And now it is necessary to say a word of Continental affairs.
A life of Pitt should concern itself with Pitt alone, or with the
persons and events immediately relating to him. But as during this
period of his life foreign policy was all in all, and Britain seemed a
mere anxious appendage to the Continent, it is necessary to give a
succinct sketch of the familiar but complicated sequence of events in
Europe which occurred at this time, and which inspired almost all the
debates in which Pitt took part.
Walpole, as we have seen, had declared war against Spain in 1739, and
the not very glorious course of those operations does not call for
record. But the year 1740 marked a new and critical epoch. Death in
those few months was busy lopping off the crowned heads of Europe, as if
to clear the scene for two great figures. On February 6 died Pope
Clement XII. On March 31 died the shrewd but brutal boor Frederick
William I., and at the age of twenty-eight his son Frederick II. reigned
in his stead. His accession was to unveil a mystery; and where mankind
had hitherto seen a fiddling dilettante, contemptuous of his countrymen
and craving for all that was French, to reveal the direct ancestor of
German unity, the most practical and tenacious of conquerors. On
October 20 the Emperor Charles VI., the figure-head for which we had
fought in the War of the Succession, and, a week afterwards, Anne the
Empress of Russia passed away. Rarely has the sickle of Eternity
gathered so pompous a harvest. Between February and November it had
garnered the Holy Roman Emperor, the Holy Roman Pontiff, the sovereign
of Russia, and the sovereign of Prussia. Of these the death at Vienna
was by far the most momentous. For Charles left behind him no son, but a
young daughter of twenty-three, about to be a mother, whose succession
he had attempted to secure by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1718, ratified
and recognised by solemn international instruments. On the morning of
his death she was promptly proclaimed sovereign of her father's
dominions; but her treasury was empty and her ministers paralysed.
Bavaria at once protested. Behind Bavaria stood Frederick armed to the
teeth, eager to let slip the dogs of war. Every one saw his
preparations; no one could tell at whom they were aimed.
'No fair judge,' Mr. Carlyle[147] tells us, can blame the 'young
magnanimous King' for seizing this 'flaming opportunity.' The point is
fortunately not one which a biographer of Pitt is called upon to
discuss, except to note that hero-worship makes bad history. For our
purpose it is sufficient to say that Frederick did avail himself of the
new juncture of affairs. Charles had died on October 20; on December 6
the announcement was officially made in Berlin that the King had
resolved to march a body of troops into Silesia; on December 13 these
had passed the frontier, not as enemies of the Queen of Hungary or
Silesia, it was declared, but as protective friends of Silesia and her
Majesty's rights there. All this was preceded and accompanied by the
strangest diplomacy that the world had seen, but which does not concern
this abstract. Thus begins the first period of the Continental war.
Britain, like Prussia, was bound by treaty to maintain the Pragmatic
Sanction which assured the Austrian dominions to Maria Theresa. Our
statesmen at this moment were engaged in a pastime of more immediate
interest and excitement, for they were hunting Walpole to death; the
exhaustion of the quarry was evident; the end could not be far off. But
even then the nature of the aggression and the appeal of a young and
beautiful Queen exercised the usual influence on the chivalrous
sympathies of the nation. Maria Theresa could, moreover, appeal to
treaty rights. So that Walpole found himself reluctantly forced into a
new war while the former was still undecided and incomplete. He agreed
to renew the pledges of England to maintain that Pragmatic Sanction
which secured the succession to the daughter of Charles VI.; he agreed,
moreover, to an immediate subsidy of 300,000_l._, and to sending a force
of 12,000 men. Meanwhile Marshal Schwerin had defeated the Austrians at
Molwitz at the very moment that the House of Commons was debating these
proposals.
