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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77267 ***
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                           GREAT COMMANDERS
+                            OF MODERN TIMES
+
+                                  AND
+
+                         THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                       WILLIAM O’CONNOR MORRIS.
+
+
+                         _Reprinted from the_
+              “ILLUSTRATED NAVAL AND MILITARY MAGAZINE.”
+
+
+   “Faites la guerre offensive comme Alexandre, Annibal, César,
+   Gustave Adolphe, Turenne, le Prince Eugène et Fredéric; lisez,
+   relisez l’histoire de leurs quatre vingt trois campagnes;
+   modelez vous sur eux.”--NAPOLEON.
+
+
+                 LONDON: W. H. ALLEN AND CO., LIMITED,
+                           AND AT CALCUTTA.
+
+                                 1891.
+
+                       (_All Rights Reserved._)
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+               PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., LIMITED,
+                          13, WATERLOO PLACE.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+                   GREAT COMMANDERS OF MODERN TIMES.
+
+
+                                                       PAGE
+
+    PREFACE                                               v
+
+    INTRODUCTION                                          1
+
+    CHAPTER  I.--TURENNE                                  12
+
+       „    II.--MARLBOROUGH                              36
+
+       „   III.--FREDERICK THE GREAT                      68
+
+       „    IV.--NAPOLEON                                102
+
+       „     V.--   „ (_continued_)                      125
+
+       „    VI.--   „ (_continued_)                      157
+
+       „   VII.--   „ (_continued_)                      186
+
+       „  VIII.--   „  (_continued_)                     214
+
+       „    IX.--WELLINGTON                              238
+
+       „     X.--MOLTKE                                  274
+
+
+                         THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.
+
+    CHAPTER I.                                           315
+
+       „   II.                                           335
+
+
+
+
+                                LIST OF
+
+                    MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+    FREDERICK THE GREAT                                  _Frontispiece_
+
+    TURENNE                                      _To face page_      12
+
+    THEATRE OF WAR IN GERMANY                          „             20
+
+    THEATRE OF WAR IN THE LOW COUNTRIES                „             28
+
+    MARLBOROUGH                                        „             36
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1704                    „             44
+
+    THEATRE OF CAMPAIGNS IN BELGIUM AND THE NORTH
+      OF FRANCE                                        „             54
+
+    THEATRE OF THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR                    „             76
+
+    BATTLES OF PRAGUE AND ZORNDORF                     „             78
+
+    SEIDLITZ AT ROSSBACH                               „             83
+
+    BATTLES OF ROSSBACH AND LEUTHEN                    „             85
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH ITALY             „            110
+
+    SKETCH MAP OF CENTRAL EUROPE                       „            128
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1809                    „            160
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812                    „            174
+
+    NAPOLEON WATCHING THE BURNING OF MOSCOW            „            178
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813                    „            188
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814                    „            206
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815                    „            218
+
+    NEY AT WATERLOO                                    „            226
+
+    WELLINGTON                                         „            238
+
+    THEATRE OF THE PENINSULA WAR                       „            244
+
+    WELLINGTON AT TALAVERA                             „            248
+
+    MOLTKE AND HIS MASTER                              „            274
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1866                    „            281
+
+    THEATRE OF THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1870–71                „            288
+
+    MAP OF BELGIUM                                     „            315
+
+    “THE IDOL OF THE SOLDIER’S SOUL”                   „            320
+
+    ENGLAND’S HOPE, 1815                               „            324
+
+    “TAMBOUR, FAITES-MOI CADEAU D’UNE PRISE!”          „            338
+
+    PLAN OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF WATERLOO                „            350
+
+
+
+
+                               PREFACE.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+This volume consists of a series of essays on Great Commanders of
+Modern Times, and of two papers on the Campaign of 1815. I have to
+thank the Editor of _The Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine_,
+in which these studies originally appeared, for thinking them worthy
+of republication; and my acknowledgments are due to the press for many
+favourable notices. The text has been revised and slips of the pen
+corrected; but I have made no substantial change in what I had at first
+written.
+
+A civilian, who attempts to treat of military affairs, ought to bear in
+mind the remark of Hannibal to the Greek sophist--“It is pretty, but it
+is all nonsense.” Yet it is with the art of war as with lesser arts;
+the unprofessional inquirer can attain knowledge of leading truths,
+though he may not be able to master technical details. Thucydides
+was perhaps not a soldier, but he observed this principle, and his
+narrative of the siege of Syracuse is a masterpiece. An ordinary writer
+is not worthy to unloose the shoe latchet of Thucydides; but he may,
+in this matter, imitate the method of the great Athenian; and if he
+has fair intelligence, works hard, and devotes laborious hours to
+reflecting on the exploits of great captains, he may become, in some
+measure, a sound military critic. These essays are not, I trust, wholly
+devoid of the only merits I claim for them.
+
+The papers on the Campaign of 1815, though only sketches, are the least
+fugitive pieces of any in this volume. I have formed my conclusions
+after a careful study of nearly every valuable authority on the
+subject; and I have had the advantage of some special information not
+yet given to the public. I have described Napoleon as easily superior,
+as a strategist, to his adversaries; while I have done justice to the
+great qualities displayed by Wellington and Blücher, as soldiers,
+I have dwelt on the grave strategic mistakes they committed. This
+will not gratify national vanity; but, in my judgment, it is the
+verdict which History will pronounce, nay, is already pronouncing,
+upon the questions raised by this mighty conflict, after a full and
+dispassionate investigation of the evidence.
+
+My short account of the Battle of Waterloo may be flatly contradicted,
+or sharply criticized, in two particulars. I have described La Haye
+Sainte as having been captured at about 4 P.M. on the 18th of June;
+and I have left it to be inferred that only one column of the Imperial
+Guard actually reached the British line. It would take too long to
+explain why I have made these statements; I shall merely remark that
+the testimony in their favour seems to me greatly to preponderate.
+
+    _Gartnamona, Tullamore,
+                 September 1890._
+
+
+                           GREAT COMMANDERS
+
+                                  OF
+
+                             MODERN TIMES.
+
+
+
+
+                             INTRODUCTION.
+
+                             BY A SOLDIER.
+
+
+It will doubtless appear to some that this is a trite subject whose
+interest has long ago evaporated, exhausted by the numerous and
+competent pens which have treated it. The soldier, at all events, will
+judge otherwise, and conclude that the careers of that small group
+of demi-gods, commonly known as “great generals,” afford matter for
+consideration which can never tire, and which gains in interest the
+more it is analysed. As we vary our point of view, so the prospect
+grows upon us and the more we admire its details. Again, passing
+from select readers to the multitude, we have the sanction of a most
+sagacious observer of mankind for retracing the ground which has been
+so often trodden aforetime.
+
+    Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque
+    Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
+    Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus.
+
+This being so, a concise summary like this of the campaigns of the
+most eminent of these great military leaders will not prove devoid of
+novelty and interest, as coming from the pen of one whom a civil career
+has left free from professional prejudice, and the study of law has
+trained to weigh conflicting evidence. These biographical summaries
+include the following names:--
+
+    1. Turenne.
+    2. Marlborough.
+    3. Frederick the Great.
+    4. Napoleon.
+    5. Wellington.
+    6. Moltke.
+
+If in any particular we are at variance with the writer, it is that he
+hardly attaches sufficient importance to the influence of Turenne’s
+predecessor, Gustavus Adolphus, in the development of the military
+art. We ourselves agree with Gfrörer, his German biographer, that the
+Swedish king was the father of modern strategy, and the first really
+great general since Julius Cæsar. As Judge O’Connor Morris points out,
+many great soldiers lived during this long interval of time, but in
+our opinion (and it is in accord with Napoleon’s) it was the campaigns
+of the Swedish hero, and notably the Thirty Years’ War, which first
+revealed the dawn of that science which in later days was brought to
+such perfection by his successors. The tactical improvements introduced
+by Gustavus were extensive, though cavalry still played too exclusive
+a _rôle_ in his engagements; his reforms in the armament and
+equipment of his troops were remarkable; nor is the military historian
+oblivious of his services to good discipline and morality by the
+Articles of War which he compiled and promulgated.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, when he ascended the throne at the tender age
+of seventeen, found his realm engaged in hostilities with Denmark,
+Russia, and Poland. His successor, Charles XII., curiously enough, was
+similarly entangled, but promptitude and good fortune in each case
+enabled the monarch to assail his enemies in succession and beat them
+in detail. The Danes already occupied the southern provinces of Sweden
+and, in the spring of 1612, they advanced in two columns, intending
+to move on Stockholm by the routes east and west of the Wettern Lake
+which give access to the capital. This afforded the boy-king an
+opportunity for signalizing his latent military talent. Posting his
+forces at Jönköping, at the southernmost extremity of the lake, he
+struck alternately at the divided columns of the Danish army till he
+thrust them in disorderly retreat back to the sea-coast. Thus early
+was the leading idea which governed the defence of France in 1814
+foreshadowed amid the rocks and lakes of Sweden. Peace with Denmark
+resulted in 1613, and through the mediation of James I. of England.
+
+Russia was next assailed. Semi-barbarous at the time, that State was in
+the throes of revolution brought about by the extinction of the House
+of Ruric; and a project was actually on foot for her dismemberment, one
+half to go to Sweden, the other to Poland. But Muscovite patriotism
+defeated its execution. Michael Románoff was, in 1613, elected Tsar.
+Gustavus at the same time landed in Esthonia, but effected little
+beyond the capture of Gdoff, and in 1617 concluded peace, again through
+the good offices of England. The Thirty Years’ War was looming in the
+distance; the diplomacy of the Protestant Powers tended towards a union
+against the Papacy. Thus both dynastic and religious considerations
+recommended an attack on Poland to the judgment of Gustavus. Sigismund
+III., her king, was both a bigoted Catholic and the rightful though
+dethroned King of Sweden. Nothing could be effected in Germany leaving
+such an active and embittered foe in flank and rear. At first the King
+operated from Riga as a base, with the Dwina as his line of operations;
+but experience soon taught that, to effect his purpose, he must strike
+vigorously home at the heart of the adversary’s power. The theatre of
+war was therefore transferred to West Prussia, then directly subject
+to Poland, where he proceeded to establish a solid base on the coast,
+by making himself master of the fortresses of Frauenburg, Elbing,
+Marienburg, Stuhm, Mewe, Dirschau, and Oliva. Dantzig was besieged to
+facilitate communication with Sweden and, in this case, the line chosen
+by him for an eventual advance into the interior was the river Vistula.
+In all of his campaigns we find Gustavus keeping up his communications
+with the coast by means of a great river; he lived in times when
+railways were not dreamt of and even roads could scarcely be said to
+exist. A commodious port on the Baltic was also necessary for safe
+communication with Sweden, and to serve as a depôt for stores. Thus his
+strategy was far in advance of the practice of his renowned successors
+Charles X. and Charles XII., who, great soldiers as they were, relapsed
+into pre-Gustavus methods, though they had both the King’s example and
+that of Turenne before them.
+
+During this “Prussian War,” as the Swedish historians designate
+the struggle with Poland, Gustavus, involved himself in the Thirty
+Years’ War by sending troops to succour the hard-pressed garrison of
+Stralsund, then besieged by Wallenstein. This affront quickly brought a
+division of 10,000 Imperialists to the fields of Poland. Nevertheless,
+the belligerents concluded, in 1629, an armistice for the space of six
+years, which enabled Gustavus to turn his attention to the horrible
+struggle which was deluging Germany with blood, while securing his
+recent acquisitions on the Baltic. In one particular, however, he
+had persistently infringed the rules of conduct which should guide
+the great Commander: he had recklessly exposed his life during this
+Prussian campaign. During an action at Dirschau, the Swedes were on
+the point of victory when a bullet struck their chief in the shoulder,
+and he was borne insensible from the field. The action was stopped
+in consequence, and it was this wound which ever afterwards made it
+irksome for him to wear a cuirass, the absence of which probably
+occasioned his death on the field of Lützen. On several other occasions
+he escaped death or capture by a hair’s breadth. But it is only on
+critical occasions that the leader of a host ought to risk his life.
+The interests committed to his charge ought to be paramount in his
+estimation. Cæsar and Napoleon both well knew when such a course seemed
+necessary.
+
+We now approach the crowning enterprize of this “Lion of the North,”
+his intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, with the glories which were
+compressed into the short span of life which yet remained to him: an
+enterprize which he had long dreamed of in secret, and the fatal
+termination of which he probably only too plainly foresaw.
+
+He landed on the island of Usedom on the 26th June 1630. Separated
+from the mainland by a narrow arm of the sea, it was admirably suited
+for the purpose of a maritime base of operations. Gustavus, the first
+who leaped ashore, sank on his knees, gave thanks to God, and, this
+done, seized a spade and began to dig the trenches. The island of
+Wollin was next subjugated, and the command of the mouth of the Oder
+by this means secured. Tilly was absent, dancing attendance on the
+Diet at Regensburg; Torquato Conti, his lieutenant, seemed paralyzed
+by the emergency; Wallenstein had justly been deposed from the supreme
+command. Embarking on the Stettiner Haff, the “Snow King,” as his
+enemies contemptuously nick-named him, seized possession of Stettin in
+July. In September he invaded the duchy of Mecklenburg, thus extending
+his area of supply and acquiring a broad and solid base for operating
+in relief of beleaguered Magdeburg. He drove Schaumburg, Conti’s
+successor, as far as Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and by the close of the
+year all the Pomeranian strongholds except Colberg, Greifswald, and
+Demmin, were in his possession. Thus much to prove how systematic was
+his system of warfare, and to show how carefully he fortified his base
+before venturing into the interior of Germany.
+
+It must be noted that Gustavus continued active operations throughout
+the winter, in contrast to the habits of the age. In January 1631 his
+troops, clothed in sheep-skins, quitted Stettin, and New Brandenburg,
+Loitz, Malchin, and Demmin fell to their arms. These successes brought
+Tilly raging with fury on their track. Traversing Brandenburg amid
+blood and flame, he captured New Brandenburg by assault. Gustavus had
+skilfully concentrated his forces to protect the town at Friedland and
+at Pasewalk, but was informed by his lieutenants that the troops were
+so demoralized by the idea of encountering Tilly’s terrible bands that
+they were not to be relied on! In this desperate emergency the genius
+of the Swede stood by him. While Horn disputed the passage of the Peene
+and Trebel by the Imperialists, the King ascended the Oder with the
+bulk of his forces, and, taking post at Schwedt, menaced the enemy’s
+right and rear so that Tilly rapidly retraced his steps, and, finding
+the Swedish position impregnable, continued his retreat to Magdeburg.
+When the field was clear, Gustavus, dashing out of his camp, appeared
+before Frankfort-on-the-Oder. On the 3rd April the assault was sounded,
+the gates were blown open by his petards, and the fortress succumbed
+amid great slaughter. Shortly afterwards Landsberg encountered a
+similar fate.
+
+In May the fall of Magdeburg startled the civilized world--a disaster
+to be ascribed to the obstinacy and timidity of the Saxon and
+Brandenburg electors, who hesitated to afford Gustavus their support.
+In plain words, the King resolutely declined to advance to the city’s
+relief till he had safe-guarded his line of retreat in conformity with
+the maxims of what we now-a-days call strategy, but with him was merely
+martial instinct. Possession of the fortresses which secured his line
+of retreat was deliberately withheld from him by these Protestant
+potentates until too late. But the bestial fury of the Imperialist
+soldiery robbed Tilly of the fruits of victory. Instead of acquiring
+a pivot whence to dominate North Germany, he was constrained to slink
+back into Thuringia and the banks of the Unstruth.
+
+The indignation aroused by this massacre throughout the Protestant
+world enabled Gustavus to coerce his brother-in-law of Berlin; a treaty
+of alliance signed and sealed safe-guarded the Swedish rear, and the
+King was in a position to execute a general advance across the Elbe
+which placed his strategic front in a direction parallel to his base.
+Having effected the passage near Tangermünde, he pitched his camp
+at Werben, near the confluence of the Havel and Elbe, across which
+he constructed a bridge. Immediately on receipt of the news, Tilly,
+uniting with Pappenheim at Magdeburg, flew to the assault, but soon
+experienced his opponent’s mettle. The King surprised the Imperialist
+advance-guard by night near Burgstall, and destroyed 2,000 of their
+cavalry. Tilly reconnoitred the works at Werben, but, not liking their
+aspect, retired to Eisleben. He had lost one quarter of his numbers,
+but was there raised to 30,000 men by the arrival of troops, liberated
+from Italy by the treaty of Cherasco, under Count von Fürstenberg, so
+that he was in a position to enforce the Imperial summons that the
+Saxon Elector should surrender his army and revenues for Catholic
+purposes. The insolent demand drove that Prince into the arms of
+Sweden, and a convention was signed which placed his army together
+with Wittenburg at the disposition of Gustavus. Leipzig capitulated to
+Tilly and the Swedes crossed the Elbe, effecting a junction with the
+Saxons on the banks of the Mulda. Two days later (the 7th September)
+was fought the battle of Leipzig, which justified all the plans and
+precautions of the Swedish strategist.
+
+Into the details of that great conflict it is not our business here to
+inquire. The splendid tactical _coup d’œil_ of Gustavus has never
+been called into question. Let us rather consider how he profited by
+this amazing triumph. While the adversary withdrew into Thuringia,
+Gustavus struck right across his communications with Bavaria,
+pressing along the “Priest’s Lane,” the rich string of ecclesiastical
+principalities which then lined the banks of the Main--that march which
+is mentioned with admiration by the present biographer of Turenne. He
+thus provided himself with a new and fertile base for operating against
+the heart of the Empire at the expense of the Catholic party, while
+the Saxons invested Leipzig and defended the line of the Elbe from the
+enemy in Silesia. The Swedish King jealously guarded his communications
+with the sea, which were demarked by the rivers Saale and Elbe.
+Thuringia was garrisoned by Weimar troops; Halle by those of the Prince
+of Anhalt; Banér invested Magdeburg, while Tott held Mecklenburg in
+subjection.
+
+On the 26th September the King’s army, leaving Erfurt, began to ascend
+the Main, and on the 10th October they took the episcopal fortress
+of Würtzburg by assault. This calamity drew Tilly in hot haste to
+the south. Towards the end of October his army, 40,000 strong, was
+bivouacked along the Tauber, where, on the night of the 23rd, Gustavus
+again cut up three Imperialist cavalry regiments which had bivouacked
+in an exposed position. After a futile demonstration against
+Ochsenfurt, where he lost heart on discovering the Swedes drawn up
+beyond the Main, Tilly retreated in the direction of Nuremberg, when
+Gustavus, leaving Horn to observe his movements, sped along that river
+to Frankfort, into which capital he made his triumphal entry on the
+17th November 1631. Meanwhile his antagonist, as if crushed in spirit
+by the swift ruin which had overtaken his fortunes, raided about
+Franconia at random, and seemed utterly incapable of arriving at any
+fixed determination. Finally he imagined the assault of Nuremberg;
+but a Protestant soldier, applying a slow-match to his store of
+gunpowder, blew it into the air together with the projects of his
+chief, who forthwith left Nuremberg and cantoned his troops in winter
+quarters around Nördlingen. The Swede, however, was more energetic, and
+crossing the Rhine at Oppenheim in defiance of the troops of Spain,
+gained possession of the great fortress of Mentz as the reward of his
+valour and activity. Here Gustavus spent Christmas with his Queen and
+Chancellor, Oxenstierna, who had come from Sweden to meet him. He was
+at the high pitch of his prosperity, courted by the petty princes
+of Germany and by the envoys of more considerable Powers. He was
+dreaming, it was said, of a Protestant Empire. But France, his ally,
+had taken umbrage at his successes. Richelieu endeavoured to arrange a
+pacification, but the sagacity or ambition of Gustavus impelled him to
+decline these overtures.
+
+Early in 1632, Tilly, advancing from Nördlingen, surprised Horn at
+Bamberg, forcing him down the valley of the Main till he was supported
+by the King with 40,000 men. The Imperialists then retreated in their
+turn, and Gustavus, suddenly crossing the river, nearly succeeded
+in cutting them off from the Danube and Ingolstadt. Having entered
+Nuremberg in triumph, he continued the pursuit, and turned the line of
+the Danube by seizing, at Donauwörth, the only bridge left intact by
+Tilly between Neuburg and Ulm. Tilly hurried his troops from Ingolstadt
+to the Lech, in order to dispute the passage of the stream. Dissuaded
+from attacking by his generals, who urged that Wallenstein’s army in
+Bohemia was threatening his communications with the Baltic, Gustavus
+persisted in his intention, replying that a demoralized enemy should be
+crushed without allowing him a respite for recovery: his own retreat by
+Donauwörth on Mentz was safe. He was out-voted in council, but acted on
+his own opinion, and his able dispositions were crowned with perfect
+success. The passage of the rapid current was forced. Tilly, like
+Turenne, was slain by an unlucky round-shot. Gustavus did not pursue
+vigorously--that art seems to have been invented by Napoleon--but
+Augsburg formed a substantial prize for the victor. Here was the cradle
+of the Protestant faith, and in days of religious bigotry this solemn
+entry into the city must have caused rapturous sensations in Lutheran
+hearts. Munich likewise received him with open gates.
+
+While repressing a revolt of the peasantry the King was suddenly
+apprised that Wallenstein, having seized the Pass of Eger, had
+entered Franconia, seeking to force the Thuringian defiles, and
+opened communication with the Bavarians at Regensburg. This was the
+contingency foreseen by those who had condemned the passage of the
+Lech. Wallenstein, careless about his own communications or the
+interests of the Empire he served, and desirous only of fixing his own
+authority in North Germany while living at free-quarters, had thrust
+himself between the Swedes and the Baltic Sea. In June therefore the
+King, hurriedly retracing his steps, crossed the Danube at Donauwörth
+in the endeavour to cut off the Bavarians in their march northwards
+to join Wallenstein. In this he failed, but narrowly. The enemy had
+given him the slip by requisitioning carts for their conveyance. He
+entrenched himself at Nuremberg, was followed thither by Wallenstein,
+and a terrible drama of slaughter, disease, and starvation, which
+seemed to typify all the plagues of Egypt, was enacted around that
+city. It resulted in a drawn battle; and the martial reputation of the
+Swedish king suffered proportionate diminution. He had been withstood
+successfully; nay, more, he had been the first to withdraw from it.
+For this his moral nature was perhaps responsible. He could no longer
+endure the pandemonium of human suffering which was in progress
+around him, while to the cynical Wallenstein all this was a matter
+of indifference. Strangely enough the Imperialists retreated north,
+the Protestants southwards. Wallenstein swept through Saxony with
+his ravenous, ruthless hordes; Gustavus once more subjected Bavaria
+to his requisitions. War was to be made to support war; but let us
+bear in mind that it was the fond hope of Wallenstein to establish an
+empire for himself in North Germany; while it is surmised that his
+adversary held not dissimilar views, though with nobler aspirations;
+at all events his strategic base at this time was the city of Mentz
+and the fertile valley of the Rhine in its proximity. But the inhuman
+atrocities of the Imperialists in Saxony were again too much for the
+sensitive nature of Gustavus; in addition to which, the statesman
+will note that the Elector, a dubious ally, was likely to make terms
+with the oppressor, and this would signify a permanent severance from
+Sweden which could not be acquiesced in. On the 11th October, the King
+directed his army north _viâ_ Donauwörth in two columns, and
+by the end of the month was able to review them reunited at Erfurt.
+Unfortunately his allies, the Saxons and Lüneburgers were still beyond
+the Elbe, and a flank march in front of the concentrated Imperialists
+became indispensible in order to effect a junction; for Wallenstein
+and Pappenheim had judiciously united their forces near Leipzig, while
+George of Lüneburg had disobeyed the King’s orders, which enjoined him
+to rendezvous in Thuringia, and the Saxon Elector, as if paralysed
+by dread of Wallenstein, was still in the depths of Silesia. Grimma
+was the point indicated for concentration, thus well within striking
+distance of the enemy; and Gustavus left Naumburg in this direction
+on the 5th November. On the march, however, an intercepted letter was
+placed in his hand. He learnt that Wallenstein, deeming the campaign
+ended for that year, had permitted Pappenheim with 10,000 men to
+depart on a raid into Westphalia, and had cantoned the remainder of
+his forces in and around Lützen. At this sudden crisis, Gustavus
+proved his title to a niche among the “demi-gods” of war. Instantly
+wheeling his columns to the left, he advanced to the attack across
+the vast plain which leads to the town of Lützen. But “Man proposes,
+God disposes,” an adage which is peculiarly applicable to warlike
+enterprize. The passage of the Rippach stream, strenuously defended
+by Isolani’s Croats, stopped the Swedes till nightfall, a delay which
+enabled Wallenstein to assemble his scattered forces; while a dense fog
+next morning, which did not lift till 11 o’clock, prevented the attack
+taking place at an early hour, and so afforded time for Pappenheim to
+return with his troops to the field ere the close of the battle. But by
+this time the great King had breathed his last, and Pappenheim roamed
+the field in vain in order to cross swords with him. After a desperate
+struggle, the Catholics suffered defeat, but the loss of the Protestant
+champion converted disaster into a victory for their faith.
+
+In the long struggle which followed after his death, and lasted no less
+than sixteen years, the name of TURENNE first became known to
+fame.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I.
+
+                               TURENNE.
+
+
+I remember hearing a soldier of promise remark that war had so
+completely changed that it was useless to study the campaigns of
+Napoleon. This foolish paradox represents ideas too common among
+military men of late; and is about as true as an old notion, rudely
+exploded on the great day of Austerlitz, that Frederick’s usual method
+of giving battle was so infallible, under all circumstances, that a
+long flank march under the guns of an enemy in position is scientific
+strategy. An opinion is abroad that German genius has wrought such
+a revolution in the art of war, that all that has gone before is
+obsolete; that Moltke is a faultless commander, whose exploits surpass
+those of all chiefs; nay, that mechanism and organization are the
+best means of assuring success to armies in the field. It is time to
+expose the perilous errors, mixed with particles of truth, in these
+shallow statements. The subordinate methods and rules of war have been
+largely changed, in the progress of the age, and especially through
+its material inventions; but the higher parts of the art can never
+vary, for they have their origin in the faculties of man, as grandly
+developed in Cæsar and Hannibal as in the great captains of modern
+times; and the exhibition of these, whatever may be the conditions of
+time and other accidents, will always be matter of fruitful study. As
+for the “faultlessness” of Moltke, that distinguished man would be the
+first to admit that, like all generals, he has made grave and palpable
+errors. Extraordinary, indeed, as have been his achievements, his
+campaigns in Bohemia and France show that his strategic and tactical
+mistakes were many; and though he is a real chief of the Napoleonic
+school, he has done nothing that can be compared to the movements
+round Mantua in 1796, to the Alpine march that led to Marengo, to the
+manœuvres that immured Mack in Ulm, to the last swoop on Belgium in
+1815. That mechanism and organization count for much, is a truth as
+old as the days of the Legions; but the genius of leaders in directing
+armies has always been the chief element of success in war; and, so
+far from this being less the case at the present day than it has been
+of old, this influence is now more than ever decisive. It is obvious,
+in fact, that the powers of the chief will have increasingly greater
+effect as armies have grown to immense proportions, and military
+movements have become more complex, more extended, and, above all,
+more rapid; and if a mere tactician will, perhaps, do less, on a given
+field, than a century ago, victory in a campaign will, in this age, in
+the main, depend on superior strategy.
+
+  [Illustration: TURENNE.]
+
+I purpose, in this and subsequent articles, to endeavour to illustrate
+the main principles and permanent lessons of the art of war in brief
+sketches of the lives and the deeds of famous commanders of modern
+times; and I shall try to dispel the notions that military history
+before Sadowa is a mere old almanack, and that the exclusive study
+of modern Prussian routine is the best education of the accomplished
+soldier. For authority, I need only refer to Napoleon.[1] “Tactics,”
+wrote that master of war, “manœuvres, the science of the engineer
+and of the artillerist, can be learned in treatises, like geometry;
+but knowledge of the high parts of war can be acquired only by study
+of the history of war, and of the battles of great captains, and by
+experience.”
+
+I have placed Turenne at the head of my list, not only because he comes
+first in time, but because the art of war made immense progress during
+the long career of this illustrious chief, was greatly improved by
+his powerful genius, and gradually acquired a modern aspect. Before
+I attempt, however, to sketch his exploits, I would say a word on the
+condition of the art before it passed into his master hand. The leading
+maxims of war were fully understood; and great commanders had, in many
+a contest, shown what the qualities are which ensure success in the
+strife of opposing armies. That a general in a campaign should have a
+distinct object, that he should steadily endeavour to carry it out,
+and that he should so combine his means as to promote his ends, were
+recognised and approved principles; and the value of intelligence in
+great movements, of energy and skill in the direction of troops and of
+careful administration in military affairs, had been illustrated by
+fine examples. Passing, too, from these universal truths, the principal
+rules of strategic science had been ascertained in their main outlines,
+and ably brought to the test of experience; nay, war had exhibited
+grand instances of strategy, whether of offence or defence, which,
+founded as it is on the peculiar character and faculties of individual
+men, had never perhaps more noted champions than Hannibal and the
+Roman Fabius. The advantage, for instance, of having the possession of
+interior lines on a field of manœuvre had been clearly perceived by
+Guébriant, and was repeatedly seen in the Thirty Years’ War; Gustavus
+had shown what could be accomplished by rapid and well concerted
+movements against the communications of a hostile army; and Wallenstein
+had proved how great could be the power of firmness, endurance, and
+patient skill in resisting even the most able enemy.
+
+The art, however, owing to many causes, had not as yet been nearly
+developed, and had not even approached its present perfection. Fine
+movements, indeed, were occasionally made; the march of Gustavus, for
+example, down “the Priests’ Lane,” which carried him into the heart
+of the Empire, and some of the marches of Parma, in an earlier age,
+remain noble specimens of audacious genius. But strategy was still,
+so to speak, cramped and limited by all kinds of obstacles, and it
+could not attain the freedom and grandeur which it has exhibited in
+the wars of this century. On every theatre of war, from Vienna to
+Brussels, the state of husbandry was backward in the extreme; there
+were immense wastes of morass and forest; and even the plain country
+was not half cultivated. The roads, too, were comparatively few, and
+even the main roads were, for the most part, bad; the great rivers had
+but few bridges, and minor streams were not bridged at all; and the
+passes across the chief mountain ranges were mere paths and tracks,
+intricate and difficult. The natural impediments to the march of armies
+were, therefore, many and often formidable; and these were greatly
+increased by the numerous fortresses which had grown up since the
+feudal age, and which, covering frontiers and main approaches, and
+barring the way to an invader’s progress, could not easily be passed
+by even a daring enemy. In addition to this, the means of supply and
+of transport possessed by modern armies, either did not exist or were
+very scanty; magazines, trains, and the many appliances that enable
+troops of this day to live and move, were quite in an embryonic state;
+and a general was often compelled to rely on plunder and rapine to
+support his soldiery. In these circumstances, the rapid manœuvres and
+the grand movements leading to decisive battles which belong to the
+age of Napoleon and Moltke, could be witnessed only on a small scale,
+and occurred only in rare instances. War, as a rule, had a contracted
+aspect; and its ends were often different from those of our time.
+Beset by impediments, even the greatest chiefs were frequently unable
+to make long marches, or to attempt anything like audacious strategy;
+and though Gustavus had fully seen that the main object of a campaign
+was to cripple an adversary in pitched battles, this was not yet an
+accepted principle. The art of war still largely consisted in wearing
+out an enemy in petty combats, in devastation, and wrecking a country,
+in incursions attended by partial success; and the aim of commanders
+often was, not so much to defeat a hostile army as to find good
+quarters in an unravaged province. Campaigns were late, slow, and had
+small results; as a rule, winter campaigns were rare. Above all, it had
+become a maxim that before invading an enemy’s country it was necessary
+first to reduce its fortresses; months, and even years, were taken up
+in sieges; and the art, it has been said, “seemed to flit around strong
+places.” In short, owing to the local accidents and peculiarities of
+the seventeenth century, strategy, though in existence and in a state
+of progress, was still quite immature and imperfect.
+
+The science of Tactics had at this period made less progress than that
+of Strategy. It had become recognized that the three arms should act
+in concert, and support each other; and a distinct unity was seen in
+battles, unlike the desultory combats of the Middle Ages. But one great
+principle of modern tactics, that an army should be arrayed on the
+ground, not according to any unchanging method but so that each arm
+should turn to account the character and local features of the spot,
+had scarcely entered the minds of men; it certainly had not been fully
+established. An army took its position in a settled order: the cavalry
+always on either wing, the infantry in the centre, and the guns in
+front. There usually was a considerable reserve; and the importance,
+for instance, of so placing cavalry that it could fall on an enemy
+from under cover, or of so distributing guns that they could enfilade
+infantry, or throw a concentrated or plunging fire, was as yet little,
+if at all, understood. In these circumstances the marked diversity
+which is a characteristic of modern battles, which makes no one exactly
+resemble the other, and in consequence of which the tactical skill of
+a chief in command is taxed to the utmost, existed only to a small
+extent. There was a distinct sameness in the battles of the age, and
+these usually consisted in a contest between the hostile footmen and
+guns in the centre--a mere partial engagement without manœuvres--until
+the success of the cavalry on either side enabled it to assail the
+flank or the rear of the enemy. The tactics, therefore, of this period
+were very different from those of our own; and this difference was
+made greater through the change in the relations of the three arms,
+and in the efficiency and the power of infantry, which has taken place
+since the seventeenth century. At this period, cavalry was by far
+the most important and capable arm; it was, in fact, the manœuvring
+force in the field. The value of artillery was still unknown, for guns
+were comparatively few and ill served; and footmen, often inferior in
+numbers to horsemen, were a combined array of musketeers and pikemen,
+invariably marshalled in dense masses, unequal to quick and difficult
+movements, and utterly inferior to the infantry of this day in relative
+strength, in the efficacy of fire, in ability either to attack or
+defend, and in evolutions and manœuvres in the field.
+
+Under these conditions, a general gave his chief attention to his most
+powerful arm; artillery and foot played a subordinate part; and, as
+I have said, the event of battles was usually decided by a charge of
+horsemen launched against an exposed side of a hostile army. But if
+the tactics of those days were unlike ours, it is a mistake to suppose
+that they did not afford full scope to superior skill and genius. The
+front of battles was comparatively small; a general’s eye could command
+the whole field, and victory usually depended on the inspiration of
+the chief, who, with ready design, and at the fitting moment, could
+direct his cavalry in collected force against a hesitating and already
+shaken enemy. This was the distinctive gift of the famed Condé, and
+of that born master of tactics, Cromwell; it was conspicuously proved
+at Rocroy and Marston Moor; and it is a gift of the very highest
+order, if it does not exactly resemble the faculties which prepared
+Ramillies, Leuthen, and Austerlitz. For the rest, an army of this
+period, considered as a whole, was very different from an army of the
+nineteenth century; and this, too, affected the art of Tactics. In
+numbers, it was comparatively small; 30,000 men would be a very large
+army. It was deficient in unity and combined strength, for it was a
+mere array of battalions and squadrons; divisions and corps were as yet
+unknown, and a general-in-chief did not possess the supreme authority
+now entrusted to him. The discipline, too, and the organization of
+such an army was still far from good; the troops did not even wear a
+uniform, and were more akin to a feudal militia than to regular and
+trained soldiers; the muster rolls were always incomplete, owing to
+the Falstaffian tricks of officers, as yet subject to little control,
+and mutiny and insubordination were too common. Such an army, from the
+nature of the case, would be a weak and uncertain instrument of war;
+and this alone made the tactics of the day less decisive, as a general
+rule, in results, than those of later great masters of war.
+
+The art of war at this time, in short, has been happily compared to
+a bird, which eagerly spreads its wings for a flight, but is held,
+checked by restraints, to the ground. I pass on to the great captain
+whose life and career I attempt to illustrate. Turenne was born in
+1611, a scion of the princely _noblesse_ of France, his father
+being Sovereign Lord of Sedan, his mother a daughter of William the
+Silent, who largely transmitted the high qualities of the House of
+Nassau to her renowned offspring. As has happened with other famous
+warriors--with Luxemburg, William III., and Wellington--the future
+master of war was a sickly child; but from the earliest age he showed
+strength of character. He was educated with remarkable care; and
+though, unlike Condé, he was not a precocious genius--he remained
+heavy and dull in exterior through life--still, even in those years,
+the assiduous care with which he studied the campaigns of Cæsar, and
+followed Alexander in his march to the Indus, revealed the natural
+tendencies of the coming strategist. Turenne entered the service of the
+Seven Provinces as a private soldier at the age of fourteen; and under
+the care of his maternal uncle, Maurice of Nassau, and his successor
+Henry, he took part in the long wars of sieges which marked the
+conflict with Spain in the Low Countries. He fought his way steadily
+up from the ranks; he seems to have owed little to birth or to favour;
+but, though he gained distinction at the siege of Bois-le-Duc, this
+was not the natural bent of his genius, and the value to him of these
+essays in arms was probably to teach him the important truth, which
+he illustrated in many striking instances, that “in war you should
+march and not besiege,” that you should rather outmanœuvre and defeat
+your enemy than waste months in attacking fortresses which fall of
+themselves after success in the field.
+
+In 1630, when twenty years old, Turenne obtained a regiment from Louis
+XIII. He addressed himself with untiring diligence to the discipline
+and the training of his men; and, like Wellington--in matters like this
+he had much in common with our great countryman--he was soon known
+as a capable officer, and could justify his boast that his “corps
+was equal to the best troops of the King’s household.” The young
+colonel, however, made no way at Court; its frivolity and luxury were
+distasteful to a mind singularly modest and sedate; its licentious
+recklessness shocked a nature formed by the rigid tenets of Calvin; and
+while Condé was already a star at the Louvre, Turenne, taciturn and
+awkward, was scarcely noticed. The future great chief of the armies
+of France served for many years in a subordinate rank; he passed, in
+fact, through all inferior grades, though his merits were recognized
+by good judges; but if this term of probation was unduly long, its
+experience, he has said, was most precious, for it “fully taught him
+a soldier’s calling.” Long before the close of the Thirty Years’ War,
+Turenne was known as an able man, though his great powers had not yet
+been developed. He was singled out for honours at the great siege
+of Breisach; he showed remarkable skill and firmness in covering a
+disastrous retreat from the Sarre; and he had won the praise of La
+Valette and Saxe Weimar for his singular steadiness and coolness in
+the field, and for the paternal care he took of his troops, a quality
+in which his comrades of the _noblesse_, brave, but unreflecting,
+were as a rule wanting. The chief point, however, of permanent interest
+in this early part of the career of Turenne is the evidence it affords
+of the dawn of those powers for which he was to be proudly eminent.
+He occasionally had an independent command, and in this position he
+never failed to display the gifts of a true strategist. In 1636 he
+made a forced march, by which he surprised and routed Gallas. He
+captured Maubeuge, combining his movements with those of his chief with
+remarkable skill. At the siege of Turin, in 1640, he out-manœuvred and
+baffled his enemy, and kept away the relieving army; in 1643 he made a
+feint against Alessandria, which deceived his adversary, and enabled
+him to seize the fortress of Trino.
+
+In 1643, as the Thirty Years’ War was nearing its end, Turenne received
+the staff of a Marshal of France. His achievements during the next
+two years will repay a careful reader’s attention; but I can only
+glance at them in this sketch, for they scarcely reveal his peculiar
+genius. He took part, under the Grand Condé, in the desperate combats
+around Fribourg, marked by the daring and vigour of his chief, but, in
+Napoleon’s judgment, worse than useless; we see proof of his strategic
+powers in his operations between divided enemies in the Palatinate
+at the close of 1644; and I cannot doubt but that the fine march of
+Condé down the Rhine, after the fall of Philippsbourg, which made the
+French masters of Landau, Mayence, and other cities on the German
+bank, was due to the inspiration of Turenne. In 1645, having advanced
+to the Tauber, and overrun the Franconian lowlands, the marshal was
+surprised and routed by Mercy--a Lorraine chief, little known to fame,
+but a great captain of the Thirty Years’ War; and we can gather from
+this and other instances that the genius of Turenne, rather profound
+than quick, made him less admirable in the sphere of tactics than he
+was in the higher parts of war. He was soon again under the command
+of Condé, and he led the left wing of the French army in the terrible
+struggle around Nördlingen; but though he contributed to the success of
+the day, the glory of the victory, doubtful as it was, belongs wholly
+to his renowned chief, whose tenacity, boldness, and insight on the
+field, plucked safety and even a triumph from danger. The campaign of
+1646 distinctly brought out for the first time the special gifts of
+Turenne in full relief, and to this day is a strategic masterpiece. The
+Marshal was on the French bank of the Rhine, near Mayence, as the year
+opened, and Mazarin had directed him to remain in his camps trusting to
+a pledge that the Duke of Bavaria would not send aid to the Imperial
+forces. The Duke, however, broke faith and marched against the Swedes,
+hoping to defeat them as they moved into Westphalia, and to join hands
+with the Archduke Leopold, advancing in force from Western Austria; and
+had success attended this operation France would have probably lost her
+best ally. Turenne made up his mind at once; without waiting for a word
+from his Government, he broke up from Mayence, moved down the Rhine in
+a march of astonishing speed for those days, and, having crossed the
+river as far north as Wesel, he effected his junction with the Swedish
+chief, Wrangel, on the Lahn, having forestalled his enemy by a movement
+of singular skill and daring.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    _THEATRE OF WAR_
+    IN
+    GERMANY]
+
+Turenne and Wrangel were now at the head of an army of more than
+20,000 men; the hostile force, about equally strong, fell back
+to Friedberg, north of the Main; and the Archduke, clinging to his
+communications, began to retreat to the Danube by an exterior line,
+through Schweinfurth and Nuremberg, towards the Bavarian plains.
+Turenne seized the occasion with the eye of genius; holding the
+chord of the arc, he advanced through Franconia by forced marches,
+and attained Dönauworth, and while his adversary was toiling on his
+eccentric movement, he crossed the Danube, pushed on to the Lech, and
+boldly assailed the great place of Augsburg.[2] He failed in this
+siege, having been persuaded by his Swedish colleague to attack Rain,
+a little fortress of no importance; but his subsequent operations were
+marked by genius and constancy of the highest order. The Archduke,
+after weeks of delay, had crossed the Danube and approached the
+Allies, and he took a strong position from Landsberg to Memmingen,
+in order at once to cover Bavaria and to threaten the communications
+of his audacious foes, who had advanced into the heart of Germany,
+far from the Danube and even from the Rhine. It was now November, and
+an ordinary chief would have fallen back to seek winter quarters,
+foregoing the gains of the whole campaign; but Turenne resolved to take
+the bolder course, and, against the advice of all his lieutenants,
+he made a feint on Memmingen, and then, moving rapidly, seized the
+communications of the Archduke at Landsberg and forced him, baffled
+behind the Inn. This splendid campaign--a game of manœuvres in which
+decisive success was gained without the risk of a single battle, which
+shows the highest parts of a master of war, and in which Napoleon, a
+draconic critic, can detect only a small mistake, the weakening the
+attack on Augsburg to besiege Rain--detached Bavaria finally from the
+Imperial cause, and, in truth, all but closed the Thirty Years’ War.
+
+The campaign of 1647, in which Turenne overcame a dangerous mutiny of
+the German auxiliaries in the French army, is one of the many instances
+of the strength of his character. That of 1648, the last of the Thirty
+Years’ War, is a repetition of that of 1646, but scarcely gives proof
+of equal genius; it is chiefly remarkable as the first occasion in
+which Montecuculi, a worthy antagonist, and a friend of Turenne in
+after years, exhibited his capacity in the field. I pass rapidly over
+the next three years--an unhappy passage in the career of Turenne--for
+they saw the most illustrious captain of France in arms against the
+State and the National Government. Strong affection for a despoiled
+brother, and the artful wiles of a beautiful siren--this was a weak
+point in the warrior’s nature--caused Turenne to join the rebels of
+the Fronde; but though excuses may be made for him, history has justly
+condemned his conduct, and, like Marlborough but much less worthy of
+blame, Turenne is an instance how revolution can pervert even the
+noblest faculties. Turenne showed his strategic gifts in the contest;
+he proposed to advance to Paris and to dictate peace, but he was
+overruled by his Spanish colleagues, and he was soon afterwards beaten
+by Du Plessis Praslin, in a pitched battle not far from Réthel, a point
+of capital importance in the wars of that age. Turenne’s tactics,
+Napoleon remarks on this occasion, were faulty and slow--this, in
+truth, was his least perfect part; but Turenne, and even Condé, never
+displayed that pre-eminence in war when opposed to France which they
+exhibited when in command of Frenchmen.
+
+Turenne made his peace with Mazarin in 1652. Though naturally
+distrusted by a Court he had betrayed, he soon made his extraordinary
+powers felt, and in a few months he obtained the supreme direction of
+military affairs in the war of the Second Fronde. Civil war is never
+an attractive subject, but in this contest Turenne was opposed to the
+Great Condé and the forces of Spain, and events have great and peculiar
+interest. Turenne’s splendid faculties strategic insight, skill in
+large manœuvres, judgment and constancy were never perhaps more grandly
+seen. He proved himself far superior to his brilliant rival, though
+it is but fair to say that the genius of Condé was repeatedly baffled
+by Spanish obstinacy, and Turenne was justly hailed as the Saviour of
+France and of the House of Bourbon when in the extreme of danger. He
+out-manœuvred Condé at Blêneau, near the Loire, in a passage-of-arms
+singled out by Napoleon, as a marvellous instance of military skill;
+and he would probably have brought the war to an end had Mazarin
+followed his sagacious counsels to march straight on Paris in 1652.
+When he was compelled to obey the too cautious minister, and to
+undertake the siege of Etampes--a timid half measure of no avail--he
+raised the siege at a moment’s notice, with the decision that belongs
+to great captains only, at the intelligence of the approach of Charles
+of Lorraine; and the stand he made against the Duke’s army, which
+prevented its junction with that of Condé, very probably saved the
+royal cause. Turenne distinguished himself in the murderous fight of
+St. Antoine, under the walls of Paris, and in the subsequent game of
+manœuvres with Condé; and his commanding genius was again seen when a
+double Spanish and Lorraine army marched towards the capital to assist
+Condé, and threatened the Government with utter ruin. The Regent and
+Mazarin, in the extreme of peril, wished to abandon Paris, and to fly
+to Lyons; but Turenne saw that this precipitate retreat would prove
+fatal to the Bourbon cause. He insisted on keeping his army on the
+spot, and, standing in the path of his divided enemies, he baffled
+the Spaniards on the line of the Somme, held the Duke of Lorraine
+successfully at bay, and prevented either foe from joining hands with
+Condé. The results of this generalship, not unworthy of the unrivalled
+captain of 1814, were magical and completely decisive. Condé and his
+troops were forced to leave Paris; the foreign invaders fell back to
+the frontier; the young King and the Court entered the capital, to
+the joy of the citizens; the Government was replaced in its seat, and
+Turenne read in the nation’s eyes how he had closed the civil war and
+restored the throne. In this remarkable contest he had given proof,
+from first to last, of the highest faculties; but those, perhaps, which
+most deserve notice are his insight in perceiving that Paris was the
+centre on which to direct all efforts; his firmness in compelling the
+Court to cling to the capital at any risk, and his astonishing skill in
+repelling the enemies converging against him in greatly superior force.
+
+Though Mazarin had been replaced in power, Spain, in 1653, was still
+able to send a larger force into the field than France. Turenne
+conducted a Fabian campaign on the Oise, baffling the Archduke--his
+foe in 1646--and taking care to avoid Condé; and he exhibited once more
+what Napoleon has called “the divine side of the art of war,” in making
+a stand in a strong position, where Condé had all but brought him to
+bay, and imposing upon the cowed Spanish chiefs. In 1654 the reviving
+strength of France began to prevail over Spain in decline. Turenne
+appeared at the head of a large army, and he successfully raised the
+siege of Arras, the capital of Burgundian Artois, in a night attack
+of remarkable daring, in which he surprised the Austrian chief and
+kept skilfully away from Condé’s lines. This was one of his greatest
+exploits in the field, and France acquired a marked ascendency over her
+enemies along her northern frontier. I can only refer to the next three
+campaigns, in which the strategic gifts of Turenne and his admirable
+firmness were again made manifest. True to his maxim, then a revelation
+in war--“always march rather than make sieges”--he gradually advanced
+to the Scheldt and the Lys, turning their fortresses by operations in
+the field, and sitting down before them as seldom as possible; and
+in less than three years he had overcome barriers[3] which hitherto
+had been deemed invincible, and which had been theatres of war for
+centuries without great or decisive results, a feat of generalship
+which astounded Europe. The genius of Condé more than once shone out
+in his efforts to avert Fate. He destroyed a part of Turenne’s army,
+in the hands of an incapable colleague, at Valenciennes, in 1656; and
+he brilliantly raised the siege of Cambray, an exploit marked out for
+praise by Napoleon.
+
+The arms of France, however, directed by Turenne, made steady progress
+despite these checks, and the fine campaign of 1658 brought the contest
+with Spain to a glorious close. By this time Turenne had secured his
+position in Spanish Flanders, and was formidably strong. The England of
+Cromwell was in a league with France, and the allies resolved to attack
+Dunkirk, the strongest place on the seaboard of Flanders, and long a
+seat of piracy against British commerce. The fortress was difficult in
+the extreme to master, not so much owing to its works and defences
+as to the obstacles formed by the sea, the marshes, the woods, and
+the canals which girdled it round; and it was protected by a large
+Spanish force in observation not far from Ypres. Turenne crossed the
+inundation let loose by the garrison, threw lines of investment round
+the fortress, and blocked up the approaches along the coast. An English
+fleet closed the port from the sea, and 5,000 of the renowned Ironsides
+were disembarked to support the French. These operations, rapid in the
+extreme for the age, surprised and disconcerted the Spanish chiefs,
+and they hastily advanced to relieve Dunkirk with an army inferior in
+force to the enemy, and not possessing a single gun. Turenne broke up
+from his lines to attack; his left, the English contingent, rested
+on the sea, covered by the batteries of the English squadron; his
+centre and right formed a semi-circle, extending to the great canal
+of Furnes; and as his troops advanced, Condé, it is said, exclaimed
+to the young Duke of Gloucester that “all was lost.” The battle was
+almost at once decided; Condé, on the Spanish left, did indeed wonders;
+but the Ironsides, backed by the fire of the fleet--they were praised
+by Turenne in the highest terms--annihilated the Spanish right in one
+charge, and the whole Spanish army, deprived of artillery, lost heart
+and became a mere mass of fugitives. The place fell, and was handed
+over to England. Turenne, breaking up from his camps, took Bergues and
+Gravelines, and overran the country, and he only stopped his victorious
+march at Oudenarde, Spanish Flanders lying as it were at his feet.
+Napoleon, however, contends that the marshal ought to have done more,
+and pushed on to Brussels, success which would have brought the war
+to an end; and this may be an instance, perhaps, in which Turenne’s
+powerful, but somewhat slow intellect erred on the side of too prudent
+caution. Yet we must bear in mind that the strategy of the seventeenth
+could not be that of the nineteenth century. Turenne certainly
+contemplated this very step, but declared that it was not practicable;
+and, as it was, the campaign was a splendid triumph which soon brought
+about the Peace of the Pyrenees.
+
+During the next twelve years France enjoyed repose, broken only by a
+brief contest with Spain, caused by the claims of Louis XIV. on the
+Low Countries in right of his consort. Turenne commanded the royal
+army, captured Lille, and overran Flanders; but it is unnecessary to
+dwell on these easy triumphs. The marshal was now the first subject
+of France and admittedly the first soldier of Europe; and he played a
+part of no small importance in the able French diplomacy of the time.
+He gave much attention also to civil affairs, was a disciple of the
+renowned Colbert, drew up reports on the condition of France which
+showed real insight and marked sagacity, and proved that he possessed
+administrative powers of the highest order in provincial government.
+Like nearly all the highest _noblesse_ of France, he renounced
+the Calvinist creed of his fathers--the will of the King was supreme
+in this--but, like the illustrious Villars at a later day he condemned
+the wrongs already done to the Huguenots, and ventured to utter a
+weighty protest. His great work, however, at this period, was the
+reorganization of the military power of France; and though Louvois
+had a large share in this, Turenne is perhaps entitled to the chief
+merit. His reforms were thorough and yet practical; he did not change
+everything, and break with the past; but he so improved what he found
+existing as to bring it to a high state of excellence, and the French
+army, in his constructive hands, became a mighty instrument of war.
+
+Turenne’s method was to leave the army still largely in the hands
+of the _noblesse_, and to allow it to retain a half feudal
+character; but he not the less made it the force of the Crown, the
+disciplined array of an all-powerful monarchy; and he so transformed
+its institutions and spirit, and increased its strength, as to make
+it by far the most formidable organization for war in Europe. The
+_noblesse_ were allowed to retain their charges, and to raise
+their levies as in former days; but they were subjected to the
+strictest inspection; incapable officers were summarily dismissed, and
+“men in buckram” and false returns were no longer permitted to exist.
+While the feudal militia still remained, every inducement was offered
+to encourage the men to enter the ranks of the regular troops; the
+temporary disbanding of regiments ceased; and select corps--need we
+name the Maison du Roi, the brilliant victors on many a field?--were
+carefully formed, and inspired the army as a whole with their gallant
+and martial spirit. These were great reforms if they stood alone, but
+the process of improvement went much further. The hierarchy of the
+service had its rules changed; the general-in-chief was made supreme
+in everything; the three arms and their chiefs were placed under his
+immediate control in all respects, and discipline and subordination to
+one head were thus secured for the first time. Unity of command caused
+unity in lower spheres; the comparatively loose formations, indeed, of
+battalions and squadrons were not changed, but every regiment was clad
+in uniform; and care was taken that all weapons should be constructed
+and fashioned on the same patterns. Strenuous efforts, again, which
+reveal the strategist, were made to accelerate movements in war; the
+arrays of trains and carriages were greatly increased; the system of
+magazines, of depôts of food, and of field hospitals was immensely
+improved, and the mechanism of the army attained a degree of perfection
+never witnessed before. Yet the greatest change of all remains to be
+noticed--a change, Napoleon remarks, which made this period a new era
+in war. A master of his art, Turenne had perceived that infantry,
+hitherto kept in the background, was naturally the most important of
+the arms; it could accomplish more in his wars of marches, even in that
+age, than the more prized cavalry; and Turenne trebled its force in
+the French service, reducing horse to much less significance, though
+cavalry still, no doubt, retained its superiority in the shock of
+battle. As for artillery, Turenne went with the age; the proportion of
+guns, though comparatively small as regards the other arms for modern
+times, was gradually but distinctly increased.
+
+Through these immense reforms, the army of France became, for many
+years, the terror of Europe; and, except that the changes wrought in
+formations by the discovery of the bayonet were as yet unknown, it had
+acquired a really modern aspect. An opportunity arose, in 1672, to
+prove this tremendous instrument of war. Louis XIV. invaded the Dutch
+Republic; the French army and that of his allies exceeded 130,000
+men, a force never seen since the fall of Rome; and while Turenne and
+Condé, now restored to France, advanced along the Sambre and crossed
+the Meuse, the allied contingent under Luxemburg moved down the Rhine
+by Mayence and Cologne. True to his strategic genius, Turenne insisted,
+against the advice even of the audacious Condé, on “masking” Maastricht
+and pressing forward; the operations of the invading host were marked
+by a celerity hitherto unknown, and in less than two months the hostile
+armies had crossed the Rhine near the Waal, had attained the Yssel and
+had moved into the heart of the Seven Provinces. When the victorious
+French had approached Amsterdam, Condé, always great on a field of
+manœuvre, entreated the King to seize the dykes, which formed the
+last defence of the capital of the States; and, had this been done,
+the fortunes of Europe might have taken a wholly different turn. The
+golden occasion was, however, lost; time and men were wasted in taking
+fortresses; and William of Orange, a sickly youth, then for the first
+time seen on the stage of history, saved the Commonwealth by cutting
+the dykes and letting loose floods which made Amsterdam an island in
+the midst of a submerged country, and effectually baffled the French
+commanders.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    _THEATRE OF WAR_
+    IN
+    THE LOW COUNTRIES]
+
+This bad generalship was due to Louvois, and, it is said, was inspired
+by the King, never capable in operations in the field; but Turenne
+must, at least, have assented, and Napoleon severely condemns the
+Marshal for giving his sanction to unwise counsels which he scarcely
+could have approved in his heart. This possibly may be another instance
+in which Turenne was somewhat slow and too cautious; but probably he
+shrank from opposing the will of a sovereign, then almost an idol, and
+a minister already hostile to him; and it is scarcely to be supposed
+that a chief of his powers, in full possession of the state of affairs,
+would have committed a palpable strategic error. Be this as it may,
+he soon had an occasion to exhibit once more his great capacity. The
+invasion of the States, and the success of Louis, had alarmed Europe
+and aroused Germany; Austria and Prussia joined hands for the first
+time in war; and two German armies of superior strength were marched
+towards the Rhine and threatened Alsace. Louis abandoned Holland and
+his rapid conquests; Condé was despatched to defend the Rhine, and
+Turenne was placed at the head of an army intended to confront the
+Germans on the Main. The Marshal had soon seen through the projects of
+his foes; he judged rightly that their real purpose was to unite on the
+Meuse with William of Orange, not to venture alone to enter Alsace, and
+he took his course with characteristic skill. Moving into the region
+around Trèves, he established himself in the valley of the Moselle,
+and when the Germans, as he expected, sought to cross the Palatinate
+from Mayence, he successfully kept them for weeks at bay, held back the
+army of the States on the Meuse, and completely frustrated the intended
+junction. This fine strategy probably saved France from an invasion
+upon her weakest frontier.
+
+Louvois had now openly broken with Turenne; the King, irritated at the
+reverse in Holland, took part with the imperious minister, underrating
+the Marshal’s last achievement, and Turenne found little favour at
+court. It was impossible, however, to question his genius; he directed
+the general plan of the campaign of 1673, and he held supreme command
+on the German frontier. As the Austrians and Prussians fell back from
+the Moselle, they began to diverge towards the Elbe and the Danube;
+Turenne saw his advantage, and crossed the Rhine, and venturing on
+a winter campaign, despite the remonstrances even of the King, he
+advanced to the Weser, defeated the Prussians, and drove the Austrians
+far beyond the Main. Prussia abandoned the Coalition for a time, but
+the Emperor refused to give up the contest, and Turenne, for the
+first and last time, was out-generalled on the theatre of war by an
+antagonist not unworthy of him. Montecuculi, at the head of an Imperial
+army, had advanced into the Franconian lowlands, eluding Turenne, who
+was on the Tauber; he gained over one of the prince bishops, made
+a forced march and got over the Main, and then having made a feint
+on Alsace, he embarked with his troops upon the Rhine, effected his
+junction with William of Orange at Bonn, and quickly reduced that
+important fortress. This, Napoleon has said, is “the darkest cloud
+on the reputation of this great captain;” but the glory of Turenne
+was not long in eclipse; and he surpassed himself in the campaign of
+1674, the most striking instance, perhaps, of his powers. The success
+of Montecuculi had again roused Germany; Prussia and the Lesser
+States took part with the Emperor, and France was threatened with a
+more formidable League than she had ever encountered before. Turenne
+directed operations once more; with admirable wisdom he neglected
+the North, and urged the King to invade Franche Comté, an enterprise
+crowned with complete success; and he took again his station on the
+Rhine, watching the masses of foes collected against him.
+
+Every movement he made in the contest that followed is a masterpiece
+of a great strategist. Turenne, crossing the Rhine, advanced to the
+Neckar, threw himself between the armies converging against him; and,
+having routed the Austrians near Sinsheim, turned boldly against the
+Northern Germans, marching from the Elbe and the plains of Brandenburg.
+To gain time and to check their progress, he ravaged the Palatinate
+with unflinching sternness; and though history condemns the act, and
+Turenne only once adopted this course, it was justified by the laws
+of war of the age--nay, by those of a much later period. The Germans
+had reached Mayence by the end of August, and before long had entered
+Alsace; the Imperial army was close at hand, and it was the purpose of
+the Imperial chiefs to invade France with the combined forces, when the
+Prussian contingent had come into line. Turenne saw the danger, and did
+not hesitate; with an energy worthy of the youthful Bonaparte, he fell
+on his foes before their junction, and he defeated them in a fierce
+fight at Entzheim, a day memorable if it were for this only--that
+Marlborough served on the marshal’s staff, and received the thanks of
+his chief for his conduct. This reverse, however, only checked the
+enemy; the Great Elector brought up his army. Turenne was obliged to
+fall back to the Vosges, and a huge wave of Teutonic conquest seemed
+about to overflow the plains of Champagne. Had the Germans pushed on
+they might have reached Paris, where confusion and terror already
+reigned; but they paused at the decisive moment. They seem to have
+dreaded the strokes of Turenne, who had skilfully taken a position
+on their flank, and they methodically settled in winter quarters in
+Alsace, having let a grand opportunity pass. The subsequent operations
+of their great adversary, in conception at least, were of the highest
+order. Deceiving his enemy and scorning the hardships of winter among
+the Alsatian hills, Turenne feigned to retreat into Lorraine; he then
+counter-marched with remarkable quickness, defiled behind the Vosges
+with a devoted army which appreciated the admirable skill of its chief,
+and, having screened the movement by the mountain barrier, broke in
+through the gap of Belfort on the astounded Germans, and surprised
+them completely divided and scattered. The effects of this masterly
+stroke were immense; the Great Elector was routed at Turckheim, Turenne
+pressed forward and threatened Strasbourg, and the horde of invaders,
+baffled and humbled, were only too glad to get across the Rhine.
+
+The movement behind the Vosges of Turenne which surprised the Germans
+and caused their defeat has a certain resemblance, it will be
+perceived, to the march of Napoleon, screened by the Alps, which after
+Marengo gave him Italy. Turenne, however, the reader will note, fell on
+his enemy, when he had reached him, in front, and his triumph though
+great was not overwhelming; Napoleon descended on the rear of Mélas,
+and, though he ran many risks, he completely conquered. Turenne, the
+Emperor insists, would have achieved more had he crossed the Vosges in
+the middle of the chain, and struck the flank and rear of the Germans;
+in that event, the invaders, perhaps, would have never been able to
+attain the Rhine. This criticism is, in theory, perfect; but though
+Napoleon, in the place of Turenne, would probably have played the more
+daring game, the Vosges in those days were most difficult to pass; the
+operation would have been very hazardous, and the two movements, in
+fact, illustrate the difference between the natures of the two men.
+
+I have reached the last campaign of Turenne, a long game of manœuvre
+between two great strategists, in which the marshal perished on the
+very edge of victory. The League against France, though shattered,
+still held together; and faulty generalship having been the cause of
+the signal discomfiture of 1674, Montecuculi was sent, in 1675, to cope
+with Turenne, still upon the Rhine. The Imperial commander, having
+threatened Philipsburg, crossed the river near Spires and invaded
+Alsace; but Turenne, instead of attacking his foe, crossed the river
+near Strasbourg, and, reaching Wilstedt, struck at the communications
+of the hostile army; and this forced his adversary to recross the
+Rhine. Turenne, having gained this strategic advantage, and carried
+the war into German territory, took a position between Strasbourg and
+Ottenheim, the place where he had bridged the Rhine; but Ottenheim
+is at some distance from Strasbourg, and the French army was very
+much divided. Montecuculi approached the Marshal’s camps, and missed
+a grand opportunity to strike, which, Napoleon remarks, Condé would
+have seized; Turenne, perceiving the danger, raised his bridge, placed
+it near Strasbourg, and drew in his forces; and Montecuculi, again
+baffled, descended the Rhine and occupied Freistett, his object being
+to cross the Rhine at that point by means of a bridge, to be sent down
+from Strasbourg--then, it will be borne in mind, an Imperial city--and
+his ultimate end being to re-enter Alsace. Turenne, however, barred
+the course of the Rhine, by redoubts and batteries carefully placed;
+and having thus prevented the passage of the bridge, he, for the third
+time, out-manœuvred his enemy and kept him bound with his army to
+Germany. The antagonists now held their camps for some months, each
+watching the other, and seeking a chance; but Turenne was the first to
+move. He crossed the Rench by an undefended ford; and this movement
+compelled his enemy to retreat, for it threatened his communications,
+and almost reached his flank. Montecuculi, utterly foiled and
+out-generalled, abandoned at once the valley of the Rhine, and made for
+the defiles of Würtemberg. Turenne, hanging on his foe, pursued; and,
+by the close of July, he had attained the Sassbach, assured that he
+would triumph in a great and decisive battle. Fate, however, withheld
+from Turenne a victory justly earned by his most able strategy. He was
+struck down by a shot from a hostile battery, and Montecuculi escaped
+from the toils which had been admirably laid around him. The Imperial
+chief, indeed--a remarkable man, and in this campaign he was suffering
+from disease--when apprised of the death of his renowned adversary, at
+once boldly resumed the offensive. The French army, deprived of the
+genius which had led it to victory for many years, was soon in full
+retreat on the Rhine; and having fallen into the hands of incapable
+chiefs, it was nearly involved in a crushing disaster. The history
+of war has few more striking instances of what a commander is to his
+troops than the reverses which, after the fall of Turenne, followed
+the course of his steady success before it; and the passionate cry of
+his defeated soldiery, to the worthless men who stood in his place,
+“Give us Magpie”--the warrior’s charger--“to lead us!” is only an
+exaggeration of a substantial truth. Montecuculi’s eulogy on Turenne is
+well-known; but the offensive return which he made with confidence and
+victoriously after his great rival’s death is a more expressive and a
+finer epitaph.
+
+Sorrowing Ilium mourned her mighty shade; the remains of Turenne were
+borne to St. Denis, and laid in the tombs of the Kings of France, an
+honour never again conferred on a subject. They were spared even by
+the Jacobin hands which violated the royal abodes of death in the
+madness of Paris in 1793; and they now fitly rest beside those of
+Napoleon. A word on the place of this great man among the masters of
+the noblest of arts. The peculiar gifts of Turenne were a far-sighted
+and calm intelligence, sagacity of the finest kind, and admirable
+constancy and force of character, and these made him one of the first
+of generals, though he did not possess, in the highest degree, the
+dazzling imagination, the power of thought and of calculation, and the
+astonishing energy which distinguish Napoleon and, perhaps, Hannibal.
+These qualities made him a consummate strategist, few chiefs have
+ever moved on a theatre of war with the perfect skill and success of
+Turenne; few have known how to make grand manœuvres with as certain
+results, and with equal brilliancy; and his great wars of marches,
+replacing sieges, were an inspiration of most striking genius. As
+for special illustration of his strategic powers, Turenne has been
+surpassed by Napoleon alone in the art of reaching the communications
+of a foe, and of operating between separate hostile masses; and he was
+safer than Napoleon in these efforts, though he did not accomplish such
+marvels of war. Considering the state of the art in his time, no chief
+perhaps has ever achieved more than Turenne by scientific movements;
+he triumphed in several campaigns by mere marches without fighting
+a single battle, and yet his success was complete and decisive, as
+was specially seen in 1646 and 1675. In fact, strategy made little
+progress for many years after this great captain; and yet Turenne did
+not quite attain the highest rank among modern strategists, for his
+intellect was somewhat wanting in quickness, and his nature in what is
+called the sacred fire; he let grand opportunities slip, and in three
+great instances, at least, he did not do what probably might have been
+accomplished by him.
+
+These defects--and genius is never perfect--made him a tactician of the
+second order only; he had not Condé’s inspired thought on the field;
+and for a commander of extraordinary gifts, he suffered defeat in many
+instances. Yet the decision and firmness which were among his qualities
+stood him in good stead, even in the conduct of troops; no general has
+ever known better how to make a bold stand, and to impose on an enemy;
+and it was one of his special characteristics that he could overcome
+defeat, and that he was most formidable after a reverse of fortune.
+For the rest, Turenne, like most great captains, had administrative
+powers of the highest order; he, usually, even in his long marches,
+contrived to have his army in good condition; he remodelled the
+military organisation of France, and made it by far the best in
+Europe; and, as an administrator, he had this distinctive merit--that
+he was in advance of the ideas of his time. I must add a word on the
+relations between this illustrious chief and the armies he led. Turenne
+had a truly chivalrous nature; he was singularly considerate to his
+lieutenants, and though he could be stern and severe when needful, he
+made the largest allowance for mere errors, and never blamed others
+for shortcomings of his own. No general has ever had more devoted
+officers; and this magnanimous character was admired and recognized by
+every chief who was opposed to him, by Leopold, Montecuculi, and even
+the arrogant Condé. As for his troops, Turenne was most chary of their
+blood, resembling Wellington in this respect; and, like Wellington
+too--a regimental officer, versed in the details of professional
+work--Turenne knew their wants and gave much attention to them. As has
+always happened with real chiefs, Turenne fashioned his soldiers to his
+own nature; they were not rapid and vehement in in his hands as they
+were in those of Condé and Villars; but he made them steady, enduring,
+bold, but tenacious; and their phrase, “our father,” shows how he was
+beloved by them. Except for one unhappy lapse, the career of Turenne
+does “honour to humanity,” to quote the words of his ablest adversary
+and yet sympathetic friend.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+                             MARLBOROUGH.
+
+
+A thorough estimate of Marlborough would fill a volume, and I must
+confine myself to the military career of one described by a great
+historian as “a prodigy of turpitude,” who “combined the genius of
+Richelieu with the genius of Turenne.” John Churchill was born in
+1650, the offspring of parents who ranked among the landed gentry
+of Devon and Dorset, and who, without apparent gifts of their own,
+transmitted supreme ability to two descendants. Little is known about
+the first years of the boy; but the attachment he felt through life
+for the Church of England was probably more due to his Cavalier birth
+than to the assiduous care of a clerical tutor; and, unlike the Great
+Condé, Turenne, and Villars, he was not trained to arms by constant
+practice and study. It is, perhaps, mere gossip that he owed his first
+commission to the shame of a sister, Arabella Churchill, the mother of
+Berwick by James II.; and we might pass over his amour with Barbara
+Palmer, if it did not bring out, at an early age, proof of the love of
+money, which was a master vice of his richly endowed but most complex
+nature. He first saw war in an admirable school, having been placed
+on the staff of Turenne; he served under that great commander in the
+memorable campaigns of 1672 and 1674; soon attracted the special notice
+of his chief as an officer of extraordinary promise, and was publicly
+thanked by him on the field of Entzheim for the cool intrepidity which
+was one of his distinctive qualities. It is impossible to doubt that
+this experience was of the greatest advantage to the future warrior;
+and though there is a difference in the genius of the men, we may,
+I think, trace the example of Turenne in more than one of the great
+feats of Marlborough. The young, but already distinguished, soldier
+in 1678 married Sarah Jennings, then a beauty of Grammont, but long
+afterwards to become the Atossa of Pope’s vengeance, and the marriage,
+which led to a domestic history of a most strange and eventful kind,
+had a decisive effect on the fortunes alike of Churchill, of England,
+and even of Europe. The pair flourished at the little Court of the Duke
+of York, held in his provincial capital; and it is unnecessary to tell
+how the wife became Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess Anne, and
+acquired an ascendency over the future Queen which was to be followed
+by the most momentous results. During these years, Churchill first gave
+proof of the diplomatic skill which, at a later time, was to make him
+the master of the Grand Alliance. He negotiated some of the underhand
+bargains of Charles II. with Louis XIV., designed to make England a
+vassal of France, and for this and other services he obtained the
+reward of a Scotch, then akin to an Irish, peerage.
+
+  [Illustration: MARLBOROUGH.]
+
+At the accession of James II. to the throne, Lord Churchill was made
+again an agent to obtain a bribe from the great Bourbon Sovereign; but
+though he was raised to the English Peerage, and he really crushed the
+rising of Monmouth by his direction of the Royal troops at Sedgemoor,
+he was left rather in the shade during the trying time when the King
+was carrying out his fatal policy against the laws, the liberties,
+and the Church of England. I do not justify his desertion of James,
+when at the head of his men, at a critical moment, but his guilt was
+shared by the first men of the time; and if self-interest, perhaps,
+was his ruling motive, the strong sympathy he certainly felt for the
+Church in part, I believe, determined his conduct. He participated in
+the Revolution and its spoils, was made Earl of Marlborough, and was
+given a seat at the Council of Nine, which ruled England, under Mary,
+in the absence of William; and he again gave proof of his military
+gifts in a sharp combat in the Low Countries, in his admirable conduct
+of the war in Ireland, and in his always able and successful advice.
+He was already the foremost of English soldiers, and his genius and
+promise had been recognized by more than one of the King’s veterans;
+but he was never really liked by William III., and the great captain
+who, had he been in command, would have changed the fortunes of
+Steenkirk and Landen, was usually kept at home in a subordinate place.
+Marlborough betrayed and abandoned William in turn. I shall not attempt
+to excuse the act; but soaring ambition, wounded to the quick, and
+the scorn of inferior men raised over his head, had probably more
+to do with his conduct than alarm at the prospect of the return of
+James, or a desire to place the Princess Anne on the throne; and in
+judging these things, we must never forget that many of his peers and
+colleagues were no less to blame, and that Revolution had destroyed
+loyalty, divided allegiance, and blighted good faith in the hearts of
+three-fourths of our leading statesmen. At this conjuncture, however,
+one act of Marlborough stands out marked as a foul deed of shame; he
+treacherously disclosed the descent on Brest, caused the death of an
+honoured companion-in-arms, and involved a large British force in
+destruction; and, corrupt and bad as the age was, had the crime and its
+author become known, the head of the criminal would, no doubt, have
+justly fallen on the block at Tower Hill. Marlborough, in fact, could
+not endure his late disgrace; he feared for his life, and made up his
+mind to come to terms at St. Germains, at any risk, and he sacrificed
+Talmash, without scruple, in order to weaken a detested Government, and
+to promote his own selfish ends.
+
+The treason of Marlborough, in the affair of Brest, was unsuspected by
+the men of his time; but it is characteristic of a revolutionary age
+that William ere long turned to him again, though in merited disgrace
+for other offences. His ability, in fact, was necessary to the State,
+and politicians had few scruples; and the diplomatist who had shown
+skill and tact in the negotiations of the Stuarts with Louis XIV.
+was employed, and with marked success, by the King in cementing the
+Grand Alliance against the Bourbon Monarchy. On the death of William,
+Marlborough received the command of the English forces destined for the
+contest with France, and through the influence of Heinsius, the great
+Dutch Minister, he was placed at the head of the armies of the States.
+His reputation, already eminent, entitled him to this high position;
+but almost from the first he gained an ascendency in the direction of
+the military affairs of England which no other British general has
+possessed. This, as is well known, was due to the complete control
+his wife exercised over the Queen; Mrs. Freeman governed Mrs. Morley,
+and practically nearly guided the State; and Marlborough enjoyed more
+real authority than belonged to William, in England at least, until
+near the end of the war of the Spanish Succession. On the other hand,
+the English commander was by this time in his fifty-second year; he
+had never conducted war on a great scale, though he had proved himself
+to be a most able soldier, and it seemed scarcely probable that he
+could cope, with success, with the trained and experienced generals
+of France, brought up amidst the traditions of Turenne and Condé. No
+one dreamed, when Marlborough assumed his command, that Blenheim and
+Ramillies were not distant; and though the Allies had some advantages
+which they did not possess in previous contests, France had hitherto
+confronted Europe with success; and, as Spain and Bavaria were now on
+her side, the chances seemed to be in the main in her favour.
+
+I must glance at the state of the military art at the beginning of the
+war of the Spanish Succession. Since the invasion of Holland in 1672,
+war had assumed ample and even vast dimensions; very large armies had
+appeared in the field, and the contest which had closed at the Peace of
+Ryswick had extended from the Shannon to the far wilds of Hungary. The
+obstacles, to the march of troops, which had existed in the preceding
+age, had been, to a certain extent, lessened; roads and agriculture had
+slightly improved; and owing to the great development of the efficacy
+of the attack, due to the engineering genius of Vauban, the power of
+fortresses had much declined, and they could scarcely ever offer a
+prolonged resistance, or permanently shield an endangered frontier.
+Strategy ought, therefore, to have made distinct progress; but exactly
+the contrary had been the case. No genius had appeared to turn to
+account the advantages offered by the new conditions, and the art
+had retrograded; for while all that belongs to what is material in it
+conduced to its advance, the intelligence which it requires to give it
+grandeur, and to rule matter, had been largely wanting. The operations
+of war during the thirty years before Marlborough emerged on the scene
+had been comparatively timid and slow; vast as were the masses arrayed
+in the field, we see scarcely a single great combination, a remarkable
+march, or a decisive battle, except in the case of the Turkish hordes;
+campaigns were feebly directed and had few results; and though sieges
+took much less time than formerly, armies seldom ventured to pass
+fortresses, or to make daring attempts at invasion. The reason simply
+was, there were no consummate chiefs; William III., Câtinat, Louis of
+Baden, Luxemburg, each with special and real merits of his own, were
+all generals of the second order, and the “sublime part of the art,”
+in Napoleon’s language, had had no masters to bring out its splendours
+since the grave had closed on Turenne and Condé. One peculiarity of the
+strategy of the time deserves the attention of the careful student,
+and it exhibits a marked backward tendency. The generals of the first
+half of the seventeenth century had made considerable use of great
+defensive lines; but Turenne had nearly exploded this system, and his
+triumphs were mainly due to his masterly movements. During the period
+that followed, inferior men went back to the routine of the past; as
+fortresses became of less importance, huge barriers were raised to
+cover frontiers, and whole campaigns were spent in manœuvres to turn or
+to force these artificial obstacles. This indicates a decline in the
+art, though the value of these lines was often great, and[4] it has,
+perhaps, been underrated in our time.
+
+While strategy had thus, for a moment, declined, a change had passed
+over the art of tactics. Armies had continued to grow in numbers,
+and infantry--its importance becoming recognized--was now the arm
+of greatest force on a field of battle. The bayonet, too, had been
+invented, and this invention, almost a revolution in itself, by
+degrees largely modified the old formations of the age of Gustavus,
+Turenne, and Condé. The masses of pikemen and musketeers arrayed in
+dense squares and close columns, were gradually replaced by extended
+lines of infantry, whose weapon combined the powers of the musket and
+pike; and though these lines were still deep and serried, foot, owing
+to the change, covered far more ground on a given field than had been
+the case formerly. The general result of these two circumstances was
+that, in almost all instances, the front of battles was enlarged to an
+immense extent; instead of occupying a few hundred yards, armies about
+to engage filled vast spaces, and as these could scarcely ever be open
+plains, and usually presented local features, such as woods, streams,
+hills, and folds of the ground, it became of increased importance to
+turn to account these peculiarities in any impending conflict. Skill in
+tactics, accordingly, began to consist less in seizing an opportunity
+to throw cavalry upon infantry exposed or broken than in so arranging
+the three arms, and employing them as to derive advantage from the
+special characteristics of the field; and the old order of battle,
+horse on either wing, foot in the centre, and guns in front, as a fixed
+system, became obsolete; and each arm began to be so disposed as to
+be made most effective, having regard to the actual situation and its
+accidents of place. This change, though slow, had become manifest; it
+had been conspicuously seen on the great day of Zenta, where the powers
+of Eugene were first displayed; and battles, though very different from
+what they are now, had assumed an essentially modern aspect, troops
+acting in concert, by no method of routine, but so as always best to
+support each other, and to make use of the ground with this object in
+view.
+
+The tactics, however, of this age, in what may be called their
+subordinate parts, had little in common with those of a later period.
+Cavalry was still considered the most active arm, and far the most
+efficient in the shock of battle; the proportion of horsemen to foot
+was still much larger than it has become in the present century, and
+a general still mainly relied on cavalry for the decisive movements
+that assured victory. Though infantry, too, had greatly increased
+in numbers, and its power in action had been largely multiplied, it
+was still deemed rather an arm to support, to defend, and to cover
+the ground, than to strike; the old traditions still clung to it; its
+lines, four deep at least, were clumsy and heavy, and did not furnish
+sufficient fire; it often was formed in dense columns, and it had never
+yet decided a battle by its own special and unaided efforts. As for
+artillery, guns were still few, and the days of horse artillery had
+not come; and though the power of the arm had been much augmented,
+and its true uses had been partly ascertained, it was still in an
+undeveloped state. The tactics of the day, therefore, so far as regards
+the handling of the three arms, were still immature; and one of the
+methods of these, the blending together in single or in successive
+lines of horsemen and footmen, in an offensive movement, though often
+witnessed, is now obsolete. For the rest, armies were still loosely
+formed; they were still arrays of battalions and squadrons, and they
+were as yet without that complete unity which has made them more
+perfect instruments of war. As for discipline and equipment, little had
+been changed since the grand reforms of Louvois and Turenne; armies
+had become bodies of regular troops with officers, as a rule, of a
+noble class; and the system of magazines, of depôts of supplies, and
+of trains remained what it had been, strategic science having made no
+progress. The organization of the French army was still decidedly the
+best in Europe; but it had been imitated with more or less success by
+more than one of the Continental armies; and the difference in this
+respect was probably less than it had been thirty years previously.
+As for the British army, it already possessed fine regiments, of
+unsurpassed worth; but, as has always happened, it was badly organized,
+and its organization, such as it was, owed much to the care of William
+III.
+
+I must pass rapidly over the two first campaigns, in which Marlborough
+held supreme command. The theatre of the war was the Low Countries
+as, indeed, was usually the case with him; and, as Spain was now
+in alliance with France, the French armies occupied the Belgian
+provinces from the mouths of the Scheldt to the Lower Meuse. Either
+from over-confidence, however, or perhaps, because the incapable
+Chamillart had become his minister, Louis XIV., at the beginning of
+the war, paid little attention to this frontier; and Marlborough was
+largely superior in force when the campaign of 1702 opened. The object
+of the British commander was to master the course of the Meuse, with a
+view to gain a base for more decisive efforts; though hampered already
+by the Dutch deputies, and the many impediments of a coalition, his
+march was a series of easy triumphs; Venloo, Liège, and other places
+fell, with Kaiserwerth on the Middle Rhine; and, if Boufflers made a
+gallant resistance, he was compelled to fall back to the Upper Meuse.
+Marlborough received a dukedom for these services. The recompense now
+appears extravagant, and was, doubtless, largely due to the favour of
+the Queen; but we must recollect that the arms of France had scarcely
+ever been checked before, and for half a century had been deemed
+invincible.
+
+The operations of the campaign of 1703 first distinctly brought out
+the powers of Marlborough in designing great combinations of war, and
+should be studied by those who deny that he possessed the gift of
+strategic genius. The French had been forced back to the Upper Meuse,
+but they still held most of the Belgian strongholds, and they occupied
+a vast system of defensive lines, formed by the rivers and forests of
+an intricate country, and extending from the Mehaigne, not far from
+Namur, to the verge of Antwerp, and thence to Ostend. Marlborough
+aiming, as he always did, at a vital point, and seeking to carry the
+war to the frontier of France, but knowing the difficulties of a direct
+attack, resolved to turn and pass this great obstacle, and thence to
+advance to the French seaboard; and the measures he took to accomplish
+his “great design,” as he called it, in perfectly true language, were
+in the highest degree admirable. The French, largely reinforced,
+held the lines and the fortresses with probably[5] 130,000 men; the
+strength of the allies was not 100,000, but Marlborough possessed the
+immense advantage, ever to be borne in mind by an English chief, of
+the mastery of the movable base of the sea, and he clearly saw how to
+turn this to account. His plan, simple alike and excellent, was to hold
+Boufflers, now supported by Villeroy, in check himself with the bulk
+of his forces; in the meantime the lines were to be assailed by Cohorn
+and Opdam with the Dutch army, and this attack was to be combined with
+a descent on the coast, to be made to the south by an English fleet,
+in order to harass and perplex the enemy. This grand project which,
+in its conception, reveals the genius of a great captain, and which
+ought to have sent the allied armies past the French lines to the Upper
+Lys, was frustrated by the errors of the Dutch commanders, and by the
+jealousies and intrigues too common in a league. Cohorn neglected
+his mission to ravage a province; Opdam made a false and premature
+movement, and before Marlborough had his grasp on his enemy, Boufflers,
+leaving Villeroy in Marlborough’s front, and making a forced march
+with conspicuous skill, anticipated Opdam as he approached Antwerp,
+and defeated him with heavy loss at Eckeren. The “great design” had
+thus been revealed and baffled; but Marlborough believed it could yet
+be accomplished, and moving on Antwerp with the mass of his army,
+he proposed to force the French to fight a great battle, hoping, if
+successful, to get across their lines. Timid and divided counsels,
+however, prevailed; the Dutch commanders refused to second their
+colleague, and Marlborough, bitterly vexed, returned to the Meuse. The
+capture of the small place of Huy was the only fruit of the campaign of
+1703, and Marlborough was so indignant at the conduct of the Dutch that
+he was on the point of throwing up his command.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    THEATRE OF THE
+    CAMPAIGN
+    of 1704.]
+
+Happily for the Grand Alliance, ambition and interest diverted
+Marlborough from this hasty purpose; and the memorable campaign of
+1704 was to be the most renowned of his triumphs. Bavaria had joined
+France in 1703; a real chief, the illustrious Villars, had overcome
+Louis of Baden on the Rhine, had marched into the Swabian lowlands, and
+had defeated a German force on the Danube; and had the Elector of
+Bavaria followed his counsels, and his colleagues in Italy given him
+aid, he would have anticipated the campaign of 1805, and have ended
+the war by a march on Vienna. Villars, however, was disliked at Munich
+and Versailles, and, unlike Marlborough, had an unhappy temper; he was
+recalled for a squabble with the Elector; and his place was filled by
+the incompetent Marsin, who could not even comprehend his strategy.
+Yet the situation of the Empire remained most critical; a combined
+French and Bavarian army threatened the capital from the Iller and the
+Inn; the insurrection of Hungary raged in the East; and Austria might
+be overrun and even subdued if the grand project of Villars were ably
+carried out. Eugene, the first of the Imperialist chiefs, perceived the
+danger and sought to avert it; he addressed himself, not in vain, to
+Marlborough; and a plan of operations was agreed between them, which,
+it was hoped, would detach Bavaria from France, and at least prevent an
+advance on Vienna.
+
+The situation of the belligerent armies on the theatre of war shows
+that it was difficult in the extreme to give effect to any combination
+of the kind. Marlborough commanded the principal force of the allies;
+but he was on the Meuse far away from the Danube, and was held in
+check, as it appeared, by Villeroy, with an army that ought to have
+sufficed for the purpose; Tallard, at the head of a powerful army, was
+on the Rhine, confronting a much weaker enemy--the contingent, in fact,
+defeated by Villars--drawn within the well-known lines of Stolhoffen,
+formed to prevent an attack from Alsace; and the Elector and Marsin
+were in Swabia, greatly superior in force to Louis of Baden, who held
+the approaches from the Black Forest. For Marlborough to attain the
+heart of the Empire, through these masses of surrounding enemies,
+seemed to be almost an impossible task; but he encountered the risk,
+and adopted a project which, I am convinced, was a thought of Eugene’s,
+for it bears the mark of his peculiar genius, in which grandeur was
+combined with rashness. Breaking up from the Lower Meuse, on the 19th
+of May, at the head of, perhaps, 70,000 men, increased as he advanced,
+by German contingents, he crossed the Rhine and made for Mayence; he
+then pressed forward to the Main and the Neckar, and having traversed
+the Franconian plains, he reached the Danube near Ulm on the 22nd of
+June, and joined hands with Louis of Baden, a movement resembling the
+best of Turenne’s as regards its admirable speed and decision. His
+despatches prove that he was fully aware of the peril of this audacious
+march, with Villeroy in his rear and Tallard on his flank; but possibly
+no other course was open; and, as always happened with him, he did not
+hesitate, and he executed his task with consummate skill. Marlborough
+and Baden were now immensely superior in force to the Elector and
+Marsin, who, on being informed of the approach of Marlborough, had
+advanced from the Iller, and attained the Danube; and the allied chiefs
+did not lose an instant in turning their present advantage to account.
+Leaving a considerable force to restrain the enemy, they moved down the
+Danube quickly to Donauwörth; and after a fierce and well-contested
+struggle stormed the heights of the Schellenberg covering the town,
+and became masters of the course of the river. Within a few days, the
+victorious army was overrunning the Bavarian plains and harrying them,
+after the fashion of the age, in order to force the Elector to yield;
+Marlborough having completely transformed the situation for a time by
+operations which had astounded Europe.
+
+While Marlborough had thus attained and overcome the Danube, what
+had been the conduct of the French commanders he had left behind on
+the Meuse and the Rhine? Villeroy had nearly 40,000 men in hand;
+the army of Tallard, even allowing for a detachment sent in the
+spring to Marsin, must have been about 45,000 strong; and had these
+chiefs been capable men, they ought to have prevented Marlborough’s
+movement, though, it is fair to remark, they were bound and hampered
+by injudicious orders from Versailles. Had they combined their armies
+and crossed the Rhine, they ought easily to have carried the lines of
+Stolhoffen--these did not stop Villars a few years afterwards--and
+crushed the feeble army of defence; and they then ought to have been
+able to have forestalled Marlborough, in what was a strategic flank
+march of extreme risk, to have at least fallen on his communications
+between the Neckar, the Main, and the Danube, and to have perhaps
+compelled him to fight in positions where the loss of a battle would
+have been ruinous. Villeroy and Tallard, however, were not great
+chiefs; they marched and counter-marched, lost many weeks, and allowed
+their enemy to pass them by; and it was only in July, when Marlborough
+and Baden were, we have seen, in the heart of Bavaria, that they took
+anything like a decided course. Their armies, before united, were now
+again divided; Villeroy crossed the Rhine to observe the lines of
+Stolhoffen, occupied now by Eugene, at the head of, perhaps, 30,000
+men; and Tallard made for the Black Forest, with a force probably
+35,000 strong, in order to join hands with the Elector and Marsin.
+
+The junction was effected on the 4th of August, not far from the
+central town of Augsburg, and the collected armies must have formed
+a mass of nearly 70,000 men at least, for the most part troops of
+the best quality. Meanwhile, Villeroy had altogether failed to hold
+Eugene along the Rhine in check; that great captain, when aware of
+the movement of Tallard, resolved to give support to Marlborough and
+Baden, already menaced by the combined enemies; and he broke up from
+his lines and flew to the Danube, with a force of about 15,000 men,
+having left a detachment to keep back Villeroy, and having baffled that
+most worthless commander. He was at Höchstedt on the 8th of August--the
+scene of the victory gained by Villars--and, leaving his small force on
+the northern bank, he crossed the Danube to confer with Marlborough, at
+the time at Aichach, to the north-east of Augsburg. A grand opportunity
+was offered again to the French, who, in this campaign, seemed always
+to miss the occasion. The combined Bavarian and French armies were,
+at this moment, quite near Höchstedt; and had they made a rapid and
+decisive movement, they might have crushed the isolated wing of Eugene,
+and have placed Marlborough, who had been left by Baden, in order to
+make the siege of Ingoldstadt, in a position of the most critical kind,
+in a hostile country, with an enemy on his flank, and separated from
+his base on the Danube. Tallard, Marsin, and the Elector, however,
+paused; they crossed the Danube, indeed, at Lauingen; but they did not
+attempt to fall on Eugene; and Marlborough, meanwhile--he clearly saw
+his danger--marched with extraordinary speed from Aichach, and came
+into line with his daring colleague, west of Donauwörth on the 11th of
+August. The allied chiefs decided to attack the enemy, who, by this
+time, was in a strong position, in a region of marsh and forest, where
+the stream of the Nebel falls into the Danube through a plain bounded
+by the villages of Lützingen and Blenheim. Less confident men would
+hardly have run the risk, for the hostile army already threatened the
+line of their communications northwards; and a serious defeat might
+have been destruction.
+
+I can only describe in faint outline the great and decisive battle
+that followed. By the early dawn of the 13th of August, the allied
+army had passed the defiles which lead through Dapfheim into the
+plain of the Nebel, and began to take up its positions for attack.
+Marlborough and Eugene had hoped to surprise the enemy, and Tallard
+and Marsin were really unprepared; in fact, with the Elector, they
+thought that the allies were falling back on Nördlingen, on the line of
+their communications with the Main. The French and Bavarians, however,
+were soon ready; but some hours passed before the hostile armies had
+joined in the actual shock of battle. Each was from 55,000 to 60,000
+strong; but the French and Bavarian army, a veteran force, was probably
+a better instrument of war than the composite masses of many races
+collected under the allied standards. The dispositions, however, of the
+French marshals were essentially bad, and gave the great commanders
+opposed to them a distinct advantage. Tallard and Marsin seem to have
+been convinced that the Nebel, which ran across their front, was
+impassable or could be passed only by an enemy with extreme difficulty;
+and that if Lützingen and Blenheim, with the neighbouring village of
+Oberglau, were held in strong force, the allies, should they advance
+on the Nebel, would be stopped at the centre by a powerful obstacle,
+and on either wing could be easily repelled. They divided their army
+accordingly into two masses, each, it would seem, of nearly equal
+force; and while they crowded their right wing at Blenheim, and
+placed large bodies of men at Oberglau, and at Lützingen on their
+left wing, their extended centre was weakly occupied by a long line
+of cavalry only, supported by an insignificant body of footmen. This
+conception was altogether ill-founded; the obstacle of the Nebel was
+not very great, and were it once forced it would fare ill with the
+thin and ill-guarded French centre, and even with the wings--with the
+right especially, cooped up in Blenheim and close to the Danube. The
+vice of the arrangement, there is reason to believe, was perceived
+by Marlborough almost at once; the masses of the allied army were so
+arrayed as to be ready to assail the hostile centre; and Tallard, who
+commanded the French right, when he saw this, it is said, asked Marsin,
+who was in command of the French left, to send reinforcements to the
+threatened point, but only received an angry refusal.
+
+The battle began at about 9 A.M., Marlborough attacking Blenheim from
+the allied left, while Eugene made a circuitous march on the right;
+and the attack on Blenheim--which, I conceive, was a feint only to
+deceive the enemy--was repulsed with no inconsiderable loss. At about
+noon, when he had been made aware that Eugene was engaged with Marsin,
+Marlborough made a first great effort against the French centre; and
+a mass of cavalry, formed in two lines, with a mass of infantry in
+their front and their rear, was launched forward to cross the Nebel.
+The French horsemen, however, were not wanting to themselves; they
+fell with terrible effect on the hostile array as it was entangled
+and confused in the passage; and though part of Marlborough’s troops
+succeeded in the attempt, they were held to the spot and made no
+progress. Meanwhile, a secondary allied attack on Oberglau had
+altogether failed; and though Marlborough’s presence restored the
+contest, it has been thought that had Tallard and Marsin co-operated
+at this moment in a counter-attack, the French and Bavarian army might
+have won a victory. Eugene, however, who, with an inferior force, had
+held Marsin in check by prodigious efforts, sent a detachment to the
+aid of his colleague, and about 4 P.M. Marlborough was once more free
+to strike what he had seen from the first was the vulnerable point in
+the hostile position. Massing footmen and horsemen once more together,
+he hurled them against the French centre; and though the French cavalry
+fought to the last, their weak support of infantry gave way, and the
+centre yielded to the overwhelming pressure. The victorious army, with
+Marlborough at its head, was now master of the whole position of its
+foes; and turning in full force against the French right, shut up in
+Blenheim and pressed against the Danube, it compelled it, almost at
+once, to surrender. Marsin and the Elector, who, unlike Eugene, had
+done nothing to aid a companion in arms, contrived to effect their
+retreat in safety; but an accident only averted their ruin. The loss
+of the victors was, probably, from 11,000 to 12,000 men; that of the
+French and Bavarians was 40,000; and the routed army was, in fact,
+destroyed.
+
+This splendid campaign, decisive as it was, cannot be deemed a
+strategic masterpiece. The project of the march from the Meuse to the
+Danube, with Villeroy in the rear and Tallard on the Rhine, was too
+hazardous to deserve high praise;[6] and Eugene, I repeat, was, I
+think, its author, though Marlborough is, of course, responsible for
+it. Had Condé been in the place of Villeroy, and Turenne held the staff
+of Tallard, Marlborough, I believe, would not have attained Donauwörth,
+and the great campaign of 1704 would have probably had a different
+issue. Remarkable, too, as was the skill of Eugene in eluding Villeroy,
+and pushing on to the Danube, in order to join his colleague, he ought
+not to have left an isolated detachment in little force within reach
+of an enemy fourfold in strength; and had Tallard and Marsin been real
+chiefs, they would have crushed Eugene and have placed Marlborough in
+extreme peril, when he stood alone and inferior in force in his camp
+at[7] Aichach. Apart, however, from these risks and mistakes, Eugene
+and Marlborough, especially the last, carried out their plans with
+consummate ability. The march from the Meuse, by the Main, to the
+Danube, was a prodigy of execution for the age; the advance to the
+Schellenberg was rapid and brilliant; and the forced march from Aichach
+to join Eugene was admirable for its quickness and boldness. The
+decision, too, to give battle at Blenheim was characteristic of great
+captains; it was hazardous, but a retreat would have lost the whole
+fruits of a successful campaign, and very probably would have been
+fatal.
+
+Nevertheless, it is upon the field of Blenheim that Marlborough’s
+genius becomes most manifest. With that perfect insight which never
+failed him, he at once perceived what was false and defective in the
+disposition of the hostile army. He concentrated his forces against
+the one weak point; and though he was beaten back and even placed
+in danger, he never relaxed his efforts, carrying out his purpose
+with inflexible constancy and calm firmness until he had pierced the
+enemy’s centre, and made a decisive victory certain. Here we see the
+development of what we may call the new tactics in full perfection.
+Tallard and Marsin did not comprehend the ground, and unskilfully
+arrayed their troops upon it. Marlborough took in the situation at
+a glance, and so conducted the battle that an overwhelming mass was
+brought to bear on the decisive spot. Nothing, too, could have been
+more admirable than the loyalty of Eugene to his colleague; but for
+his support Marlborough might have lost the battle; and the result of
+Blenheim was, in fact, due to the unrivalled tactics of the one chief
+and the chivalrous and unselfish zeal of the other. As for the French
+Marshals, the arrangements they made might have succeeded against
+inferior men; but, if formidable in appearance they were radically bad;
+though Tallard of the two is the least to blame, for he understood the
+mistake that was made; and Marsin deserves the severest censure for
+disregarding Tallard’s advice, and for neglecting all through to send
+him assistance--a too characteristic fault of the warriors of France.
+The conduct of the allied army was such as great chiefs almost always
+obtain from the troops they lead. English, Austrians, and Prussians
+fought like heroes; but the French and Bavarians had perhaps the
+better army--and the French cavalry made magnificent efforts, if the
+surrender at Blenheim betrays the weakness of the French soldier in the
+hour of defeat. Blenheim, in truth, was a general’s not a soldier’s
+battle; the triumph of genius in command, not of mere valour.
+
+Blenheim saved the Empire, and set Germany free; and the defeated army,
+a shattered wreck, reaching the Rhine in fragments, fled into Alsace.
+Having cleared the German bank of the river, the Allies sat down
+before the great place of Landau, which covered the approaches to the
+French frontier; but, though the fortress made an heroic resistance,
+Marlborough had entered the Palatinate by the close of autumn, had
+seized the important points of Trarbach and Trêves, and had secured a
+base for the invasion of France. Everything, he hoped, would be ready
+by the early spring--armies still seldom held the field in winter--and
+his purpose was to advance into Lorraine by the valleys of the Moselle
+and the Sarre, with an army of 100,000 men formed of contingents of
+many nations, the line long afterwards marked out by Gneisenau, and
+followed by Moltke in 1870. This indicates a true strategic eye; and,
+in fact, in strategy as well as in tactics Marlborough always detected
+the fault in the cuirass, and seized the vulnerable point on the scene
+before him. The great Englishman, however, had not the good fortune of
+the renowned Dane many years afterwards. Marlborough was not seconded
+as Moltke was. Louis of Baden, who on the field of manœuvre held the
+place of the Crown Prince of Prussia in August 1870, refused to move
+even a man from the Rhine; and though Marlborough advanced to the
+Moselle, in the early summer of 1705, in order to force the hand of his
+colleague, he had not sufficient force to make a decisive movement.
+Marlborough, too, had a very different man to cope with from Napoleon
+III.; his antagonist was Villars, already proved to be incomparably the
+greatest of living French chiefs, and destined to justify the proud
+title of “Invincible,” given by a grateful Sovereign. The operations of
+Villars were able in the extreme; assailing the heads of Marlborough’s
+columns, but taking care to cover his own flanks, he retreated to the
+well known position of Sierk, resting on the Moselle and a chain of
+heights, and he calmly awaited the victor of Blenheim. The hostile
+armies were each about 50,000 strong--the Memoirs of Villars are
+incorrect in making out that his foe had 80,000 men; but Marlborough,
+deprived of the support of Baden, did not venture to risk an attack,
+and, after waiting some days, he recoiled, baffled, and fell back to
+the country round Trêves. He was so angry that he sent a message to
+Villars to explain the cause of his retreat; but though his colleague
+was wholly to blame, Villars had gained his object and had saved France
+from an invasion which might have ended the war.
+
+Marlborough was ere long recalled to the theatre which had been the
+scene of his first exploits. Villeroy by this time had returned to the
+Meuse with an army greatly strengthened since the year before, and, at
+the head of about 70,000 men, he had retaken Huy, advanced down the
+Meuse, and seized the important town of Liège. Terror now prevailed in
+the councils of the States; their chief commander, Auverquerque, had
+been defeated; and Marlborough was compelled to break up from Trêves,
+to abandon the hope of invading France, and to try to restore the war
+in the Low Countries. He had joined Auverquerque by the first week of
+July, and he instantly assumed a bold offensive at the head of about
+60,000 men. Villeroy, a noisy braggart and an incapable chief, was
+out-manœuvred and lost Huy; and he had soon fallen back to the great
+French lines extending across Belgium from the Mehaigne to the sea,
+which had been the scene of operations in 1703. Marlborough, despite
+a protest of the Dutch deputies--they hampered him in all his great
+movements--resolved, to master and pass the obstacle; he marched
+across the well-known field of Landen, which had witnessed Luxemburg’s
+brilliant triumph, and deceiving Villeroy by well-designed feints, he
+forced the lines near Tirlemont on the Gheete, winning a bloody combat,
+and taking many prisoners. The beaten army fell back to the Dyle, in
+the hope of covering Louvain and Brussels, but Marlborough crossed the
+stream at Genappe; and on the 18th of August he was about to assail
+the French in position not far from Waterloo--a village then wholly
+unknown to fame--when once more Dutch fears and jealousies prevented
+his fighting a decisive battle. He was again so indignant that he
+wrote to England, declaring that he would leave his command; and his
+operations, in truth, had been shamefully thwarted. Deserted by Baden
+in the beginning of the year, he had failed in his project of invading
+France; crossed by the Generals and Commissioners of the States, he
+had not been able to bring Villeroy to bay, and the only result of the
+campaign of 1705, which might have seen the Allies on the Marne and
+the Seine, was the capture of the French lines in Belgium, a result
+important indeed, but not very remarkable.
+
+Marlborough spent the winter of 1705–6 in visiting crowned heads of
+the Grand Alliance; a master of diplomacy as well as of war, he threw
+the spell of commanding genius over the King of Denmark and the King
+of Prussia, and secured pledges of support for the ensuing campaign.
+He had been so ill-treated by the States that he wished to invade the
+South of France in 1706, in concert with his loyal colleague, Eugene;
+and it would be a curious speculation whether this effort, which failed
+in his absence in 1706–7, and has never yet been attended with success,
+would have succeeded had Marlborough been in command. He was, however,
+induced to return to the Low Countries, and he advanced towards the
+Meuse to threaten Namur, a great strategic point for a march into
+France, with an army of about 60,000 men. With the infatuation that
+befalls despots, Louis XIV. still had faith in Villeroy, and though
+deprived of the protection of the lines, the Marshal was ordered to
+take the offensive. Villeroy was advancing towards Leuwe with an army
+equal in numbers, at least, to that of his foe, when he met Marlborough
+on his march southwards, in a country of marsh, woodland, and low
+hills, between the Mehaigne and the lesser Gheete, crowned by the
+insignificant village of Ramillies.
+
+  [Illustration: THEATRE OF
+
+  THE
+
+  CAMPAIGNS
+
+  in
+
+  Belgium and North of France.]
+
+A few words must suffice to trace the incidents of the great battle
+that followed. On the 23rd of May 1706, the French army, with a
+Bavarian wing--the Elector still clung to the fortunes of France--was
+seen arrayed on a range of upland, extending from near the course of
+the Mehaigne to beyond the little Gheete, on the hill of St. André,
+the villages of Ramillies and Autre Eglise, and a morass formed by the
+Gheete and its feeders, covering the position across three-fourths
+of its front. Villeroy had formed his army into two masses, his right
+nearly upon the Mehaigne, but strongly occupying an old Roman road
+which led across the plain in a line with the river, his centre and
+left along the marshes of the Gheete; and he held Ramillies and Autre
+Eglise as fortified outposts. The position seemed formidable, as at
+Blenheim, but the eagle eye of Marlborough saw at a glance that his
+enemy’s arrangements had two marked defects, and that able manœuvring
+would assure him victory. Villeroy’s centre and left, especially the
+left, covered by an impassable swamp, was not assailable; but neither
+could he attack that side; and Marlborough held the chord of the arc in
+front of the French Marshal’s position. Marlborough prepared his battle
+with that unerring judgment which scarcely ever forsook him in war; and
+the result was a splendid and complete triumph. The English chief began
+by a feint against the French left, which, of course, was repelled
+without difficulty; but it had the effect which Marlborough hoped for;
+Villeroy detached from his right to support his left, weakening thus
+his army at the real point of attack. Marlborough fell once more on the
+French left, in order to distract the attention of his foe; and then,
+turning his shorter line to account, and moving rapidly a great body
+of troops unseen by Villeroy, behind a hill and a wood, he struck the
+French right in overwhelming force, his men threefold in numbers, at
+the critical point, pressing forward along the Roman causeway into the
+very heart of the hostile position. The French centre and left, held
+bound to the spot, and scarcely able to move, saw the battle lost, and
+made few efforts to avert defeat; and though the French right fought
+well for a time, the resistance was not like that at Blenheim, for
+the French soldier had lost the moral power of success. The villages
+of Ramillies and Autre Eglise were quickly stormed, without heavy
+loss; and the French right was ere long overpowered, and fled from
+the field in despair and rout. Villeroy’s centre and left, being not
+assailable, drew off for a time in fair order; but the contagion
+of defeat soon affected the men, and his whole army became a horde
+of fugitives, abandoning guns and standards, and were captured by
+thousands. Marlborough followed up his victory with the strokes of a
+master; he was free to act and he achieved wonders; and in a few days
+at most the whole of Belgium and its fortresses had become his spoils.
+Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and even Ostend fell with a rapidity for that
+age surprising; the French, hopelessly demoralized, made no stand, and,
+before the autumn had closed, the allied standards had been carried
+to the Lys and the Scheldt, and waved ominously near the frontier of
+France.
+
+I would select Ramillies as the most distinctive and characteristic
+of Marlborough’s battles. Eugene shares the honours of Blenheim with
+him, and the issue hung in suspense at Blenheim; but Ramillies was
+a masterpiece all his own, and the victory was never for a moment
+doubtful. The day was won by a single stroke of tactics; and here
+again we see the peculiar excellence of Marlborough in the highest
+perfection, his genius in taking advantage of the ground, and in
+turning to account the faults of his enemy. France seemed fallen after
+the campaign of 1706, marked, not only by this immense disaster, but
+by Eugene’s grand campaign on the Po, through which the French were
+expelled from Italy; yet the exhausted nation suddenly made one of
+those prodigious and heroic efforts which have so often astounded
+Europe. Berwick, a nephew of Marlborough, and in war a Churchill,
+reconquered Spain in the great fight of Almanza; and an attempt to
+invade Provence and to besiege Toulon, though conducted by Eugene,
+completely failed. Meanwhile Louis XIV., taught at last by misfortune,
+had replaced Villeroy in his command by Vendôme, a man of many gifts
+and many evil qualities; and the King strained the resources of his
+realm to the utmost to make head against his foes in the Low Countries.
+Vendôme took the field with about 100,000 men; Marlborough certainly
+was inferior in force; and the campaign of 1707 was spent in manœuvres
+between the Lys, the Scheldt, and the Sambre, with little results.
+
+I shall only glance at the campaign of 1708, for though Marlborough
+gained a succession of triumphs, it was less marked, perhaps, by his
+peculiar genius than by the fatal dissensions of the French chiefs,
+and the profound demoralization of the French army. Vendôme recovered
+Ghent, and the line of the Lys; he even passed the Scheldt, and
+advanced to the Dender, and though he failed to capture Oudenarde,
+he held a favourable position when he confronted Marlborough on the
+Dender, in the first days of July. He was embarrassed, however, by
+a fatal burden; the Duke of Burgundy, rather a monk than a soldier,
+shared with him an ill-defined command; and the Duke insisted on
+falling back to the Scheldt, renouncing the initiative with timid
+weakness. Marlborough by this time had been joined by Eugene, who
+had moved from the Moselle into Belgium; and the two chiefs advanced
+to the relief of Oudenarde, resolved, if possible, to fight a great
+battle. The march of the French had been extremely slow, owing to the
+bickerings of the Duke and Vendôme; but they were collected upon the
+Scheldt near Gaveren; and they ought to have made the Allies rue an
+audacious attempt to cross the river. The divided chiefs, however, sent
+forward only a weak detachment to dispute the passage. This was cut
+to pieces after a short struggle; and Marlborough and his colleague
+bridged the Scheldt under the beard, so to speak, of the ill-directed
+enemy. The hostile armies met, on the 11th of July, in a region of
+plain and forest outside Oudenarde. Each was probably about 70,000
+strong; and the fortunes of France were once more marred by timidity
+and divided counsels. Marlborough had gained ground on the French
+right, when Vendôme wished to attack from his left, but the Duke of
+Burgundy had resolved to fall back; and though the retreat began in
+good order, the French troops, hard pressed and wretchedly led, broke
+up by degrees in ignominious flight. The defeated army was unable to
+rally until it had found a refuge near Ghent; and Marlborough and
+Eugene, pressing boldly forward, overran the country between the Lys
+and the Scheldt, and sate down before the vast stronghold of Lille.
+I cannot dwell on the great siege that followed, the most remarkable
+of the whole contest. Lille was a place of extraordinary strength. It
+was defended by Boufflers with a large garrison; it was surrounded by
+neighbouring friendly fortresses, and it had the support of the army
+that had fought at Oudenarde, and of another army of relief which,
+under Berwick, had followed the steps of Eugene from the Moselle. To
+capture such a stronghold appeared impossible--Vendôme ridiculed the
+very notion, and yet Marlborough and Eugene accomplished the task,
+though Boufflers made an heroic resistance. This undoubtedly was in
+a great measure due to the ability and daring of the allied chiefs.
+Eugene clung to the fortress with tenacious constancy, and Marlborough
+gave proof of extraordinary resource in covering the siege and in
+maintaining his communications open through all kinds of obstacles. Yet
+Lille would probably not have fallen but for the animosities of the
+French commanders. Vendôme openly quarrelled with the Duke of Burgundy,
+and Berwick sullenly stood aloof from both; and the two armies of
+relief did almost nothing. The moral power, too, of the French soldiery
+was fatally injured by these disputes and failures; and when Lille
+fell, the war seemed about to close in a triumphant march of the Allies
+on Paris.
+
+At this crisis, indeed, the condition of France was such as might
+have made even men like Richelieu and Turenne begin to despair. The
+convulsive effort of 1707 had failed; the Allies were on the verge of
+Artois; and the Monarchy in decline, and the exhausted nation seemed
+unable to confront the mass of their enemies. Yet Louis XIV. did not
+lose heart; he refused the insolent proposals of the Dutch to take up
+arms against his own grandson, and he appealed, not in vain, to an
+heroic people. Recruits flocked in thousands to defend the lilies;
+the misery, in truth, and the prostration of France, increased the
+numbers that joined her armies; but everything that constitutes
+organized force--supplies, depôts, and magazines, were wanting. The
+King, however, throwing prejudice aside, at last confided the army
+on his northern frontier to the one commander who had never failed
+in the calamitous war of the Spanish Succession. History and gossip
+have alike been unjust to Villars; he was ridiculed in England and
+hated at Versailles, but he was a general of extraordinary powers,
+for he combined almost in the highest degree the great faculties of
+Turenne and Condé. Yet when Villars, in the spring of 1709, assumed the
+command of his master’s army, he was almost appalled at the prospect
+before him; he was at the head of perhaps 100,000 men, but he was so
+ill supplied that he could make no movement. It is on occasions like
+these that French soldiers, when ably directed, show at their best.
+Villars in a few weeks had obtained the means of operating with some
+hope of success, and he had breathed into his troops that extreme
+self-confidence which was one of his most distinctive qualities. By the
+early summer he was in positions of formidable strength, in the space
+between the heads of the Lys and the Scheldt, and covering the low
+ranges overlooking Artois; and he had protected himself with defensive
+lines that extended almost from the feeders of the Scheldt to the sea.
+Marlborough and Eugene were now at the head of from 110,000 to 120,000
+men, and Marlborough, with true strategic insight, proposed to turn
+the French lines by the coast, combining the attack with a descent on
+Boulogne, supported by British troops and a fleet, and then, passing
+the Somme and masking its fortresses, to press forward boldly to the
+capital of France. This was a recurrence to the “great design” of
+1703, and worthy of a chief of supreme genius; and it is an additional
+proof that Marlborough perceived, with perfect clearness, the immense
+importance to an English army of the command of the sea. The Dutch
+deputies, however, refused to sanction a movement they doubtless could
+not understand; and Eugene, I believe, agreed with them, for, as we
+shall see, he had formed a plan of quite a different kind to invade
+France. The Allies had now “to take the bull by the horns,” and to
+enter France through the network of fortresses, of rivers, canals,
+and intricate woodland, which still covers her northern frontier; and
+issuing from Lille in great strength, they proceeded to invest the
+stronghold of Tournay, in order to secure and widen their base. The
+place fell after a weak resistance, and Marlborough and Eugene now
+turned against Mons, still pursuing the same methodical warfare, and
+hoping to master the line of the Sambre. This was too much for Villars,
+who would have been placed in extreme difficulty had the Allies gained
+the heads of the Sambre without a contest. He issued from his lines
+in the first week of September, and by the 10th he had taken a strong
+position in a wide opening between two masses of woodland, not far from
+the beleaguered fortress, which overlook the heathy plain and the
+hamlet of Malplaquet, ever since a great name. He fortified ground,
+naturally perilous to attack, with all the resources of the art of the
+engineer; and he boldly awaited the advance of the enemy.
+
+The allied chiefs had meant to attack Villars before he had made these
+formidable lines; but, as usual, they were crossed by the deputies
+of the States, and the result proved how disastrous had been their
+meddling. In the early dawn of the 11th of September, Marlborough and
+Eugene put their army in motion, and the French army was soon descried
+holding a position which has been aptly described as “an infernal
+gulf surrounded by fire.” The French right and left were respectively
+covered by the woods of Lanière and of Taisnière, which crescent-like
+converged towards each other; the wood of Sart spread beyond that of
+Taisnière; and the French centre holding the space between, in the
+opening that leads to the plain of Malplaquet, was massed behind a
+triple line of entrenchments, with apertures to allow the free use of
+cavalry. The position, in short, was of extraordinary strength, and it
+was held by troops who, under the spell of Villars, ably seconded by
+the gallant Boufflers, who had volunteered to assist his colleague,
+were animated by heroic ardour. Yet Marlborough and Eugene did not
+hesitate; and they marshalled their forces for the most desperate and
+best contested struggle of the war, in which princely soldiers from
+all the lands of Europe took part, like knights in a tournament to
+the death. The numbers on each side were not far from equal,[8] the
+Allies having a slight advantage--about 100,000 to 90,000 men; but,
+prodigiously strong as its position was, the French army, crowded with
+rude levies, could not be compared as an efficient force with the
+victorious legions of many campaigns, and the allied chiefs possibly
+trusted too much to an inferiority repeatedly proved.
+
+The plan of Eugene and Marlborough seems to have been to turn the
+French left and to force the left centre, making only a secondary
+effort against the right; and Eugene, after a prolonged contest,
+fairly expelled the enemy from the wood of Sart. The Prince, supported
+by Marlborough in force, now advanced upon the wood of Taisnière, and
+a murderous struggle kept fortune in suspense, until Villars, drawing
+a body of troops from his centre, drove back Eugene in a furious
+onslaught, conspicuous for the valour of the Irish exiles,[9] “ever and
+everywhere, true” to the Bourbon lilies. The situation of the Allies
+was now critical, when a wound deprived the French of the genius of
+their chief; and as the detachment made by Villars had weakened their
+line to a considerable extent--he was hurrying to the endangered
+point when he fell--Marlborough, seizing the occasion with his
+wonted judgment, made a tremendous attack on the enemy’s centre. The
+first range of entrenchments was ere long carried, but the obstacles
+presented by the lines behind, and the heroism of the defence, kept the
+issue doubtful. A magnificent effort made by the household troops of
+France for a time forced the assailants back; and even when the inner
+entrenchments were won the French centre prolonged the still undecided
+battle. Meanwhile the false attack on the French right had been turned
+into an attack in full force. The Prince of Orange, carried away by
+excitement, advanced along the wood of Lanière, and tried to storm the
+hostile entrenchments in front, and his troops were literally mown
+down in thousands by enemies who suffered little loss. The battle was
+raging until 3 P.M., when a flank movement, most skilfully
+made by Eugene, outside the verge of the wood of Taisnière, began to
+endanger the French left, and threatened the only line of retreat; and
+this caused Boufflers, now in supreme command, to draw gradually off
+from the scene of carnage. The Allies, utterly worn out, and cruelly
+stricken, made no attempt to molest the enemy, and the French fell back
+a few miles only, in perfect order, and not the least disheartened.
+Villars, it is said, exclaimed from his litter, that “he expected his
+army to fight again, as soon as it had had a moment of repose.”
+
+Marlborough and Eugene won this terrible battle, the greatest by far
+of the eighteenth century, in what may be called a military sense;
+for the French army retired from the field, and Mons fell a few weeks
+afterwards. But it was not an inconsiderate boast of Villars that
+Malplaquet was truly a Pyrrhic victory; the Allies lost fully 20,000
+men, the French probably not half that number; the Dutch contingent
+never recovered from the fight; and the frightful slaughter of the
+allied soldiery provoked angry discontent in England, and sent a thrill
+of alarm through the enemies of France. Eugene and Marlborough, in the
+actual battle, displayed as usual their great powers; but the whole
+enterprise was, perhaps, too hazardous; and if, as has been alleged,
+Marlborough chose to fight in order to keep up the war party at home,
+he was justly punished for an unprincipled act, for Malplaquet shook
+the Grand Alliance to its base. Villars showed admirable skill in
+choosing his ground, and strengthening a naturally strong position,
+and in arranging his troops upon it; he, too, was a master of the new
+tactics, and he would not improbably have repulsed his foes had he not
+been disabled at a critical moment. As it is, Malplaquet does him the
+highest honour; it is a proof of his extraordinary gifts, that, with an
+army inferior in every respect, he should have inflicted losses on the
+allied army at least twofold greater than that of his own, and that he
+successfully stemmed the tide of misfortune which had for years set in
+against France.
+
+I shall merely refer to the two campaigns of 1710 and 1711, for
+Marlborough is not their real hero, and his great qualities, though
+seen in them, do not appear in their accustomed splendour, owing to
+adverse circumstances which combined against him. He was supported
+by Eugene in the first of these years; and the allied chiefs, in the
+absence of Villars, forced the lines he had made the year before, and
+invested and took the place of Douay, on the second line of the French
+fortresses of the north. Villars, however, though still suffering from
+his wound, was in command by the end of May, and he constructed a new
+great defensive barrier, extending from the Scarpe to the neighbourhood
+of Boulogne, and adding enormously to the many obstacles of a region
+already protected by nature and art. The Allies reached the lines,
+and Eugene, as was his wont, for a daring exploit, gave his voice
+for an attack in force; but the Dutch, remembering Malplaquet, held
+back; Marlborough, it is believed, agreed with them, and the two great
+captains had to content themselves with taking Bethune, St. Vénant,
+and Aire, little places around the head of the Lys, which cost them
+thousands of their best soldiers. Villars, meanwhile, showed little
+sign of life; but he kept on extending his lines until they formed an
+immense position of defence, spreading from the coast to the heads of
+the Sambre; and he boasted, not, we shall see, in vain, that the enemy
+should advance no further. In 1711 Marlborough had not Eugene with him,
+but he was at the head of a very large army; and the campaign was spent
+in a game of manœuvres, in which Villars and he were fairly matched.
+The Englishman succeeded at last in forcing the lines, which were too
+long to be covered at all points; but the capture of the insignificant
+place of Bouchain was the only prize of immense efforts; and though
+the wits of Versailles and St. James’s cried scorn at the _ne plus
+ultra_ of Villars, that great chief had really attained his object,
+and had successfully shielded the French frontier. These campaigns,
+in fact, have been misdescribed by English partisans in Marlborough’s
+interest. The true victor was, beyond dispute, Villars; he had
+compelled the Allies to waste their strength in sieges, which simply
+had no results; he had proved himself to be a master in defence, as
+remarkable as he had been in attack; and, combining genius in politics
+and war, he had gained for France what she needed, time to dissolve the
+Grand Alliance already weakened. It would be unfair, however, to say
+that Marlborough was wanting to himself in this contest; as a military
+exploit, his forcing the lines of Villars was an admirable feat; but,
+in truth, he was circumscribed and baffled by the turn which affairs
+had for some time been taking in England and upon the Continent. He
+had for years been almost supreme in England, and had had full control
+over her resources for war; but Sarah Jennings and Anne Stuart had
+quarrelled; Mrs. Masham had crept to the ear of the Queen; Malplaquet
+had aroused a storm in England; the Ministers in power sought means
+to destroy him; he received no real support from the Whigs; and he had
+become the object of grave charges, partly the clamours of faction,
+but, in part, well founded. On the other hand, France had triumphed in
+Spain; the success of Villars had saved her in the north; the Dutch and
+the English had had enough of war; and the Grand Alliance was being
+broken up largely owing to the rapacity of the House of Austria. In
+1710 and 1711, Marlborough had no scope for his commanding genius; he
+was no longer able to make great efforts; he knew that his splendid
+career was drawing to a close.
+
+Before the beginning of 1712, Marlborough had been deprived of all his
+military commands, dismissed from office amidst shouts of obloquy, and
+threatened with impeachment for crimes against the State. He was not
+brought to a public trial; and some of the accusations heaped upon
+him were certainly false, and now seem ridiculous. But he wisely left
+England with his disgraced wife; and though he was not convicted of
+malversation and fraud, the unscrupulous ambition and avaricious greed
+which were perhaps his most distinctive vices were dragged into light
+by a great deal of evidence. It is remarkable, too, though no commander
+has ever been more beloved by his troops, that he was distrusted
+by some of his best officers; and if his treason at Brest remained
+unknown, he was disliked and suspected by both Whigs and Tories.
+
+The value, however, of his genius in war, was conspicuously proved, in
+an indirect way, in the memorable campaign of 1712. England had now
+withdrawn from the Grand Alliance, but the Emperor still maintained
+the struggle; and Eugene, who hated Louis XIV., and had confirmed his
+master in his warlike purpose, was placed at the head of a great army
+intended to invade and to subdue France. He was now in possession of
+most of the fortresses which cover the northern French frontier, and
+his position was so formidable that Louis XIV., when he gave Villars
+once more the army of the North, and bade the warrior farewell at
+Versailles, exclaimed that, should fortune prove adverse, “the King
+and the Marshal would perish together.” The plan of Eugene, his base
+now secure, was to capture the strongholds near the heads of the
+Oise, and then marching down the open valley of the stream, the path
+followed for ages by the House of Austria and its generals in assailing
+France, to pass by the fortified lines of the Somme, and to finish the
+war by an advance on the capital. He sate down to invest Landrecies,
+now almost the only obstacle in his way, and his army was so confident
+in itself and its chief that it called its lines “the approaches to
+Paris.” This resembled, in some respects, the daring march on Turin in
+1706; but Eugene had made a strategic mistake; arguing from what he
+thought was the timid attitude of Villars, in the campaign of 1710,
+he believed that the Marshal would never attack, and he spread his
+army, in ill-connected posts, from Landrecies to near Marchiennes on
+the frontier, leaving a detachment to guard a weak point at Denain.
+The Prince had to deal with a different foe from the chiefs he had
+routed in 1706; his adversary was a man of genius, full of resource
+and thought, in execution admirable. Villars by this time was in his
+lines near Cambray; he quickly detected Eugene’s error, and he took
+advantage of it with consummate skill. Breaking up from his camps, he
+made a forced march as though he was trying to relieve Landrecies; he
+ostentatiously gave out that this was his purpose, and then, screening
+the movement with perfect art, and counter-marching with extreme
+rapidity, he fell in full force on the communications of his foe, and
+attacked Denain in largely superior numbers. The results of this fine
+strategy were almost marvellous; the detachment guarding Denain was
+destroyed; a large body of troops, hurried up by Eugene to join in the
+defence, was utterly routed, and the whole army of invasion, smitten in
+the flank, and losing its communications, was compelled to retreat, and
+to fall back, baffled, behind the frontier. Villars made the very most
+of this splendid success; the siege of Landrecies was instantly raised;
+the French fortresses, which had been the prizes of many campaigns,
+were soon retaken, and the standards of France were ere long seen
+waving in triumph along the course of the Sambre. France was finally
+saved by this grand feat of arms, and before a year had passed, Villars
+was in the heart of Germany, had driven Eugene beyond the Rhine, and
+had compelled the Emperor to sue for peace. France had never such an
+awakening again until, rescuing her from defeat and anarchy, Napoleon
+won the great fight of Marengo.
