War without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799-1802

by Piers Mackesy

In this revisionist study of warfare in the reign of George III, Piers Mackesy reconstructs the dying struggles of Pitt's ministry as it sought a strategy that would answer its political as well as military needs. Cutting a section through this crucial period, the book reveals the central problems of policy and administration which haunted the whole of the twenty-year struggle with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

Antagonism in the Cabinet is set against the wider background of military operations as the author describes the battle between Lord Grenville, who advocated seeking decisive victory through unlimited warfare, and Henry Dundas, who favoured the pursuit of more limited goals and a 'maritime' strategy. While Pitt balanced uneasily between his feuding colleagues, military planning was frustrated by fragmenting alliances, bitter winter weather, and inadequate manpower and shipping. The turning point was Bonaparte's victory at Marengo, which enable Dundas to abandon the European war. the resulting Cabinet conflict imposed such stress on Pitt that he eventually resigned; while subsequent victories enabled his successor Addington to negotiate the compromise peace that Pitt had desired.

War without Victory demonstrates conclusively that it was the stresses of war which caused the collapse of Pitt's ministry; and by portraying the war in the round, linking policy and strategy to constrictions of logistics and tactics. Piers Mackesy has rewritten the history of this eventful period in terms relevant to twentieth-century experience.

220 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 1984

About the author

Piers Gerald Mackesy was a British military historian who taught at the University of Oxford. Earning his D.Phil at Oriel College, Oxford, he taught at Pembroke College, Oxford from 1954 until his retirement in 1988. He was elected a fellow in the British Academy in 1988.