Years of Victory 1802 - 1812

by Arthur Bryant

  For in her unyielding tenacity England soared above the realities of the immediate situation—Napoleon's speed, Austrian incompetence, Russian recklessness, Prussian greed and treachery, the intransigeance of the Swedes, the servility of the Germans. She

  1 Paget Brothers, 50. His octogenarian grandson, Lord Queenborough, as President of the Royal Society of St. George, was sending out similar exhortations throughout the black summer of 1940.

  2 Auckland, IV, 256. Two Duchesses, 225-6; Paget Papers, II, 250; Granville, II, 139; H. M. C. Dropmore, 318-20; Fortescue, V, 289.

  knew of these from her newspapers and her diplomatic agents: " the ignorance here and at headquarters respecting the movements of the enemy," her Ambassador wrote from the Austrian Court, "is beyond all credibility." But she knew also that these in the last resort were only minutiae, of ephemeral but not of eternal importance, and that she had only to stand firm against the tyrant for his power one day, now or in the future, to break before the forces of human decency. It was the realisation of this that made Pitt so representative a leader of his countrymen. He might, as the Opposition complained, be too sanguine and far too ready, as even his admirer, Lady Bessborough, admitted, to turn a deaf ear to unpleasant tidings and believe only what he wanted to believe, with the result that the Government was always prepared for a lesser danger than existed. By underrating Napoleon and his successes and decimating his forces in speeches, he and his followers constantly laid themselves open to ridicule. Yet they never committed the almost universal fault of the Continent—of collapsing before a bogey.

  Pitt's real test, and England's, was the hour when hopes were proved liars. Throughout a black December, sustained by his faith and courage, the country's trust in victory continued to rise. The advance guard of the army was known to have landed at Cuxhaven, the Russians under their brave young Czar were reported, to have inflicted heavy losses on the enemy in Moravia and on more than one occasion to have cut their way to safety through superior forces,1 and the Archduke Charles was hastening from Italy to join the main Allied army near Olmtitz. Before long accounts of a major reverse suffered by Napoleon in Bohemia were circulating in London. There was nothing definite, for the mails from northern Germany —the only direct channel of communication with the Continent— were held up by fog and ice. But the Admiralty spies in Brittany reported rumours of a disastrous battle, fought by the Grand Army in the early days of the month, Which the French police were trying vainly to suppress. There were even tales that Bonaparte himself had

  1 "The Russians fought with unexampled courage during the whole of their retreat; constantly attacked by an army nearly double their force, they have not lost a single standard, and have taken several from the French. Prince Bagration has really done wonders; to save the main body of Kutusov's army by checking the pursuit of the French, he remained with the rearguard, consisting of 5000 men, and was at last surrounded by 30,000 French. Murat had a conference with him, and represented tbe inutility of his resisting, showing to him his vast superiority of numbers. Bagration replied that he would not surrender were the French army treble what it was, and upon the French commencing the attack, he cut his way through, took some prisoners and some Standards, marched 30 English miles after the battle, and regained the main body of the Russian army under Kutusov." Lord Granville Leveson-Gower to Lady Bessborough, Olmutz, 23rd Nov., 1805. Granville, n, 148-9.

  been killed. " It has given me such spirits," wrote Captain Fremantle from the Fleet off Cadiz, "that I can scarcely contain myself."1

  Pitt, ardent though his nature was, could not wholly credit these stories. His responsibility was too great. Wilberforce noted that autumn that he was far less sanguine than of old. His health was deteriorating fast, though he concealed it from the public and even perhaps from himself; Arthur Wellesley, who spent a few days in the same country house with him in November, found him riding twenty miles a day, lunching on beefsteak and porter and drinking a good deal of port at supper. The doctors, hoping to part him from his-"odious green boxes," had prescribed a prolonged visit to Bath, but at the end of the month the Prime Minister was still in London, walking in St. James's Park with Lord Malmesbury and anxiously canvassing the sticking power of his allies. He was writing hopefully of Prussia from Downing Street on December 5th. Two days later he set off for Bath. Here, watched by crowds who made a lane for him as he passed,2 he visited the Pump Room every morning and walked on the South Parade with firm, deceptive step.