+
+In the Revolution which followed the death of Queen Anne, Marlborough
+was placed again in command of the army; but he was disliked by George
+I. and his ministers; and it is significant that he never regained
+anything like his old authority in the State. The last years of
+his life were somewhat obscure; he gradually survived his splendid
+faculties, and he died, little regretted, in 1722. I cannot notice his
+diplomatic career; enough to say that he was the master spirit of the
+Grand Alliance during many years; he kept its ill-connected structure
+together, and three-fourths of the Princes of Christendom inclined
+before the genius of an English subject. As a statesman, Marlborough
+was less successful; he misinterpreted the spirit of the time during
+the later years of the great war he directed; but his errors and fall
+were largely due to the faults and the temper of his imperious wife,
+whom he loved with a fondness not unmixed with terror. A word as to
+his achievements in the noble art of which he was one of the greatest
+masters. Marlborough was endowed with the choicest gifts of a warrior;
+it was his special characteristic that daring, constancy, imagination,
+and prudence were blended in him in proportions of the happiest kind;
+and it is a peculiarity of his career that he attained supreme command,
+for the first time, at a period of life when most great captains have
+done their work, and that he was never defeated in a pitched battle.
+It has been said that he had little strategic genius; but a study of
+his campaigns confutes this error; he was capable of great combinations
+in war; and if, as a strategist, he accomplished less than other
+commanders of the first order, this is partly to be ascribed to the
+contracted theatre which usually was the scene of his exploits, and
+partly to the interference of the Dutch and their deputies, and to the
+jealousies and discords of a divided League. Two strategic gifts he
+certainly possessed in a measure accorded to few commanders; he always
+perceived the weak point of an enemy on a field of manœuvre as well as
+of battle, and he was pre-eminent in making the most of success, and
+in drawing decisive results from victory. In pure strategy, however, he
+was, I think, inferior in originality to Turenne, and he achieved less
+than Villars and Eugene, two great names in this sphere of the art;
+but as a strategist he is second alone to those illustrious chiefs of
+his era; and he contributed largely to the grand revival of strategy,
+after a season of decline, which was seen in the War of the Spanish
+Succession. We must go to the field of battle to behold the genius of
+Marlborough in its highest perfection. He may have been equalled as a
+tactician, but he has never been surpassed; his judgment in placing an
+army on the ground and in detecting the vulnerable points of an enemy;
+his constancy in pressing an attack home at the spot where success
+would be most complete, and his wonderful resource and calmness in
+peril, were unrivalled among the men of his time; and neither Eugene
+nor Villars can show a Ramillies, a masterpiece of purely tactical
+skill. For the rest, Marlborough was a great leader of men, like all
+generals of the first order; and “Corporal John” was as adored by his
+troops as was the “Little Corporal” of another age. It is melancholy
+to observe that deep scars of guilt mar the beauty of this magnificent
+figure; and that we must see in it the dimmed brightness and the ruined
+glory of the fallen archangel, as well as his majesty and commanding
+power. Every allowance ought in justice to be made for Marlborough;
+his crimes were those of a revolutionary age; and few of the leading
+Englishmen of his day were free from the stain of disloyal, bad faith;
+but the treason of Brest was a foul deed of wickedness. A singular vein
+of baseness and meanness ran through, like alloy, this grand nature;
+and whatever excuses may be made for him, there are “damned spots” upon
+Marlborough’s fame.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III.
+
+                         FREDERICK THE GREAT.
+
+
+Frederick II. of Prussia, known as the Great, was born in 1712. The
+associations of his boyhood and early youth were ill fitted to bring
+out the qualities of a nature which, with many defects, was essentially
+that of a soldier and statesman. His father, Frederick William, had
+some parts which entitle him to a place among able rulers; but, even
+as a king, he was a harsh tyrant, and in his private life and social
+relations he was scarcely better than a coarse-minded savage. History
+has fully dwelt on his strange acts and habits; how, with ministers
+mere submissive satellites, he governed his kingdom with a rod of iron;
+how he sate, in what was called his Tobacco Parliament, directing the
+affairs of a growing state according to his despotic fancies; how he
+reduced his household to the level of lackeys, caned nobles, ladies,
+and domestics alike, and was wont to storm against them with oaths and
+curses; how, in order to enlarge an overgrown army, he turned Prussia
+into an immense barrack; and how he exaggerated in his treatment of
+his wife and family the barbarities he inflicted on his terrified
+subjects. That a lad, gifted with fine intelligence, who had a strong
+will and a genuine sympathy with Letters, Art, and the pursuits of
+Science, should, as he grew up, regard with disgust this system of
+cruel and grotesque oppression, and should fiercely resent the inhuman
+discipline to which he was himself subjected, was only natural and to
+be expected; and Frederick and his father seem to have hated each other
+during several years with a cordial hate. It is unnecessary to dwell
+on this dreary episode in the life of the great future sovereign; the
+Crown Prince was beaten, half starved, and drilled into obedience, with
+a severity that became a byeword; he was forbidden books and liberal
+studies; and having sought refuge in flight from these unnatural
+wrongs, he was thrown into prison, condemned to death, and perhaps only
+escaped a malefactor’s fate through the intercession of the Imperial
+Head of Germany.
+
+In the revulsion of feeling caused by this tyranny, Frederick drew
+more and more away from the King, his methods of ruling, his ways,
+and his habits; and when the advent of manhood set him partly free,
+he surrounded himself with youthful friends of a somewhat wild and
+licentious turn, indulged freely in the pleasures of his age, and led
+a life which was a tacit protest against the meanness, the rudeness
+and the barbarism of the Court. His leisure hours, however, were not
+wasted; he read a great deal, and to real profit; he attracted several
+French men of letters to the country house where he passed his time,
+and, amongst others, made the acquaintance of Voltaire; and though he
+dabbled in a poetaster’s calling, he wrote books which give proof of a
+keen intellect, not original, but receptive and powerful. He was looked
+upon, in those days, as a wit and a philosopher of the Parisian type;
+but this was a superficial judgment, due to the accident of his life
+of restraints, and the genuine character of the man was completely
+different. Frederick had far more in common with his half brutish
+father than, probably, he was himself aware. His instincts were for
+despotic power; he had, at bottom, the Prussian military taste; and he
+sympathized with the display of authority in all departments of the
+State and of Government, and even in the relations of private life,
+though not exactly after the paternal fashion. As years advanced,
+too, and his mind developed, he became alive to the real merits,
+marred as they were by extravagant faults, of the old King’s system of
+administration and rule. Prussia, a weak state in the midst of great
+monarchies, required a large defensive force, and the Prussian army had
+been made the best in Europe; Prussia needed an increase of national
+strength, and during the reign of Frederick William her population had
+multiplied and she had grown fast in wealth. The Crown Prince and his
+father became reconciled; and though, to outward seeming, they were
+perfect contrasts, they drew towards each other in feeling and thought,
+and were practically agreed on the national policy. Frederick went to
+the wars to please his father, and served with some distinction in the
+last campaign of Eugene, in 1734. Soon after this the King committed
+a charge to his heir which was, in after years, to become a cause of
+great events in Europe. The House of Hohenzollern conceived that it had
+an old claim on the rich lands of Silesia, for centuries a province of
+the Austrian Monarchy; and Frederick William had often insisted that he
+had been cheated out of his legitimate rights. Almost in his last days
+he entreated his son and coming successor to vindicate those rights, in
+language of passionate wrath and earnestness.
+
+The old King passed away in 1740; and the first act of the Prince, like
+our Henry V., was to get rid of the Falstaffs and Poinses who had been
+the former companions of his youth, though he retained his literary
+friends and tastes, and, indeed, held to them during an eventful life.
+His second act was to raise the Prussian army, which, in the days of
+the Great Elector, had never exceeded 40,000 men--and which had seemed
+of portentous numbers when made 80,000 strong by his late father--to
+fully 100,000 effective troops, a military force out of all proportion
+to what was only a third-rate kingdom. Within a few months, he had
+taken advantage of the bereavement and weakness of Maria Theresa; had
+laid claim to the whole of Silesia, and had overrun the province with
+thousands of soldiers before the young Archduchess could even attempt
+resistance. It was a rapacious and an ignoble act; but, to do him
+justice, Frederick was no hypocrite; he did not pretend that he was
+carrying out the injunctions of a revered parent, and he has cynically
+avowed that his ruling motives were greedy ambition and the desire of
+fame. It is idle, too, as Macaulay has done, to lay to his charge the
+whole guilt of the terrible and world-wide contest that followed; the
+simple truth is that all the Powers of Europe, tired of a long peace
+and restored in strength, were eager for acquisitions and conquests.
+France especially sought to regain her influence in Germany, and to
+weaken her old foe, Austria; and Frederick was not much worse than his
+crowned fellows.
+
+I must glance at the condition of the military art when Frederick made
+his first essays in it. There had been little wars and rumours of
+wars since the great settlement of the Peace of Utrecht, and Austria
+had overcome the hosts of Islam, but Europe had generally enjoyed
+repose during the long period of twenty-five years, and there had been
+nothing resembling the mighty conflicts which had marked the protracted
+reign of Louis XIV. No occasion, therefore, had presented itself for
+an exhibition of strategy like that of Turenne, or of tactics like
+those of Blenheim and Ramillies; and the chiefs of the last great war
+had died--Marlborough, unlamented, in his rest at Blenheim; Eugene,
+Villars, and Berwick, covered with honours, and followed to the grave
+by national mourning. The armies, too, of the great military Powers
+had been out of joint, and had lost experience and efficiency during
+prolonged inaction; that of Austria, despite the warnings of Eugene,
+had been neglected and allowed to decline; the British army had almost
+gone to pieces, and that of France, though formidable in numbers and
+renown, too faithfully represented the feebleness of the State, and the
+vices of the Regency and of Louis XV. Yet if the art of war seemed thus
+in eclipse, the theory of war, as usually happens in periods of rest,
+had had careful students; the elements of military power had grown in
+Europe, and the facilities to make war on a large scale had been to
+a certain extent augmented. Saxe, about this time, had done a good
+deal in simplifying and quickening manœuvres in reviews; Montalembert,
+struck by the immense advantage secured to the attack by Vauban’s
+methods, had begun to think of transforming fortresses, and experience
+of the bayonet had caused the numbers of the infantry in every army
+to be considerably increased, and had made infantry formations more
+light and flexible. The general growth of population, too, had made the
+available resources of war greater; the progress of husbandry and the
+development of roads had enlarged the possible scope of strategy; and
+the spirit of the age, more humane and civilized, was opposed to the
+devastation and waste practised in the wars of the seventeenth century,
+and even to such expedients as great defensive lines, which necessarily
+injured whole tracts of country. The art, therefore, though it had
+recently had no grand illustration, was in a state in which progress
+was at least possible; and a European struggle, there was reason to
+believe, might bring into the field armies more numerous and more
+easily moved than ever had been the case formerly. The most striking
+military fact of the time remains, however, to be yet noticed. While
+all other armies had relatively declined, that of Prussia had, I have
+said, grown to dimensions amazing for so small a State, and her army of
+100,000 men was, even in mere numbers, in 1741, considerably greater
+than that of Austria, and only less, by a third, than that of France.
+Nor were mere numbers anything like a test of the real military power
+of the Prussian army. Frederick William’s mania for big Grenadiers and
+for giant Guards may appear ridiculous; but the King had doubled the
+strength of the force which he deemed necessary to protect the State;
+and his army had become, in his hands, the hardest and best fashioned
+instrument of war which, hitherto, had been formed in Europe. The
+subject of his incessant care, it had been drilled, disciplined, and
+trained in manœuvres by officers of experience and skill, brought up
+in the great school of Marlborough and Eugene; and its infantry, in
+particular, had acquired a precision and celerity of movement, and an
+efficacy of fire--this last partly due to the iron ramrod, then used by
+the Prussian soldier alone--which no army in Europe could even nearly
+equal. An Achilles only was required to prove this mighty weapon of
+unrivalled temper.
+
+This is not the place to examine the policy of Frederick, in the war of
+the Succession of Austria. He wrested Silesia from the Empress-Queen,
+and by alternately taking the side of France and of Austria, and
+throwing his weighty sword into the scales of Power, the young ruler of
+a petty monarchy became the arbiter of two-thirds of the Continent. It
+is indisputable that he had no scruples, and that he often broke faith
+in this game of ambition; but he gave proof of no common statecraft,
+of precocious dexterity, and of great strength of purpose; and he has
+some right to plead at the Bar of History that, with the exception of
+Maria Theresa, he dealt with Kings and Ministers as false as himself.
+His kinsman, George II., was not unwilling to see Prussia effaced
+from the map of Europe, and he was treated by Louis XV. as a mere
+pawn of France, to be used and sacrificed to promote her objects. Nor
+shall I dwell at length on the first attempts of Frederick to conduct
+campaigns and to direct armies. He had not great original genius in
+war, or in any department of human activity, but his intellect was
+vivid, penetrating, strong; he was observant, and quick in seizing
+ideas, and he devoted himself with such steadfast patience to every
+pursuit undertaken by him that he ultimately became a proficient in
+it. These faculties made him the first soldier of an age deficient in
+great commanders; but his progress as a warrior was slow and uncertain;
+and, indeed, his triumphs, even to the last, were rather due, I think,
+to the force of his character, and the superiority of his disciplined
+army, than to pre-eminent excellence in the military art.
+
+The first campaigns of Frederick scarcely require the careful attention
+of the student of war. He occasionally showed a happy conception,
+and, as was always his wont, he was prompt and vigorous in taking the
+initiative and in striking his foe. But he was out-generalled in more
+than one instance; and in the campaign of 1744 he narrowly escaped
+ruin at the hands of Traun, though it is but fair to observe that
+this was largely caused by the incapacity and tardiness of his French
+allies. The battles of Frederick during these years--and this is true,
+indeed, as to his whole career--deserve more notice than his general
+movements; and they have this special interest, that they attest the
+advance he made by degrees in tactics, and the admirable qualities of
+the army he led. His attack at Mollwitz cannot be justified, for the
+Austrians held his line of retreat, and defeat, which was probable,
+would have been destruction. As has often been pointed out, he made
+no attempt to turn to account the manœuvring power of his troops; but
+though he was driven from the field with his horsemen, the terrible
+fire and the unflinching constancy of his infantry gave him victory
+at last. At Chotusitz we, perhaps, see the first example of that
+insight on the ground which became one of his distinctive merits,
+inferior as he always remained, I think, in this important respect to
+Marlborough. He charged with his right wing at a critical moment, and
+the movement possibly assured his success, though the result of the
+battle was mainly due, beyond question, to his tenacious soldiery.
+In the operations that led to Hohenfriedberg he displayed no little
+resource and skill; he lured the Austrians on to make an attack in
+which the chances were in his favour; and though he committed a mistake
+in disposing his troops, which the victor of Ramillies would have,
+perhaps, made fatal--he left a wide gap in an ill-arranged line--still
+the Austrians did not seize the occasion, and their incoherent and
+partial efforts were easily defeated by his well-directed movements. It
+was at Sohr, however, that we see the first instance of the favourite
+manœuvre employed by Frederick, which, taking advantage as it did of
+the peculiar excellences of his formidable and highly-trained army,
+became the means of giving him many a victory, though occasionally
+he abused it, with disastrous results. By this time it had become
+evident that his troops infinitely surpassed the sluggish Austrians in
+rapidity and precision of movement; and like all soldiers, he was, of
+course, aware that could he attain and turn an enemy’s flank without
+endangering his own position, he would necessarily gain an immense
+advantage. At Sohr, accordingly, availing himself of the “mobility”
+and marching power of his army, Frederick turned the Austrian flank
+with one of his wings, throwing the other back, and only bringing it
+up when the turning movement had proved successful; and the battle was
+won by these agile tactics. This manœuvre, repeated on many fields,
+was the celebrated “attack in oblique order,” ever associated with the
+name of the King, and the theme of a great deal of foolish writing;
+it has proved successful or unsuccessful as it has been rightly or
+wrongly adopted; and the first condition of its success, it will be
+perceived, is the possession of an army more active than its foe,
+better disciplined, and more exact in its movements.
+
+Prussia was at peace during the ten years that followed the first great
+defeat of Maria Theresa. Frederick had reached the prime of vigorous
+manhood, and a word must be said on the character of his rule, and
+on the tenor and pursuits of his life. His system of government bore
+a strong resemblance to that of his eccentric father, but with this
+difference--that mere arbitrary power was tempered by clear-sighted
+intelligence, and often had enlightened, if ambitious, objects. He
+was a severe, a meddling, and a pitiless despot; but he checked the
+abuses of feudal nobles, protected the rights of the middle classes
+and the poor, enforced toleration in a still bigoted age, as a rule
+respected justice and law, and, on the whole, had regard to the
+national interests. The worst features of his _régime_ were that
+he carried the rigid methods of the camp into the free relations of
+social life, and that he tried to regulate commerce and agriculture
+according to crude ideas of his own; but if he checked the natural
+expansion of the State, and if his monopolies and laws of trade did
+great mischief, and were often failures, still his absolutism was,
+in the main, beneficent. Prussia was better governed under his stern
+discipline than any one of the Great Powers of the Continent; the
+nation made astonishing progress, and the conquest of Silesia proved
+a blessing to a people which always detested the Hapsburgs. As for
+Frederick himself, he was the most industrious and hard-working Head
+of a State ever seen, and yet he found time for music and art, and for
+the society of the best men of letters; and though his quarrel with
+Voltaire and the jokes and sarcasms he indulged in at the expense of
+his guests showed that he could be a tyrant even in his hours of ease,
+he was far the most accomplished Sovereign of his time. As may be
+supposed, however, the King devoted his chief attention to the care of
+his army, and everything, in fact, was subordinated to it. He does not
+appear to have loved war, but he knew that enemies hemmed him round;
+he resolved to hold a high place among the leading Powers, and he left
+nothing undone to bring to perfection the great military instrument he
+had already proved. The army, growing with the growth of the people,
+and recruited from the lately-annexed province, was increased from
+100,000 to 160,000 men, and it increased in efficiency even more than
+in numbers. The Prussian cavalry had not been equal to that of Austria
+in the Silesian war; it was fashioned into a most admirable arm; and
+it is probable, indeed, that no cavalry has surpassed the squadrons
+of the renowned Seidlitz. As for artillery, the beginning of horse
+artillery--a revolution in the arm--may be traced to this time; and
+while the drill and discipline of the famous Prussian infantry were
+continued and even largely improved, every effort was made to render
+its fire more formidable than it had been before, and to cause its
+evolutions to be more exact and rapid. Frederick’s army, in fact,
+trained to march, to change front, to wheel into line, to gather to a
+flank, to throw masses of horsemen on a selected point, and, besides,
+to turn its weapons to the best account, and all this with amazing
+precision and quickness, was, compared to other continental armies,
+like a practised athlete to a thick-winded clown; and though it was
+organized still in battalions and squadrons--for corps and divisions
+came afterwards--its power, “its mobility,” its capacity for war, would
+be deemed wonderful even in our day.
+
+In 1755–6 the occasion came to test again the value of this mighty
+force. The Empress-Queen had never forgotten Silesia; she thirsted for
+revenge on one she deemed a robber; and she had succeeded at last in
+combining a League of the Great Powers against the Prussian upstart,
+who had exasperated the harlot who reigned at Versailles, and the
+adulteress supreme in the Muscovite Empire, by his poignant jests on
+their notorious vices. France, Austria, and Russia agreed to divide
+the spoils of conquered Prussia among themselves; Sweden and the
+small German States sought a share of the prey; and it was believed
+throughout Europe that the Prussian Monarchy, before a year had closed,
+would be a thing of the past. Frederick saw clearly the extent of his
+peril, but he saw, too, that he had one chance; the armies of the
+League were comparatively weak, and, what was more important, were
+wholly unprepared; he could move his great army at a moment’s notice,
+and he seized the occasion with characteristic energy. Taking the
+initiative fearlessly, he struck at once, and in the spring of 1756 his
+trained legions had entered the plains of Saxony, and were pouring
+through the gaps in the Bohemian hills.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre of the
+
+  SEVEN YEARS WAR]
+
+The great War of the Seven Years had begun; and, as regards the
+military operations of the King, it presents three distinct and well
+marked phases. France and Russia sent no forces into the field against
+Prussia in 1756, and Frederick had to cope with Saxony and Austria
+only, whose united armies were no match for his own. He seized Dresden
+with an overwhelming force; shut the Saxons up in the entrenched camp
+of Pirna; and invaded Bohemia in two great masses, the first, under his
+own command, moving up the Elbe, the second led by Schwerin, a most
+distinguished veteran, advancing from Silesia, at a great distance,
+and with the mountains between, by the Pass of Nachod. The Austrian
+army, inferior in force, on the theatre, probably 60,000 to 90,000
+men, was also divided into two parts; Piccolomini, a descendant of a
+well-known chief of the Thirty Years’ War, held Schwerin in check with
+a comparatively small detachment of troops; Browne, with the principal
+army, confronted Frederick; and an indecisive battle was fought at
+Lobositz, on the banks of the Elbe, in which the contending armies seem
+to have been not far from equal in numbers. The campaign terminated
+to the advantage of Prussia; Browne failed to disengage the Saxons
+at Pirna; their army, surrounded, laid down its arms; and Frederick
+incorporated the men with his own troops, for Germans were usually
+ready to enter his service. The success was unexpected, and even great;
+yet, as Napoleon has justly remarked, Frederick might certainly have
+done more. Schwerin was paralysed by an insignificant force; the King
+at Lobositz was not stronger than Browne; and in these operations, as
+often happened, his bold strategy was very far from perfect.
+
+The campaign of 1757, the most memorable of Frederick’s career, falls
+naturally into two parts; and it deserves the close attention of the
+student of war, for it strikingly illustrates the merits and the
+defects of this renowned, yet sometimes unsafe, commander. France and
+Russia, still unprepared, did simply nothing, until the early summer
+of the year; and Austria, now without Saxon aid, was left isolated for
+months to sustain the contest. Frederick was again certainly superior
+in force; he had 100,000 men at least, the best troops in Europe,
+against 90,000 Austrians, to a great extent of indifferent quality;
+and assuming the offensive he once more invaded Bohemia, by the valley
+of the Elbe, Schwerin, as in the preceding year, moving from Silesia,
+again separated from the main army, but at a less distance than in
+1756. By the 1st of May the King had sate down before Prague, having
+advanced by the western bank of the Moldau; and Schwerin was still
+several marches off, with the Elbe and the Moldau between himself and
+Frederick. By this time Charles of Lorraine had taken a position along
+a series of heights not far from Prague, and his purpose was not to
+offer battle until he had been joined by Daun, moving from Moravia with
+about 25,000 men. Frederick, eager to prevent the intended junction,
+bridged the Moldau under the eye of the enemy, leaving a detachment
+upon the western bank; meanwhile Schwerin had passed the Elbe, pressing
+forward to Prague by forced marches; and the two Prussian armies
+had come into line by nightfall upon the 5th of May, the Austrians
+remaining wholly inactive. The King resolved to attack before Daun
+could come up, and by the morning of the 6th his troops were in motion,
+longing and prepared for a decisive struggle. The Austrian army, about
+60,000 strong, held a defensive position along a range of hills sinking
+towards the east into lowlands and marshes divided by rivers and small
+lakes; the left resting on Prague and the Moldau, the centre and right
+extending to the hamlet of Kyge, near where the hills fall into the
+half-flooded plain. Frederick was probably equal to his foe in numbers,
+and judging that the Austrian centre and left could not be forced, he
+decided on turning his adversary’s right, though the movement was one
+of extreme hazard, for it placed his army with its rear towards Daun,
+known to be advancing to assist his colleague. The Prussian army,
+separated by difficult ground from its enemy, marched in oblique order,
+with extraordinary speed and precision; and it had soon fastened on
+the Austrian right, making fierce efforts to outflank and destroy it.
+Lorraine, however, had thrown back this wing; it presented a new front
+to the advancing foes, and the attack of the Prussians was greatly
+impeded by the swamps and ponds covering the Austrian line, which made
+it difficult in the extreme to pierce. The battle raged for some hours
+with uncertain fortunes; but the Austrian left and centre continued
+motionless, and did not even attempt a counter attack, although the
+occasion was most promising. A gap was formed in the angle where the
+right of Lorraine had been thrown back from the main body; Frederick
+kept pouring troops against the enemy’s flank, and after prodigious
+efforts, in which the aged Schwerin, a pupil of Marlborough, met a
+soldier’s death, the Austrian right was at last broken, and the whole
+Austrian army lost the position, 12,000 men having been cut off from
+Prague and compelled to seek refuge in the camp of Daun.
+
+  [Illustration: BATTLE OF PRAG
+
+  6^{TH} MAY 1787.
+
+    _a.a.a. First position of Austrian Army._
+    _b.b.b. Second position to meet the Prussian Attack._
+    _c.c. Prussians under Kieth._
+    _d.d. First position of Prussian Army._
+    _e.e. Second position of Prussian Army._
+    _f. Schwerin’s Prussians._
+    _g. Prussian Horse._
+    _h. Mannstein’s Attack._
+    _i. Place of Schwerin’s Monument._]
+
+  [Illustration: BATTLE OF ZORNDORF
+
+  25^{TH} AUGUST, 1788.
+
+    _a.a. Prussian Army about to cross the Mützel._
+    _b.b.b. Prussian Army ranked for Battle._
+    _c. Russian Baggage._
+    _d.d. Prussian Infantry._
+    _e.e. Prussian Cavalry._
+    _f. Prussian Baggage._]
+
+Frederick had shown great tactical skill in this battle, and constancy
+of a high order; he had detected the vulnerable point in his enemy’s
+line, and he never relaxed his efforts until he had gained the day.
+In this instance, too, his favourite movement was justifiable in many
+respects; the Prussians gathered on the Austrian flank, protected by
+difficult ground between, and a counter attack would have been no
+easy matter. Nevertheless, his success was largely due to the immense
+superiority of the army he led. Compared to the sluggish Austrians,
+as has been said, it was “a panther darting upon an ox.” Had Charles
+of Lorraine been a great chief, he would have paralyzed the attack
+by a movement from his left; and had this succeeded, Frederick, not
+improbably, would have been hemmed in between the Prince and Daun.
+In this part of the campaign, as in many cases, the strategy of the
+King was essentially faulty; and had he had to deal with a general
+like Turenne, he would have been baffled, out-manœuvred, and forced
+to retreat without having a chance of fighting a decisive battle.
+The invasion of Bohemia on a double line by the Elbe and Silesia, at
+far distances, seems to have been justified by recent events--any
+other operation is, besides, difficult in the case of an attack from
+Prussia--but the principles of the art do not vary; and, as Napoleon
+has said, this strategy gave the Austrian chiefs an immense advantage.
+Charles of Lorraine, firmly established in Prague, and holding a
+central position between the King and Schwerin, ought to have prevented
+their junction with ease; and had he been anything like a master of
+war he would have marched against each, and beaten both in detail. The
+King, too, committed great mistakes--in bridging the Moldau within
+reach of his enemy; in leaving a detachment on the western bank, when
+he had made up his mind to fight a great battle; and, above all, in
+venturing to place his army exposed on its rear to the army of Daun.
+Had Charles of Lorraine had the gifts of Condé, the Prussian army,
+superior as it was, would have bitterly rued these false movements.
+
+The King, after his victory, besieged Prague; but his sieges were
+scarcely ever successful. He drew no lines round the beleaguered
+fortress, but contented himself with a mere blockade; and it was well
+for him that Charles of Lorraine remained motionless, and made scarcely
+a sally, for, as Napoleon has pointed out, an active enemy would have
+made Frederick pay dear for his rash conduct, a remark which proves
+what would have been the judgment of the Emperor on Bazaine at Metz.
+After six weeks of delay round Prague, the King was obliged to move
+a large part of his army to encounter an approaching army of relief.
+Daun had fallen back after the defeat of his colleague, having rallied
+the 12,000 fugitives of Prague; but ere long he was reinforced, and
+by the second week of June he had reached the Elbe, and was drawing
+near Prague with 50,000 men. Frederick marched to oppose him with an
+army not less probably than 40,000 strong; and on the 18th--a great
+day in war--Daun was discovered holding a strong position, extending
+from near the Elbe at Kolin, along eminences, with an open country in
+front, to the hamlet of Hradschin. The King, elated perhaps by his
+recent victory, resolved to repeat the successful manœuvre of Prague;
+neglecting the Austrian centre and left, he decided on falling on
+Daun’s right, and the Prussians once more marched, in their usual
+fashion, to storm a village and heights that overlook Kolin. Frederick,
+however, seems not to have reconnoitred the ground, and to have held
+his adversary in complete contempt; his left, as it gathered on the
+Austrian flank, had exposed itself to a counter-attack, for the field
+allowed this offensive movement; and, besides, the oblique order was
+not properly kept, for his right wing and centre were scarcely thrown
+back, and simply followed the advancing left. The movement, in fact,
+was a flank march, within reach of an enemy able to strike home; and
+the result, as usually happens, was a great disaster. The Prussian left
+was checked by a body of cavalry; Daun crushed the centre and right by
+well-placed batteries; and though he did not cause his army boldly to
+engage, he moved it forward so that his enemy was ravaged by a storm
+of destructive missiles, and ran the gauntlet of deadly musketry. The
+Prussian left, isolated, was at last routed, though it fought with
+courage worthy of all praise; and the whole army was driven from the
+field with a loss of fully a third of its numbers.
+
+Pedants, who have deemed the attack in oblique order a talisman which
+assures victory under all conditions of place and position, have tried
+to explain away this crushing defeat; but Napoleon’s judgment is
+evidently correct. Frederick made a flank march in open ground, under
+the beard of Daun, within striking distance, and the result was like
+what occurred at Austerlitz. Kolin forced the King to raise the siege
+of Prague, to abandon Bohemia, and to fall back on Silesia; and had
+his antagonists been great generals, he might have been overwhelmed
+before he had passed the ranges which overlook the Silesian lowlands.
+But Lorraine did not even break up from Prague till July, many days
+after the battle; Daun, a stout soldier of the school of Wallenstein,
+fond of entrenched camps and defensive lines, but in no sense of the
+word a strategist, lost a week in chanting Te Deums in his camp, to
+use Napoleon’s sarcastic phrase; and Frederick effected his escape
+with little further loss, and held positions between Zittau and
+Bautzen. Nearly two months passed in petty operations, the Austrians
+plainly shunning a contest, and taking no advantage of their splendid
+success, when the apparition of new and formidable enemies on the scene
+compelled the King to retreat towards the Lower Elbe.
+
+We have now reached the second phase of the war, and the second part of
+the campaign of 1757. Up to this time Frederick had had to cope almost
+wholly with the Austrians only, and had been superior in force on the
+theatre of war; the balance was now heavily inclined against him,
+and it was the conviction of Europe, as it had been from the first,
+that he would be annihilated by the League of the Continent. France
+had by this time two armies in Germany; the one 80,000 strong, under
+the command of D’Estrées, the second not less than 50,000 men, partly
+composed of contingents of the small German States, led by Soubise,
+one of the Pompadour’s favourites; and Turenne and Villars had overrun
+Germany, and threatened Vienna with less forces. Meanwhile, Sweden
+had assailed the Pomeranian seaboard; a Russian army of 60,000 men
+had crossed the Niemen and attained the Pregel; and though the forces
+of the Allies were far apart, and D’Estrées was held in check for the
+time in Hanover by the Duke of Cumberland--the warrior of Fontenoy
+and Culloden--it seemed impossible that Prussia could withstand the
+enormous masses arrayed against her. Frederick, always great in the
+hour of danger, saw what was before him, and made up his mind; though
+still suffering from the effects of Kolin, he resolved to advance at
+once against his nearest enemy, Soubise, who had approached the Saale,
+in the hope of striking a decisive blow; and leaving about 40,000 men
+to keep the Austrians back, he marched with about 25,000--he had lately
+been reinforced--to make head against the French commander. Soubise, a
+degenerate scion of the great House of Rohan, and one of the poorest
+creatures who ever led an army, though nearly double in numbers, fell
+back before the King; and several weeks were lost in petty manœuvres,
+Soubise always seeking to avoid fighting, conduct fatal beyond all
+others to French soldiers. The news of the success of the Allies
+elsewhere on the theatre at last, however, compelled the French chief
+to abandon his timid attitude, and towards the close of October the
+army of Soubise returned to the Saale, and crossed the river, though
+it recrossed at the approach of its enemy. On the 5th of November,
+the Prussian army, which had made a short retrograde movement, was
+encamped, perhaps 22,000 strong, in a position near the Saale, with its
+left at Rossbach; and Soubise, who had fully 45,000 men, thought
+that he had caught Frederick, and could cut off his retreat. Full of
+the theory of the oblique order, but utterly ignorant how to apply it,
+he defiled in loose and irregular masses, without even an advanced
+guard, under the eye of his adversary, and well within his reach, in
+order to fall on his rear, and to turn his right; and the result of
+this insensate flank march was ruinous and most disgraceful defeat.
+Frederick, watching like a bird of prey its quarry, allowed Soubise
+to march to his fate; then changing his front, moving on the chord of
+an arc, and screening his operations with great skill, he smote the
+heads of the allied columns, unprotected and surprised, with the fire
+of well-placed batteries and the charges of the renowned horsemen of
+Seidlitz; and the whole army of Soubise was literally scattered and
+half-destroyed by the efforts of a force of only 6,000 or 7,000 men.
+
+  [Illustration: SEIDLITZ AT ROSSBACH.]
+
+Rossbach was one of Frederick’s most brilliant victories; Soubise
+was effaced for the rest of the campaign, and his shattered forces
+recrossed the Rhine. The result of the battle was evidently due to the
+stupid false movement of the allied chiefs; but the King turned this
+to the best account, and his tactics were in all respects admirable.
+This triumph greatly strengthened the Prussian cause, and sent a thrill
+of exultation through German hearts; for Rossbach was the first great
+fight in which Germans, led by a German, had defeated Frenchmen; and
+the traditions of the day kept hope alive in the breasts of many a
+German soldier during the sad years that followed the rout of Jena.
+The arms of the King, however, had been unsuccessful on other parts of
+the theatre of war; and, as the close of 1757 approached, his position
+was one of increasing danger. A contingent of Swedes had, indeed, been
+driven from Pomerania and forced into Stralsund; but the Russians had
+gained a great victory at Jägersdorf, near the banks of the Pregel;
+and though they had recrossed the Niemen as winter came on, the army
+opposed to them had been severely treated. The chief peril, however,
+which threatened Frederick came from Austria and Maria Theresa, his
+implacable and untiring enemy. Lorraine and Daun had been largely
+reinforced after Kolin, and ordered to press forward; and at the head
+of probably 90,000 men, they gradually bore back and drove towards the
+Oder the detachment, not perhaps half in numbers, which the King had
+given to his lieutenant, Bevern. The Austrian generals seem to have
+thought that their mission was to reconquer Silesia; they besieged and
+captured Schweidnitz and Breslau; Austrian horsemen were let loose on
+the province; and Bevern was defeated under the walls of Breslau with
+terrible loss, and was ere long a prisoner.
+
+The intelligence reached the King some three weeks after Rossbach; his
+decision was formed with his wonted promptness, and he hastened to the
+Oder by forced marches, from the Saale across the lowlands of Saxony.
+On the 3rd of December he had joined hands with Ziethen, one of his
+best officers, who had succeeded to the command of Bevern; but the
+united armies were not more than 35,000 or 36,000 men, for death and
+desertion had carried off thousands. The Austrians were still probably
+75,000 strong--they were certainly in immensely superior numbers--and
+it seems astonishing that Lorraine and Daun did not try to trample
+the enemy in the dust who was moving against them from Glogau upon
+the Oder, and could not have had even half their force. The memory of
+Rossbach, however, was, perhaps, too recent; and, leaving Breslau,
+they took a position, defensive as usual, along eminences that look
+down on the village of Leuthen. The left, under Lorraine, approached
+the Schweidnitz, a feeder of the Oder, but with a broad space between;
+the centre held a long line behind Leuthen, with hills and ravines
+before its front; and the right, with Daun in command, stretched down
+to a forest and hamlet known by the name of Ny-pern. Frederick, having
+carefully reconnoitred the ground, put his army in motion early on
+the 5th of December; an advanced guard was easily driven in; and he
+pushed forward his right as quickly as possible, to turn and outflank
+the enemy’s left. This time, however, the attack in oblique order was
+a most skilful and well-planned movement; the Prussian centre and left
+were thrown back until the effort of the right had told; what was
+more important, the army marched, screened by the valleys and hills,
+before the Austrian front; a thick mist, too, hung over the plain, and
+concealed the advance of the Prussian line; and this, therefore,
+was not a flank march within easy reach of a well-placed enemy. The
+Prussian right had soon turned and beaten the troops of Lorraine, which
+happened to be about the worst in the Austrian army; and though the
+Prince endeavoured to throw back his left, and to form a new front,
+as he had done at Prague, his efforts proved fruitless, and his whole
+wing was routed. The centre and left of the King now bore down in
+irresistible force on the shaken army; and though the Austrian chiefs
+did all that brave men could do to restore the fortunes of the day, and
+Daun especially made a bold attempt to advance the Austrian right for a
+great counter attack, their exertions ultimately were of no avail, and
+they were driven, utterly defeated, beyond the Schweidnitz. The losses
+of the victors were not more than 2,000 or 3,000 men; those of the
+vanquished were fully 15,000, with, it is said, 150 guns; and Breslau,
+with a very large garrison and all the wounded and sick of the Austrian
+army, was in a few days in the hands of Frederick. Lorraine and Daun
+fled from Silesia as best they could, and the situation of affairs,
+from the Elbe to the Oder, had been completely transformed by a single
+battle.
+
+  [Illustration: BATTLE OF ROSSBACH.
+
+  5^{TH} NOVEMBER, 1737.
+
+    _a. a. First position of Combined Army._
+    _b. b. First position of Prussian Camp._
+    _c. c. Advance of Prussian Army._
+    _d. d. Second position of Combined Army._
+    _e. e. Prussians retire to Rossbach._
+    _f. French Cavalry, under S^t. Germain._
+    _g. g. March of Combin^d. Army, to attack Prussian rear._
+    _h. Prussian attack led by Seidlitz._
+    _i. Position of Prussian Guns._]
+
+
+  [Illustration: BATTLE OF LEUTHEN
+
+  5^{TH} DECEMBER, 1757.
+
+    _a. a. Austrian Army._
+    _b. b. Position of Saxon Forepost, under Nostitz._
+    _c. c. Advance of Prussian Army._
+    _d. Lucchesi’s Cavalry, reinforced, by Daun._
+    _e. Left wing, under Nadasti._
+    _f. Friedrich’s hill of observation._
+    _g. g. Prussian Army about to attack._
+    _h. Ziethen’s Cavalry._
+    _i. i. i. Retreat of Austrians._]
+
+“Leuthen,” says Napoleon, “is Frederick’s masterpiece”; an army,
+“wholly inferior in force and partly composed of beaten troops,”
+defeated and routed an army twofold in numbers, and that too with
+insignificant loss. The victory is the glory of the attack in oblique
+order, for the Austrian left was turned and destroyed without
+endangering the assailing army; the Prussian centre and right were
+engaged at the fitting time; and though a counter attack was tried,
+it failed, partly owing to the difficulties of the ground, which with
+the mist had screened the King’s offensive movement. But, as Napoleon
+has rightly observed, the attack in this instance had nothing in
+common “with a flank march in the face of your enemy”; and it was “in
+conformity with true principles.” The League against Frederick remained
+unbroken, notwithstanding the reverses of 1757; and in 1758 he had
+still to confront France, Austria, Russia, and the lesser States of
+Germany. The odds against him were still enormous; but the armies of
+the Coalition were widely scattered--Maria Theresa alone had her heart
+in the contest--and Frederick had gained one great ally which has often
+turned the scale in wars on the Continent. By this time the first Pitt
+was supreme in England; he was engaged in a death struggle with the
+French for empire in India, and in the Far West; and he turned his
+eye of genius on the heroic warrior who had conquered at Rossbach, at
+Prague, and at Leuthen. The minister supported Frederick with a small
+contingent of troops, and lavished on him immense subsidies, which the
+King turned to excellent account; and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, a
+very able man, replaced the Duke of Cumberland, and opposed the forces
+of France on the Weser, the Rhine, and the Main, with an army made up
+of German auxiliaries. I cannot dwell on these operations, disgraceful
+in the very highest degree to the fribbles and fops who now led the
+armies of France at the Pompadour’s bidding; suffice it to say that the
+Prince of Clermont and poor Soubise were completely beaten, and the
+French were driven again beyond the Rhine.
+
+I turn to the theatre of war on the Elbe and the Oder, where Frederick
+directed the forces of Prussia. At the beginning of the campaign of
+1758, he had one army on foot in Silesia, threatening Daun, who had
+replaced Lorraine, and had fallen behind the Bohemian hills; a second
+army, under Prince Henry of Prussia, confronted the forces of the
+small German states in Saxony and along the Elbe; a third observed the
+Russians upon the Oder, and the King had perhaps 140,000 men to oppose
+to 250,000, not reckoning the French and Prince Ferdinand’s army. The
+disparity of numbers was, therefore, immense; but Frederick had all
+the shorter lines on the theatre; the Russians could do nothing for
+months; and the occasion was one from which Turenne would have probably
+drawn no little advantage. Strategy, however, was the weak point
+of Frederick; and his first operations in this campaign show small
+comprehension of the art of war. Instead of attacking Daun, inferior in
+force and isolated, he had recourse to the methods of the second-rate
+chiefs of the seventeenth century, now long exploded; he invaded
+Moravia, and laid siege to Olmütz, as if the capture of the fortress,
+important as it is, could have been attended with great results. The
+siege, too, was conducted without regard to military rules, and the
+science of the engineer; lines were not drawn to invest the place; the
+besieging army was left exposed in widely divided camps that invited an
+attack; and, above all, the supplies required for the siege were drawn
+from Neisse, at a great distance, and through the difficult passes
+of the Silesian range. It was fortunate that, at this juncture, the
+recollections of Leuthen paralysed Daun. Had he fallen on the besieging
+army, he might have destroyed it; but though he loitered for weeks, and
+remained inactive, he did not wholly throw away the occasion. With the
+assistance of Loudon, the most brilliant chief of Austria in the Seven
+Years’ War, he contrived to intercept and destroy a convoy directed
+from Neisse, with munitions for the siege; and the King recoiled from
+Olmütz deservedly baffled. Frederick was now in a situation of grave
+peril; he was almost surrounded by Daun and Loudon; his army was
+in want and distress; and had Daun been a great commander he would
+either have forced it against the Bohemian hills, or made it run the
+gauntlet of ever-harassing foes, defeat in either instance involving
+ruin. The King, however, was always great in such crises of fortune;
+out-manœuvring and gaining on his slow adversary, who never knew what
+promptness can effect in war, he advanced from Olmütz into Bohemia, and
+then, hastening along the verge of the hills, he emerged successfully
+into Silesia, making his way through the passes without loss. The march
+was one of the most brilliant and daring of the war.
+
+These operations lasted from the opening of the campaign until the end
+of July 1758. Frederick had suffered no defeat like that of Kolin; but
+he had missed an opportunity to strike Daun, and he had only escaped a
+disaster at Olmütz by his admirable presence of mind and energy. The
+Russians meanwhile had crossed the Niemen and the Vistula, and had
+attained the Oder; and, about the middle of July, they had attacked
+Cüstrin, and drawn near the detachment advanced to hold them in check.
+The King marched from Silesia against this fresh enemy; the Russian
+chief, Fermor, when informed of his approach raised the siege, and
+on the 25th of August had taken a position in a marshy plain in the
+angle between the Oder and Warta, and overlooking the little hamlet
+of Zorndorf. His army, about 55,000 strong, was separated from its
+baggage, left in its camps, and it was drawn up in a huge rectangle,
+a kind of formation which had proved most formidable to the Turkish
+hordes, but ill fitted to resist a European army. Frederick, with
+perhaps 35,000 men, and evidently treating his enemy with contempt,
+marched right round the vast immovable mass, and attacked it with his
+left in his wonted manner. His guns wrought frightful havoc in the
+densely-packed square; but he had once more risked a flank march in
+open ground, and Fermor flung a ponderous force on the advancing wing,
+which was nearly crushed by the Muscovite onset. The battle raged for
+some hours with the most savage fury; the Russians displayed the dogged
+courage of their race, but Seidlitz and his splendid horsemen turned
+the scale at last, and Fermor sullenly retired from the field, the
+victors, however, being unable to seize his baggage or to turn their
+success to the least advantage.
+
+Having thus disposed of this tenacious foe, Frederick was compelled
+to retrace his steps towards the Elbe, for his presence in this
+region had again become necessary. Daun, after his partial success
+in Moravia, had not advanced, as he ought to have done, and joining
+the army of the lesser German States, had not overwhelmed Prince
+Henry of Prussia, an operation which was within his power; but he
+had not been altogether inactive. He had detached Loudon to fall on
+the King; he had laid siege to Neisse in Silesia, and he had made a
+movement which threatened Dresden, timid half measures showing the very
+poorest strategy. Frederick had reached Dresden by the second week of
+September, confounding the projects of his hesitating foe; and he set
+off ere long to relieve Neisse, at the head of about 40,000 men, Daun
+menacing his flank in his camp at Stolpen. A pause in the operations
+followed, due probably to the formidable attitude of Daun; but, by the
+close of September, the King had attained Bautzen in full march for the
+beleaguered fortress. By this time Daun had been rejoined by Loudon;
+their united forces must have been from 75,000 to 90,000 strong, and
+the Austrian chief had taken a position at Hochkirch, amidst woods and
+hills, barring an advance on Neisse. Frederick was close to Hochkirch
+by the 11th of October; he did simply nothing for two days, for he
+was waiting the arrival of supplies from Bautzen; and, confident
+that Daun would not venture to attack, he felt assured that when his
+preparations were made, he could easily turn the position of his foe.
+He paid dearly for his imprudent scorn of an adversary who, though not
+a great chief, was by no means a contemptible soldier, and who was
+seconded, besides, by a very able lieutenant. Daun had had ample time
+to satisfy himself of the numerical weakness of the hostile army; his
+arrangements were made on the night of the 13th, and on the morning
+of the 14th, he attacked in full force, and all but hemmed in the
+astounded Prussians, who, caught and surprised, were completely routed.
+The King extricated himself with extreme difficulty, and at a loss
+of fully 10,000 men; but, as usual, Daun made no use of success, and
+Frederick plucked safety and glory from imminent danger. Always rising
+superior to adverse fortune, he fell back a short distance only, and
+perceiving that Daun continued motionless, he actually stole a march
+on his inactive enemy as soon as his army was fit to march, and made
+for Neisse with extreme celerity. This was a stroke of extraordinary
+boldness and skill; and Frederick gained his object, with a defeated
+army, in the face of a victorious and immensely superior enemy. The
+siege of Neisse was raised on the 5th of November; Daun, instead
+of closing on Frederick’s rear, having idly turned aside to menace
+Dresden, a demonstration that altogether failed.
+
+The campaign of 1758, like that of 1757, shows the true qualities
+of Frederick in war; they were those of an inferior strategist, of
+a tactician of a very high order, but who sometimes made surprising
+mistakes, and was specially prone to underrate his enemy, and of
+a chief who, possessing a noble army, occasionally gave proof of
+extraordinary resource, and, in particular, was able to subdue dangers
+which would have overwhelmed a less determined captain. The King ought
+to have defeated Daun in the first months of the contest, when the
+Austrian commander stood almost alone; he should not have attempted the
+siege of Olmütz; he should not have risked a flank march at Zorndorf,
+incapable of manœuvring as the Russians were; above all, he should not
+have pitched his camp at Hochkirch, and given Daun a grand opportunity
+to strike, simply because he thought him a dull commander. On the other
+hand, Zorndorf was a real victory, no doubt due in a great degree
+to Seidlitz, but partly also to the energy of the King. Frederick
+completely baffled his foes at Dresden, and his conduct after Hochkirch
+in bearding the victors, in eluding them, and in raising the siege of
+Neisse, was that of a soldier of wonderful powers, though he owed his
+success mainly to the inactivity of Daun.
+
+There is a sameness in the course of the Seven Years’ War, which in
+some measure detracts from its interest. The contending armies held
+nearly the same positions in 1759, when the campaign opened, as had
+been the case in 1758, and their relative strength was nearly in the
+same proportions. The French, under Contades and De Broglie, invaded
+Hanover from the Rhine and the Main; they were opposed as before
+by Prince Ferdinand, and though De Broglie gained some success at
+Bergen--the first and last smile of fortune in this war on France--they
+were ultimately defeated with heavy loss at Minden--a day memorable for
+the bravery of the British contingent, and for the incapacity of Lord
+George Sackville--and they fell back discomfited behind the Rhine. In
+Central Germany, Frederick was again in Silesia and Prince Henry once
+more in Saxony; Daun was outside Bohemia and the Silesian frontier,
+and the forces of the small German States on the Saxon plains; and the
+Russians who, after Zorndorf, had returned to their steppes, were still
+hundreds of miles distant, and had not even drawn near the Vistula.
+Apart from the French and Prince Ferdinand’s armies, Frederick had
+still perhaps 120,000 men to oppose to 200,000 or 220,000; but as
+had happened in the two preceding campaigns, he was not inferior in
+force, where he was in supreme command, for the Russians were, for some
+months, outside the immediate sphere of action. In these circumstances
+he might once more have attempted to strike a weighty blow at Daun,
+and Napoleon condemns him for missing the chance; but the Prussian
+army had suffered immense losses, and was now crowded with ill-trained
+levies; and he deserves less censure for this inaction than in the
+campaign of 1758. Several weeks were spent in small operations, which
+show that the strength of the King had begun to decline; he attempted
+nothing resembling a decisive movement, and the war languished on the
+space between the Elbe and the Oder. Meanwhile his enemies had, for the
+first time, formed something of a real combination against him. The
+Empress Elizabeth was savage at the defeat of Zorndorf; Maria Theresa
+had not changed, and a Russian army, fully 70,000 strong, led by
+Soltykoff, a true Muscovite, was directed to join hands with the main
+Austrian army, and to try to crush Frederick with overwhelming numbers.
+Soltykoff having crossed the Vistula about the middle of May, was upon
+the Oder in the first days of August, having routed a Prussian body
+of troops on his march; Daun, meanwhile, had despatched Loudon from
+Silesia to aid the Russian chief, and their united armies, about 80,000
+strong, had soon effected their junction near Frankfort. Frederick had
+advanced, to parry the blow, to the Oder, with perhaps 40,000 or 45,000
+men, and the hostile forces encountered each other at Kunersdorf, close
+to Frankfort, upon the 12th of August. The battle is chiefly remarkable
+for the characteristic stubbornness and tenacity of the Muscovite
+infantry. Frederick’s manœuvres gained some success at first; indeed,
+Soltykoff was nearly forced into the Oder, but his men rallied behind a
+line of entrenchments, and the Prussians recoiled, hopelessly beaten,
+from the bloodstained defences. The King lost a third of his army, and
+nearly all his guns, and was with difficulty able to get across the
+Oder.
+
+The situation of Frederick after Kunersdorf was critical in the
+extreme, and might have been made desperate. Daun, obeying Maria
+Theresa’s orders, had advanced from Silesia towards the lower Oder;
+and, when informed of the results of the battle, he moved slowly to
+Triebel on the Neisse, about six marches distant from the victorious
+army. Had Soltykoff and Daun now combined their movements, and
+cordially acted in real concert, they could have opposed fully 120,000
+men, in a central position, to Prince Henry and to Frederick and his
+beaten army; and as the Prussian forces were widely divided, and could
+not have been 80,000 strong, not to speak of the demoralization of
+defeat, Daun and Soltykoff ought to have crushed their enemy. The
+discords and jealousies of a Coalition, as has often happened, perhaps,
+saved the King and his fortunes at this perilous juncture. The Austrian
+and Russian generals disliked each other; the policy of their Courts
+had already begun to diverge on the question of the Turkish Empire; and
+Soltykoff was indignant that he had been joined only by the detachment
+sent forward by Daun under Loudon. The Russians and Austrians did not
+unite, as was quite possible, about the 25th of August, and Frederick
+turned this brief respite to the best advantage. His shattered army
+was reinforced by levies from the north; the artillery he had lost was
+replaced from Berlin; and he was soon at the head of 40,000 men, while
+Prince Henry had thrown himself, with no ordinary daring, between the
+two hostile armies. Daun fell back towards Saxony in the first days
+of September, completely giving up the object of the campaign; before
+long Soltykoff was in full retreat, and had recrossed the Vistula by
+the approach of winter; and thus Kunersdorf proved an all but barren
+victory; Frederick had once more escaped from the toils, and the two
+Empresses saw their projects frustrated.
+
+The campaign, nevertheless, was a losing one to the King, and it
+terminated in a very great disaster. During the time when he had been
+compelled to move to the Oder, in order to face the Russians, the army
+of the small German states, with some aid from Daun, had taken the
+offensive upon the Elbe; and, after capturing Torgau and Wittenberg,
+it had laid siege to Dresden towards the end of August, the city, it
+will be recollected, having been in the hands of the Prussians since
+1756, and being their main depôt and place of arms. The attack had been
+unsuccessful until the news of Kunersdorf reached the commandant, with
+a letter from the King, empowering him to treat and to withdraw the
+garrison; the capitulation was signed in the first days of September,
+and the portal of Bohemia and the main strategic point of Saxony were
+thus permanently lost to Frederick, who stormed in vain against his
+ill-used subordinate. The fall of Dresden was a great reverse, but it
+was followed by a still greater misfortune. The King, after the failure
+of the allied armies to join hands, had remained in observation for a
+time on the Oder; but towards the close of October he fell ill, and
+for some weeks he was unable to do anything. Prince Henry, meanwhile,
+had followed the movements of Daun, and had marched into Saxony; and a
+series of petty operations followed, which are not worthy of special
+notice. By November, Frederick, himself again, had marched into Saxony
+and approached Dresden; and, with a want of perception difficult to
+understand, he committed a mistake, in Napoleon’s judgment the most
+inexcusable of his chequered career. Daun was at the head of his army
+in Saxony; a large Austrian garrison was in Dresden; and there was
+no reason to imagine that this resolute soldier was contemplating a
+retrograde movement. The King, however, took it into his head that
+his adversary was about to retreat into Bohemia; and always despising
+Daun, spite of Kolin and Hochkirch, he sent off 12,000 men from the
+main army to intercept the supposed movement. The officer in command
+protested in vain; Daun closed on his foe in irresistible force; and
+the whole Prussian detachment, hemmed in and powerless, was compelled
+ignominiously to lay down its arms. Napoleon’s remarks on the surrender
+of Maxen possess lasting and peculiar interest for the generation that
+has witnessed Metz and Sedan.
+
+The third phase of the struggle had now come; Frederick, superior in
+force until the summer of 1757, was henceforward wholly over-matched by
+his enemies. The symptoms of decline which had become apparent in the
+strength of Prussia in 1759 had been greatly aggravated by late events;
+the losses at Kunersdorf and Maxen had been immense; Frederick had been
+deprived of some of his best lieutenants, and the magnificent army with
+which he had begun the war had been reduced to a mere skeleton. On the
+other hand, his obstinate resistance had exasperated his foes; even
+the listless and worthless Louis XV., notwithstanding the terrible
+reverses of France in Canada, in Hindustan, and upon every sea, began
+to be ashamed of defeats on the Rhine and the Weser; and Maria Theresa
+and Elizabeth continued united in their thirst for vengeance. The
+Coalition made gigantic efforts to bring the unequal contest to a
+close; France placed 140,000 men on the Main and the Rhine; in Silesia
+Loudon had 50,000; Daun was at the head of 80,000 troops of the
+Empress-Queen and the lesser German States, encamped round Dresden and
+in the Saxon plains; and Soltykoff commanded 70,000 Russians directed
+from the Vistula to attain the Oder. To resist these immense masses,
+the most numerous that had ever been seen in arms in Europe, Frederick
+could only oppose Prince Ferdinand and 70,000 men to the French army,
+twofold in numbers; and though he was still subsidised by the gold
+of Pitt, and he had a central position between his foes, he had not
+more than 100,000 men, composed largely of mere recruits, to contend
+with the great Russian and Austro-German armies. The eagles seemed
+to be gathering on their intended prey, but Frederick had resources
+in himself and in the patriotic nation he ruled which the Coalition
+had not taken into account. His fierce, determined, and heroic nature
+exhibited itself in its grandest aspect; extreme as his peril was, he
+had no thought of yielding; his centralized and severe government still
+drew men and supplies from his half-ruined kingdom, and his people,
+proud of their renowned Sovereign, strained every nerve to fight to the
+last.
+
+The opening of the campaign of 1760 seemed to portend the speedy
+ruin of the King; Loudon forced a Prussian detachment 10,000 strong
+to surrender at Landshut, in Silesia, a repetition of the disaster
+at Maxen; and Frederick vainly attempted to lay siege to Dresden, an
+operation as unwise as the siege of Olmütz, which Daun frustrated
+without difficulty, but which, had he been a great general, he ought to
+have rendered all but fatal. By this time Loudon had captured Glatz,
+and was overrunning the Silesian plains; the King, anxious about the
+annexed province, which Maria Theresa burned to reconquer, set off
+from Saxony by forced marches; but Daun followed on a parallel line,
+and in the second week of August, he had nearly joined Loudon, and
+closed round Frederick and his much weaker army. At daybreak on the
+15th, Loudon attacked Frederick at Liegnitz, near the stream of the
+Katzbach, the army of Daun being almost in sight; but the double
+movement was ill-combined, and the King extricated himself, and even
+gained a victory. His position, however, was still most critical,
+and had Soltykoff, who had approached the Oder, co-operated with the
+Austrian chiefs, the King, humanly speaking, must have succumbed.
+Prince Henry, however, again interposed--a mere demonstration proved
+sufficient; the jealousies of the Allies did the rest; and Soltykoff,
+instead of striking down Frederick, merely marched northwards and
+plundered Berlin, a diversion that proved of no importance. The King,
+saved from destruction, returned into Saxony; the armies of Loudon and
+Daun diverged; and while Loudon remained in Silesia, Daun followed his
+adversary with the main army, and took a position at Torgau, on the
+Elbe. Frederick attacked Daun on the 3rd of November, assailing him at
+once in flank and front. The attack he conducted in person completely
+failed; but Ziethen retrieved the fortunes of the day, and the Austrian
+army was at last defeated. The “hind doomed to death” was not yet to
+die, and, after many vicissitudes and a marvellous escape, Frederick
+still held his own between the Elbe and the Oder. Meanwhile, as usual,
+the great French army had invaded Germany, and had accomplished
+nothing; Prince Ferdinand, as heretofore, had held it in check.
+
+I shall pass rapidly over the last scenes of the internecine and
+protracted contest. The situation of Frederick in 1761 was much the
+same as in the year before, save that the process of exhaustion had
+told more on his resources than on those of his enemies. The French
+Court made really great efforts to repair the humiliation of four years
+of reverses; it put on foot a magnificent army of not less than 160,000
+men, a force, Napoleon has remarked, sufficient to have conquered
+Germany if properly led; but its chief was the worthless Soubise; and
+baffled and out-manœuvred by Prince Ferdinand, it returned to its
+winter quarters without winning a battle. On the true theatre of war
+in Germany the King was again immensely inferior in force; he had
+probably less than 100,000 men against 220,000 or 250,000; but these
+last, as always, were widely divided. The two Empresses recurred to
+the project which had all but succeeded in 1759. Daun, who had been
+severely wounded at Torgau, was left in Saxony to confront Prince
+Henry, and Loudon, now the real chief of the Austrian armies, advanced
+from Silesia, to unite with Boutourline, a new commander of the Russian
+forces. The King, utterly outnumbered, had recourse to the antiquated
+and barbarous method of wasting whole tracts to keep back Loudon;
+but the Austrian general made his way to the Oder; and, having left
+a detachment to besiege Schweidnitz, he effected his juncture with
+Boutourline’s army at Jauer, near Liegnitz, at the close of August.
+Frederick entrenched himself within defensive lines, after the fashion
+of the preceding century; he had lost the initiative, and waited on
+his foes, and he was ere long surrounded in his camps at Bunzelwitz by
+enemies nearly fourfold in numbers. Loudon, a real general, was eager
+to storm the lines, and, Napoleon thinks, must have destroyed the
+King had Boutourline concurred in the attack; but Muscovite jealousy
+interfered once more, and the Russian commander stiffly refused to
+support his colleague, and marched northwards. Frederick escaped, as
+had often happened, by a kind of marvel; meanwhile, Daun had remained
+inactive in Saxony, and the only results of a campaign which should
+have overwhelmed Prussia were that the Russians established themselves
+on the Baltic, ready for speedier operations in the following year, and
+that Loudon captured the great place of Schweidnitz, the key, as it has
+been called, of Silesia.
+
+1762 was the last year of the war, and as it opened the prospects of
+the King had never seemed to be so gloomy and hopeless. The circle of
+his enemies was narrowing round him; Daun and a powerful army held
+possession of Saxony and the line of the Elbe; Loudon occupied Silesia
+in great force; the Russians were preparing to march from Kolberg; and
+the French had 100,000 men in the heart of Germany. Frederick thought
+that the end had at last come; yet, unshaken by the approach of the
+tempest, he confronted it with heroic constancy, and like a lion who
+marks the advance of the hunters, he moved hither and thither with the
+wrecks of his armies, watching an opportunity to strike with effect,
+and determined to challenge fortune to the last. As had always happened
+in the Seven Years’ War, the French operations completely failed, and
+Frederick contrived to recruit his forces with 20,000 Germans in the
+Austrian service, unwisely disbanded at this supreme moment. Yet these
+gleams of success appeared extinguished by an event that portended
+complete ruin; the fall of Pitt in detaching England from Prussia, and
+depriving her of her only ally, made the cause of the King apparently
+hopeless. Nevertheless, his grand strength of character was justly
+recompensed, and at the eleventh hour a series of strange incidents
+changed the whole state of affairs in Europe. The Empress Elizabeth
+suddenly died; her successor, Peter, became an ally of the King; and
+though Catherine, his murderess, who seized his crown, did not adopt
+the policy of her late husband, Russia withdrew finally from the
+Coalition. This became the signal of the dissolution of the League;
+France, disgraced and defeated all over the globe, made an ignominious
+peace with England and Prussia; and Maria Theresa, left isolated, and
+threatened by the Turk, the old foe of Austria, was compelled sullenly
+to give up the contest. The last event of the war was the recapture of
+Schweidnitz by the Prussian army; Frederick had successfully withstood
+the Great Powers of the Continent, and all that Austria, that Russia,
+that France had done had not even wrested Silesia from his hands.
+
+A few weeks after the Peace of Hubertsburg, the King and his army
+entered Berlin in triumph. The pageant was very different from that
+witnessed in 1866 and in 1871, when Prussia had driven Austria from
+her high place in Germany, and had annihilated the military power of
+France. The magnificence of war was not to be seen; splendid troops
+did not line the squares and the streets; there was no procession of
+superb trophies attesting a series of amazing victories. The army which
+had begun the contest had well-nigh perished; its ranks were filled by
+men not of the stock of Brandenburg; its standards in rags, and its
+war-worn aspect attested the vicissitudes and defeats of a long and
+uncertain struggle. Yet the spectacle was one of enduring interest,
+big with great results in a far distant future. That army, made up
+of many elements from different parts of the great German race, like
+Wallenstein’s army of a century before, embodied, however feebly,
+the as yet vague idea that Germany was a nation of one blood and
+language; and it was the precursor of the patriotic league which rose
+and fought for Germany in 1813–14, and of the gigantic hosts which, in
+our day, conquered the unity of Germany at Sadowa and Sedan. Frederick
+had no sympathy with what, in his time, was merely a dream of a few
+enthusiasts; in taste and thought he was through life a Frenchman,
+and he never really looked beyond Prussian interests, yet he was the
+second Arminius of the Teutonic race, and the Seven Years’ War was
+a new era for Germany. For many years, however, his own energy, and
+those of his people, were engrossed in efforts to repair the appalling
+ruin which had befallen his kingdom. Prussia was a land of desolation
+when he sheathed his sword; her population had diminished a tenth; her
+youth, equal to war, had been reduced one sixth; savage hordes from the
+East had overrun her provinces; every town was darkened with tokens of
+mourning; Silesia had more than one silent and deserted village. The
+Government, too, had become more despotic in the course of the war than
+it had ever been; the pressure of arbitrary taxation was frightful; a
+prying Inquisition had entered the homes of all, and, as has been said,
+“everything that was not military violence was anarchy.”
+
+Yet the King was never before so revered by his subjects, and he
+remained the object of their love and esteem in an age when, in the
+decay of loyalty, every throne of the Continent was being undermined.
+This profound national sentiment was partly due to the real merits of
+the King as a ruler, but mainly, no doubt, to the patriotic pride of
+the martial and ambitious people of Prussia, which has never ceased to
+boast that, under its Great Frederick, it defeated the armed strength
+of three-fourths of Europe. This legend, indeed, is to a great extent
+a fable; the “miraculous,” as Napoleon has said, disappears upon an
+impartial survey of Frederick’s exploits in the Seven Years’ War.
+For many months he was superior in force on the theatre; Austria,
+all through, was his only determined enemy; Russia was too distant
+to act with effect, and had a real interest not to weaken Prussia;
+and France either did not put forth her force, or--the Bellona of
+Europe--committed the weapons of Condé and Turenne to Soubise and
+Clermont, in their hands the darts of an impotent Priam. Even as it
+was, too, on more than one occasion the King must have been overwhelmed
+and ruined but for the dissensions of the Coalition; and it was his
+peculiar good fortune that, if we except Loudon--and this able and
+brilliant chief held high command for a few months only--he had to
+cope with generals of the third order. Yet admitting all this, and
+recollecting besides the many military shortcomings of the King--and
+his errors were sometimes of the gravest kind--still his achievements
+are justly held by Prussia as a glorious possession above price; they
+remain, and will for ever remain, a grand monument of what constancy,
+decision, and energy can accomplish against odds which appeared
+impossible to resist.
+
+After the termination of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick never fought
+a battle again. He was threatened, indeed, in 1775, by an Austrian
+invasion to regain Silesia; and in 1778 the Emperor Joseph arrayed
+a great army against Prussia, to assert his claims to a part of
+Bavaria. These hostilities, however, came to nothing, and the King
+was allowed, during a long space of time, to carry out the policy
+he had laid down for himself. It was a policy of craft and ambition
+abroad; and Frederick, in his fixed purpose of enlarging Prussia,
+was a chief author of the partition of Poland, a crime shared by
+Catherine, and even by Maria Theresa--the conscience of the last
+was, however, stung--and the cause of unnumbered woes to Europe. His
+domestic policy remained one of enlightened despotism, of equal laws
+and of strong government, of arbitrary, but tolerably just, rule; and
+his kingdom recovered within a short time from most of the effects of
+the Seven Years’ War, and made rapid strides in wealth and prosperity.
+The King was justly deemed the first sovereign of his age; but the
+three accomplices in the destruction of Poland suffered cruelly for
+a great national wrong; but for this, Revolution would have been
+quelled in France in 1792 and 1793; but for this, Austria would not
+have bled at Austerlitz, and Prussia and Russia mourned for Jena and
+Friedland. Though the centralized government of Frederick, too, seemed
+a masterpiece of wisdom and power, it proved unable to stand the strain
+of ill fortune, and it perished with the renowned Prussian army in the
+agony of 1806–7. Frederick died peacefully in 1786, having survived
+nearly all the sovereigns of his time. One of his last acts was to
+form a league against the pretensions of Imperial Austria; but he was
+utterly unconscious that a tempest was at hand which was to destroy the
+monarchies of the eighteenth century, and to create a new Prussia out
+of the wrecks of the old.
+
+I turn to my immediate subject. What is the place of the King among
+great commanders? Frederick had not supreme original genius; he
+was deficient in imagination, and often in judgment; but he had a
+powerful mind, intensely quick perception, activity and perseverance
+beyond praise; and he was endowed, besides, with a force of character
+and a steadfastness seldom bestowed on man. These qualities made
+him the greatest captain of an age wanting in masters of the art;
+and he accomplished wonders, spite of his many faults, with an army
+infinitely the best in Europe. As a strategist, he stands low in the
+second order; his ideas were occasionally sound and brilliant, but the
+plans of his campaigns were, for the most part, bad; and he had not
+the faculty of those great combinations which disclose real strategic
+genius. Holding, as he usually did, a central position between enemies
+widely apart, he would repeatedly have defeated them in detail had
+he possessed the science and the gifts of Turenne; and had he had to
+cope, not with the Lorraines and the Dauns, but with the general of
+Castiglione and Rivoli, he would have been struck down over and over
+again, as the result of his false and ill-directed movements. His
+place as a tactician is much higher. Frederick had real insight and
+skill on the field; he possessed a great deal of Marlborough’s power
+of detecting the vulnerable points of an enemy, and of striking at
+them until success was attained, and his favourite manœuvre, when
+properly understood, is an illustration of the great principle that
+you should always so place your troops on the ground as to turn it to
+the best advantage, and to make the most of their powers upon it. Yet
+the King had not Marlborough’s unerring skill; even as a tactician he
+made great mistakes. He was deservedly beaten at Kolin and Hochkirch;
+he had the great fault of sometimes losing his temper. There is a bad
+mannerism in his conduct of battles, and more than once he completely
+ignored the conditions under which, and under which alone, the attack
+in oblique order could be risked or justified. The title of Frederick
+to rank among the first of warriors depends less, in fact, upon his
+intellectual faculties than upon his grand and extraordinary moral
+qualities, tenacity, and marvellous strength of character; no general
+has surpassed him in the rare gift of overcoming difficulties, and
+escaping from peril; no general, not even Arthur Wellesley, has
+confronted a huge superiority of force with more calmness and firmness
+of purpose; no general, not even his countryman Blücher, a subaltern in
+the Seven Years’ War, has excelled him in rising above defeat, and in
+mastering an enemy who had seemed secure in victory. If Napoleon says
+truly--and who can doubt it?--that a strong nature is the greatest gift
+of a chief, Frederick is eminent among the masters of war.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                               NAPOLEON.
+
+
+The years that followed the peace of Hubertsburg were a period of
+repose, if not for mankind, at least for five-sixths of Continental
+Europe. Russia, indeed, half an Asiatic Power, carrying out the designs
+of Peter the Great, under the rule of a bad but most able woman,
+advanced beyond the Tanais to the heads of the Euxine; and Austria,
+deprived of the genius of Eugene, was more than once engaged in a
+doubtful contest with Islam, formidable even in decay. But France was
+scarcely involved in war, apart from a naval struggle with England;
+hardly a shot was fired in despoiling Poland; save for demonstrations
+that came to nothing, Germany was at peace from the Rhine to the Oder;
+and though England founded an Empire in Hindustan, and the Great
+Republic of the Far West was born, the conflicts that led to these
+mighty events were outside the pale of the European world. As happened
+after the peace of Utrecht, few occasions arose during this long season
+of comparative rest for the illustration of the military art, by
+examples in the field; the chiefs of the Seven Years’ War passed slowly
+away; and their successors in the direction of armies, for the most
+part men of the third order, were generally content to adhere stolidly
+to the traditions and methods of that great contest. The attack in
+oblique order was assumed to be an infallible method to win a battle
+by theorists who did not understand the difference between Kolin,
+Rossbach, and Leuthen; and Napoleon has described, with sarcastic
+pleasantry, how pedants were wont to flock to Potsdam to behold the
+manœuvres of the Prussian army engaged in movements to turn a flank at
+reviews; the great King who still commanded in person, laughing quietly
+at their shallow conceits. It is remarkable, however, that on the one
+occasion when Germany was seriously threatened with war, from 1762 to
+1791, the strategy and even the tactics of Daun prevailed over those
+of his renowned antagonist. In 1778 Frederick put two armies in motion
+to invade Bohemia, by the double line of the operations of 1866; but
+Loudon and Lacy formed a great entrenched camp. In this position they
+awaited an attack, interposing between the divided enemy; and the King
+did not venture even to offer battle.
+
+Meanwhile, changes fraught with momentous results, in the approaching
+era of world-wide conflict, were gradually making themselves felt
+in Europe. The armed strength of Russia was immensely increased;
+and her armies growing with the expanding Empire, though still
+imperfectly equipped and organized, became instruments of war in the
+hands of Suvóroff, very different from the half-barbarian hosts which
+had displayed their savage constancy at Zorndorf and Künersdorf.
+Simultaneously the military power of Austria, under the rule of the
+dreamy reformer, Joseph, had relatively declined to a great extent;
+and the famous Prussian army, though still formidable in numbers, in
+discipline and in real worth had begun, even in the last years of
+Frederick, to lose much of its old efficiency; and after his death, it
+fell distinctly away from the high standard of the Seven Years’ War. As
+for the French army, it had been augmented, and, to outward appearance,
+had much improved; the Government and the nation had made great efforts
+to efface the shame of days such as Minden and Rossbach; camps of
+instruction were formed in parts of the country where the troops were
+carefully trained and drilled; and the artillery of France, at all
+times excellent, was remodelled, and became far the best in Europe.
+Yet the Revolution, already at hand, had impaired the military power
+of the State; the _noblesse_, still holding all high commands,
+gave no successors to Condé and Turenne; there were fatal dissensions
+between the officers and the men; and though the army was very much
+better than it had been when led by Soubise, it was not the unrivalled
+army of Louis XIV. It may be said, therefore, that old Europe, from the
+Niemen to the Tagus, was ill-prepared, at the close of this period, for
+a great war; and as for the British army, it was deemed of no account
+after the disasters of Saratoga and York Town. Concurrently with these
+changes, the material progress which had been marked in Europe since
+the seventeenth century, had gone on with increased development, and
+had continued to affect the conditions of war. While the populations
+of the different States had multiplied and yielded ample elements
+of military force, agriculture had made a rapid advance; and the
+inventions of the second half of the eighteenth century had given a
+remarkable impulse to every urban industry. Vast tracts of marsh, of
+forest, of waste, had been enclosed and brought under cultivation; new
+roads and bridges had been largely made; insignificant hamlets had
+become towns, and towns had grown into great cities more flourishing
+and peopled, in some instances, than the older cities they had, in
+fact, supplanted. As the general result, from a military point of view,
+the consequences were that armies in the field could obtain far ampler
+means of supply than ever had been the case before; on most theatres of
+war they would possess more roads and facilities of movement than in
+previous contests; and the defensive power of fortresses, for a century
+in decline, had become less than it had ever been, and, indeed, was of
+little avail on several frontiers.
+
+This period of repose, as has often happened, was marked by
+speculations of different kinds on the theory and practice of the
+Art of War. The military writers of the day, however, were, without
+exception, inferior men; and this is strange when we bear in mind that
+the age was about to behold a display of military genius of the highest
+order. The great increase of roads and of the means of manœuvring did
+not suggest to these dull theorists that armies could make more rapid
+movements, and could concentrate more quickly on given points than had
+been possible in former times; on the contrary, these facts gave rise
+to a notion that it had become necessary, in operations in the field,
+to separate armies into numerous masses, and to cover all avenues that
+were liable to attack. This false principle was largely confirmed
+by the growth in the size of European armies, which had been one of
+the results of the peace. These, it was assumed, in the event of war,
+would be developed into vast proportions; and how was it possible to
+move these large arrays, save by marching on a greatly extended front,
+and occupying all the roads on the theatre? Nor did it occur to these
+writers that the immense increase in the products of husbandry, which
+had been witnessed in most parts of Europe, might enable armies to draw
+their supplies more fully from resources on the spot, and, therefore,
+to move with more ease and freedom than had been conceivable a century
+before; they emphatically insisted on the necessity of magazines,
+and of laying in enormous means of subsistence beforehand; and they
+believed that war would be more methodical as armies grew into larger
+dimensions. In theory, strategy became much less bold than in the days
+of Turenne and Marlborough; the system of advances upon an immense
+front, holding all the roads, and moving very slowly, with huge trains
+of impedimenta and supplies, replaced the daring manœuvres of these
+famous chiefs; and it contributed not a little to the change that
+Europe was stirred by no great impulse, that the age seemed indisposed
+to war, and that military energy appeared deadened through the
+influences of the last half of the century.
+
+Some progress, however, had been made in tactics, and in the mechanism
+and formation of armies. The method of the attack in oblique order
+was still considered the best possible; but means to defeat it had
+been devised, though these had not yet been proved in the field.
+Frederick’s outflanking movement was a rapid advance, made in line,
+when the enemy’s wing was attained; but, admirable as was the training
+of the Prussian army, this was always attended with difficulty and
+delay, especially in broken and intricate ground; and it was proposed
+to encounter this by attacks in columns, more flexible and easily
+handled than lines, these being preceded by clouds of skirmishers--an
+American idea of the War of Independence--which would cover the onset
+of the larger masses, and, to a considerable extent, would screen
+their march. In this way the attack in oblique order, it was argued,
+might be met and repelled by a simpler and quicker method of tactics;
+a new offensive system might replace the old; and, in any event, an
+army ought not to remain passive and to allow itself to be turned on
+a wing, as had repeatedly happened in the Seven Years’ War. All this,
+however, as yet was mere theory, unconfirmed by actual experience in
+the field; and, for the rest, the current strategic notions had made
+their influence felt in tactics, and movements widely divided upon the
+theatre, suggested similar movements in actual battle. In some respects
+armies had been much improved; the increase of their numbers had caused
+battalions and squadrons to be formed into brigades and divisions, more
+unity being given to the collective mass; the value of horse artillery
+had been fully recognized; and, as I have said, France had taken the
+lead in bringing her artillery to a high point of excellence.
+
+The Art of War seemed thus in a state of decay, and was being affected
+by the new theories, when the French Revolution, like a volcano, burst
+suddenly upon a terrified world. The invasion of Champagne in 1792 was
+followed by Valmy and Jemmapes; and, in 1793, the hosts of old Europe
+gathered in arms against the bloodstained Republic, which had flung the
+head of a king to its foes, and had proclaimed the new Evangel of the
+Rights of Man on the ruins of a fallen altar and throne. The military
+operations of the next few years were marked by the want of strategic
+insight, and by the uncertain and unproved tactics which had grown out
+of the speculations of the age: and--apart from the tremendous issues
+at stake--are not of enduring and special interest. Not, indeed, that
+the wretched failures of the Allies where wholly due to feeble and bad
+generalship; they were largely caused by events in the East of Europe,
+by the discords and selfishness of the Coalition, and even by its
+essential weakness. Beside that they were not prepared for war, the
+partition of Poland made the great German Powers comparatively without
+resources on the Rhine; it has been said, indeed, that they had no
+real wish to effect the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, lest it
+should avenge a dark international crime. Austria and Prussia, too, and
+the lesser German States were at odds with each other, and would not
+act in concert; the avowed purpose of the Allies to dismember France
+threw an enormous weight into the scale against them; and, at the very
+crisis of the campaign of 1793, when they could without difficulty
+have advanced to Paris, they separated their forces in order to reduce
+strong places meant to be permanently retained.
+
+The timidity, however, and the false principles which marked the
+conduct of these campaigns contributed mainly to their ignominious end.
+The chiefs of the Coalition divided their armies in fractions, upon an
+immense front, extending from the Var to the Meuse and the Lys; they
+occupied all the main approaches to France; and they moved extremely
+slowly, and with great magazines and incumbrances, through a most
+fertile country where celerity was of supreme importance, and where
+their troops could find ample supplies on the spot. As the inevitable
+result, their forces were weak at every point of their enormous line,
+and were nowhere able to strike with effect; they were actually unequal
+to passing fortresses which they sate down to besiege and occupy,
+though a relieving army was seldom at hand; and their advance was so
+tardy and beset by hindrances, that they gave France what she most
+needed--time to organise her strength and to make the war national.
+The errors, however, of the new strategy were conspicuous also on the
+French side, though not, perhaps, in such great proportions. The French
+armies, like those of their foes, were usually disseminated on a vast
+front, and were, therefore, feeble on the whole theatre; and though
+Carnot made one or two good movements, and showed that he knew the
+importance of interior lines along the space between the Rhine and the
+Lys, the plans of his campaigns as a rule were bad, and displayed the
+same defects as those of the Allies. On the other hand, the operations
+of the French were more rapid than those of their enemies; having no
+magazines and impedimenta of the kind, they flung themselves like a
+horde on the country, lived on it, and yet appeared in the field; but
+though this system made their movements more quick, their efforts were
+usually ill-directed, and had the Coalition shown skill and energy,
+it must have triumphed in 1793–94. The tactics of the belligerent
+armies were also influenced by recent theories, and were tentative,
+unsettled, and in a state of transition. The Prussians attacked, at
+Valmy, in the oblique order, but they were driven back by the fine
+French artillery; the Austrians, at Jemmapes, followed the methods of
+Daun, awaited the enemy in a strong position, and were overwhelmed
+by superior numbers. In other engagements the Allies adopted the
+system of attack in ill-combined columns, and were often beaten by
+their more active foes. More regularity is seen in the tactics of the
+French, though these as yet were quite immature and imperfect. The
+practice of advancing in columns, with skirmishers in front, borrowed
+from speculations already known, fell in well with the existing state
+of the revolutionary military power of France; the myriads of young
+levies which filled her armies were formed into masses given cohesion
+by the disciplined soldiers of the old Monarchy; and these were
+launched recklessly against the lines of their foes, and, fired as they
+were with patriotic passion, occasionally gained important success,
+especially in intricate and wooded country. By degrees these bodies
+became real soldiers, though their formations were as yet rude; their
+immense numbers and their enthusiasm told; though there is little doubt
+they would not have saved France had they not had the support of her
+regular army.
+
+Ere long the hour came, and the man appeared who was to educe order out
+of these chaotic elements, to turn to account, with consummate skill,
+the new conditions available in war, and to raise the first of arts
+to the extreme of perfection. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, a
+scion of a House of the _noblesse_ of Florence--the birthplace of
+many illustrious men--which had emigrated from Italy in the sixteenth
+century, and, since that time had found a home in Corsica. The child
+was cradled, so to speak, in war; the traditions of Paoli filled his
+mind in infancy, and it may well be that the heroic figure of the
+legislator and champion of his little island had an influence on the
+future author of the Code, and on the chief who raised France to the
+heights of glory. Napoleon was sent at an early age to the well-known
+Military School of Brienne, one of the foundations of the Bourbon
+Kings, and he passed from thence to a Royal school in Paris, to
+complete his education for the profession of arms. Little is known
+about him in these boyish years; he was grave, taciturn, and fond of
+books, especially of the historical and romantic kind; but except that
+he excelled in mathematical science, and that he impressed his teachers
+with an undefined sense of power, he was not considered a lad of
+extraordinary parts. He entered the army at the age of sixteen, and the
+bent of his genius became apparent in his assiduous attention to the
+history of war, and especially in his constant study of military maps,
+pursuits that gave token of the great future strategist. Though born
+a gentleman, and retaining through life many of the instincts of the
+ancient _régime_, Napoleon at this time was a needy youth, with no
+hope of rising under the old order of things; and it is not surprising,
+when the Revolution broke out, that he eagerly took to the new ideas,
+and ranged himself on the side of the soldier, in the divisions that
+filled the army with discord. As events progressed, he certainly had
+relations with Robespierre and some of the Terrorists; but this passage
+in his career is still ill-explained. We may accept his statement that
+he always stood aloof from Jacobin anarchy and its deeds of blood;
+and his well-known exclamation, on the 10th of August, when the Swiss
+Guards were slaughtered by a Parisian rabble, shows that, even in those
+days, he had that profound contempt of popular movements of every kind
+which was one of his most distinctive qualities.
+
+He was a captain of artillery at the memorable siege of Toulon in
+1793; and on this occasion he first gave proof of his extraordinary
+capacity in war. Toulon was vainly attacked from the land side, for
+its communications with the sea were open; and the French army, led
+by incapable men, was too weak to master its walls and its ramparts.
+But the Allied fleets were the main defence of the place; these were
+crowded within the port and the roadsteads; and they were liable to
+be destroyed were they exposed to the fire of powerful batteries from
+a small projecting headland. At a council of war Napoleon declared
+that this point, when occupied, would be the key to Toulon; and the
+truth was so evident that he convinced his superiors. His admirable
+prevision was soon realised. When the promontory was seized, the
+hostile squadrons, completely commanded, at once put to sea, and Toulon
+fell in an instant as if by magic. This exploit justly attracted
+attention. Bonaparte was next employed on the Italian frontier, where
+his strategic ability manifested itself in turning the positions of the
+Piedmontese army; and, at the instance of the Government, he quelled
+the revolt of the Sections on the 13th Vendémiaire, and in this service
+he showed that he had remarkable presence of mind and firmness. He was
+now known as a soldier of high promise; and, having married Josephine
+Beauharnais--partly owing to the influence of her old lover, Barras,
+but partly, too, because of his acknowledged powers--he was given the
+command, in the spring of 1796, of some 38,000 or 40,000 men encamped
+along the Genoese seaboard, with general orders to invade Italy. This
+operation, however, was to be quite secondary to those of the great
+armies about to enter Germany, with Jourdan and Moreau at their head;
+and some of the Directory, it is said, wished to get rid, in this way,
+of an importunate young man who had pestered them with grand strategic
+projects pronounced by experienced chiefs to be wild extravagance.
+
+I have now reached the campaigns of Napoleon; I can describe them only
+in the barest outline; but I must dwell for a moment on that of Italy.
+The army, in the hands of the young general, had suffered terrible
+privations, and was in extreme want; but it was composed of trained and
+enthusiastic soldiers; it had several good subordinate chiefs, and it
+could be made a most formidable instrument of war under the guidance
+and inspiration of a great commander. Spread along the coast from Nice
+to the verge of Genoa, it was confronted by a Sardinian and an Austrian
+army, perhaps 60,000 strong, if united, led by Colli and Beaulieu,
+experienced generals, but veterans of the old school; and their forces,
+based on Turin and Milan, held the hill country, where the French
+Alps decline and join the extreme western Apennines. Napoleon’s first
+operations strikingly illustrate the intelligence of the theatre and
+the skill in stratagem in which no military chief can be compared with
+him. Giving out that he was about to advance by Genoa, he made a
+feigned demonstration on his right, causing Beaulieu largely to detach
+to his left; and then, counter-marching with extreme celerity, he
+poured his troops through the Cadibona Pass, the lowest eminence in the
+uniting ranges, and surrounded and routed part of the Austrian centre.
+Beaulieu and Colli endeavouring to concentrate, presented their forces,
+still divided, to their foe; these were defeated at Dego and Millesimo;
+and the baffled chiefs retreated on Acqui and Ceva, diverging towards
+their bases at Milan and Turin, and leaving a widening interval between
+their shattered armies. Napoleon, standing in strength between his
+antagonists, detached a wing to hold Beaulieu in check, and then
+drawing together the rest of his forces, he pursued Colli, struck him
+down at Mondovi, and compelled the King of Sardinia to sue for peace.
+He took care to secure his communications with France by insisting on
+the cession of the Piedmontese fortresses; and having thus gained a new
+base--he had quietly disregarded injunctions from Paris to stir up a
+revolution in Piedmont--he set off to pursue Beaulieu, in retreat along
+the northern bank of the Po.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre of the Campaigns in NORTH ITALY]
+
+Deceiving again his adversary by a false rumour, Napoleon next made
+a forced march to the river, advancing, as he has said, “with the
+speed of a torrent,” and gathering his supplies on his way, from the
+country; and crossing at Piacenza, he forestalled the Austrians,
+threatened their rear, and forced them to retire on the Adda. A fierce
+engagement at Lodi followed, in which Bonaparte showed remarkable skill
+in securing every advantage on the ground; Beaulieu, out-manœuvred,
+fell back to the Mincio, and Napoleon entered Milan in triumph,
+having, like Turenne, conquered by a war of marches. The French army
+now had some days of repose; its chief employed them in assuring his
+base, in levying requisitions in immense quantities, and in making
+preparations for fresh exploits; and if he showed no scruple in these
+measures, and, in fact, he organized rapine on an enormous scale, he
+established himself firmly in the heart of Lombardy. Towards the close
+of May Napoleon advanced to the Mincio; Beaulieu, trying to cover the
+stream at all points, was easily dislodged by a daring attack, and
+the Austrian army, beaten and cowed, was forced to take refuge in
+the hills of the Tyrol. By this time Bonaparte had received orders
+from the Directory to march from the Po to the Tiber, to drive the
+Pope from Rome, and to rouse Southern Italy; but he refused to follow
+false strategic plans which, he declared, would involve his army in
+ruin; and with admirable insight he addressed himself to operations
+which, if successful, would, he hoped, give France the great prize of
+Italy. The Austrians were his only formidable foes; the whole peninsula
+would succumb if their military strength was really broken; and the
+problem was how to attain this end with a small French army advanced
+to the Mincio. In the line of the Adige Napoleon perceived the true
+theatre on which to operate; the river, bounded on the west by the Lake
+of Garda, hemmed in by mountains as it flowed southward, and ending
+in tracts of widespreading marshes, afforded an enormously strong
+barrier, especially if it were held on both banks; and accordingly he
+took possession of the stream, having, without hesitation, seized the
+fortresses of the Venetian Republic, on its lower course, and having,
+meanwhile, sat down to besiege Mantua, the last stronghold still
+retained by Austria. The conception, original, grand, and simple alike,
+was an inspiration of true strategic genius, and one of the finest of
+a marvellous career. Summer had now come, and as the Austrian armies
+had as yet made no signs of appearing, Napoleon employed this breathing
+time in pressing forward the attack on Mantua, and in strengthening the
+power of France in Italy.
+
+The Emperor, meanwhile, had made great efforts to retrieve the late
+reverses of his troops in Lombardy. The French armies under Moreau
+and Jourdan, directed on widely distant lines, according to the false
+strategy of the day, had been held in check by the Archduke Charles,
+and had achieved no real success in Germany; and Würmser, a veteran
+of high repute, was despatched from the Upper Rhine with about 30,000
+men, to reinforce the defeated army of Beaulieu--that general had been
+deprived of his command--and with orders to drive the French out of
+Italy. The Austrian army cannot have been less than from 60,000 to
+70,000 strong; Bonaparte had perhaps only 40,000 men besieging Mantua,
+and along the Adige; and as the value of that barrier, in the hands
+of a master, was not understood in the Imperial councils, the defeat
+of the French seemed a foregone conclusion. Believing that Napoleon
+would retain his hold on Mantua, or, at least, would hesitate until
+it was too late, Würmser divided his army into three masses, the left
+and centre under the General-in-Chief moving down the Adige by the
+valleys and hills that meet the eastern shores of the Lake of Garda,
+the right, led by Quasdanovich, along the western shore, the object
+being that the combined forces should close round and stifle the French
+near Mantua. Napoleon waited until the movement was made plain, and
+his resolution was at once taken with the strength of character of
+a great captain. He raised the siege of Mantua on the last night of
+July, and his enemies being divided by the lake, he turned against
+Quasdanovich, who was nearest at hand, and drove his advanced guard
+back for a long distance. Würmser, meanwhile, had forced his way to
+the Mincio; dividing his army, he detached a part to attack the French
+supposed to be still round Mantua, and he sent another part to unite
+with Quasdanovich, assumed by his chief to be close at hand. This gave
+Bonaparte an opportunity to strike; he had by this time his whole
+army together; and while he kept Quasdanovich baffled, in check, he
+encountered the separated forces of Würmser, and routed them in detail,
+at Lonato first, and then, decisively, at Castiglione. Quasdanovich had
+already fallen back; Würmser was compelled to recross the Mincio, and
+his broken army was so demoralised, that he had to ascend the Adige and
+fly into the Tyrol.
+
+Napoleon now exhibited one of his most striking qualities, his terrible
+skill in pursuing a defeated enemy. Relying on the moral power of his
+victories, he marched north of the lake along both shores; and then,
+concentrating his forces, he beat Davidowich, a lieutenant of Würmser,
+at Roveredo, just as that tenacious chief had planned another advance
+on Mantua, moving, on this occasion, from the Tyrol eastwards, to the
+Lower Adige. Napoleon, leaving a detachment to restrain Davidowich,
+pressed Würmser with indefatigable energy, came up with him in the
+defiles of the Brenta, overthrew him completely at Bassano, and drove
+him, with the mere wreck of an army, into the low country east of the
+Adige. The situation of the veteran appeared desperate; he was cut off
+from retreat to the Tyrol; a triumphant enemy was upon his rear; and
+how was he to get across the Lower Adige, held by French garrisons,
+where it could be passed, before Bonaparte should reach and destroy
+him? Napoleon thought he had his foe in his toils; but Würmser was a
+bold and undaunted soldier, and he managed to force the passage at
+Legnago, and even to make good his way to Mantua, striking down some
+small hostile bodies in his path. The old chief, proud of this trifling
+success, attempted to make a stand near Mantua; but he was driven into
+the fortress with loss; and Mantua was again invested. In a brief
+campaign of about six weeks, Napoleon, with a very inferior force,
+had annihilated a far more powerful enemy; and all that remained of
+Würmser’s army were a few thousand men far away in the Tyrol, and a
+few thousand more imprisoned in Mantua, a burden rather than a relief
+to the garrison. Such extraordinary success had never been witnessed
+before, and it was obviously due to the genius of the French commander.
+
+Austria, nevertheless, with characteristic firmness, did not yet
+give up the protracted contest. Moreau and Jourdan by this time
+were in retreat towards the Rhine, the Archduke Charles, who, in
+this campaign had operated between divided enemies, with a feeble
+approach to Napoleon’s skill, having gained real success in Germany;
+and considerable reinforcements were sent to the Tyrol, and to the
+plain country known as Friuli, and were placed under the command of
+Alvinzi, another old general of some distinction, with directions at
+any cost to relieve Mantua. Alvinzi had passed the Isonzo by the end
+of October with from 30,000 to 40,000 men, Davidowich being still in
+the Tyrol with 15,000 to 18,000; and the plan of the Austrian chief
+was to make these divided masses converge at Verona upon the Adige;
+and, having forced the passage, to march to the Mincio. The main French
+army at this time held the lowlands between the Brenta and the Adige,
+a considerable detachment under Vaubois being in the Tyrol watching
+the enemy; and as Napoleon in this instance persisted in continuing
+the siege of Mantua, and kept a large force around the place, he had
+not 40,000 men altogether in the field. The first operations of the
+Austrian leaders were attended with success that might have been made
+decisive. Masséna, the ablest lieutenant of Bonaparte, held Alvinzi,
+indeed, in check on the Brenta; but Vaubois was driven, in defeat, from
+the Tyrol; the important position of Rivoli was lost; and Davidowich
+had approached Verona by the first week of November. The principal
+army of the French was now compelled to fall back; Napoleon sent a
+detachment to support Vaubois; but though Rivoli, the key to Verona,
+was regained, Alvinzi had advanced and drawn near the city. Napoleon
+attacked him fiercely at Caldiero, but the French recoiled, baffled,
+from a very strong position; and had Davidowich at this moment pressed
+forward boldly, and Alvinzi made good use of his success, they might
+have effected their junction, seized Verona, and made their way across
+the Adige. But the spell of defeat was on the Austrian chiefs; and
+Napoleon, seizing his one chance with marvellous skill, plucked a
+glorious triumph out of the extreme of peril.
+
+Abandoning Verona, he crossed the Adige; he moved quickly down the
+stream and recrossed it, and then he suddenly fell on his astounded
+foe, advancing along the dykes of Arcola, through the morasses of the
+Lower Adige, where the agility and vehemence of the French soldiery
+would, he foresaw, give them a great advantage. The battle raged
+confusedly for several days; Napoleon more than once led his men in
+person; Davidowich, meanwhile, had reconquered Rivoli; but skill and
+French valour at last prevailed, and the two Austrian armies were
+ultimately compelled to fall back behind the Brenta and into the Tyrol
+discomfited, and with immense losses. Austria, however, would not
+confess defeat; great efforts were made to restore her armies; and
+Alvinzi assumed the offensive again, in the first days of January 1797.
+He had even now probably 60,000 men against 35,000 or 40,000 French;
+and his plan was to descend the Adige, to occupy Rivoli, and then to
+seize Verona, and to press on to Mantua, a diversion being at the same
+time made on the Lower Adige by his lieutenant, Provera. By the 14th
+of January the Austrian columns had surrounded Rivoli on every side;
+but in the difficult march through the hills, their artillery and
+cavalry had been attached to one column only, on the best road, and
+this gave Napoleon, who had his army in hand, though very inferior in
+force, a decided advantage. The issue of the battle was never doubtful;
+Masséna displayed conspicuous skill; the Austrians, smitten down by
+the French guns, and unable to reply, lost heart and were beaten; and
+Alvinzi drew off, overthrown and routed. It is unnecessary to dwell on
+the last scenes of the contest; Provera contrived to cross the Adige,
+and even to make his way to Mantua; but he was crushed by Napoleon,
+who had hurried from Rivoli, and on the 11th of January laid down his
+arms. The fate of Mantua was now sealed; three efforts to relieve the
+place had failed; the garrison was reduced to extremities; and Würmser
+capitulated in a few days. The last Italian fortress of Austria had
+fallen; but this was nothing compared to her other losses. Army after
+army had perished in the attempt to dislodge Bonaparte from the Adige,
+and the Empire was completely exhausted.
+
+By this time the main seat of the war had been transferred from the
+Rhine and the Danube to the Adige, the Isonzo, and the hills of the
+Tyrol; a man of genius had transformed the situation. I shall not refer
+to the close of the struggle. The Archduke Charles, the last hope of
+the Hapsburgs, endeavoured in vain to arrest the march of Bonaparte
+across the Carnic Alps, into the valleys of the Drave and the Mur. In
+the second week of April the youthful conqueror beheld the steeples
+of Vienna from the heights of the Simmering, having, with an army
+never 50,000 strong, subdued Italy and shattered the power of Austria.
+Nor can I notice Leoben and Campo Formio, or moralize on the Fall of
+Venice; nor can I comment on the profound statecraft, very different
+from the revolutionary cant, shown by Napoleon in the negotiations for
+peace. Yet a word must be said, by way of comment, on the memorable
+campaign of 1796–97, by some considered its great author’s masterpiece.
+The dazzling imagination, one of the most striking, and yet a dangerous
+gift of Napoleon, was not seen in this passage of arms as distinctly as
+in more than one that followed; but every other faculty of a master of
+war was exhibited in the highest perfection. The first accomplishment
+of a true strategist, skill in so understanding the theatre of war as
+to make it subserve his ends in view, was displayed in more than one
+notable instance; the perception of the importance of the Cadibona
+Pass, and the grand choice of the Adige as a barrier, are examples that
+cannot escape the reader. Nor less admirable was the exhibition of
+another great strategic gift, the combination of force on the decisive
+points, the usual prelude of real success. Napoleon, always weaker
+than his foes, if united, was often stronger on the scene of immediate
+action, and this was largely due to his wonderful powers, if it was
+also caused by the faults of adversaries who persisted in following a
+false strategic system. No commander besides, not even Turenne, had
+approached Napoleon in the great art of manœuvring between divided
+enemies, of striking them left and right in succession, and of gaining
+the flank and rear of a hostile army; the operations against Würmser,
+and the march to Piacenza, are admirable specimens of this kind of
+excellence. In the movements, too, and manœuvres of Bonaparte, we see a
+splendour, and yet a scientific method, and, perhaps most distinctly,
+a skill in stratagem peculiar to himself, and hitherto scarcely known;
+and as for his tactics, the genius with which he chose the ground at
+Arcola stamps him at once as a master in the highest sphere of this
+art. Nor less remarkable were his moral qualities; his energy and
+resolution, for example, appear conspicuously in the raising of the
+siege of Mantua; and no one but Napoleon would have ventured to cross
+the will of the Directory, as he did more than once, at the risk of his
+fortune, and perhaps of his life.
+
+Yet in this marvellous display of genius and power we can occasionally
+see defects and faults. Napoleon risked too much in continuing the
+siege of Mantua at the approach of Alvinzi. He should not, perhaps,
+have fought at Caldiero; and we trace signs of that over-confidence in
+success, which certainly was his most distinctive error. One general
+cause of the extreme brilliancy of his movements should be carefully
+noted. Napoleon, unlike the first revolutionary chiefs, did not merely
+throw his troops on a country and allow them to plunder to obtain
+subsistence; he well knew the fatal results of this system, and he
+organized magazines and depôts with care; but he perceived, with true
+insight, that, in Italy at least, it was nearly always possible to
+find resources on the spot; and his army accordingly moved with much
+less impediments than that of the heavily-encumbered Austrians, and
+was often able to assume a bold offensive which generals of the old
+type would have deemed impossible. This method, however, which he
+made almost perfect, had a dangerous side as yet unseen, but to be
+manifested in a still distant future. For the rest, Napoleon, in the
+campaign of Italy, had good subordinates and an army that became most
+formidable in his master hand; but the force that really determined
+events was the great military genius which had suddenly appeared.
+
+I shall pass over Napoleon’s career in the East, the Pyramids, and the
+failure at Acre; these campaigns but slightly illustrate his genius in
+war. His object in his descent on Egypt was to march through Syria and
+Persia to the Indus. He always maintained that the design was feasible;
+but our present knowledge shows that it was quite impossible, and
+in this, as in other of his military plans, his soaring imagination
+overcame his judgment. On his return to France in the winter of 1799
+he easily supplanted the tottering Government, and, as First Consul,
+seized supreme power; and though I shall not comment on the 18th
+Brumaire, it may fairly be said that this _coup d’état_ saved
+France and restored her to her place in Europe. A second Coalition had
+been formed against her, during Napoleon’s absence, after the Battle
+of the Nile. Prussia, indeed, held aloof, but Russia appeared in
+formidable strength on the theatre of war; and Austria, aided by the
+gold and the troops of England, once more placed powerful armies in
+the field. Notwithstanding the examples of the campaign of 1796, that
+of 1799 proceeded on the late false principles. The war was conducted
+on an enormous front, from the Texel, along the Rhine, to the Tiber;
+and the armies on both sides were split into fractions, comparatively
+inefficient on a vast field of manœuvre. The Allies, however, gained
+important success. Masséna, indeed, saved France at Zürich; but
+Suvóroff drove the French out of Italy, and the Austrians, reversing
+the events of 1796, advanced from the Mincio, and approached the French
+Alps. When Napoleon, who, in a few months, had accomplished wonders
+of administrative skill, in restoring the finances and power of the
+State, had, in the beginning of 1800, to survey the military affairs
+of France, her situation was still critical in the extreme. Russia,
+indeed, had abandoned the Allied cause, but Austria had put her whole
+strength forth. One great Imperial army, led by Mélas, covered Italy
+from the Adige to the Tanaro; another, under Kray, was in the Swabian
+lowlands, holding the southern approaches to the Black Forest; and
+France, with forces reduced and weakened, was threatened with invasion
+on the Rhine and the Var.
+
+A man of surpassing powers in war was, however, for the first time at
+her head; and this proved sufficient to turn the scale of Fortune.
+Napoleon’s project for the campaign was not completely realised; but
+it was the most striking perhaps of his great career, and it ended in
+a succession of triumphs. With that wonderful glance which read the
+whole theatre, and saw how to make the best use of it, the First Consul
+perceived that the two hostile armies were separated by the vast space
+of Switzerland, at this time in the possession of the French; and
+the army of Mélas, about 100,000 strong, and intended ultimately to
+enter Provence, was the principal army, on what ought to have been the
+secondary point of attack only; while that of Kray, perhaps 90,000 men,
+designed, if successful, to attain Alsace, was a subordinate force on
+the chief scene of action. These being the facts, and as France held
+Switzerland, projecting like a huge natural bastion between the enemy’s
+widely-divided masses, Napoleon gave Moreau the main French army--it
+contained perhaps 100,000 troops--with directions to cross the Rhine
+at Schaffhausen, to fall in full force on the rear of Kray, and to cut
+him off from his line of retreat; Moreau, at the fitting time, sending
+a large detachment across the St. Gothard in order to aid the movements
+of the French chief in Italy. Napoleon selected for 1800 the scene of
+his exploits in 1796–97; and his design was, avoiding the Piedmontese
+fortresses, to cross the Alps by the Great St. Bernard range, and then
+rapidly descending, to seize the lines of the communications of Mélas
+with the Adige, and supported by the detachment from Moreau, to force
+the Austrians to fight in a disastrous position. The First Consul
+calculated that about 40,000 men--France at this juncture could not
+yield more--would, with the aid from the main army, suffice for his
+purpose; but as it was of the first importance to allow the Austrians
+to advance into the far end of Italy, and to engage themselves on the
+line of the Var, it was necessary to conceal as much as possible the
+formation and destination of the new army of Italy, and especially
+to screen its advance to the Alps. To attain his end Napoleon tasked
+to the utmost the dexterity in stratagem in which he stands supreme.
+He assembled a collection of bad troops at Dijon, and ostentatiously
+announced this was his Italian army; but in the meantime he quietly
+drew together his real force from different parts of France, masking
+the operation with the greatest care and forethought. The main army,
+I have said, was to cross the St. Bernard; but a small column was to
+march by the pass of Mont Cenis--the ordinary military way through the
+Alps--in order effectually to deceive the enemy.
+
+The campaign only began in earnest in spring, though hostilities had
+not ceased through the winter. In the first week of May Mélas had
+part of his army besieging Genoa, under his lieutenant, Ott, Masséna
+making a stubborn defence; Elsnitz, another Austrian, was upon the Var,
+confronted by Suchet, a capable chief well known in the Peninsular War
+afterwards; and the rest of the Imperial army held Piedmont, extending
+thence to the Adige and the Mincio. Meanwhile, Moreau, a general of
+the second order, had feared to execute Napoleon’s design, and to fall
+on the rear of Kray by Schaffhausen; he had crossed the Rhine, after
+his own fashion, by complicated and even hazardous movements, merely
+threatening, not striking Kray, with effect; but he had forced the
+weaker hostile army back; and he was able to fulfil one great part
+of his mission, and to send 20,000 men across the St. Gothard, under
+Moncey, one of the Napoleonic marshals. The First Consul took the
+field in the second week of May; his army, secretly moved to the Swiss
+frontier, its strength still unknown to its enemy, crossed the Great
+St. Bernard from the 16th to the 19th; and simultaneously the secondary
+force moved forward through the pass of Mont Cenis. The hill fort of
+Bard arrested the French for a moment; but the obstacle was overcome
+skilfully; and by the 23rd the advanced guard of Napoleon was in the
+valley of the Dora, and in full march for Piedmont. By this time Mélas
+had heard of the advance of the enemy, but he refused to believe in the
+force of the French army; he allowed Ott and Elsnitz to remain where
+they were; and though he moved to Turin in person, it was with not more
+than a few thousand men, for he felt assured that his divisions in
+Piedmont would be able to give a good account of Napoleon. The Austrian
+chief, too, at this critical moment, was deceived by the apparition of
+the column from Mont Cenis; he thought that it was the chief part of
+the hostile army; and falling into the snare that had been laid for
+him, he halted at Turin to draw in his forces.
+
+This gave Napoleon the opportunity he sought; he marched from the
+Dora across the Sesia and the Ticino with his wonted celerity; and he
+entered Milan on the 2nd of June, already menacing the communications
+of his foe. He was soon joined by Moncey’s detachment, and being now
+at the head of 60,000 men, he crossed the Po, holding both its banks,
+and closed on the rear of the main Austrian army, thrown forward almost
+to the frontier of France. Mélas, seriously alarmed, gave orders to
+concentrate his still very superior force; but Ott lingered to receive
+the keys of Genoa, which yielded only after a most stern resistance,
+and left a large garrison in the fallen city; Elsnitz was routed by
+Suchet in his retreat from the Var; and the Austrian army was immensely
+weakened, when in the second week of June it lay round Alessandria,
+Ott, who had endeavoured to attain the Po, having been driven back
+at Montebello with loss. By this time Napoleon had his army divided
+on either bank of the Po, Moncey watching the course of its Alpine
+feeders, Napoleon holding the famous Stradella Pass, where the spurs of
+the Apennines approach the river; and his enemy, even now, was within
+his toils. But the First Consul gave Mélas credit for more strategic
+skill than he really possessed; he thought that the Austrian, after
+the fall of Genoa, might endeavour to make his escape by the coast, or
+might fall back and overpower Suchet; and he debouched into the great
+plain of Marengo, in order to observe and close on his foe. His army
+was not 30,000 strong; that of Mélas was probably 40,000; it was very
+superior in cavalry and guns, which gave it a marked advantage in open
+ground; and no doubt can exist that in risking this movement Napoleon
+made a great strategic error. Mélas, a stout warrior of the school
+of Daun, attacked the French fiercely on the 14th of June, hoping to
+defeat his enemy and to escape from the net thrown around him with
+such forethought and skill; and he nearly attained a decisive victory.
+Desaix, however, a trusted lieutenant of Bonaparte, arriving from a
+distance, restored the battle; the horsemen of Kellerman changed the
+fortunes of the day, and the Austrians at last were completely beaten.
+The result was then seen of the masterly movements which had brought
+Napoleon on the rear of Mélas; the defeated army was compelled to make
+terms, and it evacuated the peninsula even beyond the Mincio. France
+had regained Italy by a march and a battle.
+
+Austria, always tenacious, resisted for months, and Moreau gained a
+great victory at Hohenlinden, success in part due to the overboldness
+of John, a brother of the Archduke Charles, who imagined he had
+mastered Napoleon’s strategy. But Marengo had been the decisive
+stroke: Austria fought for honour only, after the loss of Italy;
+and ere long she accepted the Peace of Lunéville, followed by the
+peace of Amiens between France and England. The campaign of 1800 is
+the most dazzling of Napoleon’s masterpieces, though marred by what
+might have been a fatal error. Full justice, perhaps, has never been
+done to the surpassing ability of the First Consul in perceiving the
+advantage given to France by her hold of Switzerland, and the false
+position of the Austrian armies; for two Napoleons were required on
+the scene, to realise completely one grand conception. Had Bonaparte
+been in the place of Moreau, and debouched from Schaffhausen across
+the Rhine, Kray would have been cut off, and Vienna laid open; and
+the ruin of Mélas and the Conquest of Italy was, in fact, half only
+of what might have been done. Yet, as it was, Switzerland was made a
+kind of sallyport, to place the French armies on the rear of their
+foes; Moreau was rightly given the superior force to paralyse Kray,
+and to keep him off from the Rhine; Napoleon properly distributed the
+inferior force in Italy, under his own command, for it would suffice
+to defeat operations in the Var; and though Moreau failed to destroy
+Kray, Napoleon succeeded in destroying Mélas, thrown forward perilously
+on the French frontier. Intelligence of the theatre and splendour of
+design were never, perhaps, more finely displayed; the ordinary reader
+will dwell on the Alpine march; but the true student of war will rather
+note the exquisite art with which the army of Italy was collected,
+formed, and moved to the Alps, all without the enemy’s knowledge; the
+admirable skill by which Mélas was deceived through the demonstration
+at Mont Cenis; the celerity of the advance on Milan, and the perfect
+arrangements made to combine with Moncey, and then to encompass the
+foe. Genius and power of stratagem have never accomplished more; and
+had Napoleon remained near the Stradella Pass--Turenne certainly would
+have done this--the execution of his plan would have been perfect.
+But this wonderful chief was not only too confident throughout his
+whole career, but often showed[10] impatience when near his enemy;
+these faults nearly caused him to lose the campaign; and he certainly
+ought not to have fought at Marengo, for the chances were in his
+opponent’s favour, though an advance towards Alessandria might have
+been justified, for Mélas might, perhaps, have escaped by the seaboard,
+or have crushed Suchet with his weak detachment.
+
+I cannot dwell on the Government of the First Consul, on the Code, the
+Concordat, the Pacification of La Vendée, the restoration of order
+and peace in France, the foundation of the only institutions and laws
+which have lasted during her subsequent history; nor can I comment
+on his external policy, the settlement of Italy in the interests of
+France, and the extension of her influence through the Lesser States
+of Germany. I shall only remark that if these achievements reveal
+the near advent of despotism at home, and the spirit of encroaching
+ambition abroad, they display administrative excellence of the first
+order, and profound, if hard and unscrupulous, statecraft; and they
+bear the marks of ineffaceable greatness. I cannot, moreover, enlarge
+on the causes which led to the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and
+involved England and France in a death struggle. Nor shall I describe
+the Flotilla and the Camp of Boulogne, the accumulation of a great
+army destined to cross the Channel, and to invade our coasts, and the
+energy, the perseverance, and the careful forethought with which this
+last was prepared to effect the descent. Yet a remark must be made
+on the fine combinations thought out by Napoleon to carry out his
+purpose, for they are a notable example of his skill in stratagem.
+His arrangements to embark his army, and to make the passage, in the
+flotilla, were but a part of the design; they were largely intended
+to mask his purpose; his real plan was to conduct the descent under
+the protection of a fleet which should command the Channel. How
+indefatigably, and with what consummate art, the First Consul toiled
+to effect his object, his correspondence abundantly proves; and, it
+must be added, he well nigh succeeded. The Admiralty was deceived, and
+Nelson was lured away; and had French seamen been nearly as good as our
+own, and Villeneuve been a capable chief, Napoleon would have mastered
+the narrow seas for a time, and his army would have stood on our
+shores. That he would have found a Moscow, in England, our countrymen
+believe; he certainly would have been imprisoned within the ground he
+occupied, for our fleets would have cut him off from France, and his
+enterprise would probably have been a failure. All this, however, is
+speculation only; England undoubtedly was in grave danger, and her
+Government did not understand her enemy; though it deserves notice
+that Napoleon’s idea, that he would subdue England by pulling down the
+Throne and setting a Republic up in its place, was not only a huge
+mistake, but tends to show he did not believe that he could succeed
+only by mere force of arms.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V.
+
+                        NAPOLEON (_continued_).
+
+
+The return of Pitt to power, at the call of the nation; the aggressive
+foreign policy of the first Consul, and the atrocious execution of the
+Duc D’Enghien--a crime that may be palliated but not excused--soon led
+to a new Coalition against France. Prussia, indeed, gorged with spoil
+after the peace of Basle, stood apart, as she had done in 1799, as if
+secretly ashamed of an ignoble part; but Russia and Austria joined
+hands with England. Other petty States took the same side, and by the
+summer of 1805 the Allies had come to a general agreement to take the
+offensive. Before this time Napoleon had become Emperor, with the
+universal acclaim of the French people, and the crowned soldier, who
+had raised France from the depths of disaster to the head of Europe,
+and whose strong hand had put anarchy down, now wielded the resources
+of a mighty State, and made the revolutionary forces which he used and
+hated the ministers of immense despotic power. The military strength
+of France, though it was enlarged afterwards, was now really at its
+extreme height, and Napoleon’s army of this period was by far the
+finest he ever commanded. I must glance at the characteristics of this
+magnificent force, justly known by the name of the Grand Army, and
+infinitely the most formidable organization for war which hitherto
+had been arrayed in Europe. Apart from small Italian and German
+contingents, the Grand Army at this time was composed of Frenchmen, for
+the most part troops in the flower of life, but with a large admixture
+of veteran soldiers; and this vast body was inflamed with a strong
+spirit of enthusiasm, of patriotism of its own kind, of thirst for
+glory, and of intense confidence in an unrivalled leader. Its physical
+and moral force was, therefore, enormous; and as five-sixths of it
+had for many months been assembled in the great Camp of Boulogne--the
+general name of many leaguers--and the troops had been inured to the
+hard training of war, its military condition had attained perfection.
+It probably numbered at this time about 200,000 men in the first line,
+with reserves, perhaps, 200,000 more; and, regiment for regiment, I
+certainly think it formed a more efficient instrument of war than the
+huge national armies of recent days, composed far too largely of young
+conscripts, and never yet subjected to the strain of ill-fortune.
+
+The general organization of this great force was perfectly adapted,
+in Napoleon’s hands, to the conditions of war in the first years of
+this century. Brigades and divisions had now been formed into corps,
+each under the command of able chiefs, too accustomed, indeed, to look
+up to Napoleon, and not given sufficient freedom of action, but all
+skilful and experienced soldiers; and the army had more cohesiveness
+and real power than ever had been the case formerly. Napoleon, however,
+apart from these masses, each an independent army in itself, had
+large cavalry and artillery reserves; and he usually kept them under
+his immediate control, to wield “his club of Hercules” for decisive
+strokes. The Grand Army, too, like that of Louis XIV., had its _corps
+d’élite_--the Imperial Guard--the tenth legion of the modern
+Cæsar, and this superb force on many a hard-fought day turned by its
+mighty preponderance the scales of fortune. As for the tactics of
+the army, they had been perfected in the experience of a long series
+of wars; columns of infantry, not as yet too dense, and preceded by
+skirmishers, were formed for attack; but they were always supported by
+cavalry and guns; and Napoleon invariably took special care that the
+three arms should act in concert. These arrangements had given great
+flexibility and yet strength to the improved formations; and it was
+clearly apparent that the new methods were superior to those of the
+Seven Years’ War. As for the mechanism of the army, if I may use the
+word, the whole system of assuring supplies, of establishing magazines
+and depôts, and of procuring continual relays of troops, which German
+science has brought to perfection, had been largely matured by
+Napoleon; and though he always “made war sustain war,” that is, he
+usually trusted to resources on the spot in order to enable his troops
+to move freely, he was most attentive to the wants of his soldiers, and
+provided for them with great administrative skill. Yet, formidable as
+it was, the Grand Army had marked defects which require notice. It had
+never lost the habits of the Revolutionary Wars; Napoleon’s system,
+indeed, promoted rapine; it retained some of the instincts of the
+savage hordes let loose in 1793–94; it was crowded with ignorant and
+bad officers, the survivors of the huge conventional levies; and the
+arrangements of the staff were far from good. It still bore the marks
+of a revolutionary age; and in all these respects it was very inferior
+to the great army formed by Roon and Moltke.
+
+The Allies had set their armies in motion by the first week of
+September 1805. They had nearly half a million of men on foot; but,
+partly owing to divided counsels, and partly to the disastrous mistake
+of subordinating military to political ends, this gigantic force was
+injudiciously arranged on the theatre. Four separate attacks had
+been designed; the first by a small English and Swedish force from
+Hanover and the North German seaboard; the second by an Austrian and
+a great Russian army, to be assembled upon the banks of the Danube
+and ultimately to invade Alsace; the third on northern Italy from the
+Adige and the Tyrol, conducted by the Archdukes Charles and John;
+and the fourth by an English and Russian contingent disembarked from
+a fleet on the coast of Naples. But the first and last attacks were
+mere weak diversions, which could not alarm a true strategist; as
+regards the second, the Russian army, still in Galicia and Poland,
+was at an immense distance from the Austrians upon the Upper Danube;
+and as for the third, the ambition of the House of Hapsburg, eager
+to regain its Italian possessions, had repeated the mistake of 1800,
+its chiefs having placed far too great a force on secondary points,
+without sufficient regard for those which were of supreme importance,
+the space between the Middle Rhine and the Danube. Napoleon seized
+the situation with the eye of genius; and the plan of his operations
+was at once formed. Neglecting Northern Germany and Southern Italy,
+and employing only an inferior force to hold the Austrian Princes in
+check--they were in command of 100,000 men--he resolved to fall on the
+Austrian army on the Danube, which, not more than 85,000 strong, was
+thrown forward on the country round Ulm, to surround and destroy it,
+under its chief Mack, as Mélas had been destroyed five years before,
+and thus to cut it off completely from the distant Russian army, which
+could not be on the spot at the time.
+
+I can only glance at the operations that followed, less dazzling than
+those which led to Marengo, but in principle and method essentially
+the same, and a notable instance of the great maxim in war, set at
+nought in 1793 to 1799, but always observed by real commanders, that
+you should find and strike at the decisive point, and assail an enemy
+where he is most vulnerable. The Grand Army marched across France from
+the camp of Boulogne with a celerity which confounded its foes; two
+corps, under Bernadotte and Marmont, created of late Imperial Marshals,
+advanced from Hanover and the flats of Holland; a corp of Bavarians
+joined the French; and the collected masses, nearly 200,000 strong,
+were drawn together to the Rhine and the Main, ready to attain the
+Danube, in the last days of September. These movements led to the great
+surrender of Ulm, a most remarkable event in the wars of this century.
+Masking the general movement by sending detachments of cavalry into
+and along the Black Forest--the stratagem again of the column of Mont
+Cenis--and spreading his masses over the Franconian plains, the Emperor
+moved the converging arrays from the great arc of Strasburg, Mayence,
+and Würtzburg; and by the second week of October they were upon the
+Danube already interposed between Ulm and Vienna. The net was now
+rapidly drawn round Mack, who, stricken with terror, remained almost
+motionless, changing front about Ulm, and doing scarcely anything to
+strike at the enemy gathering in on all sides. Some mistakes were made
+in completing the toils, almost inevitable in manœuvres of the kind,
+which a capable chief might have turned to account; but these were
+rectified within a few hours; three bodies of Austrians made their
+escape; but Mack simply waited on events, unlike Mélas, made no attempt
+to break through, and capitulated with the mass of his army on the
+19th of October. The greater part of the forces which had got off were
+intercepted and made prisoners; and thus a whole army was literally
+swept from the theatre by a march without striking one effective blow.
+Europe never witnessed a scene of the kind again until Metz fell
+through the treason of Bazaine.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    Sketch Map of
+    CENTRAL EUROPE]
+
+Napoleon, in his rapid advance on Ulm, had spread his army over a
+vast circumference because no possible foes were at hand; he had made
+the best use of the good roads which now generally traversed France
+and Germany; and he had thus turned to the greatest advantage one of
+the new existing conditions of war. The front of the Allied attack
+had been broken; and the paralysis, so to speak, of the head, had
+caused the collapse of the inferior members. The eccentric operations
+in the North of Germany and in Southern Italy came to nothing; the
+Archduke Charles and the Archduke John--the first had been defeated at
+Caldiero, a revenge for the failure of 1796--were compelled to fall
+back from the Adige and the Tyrol; and the way from Ulm to Vienna
+lay open. The Emperor, giving effect, in another age, to the great
+conception of Villars in 1703, marched with the Grand Army down the
+valley of the Danube, protecting his wings from possible attacks; the
+Isar, the Inn, the Traun, and the Ens, lines capable of defence, were
+passed and mastered; and, by the middle of November, the triumphant
+conqueror had entered the capital of the German Cæsars. By this time
+the advanced corps of the Russian army, which had marched from Galicia
+and had attained the Inn, had rallied the fragments of Mack’s forces;
+its chief, Kutusof, a name to become famous, had fallen back, and left
+Vienna to its fate; and he had come into line with his colleague,
+Buxhöwden, who had been marching from the Polish frontier, and had
+made his way into the plains of Moravia. Napoleon broke up from Vienna
+to pursue his foes, though, notwithstanding his wonderful success,
+his position was already not free from danger. In the march on Ulm,
+Bernadotte had crossed a Prussian district; this had incensed the King
+and even the nation, for some time chafing at its neutral attitude, and
+Prussia had begun to prepare for war, and to assemble troops on the
+Elbe and the Oder. The Grand Army, too, had suffered heavy losses in
+its forced marches into the heart of Austria; the system of living upon
+conquered provinces had not sufficed for enormous bodies of men; and
+thousands of stragglers, marauders, deserters, swarmed along the tracts
+from the Rhine to the Danube. The Archdukes, too, in retreat from the
+south, were straining every nerve to attain Moravia; and should Prussia
+march an army through the Bohemian passes, and throw her sword into
+the scale of the Allies, the French, isolated, would, with winter at
+hand, and far from their base, be soon compelled to confront an immense
+superiority of force.
+
+Napoleon, however, always confident--the modern Cæsar had faith in his
+fortunes--did not hesitate to march into Moravia; and he was at Brünn
+by the third week of November, with a considerable part of the Grand
+Army. At this moment Kutusof and Buxhöwden were near Olmütz about
+80,000 strong; some Austrian contingents had united with them; Prussia
+had actually promised to attack Napoleon; the Archdukes were but a few
+marches off; and had the Allies only waited a fortnight, they could
+have assembled nearly 200,000 men to fight a great battle with the
+French Emperor, who could not have assembled 100,000. But folly and
+presumption were in the Russian camp, and the young Czar, Alexander,
+was persuaded to take the offensive, and to advance from Olmütz before
+the available supports of the Allies were near. A theorist contributed
+to this fatal resolve, and his pedantry led to a tremendous disaster.
+Napoleon at this time was in position not far from Brünn, on the banks
+of the Goldbach, in front of the little town of Austerlitz; and though
+he had really about 70,000 men in hand, two of his corps were at some
+distance. Weyrother, an Austrian general officer, proposed a grand
+plan, to descend from Olmütz, to turn the right wing of the French
+on the Goldbach, and to cut Napoleon off from retreat on Vienna, by
+a formidable attack in the oblique order. The Allied army, perhaps
+80,000 men, was close to the Goldbach on the 1st of December, its
+columns arranged for the offensive movement ostentatiously talked of
+and soon made apparent; and Weyrother announced a great coming victory.
+Napoleon, who had drawn in his two corps, beheld with delight this
+reckless strategy--a flank march along a wide front, under the beard
+of the chief of Arcola and Rivoli; that “army is mine,” he proudly
+said, and he made the prediction known in an address to his soldiers.
+Anticipating what would happen--in part at least--he had assumed a
+timid defensive attitude, in order to lure his enemies on--another
+instance of his wonderful powers of stratagem.
+
+The sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, to illuminate one of the great
+scenes of history. The nature of the ground forbade the manœuvre
+contemplated by the Allied leaders. Towards their left, in the space in
+which they proposed to outflank and defeat the French right, spread a
+region of marsh, around the Goldbach, of wide lakes, and of intricate
+country, with the hamlets of Sokolnitz and Telnitz hard by; and it
+formed at once a difficult position to force, and a line favourable in
+the extreme for defence. Their centre filled the plain round the hill
+of Pratzen, and was, therefore, dangerously exposed to attack, should
+it be weakened by a detachment to the left; and their right was almost
+wholly “in the air,” and liable to be turned and destroyed by the low
+hill of Santon. Napoleon had seized the characteristics of the scene
+with the insight of the great chief of Ramillies, and his dispositions
+were made to turn to the best advantage the local peculiarities which
+he saw before him. He had already secured a second line of retreat,
+was not bound to his base on Vienna, and was perfectly free to act
+as he pleased; and his arrangements were the piece of a master of
+tactics. He placed Davoust, one of the best of the marshals, with
+only a few thousand men on his right--reinforcements, however, were
+ready for them--for he wished to draw the enemy on to his ruin, and
+the position he knew was easy of defence; but Soult, afterwards Duke
+of Dalmatia, Bernadotte and his corps, with the Imperial Guard, were
+massed together in formidable strength, to carry the plain and heights
+of Pratzen; and Lannes, with the left and a reserve, held the hill of
+Santon and the lowlands around, with every advantage for an effort
+against the Allied right. The battle-field, therefore, was made, so to
+speak, a theatre by the antagonist chiefs, to assure defeat and victory
+alike; and Kutusof, it is said, foretold the issue with an assurance
+equal to that of Napoleon.