This victory brought into the arena new and eager claimants for some
part of the Austrian spoils, now apparently so available. The eminent
guarantors of the integrity of Austria were suddenly transformed into
hungry schemers for her immediate partition. Spain, Sardinia, and
Poland-Saxony all advanced pretensions. But a mightier enemy was
preparing to join hands with Frederick and take the field; for it was
scarcely to be supposed that the secular enemy of the House of Hapsburg
could remain quiescent at such a moment. France saw a unique opportunity
for breaking up the Austrian dominions, and reducing the portion
reserved to the young Queen to comparative insignificance. In France, as
in England, the Minister was peaceful, but the party of war carried the
day. Two French armies of 40,000 men each crossed the Rhine in August
1741. One under Marshal Maillebois marched on Hanover. The ruler of that
State, who, as sovereign of Great Britain, was the active ally of Maria
Theresa, hastily concluded a treaty of neutrality for one year,
promising to give no assistance to the young Queen in his Hanoverian
capacity, and to refrain from voting for her husband as Emperor. For
this treaty George II. was violently attacked by his British subjects,
who believed themselves to be fighting for Hanoverian interests, while
Hanover itself was thus snugly removed into a haven of peace. The
censure was, we think, excessive, if not undeserved. The treaty did
indeed accentuate the duality which somewhat unequally divided the
person of George. But if that be once conceded, it must be admitted that
he was right as Elector to do his very best for Hanover, just as King he
was bound to do his very best for England. As Elector, then, he was
fully justified in keeping his defenceless State out of the devastation
of war, from which it was destined to suffer so terribly sixteen years
later from another French army under the Duke of Richelieu, when
neutrality was no longer possible.
While Maillebois marched towards Hanover, the other army, under Marshals
Belleisle and Broglie, marched through Bavaria and menaced Vienna.
Maria Theresa had to fly to Hungary, and appeal in a manner made
familiar by description to the chivalry of the Magyars. The Elector of
Bavaria, who was the figure-head chosen by the confederates for the
imperial throne, and who had his fill of titles in the lack of more
substantial fare, was proclaimed Archduke of Austria at Linz, King of
Bohemia in Prague, and soon afterwards Emperor in Frankfort. It seemed
as if a vast partition was about to take place, and the House of Austria
destined to disappear.
But this was the turning-point; in the general blackness there appeared
rays of hope for Maria Theresa. Walpole, the peace minister,
disappeared, and the control of Foreign Affairs in Great Britain passed
to Carteret, who was warm for Austria, and eager to play an active part
on the Continent. Moreover, the misfortunes of the Queen roused the
enthusiasm of Great Britain. Five millions were voted for the war, half
a million as a subsidy to the Queen of Hungary. Sixteen thousand men
were sent into Flanders to assist the exertions of the Dutch.
Unfortunately there were no exertions to assist, and our troops remained
useless. Our fleets were more active. They harried the Spaniards and
controlled the Mediterranean. A squadron entered the Bay of Naples and
gave the King, afterwards Charles III. of Spain, an hour in which to
decide whether he would abandon the confederacy against Austria or see
his beautiful city bombarded. The King of Naples yielded, but as King of
Spain never forgave the English for this humiliation.
[Sidenote: Feb. 12, 1742.]
The Austrians, too, found a bold and skilful general in Khevenhueller,
who seized Bavaria and occupied Munich on the very day on which its
ruler was crowned Emperor. In the succeeding June a peace, which proved
afterwards to be but a truce, was concluded at Breslau between Austria
and Prussia, through the mediation of Great Britain, and followed by the
Treaty of Berlin, to which George II. both as King and Elector, the
Empress of Russia, the States General, and the King of Poland as Elector
of Saxony were parties. There had been a secret armistice between the
two states in the winter of 1741, by which Lower Silesia and Niesse had
been ceded to Frederick, but this had soon proved inoperative. A new
situation was however produced by the severe battle of Chotusitz, in
which the Austrians suffered defeat at the hands of Frederick. Maria
Theresa now yielded to the pressure of the English ministry and ceded
all Lower and part of Upper Silesia with the county of Glatz to
Frederick, who in return abandoned his allies and left the French to
themselves, on the plea that they were in secret communication with
Vienna. Saxony, under his influence, also withdrew from the war, and the
King of Prussia and the Elector of Hanover concluded a defensive
alliance, the Elector guaranteeing Silesia and Glatz to the King.