  Ten days before Christmas the waters threw the gout down to his feet, to the delight o^his physician, who wrote from London to prescribe flannel, port and a complete rest from business. But Sir Walter Farquhar could not stop his patient from worrying, and, as the long frost continued and with it the absence of news from the Continent, Pitt's weakness and debility of digestion grew. None the less, he continued to assure his friends that he was on the mend. He dismissed as unnecessary an offer of Farquhar's to visit Bath and wrote long letters to the ailing Harrowby in Berlin, tenderly inquiring after his health.

  At the end of December the axe fell. The dearth of authentic news and the spate of rumours had keyed the nation up to an unusual" pitch; the very children, Lady Uxbridge wrote, had become politicians and flew to the paper. Two days after Christmas confused and contradictory accounts of a battle near Olmlitz began to take definite shape as an Allied victory, and the Government journals became jubilant. On the 29th the Prince of Wales at the Pavilion, Brighton, told his guests that all was over with the French and that they had been sent to the Devil. But while he was getting out his maps to show the route by which they had retreated, one of his equerries received a despatch from the Horse Guards. The Allies

  1 Paget Papers, II, 254-5; Fcsting, 128; Granville, II, 142, 145, 149-50; Fortescue, V, 275, 289-90, 293-4; Barham, III, 292-3; Wynne, III, 236.

  2 "The little ones called out' Billy Pitt' so loud that I was fearful he would hear them." —Nugent, 331. Sec also Wilberforce, II, 49-50, 62-3; Granville, 13, 148; Stanhope, 117-18; Pitt, 346-7; Malmesbury, IV, 343, 346; Pitt and the Great War, 543, 547-8.

  had been shattered at Austerlitz on December 2nd, and the Austrians were reported to be suing for a separate peace.1

  As in 1799, it had been the excessive assurance of the Russians that had precipitated disaster. Too impatient to remain in the impregnable position they held until the Archduke Charles arrived to give them overwhelming superiority, they descended into the open plain and attacked the French lines. By nightfall on December 2nd more than 30,000 Allied troops had fallen or were prisoners, and the remainder were flying in hopeless confusion to the east. "Soldiers," Napoleon had addressed the victors, "you are the first .warriors of the world! Thousands of ages hence it will be told how a Russian army, hired by the gold of England, was annihilated by you on the plains of Olmütz."

  Though reports of an armistice had still to be confirmed there was no longer any doubt about the military collapse of Pitt's Third Coalition. The announcement of Austerlitz was accompanied by news of the loss of eight British transports and nearly 2000 troops on the way to Bremen. A momentary wave of pessimism swept the country: men and women appeared stunned. Everything that the Opposition had predicted seemed to have been proved true; land-war was Bonaparte's element, and Ministers had merely played his cards for him by giving him a chance to make it. Their conduct of the Alliance had been calamitous; operations had been precipitated without any comprehensive plan along a straggling front from Malta to Lapland; there were no proper communications, no preparation, alacrity, decision or concert. "The mind," wrote the Marquis of Buckingham, "is sickened by this horrid picture of imbecility." In London the mob was on the verge of riot, and the troops had to be called out.2

  As for the armies which Pitt had so rashly sent to invade the Continent, they were plainly doomed. One, cut off for months from all communication with home, was presumably already stranded in, or about to land, in an Italy now dominated by the French. Another, comprising 26,000 picked tro
ops, was marooned on the Elbe at the mercy of the Prussians and liable at any moment to be cut off by the freezing of the north German rivers and served up for Bonaparte's Christmas dinner. To add to its difficulties the Swedes had withdrawn their forces on the ground that their allies, the

  1 Paget Papers, II, 255; John Adolphus, Recollections (1871); Granville, II, 146, 150-1; II. M. C. Dropmorc, VII, 322 ; Creevey, I, 48-9; 7ti>o Duchesses, 260-1.