+
+These operations led to the great fight of Austerlitz, the masterpiece
+of war, I think, of this century. By the early dawn, four big Austrian
+and Russian masses were in motion to turn Napoleon’s right, advancing
+slowly in the oblique order; but they toiled painfully through the
+difficult ground; and they were kept at bay by the little force of
+Davoust, which, holding Sokolnitz and Telnitz, defied their efforts.
+Ere long a tremendous onslaught of war burst suddenly upon the Allied
+centre, thinned by the divisions sent to the left; Napoleon, who, like
+a crouching tiger, had reserved his strength until it was time to
+spring, launched Soult and Bernadotte against Pratzen, and the enemy’s
+centre was cut through spite of heroic efforts. Meanwhile Lannes had
+assailed the enemy’s right; here, too, a noble resistance was made;
+but science and skill, force being nearly equal, must always prevail
+over the sternest courage; and victory soon declared for the French.
+Early in the afternoon the Allied centre and right, half ruined, were
+a dissolving mass; and though the left had forced Davoust back some
+distance, it was isolated and entangled in an intricate region. It
+was beginning to retreat, its cumbrous masses demoralised and showing
+signs of panic, when Napoleon turned against it with that determined
+energy which he nearly always displayed in a successful battle. His
+victorious centre was brought to bear in irresistible power on the
+flying enemy; a horrible scene of carnage followed; the Austrians and
+Russians were slain or captured in thousands without an attempt at
+resistance; and multitudes perished in the lakes near the Goldbach, the
+French artillery shattering their frozen surface. The stricken army was
+well-nigh destroyed; it lost all its guns; and nearly half its numbers,
+and its fragments were scattered in every direction. The coalition
+succumbed under this mighty stroke; Prussia said “Hail” to the
+conqueror, and licked his hand; Alexander was too glad to escape beyond
+the Niemen, with the remains of his army; and Austria, her constancy
+at last broken, was compelled to accept the Peace of Pressburg, which
+deprived her of all she had retained in Italy, and contracted the
+limits of her shrunken empire. In the general dismay of Continental
+Europe, England alone had consolation and hope; she had lost Nelson,
+but that greatest of seamen had annihilated the fleets of France and
+Spain on the ever memorable day of Trafalgar.
+
+It is unnecessary to dwell on the first part of this campaign; for the
+operations that led to the surrender of Mack were, I have said, akin to
+those that hemmed in Mélas. The Allies were in a false position on the
+theatre of war, as the Austrians were in 1800; Napoleon enveloped one
+of their armies, as before Marengo he had closed round the Austrians.
+The movements of 1805 were less fascinating, I have remarked, than
+those of 1800; and the great superiority of Napoleon over Mack in
+numbers make them less astonishing and strike the mind less; but they
+were conducted upon a grander scale, were more scientific, and were
+better prepared. The march on Vienna was a fine operation; but it will
+always remain questionable if the Emperor ought to have hazarded the
+advance into Moravia; assuredly had the Allies fallen back and waited,
+he would have been exposed to the gravest perils.
+
+The grand incident of the contest is, however, Austerlitz, a battle
+that should be studied by every thinker on war. It is a poor account of
+this mighty conflict to say that it represents the system of Frederick
+at odds with that of Napoleon, and exploded by it; the result depends
+on much deeper causes than tactical orders on a field of battle. No
+doubt the Allies tried to attack in Frederick’s fashion; no doubt the
+French attacked in columns with skirmishers; no doubt the hostile
+armies may be compared “to a long bar of iron, inferior in strength
+and suppleness to a chain of many links,” to use the metaphor of an
+accomplished writer. But Austerlitz was not an affair of mere methods
+of offence; it was the triumph of marvellous genius in war over
+pedantry and ignorance of the higher parts of tactics. The Allies
+placed themselves on the ground as badly as possible; they made a
+long flank march under the guns of an enemy; their turning movement
+inevitably failed in the region in which the attempt was made; and
+had Daun been before them they would have been defeated, though Daun
+could no more have achieved Austerlitz than he could have written
+_Othello_ and _Hamlet_. On the other hand, Napoleon occupied
+the ground with perfect judgment, made every feature in it conform
+to his ends; placed his army upon it in the exact positions in which
+its attack would be most decisive, and made the very most of the
+false moves of his enemies. The result was complete; only two-thirds
+of an army rather weaker than its foe in numbers, and much weaker in
+guns, simply shattered to atoms a more powerful force, with a loss
+comparatively very small; and this, though the Austrians and Russians
+fought extremely well. In all this we see what Napoleon has called
+the “divine side of war,” not its mere evolutions; the difference, he
+has said, is that between a “book of the _Iliad_ and a page of
+a grammar.” Yet masterpiece as this great battle was, I do not think
+it surpasses Ramillies in the dispositions that were made before it,
+and in the manner in which the enemy was reached and conquered. We see
+the same insight in both instances; the same thorough perception of
+the nature of the ground, and the means of taking the best advantage
+of it; the same perfect appreciation of the faults of the enemy, the
+same admirable distribution of the victorious armies. In one respect,
+however, Marlborough perhaps was inferior to Napoleon in execution; he
+did not strike down Villeroy with the tremendous force with which the
+Emperor crushed the Allies, and did not show the same wonderful power
+in victory. Yet I hesitate here, for we must remember Blenheim, and
+the absolute destruction of Tallard’s army; and in comparing the two
+battles, we must bear in mind that the three arms in Napoleon’s day had
+acquired a “mobility” and a power in the field unknown in the first
+part of the eighteenth century, and were, therefore, far more effective
+against a defeated army.
+
+I cannot notice the Confederation of the Rhine, the creation of vassal
+kingdoms beyond France, as appendages to the House of Bonaparte, and
+the enormous extension of the French Empire from the Zuider Zee to the
+extreme verge of Italy. The dream of setting up again the throne of
+Charlemagne in the generation of the French Revolution, and of holding
+down martial States by sheer force of arms, is characteristic of the
+extravagance sometimes seen in Napoleon; and it indicates also that
+profound scorn of anything resembling popular rights and movements
+which is a marked feature of his wonderful nature. War broke out soon
+again on the Continent, and Prussia, unaided, challenged the French
+Empire. That Power had been willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike;
+she had feigned submission after the rout of Austerlitz, but she
+remained angry and vexed at heart, and the domineering conduct of the
+Imperial conqueror goaded her at last to proclaim hostilities. The
+Court and even the nation rushed to arms; the misgivings expressed by
+veterans of the Seven Years’ War, who had followed events from 1794 to
+1805, were disregarded with false confidence; and two armies, about
+150,000 strong, led by Prince Hohenlohe and the Duke of Brunswick,
+marched from the Elbe and the Oder to the Thuringian Forest.
+
+The operations of the campaign of 1806 are, perhaps, less marked by
+Napoleon’s genius than that of more than one previous contest; but they
+achieved success that even now seems marvellous, and they conspicuously
+illustrate one of his peculiar gifts, power in annihilating a defeated
+enemy. The Grand Army, about 180,000 strong, was on the Main, not
+having returned to France when the Prussian chiefs had assumed the
+offensive, and the Emperor joined it in the first week of October.
+At this moment Hohenlohe and Brunswick were contemplating an advance
+to the Rhine. Bold strategy, they boasted, was all that was needed
+to overcome the Corsican upstart, and the Grand Army was spread from
+Würtzburg to Bamberg capable of being easily moved on their flank.
+Napoleon determined to gain this advantage, and, forming his army
+into three great masses, he began to traverse the defiles that lead
+from the southern verge of the forest towards the Saale and the
+Elster. The movement, executed with his wonted promptitude, brought
+the Grand Army into the plains between the two rivers on the 10th of
+October, threatening the communications of the enemy with the Elbe; and
+Hohenlohe and Brunswick, passing from boasting to terror, fell back
+towards Weimar and Jena, to approach the Elbe. Napoleon, who, at the
+beginning of the campaign, expressed unfeigned respect for the famous
+army of Frederick, would not at first believe that generals of a great
+school would make such a hasty retrograde movement; and he drew part
+of his forces together, expecting to fight a great battle near Gera
+and Auma, points in the valleys of the Saale and the Elster. This
+miscalculation cost him the loss of some time, for his enemy had no
+intention to stand, and, meanwhile, the retreating armies had fallen
+back a considerable way towards the Elbe, the main body under Brunswick
+making for the line of the Unstrutt, a feeder of the Saale, and the
+defile of Kosen, a smaller force, led by Hohenlohe, halting near Jena
+in order to call in outlying detachments, and then to follow Brunswick
+to the Elbe. Napoleon began to pursue when he had ascertained his
+mistake; he was greatly elated by the results of partial engagements
+with small hostile bodies, in which the superiority of the French
+tactics was manifest, and he wished to compel the Prussians to accept
+battle. But his information was still imperfect; he would not credit
+so rapid a flight; he believed that by far the greatest part of the
+enemy’s army was concentrating near and around Jena; and his plan was
+to overwhelm it in front, and to cut off its retreat. With this object
+in view, he directed Davoust and Bernadotte to seize the defile of
+Kosen, crossing the Saale at the points of Naumburg and Dornburg; and
+with the main part of the Grand Army spread out in many columns he drew
+near the river and advanced on Jena.
+
+These operations led to Jena and Auerstadt, fought on the 14th of
+October 1806. By the night of the 13th Napoleon had seized, had
+occupied by an advanced guard, and had crowned with guns brought up
+with infinite toil--the Emperor followed the train in person--the
+Landgrafenberg heights, since known by his name, which commanded the
+approaches to the plains beyond; and from this point he saw the army
+of Hohenlohe, the bivouacs marked by miles of fires, extending along
+the region between Jena and Weimar. He made his dispositions for a
+great battle, still fixed in the belief that Hohenlohe’s army was
+the principal part of the hostile forces; and as he knew that, in
+any event, he would be in preponderating strength on the field, he
+prepared to attack Hohenlohe in front, and to turn both his flanks,
+and he directed Davoust to advance even beyond Kosen, to defeat, if
+he could, the army of Brunswick, and to close on the rear of the two
+Prussian armies. The battle of Jena began in the early morning; the
+first movement of Napoleon was to debouche from the Landgrafenberg into
+the plains beyond, and this was accomplished with little difficulty,
+Hohenlohe having altogether failed to perceive the importance of this
+position. When the French army had fully taken its ground, Napoleon
+had 100,000 men against 60,000, and the issue of the battle could not
+be doubtful. Ney, indeed, the ill-fated “bravest of the brave,” the
+warrior of Elchingen and of the Moskwa, engaged his troops prematurely,
+and met a severe repulse; and the Prussians displayed the stern
+devotion, and even the precision and skill in manœuvre characteristic
+of them in the Seven Years’ War. But Hohenlohe’s force, weaker as
+it was, was divided; the attack of Lannes, the Guard and Murat in
+front--the chief of the Imperial cavalry is well known to fame--that
+of Soult and Augereau, another marshal, on either flank, became
+impossible to resist; and though the Prussians “fought like tigers,” an
+eye-witness has said, and Napoleon[11] sincerely praised them in his
+account of the battle, Hohenlohe’s army was before long routed.
+
+Meanwhile a battle of a very different kind had raged at Auerstadt, a
+few miles off, on the line of the retreat of the defeated Prussians.
+Davoust had issued, as he had been ordered, from the defile of Kosen;
+but as he advanced he became aware of the great strength of the army
+of Brunswick, and he entreated Bernadotte to come to his aid. That
+chief, however, insisted on remaining at Dornburg, relying on the
+letter of Napoleon’s despatches; and it is doubtful whether this unwise
+resolve is to be attributed to the servile obedience characteristic
+of the Imperial marshals, or to miserable jealousy and dislike of a
+colleague. Davoust was now left with about 27,000 men to confront
+Brunswick, who must have had 70,000 had his force been well in hand;
+and the Marshal directed one of the finest battles of the whole period
+of the wars of Napoleon. He tenaciously kept Brunswick at bay for
+hours, but he must have been overwhelmed had Brunswick displayed the
+energy of the Austrian chief at Marengo; and in that event the two
+Prussian armies would have successfully effected their retreat to the
+Elbe. Brunswick, however, and most of the Prussian leaders, fell, and
+in a fatal hour the wretched advice was given to retire, and seek the
+support of Hohenlohe’s army, known to be making a stand at Jena. Within
+two or three hours the wrecks of that perishing force became entangled
+with the troops of Auerstadt; the contagion of demoralisation and
+panic spread, and the two armies broke up in headlong flight, ravaged
+and never let to rest by the French cavalry. Once more Napoleon gave
+proof of his skill in pursuit, and on this occasion with extraordinary
+results. The Prussian army had no reserves; the beaten force was
+completely scattered, and made for the course of the Lower Elbe, and
+the French Emperor, seizing the chord of the arc, forced it, in masses
+of shattered fragments, northwards, and cut off five-sixths of it from
+all possible retreat. Within a few days the conqueror had entered
+Berlin; some 20,000 fugitives were the sole relics of a fine army of
+150,000 men; these were driven into the wastes of the Lower Vistula,
+and the military power of Prussia was destroyed. Terrible scenes of
+weakness and despair followed; great fortresses opened their gates to
+hussars, and the monarchy of the chief of Leuthen toppled down in ruin.
+One of the last divisions that surrendered was that of Blücher, a rude
+soldier brought up in the school of Frederick, and destined to win a
+name in history.
+
+The campaign of Jena, it has been remarked, bears a singular
+resemblance to that of 1870, in which, however, victory passed from
+Gaul to Teuton. In both instances there was the same arrogance and
+precipitate haste on the defeated side; in both the same hesitation
+followed by panic; in both the same superiority of force, generalship,
+of all, in short, that secures success in war on the side of the
+triumphant conquerors; in both the same utter collapse of a great
+military State. Prussia, however, unlike France, made no national
+effort to struggle out from under the heel of the victor. There was no
+siege of Berlin like that of Paris; no Prussian Chanzy made his powers
+manifest; no Prussian Gambetta refused to despair of his country, or
+organized a resistance, misdirected no doubt, but not the less heroic
+and even formidable. In this campaign, I have said, the strategic gifts
+of the Emperor are not so strikingly seen as in others which I have
+tried to sketch. The plan of debouching into the valleys of the Saale
+and the Elster from the edge of the forest, though certainly the best,
+would have probably occurred to a general of the second rank; and,
+as a matter of fact, it occurred to Jomini, then a young officer in
+the Imperial Service. In the operations, moreover, that led to Jena,
+Napoleon made more than one real mistake; he lost time in preparing to
+fight near Gera and Auma. He was convinced that he was dealing with the
+main Prussian army at Jena. He ordered Davoust to advance beyond the
+pass of Kosen, and to close on the enemy, upon the false assumption
+that the force of Brunswick was not very great; and owing to these
+misconceptions, he so placed his army on the scene of the two battles
+that Davoust escaped a complete defeat by a chance only--a result that
+would have caused the failure of the campaign. Most probably Bernadotte
+was to blame for not joining his brother Marshal, and averting a
+blow that might have been disastrous; but Napoleon’s orders to go to
+Dornburg seem clear, and, in any case, as General-in-Chief, he is
+mainly accountable for a decided error. Yet the true student of war
+will not think the less of the Emperor for mistakes such as these. The
+greatest commanders must make mistakes, for they must act at once on
+imperfect knowledge; and the aphorism of Turenne is the simple truth,
+“He is the best general whose mistakes are the fewest.”[12] For the
+rest, in the campaign of 1806, Napoleon’s general conceptions were, as
+always, masterly. It is not surprising that he could not believe in
+the precipitate flight of a most renowned army; and his arrangements
+in the actual contest at Jena were those of a captain of the highest
+order; though he was so superior in force, they have little interest.
+What is to be chiefly dwelt on in this campaign is its illustration
+of the wonderful powers of Napoleon in destroying a retreating enemy.
+Many a chief would have followed the Prussians to the Elbe; the
+Emperor completely cut off their retreat, forced them into nooks and
+corners where they could not escape, and compelled the great body of
+them to lay down their arms. Napier was, perhaps, thinking of this
+great achievement when he compares Napoleon’s battle to the “wave that
+effaces the landscape.”
+
+Napoleon, after the subjugation of Prussia, came into conflict with a
+more distant enemy. Alexander, the future head of the Holy Alliance,
+half French in ideas, but at heart a despot, had undertaken again to
+defend Old Europe; and notwithstanding the experience of Austerlitz,
+had solemnly vowed to avenge Prussia. His armies, however, moving
+slowly through the immense spaces of the Russian Empire, were unable
+to avert the ruin of Jena, or to prevent the fall of the Prussian
+Monarchy; it was November before they reached the Niemen, and they had
+not approached the Vistula for some time afterwards. The conqueror,
+who, in the intoxication of success, had launched against England
+the well-known Decree which declared her excluded from commerce with
+Europe, and established the famous Continental system, resolved to
+march against the new foe, and to strike down the Russians in the
+wilds of Poland. He made preparations, in Berlin, for a great winter
+campaign; and, looking behind and before, he left nothing undone to
+gain opinion in France, to make his military power irresistible on the
+theatre of war, and to secure a fresh base for an offensive movement.
+His arrangements were far-sighted and masterly; for there is no wilder
+mistake than to suppose that Napoleon, though his imagination at times
+overcame his judgment, was not always the most profound and capable, as
+well as the boldest, of strategists. Magnificent public works enchanted
+Paris; rewards were lavished upon the Grand Army; and France, ever
+liable to be carried away by “glory,” was, so to speak, entranced in
+dreams of Imperial grandeur. Meanwhile thousands of levies were called
+to join the eagles; the fatal system of anticipating the conscription
+began; vast bodies of troops were sent from the Confederation of the
+Rhine, from Italy, from Holland, and even from Spain; and these were
+stationed at intervals along the space extending from the Rhine to the
+Elbe and the Oder. Nor did the Emperor omit precautions to provide for
+these immense masses; the granaries of Germany were made to furnish
+supplies; the French cavalry were remounted in regiments from the
+establishments of the troopers of Seidlitz; and enormous magazines were
+prepared to support the hosts of Western Europe, in their march to the
+East. Napoleon, too, cast a scrutinizing eye on possible enemies and
+possible allies; he arrayed an army in Italy to observe Austria; and he
+tried to cajole the Sultan into attacking the Czar.
+
+Towards the close of November, the Grand Army, extending from the Meuse
+and the Rhine to beyond the Oder, had reached the great strength of
+300,000 men; and Napoleon expected a speedy triumph. Yet that vast host
+was already different from the soldiers of Austerlitz and of Boulogne,
+it was a “_colluvies gentium_,” in the historian’s words; it was
+crowded with young levies and half false auxiliaries; and the wand of
+the magician, so to speak, had changed in his hands. As yet, however,
+these elements of decline were not perceptible to any large extent; the
+warriors of Jena formed the first line; and the front of the Grand Army
+was moved to the Vistula, strong detachments being made to protect its
+flanks, and to subdue the fortresses Prussia still held in Silesia.
+Napoleon had reached Posen by the end of November; his troops had soon
+covered the plains of Poland; and when he attained the scenes of the
+famous Partition, the Poles greeted him as the coming liberator of
+their race. The Emperor, however, true to a nature to which popular
+stirrings were simply abhorrent, put off his suppliants with fair
+speeches; he enrolled the Poles in his ranks by thousands; but he never
+sought to make them an independent people. Irresistible in strength,
+as he believed himself to be, he had no wish to exasperate Austria,
+one of the partners in the destruction of Poland; and hard statecraft
+concurred with instinct in causing him to adopt a purely selfish
+policy. As yet, however, all went well; the Grand Army, probably
+130,000 strong, held the line of the Vistula, and filled the tract
+between Thorn and Warsaw by the second week of December; the remains of
+the Prussian forces, and two Russian armies which had approached the
+river fell back at all points; and the formidable barrier of the great
+stream of Poland, held on both banks, was completely mastered.
+
+The position of the enemy on the theatre of war now invited one
+of Napoleon’s strokes. The hostile armies were widely apart, and
+disseminated upon a vast semi-circle; Lestocq, with the relics of Jena,
+about 20,000 strong, holding a line from Soldau to the Lower Vistula;
+Beningsen, a Russian chief, with perhaps 50,000 men, being in the angle
+where the Narew and the Wkra meet before they merge in the Vistula’s
+waters; Buxhöwden, with probably 40,000, being far in the rear around
+Ostrolenka, in the country about the Upper Narew. The Grand Army,
+between Thorn and Warsaw, was in possession, therefore, of all the
+shorter lines on the field of manœuvre against its foes; and Bernadotte
+and Ney, on the left, were directed to attack and overwhelm Lestocq,
+while the corps of Augereau, of Lannes, of Davoust, and the Guard,
+with Soult in the rear, were to fall on Beningsen, to cut him off from
+Buxhöwden, and to drive the two armies into the deserts between the
+Bug and the Narew. The project was worthy of its renowned author; and
+the Grand Army began the movement from the Vistula in the last days of
+December. Napoleon, however, for the first time, found the forces of
+Nature and the state of the theatre arrayed against his rapid offensive
+strategy; and his conception was not even nearly realised. The region
+traversed was one of morasses and woods; there were scarcely any
+supplies to be found on the spot; the French soldiery, living on
+magazines from the rear, and sinking in expanses of swamp, were hardly
+able to march; and the cavalry could not ascertain the movements
+of the enemy behind whole leagues of forest. Comparative failure
+was the result; the allied armies effected their retreat; Lestocq
+eluded Ney and Bernadotte; Beningsen, who had encountered Lannes at
+Pultusk, and Davoust at Golymin, without a defeat--the corps of the
+Marshals had been misdirected, for it was impossible to reconnoitre
+the country--contrived to join Buxhöwden, though with great loss; and
+the converging armies found rest for some days on the vast and lonely
+plains of Eastern Poland. Napoleon, baffled, returned to the Vistula
+and placed the Grand Army in winter quarters extending from Warsaw
+almost to the coast; and his forces were spread on an immense line,
+for it was difficult in the extreme to find supplies, and there was no
+apprehension of possible danger.
+
+Beningsen, however--he had been placed in supreme command--elated at
+what he deemed success, resolved to assume a bold offensive; he defiled
+between the long screen of forest and lakes, which divides the Narew
+from the Passarge; and he all but reached the corps of Bernadotte and
+Ney, a nearly isolated wing of the hostile army. Napoleon prepared a
+decisive counter-stroke; he ordered Bernadotte and Ney to fall back,
+with the view of luring the enemy on; and he directed the other corps
+of the Grand Army to close on the rear of the Russian chief, when
+fully committed to the forward movement. It was a design worthy of the
+chief of Austerlitz; but Beningsen found it out through an intercepted
+despatch, and he instantly fell back from the Passarge to the Alle,
+in the hope of escaping his terrible enemy. Napoleon pursued with his
+accustomed energy; the vast plains, hardened by the frosts of the
+North, enabled his troops to move more rapidly; and he came up with
+his adversary, in position, round Eylau, where Beningsen, urged by
+his army, had consented to stand. The battle was fought on the 8th of
+February 1807; it was one of the most sanguinary of the wars of that
+age, and in the result it was a mere Pyrrhic victory. Each army was
+about 80,000 strong; but the Russians had many more guns; and this told
+heavily on the lines of the French, for Napoleon delayed his attack for
+some hours in order to allow his supports to come up. It is unnecessary
+to retrace the scenes of a conflict unmarked by peculiar tactical skill
+and notable chiefly for the stubborn constancy shown by the Muscovite
+soldier on many a field. The centre of the French, attacked in a
+tempest of snow, was shattered, and well nigh pierced through: a charge
+of Murat, and all his horsemen failed against the tenacious Russian
+infantry; the arrival on the scene of Davoust and Lestocq made the
+issue at several moments doubtful; but the scale was ultimately turned
+by Ney, who had hastened to the spot, by a forced march. The Russians,
+scarcely defeated, only just fell back; and Napoleon had suffered too
+much to move.
+
+The carnage of Eylau on both sides was terrible; the corps of Augereau
+was nearly destroyed; and the Russians, packed in dense masses, had
+suffered frightfully from the continuous fire of the French artillery.
+But of the two conflicting hosts, the Grand Army was certainly the one
+most exposed to peril; the Russians were almost on their own ground;
+it was far from its base, with Germany in its rear, and its position
+for a time became extremely critical. Napoleon’s triumphs, in fact,
+had been so unbroken, that he was deemed vanquished even in a drawn
+battle; a thrill of alarm and anxiety ran through France, and the
+humbled Continent was stirred to its depths. Had Beningsen possessed
+the gifts of Frederick, he would, at this juncture, have resumed the
+offensive; in that event, Napoleon must have retreated to the Vistula,
+at least, perhaps to the Oder; Austria, in all probability, would have
+taken the field; and the great Teutonic rising of 1813 might have been
+witnessed in 1807. But the Russian chief, though a capable man, was
+not a commander of the foremost rank; he had suffered immense loss,
+and he retired behind the Alle in order to place his army in winter
+quarters, confessing defeat by this retrograde movement. Indomitable
+constancy, we shall see hereafter, was not one of Napoleon’s
+distinctive qualities, but he perfectly knew what a prodigious effect
+an imposing attitude has on mankind, and would necessarily have in
+the present state of Europe; and his conduct was that of a consummate
+warrior. In order to convince a doubting world that Eylau had been
+a French victory, he moved his army forward a little distance, and
+instead of falling back on the line of the Vistula, he ostentatiously
+placed every corps at hand in cantonments behind the course of the
+Passarge, braving a northern winter on the very verge of Russia.
+Meanwhile, he applied himself, with that amazing energy, that mastery
+of detail, that administrative power, for which he has perhaps had no
+equal, to reinforce and secure the Grand Army; to establish it firmly
+in its present position; and to make his military ascendency supreme.
+Two fresh levies of conscripts were made; his vassal kings, and still
+submissive Allies, were compelled to furnish more contingents to the
+theatre of war, and to comply with enormous demands for supplies; the
+forces required to hold Austria in check and to keep Prussia down
+were largely increased; Masséna was summoned with his corps from
+Italy to strengthen the front of the Grand Army; and Mortier, Duke
+of Treviso, another marshal, was sent with a considerable detachment
+to the Pomeranian seaboard, in order to guard against a descent from
+Stralsund on the communications and flank of the Imperial hosts
+expected to be made by a British force. Concurrently, a corps under
+Marshal Lefebvre was moved to undertake the siege of Danzig, a place of
+capital importance still held by Prussia; the sieges of the Silesian
+strongholds were pressed, and an alliance at last was made with the
+Sultan, who even proclaimed war against the Russian Empire. Months were
+spent in making their last preparations, at Osterode, near the banks of
+the Passarge; and Napoleon’s correspondence alone can give the student
+of war an adequate notion of the prodigious ability of their great
+author.
+
+The Emperor’s exertions were completely successful; the Nemesis of
+conquest had not yet drawn near; and by the spring of 1807 his military
+power was established on broader foundations than ever; and he was
+ready to take the field with most imposing forces. By this time Eylau
+was a mere recollection; the Continent had relapsed into bondage; and
+the Imperial armies, filled with bad elements as they were, reached
+the enormous number of half a million of men, spread from Champagne
+to the limits of Eastern Prussia. Meanwhile, no attack had been made
+from Stralsund; Danzig had fallen with the Silesian fortresses; the
+Porte had compelled Duckworth to leave the Dardanelles; the Turk was
+in arms against the Czar; and the cause of old Europe seemed once
+more desperate. With both his flanks covered, and his base secure,
+Napoleon had 160,000 men in perfect order upon the Passarge, ready to
+take the offensive at the first moment when the growth of vegetation
+would supply the means of subsistence to his thousands of horses. Yet
+such is the waste and strain of war that, even at this time, 60,000
+men were missing from the rolls of the Grand Army, and spread along
+its rear, living on plunder and straggling; and this, notwithstanding
+the astonishing efforts of Napoleon throughout the whole winter. In
+fact, railways being as yet unknown, the means of transport were still
+imperfect, and the admirable arrangements by which the German armies
+of the present day are moved and supplied were impossible, especially
+along an enormous line.
+
+The success of the Czar in reinforcing his armies had been trifling
+compared with that of Napoleon; and England, as we have seen, had made
+no diversion. The Russian Guards were despatched from St. Petersburg,
+and troops were in march from other parts of the Empire; but Beningsen,
+in the last days of May, had scarcely more than 120,000 men to oppose
+to the Grand Army of 160,000; and this though the Russians were close
+to their frontier, and the Emperor was hundreds of miles from the
+Rhine. In these circumstances, the Russian chief ought to have stood
+cautiously on the defensive; but he endeavoured to repeat the attempt
+of the winter; and breaking up from his camps on the 5th of June, he
+fell on Ney, somewhat widely detached, and on the extreme left of the
+Grand Army. Ney, however, a tactician of real skill, held the enemy
+in check, and slowly fell back; Napoleon tried a counter-attack once
+more; and he marched against Beningsen, from the Passarge, in the hope
+of gathering on his flank and rear. The Russian contrived to effect
+his escape; a great entrenched camp which, after the fashion of Daun,
+he had fortified, arrested the onset of the French; and he reached
+the Alle and began to retreat along the right or eastern bank of the
+river, in the hope, apparently, of reaching Königsberg, where immense
+supplies had been stored for his army. The Emperor followed along the
+western bank, his object, too, being to attain Königsberg; and his
+foremost corps came abreast of the Russians, the rest of the Grand Army
+being somewhat divided, and a considerable part being in the rear.
+This state of affairs encouraged Beningsen, in an evil hour, to try to
+attack his enemy. On the 14th of June 1807, he began to cross to the
+left bank of the Alle, at daybreak, with more than half his army; and
+by mid-day he had assailed the corps of Lannes, for the moment isolated
+and in advance. The French marshal, however, made a determined stand;
+in a short time Mortier, the Guard, the chief part of the cavalry, and
+Napoleon, had arrived on the scene, and the corps of Bernadotte and Ney
+soon made their appearance.
+
+Napoleon seized the position of affairs at a glance, and made
+everything ready to destroy an enemy who had recklessly offered battle
+with a great stream in his rear. With complete mastery of the grander
+part of tactics, he commanded Lannes and Mortier to fall back, in order
+to draw Beningsen some distance forward; and Ney and Victor, another
+marshal, in temporary command of Bernadotte’s troops, were directed to
+seize the bridges thrown across the river not far from the little town
+of Friedland by Beningsen, and to cut off his retreat. This admirable
+stroke completely succeeded; and apart from the fact that Napoleon’s
+forces were by this time greatly superior in numbers, the defeat of the
+Russians had been rendered certain. Beningsen fell imprudently into the
+snare; Lannes and Mortier seemed to yield to the Russian masses; and
+when these had advanced too far to escape, Ney, covering his attack
+with a tremendous fire, and his colleague made the decisive movement.
+The bridges were taken and destroyed after a stout resistance; and the
+Russians were forced back against a deep river, hemmed in, captured,
+and drowned in multitudes. A fragment only of the army got across the
+Alle; and Beningsen fled to the line of the Niemen, followed by his
+indefatigable and pitiless foe. The Grand Army halted on the Muscovite
+frontier; the Czar had no choice but to seek an armistice; and the
+French eagles which had flown from the Channel, overshadowing Germany
+in their ravening flight, closed their Imperial wings on the edge of
+Old Europe. Troops of Tartars and Kalmucks armed with bows and arrows,
+and scattered along the banks of the Niemen, in the vain hope of
+arresting Fate, attested the exhaustion of the Russian Empire.
+
+The twofold campaign of Eylau and Friedland does not exhibit in its
+highest aspects Napoleon’s marvellous genius in the field. His project
+of attacking the Allied armies on the Wkra and Narew, at the close
+of 1806, undoubtedly was worthy of a great strategist; and his plan
+of falling back to draw Beningsen, and of doubling on him when he
+marched from the Passarge, reveals once more his pre-eminent gift of
+stratagem. The stroke delivered at Friedland, decisive and splendid,
+was that, too, of a master of tactics in their highest sense; the
+vulnerable side of the enemy was at once detected; and his position
+on the battle-field was made to cause his ruin. Still, the strategy
+of the Emperor in this contest comparatively failed in more than one
+instance; the extension of his cantonments--this was due, I repeat to
+the extreme difficulty of supporting his army--exposed him to attacks
+of a formidable kind; and he barely escaped defeat at Eylau. The most
+conspicuous proof this campaign affords of his military capacity is
+his steadfast attitude amidst a host of enemies, when beyond the
+Vistula, and his administrative triumph in restoring his army; these
+are examples of powers of different kinds, but alike indicate supreme
+ability. The chief lesson of this campaign, however, is that even
+Napoleon’s wonderful gifts could not overcome impassable obstacles;
+his grand offensive strategy hardly succeeded, because the conditions
+forbade success; his brilliant manœuvres missed their mark, because his
+troops could not live in Poland as they had lived in the fertile plains
+of Italy, and could not move rapidly in wastes of swamp; the Phaeton
+of war found himself opposed by the forces of Nature and well nigh
+succumbed.
+
+The end, nevertheless, was as yet distant; and Fortune raised her
+favourite to a still more dazzling eminence. Napoleon had felt, during
+recent events, that prodigious as his military power was, he was
+isolated in a hostile or unfaithful Europe, and he resolved to turn
+to account his recent victory by endeavouring to make his humbled
+adversary a permanent ally of the French Empire. To attain this end
+he had two great advantages, the ascendency of astonishing success,
+and a power of subjugating men which seemed like magic; and Alexander,
+indeed, wounded to the quick by the conduct of England in the affair
+of Stralsund, was ready to yield to England’s deadly enemy. In the
+presence of their armies on either bank, the two Sovereigns met on
+a raft on the Niemen; the town of Tilsit was chosen as the seat of
+the conferences which immediately followed; and the fascinations of
+Napoleon had soon won over the young Czar to alliance, and even to
+friendship. All that passed in these interviews is still unknown,
+but the Revolutionary Monarch and the half Oriental despot agreed to
+re-model the map of Europe, and formed plans of the most far-reaching
+ambition. Each declared England the common enemy; and Alexander
+consented, at Napoleon’s instance, to adopt the Imperial Continental
+system, to close the ports of Russia to British commerce, to summon
+England to make peace at once, and, should she refuse, to array against
+her the navies of every state in Europe, invited or compelled to obey
+the mandate. Meanwhile, Sweden was to be despoiled of Finland; the
+never-changing ambition of the Czars was to be gratified by great
+Turkish provinces; Constantinople was talked of as a prey; and a
+Russian advance to the Indus, it is believed, was discussed. In return
+for these immense concessions to a defeated enemy, Napoleon obtained
+the recognition of the French Empire, and of the order of things he
+had set up in Europe; the Czar pledged himself to make common cause
+with his ally in his contest with England; and Alexander perhaps agreed
+to the conquest of Spain. To complete the new arrangement of the
+European world, in the interest of the Lords of the West and the East,
+Prussia was to lose nearly half her territory, and to be reduced to a
+second-rate power. Napoleon announced that he would have gone farther
+but for his regard for his Imperial friend. Saxony was to be made a
+counterpoise to her old rival in Germany, as a mere French dependency;
+and the craving of the Poles for national life was to be appeased by
+the mock creation of a Grand Duchy of Warsaw for the House of Saxony.
+
+I cannot dwell on the policy of Tilsit, unequivocally condemned by all
+writers. It was a conspicuous instance of the extravagance sometimes
+shown by Napoleon, even in war, but often in the less familiar sphere
+of politics. It was a mistake to challenge England, the ruler of the
+seas, and the treasurer of Europe, to prolong a contest in which, after
+Trafalgar, she could not be invaded; and the Continental system was a
+chimera of force more injurious to French than to British interests. It
+was a mistake to reverse the policy of France for centuries, to abandon
+Sweden, and to betray the Turks, especially when these had become her
+allies; and it was idle to suppose that the fiat of a Czar would add to
+the stability of the French Empire. It was a mistake, too, of the worst
+kind to trample on the State and the people of Frederick; and it was an
+insult to the Poles to put the nation off with the phantom of a Grand
+Duchy of Warsaw. But the greatest mistake of all was to give a free
+rein to the ambitious impulses of two despots; to place the Partition
+of Europe at the will of two men essentially opposed in nature and
+interests; to suppose that the rulers of France and Russia could ever
+join in a lasting alliance. General war, the shifting of the boundaries
+of States, the destruction for a time of the European system, and
+implacable international passions and hate, were the inevitable
+results of this scheme of rapine; and beside that it had no element of
+strength and endurance, it was certain to lead to a rupture between its
+authors. In this unnatural arrangement we see no trace of the genius of
+Richelieu, of Cavour, of Bismarck; it was a mere ephemeral product of
+force, in opposition to the nature of things, and simply impossible to
+become permanent. This, however, was not perceived by the conqueror,
+covered with the adulation of France and the Continent; and Napoleon
+at this moment might, indeed, imagine that his power was beyond the
+perils of Fortune.
+
+A word on the state of Napoleon’s Empire, at this time at the height
+of its greatness, though its borders were to be still extended. France
+had long ago reached what the national instinct had pointed to as
+her natural limits; she was bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, and the
+Pyrenees; but girdled all round by dependent States, and supreme in
+Italy and in fully half of Germany, she was really the mistress of
+Continental Europe. Nor was this immense dominion the mere spoil of
+conquest; the vigorous and able rule of Napoleon had done wonders
+for old France, and had conferred the greatest benefits on her new
+possessions; and the institutions he founded still flourish far beyond
+the Rhine, and even along the Danube. The prosperity of the Empire
+was growing and splendid; the continuance of order and the collapse
+of anarchy had given free play to the energetic interests which the
+Revolution had called into being; nay, the tributary States had, to
+a great extent, been renovated by the hand of Napoleon. The creative
+genius of the Emperor, too, had accomplished marvels in administration
+and finance, and had completed fine monuments of material grandeur;
+magnificent roads overcame the Alps, and connected the Atlantic with
+the Mediterranean shores; and Paris, rich with treasures of art from
+all lands, and crowded with new and imposing structures, put on the
+aspect of Imperial Rome, and gathered into her lap the fairest spoils
+of conquest. Military power, besides, invincible as yet, and the glory
+of years of triumphs in war, protected this fabric of far-spread
+dominion; the ruling race still prevailed in the Grand Army; its
+commanders, lavishly rewarded, were docile instruments of a chief still
+in the flower of his age; and the flaws and defects in it were not yet
+conspicuous. Nevertheless, even now, one or two deep thinkers, amidst
+the terror and submission of three-fourths of Europe, had declared
+that the Empire could not be lasting. With its vassal Bonapartes, its
+enormous extent, its sway over subdued but mighty races, its mediæval
+pomp, its _parvenu noblesse_, its violence, and its despotism
+of the sword, it was an anachronism in the nineteenth century; its
+grandeur and even its beneficence could not hide its oppression; it
+was established among a people prone to change, and demoralized by
+Revolutionary passions; and, in antagonism to all moral and social
+forces, it depended on a single life and a conqueror’s genius. Greater
+as it was, too, than the monarchy of Louis XIV., it was shut out from
+the sea by England, a source of weakness and peril to a maritime State;
+and it had no foundations in the organic structure, the history, or the
+traditions of the French people. Most ominous of all, the Empire seemed
+to destroy intellect and public worth in France: it was barren of great
+men of letters, and of great citizens; it produced only soldiers and a
+servile herd of functionaries.
+
+I pass over the immediate results of Tilsit, the oppression of every
+small neutral Power, Copenhagen, the invasion of Finland, and the
+dissensions which, following the friendship pledged on the Niemen, were
+left unappeased by the meeting at Erfurt of the two potentates already
+distrusting each other. Napoleon soon began to repent of the promises
+he had made to Alexander respecting the Turks; but he continued to use
+the Russian alliance, unstable as it was, for his grasping ambition.
+The Czar, I have said, perhaps consented that his conqueror should
+work his will on Spain; and before the Grand Army had nearly returned
+to France, Napoleon had begun to make preparations to annex the whole
+of the Iberian Peninsula. A quarrel was forced on Portugal, on the
+pretence that she was evading the Continental system, and would not
+exclude English trade from her ports; and Junot, Duke of Abrantes in
+the Napoleonic peerage, was sent with an army of conscripts, at the
+close of 1807, from the Pyreneean frontier, to occupy Lisbon. The
+fate of Spain had been already settled; that Monarchy had, for many
+years, been almost an abject vassal of France; it had given her ships,
+soldiers, and a noble colony; and it had sacrificed a navy in her cause
+at Trafalgar. But the fiat had gone forth that the House of Bonaparte
+should replace the House of Bourbon on the throne of Charles V. Junot
+was ordered to “observe” the Spanish fortresses; and large bodies
+of French troops were gradually moved towards the borders of Spain,
+from the Loire and the Garonne. I cannot dwell on the Machiavellian
+statecraft which brought about the invasion that followed, on Aranjuez,
+and the plot of Bayonne. The dotard Charles fell into the arms of the
+tempter; the rights of Ferdinand his son were set aside with contempt,
+and Joseph, a brother of Napoleon, put off the Crown of Naples to
+assume that of Spain and the Indies.
+
+The Emperor, however, might have recollected what the character is of
+that strange people, which has more than once baffled the greatest
+warriors, amidst the ranges of its hills and defiles, and has done
+wonders in the defence of its cities. Spain sprang up to a man, from
+the coasts of Galicia to Andalusia and the Pillars of Hercules; “Death
+to the foreigner!” was the fierce national cry; local juntas were
+formed in every province to direct and sustain the great movement;
+levies were poured into the army by thousands; and a call to arms, like
+that of France in 1793, led to an almost universal rising. Napoleon
+ere long found that it was no easy task to pacify and subdue a country
+like this; and his contemptuous scorn of popular passions--“the
+stirrings of the _canaille_” was a common phrase of his--made
+him neglect obvious precautions of war, and had soon involved his
+arms in a signal disaster. When the insurrection broke out, in the
+summer of 1808, he had about 120,000 men in Spain, along the main
+roads between Bayonne and Burgos; and had he operated after his wonted
+fashion, he could easily have conquered the northern provinces. But
+in his disdain of “armed mobs,” he tried to overrun the whole country
+at once; and, simply ignoring every rule of strategy, he divided his
+armies into small fractions, and sent them, in flying columns, west,
+east, and south. Thus employed, his forces could not perform their
+task; Bessières, indeed, a marshal, the Duke of Istria, routed a
+considerable army at Rio Seco; Moncey penetrated into the heart of
+Valencia; and Dupont, a soldier of brilliant promise, marched into
+Andalusia, sacked Cordova, and even approached Cadiz. The insurrection,
+nevertheless, was everywhere; swarms of guerillas, gathering on all
+points of vantage, and impossible to destroy, cut off the French by
+hundreds; and Moncey and other generals found themselves checked by
+armed multitudes, formidable behind ramparts. Ere long, terrible news
+from the south arrived; Dupont was caught and surrounded by the chief
+part of the regular army of the fallen Monarchy, in the recesses of
+the Sierra Morena, and with his troops was compelled to lay down his
+arms; and though possibly he might have done more than he did, he was
+hemmed in by immensely superior numbers. Even worse intelligence came
+from Portugal, and the French army at the mouth of the Tagus. I shall
+afterwards review the career of Wellington; enough here to say that he
+first set foot in Portugal in the early days of August 1808; and he
+defeated Junot, who by this time, too, was isolated in the midst of a
+national rising, with considerable loss to the French, at Vimeiro. The
+beaten chief and his army were too glad to effect their escape from
+a victorious foe, and an insurgent country, by accepting terms; and
+they were ultimately embarked in British transports, and landed on the
+western coast of France. By the autumn of 1808 the French armies in
+Spain, humbled and baffled by a despised enemy, had evacuated almost
+the whole Peninsula, and had fallen back behind the course of the Ebro.
+
+The indignation and amazement of the Lord of the Continent at these
+untoward events, may be easily conceived. The great master of war had
+been found wanting; “a French general,” he exclaimed, “had justified
+Mack”; and, worst of all, his trained and disciplined troops had failed
+before rude and half-armed masses. He shut Dupont up in a State prison,
+and kept him immured through the rest of his reign; and how bitterly
+he felt the disgrace of his arms is seen in his admirable remarks,
+made at St. Helena, on the ruinous effects of capitulations in the
+field. The Emperor lost no time in endeavouring to repair the injured
+renown of the French army--the Czar and his ministers had secretly
+rejoiced--and, in November 1808, he left the capital and invaded Spain
+with an enormous force, determined, he wrote, “to put down rebellion.”
+He had five corps and the Guard in his hands; the weak Spanish armies,
+indulging in foolish boasts, and spread upon an immense line, extending
+from Biscay to the verge of Aragon, were pierced through and scattered
+like sheep; and Espinosa and Tudela were two battles that were little
+better than huge butcheries. Yet these “examples,” as they were called
+by the Emperor, were not attended by decisive success. Napoleon’s
+manœuvres were perfectly designed; but plunged in the depths of a
+hostile country, and utterly unable to procure intelligence, Soult and
+Ney failed to cut off the retreat of the Spaniards, and the wrecks
+of their routed forces were soon restored by insurrectionary levies
+flocking in by thousands. The way to the capital was, however, open;
+Napoleon mastered the Somo Sierra by a magnificent charge of his Polish
+horsemen, for he scorned to make a regular attack; and he entered
+Madrid, in the last days of December, at the head of a force that
+defied resistance. King Joseph was now installed on his throne; but
+there was no popular voice to say “God bless him”; the city was one
+of silence and mourning; and though a Constitution was announced for
+Spain, which abolished all kinds of old abuses and inaugurated many
+real reforms, the invaders remained as detested as ever. Against the
+feeble protests of his crowned dependant, Napoleon continued to rule by
+terror and force; when, as 1808 was closing, his attention was directed
+to a new enemy.
+
+After Vimeiro, the successful army, placed under the command of Sir
+John Moore, had held Lisbon and been reinforced; and a fresh body of
+troops, led by Sir David Baird, had landed at Corunna to assist the
+Spaniards. Moore had marched northwards and joined Baird; and near
+the close of December he had approached Valladolid, threatening the
+communications of the French with Bayonne, and at the head of about
+30,000 men. Napoleon had soon broken up from Madrid with an army
+perhaps 40,000 strong; he crossed the Guadarramas by a forced march in
+the hope of reaching and crushing his foe; and he directed Soult to
+combine the movement so as to fall on the rear of the British force.
+Moore, however, ably changing the line of his operations, made for
+Corunna; the Emperor pressed his enemy in vain; and he abandoned the
+pursuit in the first days of January, the attitude of Austria having
+become menacing and requiring his immediate presence in France. It is
+unnecessary to dwell on the events that followed; the British army
+made good its retreat, though with heavy loss, through the mountainous
+tracts that divide Leon from the Galician seaboard; and Soult proved
+unable to to bring it to bay. Moore turned to fight at Corunna when
+about to embark; he beat Soult off in a well contested action; and
+though he fell, he knew that he had saved his army. He had shown great
+ability in this brief campaign, remarkable for this too, that it was
+one of the few occasions on which the Imperial Guard beheld British
+troops, until ruin lowered on it on the field of Waterloo.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                       NAPOLEON--(_continued_).
+
+
+The Emperor, on his return to Paris, found a rupture with Austria
+already imminent. That great Power, tenacious but always prudent, had
+been forced to accept the Peace of Pressburg; but she never intended
+permanently to submit to an arrangement that perilously weakened
+the State. Meanwhile, she had been treated by Napoleon as a kind of
+reluctant vassal; he had armed against her in 1806–7; she had been shut
+out from the settlement of Tilsit, she had been compelled to accede to
+the Continental system; and she was alarmed at the announced extension
+of Russia along the verge of her Eastern provinces. She had gradually
+been increasing her forces for war; a great national militia--a strange
+institution in the realms of the Hapsburgs--had been created; her
+armies had been remodelled on the French system, and had adopted the
+French tactics; she had accepted large subsidies from the British
+Government; and Stadion, a patriot, and a deadly enemy of France, had
+for some time been her First Minister. The diversion of a large part
+of the Grand Army from the Rhine, and the successive disasters in
+Spain and Portugal, afforded her the opportunity she sought; and she
+had made great preparations for a fresh struggle with France, during
+the events of 1808 in Spain. Napoleon, unwilling to have two wars on
+his hands, tried to induce the Czar to enforce peace, by intervening
+in arms in Galicia; but Alexander eluded the demand; and, though he
+pretended to threaten Austria, and even sent an army to her eastern
+frontier, intended ultimately, perhaps, to act against the French, he
+really maintained a strict neutrality. The French Emperor concealed
+his resentment; and instantly made ready “to punish Austria” for what
+he called “her perjured and shameless conduct.” His administrative
+faculties were again taxed to the utmost to attain his great ends; but,
+as in 1807, they proved adequate.
+
+A considerable part of the Grand Army was recalled from Spain, and
+moved to the Rhine; the French garrisons which had occupied the
+Prussian fortresses were replaced by Poles, and restored to their
+colours; and Italy and the Confederation of the Rhine were again
+directed to yield their auxiliaries. Meanwhile conscripts were
+enrolled in thousands; a levy was made from past conscriptions which
+produced numbers of adult men; ingenious devices were tried to obtain
+a much needed supply of inferior officers; and though the finances
+of France were strained, the _matériel_ for a great war was
+rapidly increased, and directed to the Rhine and thence towards the
+Danube. By the early spring of 1809, Napoleon had more than 400,000
+men on foot; but the Grand Army too much resembled that which had
+been drawn together in 1807; though it had a great advantage in two
+respects, it was not summoned to fight on the verge of the Continent,
+and its inherent defects were not so apparent; and the Bavarians, who
+filled a large space in its ranks, had been for centuries foes of the
+Austrians. Yet Austria had had the start of Napoleon, notwithstanding
+his genius and his vast resources; she was ready to strike with effect
+before him; and had she struck at the end of March 1809 she might
+have achieved important success. She had learned a lesson from 1800
+and 1805; and her forces were now arrayed on the theatre of the war
+at hand with a due regard to strategy. Her main army, nearly 200,000
+strong, and under the command of the Archduke Charles, was in Bohemia,
+approaching the Danube, and obsering Bavaria, known to be hostile; a
+considerable force, under the Archduke John, was in the Tyrol--lost
+through Austerlitz, but always loyal to the House of Hapsburg--and was
+ready to make a descent on Italy; and detachments were on the frontiers
+to watch the Poles and the Russians--these last were not really
+feared--and to observe Istria and Dalmatia, now Italian provinces.
+The Archduke Charles, therefore, was in formidable strength on what
+was the principal scene of action; and the forces of Napoleon were
+still much weaker, being not more than about 100,000 men, the corps of
+Davoust, advanced to Ratisbon, and the Bavarians holding the course of
+the Isar. The rest of the Grand Army was as yet on the Rhine, or only
+near the extreme heads of the Danube; and the Archduke had an immense
+opportunity. For the rest, the Emperor had assembled a large army to
+defend Italy, and had given it to Eugene, son of the Empress Josephine;
+but this was only a secondary force; the valley of the Danube was the
+decisive point in the operations about to begin.
+
+Napoleon was fully aware of the danger; and at this very time he
+gave positive orders that, should the Austrians take the offensive,
+Davoust and the Bavarians should fall back on Donauwörth, and wait
+the arrival of reinforcements. These injunctions, however, were not
+complied with; even now the reason is not known--the two exposed corps
+retained their positions; and had the Archduke advanced from Bohemia,
+he must have taken Ratisbon and overwhelmed Davoust. But he hesitated,
+and lost precious days; and at last, listening to feeble counsels--at
+heart he was not convinced by them--he broke up from his camps, made a
+circuitous march, crossed the Danube at Lintz, and arrived on the Inn,
+the ordinary line of Austrian attacks on Bavaria. He was on the Isar by
+the 15th of April, at the head of about 140,000 men; he had left 40,000
+behind in Bohemia; and he forced the passage in three great masses, the
+Bavarians falling back, and drawing towards the Danube, midway between
+Ingoldstadt and Ratisbon. Had the Archduke collected his forces and
+moved rapidly, he should have still crushed Davoust, as yet, “in the
+air,” and in great peril; but he kept them apart on distant lines, and
+he actually detached his right wing towards Ratisbon, in the belief,
+it would seem, that his Bohemian corps would join him there and cut
+off Davoust. By this time, the 18th of April, Napoleon, who had left
+the capital five days before, had reached Ingoldstadt upon the Danube;
+and the situation of affairs was such that the ablest commander might
+have felt alarm. Davoust was still at Ratisbon with 60,000 men; the
+Bavarians and other German auxiliaries were around Neustadt, perhaps
+50,000 strong; and a part of the corps of Lannes, in the temporary
+command of Oudinot, afterwards Duke of Reggio, was with that of Masséna
+in march from Augsburg, both numbering perhaps 50,000 soldiers. The
+hostile armies were thus nearly equal in force; but that of the
+Archduke, although divided at greater distances than it ought to have
+been, was far more concentrated than the French army, which had been
+almost surprised and was still out-generalled.
+
+In this difficult position the situation was changed in an incredibly
+short time by Napoleon’s skill and, it must be added, by the Archduke’s
+blunders. Davoust was drawn in from Ratisbon towards the German corps;
+this was a flank march with an enemy at hand, but it led only to slight
+combats, and was not seriously checked or molested;[13] and Masséna and
+Oudinot were pushed forward with extreme velocity to Pfaffenhoffen,
+to threaten the Austrian left which, in its march from the Isar, was
+round Mainburg, not far from the Danube. These movements were executed
+by the 19th; and thus Napoleon’s army was well drawn together, its
+right gathering on the enemy’s flank, while that of the Archduke
+remained still scattered. The operations that followed recalled the
+exploits of the youthful chief of the army of Italy. On the 20th, the
+Emperor attacked the Austrian centre, now separated from the right near
+Ratisbon, with part of the corps of Davoust and the German contingents;
+he remained with the Germans during the battle--a marked instance
+of military tact--and he defeated the enemy with heavy loss near
+Abensberg. Meanwhile Oudinot and Masséna had reached the Austrian left,
+and had forced it back in retreat towards the Isar; and this, with the
+success at Abensberg, led to a complete triumph. Napoleon, leaving a
+large detachment to keep back the Archduke, bore down on the retiring
+enemy; and, joining Masséna, drove the Austrian left across the Isar,
+utterly beaten, and pursued to the Isar by a great mass of cavalry. The
+Emperor next turned against his remaining foes; the Archduke drew
+in his right on his centre, and endeavoured to stand on the 22nd; but
+he was struck down at Eckmühl by superior forces; and with difficulty
+effected his escape on Ratisbon. By this time his lieutenant,
+Bellegarde, had reached the place with the Bohemian force, but farther
+resistance had become impossible; and the Archduke, with the remains
+of the principal army, was compelled to cross to the northern bank of
+the Danube. The shattered left wing was on the southern bank; and thus
+the great army which had crossed the Isar a few days before with every
+prospect of success had been cut in two, and was in eccentric retreat,
+divided by a broad and impassable river.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre of the
+
+  CAMPAIGN
+
+  of 1809.]
+
+  [Illustration: The Field of
+
+  WAGRAM]
+
+This splendid success on the principal scene effaced the results of
+French reverses on secondary parts of the theatre of war. Eugene
+Beauharnais had been defeated at Sacile, and driven behind the line
+of the Adige; the Tyrolese had broken out in revolt, and an Austrian
+army had entered Warsaw, and overrun the adjoining region. But Napoleon
+held the course of the Danube; the way to Vienna was thrown open; and
+victory at the decisive point made him master of the situation for the
+time. He was soon joined by the Guard, by fresh German contingents,
+by Bernadotte, and a great mass of cavalry; and, having detached
+Lefebvre to subdue the Tyrol, he began his second march to the Austrian
+capital. The operations were not so easy and rapid as they had been
+in 1805. Davoust was sent to the northern bank of the Danube, to
+observe the movements of the Archduke Charles; the defeated left wing,
+under the Archduke Louis, fought a desperate action against Masséna
+in pursuit; it crossed the Danube by the last bridge near Krems; and
+though Napoleon mastered the line of the stream, and covered his
+communications with large detachments, the two Archdukes effected their
+junction, and ere long had reached the great plain of the Marchfield,
+which stretches down to the northern front of Vienna. The Emperor
+entered the city on the 11th of May, and as he had probably 100,000
+men, and the Archdukes had barely 80,000, he resolved to cross to the
+northern bank of the Danube, to overwhelm his much weaker enemy, and to
+finish the war in one decisive battle. But how was a river hundreds
+of yards wide, of great depth, and with a powerful current, to be
+traversed by a large army under the guns of an enemy still formidable
+and holding the opposite bank? Napoleon’s extraordinary skill in
+choosing the ground for every operation of war was not found wanting,
+and his selection of the spot for the passage was perfect. Just below
+Vienna, a very large island, that will be known in history by its name
+of Lobau, breaks for some miles the course of the Danube; the channel
+between it and the southern bank, held by the French, is profound and
+broad; but it nearly touches the northern bank, and is only divided
+from the Marchfeld by a narrow channel. Napoleon, screening the work by
+all possible means, threw a strong bridge over the great channel, thus
+connecting Lobau with the southern bank; and as the island is of ample
+size, he massed into it a large part of his army, and made preparations
+to secure the passage across the narrow channel by numerous bridges.
+
+By the 20th of May the corps of Masséna, 30,000 strong, had debouched
+from the island across these ways into the edge of the Marchfeld; and
+it entrenched itself in the two villages of Aspern and Essling, its
+chief assured that the greater part of the army would cross by the
+morrow. The main bridge, however, over the great arm of the Danube--and
+it will be borne in mind there was only one--was broken in the night by
+the force of the current; and on the 21st the Archduke Charles attacked
+Masséna with greatly superior forces. The villages were defended with
+great skill and courage; but though the French succeeded in maintaining
+their ground, thousands were very nearly forced into the river; and had
+the Archduke struck home he must have been victorious. Great efforts
+were made on both sides to renew the struggle the following day; Lannes
+with his corps, and part of the Guard and the cavalry, effected the
+passage during the night; and the Archduke called up all the reserves
+at hand, to make a stroke for a complete triumph. A murderous battle
+was fought on the 22nd; Lannes--he met a soldier’s death on the
+field--made a formidable attack on the Austrian centre; and Masséna was
+about to debouch from Essling, when the news arrived that the principal
+bridge had broken down again, and had become impassable, and that
+munitions were short for a prolonged contest. The advance of the French
+was at once checked; their lines fell back behind Aspern and Essling,
+and though they kept their hold on the bloodstained Marchfeld, they
+suffered frightfully from the converging fire of the hostile batteries
+arrayed against them. By the 23rd they had taken a position in Lobau;
+and the army was so shattered that Napoleon’s marshals pronounced an
+immediate retreat necessary.
+
+Napoleon peremptorily set at nought these counsels; and, maintaining
+the attitude he had held at Eylau, refused to allow his army to stir
+from the island. His position, however, had become critical; the long
+line of his communications with the Rhine was largely guarded by mere
+auxiliaries; indignant Prussia was struggling in her chains; the
+secret societies, which were to rouse Germany to arms, spread from the
+North Sea to the Danube; and the French had escaped a disaster by mere
+accident. Yet their chief relied on his genius and the terror of his
+name, as he had relied when upon the Passarge; and the event justified
+his proud self-confidence. He evidently had perceived that it was a
+capital mistake to have committed his army to a single bridge across
+a river of the first order; and he applied himself, with accustomed
+decision and skill, to make the passage of the Danube assured, and
+to enable the Grand Army, whatever its size, to issue from Lobau and
+command the Marchfeld. I cannot describe the admirable works--marvels
+of engineering, never, perhaps, equalled--constructed under his eye,
+to carry out his purpose; his _Correspondence_ remains to attest
+these monuments of his gifts as a warrior. The neighbourhood of a great
+city fortunately supplied the material required for his designs; in
+twenty days, three great bridges--one of boats, two on piles--spanned
+the main channel, and formed causeways, completely protected, and
+strong enough to bear the weight of the largest masses; and the
+efforts of the enemy to destroy them, by various devices, proved
+quite abortive. At the same time, Lobau was made a vast entrenched
+camp, armed with numerous batteries to defy attack; it was occupied
+by ever-increasing forces, as the strength of the Grand Army was
+raised; and preparations were made so to bridge the small channel that
+it could become, so to speak, a series of highways. Meanwhile, the
+Emperor strained to the utmost his faculties to bring every available
+man and horse to the scene of decisive action. Eugene, who, after the
+success at Ratisbon, had followed the Archduke John from Italy, and
+was approaching Hungary, was called to the Danube; so was Macdonald,
+another marshal, honourably known in history as Duke of Tarentum;
+Marmont, Duke of Ragusa--an unhappy name--was summoned with his corps
+from the Dalmatian wilds; and while the lines of communications were
+firmly held, reinforcements were sent to the Grand Army from the
+divisions placed higher up the Danube. By these means the Emperor had
+made the passage of the river as certain as that of a plain; and he
+calculated on having about 180,000 men concentrated for the grand and
+final effort.
+
+The Archduke Charles, on the other hand, had failed to see through
+Napoleon’s projects, and had not made nearly such good use of his
+time, though placed in the centre of the Austrian monarchy. He seems
+to have convinced himself that a great army could not issue from the
+camps in Lobau, within two or even three days; and if he fortified
+Aspern and Essling, he did not guard the approaches eastward, though
+the island extends along these to the Marchfeld. His army, therefore,
+was not prepared for an attack from Lobau, sudden and in immense force,
+especially to the east of the villages; and it was spread through the
+Marchfeld, some miles from the Danube, offering a vantage ground to
+his terrible enemy. Nor had the Archduke, though a general-in-chief,
+and having it would seem unlimited powers, strengthened his army as
+much as ought to have been possible. He left a very large detachment
+on the Polish frontier, where its presence could be of no avail;
+and he did not insist that the Archduke John--an insubordinate and
+conceited theorist--should join him with all his troops on the Danube.
+The Austrian army, therefore, was certainly weaker than it might have
+been on the principal point; and it had not been largely reinforced by
+reserves or levies. It appears probable that it did not exceed 140,000
+or 150,000 men, a force comparatively small if we bear in mind that of
+the two antagonists one was at home on the Danube, the other, far from
+the Rhine. In this, as in everything else, the contrast between the
+commanders opposed is most striking.
+
+All was in readiness by the first week of July, for the grand
+operation of crossing the Danube. Thousands of troops, with all
+the impedimenta of war, guns, trains, field hospitals, and a huge
+_matériel_, had defiled over the great bridge; and on the night
+of the 4th, 160,000, French, Saxons, Bavarians, Italians, Poles, and
+auxiliaries from the petty German States--Napoleon’s concentration had
+been made complete--were assembled in the entrenched camp of Lobau.
+Demonstrations had been made to deceive the enemy, and to conceal
+the real points of the passage; but the movement, though screened in
+part by the darkness, was soon heard along the silent shores. In an
+incredibly short time, not less than six bridges were thrown over the
+small arm of the river; and the army began to cross to the northern
+bank, covered by the fire of hundreds of guns in position. The
+different divisions--the Emperor himself had arranged their march with
+extraordinary care--were directed towards the expanse of the Marchfeld
+east of the points of Aspern and Essling; and they scarcely encountered
+any resistance, as this vast space had escaped the Archduke’s notice.
+By the early morning of the 5th, 70,000 men had taken possession of
+the far-spreading plain; the rest of the Grand Army followed in order,
+and by the afternoon its extending masses held a long line from the
+right at Glinzendorf, to the extreme left on the verge of the Danube,
+the fortified posts of Aspern and Essling having been turned by this
+movement and rendered useless. The Austrian army, though completely
+surprised and out-manœuvred by Napoleon’s strategy--a masterpiece from
+every point of view--had, by this time, advanced towards the enemy;
+some skirmishes of little importance occurred; but an effort made
+by Bernadotte against the Austrian centre, not far from Wagram, was
+sharply repulsed.
+
+The hostile armies made their bivouacs in the plain, and prepared
+for the great fight of the morrow. The morning of the 6th rose on
+the great arrays that extended, on either side, for miles; and it
+witnessed the most far-spreading battle which had yet been fought in
+the civilized world. I cannot retrace the scenes of the contest; and,
+indeed, they have no features of peculiar interest. The Archduke,
+certainly much inferior in numbers, had resolved, with little prudence,
+to attack; and his general plan was to fall on the French right, so to
+force it back as to enable his brother, the Archduke John, to arrive
+on the field, and simultaneously to assail the French left in great
+strength, and to endeavour to cut it off from the Danube. The effort
+against the right failed; for Napoleon, aware that the Archduke John
+was approaching, had placed Davoust and Oudinot, with a great body of
+troops, on that wing; but the attack on the left proved formidable
+in the extreme. Masséna and Bernadotte were almost driven from the
+field; and the young levies and auxiliaries fled in thousands. Panic
+began to spread through the Grand Army--no longer the army of Jena
+and Austerlitz--and had the Archduke made the most of his success, he
+might, perhaps, have achieved victory. The extension, however, of both
+his wings had left his centre comparatively weak; and Napoleon was not
+slow to seize the occasion. He massed the whole Italian army, together
+with other contingents and the Imperial Guard, and struck a terrible
+blow at the vulnerable point; and the attack was preceded by such a
+fire of cannon as had never before been seen in the field. The battle,
+however, continued to rage; the Austrians fought with devoted courage;
+the ardour of the auxiliaries was not great; and though the pressure
+was taken off the Emperor’s left, and Bernadotte and Masséna regained
+ground, the Archduke in the main retained his positions. His left, at
+last, was forced by a well-directed attack; Davoust and Oudinot carried
+the low uplands of Wagram; and the Austrian army slowly left the
+field, as the Archduke John showed no signs of appearing. The retreat,
+however, was not molested. The result of the day might have been
+different had the Archduke had the support of his brother; the carnage
+of the battle had, indeed, been terrible; but the victors captured
+few guns or prisoners; and Wagram did not approach Austerlitz. Still,
+Austria had made her last effort; she submitted to a humiliating
+peace; and Napoleon returned in triumph to France, though he had been
+made painfully aware that the Grand Army was not the instrument of war
+he had at one time wielded.
+
+Napoleon’s genius in war shone grandly out in the memorable campaign
+of 1809. The movements around Ratisbon, he has said himself, were the
+most perfect of his military career; and it would be impertinence to
+dispute his opinion. His army, in a position of extreme difficulty, was
+extricated by a series of marches, scientific, rapid, and daring alike;
+and the enemy, who had gained a marked advantage, was out-manœuvred
+and completely defeated. Decision, energy, consummate skill, and
+the boldness that runs risk when there is no help for it, are the
+distinctive marks of these wonderful efforts; and the operations
+against the Austrians, when once divided, are equal to those against
+Beaulieu and Colli. The march on Vienna, though not as rapid and
+decisive as in 1805, was in complete accordance with true strategy; it
+was bold, and yet made thoroughly safe; and the communications with the
+Rhine were made quite secure--as regards the numbers of defenders at
+least--for in this respect the Emperor was never careless. After the
+failure at Aspern and Essling, too, the resolution of Napoleon to hold
+his ground, spite of doubting lieutenants, and a plotting Continent,
+reveals the chief of supreme capacity; and the administrative powers,
+the untiring energy, and the masterly art with which he drew together
+every possible man to the decisive point, deserve the admiration of
+all students of war. As for his choice of Lobau as the place to cross
+the Danube, in the face of the enemy, it is characteristic of his all
+but perfect insight; the means he employed to protect his army, and
+to render the passage safe and certain, are models of conspicuous
+forethought and skill; and the movement by which he turned the
+position of the Archduke, caused his defences to fall, and attained
+the Marchfeld, at the head of immense forces, was a most striking
+exploit. Yet, in these dazzling displays of genius, one grave error
+was indisputably made; the relying on a single bridge to conduct a
+great army across the Danube cannot be justified; this nearly led to
+a frightful disaster; and here we see, once more, that confident
+arrogance and that too passionate energy which show that the faculties
+of this marvellous being were not always controlled and balanced by
+sound judgment.
+
+It should be added that these prodigies of war could not have occurred
+had Napoleon had an adversary worthy to cope with him. The Archduke
+Charles was a learned soldier; he had studied war, and proved more than
+equal to confront men like Moreau and Jourdan; but in his operations at
+Ratisbon, in his indecision at Essling, in his failure to prevent the
+French from crossing the Danube, in his remissness in not collecting
+his forces, in the incapacity with which he allowed his enemy to issue
+in to the plain of the Marchfeld,[14] we see a commander quite of the
+second order; and, in truth, like all the Continental generals,[15]
+he was paralyzed by terror when before Napoleon. As for the Emperor
+at Wagram, his skill in the great moves of tactics was conspicuous
+in his attack on the Austrian centre when weakened by the extension
+of the wings; the Archduke, too, did wrong in attacking, though he
+all but routed the French left; but these are not the most striking
+features of this well-contested battle. What the student of war should
+specially observe is that Wagram marks a notable change in the quality
+of the armies which met in conflict; a change that was to be yet more
+developed. The Austrians fought with heroic courage; they were animated
+by a strong national feeling, seen among them, perhaps, for the first
+time; they were wholly unlike the mere soldiers who had been routed
+under Beaulieu and Würmser. On the other hand, the Grand Army showed
+signs of weakness; except the Bavarians, the immense contingents of the
+auxiliaries were half-hearted and feeble; and the young French levies
+disbanded in thousands. The Austrian tactics and the formations of the
+troops, had also been extremely improved, while that of the Grand Army
+had changed for the worse. Conscious of the inferiority of the men in
+their hands, the French commanders had tried to make up for this by
+rendering their columns of attack more large and solid; and Napoleon
+had begun to adopt the system of increasing the number of guns to
+support his infantry. The density of the masses formed in this way--and
+the skirmishers, too, were not what they had been--made them heavy
+and inefficient in the shock of battle, and exposed them when engaged
+to most destructive fire; and the change in the proportion of foot to
+artillery was followed by evil results to both arms.
+
+I cannot allude to the divorce of Josephine, the sacrifice of the
+young child of the Cæsars, flung into Napoleon’s arms as a hostage
+of war, and the further extension of the immense Empire which, in
+its author’s eyes, grew in strength as he enlarged its limits. To
+ordinary observers, the power of the Emperor seemed at its highest in
+1810–1811; the Continent had succumbed to his omnipotent will; he had
+annexed Rome, Holland, and the Hanse Towns without a word of protest
+from the great German States; the Pope was a captive in gilded chains;
+the material and moral forces of five-sixths of Europe had yielded to
+that all controlling dominion. Yet the Empire was distinctly declining;
+and the truth had been perceived by more than one statesman, and by
+soldiers as different from each other as Blücher and Wellington.
+Napoleon at this time had 800,000 men in arms, including all his
+reserves for war; but the Grand Army had for some years resembled the
+enfeebled army of Imperial Rome, filled with barbarians who hated her
+yoke; the dominant race had ceased to be supreme in it; and unwilling
+or lukewarm allies, nay, the forces of conquered and reluctant nations,
+sustained the ill-cemented structure of conquest, itself an unnatural
+and monstrous portent. While central and eastern Europe, too, seemed to
+submit to bondage, Spain continued the struggle against her oppressor;
+the ubiquitous insurrection had never ceased, and defied the efforts
+of the Imperial Marshals; and the arms of Napoleon had received an
+affront, and had suffered reverses which had amazed Europe. Masséna had
+recoiled from Torres Vedras; a small British army, under an unknown
+commander, had baffled the might of the whole French Empire, and
+had triumphed upon the Douro and at Talavera; and the jealousies and
+discords of Napoleon’s lieutenants had led to all kinds of untoward
+events, and had wasted his forces throughout the Peninsula. There
+was light at one point amidst the gloom which seemed to enshroud a
+vanquished world; and though Germany--then a divided land, and wholly
+unsuited to partisan warfare--had returned to quiescence after Wagram,
+the growing indignation against the rule of France, which had already
+made itself felt, was preparing the way for a universal rising.
+
+Yet the signs that the Empire was in decay were not less apparent in
+France herself, the centre of that domination of the sword. The nation,
+always prone to change, had begun to get tired of a despotism opposed
+to “the principles of 1789”; its appetite for glory had been more than
+sated; new ideas and forces growing up within it already indicated
+another coming era. The power of these tendencies had been greatly
+increased by the sufferings the people were now enduring, by the
+severity of the Imperial rule, by the poverty and distress it had for
+some time entailed on once flourishing cities and districts. Flattering
+bodies of State and satellites of power might boast that France was the
+Queen of Europe; but the devouring waste of the Spanish war brought
+desolation to thousands of hearths; and peace, under Napoleon, appeared
+impossible. The never ceasing demands of the conscription, too,
+provoked general and bitter discontent; the laws on this “blood-tax”
+had been made barbarous; and the extent of the burdens imposed by
+the State had become, year after year, more onerous. The Continental
+system, besides, the most extravagant of Napoleon’s projects, while it
+led him to aim at universal conquest, enormously lessened the resources
+of France; Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Havre became half deserted, and
+seethed with indignation at the Imperial rule; and the Continental war
+with England destroyed French commerce. In addition, the finances had
+begun to decline; the frightful results of 1791–98 became apparent in
+a great falling off of youths fitted to enter the army; and, in short,
+despotism had done its work of exhaustion, causing general decay.
+The feeling of stability and of assured greatness which had pervaded
+France at the peace of Amiens had for some time been passing away;
+and, a most significant fact, though a son was born to Napoleon--heir
+of world-wide grandeur--this made no change in the general sentiment.
+Yet the conqueror, from the heights of his splendour, did not see the
+shadows of night approaching; and though the war in Spain consumed the
+flower of his armies, and he had seen at Wagram what the Grand Army
+was, and the condition of France had become ominous, and Europe, he
+knew, was hostile to him, he committed himself to the most gigantic
+enterprise which ambition has ever, perhaps, suggested. False to
+his own genius, which must have shown him that Spain had become the
+principal scene of action for him, he resolved to invade and subdue
+Russia.
+
+Peace, in fact, with the great Power of the North, had, for several
+years, been almost hopeless. The League of Tilsit was an impossible
+compact, full of seeds of disunion and ultimate strife; and war between
+France and Russia had become imminent. The Russian nobles detested the
+French alliance; the trade of Russia perished under the Continental
+system; the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a kind of
+pledge that Poland might again be a nation, was a direct menace to
+Russian ambition; and Russia could not regard with indifference the
+subjection to France of three-fourths of Germany. Alexander soon
+escaped from the spell of Napoleon; he secured, indeed, the spoils
+flung to him; but he bitterly resented Napoleon’s conduct in having
+extended the Grand Duchy, and in refusing to promise that he would
+not restore Poland; and he was indignant at the recent annexations
+to France. On the other hand, the Emperor had not forgotten the
+lukewarmness and, perhaps, the treachery of the Czar in the contest
+of 1809; he charged him with evading the Continental system; he
+pretended that he was an ally of England; he treated with scorn his
+solemn protests against the addition of Holland and the Hanse Towns to
+the Empire. Preparations were made on both sides for war, as early as
+the autumn of 1811; Alexander abandoned the Continental system; made
+overtures to England, which were received; entered into negotiations
+with his Ottoman foes; and began to draw together two large armies
+towards the heads of the Dwina and Dnieper--the river frontiers of old
+Muscovy--there to be combined with a third army from the South, when
+peace had been made with the Turks. The arrangements of Napoleon for
+his gigantic enterprise were, necessarily, on a much larger scale; they
+were extraordinary in extent and grandeur; and they exhibit in the very
+highest degree his characteristic skill in stratagem, and his great
+capacity for organizing war. One of his first objects was to gain time
+to collect his enormous military means, and to advance his huge arrays,
+when ready for the field, by degrees even to the Russian frontier,
+without opposition on the part of the enemy; and having attained this
+position of vantage, and mastered the resources of Eastern Europe,
+his purpose was to pour across the Niemen such forces that to resist
+would be useless. To reach these ends, he kept up a show of diplomatic
+professions for months, which bewildered the Czar and made him
+hesitate; and, meanwhile, he secretly and swiftly combined the forces
+of Western Europe for his prodigious venture. His experiences of 1806–7
+made him perfectly aware of the difficulties of a task which no other
+man would have dreamed of attempting; but he said, “My means are vast,
+and I can devour obstacles”; and he addressed himself to the mighty
+work with wonted perseverance and administrative power.
+
+His first care was to provide for the huge armies which were to march
+into the wastes of Russia; and for this purpose, as in 1806–7 the
+resources of Poland, of Prussia, and even of States on the Rhine, were
+placed in requisition for immense supplies; bases of operation and
+magazines were formed along the tract from the Elbe to the Vistula; a
+system of water-carriage, admirably planned, conducted all that was
+required for armed multitudes to the Vistula and the mouths of the
+Niemen; and the expedition was delayed until the summer of 1812, in
+order that myriads of horses should find pasture on the long march
+to the Russian frontier. Meanwhile, Napoleon collected the forces he
+deemed necessary for this colossal effort. Austria was now his ally,
+and Prussia a vassal; and both Powers furnished contingents to the
+Imperial host, which were to join as it approached the Niemen. Bavaria,
+Italy, the Confederation of the Rhine, and Holland, of course, obeyed
+their master and arrayed troops in immense numbers; and unhappy Poland,
+deceived yet trusting, sent tens of thousands of her brilliant horsemen
+to take part in a crusade which might give her freedom. France, the
+dominant Power, once more saw the Grand Army collected in strength;
+but Napoleon did not, in 1812, anticipate the conscription as in 1807;
+he enrolled masses of levies and reserves; but he dreaded an outburst
+of hostile opinion; and he tried to lessen the strain of the war on
+Frenchmen. By these various expedients 600,000 men, collected from
+every part of old Europe, were arrayed in arms in the spring of 1812;
+and these vast masses were slowly moved to their positions between
+the Rhine and the Vistula. Napoleon set off from Paris on the 1st of
+May; he left France, alarmed and discontented, behind; scarcely a
+cheer greeted the departing conqueror; his very Marshals disliked the
+enterprise; and even his docile Ministers and mute bodies of State were
+anxious and feared some great coming danger. Another sight, however,
+rose before his eyes when he entered Dresden after a rapid journey;
+a humbled Continent, in the person of the Head of the Hapsburgs, of
+kings, princes, dominations, and powers, bowed before the Charlemagne
+of a changed world; Napoleon received such homage as was never seen
+since Rome hailed her ruler as a god; and the enterprise was deemed so
+assured of success that it was talked of as a mere passage of arms. The
+Emperor reached the Niemen in the last week of June; and by this time
+the first line of the Grand Army, numbering upwards of 420,000 men,
+with 70,000 cavalry, and 1,200 guns, was extended along the Russian
+frontier, from the verge of the Baltic to the Galician plains. The
+sight might have turned the head of a Xerxes; but to the experienced
+eye of a great master of war, it ought to have been significant of evil
+omens. In that enormous army there were probably not more than 100,000
+really good French troops; the rest was an assemblage of young French
+levies, of Austrians and Prussians, enemies of France, of auxiliaries
+who, except the Poles, had no sympathy with her cause or her chief, and
+who had, for the most part, showed what they were at Wagram.
+
+The centre of the host, led by Napoleon, with Oudinot, Ney, Davoust,
+and Murat, inferior chiefs, crossed the Niemen on the 24th of June, in
+the angle, entering at Kovno, the Russian frontier; the left, composed
+of the corps of Macdonald and the Prussian contingent, crossed round
+Tilsit; and the right, an enormous array, comprising the army of
+Eugene, Poniatowski and the Poles, for the present commanded by Jerome
+Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, with his auxiliaries, the two corps
+of St. Cyr and Junot, and far away, Schwartzenburg with the Austrian
+forces marched along the space between the centre and the heads of
+the Bug. This movement, which enabled the Grand Army to issue into
+Lithuania as from a salient, brought it almost within reach of the
+hostile armies, which, under Barclay de Tolly, by descent a Scotchman,
+and Bagration, a chief of the Muscovite nobles, had advanced from
+the Dwina and Dnieper, where their sources meet, and had approached
+the Niemen with no fixed purpose. The generals of the Czar, all but
+surprised and out-manœuvred, fell back at all points; and Napoleon
+was at Vilna, within four days having gained an immense strategic
+advantage. He made a long halt of about a fortnight; this has been
+condemned as a capital error, even by the cautious and far-seeing[16]
+Wellington, and, as events happened, it would have been better
+perhaps had he pressed, at all hazards, his offensive movement. But
+his _Correspondence_ shows that, from a military point of view,
+this delay may be very well justified; the Grand Army, burdened with
+impedimenta of all kinds--a necessity in districts with few resources,
+and filled with weak elements, was in a bad condition; the auxiliaries
+and conscripts had fallen away in thousands; and time was required to
+reorganize huge arrays already beginning to dissolve and break up.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre, of the
+
+  CAMPAIGN
+
+  of 1812.]
+
+The situation, in short, had brought the Emperor to a stand; and yet an
+opportunity was given him to strike the Czar a blow more decisive than
+his sword could inflict. He was in one of the capitals of ancient
+Poland; he was greeted with enthusiasm once more by the conquered
+race; and had he spoken the words “Poland is to be free,” the Russian
+Empire would have been thrown back at once to the distant limits of old
+Muscovy. But Napoleon adhered to the policy of 1806; he caressed the
+Poles and enrolled their levies; but he paltered with their demands to
+be made a nation; and he even intimated that he would not annul the
+Partition. Meanwhile, after a few days of delay, he despatched Davoust
+and part of his right wing to pursue Bagration, trying now to join his
+colleague by a circuitous march; but partly owing to the difficulties
+of a way through immense woodlands scarcely traversed by roads, and
+to the slow movements of heavily-laden troops, and partly to disputes
+between Davoust and King Jerome, the effort failed; Bagration escaped;
+and he ultimately attained the Dnieper. By this time the Emperor had
+formed a great plan to cut off and annihilate Barclay de Tolly, who
+had dangerously exposed himself to his foe; and the project was worthy
+of a great master of war. A German theorist, possibly struck by the
+results of Wellington’s defence of Portugal, had persuaded the Czar to
+construct a huge camp at Drissa upon the Lower Dwina, to concentrate
+within it his two armies, and to offer battle behind its fortified
+lines; and Barclay had reluctantly obeyed the command; Bagration,
+too, drawing near him from the distant Dnieper. This strategy, it is
+needless to say, had nothing in common with that of Torres Vedras; it
+was really the old routine of an obsolete school; and Napoleon broke
+up from Vilna on the 16th of July, hoping to surround Barclay, to
+destroy him in his camp, and then to turn and overwhelm Bagration.
+In all human probability he would have succeeded, had the Russian
+commander stood in his lines; but Barclay saw his peril, and left them
+in time; and he made a very able movement to Vitepsk, across the front
+of the approaching enemy, in order to reach and join his colleague.
+The Emperor pursued with his wonted energy; but nature and the defects
+of the army interposed; and he attained Vitepsk too late to catch and
+destroy an enemy still eluding his grasp. He was again forced to make
+a long halt at Vitepsk, from the reasons which had made him halt
+at Vilna; the state of the Grand Army had become alarming, and the
+appalling fact was brought before the eyes of its chief, that, though
+no real battle had yet been fought, 150,000 men were missing out of
+the 420,000 who had begun the invasion. Such waste of war had never
+been seen before; yet Napoleon still had faith in his genius; he made
+a daring flank march, behind a screen of forests, in order to effect
+a junction with his right; and this, he hoped, would enable him to
+reach the enemy between the Dwina and Dnieper, and compel him to fight.
+The movement had only partial success; a fierce encounter took place
+at Smolensk; but the French army only gained ruins, and Barclay and
+Bagration, having joined hands at last, disappeared into the remote
+interior.
+
+Napoleon’s manœuvres up to this time were worthy of his strategic
+genius; in theory they had been almost faultless; but they had been
+baffled by obstacles not to be overcome, and by the conditions of the
+war and the state of the army. The middle of August had now arrived;
+the Emperor was at the portals of old Russia, hundreds of miles
+from his nearest base in Germany; was he to advance further into
+the recesses of the East, and to brave the fate of Crassus in the
+Parthian deserts? His lieutenants, to a man, entreated him to halt;
+to establish himself between the Dwina and Dnieper; to call up all
+available reserves; and, extending his wings on either side, to overrun
+Volhynia and subdue Courland. This probably would have been done by
+Turenne or Wellington; but there were military reasons against a delay,
+which must have led to a winter campaign; and after long reflection,
+the spoiled child of Fortune resolved to advance to Moscow, and to
+find peace, after victory, in the old capital of the Czars. Yet he
+did not take this momentous step inconsiderately, or without ample
+precautions; he exclaimed: “I will find no Pultowa on my way”; and he
+left nothing undone to render his communications secure, and to avert
+every peril from the invading army. His situation, at this moment,
+appeared safe; for to the left Macdonald occupied Courland, and was
+besieging the important place of Riga; Oudinot had defeated the corps
+of Wittgenstein, left behind by Barclay in the retreat from Drissa;
+and Schwartzenberg had repulsed the army of the South, moving, under
+Tormazoff, from the Pruth and the Dniester. Yet the Emperor would
+“make assurance doubly sure;” he summoned Victor, with his corps,
+to Smolensk; he ordered Augereau to advance towards the Niemen; he
+moved up his second line to the tracts round the Oder; he organized
+Lithuania under a local government, and directed the formation of
+immense magazines at Smolensk, Vilna, and all the way to the Niemen.
+He broke up from Smolensk, in the last week of August, at the head of
+about 160,000 men, the best and most solid part of the Grand Army. The
+troops had been provided with large supplies, for the Russians had
+wasted the line of the retreat, even in Lithuania, without the aid of
+the people, and it had been foreseen that in old Russia the peasantry
+would assist in the work; and for some days the invaders moved without
+distress along the vast uplands, which divide the streams that reach
+the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian. As soon, however, as
+provisions fell short, the army began to suffer terribly in what had
+been made a harried wilderness; 30,000 stragglers became missing; and
+Napoleon declared, that if nothing new occurred, he would return to
+Smolensk and find winter quarters. At this critical time, intelligence
+arrived which caused him again to pursue his march. The Russian army,
+furious at a retreat of hundreds of miles before the invaders, had
+insisted on fighting a great battle; the Czar had dreaded to refuse the
+demand; and Barclay had been replaced by Kutusoff, the chief who had
+made his mark in 1805, and who, though approving Barclay’s conduct, had
+promised to encounter the approaching enemy. On the 5th of September
+1812, the horsemen of Murat came in sight of the Russians, in position
+along a line extending from Borodino on their right to the wood and
+village of Outitza on their left, their front covered by redoubts and
+field works. Both armies spent the following day in preparation for the
+conflict at hand, and as light rose on the morning of the 7th, Napoleon
+exclaimed to his staff of Marshals: “It was time; but there is the
+Sun of Austerlitz!” The armies opposed were about equal in numbers,
+130,000 to 140,000 men; and for some time the course of the battle went
+rapidly and decidedly on the side of the French. Napoleon, with the eye
+of a master, had seized the weak point of his adversary, and assailed
+his left; the redoubts and other defences were stormed and captured,
+and Kutusoff, who had unskilfully crowded his right with masses of
+troops that could hardly move, was in extreme peril. Had the Emperor
+at this crisis sent part of his reserve to complete the defeat of his
+foe, he must have won the battle, but he refused to believe in such
+rapid success; he was not as active as was his wont on the field, and
+a change soon came in the tide of Fortune. The Russians, after a great
+effort, retook the redoubts; Kutusoff detached troops by degrees from
+his right, and the battle raged furiously for several hours in which
+each side fought with heroic courage. At last the Russian left was
+again broken; once more the French stormed the fortified works, and,
+though a fine charge was made by the Russian cavalry, the defeated army
+began to fall back. Napoleon was implored to launch the Guard, at this
+decisive moment, against the enemy; but he remained inactive, and would
+not employ it; and the battle closed with a frightful duel of guns, in
+which the Russians were literally slain in thousands. The struggle was
+the bloodiest ever seen in war; the Russians lost nearly 50,000 men,
+the French probably 80,000; and though the beaten army drew off from
+the field, Borodino was only a greater Eylau.
+
+  [Illustration: NAPOLEON WATCHING THE BURNING OF MOSCOW FROM THE
+  PETROVSKI PALACE.]
+
+Napoleon was ill on this terrible day; and it has been supposed that
+his powerful frame showed on this occasion, for the first time, the
+symptoms of a disease that was to prove mortal. His hesitation,
+however, to use his reserves and the Guard has been explained by
+himself: “I will not,” he said, “throw away my best protection” at
+an “immense distance from its nearest supports”; but this fact alone
+condemns the whole enterprise. On the 14th of September 1812, the Grand
+Army beheld the temples and domes of Moscow rising from the surrounding
+plains; it had soon filled an almost deserted city; and the Conqueror,
+at the summit, as he dreamed, of his unequalled fortunes--his eagles
+were on the Niemen, the Elbe, and the Tagus--imagined that Alexander
+would sue for peace, as he had sued for it after the rout of Friedland.
+Before many hours the capital, self-destroyed, was a hurricane of
+devouring flame--a sinister monument of internecine war--and the
+victorious army had to establish itself in a desolate expanse of
+charred ruins, spreading far into a wasted country. Yet Napoleon
+clung to the wreck of Moscow; he believed that the enemy would be
+forced to treat; he slaked the pride of his still exulting soldiers by
+grand reviews and exhibitions of their power; and, as supplies were
+found in abundance in underground recesses, the army retained its
+order and discipline. Weeks, nevertheless, ebbed away and the Czar
+made no sign. Meantime Kutusoff had rallied his defeated army, had
+distributed it in a series of camps, some distance from Moscow, on the
+flank of his foe; and while the French cavalry and artillery became
+rapidly feeble--there was no suitable food for the horses--thousands
+of recruits, and especially a host of Cossacks, the Bedouins of the
+deserts of the North, assembled to defend “Holy Russia” to the death.
+At this crisis--always in this consistent--the Emperor refused to adopt
+a course which must have compelled Alexander to yield. He would not
+listen to the idea of proclaiming the freedom of the enormous masses
+of serfs in the Muscovite Empire; and, rejecting even now the notion
+of retreat, he formed vast designs for a march on St. Petersburg, or a
+descent into Southern Russia to find winter quarters. His lieutenants,
+however, condemned schemes strategically grand, but perhaps impossible.
+He did not silence them with his wonted authority in the critical
+position in which they all stood, and at last, in the middle of
+October, he consented to retreat, the delays which had already
+occurred having no doubt been largely due to the guile of Kutusoff,
+who, anticipating the future with sagacious forethought, feigned
+negotiations to deceive and detain his enemy. The retrograde movement
+began on the 19th of October; and the Grand Army, as it defiled out
+of Moscow, presented a strange and ominous aspect. It was still about
+100,000 strong; the infantry were in a tolerable state, but the cavalry
+and horse artillery were few and enfeebled; the proportion of guns
+was far too great, and the divisions, bearing with them an enormous
+booty, and dragging a huge _matériel_ and _impedimenta_,
+were incapable of making an energetic movement. Napoleon endeavoured
+to steal a march on Kutusoff, still on his flank, but at a wide
+distance, and to retreat towards Kalouga, to the south-west of Moscow,
+through a fertile region not yet destroyed; and probably he would have
+attained his object had he had an efficient and active army. But his
+enemy forestalled him at Malo-Yaroslavetz; a murderous and indecisive
+battle followed; and Napoleon--it was the first council of war he ever
+summoned--yielded to his Marshals, and abandoned the attempt to break
+through and reach Kalouga, a decision fraught with momentous results.
+The French army was now forced back on the line by which it had
+advanced to Moscow, but it had sufficient provisions for some days; the
+climate as yet was not threatening; the Russians cautiously kept aloof,
+and the still hopeful soldiery believed they would reach Smolensk and
+good quarters in ten or twelve forced marches. Ere long, however, the
+supplies fell short; the army, passing through a ruined country, was
+scarcely able to procure the means of life, however widely it spread
+to pillage; men began to disband and straggle in thousands, and want
+hastened the destruction of all that gives power to armed men. Early
+in November, the icy hand of winter fell suddenly on the host already
+breaking up; horses died in multitudes in a single night; guns, trains,
+carriages were lost and abandoned; and the army became a shattered
+horde without resources, military strength, or discipline. Kutusoff,
+who had steadily followed the retreat, saw that the expected time had
+come; swarms of his light horsemen hung on the rear of the French,
+cutting off the wounded, and making numerous prisoners; and attacks,
+hesitating at first, but growing formidable, were made on the exposed
+flanks of the retreating masses, now almost wholly without the help of
+cavalry. The perishing army reached Smolensk by the middle of November;
+it had dwindled from 100,000 soldiers to 40,000 worn out fugitives,
+deprived of the greater part of their guns and _matériel_; and it
+was soon discovered that the the long-expected haven could not afford
+refuge even for some days. The magazines, which Napoleon had commanded
+to be made, were not furnished with nearly sufficient supplies; they
+were not properly secured or guarded, and the famishing soldiery
+recklessly wasted and plundered the scanty resources they had, for
+subordination and military obedience had been almost lost.
+
+At Smolensk, Napoleon received intelligence more appalling than ever
+had reached a commander. Victor and his corps had come up to Smolensk,
+and had thrown reinforcements into the town, but he had left under the
+stress of the gravest peril. Wittgenstein, whose army had been largely
+increased, had eluded Macdonald far away in Courland, and had defeated
+Oudinot, very inferior in force; and Victor had marched to assist his
+colleague. The two Marshals, however, could not shake off their foe;
+Wittgenstein was advancing on the Upper Dwina, at the head of about
+45,000 men; and the left wing, therefore, of the Grand Army, once
+apparently secure, was in daily growing danger. Meantime, Tormazoff
+had been joined by Tchitchakoff, an admiral, with a fresh army from
+the south. The Saxon auxiliaries had been defeated; Schwartzenberg,
+at a hint given from Vienna, had fallen back before the approaching
+enemy; and Napoleon’s right wing was left uncovered and threatened by
+nearly 50,000 men. Kutusoff was already close to Smolensk; what if he
+continued his ceaseless attacks, while the hostile forces, converging
+from the rear, should drive in the already broken wings, and should
+close on the rear of the army from Moscow? Mack and Mélas were never
+in such a woeful plight, and Napoleon at once broke up from Smolensk,
+to make a great effort to avert destruction. He had not been equal to
+himself since he had left Moscow; whether illness had impaired his
+great faculties, or, more probably, because he had no experience of
+defeat; and, underrating the real force and the skill of Kutusoff, he
+sent off his army, strengthened in some degree, in separate masses,
+that scarcely supported each other. The Russian chief seized the
+occasion, and became more bold. He endeavoured to cut off a large part
+of the retreating forces, and though the effort failed, the French had
+to run the gauntlet of enemies ever gathering on their flanks and their
+rear, and slaying, capturing, and destroying thousands. The horrors of
+the retreat to Smolensk were surpassed; the dissolving masses, which
+had been 60,000 strong when they left the place, were but 20,000; and
+the heroism of Ney, who covered the rear, was the one gleam of light
+in a long night of darkness. Victor and Oudinot had now drawn close
+to Napoleon, but Kutusoff, Tchitchakoff, and Wittgenstein were at
+hand; and the three French armies, 70,000 fugitives in the last days
+of November, found themselves arrested by the broad and half-frozen
+Beresina, while the enemy, fully 120,000 strong, was gathering on
+all sides to prevent the retreat. The situation seemed utterly
+hopeless, but Napoleon’s genius suddenly revived; and he extricated
+himself from the jaws of destruction by one of the finest efforts he
+ever made in his career. Deceiving his adversaries by feints of all
+kinds--he actually drove a huge body of stragglers to the wrong place
+to conceal his purpose--he threw two bridges over the wintry stream;
+the soldiers who could move and keep together succeeded in crossing
+under the Russian batteries; thousands perished, indeed, but the army
+was saved; though Wellington has observed, with strict truth, that had
+the Russian commanders struck home, it must have been destroyed as a
+military force. I shall not dwell on the closing scenes of the retreat:
+the wrecks of Moscow, and the corps of Victor and Oudinot, were about
+50,000 men when the Beresina was passed; the enemy had abandoned the
+pursuit; and yet these bodies shrunk to about 30,000 in not more than
+five or six marches. At Smorgoni Napoleon left his army, in order,
+he told the Marshals, to awaken France; political considerations
+plead for the act, but it would not have been done by Turenne or
+Frederick; and, with other instances, it shows, I think, that this
+supreme military genius, matchless in success, was not equally great
+in extreme adversity. After the Emperor’s departure, the diminishing
+arrays toiled hopelessly through the Lithuanian wastes; each day very
+many hundreds dropped off; Murat, placed in command, all but lost his
+head; reinforcements caught the contagion of despair, and the armed
+multitude completely broke up. The frightful scenes of demoralization
+and terror witnessed at Smolensk recurred at Vilna. Great magazines had
+been collected there, but they were sacked and destroyed by the mobs
+which attacked them; and the French fled to the Niemen in petty knots
+and bands, and at last sought refuge behind the Vistula. Such a tragedy
+of war had never been seen since the immense host of the Assyrian
+tyrant perished through the inscrutable will of Omnipotence. More than
+half a million of soldiers, including reserves, had crossed the Niemen
+a few months before; 50,000 did not recross the stream, and the cavalry
+and artillery were almost destroyed. The losses of the Russians were
+also terrible; but bearing in mind that they were at home, and that
+numbers of the disbanded and wounded rejoined their colours, they were
+ultimately, perhaps, not more than 120,000 men.
+
+The causes of this immense disaster, the prelude to the fall of the
+French Empire, have been examined by many writers. We may dismiss
+the pretence that “it was all the cold.” This equally affected both
+armies, and it weakened the Russians quite as much as the French. The
+conflagration of Moscow no doubt contributed largely to the events that
+followed. The Grand Army but for the fire, might have found winter
+quarters in a rich capital; but we can hardly agree with Napoleon’s
+phrase: “I would have emerged like a ship from the ice in spring”; his
+cavalry and artillery would have been ruined, for the horses had no
+hay, and would have had insufficient provender. The chief causes of the
+catastrophe are, I think, two: the Grand Army was the worst instrument
+of war, which Napoleon had hitherto had in his hands; it was feeble
+despite its enormous size; more than half the soldiers were bad or
+unwilling; and it was incapable of great and rapid efforts, especially
+in a theatre of war like Russia. The paramount cause, however, beyond
+dispute, was that the grand offensive strategy of the French Emperor
+was all but impossible in such a campaign. The army, unable to find
+resources on the line of march, was obliged either to carry large
+supplies with it or to scatter over the country to obtain subsistence;
+in either case, daring and decisive movements were frustrated or had
+few results; and, curiously enough, the very expedients Napoleon
+adopted to support his troops, great magazines at a variety of
+points, so encumbered them that they baffled his efforts. As for the
+Emperor, his conduct in the campaign has never yet, perhaps, had an
+impartial critic. His operations at the beginning of the war bear
+the ineffaceable stamp of his powers: they were masterly, perfectly
+conceived, and brilliant; and had he commanded the army of Austerlitz,
+he might have separated Bagration and Barclay, and perhaps won a Jena,
+before he reached Smolensk. It is wholly untrue besides, that he
+plunged into the depths of old Muscovy without forethought; he spared
+no pains to make his bases secure, and to protect his communications
+in every way; and his great faculties were seen in perfection in his
+escape on the Beresina from a host of enemies. Undoubtedly, however,
+he may have been too cautious in husbanding his reserves at Borodino;
+he certainly delayed too long at Moscow; he ought not to have recoiled
+at Malo-Yaroslavetz; he should not have divided his columns when he
+left Smolensk; he ought never to have given Murat the command of his
+army. All these, however, were mere mistakes, and every commander must
+sometimes go wrong; but what really was most to blame in him was his
+inactivity during a great part of the retreat, and his abandonment of
+his troops at Smorgoni. This indicates a defect in this great master;
+there were vulnerable points in the Achilles of war, and Napoleon
+never was in the hour of misfortune the perfect chief he was in the
+hour of triumph. Still, his capital error in the campaign was that
+the enterprise, as he conducted it, was beyond his powers: he defied
+space and Nature when he advanced to Moscow, and he paid the penalty in
+terrific ruin. The result might have been different had his operations
+been more methodical and more prudent; and here we see, again, how
+imagination and pride occasionally mastered his better judgment. As
+regards the Russian commanders, their first movements were timid,
+aimless, and yet presumptuous; they ought not to have approached the
+frontier; they should have kept away from the camp of Drissa; they
+ought not to have fought at Borodino at all, a battle, besides, which
+they directly badly; and if they imitated Wellington in the retreat
+from the Dwina, the imitation was poor and unskilful. Barclay, however,
+showed resource in the march to Smolensk; and though Kutusoff probably
+could have done more than he did, his choice of a position on the
+Emperor’s flank, and his unceasing attacks on the retreating enemy, are
+good illustrations of the military art. Nevertheless, the fame of the
+Russian chiefs, due to the results of the war of 1812, has diminished
+with the progress of time; and none of them can rank as truly great
+captains. The most conspicuous fact on the victorious side is the
+stern endurance of the Russian soldiery, and the resolution shown
+by the Czar and the nation; thus patriotism in Spain and in Muscovy
+baffled Napoleon. Two of the most striking incidents of the war, as
+a whole, are Napoleon’s refusal to set the Poles free, and even at
+Moscow to emancipate the serfs; in his hatred of all that is national,
+liberal, popular--of what he called the “ideology of the Rights of
+Man”--he would not adopt measures that would have disabled his foe, and
+certainly would have saved the Grand Army.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+
+                       NAPOLEON--(_continued_).
+
+
+Napoleon--he had travelled in disguise through Poland and
+Germany--returned to Paris as 1812 was closing. On his arrival he had
+proofs, not to be mistaken, of the increase of the adverse opinion
+of France, and of the real instability of the Imperial throne. An
+obscure Republican officer had conspired against him; and though the
+conspiracy had been nipped in the bud, the capital had heard of the
+crime with indifference; and, most significantly, no one seemed to
+think that the infant King of Rome--his ill-fated son, the Astyanax of
+the fallen House of Bonaparte as he was called by the captive of St.
+Helena--would succeed to the heritage of the French Empire. Napoleon,
+after reproving his still servile ministers, and the silent and docile
+Bodies of the State, addressed himself to redeem the pledge he had
+given his lieutenants when he left Smorgoni; he exerted himself with
+even more than characteristic energy--“I am now General, not Emperor,”
+is a phrase in his letters--to repair the tremendous disaster which
+had befallen his arms; and he was seconded with real zeal by a nation
+which, though the Revolutionary fervour had ceased, and it feared and
+disliked the Imperial rule, has often done wonders in an effort to
+retain the military supremacy which is its great ambition. The Emperor,
+who had called out the Conscription of 1813, ventured to anticipate
+and call out the Conscription of 1814; immense bodies of National
+Guards were enrolled, and invited to serve; the depôts of the Empire
+were emptied, to furnish every trained soldier who could bear arms;
+_matériel_ of war was found in abundance in the arsenals of France
+to replace what had been lost; and veterans of the past and officers
+from Spain were forthcoming in hundreds to prepare the new levies. The
+genius of Napoleon and the ardour of France were successful, to an
+extent that appears astonishing; half a million of armed men were on
+foot by the early spring of 1813; gifts of horses, and purchases on
+an immense scale, had in some measure replaced the destruction of the
+cavalry which had disappeared in the retreat; and though these masses
+could scarcely be called an army, they were being skilfully drilled
+and organized, and they had the national aptitude to become quickly
+soldiers. Napoleon had calculated that, by the coming summer, he would
+be able to take the field at the head of 250,000 men, with armies of
+reserve on the Rhine and the Elbe; and he had boasted that with these
+forces, and the troops that had come back from Russia, he would conquer
+the Czar and keep Germany down. Events, however, had completely changed
+since he had abandoned the wreck of the Grand Army. When he set off
+from Smorgoni, Macdonald on the left and the Prussian contingent were
+almost intact; Schwartzenburg, on the far right, had a considerable
+force; though the army from Moscow was almost destroyed, a great part
+of the second line of the Grand Army, assembled in 1812, was cantoned
+between the Elbe and the Vistula; and Napoleon’s previsions, therefore,
+were not illusory. But since his return to France, the Prussian corps,
+and its chief, had ostentatiously revolted and joined the enemy;
+Macdonald, hard pressed and deserted, had escaped with difficulty,
+through a host of enemies, and attained the Vistula; Schwartzenburg,
+with his Austrians, had marched into Galicia, and evidently was waiting
+on the policy of his Court; the army that had left the Beresina had,
+we have seen, perished; and down-trodden Prussia had suddenly flamed
+out in a tremendous explosion of national passion, which was rapidly
+making itself felt through Germany, prepared for years for a patriotic
+outbreak. Murat, left in command of the French army, proved utterly
+unable to confront misfortune; he fled to his treasured kingdom of
+Naples; and the conduct of operations was given to Eugene Beauharnais,
+devoted to the Emperor, but not a great chief. Eugene, collecting the
+fragments of Macdonald’s corps and the survivors of the troops who had
+entered Russia, had endeavoured to make a stand on the Vistula; but
+the approach of the Russians and Prussians, and the rising of Prussia,
+compelled him ere long to fall back; and he ultimately retreated to
+the line of the Elbe, bringing along with him the greater part of what
+had been the second line of the army of 1812. He was in positions on
+the Elbe, in the first days of March, at the head of perhaps 45,000
+men; about 40,000 were in march from the Oder; and these, apart from
+a few thousands more sent to strengthen the garrisons in the Prussian
+fortresses, were the whole forces that could be brought together out
+of the enormous mass of 600,000 soldiers arrayed, the year before, to
+invade Russia! Yet Eugene had conducted the retreat ably; and this was
+admitted, at the time, by the sternest of censors.
+
+These disasters frustrated Napoleon’s projects, and accelerated his
+appearance in the field. He endeavoured to arrange the dispute with
+Rome, acquiring influence again in Imperial France; issued a paper
+money to sustain the finances, too like the assignats of 1791–3; the
+Treasury was in a critical state; and he was at Mayence in the middle
+of April, having summoned the Princes of the Confederation of the
+Rhine to arm and put down the great Teutonic rising, described by him
+as a mere “Jacobin movement.” His troops had been for some time in
+motion, and were probably 120,000 strong on the Rhine; and he hoped
+that with these and the army of Eugene he would surprise and overpower
+his enemies, who had incautiously exposed themselves to his terrible
+strokes. I shall say a word hereafter on the reorganization of the
+Prussian army, after the ruin of Jena, and of the great consequences
+which flowed from it; but the suddenness of events had taken the nation
+by surprise; it had not had time to put forth its strength; and, for
+the present, the Prussian forces in the field were not more than 50,000
+or 60,000 soldiers. The Russians had a much larger army, but their
+chiefs were obliged to leave detachments behind; and when they joined
+hands with their new allies, in march from the Vistula to the Oder,
+the collected forces were probably not more than 130,000 or 140,000
+strong.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre, of the
+
+  CAMPAIGN
+
+  of 1813.]
+
+In this position of affairs, against the advice of Kutusoff--the
+warrior died a few weeks afterwards--the Czar, dazzled by an
+immense triumph, and yielding to the prayers of the Prussian
+commanders--Blücher was the most pressing and bold of these--was
+persuaded to advance into the heart of Germany, in order to turn to
+account the national rising, and to sweep into it the Confederation
+of the Rhine; and the allied armies had approached the Elbe, about
+100,000 men in the first line, disseminated, too, in divided masses.
+This was the repetition of the faulty strategy which had led to Jena
+and all that followed; and though times had changed, and Napoleon had
+suffered disasters beyond example in war, the movement was wrong from
+a military point of view, for it placed the Allies, thrown much too
+forward, and comparatively weak, in a situation of peril. Soon after
+the Emperor had reached Mayence, his enemy had mastered the line of the
+Elbe: York, the Prussian chief, who had been the first to revolt, and
+Wittgenstein threatening the great place of Magdeburg, at the head of
+about 35,000 men, Wintzingerode, a Russian, and fiery Blücher holding
+the river round Dresden with perhaps 50,000, and Milaradovitch, with
+about 15,000, advancing along the edge of Bohemia, to encourage Austria
+in a policy hostile to France. This disposition of the allied forces
+gave Napoleon an opportunity to strike; he drew Eugene towards him with
+admirable skill from the Elbe, behind the Saale, as a screen; he broke
+up from Mayence with about 100,000 men, and made for the Saale, through
+the scenes of Jena; his purpose being to join Eugene, and at the head
+of their united forces, 140,000 strong at least, to surprise and assail
+the divided enemy, to cut him off from the Elbe and Dresden, and to
+force him against the Bohemian ranges, where it would be difficult to
+avoid destruction. The Emperor and the Prince effected their junction,
+between Merseburg and Naumburg, on the 30th of April; the young levies
+of France and the war-worn troops of 1812 met with sympathetic pride;
+and the Grand Army, given the name again, marched across the Elster
+into the great plains of Leipsic, in order to carry out a strategic
+project as brilliant as any of its renowned author’s. The troops of
+Jena and Austerlitz were, however, gone; the movement of the army was
+extremely slow; the want of sufficient cavalry was severely felt; and
+Napoleon was compelled to advance cautiously, for the enemy was known
+to be at hand, and reconnoitring was difficult. A skirmish, in which
+Bessières perished, gave the Emperor a warning he did not despise; and
+he moved into the open tract between Lützen and Leipsic, combining
+his corps with such skill that each could easily and quickly support
+the other. Meanwhile, however, the main part of the allied forces had
+drawn together, and at the suggestion of Diebitch, a real future chief,
+and at the entreaty of Blücher, passionate to fight, it was resolved
+to assail the Emperor in the vast and unprotected plain, where the
+Russian and Prussian cavalry would have an immense advantage, though
+Milaradovitch was many leagues distant.
+
+On the 2nd of May Eugene had attained Leipsic, and was attacking the
+town with an advanced guard, when the hostile army, about 70,000
+strong, fell furiously on the French centre, holding, under the command
+of Ney, a cluster of villages, but otherwise exposed in the great
+tract around them. The young French soldiers, fired by the heroism of
+their chief, made a gallant resistance for some time; but strength and
+practised valour gradually prevailed; there was nothing to oppose to
+the allied squadrons, and the centre of Napoleon was all but broken,
+when the precautions he had so carefully taken enabled him to restore
+the uncertain battle. The corps of Marmont, of Oudinot, of Bertrand,
+so placed as to come into line quickly, reinforced by degrees the
+divisions of Ney; the Emperor was soon on the scene with the Guard;
+and a converging line of fire began to envelop the enemy, greatly
+over-matched in numbers, and carried destruction into his diminishing
+ranks. A desperate effort, however, made by Blücher, nearly pierced
+through the French centre once more; and it required the discipline
+and power of the invincible Guard--still largely composed of trained
+soldiers--to win for Napoleon a doubtful victory. The Allies left the
+field in unbroken array; few prisoners or guns were taken by the
+French; and owing to the feebleness of their levies, and the want of
+horsemen, anything like effective pursuit was impossible.
+
+Lützen, like Eylau, was a fruitless battle, and must have suggested
+painful thoughts to Napoleon. His strategy had been after his wonted
+fashion; the Allies had made a distinct mistake in fighting without
+Milaradovitch; the French army had been largely superior in numbers,
+and yet it had narrowly escaped defeat. The young soldiers, no doubt,
+had shown brilliant courage, but they had recoiled before their veteran
+foes; the Emperor had been saved only by his wise caution, the enemy
+had successfully effected his retreat, and from their weakness in horse
+the French had accomplished little. The great object Napoleon had
+had in view, forcing the Allies into the Bohemian hills in complete
+ruin, had not been attained; and operations which, with the Old Grand
+Army, would probably have led to a second Jena, had proved to a great
+extent abortive. He had, however, restored the glory of his arms, and
+he entered Dresden in a few days in triumph. He soon compelled the
+old King of Saxony, wavering in his faith, like all the Allies, to
+furnish him with a large contingent; and his other vassals among the
+German princes sent troops at his imperious command, ready to abandon
+him at the first change of fortune. He set off from Dresden in the
+middle of May, confident that the enemy had at last fallen into his
+hands. The Russians and Prussians, after Lützen, had recrossed the
+Elbe and marched into Saxony, and they had been directed to the verge
+of Bohemia, in the hope of winning Austria to their cause. That Power,
+always tenacious, but always wary, was still an ostensible ally of
+France, and was bound to Napoleon through the young Empress, but it had
+long been playing a double game; it had dealt with the Czar in 1812;
+it had winked at Schwartzenburg’s evident neglect to cover the Grand
+Army during the retreat; it was not heedless of German opinion; and,
+under the direction of the sagacious Metternich, it was seeking to turn
+the situation to its own advantage. It had offered council to all the
+belligerents, had gradually taken the attitude of a powerful arbiter,
+and had quietly begun to prepare armaments; but though sympathy and
+instinct drew it towards the Allies, it feared the Emperor’s power,
+and it was still neutral. The Allies, however, thought they could gain
+Austria, especially as Napoleon had charged her with bad faith, and,
+sacrificing military ends to politics, they had placed their armies
+in positions round Bautzen, at a short distance from the Bohemian
+frontier. The operations that followed were on a theatre made memorable
+in the Seven Years’ War, not far from the famous field of Hochkirch,
+where Daun had surprised and and defeated Frederick.
+
+Fancy may picture the shade of the old Austrian chief directing the
+conduct of the Allies; they had entrenched themselves within two
+defensive lines, covered by the Spree, and a stream behind; and in
+these positions, with little power of movement, they had resolved to
+await the shock of Napoleon. That great warrior, on the other hand, had
+imitated Frederick to this extent; he would attack the enemy in front,
+and reach his flank, but the turning was to be a strategic movement,
+carried out far off, and perfectly safe, not a tactical stroke on the
+field and hazardous. The battles that followed are full of interest,
+and should be carefully studied by a thinker on war. The Emperor
+attacked on the 20th of May; he perceived with his wonted insight that
+the force of the enemies was too large on their left; so, neglecting
+the Tronsberg heights, which they held with this wing, he directed his
+main effort against their centre and right, placed along the marshy
+ground that surrounded the Spree. The resistance was prolonged and
+vigorous; but passive defence had often failed before, and was certain
+to fail under the strokes of Napoleon, and the first position was at
+last forced, the French being greatly superior in numbers, perhaps
+150,000 to 110,000 men. The Emperor renewed the attack next day, but
+meanwhile he had taken care to mature an operation promising decisive
+success. Ney had been ordered to march on Würchen and Hochkirch at the
+head of about 50,000 men, making a long circuit far to the left, and
+when the enemy had yielded to the attack in front, he was to close in
+on his line of retreat, and to place him in the position of Mélas. The
+second line of defence was also carried, and when the Emperor beheld
+his foes falling back, he looked eagerly in the direction where his
+trusted lieutenant was to be on the spot, to make his triumph complete.
+Ney, however, whether it was because his young troops had been slow in
+their movement, or, more probably, because he had lost something of the
+perfect confidence of unbroken success, had hesitated when far from
+the main army, and never attained the points of Würchen and Hochkirch;
+Blücher confronted him with heroic energy, the defeated army found an
+avenue of escape, and it effected its retreat, though with heavy loss.
+The indignation of Napoleon may be conceived; he had a right to find a
+Marengo at Bautzen, and yet, master as he was, he had once more been
+baffled. “What a butchery for nothing!” was his angry remark when he
+found that the enemy had escaped from the toils.
+
+Napoleon was all himself at Bautzen; his strategy and tactics were
+alike perfect; and the manœuvres which ought to have destroyed his
+enemies, prove his immense superiority to Frederick in the field, when
+following, partly, Frederick’s methods. The Allies were completely
+defeated, and fell back; the Grand Army advanced to the Oder; and
+once more the Emperor beheld the vision of the Continent prostrate
+under his eagles. Yet the Prussians and Russians had not been crushed;
+Napoleon had learned, by hard experience how inefficient his army
+was, especially in the essential force of cavalry; and, confident in
+himself and the magic of his sword, he accepted the famous armistice of
+Pleistwitz, with the object, as he avowed afterwards, of organizing and
+training his immature levies, of increasing them, above all, in horses,
+and of making them capable of great offensive movements. This truce
+has been called the greatest mistake of his life; and history fully
+confirms the judgment. The Allies, though baffled, had not been broken;
+the Czar, eager to become a second lord of the Continent, had engaged
+the strength of his realms in the war; and Prussia, placing herself at
+the head of Germany, was proving what her armed might had become, and
+gave reliance and weight to the great rising now in full force from the
+Rhine to the Oder.
+
+The military power of that martial State had become transformed since
+the day of Jena, and was now capable of immense development. The army
+had been reorganized in all its parts; the officers, no longer a mere
+noble caste, comprised men of all classes fit to do their duty; and
+the soldiery, fired with intense patriotism, were burning to avenge
+and restore the nation. The most remarkable change which had taken
+place, however, was in the effective force and the character of this
+fierce array of warriors. Napoleon had restricted the numbers of the
+Prussian army; but his craft and oppression had not attained his ends;
+the contingent under arms was not large; but the conscription had been
+applied to Prussia; thousands of youths had yearly passed through the
+ranks, and had learned the elementary work of soldiers; and the army
+was now capable of being enlarged to 200,000 or 250,000 men, especially
+under a strong popular impulse. Scharnhorst had, in fact, outwitted
+the Emperor; the foundations had been laid of the great system of
+which we have witnessed the results in war in this age; and in the
+summer of 1813 Prussia was able to place fully 200,000 men in line for
+the approaching contest. Meanwhile, immense bodies of troops had been
+marched from the Niemen to take part in the struggle in Germany; and it
+was calculated that, should Austria join the Allies, 900,000 men would
+appear in the field to engage with Napoleon in a mortal struggle. The
+forces available for the imperilled Emperor were hopelessly inferior
+to these enormous masses. France could yield no further supplies of
+troops; and even reckoning the contingents of the Confederation of
+the Rhine, notoriously disaffected and eager to desert, 600,000 men
+formed the extreme limit of the soldiers capable of joining the Grand
+Army, and 200,000 of these, at least, were of scarcely any use. The
+armistice, therefore, was a capital error; yet Napoleon maintained his
+attitude of pride; he employed the breathing time he had chosen for
+this end, in drilling and improving his young levies, in purchasing
+horses in vast quantities, in making, in a word, the Grand Army an
+instrument fitting to answer his purpose; and considering its state and
+its imperfect structure, it is astonishing what was accomplished by
+his untiring energy, by the practised skill of high and subordinate
+officers, and by the willingness and intelligence of the French
+soldiery. His capacity and genius shone out splendidly, though his
+health showed occasional signs of weakness; and he gradually matured a
+gigantic design of contending for Empire in the plains of Saxony, to
+which he trusted for ultimate success.
+
+The theatre of war bore a kind of resemblance to that in which he had
+triumphed in 1796–7; the Bohemian hills were like those of the Tyrol;
+the Elbe, like the Adige, was a great river barrier; and the Emperor,
+in his own words, “took again to the trade” of the warrior who had
+struck down the Hapsburgs, with a relatively small force, on the verge
+of Italy. Napoleon took possession of the whole course of the Elbe
+from the Erzgebirge to its mouths at Hamburg; he secured the passages
+at every point in order to have full freedom of action; he placed the
+bulk of his forces around Dresden, with detachments, however, along the
+stream; he threw secondary armies out to the Oder, while he kept his
+communications with the Rhine well guarded; and, at the head of from
+300,000 to 350,000 men, he made ready to defy his enemies, whatever
+their strength, on this vast field of manœuvre. His letters breathe
+nothing but stern confidence; he felt convinced that he could defeat
+the Allies; and his assurance was such that, playing for his old
+domination, he left thousands of troops shut up in the fortresses of
+the Oder and Vistula.
+
+By this time it had become apparent that Austria would be of immense
+weight should she place her sword into either scale; and the Allies and
+Napoleon during the truce endeavoured to win her over and to obtain her
+support. Her inclinations had been never doubtful; she had favoured
+Russia and Prussia all through. Napoleon, too, had insulted her by
+bribes and threats, and had almost outraged Metternich in a fit of
+passion; but she refused for many weeks to make up her mind; and it was
+only the success of Wellington in Spain, and especially the great day
+of Vitoria, that at last determined her halting purpose. On the 10th
+of August 1813 she declared war against France once more; 250,000 men,
+who had been assembled in Bohemia, joined the allied standards; and
+Napoleon, with ruin impending in Spain, with France even now on the
+point of exhaustion, and with auxiliaries, for the most part, worse
+than useless, was left to confront the power of Europe.
+
+The forces on the theatre of war in Saxony were about 500,000 to
+800,000 men--50,000 French were between the Rhine and the Lower
+Elbe--and the disproportion of numbers against the Emperor was less
+than it had been against the youthful Bonaparte. But the situation,
+even in pure strategy, was less favourable to Napoleon than it had been
+in 1796: and other circumstances increased the chances against him.
+The long line of the Elbe was more difficult to hold than the short
+and scarcely passable line of the Adige; the secondary armies that
+reached the Oder were far more exposed, and less easy to call in, than
+the detachments of Masséna and Vaubois; the retreat of the French army
+was better assured in 1796 than in 1813, and all this gave the Allies
+advantages, and subjected the Emperor to real dangers, which scarcely
+existed in the earlier contest.
+
+The allied armies, it should be added, were different troops from
+those of Alvinzi and Würmser; the young levies of 1813 were not the
+fierce Republicans of 1796; and here again the scale turned against
+Napoleon. He maintained, however, his unbending attitude; and the plan
+of operations formed by the Allies, if well designed, proves how he
+was still dreaded. Their general purpose was to attack and weaken his
+lieutenants, in their distant positions; to avoid a great battle with
+their terrible foe, but to wear out his strength in repeated marches;
+and then, and only then, to risk an encounter, when their superiority
+of force would make success certain. This strategy, if timid, had real
+merits; and it shows how, in most respects, the condition of affairs
+was different from what it had been in the campaign of Italy. As was
+his wont, Napoleon took the initiative; he set off from Dresden, in
+the middle of August, to attack Blücher, already seen to be by far his
+most resolute enemy, and he had soon driven him back to the Katzbach,
+for the Prussian chief, as had been agreed on, retreated, when made
+aware of his presence. Meanwhile, Schwartzenburg, with the chief part
+of the Austrian army, had issued through the Bohemian passes, and,
+gathering Russians and Prussians on the way, had advanced against
+Dresden in the Emperor’s absence; and St. Cyr, who had been left to
+defend the city, announced that he had no means to resist an enemy
+apparently 200,000 strong. Napoleon returned, to make head against the
+approaching foes; he hesitated whether he would attack Schwartzenburg,
+and fall on his rear, as he had attacked Würmser in the defiles of
+the Brenta; but time and distance made the attempt hazardous; and he
+marched with 100,000 men to the relief of Dresden. A terrible battle
+was fought on the 26th and 27th of August; the Allies were greatly
+superior in numbers, perhaps 190,000 to 140,000 men; but Napoleon had
+his genius, and the advantage of the ground; he rested his weakened
+centre on the defences of the place, and assailed Schwartzenburg with
+both his wings in great force; and he gained a complete and splendid
+victory, remarkable for the death of Moreau in an Austrian camp. The
+Emperor’s fortunes seemed restored, when a sudden disaster befell his
+arms. Before he reached Dresden he had sent off a lieutenant, Vandamme,
+to menace Schwartzenburg on his march, near Pirna; and as the allied
+army had been utterly beaten, and was retreating in disorder through
+the Bohemian hills, he ordered Vandamme to push forward boldly,
+and to close in force on the enemy’s rear, intending to second the
+movement himself. The events that followed are still obscure; Vandamme
+seized Culm and the Austrian slope of the range; but Mortier and St.
+Cyr perhaps did not support their colleague; Napoleon,[17] owing to
+illness, or to some unknown cause, did not advance with the Imperial
+Guard; and Vandamme was left almost wholly isolated. In this position
+he was assailed by the defeated army; he was overwhelmed by superior
+numbers; a Prussian detachment hemmed him in, and, instead of breaking
+up a routed enemy, he was compelled to surrender and lay down his
+arms. Thirty thousand men were thus lost to the Emperor; it had become
+evident that, in the present war, the events of Auerstadt would not
+happen again; the apparition of a hostile force on the rear of his foes
+would no longer make them disperse and succumb.
+
+Culm effaced Dresden, and disasters fell in quick succession on the
+secondary parts of the Grand Army, far away from its centre. Macdonald
+and Poniatowski were completely defeated, on the verge of Silesia, by
+fierce old Blücher; and their shattered levies dissolved in multitudes.
+A similar reverse befell Oudinot, who had approached Berlin, at the
+hands of Bernadotte--the Marshal had given up his staff, had been
+declared heir to the throne of Sweden, and was now an obsequious
+vassal of the Czar--and this front of the Grand Army was also broken.
+Napoleon, losing heavily already through long forced marches, hastened
+from Dresden again to assail Blücher; but the veteran fell back into
+the Silesian plains and the Emperor failed to bring his foe to bay.
+Ney was now directed to march on Berlin with another division of
+the secondary arrays; but he was routed, with crushing effect, at
+Dennewitz; for Napoleon, who had intended to join hands with him, had
+been recalled to the Elbe to oppose Schwartzenburg, threatening Dresden
+from Bohemia again; and the Marshal had been, like Vandamme, isolated.
+Through these successive defeats the Grand Army had lost nearly 100,000
+men, whole regiments disbanding, disease falling with cruel severity on
+the young soldiers, and many of the auxiliaries breaking out in mutiny;
+and it had become evident that Napoleon’s plan for the campaign, as
+a whole, could not be realised, that his forces on the Oder were far
+too distant, that his strength was being destroyed by his fruitless
+efforts to support them, and to strike with effect,[18] and that his
+enemies had learned his game, and would not approach him to court
+defeat. He drew in the remains of his shattered armies, and placed them
+in collected strength on the Elbe, holding the bridges and passages at
+all points; and, still hopeful, he awaited the attacks of the Allies
+in a central position, analogous to that which he had held at Mantua,
+but not, I have said, so favourable to the French. His enemies paused,
+still afraid to assail the terrible adversary who had so often proved
+what genius could achieve in a situation like this. A long series
+of manœuvres followed, but at last Blücher and Bernadotte made for
+the Elbe; Schwartzenburg finally issued from the hills, and the huge
+converging masses, describing a great arc, were directed towards the
+central point of Leipsic, in order to fall on the line of Napoleon’s
+retreat, and to cut him off from his communications with the Rhine.
