With these resources the Allies could not compete. But even had the
troops been forthcoming, their disunion would have rendered victory
impossible. In 1794, when France was preparing with the brightest
prospects to reopen the campaign, the long-standing jealousy between
Austria and Prussia reached its climax. Thugut, the Austrian minister,
disliked his Prussian allies even more than his French enemies, and
carrying to an extreme pitch the traditional selfishness of Austrian
policy, intrigued on all sides for territorial aggrandisement, and
meditated schemes for extending the Austrian dominions in every
quarter of Europe, in Flanders and Alsace, in Turkey and Poland, in
Bavaria and Venice. In the North, Russia drew nearer every day to the
completion of her long-prepared attack on Polish freedom, and Prussia,
determined not to be left aside when her rivals shared the spoils of
Poland, turned her attention and her energies towards the Vistula, when
the sympathies of her king would gladly have turned towards the Rhine.
In vain the English Government threw itself with fresh energy into the
war, laboured to draw the coalition together, and promised generous
supplies. In April, 1794, at the very moment when Malmesbury, the
English envoy at the Hague, was pledging England, Holland and Prussia
to renewed efforts in the war with France, the Polish revolt broke
out at Warsaw, and Kosciusko's brave struggle for freedom diverted
the attention of the Central Powers. It was evident that until the
Polish question was settled, neither Prussia nor Austria would act
with vigour against the French. Accordingly, the French armies on the
North-Eastern frontier, now under the command of Pichegru and Jourdan,
advanced against the divided Allies, defeated them at Turcoign and
Fleurus, and entered Brussels on the 11th July. The conquest of Belgium
and the invasion of Holland followed. While Suvórof stamped out the
insurrection in Poland, and Austria and Russia drew up plans for the
partition of that unhappy country, to which Prussia was afterwards
compelled to accede, the French troops advanced into Holland, drove the
Prince of Orange into flight and occupied the Hague and Amsterdam. At
last Prussia, isolated and alarmed, consented to open negotiations,
and on the 5th April, she definitely separated herself from Austria,
and made peace with France in the Treaty of Bâle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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