  2 "I cannot discover any better talents in our Ministers," Lord Sheffield, a former Pittite, told Auckland, who had once aspired to be Pitt's father-in-law, "than in the wretched Austrians." Auckland, IV, 259-60; Wynne, III, 241; Granville, II, 154; Pitt and the Great War, 551; H. M. C. Dropmore, VII, 324-5.

  Prussians, would be sure to attack their Pomeranian territories when their back was turned. It seemed, in fact, as the Grenvilles had proclaimed from the start, that the country had staked its last means on a desperate gamble. Even that staunchest of Tories, Lady Uxbridge, thought it would be madness if the troops were not immediately recalled. Staying at Blenheim, the helpless spectator of events which threatened not only the well-being but the very existence of the country, Auckland found himself inspired by the magnificent monuments, pictures and historical tapestries to long for a successor to John, Duke of Marlborough, with all his energies and successes, and for the days when England was still able to maintain the independence and balance of the Continental Powers.1

  Yet even as he wrote, that successor, after a narrow escape from shipwreck on the Heligoland shoals, was once more on the Continent, renewing acquaintanceship with the north German landscape—last glimpsed in the great retreat of 1795. Surrounded by French spies and staring, apathetic Germans, and grappling with a military system in which every order seemed to emanate from four or five different and contradictory departments, Sir Arthur Wellesley was in charge of a Brigade in Lord Cathcart's army. It was not a much larger force than that which he had commanded as a young Lieutenant-Colonel in the same place eleven years back: before he had governed Mysore and conquered the Deccan. Yet, though promotion seemed slow, he was in cheerful company; despite lethargic allies and dwindling prospects, the British army was spoiling for a fight. "I long to be at the rascals," Lord Paget told his brother, "you may depend upon it we will play hoko with them."2

  The ordinary Englishman, perhaps because he had more to occupy Ins mind than the great lords of the political overworld, did not cry for long over the spilt milk of Austerlitz. "The people," wrote one of their betters, "still refuse to give credit to the disastrous news from the Continent and are sanguinely looking forward to the great success to be operated by the 90,000 men under the Archduke Charles and by the junction of the Russians to the Prussian army." Like Pitt, they declined to believe in the armistice till it had been officially confirmed, and put their faith in the proved tenacity of the Russians in misfortune. On January 9th, 1806, they turned out in their thousands to watch Nelson borne to his tomb in St. Paul's. As the magnificent funeral car approached, amid the strains of Handel's Dead March and the roll of guns, there fell on that vast, rough

  1 H. M. C. Dropmore, VII, 325; Paget Papers, II, 264; Fortescue, V. 294.

  2 Paget Papers, II, 254; Guedalla, 125; Wellesley, I, 197; Stanhope, Conversations, 130; Foitescue, V, 290, 294; Paget Brothers, 54.

  Rowlandson crowd a silence such as the grandees, watching the procession from the windows above, had never before known. " It seemed," wrote Lady Bessborough, " one general impulse of respect beyond anything that could have been said or contrived." Affecting beyond measure, another spectator thought it, though what seemed to impress the crowd most was the sight of the Victory's crew tramping after their dead Admiral. "We had rather see them," it cried, "than all the show."1

  Meanwhile Pitt was at Bath waiting for the gout to subside and for news from the Continent. The disease had taken a turn for the worse with the approach of the New Year, but, despite the blows he had received, he still wrote cheerfully of himself and England's prospects. "It is impossible," he told Bathurst, "not to disbelieve above nine-tenths of the French bulletins and not to doubt a good deal of the armistice as stated." Till reliable intelligence arrived from Hamburg and the Prussians had declared themselves, he held it would be folly to despair. He kept his anxious colleagues in London almost cheerful under the swelling flood of adverse rumour, and refused to allow the troops to be recalled from Germany.

  But on January 4th he was seized with another severe attack of the gout. Five days later, as the waters were of no avail, he set out for London, hoping to attend the meeting of Parliament on the 21st. Spending two days on the road, he reached the villa he had rented on Putney Heath on Saturday the nth. He was so emaciated and his voice so feeble and tremulous that his own household could scarcely recognise him. As he passed down the passage to his room he whispered to his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, to roll up a large map of Europe hanging on the wall, saying it would not be wanted for ten years.