+
+The Emperor thought his opportunity come; he was operating between
+widely divided enemies, and he had accomplished wonders when so placed;
+and, following exactly his strategy in 1796, he left St. Cyr and Lobau
+to hold Dresden; detached Murat with about 50,000 men or more[19] to
+restrain Schwartzenburg, and advanced in person against Blücher and
+Bernadotte, with perhaps 140,000 of the main army. Operations, however,
+on the long line of the Elbe were more uncertain and likely to fail
+than on the short and difficult line of the Adige; and other causes
+concurred to frustrate a project marked with the accustomed skill of
+its author. Blücher crossed the Elbe in the second week of October,
+and, eluding Napoleon, made for Schwartzenburg, though his colleague
+Bernadotte was still far off; and it seems certain that this audacious
+movement, not scientific but bold to rashness, and very characteristic
+of the Prussian chief, was unknown to the Emperor for some days on
+a vast and imperfectly observed theatre. Napoleon now resolved to
+overwhelm Bernadotte, to advance and to occupy Berlin, the centre of
+the great Teutonic movement--a “focus of insurrection,” in Imperial
+language--and this grand stroke was, I believe, possible,[20] had the
+conditions of the war been of the ordinary kind. But intelligence came
+that the Bavarian troops were dangerous, and that Bavaria herself was
+to make common cause with the Allies; and Schwartzenburg was moving
+down the Elbe, on the left or western bank, to approach Blücher.
+Napoleon was compelled to abandon his project; he directed Murat to
+come to his aid, though he did not call in his divisions at Dresden;
+and collecting all his other available forces, he marched towards
+Leipsic with the view of assuring a retreat to the Rhine, should this
+be necessary, but ready to fight a decisive battle. His attempt to
+reach and strike his divided enemies, and to repeat the marvels of
+1796, had failed; and he was now exposed, with a greatly weakened army,
+to be surrounded, beaten, and cut off from France, by enemies immensely
+superior in numbers, Germany, up to the Rhine, conspiring on his rear,
+and his German auxiliaries eager to revolt. Strategically, his position
+resembled that on the Beresina a few months before, though the peril
+was not yet frightful or imminent.
+
+Apart from general causes affecting the contest--a word must be said
+on these afterwards--the student of war should note the reasons why
+the strategy of 1813 had results opposite to those of the strategy of
+1796. Napoleon was the same commander on both occasions; and his great
+faculties had not diminished, though his bodily strength was not what
+it had been, and his arrogant confidence had certainly increased. But
+the barrier of the Elbe could not be defended as that of the Adige
+had been, and Blücher mastered it easily with a large army, effecting
+his junction with the Austrian forces; the French corps detached to
+the Oder were far from the main army, and were not in hand, like the
+small bodies which covered Mantua, so that instead of strengthening
+they weakened Napoleon, by compelling him to make harassing marches;
+the Emperor, when threatened by his foes at Leipsic, had no choice but
+to concentrate his troops, for otherwise his retreat would be barred;
+and the Grand Army, though improved since the spring, was an imperfect
+and not trustworthy instrument. Yet the chief reason, perhaps, has
+yet to be noticed: Würmser and Alvinzi in 1796–7 exposed themselves
+to Napoleon’s strokes, and were struck right and left, and beaten in
+detail; the Allies took a wholly opposite course; they kept steadily
+aloof from the enemy they feared; they did not venture to approach him
+until he was almost crippled, and they gave but few chances to his
+grand offensive strategy.
+
+History dwells on the famous days of Leipsic, for they set Germany free
+from the Imperial yoke, and finally broke down the power of Napoleon;
+but they have few features of interest for the student of war.
+Schwartzenburg attacked Napoleon, on the 16th of October, in positions
+a considerable way from Leipsic with probably 200,000 men; and Blücher,
+though not yet in line with his colleague, simultaneously attacked with
+about 70,000. The efforts of the assailants were still feeble; the
+Emperor had perhaps 170,000 men, and stood between enemies still apart;
+a magnificent charge of the French cavalry, reorganized and admirably
+led by Murat, was nearly attended with marked success; and though
+Blücher and his Prussians made some progress, the battle was drawn, and
+had no result.
+
+Retreat for Napoleon was now easy; the way to the Elster and the
+Rhine was open, and might have been made completely secure; and
+Schwartzenburg, at least, would have been too rejoiced to leave a
+golden bridge for his still dreaded enemy. But Napoleon refused to
+acknowledge defeat; he insisted on gambling with adverse fortune, and
+scorning to fall back before foes he despised, he resolved to stand
+and fight a decisive battle. The 17th was spent in preparations on
+both sides; Bernadotte and Beningsen came up with their armies, and
+the combined allied forces probably reached the enormous number of
+300,000 men. The Emperor had no reinforcements to expect; the Grand
+Army was not 150,000 strong, and the issue of the conflict could hardly
+be doubtful. Yet the attacks of the Allies were partial and timid;
+they have been compared to the peckings of crows round an expiring
+eagle; the French fought admirably when brought to bay, and but for the
+defection of the Saxon contingent, it is questionable if they would
+have suffered defeat. A retreat, however, had become necessary; it
+was precipitate, and it led to a frightful disaster. The Elster had
+not been bridged by the French; the retiring columns were stopped or
+retarded; an explosion destroyed the one bridge over the stream; a
+large part of the Grand Army was cut off; Poniatowski perished with
+thousands of his troops; and the allied commanders could now fairly
+boast that they had won a great and decisive victory· The remains
+of the defeated army, strewing its path with wounded, dying, and
+straggling men, moved feebly across the Franconian lowlands; a ray of
+light shone on its arms for a moment, for Napoleon crushed a Bavarian
+force which had endeavoured to cut him off, but it was a mere mass of
+fugitives when it attained the Rhine. By the flight from Saxony, the
+corps left at Dresden and the distant garrisons on the Oder and Vistula
+were completely and irrevocably lost.
+
+Napoleon, it is scarcely necessary to say, ought not to have fought
+the second battle of Leipsic; he should have retreated after the first
+battle; and he ought to have bridged the Elster for his still large
+army. Turenne and Marlborough would not have made such mistakes; but
+those who have really studied this wonderful being will understand
+how he made them, despite his genius. Independently of the military
+causes which made the results of the campaign in Saxony so different
+from those of the campaign of Italy, there was a general cause for
+Napoleon’s overthrow; he contended for the prize of his whole Empire,
+for domination over three-fourths of Europe; this is the true reason
+why he threw forward secondary armies from the Elbe to the Oder, and
+why he left thousands of men in the Prussian fortresses, operations
+contrary to sound principle, and wholly opposed to his own wonted
+strategy. Ambition, arrogance, and the lust of power, in fact,
+“distorted”--as has been truly said--“the marvellous conceptions of the
+matchless chief,” and he underrated the strength and the resolution of
+his foes, and vainly trusted to the last to false auxiliaries, for whom
+treachery to the flag meant faith to their country, rising to a man
+against wrong and oppression.
+
+On his return to Paris, in the middle of November, the Emperor had
+soon abundant proofs of the ruin of his power, and of the collapse of
+his Empire. The relics of the Grand Army, spread along the Rhine,
+scarcely exceeded 100,000 men; until reorganized they were of no use;
+they were dying in heaps by contagious disease; they required horses,
+guns, and all kinds of _matériel_; and the demoralization of
+the troops had become frightful. Yet even this was by no means the
+worst: the huge fabric of conquest formed by the sword was evidently
+doomed by the sword to perish. Soult had been driven by Wellington
+beyond the Pyrenees, and was endeavouring to defend the Adour and
+Gascony; Suchet had recoiled to the line of the Ebro; the mock throne
+of Joseph had been abandoned; the Confederation of the Rhine had
+vanished, annihilated by the rising of Germany; Eugene, beaten by
+a secondary Austrian force, had been repelled to the Adige and the
+Mincio; unfortunate Murat was plotting treason, and trafficking with
+the enemy to save Naples; Holland, half beggared by the Continental
+system, was striving to shake off Imperial bondage; and stirrings of
+revolt were feared in Belgium, and in the German provinces west of the
+Rhine. Even in old France the position of affairs, and the state of
+the public mind, was portentous of ruin. The nation had lavished most
+of its youth fit for war in the effort of the year before; the depots
+were empty and the arsenals stripped; supplies of arms of all kinds
+were short; and the _matériel_ of war which remained to the Empire
+was now, for the most part, beyond France, stored in fortresses on the
+Elbe, the Adige, and the Po. The destruction, too, of the material
+resources of France, was less ominous than the national attitude. The
+fervour of 1813 had completely disappeared; the mass of the people had
+become indifferent to patriotism, and only thought of repose; and the
+cries against the Empire heard in 1812, swelled into a vast murmur
+from ruined cities, from half-starving seaports, from discontented
+provinces. Even the machinery of government was breaking down; the
+conscription was evaded in whole districts; there was an increasing
+movement not to pay taxes; and the Treasury, buoyed up by paper for a
+time, was scarcely able to avert bankruptcy. The very functionaries of
+the Empire forgot their servility; the silent Bodies of the State dared
+to make complaints; the military chiefs secretly condemned the war; and
+a conspiracy against Napoleon, immature as yet, was slowly formed by
+disgraced Ministers, by the remains of the Royalists and Republicans,
+scarcely heard of since the 18th Brumaire, by the men of new ideas, who
+aspired to give free institutions to a reformed France, and to save her
+from despotism and ruin at hand.
+
+The Emperor proudly confronted misfortune; and did not abandon his
+still assured confidence, that he would emerge safe from this vast
+sea of troubles. One circumstance fed his hopes at this crisis; the
+Coalition had paused after Leipsic; its armies had halted as they
+approached the Rhine; and it made overtures of peace to Napoleon,
+partly because it feared a death struggle with him, and partly because
+it had begun to be divided in interests, passions and feelings. The
+Emperor sent an ambiguous reply, to proposals which would have left
+him ruler of a France enlarged to the “natural boundaries”; but it is
+questionable if he really wished to treat; and, like the armistice
+of Pleistwitz, this was a capital error. He was convinced that he
+would not be assailed for some months; he made preparations for a new
+campaign; and it is evident his purpose, once more, was to contend
+for a scarcely diminished Empire. He called out the Conscription of
+1815; forced old soldiers into the ranks of the army; made another
+appeal to the pride of Frenchmen; supplied the failing Treasury from
+his Privy Purse; endeavoured to restore the _matériel_ of war;
+and tried to arouse the passions of 1798 against “an invasion of the
+sacred soil”, though, as he bitterly said, he had “crushed Revolution
+and would not rely on his worst enemy.” These efforts, however, though
+his administrative powers and genius for organization were as great as
+ever, produced comparatively small results; France could not and would
+not supply the means required to further his ambitious ends; and yet,
+I have said, his intention was to play again for supreme dominion. If
+Soult was required to oppose Wellington, Suchet was left in Spain, and
+Eugene in Italy; the forces which still remained to France were not
+concentrated within her borders, for Napoleon thought invasion remote,
+and would not give up his ambitious projects; and this strategy,
+essentially false, and unlike that of the best days of the Emperor,
+largely detracts from the conspicuous merits of the grand campaign of
+1814. The Allies did not give their foe the long breathing time on
+which he had unwisely reckoned. Divided as they were, they had a common
+enemy. They resented Napoleon’s still warlike attitude; and when signs
+of his real position had become manifest, in the rising of Holland, the
+defection of Murat, the victorious progress of the arms of Wellington,
+the misery of France, and the growing hatred of the Imperial rule from
+the Scheldt to the Po, they resolved to seize the occasion, and to
+cross the Rhine. By the end of December and the first days of January,
+the forces of the Coalition, spread on a vast front, were set in motion
+to invade France; and this bold offensive effort beyond question
+disconcerted Napoleon, who would not believe in such resolution and
+well-sustained energy.
+
+Schwartzenburg, at the head of about 160,000 men, marched from Basle,
+across the plains of Franche Comté; Blücher, with an army perhaps
+60,000 strong, advanced from Mayence and Mannheim, and traversed the
+Vosges; and Bulow and Wintzingerode, far to the north, moved, with
+probably 70,000 troops, from the upper Rhine towards the Aisne and the
+Oise, the object of the chiefs of these converging masses being to
+unite in Champagne and to press on to the capital. The invasion was so
+sudden that the surprised Emperor had but small forces to oppose to it.
+The remains of his armies, not half reorganized and only recruited to
+a slight extent, fell back at all points, through Lorraine and Alsace,
+not more, probably, than 80,000 strong; and the invaders for weeks met
+no resistance. By the close of January Schwartzenburg had crossed the
+range to the east of the great upland of Langres, and had arrived at
+the heads of the Seine; Blücher had passed Nancy, the old capital of
+Lorraine, and was in full march for the Upper Marne; and though the
+Northern column was far in the rear, a speedy advance to Paris was
+deemed imminent. The only enemies in the way were the shattered corps
+of Mortier, Oudinot, and Gérard, round Troyes, of Macdonald, Marmont,
+Victor and Ney around Châlons; and though these had been hastily
+reinforced, they certainly could not oppose 90,000 men, largely
+composed of beaten and despondent soldiers, to victorious enemies at
+least twofold in numbers.
+
+Having left Paris, and sternly rebuked one of the heretofore
+servile Bodies of the State, which at this crisis found heart to
+murmur, Napoleon reached Châlons in the last days of January. Some
+reinforcements were upon the march; but, for the moment, he brought
+nothing but his skill to assist his collected marshals, who with
+shattered forces had begun to despair. Yet he retained his haughty
+and serene confidence; he had formed a general plan of operations for
+the campaign which once more revealed his unrivalled power of turning
+the theatre of war to account, and his insight into passing events;
+and it was to lead to some of his most splendid exploits. Blücher
+and Schwartzenburg had advanced from divergent bases; their supports
+in the rear were far distant; they had the old Prussian and Austrian
+dislike of each other, and they had now reached the valley of the Marne
+and the Seine, deep rivers traversed at many points by the main roads
+converging on Paris, the object aimed at by the allied chiefs. They
+would probably, therefore, march on two lines, Blücher along the Marne,
+his colleague by the Seine, and would be separated by a wide distance;
+and the obstacles which the rivers might be made to present would give
+a great advantage to a really able enemy. Napoleon had fully perceived
+this; he resolved to oppose one front of defence to a double front of
+divided attack, and, interposing between his foes, to strike them in
+succession and to beat them in detail; and for this purpose he had
+given orders to fortify the passages on the Marne and the Seine, and
+had formed his base in the intermediate districts. This was one of his
+most brilliant conceptions, but the Emperor was very nearly crushed in
+his first operations through his extreme confidence. In an effort to
+attain Blücher, drawing near his colleague, he fought an indecisive
+battle at Brienne--the place where he first studied war--and he was
+defeated with heavy loss at La Rothière, an engagement he certainly
+should have avoided, for his enemies were nearly threefold in numbers.
+His situation appeared hopeless; he had not more 70,000 men to oppose
+to fully 200,000, when his mastery of his art and the blunders of
+his foes changed the position of affairs, and caused a last ray of
+glory to irradiate the ruin of his falling Empire. As he had expected,
+the allied generals, after La Rothière, fell respectively back to
+the Marne and the Seine, and moved along the rivers; Schwartzenberg
+marched slowly along the Seine, throwing out detachments to protect his
+flanks--for hostile bodies were approaching from the south; Blücher,
+passionate and impulsive, pushed along the Marne, spreading out his
+army in disconnected fractions, and burning to run a winning race to
+the capital.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre, of the CAMPAIGN of 1814.]
+
+Napoleon, like an eagle watching his quarry, sent Oudinot and Victor to
+keep back Schwartzenburg, holding the passages of the Seine in force,
+and with the rest of his army, perhaps 50,000 strong, he hastened to
+the Marne to fall on Blücher, whose exposed and divided flank was laid
+bare to him. The weather was dreadful, and the cross-roads bad; the
+French army was filled with boyish conscripts, and was encumbered with
+far too many guns, which retarded the heavy and cumbrous columns--these
+evils had gone on increasing since Wagram--but Napoleon’s genius
+overcame all hindrances; and the effects of the movement were well-nigh
+magical. Bursting into the midst of his terrified foes, he overwhelmed
+Olsuvieff at Champaubert, routed Sacken completely at Montmirail,
+defeated York at Chateau-Thierry, and finally hurled Blücher back to
+Châlons, having disabled for a time a whole host of enemies. He now
+turned against Schwartzenburg, who, pressing Victor and Oudinot back,
+had gradually advanced along the Seine; and no doubt can exist that,
+had he been free to act, the Emperor would have descended on the
+Austrian’s flank. But alarm and discontent prevailed in Paris, and in
+order to produce an immediate effect, Napoleon was obliged to approach
+the capital, and to attack Schwartzenburg, when reached, in front.
+These operations could not have the results of the terrible strokes
+against Blücher’s flank; nevertheless, the Austrian chief was beaten;
+he retreated eastward as far as Troyes; a demonstration by Blücher in
+his aid proved useless, and by the close of February 1814 the forces of
+the Coalition, cruelly shattered, were again at the heads of the Marne
+and the Seine. Genius had triumphed over ill-directed force; and the
+allied commanders were so despondent that they actually sought and
+obtained an armistice.
+
+The events that followed strikingly illustrate the character of the
+antagonist chiefs, and the peculiarities of the struggle for Empire.
+Napoleon’s[21] arrogance exceeded all bounds; he exclaimed, “We shall
+soon be again on the Vistula”; and his letters breathe intense scorn
+of his foes, and absolute reliance on his own military strength. Full
+of these illusions, he still refused to summon Eugene across the Alps
+from Italy; and though he drew detachments from the armies of Soult
+and Suchet, and organized a force under Augereau in the South, he
+did not bring nearly all his available forces to the decisive point,
+the theatre in Champagne. Had he conformed to his early and perfect
+strategy, Schwartzenburg, menaced by Eugene, and with Augereau on his
+flank--and Suchet might have joined--would have no doubt retreated;
+Blücher could not have remained isolated; the campaign of 1814 would
+have had a different close; and this, I repeat, must be borne in mind
+in judging the Emperor’s conduct as a whole.
+
+The operations of the Allies had no resemblance to those of their
+renowned antagonist; they were timid for the most part, and confessed
+weakness; but they were prudent, and marked by decision and firmness.
+At a great council of war held near Troyes, the Czar, the Emperor of
+Austria, the King of Prussia, and the representatives of the great
+Powers were present;[22] the admission was made that Blücher and
+Schwartzenburg could not hope for success against Napoleon, though
+he had but about 80,000 men, and their armies, strongly reinforced,
+were 200,000; the difficulty of operating along the Marne and the
+Seine, with their enemy between them, was frankly recognized; it was
+resolved to bring up the greater part of the army of the North, under
+Wintzingerode and Bülow, to turn the scale decisively; and whatever
+may be thought of these councils of fear, this was certainly wise and
+true strategy. Hostilities, which had never really ceased, began again
+in the first days of March: and Blücher, with perhaps 60,000 men--he
+had reorganized his army with characteristic energy--moved along the
+Marne again in the hope of destroying the isolated corps of Marmont
+and Mortier, for the present covering the main roads to Paris. The
+Marshals, however, retreated behind the Ourcq; and Blücher, rash to a
+fault, and not taught by disaster, crossed the Marne, and endeavoured
+to bring them to bay. This gave Napoleon his opportunity again.
+Quitting his central position, he bore down on Blücher, now far from
+his colleague, and crossed the Marne; and he was soon on the track of
+the Prussian chief, who, in extreme peril, was making for the Aisne,
+with but a feeble chance of getting over the river.
+
+A fortunate accident saved Blücher, when perhaps on the verge of a
+terrible overthrow. The commandant of Soissons, a weak man, opened his
+gates to Bülow and Wintzingerode, advancing from the North, as had been
+arranged; the only passage on the Aisne fell into their hands, and
+Blücher joined with delight his new colleagues, their united forces
+being about 100,000 men. Napoleon had not more than 60,000; but his
+passionate ardour mastered his judgment, as had often happened in his
+chequered career; he attacked the Allies at Craonne and Laon, and, as
+at La Rothière he was completely beaten, though he destroyed a hostile
+body in his retreat. His second effort against Blücher had, therefore,
+had very different results from those of his first; he had suffered
+greatly at Craonne and Laon, battles which he certainly should not have
+risked; and he was now obliged to return to the Seine, with an army
+weakened and beginning to lose hope. He had left Oudinot and Macdonald,
+replacing Victor, to hold Schwartzenburg in check, as in the first
+instance; but the Austrian chief, in the Emperor’s absence, had forced
+the passage of the Seine, and approached Paris; his advanced guard
+was not far from Melun; and the capital, seething with passion and
+terror, had not only made no preparations to resist, but was beginning
+to declare against the tottering Empire, especially since Wellington’s
+victories in the South. Napoleon left Mortier and Marmont to observe
+Blücher, and calling up his forces to come into line with him, he
+endeavoured to operate on the rear of Schwartzenburg; he compelled the
+cautious Austrian to fall back; but he was surprised on the Aube, near
+the town of Arcis, was forced to fight a stern but a losing battle,
+and was ultimately obliged to cross the river. He had failed against
+Schwartzenburg as he had failed against Blücher. How different might
+the result have been had he called Eugene and Suchet to his aid in
+Champagne!
+
+The Allies were now in overwhelming force; they thoroughly understood
+Napoleon’s game, and he could no longer continue his late strategy.
+He adopted a course almost the counterpart of his projected march on
+Berlin in 1813--baffled, we have seen, by various accidents--which
+has been differently judged by disputing critics, but which, as a
+mere military move, may be pronounced admirable. His garrisons on the
+Vistula and Oder were lost; but he had large garrisons in the French
+fortresses, which, hitherto blockaded by the allied armies, had been
+nearly set free by the immense demands of Blücher and Schwartzenburg
+for reinforcements; and he resolved to make use of what he called those
+“dead forces,” to collect a powerful army, to descend on the rear of
+his foes, and to cut off their communications with the Rhine. He always
+declared that this plan was possible, and when we consider the timid
+weakness which usually marked the conduct of the Allies, it presented
+many chances of success, had France been really true to the Empire.
+He broke up from the Aube in the third week of March, and summoning
+Mortier and Marmont to join him, made for Vitry upon the Upper Marne,
+his object being to attain the Meuse and, rallying the forces released
+from the fortresses, to attack Schwartzenburg and to seize the line of
+his retreat at the head of about 120,000 men, the troops from Lyons and
+the south supporting the movement.
+
+The Emperor’s letters still breathe the perfect confidence which
+distinguished them throughout the whole campaign; and he haughtily
+spurned proposals for peace, which even now, at the eleventh hour,
+would have left him the France of Louis XVI. Events, however, were soon
+to show the vanity of the false dreams of ambition. The conspiracy
+which had been hatching for months in the capital, against the Empire,
+had become mature; it was joined by Talleyrand and other dismissed
+Ministers, by Liberals, Bourbon and Jacobin partisans, and means were
+found to inform the Allies that should they advance on Paris Napoleon
+would fall. A second great council of war was held by the leaders of
+the Coalition on the 24th of March; and it was unanimously decided to
+march on the capital, leaving a detachment only to observe Napoleon.
+The allied armies pushed rapidly on by the now abandoned and unguarded
+lines which, hitherto, they had failed to master, driving before them
+the feeble corps of Mortier and Marmont, who had been unable to join
+the Emperor, and could not offer a show of resistance; and on the 29th
+of March the armies of Continental Europe had come in view of the proud
+city which, for twenty years, had been the ardent focus of revolution,
+of war, of glory, of Empire. The marshals fought a battle honourable
+to both, but it was impossible to withstand the great host of enemies.
+A capitulation was signed the following day; and Russians, Austrians,
+Prussians, Swedes, Bavarians, and soldiers from every part of Germany,
+took possession of the fallen yet not mourning capital. A few hours
+sufficed to complete the ruin of the despotism of force which had long
+been supreme. The young Empress and the Imperial Court vanished; the
+Bodies of the State, for years the instruments of a tyranny they had
+cringed to but had learned to hate, declared the throne of Napoleon
+forfeited, and Paris heard, not without rejoicings, that the Monarchy
+of the Bourbons, which its frenzied citizens had shed oceans of blood
+to destroy for ever, was to be restored at the will of the conquerors.
+
+Meanwhile, Napoleon, informed of these events, had hastily abandoned
+his march eastwards; he was at Fontainebleau on the 2nd of April, at
+the head of nearly 70,000 men, and treating as nought all that had
+been accomplished, he still resolved to strike a blow for Empire.
+The military situation was not quite hopeless. The generals of the
+Coalition had most unwisely distributed their armies around Paris,
+divided by the streams of the Marne and the Seine; and everything was
+to be dreaded, in a position of this kind, from the terrible enemy
+placed in their rear. Napoleon made overtures to negotiate, but it is
+tolerably certain his real object was to gain a few hours to make a
+desperate effort, and to surprise his foes in their false security; and
+he has left it on record that he must have won a decisive battle at the
+very gates of Paris. His marshals, however, refused to follow their
+chief in a course they believed desperate; Marmont went over, with his
+corps, to the Allies, and the conqueror saw his invincible sword fall
+from his grasp through the ill-will and the treachery of the companions
+in arms he had long led to victory. He abdicated, after the Bodies of
+the State had pronounced finally; and--a terrible lesson to those who
+abuse power, and a terrible proof how faith and loyalty are blighted
+in a revolutionary age--Fontainebleau became quickly a silent desert,
+abandoned by the functionaries who had grovelled at his feet. His noble
+words of farewell to the veterans of the Guard in some measure lessen
+the ignominy of scenes on which the historian dwells with pain; but
+one incident of shame has yet to be noticed. The fallen Emperor took
+poison, to end a life of despair. The attempt at self-destruction,
+perhaps happily, failed, but this is another proof that, when all
+seemed lost, Napoleon had not the indomitable firmness of very inferior
+warriors.
+
+Napoleon’s operations in 1814, as regards the struggle in Champagne
+at least, have always been classed with his finest efforts. It was a
+prodigy of skill that, with a bad army, he should have baffled enemies
+threefold in numbers, should have all but overwhelmed Blücher, and
+should have kept the issue of events in suspense; the general of 1796
+reappears, in full perfection, in this splendid strategy. Yet even
+in these noble displays of the art, he fell into serious and plain
+errors; he ought not to have fought at least four battles, unnecessary,
+and with the chances against him; and he made two grave mistakes,
+which proved fatal--the attempt to contend for his whole Empire,
+and the omission to concentrate his forces during the armistice. His
+generalship in 1814, considered as a whole, was not equal to that of
+1796, and his campaigns of 1812, of 1813, and even of 1814, remind me
+of Turner’s latest pictures; we see the hand of the master everywhere,
+but there is a want of proportion and real harmony, and the result is
+sad and general failure.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                        NAPOLEON (_continued_).
+
+
+I must pass over the attempt to resettle the boundaries, at Vienna, of
+a changed Continent; nor can I dwell on the pretensions of the Czar
+to sit in the seat of Napoleon without his genius, on the rapacity
+of Prussia and the craft of Talleyrand, and on the league between
+Austria, England, and France, to restrain the ambition of the Northern
+Powers. Nor can I notice Napoleon’s brief rule in Elba, though the
+administrative powers of the fallen Lord of the Continent were
+exhibited in this narrow sphere, and have left honourable traditions
+not yet forgotten. I must also avoid even a short account of the
+failure of the Restoration in France; how Louis XVIII., well-meaning
+but feeble, spite of the memories of the old _régime_, fell into
+the hands of Royalist zealots, and marred the grace of the freedom
+he claimed to concede; how impossible it became to reconcile the
+pretensions of returned _émigrés_ and a ruined _noblesse_
+with the interests grown out of the Revolution; how the army,
+transformed and made the appanage of a Court, chafed in silence, and
+regretted its unrivalled chief; how the nation after a brief hour
+of repose, felt humiliated that it had been reduced to the position
+of a lesser Power of Europe. The discords of the Coalition, and the
+unsettled state of France, were not lost on the extraordinary man who
+watched events from his speck in the sea, and who had not forgotten
+his vanished Empire. Napoleon quitted Elba in February 1815, on the
+most wonderful enterprise of his whole career. A flotilla bore the
+few hundred men imprudently left him by the Allies; Fortune smiled
+treacherously on her audacious favourite, and he had soon landed on
+the shores of Provence, in order, in the face of embattled Europe, to
+subvert a Government founded on an European triumph. The very thought
+seemed akin to folly, and yet it became an accomplished fact in a
+fortnight. With that insight which was one of his greatest gifts,
+Napoleon avoided the cities of the coast and the great military
+stations of his old marshals; he flung himself into the valleys of
+Dauphiné, a district hostile to the restored Monarchy, and his march
+seemed like the spread of some mighty influence, which power and
+authority were unable to withstand. Grasse, Sisteron, and Gap were
+rapidly passed; a regiment near Grenoble welcomed the sight of its old
+commander, and fell at his knees; the garrison of the town greeted him
+with exulting shouts, and wherever a part of the army beheld Napoleon,
+it followed him, swayed as by an enchanter’s spell. Macdonald, with his
+staff, was expelled from Lyons; Ney, meaning to be loyal, was carried
+away in the universal military revolt; other chiefs found it impossible
+to resist; and the discrowned exile was soon on his way to the capital
+at the head of a great and hourly increasing force.
+
+Napoleon was at the Tuileries once more on the 20th of March; “his
+eagles,” in his expressive language, “had flown from steeple to steeple
+to the towers of Nôtre Dame,” and France, dazzled, surprised, and
+disliking the Bourbons, accepted a revolution which seemed a kind of
+portent. The King fled into Belgium with his Court, his nobles, and
+a few officers of the Empire, who would not break their oaths; the
+army easily put down two or three risings of Royalists in the Southern
+Provinces; and Napoleon boasted, with truth, that he regained his
+throne at the cost of scarcely a drop of blood. After this astonishing
+return to Empire, Napoleon offered peace, and to remain satisfied with
+the France of the Treaties of 1814; and probably he was sincere in
+these overtures. Yet it is not surprising that he was not believed;
+he had broken faith with Europe in leaving Elba, and, partly through
+terror and partly from hate, the Allies proscribed him as an enemy
+of mankind. He addressed himself to the defence of France, but the
+movement which had set him on the throne was essentially a military
+revolt; the fierce animosities of French factions embarrassed his
+Government and weakened the State; the restored Empire was viewed
+with distrust by Royalists, Liberals, and the old Republicans; the
+nation treated with indifferent contempt free institutions offered
+by Imperial hands; and the Chambers, which Napoleon convened to give
+popular support to his imperilled power, were full of secret or avowed
+conspirators. Nevertheless, let detractors say what they please, his
+exertions were mighty and worthy of him; his genius as an administrator
+shone with fresh brightness, though his health was evidently on the
+decline, and in a few weeks he had made preparations to resist the
+Coalition which must be deemed wonderful. One circumstance gave him
+precious resources; more than 100,000 prisoners of war, trained and
+excellent soldiers, had been restored to France; and by making use of
+these and additional veterans, and by employing conscripts and National
+Guards, he raised the army, which had been reduced to impotence, to a
+state of formidable strength and efficiency. Meanwhile, he gave its
+old organization and structure to the instrument of war he had so long
+wielded; the Guard reappeared, and the loved eagles; corps, divisions,
+and reserves were again formed; great exertions were made to provide
+arms, horses, and _impedimenta_ of all kinds; and Paris, which
+had fallen at once in 1814, was to a considerable extent, fortified.
+By June 1815, half-a-million of men were on foot to take part in the
+impending conflict; about 250,000 of these were ready; and paper money
+supplied the Treasury with the means of seconding a great effort which,
+in existing circumstances, was, I repeat, astonishing.
+
+Two plans of operations presented themselves. Had France been united
+and loyal as a whole, Napoleon would have, no doubt, followed the grand
+precedent of the year before, under conditions much more favourable
+to success; he would have encountered the Coalition in Champagne
+with forces far more powerful than in 1814, and with Paris a strong
+entrenched camp in his rear, and recollecting what he achieved on
+the Marne and the Seine, his triumph would have been not at all
+improbable. The second plan was much more hazardous; but it was in
+harmony with Napoleon’s genius, and it followed methods which had often
+secured him victory. The Coalition had a million of men in arms; but
+these masses were spread from the Scheldt to the Po, and easterly,
+from the Rhine to the Oder; and the extreme right of the immense line
+of invasion, the two armies of Blücher and Wellington was isolated
+and thrown forward in Belgium. It might be practicable then, as it
+had been at Ulm, to cut off and destroy this detached force; and many
+circumstances concurred to give a well-directed attack a real chance
+of success. The armies of Blücher and Wellington were widely apart;
+they rested upon divergent bases; they were commanded by chiefs of
+opposite natures; their centre was weak and greatly exposed; their line
+of communication was a single road, at a short distance only from the
+French frontier, and behind this line lay a difficult country which
+would make their subsequent concentration no easy matter.
+
+Seizing the situation with the eye of a master, Napoleon saw in this
+position of affairs an admirable opportunity to strike with effect; and
+he resolved to assail and break through the allied centre, and to try
+to defeat Blücher and Wellington in detail, as he had defeated Beaulieu
+and Colli in the campaign of Italy. The means he adopted to carry out
+his project rank among the finest operations of his life, and form a
+conspicuous instance of his gift of stratagem. Concealing the movement
+with consummate skill, he drew together four corps from the vast
+space between Lille and Metz to the edge of the frontier; the Guard,
+another corps, and the cavalry marched from the interior; and the
+collected masses, perfectly arranged, converged gradually along this
+immense front, under the eye of the enemy, yet without his knowledge!
+No more splendid effort has been made in war; and had the Emperor had
+the complete force--150,000 men--which he reckoned on to begin the
+campaign, in all probability he would have triumphed. A rising in La
+Vendée deprived him, however, at the last moment, of 20,000 soldiers;
+but the die was cast, and he did not hesitate; and he set off from
+Paris on the 12th of June to challenge Fortune in a supreme trial. His
+admirable directions had been admirably fulfilled. On the evening of
+the 14th June 1815, 128,000 Frenchmen, comprising 22,000 horse and 350
+guns, were assembled from near Maubeuge to near Philippeville, where
+the French frontier then entered Belgium; and screened by the Sambre,
+they were a few miles from Charleroi, where the great road to Brussels
+gave an easy approach to the comparatively feeble centre of the Allies.
+
+The army was in motion at daybreak on the 15th, the Emperor’s object
+being to cross the Sambre, to occupy Charleroi, and by a forced march
+to seize the points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, on the great cross
+road between Nivelles and Namur, the only line on which his foes
+could unite without obstacles of no small difficulty. The operation
+was not quite successful; delays and different accidents occurred.
+Ziethen, too, one of Blücher’s lieutenants, had checked the advance,
+not without skill, but Napoleon’s project was nearly realised; the
+great mass of the French was beyond Charleroi, and within easy reach
+of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe before night closed on the 15th; and the
+allied centre was threatened if not severed, and could only close up
+in effective force, under, so to speak, the guns of the enemy. The
+conduct, meanwhile, of the hostile chiefs had perfectly fulfilled
+Napoleon’s previsions, and had given him already an immense advantage.
+Blücher had, characteristically, placed three of his corps in positions
+around, or not far from, Sombreffe, even now almost in Napoleon’s
+grasp; but his fourth corps was many leagues distant, and could not
+reach Sombreffe for a battle next day. On the other hand, Wellington,
+circumspect and cautious, and without experience of Napoleon’s
+strategy, had hesitated and delayed at Brussels; he had not taken a
+step to join his colleague until late in the night of the 15th; and
+even then, fearing for his communications and his right, he had not
+advanced in force towards Quatre Bras, where his junction with Blücher
+would be accomplished. The allied line of communication, therefore, on
+the lateral road of Nivelles-Namur was not held by the Allies in force;
+it was all but in the hands of the enemy. The allied centre was
+completely exposed, and Napoleon might reasonably expect either to
+beat in detail the allied chiefs, should they venture to offer battle,
+or to seize the points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, and to interpose
+between Blücher and Wellington.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    Theatre of the
+    CAMPAIGN
+    of 1815.]
+
+This was the situation on the morning of the 16th, and it was full
+of great, nay, of splendid, promise. Napoleon was now at Charleroi,
+about to start for Fleurus, and to take the command of his corps near
+Sombreffe. He has been charged with delay, I think unjustly, and he
+was not fully aware of the enemy’s movements; but his general position
+was so good, and his general directions were so well planned, that
+accidents only robbed him of a decisive victory. He ordered Ney on his
+left to seize Quatre Bras, driving back any forces of the Duke at hand.
+The Marshal was then to descend on the rear of Blücher, who was to be
+attacked near Sombreffer, in front, by the Emperor; and had this grand
+manœuvre been properly carried out, Blücher must have been routed and
+forced away to the Meuse, and Wellington would have been in the extreme
+of peril, for both generals were now trying to join hands at Quatre
+Bras and Sombreffe, and were laying themselves open to the whole force
+of Napoleon. Ney could have easily fulfilled his mission; but he had
+lost the confidence of better days; he waited many hours before he even
+tried to move; and he failed to accomplish his main task, falling from
+Quatre Bras on the rear of Blücher.
+
+Napoleon, meanwhile, marching from Fleurus, had attacked Blücher
+between Sombreffe and Ligny. The battle raged furiously for a
+considerable time, to the disadvantage of the Prussians on the whole,
+but no decisive success had been won; and the Emperor, perceiving that
+no force was closing on Blücher from the direction of Ney, tried to
+attain his object by another method. One of Ney’s corps had advanced
+slowly; the Emperor directed this towards Blücher’s flank, while
+Blücher was to be assailed, as before, in front; and had this stroke
+been pressed home, the result would have been the same as that of
+the first projected attack. D’Erlon, however, the unlucky chief of
+this corps, was, when on the path of victory, called up by Ney, hard
+pressed by Wellington at this moment; and Napoleon, I think, must have
+concurred in this, for the defeat of Ney would have been disastrous,
+though this extreme caution was, perhaps, an error. Blücher escaped
+destruction through these mishaps; but Napoleon’s attack in front had
+partial success, and the Prussian army was driven, in defeat, from
+the field. On the other side of the scenes of manœuvre, Ney, we have
+seen, had not reached Blücher, and had missed his mark; he had most
+unfortunately recalled D’Erlon, and he had suffered a repulse from
+the hands of Wellington, who had kept Quatre Bras though with much
+difficulty. Ney, however, had gained a strategic advantage; he had
+prevented Wellington from joining Blücher, and as Blücher had been
+forced away from Sombreffe, the Duke would be compelled to retreat;
+the line of communication of the allied armies was practically already
+in Napoleon’s hands; and his operations had been largely successful,
+if they had not led to a second Jena, as he had reason to expect a few
+hours before. Such had been the result of his fine strategy, although
+that result had not been complete; and it should be borne in mind that
+the allied armies were not far from double his own in numbers.
+
+The allied generals, obliged, through the defeat of Ligny, to abandon
+their proper line of junction--the great road between Nivelles
+and Namur--were now thrown back into the country behind it, the
+thick-wooded and marshy valley of the Dyle, very difficult for the
+passage of armies. The real student of war will not doubt as to what
+their movements ought to have been; they should either have united
+their forces at once, a few miles behind Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+or they should have retreated two marches away to Brussels, where,
+having an overwhelming superiority of strength, they might have derided
+Napoleon’s efforts. They took, however, an intermediate course--a half
+measure often disastrous in war; Blücher fell back some twenty miles
+to Wavre, the Duke fell back from Quatre Bras to Waterloo, and holding
+these positions they meant to join hands and accept, if offered, a
+great battle.
+
+The idolaters of success, supposed to cover everything, have praised
+this as scientific strategy, but it was bad strategy, and dangerous
+in the extreme. Wavre is considerably farther from Waterloo than
+Sombreffe is from Quatre Bras; what is more important, a most intricate
+country divides Wavre from Waterloo, and in this operation Blücher and
+Wellington were playing into the hands of their renowned adversary.
+Napoleon was given three alternatives, each big with the promise
+of immense success. He might call on his victorious army to make a
+forced march, might fall either on Blücher or Wellington, and defeat
+either within a few hours, before Wavre or Waterloo were reached; or
+collecting together all his forces, he might attack Blücher at Wavre,
+or the Duke at Waterloo, before either could join the other; or, in
+truer accordance with the principles of the art, he might restrain
+Blücher, with a retarding force, sent quickly from Ligny to hold him
+in check, and might attack Wellington with the mass of his army--the
+favourite manœuvre, in which he has had no rival--and in any of these
+cases he must have triumphed, over-matched as he was by his foes in
+numbers. The double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo was therefore a
+thoroughly false movement; and the General of Rivoli would have made it
+fatal. But the General of Rivoli, full of genius as ever, had lost the
+iron strength of twenty years before. Napoleon returned after Ligny,
+to Fleurus, ill; he went to sleep and could not see his staff, and
+this illness, at a crisis in the campaign, saved the Allies, and had
+momentous results.
+
+During the night of the 16th and the morning of the 17th, the French
+army remained motionless. Soult and Ney literally did nothing, no
+preparations for marching were made; the Emperor sent no orders from
+Fleurus; and, worst of all, Grouchy given the command of the right on
+the 16th, made no real effort to reconnoitre the Prussians, and to find
+out where they had gone. Disease, in fact, had weakened the energy of
+the chief; his lieutenants, fashioned to servitude, let things drift,
+and the opportunity of the 16th, given on the 17th once more, was lost
+never again to return. Napoleon was back at Ligny in the forenoon of
+the 17th; a letter of Soult, the Chief of the Staff, proves that his
+first intention was to halt for the day, for he believed that the
+Prussians, completely routed, were falling back on their base, towards
+the Meuse, and there would be time, he thought, to turn against and
+defeat Wellington. On learning, however, from Ney, on the left, that
+parts of the Duke’s forces were still at Quatre Bras, he resolved to
+advance, and try to destroy them; and he made preparations, now very
+late, for a combined movement against the Allies. He divided his army
+into two groups; at the head of the first, about 72,000 men, he meant
+to attack Wellington and bring him to bay; he gave Grouchy the second,
+about 34,000 strong, and he informed the Marshal that his mission was
+to pursue Blücher and to keep him in sight, and to interpose between
+Blücher and Wellington who, the Emperor added, was to be assailed
+should he stand near the neighbouring forest of Soignies.
+
+Napoleon broke up from Ligny early in the afternoon; he was soon joined
+by Ney at Quatre Bras, and he endeavoured to harass the rearguard of
+the Duke, who by this time had his main force at Waterloo. The pursuit,
+however, had no results--it was too late, in fact, to be of use--and
+an extraordinary tempest of rain had broken over the country, and all
+but stopped marching. Before night fell, the heads of the French army
+had reached the low hills that overlook Waterloo, and a large army was
+evidently in position before them. Napoleon halted, hopeful of a great
+coming battle; but some hours before he sent directions to Grouchy, on
+his right, which require attention. Before leaving Ligny the Emperor,
+we have seen, believed that Blücher was making for his base, and had
+spoken to Grouchy in that sense; but on his way from Ligny to Quatre
+Bras he was made aware that a large Prussian force had been seen on
+the Orneau, near Gembloux. He immediately sent new orders to Grouchy,
+and directed him to advance on Gembloux, and, of course, generally to
+comply with his first orders. Grouchy, who had broken up from Ligny
+late, set off for Gembloux in the afternoon; and though Blücher had
+had a long start, and Gembloux was by no means the best position to
+be taken for an advance on Wavre, still the Emperor’s directions
+were correct enough to have enabled a bold and capable chief to have
+fulfilled his all-important mission, to have attained Blücher and
+kept him off from Wellington. Grouchy reached Gembloux rather late at
+night--the state of the roads and the weather excuse him--and he can
+hardly be blamed, though the fact is strange, that even at this time he
+was not informed with perfect accuracy about the Prussian movements.
+Within a short time, however, he had ascertained that a great part
+of Blücher’s army had made for Wavre; another part, he was told, was
+marching on Perwez, towards the Meuse. He communicated this important
+news to the Emperor, and he expressly added, “that he would advance
+on Wavre, should the mass of the Prussians go that way, in order to
+separate Blücher from Wellington,” proving that he perfectly understood
+his mission.
+
+This intelligence--received during the night of the 17th--was
+calculated to make Napoleon certain, especially as it was his own idea,
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army; he thought only of
+fighting Wellington, and he made preparations to attack on the morrow.
+The Prussian veteran, however, who more than once had baffled the
+Emperor by his audacious movements, had resolved, whatever the risk, to
+advance on Waterloo. He had rallied his whole army around Wavre, his
+first corps, that of Bülow, had come into line, and he had given his
+word to the Duke, who on the faith of the pledge was in position to
+fight at Waterloo, that “the whole Prussian army would be on the field
+by the early forenoon of the 18th of June.” Blücher nobly endeavoured
+to fulfil his promise. Bülow broke up from Wavre at daybreak on the
+18th, but the obstacles he met were formidable in the extreme; he was
+still far from Wellington’s lines at noon, and his three colleagues,
+Ziethen, Pirch and Thielmann, were still close to Wavre, nearly a march
+distant, and were on a perilous flank march, in long straggling
+columns.
+
+Meanwhile Grouchy had left Gembloux for Wavre, to follow up the
+enemy--he had now ascertained that all Blücher’s army had gathered
+round the place the night before--but his operations were simply
+wretched. He knew that Napoleon meant to fight Wellington, should
+Wellington make a stand at Soignies; he knew that he was detached
+to hold Blücher in check, and to keep him completely apart from
+Wellington; he knew that the Prussians had been round Wavre, and had
+informed his master, in part, of the fact; he knew that Wavre was a
+march from Soignies and Waterloo, and he knew that at Gembloux he
+was some fourteen miles from Wavre. Knowing all this, he should have
+left Gembloux at the first peep of dawn on the 18th of June, and have
+advanced as quickly as possible; and common sense should have taught
+him so to make for Wavre as to get across the Dyle, in order to draw
+near Napoleon and to cut off Blücher on his way to Wellington, for
+probably Blücher was making the attempt. He took exactly the opposite
+course; he left Gembloux many hours too late; his movement on Wavre was
+pitiably slow, and he made for Wavre, not over the Dyle, which would
+have soon placed him on the flank of Blücher, but along the stream,
+striking Blücher, if reached, in the rear, and pushing him, so to
+speak, on Wellington. This miserable generalship led to what followed;
+and Grouchy was so obstinate, and so blind to fact, that when he heard
+the far-distant thunder of Waterloo, he refused to follow the sagacious
+advice of Gérard and to march, at the eleventh hour, towards the flank
+of the enemy!
+
+While these operations, big with a great future, had been taking place
+on Napoleon’s right, the Emperor had attacked Wellington, who, with
+faith in his colleague, awaited his foe in a long-studied position.
+Napoleon had intended to attack early, but the state of the roads
+and the weather made an attack hazardous, and he delayed some hours,
+greatly to the Duke’s advantage. The Emperor’s general plan--the last
+exhibition of his genius in the sphere of higher tactics--was to turn
+Wellington’s left and to force his centre, making a demonstration to
+engage his right; his adversary’s was to hold his ground until the
+arrival of Blücher would make success certain. The grand attack on
+the British left and centre failed, partly owing to the excellence
+of the British troops, and partly to the density and cumbrousness of
+the French columns; and the feint on Wellington’s right had no more
+success, and led to terrible waste of blood.
+
+By this time Napoleon had learned that Bülow was gathering on his flank
+with 30,000 men, but he hoped this was a stray column which Grouchy
+might arrest and perhaps destroy, and he turned fiercely against the
+centre of his foe, abandoning the effort against the British left,
+which, with Bülow at hand, would have been too hazardous. This attack
+was successful to some extent; La Haye Sainte, a fortified post, was
+captured. This made a gap in Wellington’s defence, and Napoleon,
+confident that victory was at hand, launched a great mass of cavalry
+against the Duke’s centre, intending to support the movement with the
+Imperial Guard. But at this crisis of the battle Blücher was near.
+Despising wounds, defeat, and days of fatigue, he ordered Bülow to fall
+on the Emperor’s flank. This prevented the attack the Guard was to
+make, and though the French horsemen made heroic exertions, the British
+and German infantry “stood rooted in the earth”; and the cavalry,
+recklessly squandered by Ney but not supported by foot, were at last
+beaten.
+
+During all this time, Bülow had been striking Napoleon’s right; but at
+about 7 this attack seemed spent. The French still occupied the thin
+red line of Wellington, the artillery of Grouchy was heard at Wavre--a
+pledge that he was keeping the Prussians back--and victory for France
+seemed yet possible. Napoleon formed the Guard into two great columns,
+but Wellington had admirably strengthened his centre; the first column
+was fairly beaten, and the second, kept in reserve, could give it no
+aid. A sudden change now came over the battle; parts of the corps
+of Ziethen and Pirch appeared on the field; the attack of Bülow was
+fiercely renewed; British squadrons, let loose, swept over the plain;
+and the Duke, seeing the day was won, ordered a general advance of his
+worn-out army. The French, routed and surrounded, had soon no army, and
+night closed on a scene of carnage and ruin, the presage of Napoleon’s
+second fall.
+
+Napoleon’s plan of attack on his last field was perfect, but his
+tactics at Waterloo show many errors. He was certainly in difficulties
+after the flank attack of Bülow, but he allowed his troops to be wasted
+in the feint on our right; he made a premature use of his noble
+cavalry, and he perhaps missed an opportunity to strike with the Guard
+before Bülow’s diversion had become serious. For these mistakes he must
+be held responsible, though he was badly seconded by his lieutenants,
+especially by Ney--desperate, and stung by conscience--but all this was
+because, as is now well known,[23] he was ill and worn out on the 18th
+of June. The Duke, on the other hand, was the soul of the defence. He
+made, indeed, a grave strategic mistake in leaving a large detachment
+far off on his right, but his conduct of the battle was above praise;
+and though he must have lost Waterloo had not the Prussians come up,
+still the defeat would not have been the rout to which Napoleon had
+looked with confidence.
+
+Nevertheless, the result of Waterloo flowed from combinations outside
+the field. It was caused by the junction of part of Blücher’s army with
+Wellington; and the question for the student of war is, ought this
+junction to have been prevented by Grouchy, detached by the Emperor to
+make it impossible? The answer must largely depend on conjecture; but
+I, for one, can have few doubts. Had Grouchy left Gembloux at daybreak
+on the 18th, and, crossing the Dyle, made for Blücher’s flank, he would
+have surprised the Prussian army in divided columns on a flank march of
+extreme peril; and, giving Blücher credit for his splendid energy, I
+am convinced he would have paused to confront his enemy, and this must
+have prevented him reaching Wellington. The same result would have,
+perhaps, followed, and this is Napoleon’s deliberate view[24]--not
+impartial, perhaps, but not to be dismissed--had Grouchy simply marched
+on Wavre in time, and fastened upon the rear of Blücher. The Emperor
+insists that, even in this case, not a Prussian division would have
+attained Waterloo. The arguments urged against these conclusions
+disregard the peril of the march from Wavre, and the very events of
+the day confute them. Grouchy, who should have been near Wavre at 11
+A.M., did not reach it until 4 P.M., and yet his apparition stopped
+the Prussian army; Ziethen and Pirch were delayed, Thielmann was left
+at Wavre, and Blücher brought only 45,000 men, out of 90,000, to the
+field of Waterloo, and that too only between 4 A.M. and 8 P.M. In view
+of this fact, I can draw but one inference, and in this controversy all
+that has been written by Charras, and authors of his school, seems to
+me worthless.
+
+  [Illustration: NEY AT WATERLOO.]
+
+A word on this memorable campaign, as a whole, and as to the lessons
+it really teaches. Napoleon’s first operations were a masterpiece of
+war; and these, and the grave strategic faults of the Allies--Blücher
+ran into the lion’s mouth, the Duke did not know how sudden was his
+spring--exposed both to alarming danger, and ought to have secured the
+Emperor a decisive victory. The errors, however, of Ney and D’Erlon
+saved Blücher at Ligny from utter ruin, and Napoleon’s over caution as
+regards D’Erlon--though this is theory after the event--was certainly
+unfortunate to the interests of France. The double retreat at Wavre
+and Waterloo--another palpable strategic fault--gave Napoleon a second
+great opportunity. No doubt can exist for those who understand his
+career, that he would have seized it early on the 17th had he been
+the chief of a few years before,[25] but he was no longer equal to
+prolonged fatigue, and the negligence of his lieutenants and his
+slumber at Fleurus lost him a chance not again afforded by fortune.
+His prospects were not equally good on the 18th; he calculated on
+destroying Wellington, but this, I believe, was beyond his powers, and
+his delays, and the direction given to Grouchy and his wing, made it
+possible for Blücher to join Wellington, a possibility that might have
+been wholly excluded. Nevertheless, he ought to have gained Waterloo.
+The arrangement of Grouchy’s force was sufficiently correct to have
+enabled Grouchy to stop Blücher, and though the Emperor made more than
+one mistake--and supreme genius is not omniscience--we still see in
+this campaign the matchless strategist, great as ever in intellect,
+but no longer equal, through physical weakness, to work out his
+conceptions. Yet when this has been said, justice should be done to the
+allied chiefs; and they deserved their triumph. Both, no doubt, made
+serious strategic errors; from first to last they proved themselves
+to be, strategically, unfit to cope with Napoleon, but both exhibited
+as soldiers the finest qualities. Blücher’s conduct in rallying his
+defeated army, and in attempting the march on Waterloo, shows energy
+of the highest order. Wellington’s constancy and tactical skill at
+Waterloo are admirable specimens of his genius in defence. The test of
+the merits of the two commanders is to compare their conduct with what
+would have been the conduct of any other chief of the Coalition opposed
+to Napoleon; Schwartzenburg would not have risked the march from Wavre,
+the Archduke Charles would have fallen back from Waterloo when he found
+that the promised support was late, and in either event the Emperor
+would have won the battle. Two subordinate causes of the issue of the
+campaign cannot, in addition, be passed over. Napoleon’s army was too
+small; 128,000 men could, with difficulty, be opposed to 224,000, and
+this led to a distribution of his force--his wings not being well
+connected with a weak centre--which partly explains his lieutenants’
+faults, if it does not afford an excuse for them. The Prussian army,
+besides, was a different army from that which had succumbed at Jena.
+Napoleon refused to see the distinction; he would not believe--as, in
+all instances, disregarding national and popular feeling--that it could
+rally after Ligny, and draw near Wellington, and this had something
+to do with his overthrow, though, I repeat, Blücher could not have
+succeeded had Grouchy been a capable chief.
+
+I shall not dwell on the closing scenes of a most strange and eventful
+history. Napoleon at St. Helena realised the legend of the fabled
+Prometheus; Genius, in conflict with Supreme Fact, was chained to a
+rock, and held down by Force, and humanity turns away from the agony.
+Yet impartial history will truly say that it was just to deprive
+the great troubler of the world of liberty, and the animosities and
+fears of the time account for, if they do not excuse, the indignities
+suffered by the fallen Emperor. The student of war will turn with
+gratitude to the rich fruits of Napoleon’s exile, his writings on
+the art, in thought and style superior to all productions of the
+kind, and those who imagine that German genius has created the latest
+developments of war will be surprised to learn that if we omit what
+belongs to purely material inventions, it has been anticipated at every
+point by Napoleon.
+
+My estimate of this extraordinary man can be easily gathered from what
+I have written. Nature gave her prodigy an imagination such as she gave
+to Dante and Milton; she added a power of calculation and thought, such
+as she bestowed on Newton and Laplace; she contributed a superabundant
+and practical energy, embracing alike what was great and small, such as
+scarcely ever has been seen in man, and she conferred craft, dexterity,
+readiness, and firmness of character in a most ample measure. Gifts
+such as these would have made Napoleon one of the greatest of generals
+in any age; but he fell on a time when the progress of husbandry and
+facilities of locomotion, greatly increased, had created new conditions
+for the military art; and when, too, Revolution in France had given a
+powerful impulse to the human mind, and had made it singularly bold
+and aspiring. Genius and circumstance thus concurred to place Napoleon
+almost at once at the head of all warriors of modern times; and for
+years it seemed, as if Fortune, whatever he did in the field, assured
+him victory. He was unrivalled, from the first, as a strategist; the
+plans of his early campaigns are marvels of genius as distinctive as
+those of Shakspeare or Raphael; but though imagination is their most
+striking feature, this as yet, as a rule, is controlled by judgment,
+and astonishing as they are, they are thoroughly practical. The
+peculiar excellence of these prodigies of art is the mastery of the
+theatre of war, and Napoleon’s power in making it answer his ends;
+the campaign on the Adige, that which led to Marengo, and that of
+Austerlitz are perhaps the finest specimens of this supreme merit.
+Conceptions, however, in war are useless unless skilful execution
+follows; and Napoleon’s execution of his strategic projects was more
+wonderful than the projects themselves. In these operations he, of
+course, adhered to the methods of his great predecessors, for these
+were in accord with the nature of things, and carried out principles
+always true; for example, like every real strategist, his constant
+object was to bring superior force to the decisive point, and so
+to baffle and defeat the enemy; and, with these ends in view, like
+Turenne, he struck repeatedly at the communications of his foe, and
+endeavoured to gain his flank or rear; or, throwing himself between
+divided enemies, attacked them in detail, and beat them down in
+succession. But all this he did with an originality of design, with a
+force of calculation, and, above all perhaps, with a power of stratagem
+unequalled by Turenne or by any commander of modern times.
+
+Nothing since the days of Hannibal can be compared to the descent
+from the Alps, which conquered Italy, and to the march from the
+Channel to the Danube, which destroyed a whole army by manœuvres,
+and threw the gates of distant Vienna open. These marvels of war, it
+must be borne in mind, however, were due not to Napoleon alone; they
+were to be attributed, in a great degree, to circumstance and to his
+perfect appreciation of it. From the new conditions made possible in
+war, from the growth of agriculture and the multiplication of roads,
+armies could subsist, in every fertile country, for the most part,
+on resources on the spot, and could therefore dispense, to a certain
+extent, with _impedimenta_ necessary before; they could also march
+on a variety of lines with a rapidity never before possible; and the
+art, so to speak, was given wings, and could take a flight into a new
+sphere. First of the men of his time, Napoleon grasped these facts;
+his armies living on the tracts they passed through, and making use
+of every available road that was compatible with their safety on the
+march, moved, not without magazines, indeed, nor without a solid base
+and all kinds of supplies, but with a celerity never before known; and
+the young chief out-manœuvred and terrified generals accustomed only
+to the methods of the past. This was one of the secrets of Napoleon’s
+early success; his genius fell in with and made the most of the new
+conditions of the art of war, and for a long time he came, he saw, and
+he conquered. Yet what had been a talisman might prove a peril, should
+these conditions happen to fail; and history was to illustrate this by
+most striking examples.
+
+Napoleon was thus the first of strategists; he stands supreme, like
+a Himalayan peak; there is nothing equal to him in this sphere of
+the art. He has been surpassed in the lesser tactics; he never was a
+regimental leader; he commanded in chief at too early an age to have
+had practical experience of the three arms; he perhaps underrated the
+strength of infantry, and rather exaggerated the force of cavalry,
+and the only arm he thoroughly understood was artillery. But in the
+province of the higher tactics, where strategy and tactics blend with
+each other, his pre-eminence nearly, if not quite, reappears. He
+detected the decisive point on a field of battle, and the true way to
+cope with an enemy, almost as surely as on a great field of manœuvre;
+but faults I shall notice were here sometimes seen, and I do not think
+he excelled Marlborough, a tactician of the very first order. As a
+military administrator he was, perhaps, unrivalled. His industry, his
+grasp of facts in the mass, and his extraordinary mastery of details
+were marvellous; and though the Grand Army had many defects, for it was
+the hasty creation of an age of war, still it was the best army that
+had been seen since the Legions; and, unlike the conscript armies of
+our age, it was subjected to trials they have never endured. Napoleon’s
+_Correspondence_ can alone give us a notion of his administrative
+powers; and their results are most conspicuous in his immense
+preparations for the campaign of 1807, for the passage of the Danube in
+1809, for the invasion of Russia in 1812; and for the restoration of
+the military strength of France in 1813 and 1815.
+
+No wonder, then, that this prodigious genius, backed by favouring
+circumstances, and the French Revolution, should have transformed the
+art, to a great extent, and have given it an aspect of new grandeur.
+Turenne did great things between the Scheldt and the Inn; Marlborough
+did great things between the Meuse and the Danube; Frederick did great
+things on the Elbe and the Oder; but what were these achievements,
+splendid as they are, compared to Napoleon’s march of conquest? He
+moves from the Var to the Po and the Adige, strikes down the power of
+the House of Hapsburg, and dictates peace within sight of Vienna. He
+issues from Switzerland across the Alps, envelops his enemy and gains
+Italy; and had he had a lieutenant equal to himself, he would have
+destroyed the Austrian armies in Swabia in 1800. He imprisons Mack in
+1805, enters Vienna with an army encamped, a few weeks before, within
+sight of our coasts, and annihilates for a time the military power of
+Austria and Russia on the great day of Austerlitz, the most perfect
+battle of the nineteenth century. The tale is the same the following
+year; the operations are less striking, but Jena overwhelms the army
+of Frederick, and a few days of well-planned manœuvres makes Napoleon
+master of the Prussian monarchy.
+
+His unbroken success comes here to an end; but even in his campaigns
+of chequered fortunes, nay of disasters, we see the same grandeur,
+marred as it often is, of conception and action. He defies Nature, and
+receives her warnings in Poland; he narrowly escapes defeat at Eylau,
+but his genius and will re-establish his power, and he strikes the
+Czar down on the verge of old Europe. He defies national right and
+feeling in Spain and Portugal, and meets reverses justly deserved;
+but he hastens across the Somo Sierra to Madrid, and for the time he
+subdues the Peninsula. When called back to France by the sound of war
+on the Danube, he rectifies errors made in his absence by operations
+of consummate skill; he once more reaches and conquers Vienna, and
+having challenged Fortune at Aspern and Essling, he answers her rebuff
+by a prodigious effort of energy and perseverance at Lobau, and he
+ultimately triumphs on the field of Wagram.
+
+The Nemesis of power attains him at last; his army is engulfed in the
+snows of Russia, beyond the confines of the Western World, and yet
+his movements are admirably designed, and his capacity was, perhaps,
+never more conspicuous than at the Beresina. He reorganizes his forces
+in 1813, with a rapidity and completeness that confound the Allies;
+and though he loses at last his hold on Germany, he wins four great
+battles, is able to make the issue of the contest doubtful for months,
+and succumbs at Leipsic perhaps through defection only.
+
+In the campaign of 1814 he aims at too much, yet his genius shines out
+with such malignant splendour that his enemies shrink in terror from
+it; he is victorious over and over again, and he is only overwhelmed
+because France and Paris will not support his Empire. In 1815 he
+sinks at last, through the effects of a crushing military reverse;
+yet even in this campaign, spite of the faults of lieutenants and the
+determination and energy of foes, the presence of the great master is
+seen everywhere; and he only just misses splendid success.
+
+Humanity, however, is never perfect, and there were many flaws in
+this marvellous nature. The intensity of his imagination occasionally
+mastered the prudence and calculating powers of Napoleon; we see this
+even in his early years, in his project to march from the Nile to
+the Indus, in his scheme of a descent on our coasts in the face of
+immensely superior fleets; and we see it more clearly in his later
+campaigns, in the advance from Smolensk into the depths of Muscovy, in
+the attempt to reconquer the continent in 1813, in the resolution to
+strike for the whole Empire, and not to recall all his forces to the
+decisive point on the theatre in 1814. This dangerous quality sometimes
+marred the strategy of Napoleon, and marked it with extravagance. He
+was not so safe a strategist as Turenne, and his strategic reverses
+were as great as his triumphs. Over confidence, too, and extreme
+arrogance, combined with this excess of imaginative force, form
+distinctive faults of Napoleon in war. We see them, even from the
+first, in the campaigns of Italy; they appear plainly in his march on
+Marengo, and nearly caused him to lose the battle; they are visible in
+his advance on Austerlitz; they are conspicuous in his campaigns in
+Poland; they largely contributed to the ruin of 1812; they prevented
+him from saving his army at Leipsic; they lured him on to his fall in
+1814; they are exhibited in 1815, in the false conviction that Blücher,
+after Ligny, was utterly routed, and could not rally his shattered army.
+
+To this fault must be added another, a kind of passionate desire to
+crush an enemy, whatever the risk, on the field of battle. Napoleon
+showed this at Caldiero in 1796; perhaps at Eylau in 1807, distinctly
+in 1809 at Aspern and Essling; and most remarkably, and with the
+worst results, at La Rothière, Craonne, Laon, and Arcis in 1814.
+This even lessens his excellence as a tactician. With his marvellous
+insight, in comprehending the ground and the weak points of a foe, he
+sometimes attacked imprudently, and deserved defeat. He had not the
+calm intelligence of Marlborough on the field, and here he is certainly
+less great than Marlborough. Napoleon, too, had another defect, of a
+moral kind, not to be overlooked; no one could hold a prouder or a
+more daring attitude, no one knew better the power of the renown of
+arms, but he did not confront misfortune, when hope seemed lost, with
+the indomitable constancy of some warriors. He was unequal to himself
+during the retreat from Russia--he ought not, I think, to have quitted
+his army; he tried to kill himself in 1814; and in this respect he
+falls below Frederick, who, in all others, is not to be compared to him.
+
+Yet the most marked of his failures and shortcomings as a leader in
+war have yet to be noticed. He thoroughly understood the material
+conditions which made his grand offensive strategy possible. Yet he
+disregarded the fact when these largely failed; he endeavoured to make
+the same daring movements in barren Poland as in fertile Italy, in the
+swamps and forests of Russia as in the plains of Germany; and though
+he laboured to avert the resulting dangers, he could do so only in a
+slight degree, and he failed when nature began to fail him.
+
+Napoleon, too, had this special fault; he had many of the instincts
+of the old _régime_; he simply abhorred Jacobinism, and all
+its doings; he believed in force only as the means of ruling; and
+throughout his career he had a rooted dislike and contempt of all
+popular movements and feelings. This tendency led him into capital
+errors, even from a purely military point of view; he believed that
+he could conquer England by a descent; he scorned the national rising
+in Spain, though it destroyed the flower of his best armies; he would
+not lift a hand to liberate Poland, though this must have disabled
+the Czar; he would not even at Moscow set the serfs free; he laughed
+at German and Russian patriotism, and found the results of his scoffs
+at Leipsic; he called the liberal movement of France at the close
+of his reign, “metaphysical nonsense and visionary stuff,” and this
+contributed to his fall in 1814.
+
+In politics in the highest sense, and even in the larger affairs
+of State, Napoleon did not attain supreme greatness. In this noble
+province of wisdom and conduct, his genius was not in its true sphere,
+the force of his intellect was out of its place; he followed false
+lights, and fell into the gravest errors. His ideas of politics were
+derived from the ambitious traditions of the old Monarchy, and from
+the frightful scenes of the French Revolution, and his conception of
+ruling was to extend the domination of France over a subject Continent,
+and to keep down anarchy at home by despotic power, magnificent,
+even national, but sternly repressive. His capacity, his craft, his
+untiring energy were tasked to the utmost to compass these ends. The
+Empire bestrode three-fourths of Europe; it extinguished Jacobinism
+for some years in France, it nursed her in dreams of warlike glory, it
+established order, prosperity, and material grandeur. Yet this vast
+fabric of conquest and force, which, like the Satanic temple of the
+poet’s vision, “rose like an exhalation,” as quickly vanished. The
+Empire, founded on international wrong, and depending for its existence
+on the enforced submission of great races conquered, but spurning the
+yoke, was a defiance to Law divine and human; it was a contradiction to
+the nature of things; and the methods by which its author upheld it,
+harsh tyranny, statecraft, and the Continental system, were assurances
+of his speedy overthrow.
+
+As for Napoleon’s system of domestic government, splendid as it
+seemed, and as it was for a time, it had no stability and could not
+endure; it rested on the mere rule of the sword; it had no solid
+support in old institutions, in settled traditions, in powerful
+orders of men; it was a despotism controlling a demoralised people,
+in which revolution had destroyed faith and loyalty. The character,
+too, of this rule was bad; the execution of the Duc D’Enghien, and
+many similar deeds of blood, were crimes that shocked the conscience
+of mankind. Napoleon’s Bodies of State, his spy system, his organized
+informers, his repression of thought, remind us of the Rome of the
+later Cæsars; and, curiously enough, he hated Tacitus, the immortal
+censor of Imperial tyranny. Yet the Empire was not a mere scheme of
+oppression. It had a grand and beneficent side; it bears the marks of
+the administrative gifts and capacity of its great creator; it largely
+civilized while it subdued; it saved France from the vile rule of
+demagogues; it gave her all that is solid in her social fabric, and the
+Codes will outlive Marengo and Jena.
+
+A word on Napoleon in his tent and his camp, the natural home of this
+mighty spirit. The great captain was, in the main, a kind master to
+submissive lieutenants; he lavished wealth and honours on his generals
+and marshals; he was usually good-natured to these docile servitors.
+But his personality was so overpowering that he made his subordinates
+mere pawns on the board; he deprived them of self-reliance and freedom,
+and as his nature was not magnanimous, he repeatedly blamed them for
+his own errors. The results were injurious to him as a chief. Few of
+his marshals were fit for independent command; they had little power of
+initiative or true capacity, and they indemnified themselves for his
+rebukes and gibes by squabbling, and often thwarting each other, as was
+notably seen in Spain and Portugal. It was otherwise with the mass of
+the army; here Napoleon’s influence was immense for good. He obtained
+efforts from French soldiers, which no other chief has ever obtained;
+his presence among them it has been said, was equal to 40,000 men; he
+was prodigal of their blood, and set at nought their sufferings, if any
+object was to be attained; but he was careful of their wants, knew how
+to win their hearts, and was adored with a truly idolatrous passion.
+
+As has been seen in the case of other great men, the inner life of
+Napoleon had repulsive features; the figure loses majesty, when
+undraped of its trappings. He had been brought up in an age of
+wickedness, and Napoleon could lie, cheat, and forge with complete
+indifference, if anything was to be gained by it. His manner and
+voice could charm and fascinate, but his imperious nature made him
+rude and brusque; he could scold and fly into fits of temper; “his
+very caresses,” it has been said, “were feline”; he could be coarsely
+familiar and suddenly savage. In his general bearing there was a want
+of repose, of true self-respect, of natural dignity. In all these
+respects, as in the weightier matters which pertain to the master art
+of Empire, Napoleon falls far behind Cæsar through unquestionably the
+superior of Cæsar in war.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                              WELLINGTON.
+
+
+Arthur Wellesley was born in 1769, a few weeks before the birth of
+Napoleon. His family belonged to “the English in Ireland”--a happy
+expression of Mr. Froude; and the future soldier and statesman in his
+great career displayed many of the distinctive qualities of a ruling
+caste which, though of late decried by traders in faction for selfish
+purposes, has nevertheless given more than a due proportion of eminent
+men to the service of England. The ancient seat of the Wellesleys has
+been long a ruin; the traditions of Meath yield few records concerning
+a House which produced two of the most illustrious names in our
+eventful history, and all that is really known about the first years
+of Arthur is that he was a sickly child, overlooked by his parents.
+At Eton the boy showed none of the brilliancy of his elder brother
+Richard, a precocious genius; he was unnoticed at the military school
+of Angers, and no one who saw the two youths in these years would have
+thought that the fame of “the Wellesley of Assaye” would eclipse that
+of “the Wellesley of Mysore.”
+
+  [Illustration: WELLINGTON.]
+
+Arthur obtained his first commission in 1787; passed rapidly
+through the intermediate grades, after the bad fashion of that age
+of privilege, and was placed, through interest, at the head of the
+Thirty-third, just as the Great War with France had begun. During the
+intervening period he had held a seat for the borough of Trim in the
+Irish Parliament, and had been on the staff of the Lord Lieutenant
+Camden; and some faint memories of his life in those days have survived
+down to the present time. Passing by idle gossip, the young member
+spoke on the Catholic Relief Bill of 1798; the speech, though dry and
+blunt, goes straight to the point, and is characteristic in many ways;
+and an old house on the quays of Dublin which commands the Liffey and
+the adjoining streets, and which, it is said, he urged the Government
+to buy, remains to this day to prove that Wellington had in early youth
+a true military eye. It is impossible to doubt that, even in these
+years, Arthur had studied and read a great deal, and was well-versed
+in his professional work. He had acquired a command of the English
+and French tongues which made him the master of a vigorous style, not
+brilliant or striking, but clear and solid; his writings nearly of
+this date give proof of thorough information on many subjects, and of
+singularly ripe and disciplined thought; and from the first moment that
+he obtained a regiment, he made his mark as a most promising officer.
+Like Turenne, Wellesley addressed himself with untiring industry to
+the care of his men; he enforced discipline with a steady hand, and
+showed that he had the faculty of command; and, like Turenne, he was
+soon able to boast that his corps was well-ordered and very efficient.
+The occasion quickly came when the young colonel was to show that he
+possessed qualities above those of the common herd of men.
+
+In the unfortunate campaign of 1794 the Thirty-third formed part of
+the British army, which, under the command of the Duke of York, had
+been separated from the main allied force retreating on a divergent
+line to the Meuse, and which, hardly pressed by the Republican levies,
+advancing upon the flood-tide of victory, was endeavouring to make its
+way into Holland. Wellesley distinguished himself in several rearguard
+actions, displaying from the first the skill in defence, the resource
+in danger, and the perfect self-reliance, which were peculiar gifts of
+the future chief; and it is significant that he was chosen to cover the
+retreat, a task he performed with marked ability. These experiences
+made a profound impression on a remarkably penetrating and sagacious
+mind; they seem to have led him to observe carefully, and to form an
+admirably just estimate of what he called “the new methods” of French
+warfare, and of what was good and defective in them; they enabled him
+to realise the immense abuses then prevalent in the Continental armies,
+and to a considerable extent in our own; and, unquestionably, they
+were of the greatest use as a preparation for the Peninsular War. It
+is remarkable that, after this first essay in arms, most honourable
+as it had been to him, Wellesley tried to give up a military career,
+and actually applied for a post in the Civil Service; the reason he
+assigned was that he saw little chance of advancement through merit
+in the British army, to the shortcomings of which he had become fully
+alive.
+
+Fate happily disregarded Wellesley’s prayers; and having escaped exile
+to the West Indies, he was sent off to Calcutta in 1797. A short time
+afterwards, his brother Richard, the Marquis Wellesley of a later day,
+arrived in India as Governor-General, and the real career of Arthur
+may be said to have opened. Much of his correspondence of this period
+remains, and it bears the marks of the prudent forethought, of the
+clear insight into men and things, and, above all, of the moderation of
+view, which distinguished Wellington when at the summit of fame. He was
+often consulted by the Governor-General, and it is interesting to note
+how the ambitious statesman,[26] a more brilliant but a less scrupulous
+man, was more than once restrained by the calm-minded soldier. Arthur
+Wellesley’s judgments on Indian affairs were such as Marcus Aurelius
+might have made had he been a Pro-consul in a province of Rome; he was
+the constant advocate of peace with honour, of keeping the strictest
+faith with the Princes of Hindustan, of no undue extension of our
+growing Empire; and yet he thoroughly understood the true nature of
+that wonderful domination which, in spite of itself, was winning its
+way to supremacy in the East, in virtue partly of its own force, and
+in part of the decay of all powers around it, and of the jealousies
+and discords of its numerous foes. Another characteristic of these
+papers is this: they show that the writer had admirable views on
+military and civil administration alike; and the remarks on the whole
+system of our Indian Government, which repeatedly occur, are profound
+and striking. Peace in India at this time had become impossible; the
+inglorious satrapy of Sir John Shore had only encouraged the hopes of
+our enemies; and the news of Napoleon’s descent on Egypt, and of his
+avowed project to march to the Indus, had animated Tippoo Sahib to
+endeavour to break the settlement made by Cornwallis in 1793. I shall
+not repeat the often-told tale of the dealings of “citizen Tippoo” with
+the Directory of France; of the assistance he received from French
+soldiers of fortune; of the siege of Seringapatam, and his death; this
+scarcely belongs to Wellesley’s career, who was a subordinate only in
+the attack on the fortress, and who, in these operations, happened to
+meet one of the few reverses he met through life. He was made Governor
+of Seringapatam, and afterwards of Mysore; and in this position he
+first gave proof not only of great administrative powers, but of that
+capacity for ruling alien races--for reconciling the ascendency of
+the English name with the obedience of people completely different--a
+gift partly due, perhaps,[27] to his Irish experience, and partly to
+firmness, patience, and a strict regard to justice, which stood him in
+good stead in Spain and Portugal. Ere long Wellesley, now raised to the
+rank of General, had an opportunity to show what he was in command.
+
+He had distinguished himself, when at Mysore, in putting down a
+Mahratta partisan who had ravaged the country with part of Tippoo’s
+forces; and when Scindiah and Holkar in 1803 made a determined
+effort to destroy our Empire, Wellesley was placed at the head of an
+independent army, and advanced from Madras into the Central Provinces.
+I pass over his forced march to Poona, considered in those days a
+remarkable feat, and his rapid operations in the Deccan; and I proceed
+at once to the really grand exploit which gave him, for the first time,
+a great name in India. Wellesley and Stevenson, in September 1803, were
+near the Kaitna, one of the Godavery’s streams, at the head of about
+16,000 men; Scindiah’s army, 50,000 strong, commanded and organized
+by French officers, was in camp at no great distance; and the two
+Englishmen agreed to attack it, on lines divided by a wide range of
+hills, strategy which, even in the case of Indian warfare, was too
+hazardous, and cannot be justified. Wellesley came up with the enemy
+at Assaye, his colleague being still far away; and, as more than once
+was seen in his career, his boldness on the ground and his quickness in
+action made more than amends for a strategic error. Disregarding all
+odds, like Clive at Plassey, he instantly fell on the masses before
+him; and though the issue of the battle was doubtful for a time,
+nothing could stand against his British foot and horsemen, and in a
+few hours he gained a complete victory. Stevenson arrived before long,
+and the campaign ended in the easy triumph of Wellesley’s arms, and
+in a large increase of our Indian dominions. Yet Assaye had, perhaps,
+other results; the strategy of Wellesley was, no doubt, faulty; and the
+battle probably gave Napoleon, who let nothing escape him in war, that
+first false impression of the “Sepoy general,” which caused him greatly
+to undervalue Wellington, with fatal consequences to France in the
+Peninsular contest.
+
+Wellington always looked back on India with pride; and nearly two
+generations after Assaye, when he had been for many years the first of
+living Englishmen, he actually proposed to set off for the East, when
+danger threatened our power on the Indus. An attentive observer will,
+indeed, perceive that his career in Hindustan foreshadows, in part, his
+more renowned career in Portugal and Spain; we see in both the same
+sober wisdom, the same administrative gifts, the same intrepid conduct,
+if Wellesley had no opportunity to display his skill in defence
+in Asiatic warfare. He was back in England a few weeks before the
+memorable events of Ulm and Trafalgar; but he was relegated at first to
+a civil post, and he became Chief Secretary for Ireland under the Duke
+of Richmond.
+
+The state of the island was very critical; the fires of 1798 were still
+smouldering, and the unpopularity of the Union strengthened the hands
+of the remains of the rebel Irish faction, which continually looked
+to France for aid, though, characteristically, scorned by Napoleon.
+Wellesley ruled after the fashion of those days: that is, he kept
+Celtic discontent down and threw bribes and places to greedy seekers of
+both, in order to extend ministerial influence; but he was perfectly
+aware of the many abuses then prevalent in the social condition of
+Ireland, and his warnings on the subject now appear prophetic. He was
+at the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807; was chosen by Lord Cathcart
+to arrange the terms of the surrender of the fleet with the Danish
+commander; and won golden opinions in this delicate task from brave
+enemies, whom he seems to have pitied. At last, in the summer of 1808,
+fortune found for him a place on the theatre of the great events
+which were stirring the Continent especially adapted to his peculiar
+genius, and launched him on the career which has made him famous. By
+this time Napoleon’s first invasion of Spain was ending in calamitous
+failure; the French armies were falling back at all points, and the
+British Government resolved to strike a blow at Junot and his corps,
+isolated in the midst of Portugal. Wellesley set off from Cork in the
+middle of July, at the head of about 10,000 men; and a remark he made
+to his friend Croker, when leaving, shows the character of the man
+and his strong nature. “The French armies,” he said, “have beaten all
+the Continent. They have, it seems, adopted a new system; they have
+out-manœuvred every enemy they have met, but I do not think they will
+outmanœuvre me, though, as a matter of course, I may be outnumbered.”
+
+Wellesley had landed at Mondego Bay in the first week of August; he was
+soon joined by about 5,000 men under General Spencer, from the south
+of Spain, and he ultimately had nearly 20,000 troops, by the addition
+of a British division and some Portuguese auxiliaries. The effect of
+the descent was to throw a superior hostile force on the communications
+of Junot’s army, and to place it in grave peril, for it was split in
+fractions; and Wellesley hoped to cut it off from Lisbon, and, should
+a detachment under Sir John Moore co-operate, even to intercept its
+retreat on Elvas, and so to cause its complete ruin. This able plan
+was frustrated by a series of accidents, though it led to a brilliant
+if not a decisive victory. Wellesley attacked and defeated a French
+division at Roliça on the 17th of August; and he was in turn assailed
+when on the march to Lisbon, at Vimeiro, not far from the coast, by
+Junot, who had assumed the offensive with from 14,000 to 16,000 men.
+The efforts of the French completely failed; and as their defeated
+columns drew off, Wellesley eagerly tried to follow up his success, and
+to force Junot against the Tagus, where, even without the aid of Moore,
+he might destroy the Marshal. This bold and brilliant stroke was,
+however, prevented by the interference of Sir Harry Burrard, a veteran
+of the old school, who had come from England, unluckily, to take the
+chief command, and the French army escaped unmolested. The Convention
+of Cintra soon followed; and though a storm of indignation arose at the
+time, because Junot and his troops were landed in France, it is but
+fair to remark that as Moore did not complete the operation laid out
+for him, the French would probably have made good their retreat. The
+one real opportunity was lost at Vimeiro, owing to a change of leaders
+at a critical moment.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre, of the
+
+  PENINSULAR WAR.]
+
+This short campaign brought out one of the gifts of Wellesley, capacity
+for bold offensive movements, not on a grand scale but within limits
+where readiness and vigour are of special value. His ability was
+recognized at the inquiry held in England, after the affair of Cintra;
+and he returned to Portugal in the spring of 1809 in supreme command of
+a mixed force of British and of Portuguese troops, perhaps altogether
+40,000 strong, which had been assembled for the defence of Lisbon,
+and had been organized by Generals Cradock and Beresford. Affairs in
+the Peninsula had, by this time, completely changed since the year
+before; and it was universally believed in Europe that the whole
+country would in a few months become a vassal province of the French
+Empire. Napoleon had invaded Spain for the second time, at the head of
+forces that nothing could resist; he had swept aside the rude levies
+that crossed his path. Saragossa had fallen; a British army, led by
+Moore, had narrowly escaped destruction; the national insurrection
+seemed, for the moment, crushed; and fully 300,000 veteran soldiers,
+commanded by skilful and successful chiefs, were gathered round the
+eagles for a march of conquest from the Ebro to the mouth of the Tagus.
+Yet Wellesley, with deep sagacity and grand strength of character,
+refused, in this state of things, to despair; and he drew elements
+of hope from the peculiar nature of a theatre of operations he had
+carefully scanned, and from the conditions of French invasion in Spain
+and Portugal. Portugal, open to England through the command of the sea,
+and scarcely accessible from the Spanish frontier, the only avenue open
+to the French armies, could, he insisted, be defended with success, by
+a small British force if well supported by the national militia and the
+Portuguese Government; and he relied greatly on the immense impediments
+which would necessarily beset the French in Spain, owing partly to
+the ubiquitous guerrilla risings, partly to the intricacies of a
+region of mountains and defiles, partly to the exposed state of the
+communications with France, assailable along a vast line, and partly
+to the extreme difficulty of concentrating and supporting large forces
+which, upon Napoleon’s principles of war, would be compelled to subsist
+in a poor and barren country on resources principally drawn from the
+spot. These admirable views, set out in detail before Wellesley reached
+Portugal in 1809, anticipate the course of the Peninsular war, and in a
+great measure foreshadow its event; and if they do not equal Napoleon’s
+conceptions in splendour, science, and imaginative force, they indicate
+real genius for defence and military wisdom of the highest order.
+Wellesley’s first operations were of happy augury, and realised his
+predictions with full completeness. Napoleon, before he set off for
+Wagram, had made preparations to invade Portugal on what he considered
+a sufficient scale, while he continued to extend his power in Spain;
+and for this purpose he had directed Soult to march on Lisbon with an
+army supposed to be at least 40,000 strong, while Victor was to second
+the movement by the valley of the Tagus with about an equal force.
+Soult, however, pursued by swarms of guerrillas and making his way
+with extreme difficulty, reached Oporto with less than 25,000 men;
+though Victor routed a Spanish army, he never approached the Portuguese
+frontier; and when Wellesley arrived in Lisbon the two Marshals were
+far from each other, unable to co-operate, nay, perhaps, unwilling, and
+not in sufficient force to subdue Portugal. Wellesley, rightly aiming
+at his nearest foe, marched against Soult with about 30,000 men; and
+the operations that followed were very brilliant.
+
+Soult, dreaming of a throne for himself in Portugal, and a somewhat
+indolent though a very able man, was surprised and assailed by his
+bold adversary; the Douro was crossed by the British army, under the
+eyes of a powerful hostile force, by a movement of singular daring and
+skill; and a detachment ably sent off by Wellesley all but cut off the
+Marshal’s retreat, and nearly involved him in utter ruin. In fact,
+Soult only contrived to escape by abandoning his _impedimenta_,
+and crossing the ranges that lead into Spain with the wreck of an army,
+and the invasion of Portugal ignominiously failed.
+
+The passage of the Douro in the face of Soult is another instance
+of the skill of Wellesley in offensive movements upon a contracted
+theatre. He now turned his attention towards Victor, far off, yet in
+the lowlands of the Tagus; but a long pause in the operations took
+place, due, partly, to the maladministration of the British army,
+partly to disputes with the dullard Cuesta, in command of the Spanish
+army of the west, and partly, too, perhaps, because the English general
+had not the fierce energy, in a situation like this, of the warrior
+of the campaign of Italy. Wellesley had defeated Soult by the middle
+of May; he did not even attempt to advance against Victor until the
+last days of June, and it was the third week of July before his army,
+having effected its junction with that of Cuesta, was in the valley of
+the Upper Tagus, marching in pursuit of the French Marshal. The allied
+chiefs were now at the head of about 20,000 British troops and 40,000
+Spaniards, mostly new levies; their purpose was to attack Victor,
+falling back leisurely towards Talavera; and they moved up the Tagus,
+not without hope that they might ultimately reach the Spanish capital,
+for they expected aid from a Spanish army in the south.
+
+The long delay which had occurred, however, had enabled the French
+armies in the Peninsula to draw towards each other in formidable
+strength; the corps of Soult, reorganized and recruited, that of Ney,
+and that of Mortier were but a few marches off, behind the screen of
+the Avila range. King Joseph at Madrid had a considerable force, which
+might easily join hands with Victor; and Wellesley and Cuesta were
+in fact moving into the midst of immensely superior foes, strategy
+difficult to understand and not to be justified. In the operations that
+followed, the French lost one of the best opportunities they ever had
+to destroy our power in Portugal and Spain; and the glitter of success
+ought not to blind us to the perils incurred by the British commander,
+from which he only escaped by accident. In the last days of July Joseph
+had come into line with Victor, who had been well-nigh caught. Their
+united armies were near Talavera, at least 45,000 strong; and pressing
+orders had been given to Soult, to fall on the flank of the allied
+army, with the corps of Ney, of Mortier, and his own, 60,000 excellent
+troops at least; a movement not in any way difficult, for it only
+required a short march, and the passes from the hills were but weakly
+guarded. These dispositions were by no means perfect, but they promised
+brilliant and decisive success; and they failed only through a series
+of mishaps and errors. On the 27th of July Victor attacked the Allies,
+in position at Talavera, between the Tagus on their right and a set
+of knolls and low hills on the left; and his first effort altogether
+failed, though he concentrated his main strength against the British
+troops.
+
+The attack was premature and imprudent, for obviously it was the
+true course of the French to wait until the advance of Soult would
+enable them to assail the Allies, in front and flank, in overwhelming
+strength; but Victor, jealous perhaps of his colleague, and eager to
+win on his own account, insisted on renewing the fight on the 28th.
+The battle raged furiously for several hours; all the attacks on the
+British left were baffled; but the intrepidity and skill of Wellesley
+were taxed to the utmost to save the centre, and though he undoubtedly
+gained the day, the French army drew off unbroken. Ere long, however,
+the advanced guard of Soult made its appearance in the plains of the
+Tagus; the defeated army resumed the offensive, and in the first days
+of August a great French host, from 85,000 to 100,000 strong, was
+menacing the Allies in front and rear, and seemed as if on the verge of
+a splendid triumph. Had the counsels of Soult, to press on and attack,
+prevailed at this juncture, it is difficult to see how Wellesley and
+Cuesta could have escaped; and in that event the combined French armies
+would not improbably have overrun Portugal, and, perhaps, have even
+attained Lisbon. The danger, however, passed away; the French chiefs
+separated, and did nothing; and Wellesley, placing the Tagus between
+himself and his foes, made good his retreat across the frontier, though
+unsupported by his worthless ally, whose conduct, it has been thought,
+was not free from treachery.
+
+  [Illustration: WELLINGTON AT TALAVERA.]
+
+Wellesley received a peerage for Talavera, and the battle is honourable
+to the British army and its chief. The attacks of Victor were ill
+conducted, but fully 35,000 French soldiers were opposed to less than
+20,000 Englishmen; and yet they retired from the field, defeated.
+Talavera, indeed, like Vimeiro before, had proved that the modern
+French tactics were not calculated to achieve success against those
+long in use in the British service, as regards defensive battles at
+least; columns and skirmishers failed to make an impression on the
+formidable line of the British infantry, a result which was seen two
+thousand years ago in the inferiority of the Greek phalanx to the Roman
+legion. Wellesley’s first dispositions were not very good; he did not
+occupy the ground in force on his left; but he displayed great resource
+and skill on the 28th, and he deserved the victory he fairly won. His
+strategy, however, in this campaign was ill conceived, and, indeed,
+bad; and it can be explained, perhaps, on the supposition only that he
+had no idea what a great hostile force was ready to descend through
+the hills on his flank, as he marched in fancied security up the
+Tagus. As for the French operations, the plan of the double movement
+of Victor and Soult was not ill designed; but it was frustrated by the
+inconsiderate haste of Victor, who attacked before the approach of his
+colleague; and Napoleon truly observed that combinations like these are
+ever liable to mischance and failure, and that Wellesley ought to have
+been allowed to advance until the net was made certain to close around
+him. Wellesley, however, as it was, only just escaped. The wrath of
+Napoleon[28] knew no bounds, for a great opportunity had no doubt been
+lost; and the mistake of the English commander confirmed the Emperor in
+the low estimate he had formed of an enemy, who was anything but “the
+presumptuous, rash sciolist” he held up to ridicule after this campaign.
+
+By this time Wagram had been fought. After the defeat of Austria,
+the whole Continent was more than ever under the yoke of Napoleon;
+Spain and Portugal were the only points where there was even a show
+of resistance to that colossal force; and as the Emperor poured fresh
+masses of troops into Spain, and announced that he would march on
+Lisbon in person, even the British Government, injured at home by the
+calamitous issue of the descent on Walcheren, began to quail and to
+wish to give up the contest. Yet Wellington--we now use the revered
+name--retained his calm and unbroken confidence; and though the
+subjugation of Spain seemed imminent--for three Spanish armies had been
+completely routed, and Andalusia was being overrun--he still contended
+that the defence of Portugal could be successfully maintained even
+in existing circumstances. After his retreat from the Tagus, he had
+returned to Lisbon; and, in the autumn of 1809, despite of the fears of
+ministers at home, and of the reluctant aid afforded by the Portuguese
+Regency--a corrupt and incapable body of men--he made preparations for
+the memorable stand in Portugal which has gained him enduring renown.
+His own army was now about 30,000 strong; the Portuguese army, drilled
+and led by Englishmen, had become a trustworthy force of about equal
+strength; and the addition of other Peninsular levies had placed him
+in command of more than 100,000 men. Such arrays, however, Wellington
+clearly saw could not hope to contend, even in Portugal, against the
+masses of which Napoleon disposed, unless means were taken to place
+a barrier in the way of the invaders, behind which the forces of the
+defence could be securely rallied. For this purpose he chose a position
+between the Atlantic and the mouths of the Tagus, covered in front by
+a succession of heights, and most difficult to turn on either flank;
+and thousands of labourers were quietly employed, with a secrecy which
+appears surprising, in constructing the famous Lines which will make
+the name of Torres Vedras long live in history. These great works
+formed a triple range of entrenchments, thirty miles in length on
+their exterior face and about eight in their second extension; the
+third was a vast fortified camp, from which the army, if forced, could
+embark; and the whole were protected by all the means available to the
+art of the engineer, redoubts, inundations, stockades, escarpments,
+and formidable batteries commanding vulnerable points. In this
+“impregnable citadel,” as has well been said, Wellington “deposited
+the independence” of Portugal at first, and ultimately, as it turned
+out, of Spain; and clinging to a rock on the verge of the ocean, while
+all was fear and mistrust around, he steadily confronted the might of
+Napoleon, the undisputed lord of a vanquished Continent. History has no
+grander instance of heroic constancy, and of self-reliance justified by
+the event.
+
+By the early summer of 1810, the French armies in Spain had reached
+the enormous number of 350,000 fighting men, and Napoleon believed the
+whole Peninsula to be within his grasp. Engrossed, however, with his
+overgrown Empire, and meditating already the invasion of Russia, he
+had renounced the idea of crossing the Pyrenees, and conducting the
+approaching campaign himself; and this was one of the greatest mistakes
+of his life. The Emperor, shut out from the sea by England, and unable
+to procure intelligence in Spain, had not the least notion, strange as
+it may appear, of the real force in the hands of Wellington, still less
+of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and his plan for the contest, formed
+without knowledge, was misconceived and false to his own strategy.
+He believed that the British army was not 25,000 strong; he took no
+account of the Portuguese forces; he thought that the way to Lisbon was
+open, or barred only by natural obstacles; and instead of concentrating
+200,000 men, in order to overpower Wellington and to turn the Lines on
+the landward side, at the verge of the mouth of the Tagus--a difficult
+but a possible enterprise--he disposed his armies in such a fashion
+that, as the event proved, they were largely wasted and were not strong
+enough on the decisive point on the theatre. Reasoning on his false
+data, he left Macdonald and Suchet to reduce the east of Spain; he
+allowed Soult to remain in the south with a great army, to no useful
+purpose, and calculating that this force would be more than sufficient,
+he placed 70,000 men in the hands of Masséna, by far the first of
+the imperial marshals, with orders to besiege the north-eastern
+frontier fortresses, and to “drive the English into their ships from
+Lisbon.” This dissemination of his military strength, so contrary to
+the principles of war, was due not to wilfulness or over-confidence,
+but simply to ignorance of the real facts; the Emperor knew that the
+British army was the one enemy he should first dispose of, and he
+conceived that he had made this result certain; but his reckonings and
+previsions were wholly wrong, and his projects were based on disastrous
+errors. The remarkable campaign of 1810 was to illustrate this in
+a most striking way, and forms Wellington’s true title to glory in
+war. Masséna began operations in the first days of June by investing
+Ciudad Rodrigo, a famous stronghold and the key of Portugal from the
+west of Spain, and as he was not to advance until after the summer
+heats, he conducted the siege in a leisurely manner, though disease
+and want had begun to prey on his army. Wellington, who had approached
+the beleaguered fortress at the head of about 30,000 men, when made
+aware of the strength of the French merely observed the enemy from
+secure positions; and all the devices of Masséna to tempt him to fight
+were fruitless against his steadfast prudence. Ciudad had fallen by
+the middle of July; Almeida, a neighbouring stronghold, met the same
+fate, and Masséna had set his army in motion--it numbered about 60,000
+men--to invade Portugal in the third week of September, the Marshal
+advancing along the Mondego, and the British commander falling back
+before him. By the 27th the French had entered a region of mountains
+and defiles between the great ranges of the Sierra Alcoba and the
+Sierra Estrella, and they found Wellington and his troops in position
+on the ridge of Busaco, awaiting their enemy. Masséna did not hesitate
+to attack, for he had a great superiority of force; but once more the
+column was repulsed by the line, and the assailants only reached the
+well-defended heights to be smitten down by the steady British footmen.
+The Marshal, bold and persevering, now discovered a track which enabled
+him to move his army and turn Wellington’s left. This was not the fault
+of the English chief, for he had given directions to secure the pass;
+but his position had become no longer tenable, and the French entered
+Coimbra in high heart, and confident that they would soon attain Lisbon.
+
+Masséna, utterly ignorant of what was before him, shared this hope with
+Ney and Junot, his chief lieutenants; and leaving his wounded and sick
+men at Coimbra, spite of a guerrilla warfare gathering on his path,
+“the spoiled child of victory” pressed boldly forward, making for the
+Lower Tagus and the Portuguese capital. To his great astonishment, the
+hostile army, which had retreated slowly and made scarcely a sign,
+seemed suddenly to disappear from his view; and Masséna only discovered
+the cause when, in the middle of October, he saw the Lines of Torres
+Vedras rising in formidable strength, and his enemy, he knew, was
+entrenched behind them.
+
+Masséna’s army had, by this time, been reduced to about 50,000 men, and
+his adversary had fully 100,000, within lines not to be attacked in
+front. Ney and Junot were for an immediate retreat, but the warrior of
+Zürich, of Genoa, of Essling, whose great merit was tenacious boldness,
+refused to listen to these desponding counsels. He searched the barrier
+before him at every point, and only fell back when the state of his
+troops had warned him that a further stay was impossible. In his
+march from Busaco, Wellington had given orders to ravage the country,
+and to destroy its harvests; and though we may, perhaps, regret that
+he had recourse to a barbarous and obsolete mode of warfare, it was
+very efficacious against invaders who had no magazines when they
+left the frontier, and relied for supplies on organized plunder.
+Within a few weeks after it had reached the Lines, Masséna’s army,
+practised as it was in extortion and rapine, was half-famished; and
+the Marshal recoiled from Torres Vedras baffled and indignant, but not
+disheartened. Concealing the movement with great skill, he established
+his troops in strong positions round Santarem, on the Lower Tagus,
+where he was almost inaccessible to attack, and where, at the same
+time, he had several lines of retreat, and he might receive aid from
+the French army in the South should it advance to the opposite bank
+of the river. Here the Marshal made a determined stand, disregarding
+the murmurs of inferior men; he sent flying columns through the
+surrounding region to obtain means of subsistence by force or terror;
+he constructed bridges to cross the Tagus, and he despatched Foy, a
+very able man, to Paris, to ask for reinforcements and to inform the
+Emperor of the critical state of affairs in Portugal.
+
+Napoleon saw his messenger before the end of November, and it might
+have been supposed that the first of strategists would have sent
+every available man, as quickly as possible, to Masséna’s aid, for
+everything, it had become manifest, depended on the course of events
+on the Tagus. But the Emperor was not pleased with the Marshal, on
+account of Busaco and the march from Coimbra. He persisted in holding
+Wellington cheap; he refused to believe in the strength of the Lines;
+he would see no foes but the British army, and the measures he adopted
+were quite inadequate to meet a situation already of peril. He ordered
+a detachment to be sent from the North of Spain, and to join hands with
+Masséna’s army; and he directed Soult to the Tagus from Andalusia, a
+distance requiring a long and arduous march, giving his lieutenant,
+besides, a dangerous latitude. The results, due partly to want of
+knowledge, but principally to obstinacy and unwise arrogance, proved
+most disastrous to the Imperial arms.
+
+The detachment from the north reached Masséna’s camp, but instead
+of being 20,000 strong, as had been promised, it was not 10,000,
+a reinforcement of little worth; and Soult never approached the
+Marshal, either because the difficulties in his way were immense
+or because, as has often happened with French commanders, and was
+conspicuously seen in the Peninsular War, he was selfishly jealous
+of a superior colleague. Yet Masséna clung to his positions to the
+last. In this unfortunate campaign he showed the great qualities which
+have deservedly given him renown in history; and it was not until the
+whole adjoining country had been turned into a desolate waste that he
+reluctantly yielded to dire necessity. He broke up from Santarem in
+March 1811, having, to Wellington’s amazement, contrived to live for
+nearly four months on the tracts around him; and his retreat was one
+of extreme difficulty, for the British army was soon pressing on his
+rear; Coimbra had been taken, and swarms of partisans were gathering
+around on every side. The Marshal, however, proved equal to himself;
+he conducted the movement with the greatest skill; Ney distinguished
+himself in more than one action; and the French army ultimately
+recrossed the frontier, having saved its honour, it may be truly said,
+but having injured its fair fame by atrocious excesses. It had been
+reduced to 40,000 men, in miserable plight and greatly demoralized;
+a quarrel between Masséna and Ney increased disorder and destroyed
+discipline; and Portugal had been set free, and, as time was to show,
+was not to be invaded by Frenchmen again.
+
+Torres Vedras is Wellington’s crown of fame, and gives him his true
+place among great commanders. The Lines might have, perhaps, been
+turned, had Napoleon put forth his whole strength; but they baffled the
+force believed by the Emperor to be sufficient to conquer Portugal and
+to drive Wellington out of the entire Peninsula. The conception of the
+defence was very fine, for Torres Vedras was all but impregnable; but
+the conception was nothing to the moral grandeur of the attitude of
+the heroic soldier, who from this rocky nook defied the mighty hosts
+which certainly might have been arrayed against him. It adds, too,
+to the just renown of Wellington that he met a foeman worthy of his
+steel. Masséna possibly made mistakes; he ought not to have fought at
+Busaco; it is astonishing that he was not informed of the Lines when
+he reached Coimbra, a few marches distant; and he ought not, perhaps,
+to have quitted that place, leaving thousands of enemies gathering on
+his rear. But the Marshal gave proof of powers of a very high order;
+he stood before Torres Vedras to the last moment, surrounded by,
+but overcoming danger; his choice of his positions at Santarem may
+almost be called a stroke of genius; and he conducted the retreat with
+consummate judgment. Apart, indeed, from the decisive effects caused
+by Wellington’s masterly defence, the failure of the campaign should
+be ascribed, not to Masséna, but to the French Emperor. Napoleon,
+ignorant of the real state of affairs, did not give his lieutenant a
+sufficient army; when made aware of the existence of the Lines, and
+of the strength of his enemy’s forces, he took half measures, which
+proved abortive; and the condemnation he passed on his greatest Marshal
+was simply a device to screen his own errors, want of real knowledge,
+contempt of his foes, and directing war at a distance from the scene.
+The results of Torres Vedras were immense; the glory of the French arms
+was deeply tarnished; a great general had suddenly appeared, who had
+baffled completely the Imperial legions. Continental soldiers began
+to study the methods of Wellington with eager hope; the fears of the
+Government at home vanished, and it resolved to prosecute the war with
+vigour; the complaints of the Junta at Lisbon were silenced; and,
+above all, Wellington had been confirmed in the accuracy of his views
+respecting the contest, and became the master of largely increased
+resources. Secure for the present from attack in Portugal, he began
+to make preparations to resist the French along the western frontier
+of Spain; and he already hoped that the day was at hand when he might
+carry the war into Castile and Leon.
+
+The campaign of 1811 was a prelude to operations he had already
+planned; but it was one of many vicissitudes, and of doubtful fortune.
+Wellington commanding the resources of England from the sea, really
+wielding the power of the Portuguese Government, and turning to account
+the great advantage afforded him by a central position between enemies
+divided and scattered, besieged Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz,
+which, with Napoleon, he correctly judged should be mastered to make
+Portugal secure, and to open an avenue to enter Spain. He failed,
+however, against the two last strongholds; and though Barrosa and
+Albuera shed splendid lustre on the British arms, the campaign had no
+marked results, and Wellington was, more than once, in the gravest
+peril. The power of Napoleon, though diminished by drafts from Spain
+for the invasion of Russia, was, in fact, still prodigiously strong;
+and had the Emperor directed it, he would, humanly speaking, have even
+now subjugated Spain and Portugal. Masséna, having reinforced his army,
+attacked Wellington at Fuentes de Onoro; the English only just escaped
+defeat, owing to a dispute between two French chiefs; and Wellington,
+indeed, has fairly acknowledged that “had Boney been in command” he
+would have lost the battle. On two occasions, moreover, the British
+commander might have been overwhelmed if ably assailed. Marmont--who
+replaced Masséna, unjustly disgraced--and Soult assembled a great army
+to relieve Badajoz, and ought to have won a real victory had they
+fallen on Wellington; and Marmont might soon afterwards have attacked
+his enemy at Fuentes Guinaldos with fourfold numbers. But the tide
+in the affairs of men was setting against Napoleon, and was leading
+his sagacious foe to fortune. The conditions of the war, which he had
+clearly foreseen, made the dangers of Wellington less than they seemed;
+the French Marshals, far apart from each other, and unable to feed
+their troops in a wasted country, could not draw together their divided
+forces for anything like a well-combined movement; and their increasing
+discords, the neglect of their master to examine thoroughly the
+situation in Spain, and, above all, the ascendency of success already
+gained by the British army and its chief, told with powerful effect on
+the course of events.
+
+During the last months of 1811, the British chief made great
+preparations to renew his efforts against Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.
+He had secretly brought up a powerful siege train to the frontier
+without the enemy’s knowledge; he had made his communications with
+the sea easy, by opening the navigation of the Upper Douro; and the
+position of the French armies on the theatre of war remarkably favoured
+his audacious enterprize. The forces of Napoleon in Spain still
+numbered at least 250,000 men; but part of Marmont’s army had been
+detached to the East; Soult was in cantonments around Seville; no other
+French army was near Portugal; and the fortresses had been left almost
+uncovered, for the Emperor had not the least idea that Wellington had
+the means to besiege and take them. The English commander first pounced
+on Ciudad, and captured it, after a furious assault, in the first days
+of January of 1812; and in a few weeks he had triumphed at Badajoz,
+the heroism of the attack and the skill of the defence forming a grand
+episode of the Peninsular War. His troops suffered enormous losses, and
+the British engineers were not, perhaps, as experienced as the French,
+in this part of the craft; but Wellington’s only chance was to hurry on
+the attack; two relieving armies were not distant; and he properly made
+sacrifices for a great object. The fall of the two strongholds incensed
+Napoleon; but here again he had himself to blame; Marmont had fairly
+warned him of the danger at hand; and this is another striking instance
+of his ignorance of what was going on in Spain, and of the mischief of
+regulating its affairs from Paris. The success of the British chief at
+Ciudad and Badajoz laid open the Spanish frontier from Portugal, and
+he resolved to carry out his project of entering Spain; for though his
+army was very inferior in force to those of Marmont and Soult combined,
+the conditions of the war remained in his favour.
+
+The marshals, as in 1811, were widely apart; they could hardly unite
+their armies in a ruined country; and their enemy held a position
+between them with an army whose wants were well supplied, and with
+little apprehension that the hostile forces in his front could be
+largely increased. The first care of Wellington was to seize the
+passages on the Tagus which enabled Soult and Marmont to communicate
+with each other by a short line; and then, leaving a detachment to
+observe Soult, he crossed the frontier in the second week of June
+and marched against Marmont with about 40,000 men. The marshal fell
+back behind the Douro, in order to collect his scattered forces,
+abandoning works which he had constructed as a centre of defence, in
+the place of Ciudad; but he was a brilliant, if not a great chief; and
+he quickly showed that he had no notion of abandoning the initiative
+to the British general. Marmont recrossed the Douro on the 16th of
+July, about equal in force to Wellington, but the passage was only a
+feint; he crossed the river once more, and made for Tordesillas, an
+able movement which brought him near to reinforcements coming from
+Madrid, and threatened his adversary’s right and communications with
+Portugal. A series of fine manœuvres followed, the French chief ever
+trying to outflank his enemy, and the English seeking to cover his line
+of retreat; and there can be no doubt that in this game of marches,
+the French army was the more agile of the two, and Marmont gained a
+distinct advantage. By the 22nd, the marshal had nearly reached the
+road from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo, the main communication of his
+foe with the frontier; and Wellington was about to decamp as he best
+could, when a single false movement gave him a chance and enabled
+him to win a glorious victory. Marmont, eager and impetuous, and
+perhaps jealous that Jourdan, the leader of the succours at hand,
+would claim a share in the hoped-for triumph, incautiously extended
+his left too far, in order to cut off the retreat of his enemy. A gap
+was thus made in the French line; Wellington seized the occasion with
+his accustomed promptness, and he instantly directed a fierce attack
+against his antagonist’s left and exposed centre. The marshal at this
+moment fell wounded, but his fall could not have changed the event;
+his able lieutenant, Clausel, made a fine effort to reform the French
+on a new position, and even assumed an offensive attitude, but the
+error had been made, and been turned to account; and though the French
+made a really gallant stand, their weakened line was pierced through
+and through, and they were forced to abandon the fatal field, where
+Marmont had hoped to avenge his countrymen for a long succession of
+repeated defeats.
+
+Salamanca and the operations before it are characteristic of Wellington
+as a chief. He was certainly out-generalled in the first movements,
+mainly because the French marched better than the British army; but
+probably he would have escaped unscathed, though Marmont had gained a
+position on his flank, had he been allowed to retreat unmolested. He
+was, however, unwisely attacked and in a reckless fashion; he instantly
+fell on the enemy’s centre, with the quickness and daring which marked
+his offensive movements on the ground, and he made the French general
+pay dearly for venturing on a flank march within reach of his enemy.
+Salamanca, in fact, has a strong resemblance to Austerlitz up to a
+certain point, but it wants the grandeur and effect of Austerlitz;
+and in this, as in all instances, Wellington showed that he could not
+follow up a victory with the energy and wonderful art of Napoleon.
+
+As for Marmont, he was at first dexterous, but he made an immense
+mistake in extending his left. Like Victor at Talavera, he should have
+waited until his reinforcements had come into line; and this, no doubt,
+is another example how[29] the characteristic envy of French commanders
+had the worst effects in the Peninsular War. The results of Salamanca
+were very great, though Clausel rallied the beaten army with an ability
+deserving of high praise, and was soon out of the reach of pursuit; the
+battle exposed the long line of the communications of the French with
+Madrid, and the prospect of a formidable attack on this vital point, as
+Wellington had foreseen from the first--and this, too, was Napoleon’s
+judgment--placed the entire fabric of the Emperor’s power in the
+Peninsula in no small danger.
+
+Napoleon was now far away in the wilds of Russia; and in his absence
+the conduct of the French chiefs was marked by precipitate fear and
+haste, which, critical as the situation was, was unwarranted, and does
+them no small discredit. Joseph fled in inglorious haste from Madrid;
+the forces of Clausel and those in the north were drawn together to
+hold and guard the communications between Bayonne and Castile; Suchet
+in the far east was directed to move; and Soult, in the south, received
+positive orders to evacuate Andalusia and to join the King, though
+the Marshal was pressing the siege of Cadiz and had matured projects,
+not ill-designed, for invading Portugal while Wellington was away. A
+single well-aimed stroke had, in short, imperilled the whole position
+of the French in Spain, and their operations were so faulty that their
+domination seemed about to collapse.
+
+In this state of affairs a single incident caused, for a time, a turn
+in the tide of fortune, and even placed Wellington in such straits that
+he would have been, not improbably, crushed had Napoleon commanded
+the French armies. He had entered Madrid in triumph in the middle of
+August, but he was soon on the track of the retreating enemy; and
+having driven Clausel’s army before him, he sat down before Burgos
+towards the close of September, hoping to master the great avenue from
+France into Spain. The fortress was small, but had an able commandant;
+the British chief had scarcely a heavy gun; the garrison made a stern
+resistance, and after fierce efforts and very great losses, the
+assailants were compelled to raise the siege and to fall back before a
+host of enemies.
+
+The annals of war present few such examples of the value of a
+well-defended stronghold at a critical juncture. Burgos had held out
+for a whole month. The time thus gained enabled Soult to come into
+line with the other French armies being collected in Castile and the
+north, and Wellington had no choice but to retreat at once before the
+huge masses directed against him. He conducted the movement with real
+ability, but his troops were to a great extent demoralized, and on
+one occasion the English commander was saved by a mere chance from
+the gravest danger. His army had reached Salamanca by the middle of
+November; it was within easy reach of the united French armies, twofold
+probably, at least, in strength, and had the French generals fallen
+boldly on they ought to have gained a decisive victory. Jourdan eagerly
+counselled the true course, but Soult, by nature rather a thoughtful
+strategist than an energetic and determined soldier, and borne down
+by the ascendency of the British arms, insisted on merely pressing
+the retreat, and Wellington was soon across the Spanish frontier. The
+Marshals had lost another of the great occasions afforded them in the
+Peninsular War.
+
+The campaign of 1812, notwithstanding the disastrous retreat from
+Burgos, was nevertheless ruinous in its effects to the French.
+Salamanca had been a decisive defeat; the Imperial commanders had
+not attacked Wellington, falling back with a much weaker force; the
+invaders had permanently quitted the south; above all, the precarious
+nature of Napoleon’s power in the Peninsula had been clearly
+established. In this position of affairs, the tremendous tale of the
+destruction of the Grand Army in Russia fell with immense effect on
+the minds of men; it raised the hopes of Wellington to the highest
+pitch--he had always foretold that some catastrophe would befall
+Napoleon in his career of conquest--it animated his troops with fresh
+confidence; it sent a thrill of exultation through Spain and Portugal;
+it awed and paralyzed the leaders of the French armies. By this time
+Wellington had all England at his back; he was supreme in Portugal,
+and swayed the Regency by the glory of success, by his administrative
+power, by his impartial justice to the Portuguese race; and he was made
+Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies, and disposed for the first
+time of the military strength of Spain, in spite of the clamour of
+factions in the distracted Cortes against a “heretic and domineering
+foreigner.” He was now able to place in the field forces nearly
+equal in numbers to his foes, and in the spring of 1813 he had his
+preparations made for a great effort to set the Peninsula free. The
+Imperial armies, however, were still formidably strong, from 190,000 to
+200,000 men; they were superior to the Spanish and Portuguese levies,
+and as we look back at the course of events, we see that even now, had
+they been ably led, they possibly might have achieved success, and
+certainly might have avoided disaster. But they were ill-distributed
+on the theatre of war; Suchet, in the east, had by far too large a
+force; Soult had left Spain, deprived of his command; Jourdan and
+Joseph were very inferior men; the strength of the army confronting
+Wellington on the frontier was by no means sufficient; the guerrilla
+rising was more fierce than ever; and the French commanders had lost
+hope and confidence. The general plan of Wellington was to assail the
+enemy from many points, in order to distract and detain his forces, and
+at the same time to fall in great strength on the exposed line of the
+communications of the French; and though faults may, perhaps, be found
+in his strategy, the conception was fine, and was admirably carried
+out. Suchet was held in check by Murray with a small body of men;
+Joseph, who had returned to Madrid, was menaced from the south; a large
+Spanish army was assembled in the north; and, meanwhile, Wellington
+prepared the master stroke on which he relied for final success. His
+army, now about 90,000 strong, advanced from the frontier in the last
+days of May, divided into three great masses on a wide front, with
+hill ranges between; its chief gave an opportunity, perhaps, but there
+was no great warrior to cross his path. It had soon mastered the
+line of the Douro, driving before it foes much weaker in numbers; it
+gradually united, joined hands with the levies of the north, and found
+a new base on the Biscayan seaboard in the English fleet; and then it
+seized the main avenues between France and Spain, and sped in full
+force to the Upper Ebro. This formidable movement compelled Joseph to
+evacuate Madrid, and to draw together all available troops to attempt
+a defence; and the French armies in Castile were ere long concentrated
+around Vitoria upon the Zadorra--confused masses, already disheartened,
+and burdened by _impedimenta_ such as never before weighed down
+unlucky troops in retreat. The battle that followed, fought on the 21st
+of June, was of enormous importance in its results, but has little
+interest for the student of war. The French were, perhaps, 70,000
+strong; but 15,000 men had been detached to guard convoys, and to
+secure a retreat; the English commander had about 80,000, and the event
+was never for a moment doubtful. Nothing could stand against the onset
+of the British troops, superior in numbers, and flushed with success;
+their foes fought well, as they always did, and Reille, the descendant
+of an Irish exile, distinguished himself by skill and valour; but the
+main road to Bayonne was lost, and the French were gradually thrown
+back on the mountain roads that extend to the frontier. The beaten
+army, however, was not hardly pressed; it effected its retreat in fair
+order, but it lost nearly all its guns and _matériel_, and it left
+behind the spoils of a ravaged country, accumulated through years of
+unscrupulous plunder, and strewn over the field in immense profusion.
+
+Vitoria, fitly called the Leipsic of the south, drove all the French
+armies out of Spain, with the exception of Suchet’s force in the east,
+and the garrisons of Pampeluna and San Sebastian, reinforced by Joseph
+before he crossed the Pyrenees. Napoleon, by this time, had made a
+prodigious effort to retrieve the disasters of the campaign in Russia;
+France had answered his summons to the field with energy; and he had
+won great victories at Lützen and Bautzen, followed by the suspension
+of arms at Pleistwitz. Austria now held the balance between the
+belligerent Powers; she had long inclined to the allied cause, but she
+dreaded Napoleon, and held aloof until Vitoria determined her purpose
+and she threw in her lot with the Coalition which, in a few months,
+overthrew the Emperor. The campaign of 1813 in Spain, therefore,
+was really of supreme importance, and a word of comment should be
+pronounced upon it. The general plan of Wellington was, perhaps, to
+be justified, as affairs stood; it was his only offensive combination
+on a grand scale; it was perfectly executed, and it was completely
+successful. Yet it was no masterpiece of science or genius. The
+movements by which the old base of Portugal was thrown off, and a new
+base acquired, and by which the French armies were ever outflanked and
+their communications threatened and seized, and the march on Vitoria,
+have been justly admired; but the wide dislocation of Wellington’s
+forces as they left the frontier was, in theory, a fault, and it would
+have given Turenne or Napoleon an immense chance, which they would have
+turned to such advantage that the course of events might have been
+changed at the outset. The splendour of the result cannot conceal the
+fact that the issue of the campaign was rather due to the incapacity
+and the demoralization of the French commanders than to conspicuous
+excellence in the strategy of their foe. Could they have defended the
+line of the Douro, as Bonaparte had defended the line of the Adige,
+nay, had they fallen back on the Ebro in time, and concentrated their
+still fine armies for a decisive battle on equal terms, they might even
+yet have repulsed Wellington, and assuredly they would not have lost
+Spain. This was Napoleon’s judgment, and, in this instance, I think it
+certainly was correct; his views on the military situation in Spain in
+1813 are worthy of him; and here, again, had he been in command, events
+would probably have taken a different turn. He was naturally indignant
+at the rout of Vitoria; and having summarily got rid of Joseph and
+Jourdan, he sent Soult, with extensive powers, to the Pyrenees, to
+take the command of his shattered forces, and to endeavour at least
+to defend the frontier. The next phase of the contest is of extreme
+interest, and deserves careful and impartial study. Soult found the
+French army--a confused wreck of armies--in a pitiable state of want
+and despondency; and his first care was to secure a base at Bayonne,
+and to reorganize and restore his defeated forces. He effected a great
+deal in a few weeks, for he was an administrator of no ordinary powers;
+and by the close of July he had his preparations made to assume the
+offensive with happy promise.
+
+At this time the forces of Wellington--altogether about 70,000
+strong--were before Pampeluna and San Sebastian, and along the range
+of the western Pyrenees; and this gave Soult--he was about equal in
+force--an extremely favourable opportunity to attack, for he commanded
+the passes which led from the plains. He concentrated a very superior
+force against his adversary’s right, concealing the movement with great
+skill; and his first operations had real success; he fairly bore back
+the weak hostile wing, and he nearly reached Pampeluna and relieved
+the garrison. But Wellington, always ready on the ground, was too
+quick for an enemy able in thought but in execution rather dull and
+weak; he raised the siege of San Sebastian and reinforced his right;
+Soult attacked at Sauroren, and was repulsed, one of his lieutenants,
+D’Erlon, being not up in time, on this as on a far greater occasion;
+the ascendency of unbroken success did the rest, and in a subsequent
+effort the French Marshal was nearly surrounded at the head of his
+troops. He recrossed the frontier, a well-designed plan having ended in
+heavy loss and discomfiture.
+
+The English commander, free from attack for a time, now resolved to
+take Pampeluna and San Sebastian before attempting to invade France.
+This conduct has been described as timid, and it enabled Soult to
+prepare large means of defence, but obviously it was judicious and
+right; the issue of the war in Saxony was still uncertain, and should
+Soult be joined by Suchet they would be in great strength. San
+Sebastian made a protracted resistance, but the place was stormed in
+the second week of September, Soult having tried in vain to relieve
+it, and Pampeluna fell at the close of October. Wellington had invaded
+France a short time previously, and it should be observed that he
+crossed the frontier before Leipsic, and months before the Allies were
+on the Rhine. The time spent in the sieges had, nevertheless, given
+Soult opportunities which he had made the most of; he had constructed
+lines on the Bidassoa and Nivelle, the last almost as strong as those
+of Torres Vedras, and he awaited his enemy in a situation like that of
+Villars in 1710–11. His army, however, had lost heart, and was crowded
+with rude levies and mutinous Germans; he had not the inspiration of
+the renowned Villars, and nothing could stand against the overpowering
+force of the British soldiery in the full pride of victory. Wellington
+carried the lines in the second week of November, displaying great
+skill in his dispositions for the attack, and before long he had
+approached Bayonne, on the confluence of the Nive and the Adour, where
+Soult had entrenched himself in very strong positions. The British
+commander, perhaps over confident, perhaps from the want of strategic
+genius--this undoubtedly was characteristic of him--escaped narrowly
+a severe reverse; he had divided his army upon the Nive, and Soult,
+availing himself of his command of the rivers, and of the interior line
+he possessed, fell on his adversary with skill in design, and tried
+to overwhelm his separated foes. The peril of Wellington was great
+for a time, but Soult had the manner of Napoleon, not his masterly
+power; he did not press the attack home, and his troops were beaten
+by the tenacity of the British footmen. A pause in the operations
+followed, and had the Emperor, even at this supreme crisis, ordered
+Suchet to come into line with Soult, abandoning Spain, now really
+lost, the French would have been superior in force to Wellington, and
+affairs might have taken a different aspect. But Napoleon would strike
+for his whole Empire, a false conception which mars the splendour of
+the memorable campaign of 1814; he left Suchet in Catalonia, holding
+the fortresses; the two marshals, besides, did not agree, with the
+usual tendencies of French commanders; the organized plunder of the
+French army, in marked contrast with that of the Allies, exasperated
+the populations of the south against it; the Royalist party began
+to lift its head after the first defeats of Napoleon in Champagne,
+and Soult was left isolated to resist Wellington amidst the ruin
+and crash of a perishing Empire. The British general resumed the
+offensive in the early spring of 1814; he had won golden opinions,
+even from the invaded Gascons, for the strict discipline he made his
+troops observe, for the exactness with which he paid for supplies, for
+his humane government of the country he held, and though he was not
+without real difficulties of his own--he was condemned in the Cortes
+and denounced in Portugal, and he actually sent back a large Spanish
+detachment because he could not control their excesses--still he was
+greatly superior in strength to his foe, and his arms were obviously
+on the verge of triumph. Nevertheless, Soult made an admirable stand;
+his army was being constantly weakened by drafts for the army on the
+Marne and Seine; it was oppressed by the prospect of coming defeat,
+and yet the Marshal proved that he was a real chief, and this is the
+best part of his chequered career. He disputed stubbornly every inch
+of the country between the lines of the Adour and the Garonne; he
+kept Wellington many weeks in check, and though ultimately repulsed
+with loss, he very nearly won a battle at Orthez, and at last he took
+a formidable position at Toulouse, still doggedly contending against
+adverse fortune. The battle was fought on the 10th of April, unhappily
+after peace had been made; superiority in numbers and the moral power
+of success explain, and partly justify, Wellington’s tactics; but he
+risked a flank march of peculiar danger, under the eye of an enemy
+watching to strike, and had Soult struck home at the decisive moment
+he probably would have won a victory. The Marshal, however, as was his
+wont, was remiss in action; the French army was unequal to itself,
+and Wellington forced his adversary to leave Toulouse, though the
+battle was really nearly drawn. Toulouse, indeed, adds nothing to his
+renown as a warrior; his true titles to fame in this campaign are his
+administrative virtues, and the most significant fact that he detained
+forces in the south which might have turned the scales of fortune in
+the struggle in Champagne.
