It is also well to remember that systematic preparation for war was an outcome of that struggle. Conscription was a bequest of the French Revolution. Planned first by Carnot, it was carried out by Dubois Crance and others in 1798. But in 1793 the days of large armies had not dawned. It was usual to maintain small forces of professional soldiers, together with a more or less inefficient militia. In England methods not unlike those of the age of Falstaff still held good. War was an adventure, not a science. In France first it became an intensely national effort. The Jacobins evoked the popular enthusiasm; the Committee of Public Safety embodied it in citizen armies; and the science of Carnot and Napoleon led them to victories which shattered the old-world systems and baffled the forecasts of Pitt. Let us briefly survey the conduct of the war by Pitt in its chief stages up to the year 1798. The first period is from the declaration of war in February 1793, to the Battle of Fleurus, near the close of June 1794. At the outset he is alarmed by the irruption of Dumouriez into Holland, and hastily sends a small British force under the Duke of York, solely for the defence of Helvoetsluys and its neighbourhood. It answers its purpose; the French are held up at the Hollandsdiep, while the Austrians crush their main force at Neerwinden. Thereupon Coburg claims the Duke's assistance in driving the Republicans from the fortresses of French Flanders. Pitt and his colleagues give their assent, because the enterprise seems easy after the defection of Dumouriez, and Dunkirk is a tempting prize near to hand, but mainly owing to their urgent desire that Austria shall find her indemnity not in Bavaria, but in the French border fortresses. Thus, for reasons which are political, rather than military, the Cabinet embarks an insufficient force on what proves to be a lengthy and hazardous enterprise. Further, while the British push on, Prussia holds back; so that the Duke of York virtually takes the place of the Prussian contingent. Unaware of the duplicity of Berlin, and trusting that the Allies will soon master the border strongholds, Pitt and Dundas prepare to harry the coasts of France, and to secure her most valuable colony, Hayti. These are their chief aims in the war. But, while preparing maritime expeditions, they also drift into a continental campaign, from which they find it hard to withdraw.