  After the week-end the doctors, deceived by the Prime Minister's resilient spirit, reported that his illness was not mortal. On the morning of Monday the 13th he took the air in his coach. In the afternoon two of his colleagues, Hawkesbury and Castlereagh, visited him on important business. The news from the Continent had suddenly become much graver. That Austria had sought an armistice and was about to sign or had already signed a formal peace was now certain. And there were unmistakable signs from Berlin that Prussia had reached a new understanding with Napoleon and was about to annex Hanover. The King and the entire Cabinet were in favour of an immediate recall of the army.

  Reluctantly Pitt agreed. After his colleagues had left he fainted. He never went out again. For some days he remained sitting up-

  1 Granville, n, 155; Two Duchesses, 264-5.

  right in his chair, neither reading nor talking nor apparently hearing conversation. The doctors, who on the 14th held a special consultation, found that the gout had dispersed throughout his body; he was in great pain and unable to-hold any food. Against their wishes he insisted next day on receiving his old friend, Lord Wellesley, who had just returned from seven glorious and bitterly disputed years as Governor-General of India. But, though during the interview the flame of buoyant life revived, he again fainted when he was left alone. After that he yielded to entreaties and stayed in bed.1

  On January 18th there was a slight rally; he was able to take a little nourishment, and the doctors, deceived once more, .declared that there was hope. The Opposition, impatient for the fray and certain of victory, rejoiced. But when three days later the House met and Lord Henry Petty rose after the Address to state that the cause of the country's misfortunes was the misconduct of his Majesty's chief Minister, the amendment was not pressed.

  For over the week-end Pitt relapsed. His nephew, James Stanhope, hurrying to his side on Sunday the 20th, was stopped three hundred yards from the house by the sight of his servants in tears. Extreme debility had been succeeded by fever; next day the talk at a hundred dinner parties was that the Prime Minister was on the point of death. The news from abroad had grown graver, and there was no longer any hope of the one medicine which might have revived the dying man; Gower had written from Berlin on the 6th that all idea of resistance to France had vanished, and that Harrowby, his mission abandoned, was on his way home. "The constitution is gone; it won't rally," wrote Farquhar from the stricken house on the 21st, "I don't see a ray of hope. The battle of Austerlitz and its consequences are not cordials."

  Next day—Wednesday, January 22nd, 1806—all men knew that Pitt was dying. That afternoon he became delirious, and all through the night his nephew, watching by his side, heard the journeyings of his mind, worn out like his body in the service of his country. "He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, East, ah! that will do; that will bring him quick'; at other times he seemed to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out, * Hear, he
ar!' as if in the House of Commons." Towards midnight the rattles came into his throat, and at half-past two on the morning of the 23rd he grew

  1 Malmesbury, IV, 345; Wilberforce, II, 70-2; Granville, II, 158-9; Colchester, II, 25; Wellesley, I, 196-7.

  silent and still. "Shortly afterwards," wrote Stanhope, "with a much clearer voice than he spoke in before, and in a tone I shall never forget, he exclaimed, ' Oh, my country! how I leave my country!"1 From that time forward he neither spoke nor moved.

  1 Stanhope, IV, 381-2. Canning, deeming the phrase "wholly unlike Pitt's usual simplicity of character," wrote a week later—on the Bishop of Lincoln's authority—that his last words were, "I am sorry to leave the country in such a situation." Granville, n, 169. Disraeli's story of the dying man's request for one of Bellamy's pork-pies was derived many years later from an old door-keeper in the House who had been one of Bellamy's runners; it is third-hand evidence at best, and, even if true, plainly refers to an earlier stage of the illness when the doctors were trying to break down Pitt's aversion to animal food. Stanhope's account was that of an eye-witness and was written down next day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  England Alone

  " My great hope is that we shall maintain our Navy at its' highest establishment and contrive some means of creating an Army of 200,000 at home and never make peace so long as Europe remains in so complete a state of subjection. These are my politics."