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The Year 1795 in the Atlantic and on the Continent.

THE year 1795 was for France one of reaction and lassitude. The wave of popular ferment which had been rushing forward since the fall of the royalty, gathering strength and volume, and driving before it all wills and all ambitions, crested and broke in July, 1794. Like the breakers of the seashore, a part of the accumulated momentum was expended in a tumultuous momentary advance, of increased force but diminishing depth, and then recession followed. The forward and backward impulses met and mingled, causing turmoil and perplexing currents of popular feeling, but the pure republican movement had reached the highest point it was destined to attain. It had stirred France to its depths, and brought to the surface many a gem which under quieter conditions would have remained hidden from the eyes of men; but, in the confusion and paralysis which followed, these were left stranded and scattered, waiting for the master hand which should combine them and set each in its proper sphere for the glory of France.

The recoil which followed the death of Robespierre took shape in several ways, all tending at once to lessen the internal vigor of the government, and to deprive it of means hitherto possessed for external effort. The revulsion to mercy provoked by his bloody tyranny was accompanied by sentiments of vengeance against the men who were, or were supposed to be, identified with his policy. The indulgence extended to those before proscribed brought them back to France in numbers, clamorous for revenge. These discordant sentiments, agitating the Convention as well as the people, the provinces as well as Paris, shattered that unity of purpose which had been the strength of the government after the fall of the Girondists, and during the domination of the Jacobins. At the same time were revoked the measures by which the Revolutionary Government, living as it did from hand to mouth, had provided for its immense daily necessities. The law of the Maximum, by which dealers were forbidden to charge beyond a certain fixed price for the prime necessaries of life, was repealed. The paper money, already depreciated, fell rapidly, now that the seller could demand as much as he wished for articles of universal consumption. The government, obliged to receive the assignats at their face value in payment of dues, sought to meet its difficulty by increased issues, which accelerated the decline. At the same time, requisitions in kind having been suppressed, as part of the reaction from a rule of force, supplies of all sorts were with difficulty obtained. Distress, lack of confidence, abounded in all directions; speculation ran riot, and the government, having relaxed the spring of terror, that most powerful of motives until it becomes unendurable, found itself drifting into impotence. These various measures were not completed till near the end of 1794; and the evil effect was, therefore, not immediately felt in the armies—whose wants were also in part supplied by liberal demands upon their new allies in Holland. Boissi d'Anglas, in a speech made January 30, 1795, in the Convention, and adopted by that body as voicing its own sentiments, declared that the armies would demonstrate to Europe that, far from being exhausted by the three years of war, France had only augmented her resources. The year then opening was to witness to the emptiness of the boast, until Bonaparte by his military genius laid the Continent again at her feet.

The internal history of France during this year, though marked by many and important events, can be briefly summed up. The policy of reconciliation towards the classes who had most suffered under Jacobin rule was pursued by the government; but against the party lately dominant the reaction that set in was marked by many and bloody excesses. If in the North and West the insurgent Vendeans and Chouans accepted the proffered pardon of the Convention, in the South and East the reactionary movement produced a terror of its own; in which perished, by public massacre or private assassination, several thousand persons, many of whom had not been terrorists, but simply ardent republicans. In Paris, the Jacobins, though depressed and weakened by the loss of so many of their leaders, did not at once succumb; and the tendency to agitation was favored in that great centre by the poverty of the people and the scarcity of food. On the 1st of April, and again on the 20th of May, the halls of the Convention were invaded by crowds of men, women and children, demanding bread and the constitution of 1793. On the latter occasion a member of the Convention was shot while endeavoring to cover the president with his body, and the greater part of the deputies fled from the hall. Those who remained, belonging mostly to the old Mountain, voted certain propositions designed to calm the people; but the next day the crowd was driven out by the national guard from some sections of the city, and the reaction resumed its course with increased force and renewed thirst for vengeance. The deputies who had remained and voted the propositions of May 20 were impeached, and the arrest was ordered of all members of the Committees which had governed during the Terror, except Carnot and one other.

