of the IV. The important breathing time which the delay occasioned by the siege of Valenciennes and Condé afforded Vast importo the French, and the immense advantage which they frontier forderived from the new levies which they received, and tresses. fresh organisation which they acquired during that period, is a signal proof of the vital importance of fortresses in contributing to national defence. Napoleon has not hesitated to ascribe to the four months thus gained the salvation of France.1 It is to be constantly kept in view, that the Republican armies were then totally unable to keep the field; that behind the frontier fortresses there was neither a defensive position, nor a corps to reinforce them; and that, if driven from their vicinity, the capital was taken, and the war concluded. The suc VOL. III. I Nap. in ii. Las. Cases, 327. XIII. 1793. CHAP. cessful issue of the invasions of 1814 and 1815 affords no argument against these principles. From Napoleon's heedlessness or disasters, the frontier fortresses were then in great part unarmed and unprovided, and were in consequence passed with impunity; or, on being passed, were left to the observation of comparatively small bodies of the German landwehr. The case of half a million of disciplined men, under consummate leaders, assailing a single state, is not the rule but the exception. 124. committed by the Allies. V. The failure of the Allies to take advantage of the Great errors debilitated state of their adversaries, is the strongest proof of the erroneous system on which the war was then conducted, and the peculiar ignorance which prevailed as to the mode of combating a revolutionary power. To divide a great army into an extensive chain of posts, and thereby lose all the benefit arising from superiority of force, is generally the weakest mode of conducting hostilities; but to do so with antagonists in a state of revolution is of all things the most absurd. Passion is then predominant with the multitude; and how readily is one passion transformed into another-the fervour of ambition into the agony of fear! By protracting the contest, and conducting the operations on a slow and methodical plan, time is given for the completion of the revolutionary armaments, and the consternation, spread among the people by a succession of disasters, is allowed to subside. Repeatedly, during the early stages of the war, advantages were gained by the Allies, which, if followed up with tolerable vigour, would have become decisive; and as often did subsequent inactivity or caution render them abortive. New and especially republican levies, easily elated and rendered formidable by victory, are as rapidly depressed by defeat it is the quality of regular soldiers alone to preserve their firmness in periods of disaster, and present, even after adverse, the intrepidity which recalls prosperous fortune. The system of attack should be suited to the character of the force by which it is opposed; the metho XIII. dical campaign, indispensable in presence of veteran troops, CHAP. is the worst that can be adopted with the ardent but unsteady levies which are brought forward by a revolutionary state. 1793. 125. effect of reduction VI. The military establishment of 1792 is the neverceasing theme of eulogium with the economical British Ruinous politicians of the present day, and incessant are their efforts the English to have the forces of the British empire again reduced to of force. that diminutive standard. The result of the first period of the campaign of 1793 may demonstrate how short-sighted, even in a pecuniary point of view, are such niggardly projects. Had Great Britain, instead of twenty thousand, been able to have sent sixty thousand English soldiers to the Continent at that period, what results might have been anticipated from their exertions! Forty thousand native English broke the military strength of Napoleon at Waterloo; and what was the military power of France at the commencement of the war, compared to what was there wielded by that dreaded commander? What would have been gained to Britain had the successes of 1815 come in 1793-the Camp of Cæsar been the field of Waterloo ! How many hundreds of thousands required to be sacrificed, how many hundreds of millions expended, before the vantage-ground then held was regained! So true it is, that a nation can never with safety, even to its finances, reduce too low its warlike establishment; that too severe an economy at one time begets too lavish a prodigality at another; and that years of tarnished reputation and wasteful extravagance are required to blot out the effects of a single undue pacific reduction. 126. fied in this campaign. Bitterly did England experience, in this campaign, the baneful consequences of the imprudent reduction of mili- As exemplitary force which had followed the close of the American With an army at first not exceeding thirty thousand disposable men, what could be achieved against France in the energy of a Revolution? Yet what fair opportunities, never again to recur, were then afforded to war. XIII. 1793. CHAP. crush the hydra in its cradle! If thirty thousand British troops had been added to the Duke of York's army at the siege of Dunkirk, that important fortress would speedily have fallen, and the advance of the Allied army have palsied all the efforts of the Convention; if the same force had aided the insurgents of la Vendée, the white flag would have been advanced to the Tuileries; if it had been sent to Toulon, the constitutional throne would have been at once established in all the south of France. The affairs of Napoleon, in the spring of 1814, were not so hopeless as those of the Republic would have been, if such an addition could have been made at that critical moment to the British invading force. 127. Cause to This ruinous system of reducing the forces of the country, upon the conclusion of hostilities, is the cause of almost all the discomfitures which tarnish the reputation, The passion and of more than half the debt which now curbs the which it is owing. for reduc the people. tion among energies of Britain. The cause, incident to a free constitution, has been well explained by Dean Tucker. "The patriot and furious anti-courtier always begins with schemes of frugality, and is a zealous supporter of measures of economy. He loudly exclaims against even a small parliamentary army, both on account of its danger and expense. By persevering in these laudable endeavours, he prevents such a number of forces by land and sea from being kept up as are necessary for the common safety of the kingdom. The consequence is, when a war breaks out, new levies are half-formed and half-disciplined, squadrons at sea are half-manned, and the officers mere novices in their business. Ignorance, unskilfulness, and confusion, are unavoidable for a time; the necessary result of which is some defeat received, some stain or dishonour cast upon the arms of Britain. Thus the nation is involved in expenses ten times as great, and made to raise forces twenty times as numerous as were complained of before, till peace is made, and new schemes of ruinous economy are again called for by a new set of patriots. XIII. 1793. 1 Tucker's Essays, 1.72. Thus the patriotic farce goes round, ending in real tragedy CHAP. to the nation and mankind." It seems hopeless to expect that this popular cry for costly economy will ever cease in pacific periods, because, even with the recent proof of its ruinous effect at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, we have seen it so fiercely raised for the reduction of the noble force which brought it to a glorious termination. It seems the melancholy fate of each successive generation to be instructed by its own and never by its predecessors' errors; and perhaps it is a law of nature, that such causes should, at stated periods, prostrate the strength of free states, and prevent that progressive growth of their power, which might otherwise. sink the emulation of independent kingdoms in the slumber of universal dominion. 128. grasping at But although this blind popular passion for pacific reduction may be the principal cause of the serious dis- The selfish asters which, for the last century and a half of English office by the history, have attended the first years of hostilities, yet it aristocracy. is not the only one; and it is in vain for any one class of society to throw upon another the whole responsibility for a fault which is, in a great degree, common to all. The aristocracy have also, in every period, been deeply implicated in the causes which, unhappily, so often impair the efficiency of our naval and military establishments. Incessant are the efforts which all the holders of parliamentary influence make, during the tranquillity of peace, to get their connexions and dependents elevated to situations which they are frequently incompetent to fill. During the dangers and excitement of war, governments are both compelled by necessity to select the most worthy to discharge momentous and perilous duties, and enabled by the magnitude of their patronage to do so without alienating their parliamentary supporters. But under the limited establishments, and with the comparatively unimportant duties of peace, this is impossible. Reductions on all sides then compel a rigid attention to influ |