CHAP. XIII. 1793. mon with the King of Great Britain, can make no objection to the principles which circumstances have caused the court of London to adopt relative to the commerce of neutrals during the present war with France. The undersigned, in acceding absolutely and without limitation to all the demands of the British ambassador, obeys the express injunctions of his court in the most solemn manner, in order to prove to the world the perfect concert which in that, as in all other respects, prevails between the King of Prussia and the King of Great Britain." Thus, how loudly soever the maritime powers may have demanded a new maritime code as a restraint on the hostility of others when they were neutral, they were 334, 341. willing enough to revert to the old usages when they in their turn became the belligerent parties.1 Hard. ii. 60. Absurd policy of division of the army insisted on tish. If the conduct of the Allies had been purposely intended to develop the formidable military strength which had the Allies, grown up in the French Republic, they could not have and ruinous adopted measures better calculated to effect their object than were actually pursued. Four months of success, which by the Bri- might have been rendered decisive, had been followed by the most blameable inactivity. After having broken the frontier line of fortresses, and defeated the covering army of France in a pitched battle, when within fifteen marches of Paris, and at the head of a splendid army of a hundred and thirty thousand effective men, after fully providing for their communications, they thought fit to separate their ii. 401. Th. forces, and, instead of pushing on to the centre of the 11th Aug. Republican power, pursue independent plans of aggrandisement.2 The British, with their allies, amounting to does not permit them to make such efficacious efforts as the greater powers in the common cause, the least that can be required of them is, that they shall make use of such means as are evidently at their disposal, by abstaining from all intercourse with these disturbers of the public peace. Her Imperial Majesty feels herself the more entitled to exact these sacrifices, as she has cheerfully submitted to them herself; being well aware of the disastrous effects which would ensue to the common interest, if, by reason of a free transport of provisions and naval stores, the enemy were put in possession of the means of nourishing and prolonging the contest.-See Ann. Reg. xxxiii.; State Papers, No. 41; and HARD. ii. 337, 341. 2 Jom. iv. 35. Hard. v. 218, 219. XIII. 1793. above thirty-five thousand men, moved towards Dunkirk, CHAP. so long the object of their maritime jealousy, while fortyfive thousand of the Imperialists sat down before Quesnoy, and the remainder of their vast army was broken into detachments to preserve the communications. 61. ish besiege the Aus From this ruinous division may be dated all the subsequent disasters of the campaign. Had they held together, The Britand pushed on vigorously against the masses of the enemy's Dunkirk, forces, now severely weakened and depressed by defeat, trians Questhere cannot be a doubt that the object of the war would noy. have been gained. The decrees for levying the population en masse were not passed by the Convention for some weeks afterwards, and the forces they produced were not organised for three months. The mighty genius of Carnot had not as yet assumed the helm of affairs; the Committee of Public Salvation had not hitherto acquired its terrible energy; every thing promised great results to vigorous and simultaneous operations. It was a resolution of the British cabinet, in opposition to the declared and earnest wish of Cobourg and all the Allied generals, which occasioned this fatal division. The impartial historian must confess with a sigh, that it was British interests which here interfered with the great objects of the war, and that, by compelling her contingent to separate for the siege of Dunkirk, Great Britain largely contributed to postpone, for a very long period, its glorious termination. Posterity has had ample room to lament the error: a war of twenty years deeply checkered with disaster, the addition of six hundred millions to the public debt, Toul. iv. sacrifice of millions of brave men, may be in a great Reg. 1793, degree traced to this unhappy resolution. For its adop- iv. 26, 37. tion, on selfish grounds, Britain is still suffering a just 347, 350. punishment.1 the The Austrians were successful in their enterprise. After fifteen days of open trenches, Quesnoy capitulated, and the garrison, consisting of four thousand men, were made prisoners of war. The efforts of the Republicans VOL. III. E 1 49. Ann. 377. Jom. Hard.ii.346, XIII. 62. Quesnoy siege of protracted. Nov. 11. CHAP. to raise the siege terminated in nothing but disaster. Two columns of ten thousand men each, destined to dis1793. quiet the besiegers, were routed, and in one of them a square of three thousand men was broken, and totally falls, but the destroyed by the Imperial cavalry. But a very different Dunkirk is fate awaited the British besieging army. The corps under the command of the Duke of York, consisting of twenty thousand British and Hanoverians, was raised, by the junction of a body of Austrians under Alvinzi, to thirty-seven thousand men. This force was inadequate to the enterprise, exposed as it was to attack from the main body of the French army. On the 18th August, the Duke of York arrived in the neighbourhood of Lincelles, where, after an obstinate engagement, a strong redoubt was carried by the English Guards, and twelve pieces of cannon were taken. At the same time, the Dutch troops advanced under Marshal Freytag, and, driving the enemy from his position near Dunkirk, the Allies advanced to within a league of the place, and encamped at Furnes, stretching from that place to the 1793, 379, sand-hills on the sea-shore. The fortress was immeiv. 