ch Republic got nothing in return
for their subsidies, while the Prussians on their side chafed at the
insistent demands from London and The Hague for the exact fulfilment of
the bargain. The situation was annoying for military men; and the
British Government erred in tying them down too stringently to a flank
march, which was fraught with danger after the long delay of Pitt in
ratifying the compact (6th-23rd May); while the postponement in the
payment of the first subsidies gave the Prussians a good excuse for
inaction.[414] His remonstrance to the Prussian envoy in London, at the
close of September 1794, was also unwise. For it exceeded the more
measured protests of Grenville, and furnished the Berlin Court with the
desired excuse for recalling its troops from the Rhine. In short, the
campaign of 1794 failed, not so much because the French were in superior
force at the battles of Turcoing and Fleurus, as because the Allies at
no point worked cordially together. The intrusion of political motives
hampered their generals and turned what ought to have been an
overwhelming triumph into a disgracefully tame retreat.

The disasters at Turcoing and Fleurus open up the second stage of the
war. Realizing more and more the difficulty of defending Holland and
Hanover, Pitt seeks to end that campaign and to concentrate on colonial
enterprises and the war in Brittany and la Vendee. Experience of the
utter weakness of his Administration for purposes of war also leads him
to strengthen it at the time of the union with the Old Whigs. They
demanded that their leader, the Duke of Portland, should take the Home
Office. On Dundas demurring to this, Grenville generously assented to
Pitt's suggestion that he should vacate the Foreign Office (6th July).
Fortunately the Duke declined to take it; and Pitt resolved to make
drastic changes, especially by curtailing the functions of the Secretary
of State for Home Affairs, and creating a War Ministry of Cabinet rank.
Some change was clearly requisite; for of late Dundas had supervised
internal affairs, including those of Ireland, as well as the conduct of
the war; as Treasurer of the Navy he managed its finances, and, as
President of the India Board, he sought to control the affairs of that
Empire. As for the War Office, it was a petty office, controlled by a
nonentity, Sir Charles Yonge, who was soon to be transferred to the
Mint.

In the haphazard allotment of military business to the
Comman