The following month, June, the project for a new constitution was submitted to the Convention, and by it adopted on the 22d of August. It provided for an Executive Directory of five members, and a Legislature of two Chambers; the upper to be called the Council of the Elders, the lower the Council of Five Hundred. To this scheme of a constitution, the Convention appended a decree that two thirds of the new Legislature must be taken from the members of the existing Convention. The Constitution and the decree were submitted to the country in September. The Provinces accepted both, but Paris rejected the decree; and the protest against the latter took form on the 4th of October in the revolt of the Sections—a movement of the bourgeoisie and reactionists against the Convention, which on this occasion fell back for support upon the party identified with the Jacobins. The defence of the Hall of Legislature and of its members was entrusted to Barras, who committed the military command to General Bonaparte, from whose skilful dispositions the assault of the Sections everywhere recoiled. On the 26th of October the National Convention dissolved, after an existence of three years and one month. On the 27th the new Legislature began its sittings; and the upper council at once elected the Executive Directory. Among its five members was Carnot.

On the sea the year 1795 was devoid of great or even striking events. On the 22d of February the six ships destined for Toulon, which had been driven back early in the month with the rest of the Brest fleet, again set sail under the command of Admiral Renaudin, and, although much delayed by heavy westerly winds in the Atlantic, reached their destination in safety early in April. Not an enemy's ship was seen on the way. The Channel fleet had gone back to Spithead as soon as Howe learned that the Brest fleet had returned to port after the disastrous January cruise; while in the Mediterranean the British, now under Admiral Hotham, were at anchor in a roadstead of Corsica when Renaudin drew near Toulon. This made the French in the Mediterranean twenty to the British thirteen. "What the new Lords of the Admiralty are after," wrote Nelson, "to allow such a detachment to get out here, surprises us all." [100]

Under the new admiralty small divisions of the Channel fleet continued to cruise to the westward or in the Bay of Biscay; but not until the 12th of June did the main body, under Lord Bridport, put to sea. Ten days later, numbering then fourteen sail-of-the-line, it fell in with Villaret's fleet of twelve ships close in with its own coast, about eighty miles south of Brest. This meeting was due to a succession of incidents which are worthy of narration, as showing the conditions of the war and the prostration of the French navy. The supplies of the squadron at Brest and L'Orient, as well as much of the local traffic of the country, were carried by small coasting vessels rather than by inland roads. A division of three ships-of-the-line was sent to protect a numerous convoy coming from Bordeaux. On the 8th of June these vessels encountered the British division of five ships cruising in the Bay of Biscay, which took from it eight of the convoy before they could escape under the land. When news of this reached Brest, Villaret was ordered to take the nine ships that alone were then ready for sea and join the other three. This junction was made, and on the 16th of June the twelve again fell in with the British five, which, after temporarily withdrawing, had returned to their cruising ground. Chase was of course given, and as two of the British sailed very badly there was a good prospect that either they would be taken, or the rest of the division compelled to come down to their aid; which, with the disparity of force, ought to result in the capture of the whole. The admiral, Cornwallis, behaved with the utmost firmness and coolness; but with such odds and the disadvantage of speed, no courage nor conduct can avert some disaster. The inefficiency and bad gunnery of the French saved their enemies. After a cannonade which lasted from nine in the forenoon of the 17th until six in the evening, one British ship had thirteen men wounded, and Villaret abandoned the pursuit.

Five days later Bridport's fleet was sighted, and the French being inferior stood in for their coast, intending to anchor and await action under the island called Groix. The pursuit continued with light airs all day and night; but at daybreak of June 23 the fastest British were within three miles of the slowest of the French, which opened fire at six A.M. All Villaret's signals could not bring his fleet into line, nor induce the undoubtedly brave, but ill trained, men who commanded the faster ships to take station for the support of the slower. A desultory action continued till half-past eight, ending in the capture of three French vessels, the last hauling down her flag within a mile of Île Groix. Bridport then called his ships off. It is the opinion of French writers, apparently shared by English critics, [101] that if he had pursued energetically, the remainder of the enemy must either have been taken or run ashore to avoid that fate. As it was, Villaret was permitted to get into L'Orient without molestation, although to do so he had to wait till the tide served. Such was the extreme circumspection characterizing the early naval operations of the British, until Jervis and Nelson enkindled their service with the relentless energy of spirit inspired by Bonaparte on land. Those to whom St. Vincent and the Nile, Algesiras and Copenhagen, have become history, see with astonishment nine ships of capital importance permitted to escape thus easily from fourteen; forgetting the hold tradition has on the minds of men, and that it belongs to genius to open the way into which others then eagerly press. How the admiralty viewed Bridport's action may be inferred from his retaining command of the fleet until April, 1800. The ships that reached L'Orient had to remain till the winter, when they slipped back two or three at a time to Brest.

