organiser, if not as a strategist, was soon to prove himself without equal in Europe. [The Allies seek each their separate ends.] Nevertheless, it was to the dissensions and to the bad policy of the Allies more than to the energy of its own Government that France owed its safety. The object for which the Allies professed to be carrying on the war, the establishment of a pacific Government in France, was subordinated to schemes of aggrandisement, known as the acquisition of just indemnities. While Prussia, bent chiefly on preventing the Emperor from gaining Bavaria in exchange for Belgium, kept its own army inactive on the Rhine, [29] Austria, with the full approval of Pitt's Cabinet, claimed annexations in Northern France, as well as Alsace, and treated the conquered town of Condé as Austrian territory. [30] Henceforward all the operations of the northern army were directed to the acquisition of frontier territory, not to the pursuit and overthrow of the Republican forces. The war was openly converted from a war of defence into a war of spoliation. It was a change which mocked the disinterested professions with which the Allies had taken up arms; in its military results it was absolutely ruinous. In face of the immense levies which promised the French certain victory in a long war, the only hope for the Allies lay in a rapid march to Paris; they preferred the extreme of division and delay. No sooner had the advance of their united armies driven Custine from his stronghold at Famars, than the English commander led off his forces to besiege Dunkirk, while the Austrians, under Prince Coburg, proceeded to invest Cambray and Le Quesnoy. The line of the invaders thus extended from the Channel to Brunswick's posts at Landau, on the border of Alsace; the main armies were out of reach of one another, and their strength was diminished by the corps detached to keep up their communications. The French held the inner circle; and the advantage which this gave them was well understood by Carnot, who now inspired the measures of the Committee. In steadiness and precision the French recruits were no match for the trained armies of Germany; but the supply of them was inexhaustible, and Carnot knew that when they were thrown in sufficient masses upon the enemy their courage and enthusiasm would make amends for their inexperience. The successes of the Allies, unbroken from February to August, now began to alternate with defeats; the flood of invasion was first slowly and obstinately repelled, then swept away before a victorious advance. [York driven from Dunkirk Sept. 8.]