general should be sent out. George, who was deeply attached to his son,
seems to have put the suggestion aside, for on November 23, Pitt wrote
again insisting on the duke's recall. The king, though "very much hurt"
was forced to yield and the command-in-chief devolved on General
Walmoden.[252] York had shown himself a gallant soldier and had already
proved his capacity as a military administrator, but he was not equal to
the command of an army in the field.

The first attempt of the French on the line of the Waal was smartly
repulsed by Sir David Dundas on January 4, 1795, but they crossed in
large force a week later, and the British fell back. The line of the Lek
was abandoned and the province of Utrecht evacuated. As the French
advanced, their party among the Dutch gathered strength; the stadholder
fled to England, the Dutch troops separated from the British, Amsterdam
received the invaders, and on the 30th the Dutch fleet, which lay frozen
up in the Texel, was captured by French cavalry. Meanwhile the British
suffered terribly from the severe cold; and their sick and wounded were
often exposed to ill-treatment by the people. The government decided to
withdraw the army and bring it back by Bremen. It retreated across the
Yssel and by the end of February evacuated the United Provinces and
entered Westphalia by way of Enschede. Westphalia was held by
Mollendorf's army, and the British troops, worn out by sickness and
privations, were embarked at Bremen on April 12.

[Sidenote: _DEFECTIONS FROM THE COALITION._]

By the end of 1794 the French were everywhere victorious on land. They
were masters of the Netherlands and were over-running Holland; they held
all the country to the left of the Rhine except Mainz and Luxemburg; a
victorious French army wintered in Catalonia; the passes of the maritime
Alps were opened, and the Piedmontese were driven back from Mont Cenis
and the Little St. Bernard. The states-general proclaimed the
establishment of the Batavian republic, and a treaty with France signed
on May 16 placed the Dutch in a position of virtual dependence.
Frederick William, anxious to forward his interests in Poland, had
abandoned the war, and was turning towards peace with France. The
spoliation of Poland, which exercised so deadly an effect on the
fortunes of the coalition, was completed in January, 1795, when Russia
divided the remainder of the country between herself, Austria, and
Prussia by an arrangement confi