nation.[200] Ultimately the
stiffneckedness of Napoleon brought all the Powers to the latter
solution; but no one in 1793 could foresee the monstrous claim for "the
natural frontiers"--the Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees, and Ocean--which
prolonged the struggle to the year 1814.

Pitt's optimism will appear not unnatural, if we review the general
situation early in the year 1793. The political atmosphere was
disturbed by two cyclones, one in the west, the other in the east, of
Europe. That which centred in the French Revolution seemed to have
reached its maximum intensity; and skilled observers augured from the
execution of Louis XVI a relapse into savage but almost helpless
anarchy. The recent successes of the French in the Rhineland and Brabant
were rightly ascribed to the supineness of Prussia and Austria; and
already the armies of Custine and Dumouriez were in sore straits. The
plunder of the liberated peoples by the troops and by commissioners sent
to carry out the decrees of fraternity had led to sharp reprisals all
along the straggling front from Mainz to Bruges; and now Danton's decree
of 31st January, annexing the Belgic provinces to France, exasperated
that people.

Further, the men in power at Paris had as yet shown no organizing
capacity. The administration of the War Department by "papa" Pache had
been a masterpiece of imbecile knavery which infuriated Dumouriez and
his half-starving troops. We have heard much of the blunders of British
Ministers in this war; but even at their worst they never sank to the
depths revealed in the correspondence of Dumouriez with Pache. In truth,
both Powers began the war very badly; but France repaired her faults far
more quickly, chiefly because the young democracy soon came to award the
guillotine for incompetent conduct over which the nepotism of Whitehall
spread a decent cloak. The discovery by the Jacobins of the law of the
survival of the fittest served to array the military genius of France
against Court favourites or the dull products of the system of
seniority.

For the present, the misery of the French troops, the immense extent of
their lines, and the singular ingratitude of the liberated peoples,
promised a speedy reversal of the campaign of 1792. For the re-conquest
of Belgium, the Allies now had ready on or near the Rhine 55,000
Austrians under the Duke of Coburg. On their right were 11,000
Prussians, under Frederick of Brunswick-Oels, and 13,000 Hanoverians,
destined