+
+Wellington was back in England in 1814, justly greeted by the acclaim
+of the nation, raised to the highest honour the Peerage can give,
+and ever since known as “the Duke” to his countrymen. His exploits,
+indeed, had been truly great; with an army, swelled no doubt by
+auxiliaries, but seldom numbering more than 30,000 British troops, he
+had destroyed the power of Napoleon in Spain and Portugal, backed by
+300,000 French veterans, had defeated the best Marshals of France one
+after the other, had fought his way from the Tagus to the Garonne, had
+thrown his sword, with effect, into the balance of events trembling
+in the east of France, had ruled the Peninsula with a far-sighted
+wisdom, spite of the passions of faction, admired everywhere. The
+fame of Wellington as a commander depends, beyond question, on his
+direction of the Peninsular war; and an impartial judgment should
+be pronounced upon it. We may pass by enthusiasts who ascribe his
+success to genius never approached in his day, and the notion current
+seventy years ago that an English soldier can beat three Frenchmen;
+and we may equally reject the French delusion that Wellington owed
+everything to the freaks of Fortune. It must be recognized that in
+the war, small as his force was compared to his foes, he had certain
+advantages of peculiar value; he had the command of the sea, and of
+the resources of England; his position in Portugal was formidably
+strong; he was supported by a vast national rising; he stood in the
+centre of divided enemies; whereas the French armies, large as they
+were, had most vulnerable communications to guard, were exposed to
+swarms of destructive guerrillas, were necessarily separated by vast
+hill ranges, and, owing mainly to the Napoleonic system of warfare,
+were unable to muster for any time in strength because they could not
+subsist in a barren country. These conditions of the strife were all
+in favour of the British chief, and told powerfully; but this does
+not in the least detract from his merits; he anticipated them with
+prophetic insight, and they simply made his defence possible; just as
+Napoleon’s choice of the Adige enabled him to baffle the whole power
+of Austria. It should be admitted, too, that throughout the contest he
+was greatly seconded by the shortcomings of his foes; more than once
+he ought to have been overwhelmed or crushed, but for the miserable
+discords of the French marshals; and Napoleon himself played into his
+hands by his ignorance of events, by his lust of conquest, by the
+false system of directing war from an immense distance; above all, by
+his contemptuous disregard of an adversary most unwisely scorned. Yet
+this, the only meaning of what has been called the “good fortune that
+attended Wellington,” does not lessen his title to fame; I certainly
+think, had he had to encounter Napoleon with all the Peninsular armies
+he would have been forced out of Spain and Portugal, nay, he might
+have been beaten in 1811, 1812, and 1813; but, tried by this test,
+we might just as well deny Napoleon genius in war; he would not have
+won Rivoli, Jena, Austerlitz, had he been opposed to really great
+captains. Undoubtedly, moreover, in these campaigns the generalship
+of Wellington was not of as high an order as some eulogists have made
+it out to be; he committed grave strategic mistakes; his plan for the
+offensive on a great scale, and at a distance, is not very striking--I
+refer especially to 1813; his tactics were sometimes far from perfect;
+he was not masterly in following up success; there is something narrow
+and contracted in some of his movements. But when this has been said,
+he gave proof of genius in defence of the rarest kind; his campaign of
+Torres Vedras reaches the sublime, in conception and execution alike;
+he was admirable in rapid and bold attack; he was almost always great
+on the field; his tenacity and judgment are above praise. Add his
+most remarkable administrative powers, his capacity for ruling foreign
+races, and his moderation in the hour of success, resembling in this
+the great warriors of Rome, and we shall understand how he will live
+in history. A word, too, should be said on his British troops; that
+army--largely his own creation--which he said--and Wellington was no
+boaster--“could go anywhere and do anything.” From the first moment his
+soldiery showed the high qualities of their race, endurance, vigour,
+fierceness in attack, perseverance in defence, and the skill in the
+use of their arms of the archers of Crecy. The army, however, was for
+a time ill-organized; its movements were slow, and it was overburdened
+with camp-followers and _impedimenta_; its officers, heroes in the
+fight, were seldom skilful; in short, it was an imperfect instrument
+of war. It is one of Wellington’s distinctive merits that he made that
+army, always superior to the French in discipline, fortitude, and
+steadiness in the field--and this, indeed, is the true reason why its
+line was able to defeat their columns--equal to the best of Napoleon’s
+armies--the Emperor has made the admission himself--in readiness, in
+training, in skill in manœuvring; though Salamanca tends to show that
+in the power of movement it was not the equal of its most agile foes.
+
+Great as a soldier, but certainly greater as a man, it was the destiny
+of Wellington in 1815 to meet the most perfect master of modern war.
+The campaign of Waterloo belongs to the career of Napoleon, and in a
+sketch of his extraordinary deeds I have endeavoured to retrace its
+main features. Idle flatterers and the idolaters of success have given
+Wellington the palm in this mighty conflict, but he knew that he was
+out-manœuvred, and he did not claim it; and he disliked the subject,
+when all the facts were known, though he wrote on it in extreme old
+age. The simple truth is that Blücher and Wellington, considering the
+enormous hosts being arrayed against him, did not think that Napoleon
+would spring on Belgium; even their own forces, they well knew, were
+nearly double those of their foe; and though they made dispositions on
+the supposition of an attack, these were ill-conceived and essentially
+faulty. Their armies, in the first place, were spread along an immense
+line, with divergent bases; in the second, they were scattered up and
+down Belgium; in the third, they were far too near the frontier, at the
+points of concentration marked out for them; and in the fourth, the two
+chiefs were too far from each other, and could not communicate without
+perilous delays.
+
+Availing himself of these palpable mistakes, Napoleon broke in on the
+exposed centre of his adversaries with a grandeur of design and a skill
+in execution never surpassed; he was close to their weak line on the
+15th of June, and a single march had placed them in extreme danger.
+Then came the confusion and the divided counsels common with allied
+chiefs, and foreseen by their foe. Blücher rushed hastily to confront
+the Emperor before his army had been drawn together; Wellington,
+misconceiving the real state of affairs, stopped, hesitated, and left
+a wide gap open; and an opportunity was afforded to the General of
+1796, as favourable as ever was won by genius. But for a series of
+misadventures I have noticed elsewhere, he ought to have overwhelmed
+Blücher with ease on the 16th; and, in that event, nothing could
+have saved Wellington, though the French were only 128,000 against
+224,000[30] men. Strategy had only just missed one of its grandest
+triumphs; in fact, the allied chiefs were all but checkmated, though
+Wellington made an able stand at Quatre Bras, and this went some way
+to baffle the Emperor. Napoleon was given another chance on the 17th,
+by the double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo, which might have proved
+fatal to both his adversaries; but he was not well, and his lieutenants
+failed him. Soult, always indolent, was greatly to blame; the retreat
+of the Prussians was not followed up; Grouchy was detached late to hold
+Blücher in check; and when Napoleon, true to the principles of the art,
+turned against Wellington and attained Waterloo, he was not aware that
+the Prussians were near and were ready to unite with the Duke, mainly
+owing to the faults of the incapable Grouchy.
+
+The morning of the 18th saw Napoleon and Wellington confronting each
+other for the first time; the state of the weather, no doubt, gave the
+British chief an unforeseen advantage. The Emperor’s plan of attack
+was perfect; but Wellington’s dispositions were also excellent, except
+that he made the strategic error of leaving a large detachment behind
+at Hal. In the great battle that followed Napoleon was ill, and the
+tactics of the French were incoherent and bad; the genius of Wellington
+in defence reappeared, and shone out with conspicuous lustre; and this
+great quality largely redeemed his shortcomings in this memorable
+campaign. He fought Waterloo on the assumption that Blücher would
+join him early with the whole Prussian army; no aid reached him until
+nearly 5 P.M.; Ziethen and Pirch, who decided the result of
+the day, were not on the field until after 8 P.M.; and yet
+Wellington, with a very inferior army, contrived, during seven long
+hours, to resist successfully the Imperial host, and he had fairly
+repulsed the attack of the Guard before Ziethen and Pirch dealt the
+final stroke. His intrepidity, his tenacity, his tactical power on
+that memorable day were worthy of him; no other general on the allied
+side, it may confidently be said, would have made such a stand; and
+though he would almost certainly have lost the battle but for the
+arrival of Bülow in the early afternoon, still the defeat would not, I
+think, have been crushing, and Napoleon must have at last succumbed.
+Nevertheless, Waterloo, as I have endeavoured to prove, was decided by
+operations outside the field. Had Grouchy been equal to his appointed
+task, Blücher ought not to have been able to reach his colleague; the
+strategy of Napoleon throughout the campaign, spite of mistakes and
+failures, well-nigh triumphed; and the one merit of Wellington--and it
+was immense--was the masterly defence he made at Waterloo.
+
+The Duke commanded the Army of Occupation in France, after the second
+fall of Napoleon and the return of the Bourbons, and he admirably
+fulfilled a most arduous mission. He has been condemned for not saving
+Ney; but he had no right to interfere with the Government of France,
+and he showed characteristic tact and clemency in his relations with
+the French army, the Court, and the nation. His grand civil career
+begins at this point; but I must pass from it with scarcely a word of
+comment. He was a representative of England at the great Congress which
+met at Vienna to resettle Europe; and he was engaged in other important
+missions of the kind. In these diplomatic duties he was, no doubt,
+inferior to Marlborough in suavity and delicate art; he was sometimes,
+indeed, outspoken and blunt, but his simplicity, his candour, his ripe
+judgment, made him a negotiator of a very high order. His position as
+a statesman was noble and striking. His nature and profession drew him
+to the Tory Party, and he was for years its acknowledged head; his
+ideal was a strong aristocratic government; he detested modern Radical
+cant and theory; and though he was a Constitutional politician in the
+broadest sense, he did not understand the play and tendency of popular
+forces. But he had no sympathy with extreme Toryism; he ridiculed the
+Holy Alliance and its dreams; he knew how to make concessions in time;
+no reformer more sternly put down abuses; he was always Conservative,
+but wise and moderate. He commanded the army for some years; in this
+high office, unlike Turenne, with whom he had certain points in common,
+he was not in advance of the ideas of his time; he was rather obstinate
+and narrow in his views; but one great work he at least prepared; he
+urged the necessity for assuring the defence of England, and this
+generation at last has accepted his teaching. He spoke very often in
+the House of Lords; as an orator he had no accomplishments, but it
+was said he always “hit the nail on the head,” and his sagacity was,
+perhaps, the more noted because it was not set off by eloquence. As
+he grew old, he became the national mentor; his counsels were felt to
+be words of wisdom, and his place in the State was one of commanding
+dignity.
+
+He passed quietly away in 1852; England mourned him as her foremost
+citizen, and she justly regards him as the most illustrious of
+her worthies of the nineteenth century. It ought to be possible
+to pronounce a sound judgment on his military career, after all
+these years, and yet impartiality is still difficult. Wellington
+was endowed by nature with real wisdom, with strength of character
+seldom equalled, with singular moderation and calmness of thought,
+and yet with a rapid intelligence and clear insight. She denied him
+imagination, passion, and, in some measure, sympathy; and we see these
+excellences and defects in his life as a warrior. As a strategist,
+on the offensive, he stands low; for strategy, in this aspect, must
+see into the unknown, and requires a fiery energy he did not possess;
+and he was incapable of such exploits as the campaign of Marengo. In
+defensive strategy, however, he has been never excelled; for here the
+elements of the problem are easier to ascertain, and sagacity and
+firmness are most effective; and his campaign of Torres Vedras is,
+beyond comparison, the finest specimen of defence, in the strict sense
+of the word, that was seen in the Great War with France. As a tactician
+he was admirable in attack and defence, for when the field was before
+him, his promptness, his coolness, his constancy, stood him in good
+stead; but he was, on the whole, better in defence than attack; his
+Salamanca falls short of his Waterloo; and he was inferior to some
+tacticians in his arrangements on the ground, and, conspicuously, in
+following up a victory. Though there was something contracted in his
+exhibitions of the art, he has no doubtful place among great captains;
+and yet Wellington was greatest, perhaps, as a citizen, by reason of
+his profound wisdom, his administrative powers, his statesmanlike
+views, and, above all, his capacity for ruling alien races. In one
+quality of a chief he was, no doubt, deficient. He was respected, but
+not beloved, by his officers and men; he could not command their hearts
+like Napoleon or Condé, and this was largely due to the Spartan turn
+of character which distinguishes the aristocratic caste of Ireland.
+Taken altogether, he was one of the most illustrious men who have ever
+appeared on the stage of History; his grand life justified the poet’s
+epitaph: “O Tower full square to all the winds that blew!”
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X.
+
+                                MOLTKE.
+
+
+I feel it difficult to attempt a sketch which must be inadequate, and
+perhaps partial. Moltke is a living man, though in extreme old age;
+flattery and envy have obscured his real image; and his place among
+great commanders is still a problem. Yet the General who triumphed
+in 1866–70, and whose name history links with Sadowa and Sedan, is
+assuredly a master of modern war; and I shall try to disengage his
+personality from the facts accumulated around it and still imperfectly
+known. Helmuth Charles von Moltke was born in 1800, a scion of a noble
+Danish house, of ancient descent but shattered fortunes. The family had
+produced more than one good soldier. It appears in the Thirty Years’
+War; the father of Moltke attained the rank of General in his country’s
+service, and was, perhaps, an officer in the Prussian army; and one of
+his uncles perished amidst the wreck of the Grand Army in the retreat
+from Moscow. Little is known about him in early boyhood, except that
+he grew up under the cold shade of poverty; his first recollection
+was of the sack of Lübeck, where Blücher succumbed after the ruin of
+Jena; in his case, the strong impressions of youth were formed by the
+events of the gigantic strife which marked the beginning of the present
+century; he saw the Continent at the feet of Napoleon; he was a witness
+of the great rising of Germany; he may be said to have watched Leipsic,
+Montmirail, and Waterloo. The image of war, therefore, in its grandest
+aspects, and with consequences akin to a world-wide earthquake,
+was stamped on his mind when it was most ductile; and these
+associations, doubtless, had much to do with the distrust of France as
+the disturber of Europe, and the blended scorn and dislike of all that
+is French which were to be characteristic of the future warrior. Moltke
+became a cadet at the Military School of Copenhagen at an early age;
+and some years afterwards, having meanwhile obtained a commission in
+the Prussian service, he was a pupil at the Staff College of Berlin, an
+institution which may be traced to Frederick, and which has always been
+of very high repute. The youth made his mark at both these seminaries;
+privation had steeled his strong nature; his intelligence was superior,
+and his industry intense; he had a special faculty for mastering facts,
+and a fine taste in Letters and Science, resembling Frederick in all
+these respects; and it is no mere tradition that his promise was great,
+when he received his first appointment on the Prussian staff. Moltke
+passed some years at a desk in Berlin, doing the routine duties of the
+War Office; and as he had fallen on the days of the Long Peace, which
+followed the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the prospect was faint
+that the accomplished soldier would ever become an illustrious warrior.
+
+  [Illustration: MOLTKE AND HIS MASTER.]
+
+When he was past thirty, however, he found an opening for the display
+of some of his eminent parts; when travelling through the East, he
+attracted the notice of Sultan Mahmoud, lately engaged in the task of
+transforming the Turkish army; and Moltke gave him valuable advice,
+especially on the defence of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Like
+Eugene of Savoy, it was his fortune also to see war for the first time,
+as it was carried on by the arms of Islam. In company with a small
+party of Prussian officers, he was present at the decisive fight of
+Nisib, which made Mehemet Ali an independent ruler; and it has been
+said that he recommended a movement which might have made the result of
+the battle different. Moltke has left a record of these experiences in
+a series of letters, still of value; but a history from his pen of the
+Russian invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1828–29 is the most important
+monument of this part of his career. The book reveals the nature of the
+man; it wants imagination and the charm of genius; but it is thoroughly
+well-informed and full of good criticism; and while it does justice
+to the powers of Diebitsch, its peculiar characteristic is the minute
+attention bestowed by the writer on all that relates to the mechanism
+and organization of the contending armies, and to the geography of
+the theatre of war. The reputation of Moltke grew by degrees; in the
+fine words of the Roman poet, it was like the silent growth of a tree;
+he rose slowly to the rank of general, and he was for some time the
+first aide-de-camp of the Crown Prince of Prussia, the late Emperor
+Frederick of no inglorious memory. He made several visits of state with
+his chief, and has left an interesting account of all that he saw; but
+his mind was engrossed by what belongs to war; and it is curious to
+observe that he has far more praise for the steadiness and obedience
+of the Russian infantry than for the agility and intelligence of the
+French soldiery, associated in his mind with carelessness and want of
+discipline.
+
+In 1857 Moltke received the office of Chief of the Staff of the
+Prussian army. The position was one of the highest eminence; it had
+been filled by distinguished men; but the names of these are of no
+significance compared to that of the renowned soldier who has made it
+famous in all lands. Moltke was in his fifty-eighth year when he was
+raised to the post; he had never commanded troops in the field, nay,
+had taken no part in European warfare; and yet he possessed qualities
+which made his selection for the place a great day in Prussian history,
+for scarcely a living man so thoroughly understood what were to be the
+true conditions of war in our time, what its characteristics, and its
+coming development. We shall perceive this better if we glance at the
+state of the art during the long period of almost unbroken peace which
+succeeded Waterloo. For more than thirty years after 1815, every Power
+in Europe felt the exhaustion caused by the gigantic strife at the
+first part of the century; and though “the war drum was not hushed,” in
+the poet’s language, their energies were mainly directed to the great
+problems, political and social, which had come into question. In this
+state of affairs they generally reduced their armies; what was more
+important, they took little heed of all that concerns the military art,
+and their war offices were, without exception, directed by men whose
+minds had been formed on the battle-fields of the preceding age. When
+the Revolution of 1848 passed over the Continent, the Russian army was
+far the most powerful in Europe; the armies of France, of Austria, of
+Prussia, of England, had largely declined from their old standards; and
+the great names of Wellington, of Soult, of Paskiévitch, were typical
+of the system of unchanging routine, which, in every service, prevailed
+in high places.
+
+This strong conservatism was not much shaken by the memorable events
+of the next few years. The military operations of 1848–49 resembled
+those of 1805–14, except that they displayed less genius; and even
+the experience of the Crimean War did not produce a wide-spread
+conviction that a new era in the art was about to open. Nevertheless,
+throughout those long years since the Peace, forces of all kinds had
+been steadily at work, which were to affect greatly the phenomena
+of war, and if not to change the essential truths it teaches, to
+modify it profoundly in some of its aspects. The population of every
+State had continued to increase, especially in Central and Eastern
+Europe; and the rude material, therefore, of military power had been
+augmented, and was still growing. The resources of most nations had
+been doubled and trebled; agriculture had made enormous strides; roads
+and communications had become more numerous; and while this progress,
+dating from centuries before, had been going on with accelerated speed,
+a new element of mighty force had appeared in the railway system,
+which, spreading over Europe, had made the means of transport and of
+locomotion infinitely more easy, more vast, and more rapid than ever
+had been known before in history. Though the truth had not dawned on
+ordinary minds, it had become certain, thirty years ago, that in any
+great European contest armies would be larger than they had ever been;
+and the facilities of moving huge bodies of troops, and of munitions
+and supplies on a prodigious scale, it is now perceived, were to have
+these results; that the efficacy of fortresses was still further to
+decline, and that military operations might be more ample, have more
+celerity, and be more decisive than had been the case even in the age
+of Napoleon. Other influences, too, had made themselves felt, to
+be attended with great results in war. The age was one of material
+inventions; the weapons of destruction used by armies had been almost
+transformed within a brief period; and appliances of a different kind
+had, to a certain extent, been turned to account. Rifled cannon and
+the breech-loading musket had been manufactured and partly employed;
+these mechanical improvements, it is now apparent, have necessarily
+led to changed formations and tactics; and the discovery of the field
+telegraph has, in some measure perhaps, affected strategy. Education,
+moreover, after the Peace had been generally diffused through Europe,
+especially in Prussia and Northern Germany; this had greatly increased
+the self-reliance and the intelligence of the individual soldier; and
+the result, we can now see, has had a potent influence in the conduct
+of armies and the arrangements of war.
+
+It was the distinctive merit, I have said, of Moltke, that he
+appreciated these facts, and all that resulted from them, with perfect
+judgment and the most sagacious insight. He was deeply versed in
+the history of war; like every true student of it, he had seen that
+Napoleon was, by many degrees, the first of captains, and he had
+the capacity to perceive that the new conditions, especially the
+development of the railway system, favoured the grand and daring
+Napoleonic strategy. He grasped the truth, too, that the immense
+size of the armies in coming European conflicts would lead to more
+independence in separate commands, and would require a larger number
+of able chiefs than ever had been the case before; and he saw that
+preparation was more than ever necessary, the operations of modern
+war being so quick and decisive. The superiority of a rapid and bold
+offensive, the advantage of the diffusion of skill in the high ranks
+of an army, and the value of careful organization and well-planned
+arrangement, formed, so to speak, his military faith; and, coming to
+other details, he distinctly declared that the new arms would make the
+efficacy of fire the greatest element of success, that the importance
+of mere charges would largely decline, that formations in the field
+would become more flexible, and less dense than they had been formerly,
+and that real culture and mental training made a man an infinitely
+better soldier.
+
+Moltke impressed these principles, which thirty years ago were not
+generally accepted or understood, on the Prussian army from the first
+moment, and with what results is now well known. The first great
+event in this part of his life was the reorganization of the military
+strength of Prussia, a reform completed in 1860. This vast work was
+probably due more to the king and Roon than to anyone else; but Moltke,
+we may be sure, approved of the measures by which the numbers of the
+army were largely increased and its real efficiency was, perhaps,
+quadrupled. The new arrangements did not change the bases on which
+the military power of Prussia rested, the general duty of the subject
+to serve, and the organization of the army on the local system; but
+the yearly contingent of recruits was augmented a third, the time for
+service in the reserve was doubled, and the army, which had become too
+like a militia by a large admixture of landwehr, was made a completely
+distinct force, the landwehr forming only its last reserve. The hand of
+Moltke may be distinctly seen in almost every improvement thenceforward
+made in this great force, composed, after 1860, of fully half a million
+of trained fighting-men. Holding fast to the principle that offensive
+strategy would more than ever succeed in modern war, he directed his
+efforts to have the Prussian army ready to take the field as quickly
+as possible, and to be prepared to attack at once; with this object
+in view, the local arrangement of the national forces was steadily
+retained, for it assured the rapid assembly of masses of troops; but it
+was subjected to minute and careful central direction; and elaborate
+preparations of all kinds were made to secure speedy “mobilization,”
+and the regular transport of whatever is required for the conduct of
+a campaign by turning railways and other communications to account.
+Another great object of Moltke was to provide for general efficiency
+through all commands, from the highest down to the lowest grades. He
+had excellent materials for this at hand, in the practised officers
+who abound in Prussia; and steadily applying himself to his task, he
+succeeded by degrees in placing the army under the control of capable
+men, from top to bottom, producing in this way that hierarchy of good
+leaders which Thucydides declared, two thousand years ago, was one of
+the secrets of Spartan success; and creating that division of skilful
+labour which has become a necessity in modern war. Moltke addressed
+himself, also, to the reforms in tactics which he had foreseen were
+to be essential; but here his exertions were less successful; he was
+steadily obstructed by routine and tradition; his own views, probably,
+were not fully formed, and years were to elapse before the Prussian
+army was to attain its present excellence in this sphere of the
+art. The greatest reform, however, effected by Moltke remains to be
+stated, and had immense results. The Prussian Staff stood high since
+the days of Frederick; but under the care of its greatest chief, it
+gradually reached a state of extreme perfection. Divided mainly into
+two branches, it supplied the commanders of corps with able advisers,
+trained in strategy, in tactics, in the direction of troops, and in
+providing for their needs in the field; and it has accumulated stores
+of knowledge in all that relates to military history, to the geography
+of war, to the resources and armies of civilized states, which have
+proved to be of the greatest practical value. Moltke, it should be
+added, like all true leaders, inspired the army generally with his high
+aims and spirit; he encouraged the mental training of soldiers and
+officers, but he paid special attention to order, discipline, and to
+everything that secures obedience to command.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre, of the
+
+  CAMPAIGN
+
+  of 1866.]
+
+Moltke could never have accomplished these tasks had he not had the
+all-powerful support of the King, a really able and far-sighted ruler,
+and a soldier of no ordinary gifts. Within seven years from the time
+when he was raised to his post, the Prussian army, which since 1848 had
+fallen low in universal repute, had, under Moltke’s care, become, we
+know now, unquestionably the first of European armies, as superior to
+those of every other State as the army of Frederick was to the armies
+of his day. The time was at hand when the strength and worth of this
+mighty instrument was to be proved in the field. I pass over the petty
+Danish war, and proceed to the great conflict of 1866, fought with
+memorable and lasting results for the Continent. Prussia instantly took
+a bold offensive attitude, and the celerity with which her main forces
+were “mobilized” and directed towards the Bohemian frontier, with
+every requirement to begin a campaign, surprised all who understood the
+subject. The invasion, too, of the Northern German States was admirably
+planned and well carried out; and the ability with which a small
+Prussian army held in check and baffled the whole of South Germany
+remains a specimen of fine generalship. The distribution, however,
+of the principal army on the theatre of war to oppose Austria can be
+praised by the courtiers of fortune only, and is certainly open to
+grave objections.
+
+On the 15th of June 1866 this huge array, about 250,000 strong, and
+divided into three great masses, was disseminated along an immense
+front, extending from the Elbe almost to the Oder, and not far from
+the main Bohemian range; the right, the Army of the Elbe, being near
+Torgau, the centre, or First Army, being around Sorau, the Second Army,
+the left, holding the tract round Neisse. At this moment the chief
+Austrian army, nearly equal in numbers, reckoning its Saxon allies,
+was in Moravia, spreading about Olmütz; it held a central position
+between scattered foes, and it is now acknowledged that it was ready
+to advance, and could have assumed a decided offensive. It is vain to
+deny that in this state of affairs it already possessed an immense
+advantage; and, whatever the cause, the Prussian strategy which gave
+it this grand chance must be deemed faulty. All the apologies that
+have been made on this subject will not mislead the true student of
+war. It has been urged that the dislocation of the Prussian armies was
+necessary “to cover Berlin and Breslau”; but this argument is of no
+avail. You should never risk a whole army for such objects, and if you
+try to defend everything, you run all hazards. It has been said, again,
+that it was not possible to assemble the Prussian forces in any other
+way, regard being had to the lines of railways; but that is no reason
+why the three armies should have been distant from each other near
+the Bohemian frontier. Lastly, it has been alleged that the superior
+quality of the Prussian troops, if considered, excuses their chiefs;
+but this superiority had yet to be proved; and any operation, however
+defective, may be justified by this kind of reasoning. The examples set
+by really great captains show what Benedek--a good soldier, but unfit
+to command a large army--might have accomplished at this conjuncture.
+Napoleon, in the place of the Austrian chief, would have made for
+the salient of the Bohemian hills--would have debouched through the
+passes into the Saxon plains, and holding the army of the Elbe by a
+detachment in check, would have fallen in superior force on the First
+Army, and then would have turned victoriously against the Second
+Army, which, thrown forward into Upper Silesia, might have been cut
+off from its base and destroyed. Turenne, less daring but more safe,
+would have advanced to the southern verge of the Bohemian range, and,
+occupying the position he always sought to gain, would have invited the
+attack of his divided enemies, and interposing between them would have
+beaten them in detail. In either case, the Prussians should have been
+defeated; and, indeed, why they were placed in this way on the theatre
+has never yet been really explained.
+
+On the 16th of June the Army of the Elbe entered Saxony, and had soon
+seized Dresden; and about the 20th it had nearly joined hands with
+the First Army which, under Prince Frederick Charles, had been moved
+close to the Bohemian frontier. The Prussian right and centre were thus
+almost united; but the left, commanded by the Crown Prince, which had
+advanced from Neisse towards the passes near Glatz, was isolated from
+its supports, and at a great distance; and if the invaders were not in
+immediate danger--for Benedek had only begun to move--their strategic
+position remained critical. In this situation the Prussian armies, now
+practically two, not three masses, were directed to pass through the
+range, and, approaching each other, to effect their junction around
+Gitschin, a point considerably to the south of the hills, not far from
+where Benedek had some troops, and where he might have had five-sixths
+of his army. This strategy was exactly the same in kind as that which
+had proved fatal in 1796, when attempted against the chief of Rivoli;
+and the excuses that have been made for it are weak and baseless. Two
+large armies, such as those of Prussia were, though far from each
+other, are no doubt in less peril if they invite the attack of a single
+army equal to both in strength, than two small armies would be under
+like conditions, and this would specially be the case where, as in
+the present instance, the field of manœuvre was somewhat contracted.
+All this, however, proves no more than that the converging movement
+of 1866 was less to be blamed than that of Würmser; it does not show
+that it can be justified, and the experience of ages clearly condemns
+it. Benedek, who broke up from Olmütz on the 17th of June, might have
+reached Gitschin with the mass of his forces before the Prussian armies
+could have come into line; and in that event he would have had at least
+an opportunity to fall on his divided enemies, and to achieve success,
+more or less important. Unfortunately for himself, however, the
+Austrian chief was unable to seize the occasion before him; instead of
+turning his central position to account, and advancing northward with
+all his corps in hand, he adopted half-measures of extreme feebleness.
+He sent a detachment only, comparatively small, to hold the Prussian
+right and centre in check. He struck at the Prussian left with inferior
+forces, and he hung back himself with the mass of his army, irresolute,
+hesitating, and, at best, inactive.
+
+The result was what might have been expected. Clam Gallas and the Saxon
+contingent were overpowered by Prince Frederick Charles, who attacked
+with largely superior forces; the Crown Prince, as he emerged from
+the defiles, defeated with ease the three hostile corps opposed to
+his much more powerful army, and though the issue was partly due to
+the excellence of the Prussian infantry, and to the efficacy of the
+arms they wielded, it is chiefly to be ascribed to the grave faults
+and the shortcomings of the Austrian leader. The victorious armies,
+though still far apart, now advanced along the heads of the Iser and
+the Elbe. The Austrians, beaten and demoralized, slowly fell back; and
+yet such was the inherent advantage of the central position still held
+by Benedek, that had he known how to make a true use of it he might
+even yet have turned the tide of ill-fortune. By the 29th of June he
+had his army nearly united; the two Prussian armies were leagues from
+each other, and part of the First Army was dangerously exposed; and
+it has been justly remarked that had Benedek boldly attacked Prince
+Frederick Charles on this day, he ought to have won a real victory,
+and, in that event, he would still have had a chance to strike and
+defeat the Crown Prince of Prussia. As is well known, however, the
+ill-fated chief did not attempt an offensive return, and continued his
+retreat until he had passed the Bistritz; here, like Daun, he took a
+position of defence, and he passively awaited the onset of his foes,
+anticipating already impending ruin. Yet even at this moment, had he
+been a general of a high order, he might perhaps have triumphed. I
+have no space to describe the great day of Sadowa; it was, no doubt,
+a splendid and decisive victory; but the operations of the Prussians
+once more gave their enemy an advantage which he might have seized, and
+turned to account with immense results. The First and Second Armies
+remained still divided; for many hours on that eventful forenoon, an
+almost insignificant force was opposed to the mass of the Austrian
+army; and it was only when the Crown Prince reached the field, at about
+2 P.M., and was able to attack, that the chances of the battle
+became equal, and that success was made even possible. Had Benedek at
+any previous moment fallen in full force on Prince Frederick Charles,
+it is difficult to suppose that the Austrian chief might not have, at
+least, averted defeat.
+
+The campaign of Sadowa is a striking instance how generals who steadily
+carry out ably a plan essentially faulty in itself may defeat a
+commander who waits on his foe, and cannot take the initiative or seize
+the occasion. In justice, however, to a departed veteran, let us say
+that the Prussian army was, in most respects, very superior to that
+arrayed against it; the Austrian army was crowded with discontented
+levies; the Prussians, too, possessed a breech-loading rifle, the fire
+of which had great effect, though it is idle to contend that it decided
+the war; and these facts told in the final issue. As for the Prussian
+strategy, it was not good. We can imagine the shades of Turenne and
+Napoleon indignant that a violation of their art should have been
+followed by ill-deserved success; and if Moltke really directed these
+operations of 1866, his first essays in war are not admirable. The
+movements, however, which led to Sadowa are almost identical with those
+of Frederick in Bohemia in 1756–57; and I cannot help conjecturing
+that King William--his reverence for his ancestor was a kind of
+worship--was in a great measure their true author, though those of
+Frederick have been condemned by Napoleon with no uncertain censure.
+
+After the events of 1866, it became apparent that Prussia and France
+would ere long quarrel; and I must say a word on the preparations made
+by the two Powers before the impending conflict, and on their military
+resources when it at last broke out. Northern Germany was practically
+added to Prussia; treaties were made with the Southern German States;
+the unity of Germany for war was well-nigh accomplished; and the German
+armies which could be brought into the field, more or less organized
+on the Prussian model, reached the enormous number of a million of
+men, 500,000 forming the first fighting line. Extraordinary attention,
+moreover, was given to the improvement of the instrument of war which
+had crushed the power of Austria in three weeks, and to the removal of
+every defect which had been discovered in it. The “mobilization” was
+made more effective; the experience of 1866 was turned to account to
+make the evolutions of foot more quick and exact, and to adapt infantry
+tactics to modern arms. Great pains were taken to reform the cavalry,
+which had been scarcely equal to the fine squadrons of Austria, led
+by the brilliant Edelsheim, and to give it celerity and strength in
+the field; and the artillery, it may be said, was transformed, old
+smooth-bore guns being finally condemned, and artillery tactics being
+greatly changed by abandoning the system of huge reserves of guns--a
+tradition of the Napoleonic era, but obsolete under the new conditions
+of war--and by directing every battery that could be made available as
+quickly as possible to the front of battle. By these means the Prussian
+army of 1866 was expanded into the vast German army which overran
+France from the Rhine to the Loire; and the hosts which triumphed at
+Metz and Sedan were infinitely more formidable in all respects than
+that which had overwhelmed Benedek.
+
+Let us now turn to the attitude of France, in view of the contest
+known to be imminent. Napoleon III. and one or two French chiefs had
+not failed to observe the immense increase of the military power
+of Prussia and Germany; and they perceived how enormous was the
+importance of the great trained reserve of the German system, which
+had nothing corresponding to it in their own. The Emperor and Marshal
+Niel accordingly proposed that the nominal reserves of the French
+army--masses of men on paper--should be in some degree disciplined,
+and that the Garde Mobile, a new force, should be formed; and had this
+been effected the military power of France would have been largely
+augmented, though it would have been still very inferior to that of
+Germany. Tradition and faction, however, prevailed; a reform, of which
+Napoleon had laid down the lines at St. Helena fifty years before, was
+disregarded and not carried out; and the strength of France for war was
+left as it was, that is, miserably weak compared to that of Germany.
+This difference was in itself immense, but there were other differences
+of perhaps equal moment. France was not prepared for a great modern
+war; her military organization was out of joint; she had not had a good
+Minister of War since Soult; her chiefs, formed for the most part in
+Africa, had little strategic or scientific knowledge; she had nothing
+resembling the Prussian Staff, the brain of the army, as it has well
+been called; she had not in her service the perfect gradation of united
+commands which was one secret of the success of Prussia in 1866. Her
+whole military hierarchy, and all that depends on it was, therefore,
+in far from a good state; her chiefs had no settled convictions in
+war, and were divided upon the great question whether the offensive or
+defensive was the better strategy; and, besides that it was weak and
+without a real reserve, the condition of her army was very defective.
+It was, no doubt, a fine professional army; but it had been injured by
+the system of commuting service; it had many bad and worn-out soldiers;
+it had not been practised in manœuvres in the field; it had not
+anything like fixed rules of tactics; and though its infantry possessed
+an excellent rifle, much better than the needle-gun of Prussia, and
+its cavalry was a noble arm, its artillery was very inferior to that
+of the Germans. The most marked distinction, however, between the two
+nations in their capacity for a campaign has yet to be noted. The
+railway system of Germany was designed for war; that of France was
+formed on no such principle; the local system of Prussia made it quite
+certain that the German army would be placed in the field more quickly
+than that of France could be under her centralized and ill-arranged
+system; and these two circumstances, little perceived at the time, were
+of extreme if not of decisive importance.
+
+The general result of this state of things was that Germany could
+“mobilize” and send into the field half a million of men, backed by
+enormous reserves, well organized, disciplined, trained, and commanded,
+within three weeks after a declaration of war; that France could hardly
+assemble three hundred thousand soldiers, unsupported by any solid
+reserve, ill-prepared, and under inefficient chiefs; and that, in point
+of time, she would be far behind her enemy. There was no comparison,
+therefore, between the two powers, and France had scarcely a chance of
+success, though if her military strength had been well directed, she
+need never have signed the Treaty of Frankfort. The conflict began in
+July 1870. Napoleon III., the mere shadow of a mighty name, assumed
+the command of the French armies, and his plan was to advance from
+behind Metz and Strasbourg, to cross the Rhine between Spires and
+Landau, and to interpose between the South and North German forces,
+which, it was assumed, would not be ready in time, and divided. The
+project, the Emperor has told us himself, was founded on that of his
+uncle in 1815; but Moltke had foreseen and provided against it, and
+it is useless to examine a mere scheme on paper, which was no sooner
+conceived than it proved abortive. Napoleon III. calculated that he
+would have 250,000 men round Metz and Strasbourg ready to march, with
+50,000 in immediate reserve; but he had little administrative power
+or resource; the existing system of France proved inefficient; her
+organization for war broke down, the “mobilization” of her troops was
+slow and partial, and when the Emperor reached Metz in the third week
+of July, he had not assembled 200,000 soldiers, and these were hardly
+in a state to take the field. This was very different from that prodigy
+of skill, the concentration on the Sambre before Waterloo; and in these
+circumstances, the unhappy sovereign ought to have renounced a hopeless
+offensive, and to have placed his army on the line of the Moselle,
+in order to defend the Vosges and Alsace, a course which Moltke
+believed he would take. But the Emperor thought he had no choice. He
+was goaded on by opinion in France; the folly of allowing politics to
+master strategy, one main cause of the disasters that followed, had
+already begun to produce its results; and he advanced to the frontier
+with forces, compared to those of the Germans, pitiably weak, and but
+ill-provided with all kinds of requirements. When he had attained
+Alsace and the Sarre he paused, afraid to strike, but he felt that he
+was not in nearly sufficient strength, and, waiting on his enemy, he
+allowed his army to be disseminated upon a vast arc, extending from
+Thionville to the gap of Belfort, and dangerously exposed along its
+front.
+
+The conduct of Germany and of the German chiefs contrasted most
+strikingly with this exhibition of maladministration, feebleness,
+and incapacity for war. The contest, Frenchmen thought, was a mere
+affair of “glory”; in Germany it caused a great national rising for
+unity and independence, and to avenge Jena. The Teutonic race sprang
+fiercely to arms; the feuds between North and South Germany ceased; the
+orders for the “mobilization” of the German armies were carried out
+with wonderful skill and precision, and more than 300,000 men, with
+great reserves behind, were in a few days arrayed on the frontier,
+an astonishing result of patriotism and organization for war, partly
+due to a well-planned railway system. Three great armies were now
+quickly formed. This time Moltke certainly had the general direction
+of operations in the field, and he instantly assumed a determined
+offensive. The situation dictated his plan; there was nothing original
+in it, as has been said by flatterers. In fact, it was that of
+Marlborough in 1705, and it had been actually laid down by Gneisenau;
+it consisted, simply, in invading France from the Palatinate, along
+her most exposed frontier, but it was executed in the main ably, and
+with conspicuous forethought and vigour. The First Army, led by the
+veteran Steinmetz, advanced from Treves towards the Lower Sarre; the
+Second, under Prince Frederick Charles, moved from Mayence through the
+German Vosges; and the Third, commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia,
+marched across the Rhine and attained the Lauter, the three masses
+acting well in concert. The poor affair of Sarrebruck only quickened
+the movement; and, in the first week of August, a great tempest of war
+burst over the verge of Lorraine and Alsace. The first efforts of the
+Germans were, no doubt, premature; Frossard might have gained some
+success at Spicheren had he been seconded by the corps in his rear,
+and the impatience of the invaders, and of one or two of their chiefs,
+precipitated the well-fought battle of Wörth. Moltke, however, is not
+to be blamed for this; he was far away from those scenes of action, and
+his strategy completely attained his object, though his subordinates
+made more than one mistake. As for Wörth, it does honour to the arms
+of France; on that day 45,000 Frenchmen held double their number, for
+hours, at bay; and the issue might have been very different had De
+Failly come into line, as was possible. Macmahon, however, a soldier
+but no chief, cannot escape blame for not having drawn off his troops
+while retreat was still open and safe, especially when the great
+superiority of the enemy in force and in artillery had become clearly
+manifest.
+
+  [Illustration: Theatre of the
+
+  CAMPAIGNS
+
+  of 1870–71.]
+
+Spicheren shattered the front of the French army--it had been named the
+Army of the Rhine; and Wörth forced its right wing in confusion and
+rout far to the south, in eccentric retreat, laying bare the defeated
+centre and left. Napoleon III. fell back with his beaten forces; and
+the next few days, big with the fate of France, witnessed a wretched
+succession of divided counsels. It was proposed to attempt a stand on
+the Nied, in Lorraine, to join Macmahon, or to call him up to Metz;
+but all that was done was to retreat on the fortress, to cause a weak
+reserve to advance from Châlons, and to impair the moral worth of the
+French soldiery, when ill-led, never great in misfortune. Meanwhile,
+the hosts of the invaders, largely reinforced, were moving slowly
+through the passes of the Vosges; the First and Second Armies filling
+the tracts between the Sarre, the Nied, and the Seille, the Third Army
+far to the south, round Nancy; and, whatever may be said, ample time
+was given to their enemy to make good a retreat westward. This movement
+was not arranged until the 12th of August, a precious week having been
+thrown away; and the Emperor handed over his command to Bazaine, a
+chief, whose antecedents had, at best, been doubtful, with a general
+direction to fall back on the Meuse. Moltke’s plan of operations became
+now developed; the First Army was moved towards Metz, in order to
+detain the retreating enemy; part of the Second Army was pushed across
+the Moselle, its march screened with remarkable skill; and the Third
+Army made a step westward, the object being to force the Army of the
+Rhine into the north of France, and to cut it off from Paris.
+
+Steinmetz attacked Bazaine on the 14th of August. The battle was stern
+and well contested; but it kept the French back for a whole day, and
+it facilitated, as was intended, the forward movement of the Second
+and Third Armies, which was Moltke’s object. A great mistake, however,
+was here made; the German chief believed that the Army of the Rhine
+was already far to the north of Metz; but Bazaine was moving directly
+westward, and on the evening of the 15th he had his whole army, at
+least 140,000 strong, concentrated along the roads that lead from Metz
+to Verdun, by Mars La Tour and Etain. One German corps only was on
+the spot; Prince Frederick Charles, no doubt unaware of the immense
+superiority of his enemy in force, attacked on the morning of the
+16th; and had Bazaine had any skill in war, he ought to have swept his
+assailant from his path. The Marshal, however, could not handle an
+army; he kept the Imperial Guard inactive near Metz, he made little
+use of two of his corps; the hard pressed Germans were reinforced by
+degrees; a magnificent effort of the German cavalry had a marked effect
+on the fortunes of the day; and evening fell on a scene of carnage,
+in which neither side could lay a claim to victory. The result proved
+the ascendency won by the Germans, and was for them a splendid passage
+of arms; but the effects of Moltke’s error were not yet got over--it
+was like that of Napoleon before Auerstadt--for, as I have remarked,
+the campaign of 1870 resembles that of Jena in many respects; he had
+not 80,000 men in hand, and Bazaine had still a strategic advantage,
+from which a real chief would have at least plucked safety. As Prince
+Frederick Charles has said, he should have attacked on the 17th; and in
+that event he ought to have won a battle, or, at all events, have made
+good his way to Verdun, a result which would have given a new turn to
+the war. A much grander game, however, was open to him; and a German
+commentator--Moltke, I suspect--has remarked that Napoleon would have
+played it, and have perhaps gained important success. On this day, a
+decisive moment in the campaign, the First Army was still east of Metz;
+the Second Army was partly west of the Moselle; the Third Army was
+leagues away to the south; and the communications of the invaders would
+be dangerously exposed, could an enemy descend from Metz on Nancy. Had
+Bazaine, therefore, fallen back on the fortress, and issued from it in
+force on the 18th, advancing between the Moselle and the Seille, he
+ought to have been able to seize and hold the line of operations of
+the hostile armies, and the consequences must have been very great.
+He might have stopped the invasion, perhaps for weeks; he would have
+certainly saved himself and his army, and the situation would have been
+wholly changed.
+
+Unhappily for France, she had not a captain who could seize the one
+great occasion given by Fortune in the first part of the war of
+1870–71. Bazaine, a soldier fit to command a division, but utterly
+unable to direct large masses, had experience of the power of modern
+arms, and he had a fixed belief that mere defensive tactics were the
+means to assure success in battle. He resolved, therefore, to stand
+and to fight; and he arranged his forces, still 120,000 strong, along
+a range of uplands, from near Metz on the left to St. Privat and
+Roncourt on the right, which formed a fine position for a passive
+defence, the system on which the Marshal relied. Moltke, on the 17th,
+drew together the greater part of the First and Second Armies across
+the Moselle; the huge masses, probably 210,000 men, were west of Metz
+on the morning of the 18th, intercepting, a retreat to the Meuse and
+Verdun; but, strange as it may appear, the German commander was still
+ill-informed of his enemy’s movements; he believed that Bazaine was
+falling back northwards, and when he discovered where the French were,
+he was convinced, for some hours, that the positions they held did not
+extend nearly as far as Roncourt. This and other mistakes dispose of
+the theory that Moltke is a kind of Providence on the field, gravely
+asserted by certain worshippers of success, and tend to show that
+German reconnoitring may be less perfect than has been said; but fools
+only can claim omniscience for chiefs; and, in fact, under the new
+conditions of war, with its vast operations and its immense battles,
+the ablest captains will fall into error more frequently than has been
+the case formerly.
+
+Partly owing to the miscalculations of the German leader, and partly
+to tactics essentially false, the tremendous battle of the 18th of
+August--known to history by the name of Gravelotte--was undecided up
+to the last moment, large as was the superiority of Moltke’s forces.
+The assailants, thinking they were turning the French right, fell
+in front on the centre strongly entrenched, and failed to make the
+slightest impression on it; Steinmetz, on the German right, made
+repeated charges, in the close columns of the days of his youth, and
+the First Army suffered enormous losses. The Prussian Guard, too, were
+cruelly stricken in an attempt to carry St. Privat by storm; indeed,
+until near nightfall, the Army of the Rhine had a marked advantage
+along the whole line of battle; and had it been able to make a grand
+counter-attack, especially when the right of its foe was shattered,
+it not improbably would have achieved success. At last, however, the
+inherent vices of a passive defence became manifest; the German chiefs,
+given the offensive all through, and allowed to search the positions
+of the French everywhere, brought their masses to bear against the
+extreme French right; Roncourt was carried by a great turning movement;
+the whole position became untenable, and the French army gradually
+fell back on Metz. Yet no doubt can now exist that had Bazaine been
+a capable chief on that terrible day, the battle would have been at
+least drawn, inferior as were his troops in numbers, and, in some
+degree, disheartened by defeat. Had the Imperial Guard, as was quite
+possible, been moved to the aid of the French right, the last effort of
+the Germans must have failed; and in that event the contending armies
+would have retained their places on the field unchanged. The Marshal,
+however, unequal to his task, and thinking only of merely holding his
+ground, kept this noble reserve near Metz unengaged; and 20,000 men
+were left out of the struggle who could have turned the balance in the
+scales of Fortune. Gravelotte, in truth, is a notable instance how a
+resolute offensive, even though ill-conducted, may, notwithstanding the
+arms of the age, prevail over passive tactics of defence; the attack
+on the French right, made at the last moment, after many mistakes,
+gained decisive success; and all the efforts of an army which had not
+the means to attempt at any time a counter-attack, and simply waited
+in position on its foes, proved ultimately fruitless, though for
+hours hopeful. The battle, the student of war will note, has a strong
+resemblance to that of Malplaquet; but the operations of the Germans
+are not to be compared in skill to those of Marlborough and Eugene;
+and the tricolour was defended by a very different chief from the
+illustrious warrior who upheld the lilies.
+
+Within two or three days after Gravelotte, the German armies had closed
+around Metz and the army of Bazaine, which had clung to the fortress.
+The left wing and centre of the whole French army were thus, so to
+speak, removed from the theatre, at least for active operations in
+the field; and, notwithstanding mistakes and shortcomings, the plan
+of Moltke, if not realised, had been attended with more than expected
+success. The right wing, half destroyed at Wörth, remained, and we turn
+to the movements of this force, on which the fortune of France for the
+time depended. Macmahon had been joined by De Failly and his troops,
+by the corps which had been placed at Belfort, and by a new corps
+despatched from the capital; and by the 20th of August the collected
+array, numbering from 120,000 to 130,000 men, was assembled around the
+great camp of Châlons. The Marshal was in supreme command; he properly
+resolved to keep the only army now left to France to defend Paris; but
+as Bazaine conceivably might be not distant, he marched on the 21st
+to Rheims, holding a position on the flank of the German invasion,
+and in the hope that his brother chief might approach, but with the
+determination to fall back on the capital. This was in conformity with
+the principles of war; and had Macmahon kept firm to his purpose, the
+catastrophe that followed would not have happened, and France would not
+have mourned for the extreme of disaster. Unfortunately, however, the
+Duke of Magenta, a hero in the field but a weak man--the character is
+by no means uncommon--was led astray by pernicious counsels; Palikao,
+a new Minister of War, whose chief thought was for the tottering
+Empire, and to satisfy the desires of Paris, insisted that Metz must
+be relieved; and he urged Macmahon to advance to the Meuse, to slip
+outside the flank of the hostile armies, and descending from Montmédy
+on the beleaguered fortresses, to join hands with and to extricate
+Bazaine, and to strike a bold stroke for a decisive victory. In an evil
+hour for France and himself, the marshal gave ear to a fatal project,
+as reckless as ever was made in war; for the march to the Meuse, and
+thence as far as Metz, would be a flank march of the most hazardous
+kind, the enemy holding the chord of the arc; it would be a march
+perilously near the Belgian frontier, where a lost battle would mean
+ruin; it was a march to be made by an enfeebled army in the midst of
+the victorious Germans, threefold in numbers; above all, it was a march
+which would draw away from Paris, the centre and vital point of the
+national defence, the only organized force that remained to protect
+it. Macmahon, it is said, was still doubting--he knew that the course
+proposed was insensate, not strategy, but the throw of a gambler--when
+an ambiguous message sent by Bazaine, and implying that he was on
+his way from Metz northwards, at last caused the luckless commander
+to yield. Once more the plainest military rules were sacrificed to
+political ends; and once more Bellona, who brooks no rival, was, so to
+speak, challenged and wildly provoked. The army of Châlons broke up
+from Rheims on the 23rd, and it was on the Upper Aisne on the 25th,
+approaching the region of defiles and forests, which extends from the
+Ardennes to the Meuse. Macmahon spared no effort to make the movement
+rapid, for celerity he knew was his only chance; but the march of his
+army became slow, and by the 27th it was still far from the Meuse, in
+the tract between Tourteron, Le Chêne, and Buzancy. It had already
+begun to shows signs of weakness; it was ill-provided and badly
+organized; the soldiers were discontented and ill-disciplined, and the
+mind of its chief was full of misgivings.
+
+I proceed to the operations of the German armies, very different
+from those of their ill-directed enemies. The main body of the First
+and Second Armies was required for the investment of Metz; but three
+corps, called the Army of the Meuse, were detached to co-operate with
+the Third Army, by this time west of the Moselle, in the borderlands
+of Lorraine and Champagne; and the converging masses, 230,000 strong,
+advanced steadily upon a broad front towards the heads of the Marne and
+the great roads to Paris. By the 24th of August, the cavalry outposts
+which preceded the movement had ascertained that the Army of Châlons
+had left Rheims, and was on its way to the Aisne eastward; but Moltke
+refused for some time to credit the rumour that it was making for
+Metz, for this, he rightly thought, would be the height of folly. He
+learned the truth, however, positively on the 25th, and his resolution
+was formed with that prompt decision which is a characteristic of real
+chiefs, and has been exhibited by him at grave crises. The measures he
+took to baffle Palikao’s scheme were not wonders of genius, as has been
+said by flatterers, but they show true insight, and most comprehensive
+judgment; and they were carried out with consummate skill. The Army of
+the Meuse was directed to recross the river; two corps were detached
+from Metz to join it, and to stop Macmahon should he get near the
+fortress; and the Third Army was ordered to advance northwards through
+the district of the Argonnes and the Ardennes--the scene of the
+campaign of Valmy--and to gather on the flank and rear of the Army of
+Châlons, which would thus be placed in a difficult strait at least.
+The execution of this fine strategic movement was admirable in the
+highest degree; the great invading hosts, ruled by one master’s will,
+well-led, supplied, and trained for the field, marched with speed and
+precision through an intricate country, and the careful preparation,
+the organization for war, the perfect unity and gradation of command,
+and the intelligence of the individual soldier, which are distinctive
+marks of the army of Prussia, were made fully and grandly manifest.
+
+By the 27th of August the German squadrons were gathering rapidly upon
+their foes; Macmahon, though without the least notion of the enormous
+force that was closing round him, perceived that his army was in grave
+peril, and he gave orders for a retreat on Mézières, hoping to attain
+Paris by a march from the frontier. For the second time, however, the
+incapable chief succumbed to the temptation he should have spurned. A
+message, that “revolution would break out should Bazaine be abandoned
+at Metz,” induced him to continue the advance to the Meuse, and to
+court the ruin which he knew was probable; and it is but just to
+observe that Napoleon III.--he accompanied the Marshal since he had
+left Châlons--protested against conduct which was almost criminal.[31]
+Macmahon now tried to make a forced march; his army was divided into
+two great columns, in order to make its movements rapid, and the
+first column reached the river safely, and had crossed it by the 29th
+of August. The second column, however, was far to the south, and
+separated by a full march from the first; it was largely composed of
+beaten troops, already desponding, nay, half-mutinous; it was charged
+with _impedimenta_ of all kinds, and it toiled slowly through
+the passes and thickets it had to traverse on its way to the Meuse.
+This gave Moltke the opportunity to strike; the Army of the Meuse was
+recalled to the west of the stream, the two corps from Metz having
+been sent back; a part of the Third Army was pushed forward, and the
+Germans fell with terrible effect on their enemies, caught in flank
+and surprised, at Beaumont and other places in their march. The second
+column was routed with immense loss; it reached the Meuse a mere
+shattered wreck, pursued by the indefatigable Prussian horsemen; and
+its ruin involved a part of the first column, which crossed the river
+to give it support. By the evening of the 30th the Army of Châlons, one
+corps of it as far as Carignan, was on the eastern bank of the Meuse,
+but half of the French troops were a demoralized mass; and the German
+advanced guards were already at hand, in close communication with the
+hosts in their rear.
+
+Macmahon, at this time, was at Carignan; he confidently expected that
+he would reach Metz; he boasted, it is said, that victory was at hand.
+The news of the events of the 30th dispelled these dreams; he hurriedly
+fell back with his one intact corps, and by the morning of the 31st
+he had assembled the still large, but beaten, Army of Châlons in the
+tract that surrounds the fortress and town of Sedan. The state of the
+French troops was of the worst omen; but an occasion was still open
+to a great chief, to extricate them from impending ruin. Mézières was
+not distant, and a French corps had reached the place to support the
+Marshal; the Meuse spread between his army and the foe, and had he
+left his _impedimenta_ behind, and made a rapid march, without
+the loss of an hour, he would certainly have escaped with the great
+mass of his forces. It is this circumstance which makes the strategy
+of Moltke inferior, fine as it was, to that which shut up Mack in
+Ulm; and the Grand Army, it will be borne in mind, had been saved on
+the Beresina when in far worse straits. Macmahon, however, would not
+stir from Sedan; there is reason to believe he never knew the immense
+strength of the hostile force, and he arrayed his army, “ready,” he
+said, “to fight,” along the uplands, encircled by streams and villages,
+which overlook Sedan and the valley below. The evening of the 31st had
+come; the German horsemen made the situation known; and Moltke, who up
+to this time had only hoped that he might succeed in forcing his enemy
+across the frontier, saw that he could reckon on a decisive triumph.
+Orders were issued for an immediate night march; the great German
+divisions, perfectly led, and the men scenting approaching victory,
+moved rapidly over the space between, and preparations were made to
+assail and surround the feeble and shattered Army of Châlons.
+
+It is unnecessary to retrace the scenes of Sedan, the just retribution
+of foolishness in command, a battle decreed by Fate, in its irony,
+to be fought around the birthplace of Turenne. The French were first
+attacked, on that fatal morning, on their southern and eastern front
+towards the Chiers; and they made for a time a gallant resistance,
+though the fall of Macmahon and a squabble between two of his
+lieutenants had a bad effect on the troops. By degrees, however, the
+overwhelming pressure of forces immensely superior told; the line
+of defence on the Givonne was carried; and the French were driven
+back, on Sedan, routed, and huddled around the walls of the fortress.
+Meanwhile a tremendous attack had been made on the northern and
+western fronts of the defence; the Germans advancing to the heights
+of Illy, and moving from the opposite side round the bend of the
+Meuse, which half encircles the outskirts of Sedan, closed gradually
+round their doomed foes; and though the French cavalry made heroic
+efforts, and one corps nobly struggled to the last, it was impossible
+to withstand overpowering numbers. The last remains of the Army of
+Châlons were forced, like the first, against the fortress; the German
+artillery--throughout the campaign it had proved an arm of enormous
+strength--was brought to bear in masses on the perishing wreck; the
+fire of 500 pieces searched the scene of carnage; and a white flag soon
+announced that resistance, no longer possible, had completely ceased.
+Within a few hours 85,000 men, the survivors of more than 120,000, the
+victims of worse than insensate leading, were a collection of helpless
+prisoners of war; and their cries of impotent fury and despair--this
+was the attitude of by far the greater part--only provoked the pitying
+scorn of the victors.
+
+This immense disaster, added to that of Metz, all but destroyed the
+military power of Imperial France on the theatre of war. Moltke had
+acted harshly at the capitulation of Sedan; he had no respect for the
+French character; like Hannibal and Napoleon, he treated the force of
+patriotic passion with contempt; and, leaving a considerable detachment
+behind, he directed an immediate advance on Paris. The German armies
+rolled steadily onward, through the valleys of the Aisne, the Oise,
+and the Marne, masking fortresses and occupying points on their way;
+and they appeared before the capital on the 19th of September, the
+chiefs convinced they would meet no resistance. Their expectations
+seemed about to be realised; an attempt to assail the invaders in
+flank, as they gathered upon the uplands south of the Seine, was
+easily defeated, and had bad results; and the Germans were permitted,
+without a further effort, to surround and invest the beleaguered
+city. Their lines, constructed with skill and forethought, spread on
+a circumference of great extent, from the confluence of the Seine and
+the Marne, by St. Denis, round through Versailles to Bonneuil; and
+though the besieging forces were at this moment not 150,000 strong, no
+doubt existed in the German camp--it was, indeed, the general belief of
+Europe--that a few days would see the surrender of Paris.
+
+Weeks, however, passed, and it became apparent that this calculation
+was a complete error. The Empire had fallen on the 4th of September; a
+Government of national defence had been formed; and this Revolution,
+in the main caused by the passionate wrath of the great mass of the
+citizens, quickened the general resolve that the capital should hold
+out, and confront the power of the German armies. Preparations had been
+made to stand a siege; immense supplies of provisions had been stored;
+the _enceinte_ and the forts which protect the city had been
+hastily manned and armed; enormous bodies of men had been assembled to
+take part in the defence of the place; these were supported by a corps
+of trained soldiers, and by the corps which had appeared at Mézières,
+and had been brought back after a skilful retreat; and though these
+arrangements were rude and imperfect, the strength of the city to
+resist attack was infinitely greater than Moltke had supposed. Sorties
+began to be made by degrees; these, though always repulsed, were not
+contemptible; the armament of the forts was completed; redoubts and
+entrenchments rose at many points to strengthen and to perfect the
+zone of defence; the citizens, warlike in all ages, though in peace
+addicted to pleasure and ease, acquired gradually something like
+discipline; the materials at least of armies were formed, and Paris
+assumed the aspect of a huge fortified camp, with a garrison certainly
+immense in numbers. Moltke took pains to secure his position; he
+tacitly admitted that he had made a mistake in marching on the capital
+without having his communications or his base assured, and with forces
+comparatively small; but he held his ground with determined constancy;
+he summoned reinforcements to head-quarters, and several corps were
+employed in besieging Strasbourg and other strongholds on the way
+from the frontier, and in overrunning Burgundy and Franche Comté. The
+front and lines of the invasion were thus strengthened; and, though
+time had passed, the submission of France was held to be a fact of
+the immediate future. The German chief was to be again deceived, as
+many warriors had been before, in his estimate of a people, great and
+heroic, despite of many national faults and failings. It is all very
+well for the Prussian Staff to sneer at Gambetta, as it has done in its
+book; but he was a man of great powers, if of real shortcomings; and
+he was but the most striking figure of millions of Frenchmen. A great
+and sudden national rising took place; it was more spontaneous than
+that of 1793; in an incredibly short time 250,000 men were in arms to
+resist the German hosts; and by making use of the resources of France
+for war--old soldiers, troops in depôts, and reserves--vast arrays were
+mustered, which at least contained the elements of real military power.
+These levies, of course, were bad soldiers, but they were formidable
+in numbers and in aptitude for war; and, whatever may be said, the
+position of Moltke had become critical as October was closing; the
+German armies were, for the most part, engaged on the investment of
+Paris and to the east of Metz; they were conquerors, and had all the
+power of success; but they were exposed to attack from within and
+without at the centres to which they were, as it were, bound; and they
+were in the midst of an immense insurrection spreading all round.
+
+At this conjuncture, a great disaster showed that Fortune was still
+most adverse to France. Bazaine had been shut up since Gravelotte
+at Metz; he had kept his army almost inactive, and he had made no
+real effort to break the investment. I cannot examine the crooked
+intrigues in which he played an ignoble part; but he surrendered the
+great fortress on the 28th of October, and the world beheld the most
+disgraceful capitulation ever known in war. Even on his pitiful system
+of passive defence, the Marshal did not nearly do his duty; the place
+could have held out a fortnight longer, and the respite would have
+been of extreme importance. The First and Second Armies were now set
+free to take part in the great invasion; several corps were sent to
+the north, to crush levies formed in Normandy and other provinces. One
+was despatched to support the siege; and the remainder, under Prince
+Frederick Charles, held the tract between the heads of the Seine
+and Burgundy. The grasp of the Germans on France was thus greatly
+strengthened; yet the position of Moltke was so unsafe that it was
+endangered by a single trifling reverse. An army, partly composed of
+good troops, but in the main of improvised levies, had been assembled
+south of the Loire; it had been placed in the hands of D’Aurelle,
+a veteran of real organizing skill, and in a few weeks it numbered
+60,000 men, and had acquired something like military worth and power.
+A Bavarian detachment, perhaps 20,000 strong, and a division under the
+Grand-Duke of Mecklenburg, sent off to put down insurrection in the
+west, were the only hostile forces between this large mass of Frenchmen
+and the lines round Paris; and D’Aurelle, aided by a young chief,
+Chanzy, who was to prove that France had yet real captains, resolved
+to attack the Bavarians and to retake Orleans, which had fallen into
+the enemy’s hands. The Army of the Loire broke up from its camps,
+and crossed the river in the first days in November; it fell on the
+Bavarians near the little town of Coulmiers. Had the orders of Chanzy
+been well carried out, and a turning movement been completed in time,
+the invaders must have been utterly routed; but, as it was, they were
+beaten with loss; and they were compelled to fall back on the roads to
+Paris, abandoning Orleans and the adjoining region.
+
+When this intelligence arrived, unfeigned alarm prevailed at the
+German head-quarters at Versailles; the besiegers were threatened
+by an army of relief, and by the unknown multitudes of armed men in
+Paris; and disseminated as they were on an immense circumference,
+they were in a situation of no common peril. Moltke made up his mind,
+as became a true chief; he despatched pressing orders to Prince
+Frederick Charles to hasten to the capital by forced marches; and, like
+Bonaparte before Mantua--a Journal, said to be his, alludes to this--he
+resolved, whatever the result, to raise the siege should the Army of
+the Loire appear from the south. This single circumstance shows how
+precarious the position of the Germans had become; and had D’Aurelle
+boldly followed up his success the consequences to France might have
+been momentous. Chanzy, it is known, was for the more daring course;
+Napoleon would have taken it, I cannot doubt; and though it is idle to
+speculate now, the siege would certainly have been given up and the
+war would have taken a different turn. D’Aurelle, however, refused
+to advance; he constructed a great entrenched camp near Orleans; and
+here he increased and trained his levies, hoping before long to resume
+the offensive. This, probably, was too great caution; but there were
+reasons for the step of real weight. Prince Frederick Charles was but
+a few marches off, and should he reach the flank of the Army of the
+Loire, on its way to the capital, he would perhaps destroy the best
+organized force possessed by France. This clearly shows that had Metz
+resisted, and detained the Prince only a few days longer, the French
+chief would have had, and perhaps would have seized, an admirable
+occasion offered by Fortune; and, indeed, a German writer has drily
+remarked that “the capitulation came in the very nick of time.”
+
+The victory of Coulmiers sent a thrill through France, enormously
+increased the power of Gambetta, and caused levies to flock to the war
+in thousands. Notwithstanding the fall of Metz, and all that followed
+from it, the situation of the Germans was still critical; and owing to
+the undoubted strategic mistake of marching on Paris with too weak a
+force, their movements had been incoherent, and far from masterly. By
+the close of November the Great City had formed three armies out of
+her armed multitudes; and two of them, probably 150,000 strong, had
+acquired a certain degree of efficiency; the third, perhaps 200,000
+men, being only fit to defend the ramparts. I cannot describe the
+great sortie which followed; Ducrot crossed the Marne and carried
+two villages, which had been made part of the besiegers’ lines; but
+ultimately he was compelled to retreat; and, in fact, the effort was
+doomed to failure, for the zone of investment and the zone of defence
+had by this time become all but impregnable, or could be mastered only
+by the art of the engineer. The sortie from Paris was contemporaneous
+with an advance of the army of D’Aurelle’s northwards; but here
+Gambetta unhappily intervened, and his meddling and presumption did
+enormous mischief. The young civilian had done, no doubt, great things,
+but since Coulmiers, he had become a kind of Dictator--the history
+of France has too many examples how foolish hero-worship has such
+results--he insisted that the Army of the Loire should make for the
+capital, whatever the risk, though Prince Frederick Charles was near
+at hand; and, as he had made that army 150,000 strong, he refused to
+believe that there was serious danger. D’Aurelle and Chanzy protested
+in vain; two detached corps of the Army of the Loire were directed
+against Prince Frederick Charles, and were easily defeated by an
+inferior force; and the Prince, a chief of a very high order, made
+immediate preparations for a great counter-stroke. The Grand Duke and
+the Bavarians had been approaching; he quickly united these forces to
+his own, and he bore down in irresistible strength on the army, mainly
+of recruits, opposed to him. The centre of the Army of the Loire was
+broken; its wings fell off in eccentric retreat; one part was driven
+across the river, and the triumphant invaders re-entered Orleans,
+having gained rapid and complete success. By the first days of December
+it had become apparent that Paris could not burst the chain cast around
+her; and the army had been shattered which had been employed, unwisely
+at the moment, as an army of relief.
+
+The prospect for France was dark and mournful; but light shone at
+one point on the gloomy scene. D’Aurelle had been unjustly dismissed
+by Gambetta; and the part of his defeated army which had crossed the
+Loire had been placed in the hands of Bourbaki, the chief of the late
+Imperial Guard. Chanzy, however, commanded the remaining part; and a
+series of operations followed which show that he had real genius in
+war. He was attacked by the Grand Duke in all the flush of victory; but
+he had been reinforced by Gambetta’s orders; he took a strong position,
+covering both his flanks; and then with true insight he assumed the
+offensive, essential in the case of French soldiers; and, on the whole,
+he obtained some success. Prince Frederick Charles now fiercely turned
+against him; he concentrated all his available forces; but Chanzy
+made a magnificent stand; and his conduct deserves the very highest
+praise. Perceiving that the relief of Paris should be the true object
+of the French armies in the field, he fell back from the Loire to the
+Sarthe, drawing toward the capital with great skill; and in this he
+showed that he was a real strategist. Nor was he less admirable as a
+tactician; he continually, in retreat, took an offensive attitude; he
+turned defensive positions to the best account, and he contrived that
+the superiority of the French rifle should tell with full effect on
+the advancing enemy. Prince Frederick Charles pursued in vain; Chanzy
+made good his way to Le Mans; he was nearer to Paris than when he had
+left the Loire; his army had not been once beaten; and the Germans
+were not only worn out, but showed signs of demoralization and fear,
+for thousands had perished to no purpose; the hardships of the winter
+campaign had been frightful; and it seemed impossible to overcome the
+enemy.[32]
+
+A pause in the conflict now occurred, to the astonishment of Europe,
+still doubtful--a war of races, in which colossal force was confronted
+by a national rising. The Germans were still, for the most part,
+victorious; their armies surrounded imprisoned Paris; they had mastered
+most of the fortresses of France, proved to be of little use in the
+struggle; and they had made their lines of operations secure, and
+had overrun a full third of the country. But Chanzy was in the field
+unconquered; Faidherbe, a commander of real gifts, had admirably
+conducted a campaign in the north, attacking the invaders when he
+saw a chance, and falling back on the strongholds of the Somme;
+Bourbaki was at the head of a great force, continually increasing,
+on the Middle Loire; and France had realised her proud boast that
+she had but “to stamp her foot, and legions would spring from the
+earth at her bidding.” Grave[33] anxiety was felt at head-quarters at
+Versailles, spite of noisy boasting of German triumphs; and Moltke,
+reading the facts with a true general’s eye, insisted on having large
+reinforcements to strengthen the wearied and thinned invaders. Troops
+in tens of thousands from the trained reserves of Germany were called
+into the field; shrunken regiments and corps were restored in numbers;
+new corps entered the east of France, and preparations were made on
+an immense scale to quicken, by a bombardment, the fall of Paris. The
+organization of the German armies, though strained to the utmost, bore
+the test; and if the trials of the war had told heavily on the young
+soldiers who crowded the ranks, a fierce national passion still upheld
+the invasion. Moltke made excellent use of these new forces. Up to this
+time, his movements had suffered from the effects of the premature
+advance on Paris; but the error was now completely rectified, and his
+dispositions were able in the extreme. Keeping his grasp on the capital
+with stern tenacity, he so distributed his corps on the theatre of
+war that a far-spreading external zone of resistance protected the
+inner zone of investment; and should an attempt, therefore, be made
+to relieve Paris, he would have a double set of armies to oppose the
+French and interior lines on the whole circumference. Secure within
+this circle, he defied the enemy, but he was ready at all points to
+take a bold offensive, and he eschewed the whole system of mere passive
+defence. The exertions of France were also prodigious. Independently
+of the Parisian forces, she had placed 500,000 men in the field, with
+from 1,300 to 1,400 guns, and history, despite the Prussian staff, will
+pronounce this a gigantic effort. These levies, however, were most
+inferior troops. They were no match for their trained adversaries; they
+were not equal to long marches, and at this supreme moment they were
+wrongly directed. Chanzy, the master-spirit of the national defence,
+saw what the situation was, and what it required; he appreciated the
+ability of Moltke’s strategy; but even now he did not despair of
+success, and in a despatch, marked with true insight in war, he urged
+that all the provincial armies should endeavour to combine and march
+on the capital, which, in turn, should fiercely attack the besiegers.
+This last effort would, I believe, have failed; but it was the true
+course and perfectly conceived; and it was that which Moltke expected
+and feared. Unhappily for France, Gambetta rejected the counsels of
+her most distinguished soldier, and, giving ear to a silly theorist,
+he adopted a plan for the operations at hand, false in principle and,
+as facts stood, ruinous. At this moment Werder, in the east of France,
+was engaged with his corps in the siege of Belfort; the garrison was
+making a firm stand; Bourbaki, in command of his large army, was in
+the Nivernais, on the verge of Burgundy; Garibaldi had a motley array
+near Dijon, and a large army was ready to march from the south. In this
+state of affairs, instead of directing all the forces of France in a
+march on Paris, Gambetta resolved to make a great effect to relieve
+Belfort and to enter Alsace. For this purpose the collective forces of
+Bourbaki, Garibaldi, and the south were to join, and the result, it
+was hoped, would place the French armies on the communications of the
+invaders from the Rhine, and would have great and glorious results.
+This plan, strikingly resembling those of Carnot in 1793–1794, was,
+even in the abstract, misconceived; the detachment to the east of the
+French armies would expose and isolate Chanzy on the west, and even
+were the communications of the Germans reached, this would be at a
+point too remote to relieve Paris, or seriously to affect the issue
+of the campaign. But, in the actual state of affairs, the project was
+little less than foolishness; the armies intended to relieve Belfort
+and to attain Alsace were not equal to a great operation of real
+danger, and the scheme in truth was of much the same kind as that which
+had led to the catastrophe of Sedan.
+
+In the last days of December, Bourbaki’s army set off from the
+Nivernais to reach Franche Comté. The march of the columns was pitiably
+slow; the troops suffered terribly from cold and disease; and signs of
+evil omen had become manifest long before Belfort had been approached.
+This eccentric movement set the Grand Duke and Prince Frederick Charles
+completely free to attack Chanzy upon the Sarthe; and the German
+chiefs, who had had their forces recruited to a very large extent,
+broke up from Chartres, Nogent le Rotrou, and Orleans, and bore down
+on the French commander, advancing on an ever narrowing front. Chanzy
+had detached flying columns to observe the enemy; these fell back as
+the assailants drew near; and the French army, by the 10th of January,
+was concentrated within its lines at Le Mans, which had been fortified
+with skill and care. A fierce and protracted struggle followed;
+Chanzy, very different from the incapable Bazaine, really did wonders
+with his raw young troops; but, at nightfall on the 11th, his extreme
+right was turned by a desperate effort of Prince Frederick Charles.
+He evacuated Le Mans, and lost thousands of prisoners; but he made
+good his way to the Mayenne; and here he still kept his foes at bay,
+having in his retreat drawn nearer Paris. He was still full of hope,
+and wrote in that sense; but before long a tremendous disaster befell
+the ill-fated forces of France in the east. Bourbaki was joined by a
+part of Garibaldi’s troops, and by the army moving from the south; and
+with this force, fully 130,000 strong, he crossed the Ognon, and almost
+reached Belfort. He was, however, defeated with ease by Werder, with a
+force very inferior in numbers; and, after one or two fruitless efforts
+to outmanœuvre his victorious enemy, he fell back baffled, and made for
+Besançon. Here he gave up his command, and tried to commit suicide; his
+ruined army continued to retreat, but Moltke saw that his opportunity
+had come and he turned it to account, with great skill and decision.
+Three corps were detached from the external zone; Manteuffel, at the
+head of them, bore down on the enemy; Werder, with part of his corps,
+pressed forward from Belfort; and Bourbaki’s whole army, under its new
+chief, Clinchant, was surrounded and driven across the Swiss frontier.
+This was the end of Gambetta’s ambitious enterprise, which alike had
+caused the defeat of Chanzy and had ruined the last hope of success for
+the provincial armies.
+
+It fared almost as ill with France in the north, on the theatre where
+Faidherbe conducted the war. That skilful officer had continued the
+game of harassing the enemy, and falling back; and he had even fought
+a battle at Bapaume, which he had some right to describe as a victory.
+But about the middle of January he advanced towards St. Quentin, in the
+hope, it is supposed, of either relieving Paris, or of making eastward
+towards Bourbaki’s army. Moltke sent off a corps from the zone of
+investment, and defeated him with considerable loss; and, though he
+effected his retreat to Lille, his forces were for the time paralyzed.
+The military strength of France outside Paris was thus rendered almost
+powerless; Moltke had made the best use of his interior lines, on a
+great and complex field of manœuvre; and the false direction given to
+Bourbaki’s army had practically decided the contest in the field. The
+proud capital alone remained; and invincible famine was already at
+hand. In the first days of January the bombardment began; for fully
+three weeks shot and shell crashed through all parts of the beleaguered
+city; but no impression was made on the _enceinte_ or the forts,
+and still less on the great mass of the citizens. The attack, in fact,
+altogether failed; it does no credit to the German Engineers, and it
+attests Moltke’s dislike of Frenchmen; and it must be condemned as
+barbarous warfare, for it was known that Paris must ere long surrender.
+Towards the end of the month the end came; a last sortie for the honour
+of arms was easily repulsed with great slaughter; and on the 28th of
+January 1871 the capitulation was signed. German horsemen defiled under
+the Arch of the Star, a monument to the Grand Army, as the Guards of
+Napoleon had passed through Berlin; the tricolour has been plucked
+down from Metz and Strasbourg; and France mourns the calamitous Peace
+of Frankfort. Yet the defence of Paris, and the efforts made by the
+improvised armies of Chanzy and Faidherbe, were exploits worthy of a
+great nation; in the hour of misfortune France may say, like her king,
+that she has not lost honour; the resistance she made, all things
+considered, was grander than that of 1793, and it has redeemed the
+ignominy of Metz and Sedan.
+
+The success of the conquerors in this gigantic war is the greatest,
+perhaps, recorded in history. The Imperial Army of France was carried
+away captive; her improvised armies were nearly half destroyed; her
+fortresses yielded one after another; her capital held out, but
+succumbed to famine. The theme is a fine idol for the worshippers of
+success; and Moltke has been held up to the admiration of mankind as
+the greatest military genius in the annals of war. Yet, if we calmly
+examine the course of the contest, we perceive that the operations of
+the German chief do not reveal one grand strategic conception, and are
+characterized by several grave errors; they exhibit science, decision,
+and strength of character, and perfect execution of the thoughts of
+others, not originality, or “the faultlessness” claimed for them.
+Moltke--and this does not detract from his fame--owed much to his
+foes, and much to fortune; Bazaine and MacMahon, in different ways,
+sink to the level of the Soubises and Clermonts; the fall of Metz was
+a godsend to Germany; but Chanzy was a warrior of real powers; he kept
+the issue of the struggle long doubtful, and had he had the supreme
+control of the forces of France, it is impossible to say what might not
+have happened. Some of the lessons taught by the war are commonplace;
+well-organized armies, of overwhelming strength, defeat armies inferior
+in every respect; trained and disciplined troops beat raw levies;
+disaster is all but certain to follow when the simplest rules of the
+military art are disregarded for supposed reasons of State. Two great
+facts, however, require special notice; the German armies are the most
+formidable which have ever appeared in the modern world; there is an
+element of weakness in their young soldiers, but they represent a
+mighty race in arms, ready at any moment to march on to conquest; and
+this has been the result of years of training. On the other hand, the
+national rising of France, after Metz and Sedan, was a noble movement;
+it was marked by heroic courage and self-sacrifice; and yet it failed,
+and probably was doomed to fail, though the resources of France for war
+are enormous, and the French are a people of born soldiers.
+
+I have come to the last of my Great Commanders; what is Moltke’s place
+in that august succession? It is difficult to catch a true likeness
+of a figure not in the perspective of Time, and whose career belongs
+to the history of the day. Moltke has many, I think, of the gifts
+of Frederick; he is a thoroughly accomplished and educated man; he
+has extraordinary force of application and thought; his perseverance
+deserves the highest praise; and though he has not been tried by the
+test of ill-fortune, he has evidently the tenacity and firmness of the
+Prussian king. Like Frederick, however, he wants supreme genius and the
+imaginative power of the greatest chiefs; but he is far superior to
+Frederick in all that relates to the large combinations and movements
+of war, though probably his inferior on the field of battle. It is his
+special characteristic that he was one of the first to see what are the
+new conditions of war in this age, and that he turned them to the very
+best account; the Prussian Army and that of the lesser German States
+have been, in a great measure, created by him; and Moltke, I conceive,
+has “organized victory” more thoroughly than has ever before been seen.
+His place as a strategist is more doubtful; his countrymen have called
+him “the great strategist,” but this is the exaggeration of national
+sympathy; and in this sphere of the art, I certainly think he holds an
+inferior rank to Turenne, and he has not even approached the height of
+Napoleon. We miss originality in his conceptions of war. If he really
+directed the converging movement into Bohemia, in 1866, whatever have
+been the modifications of the art, this was inconsistent with its true
+principles; his advance on Paris was a distinct mistake; and in his
+operations at Metz we see many errors which Bazaine possibly might have
+made disastrous. His peculiar strategic merit is that he can work out
+to perfection accepted views, and improve upon the ideas of others;
+but in this there is not the masterly power seen in the campaigns of
+1674 and 1675, of 1796 and of 1800. Still Moltke is a real chief of the
+grand school of Napoleon; he can move large armies on a wide theatre
+with remarkable forethought and scientific skill; his marches against
+the army of Châlons, and the army of Bourbaki, are very fine, and he
+made the best use of his interior lines in the final operations around
+Paris. His merits as a tactician are less easy to estimate; in the case
+of the immense battles of the present day, the real head of an army
+can do no more than make arrangements of a general kind; but if he
+directed Gravelotte, it was ill-directed, though it is well known he
+condemned Steinmetz; and in theory he is a master of modern tactics.
+Moltke seems to have a cold and passionless nature; like Wellington, he
+has commanded the respect of officers and men but not their devotion;
+Prince Frederick Charles was the real hero, in the eyes of the German
+soldiery in 1870–71; and this remarkable chief possessed in a high
+degree the peculiar gifts of his greatest ancestor. It is astonishing,
+however, if we bear in mind that Moltke was in his sixty-seventh year
+when he first commanded an army in the field, that he should have
+achieved what he has achieved. He is a great commander, beyond dispute,
+and as an administrator in war he has never been excelled.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Map of BELGIUM.]
+
+
+                         THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I purpose, in this and a subsequent chapter, to describe the main
+features of the Campaign of 1815, and to endeavour to pronounce a
+fair judgment upon it. Of the interest of the subject it is needless
+to speak; this grand passage of arms will attract the attention of
+history to it in the same degree as the contest decided on the field
+of Zama, or the last struggle between Pompey and Cæsar. Yet this is
+not my chief reason for attempting this sketch; I venture to think,
+though a large literature has grown up round the theme of Waterloo,
+that there is still room for an impartial study, brief though it be,
+of the leading incidents of this ever-memorable and most decisive
+conflict. Many causes, in fact, have concurred to obscure the truth
+respecting the Campaign of 1815, and to prevent a just estimate being
+formed of it. On some points our knowledge is still imperfect; passion
+and prejudice have distorted the facts, on several others of the first
+importance; and commentators on Waterloo, even including the chief
+actors in the drama, have, in most instances, either made palpable and
+grave mistakes, or have applied a kind of criticism to the course of
+events, essentially, and from the nature of the case, fallacious. The
+narratives of Napoleon, in some of their parts, bear the ineffaceable
+marks of his genius, but they abound in serious errors of detail, and
+in places they are far from just or honest. The apology of Wellington,
+though the most truthful of men, written as it was in far advanced
+age, is not trustworthy in many respects; and all that has emanated
+from the Prussian staff is by no means accurate, or even always candid.
+As for historians, Thiers has composed a romance confuted by the
+evidence in most important points; and the same may be said of the
+host of Frenchmen who, like him, have slavishly followed Napoleon. We
+have had a like class of writers in England; from Siborne to Hooper
+it has been the fashion to describe the Duke as faultless in 1815, in
+plain defiance of unquestionable facts; and Dutch, Belgian, and German
+authors have equally erred in claiming praise for chiefs of their races
+beyond their merits. Then we have commentators, of whom Charras is by
+far the ablest and most perfect specimen, partisans who test operations
+of war by an impossible standard of mere theory, and who, in this way,
+have succeeded in making the greatest chiefs seem inferior men; and
+Chesney’s _Essay_, though in parts excellent, is by no means free
+from this most unsound criticism. Passing by General Hamley’s valuable
+sketch, I believe Jomini’s account of Waterloo to be, even now, the
+best extant narrative; but it is necessarily wanting in many respects,
+in the information obtained since his day. I shall try to follow, in
+these chapters, the method which, in an inquiry of this kind, will most
+probably lead to just conclusions; that is, I shall rely[34] only on
+contemporaneous documents, the genuineness of which is not doubtful;
+and I shall endeavour to judge of events as they happened, from the
+point of view of those who took part in them, and not by the mere
+abstract rules of strategy.
+
+I have no space to discuss the arrangements made beforehand by Napoleon
+to meet the League of Europe in 1815; but they were most able and
+even wonderful, and the detraction of Charras is false and unjust.
+The memories of an immortal campaign would have caused the Emperor
+to defend France on the Marne and the Seine, with fortified Paris a
+pivot for his operations and a vast entrenched camp; but the state of
+opinion made this plan impossible, and he resolved to assume a daring
+offensive. His design, resembling in its main features the strategy
+which led to Ulm and Austerlitz, may be left with confidence to judges
+of the art, and bears the clear stamp of his transcendent genius. A
+million of armed men were advancing on France from the Scheldt, the
+Rhine, the Oder, and the Po; but the hosts of the Allies were widely
+apart, and at unequal distances from the points of attack; and the
+extreme right of the vast front of invasion, composed of the armies of
+Blücher and Wellington, was isolated, and close to the French frontier.
+It was possible, therefore, to make a sudden spring on this detached
+part of the Coalition’s forces, to surprise and to overthrow it in
+detail; and if decisive success were achieved, there were reasons to
+believe that Napoleon’s triumph might bring the war at once to a close.
+The situation, besides, of the menaced armies in Belgium invited a
+daring attack, even though made with an inferiority of force. They were
+disseminated along a wide front, from Ghent to Liège, a hundred miles
+in length, and from thirty-five to fifty miles in depth, from Brussels
+to the edge of French territory; they were scattered in divisions,
+covering the roads that led, in many lines, from the frontier of
+France; and two days, at least, were required before they could
+even nearly concentrate on a given field of battle. They were thus
+vulnerable at all points, and the strategy which placed them in such
+positions has long ago been condemned as false; but many and decisive
+reasons concurred to induce Napoleon to select their centre, and the
+space where their inner flanks met, as the first spot on which to
+direct his efforts.
+
+Were he to assail the Allies on either wing, he would press their
+armies against each other, and favour rather than retard their
+junction, the very event to be most avoided; and, besides, they were in
+greater strength on these lines than at those points of their centre
+at which their separate forces came in contact. Again, Wellington
+was based on the sea, from Brussels and Ghent to Ostend and Antwerp;
+the base of Blücher was the Rhine and Cologne. Were their centre,
+therefore, fiercely attacked, and their armies compelled to diverge
+from each other, the probability was that each chief would fall back
+on his proper base, as happened in the campaign of 1794, and that
+the Emperor would be able to interpose and, perhaps, to overwhelm
+their recoiling forces. Other considerations combined to determine
+the purpose of the most profound of generals. Blücher was known to be
+hasty and bold to a fault; the genius of Wellington was circumspect and
+cautious; and Napoleon calculated--rightly, as the event proved--that
+should he fall suddenly on the allied centre, Blücher would hurry
+forward to repel the attack, and that Wellington would be slow to
+advance; and this single circumstance, it was not unlikely, would
+give the Imperial chief an admirable chance to beat in detail his
+divided enemies. The peculiarities of the theatre, too, encouraged
+an attempt against the allied centre. At each side of this point the
+French frontier at this time ran into Belgian territory, especially
+from Valenciennes to Rocroy; a great main road by Charleroi to Brussels
+nearly traversed the space where the Allies met, and led into the
+heart of the Belgic provinces; the communication between the Allies
+depended chiefly on one lateral road, extending from Nivelles to Namur
+eastwards, and behind this lay a difficult region of hills and marshes
+watered by the Dyle, and unfavourable to the junction of divided
+armies. Should Napoleon, therefore, advance on this path, he would have
+the shortest line of attack from France; he would have an avenue into
+the midst of the camps of his foes, and conducting him to the Belgian
+capital; and should he once be able to force his adversaries from their
+main point of contact, the Nivelles and Namur road, they would find it
+no easy task to reunite, and they would probably be placed in serious
+peril.
+
+The Allies were thus to be struck at their centre, and their separated
+hosts to be rent asunder as Beaulieu and Colli, twenty years before,
+when Bonaparte was first revealed to Fortune, were assailed from the
+Genoese seaboard and driven in eccentric retreat from Piedmont. An
+untoward event at the outset increased the difficulties of carrying
+out a plan, which may be pronounced one of the most brilliant even
+of Napoleon’s marvellous career. The united armies of Blücher and
+Wellington were about 224,000 strong; the Emperor reckoned that
+150,000 men were required to assure his operations success; and it may
+confidently be said that, had he had this force, he would, humanly
+speaking, have been victorious, spite of the misadventures and faults
+of the Campaign. A sudden rising in La Vendée, however, deprived him
+of 20,000 good troops; but, though this added largely to his adverse
+chances, his position was such that he still resolved to persevere
+in his audacious project. The execution of his profound design was
+admirable, and, indeed, all but perfect. The divisions intended to make
+the movement were encamped along the northern frontier of France, or
+thrown back southward almost to the capital; and the problem was how to
+draw together these widely separated bodies of men, and to concentrate
+them at the appointed spot, without interference on the part of
+the enemy, and without even his knowledge, if this were possible.
+The operation was accomplished with success, largely through that
+remarkable skill in stratagem which was one of Napoleon’s distinctive
+gifts. While the corps on the frontier, their march concealed by
+different expedients with consummate art, were collected together
+from the vast distance which extends from Lille and Valenciennes to
+Metz, the corps in the interior were moved forward by degrees, and
+the united masses were brought into contact, at the points indicated
+by their great head and leader. On the evening of the 14th June 1815,
+nearly 128,000 Frenchmen, including 22,000 cavalry, and with 350 guns,
+had effected their junction, on a narrow front, on the very verge of
+the plains of Belgium, a few miles from the banks of the Sambre, and
+converging towards the great main road, running, we have seen, from
+Charleroi to Brussels; and the concentration, if not quite complete,
+was, in the circumstances in which it was made, one of the finest known
+in the annals of war. The Emperor’s left wing, about 45,000 strong,
+composed of the 2nd and 1st Corps, in the experienced hands of Reille
+and D’Erlon, was near the Sambre at Leez and Solre; the centre, nearly
+68,000 men, comprising the Imperial Guard, the 3rd Corps of Vandamme,
+the 6th Corps, with Lobau as its chief, and the cavalry reserves,
+under the command of Grouchy, lay in the country around Beaumont;
+and the right wing, the 4th Corps, led by the brilliant Gérard, and
+numbering perhaps 15,000 soldiers, was, in part, at Philippeville,
+its appointed station, a part, however, being half a march distant,
+the single detachment that had not fulfilled its mission. The purpose
+of Napoleon was to conduct these forces, assembled at his bidding as
+if by magic, at daybreak against the enemy in his camps; to cross the
+Sambre, to enter Charleroi, holding the main road to Brussels before
+referred to; and having taken possession of the adjoining country, and
+overpowered, if possible, any foes in his path, to press on to the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, to occupy on it Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+the two points where the allied commanders would probably attempt to
+effect their junction, and having attained this position of vantage, to
+interpose between their divided armies, completing the first act in the
+drama of the Campaign.
+
+Having made a spirit-stirring address to his troops, Napoleon set
+his army in motion at about 3 A.M. on the 15th of June. The
+left wing was not long in crossing the Sambre; soon after mid-day the
+corps of Reille, that of D’Erlon being some miles behind, had passed
+the bridge which spans the stream near the town of Marchiennes--it
+had been left intact by the enemy--and the great French columns had
+easily pressed back a detachment of the Prussian corps of Ziethen, in
+observation along the frontier. The march of the centre was greatly
+delayed; an advance-guard of cavalry, with a weak support of foot,
+entered Charleroi, indeed, and was over the Sambre a short time after
+the left wing--the bridge at Charleroi, too, was not broken--but an
+accident had kept back Vandamme; and it was past three in the afternoon
+before a part of the Guard, the 3rd Corps, and part of the reserve of
+cavalry had made their way out of the narrow streets of Charleroi,
+Lobau and much of the cavalry being still in the rear. The progress of
+the right wing was even more retarded; it did not move until a part
+at least of its backward detachment had come into line; the march of
+the troops was, in some measure, checked by the villainous treason of
+Bourmont; the country to be traversed was close and difficult; and
+it was about five before it had passed the Sambre, even in part,
+across the bridge at Châtelet--unbroken like those of Marchiennes and
+Charleroi--more than half the corps being on the southern bank of
+the river. These delays enabled the bulk of Ziethen’s forces--their
+head-quarters had been at Charleroi--to effect their retreat before the
+advancing French, and frequently to arrest the heads of their columns.
+The Prussian commander had manœuvred ably, though he had greatly erred
+in not destroying the bridges; Ziethen made good his way to Fleurus,
+with a loss of not more than 2,000 men, any hope which Napoleon may
+have entertained of surprising and crushing his isolated corps having
+been at an early hour frustrated. Mainly, too, from this cause, the
+Emperor failed to seize the two points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+on the cross road from Nivelles to Namur, which had been the object of
+his march on the 15th; and the day, as Charras has said, was, in part,
+incomplete.
+
+  [Illustration: “THE IDOL OF THE SOLDIER’S
+  SOUL.”--_Byron._]
+
+Nevertheless, Napoleon had already attained considerable and most
+promising success; and he might even now reckon on approaching victory.
+As evening closed one division of the left wing, supported by a large
+body of horsemen, was at Frasnes, quite near Quatre Bras; and, in fact,
+it had been prevented from gaining that point only by a demonstration
+made by the young Prince of Saxe Weimar, anticipating his orders by
+several hours. The remainder of the left wing, now under the command of
+Ney--the Marshal had reached Charleroi some time in the afternoon--was
+extended from Gosselies to Jumet, holding the great road from Charleroi
+to Brussels, and from ten to thirteen miles from Quatre Bras, a single
+division approaching the centre; and a march of a few hours could
+place it in force on one of the chief points of the allied line of
+junction. As for the centre, Lobau, and part of the Guard and of the
+heavy cavalry were still near Charleroi; but Vandamme and the great
+body of the Guard and of the cavalry reserve were not far from Fleurus,
+a few miles only from the point of Sombreffe, by which Blücher would
+unite with Wellington, and filling the country back to Charleroi;
+while the right wing of Gérard was at a half march’s distance. The
+main body of the French army, about 100,000 strong, had thus attained
+positions near the allied centre, which already made it difficult in
+the extreme for Blücher and Wellington to combine their forces along
+the road from Nivelles to Namur; if the Emperor had not cut his foes
+in two, he threatened their communication in a most dangerous way; he
+was master of the main road from Charleroi to Brussels almost up to the
+point of Quatre Bras; and notwithstanding several mishaps, he had not
+30,000 men in his rear. He had every reason to assert, as he did, that
+if not wholly, he was, in the main, satisfied with the results of the
+operations of the day.
+
+What had been the dispositions of the allied chiefs, while Napoleon had
+gained this immense advantage? Neither Blücher nor Wellington seriously
+thought that their adversary would venture to invade Belgium, for
+his inferiority of force was well known to them; and Wellington was
+convinced that the Emperor would await the attack of the Coalition,
+as he had awaited it the year before. This partly explains, though it
+does not justify, the dissemination of their scattered forces; and, as
+has been said, it is now conceded that this strategy was essentially
+faulty. They admitted, however, that an attack was possible, and
+everything tends to show that Blücher conceived that an attack on
+his centre and left was the most probable; while the Duke certainly
+believed that the blow would be most likely directed against his right.
+As an attempt, however, against their centre might be made, they had
+made provision for this contingency; and it had been arranged between
+them that should Napoleon advance by Charleroi on the great road to
+Brussels, striking at the point of contact of their inner flanks,
+each should concentrate in force on the road from Nivelles to Namur,
+holding the two positions of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, which they felt
+assured they could occupy in time, though the mass of their armies
+was far distant, and Quatre Bras and Sombreffe were but a march from
+the frontier. These calculations might have proved correct in the
+case of a foe of ordinary powers; but in that of a consummate master
+of his art they were pregnant, as Charras has said, with danger. The
+Duke, however, and Blücher were not surprised, as has been alleged,
+in the true sense of the word, though they were out-generalled by
+Napoleon’s movement. As early as the afternoon of the 14th of June,
+Ziethen had learned that the French had approached the frontier, and
+he immediately despatched the news to Blücher at his head-quarters,
+miles off at Namur. The Prussian army was about 118,000 strong,
+including 12,000 horsemen and 312 guns; but its four corps were widely
+apart: the first, that of Ziethen, being around Charleroi; the second,
+that of Pirch, in camp at Namur; the third, under Thielmann, to the
+south-east at Ciney; the fourth led by Bülow far away at Liège; and
+it was all but impossible that the collective mass could be united on
+the road from Nivelles to Namur before nightfall on the 16th of June.
+The ardent veteran, however, eager for the fray, at about midnight on
+the 14th, when Napoleon’s advance might be presumed, ordered a general
+concentration of his army on Sombreffe, as had been agreed between
+himself and Wellington; the Prussian chiefs gave proof of extreme
+activity; and while Ziethen, who, as we have seen, had skilfully
+retarded the march of the French, fell back to Fleurus, and thence
+to Sombreffe, Pirch, by the night of the 15th of June, had got near
+Mazy, four miles from Sombreffe, with three of the four divisions of
+his corps, the fourth being a short way in the rear; while Thielmann
+had attained Namur, half a march from the intended point of junction.
+Three corps, therefore, of Blücher’s army could be at Sombreffe on the
+16th by noon, ready to encounter the shock of Napoleon, and doubtless
+expecting support from Wellington. The corps of Bülow, however, could
+not be up in time; notwithstanding his energy, Blücher had assembled
+only three-fourths of his army; and, in the actual position of affairs,
+could he confidently rely on the aid of his colleague?
+
+At this moment, indeed, the French outposts were close to the allied
+line of junction, and Wellington had made scarcely a sign of moving.
+The army of the Duke was about 106,000 men--of these 14,000, or nearly
+so, were cavalry--with 196 guns; and it was spread over even a larger
+space than that of the veteran Prussian warrior. A motley array of
+many races, it had been hastily formed into three masses; the first
+corps, under the Prince of Orange, scattered over an arc from Genappe
+to Mons, and covering two of the main roads from the frontier; the
+second, in the skilful hands of Hill, extending westward as far as
+the Scheldt, from near Braine le Comte to Ath, Leuze, and Oudenarde,
+observing, too, the approaches from France; and the third, or the
+reserve, at Brussels, a long distance off, round the head-quarters of
+Wellington. A fraction only of the first corps was thus near the road
+from Nivelles to Namur; the dispositions of the Duke were, in truth,
+made to protect his right and his communications with the sea, and
+time was required before he could send anything like a strong force to
+the support of Blücher. By nightfall on the 15th, when the heads of
+the French column were but a few miles from Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+the army of Wellington had scarcely stirred, and it was some hours
+afterwards before the British chief set it in motion in the direction
+of Blücher, and that, too, slowly, and as if with reluctance. The Duke
+had heard from Ziethen in the afternoon of the day, that the French
+were crossing the Sambre, and near Charleroi, and the intelligence
+was subsequently confirmed by Blücher; but thinking that Napoleon was
+making a feint, and believing that his own right was menaced, he waited
+upon his enemy’s movements, and merely ordered his lieutenants to be
+in readiness. As is well known, indeed, he went to the historical ball
+given at Brussels by the Duchess of Richmond; and it was after ten
+at night, when he had been made aware that Napoleon had mastered and
+passed Charleroi, that he took anything like a decisive step. Hill and
+the Prince of Orange were now directed to concentrate their troops,
+and to move to their left; but they were to hold a line from Enghien
+to Nivelles; the reserve at Brussels was still kept back, and nothing
+like a considerable force was to be drawn towards the allied points of
+junction, or to be so placed as to approach Blücher. The wide interval,
+in fact, from Nivelles to Quatre Bras, and thence by the main road
+to Sombreffe--the communication with the Prussians---was to be left
+uncovered, and whatever mere partisans may urge, there is not a word to
+be said for this strategy. Happily for the Allies, subordinates of the
+Duke interpreted the situation better than their chief. Saxe-Weimar, we
+have seen, had advanced to Quatre Bras, and checked Ney in his forward
+march, and Perponcher, a general in the Dutch service, ere long had
+occupied that most important point, though he held it with a single
+division only, which could scarcely offer a prolonged resistance. By
+midnight Wellington gave further orders for a general concentration
+to his left, and the reserve from Brussels was directed towards
+Nivelles; but these orders were extremely late, and it had become most
+improbable that the British commander would be able to master the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, even now almost in the grasp of his enemy, to
+advance along it by Quatre Bras, and approaching Sombreffe, to unite
+with Blücher. It was, indeed, far more likely that the divided armies
+would be attacked, and beaten in detail.
+
+  [Illustration: ENGLAND’S HOPE, 1815.]
+
+The previsions on which Napoleon had formed the plan of his campaign
+had thus been realised, up to this point, in their main particulars.
+The divergence of the bases of the allied chiefs had left their
+centre weak and ill-joined. It was now, after the retreat of Ziethen,
+connected only by a thread of vedettes; it was within easy distance of
+the French army; and should it be attacked, and cut in two, Blücher
+and Wellington would fall back, and probably separate, happy if they
+escaped a disastrous reverse. Blücher, again, had rushed forward to
+confront his enemy, leaving 30,000 of his troops far off; Wellington
+had paused, hesitated, and not approached his colleague, and an
+admirable chance had been thus afforded to the General of Arcola
+and Rivoli. The allied commanders, in fact, whatever may be said by
+apologists, and by worshippers of success, had laid themselves open to
+a terrible stroke, and though Napoleon is a most exacting critic, I can
+see no answer to his profound remark, that, out-manœuvred as they had
+been on the 15th, Blücher ought not to have made for Sombreffe “already
+under the guns of his enemy,” and Wellington ought not to have tried
+to join him, but that both chiefs should have endeavoured to unite
+on a line, in the rear, between Wavre and Waterloo. Their strategy,
+in short, was bad, and they only escaped defeat owing to a set of
+accidents in which fortune baffled their mighty adversary.
+
+We have reached the morning of the 16th of June, and we turn to the
+operations of the French army, and to the direction given it by its
+Imperial leader. Napoleon had returned to Charleroi on the night
+of the 15th, to “take repose for his wearied frame”; his physical
+strength had been long declining; and possibly even on the first day
+of the campaign, he began to give proof of those failing bodily powers
+which was certainly exhibited before the contest closed.[35] Yet,
+though murmurs were heard in the French camp, both Jomini and Charras
+seem to me to reason too much on mere theory, and to fall into the
+error of judging only by the event, when they charge the Emperor with
+sluggishness and delay in his conduct on the morning of the 16th. A
+large part of the French army was still in the rear; Napoleon did
+not and could not certainly know the exact positions of the allied
+armies; he was about to thrust himself between two hostile masses, each
+nearly equal to his own force in numbers; and though he could have
+done more had he been omniscient, the circumstances required caution
+in any forward movement. Be this as it may, his orders were given, at
+Charleroi, at about 8 A.M.; and if they were founded on wrong
+assumptions, they proved his perfect knowledge of his art, and were
+admirably adapted to the events that happened. These orders, contained
+in four despatches, two from the Emperor to Ney and Grouchy, and two
+from Soult, the Chief of the Staff, to the same generals, prove that
+Napoleon did not believe he would be seriously opposed on that day;
+he thought that his left wing would easily pass Quatre Bras, and
+that his centre and right wing would easily pass Sombreffe; and he
+conceived that it was not improbable that he would enter Brussels on
+the morning of the 17th. This calculation was, no doubt, false; but
+it was founded on the true strategic view that Wellington and Blücher
+would not now endeavour to make a stand at Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+on the threatened road from Nivelles to Namur; and what Charras and
+others fail to point out, but what the real student of war will dwell
+on, is that, ignorant as he was of the actual facts, the dispositions
+made by Napoleon were in accordance with sound principles, and fitted
+to meet the situation of affairs. Ney, in command of the left wing,
+was ordered to advance, and go beyond Quatre Bras, concentrating the
+2nd and 1st Corps, supported by Kellerman’s heavy cavalry, and holding
+the great road from Charleroi to Brussels; while Grouchy, entrusted
+in the Emperor’s brief absence, with the centre, the right wing, and
+the cavalry reserves, was to pass Sombreffe, and to attain Gembloux,
+attacking any enemy in his path, and to stand on a parallel line with
+Ney. As the army, however, should be well united, Ney was enjoined to
+detach a division to Marbais, a village near Sombreffe and Gembloux, to
+give support if required to the centre and right wing; and the Emperor
+added that, at about noon, he would be on the spot to assume the
+supreme command.[36]
+
+Napoleon’s orders despatched from Charleroi reached the chiefs of the
+2nd and 1st corps, spread, we have seen, from Gosselies to Jumet, on
+the great road from Charleroi to Brussels, at about 10 A.M. or
+a little before; they reached Ney at Frasnes at about 11 A.M.;
+and as[37] Reille and D’Erlon had been directed to advance by the
+aide-de-camp who carried the Imperial message; Ney might have been in
+possession of Quatre Bras at about 1 or 1.30 P.M.; at the head
+of 45,000 men, and might have crushed Perponcher’s feeble division, at
+the time standing alone at that place. In that event Ney could have
+seized Quatre Bras, in conformity with the Imperial orders, and have
+made the required detachment on Marbais; and had this been done, the
+16th of June would certainly have witnessed a second Jena. We pass from
+the French left wing to the centre and right wing, directed, we have
+seen, at the time, on Sombreffe, and intended to prolong their march to
+Gembloux. Napoleon had reached Fleurus by 11 A.M.; the Guard,
+the 3rd and 4th Corps, with most of the cavalry reserves, for a moment
+under the command of Grouchy, had passed, at about 1 P.M.,
+into the Emperor’s hands; the division detached from the left wing
+on the 15th had come into line, and Lobau, with the 6th corps, was
+marching from the rear. By this time Blücher stood in the path of
+the French in an advance on Gembloux; he was in force on the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, and his three corps held a formidable line,
+extending from Sombreffe almost to Marbais, and fronted by the villages
+of Ligny, St. Amand, and La Haye. Napoleon seems to have disbelieved
+at first that his adversary could be in strength on the field; but at
+2 P.M. he sent a message to Ney enjoining him to complete the
+movement on Marbais, and to fall on the flank and rear of Blücher, and
+at the same moment the Emperor marched his army from Fleurus against
+his enemy.
+
+The armies opposed were about equal in force, if we reckon
+the approaching corps of Lobau; the French being inferior in
+numbers--78,000 to 87,000 men--but having more guns and more numerous
+horsemen; but the superiority of Napoleon’s tactics gave him the
+advantage almost from the first moment. The villages, indeed, before
+the Prussian front proved defences of remarkable strength, and were
+taken and retaken with little results; but Napoleon occupied a full
+third of Blücher’s forces by merely threatening his communications
+to his left. The French batteries caused frightful destruction in
+the Prussian reserves, which had been recklessly exposed; and while
+Blücher brought most of his troops into action, the Emperor husbanded
+his men for a final stroke. The battle, however, was raging furiously
+and wholly undecided at 4 P.M.; and as Blücher’s rear was not
+assailed from Marbais, and the roar of cannon announced a battle at
+Quatre Bras, Napoleon formed a fresh combination to surprise and to
+overwhelm his enemy. By this time he had no doubt learned that D’Erlon,
+who ought to have been in line with Ney three hours previously, was
+still in the rear; so he sent[38] an order to D’Erlon to turn aside
+from Quatre Bras, and, moving towards Ligny, to fall in full force at
+St. Amand on the right and the rear of Blücher, accomplishing thus,
+in a different way, the results of an attack from Marbais. D’Erlon
+had approached Ligny within an hour, but he had so marched that
+Vandamme pronounced the apparition to be that of an enemy--a part,
+probably, of Wellington’s force--and the Emperor despatched[39] a
+general officer to ascertain how the fact stood, retarding meanwhile
+the course of the battle. Ere long the advancing columns were seen to
+draw off, and to disappear from the field; Ney, in fact, now assailed
+by superior numbers, had angrily ordered D’Erlon to Quatre Bras, and
+D’Erlon, Napoleon at least consenting--the Emperor would have been in
+extreme peril had his left wing been defeated and forced--abandoned
+a movement which, if pushed home, would have given his master a
+splendid triumph.[40] It was now 6.30 P.M., and it was time
+for Napoleon to endeavour to strike a decisive blow, the march of
+D’Erlon having not only ended in a disastrous false movement, but
+caused unfortunate delays at Ligny. During all this time the Prussians
+and French had been engaged in mortal encounter, but Napoleon’s skill
+had borne its natural fruits. Blücher’s left had been held in check
+and paralysed; the Prussian losses had been enormous; the veteran’s
+reserves had been thrown away, and in an effort to outflank Napoleon’s
+left, Blücher had weakened and almost laid bare his centre. The
+Emperor, who had his reserves in hand, launched the Guard and a mass of
+cavalry against the endangered point; the Prussian centre was broken
+after a fierce contest, and Blücher’s whole army was driven from the
+field, the corps of Lobau, which had come up from Charleroi, hanging
+on the retreat of the defeated enemy. The losses of the French were
+about 11,000 men, those of the Prussians not far from 30,000, including
+10,000 disbanded fugitives; but how different would the result have
+been had Ney or D’Erlon fallen on the rear of Blücher!
+
+While the star of Napoleon still shone at Ligny, it had begun to wane
+hard by at Quatre Bras; and the faulty disposition of his left wing
+had saved Blücher from a complete overthrow. We left Ney at Frasnes,
+having received the order of 8 A.M. at about 11 A.M.; and the Emperor’s
+aide-de-camp, we may be quite certain, informed the Marshal that he
+had communicated the order to Reille and D’Erlon, the chiefs of the
+2nd and 1st Corps, at this moment at Gosselies and Jumet, about ten
+miles off, along the broad highway from Charleroi to Brussels. That
+order directed Ney to advance beyond Quatre Bras, collecting his 45,000
+men, but making a detachment to the right at Marbais; and Ney might
+have begun at once to execute a movement which, if well carried out,
+would perhaps have changed the fortunes of Europe. Ney, at 11 A.M.,
+had 9,000 good troops, of whom 4,000 were fine cavalry, at Frasnes,
+actually in his hands: his only foe was Perponcher’s weak division,
+7,000 infantry, with but a few guns, and almost wholly unsupported by
+horse; and the Marshal knew that within three hours he might expect
+the aid of more than 30,000 soldiers, including a magnificent body of
+cavalry. Had Ney, therefore, been the chief of Elchingen, he could
+easily have overwhelmed Perponcher; and directing Reille and D’Erlon to
+expedite their march, he could have passed Quatre Bras, and detached to
+Marbais, at from 1.30 to 2.30 P.M., without encountering any enemy in
+force. But, as the whole course of the Campaign proves, Ney had become
+demoralized, like most of his colleagues, by the events of 1812–14, and
+that even in a greater degree; he fought with a halter round his neck,
+and was by turns timid and unwisely bold; and he not only did not make
+a step forward, but seems to have made no effort to induce Reille and
+D’Erlon to accelerate their movements and to come into line. This delay
+saved Blücher, and gave Wellington just sufficient time to repair,
+in part, the tardiness and hesitation of the 15th, to check Ney, and
+to baffle Napoleon in the manœuvre he had planned, which would have
+crushed the Prussians. The Duke reached Quatre Bras--but with an escort
+only, his advancing divisions were still distant--at about 11 A.M. on
+the 16th; and he rode off to near Ligny to confer with Blücher, whose
+faulty arrangements to meet Napoleon he condemned in a characteristic
+phrase--“they will be damnably beaten,” he said to his Staff--but to
+whom he promised support, “if possible.” Meanwhile, Ney showed no
+sign of moving: Reille advanced slowly, and the march of D’Erlon from
+the rear was a succession of delays; and it was 2 P.M. before the
+French Marshal--one division of Reille had come to his aid--made even
+an attempt to attack Quatre Bras. It is unnecessary to retrace the
+scenes of a combat, in itself not of supreme importance, though it had
+much to do with the issue of the Campaign. Perponcher’s division and
+other supports were nearly overwhelmed at 4 P.M.; but reinforcements
+came up by degrees, moving in haste from Nivelles and other points,
+which ultimately turned the scale against Ney. The Duke, returning
+from Ligny, displayed on the field the intrepidity and the genius in
+defence which were his distinctive gifts in war; and Ney, as night
+closed, retreated on Frasnes, having failed to fulfil his appointed
+mission, which, I repeat, might have been accomplished, having,
+however, prevented Wellington from sending a man to Blücher. The
+Marshal had been supported by Reille’s corps only, and by Kellerman’s
+corps of horsemen; D’Erlon, loitering in the rear, had been directed,
+we have seen, to another field at Ligny, and when recalled by Ney came
+into line too late to be of any use, or even to fire a shot; and Ney
+had conducted the battle ably, and even performed an important service,
+though he had thrown away a part of his superb heavy cavalry. He had,
+however, proved unequal to his task; he had not carried out Napoleon’s
+designs, which ought to have led to Blücher’s ruin, as, beyond
+question, he might have done; and though Reille and D’Erlon, especially
+the last, who contrived on the 16th to do simply nothing, are in a
+greater degree to blame, he cannot escape a share of censure.
+
+The first part of the Campaign of 1815 ends with the battles of
+Ligny and Quatre Bras. Napoleon’s operations, up to the evening of
+the 16th, had been attended with marked success, which might easily
+have been complete and decisive. Selecting, with perfect insight, the
+true point of attack, he had conducted his army with admirable skill
+and secrecy to the Belgian frontier; and aiming at the centre of the
+Allies, the weakest and most vulnerable part of their line, he had
+drawn close to it on the 15th June. His enemies had been unable to
+arrest his progress, disseminated on a broad and deep front; and the
+impetuosity of Blücher, and the caution of Wellington, gave him, as
+he had foreseen, a favourable chance to divide his adversaries, and
+to beat them in detail. Blücher had hurried to Sombreffe to confront
+the Emperor, leaving a fourth part of his army behind; the Duke had
+paused, hesitated, and delayed in moving, and it was hours after
+Napoleon had passed Charleroi that Wellington even made an attempt to
+draw near his endangered colleague, even then directing his troops
+to points distant from the selected place of junction. This was the
+situation on the morning of the 16th, and it gave Napoleon a great
+advantage, which almost led to a crowning triumph. He may, perhaps,
+have delayed at this moment, though in this judgment I cannot concur,
+and his projects were founded on imperfect knowledge; but his general
+dispositions were so excellent that he ought to have overwhelmed the
+Prussian army. Having directed Ney, with his left wing, to pass Quatre
+Bras and to detach to Marbais, he marched to Fleurus and attacked
+Blücher; and had the attack in front at Ligny been combined with an
+attack in the rear from Marbais, Ligny must have terminated in another
+Jena. Exactly the same result would have followed had D’Erlon, who had
+lagged in the rear, continued his movement upon St. Amand; and a series
+of misadventures alone saved Blücher from a crushing disaster. Ney
+was not equal to his appointed mission; he lost the occasion to reach
+Quatre Bras, to advance, and to occupy Marbais. Reille and D’Erlon
+did not second their chief; and D’Erlon, when launched on the path of
+victory, was turned aside by an order of Ney, Napoleon, I certainly
+think, consenting. The blame of these failures must be divided between
+Ney, Reille, and D’Erlon, who deserves the most; Napoleon, too, may not
+have been bold enough, though this is mere theory after the event; but
+the fact remains that, but for unlucky accidents, Napoleon would have
+annihilated his foe. As it was, Ligny was a real victory. The Prussian
+army lost a third of its numbers, and Blücher was driven from the only
+road by which he could readily join Wellington into a difficult and
+intricate country. Meanwhile, though Ney had not accomplished all that
+his master had a right to expect from him, he had, at the opposite side
+of the line, attacked Wellington and held him in check. The Duke, his
+forces coming up late and in fragments, was unable to send assistance
+to his imperilled colleague; and though he had compelled Ney to fall
+back a little, Ligny made it necessary that he should quickly retreat,
+happy if he could effect his escape. Napoleon had thus succeeded on
+the 16th, though his triumph had been incomplete and partial. He had
+defeated Blücher, and kept Wellington at bay; and, above all, he had
+forced the Allies to abandon the road from Nivelles to Namur, their
+natural and their only easy line of junction. Would they diverge as
+Beaulieu and Colli had done, and give the General of the Campaign of
+Italy an opportunity to ruin them in detail? To Napoleon the prospect
+seemed full of promise, and yet all was not light on the scene before
+him. He had not gained a decisive victory. Blücher and Wellington were
+no ordinary foes; their armies nearly doubled his own; might they not
+yet close on the Imperial Eagle, which, terrible and swift as had been
+its swoop, had not thoroughly grasped and destroyed its quarry?
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+In one of the last and fiercest struggles at Ligny, Blücher had been
+unhorsed and severely hurt, and the command of the Prussian army
+devolved on Gneisenau, a capable and scientific officer. It was near
+nightfall when Ligny had been won--the delay occasioned by the affair
+of D’Erlon had been injurious in the extreme to the French--and,
+perceiving that no enemy pressed on his rear, Gneisenau halted, and
+made preparations to retreat. But whither was the defeated army to
+move? Was it to fall back on its communications with the Rhine, opening
+to Napoleon the path to Brussels, and separating itself completely from
+Wellington; or was it to endeavour to join its allies, abandoning its
+line of operations for the time, but appealing to Fortune in another
+battle? Gneisenau, urged, it is said, by his heroic chief, who gave the
+order at night from his litter, resolved to adopt the second course;
+and the Prussian army was directed on Wavre, a town about twenty
+miles from Sombreffe, and divided from it by the difficult country--a
+region of hills and lowlands watered by the Dyle--which lay behind the
+road from Nivelles to Namur. Wavre is about nine or ten miles from
+Waterloo, a village in front of the Forest of Soignies, and north of
+a position marked out by Wellington as an admirable field for a great
+defensive battle; and it was this circumstance, well known to Blücher,
+which doubtless led him to fall back on Wavre, in spite of the many
+impediments in the way, impediments which had caused Napoleon to
+expect that, if forced from the road from Nivelles to Namur, Blücher
+would most probably recoil on his base, and not attempt to join
+Wellington through a mass of obstacles. By daybreak on the 17th, the
+first corps of Ziethen, and the second of Pirch were on their way to
+Wavre, by Tilly and Gentinnes, villages some miles to the north-west
+of Sombreffe; and the third corps of Thielmann, charged to cover the
+movement, broke up some hours later, and made for Gembloux, one of
+the points, we have seen, which Napoleon hoped to have reached in the
+advance of the day before, and to the east of Tilly and Gentinnes. The
+Prussian army was still greatly shaken, and especially was short of
+food and munitions; but no enemy harassed or observed the retreat; and
+before long it was joined by Bülow, who had hastened to march by Hannut
+to Gembloux, and brought 30,000 fresh soldiers to Blücher.
+
+Meanwhile, Wellington, who, as night closed on the 16th, had had at
+Quatre Bras a mass of about 37,000 men, was joined ere long by some
+8,000 more, marched from Brussels and points on his right, and he was
+thus now equal in numbers with Ney, who had by this time his two corps
+in hand[41]; though he was dangerously exposed should Ney and Napoleon
+be able to reach him with their united forces. Owing to an accident
+which befell a Prussian officer, the Duke was not informed of the
+defeat of Blücher until the early morning of the 17th; he thereupon
+resolved at once to retreat, but having been apprised that the Prussian
+army was in full march from Sombreffe to Wavre, and would soon be ready
+to fight again, he decided on stopping the retreat at Waterloo, and
+on awaiting there the attack of the French, if he could rely on the
+support of his veteran colleague. The retrograde movement of the Duke
+from Quatre Bras, screened by a considerable body of horsemen, began
+at about 10 A.M., and continued for hours; and, in addition
+to his 45,000 men, he summoned about 21,000 at Nivelles, and perhaps
+4,000 more from outlying points, to Waterloo, the scene of the intended
+conflict. Fearful and jealous for his right, however, all through, he
+left a large force near Braine le Comte and Hal; and his whole army, in
+fact, was never concentrated.
+
+The Allies, falling back from their true line of junction, the main
+road from Nivelles to Namur, were thus trying to unite on a second
+line, by the bad roads from Wavre to Waterloo. This strategy has been
+praised by the worshippers of success, even by soldiers like Charras
+and Chesney, and, in the event, it was more than justified; it was,
+nevertheless, essentially faulty. It is impossible to refute Napoleon’s
+logic; either Blücher, after his defeat at Ligny, ought to have moved
+directly on Wellington’s army, joining it either at Genappe or at least
+at Waterloo, or both the Allied chiefs ought to have fallen farther
+back, to have placed the Forest of Soignies between themselves and
+their foe, and concentrating their forces around Brussels, to have
+opposed 200,000 men or more to the 100,000 of the French Emperor, who,
+in that case, would have been out-generalled and could scarcely have
+ventured to offer battle. The double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo was,
+in fact, an imperfect half measure, so often fatal in the operations
+of war; Wavre was more distant from Waterloo than Sombreffe was from
+Quatre Bras, by certainly two or three miles, and, what was infinitely
+more important, was divided from Waterloo by a most intricate country;
+and, in making this movement, Blücher and Wellington were exposing
+themselves to crushing defeat, and were rendering their junction
+extremely difficult. It was to be assumed that a man like Napoleon
+would be exactly informed of the line of their march, and would do
+what was the best for his interests; and had Napoleon, on the morning
+of the 17th, called on his victorious army to make a great effort, he
+would probably have reached either Blücher or Wellington, still widely
+apart, and beaten either in detail. Nay, had he, collecting his whole
+forces, and moving more slowly, either attacked Blücher at Wavre or
+the Duke at Waterloo, on the 18th, he would almost certainly have won
+a great battle before the Allies could succeed in uniting. Exactly
+the same result would have followed had he, acting on more correct
+principles--and supposing, of course, as was to be expected, that he
+was thoroughly apprised of the allied movements--detached a part of his
+army to hold Blücher in check, and assailed Wellington with the mass of
+his forces; in that case all the chances were that he would be able
+to overpower Wellington, and to prevent Blücher at Wavre from sending
+a man to Waterloo. Considering the situation, time, and distance,
+the boasted retreat of the Allies, therefore, cannot be vindicated,
+whatever may be said; it exposed them once more to be defeated in
+detail; and unquestionably their best strategic course was to have
+effected their junction in the rear, on Brussels, thus completely
+baffling their great antagonist and not exposing themselves to danger.
+
+  [Illustration: “TAMBOUR, FAITES-MOI CADEAU D’UNE PRISE!”]
+
+The state of affairs, however, in the camp of the French had singularly
+favoured the plan of the Allies, and had already saved them from
+impending peril. Over confident in success, his distinctive fault,
+Napoleon was convinced that the Prussian army had been[42] completely
+routed at Ligny, and could not reappear on the scene for some time; and
+he returned to Fleurus, utterly worn out by the anxieties and fatigues
+of the two preceding days. He appears to have given no explicit
+orders, but he left Soult and Grouchy in temporary command; and these
+lieutenants, experienced as they were, did nothing to repair the gross
+want of vigilance due, probably, to the state of Napoleon’s health.
+Soult seems not to have even sent a message to Ney, a few miles off,
+to the left; no attempt during the night was made to discover the
+line of the Prussian retreat, still less to molest the defeated foe;
+and Grouchy especially, a cavalry chief, instead of reconnoitering in
+every direction to ascertain where the enemy was, despatched only one
+body of horsemen along the road from Sombreffe to Namur, that is, far
+away from the Prussian line of march. In this negligence and slackness
+we see no sign of the marvellous activity of Jena and Ratisbon; and
+Charras, I believe, is perfectly right when he says that Napoleon’s
+“long sleep” at Fleurus made the success of Ligny of no use to him,
+though Charras, always unjust to the Emperor, makes no allowance for
+his physical weakness, and refuses to blame either Soult or Grouchy.
+It was about 9 A.M. on the morning of the 17th when Napoleon
+drove from Fleurus to Ligny--he had been extremely unwell for
+hours[43]--and everything tends to prove he had no doubt but that the
+strength of the Prussian army was broken, and his first idea was that
+his own army should take rest[44] on the spot for the day. He ordered a
+grand review of his troops, and spent two hours at least on the field
+of Ligny, distributing rewards and attending the wounded; and it was
+not until near noon--having learned from Ney that part of the British
+army was still at Quatre Bras--that he seems to have resolved on a
+forward movement. By this time Blücher had completely escaped, and,
+in fact, was not many miles from Wavre; the Duke was in full retreat
+on Waterloo; and the chance which Napoleon[45] certainly had, and
+which the youthful warrior of 1796 would most probably have turned to
+account, that of falling either on Blücher or Wellington in the early
+morning of the 17th, had been lost never again to return.
+
+The delay, too, in the operations of the French, coupled with the
+neglect of Soult and Grouchy, had caused the Emperor to remain in
+ignorance of the true direction of Blücher’s march, and had confirmed
+him in a false impression, which, though not the main cause of his
+subsequent ruin, undoubtedly in part contributed to it. Clinging to the
+conception which he had formed from the first, he was now absolutely
+convinced that, after Ligny, Blücher was falling back on his base
+to the Rhine; and the unlucky reconnaissance made in the morning,
+which pointed to a Prussian retreat by Namur--some prisoners and guns
+had been taken by the French--only went to strengthen his erroneous
+judgment. He resolved, therefore, following the grand precedent of
+1796, against Beaulieu and Colli--his cardinal idea in the campaign of
+1815--to direct the mass of his army against Wellington, and to keep
+Blücher away with a force sufficient to hold the defeated Prussians in
+check while he should endeavour to overpower the Duke. This strategy
+was perfectly correct in principle, but the delay of the morning
+had been most unfortunate, and the project was founded on a false
+assumption of the direction taken by Blücher’s forces.
+
+The whole French army--except one division left in reserve, it had
+suffered so much--was now divided into two groups; the first composed
+of the Guard, a part of the 6th Corps, and some 8,000 horsemen,
+marching on Quatre Bras, to unite with Ney, with the 2nd and 1st Corps,
+and about 7,000 cavalry; the second comprising the 3rd and 4th Corps,
+one division of the 6th, and about 5,000 horsemen. The first group,
+about 72,000 strong, with not less than 240 guns, was to be under the
+Emperor’s command, and was intended to reach and attack Wellington; the
+second, some 34,000 men, with from 96 to 100 guns, was the wing that
+was destined to restrain Blücher. Napoleon broke up from Ligny soon
+after noon, and gave the command of this wing to Grouchy, enjoining him
+to “pursue and attack the Prussians, and to keep Blücher continually in
+sight,” and indicating Namur as, most probably, the direction of the
+retreat of the enemy. The Emperor, too, I can have no doubt, informed
+his lieutenant that his mission was[46] to interpose between Blücher
+and Wellington; and, in fact, an experienced chief like Grouchy must
+have understood that this was the object of his being detached from
+the main French army. The direction, however, of the restraining wing
+was late; Blücher had gained fourteen hours on the foe sent against
+him; his retreat was on Wavre, not on Namur; and it had already
+become no easy task to come up with him, and to hold him in check.
