THE FRENCH WAR The First Phase.—In the ensuing war the following phases may be noted. First, France had leagued against her Austria, Prussia, Sardinia and Naples, then Great Britain and Holland, and, later, Spain, Portugal, the Holy Roman empire, and (nominally) Russia. But her whole-hearted vigour and their dis cords and intrigues (turning chiefly on the partitions of Poland) finally discomfited their ill-concerted operations, until in
the French levee en masse drove them back on all fronts, the British retiring on Holland. Meanwhile the British navy, hastily manned, had showed up poorly, but in 1794 under Lord Howe gained a notable success over slightly larger numbers on the "Glorious First of June." Lord Hood with the Mediterranean fleet, though driven from Toulon at the close of 1793, yet in
with the help of Captain Nelson, captured three French strong holds in Corsica. After Hood's recall by Earl Spencer, the Medi terranean campaign of 1795 dragged on ineffectively, while in the following winter the French drove back into Hanover the duke of York's army, and forced the Dutch Republic to accept a French alliance.
The defection of Prussia and Spain soon following, the war entered on a second phase (Aug., 1795–Oct.,
England and Austria struggled ever more unsuccessfully against the French arms, directed by Carnot, the "organizer of victory," and thrust home by its executant, Bonaparte. The French invasion of Italy was favoured by Hotham's ineffective handling of our Mediterranean fleet, which, owing to the hostility of the Spaniards, abandoned Corsica and that sea at the end of 1796. Accordingly, in 1797, Bonaparte compelled first Naples then Austria to make peace. Thereafter Great Britain, with slight help from Portugal, bore the brunt of the war. Republican ism in the large towns, and annoyance at the inefficient handling of the campaigns (especially the diffuse and costly operations in the West Indies), had by this time aroused wide-spread discon tent. The New Whigs urged parliamentary reform, which was loudly demanded by great mass meetings and Radical clubs. Pitt and his mechanical majority, reinforced by the Old Whigs, there upon passed repressive measures, and prosecuted, often unsuc cessfully, Tooke, Hardy and other Radicals. Thus the war rent asunder the party of reform, whose pacifist and Francophile left wing was now dubbed unpatriotic. Yet the intensity of the crisis in 1797 helped to stay national disintegration. First, in February the drain of the war compelled the Bank of England to stop cash payments and placed credit on a paper basis for some 20 years. Then, in succession the seamen of the Channel and Nore fleets mutinied for higher pay, the latter blockading the Thames until sheer rascality brought about successful retalia tion, but not before consols had sunk to 481. Next, Pitt's untimely overtures for peace with France met with a condign rebuff from the new extremist and aggressive Directory thrust into power by Bonaparte (September).
Insult, added to peril, now stiffened Pitt's attitude and that of the nation at large. In the third phase (Oct. 1797–Oct. 18o1) all but the wilfully blind saw that the French no longer warred for the liberty of mankind but for their own colonial and commercial domination. Bonaparte's new oriental policy speedily led to the spoliation of the central Swiss cantons and of Rome, the seizure of Malta and the capture of Egypt. The triumph of Nelson at the Nile (Aug. 1, 1798), the capture of Minorca (1798) and Malta (1800) checked his designs and assured the safety of the overland route to the East. Indeed, so far back as 1795, the occupation of Cape Town and the Dutch settlements in Ceylon (due to the foresight of Henry Dundas) had placed the maritime keys of the Orient in British hands. Bonaparte's dream of eastern conquests came to him three years too late, and he was supremely lucky to escape from Egypt to France just in time to be greeted as "conqueror of the East." That illusory title and the far more valid hope of attaining glory and order under his rule enabled him to expel the Directory and make himself first consul (Nov. 1799). Pitt, however, refused to treat seriously a New Year offer of peace ; for he hoped to breathe life into the second coalition of England, Austria, Russia and Naples; but Austro-Russian discords and the blows of Bona parte and Moreau soon sapped its vitality, and it collapsed in the winter of 1800-1.
