But the mistake of these poor peasants was venial when compared with those of the Allies. On the capture of Mainz, Condé, 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 Vendéan 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 certainly discreditable to him and to Ministers. Among them the Duke of Richmond, Master of Ordnance, distinguished himself by his incapacity and his ridiculous orders. Another obvious misfit was Lord Chatham at the Admiralty. But how can we explain the inactivity of four regiments in the Channel Islands all the summer? Surely they could have seized St. Malo or the Quiberon Peninsula.[228] Such a diversion would have been highly effective. For the Bretons and Vendéans, when supplied with arms, could have marched eastwards and roused the royalists of Normandy, Maine, and Touraine. With so potent a foe near to Paris, must not the regicides have been overborne by Coburg in Flanders? Everything tends to show that the Republicans feared the royalists of the West more than the Austrians in the North. But, as will appear in a later chapter, Pitt and Dundas decided to throw their strength into the West Indies. On 26th November 1793, Sir John Jervis sailed for that deadly bourne with 7,000 troops.
Events were soon to reveal the seriousness of this mistake. It was far more important to strike at Paris through Brittany than to occupy even the richest of the French West Indies. For a triumphant advance of the Bretons and Vendéans must not only have lessened the material resources of the Republic but also have deprived its defenders of one of their chief advantages. Hitherto the Republicans had been better massed together, while their assailants were spread over wide spaces. It is a well-known principle in war that an army operating on an inner arc, or what are termed interior lines, has a great advantage over forces spread over the outer circumference. The Allies then held the Pyrenees, the Maritime Alps, the Rhine, and most of Flanders, Brittany, and parts of the South. The defenders, possessing the central provinces, could mass their units far more quickly and choose the point on that outer curve against which they would aim their blow.
This principle was thoroughly understood by Carnot. Near the centre of the circle he massed the levies that were to save the Republic, and, confiding them to zealots who were resolved to conquer or die, he soon had on foot armies which, however contemptible as units, were formidable from their weight and their enthusiasm. As in mechanics the mass multiplied by the speed gives the effective force, so in the campaign of 1793 the levée en masse multiplied by enthusiasm and impelled by the brain power of Carnot begot a momentum which, when brought to bear on light, scattered, and almost stationary bodies, proved to be irresistible. For while Carnot trusted to concentration, the Allies either sank into inertia, or made ex-centric movements which ultimately played into their opponents' hands. The Prussians, after taking Mainz, did little more than rest on their laurels, their only move being towards Luxemburg. Coburg was inclined to follow their example on the ground that an advance to Paris would unite all the French parties against him, while the siege of the remaining fortresses in the North would allow anarchy to run riot at the centre.[229] The argument is a good example of political finesse applied to a military problem, with disastrous results. Coburg therefore set about the siege of Quesnoy.
Certainly he could urge in excuse that the British Government now insisted on the resumption of its favourite plan, the capture of that nest of privateers, Dunkirk. On receipt of the news of the surrender of Valenciennes, an order was sent to the Duke of York to begin the siege of that once important stronghold, and capture it for Great Britain, though it might be allowed finally to fall to the Emperor as one of his new Barrier fortresses, provided that we gained indemnities in other parts of the world. French and German historians, with their usual bias against Great Britain, have assumed that she had resolved to keep Dunkirk. The contrary is proved by the despatches of Dundas to Murray, and by a letter of Sir Gilbert Elliot whom Pitt appointed commissioner to regulate affairs at Dunkirk. Writing to Lady Elliot on 10th September Sir Gilbert says: "No further conquests are to be made in that quarter in the name of Great Britain, nor is it intended to retain Dunkirk after the peace."[230] A speedy capture of Dunkirk was evidently expected, for the same despatch ordered that the Hessian corps, some 8,000 strong, then with the Duke, must be held in readiness to depart to some other destination.[231] This referred either to the expedition in the Mediterranean (soon to be noticed) or to another, also in course of preparation, against Brittany. The Duke of York disapproved of the divergence towards Dunkirk, and the withdrawal of troops from his command.[232]
We here touch upon the weak side of Pitt's war policy. His aims at first had been merely to defend England from invasion, and to use the fleet and as many troops as could well be spared, to threaten various points along the coast of France and to capture her colonies. From these comparatively simple aims he had been drawn aside into a continental campaign, owing to the desirability of re-establishing Austria firmly in the Pays Bas. That is to say, a political aim drew him away from the simple and effective plan of a maritime and colonial war. Or rather it would be more correct to say that he tried to carry on a limited continental campaign as well as the coast expeditions which promised to paralyse the activities of large numbers of Frenchmen.
Accordingly, Pitt and his colleagues, instead of concentrating their activities on Flanders, prepared also to harass the coasts and colonies of France, and to withdraw part of the Duke of York's force for service in the Mediterranean or the West Indies. Instructions to this effect annoyed both the duke and Coburg. Most reluctantly did the latter consent to the divergence of the British towards Dunkirk; but, as he had already decided to spend the rest of the campaign in reducing the border fortresses, the division of forces had none of those appalling results which Alison and others have detected. The duke's corps, then, turned off to the right, and, after gaining