Frederick saw that he had been too successful. He was determined to
retain Silesia, but he saw with apprehension great French armies
overrunning the German Empire. That France should be aggrandised at the
expense of Germany was no part of his policy. For Germany as Germany he
had no natural affection; but the waters of Germany, however troubled
they might be, he proposed to keep for his own fishing.
[Sidenote: Dec. 1741.]
With the Peace of Breslau, then, the first period of the war ends, and
the second begins, in which it assumes a new character. It is not
Frederick and France fighting against Austria; it is Austria supported
by Britain, and to some extent Holland, fighting, with the secret
sympathy of Germany, against France and Spain. Elizabeth, too, the
daughter of Peter the Great, had mounted the throne of Russia, and
assisted her sister sovereign with sympathy and with money. The whole
aspect of the war was suddenly changed. Austria was now free to turn her
whole forces on France, and she did so with terrible effect. The French
had to evacuate Bohemia in a retreat so heroic and so appalling that it
anticipated the horrors of 1812. Of the 40,000 men with whom he had
crossed the Rhine, Belleisle brought back but 8000 into France. The
share of Great Britain in the war became substantial and direct. The
Elector of Hanover, relieved from apprehension by his treaty with
Prussia and the success of Austria, reduced his army by 16,000 men, but
the King of England took them into his pay. This measure exasperated his
British subjects, whose attention was thus once more called to the
jarring interests of the Kingdom and the Electorate combined in George's
person. But Ministers carried the day, and in June 1743 the King himself
took the field with an Anglo-German army of some 40,000 men under the
command of Lord Stair. At Dettingen, not far from Frankfort, in escaping
from a position of extreme jeopardy, they encountered and defeated the
French. The strangest part of this engagement was that there was then
nominally no war between France and Great Britain, and that these
operations were only accidental auxiliary conflicts. It was not for nine
months afterwards that war between the two countries was formally
declared.
[Sidenote: Sept. 1743.]
Later on in this year George II. took an even more active measure, and
through Carteret, as Secretary of State, though behind the back of his
other ministers, signed the Treaty of Worms. For many years past it had
been the policy of the House of Savoy to put itself up to auction, and
by the Treaty of Worms George II. became the successful bidder. The King
of Sardinia was to receive some territory from Austria, and 200,000_l._
a year from Great Britain, while he was to assist the Austrian cause
with 45,000 men. Carteret at the same time covenanted to pay Maria
Theresa a subsidy of 300,000_l._ a year 'so long as the war should
continue, or the necessity of her affairs should require.' But this the
British Ministry refused to recognise, and it became the subject of
fierce debate in Parliament.
To meet this combination, Louis XV., on the advice of his Minister but
against his own better judgment, signed one of those one-sided and
altruistic treaties which characterised French policy at this time, and
renewed the family compact of 1733 by a treaty signed at Fontainebleau
in October 1743. In this new edition the Bourbons of France and Spain
pledged themselves to an indissoluble union. France was to declare war
against Great Britain and Sardinia, to help Spain to reconquer Parma and
the Milanese for Don Philip, and to compel Great Britain to give up her
colony of Georgia. Finally, the two Powers were not to make peace until
Gibraltar and, if possible, Minorca were restored to Spain.[148]
[Sidenote: May 1744.]
But the Austrian successes once more brought Frederick into the field
to redress the balance, which now inclined too much to Austria, as it
had inclined too much to France. Austria had acquired Bavaria for the
moment, and perhaps would never evacuate it; she might be encouraged to
attempt the reconquest of Silesia. Her armies were now in Alsace; where
would they stop? The Queen, he knew, was only a degree less tenacious
than himself. So he signed a new convention at Frankfort with the
Emperor, the King of France, the King of Sweden as Landgrave of Hesse,
and the Elector Palatine, and again took up arms against Austria, which
was almost drained of troops. France about the same time formally
declared war against Great Britain and Austria, whom she had been
fighting, so to speak, incognito, for three years past. On the other
hand a quadruple alliance was concluded between Great Britain, Austria,
Holland, and Saxony; based as usual on British subsidies, which
Parliament ungrudgingly voted, with the eloquent but surprising support
of Pitt.