Meanwhile the Irish malcontents had acted as cat's paws for the French directory, which early in 1798 had fomented a rising with the futile hope of detaining the British fleet in home waters; but the Irish rebellion broke out in May and was sharply re pressed before even a small French force arrived. In 1799-1800, however, the presence of a great Franco-Spanish fleet at Brest encouraged the malcontents, but also strengthened the arguments of Pitt, Grenville, Castlereagh and Cornwallis in favour of a parliamentary union, which resulted in 180o by the use of methods of influencing votes far from uncommon in the Irish parliament. The union was a war measure, concentrating power in one central authority as was then happening in France in the hands of the first consul. (See IRELAND: History.) The sequel was curious. Pitt and most of his colleagues resolved to link with the union a measure for catholic emancipation which indeed the viceroy, Cornwallis, secretly promised to some leading Irish catholics. The king, however, on hearing of this project, declaimed against it so violently that Pitt and a majority of the cabinet resigned.
Another fit of royal lunacy supervened, and during the tardy re covery Pitt weakly promised not to bring up the question again in that reign. He also felt bound informally to help the next prime minister, Henry Addington, whose weakness disgusted most Pittites. Consequently the national party, formerly cemented by Bonaparte's aggressiveness, now went to pieces. Nevertheless, the war ended not unfavourably. The armed neutrality of the league of the Baltic Powers, trumped up against England by Bona parte and his new friend the Tsar Paul, was shattered by Nelson's victory at Copenhagen and the assassination of the tsar. The expulsion of the French from Egypt further conducing to a general stalemate, negotiations for peace led to the signing of the Preliminaries of London on Oct. 1, 1801.
The resulting Treaty of Amiens (March, 1802) was unsatis factory ; for England, though supreme at sea, restored all the con quered enemy colonies, retaining only Trinidad from Spain and the Dutch posts in Ceylon. Yet France kept nearly all her continental conquests along with virtual control over the cordon of republics on the east. England evacuated Minorca, Egypt and the Cape, and reinstated the Knights of St. John at Malta on terms which proved unworkable. The situation became unbearable when Bonaparte intervened in the affairs of Holland, Switzerland and Italy, annexed Elba, and showed his resolve to conquer Egypt and regain the Ionian isles. Addington thereupon demanded the retention of Malta for ten years, and the rupture occurred in May, 1803. His manifest unfitness for so uphill a struggle led to the return of Pitt to power in May, 1804, when Napoleon became emperor of the French.
Owing to the retrocession of the French colonies England's position was less favourable than in 1801, but she defied Napoleon's efforts at invasion, tried to organize an efficient army, improved the militia and volunteers, and swept the seas by fleets which Earl St. Vincent had improved and Lord Barham now perfected. Napoleon's overbearing treatment of neutrals and annexation of Genoa having enraged the emperors of Austria and Russia, Pitt was able to form the third coalition against France. It was stricken to death by those Napoleonic masterpieces, Ulm and Austerlitz; but the coalition strategy, though faultily diffuse, achieved one great success ; Pitt and the Tsar Alexander having sent forces to rescue south Italy, Napo leon ordered to the Mediterranean the Franco-Spanish fleet re fitting at Cadiz. The result was Trafalgar, which averted French domination in that sea and enabled Britain to hold both Sicily and Malta, barriere in f ranchissable as Napoleon termed it, against his eastern designs. Thus Pitt and Nelson by their last efforts assured ultimate victory; for Napoleon, while conquering in turn Austria, Prussia and Russia, lost command of the sea and never realized the eastern plans dearest to his heart.
After Pitt's death a "broad bottom" ministry, nicknamed "of all the Talents," diverted British efforts to the Dardanelles, Rosetta and Monte Video with infelicitous results. Successful in abolishing the slave trade in British vessels, it failed to come to terms with Napoleon in 1806, and his "insincerity" in these nego tiations probably hastened the end of Fox. In March, 1807, when Portland and Canning took up the reins, the nation supported them even in so reprehensible an act as their seizure of the neutral Danish fleet by way of retort to Napoleon's open bid for world supremacy at Tilsit (July–Aug., 1807) .
