Further, the men in power at Paris had as yet shown no organizing capacity. The administration of the War Department by "papa" Pache had been a masterpiece of imbecile knavery which infuriated Dumouriez and his half-starving troops. We have heard much of the blunders of British Ministers in this war; but even at their worst they never sank to the depths revealed in the correspondence of Dumouriez with Pache. In truth, both Powers began the war very badly; but France repaired her faults far more quickly, chiefly because the young democracy soon came to award the guillotine for incompetent conduct over which the nepotism of Whitehall spread a decent cloak. The discovery by the Jacobins of the law of the survival of the fittest served to array the military genius of France against Court favourites or the dull products of the system of seniority. For the present, the misery of the French troops, the immense extent of their lines, and the singular ingratitude of the liberated peoples, promised a speedy reversal of the campaign of 1792. For the re-conquest of Belgium, the Allies now had ready on or near the Rhine 55,000 Austrians under the Duke of Coburg. On their right were 11,000 Prussians, under Frederick of Brunswick-Oels, and 13,000 Hanoverians, destined for Guelderland. These last were to be paid by the Maritime Powers. In reserve were 33,000 Prussians, under Hohenlohe-Kirchberg. For the invasion of Eastern France, Frederick William of Prussia marshalled, near Frankfurt, a force of 42,000 of his own troops, together with 14,000 other Germans. Further south was General Wurmser with 24,000 Austrians. And this was not all. The Holy Roman Empire promised a force of 120,000, whenever its Translucencies, Bishops, Abbesses, and Knights could muster them; and further east there loomed the hosts of Russia. If these forces had been used straightforwardly, France must have been overborne.[201] But the half of them were not used at all. Before the campaign opened, the eastern cyclone drew to itself the energies which ostensibly were directed against France. Just one week before the execution of Louis XVI, five Prussian columns crossed the borders of Poland. This act aroused a furious outcry, especially as Frederick William preluded it by a manifesto hypocritically dwelling upon the danger of allowing Jacobinism to take root in Poland. Fears of Prussian and Muscovite rapacity had induced Pitt and Grenville to seek disclaimers of partition at Berlin and St. Petersburg. Assurances enough were forthcoming. On 29th January 1793 Markoff sought to convince Whitworth that no partition was intended.[202] But in view of the entire passivity of Pitt on the Polish Question since his surrender to Catharine in 1791 the two Powers laid their plans for the act of robbery which took place a few months later.[203]