33,200
[_sic_--really 34,200.]

This Force may be estimated (allowing for some deduction) at
30,000 men. To this may possibly be added some Force from
Corsica, and probably early in the spring, an additional body of
11,000 Sardinians, perhaps also of 10,000 Austrians, and some
troops of Baden from hence. Possibly also a body of Swiss, and
in the course of the next summer (if the expedition to the West
Indies is successful) about 4,000 or 5,000 British on their
return from the Islands. If 10,000, or 12,000, Swiss can be
secured, it seems not unreasonable to expect that, by the
beginning of next year, there may be an army in the South of
France of near 60,000 men.

Pitt, then, regarded Toulon as the base of operations in the South of
France so extensive as to deal a decisive blow at the Republic. The
scheme was surely due to the influence of Bacchus rather than of Mars.
For how was it possible to spare 6,200 men from the Duke of York's
force, then hard pressed after its retreat from Dunkirk? The estimate of
the Sardinian contingent was based on the treaty obligations of that
Power rather than on probable performance; while that for the Spaniards
is strangely beneath the mark. How boyishly hopeful also to suppose that
the British forces destined for the future conquest of Corsica could
spare a contingent for service in Provence in the spring of 1794, and
that the nervous little Court of Turin would send an _additional_ body
of 11,000 men far into France. Thus early in Pitt's strategic
combinations we can detect the vitiating flaw. He did not know men, and
therefore he did not know Cabinets. He believed them to be acting
according to his own high standard of public duty and magnanimous
endeavour. Consequently he never allowed for the calculating meanness
which shifted the burdens on to other shoulders.

The one factor on which he had a right to count was the despatch of a
respectable force of Austrians from the Milanese by way of Genoa. The
Austrian Governor of Milan promised to send 5,000 men; but not a man
ever stirred.[251] Hood did not hear this disappointing news till 24th
November.[252] He at once sent off to London an urgent request for
succour; and orders were given _on 23rd December_ (the day after the
arrival of the news) for three regiments to sail from Cork for his
relief. Thus it came about that 12,000 All