FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164  
165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   >>   >|  
lumns of whom they lured into the depths of the Bocage and cut down to the last man. As Victor Hugo has finely said: "It was a war of the town against the forest." At first the forest-dwellers threatened to overrun the towns. On 11th June they took Saumur, a town on the Loire, after a desperate fight, and sought to open communication with the coast and the British fleet by seizing Nantes. This attempt, however, failed; and it is generally admitted that they erred in not marching on Paris after their first successes. After gaining a sure base of operations, they should have strained every nerve in order to strike at the heart. And if distance and lack of supplies and equipment shortened their reach, they might at least have carried the war into the rich central provinces, on which the capital subsisted. But the mistake of these poor peasants was venial when compared with those of the Allies. On the capture of Mainz, Conde, and Valenciennes, the Prussian, Austrian, and British commanders did not enforce an unconditional surrender, but offered to allow the garrisons to march out with the honours of war on condition of not serving against them for a year. A better example of shirking present problems at the cost of enhanced difficulties in the future cannot be imagined. By this improvident lenity the Allies enabled the regicides to hurl fully 25,000 trained troops against the royalists of the West and deal them terrible blows. In September and October the Republicans gained considerable successes, especially at Cholet. Soon the Vendean War became little more than a guerilla strife, which Pitt fed by means of arms and stores, but not in the energetic manner desired by Burke and Windham. These ardent royalists constantly pressed him to help the men of Poitou and Brittany, but had to deplore the wearisome delays which then clogged all military and naval operations. Most bitterly did Burke write to Windham, early in November 1793, that Ministers were so eager in seeking to win indemnities from France that they had hardened the national resistance of that nation, and meanwhile had not sent a single shipload of stores to the brave men of Poitou. Of course it was less easy than Burke imagined to get stores across a sea not yet fully commanded by the British fleet, and through inlets and harbours closely watched by the enemy. But the inaction of a force entrusted to the Earl of Moira for the support of the French royalists is cer
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164  
165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

British

 

royalists

 

stores

 

Allies

 

successes

 

Windham

 

Poitou

 

operations

 
imagined
 

forest


energetic

 

trained

 

troops

 

manner

 

regicides

 

improvident

 

constantly

 
pressed
 

ardent

 

desired


enabled
 

lenity

 

Vendean

 

September

 

Cholet

 

Republicans

 

considerable

 

October

 

strife

 

gained


guerilla

 

terrible

 

commanded

 
single
 

shipload

 
inlets
 

support

 

French

 

entrusted

 

closely


harbours

 
watched
 
inaction
 
nation
 

military

 

bitterly

 
clogged
 

deplore

 

Brittany

 

wearisome