d. For a day or two Whitworth was also disturbed by a belated
effort of the French Directory to restore peace. It offered Poland to
the Elector of Saxony, and Saxony to Prussia for her friendly services,
Austria being led to expect Bavaria, if she would keep Russia "within
her ancient limits." Whitworth mentioned this overture to Cobenzl, and
saw him blush for the first time on record.[514] Probably, then, the
scheme had some powerful backing; but now Austria had crossed the
Rubicon.

At first all went well. The French had played a game of bluff which they
could not sustain. On all sides they were worsted in a way which
suggests how decisive the campaign might have been had the Allies
heartily seconded the salutary plans of Pitt. Unfortunately, despite
his efforts, no compact came about between Great Britain and Austria.
Russia and the Hapsburg State were but loosely connected; and, owing to
a long delay in the arrival of the ratification of the Anglo-Russian
Treaty, Paul did not until the beginning of May send forward the
subsidized army under the command of Korsakoff.

On the other hand, the auxiliary Russian force sent forward to the help
of Austria had by that time helped the white-coats to win notable
triumphs in North Italy. In the months of April and May, Melas and the
Imperialists, powerfully backed by Suvoroff's Muscovites, carried all
before them, and drove the enemy from Milan. Soon afterwards the Allies
entered Turin; and only by hard fighting and heavy losses did Moreau
with the chief French army cut his way through to the Genoese coast.
Meanwhile General Macdonald, retiring with a French corps from Naples,
left that city to the vengeance of Nelson and Maria Carolina with
results that are notorious. The French general made a brave stand in
North Italy, only to fall before the onsets of the Allies at the Trebbia
(17th-19th June). He, too, barely escaped to Genoa, where the relics of
the two French armies faced about. These successes aroused the highest
hopes at Westminster. Canning, who resigned his Under-Secretaryship of
Foreign Affairs in March 1799, wrote that he cared not whether the
Austrians were beaten; for their failure would serve as a good example
to Europe. But in June, after their brilliant successes, he expressed a
confident hope of the collapse of "the monstrous fabrick of crimes and
cruelties and abominations" known as French policy; he added that
Prussia could not be so stupid as to hold alo