+Grouchy, alarmed at what had been devolved on him, expostulated with
+his Imperial master; but Napoleon curtly told him “to find out the
+enemy,” and set off to join Ney at Quatre Bras. He met the Marshal at
+about 2 P.M.; their united forces were massed together, and
+they were directed against the army of Wellington, for some hours, we
+have seen, in retreat. Ney had continued stationary at Quatre Bras,
+until the Emperor came on to him, and for this inaction he has been
+severely blamed; but the reproach is[47] too exacting, and by no means
+just; the army of Wellington had been placed in safety; and even had
+Ney advanced from Quatre Bras as soon as he saw Napoleon moving from
+Ligny, and pressed on the rear of the British force, he could not
+have gained any marked success. Napoleon began the pursuit at about 3
+P.M., following Wellington along the great road to Brussels,
+leading by Genappe to the Forest of Soignies; but great results were
+no longer possible; the French merely harassed the retiring cavalry;
+and, in fact, an extraordinary tempest of rain made military operations
+practically useless. At about 7 P.M. the advanced guard of the
+French reached the low hills above La Belle Alliance, in front of the
+position of Waterloo; and in reply to a challenge made by Napoleon,
+the fire of many batteries informed the Emperor that a large army was
+collected at a short distance from him.
+
+We turn to the operations of Grouchy’s wing, detached, we have seen,
+late to follow up Blücher. Grouchy had not set his 34,000 men in
+motion from Ligny until about 3 P.M., and for this he has
+been harshly condemned; but, considering that his troops were widely
+scattered, and that Napoleon did not advance from Quatre Bras until the
+same hour, or nearly so, I am satisfied the censure is not deserved.
+The Marshal, a brave but irresolute man--he had shown what he was at
+Bantry in 1796--was hesitating what direction to take, when a positive
+order from Napoleon came to determine his still uncertain purpose. The
+Emperor, when on his way to Quatre Bras, had received the intelligence
+that a large Prussian force had been seen on the Orneau, not far from
+Gembloux; and he instantly sent off a messenger to Grouchy--through
+Bertrand, and not through the Chief of the Staff--every sentence of
+which should be carefully studied. In this important despatch Napoleon,
+we see,[48] believed that Blücher was still falling back, with at least
+the mass of his army, eastwards; but the proximity of the Prussians at
+Gembloux surprised him; and he distinctly pointed out that “Blücher
+and Wellington might endeavour to unite, and to offer battle, in
+order to cover Liège or Brussels.” Suspecting part of the truth,
+but still uninformed, he now ordered Grouchy to occupy Gembloux--he
+evidently thought that from this point the line of Blücher’s retreat
+would be ascertained, and that Grouchy would hold a position between
+the Prussians and the main French army--and he desired Grouchy “to
+communicate with head-quarters,” by “cavalry detachments,” along “the
+road from Namur,” showing thus he believed that the Prussian chief was
+probably retiring in force towards Liège, that is, towards his base on
+the Rhine.
+
+This order was still founded on the false impression of the direction
+really taken by Blücher, for Gembloux is to the east of Wavre, and
+thirteen or fourteen miles from that place; but in spite of all that
+the Emperor’s censors have said, it was sufficiently correct to have
+enabled Grouchy, had he been a capable and active chief, to have, in
+the main, fulfilled his mission, and to have interposed between Blücher
+and Wellington. Grouchy set off without further delay--responsibility
+was a heavy load on him; the storm of rain which had kept back Napoleon
+retarded also the Marshal’s columns; the roads, too, to Gembloux were
+exceedingly bad; and it was not until 9 P.M. that the whole
+force of Grouchy was collected near and around Gembloux, part east of
+the town and part still in the rear. Grouchy had pushed on to Gembloux
+some hours before, with an advanced guard, to endeavour to find out the
+true direction of Blücher’s retreat; but though it is certainly strange
+that this was not discovered beyond the possibility of doubt by this
+time, and the march to Gembloux had been slow, I believe the Marshal
+cannot fairly be blamed. In this position of affairs Grouchy sent a
+despatch to the Emperor, now in front of Waterloo, at 10 P.M.
+on the night of the 17th, and another at 2 A.M. on the morning
+of the 18th; and these, too, require close attention. In the first
+of these letters Grouchy announced that the Prussian army was still
+falling back, almost certainly formed[49] “into two great columns,” the
+one moving on Wavre by Sart les Walhain, a place a few miles to the
+north-east of Gembloux, the other retiring on Perwez towards Liège;
+and the Marshal added that if “the mass of the enemy had made its way
+to Wavre” he would “follow it up in that direction,” “in order to
+separate Blücher from Wellington.” The second letter has been lost,
+but its contents are known; the Marshal wrote that he was about to
+march on Wavre by Sart les Walhain on the track of Blücher; and this
+is confirmed by a third message,[50] sent to Pajol, one of his light
+cavalry chiefs, which directed a speedy advance on Wavre.
+
+The information thus conveyed by Grouchy was only a partial approach to
+the truth, and it was calculated to mislead Napoleon, and to inspire
+him with disastrous false confidence. Blücher was not retreating in
+two divergent columns; he had never thought of drawing towards Liège;
+and, at this moment, the night of the 17th, the four corps of his
+army, now well supplied and rested, and still numbering about 90,000
+men, with from 270 to 280 guns, had been concentrated around Wavre,
+on either bank of the stream of the Dyle, and ready in the morning
+to march on Waterloo. The knowledge even now acquired by Grouchy was
+amply sufficient to urge that chief to advance on Wavre as quickly as
+possible, for it was by that line only that, from his point of view,
+even one hostile column could join Wellington; and his letters prove
+that he understood his mission. But his messages to Napoleon were of
+such a nature as to cause the Emperor to feel assured--especially as
+this was his own idea--that a large part at least of the Prussian army
+was leagues away in retreat eastward, and could not possibly assist
+the Duke; and, in any case, he had a right to infer that if part of
+Blücher’s forces was at Wavre, Grouchy would be fully able to hold it
+in check. Buoyed up by these hopes, the Emperor spent half the night
+of the 17th in watching the lines of fire which marked the British
+bivouacs, and he had but one fear, that the state of the weather--the
+rain had continued to descend in torrents--would prevent him from
+bringing Wellington to bay, and would enable the English chief to
+decamp ere the morrow. It is, however, a complete mistake to suppose,
+as Charras and other detractors have urged, that the Emperor at this
+critical moment altogether neglected to watch his right, or to keep
+in communication with Grouchy at Gembloux. I cannot, indeed, accept
+his statement,[51] for it can hardly be reconciled with the published
+documents, that he directed Grouchy, on the night of the 17th, to
+send a detachment to the main French army, in order to fall on the
+flank of Wellington--the counterpart of the march from Quatre Bras to
+Marbais--though this incident of the campaign has been ill explored;
+and there are reasons to think the order was made, apparently opposed
+to the known evidence. But he sent horsemen to scour the country
+towards Gembloux, and even within some miles of Wavre. He certainly
+ascertained, before daybreak on the 18th, that a Prussian column was
+near Wavre, and he communicated, we shall see, the news to Grouchy.
+Relying, however, on the Marshal’s account, he assumed that Grouchy
+would be in sufficient force to paralyze and perhaps destroy this foe,
+and he was justified, from what he had been told, in a supposition of
+the kind.
+
+It was now the morning of the 18th of June, and Napoleon perceived,
+with exulting pride, that Wellington had not attempted to retreat, and
+that the Duke’s army retained its positions. The Emperor felt assured
+of a decisive victory; he was certain that Grouchy could easily master
+any forces that might threaten his right, if such forces were at hand
+at all; and he exclaimed to Ney, as they sate at breakfast, that the
+“chances were ten to one in their favour.” Napoleon had intended to
+have his army in line, and to begin the battle at 9 A.M.,[52]
+but the severity of the weather had made the ground very difficult
+for the manœuvring of guns. He believed that a grand demonstration
+would shake the nerves of the Belgian and Dutch troops, who had been
+lately in the Imperial service, but who now formed a large part of
+Wellington’s force; and, at the instance, it is said, of Drouot, one
+of his most skilful and trusted officers, he put off the attack for
+nearly three hours, the state of his frame, which needed repose, very
+probably, too, affecting his purpose. This delay was immensely in the
+Duke’s favour. Waterloo, but for it, could hardly have been won, and
+it may truly be said that, on this day, the sun in its courses fought
+against Napoleon. Meanwhile Wellington had drawn together his army,
+about 70,000 strong, comprising 13,000 cavalry, and 160 guns; and
+relying on the pledge of the word of Blücher, who, conquering pain
+and superior to defeat, had promised to come up in line at Waterloo,
+“with his whole army,” by the “forenoon at latest,” he calmly awaited
+the attack of his renowned antagonist. He might, even at this moment,
+have had a much larger force on the ground, for, apprehensive for his
+right to the last, he had left 17,000 men far away at Hal, a strategic
+mistake which cannot be justified, and which placed him in grave peril
+during the ensuing battle.
+
+While Waterloo was being thus prepared, Blücher had broken up from
+his camps round Wavre, intent on carrying the support to his English
+colleague which he felt would secure the Allies a triumph. The veteran
+did not suspect that Grouchy was not far off with 34,000 men; the
+Duke and Blücher, in fact, believed that Napoleon had all his army in
+hand, with the exception of the one corps of Vandamme; and this single
+calculation condemns the generalship of the double movement on Wavre
+and Waterloo; for had Napoleon had 90,000 men to oppose to the 70,000
+of Wellington, and been able to attack early on the 18th, Blücher
+never could have been up in time to avert a defeat that must have
+been certain. No hostile column, however, appeared from Gembloux, to
+threaten the Prussians on their flank march, and yet the difficulties
+and obstacles in the way--imperfectly understood by the Prussian
+staff--were so great that the advance from Wavre was exceedingly slow,
+and perilously delayed. Bülow, starting from beyond the Dyle at break
+of day, was not at Chapelle St. Lambert, with even a few men, until
+noon, still far from Napoleon’s right; Pirch and Ziethen were not in
+march for Waterloo until 11.30 A.M., and even then lingered;
+and Thielmann, with a considerable part of his corps, was left behind
+to defend Wavre. Nothing but the heroic ardour of Blücher and the
+energy of his fierce soldiery enabled the movement to be made at all,
+and but for accidents and bad generalship I think it could not have
+been accomplished with results leading to success at Waterloo.
+
+While Blücher was thus toiling to attain Waterloo, Grouchy was on his
+way from Gembloux to Wavre. To appreciate thoroughly this passage of
+the campaign, I must ask the reader to retrace his steps, and to turn
+back to part of the preceding narrative. Grouchy, sent to Gembloux
+with 34,000 men, to pursue and to attack Blücher, and, doubtless, to
+keep him aloof from Wellington, had not ascertained, even at the close
+of the 17th, the exact positions of the whole Prussian army; but he
+had been informed that part of it was falling back on Liège, and that
+another part was retreating on Wavre; and he had, in the two letters
+cited, apprised Napoleon that “should the mass of the Prussians go
+that way,” he would take care to advance on Wavre, and thus “separate
+Blücher from Wellington.” This information was not wholly correct, but
+it was so to a certain extent; and it ought to have at once suggested
+to Grouchy--a general-in-chief in command of an army, and he perfectly
+understood his mission--the necessity of marching quickly on Wavre by
+the earliest dawn of the 18th; for any Prussian column retiring on
+Liège was abandoning altogether the theatre, and might, therefore,
+be left alone; whereas a Prussian column directed to Wavre would be
+approaching Wellington, and might molest Napoleon. This was the more
+essential, because the Emperor, upon leaving for Quatre Bras, had told
+Grouchy that his intention was to attack the Duke should he make a
+stand “in front of the Forest of Soignies,” the very spot where the
+Duke now was; and also, notably, because the Marshal’s despatches were
+such as would lead Napoleon to think that no Prussians could even
+approach Waterloo. The duty of Grouchy to keep Blücher and the Duke
+apart ought to have induced him likewise, in his march from Gembloux,
+to draw towards Wavre along roads tending towards the Emperor’s
+position and Blücher’s flank, should the Prussians attempt to make for
+Waterloo; for thus only could he accomplish his task, of which he was
+well aware, as his own messages show. These roads existed, and were
+even open; they led across the Dyle by two stone bridges at Mousty and
+Ottignies, left intact as those on the Sambre had been on the 15th;
+and they could have borne Grouchy’s army in seven hours at latest--the
+distance, we have said, is thirteen or fourteen miles--either to
+Wavre, or to intermediate points between Wavre and the Duke’s lines at
+Waterloo.
+
+Common sense, therefore, should have inspired Grouchy to leave
+Gembloux as early as possible on the 18th, to divide his troops
+into two columns at least, in order to expedite the march, and to
+make for Wavre by Mousty and Ottignies; and had this been done, I
+agree with Jomini, Blücher would not have made his way to Waterloo.
+Unfortunately, Grouchy, we have seen, had resolved to advance from
+Gembloux on Wavre--and he was hesitating even in this purpose--not
+by the roads that would bring him on Blücher’s flank, but by Sart les
+Walhain, and a circuitous road that would place him only on Blücher’s
+rear, and therefore in a much worse position to intercept a Prussian
+flank march on Waterloo; but though this was a grave strategic error,
+it was perhaps not an irreparable mistake. Where Grouchy’s conduct
+cannot be excused, and what condemns him at the bar of history, is
+that, in opposition to his obvious duty and to the rules of mere common
+prudence, he left Gembloux at[53] so late an hour that it became
+difficult to attain Wavre in time to be of much use to Napoleon; and
+that he so disposed his army as to render its march unnecessarily and
+even extraordinarily slow. Instead of breaking up at 3 or 4 A.M., he
+did not break up until 8 or 9 A.M.; instead of forming his men into two
+columns at least, he allowed them to march in one huge column; and thus
+hours of inestimable worth were lost, and a movement which ought to
+have been as quick as possible was retarded in every conceivable way.
+
+Napoleon, meantime, had been preparing a grand and decisive attack on
+Wellington. His army had been some time in motion to take the positions
+assigned to it, when he sent off by Soult a message to Grouchy, at
+this moment on his way from Gembloux. In this letter, written at 10
+A.M., the Chief of the Staff informed Grouchy that, besides
+the two columns the Marshal had mentioned, intelligence had been
+received of a third Prussian column falling back on Wavre by Gentinnes;
+and he approved of Grouchy’s intended march on Wavre--inferred from
+the despatch of 2 A.M.--but he enjoined him to approach the
+Emperor, and to enter into communication with the main French army,
+which, he added, was about to engage in battle “near Waterloo,” before
+“the Forest of Soignies.” By 11 A.M., Napoleon’s legions had
+taken their ground on their last field, and the annals of war have
+seldom presented so magnificent and imposing a spectacle, described
+by the Emperor himself in most striking language. The French army,
+spread out like a gigantic fan, resplendent in all the pomp of battle,
+was formed into three great masses; the first, composed of the 2nd
+and 1st Corps, deployed in lines from Mon Plaisir on the left to near
+Frischermont on the extreme right; the second, a superb array of
+cavalry, in line, to the rear of Reille and D’Erlon; and the third,
+in close columns, made up of cavalry, of Lobau’s 6th corps, and of
+the Imperial Guard, intended to deal the decisive stroke. Napoleon’s
+position crossed two roads, one the great highway from Charleroi to
+Brussels, the other a good cross road from Nivelles running into
+the first at Mont St. Jean; and the three arms could concur in the
+attack, though his adversary’s front was protected by obstacles, and
+the rain of fifteen hours had made an attack difficult through dense
+fields of rye and miry enclosures. The Emperor rode in front of his
+line, accompanied by his gorgeous staff; exulting cheers burst from
+the martial host, proud of the renown of a hundred victories; and
+the sight, as Napoleon calculated, made a profound impression on the
+thousands of men in the hostile array who had but recently served under
+the Imperial eagles.
+
+The Duke, however, had his arrangements made; they fully revealed his
+defensive skill; and if some of the auxiliaries had faint hearts,
+he knew that he could thoroughly rely on his British and most of
+his German soldiery. His lines, running from his right to his left,
+extended from beyond Hougoumont, in front of Mon Plaisir, to Papelotte
+and La Haye, in front of Frischermont; but he had some thousands of men
+on his extreme right, holding Merbe Braine and Braine L’Alleud, and
+communicating by vedettes with Hal, where, we have seen, he had left
+17,000 men; and his extreme left had outposts reaching to Ohain, on the
+road to Wavre, whench he expected Blücher. Hill commanded the right
+wing, Picton held the left, the Prince of Orange was at the centre; and
+though the Duke’s army presented a less compact front than that of his
+Imperial foe, it was admirably arranged for a defensive battle. Before
+the position stood the château of Hougoumont, covering the right and
+the right centre of the Duke; beyond was the farm of La Haye Sainte and
+the hamlets of Papelotte and La Haye, advanced posts on his centre
+and left; and these points of vantage had been carefully fortified and
+held by considerable bodies of men, to break the first fury of the
+French attack. Behind these obstacles the main army held a formidable
+position, guarding the two roads from Charleroi to Brussels and that
+from Nivelles; and it had this special characteristic, that its
+possessors could sweep the assailant’s columns at all points with fire,
+and that it afforded cover in the rear to screen the reserves, exactly
+the opposite of the case of the Prussians at Ligny. The Duke, however,
+like all true generals, did not rely only on a passive defence; a
+cross-road just behind the main position enabled all arms to manœuvre
+freely, and the cavalry massed behind the British centre had facilities
+to advance from most points of the line.
+
+I can only attempt a mere sketch of one of the most memorable battles
+of all time. The plan of Napoleon’s attack, in which we perceive
+the last exhibition of his genius in war, was to turn Wellington’s
+left--by many degrees the weakest point of the British position--and,
+simultaneously, to force his centre; success in this operation would
+not only separate the Duke’s army completely from Blücher, but would
+cut off its retreat upon Brussels, and would force it into an intricate
+country where escape from a victorious foe would be difficult. This
+great effort was to be made by the corps of D’Erlon, supported by the
+fire of an array of batteries accumulated in front of La Haye Sainte,
+and thence as far as Papelotte and La Haye; and it was to be sustained
+by the Imperial Guard, by Lobau, and by a large reserve of cavalry; but
+it was to be masked by a feint against Wellington’s right, in order
+to screen the decisive movement, and to draw the enemy’s attention
+away from it. Napoleon gave the signal at 11.30 A.M., and
+part of Reille’s corps on the Emperor’s left advanced boldly against
+Hougoumont, in front, we have seen, of the right of the British
+position. The château and the adjoining grounds, composed of a wood, an
+orchard and walled enclosures, afforded an excellent centre of defence;
+and though the French surrounded the place in thousands--nearly all
+Reille’s men became engaged--and captured most of the approaches to
+the house, and though some of the Duke’s auxiliaries fled, the British
+Guards stubbornly clung to the spot, and made their resistance good
+to the last. The effect of this attack, in which we see precipitate
+haste on the part of the French--a defect in their tactics throughout
+the day--was to weaken most seriously the second corps, and to turn
+a diversion into a principal effort; and this admirably answered the
+Duke’s purpose, for the force of his foe was broken on obstacles, and
+his own position was left intact.
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+    PLAN  OF
+    the Battlefield of
+    WATERLOO,
+    showing positions of
+    OPPOSING ARMIES.]
+
+It was now 1 P.M., and Napoleon was about to send an order
+to Ney for the grand attack, when he descried a body of troops on his
+right, at a considerable distance, near Chapelle St. Lambert, and he
+was soon apprised that this was the advance guard of Bülow’s corps,
+30,000 strong, already gathering menacingly on his flank. The Emperor
+detached Lobau, with 10,000 men, to the right, to hold this new foe
+in check, exclaiming that “Grouchy had lost him thirty chances”; and
+he instantly sent off a message to Grouchy, desiring the Marshal to
+approach Waterloo, and if possible, to fall on the rear of Bülow;
+some indication, perhaps, that Napoleon believed a part of Grouchy’s
+force would be at once available, and possibly showing that the
+disputed order of the previous night may have been given. Meanwhile the
+batteries bearing on Wellington’s line from La Haye Sainte to Papelotte
+and La Haye--a mass of from 70 to 80 guns, opposed by a much weaker
+artillery force--had been carrying destruction into the British ranks;
+and about 1.30 P.M. Ney was directed to carry the Duke’s
+left, and to storm his centre. The assailants advanced in four huge
+columns of extraordinary depth, and with their flanks uncovered--this
+vicious formation has been acknowledged, but the author of it is not
+known--they moved slowly through the difficult ground; they swept
+away a Belgian division, which did not attempt to abide their onset;
+but they failed before Picton and his tenacious infantry, though
+they attained the crest of the British position. The Duke seized the
+occasion with perfect skill; and seeing that the French were already
+shaken, he launched against them a mass of heavy cavalry, which, in a
+few moments, carried all before it, forced the enemy’s columns in rout
+backwards, and clinging to their unprotected sides, captured two eagles
+and 2,000 prisoners. The horsemen, pressing the pursuit too far, were
+nearly destroyed by a counter-attack of hostile cavalry from Napoleon’s
+lines; but this magnificent charge completely defeated the first great
+effort made by the Emperor, and had a marked effect on the fortunes of
+the day.
+
+It was nearly 3 P.M., and Napoleon’s prospects, which had
+appeared so brilliant, had become clouded. Bülow had moved forward
+from Chapelle St. Lambert; Lobau, greatly outnumbered, was falling
+back; a messenger had arrived from Gembloux announcing that Grouchy was
+miles distant; and Wellington had completely maintained his position.
+It is difficult to determine what, in this state of affairs, was the
+exact purpose formed by Napoleon; but he probably resolved to watch
+the movement of Bülow; and renouncing his attack on the Duke’s left,
+which would seriously endanger his own right, he turned against the
+British centre, for the present suspending a decisive effort. Ney
+was ordered to seize the advanced post of La Haye Sainte, and the
+place was mastered at about 4 P.M.,[54] after a furious and
+well-contested struggle, in which the French cavalry made their power
+manifest. A gap was now opened in Wellington’s front; guns were brought
+up to bear on his line; a part of his troops fell back for shelter
+behind the crest of his main position. Napoleon seems to have believed
+in the beginning of a retreat, and he directed a large part of his
+cavalry reserve, with Ney at their head, to advance on the enemy,
+his purpose being, it seems probable, to sustain the movement by the
+Imperial Guard. The French horsemen advanced in superb confidence;
+carried the eminences held by the hostile infantry, and sent terror
+into the hearts of the inferior troops who crowded the ranks of
+the Duke’s army, though checked by the squares of the British and
+German footmen, who exhibited the most heroic constancy. It seems now
+certain that Napoleon meant to follow up this partial success, when a
+diversion caused him to forego his purpose. Bülow had hesitated to
+make a serious attack; but Blücher had joined his halting lieutenant,
+and the fiery veteran, seeing how critical[55] was the situation of
+Wellington’s army, ordered an immediate advance on Napoleon’s flank.
+The Emperor was now fighting two battles; his attention was for some
+time engrossed in repelling Bülow’s attack on his right; and this,
+indeed, became so formidable that a considerable part of the Imperial
+Guard was required to stem the enemy’s progress. Ney, meanwhile,
+had been making desperate efforts with his cavalry to break the
+British centre; he employed the last reserve of this splendid force,
+undoubtedly against his master’s wishes;[56] but though Wellington’s
+line had been severely shaken, and thousands of fugitives covered his
+rear, and enormous gaps had been made in his army, the enemy’s cavalry,
+unsupported by foot, were unable to force the British position, held by
+squares “rooted,” it has been said, “in the earth.”
+
+The battle was undecided at 7 P.M.; but Bülow’s attack had
+been repelled; Ney maintained his hold on the British front; the
+cannon of Grouchy were heard from Wavre, a pledge that he was keeping
+back the Prussians; and Reille and D’Erlon had made some progress in
+their efforts against the British right and centre. Napoleon thought
+his opportunity had come; a final stroke, he believed, would secure
+him victory, and forming the Guard into two great columns, supported
+by guns and the wreck of his cavalry, he directed one against the
+Duke’s centre, holding the second in reserve to sustain the movement.
+Wellington’s army had suffered immense losses; death, desertion,
+flight, had carried off thousands; undoubtedly he was in serious peril;
+and he now probably felt how grave had been the error of leaving 17,000
+men at Hal. But, though “night or Blücher,” significant words which
+fell from him, showed that he knew his danger, he had made everything
+ready to meet his foe; and drawing in his right wing behind his centre,
+he had even now a powerful reserve to oppose to Napoleon’s supreme
+effort. The onset of the first column of the Guard for a time overbore
+all resistance; but it was arrested by the British Guards, by the
+renowned 52nd, and by a division of Dutchmen led by Chassé, and the
+defeated column swayed slowly backward, expecting the support of the
+approaching reserve. The needful assistance was never to come. Just
+at this moment part of the two corps of Ziethen and Pirch came into
+line. The French right was suddenly rent asunder, and a mass of British
+cavalry flooding the plain spread confusion and panic through the
+beaten army. The Duke now ordered a general advance; a terrible scene
+of ruin and disaster followed. The Imperial Guard fought nobly to the
+last; but the rest of Napoleon’s routed troops became a mere chaos of
+dissolving fugitives, pursued with relentless hate by the Prussians,
+and scattered along the roads that lead across the Sambre. Not thirty
+thousand men of the perishing host were ever, probably, seen under arms
+again. The losses of the victors were not less than 22,000 or 23,000
+men, and nearly 7,000 of these were Prussians.
+
+Napoleon at Waterloo gave little proof of the energy and resource of
+Jena and Austerlitz. The plan of his attack was, indeed, perfect, and
+during the greater part of the day he was in a position of extreme
+difficulty, and he was badly seconded by his lieutenants, who displayed
+feverish impatience and great want of caution. But he did not prevent
+the waste of his troops round Hougoumont; he allowed Ney to engage a
+large part at least of his cavalry in a premature movement; he did
+not seize the occasion he perhaps had to attack in full force before
+Bülow’s diversion. He was remiss and inactive throughout the battle;
+and this was due, there is now no doubt, to physical exhaustion[57] and
+long impaired health. The Duke, on the other hand, was the soul of
+the defence; he conducted the battle with wonderful skill, directing
+every movement at the right moment, making counter attacks when these
+were opportune, keeping a sufficient reserve for the supreme trial,
+and breathing into his men his stern sense of duty, his tenacity, and
+inflexible constancy. His management of the contest was so admirable
+that he held his ground, though he had expected Blücher in force on the
+field before mid-day, and though, humanly speaking, he must have lost
+the battle but for the intervention of the Prussian army--his composite
+force of 70,000 men, much weaker in guns, was not to be compared to the
+72,000 troops under the Emperor’s flag--still, I venture to think that
+even without this aid, he would not have suffered the crushing defeat
+on which Napoleon’s hopes for the campaign rested. His one mistake, in
+fact, on this memorable day was the isolating 17,000 men at Hal; this
+certainly exposed him to real danger; but then this was a strategic not
+a tactical error. Nevertheless, Waterloo was decided by combinations
+outside the field; and we turn to the operations of Grouchy, the main
+cause, I believe of Napoleon’s overthrow.
+
+The Marshal breaking up, we have seen, from Gembloux at least five or
+six hours too late, and marching with extraordinary slewness, reached
+Sart les Walhain at about 11:30--he was still eight or ten miles from
+Wavre--and at that place the thunder of cannon, far to the left, gave
+token of a great distant battle. Gérard, with true insight, at once
+urged Grouchy to cross the Dyle by Mousty and Ottignies, and to draw
+near the Emperor, known to be at Waterloo; for by so doing, Gérard
+justly argued, Wavre would be turned should it be attacked, and the
+French would attain the flank of Blücher, who, Gérard felt certain,
+was trying to join Wellington. Grouchy refused to listen to sagacious
+counsels, which, had they inspired him twelve hours before, would have
+perhaps changed the course of events in Europe, and which even now
+might have borne fruit; and he set off with his whole force for Wavre,
+where he expected to find the Prussian army. By this time Bülow was
+at Chapelle St. Lambert, but with a weak advanced guard only. Pirch
+and Ziethen were just breaking up from Wavre, and Thielmann was about
+to join them; but a great change took place in the Prussian movements
+when, at about 1 P.M., intelligence came that the enemy was approaching
+Wavre. Part of the corps of Pirch was ordered to fall back; the march
+of Ziethen was greatly retarded; and Thielmann was directed to remain
+at Wavre, and to make head against the scarcely expected foe. By 4
+P.M., Grouchy was close to Wavre, having marched on the place, not
+across the Dyle towards the flank of Blücher, but along the river,
+thus striking Blücher’s extreme rear, and pushing him, so to speak,
+on Wellington; the Marshal opened fire at once on the town, having
+just received Soult’s letter of 10 A.M., which, no doubt, sanctioned
+an advance on Wavre, but ordered Grouchy to approach the Emperor. It
+is useless to follow the events of a combat of no importance to the
+result of the campaign; Thielmann, with only 18,000 men, contrived
+to hold Grouchy some hours in check; and meanwhile Bülow, completely
+free to act, and Pirch and Ziethen, all danger removed, succeeded in
+reaching Waterloo and in crushing Napoleon. Yet, bad as it was, the
+position of Grouchy made the Prussians cautious and kept them back;
+Pirch and Ziethen were only just up in time; and of an army of 90,000
+men, not 50,000 made their way to Waterloo. By 7 P.M. Grouchy received
+the letter of 1 P.M., sent off from Napoleon’s lines at the news of
+the apparition of Bülow; the Marshal crossed the Dyle, and tried to
+approach the Emperor; but the movement was now altogether too late; the
+French army and its chief had succumbed.
+
+The junction of Blücher and Wellington, therefore, led to the
+overwhelming defeat of Waterloo; but for this, Napoleon would have won
+the battle--the chances, at least, were all in his favour--despite the
+tactical errors of the French, and the admirable defensive resource of
+Wellington. It follows that the great and capital question, as regards
+this part of the Campaign of 1815, is, Could Grouchy have prevented
+this junction, for if he could, he must be held responsible for the
+catastrophe which befell the Emperor? The answer must largely depend
+on conjecture; but an impartial student of war, I think, especially
+if he can weigh evidence, will give it distinctly in the affirmative.
+Considerations, obvious and yet decisive, should have urged Grouchy,
+we have seen, to leave Gembloux in the early dawn of the 18th, to cross
+the Dyle at Mousty and Ottignies, and to approach Wavre as quickly
+as possible; the idea, it will be observed, flashed on Gérard’s mind
+the moment he heard the cannon of Waterloo. If the Marshal had taken
+this rational course, he would have been over the river at about 11
+A.M.,[58] and, in that event, as affairs stood, he would
+have seriously menaced the flank of Bülow, toiling painfully, in long
+straggling columns, on the way from Wavre to Chapelle St. Lambert, and
+he would have been nearer Napoleon’s lines than the corps of Ziethen,
+of Pirch, and of Thielmann, still near Wavre, and not on the march for
+Waterloo.
+
+What, in these circumstances, would Blücher have done, giving him
+full credit for his daring and energy? He would have been surprised
+in a perilous flank march, through a difficult and almost impassable
+country, for he had no conception that Grouchy would be near; and
+his army would have been almost divided by an enemy threatening its
+separate parts. In this state of things I cannot doubt but that he
+would not have permitted Bülow to advance farther, or his three
+remaining corps to make a move towards Waterloo, until he had disposed
+of Grouchy; he would have drawn the mass of his forces together. All
+this would have been an affair of hours. Grouchy could have made a
+prolonged resistance, and, meanwhile, Napoleon, free to bring the
+whole strength of his more powerful army against the Duke, would
+have triumphed over his much weaker enemy. The same results would,
+have, perhaps, followed had Grouchy, without attempting to cross
+the Dyle, reached Wavre at 11 A.M., as he might have done;
+Pirch, Ziethen, and Thielmann would not have moved; Bülow, isolated,
+would not have dared to attack, and the French army would still have
+gained a victory. Even had Grouchy, at the eleventh hour, listened to
+the excellent advice of Gérard, and crossed the Dyle at Mousty and
+Ottignies, he might possibly have averted a complete catastrophe. The
+movement could not have interfered with the attack of Bülow, but it
+might have arrested Pirch and Ziethen, and it was these chiefs who, at
+the last moment, dealt the French army the final mortal stroke.
+
+It is impossible, therefore, to acquit Grouchy; he is mainly to
+blame for the result of Waterloo. This conclusion, however, has been
+assailed, with confidence, on two lines of argument. Napoleon, it is
+said, was not aware, from first to last, whither Blücher had gone; he
+despatched Grouchy from Sombreffe too late; Gembloux was not the true
+point on which the force of the Marshal should have been directed.
+Napoleon gave Grouchy no precise orders; he misled his lieutenant,
+and kept him in the dark; he approved, late on the 18th, the march on
+Wavre, and he has, therefore, to thank himself for his own overthrow.
+We may grant the premises, yet they do not sustain the inference or
+exonerate Grouchy. Admitting that Napoleon believed that Blücher was
+falling back on his base after Ligny; that he should have sent Grouchy
+on his track much sooner; and that Gembloux was not the best place
+to be assigned for the restraining wing; still, it was the duty of
+Grouchy, knowing what he had learned on the 17th, to have left Gembloux
+at daybreak on the 18th, and marched rapidly on or towards Wavre; and
+had he done this, he would, I believe, have stopped the Prussians
+and averted Waterloo. As for Napoleon not having given directions to
+Grouchy of an exact kind, and having sanctioned the tardy advance on
+Wavre, the first statement assumes that Grouchy was not an independent
+general-in-chief, in command of a distinct army, and the second is
+opposed to the known evidence. Napoleon approved of the march to Wavre,
+but not at a late hour, or at a snail’s pace; he certainly thought,
+and had a right to think, if a Prussian force existed at Wavre--the
+reader will recollect the letter of the 18th, pointing to his growing
+suspicion of the fact--that his lieutenant would be able to hold it in
+check, and this required an early and speedy march from Gembloux. This
+reasoning, in fact, errs in two respects; it ascribes to the mistakes
+Napoleon made results with which they are not chargeable; it assumes
+that Napoleon, in front of Wellington, was to instruct Grouchy, in
+front of Blücher, in his conduct, in the minutest details; it takes for
+granted that Grouchy, the head of the army, was a mere puppet to be
+directed in every operation he was to undertake, and that by his chief
+at a wide distance from him. The argument, when examined, falls to the
+ground; it cannot stand the test of impartial criticism.
+
+The second contention, urged by Charras, rests on the fact that the
+army of Grouchy was very much weaker than that of Blücher; but though
+made with a parade of science, it does not mislead a true student of
+war. Grouchy, the argument runs, had but 34,000 men to oppose to the
+90,000 of Blücher; the Prussian was an able, nay, a great soldier; and
+had Grouchy done all that man could do, he could not, his force was so
+inferior, have prevented the junction of Blücher and Wellington, and
+conjured away the disaster of Waterloo. Assume that Grouchy manœuvred
+rightly, had left Gembloux at the first possible moment, had marched
+rapidly, had seized Mousty and Ottignies, and had mastered the Dyle
+before mid-day, his adversary would have at once recognized, that the
+Prussians were nearly three to one to the French, and this would have
+determined Blücher’s purpose. The Prussian marshal, aware of this fact,
+would have sent Pirch and Ziethen to hold Grouchy in check, and marched
+on Waterloo with Bülow and Thielmann; or he would have allowed Grouchy
+to draw near his flank, and, fending him off, would have moved on
+Wellington with three-fourths of his army at least; and in either case
+he would have joined the Duke, and both would have overwhelmed Napoleon.
+
+This looks well on paper, and in mere theory; but is contradicted by
+the realities of war. Had Grouchy attained the Dyle by noon, he would
+have completely surprised Blücher, have caught him with an army far
+apart, on a flank march of the most critical kind; and in this position
+of affairs it is morally certain that Blücher would have reconnoitred
+and paused, would have waited to draw together his army, and would
+have fought a pitched battle with Grouchy, before he even thought of
+uniting with Wellington. In that event, inferior in numbers as he was,
+Grouchy would have detained the Prussians for hours; Blücher would
+have lost the chance of joining the Duke; and Waterloo would have
+been a French victory. The lessons of war, and the great authority of
+Jomini in this matter, confute the reasoning of a partizan censor,
+and the very incidents of the day point to the same conclusion. The
+mere apparition of Grouchy on the wrong bank of the Dyle, late as the
+hour was when he had approached Wavre, delayed the general movement
+of the Prussian army; and half of it never attained Waterloo. How
+different must the result have been had Grouchy crossed the Dyle at
+the true point, and gathered upon the flank of Blücher; in that case
+not even one Prussian division would, I think, have come to the aid of
+Wellington.
+
+Grouchy, in short, was the Emperor’s evil genius on the great and
+terrible day of Waterloo; Napoleon has written, with perfect truth,
+that he could no more foresee his lieutenant’s conduct than he could
+assume that Grouchy would be swallowed up, with his army, by an
+unexpected earthquake. The Campaign of 1815 may be summed up in a
+few sentences. Striking at the extreme right, for the time isolated,
+of the hosts about to invade France, and screening the movement with
+wonderful skill, Napoleon collects an army of 128,000 men on the edge
+of France, running into Belgium, his object being to attack Blücher
+and Wellington, commanding about 224,000 men, but whose two armies
+were widely divided, in scattered groups, from Liège to Ghent and
+Charleroi. The Emperor, aiming at the allied centre, the weakest and
+most assailable point, begins the movement on the 15th of June; he
+does not, owing to a set of accidents, reach the strategic points
+of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on the true line of junction of his
+antagonists, the lateral road from Nivelles to Namur; but his columns
+at nightfall are close to these, and his adversaries already are placed
+in danger. Blücher, meanwhile, acting as Napoleon had hoped, marches to
+Sombreffe with three-fourths of his army only; the Duke, fulfilling the
+expectations of his foe, lingers, hesitates, and delays his movements;
+and on the 16th Napoleon has a grand chance of reaching and beating
+his enemy in detail. His plans, if formed on a false impression, are
+nevertheless so correct in principle, that had they been carried out
+ably the Prussian army must have been destroyed; but Ney, Reille,
+and D’Erlon failed: the Emperor is perhaps over-cautious in not
+pressing D’Erlon’s advance on St. Amand; and Blücher escapes, through
+misadventures, which alone save him from complete ruin. Ligny, however,
+is a real French victory; and, meanwhile, Ney, though unequal to his
+task, fights an indecisive action at Quatre Bras; and though forced to
+fall back, he so far succeeds that he prevents Wellington from sending
+aid to his colleague, and, in fact, gains a strategic advantage. The
+close of the 16th sees Napoleon victorious upon the main scene of the
+contest, having only just failed to make Ligny a counterpart of the
+rout of Jena.
+
+The 17th has come; the Allies, compelled to abandon their proper line
+of junction, retreat separately and in distant groups on a second line,
+between Wavre and Waterloo; they intend ultimately to unite on this;
+and this project, though crowned with success, was false strategy
+that might have proved their ruin. The French army, on this eventful
+day, makes a long halt not easy to explain; the retiring enemy is not
+pursued or watched; and this delay and remissness--utterly unlike the
+energy of Napoleon on the path of victory--and probably largely due
+to his declining health, save Blücher and Wellington from the gravest
+peril, and singularly aid their future projects. Napoleon does not
+move until noon from Ligny, his purpose being to attack Wellington,
+for several hours falling back on Waterloo; he has a noble army 72,000
+strong to cope with 70,000 men of the Duke, more than a third of these
+being inferior troops; and he detaches Grouchy, with about 34,000,
+to pursue Blücher and to keep him away from Wellington. The Emperor
+follows the Duke from Quatre Bras, and finds his adversary in force
+near Waterloo; and meantime, though he remains convinced that Blücher
+is retiring on his base, he directs Grouchy to occupy Gembloux, having
+heard that Prussians were approaching that place. Grouchy reaches
+Gembloux by the night of the 17th; he informs his master that the
+Prussian army is in retreat in two great masses, one directed to Wavre,
+the other to Liège: and he shows that he understands his mission, and
+that he will endeavour “to separate Blücher and Wellington.” This
+report perfectly reassures the Emperor; he makes preparations for a
+decisive battle; but the elements interfere to retard his purpose, and
+he does not attack the Duke until near noon on the 18th. Meanwhile
+Grouchy, whose plain duty it was to leave Gembloux early, and to march
+on Wavre across the Dyle on the flank of Blücher as rapidly as his
+troops could move, breaks up hours too late, proceeds with strange
+slowness, and reaches Wavre in the afternoon only, striking Blücher
+in the extreme rear, but still detaining a part of his army. During
+all this time the great fight of Waterloo has been raging with varying
+fortunes; the French tactics are faulty, the Duke’s admirable. In
+the afternoon Bülow reaches Napoleon; the Emperor is engaged in a
+double battle. Ney recklessly squanders his master’s cavalry, but
+Bülow is for a time repulsed; and the Emperor makes a final effort to
+break Wellington’s centre with the Guard. The attack fails, but all
+is not over until part of two fresh Prussian corps turns the scale
+decisively against the French, and Waterloo ends in a frightful rout.
+The Prussians, in fact, who might have been detained by Grouchy, were
+all but left free to advance on Waterloo; they reached the field in the
+very nick of time. Grouchy kept back directly only 18,000 men; and yet,
+miserable as his operations were, they indirectly retarded the Prussian
+army, a significant proof of what might have occurred had Grouchy been
+a capable chief.
+
+Having reviewed the incidents of this great Campaign, let us disengage
+the permanent lessons it teaches an impartial student of war. Napoleon
+operated with too small an army: 128,000 men could hardly overcome
+224,000. He had a right to count on his transcendent genius; he had
+no right to assume that the Allies would make the grave strategic
+mistakes they made, or would give him the opportunities they gave. In
+consequence of this numerical weakness he was compelled to divide his
+army into two masses not sufficiently connected by an intermediate
+body; and this partly explains, though it does not excuse, the errors
+of Ney to the left on the 16th, and those of Grouchy to the right
+on the 18th. Had the Emperor had the 20,000 men he had intended to
+bring into the field, he would have had a force sufficient to fill
+this interval, and in that event he would have doubtless triumphed.
+The intellectual powers of Napoleon were splendidly exhibited in the
+contest; his plan for the Campaign is a masterpiece of art; his plan of
+attack at Waterloo defies criticism; his general ideas, though he made
+mistakes--for the greatest generals must necessarily err--reveal the
+wholly unrivalled strategist. His bodily strength, however, failed him:
+to this, I doubt not, we ought to ascribe the delays and carelessness
+of the 17th, and certainly this weakness had much to do with the
+inactivity and slackness he betrayed at Waterloo. It may well be,
+too, that his complete faith in himself had been diminished by recent
+events. Like Richard at Bosworth, he has recorded--
+
+    I had not the alacrity of spirit,
+    Or cheer of mind that I was wont to have;
+
+and the great player against Fate may, in this mighty hazard, have
+thrown his last die with a trembling hand. We may perhaps see
+hesitation, and even timidity, in his allowing D’Erlon to return to
+Quatre Bras, and in not pressing the movement on St. Amand home;
+and the same shortcomings may be possibly traced in his not seizing
+a real chance at Waterloo, when La Haye Sainte had been taken, and
+before Bülow had made a serious attack on his flank. Yet it was his
+lieutenants’ errors that lost the campaign; on the 16th they failed
+on the left; Grouchy, on the 18th was worse than useless; and we can
+understand his bitter expression that victory was twice wrested from
+his hands through incomprehensible faults of subordinates. In this
+campaign, so to speak, the sun of Austerlitz seems about to break out
+in its old splendour; but malignant influences intercept its rays, and
+it sets at last in disastrous night.
+
+To turn to the Allies, Blücher and Wellington were adversaries of
+a very different kind from the Beaulieu and Colli of 1796. Both
+certainly, made great strategic mistakes; both were more than once
+in imminent peril; and we see in their conduct the divided counsels
+repeatedly fatal to a Coalition and its chiefs. But both, in different
+ways, were great soldiers; they cordially co-operated in a common
+design; and the heroism of Blücher, mastering defeat, and the tenacity
+and tactical skill of Wellington, are admirable specimens of great
+parts in war. Another cause of the ultimate success of the Allies
+should be carefully noted. Napoleon, in his last address to his troops,
+referred scornfully to the Prussians of Jena, and exclaimed “Are not
+we and they the same men?” and like many great chiefs he took no heed
+of national and patriotic passion. The Prussian army of 1815 was not,
+however, “the same men” as the Prussian army of 1806; it was fired
+with an intense hatred of France, and with an intense love of the
+Fatherland; and it was capable of very different efforts from those
+of the serf-like troops of Brunswick. Napoleon, relying on former
+experience, believed that the army defeated at Ligny would recoil
+on its base, and, beyond doubt, would not make a dangerous march on
+Waterloo; but the reasoning of strategy, as has often happened, was
+baffled by the ardour of a devoted soldiery; though had Grouchy been
+equal to his task all this energy would have come to nothing. In Spain
+and Russia Napoleon had suffered immense disasters from his inborn
+contempt of patriotic and popular sentiment; and this indifference
+had something to do with the final issue of the strife at Waterloo.
+But when all has been said, the Emperor’s genius all but triumphed in
+the campaign of 1815; he was nearly successful although opposed to
+adversaries almost twofold in numbers; and victory was only wrested
+from him through the mistakes of others. Notwithstanding Zama, Hannibal
+remains the pre-eminent figure of ancient war; Napoleon is the great
+captain of modern times, though ruin overtook him on the plains of
+Belgium.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., Limited, 13, Waterloo Place, London, S.W.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Napoleon Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 365.
+
+[2] Compare this with the movement, described on p. 8, which was made
+by Gustavus Adolphus in pursuit of Tilly.
+
+[3] French armies had before this taken many of these fortresses, but
+they had been retaken on the first turn of fortune.
+
+[4] Napoleon never made use of lines of this kind, but nothing escaped
+him, and he had the example of Torres Vedras; at St. Helena he made
+admirable observations on this system of defence.
+
+[5] Every real student of the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries knows the difficulty of forming anything like a just estimate
+of the numbers of the armies in conflict. This is mainly due to the
+systematic practice of enumeration by battalions and squadrons, bodies
+always in a state of change; and besides, national pride and interest
+have obscured the truth. I have taken some pains to collate the
+authorities, and to arrive at an estimate approximately correct.
+
+[6] This march, in fact, strongly resembles Eugene’s famous march
+up the Po in 1706, described by Napoleon as “a marvellous piece of
+audacity,” but it was far more perilous.
+
+[7] Coxe, though a dull is a conscientious writer, and occasionally he
+had good military assistance. Alone, as far as I know, of commentators
+on the campaign of 1704, he points out the risk to which, at this
+juncture, Eugene and Marlborough were exposed. Napoleon wrote on
+Marlborough, but his observations have never been published; it would
+be most interesting to know his judgment on this passage in the
+campaign.
+
+[8] It is more difficult to arrive at an estimate of the strength
+of the contending armies in the case of Malplaquet than in that of
+any other great battle of the war. I think my calculation is fairly
+accurate.
+
+[9] “_Semper et ubique fideles_” was the proud and well-merited
+device on the flag of the Irish brigade.
+
+[10] This is the sagacious and just judgment of Wellington, a genius of
+quite a different kind, but a great admirer of Napoleon.
+
+[11] Bulletin of the Grand Army the day after the battle: “L’armée
+ennemie était nombreuse et montrait une belle cavalerie; ses manœuvres
+étaient executées avec précision et rapidité.”
+
+[12] This saying has been ascribed to Napoleon; it belongs to
+Turenne: “Les plus habiles sont ceux qui font seulement le moins de
+fautes.”--_Memoires_, p. 5. Ed. Hachette, 1877.
+
+[13] The last words of Napoleon’s despatch to Masséna are
+characteristic: “Activité. Activité, vitesse! Je me recommande à vous.”
+
+[14] The monarchies and aristocracies of old Europe had an immense
+opinion of the Archduke Charles; but his reputation has steadily
+declined. He was as inferior to Napoleon as Pompey, the admiration of
+the Roman patricians, was to Cæsar.
+
+[15] “Mais, Monseigneur, figurez vous qu’au lieu de Bonaparte,
+c’est Jourdan que vous avez devant vous,” was the exclamation of an
+aide-de-camp, when the Archduke was in this mood of fear and hesitation.
+
+[16] See a masterly paper, from Wellington’s hand, on the campaign
+of 1812. The Duke’s knowledge of the facts is not complete, for the
+_Napoleon Correspondence_ had not yet been published; but the
+criticism is admirable. I have made ample use of it in this sketch.
+_Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field-Marshal the Duke
+of Wellington, K.G._, vol. iii., 1866.
+
+[17] Napoleon was certainly unwell; poison has been suspected; but
+probably he was again showing signs of disease.
+
+[18] It has been said--and the fact is probable--that the general
+scheme of the operations of the Allies was formed by Moreau, a chief of
+the second order, but a capable, sagacious, and far-sighted soldier.
+Their strategy was better than that of the Russians in 1812, and than
+their own in 1814.
+
+[19] Owing to the losses of the French by disease, desertion, and
+defection, it is impossible to determine, even approximately, the
+numbers of the Grand Army in this part of the campaign. Those of the
+Allies are better known; but patriotism and pride have tended to make
+them smaller than they were.
+
+[20] Napier insists on this, though he was so enthusiastic an idolator
+of Napoleon that he is not an impartial judge.
+
+[21] Napoleon’s exultation at his feats and those of his army was
+extravagant. “Ce qu’ils ont fait,” he wrote on 12th February, “ne peut
+se comparer qu’aux romans de chevalerie et aux hommes d’armes de ces
+temps où, par l’effet de leurs armures et l’adresse de leurs chevaux,
+un en battait trois ou quatre cents.”
+
+[22] Lord Caetlereagh, who was at this council, could not comprehend
+why Blücher and Schwartzenburg could not defeat Napoleon with their
+enormous superiority of numbers; and demurred to the expense--England
+was the paymaster of the Coalition--of bringing up Wintzingerode and
+Bülow. “Milord,” said a bystander, “vous ne connaissez pas cet homme!”
+
+[23] The authorities on the state of Napoleon’s health during the
+campaign of 1815 will be found in Mr. Dorsey Gardener’s book on
+Waterloo, pp. 34, 36.
+
+[24] “Si le maréchal Grouchy eût campé devant Wavre le soir du 17,
+l’armée prussienne n’eut fait aucun détachment pour secourir l’armée
+anglaise.”--_Correspondence_, vol. xxxi., p. 213. No doubt Grouchy
+could not have reached Wavre on the night of the 17th, but he might
+have been there at 11 A.M. on the morning of the 18th; and
+the result would have been practically the same. Bülow would not have
+attacked, or perhaps even approached Waterloo, had he been isolated.
+
+[25] Jomini knew more about Napoleon than any other commentator on
+the Emperor and is naturally astonished at the delays of the 17th
+of June. The real cause was not then known, but Jomini’s words are
+significant. _Précis de la Campagne de 1815_, p. 185. “Pour ceux
+qui se rappellent l’étonnante activité qui présida aux évènements de
+Ratisbonne en 1809, de Dresde en 1813, de Champaubert et de Montmirail
+en 1814, ce nouveau temps perdu sera toujours une chose inexplicable de
+la part de Napoléon.”
+
+[26] Lord Wellesley’s epitaph, chosen by himself, is strikingly
+characteristic:--“Super et Garamantas et Indos protulit imperium.”
+
+[27] It is most remarkable how many of the Irish Protestant aristocracy
+have distinguished themselves in India. Besides the two Wellesleys,
+the names of Eyre Coote, of Gough, of the Lawrences, of Canning, of
+Dufferin, will at once occur to the reader. This, no doubt, may in part
+be traced to their hereditary ascendency over the Celtic Irish.
+
+[28] Napoleon wrote thus to Clarke 18th August 1809: “Quelle belle
+occasion on a manquée! 30,000 Anglais et 150 lieues des côtes devant
+100,000 hommes des meilleures troupes du monde! Mon Dieu! qu’est ce
+qu’une armée sans chef!”--_Correspondence_, vol. xix., p. 362.
+
+[29] Napoleon received the news of Salamanca on the eve of Borodino.
+His criticism of Marmont is striking and just.
+
+[30] I refer to the combined forces of the Allies. The Duke’s army was
+from 100,000 to 106,000 strong, counting all the troops in Belgium.
+
+[31] This is the expression of Napoleon in a somewhat analogous case.
+The orders of a Government, if not precise, obviously should not excuse
+a general-in-chief on the spot.
+
+[32] Chanzy, a singularly modest and truthful man, gives this account
+of the state of the Germans after the retreat to Le Mans: “L’ennemi,
+contenu partout, était devenu de moins en moins entreprenant; il était
+facile de voir que pas plus que les nôtres, ses troupes n’avaient
+pas résisté à la fatigué; ses hommes étaient, eux aussi, grandement
+démoralisés par cette resistance d’une lutte qui se reproduisait
+constamment, alors qu’ils la croyaient terminée; le désordre se
+mettait parfois dans ses colonnes malgré sa solide organisation et sa
+discipline.”
+
+[33] This message from Berlin, at this juncture, is very
+significant:--“La position militaire est regardée comme critique dans
+les cercles bien informés. On a des inquietudes sur l’issue finale de
+la lutte.”
+
+[34] My limits preclude me from citing extracts from these authorities.
+But I shall, when it is required, indicate them; and I hope I shall
+accurately express their meaning and purport.
+
+[35] Napoleon had shown signs of illness in the campaigns of 1812,
+1813, and 1814, and was in bad health in 1815. Mr. Dorsey Gardner in
+his useful work on Waterloo, pp. 34–36, has adduced ample evidence to
+prove that Napoleon was unwell and out of sorts on the 16th, 17th, and
+18th June; and this, I know, was remarked by Soult on the morning of
+Waterloo.
+
+[36] After the publication of these despatches, and of other documents,
+especially those collected by the son of Ney, we must reject Napoleon’s
+statement that Ney received “positive orders,” to occupy Quatre Bras
+on the evening of the 15th, and to advance from that place, “at
+daybreak,” on the 16th. Still, I think Napoleon indicated a movement
+of the kind to his lieutenant on the 15th; the _Moniteur_ of the
+18th contains a despatch of the 15th, which announces that “Ney had his
+head-quarters at Quatre Bras.” The point, however, is not of very great
+importance; had the Emperor’s orders of 8 A.M. on the 16th
+been intelligently and rapidly carried out, Ney would have done all
+that was required, and Napoleon would have gained decisive success.
+
+[37] The failure of Ney to attain Quatre Bras, and to send a division
+to Marbais, before the arrival of a sufficient part of Wellington’s
+army to arrest the Marshal’s progress, saved Blücher from destruction
+on the 16th of June, and was fraught with the most momentous
+consequences, and the truth on this subject has been studiously
+concealed. Charras and the detractors of Napoleon, eager to condemn
+the Emperor, and English writers, desirous of hiding what might have
+happened through Wellington’s tardiness, concur in insinuating that
+Reille and D’Erlon were not to begin their movement until they had
+received their orders from Ney, who would have to send despatches from
+Frasnes back to them, and contend, therefore, that Ney could not have
+been in great force at Quatre Bras before 3.30 or 4.30 P.M.,
+at which time he was fully engaged with Wellington, and could not
+even master Quatre Bras. This, however, is a complete mistake: Reille
+and D’Erlon have acknowledged that they received the order for their
+movement from the aide-de-camp at about 10 A.M.; and, in
+fact, Ney could have swept all before him at Quatre Bras soon after 1
+P.M., and have made the detachment to Marbais, had the order
+been properly carried out. See the letters of D’Erlon, of Reille, and
+of Durutte, quoted by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne in his book on
+Waterloo, p. 149, p. 170, and p. 171.
+
+[38] A host of witnesses, Soult is the most conspicuous--his well-known
+testimony of the 17th of June, the day after Ligny, has been shamefully
+garbled by Charras--have proved that Napoleon sent this order to
+D’Erlon; and the fact, I conceive, is indisputable. It is denied,
+in the face of the evidence, by those only who, seeking to censure
+Napoleon and to excuse Wellington, pretend that the Emperor had not the
+means of gaining a decisive victory over Blücher after 1 P.M.
+on the 16th of June. Even after the failure of the projected movement
+from Marbais the means were ample; D’Erlon would have annihilated
+Blücher had he struck the Prussian right and rear at St. Amand.
+
+[39] This was Dejean, a favourite aide-de-camp of Napoleon. As the
+evidence shows that the Emperor ordered D’Erlon to Ligny, so it
+indicates that he must have permitted D’Erlon to abandon his march,
+and to retrace his steps towards Quatre Bras when peremptorily ordered
+to do so by Ney. This, in the events which happened, was over-caution,
+for D’Erlon would have destroyed Blücher had he carried out Napoleon’s
+order, and Ney, hard pressed as he was at Quatre Bras, could have held
+his ground against Wellington without the aid of D’Erlon; and this,
+I conceive, is the reason that Napoleon’s commentaries on this most
+important subject are vague and unsatisfactory.
+
+[40] D’Erlon detached a division to observe St. Amand before he
+counter-marched to Quatre Bras. This division, however, merely
+reconnoitred, and took no part in the battle; it was simply useless.
+
+[41] With Kellerman’s heavy cavalry.
+
+[42] “L’armée Prussienne a été mise en déroute” is the expression of
+Soult, in the well known letter of the 17th, written under the eye
+perhaps of Napoleon, certainly according to his ideas.
+
+[43] Dorsey Gardner (p. 34) cites conclusive testimony to show “that
+Napoleon went to bed immediately after the close of the battle of
+Ligny, and was in such a condition that none of his staff dared enter
+his chamber to procure his sanction for vitally important orders, and
+that on the morning of the 17th there was the same impossibility of
+getting access to him.”
+
+[44] See, again, Soult’s letter of 17th, “La journée d’aujourd’hui
+est nécessaire pour terminer cette opération, et pour compléter
+les munitions, rallier les militaires isolés et fair rentrer les
+détachements.”
+
+[45] What Napoleon might have accomplished on the morning of the 17th
+is very ably shown by Charras (p. 203, vol. i.), but with too much
+regard to mere theory.
+
+[46] This has been denied by Grouchy, but is distinctly to be inferred
+from his own letters; and, as Jomini observes, the situation dictated
+the order. Gerard, who however, is unjust to Grouchy, declares that
+Napoleon gave the most precise instructions nearly to this effect.
+
+[47] Napoleon, conscious of the evil results of the delays of the 17th,
+condemns Ney for not having fallen on Wellington, at least when the
+Imperial army was on the march. This criticism, however, is not well
+founded, or even honest. Napoleon had a right to complain of Ney on the
+16th and 18th, not on the 17th.
+
+[48] The operations of Grouchy on the 17th and 18th of June had a
+decisive effect on the issue of the campaign, and have been the subject
+of volumes of controversy. I have relied mainly on the papers written
+at the time, but in part guided by Jomini’s sagacious direction.
+Napoleon, writing at St. Helena, was largely ignorant of the details
+of these movements, and is unjust to his luckless subordinate. Thiers,
+and authors of the Napoleonic school, exaggerate the unfairness of
+the Emperor; on the other hand, Charras, Chesney, and others are
+not trustworthy authorities, and are thoroughly prejudiced against
+Napoleon. This part of Charras’ book is the theoretic reasoning, after
+the event, of a malignant partisan critic.
+
+[49] Grouchy also incidentally refers to a third column retreating by
+Namur.
+
+[50] This despatch was discovered by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne (see
+his book on _Waterloo_, p. 318), and is of extreme importance.
+It was written “at daybreak, on the 18th, and ordered Pajol to hasten
+to Tourinnes, “_afin que nous poussions en avant de Wavre, le plus
+promptement possible_.”
+
+[51] This is one of the most obscure and disputed passages of the
+campaign. Napoleon positively declares that he ordered Grouchy to
+detach 7,000 men from Gembloux to attack Wellington, and he is followed
+by Thiers and a number of writers. But, as Charras and others have
+fairly pointed out, no copy of the order can be found in the register
+of the Chief of the Staff; the name of the bearer has never been given,
+and the order seems inconsistent with a subsequent message sent to
+Grouchy in the morning of the 18th. Still there are indications that
+the order was given; Napoleon would hardly utter an audacious falsehood
+on such a subject. Thiers narrates an anecdote which confirms his
+conclusion; and, as we have already seen, the Emperor did not always
+convey his directions through Soult. The matter, however, is scarcely
+of the capital importance ascribed to it by some writers.
+
+[52] This is placed beyond doubt by Prince La Tour D’Auvergne,
+_Waterloo_, p. 251, and disposes of the able but ill-founded
+remarks of Charras.
+
+[53] Detractors of Napoleon and encomiasts of the Allies have concurred
+in endeavouring to excuse Grouchy. They begin by referring to the state
+of the weather on the morning of the 18th as accounting for Grouchy’s
+delay in leaving Gembloux. It is enough to reply that Bülow started for
+Waterloo at daybreak through a most difficult country.
+
+[54] I cannot accept General Shaw Kennedy’s statement that La Haye
+Sainte was not taken until 6 P.M.; it is contradicted by every
+other contemporaneous authority.
+
+[55] See on this point Blücher’s official account of Waterloo, never
+contradicted by Wellington. English writers will not acknowledge the
+enormous importance of Bülow’s attack.
+
+[56] Napoleon, to the latest hour of his life, attributed to Ney the
+sacrifice of his last cavalry reserve, and declared it was one main
+cause of the rout of Waterloo. Ney acted recklessly on the 18th June;
+he had the hot fit and cold fit of a desperate man by turns in this
+campaign.
+
+[57] Dorsey Gardner, on the authority of two of Napoleon’s staff
+officers, gives this account of the Emperor at Waterloo (p. 36): “he
+remained motionless, for long intervals, seated at a table, frequently
+sinking upon it.”
+
+[58] Grouchy might, I think, have been over the Dyle before 11
+A.M.; but I accept the time of Charras, who has made it as
+late as possible; “before noon” is his exact phrase.
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
+corrected silently.
+
+2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
+been retained as in the original.
+
+3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77267 ***
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+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Great Commanders of Modern Times | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77267 ***</div>
+
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="frontispiece">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/frontispiece.jpg"
+     alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<h1>
+GREAT COMMANDERS<br>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center xs p2">AND</p>
+
+<p class="center lg p2">THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center xs p4">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">WILLIAM O’CONNOR MORRIS.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center p2 xs"><i>Reprinted from the</i><br>
+“<span class="smcap">Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine</span>.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="sm">“Faites la guerre offensive comme Alexandre, Annibal, César,
+Gustave Adolphe, Turenne, le Prince Eugène et Fredéric; lisez,
+relisez l’histoire de leurs quatre vingt trois campagnes;
+modelez vous sur eux.”—<span class="smcap">Napoleon.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p4 sm">LONDON: W. H. ALLEN AND CO., LIMITED,<br>
+<span class="xs">AND AT CALCUTTA.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center xs">1891.</p>
+
+<p class="center xs">(<i>All Rights Reserved.</i>)</p>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center xs p6">LONDON:<br>
+PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., LIMITED,<br>
+13, WATERLOO PLACE.</p>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="p4">CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p0" 
+    src="images/i_004.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<table class="smaller" style="max-width: 50em">
+  <tr>
+    <th class="header" colspan="4">GREAT COMMANDERS OF MODERN TIMES.</th>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <th></th>
+    <th></th>
+    <th></th>
+    <th class="pag">PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht" colspan="3">PREFACE</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht" colspan="3">INTRODUCTION</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td class="chn">I.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Turenne</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">II.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Marlborough</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">III.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Frederick the Great</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">IV.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Napoleon</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">V.—</td>
+    <td class="cht">&ensp;„&emsp;&emsp;(<i>continued</i>)</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">VI.—</td>
+    <td class="cht">&ensp;„&emsp;&emsp;(<i>continued</i>)</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">VII.—</td>
+    <td class="cht">&ensp;„&emsp;&emsp;(<i>continued</i>)</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">VIII.—</td>
+    <td class="cht">&ensp;„&emsp;&emsp;(<i>continued</i>)</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">IX.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Wellington</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="chn">X.—</td>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap">Moltke</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td>
+  </tr>
+   
+  <tr>
+    <th class="header" colspan="4">THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.</th>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td class="cht" colspan="2">&nbsp;I.</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="cht" colspan="2">II.</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="p4">LIST OF</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center xl">MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p0" 
+    src="images/i_005.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<table class="smaller" style="max-width: 50em">
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Frederick the Great</td>
+    <td class="ctr"></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Turenne</td>
+    <td class="ctr"><i>To face page</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_012fp">12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of War in Germany</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_020fp">20</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of War in the Low Countries</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_028fp">28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Marlborough</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_036fp">36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1704</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_044fp">44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of Campaigns in Belgium and the North of France</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_054fp">54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Seven Years’ War</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_076fp">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Battles of Prague and Zorndorf</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_078a">78</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Seidlitz at Rossbach</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_083fp">83</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_085afp">85</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign in North Italy</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_110fp">110</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Sketch Map of Central Europe</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_128fp">128</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1809</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_160afp">160</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1812</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_174fp">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Napoleon Watching the Burning of Moscow</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_178fp">178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1813</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_188fp">188</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1814</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_206fp">206</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1815</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_218fp">218</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Ney at Waterloo</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_226fp">226</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Wellington</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_238fp">238</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Peninsula War</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_244fp">244</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Wellington at Talavera</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_248fp">248</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Moltke and His Master</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_274fp">274</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaign of 1866</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_281fp">281</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Theatre of the Campaigns of 1870–71</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_288fp">288</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Map of Belgium</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_315fp">315</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">“The Idol of the Soldier’s Soul”</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_320fp">320</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">England’s Hope, 1815</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_324">324</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">“Tambour, faites-moi cadeau d’une prise!”</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_338fp">338</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Plan of the Battlefield of Waterloo</td>
+    <td class="ctr">„</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_b_350fp">350</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="p4">PREFACE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p0" 
+    src="images/i_006.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<p>This volume consists of a series of essays on Great Commanders of
+Modern Times, and of two papers on the Campaign of 1815. I have to
+thank the Editor of <i>The Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine</i>,
+in which these studies originally appeared, for thinking them worthy
+of republication; and my acknowledgments are due to the press for many
+favourable notices. The text has been revised and slips of the pen
+corrected; but I have made no substantial change in what I had at first
+written.</p>
+
+<p>A civilian, who attempts to treat of military affairs, ought to bear in
+mind the remark of Hannibal to the Greek sophist—“It is pretty, but it
+is all nonsense.” Yet it is with the art of war as with lesser arts;
+the unprofessional inquirer can attain knowledge of leading truths,
+though he may not be able to master technical details. Thucydides
+was perhaps not a soldier, but he observed this principle, and his
+narrative of the siege of Syracuse is a masterpiece. An ordinary writer
+is not worthy to unloose the shoe latchet of Thucydides; but he may,
+in this matter, imitate the method of the great Athenian; and if he
+has fair intelligence, works hard, and devotes laborious hours to
+reflecting on the exploits of great captains, he may become, in some
+measure, a sound military critic. These essays are not, I trust, wholly
+devoid of the only merits I claim for them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p>
+
+<p>The papers on the Campaign of 1815, though only sketches, are the least
+fugitive pieces of any in this volume. I have formed my conclusions
+after a careful study of nearly every valuable authority on the
+subject; and I have had the advantage of some special information not
+yet given to the public. I have described Napoleon as easily superior,
+as a strategist, to his adversaries; while I have done justice to the
+great qualities displayed by Wellington and Blücher, as soldiers,
+I have dwelt on the grave strategic mistakes they committed. This
+will not gratify national vanity; but, in my judgment, it is the
+verdict which History will pronounce, nay, is already pronouncing,
+upon the questions raised by this mighty conflict, after a full and
+dispassionate investigation of the evidence.</p>
+
+<p>My short account of the Battle of Waterloo may be flatly contradicted,
+or sharply criticized, in two particulars. I have described La Haye
+Sainte as having been captured at about 4 P.M. on the 18th of June;
+and I have left it to be inferred that only one column of the Imperial
+Guard actually reached the British line. It would take too long to
+explain why I have made these statements; I shall merely remark that
+the testimony in their favour seems to me greatly to preponderate.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gartnamona, Tullamore,</i></p>
+
+<p class="left1"><i>September 1890.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center xl p4">GREAT COMMANDERS<br>
+<span class="xs">OF</span><br>
+MODERN TIMES.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.<br>
+<span class="subhed">BY A SOLDIER.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>It will doubtless appear to some that this is a trite subject whose
+interest has long ago evaporated, exhausted by the numerous and
+competent pens which have treated it. The soldier, at all events, will
+judge otherwise, and conclude that the careers of that small group
+of demi-gods, commonly known as “great generals,” afford matter for
+consideration which can never tire, and which gains in interest the
+more it is analysed. As we vary our point of view, so the prospect
+grows upon us and the more we admire its details. Again, passing
+from select readers to the multitude, we have the sanction of a most
+sagacious observer of mankind for retracing the ground which has been
+so often trodden aforetime.</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque</div>
+        <div>Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,</div>
+        <div>Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus.</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This being so, a concise summary like this of the campaigns of the
+most eminent of these great military leaders will not prove devoid of
+novelty and interest, as coming from the pen of one whom a civil career
+has left free from professional prejudice, and the study of law has
+trained to weigh<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> conflicting evidence. These biographical summaries
+include the following names:—</p>
+
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left smaller" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li>1. Turenne.</li>
+  <li>2. Marlborough.</li>
+  <li>3. Frederick the Great.</li>
+  <li>4. Napoleon.</li>
+  <li>5. Wellington.</li>
+  <li>6. Moltke.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>  
+
+<p>If in any particular we are at variance with the writer, it is that he
+hardly attaches sufficient importance to the influence of Turenne’s
+predecessor, Gustavus Adolphus, in the development of the military
+art. We ourselves agree with Gfrörer, his German biographer, that the
+Swedish king was the father of modern strategy, and the first really
+great general since Julius Cæsar. As Judge O’Connor Morris points out,
+many great soldiers lived during this long interval of time, but in
+our opinion (and it is in accord with Napoleon’s) it was the campaigns
+of the Swedish hero, and notably the Thirty Years’ War, which first
+revealed the dawn of that science which in later days was brought to
+such perfection by his successors. The tactical improvements introduced
+by Gustavus were extensive, though cavalry still played too exclusive
+a <i>rôle</i> in his engagements; his reforms in the armament and
+equipment of his troops were remarkable; nor is the military historian
+oblivious of his services to good discipline and morality by the
+Articles of War which he compiled and promulgated.</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus Adolphus, when he ascended the throne at the tender age
+of seventeen, found his realm engaged in hostilities with Denmark,
+Russia, and Poland. His successor, Charles XII., curiously enough, was
+similarly entangled, but promptitude and good fortune in each case
+enabled the monarch to assail his enemies in succession and beat them
+in detail. The Danes already occupied the southern provinces of Sweden
+and, in the spring of 1612, they advanced in two columns, intending
+to move on Stockholm by the routes east and west of the Wettern Lake<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>
+which give access to the capital. This afforded the boy-king an
+opportunity for signalizing his latent military talent. Posting his
+forces at Jönköping, at the southernmost extremity of the lake, he
+struck alternately at the divided columns of the Danish army till he
+thrust them in disorderly retreat back to the sea-coast. Thus early
+was the leading idea which governed the defence of France in 1814
+foreshadowed amid the rocks and lakes of Sweden. Peace with Denmark
+resulted in 1613, and through the mediation of James I. of England.</p>
+
+<p>Russia was next assailed. Semi-barbarous at the time, that State was in
+the throes of revolution brought about by the extinction of the House
+of Ruric; and a project was actually on foot for her dismemberment, one
+half to go to Sweden, the other to Poland. But Muscovite patriotism
+defeated its execution. Michael Románoff was, in 1613, elected Tsar.
+Gustavus at the same time landed in Esthonia, but effected little
+beyond the capture of Gdoff, and in 1617 concluded peace, again through
+the good offices of England. The Thirty Years’ War was looming in the
+distance; the diplomacy of the Protestant Powers tended towards a union
+against the Papacy. Thus both dynastic and religious considerations
+recommended an attack on Poland to the judgment of Gustavus. Sigismund
+III., her king, was both a bigoted Catholic and the rightful though
+dethroned King of Sweden. Nothing could be effected in Germany leaving
+such an active and embittered foe in flank and rear. At first the King
+operated from Riga as a base, with the Dwina as his line of operations;
+but experience soon taught that, to effect his purpose, he must strike
+vigorously home at the heart of the adversary’s power. The theatre of
+war was therefore transferred to West Prussia, then directly subject
+to Poland, where he proceeded to establish a solid base on the coast,
+by making himself master of the fortresses of Frauenburg, Elbing,
+Marienburg, Stuhm, Mewe, Dirschau, and Oliva. Dantzig was besieged to
+facilitate communication with Sweden and, in this case, the line chosen
+by him for an eventual advance into the interior was the river Vistula.
+In all of his campaigns we find Gustavus keeping up his communications
+with the coast by means<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> of a great river; he lived in times when
+railways were not dreamt of and even roads could scarcely be said to
+exist. A commodious port on the Baltic was also necessary for safe
+communication with Sweden, and to serve as a depôt for stores. Thus his
+strategy was far in advance of the practice of his renowned successors
+Charles X. and Charles XII., who, great soldiers as they were, relapsed
+into pre-Gustavus methods, though they had both the King’s example and
+that of Turenne before them.</p>
+
+<p>During this “Prussian War,” as the Swedish historians designate
+the struggle with Poland, Gustavus, involved himself in the Thirty
+Years’ War by sending troops to succour the hard-pressed garrison of
+Stralsund, then besieged by Wallenstein. This affront quickly brought a
+division of 10,000 Imperialists to the fields of Poland. Nevertheless,
+the belligerents concluded, in 1629, an armistice for the space of six
+years, which enabled Gustavus to turn his attention to the horrible
+struggle which was deluging Germany with blood, while securing his
+recent acquisitions on the Baltic. In one particular, however, he
+had persistently infringed the rules of conduct which should guide
+the great Commander: he had recklessly exposed his life during this
+Prussian campaign. During an action at Dirschau, the Swedes were on
+the point of victory when a bullet struck their chief in the shoulder,
+and he was borne insensible from the field. The action was stopped
+in consequence, and it was this wound which ever afterwards made it
+irksome for him to wear a cuirass, the absence of which probably
+occasioned his death on the field of Lützen. On several other occasions
+he escaped death or capture by a hair’s breadth. But it is only on
+critical occasions that the leader of a host ought to risk his life.
+The interests committed to his charge ought to be paramount in his
+estimation. Cæsar and Napoleon both well knew when such a course seemed
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>We now approach the crowning enterprize of this “Lion of the North,”
+his intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, with the glories which were
+compressed into the short span of life which yet remained to him: an
+enterprize which he had long dreamed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> of in secret, and the fatal
+termination of which he probably only too plainly foresaw.</p>
+
+<p>He landed on the island of Usedom on the 26th June 1630. Separated
+from the mainland by a narrow arm of the sea, it was admirably suited
+for the purpose of a maritime base of operations. Gustavus, the first
+who leaped ashore, sank on his knees, gave thanks to God, and, this
+done, seized a spade and began to dig the trenches. The island of
+Wollin was next subjugated, and the command of the mouth of the Oder
+by this means secured. Tilly was absent, dancing attendance on the
+Diet at Regensburg; Torquato Conti, his lieutenant, seemed paralyzed
+by the emergency; Wallenstein had justly been deposed from the supreme
+command. Embarking on the Stettiner Haff, the “Snow King,” as his
+enemies contemptuously nick-named him, seized possession of Stettin in
+July. In September he invaded the duchy of Mecklenburg, thus extending
+his area of supply and acquiring a broad and solid base for operating
+in relief of beleaguered Magdeburg. He drove Schaumburg, Conti’s
+successor, as far as Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and by the close of the
+year all the Pomeranian strongholds except Colberg, Greifswald, and
+Demmin, were in his possession. Thus much to prove how systematic was
+his system of warfare, and to show how carefully he fortified his base
+before venturing into the interior of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>It must be noted that Gustavus continued active operations throughout
+the winter, in contrast to the habits of the age. In January 1631 his
+troops, clothed in sheep-skins, quitted Stettin, and New Brandenburg,
+Loitz, Malchin, and Demmin fell to their arms. These successes brought
+Tilly raging with fury on their track. Traversing Brandenburg amid
+blood and flame, he captured New Brandenburg by assault. Gustavus had
+skilfully concentrated his forces to protect the town at Friedland and
+at Pasewalk, but was informed by his lieutenants that the troops were
+so demoralized by the idea of encountering Tilly’s terrible bands that
+they were not to be relied on! In this desperate emergency the genius
+of the Swede stood by him. While Horn disputed the passage of the Peene
+and Trebel by the Imperialists, the King<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> ascended the Oder with the
+bulk of his forces, and, taking post at Schwedt, menaced the enemy’s
+right and rear so that Tilly rapidly retraced his steps, and, finding
+the Swedish position impregnable, continued his retreat to Magdeburg.
+When the field was clear, Gustavus, dashing out of his camp, appeared
+before Frankfort-on-the-Oder. On the 3rd April the assault was sounded,
+the gates were blown open by his petards, and the fortress succumbed
+amid great slaughter. Shortly afterwards Landsberg encountered a
+similar fate.</p>
+
+<p>In May the fall of Magdeburg startled the civilized world—a disaster
+to be ascribed to the obstinacy and timidity of the Saxon and
+Brandenburg electors, who hesitated to afford Gustavus their support.
+In plain words, the King resolutely declined to advance to the city’s
+relief till he had safe-guarded his line of retreat in conformity with
+the maxims of what we now-a-days call strategy, but with him was merely
+martial instinct. Possession of the fortresses which secured his line
+of retreat was deliberately withheld from him by these Protestant
+potentates until too late. But the bestial fury of the Imperialist
+soldiery robbed Tilly of the fruits of victory. Instead of acquiring
+a pivot whence to dominate North Germany, he was constrained to slink
+back into Thuringia and the banks of the Unstruth.</p>
+
+<p>The indignation aroused by this massacre throughout the Protestant
+world enabled Gustavus to coerce his brother-in-law of Berlin; a treaty
+of alliance signed and sealed safe-guarded the Swedish rear, and the
+King was in a position to execute a general advance across the Elbe
+which placed his strategic front in a direction parallel to his base.
+Having effected the passage near Tangermünde, he pitched his camp
+at Werben, near the confluence of the Havel and Elbe, across which
+he constructed a bridge. Immediately on receipt of the news, Tilly,
+uniting with Pappenheim at Magdeburg, flew to the assault, but soon
+experienced his opponent’s mettle. The King surprised the Imperialist
+advance-guard by night near Burgstall, and destroyed 2,000 of their
+cavalry. Tilly reconnoitred the works at Werben, but, not liking their
+aspect, retired to Eisleben. He had lost one quarter of his numbers,
+but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> was there raised to 30,000 men by the arrival of troops, liberated
+from Italy by the treaty of Cherasco, under Count von Fürstenberg, so
+that he was in a position to enforce the Imperial summons that the
+Saxon Elector should surrender his army and revenues for Catholic
+purposes. The insolent demand drove that Prince into the arms of
+Sweden, and a convention was signed which placed his army together
+with Wittenburg at the disposition of Gustavus. Leipzig capitulated to
+Tilly and the Swedes crossed the Elbe, effecting a junction with the
+Saxons on the banks of the Mulda. Two days later (the 7th September)
+was fought the battle of Leipzig, which justified all the plans and
+precautions of the Swedish strategist.</p>
+
+<p>Into the details of that great conflict it is not our business here to
+inquire. The splendid tactical <i>coup d’œil</i> of Gustavus has never
+been called into question. Let us rather consider how he profited by
+this amazing triumph. While the adversary withdrew into Thuringia,
+Gustavus struck right across his communications with Bavaria,
+pressing along the “Priest’s Lane,” the rich string of ecclesiastical
+principalities which then lined the banks of the Main—that march which
+is mentioned with admiration by the present biographer of Turenne. He
+thus provided himself with a new and fertile base for operating against
+the heart of the Empire at the expense of the Catholic party, while
+the Saxons invested Leipzig and defended the line of the Elbe from the
+enemy in Silesia. The Swedish King jealously guarded his communications
+with the sea, which were demarked by the rivers Saale and Elbe.
+Thuringia was garrisoned by Weimar troops; Halle by those of the Prince
+of Anhalt; Banér invested Magdeburg, while Tott held Mecklenburg in
+subjection.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th September the King’s army, leaving Erfurt, began to ascend
+the Main, and on the 10th October they took the episcopal fortress
+of Würtzburg by assault. This calamity drew Tilly in hot haste to
+the south. Towards the end of October his army, 40,000 strong, was
+bivouacked along the Tauber, where, on the night of the 23rd, Gustavus
+again cut up three Imperialist cavalry regiments which had bivouacked
+in an exposed position.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> After a futile demonstration against
+Ochsenfurt, where he lost heart on discovering the Swedes drawn up
+beyond the Main, Tilly retreated in the direction of Nuremberg, when
+Gustavus, leaving Horn to observe his movements, sped along that river
+to Frankfort, into which capital he made his triumphal entry on the
+17th November 1631. Meanwhile his antagonist, as if crushed in spirit
+by the swift ruin which had overtaken his fortunes, raided about
+Franconia at random, and seemed utterly incapable of arriving at any
+fixed determination. Finally he imagined the assault of Nuremberg;
+but a Protestant soldier, applying a slow-match to his store of
+gunpowder, blew it into the air together with the projects of his
+chief, who forthwith left Nuremberg and cantoned his troops in winter
+quarters around Nördlingen. The Swede, however, was more energetic, and
+crossing the Rhine at Oppenheim in defiance of the troops of Spain,
+gained possession of the great fortress of Mentz as the reward of his
+valour and activity. Here Gustavus spent Christmas with his Queen and
+Chancellor, Oxenstierna, who had come from Sweden to meet him. He was
+at the high pitch of his prosperity, courted by the petty princes
+of Germany and by the envoys of more considerable Powers. He was
+dreaming, it was said, of a Protestant Empire. But France, his ally,
+had taken umbrage at his successes. Richelieu endeavoured to arrange a
+pacification, but the sagacity or ambition of Gustavus impelled him to
+decline these overtures.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1632, Tilly, advancing from Nördlingen, surprised Horn at
+Bamberg, forcing him down the valley of the Main till he was supported
+by the King with 40,000 men. The Imperialists then retreated in their
+turn, and Gustavus, suddenly crossing the river, nearly succeeded
+in cutting them off from the Danube and Ingolstadt. Having entered
+Nuremberg in triumph, he continued the pursuit, and turned the line of
+the Danube by seizing, at Donauwörth, the only bridge left intact by
+Tilly between Neuburg and Ulm. Tilly hurried his troops from Ingolstadt
+to the Lech, in order to dispute the passage of the stream. Dissuaded
+from attacking by his generals, who urged that Wallenstein’s army in
+Bohemia was threatening his communications with the Baltic,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> Gustavus
+persisted in his intention, replying that a demoralized enemy should be
+crushed without allowing him a respite for recovery: his own retreat by
+Donauwörth on Mentz was safe. He was out-voted in council, but acted on
+his own opinion, and his able dispositions were crowned with perfect
+success. The passage of the rapid current was forced. Tilly, like
+Turenne, was slain by an unlucky round-shot. Gustavus did not pursue
+vigorously—that art seems to have been invented by Napoleon—but
+Augsburg formed a substantial prize for the victor. Here was the cradle
+of the Protestant faith, and in days of religious bigotry this solemn
+entry into the city must have caused rapturous sensations in Lutheran
+hearts. Munich likewise received him with open gates.</p>
+
+<p>While repressing a revolt of the peasantry the King was suddenly
+apprised that Wallenstein, having seized the Pass of Eger, had
+entered Franconia, seeking to force the Thuringian defiles, and
+opened communication with the Bavarians at Regensburg. This was the
+contingency foreseen by those who had condemned the passage of the
+Lech. Wallenstein, careless about his own communications or the
+interests of the Empire he served, and desirous only of fixing his own
+authority in North Germany while living at free-quarters, had thrust
+himself between the Swedes and the Baltic Sea. In June therefore the
+King, hurriedly retracing his steps, crossed the Danube at Donauwörth
+in the endeavour to cut off the Bavarians in their march northwards
+to join Wallenstein. In this he failed, but narrowly. The enemy had
+given him the slip by requisitioning carts for their conveyance. He
+entrenched himself at Nuremberg, was followed thither by Wallenstein,
+and a terrible drama of slaughter, disease, and starvation, which
+seemed to typify all the plagues of Egypt, was enacted around that
+city. It resulted in a drawn battle; and the martial reputation of the
+Swedish king suffered proportionate diminution. He had been withstood
+successfully; nay, more, he had been the first to withdraw from it.
+For this his moral nature was perhaps responsible. He could no longer
+endure the pandemonium of human suffering which was in progress
+around him, while to the cynical Wallenstein all this was a matter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>
+of indifference. Strangely enough the Imperialists retreated north,
+the Protestants southwards. Wallenstein swept through Saxony with
+his ravenous, ruthless hordes; Gustavus once more subjected Bavaria
+to his requisitions. War was to be made to support war; but let us
+bear in mind that it was the fond hope of Wallenstein to establish an
+empire for himself in North Germany; while it is surmised that his
+adversary held not dissimilar views, though with nobler aspirations;
+at all events his strategic base at this time was the city of Mentz
+and the fertile valley of the Rhine in its proximity. But the inhuman
+atrocities of the Imperialists in Saxony were again too much for the
+sensitive nature of Gustavus; in addition to which, the statesman
+will note that the Elector, a dubious ally, was likely to make terms
+with the oppressor, and this would signify a permanent severance from
+Sweden which could not be acquiesced in. On the 11th October, the King
+directed his army north <i>viâ</i> Donauwörth in two columns, and
+by the end of the month was able to review them reunited at Erfurt.
+Unfortunately his allies, the Saxons and Lüneburgers were still beyond
+the Elbe, and a flank march in front of the concentrated Imperialists
+became indispensible in order to effect a junction; for Wallenstein
+and Pappenheim had judiciously united their forces near Leipzig, while
+George of Lüneburg had disobeyed the King’s orders, which enjoined him
+to rendezvous in Thuringia, and the Saxon Elector, as if paralysed
+by dread of Wallenstein, was still in the depths of Silesia. Grimma
+was the point indicated for concentration, thus well within striking
+distance of the enemy; and Gustavus left Naumburg in this direction
+on the 5th November. On the march, however, an intercepted letter was
+placed in his hand. He learnt that Wallenstein, deeming the campaign
+ended for that year, had permitted Pappenheim with 10,000 men to
+depart on a raid into Westphalia, and had cantoned the remainder of
+his forces in and around Lützen. At this sudden crisis, Gustavus
+proved his title to a niche among the “demi-gods” of war. Instantly
+wheeling his columns to the left, he advanced to the attack across
+the vast plain which leads to the town of Lützen. But “Man proposes,
+God disposes,” an adage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> which is peculiarly applicable to warlike
+enterprize. The passage of the Rippach stream, strenuously defended
+by Isolani’s Croats, stopped the Swedes till nightfall, a delay which
+enabled Wallenstein to assemble his scattered forces; while a dense fog
+next morning, which did not lift till 11 o’clock, prevented the attack
+taking place at an early hour, and so afforded time for Pappenheim to
+return with his troops to the field ere the close of the battle. But by
+this time the great King had breathed his last, and Pappenheim roamed
+the field in vain in order to cross swords with him. After a desperate
+struggle, the Catholics suffered defeat, but the loss of the Protestant
+champion converted disaster into a victory for their faith.</p>
+
+<p>In the long struggle which followed after his death, and lasted no less
+than sixteen years, the name of <span class="smcap">Turenne</span> first became known to
+fame.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_020.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Turenne.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>I remember hearing a soldier of promise remark that war had so
+completely changed that it was useless to study the campaigns of
+Napoleon. This foolish paradox represents ideas too common among
+military men of late; and is about as true as an old notion, rudely
+exploded on the great day of Austerlitz, that Frederick’s usual method
+of giving battle was so infallible, under all circumstances, that a
+long flank march under the guns of an enemy in position is scientific
+strategy. An opinion is abroad that German genius has wrought such
+a revolution in the art of war, that all that has gone before is
+obsolete; that Moltke is a faultless commander, whose exploits surpass
+those of all chiefs; nay, that mechanism and organization are the
+best means of assuring success to armies in the field. It is time to
+expose the perilous errors, mixed with particles of truth, in these
+shallow statements. The subordinate methods and rules of war have been
+largely changed, in the progress of the age, and especially through
+its material inventions; but the higher parts of the art can never
+vary, for they have their origin in the faculties of man, as grandly
+developed in Cæsar and Hannibal as in the great captains of modern
+times; and the exhibition of these, whatever may be the conditions of
+time and other accidents, will always be matter of fruitful study. As
+for the “faultlessness” of Moltke, that distinguished man would be the
+first to admit that, like all generals, he has made grave and palpable
+errors. Extraordinary, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>indeed, as have been his achievements, his
+campaigns in Bohemia and France show that his strategic and tactical
+mistakes were many; and though he is a real chief of the Napoleonic
+school, he has done nothing that can be compared to the movements
+round Mantua in 1796, to the Alpine march that led to Marengo, to the
+manœuvres that immured Mack in Ulm, to the last swoop on Belgium in
+1815. That mechanism and organization count for much, is a truth as
+old as the days of the Legions; but the genius of leaders in directing
+armies has always been the chief element of success in war; and, so
+far from this being less the case at the present day than it has been
+of old, this influence is now more than ever decisive. It is obvious,
+in fact, that the powers of the chief will have increasingly greater
+effect as armies have grown to immense proportions, and military
+movements have become more complex, more extended, and, above all,
+more rapid; and if a mere tactician will, perhaps, do less, on a given
+field, than a century ago, victory in a campaign will, in this age, in
+the main, depend on superior strategy.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_012fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_012fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">TURENNE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>I purpose, in this and subsequent articles, to endeavour to illustrate
+the main principles and permanent lessons of the art of war in brief
+sketches of the lives and the deeds of famous commanders of modern
+times; and I shall try to dispel the notions that military history
+before Sadowa is a mere old almanack, and that the exclusive study
+of modern Prussian routine is the best education of the accomplished
+soldier. For authority, I need only refer to Napoleon.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> “Tactics,”
+wrote that master of war, “manœuvres, the science of the engineer
+and of the artillerist, can be learned in treatises, like geometry;
+but knowledge of the high parts of war can be acquired only by study
+of the history of war, and of the battles of great captains, and by
+experience.”</p>
+
+<p>I have placed Turenne at the head of my list, not only because he comes
+first in time, but because the art of war made immense progress during
+the long career of this illustrious chief, was greatly improved by
+his powerful genius, and gradually acquired a modern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> aspect. Before
+I attempt, however, to sketch his exploits, I would say a word on the
+condition of the art before it passed into his master hand. The leading
+maxims of war were fully understood; and great commanders had, in many
+a contest, shown what the qualities are which ensure success in the
+strife of opposing armies. That a general in a campaign should have a
+distinct object, that he should steadily endeavour to carry it out,
+and that he should so combine his means as to promote his ends, were
+recognised and approved principles; and the value of intelligence in
+great movements, of energy and skill in the direction of troops and of
+careful administration in military affairs, had been illustrated by
+fine examples. Passing, too, from these universal truths, the principal
+rules of strategic science had been ascertained in their main outlines,
+and ably brought to the test of experience; nay, war had exhibited
+grand instances of strategy, whether of offence or defence, which,
+founded as it is on the peculiar character and faculties of individual
+men, had never perhaps more noted champions than Hannibal and the
+Roman Fabius. The advantage, for instance, of having the possession of
+interior lines on a field of manœuvre had been clearly perceived by
+Guébriant, and was repeatedly seen in the Thirty Years’ War; Gustavus
+had shown what could be accomplished by rapid and well concerted
+movements against the communications of a hostile army; and Wallenstein
+had proved how great could be the power of firmness, endurance, and
+patient skill in resisting even the most able enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The art, however, owing to many causes, had not as yet been nearly
+developed, and had not even approached its present perfection. Fine
+movements, indeed, were occasionally made; the march of Gustavus, for
+example, down “the Priests’ Lane,” which carried him into the heart
+of the Empire, and some of the marches of Parma, in an earlier age,
+remain noble specimens of audacious genius. But strategy was still,
+so to speak, cramped and limited by all kinds of obstacles, and it
+could not attain the freedom and grandeur which it has exhibited in
+the wars of this century. On every theatre of war, from Vienna to
+Brussels, the state of husbandry was backward in the extreme; there
+were immense wastes of morass<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> and forest; and even the plain country
+was not half cultivated. The roads, too, were comparatively few, and
+even the main roads were, for the most part, bad; the great rivers had
+but few bridges, and minor streams were not bridged at all; and the
+passes across the chief mountain ranges were mere paths and tracks,
+intricate and difficult. The natural impediments to the march of armies
+were, therefore, many and often formidable; and these were greatly
+increased by the numerous fortresses which had grown up since the
+feudal age, and which, covering frontiers and main approaches, and
+barring the way to an invader’s progress, could not easily be passed
+by even a daring enemy. In addition to this, the means of supply and
+of transport possessed by modern armies, either did not exist or were
+very scanty; magazines, trains, and the many appliances that enable
+troops of this day to live and move, were quite in an embryonic state;
+and a general was often compelled to rely on plunder and rapine to
+support his soldiery. In these circumstances, the rapid manœuvres and
+the grand movements leading to decisive battles which belong to the
+age of Napoleon and Moltke, could be witnessed only on a small scale,
+and occurred only in rare instances. War, as a rule, had a contracted
+aspect; and its ends were often different from those of our time.
+Beset by impediments, even the greatest chiefs were frequently unable
+to make long marches, or to attempt anything like audacious strategy;
+and though Gustavus had fully seen that the main object of a campaign
+was to cripple an adversary in pitched battles, this was not yet an
+accepted principle. The art of war still largely consisted in wearing
+out an enemy in petty combats, in devastation, and wrecking a country,
+in incursions attended by partial success; and the aim of commanders
+often was, not so much to defeat a hostile army as to find good
+quarters in an unravaged province. Campaigns were late, slow, and had
+small results; as a rule, winter campaigns were rare. Above all, it had
+become a maxim that before invading an enemy’s country it was necessary
+first to reduce its fortresses; months, and even years, were taken up
+in sieges; and the art, it has been said, “seemed to flit around strong
+places.” In short, owing to the local accidents and peculiarities of
+the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> seventeenth century, strategy, though in existence and in a state
+of progress, was still quite immature and imperfect.</p>
+
+<p>The science of Tactics had at this period made less progress than that
+of Strategy. It had become recognized that the three arms should act
+in concert, and support each other; and a distinct unity was seen in
+battles, unlike the desultory combats of the Middle Ages. But one great
+principle of modern tactics, that an army should be arrayed on the
+ground, not according to any unchanging method but so that each arm
+should turn to account the character and local features of the spot,
+had scarcely entered the minds of men; it certainly had not been fully
+established. An army took its position in a settled order: the cavalry
+always on either wing, the infantry in the centre, and the guns in
+front. There usually was a considerable reserve; and the importance,
+for instance, of so placing cavalry that it could fall on an enemy
+from under cover, or of so distributing guns that they could enfilade
+infantry, or throw a concentrated or plunging fire, was as yet little,
+if at all, understood. In these circumstances the marked diversity
+which is a characteristic of modern battles, which makes no one exactly
+resemble the other, and in consequence of which the tactical skill of
+a chief in command is taxed to the utmost, existed only to a small
+extent. There was a distinct sameness in the battles of the age, and
+these usually consisted in a contest between the hostile footmen and
+guns in the centre—a mere partial engagement without manœuvres—until
+the success of the cavalry on either side enabled it to assail the
+flank or the rear of the enemy. The tactics, therefore, of this period
+were very different from those of our own; and this difference was
+made greater through the change in the relations of the three arms,
+and in the efficiency and the power of infantry, which has taken place
+since the seventeenth century. At this period, cavalry was by far
+the most important and capable arm; it was, in fact, the manœuvring
+force in the field. The value of artillery was still unknown, for guns
+were comparatively few and ill served; and footmen, often inferior in
+numbers to horsemen, were a combined array of musketeers and pikemen,
+invariably marshalled in dense masses, unequal to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> quick and difficult
+movements, and utterly inferior to the infantry of this day in relative
+strength, in the efficacy of fire, in ability either to attack or
+defend, and in evolutions and manœuvres in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Under these conditions, a general gave his chief attention to his most
+powerful arm; artillery and foot played a subordinate part; and, as
+I have said, the event of battles was usually decided by a charge of
+horsemen launched against an exposed side of a hostile army. But if
+the tactics of those days were unlike ours, it is a mistake to suppose
+that they did not afford full scope to superior skill and genius. The
+front of battles was comparatively small; a general’s eye could command
+the whole field, and victory usually depended on the inspiration of
+the chief, who, with ready design, and at the fitting moment, could
+direct his cavalry in collected force against a hesitating and already
+shaken enemy. This was the distinctive gift of the famed Condé, and
+of that born master of tactics, Cromwell; it was conspicuously proved
+at Rocroy and Marston Moor; and it is a gift of the very highest
+order, if it does not exactly resemble the faculties which prepared
+Ramillies, Leuthen, and Austerlitz. For the rest, an army of this
+period, considered as a whole, was very different from an army of the
+nineteenth century; and this, too, affected the art of Tactics. In
+numbers, it was comparatively small; 30,000 men would be a very large
+army. It was deficient in unity and combined strength, for it was a
+mere array of battalions and squadrons; divisions and corps were as yet
+unknown, and a general-in-chief did not possess the supreme authority
+now entrusted to him. The discipline, too, and the organization of
+such an army was still far from good; the troops did not even wear a
+uniform, and were more akin to a feudal militia than to regular and
+trained soldiers; the muster rolls were always incomplete, owing to
+the Falstaffian tricks of officers, as yet subject to little control,
+and mutiny and insubordination were too common. Such an army, from the
+nature of the case, would be a weak and uncertain instrument of war;
+and this alone made the tactics of the day less decisive, as a general
+rule, in results, than those of later great masters of war.</p>
+
+<p>The art of war at this time, in short, has been happily compared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> to
+a bird, which eagerly spreads its wings for a flight, but is held,
+checked by restraints, to the ground. I pass on to the great captain
+whose life and career I attempt to illustrate. Turenne was born in
+1611, a scion of the princely <i>noblesse</i> of France, his father
+being Sovereign Lord of Sedan, his mother a daughter of William the
+Silent, who largely transmitted the high qualities of the House of
+Nassau to her renowned offspring. As has happened with other famous
+warriors—with Luxemburg, William III., and Wellington—the future
+master of war was a sickly child; but from the earliest age he showed
+strength of character. He was educated with remarkable care; and
+though, unlike Condé, he was not a precocious genius—he remained
+heavy and dull in exterior through life—still, even in those years,
+the assiduous care with which he studied the campaigns of Cæsar, and
+followed Alexander in his march to the Indus, revealed the natural
+tendencies of the coming strategist. Turenne entered the service of the
+Seven Provinces as a private soldier at the age of fourteen; and under
+the care of his maternal uncle, Maurice of Nassau, and his successor
+Henry, he took part in the long wars of sieges which marked the
+conflict with Spain in the Low Countries. He fought his way steadily
+up from the ranks; he seems to have owed little to birth or to favour;
+but, though he gained distinction at the siege of Bois-le-Duc, this
+was not the natural bent of his genius, and the value to him of these
+essays in arms was probably to teach him the important truth, which
+he illustrated in many striking instances, that “in war you should
+march and not besiege,” that you should rather outmanœuvre and defeat
+your enemy than waste months in attacking fortresses which fall of
+themselves after success in the field.</p>
+
+<p>In 1630, when twenty years old, Turenne obtained a regiment from Louis
+XIII. He addressed himself with untiring diligence to the discipline
+and the training of his men; and, like Wellington—in matters like this
+he had much in common with our great countryman—he was soon known
+as a capable officer, and could justify his boast that his “corps
+was equal to the best troops of the King’s household.” The young
+colonel, however, made no way at Court; its frivolity and luxury were
+distasteful to a mind singularly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> modest and sedate; its licentious
+recklessness shocked a nature formed by the rigid tenets of Calvin; and
+while Condé was already a star at the Louvre, Turenne, taciturn and
+awkward, was scarcely noticed. The future great chief of the armies
+of France served for many years in a subordinate rank; he passed, in
+fact, through all inferior grades, though his merits were recognized
+by good judges; but if this term of probation was unduly long, its
+experience, he has said, was most precious, for it “fully taught him
+a soldier’s calling.” Long before the close of the Thirty Years’ War,
+Turenne was known as an able man, though his great powers had not yet
+been developed. He was singled out for honours at the great siege
+of Breisach; he showed remarkable skill and firmness in covering a
+disastrous retreat from the Sarre; and he had won the praise of La
+Valette and Saxe Weimar for his singular steadiness and coolness in
+the field, and for the paternal care he took of his troops, a quality
+in which his comrades of the <i>noblesse</i>, brave, but unreflecting,
+were as a rule wanting. The chief point, however, of permanent interest
+in this early part of the career of Turenne is the evidence it affords
+of the dawn of those powers for which he was to be proudly eminent.
+He occasionally had an independent command, and in this position he
+never failed to display the gifts of a true strategist. In 1636 he
+made a forced march, by which he surprised and routed Gallas. He
+captured Maubeuge, combining his movements with those of his chief with
+remarkable skill. At the siege of Turin, in 1640, he out-manœuvred and
+baffled his enemy, and kept away the relieving army; in 1643 he made a
+feint against Alessandria, which deceived his adversary, and enabled
+him to seize the fortress of Trino.</p>
+
+<p>In 1643, as the Thirty Years’ War was nearing its end, Turenne received
+the staff of a Marshal of France. His achievements during the next
+two years will repay a careful reader’s attention; but I can only
+glance at them in this sketch, for they scarcely reveal his peculiar
+genius. He took part, under the Grand Condé, in the desperate combats
+around Fribourg, marked by the daring and vigour of his chief, but, in
+Napoleon’s judgment, worse than useless; we see proof of his strategic
+powers in his operations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> between divided enemies in the Palatinate
+at the close of 1644; and I cannot doubt but that the fine march of
+Condé down the Rhine, after the fall of Philippsbourg, which made the
+French masters of Landau, Mayence, and other cities on the German
+bank, was due to the inspiration of Turenne. In 1645, having advanced
+to the Tauber, and overrun the Franconian lowlands, the marshal was
+surprised and routed by Mercy—a Lorraine chief, little known to fame,
+but a great captain of the Thirty Years’ War; and we can gather from
+this and other instances that the genius of Turenne, rather profound
+than quick, made him less admirable in the sphere of tactics than he
+was in the higher parts of war. He was soon again under the command
+of Condé, and he led the left wing of the French army in the terrible
+struggle around Nördlingen; but though he contributed to the success of
+the day, the glory of the victory, doubtful as it was, belongs wholly
+to his renowned chief, whose tenacity, boldness, and insight on the
+field, plucked safety and even a triumph from danger. The campaign of
+1646 distinctly brought out for the first time the special gifts of
+Turenne in full relief, and to this day is a strategic masterpiece. The
+Marshal was on the French bank of the Rhine, near Mayence, as the year
+opened, and Mazarin had directed him to remain in his camps trusting to
+a pledge that the Duke of Bavaria would not send aid to the Imperial
+forces. The Duke, however, broke faith and marched against the Swedes,
+hoping to defeat them as they moved into Westphalia, and to join hands
+with the Archduke Leopold, advancing in force from Western Austria; and
+had success attended this operation France would have probably lost her
+best ally. Turenne made up his mind at once; without waiting for a word
+from his Government, he broke up from Mayence, moved down the Rhine in
+a march of astonishing speed for those days, and, having crossed the
+river as far north as Wesel, he effected his junction with the Swedish
+chief, Wrangel, on the Lahn, having forestalled his enemy by a movement
+of singular skill and daring.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_020fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_020fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center"><i>THEATRE OF WAR</i><br>
+IN<br>
+GERMANY]</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Turenne and Wrangel were now at the head of an army of more than
+20,000 men; the hostile force, about equally strong, fell back
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>to Friedberg, north of the Main; and the Archduke, clinging to his
+communications, began to retreat to the Danube by an exterior line,
+through Schweinfurth and Nuremberg, towards the Bavarian plains.
+Turenne seized the occasion with the eye of genius; holding the
+chord of the arc, he advanced through Franconia by forced marches,
+and attained Dönauworth, and while his adversary was toiling on his
+eccentric movement, he crossed the Danube, pushed on to the Lech, and
+boldly assailed the great place of Augsburg.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> He failed in this
+siege, having been persuaded by his Swedish colleague to attack Rain,
+a little fortress of no importance; but his subsequent operations were
+marked by genius and constancy of the highest order. The Archduke,
+after weeks of delay, had crossed the Danube and approached the
+Allies, and he took a strong position from Landsberg to Memmingen,
+in order at once to cover Bavaria and to threaten the communications
+of his audacious foes, who had advanced into the heart of Germany,
+far from the Danube and even from the Rhine. It was now November, and
+an ordinary chief would have fallen back to seek winter quarters,
+foregoing the gains of the whole campaign; but Turenne resolved to take
+the bolder course, and, against the advice of all his lieutenants,
+he made a feint on Memmingen, and then, moving rapidly, seized the
+communications of the Archduke at Landsberg and forced him, baffled
+behind the Inn. This splendid campaign—a game of manœuvres in which
+decisive success was gained without the risk of a single battle, which
+shows the highest parts of a master of war, and in which Napoleon, a
+draconic critic, can detect only a small mistake, the weakening the
+attack on Augsburg to besiege Rain—detached Bavaria finally from the
+Imperial cause, and, in truth, all but closed the Thirty Years’ War.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1647, in which Turenne overcame a dangerous mutiny of
+the German auxiliaries in the French army, is one of the many instances
+of the strength of his character. That of 1648, the last of the Thirty
+Years’ War, is a repetition of that of 1646, but scarcely gives proof
+of equal genius; it is chiefly remarkable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> as the first occasion in
+which Montecuculi, a worthy antagonist, and a friend of Turenne in
+after years, exhibited his capacity in the field. I pass rapidly over
+the next three years—an unhappy passage in the career of Turenne—for
+they saw the most illustrious captain of France in arms against the
+State and the National Government. Strong affection for a despoiled
+brother, and the artful wiles of a beautiful siren—this was a weak
+point in the warrior’s nature—caused Turenne to join the rebels of
+the Fronde; but though excuses may be made for him, history has justly
+condemned his conduct, and, like Marlborough but much less worthy of
+blame, Turenne is an instance how revolution can pervert even the
+noblest faculties. Turenne showed his strategic gifts in the contest;
+he proposed to advance to Paris and to dictate peace, but he was
+overruled by his Spanish colleagues, and he was soon afterwards beaten
+by Du Plessis Praslin, in a pitched battle not far from Réthel, a point
+of capital importance in the wars of that age. Turenne’s tactics,
+Napoleon remarks on this occasion, were faulty and slow—this, in
+truth, was his least perfect part; but Turenne, and even Condé, never
+displayed that pre-eminence in war when opposed to France which they
+exhibited when in command of Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>Turenne made his peace with Mazarin in 1652. Though naturally
+distrusted by a Court he had betrayed, he soon made his extraordinary
+powers felt, and in a few months he obtained the supreme direction of
+military affairs in the war of the Second Fronde. Civil war is never
+an attractive subject, but in this contest Turenne was opposed to the
+Great Condé and the forces of Spain, and events have great and peculiar
+interest. Turenne’s splendid faculties strategic insight, skill in
+large manœuvres, judgment and constancy were never perhaps more grandly
+seen. He proved himself far superior to his brilliant rival, though
+it is but fair to say that the genius of Condé was repeatedly baffled
+by Spanish obstinacy, and Turenne was justly hailed as the Saviour of
+France and of the House of Bourbon when in the extreme of danger. He
+out-manœuvred Condé at Blêneau, near the Loire, in a passage-of-arms
+singled out by Napoleon, as a marvellous instance of military skill;
+and he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> would probably have brought the war to an end had Mazarin
+followed his sagacious counsels to march straight on Paris in 1652.
+When he was compelled to obey the too cautious minister, and to
+undertake the siege of Etampes—a timid half measure of no avail—he
+raised the siege at a moment’s notice, with the decision that belongs
+to great captains only, at the intelligence of the approach of Charles
+of Lorraine; and the stand he made against the Duke’s army, which
+prevented its junction with that of Condé, very probably saved the
+royal cause. Turenne distinguished himself in the murderous fight of
+St. Antoine, under the walls of Paris, and in the subsequent game of
+manœuvres with Condé; and his commanding genius was again seen when a
+double Spanish and Lorraine army marched towards the capital to assist
+Condé, and threatened the Government with utter ruin. The Regent and
+Mazarin, in the extreme of peril, wished to abandon Paris, and to fly
+to Lyons; but Turenne saw that this precipitate retreat would prove
+fatal to the Bourbon cause. He insisted on keeping his army on the
+spot, and, standing in the path of his divided enemies, he baffled
+the Spaniards on the line of the Somme, held the Duke of Lorraine
+successfully at bay, and prevented either foe from joining hands with
+Condé. The results of this generalship, not unworthy of the unrivalled
+captain of 1814, were magical and completely decisive. Condé and his
+troops were forced to leave Paris; the foreign invaders fell back to
+the frontier; the young King and the Court entered the capital, to
+the joy of the citizens; the Government was replaced in its seat, and
+Turenne read in the nation’s eyes how he had closed the civil war and
+restored the throne. In this remarkable contest he had given proof,
+from first to last, of the highest faculties; but those, perhaps, which
+most deserve notice are his insight in perceiving that Paris was the
+centre on which to direct all efforts; his firmness in compelling the
+Court to cling to the capital at any risk, and his astonishing skill in
+repelling the enemies converging against him in greatly superior force.</p>
+
+<p>Though Mazarin had been replaced in power, Spain, in 1653, was still
+able to send a larger force into the field than France. Turenne
+conducted a Fabian campaign on the Oise, baffling the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> Archduke—his
+foe in 1646—and taking care to avoid Condé; and he exhibited once more
+what Napoleon has called “the divine side of the art of war,” in making
+a stand in a strong position, where Condé had all but brought him to
+bay, and imposing upon the cowed Spanish chiefs. In 1654 the reviving
+strength of France began to prevail over Spain in decline. Turenne
+appeared at the head of a large army, and he successfully raised the
+siege of Arras, the capital of Burgundian Artois, in a night attack
+of remarkable daring, in which he surprised the Austrian chief and
+kept skilfully away from Condé’s lines. This was one of his greatest
+exploits in the field, and France acquired a marked ascendency over her
+enemies along her northern frontier. I can only refer to the next three
+campaigns, in which the strategic gifts of Turenne and his admirable
+firmness were again made manifest. True to his maxim, then a revelation
+in war—“always march rather than make sieges”—he gradually advanced
+to the Scheldt and the Lys, turning their fortresses by operations in
+the field, and sitting down before them as seldom as possible; and
+in less than three years he had overcome barriers<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> which hitherto
+had been deemed invincible, and which had been theatres of war for
+centuries without great or decisive results, a feat of generalship
+which astounded Europe. The genius of Condé more than once shone out
+in his efforts to avert Fate. He destroyed a part of Turenne’s army,
+in the hands of an incapable colleague, at Valenciennes, in 1656; and
+he brilliantly raised the siege of Cambray, an exploit marked out for
+praise by Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The arms of France, however, directed by Turenne, made steady progress
+despite these checks, and the fine campaign of 1658 brought the contest
+with Spain to a glorious close. By this time Turenne had secured his
+position in Spanish Flanders, and was formidably strong. The England of
+Cromwell was in a league with France, and the allies resolved to attack
+Dunkirk, the strongest place on the seaboard of Flanders, and long a
+seat of piracy against British commerce. The fortress was difficult in
+the extreme to master, not so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> much owing to its works and defences
+as to the obstacles formed by the sea, the marshes, the woods, and
+the canals which girdled it round; and it was protected by a large
+Spanish force in observation not far from Ypres. Turenne crossed the
+inundation let loose by the garrison, threw lines of investment round
+the fortress, and blocked up the approaches along the coast. An English
+fleet closed the port from the sea, and 5,000 of the renowned Ironsides
+were disembarked to support the French. These operations, rapid in the
+extreme for the age, surprised and disconcerted the Spanish chiefs,
+and they hastily advanced to relieve Dunkirk with an army inferior in
+force to the enemy, and not possessing a single gun. Turenne broke up
+from his lines to attack; his left, the English contingent, rested
+on the sea, covered by the batteries of the English squadron; his
+centre and right formed a semi-circle, extending to the great canal
+of Furnes; and as his troops advanced, Condé, it is said, exclaimed
+to the young Duke of Gloucester that “all was lost.” The battle was
+almost at once decided; Condé, on the Spanish left, did indeed wonders;
+but the Ironsides, backed by the fire of the fleet—they were praised
+by Turenne in the highest terms—annihilated the Spanish right in one
+charge, and the whole Spanish army, deprived of artillery, lost heart
+and became a mere mass of fugitives. The place fell, and was handed
+over to England. Turenne, breaking up from his camps, took Bergues and
+Gravelines, and overran the country, and he only stopped his victorious
+march at Oudenarde, Spanish Flanders lying as it were at his feet.
+Napoleon, however, contends that the marshal ought to have done more,
+and pushed on to Brussels, success which would have brought the war
+to an end; and this may be an instance, perhaps, in which Turenne’s
+powerful, but somewhat slow intellect erred on the side of too prudent
+caution. Yet we must bear in mind that the strategy of the seventeenth
+could not be that of the nineteenth century. Turenne certainly
+contemplated this very step, but declared that it was not practicable;
+and, as it was, the campaign was a splendid triumph which soon brought
+about the Peace of the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
+
+<p>During the next twelve years France enjoyed repose, broken only by a
+brief contest with Spain, caused by the claims of Louis XIV. on the
+Low Countries in right of his consort. Turenne commanded the royal
+army, captured Lille, and overran Flanders; but it is unnecessary to
+dwell on these easy triumphs. The marshal was now the first subject
+of France and admittedly the first soldier of Europe; and he played a
+part of no small importance in the able French diplomacy of the time.
+He gave much attention also to civil affairs, was a disciple of the
+renowned Colbert, drew up reports on the condition of France which
+showed real insight and marked sagacity, and proved that he possessed
+administrative powers of the highest order in provincial government.
+Like nearly all the highest <i>noblesse</i> of France, he renounced
+the Calvinist creed of his fathers—the will of the King was supreme
+in this—but, like the illustrious Villars at a later day he condemned
+the wrongs already done to the Huguenots, and ventured to utter a
+weighty protest. His great work, however, at this period, was the
+reorganization of the military power of France; and though Louvois
+had a large share in this, Turenne is perhaps entitled to the chief
+merit. His reforms were thorough and yet practical; he did not change
+everything, and break with the past; but he so improved what he found
+existing as to bring it to a high state of excellence, and the French
+army, in his constructive hands, became a mighty instrument of war.</p>
+
+<p>Turenne’s method was to leave the army still largely in the hands
+of the <i>noblesse</i>, and to allow it to retain a half feudal
+character; but he not the less made it the force of the Crown, the
+disciplined array of an all-powerful monarchy; and he so transformed
+its institutions and spirit, and increased its strength, as to make
+it by far the most formidable organization for war in Europe. The
+<i>noblesse</i> were allowed to retain their charges, and to raise
+their levies as in former days; but they were subjected to the
+strictest inspection; incapable officers were summarily dismissed, and
+“men in buckram” and false returns were no longer permitted to exist.
+While the feudal militia still remained, every inducement was offered
+to encourage the men to enter the ranks of the regular troops; the
+temporary disbanding of regiments ceased;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> and select corps—need we
+name the Maison du Roi, the brilliant victors on many a field?—were
+carefully formed, and inspired the army as a whole with their gallant
+and martial spirit. These were great reforms if they stood alone, but
+the process of improvement went much further. The hierarchy of the
+service had its rules changed; the general-in-chief was made supreme
+in everything; the three arms and their chiefs were placed under his
+immediate control in all respects, and discipline and subordination to
+one head were thus secured for the first time. Unity of command caused
+unity in lower spheres; the comparatively loose formations, indeed, of
+battalions and squadrons were not changed, but every regiment was clad
+in uniform; and care was taken that all weapons should be constructed
+and fashioned on the same patterns. Strenuous efforts, again, which
+reveal the strategist, were made to accelerate movements in war; the
+arrays of trains and carriages were greatly increased; the system of
+magazines, of depôts of food, and of field hospitals was immensely
+improved, and the mechanism of the army attained a degree of perfection
+never witnessed before. Yet the greatest change of all remains to be
+noticed—a change, Napoleon remarks, which made this period a new era
+in war. A master of his art, Turenne had perceived that infantry,
+hitherto kept in the background, was naturally the most important of
+the arms; it could accomplish more in his wars of marches, even in that
+age, than the more prized cavalry; and Turenne trebled its force in
+the French service, reducing horse to much less significance, though
+cavalry still, no doubt, retained its superiority in the shock of
+battle. As for artillery, Turenne went with the age; the proportion of
+guns, though comparatively small as regards the other arms for modern
+times, was gradually but distinctly increased.</p>
+
+<p>Through these immense reforms, the army of France became, for many
+years, the terror of Europe; and, except that the changes wrought in
+formations by the discovery of the bayonet were as yet unknown, it had
+acquired a really modern aspect. An opportunity arose, in 1672, to
+prove this tremendous instrument of war. Louis XIV. invaded the Dutch
+Republic; the French army and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> that of his allies exceeded 130,000
+men, a force never seen since the fall of Rome; and while Turenne and
+Condé, now restored to France, advanced along the Sambre and crossed
+the Meuse, the allied contingent under Luxemburg moved down the Rhine
+by Mayence and Cologne. True to his strategic genius, Turenne insisted,
+against the advice even of the audacious Condé, on “masking” Maastricht
+and pressing forward; the operations of the invading host were marked
+by a celerity hitherto unknown, and in less than two months the hostile
+armies had crossed the Rhine near the Waal, had attained the Yssel and
+had moved into the heart of the Seven Provinces. When the victorious
+French had approached Amsterdam, Condé, always great on a field of
+manœuvre, entreated the King to seize the dykes, which formed the
+last defence of the capital of the States; and, had this been done,
+the fortunes of Europe might have taken a wholly different turn. The
+golden occasion was, however, lost; time and men were wasted in taking
+fortresses; and William of Orange, a sickly youth, then for the first
+time seen on the stage of history, saved the Commonwealth by cutting
+the dykes and letting loose floods which made Amsterdam an island in
+the midst of a submerged country, and effectually baffled the French
+commanders.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_028fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_028fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center"><i>THEATRE OF WAR</i><br>
+IN<br>
+THE LOW COUNTRIES</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This bad generalship was due to Louvois, and, it is said, was inspired
+by the King, never capable in operations in the field; but Turenne
+must, at least, have assented, and Napoleon severely condemns the
+Marshal for giving his sanction to unwise counsels which he scarcely
+could have approved in his heart. This possibly may be another instance
+in which Turenne was somewhat slow and too cautious; but probably he
+shrank from opposing the will of a sovereign, then almost an idol, and
+a minister already hostile to him; and it is scarcely to be supposed
+that a chief of his powers, in full possession of the state of affairs,
+would have committed a palpable strategic error. Be this as it may,
+he soon had an occasion to exhibit once more his great capacity. The
+invasion of the States, and the success of Louis, had alarmed Europe
+and aroused Germany; Austria and Prussia joined hands for the first
+time in war; and two German armies of superior strength were marched
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>towards the Rhine and threatened Alsace. Louis abandoned Holland and
+his rapid conquests; Condé was despatched to defend the Rhine, and
+Turenne was placed at the head of an army intended to confront the
+Germans on the Main. The Marshal had soon seen through the projects of
+his foes; he judged rightly that their real purpose was to unite on the
+Meuse with William of Orange, not to venture alone to enter Alsace, and
+he took his course with characteristic skill. Moving into the region
+around Trèves, he established himself in the valley of the Moselle,
+and when the Germans, as he expected, sought to cross the Palatinate
+from Mayence, he successfully kept them for weeks at bay, held back the
+army of the States on the Meuse, and completely frustrated the intended
+junction. This fine strategy probably saved France from an invasion
+upon her weakest frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Louvois had now openly broken with Turenne; the King, irritated at the
+reverse in Holland, took part with the imperious minister, underrating
+the Marshal’s last achievement, and Turenne found little favour at
+court. It was impossible, however, to question his genius; he directed
+the general plan of the campaign of 1673, and he held supreme command
+on the German frontier. As the Austrians and Prussians fell back from
+the Moselle, they began to diverge towards the Elbe and the Danube;
+Turenne saw his advantage, and crossed the Rhine, and venturing on
+a winter campaign, despite the remonstrances even of the King, he
+advanced to the Weser, defeated the Prussians, and drove the Austrians
+far beyond the Main. Prussia abandoned the Coalition for a time, but
+the Emperor refused to give up the contest, and Turenne, for the
+first and last time, was out-generalled on the theatre of war by an
+antagonist not unworthy of him. Montecuculi, at the head of an Imperial
+army, had advanced into the Franconian lowlands, eluding Turenne, who
+was on the Tauber; he gained over one of the prince bishops, made
+a forced march and got over the Main, and then having made a feint
+on Alsace, he embarked with his troops upon the Rhine, effected his
+junction with William of Orange at Bonn, and quickly reduced that
+important fortress. This, Napoleon has said, is “the darkest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> cloud
+on the reputation of this great captain;” but the glory of Turenne
+was not long in eclipse; and he surpassed himself in the campaign of
+1674, the most striking instance, perhaps, of his powers. The success
+of Montecuculi had again roused Germany; Prussia and the Lesser
+States took part with the Emperor, and France was threatened with a
+more formidable League than she had ever encountered before. Turenne
+directed operations once more; with admirable wisdom he neglected
+the North, and urged the King to invade Franche Comté, an enterprise
+crowned with complete success; and he took again his station on the
+Rhine, watching the masses of foes collected against him.</p>
+
+<p>Every movement he made in the contest that followed is a masterpiece
+of a great strategist. Turenne, crossing the Rhine, advanced to the
+Neckar, threw himself between the armies converging against him; and,
+having routed the Austrians near Sinsheim, turned boldly against the
+Northern Germans, marching from the Elbe and the plains of Brandenburg.
+To gain time and to check their progress, he ravaged the Palatinate
+with unflinching sternness; and though history condemns the act, and
+Turenne only once adopted this course, it was justified by the laws
+of war of the age—nay, by those of a much later period. The Germans
+had reached Mayence by the end of August, and before long had entered
+Alsace; the Imperial army was close at hand, and it was the purpose of
+the Imperial chiefs to invade France with the combined forces, when the
+Prussian contingent had come into line. Turenne saw the danger, and did
+not hesitate; with an energy worthy of the youthful Bonaparte, he fell
+on his foes before their junction, and he defeated them in a fierce
+fight at Entzheim, a day memorable if it were for this only—that
+Marlborough served on the marshal’s staff, and received the thanks of
+his chief for his conduct. This reverse, however, only checked the
+enemy; the Great Elector brought up his army. Turenne was obliged to
+fall back to the Vosges, and a huge wave of Teutonic conquest seemed
+about to overflow the plains of Champagne. Had the Germans pushed on
+they might have reached Paris, where confusion and terror already
+reigned; but they paused at the decisive moment. They seem to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> have
+dreaded the strokes of Turenne, who had skilfully taken a position
+on their flank, and they methodically settled in winter quarters in
+Alsace, having let a grand opportunity pass. The subsequent operations
+of their great adversary, in conception at least, were of the highest
+order. Deceiving his enemy and scorning the hardships of winter among
+the Alsatian hills, Turenne feigned to retreat into Lorraine; he then
+counter-marched with remarkable quickness, defiled behind the Vosges
+with a devoted army which appreciated the admirable skill of its chief,
+and, having screened the movement by the mountain barrier, broke in
+through the gap of Belfort on the astounded Germans, and surprised
+them completely divided and scattered. The effects of this masterly
+stroke were immense; the Great Elector was routed at Turckheim, Turenne
+pressed forward and threatened Strasbourg, and the horde of invaders,
+baffled and humbled, were only too glad to get across the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>The movement behind the Vosges of Turenne which surprised the Germans
+and caused their defeat has a certain resemblance, it will be
+perceived, to the march of Napoleon, screened by the Alps, which after
+Marengo gave him Italy. Turenne, however, the reader will note, fell on
+his enemy, when he had reached him, in front, and his triumph though
+great was not overwhelming; Napoleon descended on the rear of Mélas,
+and, though he ran many risks, he completely conquered. Turenne, the
+Emperor insists, would have achieved more had he crossed the Vosges in
+the middle of the chain, and struck the flank and rear of the Germans;
+in that event, the invaders, perhaps, would have never been able to
+attain the Rhine. This criticism is, in theory, perfect; but though
+Napoleon, in the place of Turenne, would probably have played the more
+daring game, the Vosges in those days were most difficult to pass; the
+operation would have been very hazardous, and the two movements, in
+fact, illustrate the difference between the natures of the two men.</p>
+
+<p>I have reached the last campaign of Turenne, a long game of manœuvre
+between two great strategists, in which the marshal perished on the
+very edge of victory. The League<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> against France, though shattered,
+still held together; and faulty generalship having been the cause of
+the signal discomfiture of 1674, Montecuculi was sent, in 1675, to cope
+with Turenne, still upon the Rhine. The Imperial commander, having
+threatened Philipsburg, crossed the river near Spires and invaded
+Alsace; but Turenne, instead of attacking his foe, crossed the river
+near Strasbourg, and, reaching Wilstedt, struck at the communications
+of the hostile army; and this forced his adversary to recross the
+Rhine. Turenne, having gained this strategic advantage, and carried
+the war into German territory, took a position between Strasbourg and
+Ottenheim, the place where he had bridged the Rhine; but Ottenheim
+is at some distance from Strasbourg, and the French army was very
+much divided. Montecuculi approached the Marshal’s camps, and missed
+a grand opportunity to strike, which, Napoleon remarks, Condé would
+have seized; Turenne, perceiving the danger, raised his bridge, placed
+it near Strasbourg, and drew in his forces; and Montecuculi, again
+baffled, descended the Rhine and occupied Freistett, his object being
+to cross the Rhine at that point by means of a bridge, to be sent down
+from Strasbourg—then, it will be borne in mind, an Imperial city—and
+his ultimate end being to re-enter Alsace. Turenne, however, barred
+the course of the Rhine, by redoubts and batteries carefully placed;
+and having thus prevented the passage of the bridge, he, for the third
+time, out-manœuvred his enemy and kept him bound with his army to
+Germany. The antagonists now held their camps for some months, each
+watching the other, and seeking a chance; but Turenne was the first to
+move. He crossed the Rench by an undefended ford; and this movement
+compelled his enemy to retreat, for it threatened his communications,
+and almost reached his flank. Montecuculi, utterly foiled and
+out-generalled, abandoned at once the valley of the Rhine, and made for
+the defiles of Würtemberg. Turenne, hanging on his foe, pursued; and,
+by the close of July, he had attained the Sassbach, assured that he
+would triumph in a great and decisive battle. Fate, however, withheld
+from Turenne a victory justly earned by his most able strategy. He was
+struck<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> down by a shot from a hostile battery, and Montecuculi escaped
+from the toils which had been admirably laid around him. The Imperial
+chief, indeed—a remarkable man, and in this campaign he was suffering
+from disease—when apprised of the death of his renowned adversary, at
+once boldly resumed the offensive. The French army, deprived of the
+genius which had led it to victory for many years, was soon in full
+retreat on the Rhine; and having fallen into the hands of incapable
+chiefs, it was nearly involved in a crushing disaster. The history
+of war has few more striking instances of what a commander is to his
+troops than the reverses which, after the fall of Turenne, followed
+the course of his steady success before it; and the passionate cry of
+his defeated soldiery, to the worthless men who stood in his place,
+“Give us Magpie”—the warrior’s charger—“to lead us!” is only an
+exaggeration of a substantial truth. Montecuculi’s eulogy on Turenne is
+well-known; but the offensive return which he made with confidence and
+victoriously after his great rival’s death is a more expressive and a
+finer epitaph.</p>
+
+<p>Sorrowing Ilium mourned her mighty shade; the remains of Turenne were
+borne to St. Denis, and laid in the tombs of the Kings of France, an
+honour never again conferred on a subject. They were spared even by
+the Jacobin hands which violated the royal abodes of death in the
+madness of Paris in 1793; and they now fitly rest beside those of
+Napoleon. A word on the place of this great man among the masters of
+the noblest of arts. The peculiar gifts of Turenne were a far-sighted
+and calm intelligence, sagacity of the finest kind, and admirable
+constancy and force of character, and these made him one of the first
+of generals, though he did not possess, in the highest degree, the
+dazzling imagination, the power of thought and of calculation, and the
+astonishing energy which distinguish Napoleon and, perhaps, Hannibal.