Napoleon's secret bargain at Tilsit with Alexander for the partition of Turkey led him on into the Spanish adventure of 1808, which turned the Iberian peoples into bitter enemies and furnished England at last with a sure conti nental fulcrum for her army. The Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish efforts in the campaigns of 1808-13, backed by the prudent and untiring genius of Wellington, brought salvation to the three peoples and the hope of deliverance to Europe. The British navy not only carried without fail to the Iron Duke the needed supplies and reinforcements, but also threatened the French coasts and wore down the commerce and finances of Napoleon's empire. His immense expansion of that organism in order to bar out British goods from the Continent never fully achieved that pur pose; for after Trafalgar the sea power won the Cape of Good Hope and most of the French and Dutch colonies, thus giving British trade a virtual monopoly of all tropical produce. There after, the manufactured products were smuggled into his do minions through vantage points such as Anholt, Heligoland, the Channel Islands, the Iberian ports, Sicily and the Ionian islands. Thus his continental system, devised for the ruin of British trade, was ever being punctured, though hermetical seal ing was essential for success. Great Britain's resources were seriously strained in 1810–ii; and her Orders in Council brought about the lamentable war with the United States (1812-14) ; but the yet severer pressure of Napoleon's fiscal decrees led at that time to his rupture with Russia and the tragedy of the Mos cow campaign. Thus his methods led to campaigns brilliant though barren ; hers, to conquests of new lands fraught with infinite promise. The contrast explains the future shrinkage of the French people and the expansion of the British people.
It is impossible to describe here the closing phases of this mighty struggle ; but, as the movements of great peoples register the verdict of history, we may note that, whereas in 1803-05 Great Britain was isolated, in 1813-15 the other Great Powers espoused her cause against Napoleon and assured his overthrow. To this result Wellington had materially contributed by his six peninsular campaigns even more than at Waterloo, for in them (to quote Napier) he won 19 pitched battles, made or sustained ten sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled the French from Portugal, and killed, wounded, and took prison ers 200,000 enemies. With uncertain help from Britain's difficult Spanish and Portuguese allies, he baffled the best of the French marshals at the head of veteran armies, and finally drove them over the Pyrenees, beating them at Orthez and Toulouse.
In his appeal to the prince regent' Napoleon termed the British "the most powerful, the most consistent and the most generous of his enemies" ; and in the negotiations leading to the Peace of Paris, Castlereagh and Wellington sought successfully, with help from Alexander I., to prevent the partition of France by the Germanic Powers. Consequently she was restricted to her old boundaries in Europe, but recovered all of the British naval con quests except St. Lucia, Tobago, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Of her Dutch conquests England restored Java and other East India isles, but retained the Cape, Demerara and Curacao, pay ing to the new kingdom of the United Netherlands as indemnity a sum not exceeding £5,000,000. In Europe the strategic points, Malta, the Ionian isles and Heligoland were also retained. Thus, while the heart of the British empire was protected by the allo cation of the Flemish and Belgic lands to the now friendly Dutch, its outlying_ portions were safeguarded by naval bases, the im portance of which had appeared in hostile designs and actions.
(See also EUROPE : History; PENINSULAR WAR; NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS ; WATERLOO CAMPAIGN ; NAPOLEON ; GEORGE III.) The economic features of the war are remarkable. Thanks to the factory system and Pitt's sound finance the revenue of the United Kingdom rose from £18,900,630 in 1792 to
in 1800 and £71,900,005 in 1815. Textile and hardware manufac tures showed almost uninterrupted increases, as also the tonnage of ships clearing outwards. The population of England and Wales grew from about 8,760,000 in 1790 to 8,892,536 in 1801 (first census) and 10,164,256 in 1811. Yet improved agriculture and stock-breeding (largely due to Arthur Young, Bakewell and others) met these growing needs except after bad harvests. Thus the national vitality, shielded by the navy, defied Napoleon's efforts at commercial strangulation, carried on a costly war and met the financial demands of exigent allies.