41, 45. diately summoned, but the governor returned a determined refusal.1 1 Ann. Reg. 380. Jom. 63. Vigorous efforts of of the for tress, and slow pro British. Sensible of the importance of this stronghold, which, if gained by the British, would have given them an easy the French inlet into the heart of France, the Republicans made the for the relief most vigorous efforts to raise the siege. "It is not," said Carnot, in a despatch to Houchard, "merely in a military gress of the point of view that Dunkirk is so important: it is far more so, because the national honour is involved in its relief. Pitt cannot prevent the revolution which is approaching in England, but by gaining that town to indemnify his country for the expenses of the war. Accumulate, therefore, immense forces in Flanders, and drive the enemy from its plains; the decisive point of the contest lies there." This was the more necessary, because the works of the place were in the most deplorable state when the XIII. 1793. Allies appeared before it; and the garrison, consisting CHAP. only of three thousand men, was totally insufficient to defend the town. If the bombarding flotilla had arrived from England at the same time with the besieging army, there can be no doubt that it must immediately have fallen. Immense preparations were making at Woolwich for the siege, and eleven new battalions had been embarked in the Thames for the besieging army. But such was the tardiness of their movements, that not a vessel appeared in sight at the harbour of Dunkirk, and the mistress of the seas had the mortification to find her land forces severely harassed by discharges from the contemptible gun-boats of the enemy. The delays of the British in these operations proved what novices they were in the art of war, and how little they were aware of the importance of time in military movements. Above three weeks were employed in preparations by the besieging force a delay which enabled the French to bring up from the distant frontier of the Moselle the forces which ultimately raised the siege, and decided the fate of the Hard.ii.366. campaign.1 1 Th. v. 220. Jom. iv. 46. Ann. Reg. 1793, 380. 64. cumulate from the The French rulers did not display the same inactivity. Following the wise course of accumulating overwhelming They acforces upon the decisive point, they brought thirty-five forces there thousand men, by forced marches, and in great part by Rhine to the post, from the armies of the Rhine and Moselle, and Moselle. placed the army destined to raise the siege, consisting by this addition of nearly fifty thousand men, under the command of General Houchard. The investment not having been completed, he succeeded in throwing ten thousand additional troops, on whose fidelity reliance could be placed, into the garrison. At the same time, the covering army, consisting of twenty thousand Dutch and Austrians, under the command of Marshal Freytag, was threatened by an attacking force of nearly double its amount. While the Republicans were thus adopting the system of concentrating their forces, the Allies, by XIII. 1793. CHAP. the expansion of theirs, gave it every possible chance of success. A hundred thousand men, dispersed round Quesnoy, and extending from the sea to the Moselle, guarded all the entrances into the Netherlands, and covered a line two hundred miles in length. Thus a hundred and twenty thousand men were charged at once with the covering of two sieges, the maintenance of that immense line, and the protection of all Flanders, from an enterprising enemy, possessing an interior line of comTh. v. 220, munication, and already acting upon the principle of sacrificing all lesser objects to the weight to be given to the decisive blow.1 1 Ann. Reg. 1793, 380. 239. Jom. iv. 51. 65. Carnot, and of Houch ard. The situation of the Allied covering army was such as Designs of to give a vigorous attack, by an imposing mass of assailoperations ants, every chance of success. Freytag's corps of observation was, in the end, not posted at Furnes, so as to protect the rear of the besiegers, but a considerable way in front of it, in order to prevent any communication between the besieged and the interior of France; while the Dutch, under the Prince of Orange, were at the distance of three days' march at Menin, and incapable of rendering any assistance; and the Duke of York's besieging force lay exposed to an attack between these dispersed bodies. The Committee of Public Salvation had enjoined Houchard to throw himself, with forty thousand men, between the three corps, thus detached as if to invite his separate attacks, and fall successively on Freytag, the Prince of Orange, and the Duke of York. Napoleon would unquestionably have done so if he had been at the head of the army of Italy, and signalised Dunkirk, in all probability, by as decisive success as Rivoli or Arcola. But that audacious mode of proceeding could hardly be expected from a second in command; the principles on which it was founded were not yet understood, nor were his troops adequate to so bold an enterprise. He contented himself, therefore, with marching against the front of Freytag, with a view to throw |