+These qualities made him a consummate strategist, few chiefs have
+ever moved on a theatre of war with the perfect skill and success of
+Turenne; few have known how to make grand manœuvres with as certain
+results, and with equal brilliancy; and his great wars of marches,
+replacing sieges, were an inspiration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> of most striking genius. As
+for special illustration of his strategic powers, Turenne has been
+surpassed by Napoleon alone in the art of reaching the communications
+of a foe, and of operating between separate hostile masses; and he was
+safer than Napoleon in these efforts, though he did not accomplish such
+marvels of war. Considering the state of the art in his time, no chief
+perhaps has ever achieved more than Turenne by scientific movements;
+he triumphed in several campaigns by mere marches without fighting
+a single battle, and yet his success was complete and decisive, as
+was specially seen in 1646 and 1675. In fact, strategy made little
+progress for many years after this great captain; and yet Turenne did
+not quite attain the highest rank among modern strategists, for his
+intellect was somewhat wanting in quickness, and his nature in what is
+called the sacred fire; he let grand opportunities slip, and in three
+great instances, at least, he did not do what probably might have been
+accomplished by him.</p>
+
+<p>These defects—and genius is never perfect—made him a tactician of the
+second order only; he had not Condé’s inspired thought on the field;
+and for a commander of extraordinary gifts, he suffered defeat in many
+instances. Yet the decision and firmness which were among his qualities
+stood him in good stead, even in the conduct of troops; no general has
+ever known better how to make a bold stand, and to impose on an enemy;
+and it was one of his special characteristics that he could overcome
+defeat, and that he was most formidable after a reverse of fortune.
+For the rest, Turenne, like most great captains, had administrative
+powers of the highest order; he, usually, even in his long marches,
+contrived to have his army in good condition; he remodelled the
+military organisation of France, and made it by far the best in
+Europe; and, as an administrator, he had this distinctive merit—that
+he was in advance of the ideas of his time. I must add a word on the
+relations between this illustrious chief and the armies he led. Turenne
+had a truly chivalrous nature; he was singularly considerate to his
+lieutenants, and though he could be stern and severe when needful, he
+made the largest allowance for mere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> errors, and never blamed others
+for shortcomings of his own. No general has ever had more devoted
+officers; and this magnanimous character was admired and recognized by
+every chief who was opposed to him, by Leopold, Montecuculi, and even
+the arrogant Condé. As for his troops, Turenne was most chary of their
+blood, resembling Wellington in this respect; and, like Wellington
+too—a regimental officer, versed in the details of professional
+work—Turenne knew their wants and gave much attention to them. As has
+always happened with real chiefs, Turenne fashioned his soldiers to his
+own nature; they were not rapid and vehement in in his hands as they
+were in those of Condé and Villars; but he made them steady, enduring,
+bold, but tenacious; and their phrase, “our father,” shows how he was
+beloved by them. Except for one unhappy lapse, the career of Turenne
+does “honour to humanity,” to quote the words of his ablest adversary
+and yet sympathetic friend.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_050.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Marlborough.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>A thorough estimate of Marlborough would fill a volume, and I must
+confine myself to the military career of one described by a great
+historian as “a prodigy of turpitude,” who “combined the genius of
+Richelieu with the genius of Turenne.” John Churchill was born in
+1650, the offspring of parents who ranked among the landed gentry
+of Devon and Dorset, and who, without apparent gifts of their own,
+transmitted supreme ability to two descendants. Little is known about
+the first years of the boy; but the attachment he felt through life
+for the Church of England was probably more due to his Cavalier birth
+than to the assiduous care of a clerical tutor; and, unlike the Great
+Condé, Turenne, and Villars, he was not trained to arms by constant
+practice and study. It is, perhaps, mere gossip that he owed his first
+commission to the shame of a sister, Arabella Churchill, the mother of
+Berwick by James II.; and we might pass over his amour with Barbara
+Palmer, if it did not bring out, at an early age, proof of the love of
+money, which was a master vice of his richly endowed but most complex
+nature. He first saw war in an admirable school, having been placed
+on the staff of Turenne; he served under that great commander in the
+memorable campaigns of 1672 and 1674; soon attracted the special notice
+of his chief as an officer of extraordinary promise, and was publicly
+thanked by him on the field of Entzheim for the cool intrepidity which
+was one of his distinctive qualities. It is impossible to doubt that
+this experience was of the greatest advantage to the future warrior;
+and though there is a difference in the genius of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>the men, we may,
+I think, trace the example of Turenne in more than one of the great
+feats of Marlborough. The young, but already distinguished, soldier
+in 1678 married Sarah Jennings, then a beauty of Grammont, but long
+afterwards to become the Atossa of Pope’s vengeance, and the marriage,
+which led to a domestic history of a most strange and eventful kind,
+had a decisive effect on the fortunes alike of Churchill, of England,
+and even of Europe. The pair flourished at the little Court of the Duke
+of York, held in his provincial capital; and it is unnecessary to tell
+how the wife became Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess Anne, and
+acquired an ascendency over the future Queen which was to be followed
+by the most momentous results. During these years, Churchill first gave
+proof of the diplomatic skill which, at a later time, was to make him
+the master of the Grand Alliance. He negotiated some of the underhand
+bargains of Charles II. with Louis XIV., designed to make England a
+vassal of France, and for this and other services he obtained the
+reward of a Scotch, then akin to an Irish, peerage.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_036fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_036fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">MARLBOROUGH.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>At the accession of James II. to the throne, Lord Churchill was made
+again an agent to obtain a bribe from the great Bourbon Sovereign; but
+though he was raised to the English Peerage, and he really crushed the
+rising of Monmouth by his direction of the Royal troops at Sedgemoor,
+he was left rather in the shade during the trying time when the King
+was carrying out his fatal policy against the laws, the liberties,
+and the Church of England. I do not justify his desertion of James,
+when at the head of his men, at a critical moment, but his guilt was
+shared by the first men of the time; and if self-interest, perhaps,
+was his ruling motive, the strong sympathy he certainly felt for the
+Church in part, I believe, determined his conduct. He participated in
+the Revolution and its spoils, was made Earl of Marlborough, and was
+given a seat at the Council of Nine, which ruled England, under Mary,
+in the absence of William; and he again gave proof of his military
+gifts in a sharp combat in the Low Countries, in his admirable conduct
+of the war in Ireland, and in his always able and successful advice.
+He was already the foremost of English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> soldiers, and his genius and
+promise had been recognized by more than one of the King’s veterans;
+but he was never really liked by William III., and the great captain
+who, had he been in command, would have changed the fortunes of
+Steenkirk and Landen, was usually kept at home in a subordinate place.
+Marlborough betrayed and abandoned William in turn. I shall not attempt
+to excuse the act; but soaring ambition, wounded to the quick, and
+the scorn of inferior men raised over his head, had probably more
+to do with his conduct than alarm at the prospect of the return of
+James, or a desire to place the Princess Anne on the throne; and in
+judging these things, we must never forget that many of his peers and
+colleagues were no less to blame, and that Revolution had destroyed
+loyalty, divided allegiance, and blighted good faith in the hearts of
+three-fourths of our leading statesmen. At this conjuncture, however,
+one act of Marlborough stands out marked as a foul deed of shame; he
+treacherously disclosed the descent on Brest, caused the death of an
+honoured companion-in-arms, and involved a large British force in
+destruction; and, corrupt and bad as the age was, had the crime and its
+author become known, the head of the criminal would, no doubt, have
+justly fallen on the block at Tower Hill. Marlborough, in fact, could
+not endure his late disgrace; he feared for his life, and made up his
+mind to come to terms at St. Germains, at any risk, and he sacrificed
+Talmash, without scruple, in order to weaken a detested Government, and
+to promote his own selfish ends.</p>
+
+<p>The treason of Marlborough, in the affair of Brest, was unsuspected by
+the men of his time; but it is characteristic of a revolutionary age
+that William ere long turned to him again, though in merited disgrace
+for other offences. His ability, in fact, was necessary to the State,
+and politicians had few scruples; and the diplomatist who had shown
+skill and tact in the negotiations of the Stuarts with Louis XIV.
+was employed, and with marked success, by the King in cementing the
+Grand Alliance against the Bourbon Monarchy. On the death of William,
+Marlborough received the command of the English forces destined for the
+contest with France, and through the influence of Heinsius, the great
+Dutch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> Minister, he was placed at the head of the armies of the States.
+His reputation, already eminent, entitled him to this high position;
+but almost from the first he gained an ascendency in the direction of
+the military affairs of England which no other British general has
+possessed. This, as is well known, was due to the complete control
+his wife exercised over the Queen; Mrs. Freeman governed Mrs. Morley,
+and practically nearly guided the State; and Marlborough enjoyed more
+real authority than belonged to William, in England at least, until
+near the end of the war of the Spanish Succession. On the other hand,
+the English commander was by this time in his fifty-second year; he
+had never conducted war on a great scale, though he had proved himself
+to be a most able soldier, and it seemed scarcely probable that he
+could cope, with success, with the trained and experienced generals
+of France, brought up amidst the traditions of Turenne and Condé. No
+one dreamed, when Marlborough assumed his command, that Blenheim and
+Ramillies were not distant; and though the Allies had some advantages
+which they did not possess in previous contests, France had hitherto
+confronted Europe with success; and, as Spain and Bavaria were now on
+her side, the chances seemed to be in the main in her favour.</p>
+
+<p>I must glance at the state of the military art at the beginning of the
+war of the Spanish Succession. Since the invasion of Holland in 1672,
+war had assumed ample and even vast dimensions; very large armies had
+appeared in the field, and the contest which had closed at the Peace of
+Ryswick had extended from the Shannon to the far wilds of Hungary. The
+obstacles, to the march of troops, which had existed in the preceding
+age, had been, to a certain extent, lessened; roads and agriculture had
+slightly improved; and owing to the great development of the efficacy
+of the attack, due to the engineering genius of Vauban, the power of
+fortresses had much declined, and they could scarcely ever offer a
+prolonged resistance, or permanently shield an endangered frontier.
+Strategy ought, therefore, to have made distinct progress; but exactly
+the contrary had been the case. No genius had appeared to turn to
+account the advantages offered by the new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> conditions, and the art
+had retrograded; for while all that belongs to what is material in it
+conduced to its advance, the intelligence which it requires to give it
+grandeur, and to rule matter, had been largely wanting. The operations
+of war during the thirty years before Marlborough emerged on the scene
+had been comparatively timid and slow; vast as were the masses arrayed
+in the field, we see scarcely a single great combination, a remarkable
+march, or a decisive battle, except in the case of the Turkish hordes;
+campaigns were feebly directed and had few results; and though sieges
+took much less time than formerly, armies seldom ventured to pass
+fortresses, or to make daring attempts at invasion. The reason simply
+was, there were no consummate chiefs; William III., Câtinat, Louis of
+Baden, Luxemburg, each with special and real merits of his own, were
+all generals of the second order, and the “sublime part of the art,”
+in Napoleon’s language, had had no masters to bring out its splendours
+since the grave had closed on Turenne and Condé. One peculiarity of the
+strategy of the time deserves the attention of the careful student,
+and it exhibits a marked backward tendency. The generals of the first
+half of the seventeenth century had made considerable use of great
+defensive lines; but Turenne had nearly exploded this system, and his
+triumphs were mainly due to his masterly movements. During the period
+that followed, inferior men went back to the routine of the past; as
+fortresses became of less importance, huge barriers were raised to
+cover frontiers, and whole campaigns were spent in manœuvres to turn or
+to force these artificial obstacles. This indicates a decline in the
+art, though the value of these lines was often great, and<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> it has,
+perhaps, been underrated in our time.</p>
+
+<p>While strategy had thus, for a moment, declined, a change had passed
+over the art of tactics. Armies had continued to grow in numbers,
+and infantry—its importance becoming recognized—was now the arm
+of greatest force on a field of battle. The bayonet, too, had been
+invented, and this invention, almost a revolution<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> in itself, by
+degrees largely modified the old formations of the age of Gustavus,
+Turenne, and Condé. The masses of pikemen and musketeers arrayed in
+dense squares and close columns, were gradually replaced by extended
+lines of infantry, whose weapon combined the powers of the musket and
+pike; and though these lines were still deep and serried, foot, owing
+to the change, covered far more ground on a given field than had been
+the case formerly. The general result of these two circumstances was
+that, in almost all instances, the front of battles was enlarged to an
+immense extent; instead of occupying a few hundred yards, armies about
+to engage filled vast spaces, and as these could scarcely ever be open
+plains, and usually presented local features, such as woods, streams,
+hills, and folds of the ground, it became of increased importance to
+turn to account these peculiarities in any impending conflict. Skill in
+tactics, accordingly, began to consist less in seizing an opportunity
+to throw cavalry upon infantry exposed or broken than in so arranging
+the three arms, and employing them as to derive advantage from the
+special characteristics of the field; and the old order of battle,
+horse on either wing, foot in the centre, and guns in front, as a fixed
+system, became obsolete; and each arm began to be so disposed as to
+be made most effective, having regard to the actual situation and its
+accidents of place. This change, though slow, had become manifest; it
+had been conspicuously seen on the great day of Zenta, where the powers
+of Eugene were first displayed; and battles, though very different from
+what they are now, had assumed an essentially modern aspect, troops
+acting in concert, by no method of routine, but so as always best to
+support each other, and to make use of the ground with this object in
+view.</p>
+
+<p>The tactics, however, of this age, in what may be called their
+subordinate parts, had little in common with those of a later period.
+Cavalry was still considered the most active arm, and far the most
+efficient in the shock of battle; the proportion of horsemen to foot
+was still much larger than it has become in the present century, and
+a general still mainly relied on cavalry for the decisive movements
+that assured victory. Though infantry,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> too, had greatly increased
+in numbers, and its power in action had been largely multiplied, it
+was still deemed rather an arm to support, to defend, and to cover
+the ground, than to strike; the old traditions still clung to it; its
+lines, four deep at least, were clumsy and heavy, and did not furnish
+sufficient fire; it often was formed in dense columns, and it had never
+yet decided a battle by its own special and unaided efforts. As for
+artillery, guns were still few, and the days of horse artillery had
+not come; and though the power of the arm had been much augmented,
+and its true uses had been partly ascertained, it was still in an
+undeveloped state. The tactics of the day, therefore, so far as regards
+the handling of the three arms, were still immature; and one of the
+methods of these, the blending together in single or in successive
+lines of horsemen and footmen, in an offensive movement, though often
+witnessed, is now obsolete. For the rest, armies were still loosely
+formed; they were still arrays of battalions and squadrons, and they
+were as yet without that complete unity which has made them more
+perfect instruments of war. As for discipline and equipment, little had
+been changed since the grand reforms of Louvois and Turenne; armies
+had become bodies of regular troops with officers, as a rule, of a
+noble class; and the system of magazines, of depôts of supplies, and
+of trains remained what it had been, strategic science having made no
+progress. The organization of the French army was still decidedly the
+best in Europe; but it had been imitated with more or less success by
+more than one of the Continental armies; and the difference in this
+respect was probably less than it had been thirty years previously.
+As for the British army, it already possessed fine regiments, of
+unsurpassed worth; but, as has always happened, it was badly organized,
+and its organization, such as it was, owed much to the care of William
+III.</p>
+
+<p>I must pass rapidly over the two first campaigns, in which Marlborough
+held supreme command. The theatre of the war was the Low Countries
+as, indeed, was usually the case with him; and, as Spain was now
+in alliance with France, the French armies occupied the Belgian
+provinces from the mouths of the Scheldt to the Lower Meuse. Either
+from over-confidence, however, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> perhaps, because the incapable
+Chamillart had become his minister, Louis XIV., at the beginning of
+the war, paid little attention to this frontier; and Marlborough was
+largely superior in force when the campaign of 1702 opened. The object
+of the British commander was to master the course of the Meuse, with a
+view to gain a base for more decisive efforts; though hampered already
+by the Dutch deputies, and the many impediments of a coalition, his
+march was a series of easy triumphs; Venloo, Liège, and other places
+fell, with Kaiserwerth on the Middle Rhine; and, if Boufflers made a
+gallant resistance, he was compelled to fall back to the Upper Meuse.
+Marlborough received a dukedom for these services. The recompense now
+appears extravagant, and was, doubtless, largely due to the favour of
+the Queen; but we must recollect that the arms of France had scarcely
+ever been checked before, and for half a century had been deemed
+invincible.</p>
+
+<p>The operations of the campaign of 1703 first distinctly brought out
+the powers of Marlborough in designing great combinations of war, and
+should be studied by those who deny that he possessed the gift of
+strategic genius. The French had been forced back to the Upper Meuse,
+but they still held most of the Belgian strongholds, and they occupied
+a vast system of defensive lines, formed by the rivers and forests of
+an intricate country, and extending from the Mehaigne, not far from
+Namur, to the verge of Antwerp, and thence to Ostend. Marlborough
+aiming, as he always did, at a vital point, and seeking to carry the
+war to the frontier of France, but knowing the difficulties of a direct
+attack, resolved to turn and pass this great obstacle, and thence to
+advance to the French seaboard; and the measures he took to accomplish
+his “great design,” as he called it, in perfectly true language, were
+in the highest degree admirable. The French, largely reinforced,
+held the lines and the fortresses with probably<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> 130,000 men; the
+strength of the allies was not 100,000, but Marlborough possessed the
+immense advantage, ever to be borne in mind by an English chief, of
+the mastery of the movable base of the sea, and he clearly saw how to
+turn this to account. His plan, simple alike and excellent, was to hold
+Boufflers, now supported by Villeroy, in check himself with the bulk
+of his forces; in the meantime the lines were to be assailed by Cohorn
+and Opdam with the Dutch army, and this attack was to be combined with
+a descent on the coast, to be made to the south by an English fleet,
+in order to harass and perplex the enemy. This grand project which,
+in its conception, reveals the genius of a great captain, and which
+ought to have sent the allied armies past the French lines to the Upper
+Lys, was frustrated by the errors of the Dutch commanders, and by the
+jealousies and intrigues too common in a league. Cohorn neglected
+his mission to ravage a province; Opdam made a false and premature
+movement, and before Marlborough had his grasp on his enemy, Boufflers,
+leaving Villeroy in Marlborough’s front, and making a forced march
+with conspicuous skill, anticipated Opdam as he approached Antwerp,
+and defeated him with heavy loss at Eckeren. The “great design” had
+thus been revealed and baffled; but Marlborough believed it could yet
+be accomplished, and moving on Antwerp with the mass of his army,
+he proposed to force the French to fight a great battle, hoping, if
+successful, to get across their lines. Timid and divided counsels,
+however, prevailed; the Dutch commanders refused to second their
+colleague, and Marlborough, bitterly vexed, returned to the Meuse. The
+capture of the small place of Huy was the only fruit of the campaign of
+1703, and Marlborough was so indignant at the conduct of the Dutch that
+he was on the point of throwing up his command.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_044fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_044fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THEATRE OF THE<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1704.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Happily for the Grand Alliance, ambition and interest diverted
+Marlborough from this hasty purpose; and the memorable campaign of
+1704 was to be the most renowned of his triumphs. Bavaria had joined
+France in 1703; a real chief, the illustrious Villars, had overcome
+Louis of Baden on the Rhine, had marched into the Swabian lowlands, and
+had defeated a German <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>force on the Danube; and had the Elector of
+Bavaria followed his counsels, and his colleagues in Italy given him
+aid, he would have anticipated the campaign of 1805, and have ended
+the war by a march on Vienna. Villars, however, was disliked at Munich
+and Versailles, and, unlike Marlborough, had an unhappy temper; he was
+recalled for a squabble with the Elector; and his place was filled by
+the incompetent Marsin, who could not even comprehend his strategy.
+Yet the situation of the Empire remained most critical; a combined
+French and Bavarian army threatened the capital from the Iller and the
+Inn; the insurrection of Hungary raged in the East; and Austria might
+be overrun and even subdued if the grand project of Villars were ably
+carried out. Eugene, the first of the Imperialist chiefs, perceived the
+danger and sought to avert it; he addressed himself, not in vain, to
+Marlborough; and a plan of operations was agreed between them, which,
+it was hoped, would detach Bavaria from France, and at least prevent an
+advance on Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of the belligerent armies on the theatre of war shows
+that it was difficult in the extreme to give effect to any combination
+of the kind. Marlborough commanded the principal force of the allies;
+but he was on the Meuse far away from the Danube, and was held in
+check, as it appeared, by Villeroy, with an army that ought to have
+sufficed for the purpose; Tallard, at the head of a powerful army, was
+on the Rhine, confronting a much weaker enemy—the contingent, in fact,
+defeated by Villars—drawn within the well-known lines of Stolhoffen,
+formed to prevent an attack from Alsace; and the Elector and Marsin
+were in Swabia, greatly superior in force to Louis of Baden, who held
+the approaches from the Black Forest. For Marlborough to attain the
+heart of the Empire, through these masses of surrounding enemies,
+seemed to be almost an impossible task; but he encountered the risk,
+and adopted a project which, I am convinced, was a thought of Eugene’s,
+for it bears the mark of his peculiar genius, in which grandeur was
+combined with rashness. Breaking up from the Lower Meuse, on the 19th
+of May, at the head of, perhaps, 70,000 men, increased as he advanced,
+by German contingents, he crossed the Rhine and made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> for Mayence; he
+then pressed forward to the Main and the Neckar, and having traversed
+the Franconian plains, he reached the Danube near Ulm on the 22nd of
+June, and joined hands with Louis of Baden, a movement resembling the
+best of Turenne’s as regards its admirable speed and decision. His
+despatches prove that he was fully aware of the peril of this audacious
+march, with Villeroy in his rear and Tallard on his flank; but possibly
+no other course was open; and, as always happened with him, he did not
+hesitate, and he executed his task with consummate skill. Marlborough
+and Baden were now immensely superior in force to the Elector and
+Marsin, who, on being informed of the approach of Marlborough, had
+advanced from the Iller, and attained the Danube; and the allied chiefs
+did not lose an instant in turning their present advantage to account.
+Leaving a considerable force to restrain the enemy, they moved down the
+Danube quickly to Donauwörth; and after a fierce and well-contested
+struggle stormed the heights of the Schellenberg covering the town,
+and became masters of the course of the river. Within a few days, the
+victorious army was overrunning the Bavarian plains and harrying them,
+after the fashion of the age, in order to force the Elector to yield;
+Marlborough having completely transformed the situation for a time by
+operations which had astounded Europe.</p>
+
+<p>While Marlborough had thus attained and overcome the Danube, what
+had been the conduct of the French commanders he had left behind on
+the Meuse and the Rhine? Villeroy had nearly 40,000 men in hand;
+the army of Tallard, even allowing for a detachment sent in the
+spring to Marsin, must have been about 45,000 strong; and had these
+chiefs been capable men, they ought to have prevented Marlborough’s
+movement, though, it is fair to remark, they were bound and hampered
+by injudicious orders from Versailles. Had they combined their armies
+and crossed the Rhine, they ought easily to have carried the lines of
+Stolhoffen—these did not stop Villars a few years afterwards—and
+crushed the feeble army of defence; and they then ought to have been
+able to have forestalled Marlborough, in what was a strategic flank
+march of extreme risk, to have at least fallen on his communications
+between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> the Neckar, the Main, and the Danube, and to have perhaps
+compelled him to fight in positions where the loss of a battle would
+have been ruinous. Villeroy and Tallard, however, were not great
+chiefs; they marched and counter-marched, lost many weeks, and allowed
+their enemy to pass them by; and it was only in July, when Marlborough
+and Baden were, we have seen, in the heart of Bavaria, that they took
+anything like a decided course. Their armies, before united, were now
+again divided; Villeroy crossed the Rhine to observe the lines of
+Stolhoffen, occupied now by Eugene, at the head of, perhaps, 30,000
+men; and Tallard made for the Black Forest, with a force probably
+35,000 strong, in order to join hands with the Elector and Marsin.</p>
+
+<p>The junction was effected on the 4th of August, not far from the
+central town of Augsburg, and the collected armies must have formed
+a mass of nearly 70,000 men at least, for the most part troops of
+the best quality. Meanwhile, Villeroy had altogether failed to hold
+Eugene along the Rhine in check; that great captain, when aware of
+the movement of Tallard, resolved to give support to Marlborough and
+Baden, already menaced by the combined enemies; and he broke up from
+his lines and flew to the Danube, with a force of about 15,000 men,
+having left a detachment to keep back Villeroy, and having baffled that
+most worthless commander. He was at Höchstedt on the 8th of August—the
+scene of the victory gained by Villars—and, leaving his small force on
+the northern bank, he crossed the Danube to confer with Marlborough, at
+the time at Aichach, to the north-east of Augsburg. A grand opportunity
+was offered again to the French, who, in this campaign, seemed always
+to miss the occasion. The combined Bavarian and French armies were,
+at this moment, quite near Höchstedt; and had they made a rapid and
+decisive movement, they might have crushed the isolated wing of Eugene,
+and have placed Marlborough, who had been left by Baden, in order to
+make the siege of Ingoldstadt, in a position of the most critical kind,
+in a hostile country, with an enemy on his flank, and separated from
+his base on the Danube. Tallard, Marsin, and the Elector, however,
+paused; they crossed the Danube, indeed, at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> Lauingen; but they did not
+attempt to fall on Eugene; and Marlborough, meanwhile—he clearly saw
+his danger—marched with extraordinary speed from Aichach, and came
+into line with his daring colleague, west of Donauwörth on the 11th of
+August. The allied chiefs decided to attack the enemy, who, by this
+time, was in a strong position, in a region of marsh and forest, where
+the stream of the Nebel falls into the Danube through a plain bounded
+by the villages of Lützingen and Blenheim. Less confident men would
+hardly have run the risk, for the hostile army already threatened the
+line of their communications northwards; and a serious defeat might
+have been destruction.</p>
+
+<p>I can only describe in faint outline the great and decisive battle
+that followed. By the early dawn of the 13th of August, the allied
+army had passed the defiles which lead through Dapfheim into the
+plain of the Nebel, and began to take up its positions for attack.
+Marlborough and Eugene had hoped to surprise the enemy, and Tallard
+and Marsin were really unprepared; in fact, with the Elector, they
+thought that the allies were falling back on Nördlingen, on the line of
+their communications with the Main. The French and Bavarians, however,
+were soon ready; but some hours passed before the hostile armies had
+joined in the actual shock of battle. Each was from 55,000 to 60,000
+strong; but the French and Bavarian army, a veteran force, was probably
+a better instrument of war than the composite masses of many races
+collected under the allied standards. The dispositions, however, of the
+French marshals were essentially bad, and gave the great commanders
+opposed to them a distinct advantage. Tallard and Marsin seem to have
+been convinced that the Nebel, which ran across their front, was
+impassable or could be passed only by an enemy with extreme difficulty;
+and that if Lützingen and Blenheim, with the neighbouring village of
+Oberglau, were held in strong force, the allies, should they advance
+on the Nebel, would be stopped at the centre by a powerful obstacle,
+and on either wing could be easily repelled. They divided their army
+accordingly into two masses, each, it would seem, of nearly equal
+force; and while they crowded their right wing at Blenheim, and
+placed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> large bodies of men at Oberglau, and at Lützingen on their
+left wing, their extended centre was weakly occupied by a long line
+of cavalry only, supported by an insignificant body of footmen. This
+conception was altogether ill-founded; the obstacle of the Nebel was
+not very great, and were it once forced it would fare ill with the
+thin and ill-guarded French centre, and even with the wings—with the
+right especially, cooped up in Blenheim and close to the Danube. The
+vice of the arrangement, there is reason to believe, was perceived
+by Marlborough almost at once; the masses of the allied army were so
+arrayed as to be ready to assail the hostile centre; and Tallard, who
+commanded the French right, when he saw this, it is said, asked Marsin,
+who was in command of the French left, to send reinforcements to the
+threatened point, but only received an angry refusal.</p>
+
+<p>The battle began at about 9 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, Marlborough attacking
+Blenheim from the allied left, while Eugene made a circuitous march
+on the right; and the attack on Blenheim—which, I conceive, was a
+feint only to deceive the enemy—was repulsed with no inconsiderable
+loss. At about noon, when he had been made aware that Eugene was
+engaged with Marsin, Marlborough made a first great effort against
+the French centre; and a mass of cavalry, formed in two lines, with a
+mass of infantry in their front and their rear, was launched forward
+to cross the Nebel. The French horsemen, however, were not wanting
+to themselves; they fell with terrible effect on the hostile array
+as it was entangled and confused in the passage; and though part of
+Marlborough’s troops succeeded in the attempt, they were held to the
+spot and made no progress. Meanwhile, a secondary allied attack on
+Oberglau had altogether failed; and though Marlborough’s presence
+restored the contest, it has been thought that had Tallard and Marsin
+co-operated at this moment in a counter-attack, the French and
+Bavarian army might have won a victory. Eugene, however, who, with an
+inferior force, had held Marsin in check by prodigious efforts, sent
+a detachment to the aid of his colleague, and about 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>
+Marlborough was once more free to strike what he had seen from the
+first was the vulnerable point in the hostile position. Massing
+footmen and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> horsemen once more together, he hurled them against the
+French centre; and though the French cavalry fought to the last, their
+weak support of infantry gave way, and the centre yielded to the
+overwhelming pressure. The victorious army, with Marlborough at its
+head, was now master of the whole position of its foes; and turning in
+full force against the French right, shut up in Blenheim and pressed
+against the Danube, it compelled it, almost at once, to surrender.
+Marsin and the Elector, who, unlike Eugene, had done nothing to aid a
+companion in arms, contrived to effect their retreat in safety; but
+an accident only averted their ruin. The loss of the victors was,
+probably, from 11,000 to 12,000 men; that of the French and Bavarians
+was 40,000; and the routed army was, in fact, destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>This splendid campaign, decisive as it was, cannot be deemed a
+strategic masterpiece. The project of the march from the Meuse to the
+Danube, with Villeroy in the rear and Tallard on the Rhine, was too
+hazardous to deserve high praise;<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and Eugene, I repeat, was, I
+think, its author, though Marlborough is, of course, responsible for
+it. Had Condé been in the place of Villeroy, and Turenne held the staff
+of Tallard, Marlborough, I believe, would not have attained Donauwörth,
+and the great campaign of 1704 would have probably had a different
+issue. Remarkable, too, as was the skill of Eugene in eluding Villeroy,
+and pushing on to the Danube, in order to join his colleague, he ought
+not to have left an isolated detachment in little force within reach
+of an enemy fourfold in strength; and had Tallard and Marsin been real
+chiefs, they would have crushed Eugene and have placed Marlborough in
+extreme peril, when he stood alone and inferior in force in his camp
+at<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Aichach. Apart, however, from these risks and mistakes, Eugene
+and Marlborough, especially the last, carried out their plans with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
+consummate ability. The march from the Meuse, by the Main, to the
+Danube, was a prodigy of execution for the age; the advance to the
+Schellenberg was rapid and brilliant; and the forced march from Aichach
+to join Eugene was admirable for its quickness and boldness. The
+decision, too, to give battle at Blenheim was characteristic of great
+captains; it was hazardous, but a retreat would have lost the whole
+fruits of a successful campaign, and very probably would have been
+fatal.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it is upon the field of Blenheim that Marlborough’s
+genius becomes most manifest. With that perfect insight which never
+failed him, he at once perceived what was false and defective in the
+disposition of the hostile army. He concentrated his forces against
+the one weak point; and though he was beaten back and even placed
+in danger, he never relaxed his efforts, carrying out his purpose
+with inflexible constancy and calm firmness until he had pierced the
+enemy’s centre, and made a decisive victory certain. Here we see the
+development of what we may call the new tactics in full perfection.
+Tallard and Marsin did not comprehend the ground, and unskilfully
+arrayed their troops upon it. Marlborough took in the situation at
+a glance, and so conducted the battle that an overwhelming mass was
+brought to bear on the decisive spot. Nothing, too, could have been
+more admirable than the loyalty of Eugene to his colleague; but for
+his support Marlborough might have lost the battle; and the result of
+Blenheim was, in fact, due to the unrivalled tactics of the one chief
+and the chivalrous and unselfish zeal of the other. As for the French
+Marshals, the arrangements they made might have succeeded against
+inferior men; but, if formidable in appearance they were radically bad;
+though Tallard of the two is the least to blame, for he understood the
+mistake that was made; and Marsin deserves the severest censure for
+disregarding Tallard’s advice, and for neglecting all through to send
+him assistance—a too characteristic fault of the warriors of France.
+The conduct of the allied army was such as great chiefs almost always
+obtain from the troops they lead. English, Austrians, and Prussians
+fought like heroes; but the French and Bavarians had perhaps the
+better army—and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> French cavalry made magnificent efforts, if the
+surrender at Blenheim betrays the weakness of the French soldier in the
+hour of defeat. Blenheim, in truth, was a general’s not a soldier’s
+battle; the triumph of genius in command, not of mere valour.</p>
+
+<p>Blenheim saved the Empire, and set Germany free; and the defeated army,
+a shattered wreck, reaching the Rhine in fragments, fled into Alsace.
+Having cleared the German bank of the river, the Allies sat down
+before the great place of Landau, which covered the approaches to the
+French frontier; but, though the fortress made an heroic resistance,
+Marlborough had entered the Palatinate by the close of autumn, had
+seized the important points of Trarbach and Trêves, and had secured a
+base for the invasion of France. Everything, he hoped, would be ready
+by the early spring—armies still seldom held the field in winter—and
+his purpose was to advance into Lorraine by the valleys of the Moselle
+and the Sarre, with an army of 100,000 men formed of contingents of
+many nations, the line long afterwards marked out by Gneisenau, and
+followed by Moltke in 1870. This indicates a true strategic eye; and,
+in fact, in strategy as well as in tactics Marlborough always detected
+the fault in the cuirass, and seized the vulnerable point on the scene
+before him. The great Englishman, however, had not the good fortune of
+the renowned Dane many years afterwards. Marlborough was not seconded
+as Moltke was. Louis of Baden, who on the field of manœuvre held the
+place of the Crown Prince of Prussia in August 1870, refused to move
+even a man from the Rhine; and though Marlborough advanced to the
+Moselle, in the early summer of 1705, in order to force the hand of his
+colleague, he had not sufficient force to make a decisive movement.
+Marlborough, too, had a very different man to cope with from Napoleon
+III.; his antagonist was Villars, already proved to be incomparably the
+greatest of living French chiefs, and destined to justify the proud
+title of “Invincible,” given by a grateful Sovereign. The operations of
+Villars were able in the extreme; assailing the heads of Marlborough’s
+columns, but taking care to cover his own flanks, he retreated to the
+well known position of Sierk, resting on the Moselle and a chain of
+heights,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> and he calmly awaited the victor of Blenheim. The hostile
+armies were each about 50,000 strong—the Memoirs of Villars are
+incorrect in making out that his foe had 80,000 men; but Marlborough,
+deprived of the support of Baden, did not venture to risk an attack,
+and, after waiting some days, he recoiled, baffled, and fell back to
+the country round Trêves. He was so angry that he sent a message to
+Villars to explain the cause of his retreat; but though his colleague
+was wholly to blame, Villars had gained his object and had saved France
+from an invasion which might have ended the war.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough was ere long recalled to the theatre which had been the
+scene of his first exploits. Villeroy by this time had returned to the
+Meuse with an army greatly strengthened since the year before, and, at
+the head of about 70,000 men, he had retaken Huy, advanced down the
+Meuse, and seized the important town of Liège. Terror now prevailed in
+the councils of the States; their chief commander, Auverquerque, had
+been defeated; and Marlborough was compelled to break up from Trêves,
+to abandon the hope of invading France, and to try to restore the war
+in the Low Countries. He had joined Auverquerque by the first week of
+July, and he instantly assumed a bold offensive at the head of about
+60,000 men. Villeroy, a noisy braggart and an incapable chief, was
+out-manœuvred and lost Huy; and he had soon fallen back to the great
+French lines extending across Belgium from the Mehaigne to the sea,
+which had been the scene of operations in 1703. Marlborough, despite
+a protest of the Dutch deputies—they hampered him in all his great
+movements—resolved, to master and pass the obstacle; he marched
+across the well-known field of Landen, which had witnessed Luxemburg’s
+brilliant triumph, and deceiving Villeroy by well-designed feints, he
+forced the lines near Tirlemont on the Gheete, winning a bloody combat,
+and taking many prisoners. The beaten army fell back to the Dyle, in
+the hope of covering Louvain and Brussels, but Marlborough crossed the
+stream at Genappe; and on the 18th of August he was about to assail
+the French in position not far from Waterloo—a village then wholly
+unknown to fame—when once more Dutch fears and jealousies prevented
+his fighting a decisive battle. He was again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> so indignant that he
+wrote to England, declaring that he would leave his command; and his
+operations, in truth, had been shamefully thwarted. Deserted by Baden
+in the beginning of the year, he had failed in his project of invading
+France; crossed by the Generals and Commissioners of the States, he
+had not been able to bring Villeroy to bay, and the only result of the
+campaign of 1705, which might have seen the Allies on the Marne and
+the Seine, was the capture of the French lines in Belgium, a result
+important indeed, but not very remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough spent the winter of 1705–6 in visiting crowned heads of
+the Grand Alliance; a master of diplomacy as well as of war, he threw
+the spell of commanding genius over the King of Denmark and the King
+of Prussia, and secured pledges of support for the ensuing campaign.
+He had been so ill-treated by the States that he wished to invade the
+South of France in 1706, in concert with his loyal colleague, Eugene;
+and it would be a curious speculation whether this effort, which failed
+in his absence in 1706–7, and has never yet been attended with success,
+would have succeeded had Marlborough been in command. He was, however,
+induced to return to the Low Countries, and he advanced towards the
+Meuse to threaten Namur, a great strategic point for a march into
+France, with an army of about 60,000 men. With the infatuation that
+befalls despots, Louis XIV. still had faith in Villeroy, and though
+deprived of the protection of the lines, the Marshal was ordered to
+take the offensive. Villeroy was advancing towards Leuwe with an army
+equal in numbers, at least, to that of his foe, when he met Marlborough
+on his march southwards, in a country of marsh, woodland, and low
+hills, between the Mehaigne and the lesser Gheete, crowned by the
+insignificant village of Ramillies.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_054fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_054fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THEATRE OF<br>
+THE<br>
+CAMPAIGNS<br>
+in<br>
+Belgium and North of France.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>A few words must suffice to trace the incidents of the great battle
+that followed. On the 23rd of May 1706, the French army, with a
+Bavarian wing—the Elector still clung to the fortunes of France—was
+seen arrayed on a range of upland, extending from near the course of
+the Mehaigne to beyond the little Gheete, on the hill of St. André,
+the villages of Ramillies and Autre Eglise, and a morass formed by the
+Gheete and its feeders, covering the position across <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>three-fourths
+of its front. Villeroy had formed his army into two masses, his right
+nearly upon the Mehaigne, but strongly occupying an old Roman road
+which led across the plain in a line with the river, his centre and
+left along the marshes of the Gheete; and he held Ramillies and Autre
+Eglise as fortified outposts. The position seemed formidable, as at
+Blenheim, but the eagle eye of Marlborough saw at a glance that his
+enemy’s arrangements had two marked defects, and that able manœuvring
+would assure him victory. Villeroy’s centre and left, especially the
+left, covered by an impassable swamp, was not assailable; but neither
+could he attack that side; and Marlborough held the chord of the arc in
+front of the French Marshal’s position. Marlborough prepared his battle
+with that unerring judgment which scarcely ever forsook him in war; and
+the result was a splendid and complete triumph. The English chief began
+by a feint against the French left, which, of course, was repelled
+without difficulty; but it had the effect which Marlborough hoped for;
+Villeroy detached from his right to support his left, weakening thus
+his army at the real point of attack. Marlborough fell once more on the
+French left, in order to distract the attention of his foe; and then,
+turning his shorter line to account, and moving rapidly a great body
+of troops unseen by Villeroy, behind a hill and a wood, he struck the
+French right in overwhelming force, his men threefold in numbers, at
+the critical point, pressing forward along the Roman causeway into the
+very heart of the hostile position. The French centre and left, held
+bound to the spot, and scarcely able to move, saw the battle lost, and
+made few efforts to avert defeat; and though the French right fought
+well for a time, the resistance was not like that at Blenheim, for
+the French soldier had lost the moral power of success. The villages
+of Ramillies and Autre Eglise were quickly stormed, without heavy
+loss; and the French right was ere long overpowered, and fled from
+the field in despair and rout. Villeroy’s centre and left, being not
+assailable, drew off for a time in fair order; but the contagion
+of defeat soon affected the men, and his whole army became a horde
+of fugitives, abandoning guns and standards, and were captured by
+thousands. Marlborough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> followed up his victory with the strokes of a
+master; he was free to act and he achieved wonders; and in a few days
+at most the whole of Belgium and its fortresses had become his spoils.
+Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and even Ostend fell with a rapidity for that
+age surprising; the French, hopelessly demoralized, made no stand, and,
+before the autumn had closed, the allied standards had been carried
+to the Lys and the Scheldt, and waved ominously near the frontier of
+France.</p>
+
+<p>I would select Ramillies as the most distinctive and characteristic
+of Marlborough’s battles. Eugene shares the honours of Blenheim with
+him, and the issue hung in suspense at Blenheim; but Ramillies was
+a masterpiece all his own, and the victory was never for a moment
+doubtful. The day was won by a single stroke of tactics; and here
+again we see the peculiar excellence of Marlborough in the highest
+perfection, his genius in taking advantage of the ground, and in
+turning to account the faults of his enemy. France seemed fallen after
+the campaign of 1706, marked, not only by this immense disaster, but
+by Eugene’s grand campaign on the Po, through which the French were
+expelled from Italy; yet the exhausted nation suddenly made one of
+those prodigious and heroic efforts which have so often astounded
+Europe. Berwick, a nephew of Marlborough, and in war a Churchill,
+reconquered Spain in the great fight of Almanza; and an attempt to
+invade Provence and to besiege Toulon, though conducted by Eugene,
+completely failed. Meanwhile Louis XIV., taught at last by misfortune,
+had replaced Villeroy in his command by Vendôme, a man of many gifts
+and many evil qualities; and the King strained the resources of his
+realm to the utmost to make head against his foes in the Low Countries.
+Vendôme took the field with about 100,000 men; Marlborough certainly
+was inferior in force; and the campaign of 1707 was spent in manœuvres
+between the Lys, the Scheldt, and the Sambre, with little results.</p>
+
+<p>I shall only glance at the campaign of 1708, for though Marlborough
+gained a succession of triumphs, it was less marked, perhaps, by his
+peculiar genius than by the fatal dissensions of the French chiefs,
+and the profound demoralization of the French army. Vendôme recovered
+Ghent, and the line of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> Lys; he even passed the Scheldt, and
+advanced to the Dender, and though he failed to capture Oudenarde,
+he held a favourable position when he confronted Marlborough on the
+Dender, in the first days of July. He was embarrassed, however, by
+a fatal burden; the Duke of Burgundy, rather a monk than a soldier,
+shared with him an ill-defined command; and the Duke insisted on
+falling back to the Scheldt, renouncing the initiative with timid
+weakness. Marlborough by this time had been joined by Eugene, who
+had moved from the Moselle into Belgium; and the two chiefs advanced
+to the relief of Oudenarde, resolved, if possible, to fight a great
+battle. The march of the French had been extremely slow, owing to the
+bickerings of the Duke and Vendôme; but they were collected upon the
+Scheldt near Gaveren; and they ought to have made the Allies rue an
+audacious attempt to cross the river. The divided chiefs, however, sent
+forward only a weak detachment to dispute the passage. This was cut
+to pieces after a short struggle; and Marlborough and his colleague
+bridged the Scheldt under the beard, so to speak, of the ill-directed
+enemy. The hostile armies met, on the 11th of July, in a region of
+plain and forest outside Oudenarde. Each was probably about 70,000
+strong; and the fortunes of France were once more marred by timidity
+and divided counsels. Marlborough had gained ground on the French
+right, when Vendôme wished to attack from his left, but the Duke of
+Burgundy had resolved to fall back; and though the retreat began in
+good order, the French troops, hard pressed and wretchedly led, broke
+up by degrees in ignominious flight. The defeated army was unable to
+rally until it had found a refuge near Ghent; and Marlborough and
+Eugene, pressing boldly forward, overran the country between the Lys
+and the Scheldt, and sate down before the vast stronghold of Lille.
+I cannot dwell on the great siege that followed, the most remarkable
+of the whole contest. Lille was a place of extraordinary strength. It
+was defended by Boufflers with a large garrison; it was surrounded by
+neighbouring friendly fortresses, and it had the support of the army
+that had fought at Oudenarde, and of another army of relief which,
+under Berwick, had followed the steps of Eugene from the Moselle. To
+capture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> such a stronghold appeared impossible—Vendôme ridiculed the
+very notion, and yet Marlborough and Eugene accomplished the task,
+though Boufflers made an heroic resistance. This undoubtedly was in
+a great measure due to the ability and daring of the allied chiefs.
+Eugene clung to the fortress with tenacious constancy, and Marlborough
+gave proof of extraordinary resource in covering the siege and in
+maintaining his communications open through all kinds of obstacles. Yet
+Lille would probably not have fallen but for the animosities of the
+French commanders. Vendôme openly quarrelled with the Duke of Burgundy,
+and Berwick sullenly stood aloof from both; and the two armies of
+relief did almost nothing. The moral power, too, of the French soldiery
+was fatally injured by these disputes and failures; and when Lille
+fell, the war seemed about to close in a triumphant march of the Allies
+on Paris.</p>
+
+<p>At this crisis, indeed, the condition of France was such as might
+have made even men like Richelieu and Turenne begin to despair. The
+convulsive effort of 1707 had failed; the Allies were on the verge of
+Artois; and the Monarchy in decline, and the exhausted nation seemed
+unable to confront the mass of their enemies. Yet Louis XIV. did not
+lose heart; he refused the insolent proposals of the Dutch to take up
+arms against his own grandson, and he appealed, not in vain, to an
+heroic people. Recruits flocked in thousands to defend the lilies;
+the misery, in truth, and the prostration of France, increased the
+numbers that joined her armies; but everything that constitutes
+organized force—supplies, depôts, and magazines, were wanting. The
+King, however, throwing prejudice aside, at last confided the army
+on his northern frontier to the one commander who had never failed
+in the calamitous war of the Spanish Succession. History and gossip
+have alike been unjust to Villars; he was ridiculed in England and
+hated at Versailles, but he was a general of extraordinary powers,
+for he combined almost in the highest degree the great faculties of
+Turenne and Condé. Yet when Villars, in the spring of 1709, assumed the
+command of his master’s army, he was almost appalled at the prospect
+before him; he was at the head of perhaps 100,000 men, but he was so
+ill supplied that he could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> make no movement. It is on occasions like
+these that French soldiers, when ably directed, show at their best.
+Villars in a few weeks had obtained the means of operating with some
+hope of success, and he had breathed into his troops that extreme
+self-confidence which was one of his most distinctive qualities. By the
+early summer he was in positions of formidable strength, in the space
+between the heads of the Lys and the Scheldt, and covering the low
+ranges overlooking Artois; and he had protected himself with defensive
+lines that extended almost from the feeders of the Scheldt to the sea.
+Marlborough and Eugene were now at the head of from 110,000 to 120,000
+men, and Marlborough, with true strategic insight, proposed to turn
+the French lines by the coast, combining the attack with a descent on
+Boulogne, supported by British troops and a fleet, and then, passing
+the Somme and masking its fortresses, to press forward boldly to the
+capital of France. This was a recurrence to the “great design” of
+1703, and worthy of a chief of supreme genius; and it is an additional
+proof that Marlborough perceived, with perfect clearness, the immense
+importance to an English army of the command of the sea. The Dutch
+deputies, however, refused to sanction a movement they doubtless could
+not understand; and Eugene, I believe, agreed with them, for, as we
+shall see, he had formed a plan of quite a different kind to invade
+France. The Allies had now “to take the bull by the horns,” and to
+enter France through the network of fortresses, of rivers, canals,
+and intricate woodland, which still covers her northern frontier; and
+issuing from Lille in great strength, they proceeded to invest the
+stronghold of Tournay, in order to secure and widen their base. The
+place fell after a weak resistance, and Marlborough and Eugene now
+turned against Mons, still pursuing the same methodical warfare, and
+hoping to master the line of the Sambre. This was too much for Villars,
+who would have been placed in extreme difficulty had the Allies gained
+the heads of the Sambre without a contest. He issued from his lines
+in the first week of September, and by the 10th he had taken a strong
+position in a wide opening between two masses of woodland, not far from
+the beleaguered fortress, which overlook the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> heathy plain and the
+hamlet of Malplaquet, ever since a great name. He fortified ground,
+naturally perilous to attack, with all the resources of the art of the
+engineer; and he boldly awaited the advance of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The allied chiefs had meant to attack Villars before he had made these
+formidable lines; but, as usual, they were crossed by the deputies
+of the States, and the result proved how disastrous had been their
+meddling. In the early dawn of the 11th of September, Marlborough and
+Eugene put their army in motion, and the French army was soon descried
+holding a position which has been aptly described as “an infernal
+gulf surrounded by fire.” The French right and left were respectively
+covered by the woods of Lanière and of Taisnière, which crescent-like
+converged towards each other; the wood of Sart spread beyond that of
+Taisnière; and the French centre holding the space between, in the
+opening that leads to the plain of Malplaquet, was massed behind a
+triple line of entrenchments, with apertures to allow the free use of
+cavalry. The position, in short, was of extraordinary strength, and it
+was held by troops who, under the spell of Villars, ably seconded by
+the gallant Boufflers, who had volunteered to assist his colleague,
+were animated by heroic ardour. Yet Marlborough and Eugene did not
+hesitate; and they marshalled their forces for the most desperate and
+best contested struggle of the war, in which princely soldiers from
+all the lands of Europe took part, like knights in a tournament to
+the death. The numbers on each side were not far from equal,<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> the
+Allies having a slight advantage—about 100,000 to 90,000 men; but,
+prodigiously strong as its position was, the French army, crowded with
+rude levies, could not be compared as an efficient force with the
+victorious legions of many campaigns, and the allied chiefs possibly
+trusted too much to an inferiority repeatedly proved.</p>
+
+<p>The plan of Eugene and Marlborough seems to have been to turn the
+French left and to force the left centre, making only a secondary
+effort against the right; and Eugene, after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> a prolonged contest,
+fairly expelled the enemy from the wood of Sart. The Prince, supported
+by Marlborough in force, now advanced upon the wood of Taisnière, and
+a murderous struggle kept fortune in suspense, until Villars, drawing
+a body of troops from his centre, drove back Eugene in a furious
+onslaught, conspicuous for the valour of the Irish exiles,<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> “ever and
+everywhere, true” to the Bourbon lilies. The situation of the Allies
+was now critical, when a wound deprived the French of the genius of
+their chief; and as the detachment made by Villars had weakened their
+line to a considerable extent—he was hurrying to the endangered
+point when he fell—Marlborough, seizing the occasion with his
+wonted judgment, made a tremendous attack on the enemy’s centre. The
+first range of entrenchments was ere long carried, but the obstacles
+presented by the lines behind, and the heroism of the defence, kept the
+issue doubtful. A magnificent effort made by the household troops of
+France for a time forced the assailants back; and even when the inner
+entrenchments were won the French centre prolonged the still undecided
+battle. Meanwhile the false attack on the French right had been turned
+into an attack in full force. The Prince of Orange, carried away by
+excitement, advanced along the wood of Lanière, and tried to storm the
+hostile entrenchments in front, and his troops were literally mown
+down in thousands by enemies who suffered little loss. The battle was
+raging until 3 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, when a flank movement, most skilfully
+made by Eugene, outside the verge of the wood of Taisnière, began to
+endanger the French left, and threatened the only line of retreat; and
+this caused Boufflers, now in supreme command, to draw gradually off
+from the scene of carnage. The Allies, utterly worn out, and cruelly
+stricken, made no attempt to molest the enemy, and the French fell back
+a few miles only, in perfect order, and not the least disheartened.
+Villars, it is said, exclaimed from his litter, that “he expected his
+army to fight again, as soon as it had had a moment of repose.”</p>
+
+<p>Marlborough and Eugene won this terrible battle, the greatest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> by far
+of the eighteenth century, in what may be called a military sense;
+for the French army retired from the field, and Mons fell a few weeks
+afterwards. But it was not an inconsiderate boast of Villars that
+Malplaquet was truly a Pyrrhic victory; the Allies lost fully 20,000
+men, the French probably not half that number; the Dutch contingent
+never recovered from the fight; and the frightful slaughter of the
+allied soldiery provoked angry discontent in England, and sent a thrill
+of alarm through the enemies of France. Eugene and Marlborough, in the
+actual battle, displayed as usual their great powers; but the whole
+enterprise was, perhaps, too hazardous; and if, as has been alleged,
+Marlborough chose to fight in order to keep up the war party at home,
+he was justly punished for an unprincipled act, for Malplaquet shook
+the Grand Alliance to its base. Villars showed admirable skill in
+choosing his ground, and strengthening a naturally strong position,
+and in arranging his troops upon it; he, too, was a master of the new
+tactics, and he would not improbably have repulsed his foes had he not
+been disabled at a critical moment. As it is, Malplaquet does him the
+highest honour; it is a proof of his extraordinary gifts, that, with an
+army inferior in every respect, he should have inflicted losses on the
+allied army at least twofold greater than that of his own, and that he
+successfully stemmed the tide of misfortune which had for years set in
+against France.</p>
+
+<p>I shall merely refer to the two campaigns of 1710 and 1711, for
+Marlborough is not their real hero, and his great qualities, though
+seen in them, do not appear in their accustomed splendour, owing to
+adverse circumstances which combined against him. He was supported
+by Eugene in the first of these years; and the allied chiefs, in the
+absence of Villars, forced the lines he had made the year before, and
+invested and took the place of Douay, on the second line of the French
+fortresses of the north. Villars, however, though still suffering from
+his wound, was in command by the end of May, and he constructed a new
+great defensive barrier, extending from the Scarpe to the neighbourhood
+of Boulogne, and adding enormously to the many obstacles of a region
+already protected by nature and art. The Allies reached<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> the lines,
+and Eugene, as was his wont, for a daring exploit, gave his voice
+for an attack in force; but the Dutch, remembering Malplaquet, held
+back; Marlborough, it is believed, agreed with them, and the two great
+captains had to content themselves with taking Bethune, St. Vénant,
+and Aire, little places around the head of the Lys, which cost them
+thousands of their best soldiers. Villars, meanwhile, showed little
+sign of life; but he kept on extending his lines until they formed an
+immense position of defence, spreading from the coast to the heads of
+the Sambre; and he boasted, not, we shall see, in vain, that the enemy
+should advance no further. In 1711 Marlborough had not Eugene with him,
+but he was at the head of a very large army; and the campaign was spent
+in a game of manœuvres, in which Villars and he were fairly matched.
+The Englishman succeeded at last in forcing the lines, which were too
+long to be covered at all points; but the capture of the insignificant
+place of Bouchain was the only prize of immense efforts; and though
+the wits of Versailles and St. James’s cried scorn at the <i>ne plus
+ultra</i> of Villars, that great chief had really attained his object,
+and had successfully shielded the French frontier. These campaigns,
+in fact, have been misdescribed by English partisans in Marlborough’s
+interest. The true victor was, beyond dispute, Villars; he had
+compelled the Allies to waste their strength in sieges, which simply
+had no results; he had proved himself to be a master in defence, as
+remarkable as he had been in attack; and, combining genius in politics
+and war, he had gained for France what she needed, time to dissolve the
+Grand Alliance already weakened. It would be unfair, however, to say
+that Marlborough was wanting to himself in this contest; as a military
+exploit, his forcing the lines of Villars was an admirable feat; but,
+in truth, he was circumscribed and baffled by the turn which affairs
+had for some time been taking in England and upon the Continent. He
+had for years been almost supreme in England, and had had full control
+over her resources for war; but Sarah Jennings and Anne Stuart had
+quarrelled; Mrs. Masham had crept to the ear of the Queen; Malplaquet
+had aroused a storm in England; the Ministers in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> power sought means
+to destroy him; he received no real support from the Whigs; and he had
+become the object of grave charges, partly the clamours of faction,
+but, in part, well founded. On the other hand, France had triumphed in
+Spain; the success of Villars had saved her in the north; the Dutch and
+the English had had enough of war; and the Grand Alliance was being
+broken up largely owing to the rapacity of the House of Austria. In
+1710 and 1711, Marlborough had no scope for his commanding genius; he
+was no longer able to make great efforts; he knew that his splendid
+career was drawing to a close.</p>
+
+<p>Before the beginning of 1712, Marlborough had been deprived of all his
+military commands, dismissed from office amidst shouts of obloquy, and
+threatened with impeachment for crimes against the State. He was not
+brought to a public trial; and some of the accusations heaped upon
+him were certainly false, and now seem ridiculous. But he wisely left
+England with his disgraced wife; and though he was not convicted of
+malversation and fraud, the unscrupulous ambition and avaricious greed
+which were perhaps his most distinctive vices were dragged into light
+by a great deal of evidence. It is remarkable, too, though no commander
+has ever been more beloved by his troops, that he was distrusted
+by some of his best officers; and if his treason at Brest remained
+unknown, he was disliked and suspected by both Whigs and Tories.</p>
+
+<p>The value, however, of his genius in war, was conspicuously proved, in
+an indirect way, in the memorable campaign of 1712. England had now
+withdrawn from the Grand Alliance, but the Emperor still maintained
+the struggle; and Eugene, who hated Louis XIV., and had confirmed his
+master in his warlike purpose, was placed at the head of a great army
+intended to invade and to subdue France. He was now in possession of
+most of the fortresses which cover the northern French frontier, and
+his position was so formidable that Louis XIV., when he gave Villars
+once more the army of the North, and bade the warrior farewell at
+Versailles, exclaimed that, should fortune prove adverse, “the King
+and the Marshal would perish together.” The plan of Eugene, his base
+now secure, was to capture the strongholds near the heads of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
+Oise, and then marching down the open valley of the stream, the path
+followed for ages by the House of Austria and its generals in assailing
+France, to pass by the fortified lines of the Somme, and to finish the
+war by an advance on the capital. He sate down to invest Landrecies,
+now almost the only obstacle in his way, and his army was so confident
+in itself and its chief that it called its lines “the approaches to
+Paris.” This resembled, in some respects, the daring march on Turin in
+1706; but Eugene had made a strategic mistake; arguing from what he
+thought was the timid attitude of Villars, in the campaign of 1710,
+he believed that the Marshal would never attack, and he spread his
+army, in ill-connected posts, from Landrecies to near Marchiennes on
+the frontier, leaving a detachment to guard a weak point at Denain.
+The Prince had to deal with a different foe from the chiefs he had
+routed in 1706; his adversary was a man of genius, full of resource
+and thought, in execution admirable. Villars by this time was in his
+lines near Cambray; he quickly detected Eugene’s error, and he took
+advantage of it with consummate skill. Breaking up from his camps, he
+made a forced march as though he was trying to relieve Landrecies; he
+ostentatiously gave out that this was his purpose, and then, screening
+the movement with perfect art, and counter-marching with extreme
+rapidity, he fell in full force on the communications of his foe, and
+attacked Denain in largely superior numbers. The results of this fine
+strategy were almost marvellous; the detachment guarding Denain was
+destroyed; a large body of troops, hurried up by Eugene to join in the
+defence, was utterly routed, and the whole army of invasion, smitten in
+the flank, and losing its communications, was compelled to retreat, and
+to fall back, baffled, behind the frontier. Villars made the very most
+of this splendid success; the siege of Landrecies was instantly raised;
+the French fortresses, which had been the prizes of many campaigns,
+were soon retaken, and the standards of France were ere long seen
+waving in triumph along the course of the Sambre. France was finally
+saved by this grand feat of arms, and before a year had passed, Villars
+was in the heart of Germany, had driven Eugene beyond the Rhine, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
+had compelled the Emperor to sue for peace. France had never such an
+awakening again until, rescuing her from defeat and anarchy, Napoleon
+won the great fight of Marengo.</p>
+
+<p>In the Revolution which followed the death of Queen Anne, Marlborough
+was placed again in command of the army; but he was disliked by George
+I. and his ministers; and it is significant that he never regained
+anything like his old authority in the State. The last years of
+his life were somewhat obscure; he gradually survived his splendid
+faculties, and he died, little regretted, in 1722. I cannot notice his
+diplomatic career; enough to say that he was the master spirit of the
+Grand Alliance during many years; he kept its ill-connected structure
+together, and three-fourths of the Princes of Christendom inclined
+before the genius of an English subject. As a statesman, Marlborough
+was less successful; he misinterpreted the spirit of the time during
+the later years of the great war he directed; but his errors and fall
+were largely due to the faults and the temper of his imperious wife,
+whom he loved with a fondness not unmixed with terror. A word as to
+his achievements in the noble art of which he was one of the greatest
+masters. Marlborough was endowed with the choicest gifts of a warrior;
+it was his special characteristic that daring, constancy, imagination,
+and prudence were blended in him in proportions of the happiest kind;
+and it is a peculiarity of his career that he attained supreme command,
+for the first time, at a period of life when most great captains have
+done their work, and that he was never defeated in a pitched battle.
+It has been said that he had little strategic genius; but a study of
+his campaigns confutes this error; he was capable of great combinations
+in war; and if, as a strategist, he accomplished less than other
+commanders of the first order, this is partly to be ascribed to the
+contracted theatre which usually was the scene of his exploits, and
+partly to the interference of the Dutch and their deputies, and to the
+jealousies and discords of a divided League. Two strategic gifts he
+certainly possessed in a measure accorded to few commanders; he always
+perceived the weak point of an enemy on a field of manœuvre as well as
+of battle, and he was pre-eminent in making the most of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> success, and
+in drawing decisive results from victory. In pure strategy, however, he
+was, I think, inferior in originality to Turenne, and he achieved less
+than Villars and Eugene, two great names in this sphere of the art;
+but as a strategist he is second alone to those illustrious chiefs of
+his era; and he contributed largely to the grand revival of strategy,
+after a season of decline, which was seen in the War of the Spanish
+Succession. We must go to the field of battle to behold the genius of
+Marlborough in its highest perfection. He may have been equalled as a
+tactician, but he has never been surpassed; his judgment in placing an
+army on the ground and in detecting the vulnerable points of an enemy;
+his constancy in pressing an attack home at the spot where success
+would be most complete, and his wonderful resource and calmness in
+peril, were unrivalled among the men of his time; and neither Eugene
+nor Villars can show a Ramillies, a masterpiece of purely tactical
+skill. For the rest, Marlborough was a great leader of men, like all
+generals of the first order; and “Corporal John” was as adored by his
+troops as was the “Little Corporal” of another age. It is melancholy
+to observe that deep scars of guilt mar the beauty of this magnificent
+figure; and that we must see in it the dimmed brightness and the ruined
+glory of the fallen archangel, as well as his majesty and commanding
+power. Every allowance ought in justice to be made for Marlborough;
+his crimes were those of a revolutionary age; and few of the leading
+Englishmen of his day were free from the stain of disloyal, bad faith;
+but the treason of Brest was a foul deed of wickedness. A singular vein
+of baseness and meanness ran through, like alloy, this grand nature;
+and whatever excuses may be made for him, there are “damned spots” upon
+Marlborough’s fame.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_088.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Frederick the Great.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>Frederick II. of Prussia, known as the Great, was born in 1712. The
+associations of his boyhood and early youth were ill fitted to bring
+out the qualities of a nature which, with many defects, was essentially
+that of a soldier and statesman. His father, Frederick William, had
+some parts which entitle him to a place among able rulers; but, even
+as a king, he was a harsh tyrant, and in his private life and social
+relations he was scarcely better than a coarse-minded savage. History
+has fully dwelt on his strange acts and habits; how, with ministers
+mere submissive satellites, he governed his kingdom with a rod of iron;
+how he sate, in what was called his Tobacco Parliament, directing the
+affairs of a growing state according to his despotic fancies; how he
+reduced his household to the level of lackeys, caned nobles, ladies,
+and domestics alike, and was wont to storm against them with oaths and
+curses; how, in order to enlarge an overgrown army, he turned Prussia
+into an immense barrack; and how he exaggerated in his treatment of
+his wife and family the barbarities he inflicted on his terrified
+subjects. That a lad, gifted with fine intelligence, who had a strong
+will and a genuine sympathy with Letters, Art, and the pursuits of
+Science, should, as he grew up, regard with disgust this system of
+cruel and grotesque oppression, and should fiercely resent the inhuman
+discipline to which he was himself subjected, was only natural and to
+be expected; and Frederick and his father seem to have hated each other
+during<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> several years with a cordial hate. It is unnecessary to dwell
+on this dreary episode in the life of the great future sovereign; the
+Crown Prince was beaten, half starved, and drilled into obedience, with
+a severity that became a byeword; he was forbidden books and liberal
+studies; and having sought refuge in flight from these unnatural
+wrongs, he was thrown into prison, condemned to death, and perhaps only
+escaped a malefactor’s fate through the intercession of the Imperial
+Head of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>In the revulsion of feeling caused by this tyranny, Frederick drew
+more and more away from the King, his methods of ruling, his ways,
+and his habits; and when the advent of manhood set him partly free,
+he surrounded himself with youthful friends of a somewhat wild and
+licentious turn, indulged freely in the pleasures of his age, and led
+a life which was a tacit protest against the meanness, the rudeness
+and the barbarism of the Court. His leisure hours, however, were not
+wasted; he read a great deal, and to real profit; he attracted several
+French men of letters to the country house where he passed his time,
+and, amongst others, made the acquaintance of Voltaire; and though he
+dabbled in a poetaster’s calling, he wrote books which give proof of a
+keen intellect, not original, but receptive and powerful. He was looked
+upon, in those days, as a wit and a philosopher of the Parisian type;
+but this was a superficial judgment, due to the accident of his life
+of restraints, and the genuine character of the man was completely
+different. Frederick had far more in common with his half brutish
+father than, probably, he was himself aware. His instincts were for
+despotic power; he had, at bottom, the Prussian military taste; and he
+sympathized with the display of authority in all departments of the
+State and of Government, and even in the relations of private life,
+though not exactly after the paternal fashion. As years advanced,
+too, and his mind developed, he became alive to the real merits,
+marred as they were by extravagant faults, of the old King’s system of
+administration and rule. Prussia, a weak state in the midst of great
+monarchies, required a large defensive force, and the Prussian army had
+been made the best in Europe; Prussia needed an increase of national
+strength, and during the reign of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> Frederick William her population had
+multiplied and she had grown fast in wealth. The Crown Prince and his
+father became reconciled; and though, to outward seeming, they were
+perfect contrasts, they drew towards each other in feeling and thought,
+and were practically agreed on the national policy. Frederick went to
+the wars to please his father, and served with some distinction in the
+last campaign of Eugene, in 1734. Soon after this the King committed
+a charge to his heir which was, in after years, to become a cause of
+great events in Europe. The House of Hohenzollern conceived that it had
+an old claim on the rich lands of Silesia, for centuries a province of
+the Austrian Monarchy; and Frederick William had often insisted that he
+had been cheated out of his legitimate rights. Almost in his last days
+he entreated his son and coming successor to vindicate those rights, in
+language of passionate wrath and earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>The old King passed away in 1740; and the first act of the Prince, like
+our Henry V., was to get rid of the Falstaffs and Poinses who had been
+the former companions of his youth, though he retained his literary
+friends and tastes, and, indeed, held to them during an eventful life.
+His second act was to raise the Prussian army, which, in the days of
+the Great Elector, had never exceeded 40,000 men—and which had seemed
+of portentous numbers when made 80,000 strong by his late father—to
+fully 100,000 effective troops, a military force out of all proportion
+to what was only a third-rate kingdom. Within a few months, he had
+taken advantage of the bereavement and weakness of Maria Theresa; had
+laid claim to the whole of Silesia, and had overrun the province with
+thousands of soldiers before the young Archduchess could even attempt
+resistance. It was a rapacious and an ignoble act; but, to do him
+justice, Frederick was no hypocrite; he did not pretend that he was
+carrying out the injunctions of a revered parent, and he has cynically
+avowed that his ruling motives were greedy ambition and the desire of
+fame. It is idle, too, as Macaulay has done, to lay to his charge the
+whole guilt of the terrible and world-wide contest that followed; the
+simple truth is that all the Powers of Europe, tired of a long peace
+and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> restored in strength, were eager for acquisitions and conquests.
+France especially sought to regain her influence in Germany, and to
+weaken her old foe, Austria; and Frederick was not much worse than his
+crowned fellows.</p>
+
+<p>I must glance at the condition of the military art when Frederick made
+his first essays in it. There had been little wars and rumours of
+wars since the great settlement of the Peace of Utrecht, and Austria
+had overcome the hosts of Islam, but Europe had generally enjoyed
+repose during the long period of twenty-five years, and there had been
+nothing resembling the mighty conflicts which had marked the protracted
+reign of Louis XIV. No occasion, therefore, had presented itself for
+an exhibition of strategy like that of Turenne, or of tactics like
+those of Blenheim and Ramillies; and the chiefs of the last great war
+had died—Marlborough, unlamented, in his rest at Blenheim; Eugene,
+Villars, and Berwick, covered with honours, and followed to the grave
+by national mourning. The armies, too, of the great military Powers
+had been out of joint, and had lost experience and efficiency during
+prolonged inaction; that of Austria, despite the warnings of Eugene,
+had been neglected and allowed to decline; the British army had almost
+gone to pieces, and that of France, though formidable in numbers and
+renown, too faithfully represented the feebleness of the State, and the
+vices of the Regency and of Louis XV. Yet if the art of war seemed thus
+in eclipse, the theory of war, as usually happens in periods of rest,
+had had careful students; the elements of military power had grown in
+Europe, and the facilities to make war on a large scale had been to
+a certain extent augmented. Saxe, about this time, had done a good
+deal in simplifying and quickening manœuvres in reviews; Montalembert,
+struck by the immense advantage secured to the attack by Vauban’s
+methods, had begun to think of transforming fortresses, and experience
+of the bayonet had caused the numbers of the infantry in every army
+to be considerably increased, and had made infantry formations more
+light and flexible. The general growth of population, too, had made the
+available resources of war greater; the progress of husbandry and the
+development of roads had enlarged the possible scope of strategy; and
+the spirit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> of the age, more humane and civilized, was opposed to the
+devastation and waste practised in the wars of the seventeenth century,
+and even to such expedients as great defensive lines, which necessarily
+injured whole tracts of country. The art, therefore, though it had
+recently had no grand illustration, was in a state in which progress
+was at least possible; and a European struggle, there was reason to
+believe, might bring into the field armies more numerous and more
+easily moved than ever had been the case formerly. The most striking
+military fact of the time remains, however, to be yet noticed. While
+all other armies had relatively declined, that of Prussia had, I have
+said, grown to dimensions amazing for so small a State, and her army of
+100,000 men was, even in mere numbers, in 1741, considerably greater
+than that of Austria, and only less, by a third, than that of France.
+Nor were mere numbers anything like a test of the real military power
+of the Prussian army. Frederick William’s mania for big Grenadiers and
+for giant Guards may appear ridiculous; but the King had doubled the
+strength of the force which he deemed necessary to protect the State;
+and his army had become, in his hands, the hardest and best fashioned
+instrument of war which, hitherto, had been formed in Europe. The
+subject of his incessant care, it had been drilled, disciplined, and
+trained in manœuvres by officers of experience and skill, brought up
+in the great school of Marlborough and Eugene; and its infantry, in
+particular, had acquired a precision and celerity of movement, and an
+efficacy of fire—this last partly due to the iron ramrod, then used by
+the Prussian soldier alone—which no army in Europe could even nearly
+equal. An Achilles only was required to prove this mighty weapon of
+unrivalled temper.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to examine the policy of Frederick, in the war of
+the Succession of Austria. He wrested Silesia from the Empress-Queen,
+and by alternately taking the side of France and of Austria, and
+throwing his weighty sword into the scales of Power, the young ruler of
+a petty monarchy became the arbiter of two-thirds of the Continent. It
+is indisputable that he had no scruples, and that he often broke faith
+in this game of ambition;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> but he gave proof of no common statecraft,
+of precocious dexterity, and of great strength of purpose; and he has
+some right to plead at the Bar of History that, with the exception of
+Maria Theresa, he dealt with Kings and Ministers as false as himself.
+His kinsman, George II., was not unwilling to see Prussia effaced
+from the map of Europe, and he was treated by Louis XV. as a mere
+pawn of France, to be used and sacrificed to promote her objects. Nor
+shall I dwell at length on the first attempts of Frederick to conduct
+campaigns and to direct armies. He had not great original genius in
+war, or in any department of human activity, but his intellect was
+vivid, penetrating, strong; he was observant, and quick in seizing
+ideas, and he devoted himself with such steadfast patience to every
+pursuit undertaken by him that he ultimately became a proficient in
+it. These faculties made him the first soldier of an age deficient in
+great commanders; but his progress as a warrior was slow and uncertain;
+and, indeed, his triumphs, even to the last, were rather due, I think,
+to the force of his character, and the superiority of his disciplined
+army, than to pre-eminent excellence in the military art.</p>
+
+<p>The first campaigns of Frederick scarcely require the careful attention
+of the student of war. He occasionally showed a happy conception,
+and, as was always his wont, he was prompt and vigorous in taking the
+initiative and in striking his foe. But he was out-generalled in more
+than one instance; and in the campaign of 1744 he narrowly escaped
+ruin at the hands of Traun, though it is but fair to observe that
+this was largely caused by the incapacity and tardiness of his French
+allies. The battles of Frederick during these years—and this is true,
+indeed, as to his whole career—deserve more notice than his general
+movements; and they have this special interest, that they attest the
+advance he made by degrees in tactics, and the admirable qualities of
+the army he led. His attack at Mollwitz cannot be justified, for the
+Austrians held his line of retreat, and defeat, which was probable,
+would have been destruction. As has often been pointed out, he made
+no attempt to turn to account the manœuvring power of his troops; but
+though he was driven from the field with his horsemen, the terrible
+fire and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> unflinching constancy of his infantry gave him victory
+at last. At Chotusitz we, perhaps, see the first example of that
+insight on the ground which became one of his distinctive merits,
+inferior as he always remained, I think, in this important respect to
+Marlborough. He charged with his right wing at a critical moment, and
+the movement possibly assured his success, though the result of the
+battle was mainly due, beyond question, to his tenacious soldiery.
+In the operations that led to Hohenfriedberg he displayed no little
+resource and skill; he lured the Austrians on to make an attack in
+which the chances were in his favour; and though he committed a mistake
+in disposing his troops, which the victor of Ramillies would have,
+perhaps, made fatal—he left a wide gap in an ill-arranged line—still
+the Austrians did not seize the occasion, and their incoherent and
+partial efforts were easily defeated by his well-directed movements. It
+was at Sohr, however, that we see the first instance of the favourite
+manœuvre employed by Frederick, which, taking advantage as it did of
+the peculiar excellences of his formidable and highly-trained army,
+became the means of giving him many a victory, though occasionally
+he abused it, with disastrous results. By this time it had become
+evident that his troops infinitely surpassed the sluggish Austrians in
+rapidity and precision of movement; and like all soldiers, he was, of
+course, aware that could he attain and turn an enemy’s flank without
+endangering his own position, he would necessarily gain an immense
+advantage. At Sohr, accordingly, availing himself of the “mobility”
+and marching power of his army, Frederick turned the Austrian flank
+with one of his wings, throwing the other back, and only bringing it
+up when the turning movement had proved successful; and the battle was
+won by these agile tactics. This manœuvre, repeated on many fields,
+was the celebrated “attack in oblique order,” ever associated with the
+name of the King, and the theme of a great deal of foolish writing;
+it has proved successful or unsuccessful as it has been rightly or
+wrongly adopted; and the first condition of its success, it will be
+perceived, is the possession of an army more active than its foe,
+better disciplined, and more exact in its movements.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
+
+<p>Prussia was at peace during the ten years that followed the first great
+defeat of Maria Theresa. Frederick had reached the prime of vigorous
+manhood, and a word must be said on the character of his rule, and
+on the tenor and pursuits of his life. His system of government bore
+a strong resemblance to that of his eccentric father, but with this
+difference—that mere arbitrary power was tempered by clear-sighted
+intelligence, and often had enlightened, if ambitious, objects. He
+was a severe, a meddling, and a pitiless despot; but he checked the
+abuses of feudal nobles, protected the rights of the middle classes
+and the poor, enforced toleration in a still bigoted age, as a rule
+respected justice and law, and, on the whole, had regard to the
+national interests. The worst features of his <i>régime</i> were that
+he carried the rigid methods of the camp into the free relations of
+social life, and that he tried to regulate commerce and agriculture
+according to crude ideas of his own; but if he checked the natural
+expansion of the State, and if his monopolies and laws of trade did
+great mischief, and were often failures, still his absolutism was,
+in the main, beneficent. Prussia was better governed under his stern
+discipline than any one of the Great Powers of the Continent; the
+nation made astonishing progress, and the conquest of Silesia proved
+a blessing to a people which always detested the Hapsburgs. As for
+Frederick himself, he was the most industrious and hard-working Head
+of a State ever seen, and yet he found time for music and art, and for
+the society of the best men of letters; and though his quarrel with
+Voltaire and the jokes and sarcasms he indulged in at the expense of
+his guests showed that he could be a tyrant even in his hours of ease,
+he was far the most accomplished Sovereign of his time. As may be
+supposed, however, the King devoted his chief attention to the care of
+his army, and everything, in fact, was subordinated to it. He does not
+appear to have loved war, but he knew that enemies hemmed him round;
+he resolved to hold a high place among the leading Powers, and he left
+nothing undone to bring to perfection the great military instrument he
+had already proved. The army, growing with the growth of the people,
+and recruited from the lately-annexed province, was increased from
+100,000 to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> 160,000 men, and it increased in efficiency even more than
+in numbers. The Prussian cavalry had not been equal to that of Austria
+in the Silesian war; it was fashioned into a most admirable arm; and
+it is probable, indeed, that no cavalry has surpassed the squadrons
+of the renowned Seidlitz. As for artillery, the beginning of horse
+artillery—a revolution in the arm—may be traced to this time; and
+while the drill and discipline of the famous Prussian infantry were
+continued and even largely improved, every effort was made to render
+its fire more formidable than it had been before, and to cause its
+evolutions to be more exact and rapid. Frederick’s army, in fact,
+trained to march, to change front, to wheel into line, to gather to a
+flank, to throw masses of horsemen on a selected point, and, besides,
+to turn its weapons to the best account, and all this with amazing
+precision and quickness, was, compared to other continental armies,
+like a practised athlete to a thick-winded clown; and though it was
+organized still in battalions and squadrons—for corps and divisions
+came afterwards—its power, “its mobility,” its capacity for war, would
+be deemed wonderful even in our day.</p>
+
+<p>In 1755–6 the occasion came to test again the value of this mighty
+force. The Empress-Queen had never forgotten Silesia; she thirsted for
+revenge on one she deemed a robber; and she had succeeded at last in
+combining a League of the Great Powers against the Prussian upstart,
+who had exasperated the harlot who reigned at Versailles, and the
+adulteress supreme in the Muscovite Empire, by his poignant jests on
+their notorious vices. France, Austria, and Russia agreed to divide
+the spoils of conquered Prussia among themselves; Sweden and the
+small German States sought a share of the prey; and it was believed
+throughout Europe that the Prussian Monarchy, before a year had closed,
+would be a thing of the past. Frederick saw clearly the extent of his
+peril, but he saw, too, that he had one chance; the armies of the
+League were comparatively weak, and, what was more important, were
+wholly unprepared; he could move his great army at a moment’s notice,
+and he seized the occasion with characteristic energy. Taking the
+initiative fearlessly, he struck at once, and in the spring of 1756 his
+trained legions had <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>entered the plains of Saxony, and were pouring
+through the gaps in the Bohemian hills.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_076fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_076fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre of the<br>
+SEVEN YEARS WAR</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The great War of the Seven Years had begun; and, as regards the
+military operations of the King, it presents three distinct and well
+marked phases. France and Russia sent no forces into the field against
+Prussia in 1756, and Frederick had to cope with Saxony and Austria
+only, whose united armies were no match for his own. He seized Dresden
+with an overwhelming force; shut the Saxons up in the entrenched camp
+of Pirna; and invaded Bohemia in two great masses, the first, under his
+own command, moving up the Elbe, the second led by Schwerin, a most
+distinguished veteran, advancing from Silesia, at a great distance,
+and with the mountains between, by the Pass of Nachod. The Austrian
+army, inferior in force, on the theatre, probably 60,000 to 90,000
+men, was also divided into two parts; Piccolomini, a descendant of a
+well-known chief of the Thirty Years’ War, held Schwerin in check with
+a comparatively small detachment of troops; Browne, with the principal
+army, confronted Frederick; and an indecisive battle was fought at
+Lobositz, on the banks of the Elbe, in which the contending armies seem
+to have been not far from equal in numbers. The campaign terminated
+to the advantage of Prussia; Browne failed to disengage the Saxons
+at Pirna; their army, surrounded, laid down its arms; and Frederick
+incorporated the men with his own troops, for Germans were usually
+ready to enter his service. The success was unexpected, and even great;
+yet, as Napoleon has justly remarked, Frederick might certainly have
+done more. Schwerin was paralysed by an insignificant force; the King
+at Lobositz was not stronger than Browne; and in these operations, as
+often happened, his bold strategy was very far from perfect.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1757, the most memorable of Frederick’s career, falls
+naturally into two parts; and it deserves the close attention of the
+student of war, for it strikingly illustrates the merits and the
+defects of this renowned, yet sometimes unsafe, commander. France and
+Russia, still unprepared, did simply nothing, until the early summer
+of the year; and Austria, now without Saxon aid, was left isolated for
+months to sustain the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> contest. Frederick was again certainly superior
+in force; he had 100,000 men at least, the best troops in Europe,
+against 90,000 Austrians, to a great extent of indifferent quality;
+and assuming the offensive he once more invaded Bohemia, by the valley
+of the Elbe, Schwerin, as in the preceding year, moving from Silesia,
+again separated from the main army, but at a less distance than in
+1756. By the 1st of May the King had sate down before Prague, having
+advanced by the western bank of the Moldau; and Schwerin was still
+several marches off, with the Elbe and the Moldau between himself and
+Frederick. By this time Charles of Lorraine had taken a position along
+a series of heights not far from Prague, and his purpose was not to
+offer battle until he had been joined by Daun, moving from Moravia with
+about 25,000 men. Frederick, eager to prevent the intended junction,
+bridged the Moldau under the eye of the enemy, leaving a detachment
+upon the western bank; meanwhile Schwerin had passed the Elbe, pressing
+forward to Prague by forced marches; and the two Prussian armies
+had come into line by nightfall upon the 5th of May, the Austrians
+remaining wholly inactive. The King resolved to attack before Daun
+could come up, and by the morning of the 6th his troops were in motion,
+longing and prepared for a decisive struggle. The Austrian army, about
+60,000 strong, held a defensive position along a range of hills sinking
+towards the east into lowlands and marshes divided by rivers and small
+lakes; the left resting on Prague and the Moldau, the centre and right
+extending to the hamlet of Kyge, near where the hills fall into the
+half-flooded plain. Frederick was probably equal to his foe in numbers,
+and judging that the Austrian centre and left could not be forced, he
+decided on turning his adversary’s right, though the movement was one
+of extreme hazard, for it placed his army with its rear towards Daun,
+known to be advancing to assist his colleague. The Prussian army,
+separated by difficult ground from its enemy, marched in oblique order,
+with extraordinary speed and precision; and it had soon fastened on
+the Austrian right, making fierce efforts to outflank and destroy it.
+Lorraine, however, had thrown back this wing; it presented a new front
+to the advancing foes, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>and the attack of the Prussians was greatly
+impeded by the swamps and ponds covering the Austrian line, which made
+it difficult in the extreme to pierce. The battle raged for some hours
+with uncertain fortunes; but the Austrian left and centre continued
+motionless, and did not even attempt a counter attack, although the
+occasion was most promising. A gap was formed in the angle where the
+right of Lorraine had been thrown back from the main body; Frederick
+kept pouring troops against the enemy’s flank, and after prodigious
+efforts, in which the aged Schwerin, a pupil of Marlborough, met a
+soldier’s death, the Austrian right was at last broken, and the whole
+Austrian army lost the position, 12,000 men having been cut off from
+Prague and compelled to seek refuge in the camp of Daun.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_078a">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_078a.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BATTLE OF PRAG</p>
+     <p class="p0 sm center">6<sup>TH</sup> MAY 1787.</p>
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left sm" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li><i>a.a.a. First position of Austrian Army.</i></li>
+  <li><i>b.b.b. Second position to meet the Prussian Attack.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;<i>c.c. Prussians under Kieth.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;<i>d.d. First position of Prussian Army.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;<i>e.e. Second position of Prussian Army.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>f. Schwerin’s Prussians.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>g. Prussian Horse.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>h. Mannstein’s Attack.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>i. Place of Schwerin’s Monument.</i></li>
+</ul>
+</div>  
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_078b">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_078b.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BATTLE OF ZORNDORF</p>
+     <p class="p0 sm center">25<sup>TH</sup> AUGUST, 1788.</p>
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left smaller" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li>&emsp;<i>a.a. Prussian Army about to cross the Mützel.</i></li>
+  <li><i>b.b.b. Prussian Army ranked for Battle.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>c. Russian Baggage.</i></li>
+  <li>&ensp;<i>d.d. Prussian Infantry.</i></li>
+  <li>&ensp;<i>e.e. Prussian Cavalry.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;<i>f. Prussian Baggage.</i></li>
+</ul>
+</div>  
+  </div>
+
+<p>Frederick had shown great tactical skill in this battle, and constancy
+of a high order; he had detected the vulnerable point in his enemy’s
+line, and he never relaxed his efforts until he had gained the day.
+In this instance, too, his favourite movement was justifiable in many
+respects; the Prussians gathered on the Austrian flank, protected by
+difficult ground between, and a counter attack would have been no
+easy matter. Nevertheless, his success was largely due to the immense
+superiority of the army he led. Compared to the sluggish Austrians,
+as has been said, it was “a panther darting upon an ox.” Had Charles
+of Lorraine been a great chief, he would have paralyzed the attack
+by a movement from his left; and had this succeeded, Frederick, not
+improbably, would have been hemmed in between the Prince and Daun.
+In this part of the campaign, as in many cases, the strategy of the
+King was essentially faulty; and had he had to deal with a general
+like Turenne, he would have been baffled, out-manœuvred, and forced
+to retreat without having a chance of fighting a decisive battle.
+The invasion of Bohemia on a double line by the Elbe and Silesia, at
+far distances, seems to have been justified by recent events—any
+other operation is, besides, difficult in the case of an attack from
+Prussia—but the principles of the art do not vary; and, as Napoleon
+has said, this strategy gave the Austrian chiefs an immense advantage.
+Charles of Lorraine, firmly established<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> in Prague, and holding a
+central position between the King and Schwerin, ought to have prevented
+their junction with ease; and had he been anything like a master of
+war he would have marched against each, and beaten both in detail. The
+King, too, committed great mistakes—in bridging the Moldau within
+reach of his enemy; in leaving a detachment on the western bank, when
+he had made up his mind to fight a great battle; and, above all, in
+venturing to place his army exposed on its rear to the army of Daun.
+Had Charles of Lorraine had the gifts of Condé, the Prussian army,
+superior as it was, would have bitterly rued these false movements.</p>
+
+<p>The King, after his victory, besieged Prague; but his sieges were
+scarcely ever successful. He drew no lines round the beleaguered
+fortress, but contented himself with a mere blockade; and it was well
+for him that Charles of Lorraine remained motionless, and made scarcely
+a sally, for, as Napoleon has pointed out, an active enemy would have
+made Frederick pay dear for his rash conduct, a remark which proves
+what would have been the judgment of the Emperor on Bazaine at Metz.
+After six weeks of delay round Prague, the King was obliged to move
+a large part of his army to encounter an approaching army of relief.
+Daun had fallen back after the defeat of his colleague, having rallied
+the 12,000 fugitives of Prague; but ere long he was reinforced, and
+by the second week of June he had reached the Elbe, and was drawing
+near Prague with 50,000 men. Frederick marched to oppose him with an
+army not less probably than 40,000 strong; and on the 18th—a great
+day in war—Daun was discovered holding a strong position, extending
+from near the Elbe at Kolin, along eminences, with an open country in
+front, to the hamlet of Hradschin. The King, elated perhaps by his
+recent victory, resolved to repeat the successful manœuvre of Prague;
+neglecting the Austrian centre and left, he decided on falling on
+Daun’s right, and the Prussians once more marched, in their usual
+fashion, to storm a village and heights that overlook Kolin. Frederick,
+however, seems not to have reconnoitred the ground, and to have held
+his adversary in complete contempt; his left, as it gathered on the
+Austrian flank, had exposed itself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> to a counter-attack, for the field
+allowed this offensive movement; and, besides, the oblique order was
+not properly kept, for his right wing and centre were scarcely thrown
+back, and simply followed the advancing left. The movement, in fact,
+was a flank march, within reach of an enemy able to strike home; and
+the result, as usually happens, was a great disaster. The Prussian left
+was checked by a body of cavalry; Daun crushed the centre and right by
+well-placed batteries; and though he did not cause his army boldly to
+engage, he moved it forward so that his enemy was ravaged by a storm
+of destructive missiles, and ran the gauntlet of deadly musketry. The
+Prussian left, isolated, was at last routed, though it fought with
+courage worthy of all praise; and the whole army was driven from the
+field with a loss of fully a third of its numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Pedants, who have deemed the attack in oblique order a talisman which
+assures victory under all conditions of place and position, have tried
+to explain away this crushing defeat; but Napoleon’s judgment is
+evidently correct. Frederick made a flank march in open ground, under
+the beard of Daun, within striking distance, and the result was like
+what occurred at Austerlitz. Kolin forced the King to raise the siege
+of Prague, to abandon Bohemia, and to fall back on Silesia; and had
+his antagonists been great generals, he might have been overwhelmed
+before he had passed the ranges which overlook the Silesian lowlands.
+But Lorraine did not even break up from Prague till July, many days
+after the battle; Daun, a stout soldier of the school of Wallenstein,
+fond of entrenched camps and defensive lines, but in no sense of the
+word a strategist, lost a week in chanting Te Deums in his camp, to
+use Napoleon’s sarcastic phrase; and Frederick effected his escape
+with little further loss, and held positions between Zittau and
+Bautzen. Nearly two months passed in petty operations, the Austrians
+plainly shunning a contest, and taking no advantage of their splendid
+success, when the apparition of new and formidable enemies on the scene
+compelled the King to retreat towards the Lower Elbe.</p>
+
+<p>We have now reached the second phase of the war, and the second part of
+the campaign of 1757. Up to this time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> Frederick had had to cope almost
+wholly with the Austrians only, and had been superior in force on the
+theatre of war; the balance was now heavily inclined against him,
+and it was the conviction of Europe, as it had been from the first,
+that he would be annihilated by the League of the Continent. France
+had by this time two armies in Germany; the one 80,000 strong, under
+the command of D’Estrées, the second not less than 50,000 men, partly
+composed of contingents of the small German States, led by Soubise,
+one of the Pompadour’s favourites; and Turenne and Villars had overrun
+Germany, and threatened Vienna with less forces. Meanwhile, Sweden
+had assailed the Pomeranian seaboard; a Russian army of 60,000 men
+had crossed the Niemen and attained the Pregel; and though the forces
+of the Allies were far apart, and D’Estrées was held in check for the
+time in Hanover by the Duke of Cumberland—the warrior of Fontenoy
+and Culloden—it seemed impossible that Prussia could withstand the
+enormous masses arrayed against her. Frederick, always great in the
+hour of danger, saw what was before him, and made up his mind; though
+still suffering from the effects of Kolin, he resolved to advance at
+once against his nearest enemy, Soubise, who had approached the Saale,
+in the hope of striking a decisive blow; and leaving about 40,000 men
+to keep the Austrians back, he marched with about 25,000—he had lately
+been reinforced—to make head against the French commander. Soubise, a
+degenerate scion of the great House of Rohan, and one of the poorest
+creatures who ever led an army, though nearly double in numbers, fell
+back before the King; and several weeks were lost in petty manœuvres,
+Soubise always seeking to avoid fighting, conduct fatal beyond all
+others to French soldiers. The news of the success of the Allies
+elsewhere on the theatre at last, however, compelled the French chief
+to abandon his timid attitude, and towards the close of October the
+army of Soubise returned to the Saale, and crossed the river, though
+it recrossed at the approach of its enemy. On the 5th of November,
+the Prussian army, which had made a short retrograde movement, was
+encamped, perhaps 22,000 strong, in a position near the Saale, with its
+left at Rossbach; and Soubise, who had fully 45,000 men, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>thought
+that he had caught Frederick, and could cut off his retreat. Full of
+the theory of the oblique order, but utterly ignorant how to apply it,
+he defiled in loose and irregular masses, without even an advanced
+guard, under the eye of his adversary, and well within his reach, in
+order to fall on his rear, and to turn his right; and the result of
+this insensate flank march was ruinous and most disgraceful defeat.
+Frederick, watching like a bird of prey its quarry, allowed Soubise
+to march to his fate; then changing his front, moving on the chord of
+an arc, and screening his operations with great skill, he smote the
+heads of the allied columns, unprotected and surprised, with the fire
+of well-placed batteries and the charges of the renowned horsemen of
+Seidlitz; and the whole army of Soubise was literally scattered and
+half-destroyed by the efforts of a force of only 6,000 or 7,000 men.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_083fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_083fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">SEIDLITZ AT ROSSBACH.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Rossbach was one of Frederick’s most brilliant victories; Soubise
+was effaced for the rest of the campaign, and his shattered forces
+recrossed the Rhine. The result of the battle was evidently due to the
+stupid false movement of the allied chiefs; but the King turned this
+to the best account, and his tactics were in all respects admirable.
+This triumph greatly strengthened the Prussian cause, and sent a thrill
+of exultation through German hearts; for Rossbach was the first great
+fight in which Germans, led by a German, had defeated Frenchmen; and
+the traditions of the day kept hope alive in the breasts of many a
+German soldier during the sad years that followed the rout of Jena.
+The arms of the King, however, had been unsuccessful on other parts of
+the theatre of war; and, as the close of 1757 approached, his position
+was one of increasing danger. A contingent of Swedes had, indeed, been
+driven from Pomerania and forced into Stralsund; but the Russians had
+gained a great victory at Jägersdorf, near the banks of the Pregel;
+and though they had recrossed the Niemen as winter came on, the army
+opposed to them had been severely treated. The chief peril, however,
+which threatened Frederick came from Austria and Maria Theresa, his
+implacable and untiring enemy. Lorraine and Daun had been largely
+reinforced after Kolin, and ordered to press forward; and at the head
+of probably 90,000 men, they gradually bore back and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> drove towards the
+Oder the detachment, not perhaps half in numbers, which the King had
+given to his lieutenant, Bevern. The Austrian generals seem to have
+thought that their mission was to reconquer Silesia; they besieged and
+captured Schweidnitz and Breslau; Austrian horsemen were let loose on
+the province; and Bevern was defeated under the walls of Breslau with
+terrible loss, and was ere long a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>The intelligence reached the King some three weeks after Rossbach; his
+decision was formed with his wonted promptness, and he hastened to the
+Oder by forced marches, from the Saale across the lowlands of Saxony.
+On the 3rd of December he had joined hands with Ziethen, one of his
+best officers, who had succeeded to the command of Bevern; but the
+united armies were not more than 35,000 or 36,000 men, for death and
+desertion had carried off thousands. The Austrians were still probably
+75,000 strong—they were certainly in immensely superior numbers—and
+it seems astonishing that Lorraine and Daun did not try to trample
+the enemy in the dust who was moving against them from Glogau upon
+the Oder, and could not have had even half their force. The memory of
+Rossbach, however, was, perhaps, too recent; and, leaving Breslau,
+they took a position, defensive as usual, along eminences that look
+down on the village of Leuthen. The left, under Lorraine, approached
+the Schweidnitz, a feeder of the Oder, but with a broad space between;
+the centre held a long line behind Leuthen, with hills and ravines
+before its front; and the right, with Daun in command, stretched down
+to a forest and hamlet known by the name of Ny-pern. Frederick, having
+carefully reconnoitred the ground, put his army in motion early on
+the 5th of December; an advanced guard was easily driven in; and he
+pushed forward his right as quickly as possible, to turn and outflank
+the enemy’s left. This time, however, the attack in oblique order was
+a most skilful and well-planned movement; the Prussian centre and left
+were thrown back until the effort of the right had told; what was
+more important, the army marched, screened by the valleys and hills,
+before the Austrian front; a thick mist, too, hung over the plain, and
+concealed the advance of the Prussian <span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>line; and this, therefore,
+was not a flank march within easy reach of a well-placed enemy. The
+Prussian right had soon turned and beaten the troops of Lorraine, which
+happened to be about the worst in the Austrian army; and though the
+Prince endeavoured to throw back his left, and to form a new front,
+as he had done at Prague, his efforts proved fruitless, and his whole
+wing was routed. The centre and left of the King now bore down in
+irresistible force on the shaken army; and though the Austrian chiefs
+did all that brave men could do to restore the fortunes of the day, and
+Daun especially made a bold attempt to advance the Austrian right for a
+great counter attack, their exertions ultimately were of no avail, and
+they were driven, utterly defeated, beyond the Schweidnitz. The losses
+of the victors were not more than 2,000 or 3,000 men; those of the
+vanquished were fully 15,000, with, it is said, 150 guns; and Breslau,
+with a very large garrison and all the wounded and sick of the Austrian
+army, was in a few days in the hands of Frederick. Lorraine and Daun
+fled from Silesia as best they could, and the situation of affairs,
+from the Elbe to the Oder, had been completely transformed by a single
+battle.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_085afp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_085afp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BATTLE OF ROSSBACH.</p>
+     <p class="p0 sm center">5<sup>TH</sup> NOVEMBER, 1737.</p>
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left sm" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li><i>a. a. First position of Combined Army.</i></li>
+  <li><i>b. b. First position of Prussian Camp.</i></li>
+  <li><i>c. c. Advance of Prussian Army.</i></li>
+  <li><i>d. d. Second position of Combined Army.</i></li>
+  <li><i>e. e. Prussians retire to Rossbach.</i></li>
+  <li><i>&emsp;f. French Cavalry, under S<sup>t</sup>. Germain.</i></li>
+  <li><i>g. g. March of Combin<sup>d</sup>. Army, to attack Prussian rear.</i></li>
+  <li><i>&emsp;h. Prussian attack led by Seidlitz.</i></li>
+  <li><i>&emsp;i. Position of Prussian Guns.</i></li>
+</ul>
+</div>  
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_085bfp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_085bfp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BATTLE OF LEUTHEN</p>
+     <p class="p0 sm center">5<sup>TH</sup> DECEMBER, 1757.</p>
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left smaller" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li>&emsp;<i>a. a. Austrian Army.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;<i>b. b. Position of Saxon Forepost, under Nostitz.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;<i>c. c. Advance of Prussian Army.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;&nbsp;<i>d. Lucchesi’s Cavalry, reinforced, by Daun.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;&nbsp;<i>e. Left wing, under Nadasti.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;&nbsp;<i>f. Friedrich’s hill of observation.</i></li>
+  <li>&ensp;<i>g. g. Prussian Army about to attack.</i></li>
+  <li>&emsp;&ensp;&nbsp;<i>h. Ziethen’s Cavalry.</i></li>
+  <li><i>i. i. i. Retreat of Austrians.</i></li>
+</ul>
+</div>  
+  </div>
+
+<p>“Leuthen,” says Napoleon, “is Frederick’s masterpiece”; an army,
+“wholly inferior in force and partly composed of beaten troops,”
+defeated and routed an army twofold in numbers, and that too with
+insignificant loss. The victory is the glory of the attack in oblique
+order, for the Austrian left was turned and destroyed without
+endangering the assailing army; the Prussian centre and right were
+engaged at the fitting time; and though a counter attack was tried,
+it failed, partly owing to the difficulties of the ground, which with
+the mist had screened the King’s offensive movement. But, as Napoleon
+has rightly observed, the attack in this instance had nothing in
+common “with a flank march in the face of your enemy”; and it was “in
+conformity with true principles.” The League against Frederick remained
+unbroken, notwithstanding the reverses of 1757; and in 1758 he had
+still to confront France, Austria, Russia, and the lesser States of
+Germany. The odds against him were still enormous; but the armies of
+the Coalition were widely scattered—Maria Theresa alone had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> her heart
+in the contest—and Frederick had gained one great ally which has often
+turned the scale in wars on the Continent. By this time the first Pitt
+was supreme in England; he was engaged in a death struggle with the
+French for empire in India, and in the Far West; and he turned his
+eye of genius on the heroic warrior who had conquered at Rossbach, at
+Prague, and at Leuthen. The minister supported Frederick with a small
+contingent of troops, and lavished on him immense subsidies, which the
+King turned to excellent account; and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, a
+very able man, replaced the Duke of Cumberland, and opposed the forces
+of France on the Weser, the Rhine, and the Main, with an army made up
+of German auxiliaries. I cannot dwell on these operations, disgraceful
+in the very highest degree to the fribbles and fops who now led the
+armies of France at the Pompadour’s bidding; suffice it to say that the
+Prince of Clermont and poor Soubise were completely beaten, and the
+French were driven again beyond the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>I turn to the theatre of war on the Elbe and the Oder, where Frederick
+directed the forces of Prussia. At the beginning of the campaign of
+1758, he had one army on foot in Silesia, threatening Daun, who had
+replaced Lorraine, and had fallen behind the Bohemian hills; a second
+army, under Prince Henry of Prussia, confronted the forces of the
+small German states in Saxony and along the Elbe; a third observed the
+Russians upon the Oder, and the King had perhaps 140,000 men to oppose
+to 250,000, not reckoning the French and Prince Ferdinand’s army. The
+disparity of numbers was, therefore, immense; but Frederick had all
+the shorter lines on the theatre; the Russians could do nothing for
+months; and the occasion was one from which Turenne would have probably
+drawn no little advantage. Strategy, however, was the weak point
+of Frederick; and his first operations in this campaign show small
+comprehension of the art of war. Instead of attacking Daun, inferior in
+force and isolated, he had recourse to the methods of the second-rate
+chiefs of the seventeenth century, now long exploded; he invaded
+Moravia, and laid siege to Olmütz, as if the capture of the fortress,
+important as it is, could have been attended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> with great results. The
+siege, too, was conducted without regard to military rules, and the
+science of the engineer; lines were not drawn to invest the place; the
+besieging army was left exposed in widely divided camps that invited an
+attack; and, above all, the supplies required for the siege were drawn
+from Neisse, at a great distance, and through the difficult passes
+of the Silesian range. It was fortunate that, at this juncture, the
+recollections of Leuthen paralysed Daun. Had he fallen on the besieging
+army, he might have destroyed it; but though he loitered for weeks, and
+remained inactive, he did not wholly throw away the occasion. With the
+assistance of Loudon, the most brilliant chief of Austria in the Seven
+Years’ War, he contrived to intercept and destroy a convoy directed
+from Neisse, with munitions for the siege; and the King recoiled from
+Olmütz deservedly baffled. Frederick was now in a situation of grave
+peril; he was almost surrounded by Daun and Loudon; his army was
+in want and distress; and had Daun been a great commander he would
+either have forced it against the Bohemian hills, or made it run the
+gauntlet of ever-harassing foes, defeat in either instance involving
+ruin. The King, however, was always great in such crises of fortune;
+out-manœuvring and gaining on his slow adversary, who never knew what
+promptness can effect in war, he advanced from Olmütz into Bohemia, and
+then, hastening along the verge of the hills, he emerged successfully
+into Silesia, making his way through the passes without loss. The march
+was one of the most brilliant and daring of the war.</p>
+
+<p>These operations lasted from the opening of the campaign until the end
+of July 1758. Frederick had suffered no defeat like that of Kolin; but
+he had missed an opportunity to strike Daun, and he had only escaped a
+disaster at Olmütz by his admirable presence of mind and energy. The
+Russians meanwhile had crossed the Niemen and the Vistula, and had
+attained the Oder; and, about the middle of July, they had attacked
+Cüstrin, and drawn near the detachment advanced to hold them in check.
+The King marched from Silesia against this fresh enemy; the Russian
+chief, Fermor, when informed of his approach raised the siege,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> and
+on the 25th of August had taken a position in a marshy plain in the
+angle between the Oder and Warta, and overlooking the little hamlet
+of Zorndorf. His army, about 55,000 strong, was separated from its
+baggage, left in its camps, and it was drawn up in a huge rectangle,
+a kind of formation which had proved most formidable to the Turkish
+hordes, but ill fitted to resist a European army. Frederick, with
+perhaps 35,000 men, and evidently treating his enemy with contempt,
+marched right round the vast immovable mass, and attacked it with his
+left in his wonted manner. His guns wrought frightful havoc in the
+densely-packed square; but he had once more risked a flank march in
+open ground, and Fermor flung a ponderous force on the advancing wing,
+which was nearly crushed by the Muscovite onset. The battle raged for
+some hours with the most savage fury; the Russians displayed the dogged
+courage of their race, but Seidlitz and his splendid horsemen turned
+the scale at last, and Fermor sullenly retired from the field, the
+victors, however, being unable to seize his baggage or to turn their
+success to the least advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus disposed of this tenacious foe, Frederick was compelled
+to retrace his steps towards the Elbe, for his presence in this
+region had again become necessary. Daun, after his partial success
+in Moravia, had not advanced, as he ought to have done, and joining
+the army of the lesser German States, had not overwhelmed Prince
+Henry of Prussia, an operation which was within his power; but he
+had not been altogether inactive. He had detached Loudon to fall on
+the King; he had laid siege to Neisse in Silesia, and he had made a
+movement which threatened Dresden, timid half measures showing the very
+poorest strategy. Frederick had reached Dresden by the second week of
+September, confounding the projects of his hesitating foe; and he set
+off ere long to relieve Neisse, at the head of about 40,000 men, Daun
+menacing his flank in his camp at Stolpen. A pause in the operations
+followed, due probably to the formidable attitude of Daun; but, by the
+close of September, the King had attained Bautzen in full march for the
+beleaguered fortress. By this time Daun had been rejoined by Loudon;
+their united forces<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> must have been from 75,000 to 90,000 strong, and
+the Austrian chief had taken a position at Hochkirch, amidst woods and
+hills, barring an advance on Neisse. Frederick was close to Hochkirch
+by the 11th of October; he did simply nothing for two days, for he
+was waiting the arrival of supplies from Bautzen; and, confident
+that Daun would not venture to attack, he felt assured that when his
+preparations were made, he could easily turn the position of his foe.
+He paid dearly for his imprudent scorn of an adversary who, though not
+a great chief, was by no means a contemptible soldier, and who was
+seconded, besides, by a very able lieutenant. Daun had had ample time
+to satisfy himself of the numerical weakness of the hostile army; his
+arrangements were made on the night of the 13th, and on the morning
+of the 14th, he attacked in full force, and all but hemmed in the
+astounded Prussians, who, caught and surprised, were completely routed.
+The King extricated himself with extreme difficulty, and at a loss
+of fully 10,000 men; but, as usual, Daun made no use of success, and
+Frederick plucked safety and glory from imminent danger. Always rising
+superior to adverse fortune, he fell back a short distance only, and
+perceiving that Daun continued motionless, he actually stole a march
+on his inactive enemy as soon as his army was fit to march, and made
+for Neisse with extreme celerity. This was a stroke of extraordinary
+boldness and skill; and Frederick gained his object, with a defeated
+army, in the face of a victorious and immensely superior enemy. The
+siege of Neisse was raised on the 5th of November; Daun, instead
+of closing on Frederick’s rear, having idly turned aside to menace
+Dresden, a demonstration that altogether failed.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1758, like that of 1757, shows the true qualities
+of Frederick in war; they were those of an inferior strategist, of
+a tactician of a very high order, but who sometimes made surprising
+mistakes, and was specially prone to underrate his enemy, and of
+a chief who, possessing a noble army, occasionally gave proof of
+extraordinary resource, and, in particular, was able to subdue dangers
+which would have overwhelmed a less determined captain. The King ought
+to have defeated Daun in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> first months of the contest, when the
+Austrian commander stood almost alone; he should not have attempted the
+siege of Olmütz; he should not have risked a flank march at Zorndorf,
+incapable of manœuvring as the Russians were; above all, he should not
+have pitched his camp at Hochkirch, and given Daun a grand opportunity
+to strike, simply because he thought him a dull commander. On the other
+hand, Zorndorf was a real victory, no doubt due in a great degree
+to Seidlitz, but partly also to the energy of the King. Frederick
+completely baffled his foes at Dresden, and his conduct after Hochkirch
+in bearding the victors, in eluding them, and in raising the siege of
+Neisse, was that of a soldier of wonderful powers, though he owed his
+success mainly to the inactivity of Daun.</p>
+
+<p>There is a sameness in the course of the Seven Years’ War, which in
+some measure detracts from its interest. The contending armies held
+nearly the same positions in 1759, when the campaign opened, as had
+been the case in 1758, and their relative strength was nearly in the
+same proportions. The French, under Contades and De Broglie, invaded
+Hanover from the Rhine and the Main; they were opposed as before
+by Prince Ferdinand, and though De Broglie gained some success at
+Bergen—the first and last smile of fortune in this war on France—they
+were ultimately defeated with heavy loss at Minden—a day memorable for
+the bravery of the British contingent, and for the incapacity of Lord
+George Sackville—and they fell back discomfited behind the Rhine. In
+Central Germany, Frederick was again in Silesia and Prince Henry once
+more in Saxony; Daun was outside Bohemia and the Silesian frontier,
+and the forces of the small German States on the Saxon plains; and the
+Russians who, after Zorndorf, had returned to their steppes, were still
+hundreds of miles distant, and had not even drawn near the Vistula.
+Apart from the French and Prince Ferdinand’s armies, Frederick had
+still perhaps 120,000 men to oppose to 200,000 or 220,000; but as
+had happened in the two preceding campaigns, he was not inferior in
+force, where he was in supreme command, for the Russians were, for some
+months, outside the immediate sphere of action. In these circumstances
+he might once more have attempted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> to strike a weighty blow at Daun,
+and Napoleon condemns him for missing the chance; but the Prussian
+army had suffered immense losses, and was now crowded with ill-trained
+levies; and he deserves less censure for this inaction than in the
+campaign of 1758. Several weeks were spent in small operations, which
+show that the strength of the King had begun to decline; he attempted
+nothing resembling a decisive movement, and the war languished on the
+space between the Elbe and the Oder. Meanwhile his enemies had, for the
+first time, formed something of a real combination against him. The
+Empress Elizabeth was savage at the defeat of Zorndorf; Maria Theresa
+had not changed, and a Russian army, fully 70,000 strong, led by
+Soltykoff, a true Muscovite, was directed to join hands with the main
+Austrian army, and to try to crush Frederick with overwhelming numbers.
+Soltykoff having crossed the Vistula about the middle of May, was upon
+the Oder in the first days of August, having routed a Prussian body
+of troops on his march; Daun, meanwhile, had despatched Loudon from
+Silesia to aid the Russian chief, and their united armies, about 80,000
+strong, had soon effected their junction near Frankfort. Frederick had
+advanced, to parry the blow, to the Oder, with perhaps 40,000 or 45,000
+men, and the hostile forces encountered each other at Kunersdorf, close
+to Frankfort, upon the 12th of August. The battle is chiefly remarkable
+for the characteristic stubbornness and tenacity of the Muscovite
+infantry. Frederick’s manœuvres gained some success at first; indeed,
+Soltykoff was nearly forced into the Oder, but his men rallied behind a
+line of entrenchments, and the Prussians recoiled, hopelessly beaten,
+from the bloodstained defences. The King lost a third of his army, and
+nearly all his guns, and was with difficulty able to get across the
+Oder.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of Frederick after Kunersdorf was critical in the
+extreme, and might have been made desperate. Daun, obeying Maria
+Theresa’s orders, had advanced from Silesia towards the lower Oder;
+and, when informed of the results of the battle, he moved slowly to
+Triebel on the Neisse, about six marches distant from the victorious
+army. Had Soltykoff and Daun now combined<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> their movements, and
+cordially acted in real concert, they could have opposed fully 120,000
+men, in a central position, to Prince Henry and to Frederick and his
+beaten army; and as the Prussian forces were widely divided, and could
+not have been 80,000 strong, not to speak of the demoralization of
+defeat, Daun and Soltykoff ought to have crushed their enemy. The
+discords and jealousies of a Coalition, as has often happened, perhaps,
+saved the King and his fortunes at this perilous juncture. The Austrian
+and Russian generals disliked each other; the policy of their Courts
+had already begun to diverge on the question of the Turkish Empire; and
+Soltykoff was indignant that he had been joined only by the detachment
+sent forward by Daun under Loudon. The Russians and Austrians did not
+unite, as was quite possible, about the 25th of August, and Frederick
+turned this brief respite to the best advantage. His shattered army
+was reinforced by levies from the north; the artillery he had lost was
+replaced from Berlin; and he was soon at the head of 40,000 men, while
+Prince Henry had thrown himself, with no ordinary daring, between the
+two hostile armies. Daun fell back towards Saxony in the first days
+of September, completely giving up the object of the campaign; before
+long Soltykoff was in full retreat, and had recrossed the Vistula by
+the approach of winter; and thus Kunersdorf proved an all but barren
+victory; Frederick had once more escaped from the toils, and the two
+Empresses saw their projects frustrated.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign, nevertheless, was a losing one to the King, and it
+terminated in a very great disaster. During the time when he had been
+compelled to move to the Oder, in order to face the Russians, the army
+of the small German states, with some aid from Daun, had taken the
+offensive upon the Elbe; and, after capturing Torgau and Wittenberg,
+it had laid siege to Dresden towards the end of August, the city, it
+will be recollected, having been in the hands of the Prussians since
+1756, and being their main depôt and place of arms. The attack had been
+unsuccessful until the news of Kunersdorf reached the commandant, with
+a letter from the King, empowering him to treat and to withdraw the
+garrison; the capitulation was signed in the first days of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> September,
+and the portal of Bohemia and the main strategic point of Saxony were
+thus permanently lost to Frederick, who stormed in vain against his
+ill-used subordinate. The fall of Dresden was a great reverse, but it
+was followed by a still greater misfortune. The King, after the failure
+of the allied armies to join hands, had remained in observation for a
+time on the Oder; but towards the close of October he fell ill, and
+for some weeks he was unable to do anything. Prince Henry, meanwhile,
+had followed the movements of Daun, and had marched into Saxony; and a
+series of petty operations followed, which are not worthy of special
+notice. By November, Frederick, himself again, had marched into Saxony
+and approached Dresden; and, with a want of perception difficult to
+understand, he committed a mistake, in Napoleon’s judgment the most
+inexcusable of his chequered career. Daun was at the head of his army
+in Saxony; a large Austrian garrison was in Dresden; and there was
+no reason to imagine that this resolute soldier was contemplating a
+retrograde movement. The King, however, took it into his head that
+his adversary was about to retreat into Bohemia; and always despising
+Daun, spite of Kolin and Hochkirch, he sent off 12,000 men from the
+main army to intercept the supposed movement. The officer in command
+protested in vain; Daun closed on his foe in irresistible force; and
+the whole Prussian detachment, hemmed in and powerless, was compelled
+ignominiously to lay down its arms. Napoleon’s remarks on the surrender
+of Maxen possess lasting and peculiar interest for the generation that
+has witnessed Metz and Sedan.</p>
+
+<p>The third phase of the struggle had now come; Frederick, superior in
+force until the summer of 1757, was henceforward wholly over-matched by
+his enemies. The symptoms of decline which had become apparent in the
+strength of Prussia in 1759 had been greatly aggravated by late events;
+the losses at Kunersdorf and Maxen had been immense; Frederick had been
+deprived of some of his best lieutenants, and the magnificent army with
+which he had begun the war had been reduced to a mere skeleton. On the
+other hand, his obstinate resistance had exasperated his foes; even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>
+the listless and worthless Louis XV., notwithstanding the terrible
+reverses of France in Canada, in Hindustan, and upon every sea, began
+to be ashamed of defeats on the Rhine and the Weser; and Maria Theresa
+and Elizabeth continued united in their thirst for vengeance. The
+Coalition made gigantic efforts to bring the unequal contest to a
+close; France placed 140,000 men on the Main and the Rhine; in Silesia
+Loudon had 50,000; Daun was at the head of 80,000 troops of the
+Empress-Queen and the lesser German States, encamped round Dresden and
+in the Saxon plains; and Soltykoff commanded 70,000 Russians directed
+from the Vistula to attain the Oder. To resist these immense masses,
+the most numerous that had ever been seen in arms in Europe, Frederick
+could only oppose Prince Ferdinand and 70,000 men to the French army,
+twofold in numbers; and though he was still subsidised by the gold
+of Pitt, and he had a central position between his foes, he had not
+more than 100,000 men, composed largely of mere recruits, to contend
+with the great Russian and Austro-German armies. The eagles seemed
+to be gathering on their intended prey, but Frederick had resources
+in himself and in the patriotic nation he ruled which the Coalition
+had not taken into account. His fierce, determined, and heroic nature
+exhibited itself in its grandest aspect; extreme as his peril was, he
+had no thought of yielding; his centralized and severe government still
+drew men and supplies from his half-ruined kingdom, and his people,
+proud of their renowned Sovereign, strained every nerve to fight to the
+last.</p>
+
+<p>The opening of the campaign of 1760 seemed to portend the speedy
+ruin of the King; Loudon forced a Prussian detachment 10,000 strong
+to surrender at Landshut, in Silesia, a repetition of the disaster
+at Maxen; and Frederick vainly attempted to lay siege to Dresden, an
+operation as unwise as the siege of Olmütz, which Daun frustrated
+without difficulty, but which, had he been a great general, he ought to
+have rendered all but fatal. By this time Loudon had captured Glatz,
+and was overrunning the Silesian plains; the King, anxious about the
+annexed province, which Maria Theresa burned to reconquer, set off
+from Saxony by forced marches; but Daun followed on a parallel line,
+and in the second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> week of August, he had nearly joined Loudon, and
+closed round Frederick and his much weaker army. At daybreak on the
+15th, Loudon attacked Frederick at Liegnitz, near the stream of the
+Katzbach, the army of Daun being almost in sight; but the double
+movement was ill-combined, and the King extricated himself, and even
+gained a victory. His position, however, was still most critical,
+and had Soltykoff, who had approached the Oder, co-operated with the
+Austrian chiefs, the King, humanly speaking, must have succumbed.
+Prince Henry, however, again interposed—a mere demonstration proved
+sufficient; the jealousies of the Allies did the rest; and Soltykoff,
+instead of striking down Frederick, merely marched northwards and
+plundered Berlin, a diversion that proved of no importance. The King,
+saved from destruction, returned into Saxony; the armies of Loudon and
+Daun diverged; and while Loudon remained in Silesia, Daun followed his
+adversary with the main army, and took a position at Torgau, on the
+Elbe. Frederick attacked Daun on the 3rd of November, assailing him at
+once in flank and front. The attack he conducted in person completely
+failed; but Ziethen retrieved the fortunes of the day, and the Austrian
+army was at last defeated. The “hind doomed to death” was not yet to
+die, and, after many vicissitudes and a marvellous escape, Frederick
+still held his own between the Elbe and the Oder. Meanwhile, as usual,
+the great French army had invaded Germany, and had accomplished
+nothing; Prince Ferdinand, as heretofore, had held it in check.</p>
+
+<p>I shall pass rapidly over the last scenes of the internecine and
+protracted contest. The situation of Frederick in 1761 was much the
+same as in the year before, save that the process of exhaustion had
+told more on his resources than on those of his enemies. The French
+Court made really great efforts to repair the humiliation of four years
+of reverses; it put on foot a magnificent army of not less than 160,000
+men, a force, Napoleon has remarked, sufficient to have conquered
+Germany if properly led; but its chief was the worthless Soubise; and
+baffled and out-manœuvred by Prince Ferdinand, it returned to its
+winter quarters without winning a battle. On the true theatre of war
+in Germany the King was again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> immensely inferior in force; he had
+probably less than 100,000 men against 220,000 or 250,000; but these
+last, as always, were widely divided. The two Empresses recurred to
+the project which had all but succeeded in 1759. Daun, who had been
+severely wounded at Torgau, was left in Saxony to confront Prince
+Henry, and Loudon, now the real chief of the Austrian armies, advanced
+from Silesia, to unite with Boutourline, a new commander of the Russian
+forces. The King, utterly outnumbered, had recourse to the antiquated
+and barbarous method of wasting whole tracts to keep back Loudon;
+but the Austrian general made his way to the Oder; and, having left
+a detachment to besiege Schweidnitz, he effected his juncture with
+Boutourline’s army at Jauer, near Liegnitz, at the close of August.
+Frederick entrenched himself within defensive lines, after the fashion
+of the preceding century; he had lost the initiative, and waited on
+his foes, and he was ere long surrounded in his camps at Bunzelwitz by
+enemies nearly fourfold in numbers. Loudon, a real general, was eager
+to storm the lines, and, Napoleon thinks, must have destroyed the
+King had Boutourline concurred in the attack; but Muscovite jealousy
+interfered once more, and the Russian commander stiffly refused to
+support his colleague, and marched northwards. Frederick escaped, as
+had often happened, by a kind of marvel; meanwhile, Daun had remained
+inactive in Saxony, and the only results of a campaign which should
+have overwhelmed Prussia were that the Russians established themselves
+on the Baltic, ready for speedier operations in the following year, and
+that Loudon captured the great place of Schweidnitz, the key, as it has
+been called, of Silesia.</p>
+
+<p>1762 was the last year of the war, and as it opened the prospects of
+the King had never seemed to be so gloomy and hopeless. The circle of
+his enemies was narrowing round him; Daun and a powerful army held
+possession of Saxony and the line of the Elbe; Loudon occupied Silesia
+in great force; the Russians were preparing to march from Kolberg; and
+the French had 100,000 men in the heart of Germany. Frederick thought
+that the end had at last come; yet, unshaken by the approach of the
+tempest, he confronted it with heroic constancy, and like a lion who
+marks the advance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> of the hunters, he moved hither and thither with the
+wrecks of his armies, watching an opportunity to strike with effect,
+and determined to challenge fortune to the last. As had always happened
+in the Seven Years’ War, the French operations completely failed, and
+Frederick contrived to recruit his forces with 20,000 Germans in the
+Austrian service, unwisely disbanded at this supreme moment. Yet these
+gleams of success appeared extinguished by an event that portended
+complete ruin; the fall of Pitt in detaching England from Prussia, and
+depriving her of her only ally, made the cause of the King apparently
+hopeless. Nevertheless, his grand strength of character was justly
+recompensed, and at the eleventh hour a series of strange incidents
+changed the whole state of affairs in Europe. The Empress Elizabeth
+suddenly died; her successor, Peter, became an ally of the King; and
+though Catherine, his murderess, who seized his crown, did not adopt
+the policy of her late husband, Russia withdrew finally from the
+Coalition. This became the signal of the dissolution of the League;
+France, disgraced and defeated all over the globe, made an ignominious
+peace with England and Prussia; and Maria Theresa, left isolated, and
+threatened by the Turk, the old foe of Austria, was compelled sullenly
+to give up the contest. The last event of the war was the recapture of
+Schweidnitz by the Prussian army; Frederick had successfully withstood
+the Great Powers of the Continent, and all that Austria, that Russia,
+that France had done had not even wrested Silesia from his hands.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks after the Peace of Hubertsburg, the King and his army
+entered Berlin in triumph. The pageant was very different from that
+witnessed in 1866 and in 1871, when Prussia had driven Austria from
+her high place in Germany, and had annihilated the military power of
+France. The magnificence of war was not to be seen; splendid troops
+did not line the squares and the streets; there was no procession of
+superb trophies attesting a series of amazing victories. The army which
+had begun the contest had well-nigh perished; its ranks were filled by
+men not of the stock of Brandenburg; its standards in rags, and its
+war-worn aspect attested the vicissitudes and defeats of a long and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>
+uncertain struggle. Yet the spectacle was one of enduring interest,
+big with great results in a far distant future. That army, made up
+of many elements from different parts of the great German race, like
+Wallenstein’s army of a century before, embodied, however feebly,
+the as yet vague idea that Germany was a nation of one blood and
+language; and it was the precursor of the patriotic league which rose
+and fought for Germany in 1813–14, and of the gigantic hosts which, in
+our day, conquered the unity of Germany at Sadowa and Sedan. Frederick
+had no sympathy with what, in his time, was merely a dream of a few
+enthusiasts; in taste and thought he was through life a Frenchman,
+and he never really looked beyond Prussian interests, yet he was the
+second Arminius of the Teutonic race, and the Seven Years’ War was
+a new era for Germany. For many years, however, his own energy, and
+those of his people, were engrossed in efforts to repair the appalling
+ruin which had befallen his kingdom. Prussia was a land of desolation
+when he sheathed his sword; her population had diminished a tenth; her
+youth, equal to war, had been reduced one sixth; savage hordes from the
+East had overrun her provinces; every town was darkened with tokens of
+mourning; Silesia had more than one silent and deserted village. The
+Government, too, had become more despotic in the course of the war than
+it had ever been; the pressure of arbitrary taxation was frightful; a
+prying Inquisition had entered the homes of all, and, as has been said,
+“everything that was not military violence was anarchy.”</p>
+
+<p>Yet the King was never before so revered by his subjects, and he
+remained the object of their love and esteem in an age when, in the
+decay of loyalty, every throne of the Continent was being undermined.