The disaster at Île Groix, with some similar small misfortunes in the Mediterranean, [102] accompanied as they were by evidences, too plain to be any longer overlooked, of the inefficiency both of officers and men in the French fleets, determined the government to abandon all attempt to contest the supremacy of the sea. To this contributed also the extreme destitution, in the dockyards, of all sorts of stores for equipment or provision. With the English Channel and the forests of Corsica in the hands of Great Britain, the customary sources of supply were cut off; and moreover the providing for the navy—not the most cherished of the national institutions—met with the same difficulty as was experienced by other branches of the public service in the depreciation of the assignats, with which alone naval administrators could pay contractors. At the end of 1795 twelve hundred francs in paper were worth scarce twenty in gold. Having accepted naval inferiority as a necessary condition, the Committee of Public Safety resolved to maintain the great fleets in the ports simply as a threat to the enemy, and to send to sea only small divisions to prey upon his commerce and to levy tribute upon his colonies.

From the end of 1795 forward, this policy prevailed and was finally accepted even by the emperor after several attempts, fruitless through the incompetence of his sea-officers, to realize on the sea that employment of great masses in which he so wonderfully excelled on land. The reluctance of his supreme genius to accede to this system of petty war may be accepted as testimony that on sea, as on shore, great results can only be expected by wielding great masses. Upon this conclusion history too has set its seal; for the squadron and division warfare of the French navy, seconded though it was by hosts of commerce-destroyers, public and private, produced practically no results, had absolutely no effect upon the issue of the war. On the other hand, that Napoleon, when convinced that he could expect nothing decisive from his fleet, accepted the use of it as a means of harassment or of diversion, must be received as a weighty indication of the naval policy suited to the inferior power. To assume a menacing attitude at many points, to give effect to the menace by frequent and vigorous sorties, to provoke thus a dispersion of the enemy's superior force, that he may be led to expose detachments to attack by greater numbers—such must be the outline of conduct laid down for the weaker navy. But that such a course may be really effective—that the inferior may, as in some of Bonaparte's wonderful campaigns, become ultimately superior—there must be at some fitly chosen point of the sea frontier a concentrated body of ships; whose escape, if effected, may be the means of inflicting a great disaster upon the enemy by crushing one or more of the exposed fractions of his fleet. Unless there be such a central mass, mere dissemination is purposeless. Inferiority carried beyond a certain degree becomes impotence; nor will all the commerce-destroyers fancy can picture restore the balance to the nation hopelessly weaker in ships of the line-of-battle.

On land as well as on sea weakness was stamped on the military movements of the year 1795. Its diplomatic successes were due to the arms of 1794. Early in the year Pichegru was removed from Holland to the upper Rhine, being succeeded by Moreau. Between the armies commanded by these two lay that of the Sambre and Meuse, still under Jourdan, concentrated on the left bank of the Rhine between Dusseldorf and Coblentz. It was provided that, in case of the three armies acting together, the chief command should be with Pichegru. The removal of the restraint enforced by the Terror was evidenced in these Northern forces by the number of desertions during the severity of this unusual winter. In the army of Italy the case was even worse; and the frightful destitution of the soldiers, made known a year later in Bonaparte's celebrated proclamation upon taking command, led to even greater losses from the ranks. Toward the end of January seventeen thousand men were detached from this army to Toulon to take part in a projected invasion of Corsica. The expedition never sailed; but such was the horror inspired by the sufferings they had undergone that the hardiest soldiers forsook their colors, and of two fine divisions not ten thousand men rejoined the army. [103]

