It is now necessary to sum up the relative conditions of France and the Allies at the close of 1793. The British enterprises against the French at Dunkirk, in La Vendée, and at Toulon had one and all failed; but the tale of disaster was even then not fully told. Upon arrogating to itself the appointment of Generals in the field, the Committee of Public Safety had appointed ◆Oct.–Nov.◆ Pichegru and Hoche to command respectively the armies of the Rhine and Moselle. Pichegru had been a non-commissioned officer of artillery before the Revolution, had since obtained command of a battalion of volunteers, and, by assiduous courting of the Jacobin leaders, had become a Lieutenant-general without seeing a shot fired. Hoche, as we have seen, had risen from the ranks of the French Guards, had distinguished himself in high command at Dunkirk, and, above all, had attracted Carnot’s attention by a memorandum condemning the dispersion of troops after the Austrian manner, and advocating everywhere concentration and a vigorous offensive. “This young fellow will go far,” said Carnot, as he handed the document to Robespierre. “A very dangerous man!” objected the other, who dreaded the success of any man except himself. The task prescribed to Hoche was to relieve Landau, then blockaded by the Prussians; but he found his army in such ill condition that he hesitated to attempt anything until strengthened by Pichegru, when he made a general attack upon the Prussians under the Duke of Brunswick at Kaiserslautern, and was beaten back with heavy loss. ◆Nov. 28–30.◆ Thanks to Carnot’s influence, however, his failure was forgiven to him; and his new project, that he should reinforce Pichegru with two-thirds of his troops and fall upon the Austrians under General Wurmser at Hagenau, was approved. Wurmser perceived the gathering storm, and appealed to Brunswick for help; but King Frederick William had expressly forbidden the Duke to engage himself in any important operations, and the Prussians did not move until too late. ◆Dec. 23.◆ On the 23rd of December Hoche opened his attack with great skill and success, and would have annihilated Wurmser, had not Brunswick interfered at the last moment to check the pursuit of the French. ◆Dec. 26.◆ The Austrian commander, furious because Brunswick had not supported him from the first, then returned to the eastern bank of the Rhine, thus uncovering the Prussian left, and obliging them likewise to abandon the greater part of the Palatinate, and to content themselves with protecting the neighbourhood of Mainz. Landau, therefore, was recaptured by the French; the eastern frontier of France was purged of the enemy; and, above all, the ill-feeling between Austria and Prussia was more than ever embittered. Broadly speaking, the French by the close of the year had contended successfully alike with the Coalition and with internal foes, having lost ground only in the Eastern Pyrenees to Spain,