Here begins the third period of the war. Louis XV. and Marshal Saxe at
the head of 80,000 men entered the Austrian Netherlands almost without
resistance. Frederick soon made himself master of Bohemia and Bavaria,
and returned the Electorate to its sovereign, the Emperor Charles VII.
In January 1745, worn out with misfortunes and anxieties and dignities,
but once more in his capital, that hapless monarch died. Within three
months his successor had concluded peace with Austria through the
earnest pressure of the British Cabinet on the haughty Queen; the
Elector abandoning his claims on the Austrian dominions, and promising
his vote for the Empire to Maria Theresa's husband. Peace between
Austria and the King of Poland, Elector of Saxony, followed in May,
when the contracting parties entered into a premature concert for the
partition of the Prussian dominions.
Otherwise 1745 was a disastrous year for Austria. The Allies, Austrians,
British, and Dutch, under the Duke of Cumberland, sustained a bloody
defeat at Fontenoy in May; and Great Britain, occupied with the domestic
disturbance caused by the landing of Charles Edward, had to withdraw
from active participation in the war. In August a secret convention was
concluded at Hanover between the Kings of Prussia and Great Britain, by
which the latter Power guaranteed Silesia to the former. This was the
beginning of the end. The British Ministry now notified to the
unyielding Queen that she must come to terms with her enemy, or expect
no more assistance from England or Holland. The Austrian arms met
everywhere with reverses. While the young Queen was planning with Saxony
a triumphant march on Berlin, Frederick broke into Saxony and occupied
Dresden. On this final blow Maria Theresa accepted the mediation of
Great Britain and signed, on Christmas Day, 1745, the peace of Dresden
which gave Silesia and Glatz to Frederick. So ends the third period of
this strange and erratic war; a labyrinth of fugitive conventions and
transient alliances, with two strong purposes in the centre.
But the auxiliary combatants remained at strife, just as the seconds in
a duel have sometimes fought after their principals had settled their
own differences. And so we now enter on its fourth period, that in which
the British, Austrians, and Dutch (with the assistance of the
Piedmontese in Italy) contended against France and Spain. The part of
this war which chiefly concerns Great Britain was fought in Flanders.
And in all these transactions it must be noted that a main difficulty of
the British Ministry, both from the practical and from the parliamentary
point of view, lay in the problem of moving the Dutch. The Hollanders
had everything to apprehend from the triumph of the French arms, but
their phlegmatic temper, and still more the impracticable nature of
their constitution, offered great obstacles to their co-operation.
Anglers may see an analogy between these British negotiations with the
Dutch and the tardy and tantalising sport of sniggling for eels. At the
beginning of 1746, matters seemed to have come to a climax. The French
were harrying Flanders, and were threatening to invade Holland. The
Dutch Government were now stirred into proposing active measures, and
the raising of a large army, to be under the command of the Prince of
Waldeck; but they declined to declare war against France. The British
agreed to a joint force of 100,000 men, comprising 40,000 to be
furnished by the States-General, 30,000 by Austria, some Hanoverians and
Saxons to be paid by England and Holland, and 6000 Hessians to be
provided by England after Charles Edward had been finally defeated. The
Dutch regarded the British offers as inadequate; for it is a cardinal
principle of all Continental wars in which Great Britain is concerned
that her purse is to be open to her allies, and that she is to find the
funds.
'The Dutch we know are good allies,
So are they all with subsidies.'[149]
They were, moreover, not indisposed to negotiate with the French.
These, meanwhile, under the leadership of Marshal Saxe, were occupying
the Low Countries almost without interruption or resistance. In February
they entered Brussels; in May, Antwerp. Mons, Charleroi, and Namur
successively fell into their hands, and they ended the campaign by
defeating the allies at Roucoux, and remaining practically in possession
of the Austrian Netherlands. But there was a glimpse of peace, in that
some negotiations, abortive though they were destined to be, were opened
at Breda.