Under such conditions military operations could not but be sluggish; the genius of a Bonaparte was needed to supply the impetus which the emasculated central government could no longer impart. The great Carnot, also, had been removed from the direction of the war, March 4, 1795, under the law prescribing periodic changes of members in the Committee of Public Safety. The fall of Luxembourg, already mentioned, was obtained only by the slow process of blockade. Not till September, when the season was nearly over, did the French armies move; Jourdan and Pichegru being then directed to undertake a concerted invasion, from their widely separated positions, intending to form a junction in the enemy's country. Jourdan crossed the Rhine, advanced south as far as the Main, and invested Mayence, the Austrians retiring before him. Pichegru received the capitulation of Mannheim, which opened its gates upon the threat of bombardment without receiving a shot. He showed no vigor in following this success, and his dilatory ill-combined movements permitted the Austrian general, Clairfayt, to concentrate his armies in a central position between the Main and Mannheim, parting the two French leaders. The new direction of war, either through folly, or from sharing the growing inefficiency of the general government, had failed to accumulate the supplies of all kinds needed by the masses thus gathered in a wild and impoverished region. Clairfayt combined a powerful movement against the destitute and suffering army of Jourdan, compelling him to retreat and recross the Rhine. Leaving a corps of observation before him and holding Pichegru in check on the south, he then himself crossed the river at Mayence and assaulted vigorously the lines on the left bank with which the enemy during the past year had surrounded the place. The blockading forces were driven back in divergent directions; and the Austrians in increasing numbers poured into the country west of the river, separating Jourdan from Pichegru.

It was at this moment that the National Convention was dissolving and the Directory assuming the reins of government. Carnot became one of its five members. Impressed by the importance of retaining Mannheim, the loss of which was threatened by the recent reverses, he sent urgent orders to Jourdan to move south to the support of his colleague, using his own judgment as to the means. It was too late. The mingled weakness and ignorance of the preceding government had caused a destitution of means and an inferiority of force wholly inadequate to cope with the superior strategic position of the Austrian masses. Mannheim, which had surrendered on the 20th of September, was regained on the 22d of November by the Austrians, who at once re-enforced the troops on the west bank, acting against Pichegru, while Clairfayt pushed further back the other French army. With this success his brilliant operations closed for the year. The weather had become excessively bad, causing great sickness; and on the 19th of December he proposed an armistice, which Jourdan was only too glad to accept. The Austrians, who when the year opened were east of the Rhine, remained in force on the west bank, holding well-advanced positions based upon Mayence and Mannheim—the two capital places for sustaining operations on either side of the river.

The suspension of arms lasted until May 30, 1796, when the French, having given the notification required by the terms of the armistice, again crossed the river and began hostilities. But, although great and instructive military events followed this new undertaking, the centre of interest had by this time shifted from the north and east to the Italian frontier of the republic, where the successes of Bonaparte enchained it until the Peace of Campo Formio dissolved the coalition against France. That dazzling career had begun which becomes, thenceforth until its close, the main thread of French history, to which other incidents have to be referred, and by following which their mutual relations are most easily understood. We have reached therefore the period when a naval narrative reverts naturally to the Mediterranean; for Bonaparte's Italian campaigns profoundly affected the political and maritime conditions in that sea. Upon it also he next embarked for the extraordinary enterprise, condemned by many as chimerical, and yet so signally stamped by the characteristics of his genius, in which he first came into collision with the Sea Power of Great Britain, destined to ruin his career, and with the great seaman in whom that Sea Power found the highest expression it has ever attained.

"During the year 1795," says the distinguished military historian of these wars, "France, after a twelvemonth of victory, came near losing all her conquests; threatened with a dangerous internal reaction, she only with difficulty succeeded in freeing herself from embarrassments and modifying the defects of her institutions. The next year we shall find her launched in a yet vaster career, by the great captain who so long presided over her destinies, who raised her to the pinnacle of glory by his victories, and thence plunged her to the abyss through disregard of justice and moderation." [104]