In 1747 the Duke of Cumberland again assumed the command with the usual
disastrous result. The Dutch contingent, also as usual, was very
inadequate: commercial nations are perhaps apt to treat international
engagements in too commercial a spirit. But the irruption into Dutch
Flanders of twenty thousand Frenchmen roused a spirit of a different
kind. The Dutch rose like one man, overturned their rulers, and once
more entrusted the Stadtholderate to the House of Orange. This was a
national gain. But the luckless Cumberland again sustained a bloody
defeat at Lauffeld. The battle, however, had one indirect but happy
consequence. Our best General, Ligonier, was captured, and, being of
French birth, was favourably received by Louis XV., who threw out hints
of peace and placed him in communication with Marshal Saxe. The Marshal
admitted that the war, and he himself as concerned in it, were
profoundly unpopular in France, that peace might be obtained on easy
terms, and suggested that Cumberland and he should be the negotiators.
Pelham was naturally eager for a pacification, George II. less so, and
what the King wished Newcastle was anxious to wish. But a congress to
adjust a treaty met at Aix-la-Chapelle in March 1748, and in April the
preliminaries of a treaty were signed by the British and French and
Dutch plenipotentiaries.
[Sidenote: 1748.]
Maria Theresa held aloof. To her it seemed that the first and only duty
of the British, and, indeed, of all other nations, was to fight and work
and pay that she might regain Silesia, just as her father had held that
the first, last, and only duty of Europe was to establish him in Spain.
This peace would ratify the acquisition of Silesia by Frederick, and
though she herself had ceded it, she could not bring herself to declare
the cession definite. England, however, could no longer agree to the
general interest being overridden by the obstinacy of the Empress-Queen;
there had been bloodshed and suffering enough on her account. However
just a cause may be, there are limits to human endurance, more
especially when the cause to be upheld has no substantial importance for
the defending nation. The definitive treaty was signed on October 18.
Two days later, Spain, the original belligerent, acceded to it. There
were, a philosopher may note, no stipulations regarding the commercial
regulations which had been the original cause of our war with Spain. On
the 23rd it was accepted by the Austrian Government.
This is a narrative, as condensed as possible, of the foreign affairs
which entered into our parliamentary debates. That part of the war which
took place in Italy has been excluded. It was a mere contest of petty
rapine in which strange princes parcelled out Italy; which can scarcely
be said to have concerned Great Britain, and Pitt not at all. Nor has it
left the least visible trace in history.
The greater war which we have summarised is a sufficient tangle. Leslie
Stephen calls it 'that complicated series of wars which lasted some ten
years, and passes all power of the ordinary human intellect to
understand or remember. For what particular reason Englishmen were
fighting at Dettingen, or Fontenoy, or Lauffeld is a question which a
man can only answer when he has been specially crammed for examination,
and his knowledge has not begun to ooze out.'[150] This is the exact
truth, as the ill-fated chronicler who gropes about among the treaties
and conventions is fain to confess. But apart from its complications
this war is not in itself very memorable or exalted, though it has left
an indelible result in the great Prussian monarchy. It was not beautiful
or glorious. The guarantors of Austria at the first sign of her weakness
had hurried, most of them, to divide her spoils, at the same time
betraying each other from time to time without scruple, as their
immediate interests required. Frederick had a business-like candour
which almost disarms criticism. Macaulay in a famous passage has pointed
out that innocent peasants perished in thousands all over the world that
he might obtain and retain an Austrian province. And Maria Theresa, with
all her maternal charm, is not wholly admirable. It was natural that she
should fight for her rights, and induce all she could to fight for her;
natural, perhaps, that she should be content that all Europe should
bleed so that she might retain her territory. But we cannot forget that
she who was ready that myriads should perish, not of Austrians or
Magyars alone, but of all the nations that she could enlist in her
cause, to maintain the sanctity of her rights to Silesia, was later on
an accomplice in the partition of Poland; a reluctant accomplice, it is
fair to add, as she herself was awake to the inconsistency of her
position.
Among all these stately figures and famous slaughters we see the central
fact of the period, the shameless and naked cynicism of the eighteenth
century, which, turning its back for ever on the wars of faith and
conviction, looked only to contests of prey. And so it continued till
the great Revolution cleared the air, and, followed up by the poignant
discipline of Napoleon, made way for the wars of nationality.