+This profound national sentiment was partly due to the real merits of
+the King as a ruler, but mainly, no doubt, to the patriotic pride of
+the martial and ambitious people of Prussia, which has never ceased to
+boast that, under its Great Frederick, it defeated the armed strength
+of three-fourths of Europe. This legend, indeed, is to a great extent
+a fable; the “miraculous,” as Napoleon has said, disappears upon an
+impartial survey of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> Frederick’s exploits in the Seven Years’ War.
+For many months he was superior in force on the theatre; Austria,
+all through, was his only determined enemy; Russia was too distant
+to act with effect, and had a real interest not to weaken Prussia;
+and France either did not put forth her force, or—the Bellona of
+Europe—committed the weapons of Condé and Turenne to Soubise and
+Clermont, in their hands the darts of an impotent Priam. Even as it
+was, too, on more than one occasion the King must have been overwhelmed
+and ruined but for the dissensions of the Coalition; and it was his
+peculiar good fortune that, if we except Loudon—and this able and
+brilliant chief held high command for a few months only—he had to
+cope with generals of the third order. Yet admitting all this, and
+recollecting besides the many military shortcomings of the King—and
+his errors were sometimes of the gravest kind—still his achievements
+are justly held by Prussia as a glorious possession above price; they
+remain, and will for ever remain, a grand monument of what constancy,
+decision, and energy can accomplish against odds which appeared
+impossible to resist.</p>
+
+<p>After the termination of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick never fought
+a battle again. He was threatened, indeed, in 1775, by an Austrian
+invasion to regain Silesia; and in 1778 the Emperor Joseph arrayed
+a great army against Prussia, to assert his claims to a part of
+Bavaria. These hostilities, however, came to nothing, and the King
+was allowed, during a long space of time, to carry out the policy
+he had laid down for himself. It was a policy of craft and ambition
+abroad; and Frederick, in his fixed purpose of enlarging Prussia,
+was a chief author of the partition of Poland, a crime shared by
+Catherine, and even by Maria Theresa—the conscience of the last
+was, however, stung—and the cause of unnumbered woes to Europe. His
+domestic policy remained one of enlightened despotism, of equal laws
+and of strong government, of arbitrary, but tolerably just, rule; and
+his kingdom recovered within a short time from most of the effects of
+the Seven Years’ War, and made rapid strides in wealth and prosperity.
+The King was justly deemed the first sovereign of his age; but the
+three accomplices in the destruction of Poland suffered cruelly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> for
+a great national wrong; but for this, Revolution would have been
+quelled in France in 1792 and 1793; but for this, Austria would not
+have bled at Austerlitz, and Prussia and Russia mourned for Jena and
+Friedland. Though the centralized government of Frederick, too, seemed
+a masterpiece of wisdom and power, it proved unable to stand the strain
+of ill fortune, and it perished with the renowned Prussian army in the
+agony of 1806–7. Frederick died peacefully in 1786, having survived
+nearly all the sovereigns of his time. One of his last acts was to
+form a league against the pretensions of Imperial Austria; but he was
+utterly unconscious that a tempest was at hand which was to destroy the
+monarchies of the eighteenth century, and to create a new Prussia out
+of the wrecks of the old.</p>
+
+<p>I turn to my immediate subject. What is the place of the King among
+great commanders? Frederick had not supreme original genius; he
+was deficient in imagination, and often in judgment; but he had a
+powerful mind, intensely quick perception, activity and perseverance
+beyond praise; and he was endowed, besides, with a force of character
+and a steadfastness seldom bestowed on man. These qualities made
+him the greatest captain of an age wanting in masters of the art;
+and he accomplished wonders, spite of his many faults, with an army
+infinitely the best in Europe. As a strategist, he stands low in the
+second order; his ideas were occasionally sound and brilliant, but the
+plans of his campaigns were, for the most part, bad; and he had not
+the faculty of those great combinations which disclose real strategic
+genius. Holding, as he usually did, a central position between enemies
+widely apart, he would repeatedly have defeated them in detail had
+he possessed the science and the gifts of Turenne; and had he had to
+cope, not with the Lorraines and the Dauns, but with the general of
+Castiglione and Rivoli, he would have been struck down over and over
+again, as the result of his false and ill-directed movements. His
+place as a tactician is much higher. Frederick had real insight and
+skill on the field; he possessed a great deal of Marlborough’s power
+of detecting the vulnerable points of an enemy, and of striking at
+them until success was attained, and his favourite manœuvre,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> when
+properly understood, is an illustration of the great principle that
+you should always so place your troops on the ground as to turn it to
+the best advantage, and to make the most of their powers upon it. Yet
+the King had not Marlborough’s unerring skill; even as a tactician he
+made great mistakes. He was deservedly beaten at Kolin and Hochkirch;
+he had the great fault of sometimes losing his temper. There is a bad
+mannerism in his conduct of battles, and more than once he completely
+ignored the conditions under which, and under which alone, the attack
+in oblique order could be risked or justified. The title of Frederick
+to rank among the first of warriors depends less, in fact, upon his
+intellectual faculties than upon his grand and extraordinary moral
+qualities, tenacity, and marvellous strength of character; no general
+has surpassed him in the rare gift of overcoming difficulties, and
+escaping from peril; no general, not even Arthur Wellesley, has
+confronted a huge superiority of force with more calmness and firmness
+of purpose; no general, not even his countryman Blücher, a subaltern in
+the Seven Years’ War, has excelled him in rising above defeat, and in
+mastering an enemy who had seemed secure in victory. If Napoleon says
+truly—and who can doubt it?—that a strong nature is the greatest gift
+of a chief, Frederick is eminent among the masters of war.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_020.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Napoleon.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>The years that followed the peace of Hubertsburg were a period of
+repose, if not for mankind, at least for five-sixths of Continental
+Europe. Russia, indeed, half an Asiatic Power, carrying out the designs
+of Peter the Great, under the rule of a bad but most able woman,
+advanced beyond the Tanais to the heads of the Euxine; and Austria,
+deprived of the genius of Eugene, was more than once engaged in a
+doubtful contest with Islam, formidable even in decay. But France was
+scarcely involved in war, apart from a naval struggle with England;
+hardly a shot was fired in despoiling Poland; save for demonstrations
+that came to nothing, Germany was at peace from the Rhine to the Oder;
+and though England founded an Empire in Hindustan, and the Great
+Republic of the Far West was born, the conflicts that led to these
+mighty events were outside the pale of the European world. As happened
+after the peace of Utrecht, few occasions arose during this long season
+of comparative rest for the illustration of the military art, by
+examples in the field; the chiefs of the Seven Years’ War passed slowly
+away; and their successors in the direction of armies, for the most
+part men of the third order, were generally content to adhere stolidly
+to the traditions and methods of that great contest. The attack in
+oblique order was assumed to be an infallible method to win a battle
+by theorists who did not understand the difference between Kolin,
+Rossbach, and Leuthen; and Napoleon has described, with sarcastic
+pleasantry, how pedants were wont to flock<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> to Potsdam to behold the
+manœuvres of the Prussian army engaged in movements to turn a flank at
+reviews; the great King who still commanded in person, laughing quietly
+at their shallow conceits. It is remarkable, however, that on the one
+occasion when Germany was seriously threatened with war, from 1762 to
+1791, the strategy and even the tactics of Daun prevailed over those
+of his renowned antagonist. In 1778 Frederick put two armies in motion
+to invade Bohemia, by the double line of the operations of 1866; but
+Loudon and Lacy formed a great entrenched camp. In this position they
+awaited an attack, interposing between the divided enemy; and the King
+did not venture even to offer battle.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, changes fraught with momentous results, in the approaching
+era of world-wide conflict, were gradually making themselves felt
+in Europe. The armed strength of Russia was immensely increased;
+and her armies growing with the expanding Empire, though still
+imperfectly equipped and organized, became instruments of war in the
+hands of Suvóroff, very different from the half-barbarian hosts which
+had displayed their savage constancy at Zorndorf and Künersdorf.
+Simultaneously the military power of Austria, under the rule of the
+dreamy reformer, Joseph, had relatively declined to a great extent;
+and the famous Prussian army, though still formidable in numbers, in
+discipline and in real worth had begun, even in the last years of
+Frederick, to lose much of its old efficiency; and after his death, it
+fell distinctly away from the high standard of the Seven Years’ War. As
+for the French army, it had been augmented, and, to outward appearance,
+had much improved; the Government and the nation had made great efforts
+to efface the shame of days such as Minden and Rossbach; camps of
+instruction were formed in parts of the country where the troops were
+carefully trained and drilled; and the artillery of France, at all
+times excellent, was remodelled, and became far the best in Europe.
+Yet the Revolution, already at hand, had impaired the military power
+of the State; the <i>noblesse</i>, still holding all high commands,
+gave no successors to Condé and Turenne; there were fatal dissensions
+between the officers and the men; and though the army was very much
+better than it had been when led<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> by Soubise, it was not the unrivalled
+army of Louis XIV. It may be said, therefore, that old Europe, from the
+Niemen to the Tagus, was ill-prepared, at the close of this period, for
+a great war; and as for the British army, it was deemed of no account
+after the disasters of Saratoga and York Town. Concurrently with these
+changes, the material progress which had been marked in Europe since
+the seventeenth century, had gone on with increased development, and
+had continued to affect the conditions of war. While the populations
+of the different States had multiplied and yielded ample elements
+of military force, agriculture had made a rapid advance; and the
+inventions of the second half of the eighteenth century had given a
+remarkable impulse to every urban industry. Vast tracts of marsh, of
+forest, of waste, had been enclosed and brought under cultivation; new
+roads and bridges had been largely made; insignificant hamlets had
+become towns, and towns had grown into great cities more flourishing
+and peopled, in some instances, than the older cities they had, in
+fact, supplanted. As the general result, from a military point of view,
+the consequences were that armies in the field could obtain far ampler
+means of supply than ever had been the case before; on most theatres of
+war they would possess more roads and facilities of movement than in
+previous contests; and the defensive power of fortresses, for a century
+in decline, had become less than it had ever been, and, indeed, was of
+little avail on several frontiers.</p>
+
+<p>This period of repose, as has often happened, was marked by
+speculations of different kinds on the theory and practice of the
+Art of War. The military writers of the day, however, were, without
+exception, inferior men; and this is strange when we bear in mind that
+the age was about to behold a display of military genius of the highest
+order. The great increase of roads and of the means of manœuvring did
+not suggest to these dull theorists that armies could make more rapid
+movements, and could concentrate more quickly on given points than had
+been possible in former times; on the contrary, these facts gave rise
+to a notion that it had become necessary, in operations in the field,
+to separate armies into numerous masses, and to cover all avenues that
+were liable to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> attack. This false principle was largely confirmed
+by the growth in the size of European armies, which had been one of
+the results of the peace. These, it was assumed, in the event of war,
+would be developed into vast proportions; and how was it possible to
+move these large arrays, save by marching on a greatly extended front,
+and occupying all the roads on the theatre? Nor did it occur to these
+writers that the immense increase in the products of husbandry, which
+had been witnessed in most parts of Europe, might enable armies to draw
+their supplies more fully from resources on the spot, and, therefore,
+to move with more ease and freedom than had been conceivable a century
+before; they emphatically insisted on the necessity of magazines,
+and of laying in enormous means of subsistence beforehand; and they
+believed that war would be more methodical as armies grew into larger
+dimensions. In theory, strategy became much less bold than in the days
+of Turenne and Marlborough; the system of advances upon an immense
+front, holding all the roads, and moving very slowly, with huge trains
+of impedimenta and supplies, replaced the daring manœuvres of these
+famous chiefs; and it contributed not a little to the change that
+Europe was stirred by no great impulse, that the age seemed indisposed
+to war, and that military energy appeared deadened through the
+influences of the last half of the century.</p>
+
+<p>Some progress, however, had been made in tactics, and in the mechanism
+and formation of armies. The method of the attack in oblique order
+was still considered the best possible; but means to defeat it had
+been devised, though these had not yet been proved in the field.
+Frederick’s outflanking movement was a rapid advance, made in line,
+when the enemy’s wing was attained; but, admirable as was the training
+of the Prussian army, this was always attended with difficulty and
+delay, especially in broken and intricate ground; and it was proposed
+to encounter this by attacks in columns, more flexible and easily
+handled than lines, these being preceded by clouds of skirmishers—an
+American idea of the War of Independence—which would cover the onset
+of the larger masses, and, to a considerable extent, would screen
+their march. In this way the attack in oblique order, it was argued,
+might be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> met and repelled by a simpler and quicker method of tactics;
+a new offensive system might replace the old; and, in any event, an
+army ought not to remain passive and to allow itself to be turned on
+a wing, as had repeatedly happened in the Seven Years’ War. All this,
+however, as yet was mere theory, unconfirmed by actual experience in
+the field; and, for the rest, the current strategic notions had made
+their influence felt in tactics, and movements widely divided upon the
+theatre, suggested similar movements in actual battle. In some respects
+armies had been much improved; the increase of their numbers had caused
+battalions and squadrons to be formed into brigades and divisions, more
+unity being given to the collective mass; the value of horse artillery
+had been fully recognized; and, as I have said, France had taken the
+lead in bringing her artillery to a high point of excellence.</p>
+
+<p>The Art of War seemed thus in a state of decay, and was being affected
+by the new theories, when the French Revolution, like a volcano, burst
+suddenly upon a terrified world. The invasion of Champagne in 1792 was
+followed by Valmy and Jemmapes; and, in 1793, the hosts of old Europe
+gathered in arms against the bloodstained Republic, which had flung the
+head of a king to its foes, and had proclaimed the new Evangel of the
+Rights of Man on the ruins of a fallen altar and throne. The military
+operations of the next few years were marked by the want of strategic
+insight, and by the uncertain and unproved tactics which had grown out
+of the speculations of the age: and—apart from the tremendous issues
+at stake—are not of enduring and special interest. Not, indeed, that
+the wretched failures of the Allies where wholly due to feeble and bad
+generalship; they were largely caused by events in the East of Europe,
+by the discords and selfishness of the Coalition, and even by its
+essential weakness. Beside that they were not prepared for war, the
+partition of Poland made the great German Powers comparatively without
+resources on the Rhine; it has been said, indeed, that they had no
+real wish to effect the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, lest it
+should avenge a dark international crime. Austria and Prussia, too, and
+the lesser German States were at odds with each other, and would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> not
+act in concert; the avowed purpose of the Allies to dismember France
+threw an enormous weight into the scale against them; and, at the very
+crisis of the campaign of 1793, when they could without difficulty
+have advanced to Paris, they separated their forces in order to reduce
+strong places meant to be permanently retained.</p>
+
+<p>The timidity, however, and the false principles which marked the
+conduct of these campaigns contributed mainly to their ignominious end.
+The chiefs of the Coalition divided their armies in fractions, upon an
+immense front, extending from the Var to the Meuse and the Lys; they
+occupied all the main approaches to France; and they moved extremely
+slowly, and with great magazines and incumbrances, through a most
+fertile country where celerity was of supreme importance, and where
+their troops could find ample supplies on the spot. As the inevitable
+result, their forces were weak at every point of their enormous line,
+and were nowhere able to strike with effect; they were actually unequal
+to passing fortresses which they sate down to besiege and occupy,
+though a relieving army was seldom at hand; and their advance was so
+tardy and beset by hindrances, that they gave France what she most
+needed—time to organise her strength and to make the war national.
+The errors, however, of the new strategy were conspicuous also on the
+French side, though not, perhaps, in such great proportions. The French
+armies, like those of their foes, were usually disseminated on a vast
+front, and were, therefore, feeble on the whole theatre; and though
+Carnot made one or two good movements, and showed that he knew the
+importance of interior lines along the space between the Rhine and the
+Lys, the plans of his campaigns as a rule were bad, and displayed the
+same defects as those of the Allies. On the other hand, the operations
+of the French were more rapid than those of their enemies; having no
+magazines and impedimenta of the kind, they flung themselves like a
+horde on the country, lived on it, and yet appeared in the field; but
+though this system made their movements more quick, their efforts were
+usually ill-directed, and had the Coalition shown skill and energy,
+it must have triumphed in 1793–94. The tactics of the belligerent
+armies were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> also influenced by recent theories, and were tentative,
+unsettled, and in a state of transition. The Prussians attacked, at
+Valmy, in the oblique order, but they were driven back by the fine
+French artillery; the Austrians, at Jemmapes, followed the methods of
+Daun, awaited the enemy in a strong position, and were overwhelmed
+by superior numbers. In other engagements the Allies adopted the
+system of attack in ill-combined columns, and were often beaten by
+their more active foes. More regularity is seen in the tactics of the
+French, though these as yet were quite immature and imperfect. The
+practice of advancing in columns, with skirmishers in front, borrowed
+from speculations already known, fell in well with the existing state
+of the revolutionary military power of France; the myriads of young
+levies which filled her armies were formed into masses given cohesion
+by the disciplined soldiers of the old Monarchy; and these were
+launched recklessly against the lines of their foes, and, fired as they
+were with patriotic passion, occasionally gained important success,
+especially in intricate and wooded country. By degrees these bodies
+became real soldiers, though their formations were as yet rude; their
+immense numbers and their enthusiasm told; though there is little doubt
+they would not have saved France had they not had the support of her
+regular army.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long the hour came, and the man appeared who was to educe order out
+of these chaotic elements, to turn to account, with consummate skill,
+the new conditions available in war, and to raise the first of arts
+to the extreme of perfection. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, a
+scion of a House of the <i>noblesse</i> of Florence—the birthplace of
+many illustrious men—which had emigrated from Italy in the sixteenth
+century, and, since that time had found a home in Corsica. The child
+was cradled, so to speak, in war; the traditions of Paoli filled his
+mind in infancy, and it may well be that the heroic figure of the
+legislator and champion of his little island had an influence on the
+future author of the Code, and on the chief who raised France to the
+heights of glory. Napoleon was sent at an early age to the well-known
+Military School of Brienne, one of the foundations of the Bourbon
+Kings, and he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> passed from thence to a Royal school in Paris, to
+complete his education for the profession of arms. Little is known
+about him in these boyish years; he was grave, taciturn, and fond of
+books, especially of the historical and romantic kind; but except that
+he excelled in mathematical science, and that he impressed his teachers
+with an undefined sense of power, he was not considered a lad of
+extraordinary parts. He entered the army at the age of sixteen, and the
+bent of his genius became apparent in his assiduous attention to the
+history of war, and especially in his constant study of military maps,
+pursuits that gave token of the great future strategist. Though born
+a gentleman, and retaining through life many of the instincts of the
+ancient <i>régime</i>, Napoleon at this time was a needy youth, with no
+hope of rising under the old order of things; and it is not surprising,
+when the Revolution broke out, that he eagerly took to the new ideas,
+and ranged himself on the side of the soldier, in the divisions that
+filled the army with discord. As events progressed, he certainly had
+relations with Robespierre and some of the Terrorists; but this passage
+in his career is still ill-explained. We may accept his statement that
+he always stood aloof from Jacobin anarchy and its deeds of blood;
+and his well-known exclamation, on the 10th of August, when the Swiss
+Guards were slaughtered by a Parisian rabble, shows that, even in those
+days, he had that profound contempt of popular movements of every kind
+which was one of his most distinctive qualities.</p>
+
+<p>He was a captain of artillery at the memorable siege of Toulon in
+1793; and on this occasion he first gave proof of his extraordinary
+capacity in war. Toulon was vainly attacked from the land side, for
+its communications with the sea were open; and the French army, led
+by incapable men, was too weak to master its walls and its ramparts.
+But the Allied fleets were the main defence of the place; these were
+crowded within the port and the roadsteads; and they were liable to
+be destroyed were they exposed to the fire of powerful batteries from
+a small projecting headland. At a council of war Napoleon declared
+that this point, when occupied, would be the key to Toulon; and the
+truth was so evident that he convinced his superiors. His admirable
+prevision<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> was soon realised. When the promontory was seized, the
+hostile squadrons, completely commanded, at once put to sea, and Toulon
+fell in an instant as if by magic. This exploit justly attracted
+attention. Bonaparte was next employed on the Italian frontier, where
+his strategic ability manifested itself in turning the positions of the
+Piedmontese army; and, at the instance of the Government, he quelled
+the revolt of the Sections on the 13th Vendémiaire, and in this service
+he showed that he had remarkable presence of mind and firmness. He was
+now known as a soldier of high promise; and, having married Josephine
+Beauharnais—partly owing to the influence of her old lover, Barras,
+but partly, too, because of his acknowledged powers—he was given the
+command, in the spring of 1796, of some 38,000 or 40,000 men encamped
+along the Genoese seaboard, with general orders to invade Italy. This
+operation, however, was to be quite secondary to those of the great
+armies about to enter Germany, with Jourdan and Moreau at their head;
+and some of the Directory, it is said, wished to get rid, in this way,
+of an importunate young man who had pestered them with grand strategic
+projects pronounced by experienced chiefs to be wild extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>I have now reached the campaigns of Napoleon; I can describe them only
+in the barest outline; but I must dwell for a moment on that of Italy.
+The army, in the hands of the young general, had suffered terrible
+privations, and was in extreme want; but it was composed of trained and
+enthusiastic soldiers; it had several good subordinate chiefs, and it
+could be made a most formidable instrument of war under the guidance
+and inspiration of a great commander. Spread along the coast from Nice
+to the verge of Genoa, it was confronted by a Sardinian and an Austrian
+army, perhaps 60,000 strong, if united, led by Colli and Beaulieu,
+experienced generals, but veterans of the old school; and their forces,
+based on Turin and Milan, held the hill country, where the French
+Alps decline and join the extreme western Apennines. Napoleon’s first
+operations strikingly illustrate the intelligence of the theatre and
+the skill in stratagem in which no military chief can be compared with
+him. Giving out that he was about to advance by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>Genoa, he made a
+feigned demonstration on his right, causing Beaulieu largely to detach
+to his left; and then, counter-marching with extreme celerity, he
+poured his troops through the Cadibona Pass, the lowest eminence in the
+uniting ranges, and surrounded and routed part of the Austrian centre.
+Beaulieu and Colli endeavouring to concentrate, presented their forces,
+still divided, to their foe; these were defeated at Dego and Millesimo;
+and the baffled chiefs retreated on Acqui and Ceva, diverging towards
+their bases at Milan and Turin, and leaving a widening interval between
+their shattered armies. Napoleon, standing in strength between his
+antagonists, detached a wing to hold Beaulieu in check, and then
+drawing together the rest of his forces, he pursued Colli, struck him
+down at Mondovi, and compelled the King of Sardinia to sue for peace.
+He took care to secure his communications with France by insisting on
+the cession of the Piedmontese fortresses; and having thus gained a new
+base—he had quietly disregarded injunctions from Paris to stir up a
+revolution in Piedmont—he set off to pursue Beaulieu, in retreat along
+the northern bank of the Po.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_110fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_110fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre of the Campaigns in NORTH ITALY</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Deceiving again his adversary by a false rumour, Napoleon next made
+a forced march to the river, advancing, as he has said, “with the
+speed of a torrent,” and gathering his supplies on his way, from the
+country; and crossing at Piacenza, he forestalled the Austrians,
+threatened their rear, and forced them to retire on the Adda. A fierce
+engagement at Lodi followed, in which Bonaparte showed remarkable skill
+in securing every advantage on the ground; Beaulieu, out-manœuvred,
+fell back to the Mincio, and Napoleon entered Milan in triumph,
+having, like Turenne, conquered by a war of marches. The French army
+now had some days of repose; its chief employed them in assuring his
+base, in levying requisitions in immense quantities, and in making
+preparations for fresh exploits; and if he showed no scruple in these
+measures, and, in fact, he organized rapine on an enormous scale, he
+established himself firmly in the heart of Lombardy. Towards the close
+of May Napoleon advanced to the Mincio; Beaulieu, trying to cover the
+stream at all points, was easily dislodged by a daring attack, and
+the Austrian army, beaten and cowed, was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> forced to take refuge in
+the hills of the Tyrol. By this time Bonaparte had received orders
+from the Directory to march from the Po to the Tiber, to drive the
+Pope from Rome, and to rouse Southern Italy; but he refused to follow
+false strategic plans which, he declared, would involve his army in
+ruin; and with admirable insight he addressed himself to operations
+which, if successful, would, he hoped, give France the great prize of
+Italy. The Austrians were his only formidable foes; the whole peninsula
+would succumb if their military strength was really broken; and the
+problem was how to attain this end with a small French army advanced
+to the Mincio. In the line of the Adige Napoleon perceived the true
+theatre on which to operate; the river, bounded on the west by the Lake
+of Garda, hemmed in by mountains as it flowed southward, and ending
+in tracts of widespreading marshes, afforded an enormously strong
+barrier, especially if it were held on both banks; and accordingly he
+took possession of the stream, having, without hesitation, seized the
+fortresses of the Venetian Republic, on its lower course, and having,
+meanwhile, sat down to besiege Mantua, the last stronghold still
+retained by Austria. The conception, original, grand, and simple alike,
+was an inspiration of true strategic genius, and one of the finest of
+a marvellous career. Summer had now come, and as the Austrian armies
+had as yet made no signs of appearing, Napoleon employed this breathing
+time in pressing forward the attack on Mantua, and in strengthening the
+power of France in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor, meanwhile, had made great efforts to retrieve the late
+reverses of his troops in Lombardy. The French armies under Moreau
+and Jourdan, directed on widely distant lines, according to the false
+strategy of the day, had been held in check by the Archduke Charles,
+and had achieved no real success in Germany; and Würmser, a veteran
+of high repute, was despatched from the Upper Rhine with about 30,000
+men, to reinforce the defeated army of Beaulieu—that general had been
+deprived of his command—and with orders to drive the French out of
+Italy. The Austrian army cannot have been less than from 60,000 to
+70,000 strong; Bonaparte had perhaps only 40,000 men besieging Mantua,
+and along<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> the Adige; and as the value of that barrier, in the hands
+of a master, was not understood in the Imperial councils, the defeat
+of the French seemed a foregone conclusion. Believing that Napoleon
+would retain his hold on Mantua, or, at least, would hesitate until
+it was too late, Würmser divided his army into three masses, the left
+and centre under the General-in-Chief moving down the Adige by the
+valleys and hills that meet the eastern shores of the Lake of Garda,
+the right, led by Quasdanovich, along the western shore, the object
+being that the combined forces should close round and stifle the French
+near Mantua. Napoleon waited until the movement was made plain, and
+his resolution was at once taken with the strength of character of
+a great captain. He raised the siege of Mantua on the last night of
+July, and his enemies being divided by the lake, he turned against
+Quasdanovich, who was nearest at hand, and drove his advanced guard
+back for a long distance. Würmser, meanwhile, had forced his way to
+the Mincio; dividing his army, he detached a part to attack the French
+supposed to be still round Mantua, and he sent another part to unite
+with Quasdanovich, assumed by his chief to be close at hand. This gave
+Bonaparte an opportunity to strike; he had by this time his whole
+army together; and while he kept Quasdanovich baffled, in check, he
+encountered the separated forces of Würmser, and routed them in detail,
+at Lonato first, and then, decisively, at Castiglione. Quasdanovich had
+already fallen back; Würmser was compelled to recross the Mincio, and
+his broken army was so demoralised, that he had to ascend the Adige and
+fly into the Tyrol.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon now exhibited one of his most striking qualities, his terrible
+skill in pursuing a defeated enemy. Relying on the moral power of his
+victories, he marched north of the lake along both shores; and then,
+concentrating his forces, he beat Davidowich, a lieutenant of Würmser,
+at Roveredo, just as that tenacious chief had planned another advance
+on Mantua, moving, on this occasion, from the Tyrol eastwards, to the
+Lower Adige. Napoleon, leaving a detachment to restrain Davidowich,
+pressed Würmser with indefatigable energy, came up with him in the
+defiles of the Brenta, overthrew him completely at Bassano, and drove
+him, with the mere wreck of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> an army, into the low country east of the
+Adige. The situation of the veteran appeared desperate; he was cut off
+from retreat to the Tyrol; a triumphant enemy was upon his rear; and
+how was he to get across the Lower Adige, held by French garrisons,
+where it could be passed, before Bonaparte should reach and destroy
+him? Napoleon thought he had his foe in his toils; but Würmser was a
+bold and undaunted soldier, and he managed to force the passage at
+Legnago, and even to make good his way to Mantua, striking down some
+small hostile bodies in his path. The old chief, proud of this trifling
+success, attempted to make a stand near Mantua; but he was driven into
+the fortress with loss; and Mantua was again invested. In a brief
+campaign of about six weeks, Napoleon, with a very inferior force,
+had annihilated a far more powerful enemy; and all that remained of
+Würmser’s army were a few thousand men far away in the Tyrol, and a
+few thousand more imprisoned in Mantua, a burden rather than a relief
+to the garrison. Such extraordinary success had never been witnessed
+before, and it was obviously due to the genius of the French commander.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, nevertheless, with characteristic firmness, did not yet
+give up the protracted contest. Moreau and Jourdan by this time
+were in retreat towards the Rhine, the Archduke Charles, who, in
+this campaign had operated between divided enemies, with a feeble
+approach to Napoleon’s skill, having gained real success in Germany;
+and considerable reinforcements were sent to the Tyrol, and to the
+plain country known as Friuli, and were placed under the command of
+Alvinzi, another old general of some distinction, with directions at
+any cost to relieve Mantua. Alvinzi had passed the Isonzo by the end
+of October with from 30,000 to 40,000 men, Davidowich being still in
+the Tyrol with 15,000 to 18,000; and the plan of the Austrian chief
+was to make these divided masses converge at Verona upon the Adige;
+and, having forced the passage, to march to the Mincio. The main French
+army at this time held the lowlands between the Brenta and the Adige,
+a considerable detachment under Vaubois being in the Tyrol watching
+the enemy; and as Napoleon in this instance persisted in continuing
+the siege of Mantua, and kept a large force around the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> place, he had
+not 40,000 men altogether in the field. The first operations of the
+Austrian leaders were attended with success that might have been made
+decisive. Masséna, the ablest lieutenant of Bonaparte, held Alvinzi,
+indeed, in check on the Brenta; but Vaubois was driven, in defeat, from
+the Tyrol; the important position of Rivoli was lost; and Davidowich
+had approached Verona by the first week of November. The principal
+army of the French was now compelled to fall back; Napoleon sent a
+detachment to support Vaubois; but though Rivoli, the key to Verona,
+was regained, Alvinzi had advanced and drawn near the city. Napoleon
+attacked him fiercely at Caldiero, but the French recoiled, baffled,
+from a very strong position; and had Davidowich at this moment pressed
+forward boldly, and Alvinzi made good use of his success, they might
+have effected their junction, seized Verona, and made their way across
+the Adige. But the spell of defeat was on the Austrian chiefs; and
+Napoleon, seizing his one chance with marvellous skill, plucked a
+glorious triumph out of the extreme of peril.</p>
+
+<p>Abandoning Verona, he crossed the Adige; he moved quickly down the
+stream and recrossed it, and then he suddenly fell on his astounded
+foe, advancing along the dykes of Arcola, through the morasses of the
+Lower Adige, where the agility and vehemence of the French soldiery
+would, he foresaw, give them a great advantage. The battle raged
+confusedly for several days; Napoleon more than once led his men in
+person; Davidowich, meanwhile, had reconquered Rivoli; but skill and
+French valour at last prevailed, and the two Austrian armies were
+ultimately compelled to fall back behind the Brenta and into the Tyrol
+discomfited, and with immense losses. Austria, however, would not
+confess defeat; great efforts were made to restore her armies; and
+Alvinzi assumed the offensive again, in the first days of January 1797.
+He had even now probably 60,000 men against 35,000 or 40,000 French;
+and his plan was to descend the Adige, to occupy Rivoli, and then to
+seize Verona, and to press on to Mantua, a diversion being at the same
+time made on the Lower Adige by his lieutenant, Provera. By the 14th
+of January the Austrian columns had surrounded Rivoli on every side;
+but in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> difficult march through the hills, their artillery and
+cavalry had been attached to one column only, on the best road, and
+this gave Napoleon, who had his army in hand, though very inferior in
+force, a decided advantage. The issue of the battle was never doubtful;
+Masséna displayed conspicuous skill; the Austrians, smitten down by
+the French guns, and unable to reply, lost heart and were beaten; and
+Alvinzi drew off, overthrown and routed. It is unnecessary to dwell on
+the last scenes of the contest; Provera contrived to cross the Adige,
+and even to make his way to Mantua; but he was crushed by Napoleon,
+who had hurried from Rivoli, and on the 11th of January laid down his
+arms. The fate of Mantua was now sealed; three efforts to relieve the
+place had failed; the garrison was reduced to extremities; and Würmser
+capitulated in a few days. The last Italian fortress of Austria had
+fallen; but this was nothing compared to her other losses. Army after
+army had perished in the attempt to dislodge Bonaparte from the Adige,
+and the Empire was completely exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the main seat of the war had been transferred from the
+Rhine and the Danube to the Adige, the Isonzo, and the hills of the
+Tyrol; a man of genius had transformed the situation. I shall not refer
+to the close of the struggle. The Archduke Charles, the last hope of
+the Hapsburgs, endeavoured in vain to arrest the march of Bonaparte
+across the Carnic Alps, into the valleys of the Drave and the Mur. In
+the second week of April the youthful conqueror beheld the steeples
+of Vienna from the heights of the Simmering, having, with an army
+never 50,000 strong, subdued Italy and shattered the power of Austria.
+Nor can I notice Leoben and Campo Formio, or moralize on the Fall of
+Venice; nor can I comment on the profound statecraft, very different
+from the revolutionary cant, shown by Napoleon in the negotiations for
+peace. Yet a word must be said, by way of comment, on the memorable
+campaign of 1796–97, by some considered its great author’s masterpiece.
+The dazzling imagination, one of the most striking, and yet a dangerous
+gift of Napoleon, was not seen in this passage of arms as distinctly as
+in more than one that followed; but every other faculty of a master of
+war was exhibited in the highest perfection.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> The first accomplishment
+of a true strategist, skill in so understanding the theatre of war as
+to make it subserve his ends in view, was displayed in more than one
+notable instance; the perception of the importance of the Cadibona
+Pass, and the grand choice of the Adige as a barrier, are examples that
+cannot escape the reader. Nor less admirable was the exhibition of
+another great strategic gift, the combination of force on the decisive
+points, the usual prelude of real success. Napoleon, always weaker
+than his foes, if united, was often stronger on the scene of immediate
+action, and this was largely due to his wonderful powers, if it was
+also caused by the faults of adversaries who persisted in following a
+false strategic system. No commander besides, not even Turenne, had
+approached Napoleon in the great art of manœuvring between divided
+enemies, of striking them left and right in succession, and of gaining
+the flank and rear of a hostile army; the operations against Würmser,
+and the march to Piacenza, are admirable specimens of this kind of
+excellence. In the movements, too, and manœuvres of Bonaparte, we see a
+splendour, and yet a scientific method, and, perhaps most distinctly,
+a skill in stratagem peculiar to himself, and hitherto scarcely known;
+and as for his tactics, the genius with which he chose the ground at
+Arcola stamps him at once as a master in the highest sphere of this
+art. Nor less remarkable were his moral qualities; his energy and
+resolution, for example, appear conspicuously in the raising of the
+siege of Mantua; and no one but Napoleon would have ventured to cross
+the will of the Directory, as he did more than once, at the risk of his
+fortune, and perhaps of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in this marvellous display of genius and power we can occasionally
+see defects and faults. Napoleon risked too much in continuing the
+siege of Mantua at the approach of Alvinzi. He should not, perhaps,
+have fought at Caldiero; and we trace signs of that over-confidence in
+success, which certainly was his most distinctive error. One general
+cause of the extreme brilliancy of his movements should be carefully
+noted. Napoleon, unlike the first revolutionary chiefs, did not merely
+throw his troops on a country and allow them to plunder to obtain
+subsistence; he well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> knew the fatal results of this system, and he
+organized magazines and depôts with care; but he perceived, with true
+insight, that, in Italy at least, it was nearly always possible to
+find resources on the spot; and his army accordingly moved with much
+less impediments than that of the heavily-encumbered Austrians, and
+was often able to assume a bold offensive which generals of the old
+type would have deemed impossible. This method, however, which he
+made almost perfect, had a dangerous side as yet unseen, but to be
+manifested in a still distant future. For the rest, Napoleon, in the
+campaign of Italy, had good subordinates and an army that became most
+formidable in his master hand; but the force that really determined
+events was the great military genius which had suddenly appeared.</p>
+
+<p>I shall pass over Napoleon’s career in the East, the Pyramids, and the
+failure at Acre; these campaigns but slightly illustrate his genius in
+war. His object in his descent on Egypt was to march through Syria and
+Persia to the Indus. He always maintained that the design was feasible;
+but our present knowledge shows that it was quite impossible, and
+in this, as in other of his military plans, his soaring imagination
+overcame his judgment. On his return to France in the winter of 1799
+he easily supplanted the tottering Government, and, as First Consul,
+seized supreme power; and though I shall not comment on the 18th
+Brumaire, it may fairly be said that this <i>coup d’état</i> saved
+France and restored her to her place in Europe. A second Coalition had
+been formed against her, during Napoleon’s absence, after the Battle
+of the Nile. Prussia, indeed, held aloof, but Russia appeared in
+formidable strength on the theatre of war; and Austria, aided by the
+gold and the troops of England, once more placed powerful armies in
+the field. Notwithstanding the examples of the campaign of 1796, that
+of 1799 proceeded on the late false principles. The war was conducted
+on an enormous front, from the Texel, along the Rhine, to the Tiber;
+and the armies on both sides were split into fractions, comparatively
+inefficient on a vast field of manœuvre. The Allies, however, gained
+important success. Masséna, indeed, saved France at Zürich; but
+Suvóroff drove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> the French out of Italy, and the Austrians, reversing
+the events of 1796, advanced from the Mincio, and approached the French
+Alps. When Napoleon, who, in a few months, had accomplished wonders
+of administrative skill, in restoring the finances and power of the
+State, had, in the beginning of 1800, to survey the military affairs
+of France, her situation was still critical in the extreme. Russia,
+indeed, had abandoned the Allied cause, but Austria had put her whole
+strength forth. One great Imperial army, led by Mélas, covered Italy
+from the Adige to the Tanaro; another, under Kray, was in the Swabian
+lowlands, holding the southern approaches to the Black Forest; and
+France, with forces reduced and weakened, was threatened with invasion
+on the Rhine and the Var.</p>
+
+<p>A man of surpassing powers in war was, however, for the first time at
+her head; and this proved sufficient to turn the scale of Fortune.
+Napoleon’s project for the campaign was not completely realised; but
+it was the most striking perhaps of his great career, and it ended in
+a succession of triumphs. With that wonderful glance which read the
+whole theatre, and saw how to make the best use of it, the First Consul
+perceived that the two hostile armies were separated by the vast space
+of Switzerland, at this time in the possession of the French; and
+the army of Mélas, about 100,000 strong, and intended ultimately to
+enter Provence, was the principal army, on what ought to have been the
+secondary point of attack only; while that of Kray, perhaps 90,000 men,
+designed, if successful, to attain Alsace, was a subordinate force on
+the chief scene of action. These being the facts, and as France held
+Switzerland, projecting like a huge natural bastion between the enemy’s
+widely-divided masses, Napoleon gave Moreau the main French army—it
+contained perhaps 100,000 troops—with directions to cross the Rhine
+at Schaffhausen, to fall in full force on the rear of Kray, and to cut
+him off from his line of retreat; Moreau, at the fitting time, sending
+a large detachment across the St. Gothard in order to aid the movements
+of the French chief in Italy. Napoleon selected for 1800 the scene of
+his exploits in 1796–97; and his design was, avoiding the Piedmontese
+fortresses, to cross the Alps by the Great St. Bernard range, and then
+rapidly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> descending, to seize the lines of the communications of Mélas
+with the Adige, and supported by the detachment from Moreau, to force
+the Austrians to fight in a disastrous position. The First Consul
+calculated that about 40,000 men—France at this juncture could not
+yield more—would, with the aid from the main army, suffice for his
+purpose; but as it was of the first importance to allow the Austrians
+to advance into the far end of Italy, and to engage themselves on the
+line of the Var, it was necessary to conceal as much as possible the
+formation and destination of the new army of Italy, and especially
+to screen its advance to the Alps. To attain his end Napoleon tasked
+to the utmost the dexterity in stratagem in which he stands supreme.
+He assembled a collection of bad troops at Dijon, and ostentatiously
+announced this was his Italian army; but in the meantime he quietly
+drew together his real force from different parts of France, masking
+the operation with the greatest care and forethought. The main army,
+I have said, was to cross the St. Bernard; but a small column was to
+march by the pass of Mont Cenis—the ordinary military way through the
+Alps—in order effectually to deceive the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign only began in earnest in spring, though hostilities had
+not ceased through the winter. In the first week of May Mélas had
+part of his army besieging Genoa, under his lieutenant, Ott, Masséna
+making a stubborn defence; Elsnitz, another Austrian, was upon the Var,
+confronted by Suchet, a capable chief well known in the Peninsular War
+afterwards; and the rest of the Imperial army held Piedmont, extending
+thence to the Adige and the Mincio. Meanwhile, Moreau, a general of
+the second order, had feared to execute Napoleon’s design, and to fall
+on the rear of Kray by Schaffhausen; he had crossed the Rhine, after
+his own fashion, by complicated and even hazardous movements, merely
+threatening, not striking Kray, with effect; but he had forced the
+weaker hostile army back; and he was able to fulfil one great part
+of his mission, and to send 20,000 men across the St. Gothard, under
+Moncey, one of the Napoleonic marshals. The First Consul took the
+field in the second week of May; his army, secretly moved to the Swiss
+frontier, its strength still unknown to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> its enemy, crossed the Great
+St. Bernard from the 16th to the 19th; and simultaneously the secondary
+force moved forward through the pass of Mont Cenis. The hill fort of
+Bard arrested the French for a moment; but the obstacle was overcome
+skilfully; and by the 23rd the advanced guard of Napoleon was in the
+valley of the Dora, and in full march for Piedmont. By this time Mélas
+had heard of the advance of the enemy, but he refused to believe in the
+force of the French army; he allowed Ott and Elsnitz to remain where
+they were; and though he moved to Turin in person, it was with not more
+than a few thousand men, for he felt assured that his divisions in
+Piedmont would be able to give a good account of Napoleon. The Austrian
+chief, too, at this critical moment, was deceived by the apparition of
+the column from Mont Cenis; he thought that it was the chief part of
+the hostile army; and falling into the snare that had been laid for
+him, he halted at Turin to draw in his forces.</p>
+
+<p>This gave Napoleon the opportunity he sought; he marched from the
+Dora across the Sesia and the Ticino with his wonted celerity; and he
+entered Milan on the 2nd of June, already menacing the communications
+of his foe. He was soon joined by Moncey’s detachment, and being now
+at the head of 60,000 men, he crossed the Po, holding both its banks,
+and closed on the rear of the main Austrian army, thrown forward almost
+to the frontier of France. Mélas, seriously alarmed, gave orders to
+concentrate his still very superior force; but Ott lingered to receive
+the keys of Genoa, which yielded only after a most stern resistance,
+and left a large garrison in the fallen city; Elsnitz was routed by
+Suchet in his retreat from the Var; and the Austrian army was immensely
+weakened, when in the second week of June it lay round Alessandria,
+Ott, who had endeavoured to attain the Po, having been driven back
+at Montebello with loss. By this time Napoleon had his army divided
+on either bank of the Po, Moncey watching the course of its Alpine
+feeders, Napoleon holding the famous Stradella Pass, where the spurs of
+the Apennines approach the river; and his enemy, even now, was within
+his toils. But the First Consul gave Mélas credit for more strategic
+skill than he really possessed; he thought that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> the Austrian, after
+the fall of Genoa, might endeavour to make his escape by the coast, or
+might fall back and overpower Suchet; and he debouched into the great
+plain of Marengo, in order to observe and close on his foe. His army
+was not 30,000 strong; that of Mélas was probably 40,000; it was very
+superior in cavalry and guns, which gave it a marked advantage in open
+ground; and no doubt can exist that in risking this movement Napoleon
+made a great strategic error. Mélas, a stout warrior of the school
+of Daun, attacked the French fiercely on the 14th of June, hoping to
+defeat his enemy and to escape from the net thrown around him with
+such forethought and skill; and he nearly attained a decisive victory.
+Desaix, however, a trusted lieutenant of Bonaparte, arriving from a
+distance, restored the battle; the horsemen of Kellerman changed the
+fortunes of the day, and the Austrians at last were completely beaten.
+The result was then seen of the masterly movements which had brought
+Napoleon on the rear of Mélas; the defeated army was compelled to make
+terms, and it evacuated the peninsula even beyond the Mincio. France
+had regained Italy by a march and a battle.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, always tenacious, resisted for months, and Moreau gained a
+great victory at Hohenlinden, success in part due to the overboldness
+of John, a brother of the Archduke Charles, who imagined he had
+mastered Napoleon’s strategy. But Marengo had been the decisive
+stroke: Austria fought for honour only, after the loss of Italy;
+and ere long she accepted the Peace of Lunéville, followed by the
+peace of Amiens between France and England. The campaign of 1800 is
+the most dazzling of Napoleon’s masterpieces, though marred by what
+might have been a fatal error. Full justice, perhaps, has never been
+done to the surpassing ability of the First Consul in perceiving the
+advantage given to France by her hold of Switzerland, and the false
+position of the Austrian armies; for two Napoleons were required on
+the scene, to realise completely one grand conception. Had Bonaparte
+been in the place of Moreau, and debouched from Schaffhausen across
+the Rhine, Kray would have been cut off, and Vienna laid open; and
+the ruin of Mélas and the Conquest of Italy was, in fact, half<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> only
+of what might have been done. Yet, as it was, Switzerland was made a
+kind of sallyport, to place the French armies on the rear of their
+foes; Moreau was rightly given the superior force to paralyse Kray,
+and to keep him off from the Rhine; Napoleon properly distributed the
+inferior force in Italy, under his own command, for it would suffice
+to defeat operations in the Var; and though Moreau failed to destroy
+Kray, Napoleon succeeded in destroying Mélas, thrown forward perilously
+on the French frontier. Intelligence of the theatre and splendour of
+design were never, perhaps, more finely displayed; the ordinary reader
+will dwell on the Alpine march; but the true student of war will rather
+note the exquisite art with which the army of Italy was collected,
+formed, and moved to the Alps, all without the enemy’s knowledge; the
+admirable skill by which Mélas was deceived through the demonstration
+at Mont Cenis; the celerity of the advance on Milan, and the perfect
+arrangements made to combine with Moncey, and then to encompass the
+foe. Genius and power of stratagem have never accomplished more; and
+had Napoleon remained near the Stradella Pass—Turenne certainly would
+have done this—the execution of his plan would have been perfect.
+But this wonderful chief was not only too confident throughout his
+whole career, but often showed<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> impatience when near his enemy;
+these faults nearly caused him to lose the campaign; and he certainly
+ought not to have fought at Marengo, for the chances were in his
+opponent’s favour, though an advance towards Alessandria might have
+been justified, for Mélas might, perhaps, have escaped by the seaboard,
+or have crushed Suchet with his weak detachment.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot dwell on the Government of the First Consul, on the Code, the
+Concordat, the Pacification of La Vendée, the restoration of order
+and peace in France, the foundation of the only institutions and laws
+which have lasted during her subsequent history; nor can I comment
+on his external policy, the settlement of Italy in the interests of
+France, and the extension of her influence through the Lesser States
+of Germany. I shall only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> remark that if these achievements reveal
+the near advent of despotism at home, and the spirit of encroaching
+ambition abroad, they display administrative excellence of the first
+order, and profound, if hard and unscrupulous, statecraft; and they
+bear the marks of ineffaceable greatness. I cannot, moreover, enlarge
+on the causes which led to the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and
+involved England and France in a death struggle. Nor shall I describe
+the Flotilla and the Camp of Boulogne, the accumulation of a great
+army destined to cross the Channel, and to invade our coasts, and the
+energy, the perseverance, and the careful forethought with which this
+last was prepared to effect the descent. Yet a remark must be made
+on the fine combinations thought out by Napoleon to carry out his
+purpose, for they are a notable example of his skill in stratagem.
+His arrangements to embark his army, and to make the passage, in the
+flotilla, were but a part of the design; they were largely intended
+to mask his purpose; his real plan was to conduct the descent under
+the protection of a fleet which should command the Channel. How
+indefatigably, and with what consummate art, the First Consul toiled
+to effect his object, his correspondence abundantly proves; and, it
+must be added, he well nigh succeeded. The Admiralty was deceived, and
+Nelson was lured away; and had French seamen been nearly as good as our
+own, and Villeneuve been a capable chief, Napoleon would have mastered
+the narrow seas for a time, and his army would have stood on our
+shores. That he would have found a Moscow, in England, our countrymen
+believe; he certainly would have been imprisoned within the ground he
+occupied, for our fleets would have cut him off from France, and his
+enterprise would probably have been a failure. All this, however, is
+speculation only; England undoubtedly was in grave danger, and her
+Government did not understand her enemy; though it deserves notice
+that Napoleon’s idea, that he would subdue England by pulling down the
+Throne and setting a Republic up in its place, was not only a huge
+mistake, but tends to show he did not believe that he could succeed
+only by mere force of arms.</p>
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.<br>
+<span class="subhed"><span class="smcap">Napoleon</span> (<i>continued</i>).</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>The return of Pitt to power, at the call of the nation; the aggressive
+foreign policy of the first Consul, and the atrocious execution of the
+Duc D’Enghien—a crime that may be palliated but not excused—soon led
+to a new Coalition against France. Prussia, indeed, gorged with spoil
+after the peace of Basle, stood apart, as she had done in 1799, as if
+secretly ashamed of an ignoble part; but Russia and Austria joined
+hands with England. Other petty States took the same side, and by the
+summer of 1805 the Allies had come to a general agreement to take the
+offensive. Before this time Napoleon had become Emperor, with the
+universal acclaim of the French people, and the crowned soldier, who
+had raised France from the depths of disaster to the head of Europe,
+and whose strong hand had put anarchy down, now wielded the resources
+of a mighty State, and made the revolutionary forces which he used and
+hated the ministers of immense despotic power. The military strength
+of France, though it was enlarged afterwards, was now really at its
+extreme height, and Napoleon’s army of this period was by far the
+finest he ever commanded. I must glance at the characteristics of this
+magnificent force, justly known by the name of the Grand Army, and
+infinitely the most formidable organization for war which hitherto
+had been arrayed in Europe. Apart from small Italian and German
+contingents, the Grand Army at this time was composed of Frenchmen, for
+the most part troops in the flower of life, but with a large admixture
+of veteran soldiers; and this vast body was inflamed with a strong
+spirit of enthusiasm, of patriotism of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> its own kind, of thirst for
+glory, and of intense confidence in an unrivalled leader. Its physical
+and moral force was, therefore, enormous; and as five-sixths of it
+had for many months been assembled in the great Camp of Boulogne—the
+general name of many leaguers—and the troops had been inured to the
+hard training of war, its military condition had attained perfection.
+It probably numbered at this time about 200,000 men in the first line,
+with reserves, perhaps, 200,000 more; and, regiment for regiment, I
+certainly think it formed a more efficient instrument of war than the
+huge national armies of recent days, composed far too largely of young
+conscripts, and never yet subjected to the strain of ill-fortune.</p>
+
+<p>The general organization of this great force was perfectly adapted,
+in Napoleon’s hands, to the conditions of war in the first years of
+this century. Brigades and divisions had now been formed into corps,
+each under the command of able chiefs, too accustomed, indeed, to look
+up to Napoleon, and not given sufficient freedom of action, but all
+skilful and experienced soldiers; and the army had more cohesiveness
+and real power than ever had been the case formerly. Napoleon, however,
+apart from these masses, each an independent army in itself, had
+large cavalry and artillery reserves; and he usually kept them under
+his immediate control, to wield “his club of Hercules” for decisive
+strokes. The Grand Army, too, like that of Louis XIV., had its <i>corps
+d’élite</i>—the Imperial Guard—the tenth legion of the modern
+Cæsar, and this superb force on many a hard-fought day turned by its
+mighty preponderance the scales of fortune. As for the tactics of
+the army, they had been perfected in the experience of a long series
+of wars; columns of infantry, not as yet too dense, and preceded by
+skirmishers, were formed for attack; but they were always supported by
+cavalry and guns; and Napoleon invariably took special care that the
+three arms should act in concert. These arrangements had given great
+flexibility and yet strength to the improved formations; and it was
+clearly apparent that the new methods were superior to those of the
+Seven Years’ War. As for the mechanism of the army, if I may use<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> the
+word, the whole system of assuring supplies, of establishing magazines
+and depôts, and of procuring continual relays of troops, which German
+science has brought to perfection, had been largely matured by
+Napoleon; and though he always “made war sustain war,” that is, he
+usually trusted to resources on the spot in order to enable his troops
+to move freely, he was most attentive to the wants of his soldiers, and
+provided for them with great administrative skill. Yet, formidable as
+it was, the Grand Army had marked defects which require notice. It had
+never lost the habits of the Revolutionary Wars; Napoleon’s system,
+indeed, promoted rapine; it retained some of the instincts of the
+savage hordes let loose in 1793–94; it was crowded with ignorant and
+bad officers, the survivors of the huge conventional levies; and the
+arrangements of the staff were far from good. It still bore the marks
+of a revolutionary age; and in all these respects it was very inferior
+to the great army formed by Roon and Moltke.</p>
+
+<p>The Allies had set their armies in motion by the first week of
+September 1805. They had nearly half a million of men on foot; but,
+partly owing to divided counsels, and partly to the disastrous mistake
+of subordinating military to political ends, this gigantic force was
+injudiciously arranged on the theatre. Four separate attacks had
+been designed; the first by a small English and Swedish force from
+Hanover and the North German seaboard; the second by an Austrian and
+a great Russian army, to be assembled upon the banks of the Danube
+and ultimately to invade Alsace; the third on northern Italy from the
+Adige and the Tyrol, conducted by the Archdukes Charles and John;
+and the fourth by an English and Russian contingent disembarked from
+a fleet on the coast of Naples. But the first and last attacks were
+mere weak diversions, which could not alarm a true strategist; as
+regards the second, the Russian army, still in Galicia and Poland,
+was at an immense distance from the Austrians upon the Upper Danube;
+and as for the third, the ambition of the House of Hapsburg, eager
+to regain its Italian possessions, had repeated the mistake of 1800,
+its chiefs having placed far too great a force on secondary points,
+without sufficient regard for those which were of supreme importance,
+the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> space between the Middle Rhine and the Danube. Napoleon seized
+the situation with the eye of genius; and the plan of his operations
+was at once formed. Neglecting Northern Germany and Southern Italy,
+and employing only an inferior force to hold the Austrian Princes in
+check—they were in command of 100,000 men—he resolved to fall on the
+Austrian army on the Danube, which, not more than 85,000 strong, was
+thrown forward on the country round Ulm, to surround and destroy it,
+under its chief Mack, as Mélas had been destroyed five years before,
+and thus to cut it off completely from the distant Russian army, which
+could not be on the spot at the time.</p>
+
+<p>I can only glance at the operations that followed, less dazzling than
+those which led to Marengo, but in principle and method essentially
+the same, and a notable instance of the great maxim in war, set at
+nought in 1793 to 1799, but always observed by real commanders, that
+you should find and strike at the decisive point, and assail an enemy
+where he is most vulnerable. The Grand Army marched across France from
+the camp of Boulogne with a celerity which confounded its foes; two
+corps, under Bernadotte and Marmont, created of late Imperial Marshals,
+advanced from Hanover and the flats of Holland; a corp of Bavarians
+joined the French; and the collected masses, nearly 200,000 strong,
+were drawn together to the Rhine and the Main, ready to attain the
+Danube, in the last days of September. These movements led to the great
+surrender of Ulm, a most remarkable event in the wars of this century.
+Masking the general movement by sending detachments of cavalry into
+and along the Black Forest—the stratagem again of the column of Mont
+Cenis—and spreading his masses over the Franconian plains, the Emperor
+moved the converging arrays from the great arc of Strasburg, Mayence,
+and Würtzburg; and by the second week of October they were upon the
+Danube already interposed between Ulm and Vienna. The net was now
+rapidly drawn round Mack, who, stricken with terror, remained almost
+motionless, changing front about Ulm, and doing scarcely anything to
+strike at the enemy gathering in on all sides. Some mistakes were made
+in completing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>the toils, almost inevitable in manœuvres of the kind,
+which a capable chief might have turned to account; but these were
+rectified within a few hours; three bodies of Austrians made their
+escape; but Mack simply waited on events, unlike Mélas, made no attempt
+to break through, and capitulated with the mass of his army on the
+19th of October. The greater part of the forces which had got off were
+intercepted and made prisoners; and thus a whole army was literally
+swept from the theatre by a march without striking one effective blow.
+Europe never witnessed a scene of the kind again until Metz fell
+through the treason of Bazaine.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_128fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_128fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Sketch Map of CENTRAL EUROPE</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Napoleon, in his rapid advance on Ulm, had spread his army over a
+vast circumference because no possible foes were at hand; he had made
+the best use of the good roads which now generally traversed France
+and Germany; and he had thus turned to the greatest advantage one of
+the new existing conditions of war. The front of the Allied attack
+had been broken; and the paralysis, so to speak, of the head, had
+caused the collapse of the inferior members. The eccentric operations
+in the North of Germany and in Southern Italy came to nothing; the
+Archduke Charles and the Archduke John—the first had been defeated at
+Caldiero, a revenge for the failure of 1796—were compelled to fall
+back from the Adige and the Tyrol; and the way from Ulm to Vienna
+lay open. The Emperor, giving effect, in another age, to the great
+conception of Villars in 1703, marched with the Grand Army down the
+valley of the Danube, protecting his wings from possible attacks; the
+Isar, the Inn, the Traun, and the Ens, lines capable of defence, were
+passed and mastered; and, by the middle of November, the triumphant
+conqueror had entered the capital of the German Cæsars. By this time
+the advanced corps of the Russian army, which had marched from Galicia
+and had attained the Inn, had rallied the fragments of Mack’s forces;
+its chief, Kutusof, a name to become famous, had fallen back, and left
+Vienna to its fate; and he had come into line with his colleague,
+Buxhöwden, who had been marching from the Polish frontier, and had
+made his way into the plains of Moravia. Napoleon broke up from Vienna
+to pursue his foes, though, notwithstanding his wonderful success,
+his position<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> was already not free from danger. In the march on Ulm,
+Bernadotte had crossed a Prussian district; this had incensed the King
+and even the nation, for some time chafing at its neutral attitude, and
+Prussia had begun to prepare for war, and to assemble troops on the
+Elbe and the Oder. The Grand Army, too, had suffered heavy losses in
+its forced marches into the heart of Austria; the system of living upon
+conquered provinces had not sufficed for enormous bodies of men; and
+thousands of stragglers, marauders, deserters, swarmed along the tracts
+from the Rhine to the Danube. The Archdukes, too, in retreat from the
+south, were straining every nerve to attain Moravia; and should Prussia
+march an army through the Bohemian passes, and throw her sword into
+the scale of the Allies, the French, isolated, would, with winter at
+hand, and far from their base, be soon compelled to confront an immense
+superiority of force.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, however, always confident—the modern Cæsar had faith in his
+fortunes—did not hesitate to march into Moravia; and he was at Brünn
+by the third week of November, with a considerable part of the Grand
+Army. At this moment Kutusof and Buxhöwden were near Olmütz about
+80,000 strong; some Austrian contingents had united with them; Prussia
+had actually promised to attack Napoleon; the Archdukes were but a few
+marches off; and had the Allies only waited a fortnight, they could
+have assembled nearly 200,000 men to fight a great battle with the
+French Emperor, who could not have assembled 100,000. But folly and
+presumption were in the Russian camp, and the young Czar, Alexander,
+was persuaded to take the offensive, and to advance from Olmütz before
+the available supports of the Allies were near. A theorist contributed
+to this fatal resolve, and his pedantry led to a tremendous disaster.
+Napoleon at this time was in position not far from Brünn, on the banks
+of the Goldbach, in front of the little town of Austerlitz; and though
+he had really about 70,000 men in hand, two of his corps were at some
+distance. Weyrother, an Austrian general officer, proposed a grand
+plan, to descend from Olmütz, to turn the right wing of the French
+on the Goldbach, and to cut Napoleon off from retreat on Vienna, by
+a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> formidable attack in the oblique order. The Allied army, perhaps
+80,000 men, was close to the Goldbach on the 1st of December, its
+columns arranged for the offensive movement ostentatiously talked of
+and soon made apparent; and Weyrother announced a great coming victory.
+Napoleon, who had drawn in his two corps, beheld with delight this
+reckless strategy—a flank march along a wide front, under the beard
+of the chief of Arcola and Rivoli; that “army is mine,” he proudly
+said, and he made the prediction known in an address to his soldiers.
+Anticipating what would happen—in part at least—he had assumed a
+timid defensive attitude, in order to lure his enemies on—another
+instance of his wonderful powers of stratagem.</p>
+
+<p>The sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, to illuminate one of the great
+scenes of history. The nature of the ground forbade the manœuvre
+contemplated by the Allied leaders. Towards their left, in the space in
+which they proposed to outflank and defeat the French right, spread a
+region of marsh, around the Goldbach, of wide lakes, and of intricate
+country, with the hamlets of Sokolnitz and Telnitz hard by; and it
+formed at once a difficult position to force, and a line favourable in
+the extreme for defence. Their centre filled the plain round the hill
+of Pratzen, and was, therefore, dangerously exposed to attack, should
+it be weakened by a detachment to the left; and their right was almost
+wholly “in the air,” and liable to be turned and destroyed by the low
+hill of Santon. Napoleon had seized the characteristics of the scene
+with the insight of the great chief of Ramillies, and his dispositions
+were made to turn to the best advantage the local peculiarities which
+he saw before him. He had already secured a second line of retreat,
+was not bound to his base on Vienna, and was perfectly free to act
+as he pleased; and his arrangements were the piece of a master of
+tactics. He placed Davoust, one of the best of the marshals, with
+only a few thousand men on his right—reinforcements, however, were
+ready for them—for he wished to draw the enemy on to his ruin, and
+the position he knew was easy of defence; but Soult, afterwards Duke
+of Dalmatia, Bernadotte and his corps, with the Imperial Guard, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>
+massed together in formidable strength, to carry the plain and heights
+of Pratzen; and Lannes, with the left and a reserve, held the hill of
+Santon and the lowlands around, with every advantage for an effort
+against the Allied right. The battle-field, therefore, was made, so to
+speak, a theatre by the antagonist chiefs, to assure defeat and victory
+alike; and Kutusof, it is said, foretold the issue with an assurance
+equal to that of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>These operations led to the great fight of Austerlitz, the masterpiece
+of war, I think, of this century. By the early dawn, four big Austrian
+and Russian masses were in motion to turn Napoleon’s right, advancing
+slowly in the oblique order; but they toiled painfully through the
+difficult ground; and they were kept at bay by the little force of
+Davoust, which, holding Sokolnitz and Telnitz, defied their efforts.
+Ere long a tremendous onslaught of war burst suddenly upon the Allied
+centre, thinned by the divisions sent to the left; Napoleon, who, like
+a crouching tiger, had reserved his strength until it was time to
+spring, launched Soult and Bernadotte against Pratzen, and the enemy’s
+centre was cut through spite of heroic efforts. Meanwhile Lannes had
+assailed the enemy’s right; here, too, a noble resistance was made;
+but science and skill, force being nearly equal, must always prevail
+over the sternest courage; and victory soon declared for the French.
+Early in the afternoon the Allied centre and right, half ruined, were
+a dissolving mass; and though the left had forced Davoust back some
+distance, it was isolated and entangled in an intricate region. It
+was beginning to retreat, its cumbrous masses demoralised and showing
+signs of panic, when Napoleon turned against it with that determined
+energy which he nearly always displayed in a successful battle. His
+victorious centre was brought to bear in irresistible power on the
+flying enemy; a horrible scene of carnage followed; the Austrians and
+Russians were slain or captured in thousands without an attempt at
+resistance; and multitudes perished in the lakes near the Goldbach, the
+French artillery shattering their frozen surface. The stricken army was
+well-nigh destroyed; it lost all its guns; and nearly half its numbers,
+and its fragments were scattered in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> every direction. The coalition
+succumbed under this mighty stroke; Prussia said “Hail” to the
+conqueror, and licked his hand; Alexander was too glad to escape beyond
+the Niemen, with the remains of his army; and Austria, her constancy
+at last broken, was compelled to accept the Peace of Pressburg, which
+deprived her of all she had retained in Italy, and contracted the
+limits of her shrunken empire. In the general dismay of Continental
+Europe, England alone had consolation and hope; she had lost Nelson,
+but that greatest of seamen had annihilated the fleets of France and
+Spain on the ever memorable day of Trafalgar.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to dwell on the first part of this campaign; for the
+operations that led to the surrender of Mack were, I have said, akin to
+those that hemmed in Mélas. The Allies were in a false position on the
+theatre of war, as the Austrians were in 1800; Napoleon enveloped one
+of their armies, as before Marengo he had closed round the Austrians.
+The movements of 1805 were less fascinating, I have remarked, than
+those of 1800; and the great superiority of Napoleon over Mack in
+numbers make them less astonishing and strike the mind less; but they
+were conducted upon a grander scale, were more scientific, and were
+better prepared. The march on Vienna was a fine operation; but it will
+always remain questionable if the Emperor ought to have hazarded the
+advance into Moravia; assuredly had the Allies fallen back and waited,
+he would have been exposed to the gravest perils.</p>
+
+<p>The grand incident of the contest is, however, Austerlitz, a battle
+that should be studied by every thinker on war. It is a poor account of
+this mighty conflict to say that it represents the system of Frederick
+at odds with that of Napoleon, and exploded by it; the result depends
+on much deeper causes than tactical orders on a field of battle. No
+doubt the Allies tried to attack in Frederick’s fashion; no doubt the
+French attacked in columns with skirmishers; no doubt the hostile
+armies may be compared “to a long bar of iron, inferior in strength
+and suppleness to a chain of many links,” to use the metaphor of an
+accomplished writer. But Austerlitz was not an affair of mere methods
+of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> offence; it was the triumph of marvellous genius in war over
+pedantry and ignorance of the higher parts of tactics. The Allies
+placed themselves on the ground as badly as possible; they made a
+long flank march under the guns of an enemy; their turning movement
+inevitably failed in the region in which the attempt was made; and
+had Daun been before them they would have been defeated, though Daun
+could no more have achieved Austerlitz than he could have written
+<i>Othello</i> and <i>Hamlet</i>. On the other hand, Napoleon occupied
+the ground with perfect judgment, made every feature in it conform
+to his ends; placed his army upon it in the exact positions in which
+its attack would be most decisive, and made the very most of the
+false moves of his enemies. The result was complete; only two-thirds
+of an army rather weaker than its foe in numbers, and much weaker in
+guns, simply shattered to atoms a more powerful force, with a loss
+comparatively very small; and this, though the Austrians and Russians
+fought extremely well. In all this we see what Napoleon has called
+the “divine side of war,” not its mere evolutions; the difference, he
+has said, is that between a “book of the <i>Iliad</i> and a page of
+a grammar.” Yet masterpiece as this great battle was, I do not think
+it surpasses Ramillies in the dispositions that were made before it,
+and in the manner in which the enemy was reached and conquered. We see
+the same insight in both instances; the same thorough perception of
+the nature of the ground, and the means of taking the best advantage
+of it; the same perfect appreciation of the faults of the enemy, the
+same admirable distribution of the victorious armies. In one respect,
+however, Marlborough perhaps was inferior to Napoleon in execution; he
+did not strike down Villeroy with the tremendous force with which the
+Emperor crushed the Allies, and did not show the same wonderful power
+in victory. Yet I hesitate here, for we must remember Blenheim, and
+the absolute destruction of Tallard’s army; and in comparing the two
+battles, we must bear in mind that the three arms in Napoleon’s day had
+acquired a “mobility” and a power in the field unknown in the first
+part of the eighteenth century, and were, therefore, far more effective
+against a defeated army.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span></p>
+
+<p>I cannot notice the Confederation of the Rhine, the creation of vassal
+kingdoms beyond France, as appendages to the House of Bonaparte, and
+the enormous extension of the French Empire from the Zuider Zee to the
+extreme verge of Italy. The dream of setting up again the throne of
+Charlemagne in the generation of the French Revolution, and of holding
+down martial States by sheer force of arms, is characteristic of the
+extravagance sometimes seen in Napoleon; and it indicates also that
+profound scorn of anything resembling popular rights and movements
+which is a marked feature of his wonderful nature. War broke out soon
+again on the Continent, and Prussia, unaided, challenged the French
+Empire. That Power had been willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike;
+she had feigned submission after the rout of Austerlitz, but she
+remained angry and vexed at heart, and the domineering conduct of the
+Imperial conqueror goaded her at last to proclaim hostilities. The
+Court and even the nation rushed to arms; the misgivings expressed by
+veterans of the Seven Years’ War, who had followed events from 1794 to
+1805, were disregarded with false confidence; and two armies, about
+150,000 strong, led by Prince Hohenlohe and the Duke of Brunswick,
+marched from the Elbe and the Oder to the Thuringian Forest.</p>
+
+<p>The operations of the campaign of 1806 are, perhaps, less marked by
+Napoleon’s genius than that of more than one previous contest; but they
+achieved success that even now seems marvellous, and they conspicuously
+illustrate one of his peculiar gifts, power in annihilating a defeated
+enemy. The Grand Army, about 180,000 strong, was on the Main, not
+having returned to France when the Prussian chiefs had assumed the
+offensive, and the Emperor joined it in the first week of October.
+At this moment Hohenlohe and Brunswick were contemplating an advance
+to the Rhine. Bold strategy, they boasted, was all that was needed
+to overcome the Corsican upstart, and the Grand Army was spread from
+Würtzburg to Bamberg capable of being easily moved on their flank.
+Napoleon determined to gain this advantage, and, forming his army
+into three great masses, he began to traverse the defiles that lead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
+from the southern verge of the forest towards the Saale and the
+Elster. The movement, executed with his wonted promptitude, brought
+the Grand Army into the plains between the two rivers on the 10th of
+October, threatening the communications of the enemy with the Elbe; and
+Hohenlohe and Brunswick, passing from boasting to terror, fell back
+towards Weimar and Jena, to approach the Elbe. Napoleon, who, at the
+beginning of the campaign, expressed unfeigned respect for the famous
+army of Frederick, would not at first believe that generals of a great
+school would make such a hasty retrograde movement; and he drew part
+of his forces together, expecting to fight a great battle near Gera
+and Auma, points in the valleys of the Saale and the Elster. This
+miscalculation cost him the loss of some time, for his enemy had no
+intention to stand, and, meanwhile, the retreating armies had fallen
+back a considerable way towards the Elbe, the main body under Brunswick
+making for the line of the Unstrutt, a feeder of the Saale, and the
+defile of Kosen, a smaller force, led by Hohenlohe, halting near Jena
+in order to call in outlying detachments, and then to follow Brunswick
+to the Elbe. Napoleon began to pursue when he had ascertained his
+mistake; he was greatly elated by the results of partial engagements
+with small hostile bodies, in which the superiority of the French
+tactics was manifest, and he wished to compel the Prussians to accept
+battle. But his information was still imperfect; he would not credit
+so rapid a flight; he believed that by far the greatest part of the
+enemy’s army was concentrating near and around Jena; and his plan was
+to overwhelm it in front, and to cut off its retreat. With this object
+in view, he directed Davoust and Bernadotte to seize the defile of
+Kosen, crossing the Saale at the points of Naumburg and Dornburg; and
+with the main part of the Grand Army spread out in many columns he drew
+near the river and advanced on Jena.</p>
+
+<p>These operations led to Jena and Auerstadt, fought on the 14th of
+October 1806. By the night of the 13th Napoleon had seized, had
+occupied by an advanced guard, and had crowned with guns brought up
+with infinite toil—the Emperor followed the train in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> person—the
+Landgrafenberg heights, since known by his name, which commanded the
+approaches to the plains beyond; and from this point he saw the army
+of Hohenlohe, the bivouacs marked by miles of fires, extending along
+the region between Jena and Weimar. He made his dispositions for a
+great battle, still fixed in the belief that Hohenlohe’s army was
+the principal part of the hostile forces; and as he knew that, in
+any event, he would be in preponderating strength on the field, he
+prepared to attack Hohenlohe in front, and to turn both his flanks,
+and he directed Davoust to advance even beyond Kosen, to defeat, if
+he could, the army of Brunswick, and to close on the rear of the two
+Prussian armies. The battle of Jena began in the early morning; the
+first movement of Napoleon was to debouche from the Landgrafenberg into
+the plains beyond, and this was accomplished with little difficulty,
+Hohenlohe having altogether failed to perceive the importance of this
+position. When the French army had fully taken its ground, Napoleon
+had 100,000 men against 60,000, and the issue of the battle could not
+be doubtful. Ney, indeed, the ill-fated “bravest of the brave,” the
+warrior of Elchingen and of the Moskwa, engaged his troops prematurely,
+and met a severe repulse; and the Prussians displayed the stern
+devotion, and even the precision and skill in manœuvre characteristic
+of them in the Seven Years’ War. But Hohenlohe’s force, weaker as
+it was, was divided; the attack of Lannes, the Guard and Murat in
+front—the chief of the Imperial cavalry is well known to fame—that
+of Soult and Augereau, another marshal, on either flank, became
+impossible to resist; and though the Prussians “fought like tigers,” an
+eye-witness has said, and Napoleon<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> sincerely praised them in his
+account of the battle, Hohenlohe’s army was before long routed.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a battle of a very different kind had raged at Auerstadt, a
+few miles off, on the line of the retreat of the defeated Prussians.
+Davoust had issued, as he had been ordered, from the defile of Kosen;
+but as he advanced he became<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> aware of the great strength of the army
+of Brunswick, and he entreated Bernadotte to come to his aid. That
+chief, however, insisted on remaining at Dornburg, relying on the
+letter of Napoleon’s despatches; and it is doubtful whether this unwise
+resolve is to be attributed to the servile obedience characteristic
+of the Imperial marshals, or to miserable jealousy and dislike of a
+colleague. Davoust was now left with about 27,000 men to confront
+Brunswick, who must have had 70,000 had his force been well in hand;
+and the Marshal directed one of the finest battles of the whole period
+of the wars of Napoleon. He tenaciously kept Brunswick at bay for
+hours, but he must have been overwhelmed had Brunswick displayed the
+energy of the Austrian chief at Marengo; and in that event the two
+Prussian armies would have successfully effected their retreat to the
+Elbe. Brunswick, however, and most of the Prussian leaders, fell, and
+in a fatal hour the wretched advice was given to retire, and seek the
+support of Hohenlohe’s army, known to be making a stand at Jena. Within
+two or three hours the wrecks of that perishing force became entangled
+with the troops of Auerstadt; the contagion of demoralisation and
+panic spread, and the two armies broke up in headlong flight, ravaged
+and never let to rest by the French cavalry. Once more Napoleon gave
+proof of his skill in pursuit, and on this occasion with extraordinary
+results. The Prussian army had no reserves; the beaten force was
+completely scattered, and made for the course of the Lower Elbe, and
+the French Emperor, seizing the chord of the arc, forced it, in masses
+of shattered fragments, northwards, and cut off five-sixths of it from
+all possible retreat. Within a few days the conqueror had entered
+Berlin; some 20,000 fugitives were the sole relics of a fine army of
+150,000 men; these were driven into the wastes of the Lower Vistula,
+and the military power of Prussia was destroyed. Terrible scenes of
+weakness and despair followed; great fortresses opened their gates to
+hussars, and the monarchy of the chief of Leuthen toppled down in ruin.
+One of the last divisions that surrendered was that of Blücher, a rude
+soldier brought up in the school of Frederick, and destined to win a
+name in history.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p>
+
+<p>The campaign of Jena, it has been remarked, bears a singular
+resemblance to that of 1870, in which, however, victory passed from
+Gaul to Teuton. In both instances there was the same arrogance and
+precipitate haste on the defeated side; in both the same hesitation
+followed by panic; in both the same superiority of force, generalship,
+of all, in short, that secures success in war on the side of the
+triumphant conquerors; in both the same utter collapse of a great
+military State. Prussia, however, unlike France, made no national
+effort to struggle out from under the heel of the victor. There was no
+siege of Berlin like that of Paris; no Prussian Chanzy made his powers
+manifest; no Prussian Gambetta refused to despair of his country, or
+organized a resistance, misdirected no doubt, but not the less heroic
+and even formidable. In this campaign, I have said, the strategic gifts
+of the Emperor are not so strikingly seen as in others which I have
+tried to sketch. The plan of debouching into the valleys of the Saale
+and the Elster from the edge of the forest, though certainly the best,
+would have probably occurred to a general of the second rank; and,
+as a matter of fact, it occurred to Jomini, then a young officer in
+the Imperial Service. In the operations, moreover, that led to Jena,
+Napoleon made more than one real mistake; he lost time in preparing to
+fight near Gera and Auma. He was convinced that he was dealing with the
+main Prussian army at Jena. He ordered Davoust to advance beyond the
+pass of Kosen, and to close on the enemy, upon the false assumption
+that the force of Brunswick was not very great; and owing to these
+misconceptions, he so placed his army on the scene of the two battles
+that Davoust escaped a complete defeat by a chance only—a result that
+would have caused the failure of the campaign. Most probably Bernadotte
+was to blame for not joining his brother Marshal, and averting a
+blow that might have been disastrous; but Napoleon’s orders to go to
+Dornburg seem clear, and, in any case, as General-in-Chief, he is
+mainly accountable for a decided error. Yet the true student of war
+will not think the less of the Emperor for mistakes such as these. The
+greatest commanders must make mistakes, for they must act at once on
+imperfect knowledge; and the aphorism of Turenne is the simple truth,
+“He is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> the best general whose mistakes are the fewest.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> For the
+rest, in the campaign of 1806, Napoleon’s general conceptions were, as
+always, masterly. It is not surprising that he could not believe in
+the precipitate flight of a most renowned army; and his arrangements
+in the actual contest at Jena were those of a captain of the highest
+order; though he was so superior in force, they have little interest.
+What is to be chiefly dwelt on in this campaign is its illustration
+of the wonderful powers of Napoleon in destroying a retreating enemy.
+Many a chief would have followed the Prussians to the Elbe; the
+Emperor completely cut off their retreat, forced them into nooks and
+corners where they could not escape, and compelled the great body of
+them to lay down their arms. Napier was, perhaps, thinking of this
+great achievement when he compares Napoleon’s battle to the “wave that
+effaces the landscape.”</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, after the subjugation of Prussia, came into conflict with a
+more distant enemy. Alexander, the future head of the Holy Alliance,
+half French in ideas, but at heart a despot, had undertaken again to
+defend Old Europe; and notwithstanding the experience of Austerlitz,
+had solemnly vowed to avenge Prussia. His armies, however, moving
+slowly through the immense spaces of the Russian Empire, were unable
+to avert the ruin of Jena, or to prevent the fall of the Prussian
+Monarchy; it was November before they reached the Niemen, and they had
+not approached the Vistula for some time afterwards. The conqueror,
+who, in the intoxication of success, had launched against England
+the well-known Decree which declared her excluded from commerce with
+Europe, and established the famous Continental system, resolved to
+march against the new foe, and to strike down the Russians in the
+wilds of Poland. He made preparations, in Berlin, for a great winter
+campaign; and, looking behind and before, he left nothing undone to
+gain opinion in France, to make his military power irresistible on the
+theatre of war, and to secure a fresh base for an offensive movement.
+His arrangements were far-sighted and masterly; for there is no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> wilder
+mistake than to suppose that Napoleon, though his imagination at times
+overcame his judgment, was not always the most profound and capable, as
+well as the boldest, of strategists. Magnificent public works enchanted
+Paris; rewards were lavished upon the Grand Army; and France, ever
+liable to be carried away by “glory,” was, so to speak, entranced in
+dreams of Imperial grandeur. Meanwhile thousands of levies were called
+to join the eagles; the fatal system of anticipating the conscription
+began; vast bodies of troops were sent from the Confederation of the
+Rhine, from Italy, from Holland, and even from Spain; and these were
+stationed at intervals along the space extending from the Rhine to the
+Elbe and the Oder. Nor did the Emperor omit precautions to provide for
+these immense masses; the granaries of Germany were made to furnish
+supplies; the French cavalry were remounted in regiments from the
+establishments of the troopers of Seidlitz; and enormous magazines were
+prepared to support the hosts of Western Europe, in their march to the
+East. Napoleon, too, cast a scrutinizing eye on possible enemies and
+possible allies; he arrayed an army in Italy to observe Austria; and he
+tried to cajole the Sultan into attacking the Czar.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of November, the Grand Army, extending from the Meuse
+and the Rhine to beyond the Oder, had reached the great strength of
+300,000 men; and Napoleon expected a speedy triumph. Yet that vast host
+was already different from the soldiers of Austerlitz and of Boulogne,
+it was a “<i>colluvies gentium</i>,” in the historian’s words; it was
+crowded with young levies and half false auxiliaries; and the wand of
+the magician, so to speak, had changed in his hands. As yet, however,
+these elements of decline were not perceptible to any large extent; the
+warriors of Jena formed the first line; and the front of the Grand Army
+was moved to the Vistula, strong detachments being made to protect its
+flanks, and to subdue the fortresses Prussia still held in Silesia.
+Napoleon had reached Posen by the end of November; his troops had soon
+covered the plains of Poland; and when he attained the scenes of the
+famous Partition, the Poles greeted him as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> coming liberator of
+their race. The Emperor, however, true to a nature to which popular
+stirrings were simply abhorrent, put off his suppliants with fair
+speeches; he enrolled the Poles in his ranks by thousands; but he never
+sought to make them an independent people. Irresistible in strength,
+as he believed himself to be, he had no wish to exasperate Austria,
+one of the partners in the destruction of Poland; and hard statecraft
+concurred with instinct in causing him to adopt a purely selfish
+policy. As yet, however, all went well; the Grand Army, probably
+130,000 strong, held the line of the Vistula, and filled the tract
+between Thorn and Warsaw by the second week of December; the remains of
+the Prussian forces, and two Russian armies which had approached the
+river fell back at all points; and the formidable barrier of the great
+stream of Poland, held on both banks, was completely mastered.</p>
+
+<p>The position of the enemy on the theatre of war now invited one
+of Napoleon’s strokes. The hostile armies were widely apart, and
+disseminated upon a vast semi-circle; Lestocq, with the relics of Jena,
+about 20,000 strong, holding a line from Soldau to the Lower Vistula;
+Beningsen, a Russian chief, with perhaps 50,000 men, being in the angle
+where the Narew and the Wkra meet before they merge in the Vistula’s
+waters; Buxhöwden, with probably 40,000, being far in the rear around
+Ostrolenka, in the country about the Upper Narew. The Grand Army,
+between Thorn and Warsaw, was in possession, therefore, of all the
+shorter lines on the field of manœuvre against its foes; and Bernadotte
+and Ney, on the left, were directed to attack and overwhelm Lestocq,
+while the corps of Augereau, of Lannes, of Davoust, and the Guard,
+with Soult in the rear, were to fall on Beningsen, to cut him off from
+Buxhöwden, and to drive the two armies into the deserts between the
+Bug and the Narew. The project was worthy of its renowned author; and
+the Grand Army began the movement from the Vistula in the last days of
+December. Napoleon, however, for the first time, found the forces of
+Nature and the state of the theatre arrayed against his rapid offensive
+strategy; and his conception was not even nearly realised. The region
+traversed was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> one of morasses and woods; there were scarcely any
+supplies to be found on the spot; the French soldiery, living on
+magazines from the rear, and sinking in expanses of swamp, were hardly
+able to march; and the cavalry could not ascertain the movements
+of the enemy behind whole leagues of forest. Comparative failure
+was the result; the allied armies effected their retreat; Lestocq
+eluded Ney and Bernadotte; Beningsen, who had encountered Lannes at
+Pultusk, and Davoust at Golymin, without a defeat—the corps of the
+Marshals had been misdirected, for it was impossible to reconnoitre
+the country—contrived to join Buxhöwden, though with great loss; and
+the converging armies found rest for some days on the vast and lonely
+plains of Eastern Poland. Napoleon, baffled, returned to the Vistula
+and placed the Grand Army in winter quarters extending from Warsaw
+almost to the coast; and his forces were spread on an immense line,
+for it was difficult in the extreme to find supplies, and there was no
+apprehension of possible danger.</p>
+
+<p>Beningsen, however—he had been placed in supreme command—elated at
+what he deemed success, resolved to assume a bold offensive; he defiled
+between the long screen of forest and lakes, which divides the Narew
+from the Passarge; and he all but reached the corps of Bernadotte and
+Ney, a nearly isolated wing of the hostile army. Napoleon prepared a
+decisive counter-stroke; he ordered Bernadotte and Ney to fall back,
+with the view of luring the enemy on; and he directed the other corps
+of the Grand Army to close on the rear of the Russian chief, when
+fully committed to the forward movement. It was a design worthy of the
+chief of Austerlitz; but Beningsen found it out through an intercepted
+despatch, and he instantly fell back from the Passarge to the Alle,
+in the hope of escaping his terrible enemy. Napoleon pursued with his
+accustomed energy; the vast plains, hardened by the frosts of the
+North, enabled his troops to move more rapidly; and he came up with
+his adversary, in position, round Eylau, where Beningsen, urged by
+his army, had consented to stand. The battle was fought on the 8th of
+February 1807; it was one of the most sanguinary of the wars of that
+age,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> and in the result it was a mere Pyrrhic victory. Each army was
+about 80,000 strong; but the Russians had many more guns; and this told
+heavily on the lines of the French, for Napoleon delayed his attack for
+some hours in order to allow his supports to come up. It is unnecessary
+to retrace the scenes of a conflict unmarked by peculiar tactical skill
+and notable chiefly for the stubborn constancy shown by the Muscovite
+soldier on many a field. The centre of the French, attacked in a
+tempest of snow, was shattered, and well nigh pierced through: a charge
+of Murat, and all his horsemen failed against the tenacious Russian
+infantry; the arrival on the scene of Davoust and Lestocq made the
+issue at several moments doubtful; but the scale was ultimately turned
+by Ney, who had hastened to the spot, by a forced march. The Russians,
+scarcely defeated, only just fell back; and Napoleon had suffered too
+much to move.</p>
+
+<p>The carnage of Eylau on both sides was terrible; the corps of Augereau
+was nearly destroyed; and the Russians, packed in dense masses, had
+suffered frightfully from the continuous fire of the French artillery.
+But of the two conflicting hosts, the Grand Army was certainly the one
+most exposed to peril; the Russians were almost on their own ground;
+it was far from its base, with Germany in its rear, and its position
+for a time became extremely critical. Napoleon’s triumphs, in fact,
+had been so unbroken, that he was deemed vanquished even in a drawn
+battle; a thrill of alarm and anxiety ran through France, and the
+humbled Continent was stirred to its depths. Had Beningsen possessed
+the gifts of Frederick, he would, at this juncture, have resumed the
+offensive; in that event, Napoleon must have retreated to the Vistula,
+at least, perhaps to the Oder; Austria, in all probability, would have
+taken the field; and the great Teutonic rising of 1813 might have been
+witnessed in 1807. But the Russian chief, though a capable man, was
+not a commander of the foremost rank; he had suffered immense loss,
+and he retired behind the Alle in order to place his army in winter
+quarters, confessing defeat by this retrograde movement. Indomitable
+constancy, we shall see hereafter, was not one of Napoleon’s
+distinctive qualities, but he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> perfectly knew what a prodigious effect
+an imposing attitude has on mankind, and would necessarily have in
+the present state of Europe; and his conduct was that of a consummate
+warrior. In order to convince a doubting world that Eylau had been
+a French victory, he moved his army forward a little distance, and
+instead of falling back on the line of the Vistula, he ostentatiously
+placed every corps at hand in cantonments behind the course of the
+Passarge, braving a northern winter on the very verge of Russia.
+Meanwhile, he applied himself, with that amazing energy, that mastery
+of detail, that administrative power, for which he has perhaps had no
+equal, to reinforce and secure the Grand Army; to establish it firmly
+in its present position; and to make his military ascendency supreme.
+Two fresh levies of conscripts were made; his vassal kings, and still
+submissive Allies, were compelled to furnish more contingents to the
+theatre of war, and to comply with enormous demands for supplies; the
+forces required to hold Austria in check and to keep Prussia down
+were largely increased; Masséna was summoned with his corps from
+Italy to strengthen the front of the Grand Army; and Mortier, Duke
+of Treviso, another marshal, was sent with a considerable detachment
+to the Pomeranian seaboard, in order to guard against a descent from
+Stralsund on the communications and flank of the Imperial hosts
+expected to be made by a British force. Concurrently, a corps under
+Marshal Lefebvre was moved to undertake the siege of Danzig, a place of
+capital importance still held by Prussia; the sieges of the Silesian
+strongholds were pressed, and an alliance at last was made with the
+Sultan, who even proclaimed war against the Russian Empire. Months were
+spent in making their last preparations, at Osterode, near the banks of
+the Passarge; and Napoleon’s correspondence alone can give the student
+of war an adequate notion of the prodigious ability of their great
+author.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor’s exertions were completely successful; the Nemesis of
+conquest had not yet drawn near; and by the spring of 1807 his military
+power was established on broader foundations than ever; and he was
+ready to take the field with most imposing forces. By this time Eylau
+was a mere recollection; the Continent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> had relapsed into bondage; and
+the Imperial armies, filled with bad elements as they were, reached
+the enormous number of half a million of men, spread from Champagne
+to the limits of Eastern Prussia. Meanwhile, no attack had been made
+from Stralsund; Danzig had fallen with the Silesian fortresses; the
+Porte had compelled Duckworth to leave the Dardanelles; the Turk was
+in arms against the Czar; and the cause of old Europe seemed once
+more desperate. With both his flanks covered, and his base secure,
+Napoleon had 160,000 men in perfect order upon the Passarge, ready to
+take the offensive at the first moment when the growth of vegetation
+would supply the means of subsistence to his thousands of horses. Yet
+such is the waste and strain of war that, even at this time, 60,000
+men were missing from the rolls of the Grand Army, and spread along
+its rear, living on plunder and straggling; and this, notwithstanding
+the astonishing efforts of Napoleon throughout the whole winter. In
+fact, railways being as yet unknown, the means of transport were still
+imperfect, and the admirable arrangements by which the German armies
+of the present day are moved and supplied were impossible, especially
+along an enormous line.</p>
+
+<p>The success of the Czar in reinforcing his armies had been trifling
+compared with that of Napoleon; and England, as we have seen, had made
+no diversion. The Russian Guards were despatched from St. Petersburg,
+and troops were in march from other parts of the Empire; but Beningsen,
+in the last days of May, had scarcely more than 120,000 men to oppose
+to the Grand Army of 160,000; and this though the Russians were close
+to their frontier, and the Emperor was hundreds of miles from the
+Rhine. In these circumstances, the Russian chief ought to have stood
+cautiously on the defensive; but he endeavoured to repeat the attempt
+of the winter; and breaking up from his camps on the 5th of June, he
+fell on Ney, somewhat widely detached, and on the extreme left of the
+Grand Army. Ney, however, a tactician of real skill, held the enemy
+in check, and slowly fell back; Napoleon tried a counter-attack once
+more; and he marched against Beningsen, from the Passarge, in the hope
+of gathering on his flank and rear. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> Russian contrived to effect
+his escape; a great entrenched camp which, after the fashion of Daun,
+he had fortified, arrested the onset of the French; and he reached
+the Alle and began to retreat along the right or eastern bank of the
+river, in the hope, apparently, of reaching Königsberg, where immense
+supplies had been stored for his army. The Emperor followed along the
+western bank, his object, too, being to attain Königsberg; and his
+foremost corps came abreast of the Russians, the rest of the Grand Army
+being somewhat divided, and a considerable part being in the rear.
+This state of affairs encouraged Beningsen, in an evil hour, to try to
+attack his enemy. On the 14th of June 1807, he began to cross to the
+left bank of the Alle, at daybreak, with more than half his army; and
+by mid-day he had assailed the corps of Lannes, for the moment isolated
+and in advance. The French marshal, however, made a determined stand;
+in a short time Mortier, the Guard, the chief part of the cavalry, and
+Napoleon, had arrived on the scene, and the corps of Bernadotte and Ney
+soon made their appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon seized the position of affairs at a glance, and made
+everything ready to destroy an enemy who had recklessly offered battle
+with a great stream in his rear. With complete mastery of the grander
+part of tactics, he commanded Lannes and Mortier to fall back, in order
+to draw Beningsen some distance forward; and Ney and Victor, another
+marshal, in temporary command of Bernadotte’s troops, were directed to
+seize the bridges thrown across the river not far from the little town
+of Friedland by Beningsen, and to cut off his retreat. This admirable
+stroke completely succeeded; and apart from the fact that Napoleon’s
+forces were by this time greatly superior in numbers, the defeat of the
+Russians had been rendered certain. Beningsen fell imprudently into the
+snare; Lannes and Mortier seemed to yield to the Russian masses; and
+when these had advanced too far to escape, Ney, covering his attack
+with a tremendous fire, and his colleague made the decisive movement.
+The bridges were taken and destroyed after a stout resistance; and the
+Russians were forced back against a deep river, hemmed in, captured,
+and drowned in multitudes. A fragment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> only of the army got across the
+Alle; and Beningsen fled to the line of the Niemen, followed by his
+indefatigable and pitiless foe. The Grand Army halted on the Muscovite
+frontier; the Czar had no choice but to seek an armistice; and the
+French eagles which had flown from the Channel, overshadowing Germany
+in their ravening flight, closed their Imperial wings on the edge of
+Old Europe. Troops of Tartars and Kalmucks armed with bows and arrows,
+and scattered along the banks of the Niemen, in the vain hope of
+arresting Fate, attested the exhaustion of the Russian Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The twofold campaign of Eylau and Friedland does not exhibit in its
+highest aspects Napoleon’s marvellous genius in the field. His project
+of attacking the Allied armies on the Wkra and Narew, at the close
+of 1806, undoubtedly was worthy of a great strategist; and his plan
+of falling back to draw Beningsen, and of doubling on him when he
+marched from the Passarge, reveals once more his pre-eminent gift of
+stratagem. The stroke delivered at Friedland, decisive and splendid,
+was that, too, of a master of tactics in their highest sense; the
+vulnerable side of the enemy was at once detected; and his position
+on the battle-field was made to cause his ruin. Still, the strategy
+of the Emperor in this contest comparatively failed in more than one
+instance; the extension of his cantonments—this was due, I repeat to
+the extreme difficulty of supporting his army—exposed him to attacks
+of a formidable kind; and he barely escaped defeat at Eylau. The most
+conspicuous proof this campaign affords of his military capacity is
+his steadfast attitude amidst a host of enemies, when beyond the
+Vistula, and his administrative triumph in restoring his army; these
+are examples of powers of different kinds, but alike indicate supreme
+ability. The chief lesson of this campaign, however, is that even
+Napoleon’s wonderful gifts could not overcome impassable obstacles;
+his grand offensive strategy hardly succeeded, because the conditions
+forbade success; his brilliant manœuvres missed their mark, because his
+troops could not live in Poland as they had lived in the fertile plains
+of Italy, and could not move rapidly in wastes of swamp; the Phaeton
+of war<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> found himself opposed by the forces of Nature and well nigh
+succumbed.</p>
+
+<p>The end, nevertheless, was as yet distant; and Fortune raised her
+favourite to a still more dazzling eminence. Napoleon had felt, during
+recent events, that prodigious as his military power was, he was
+isolated in a hostile or unfaithful Europe, and he resolved to turn
+to account his recent victory by endeavouring to make his humbled
+adversary a permanent ally of the French Empire. To attain this end
+he had two great advantages, the ascendency of astonishing success,
+and a power of subjugating men which seemed like magic; and Alexander,
+indeed, wounded to the quick by the conduct of England in the affair
+of Stralsund, was ready to yield to England’s deadly enemy. In the
+presence of their armies on either bank, the two Sovereigns met on
+a raft on the Niemen; the town of Tilsit was chosen as the seat of
+the conferences which immediately followed; and the fascinations of
+Napoleon had soon won over the young Czar to alliance, and even to
+friendship. All that passed in these interviews is still unknown,
+but the Revolutionary Monarch and the half Oriental despot agreed to
+re-model the map of Europe, and formed plans of the most far-reaching
+ambition. Each declared England the common enemy; and Alexander
+consented, at Napoleon’s instance, to adopt the Imperial Continental
+system, to close the ports of Russia to British commerce, to summon
+England to make peace at once, and, should she refuse, to array against
+her the navies of every state in Europe, invited or compelled to obey
+the mandate. Meanwhile, Sweden was to be despoiled of Finland; the
+never-changing ambition of the Czars was to be gratified by great
+Turkish provinces; Constantinople was talked of as a prey; and a
+Russian advance to the Indus, it is believed, was discussed. In return
+for these immense concessions to a defeated enemy, Napoleon obtained
+the recognition of the French Empire, and of the order of things he
+had set up in Europe; the Czar pledged himself to make common cause
+with his ally in his contest with England; and Alexander perhaps agreed
+to the conquest of Spain. To complete the new arrangement of the
+European world, in the interest of the Lords of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> West and the East,
+Prussia was to lose nearly half her territory, and to be reduced to a
+second-rate power. Napoleon announced that he would have gone farther
+but for his regard for his Imperial friend. Saxony was to be made a
+counterpoise to her old rival in Germany, as a mere French dependency;
+and the craving of the Poles for national life was to be appeased by
+the mock creation of a Grand Duchy of Warsaw for the House of Saxony.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot dwell on the policy of Tilsit, unequivocally condemned by all
+writers. It was a conspicuous instance of the extravagance sometimes
+shown by Napoleon, even in war, but often in the less familiar sphere
+of politics. It was a mistake to challenge England, the ruler of the
+seas, and the treasurer of Europe, to prolong a contest in which, after
+Trafalgar, she could not be invaded; and the Continental system was a
+chimera of force more injurious to French than to British interests. It
+was a mistake to reverse the policy of France for centuries, to abandon
+Sweden, and to betray the Turks, especially when these had become her
+allies; and it was idle to suppose that the fiat of a Czar would add to
+the stability of the French Empire. It was a mistake, too, of the worst
+kind to trample on the State and the people of Frederick; and it was an
+insult to the Poles to put the nation off with the phantom of a Grand
+Duchy of Warsaw. But the greatest mistake of all was to give a free
+rein to the ambitious impulses of two despots; to place the Partition
+of Europe at the will of two men essentially opposed in nature and
+interests; to suppose that the rulers of France and Russia could ever
+join in a lasting alliance. General war, the shifting of the boundaries
+of States, the destruction for a time of the European system, and
+implacable international passions and hate, were the inevitable
+results of this scheme of rapine; and beside that it had no element of
+strength and endurance, it was certain to lead to a rupture between its
+authors. In this unnatural arrangement we see no trace of the genius of
+Richelieu, of Cavour, of Bismarck; it was a mere ephemeral product of
+force, in opposition to the nature of things, and simply impossible to
+become permanent. This, however, was not perceived by the conqueror,
+covered with the adulation of France<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> and the Continent; and Napoleon
+at this moment might, indeed, imagine that his power was beyond the
+perils of Fortune.</p>
+
+<p>A word on the state of Napoleon’s Empire, at this time at the height
+of its greatness, though its borders were to be still extended. France
+had long ago reached what the national instinct had pointed to as
+her natural limits; she was bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, and the
+Pyrenees; but girdled all round by dependent States, and supreme in
+Italy and in fully half of Germany, she was really the mistress of
+Continental Europe. Nor was this immense dominion the mere spoil of
+conquest; the vigorous and able rule of Napoleon had done wonders
+for old France, and had conferred the greatest benefits on her new
+possessions; and the institutions he founded still flourish far beyond
+the Rhine, and even along the Danube. The prosperity of the Empire
+was growing and splendid; the continuance of order and the collapse
+of anarchy had given free play to the energetic interests which the
+Revolution had called into being; nay, the tributary States had, to
+a great extent, been renovated by the hand of Napoleon. The creative
+genius of the Emperor, too, had accomplished marvels in administration
+and finance, and had completed fine monuments of material grandeur;
+magnificent roads overcame the Alps, and connected the Atlantic with
+the Mediterranean shores; and Paris, rich with treasures of art from
+all lands, and crowded with new and imposing structures, put on the
+aspect of Imperial Rome, and gathered into her lap the fairest spoils
+of conquest. Military power, besides, invincible as yet, and the glory
+of years of triumphs in war, protected this fabric of far-spread
+dominion; the ruling race still prevailed in the Grand Army; its
+commanders, lavishly rewarded, were docile instruments of a chief still
+in the flower of his age; and the flaws and defects in it were not yet
+conspicuous. Nevertheless, even now, one or two deep thinkers, amidst
+the terror and submission of three-fourths of Europe, had declared
+that the Empire could not be lasting. With its vassal Bonapartes, its
+enormous extent, its sway over subdued but mighty races, its mediæval
+pomp, its <i>parvenu noblesse</i>, its violence, and its despotism
+of the sword, it was an anachronism in the nineteenth century; its
+grandeur and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> even its beneficence could not hide its oppression; it
+was established among a people prone to change, and demoralized by
+Revolutionary passions; and, in antagonism to all moral and social
+forces, it depended on a single life and a conqueror’s genius. Greater
+as it was, too, than the monarchy of Louis XIV., it was shut out from
+the sea by England, a source of weakness and peril to a maritime State;
+and it had no foundations in the organic structure, the history, or the
+traditions of the French people. Most ominous of all, the Empire seemed
+to destroy intellect and public worth in France: it was barren of great
+men of letters, and of great citizens; it produced only soldiers and a
+servile herd of functionaries.</p>
+
+<p>I pass over the immediate results of Tilsit, the oppression of every
+small neutral Power, Copenhagen, the invasion of Finland, and the
+dissensions which, following the friendship pledged on the Niemen, were
+left unappeased by the meeting at Erfurt of the two potentates already
+distrusting each other. Napoleon soon began to repent of the promises
+he had made to Alexander respecting the Turks; but he continued to use
+the Russian alliance, unstable as it was, for his grasping ambition.
+The Czar, I have said, perhaps consented that his conqueror should
+work his will on Spain; and before the Grand Army had nearly returned
+to France, Napoleon had begun to make preparations to annex the whole
+of the Iberian Peninsula. A quarrel was forced on Portugal, on the
+pretence that she was evading the Continental system, and would not
+exclude English trade from her ports; and Junot, Duke of Abrantes in
+the Napoleonic peerage, was sent with an army of conscripts, at the
+close of 1807, from the Pyreneean frontier, to occupy Lisbon. The
+fate of Spain had been already settled; that Monarchy had, for many
+years, been almost an abject vassal of France; it had given her ships,
+soldiers, and a noble colony; and it had sacrificed a navy in her cause
+at Trafalgar. But the fiat had gone forth that the House of Bonaparte
+should replace the House of Bourbon on the throne of Charles V. Junot
+was ordered to “observe” the Spanish fortresses; and large bodies
+of French troops were gradually moved towards the borders of Spain,
+from the Loire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> and the Garonne. I cannot dwell on the Machiavellian
+statecraft which brought about the invasion that followed, on Aranjuez,
+and the plot of Bayonne. The dotard Charles fell into the arms of the
+tempter; the rights of Ferdinand his son were set aside with contempt,
+and Joseph, a brother of Napoleon, put off the Crown of Naples to
+assume that of Spain and the Indies.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor, however, might have recollected what the character is of
+that strange people, which has more than once baffled the greatest
+warriors, amidst the ranges of its hills and defiles, and has done
+wonders in the defence of its cities. Spain sprang up to a man, from
+the coasts of Galicia to Andalusia and the Pillars of Hercules; “Death
+to the foreigner!” was the fierce national cry; local juntas were
+formed in every province to direct and sustain the great movement;
+levies were poured into the army by thousands; and a call to arms, like
+that of France in 1793, led to an almost universal rising. Napoleon
+ere long found that it was no easy task to pacify and subdue a country
+like this; and his contemptuous scorn of popular passions—“the
+stirrings of the <i>canaille</i>” was a common phrase of his—made
+him neglect obvious precautions of war, and had soon involved his
+arms in a signal disaster. When the insurrection broke out, in the
+summer of 1808, he had about 120,000 men in Spain, along the main
+roads between Bayonne and Burgos; and had he operated after his wonted
+fashion, he could easily have conquered the northern provinces. But
+in his disdain of “armed mobs,” he tried to overrun the whole country
+at once; and, simply ignoring every rule of strategy, he divided his
+armies into small fractions, and sent them, in flying columns, west,
+east, and south. Thus employed, his forces could not perform their
+task; Bessières, indeed, a marshal, the Duke of Istria, routed a
+considerable army at Rio Seco; Moncey penetrated into the heart of
+Valencia; and Dupont, a soldier of brilliant promise, marched into
+Andalusia, sacked Cordova, and even approached Cadiz. The insurrection,
+nevertheless, was everywhere; swarms of guerillas, gathering on all
+points of vantage, and impossible to destroy, cut off the French by
+hundreds; and Moncey and other generals found themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> checked by
+armed multitudes, formidable behind ramparts. Ere long, terrible news
+from the south arrived; Dupont was caught and surrounded by the chief
+part of the regular army of the fallen Monarchy, in the recesses of
+the Sierra Morena, and with his troops was compelled to lay down his
+arms; and though possibly he might have done more than he did, he was
+hemmed in by immensely superior numbers. Even worse intelligence came
+from Portugal, and the French army at the mouth of the Tagus. I shall
+afterwards review the career of Wellington; enough here to say that he
+first set foot in Portugal in the early days of August 1808; and he
+defeated Junot, who by this time, too, was isolated in the midst of a
+national rising, with considerable loss to the French, at Vimeiro. The
+beaten chief and his army were too glad to effect their escape from
+a victorious foe, and an insurgent country, by accepting terms; and
+they were ultimately embarked in British transports, and landed on the
+western coast of France. By the autumn of 1808 the French armies in
+Spain, humbled and baffled by a despised enemy, had evacuated almost
+the whole Peninsula, and had fallen back behind the course of the Ebro.</p>
+
+<p>The indignation and amazement of the Lord of the Continent at these
+untoward events, may be easily conceived. The great master of war had
+been found wanting; “a French general,” he exclaimed, “had justified
+Mack”; and, worst of all, his trained and disciplined troops had failed
+before rude and half-armed masses. He shut Dupont up in a State prison,
+and kept him immured through the rest of his reign; and how bitterly
+he felt the disgrace of his arms is seen in his admirable remarks,
+made at St. Helena, on the ruinous effects of capitulations in the
+field. The Emperor lost no time in endeavouring to repair the injured
+renown of the French army—the Czar and his ministers had secretly
+rejoiced—and, in November 1808, he left the capital and invaded Spain
+with an enormous force, determined, he wrote, “to put down rebellion.”
+He had five corps and the Guard in his hands; the weak Spanish armies,
+indulging in foolish boasts, and spread upon an immense line, extending
+from Biscay to the verge of Aragon, were pierced through and scattered
+like sheep; and Espinosa and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> Tudela were two battles that were little
+better than huge butcheries. Yet these “examples,” as they were called
+by the Emperor, were not attended by decisive success. Napoleon’s
+manœuvres were perfectly designed; but plunged in the depths of a
+hostile country, and utterly unable to procure intelligence, Soult and
+Ney failed to cut off the retreat of the Spaniards, and the wrecks
+of their routed forces were soon restored by insurrectionary levies
+flocking in by thousands. The way to the capital was, however, open;
+Napoleon mastered the Somo Sierra by a magnificent charge of his Polish
+horsemen, for he scorned to make a regular attack; and he entered
+Madrid, in the last days of December, at the head of a force that
+defied resistance. King Joseph was now installed on his throne; but
+there was no popular voice to say “God bless him”; the city was one
+of silence and mourning; and though a Constitution was announced for
+Spain, which abolished all kinds of old abuses and inaugurated many
+real reforms, the invaders remained as detested as ever. Against the
+feeble protests of his crowned dependant, Napoleon continued to rule by
+terror and force; when, as 1808 was closing, his attention was directed
+to a new enemy.</p>
+
+<p>After Vimeiro, the successful army, placed under the command of Sir
+John Moore, had held Lisbon and been reinforced; and a fresh body of
+troops, led by Sir David Baird, had landed at Corunna to assist the
+Spaniards. Moore had marched northwards and joined Baird; and near
+the close of December he had approached Valladolid, threatening the
+communications of the French with Bayonne, and at the head of about
+30,000 men. Napoleon had soon broken up from Madrid with an army
+perhaps 40,000 strong; he crossed the Guadarramas by a forced march in
+the hope of reaching and crushing his foe; and he directed Soult to
+combine the movement so as to fall on the rear of the British force.
+Moore, however, ably changing the line of his operations, made for
+Corunna; the Emperor pressed his enemy in vain; and he abandoned the
+pursuit in the first days of January, the attitude of Austria having
+become menacing and requiring his immediate presence in France. It is
+unnecessary to dwell on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> events that followed; the British army
+made good its retreat, though with heavy loss, through the mountainous
+tracts that divide Leon from the Galician seaboard; and Soult proved
+unable to to bring it to bay. Moore turned to fight at Corunna when
+about to embark; he beat Soult off in a well contested action; and
+though he fell, he knew that he had saved his army. He had shown great
+ability in this brief campaign, remarkable for this too, that it was
+one of the few occasions on which the Imperial Guard beheld British
+troops, until ruin lowered on it on the field of Waterloo.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_189.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br>
+<span class="subhed"><span class="smcap">Napoleon</span>—(<i>continued</i>).</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>The Emperor, on his return to Paris, found a rupture with Austria
+already imminent. That great Power, tenacious but always prudent, had
+been forced to accept the Peace of Pressburg; but she never intended
+permanently to submit to an arrangement that perilously weakened
+the State. Meanwhile, she had been treated by Napoleon as a kind of
+reluctant vassal; he had armed against her in 1806–7; she had been shut
+out from the settlement of Tilsit, she had been compelled to accede to
+the Continental system; and she was alarmed at the announced extension
+of Russia along the verge of her Eastern provinces. She had gradually
+been increasing her forces for war; a great national militia—a strange
+institution in the realms of the Hapsburgs—had been created; her
+armies had been remodelled on the French system, and had adopted the
+French tactics; she had accepted large subsidies from the British
+Government; and Stadion, a patriot, and a deadly enemy of France, had
+for some time been her First Minister. The diversion of a large part
+of the Grand Army from the Rhine, and the successive disasters in
+Spain and Portugal, afforded her the opportunity she sought; and she
+had made great preparations for a fresh struggle with France, during
+the events of 1808 in Spain. Napoleon, unwilling to have two wars on
+his hands, tried to induce the Czar to enforce peace, by intervening
+in arms in Galicia; but Alexander eluded the demand; and, though he
+pretended to threaten Austria, and even sent an army to her eastern
+frontier, intended ultimately, perhaps, to act against the French,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> he
+really maintained a strict neutrality. The French Emperor concealed
+his resentment; and instantly made ready “to punish Austria” for what
+he called “her perjured and shameless conduct.” His administrative
+faculties were again taxed to the utmost to attain his great ends; but,
+as in 1807, they proved adequate.</p>
+
+<p>A considerable part of the Grand Army was recalled from Spain, and
+moved to the Rhine; the French garrisons which had occupied the
+Prussian fortresses were replaced by Poles, and restored to their
+colours; and Italy and the Confederation of the Rhine were again
+directed to yield their auxiliaries. Meanwhile conscripts were
+enrolled in thousands; a levy was made from past conscriptions which
+produced numbers of adult men; ingenious devices were tried to obtain
+a much needed supply of inferior officers; and though the finances
+of France were strained, the <i>matériel</i> for a great war was
+rapidly increased, and directed to the Rhine and thence towards the
+Danube. By the early spring of 1809, Napoleon had more than 400,000
+men on foot; but the Grand Army too much resembled that which had
+been drawn together in 1807; though it had a great advantage in two
+respects, it was not summoned to fight on the verge of the Continent,
+and its inherent defects were not so apparent; and the Bavarians, who
+filled a large space in its ranks, had been for centuries foes of the
+Austrians. Yet Austria had had the start of Napoleon, notwithstanding
+his genius and his vast resources; she was ready to strike with effect
+before him; and had she struck at the end of March 1809 she might
+have achieved important success. She had learned a lesson from 1800
+and 1805; and her forces were now arrayed on the theatre of the war
+at hand with a due regard to strategy. Her main army, nearly 200,000
+strong, and under the command of the Archduke Charles, was in Bohemia,
+approaching the Danube, and obsering Bavaria, known to be hostile; a
+considerable force, under the Archduke John, was in the Tyrol—lost
+through Austerlitz, but always loyal to the House of Hapsburg—and was
+ready to make a descent on Italy; and detachments were on the frontiers
+to watch the Poles and the Russians—these last were not really
+feared—and to observe Istria and Dalmatia, now Italian provinces.
+The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> Archduke Charles, therefore, was in formidable strength on what
+was the principal scene of action; and the forces of Napoleon were
+still much weaker, being not more than about 100,000 men, the corps of
+Davoust, advanced to Ratisbon, and the Bavarians holding the course of
+the Isar. The rest of the Grand Army was as yet on the Rhine, or only
+near the extreme heads of the Danube; and the Archduke had an immense
+opportunity. For the rest, the Emperor had assembled a large army to
+defend Italy, and had given it to Eugene, son of the Empress Josephine;
+but this was only a secondary force; the valley of the Danube was the
+decisive point in the operations about to begin.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was fully aware of the danger; and at this very time he
+gave positive orders that, should the Austrians take the offensive,
+Davoust and the Bavarians should fall back on Donauwörth, and wait
+the arrival of reinforcements. These injunctions, however, were not
+complied with; even now the reason is not known—the two exposed corps
+retained their positions; and had the Archduke advanced from Bohemia,
+he must have taken Ratisbon and overwhelmed Davoust. But he hesitated,
+and lost precious days; and at last, listening to feeble counsels—at
+heart he was not convinced by them—he broke up from his camps, made a
+circuitous march, crossed the Danube at Lintz, and arrived on the Inn,
+the ordinary line of Austrian attacks on Bavaria. He was on the Isar by
+the 15th of April, at the head of about 140,000 men; he had left 40,000
+behind in Bohemia; and he forced the passage in three great masses, the
+Bavarians falling back, and drawing towards the Danube, midway between
+Ingoldstadt and Ratisbon. Had the Archduke collected his forces and
+moved rapidly, he should have still crushed Davoust, as yet, “in the
+air,” and in great peril; but he kept them apart on distant lines, and
+he actually detached his right wing towards Ratisbon, in the belief,
+it would seem, that his Bohemian corps would join him there and cut
+off Davoust. By this time, the 18th of April, Napoleon, who had left
+the capital five days before, had reached Ingoldstadt upon the Danube;
+and the situation of affairs was such that the ablest commander might
+have felt alarm. Davoust was still at Ratisbon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> with 60,000 men; the
+Bavarians and other German auxiliaries were around Neustadt, perhaps
+50,000 strong; and a part of the corps of Lannes, in the temporary
+command of Oudinot, afterwards Duke of Reggio, was with that of Masséna
+in march from Augsburg, both numbering perhaps 50,000 soldiers. The
+hostile armies were thus nearly equal in force; but that of the
+Archduke, although divided at greater distances than it ought to have
+been, was far more concentrated than the French army, which had been
+almost surprised and was still out-generalled.</p>
+
+<p>In this difficult position the situation was changed in an incredibly
+short time by Napoleon’s skill and, it must be added, by the Archduke’s
+blunders. Davoust was drawn in from Ratisbon towards the German corps;
+this was a flank march with an enemy at hand, but it led only to slight
+combats, and was not seriously checked or molested;<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and Masséna and
+Oudinot were pushed forward with extreme velocity to Pfaffenhoffen,
+to threaten the Austrian left which, in its march from the Isar, was
+round Mainburg, not far from the Danube. These movements were executed
+by the 19th; and thus Napoleon’s army was well drawn together, its
+right gathering on the enemy’s flank, while that of the Archduke
+remained still scattered. The operations that followed recalled the
+exploits of the youthful chief of the army of Italy. On the 20th, the
+Emperor attacked the Austrian centre, now separated from the right near
+Ratisbon, with part of the corps of Davoust and the German contingents;
+he remained with the Germans during the battle—a marked instance
+of military tact—and he defeated the enemy with heavy loss near
+Abensberg. Meanwhile Oudinot and Masséna had reached the Austrian left,
+and had forced it back in retreat towards the Isar; and this, with the
+success at Abensberg, led to a complete triumph. Napoleon, leaving a
+large detachment to keep back the Archduke, bore down on the retiring
+enemy; and, joining Masséna, drove the Austrian left across the Isar,
+utterly beaten, and pursued to the Isar by a great mass of cavalry. The
+Emperor next <span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>turned against his remaining foes; the Archduke drew
+in his right on his centre, and endeavoured to stand on the 22nd; but
+he was struck down at Eckmühl by superior forces; and with difficulty
+effected his escape on Ratisbon. By this time his lieutenant,
+Bellegarde, had reached the place with the Bohemian force, but farther
+resistance had become impossible; and the Archduke, with the remains
+of the principal army, was compelled to cross to the northern bank of
+the Danube. The shattered left wing was on the southern bank; and thus
+the great army which had crossed the Isar a few days before with every
+prospect of success had been cut in two, and was in eccentric retreat,
+divided by a broad and impassable river.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_160afp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_160afp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre of the<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1809.</p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_160bfp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_160bfp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">The Field of<br>
+WAGRAM</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This splendid success on the principal scene effaced the results of
+French reverses on secondary parts of the theatre of war. Eugene
+Beauharnais had been defeated at Sacile, and driven behind the line
+of the Adige; the Tyrolese had broken out in revolt, and an Austrian
+army had entered Warsaw, and overrun the adjoining region. But Napoleon
+held the course of the Danube; the way to Vienna was thrown open; and
+victory at the decisive point made him master of the situation for the
+time. He was soon joined by the Guard, by fresh German contingents,
+by Bernadotte, and a great mass of cavalry; and, having detached
+Lefebvre to subdue the Tyrol, he began his second march to the Austrian
+capital. The operations were not so easy and rapid as they had been
+in 1805. Davoust was sent to the northern bank of the Danube, to
+observe the movements of the Archduke Charles; the defeated left wing,
+under the Archduke Louis, fought a desperate action against Masséna
+in pursuit; it crossed the Danube by the last bridge near Krems; and
+though Napoleon mastered the line of the stream, and covered his
+communications with large detachments, the two Archdukes effected their
+junction, and ere long had reached the great plain of the Marchfield,
+which stretches down to the northern front of Vienna. The Emperor
+entered the city on the 11th of May, and as he had probably 100,000
+men, and the Archdukes had barely 80,000, he resolved to cross to the
+northern bank of the Danube, to overwhelm his much weaker enemy, and to
+finish the war in one decisive battle. But how was a river<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> hundreds
+of yards wide, of great depth, and with a powerful current, to be
+traversed by a large army under the guns of an enemy still formidable
+and holding the opposite bank? Napoleon’s extraordinary skill in
+choosing the ground for every operation of war was not found wanting,
+and his selection of the spot for the passage was perfect. Just below
+Vienna, a very large island, that will be known in history by its name
+of Lobau, breaks for some miles the course of the Danube; the channel
+between it and the southern bank, held by the French, is profound and
+broad; but it nearly touches the northern bank, and is only divided
+from the Marchfeld by a narrow channel. Napoleon, screening the work by
+all possible means, threw a strong bridge over the great channel, thus
+connecting Lobau with the southern bank; and as the island is of ample
+size, he massed into it a large part of his army, and made preparations
+to secure the passage across the narrow channel by numerous bridges.</p>
+
+<p>By the 20th of May the corps of Masséna, 30,000 strong, had debouched
+from the island across these ways into the edge of the Marchfeld; and
+it entrenched itself in the two villages of Aspern and Essling, its
+chief assured that the greater part of the army would cross by the
+morrow. The main bridge, however, over the great arm of the Danube—and
+it will be borne in mind there was only one—was broken in the night by
+the force of the current; and on the 21st the Archduke Charles attacked
+Masséna with greatly superior forces. The villages were defended with
+great skill and courage; but though the French succeeded in maintaining
+their ground, thousands were very nearly forced into the river; and had
+the Archduke struck home he must have been victorious. Great efforts
+were made on both sides to renew the struggle the following day; Lannes
+with his corps, and part of the Guard and the cavalry, effected the
+passage during the night; and the Archduke called up all the reserves
+at hand, to make a stroke for a complete triumph. A murderous battle
+was fought on the 22nd; Lannes—he met a soldier’s death on the
+field—made a formidable attack on the Austrian centre; and Masséna was
+about to debouch from Essling, when the news arrived that the principal
+bridge had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> broken down again, and had become impassable, and that
+munitions were short for a prolonged contest. The advance of the French
+was at once checked; their lines fell back behind Aspern and Essling,
+and though they kept their hold on the bloodstained Marchfeld, they
+suffered frightfully from the converging fire of the hostile batteries
+arrayed against them. By the 23rd they had taken a position in Lobau;
+and the army was so shattered that Napoleon’s marshals pronounced an
+immediate retreat necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon peremptorily set at nought these counsels; and, maintaining
+the attitude he had held at Eylau, refused to allow his army to stir
+from the island. His position, however, had become critical; the long
+line of his communications with the Rhine was largely guarded by mere
+auxiliaries; indignant Prussia was struggling in her chains; the
+secret societies, which were to rouse Germany to arms, spread from the
+North Sea to the Danube; and the French had escaped a disaster by mere
+accident. Yet their chief relied on his genius and the terror of his
+name, as he had relied when upon the Passarge; and the event justified
+his proud self-confidence. He evidently had perceived that it was a
+capital mistake to have committed his army to a single bridge across
+a river of the first order; and he applied himself, with accustomed
+decision and skill, to make the passage of the Danube assured, and
+to enable the Grand Army, whatever its size, to issue from Lobau and
+command the Marchfeld. I cannot describe the admirable works—marvels
+of engineering, never, perhaps, equalled—constructed under his eye,
+to carry out his purpose; his <i>Correspondence</i> remains to attest
+these monuments of his gifts as a warrior. The neighbourhood of a great
+city fortunately supplied the material required for his designs; in
+twenty days, three great bridges—one of boats, two on piles—spanned
+the main channel, and formed causeways, completely protected, and
+strong enough to bear the weight of the largest masses; and the
+efforts of the enemy to destroy them, by various devices, proved
+quite abortive. At the same time, Lobau was made a vast entrenched
+camp, armed with numerous batteries to defy attack; it was occupied
+by ever-increasing forces, as the strength of the Grand Army was
+raised;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> and preparations were made so to bridge the small channel that
+it could become, so to speak, a series of highways. Meanwhile, the
+Emperor strained to the utmost his faculties to bring every available
+man and horse to the scene of decisive action. Eugene, who, after the
+success at Ratisbon, had followed the Archduke John from Italy, and
+was approaching Hungary, was called to the Danube; so was Macdonald,
+another marshal, honourably known in history as Duke of Tarentum;
+Marmont, Duke of Ragusa—an unhappy name—was summoned with his corps
+from the Dalmatian wilds; and while the lines of communications were
+firmly held, reinforcements were sent to the Grand Army from the
+divisions placed higher up the Danube. By these means the Emperor had
+made the passage of the river as certain as that of a plain; and he
+calculated on having about 180,000 men concentrated for the grand and
+final effort.</p>
+
+<p>The Archduke Charles, on the other hand, had failed to see through
+Napoleon’s projects, and had not made nearly such good use of his
+time, though placed in the centre of the Austrian monarchy. He seems
+to have convinced himself that a great army could not issue from the
+camps in Lobau, within two or even three days; and if he fortified
+Aspern and Essling, he did not guard the approaches eastward, though
+the island extends along these to the Marchfeld. His army, therefore,
+was not prepared for an attack from Lobau, sudden and in immense force,
+especially to the east of the villages; and it was spread through the
+Marchfeld, some miles from the Danube, offering a vantage ground to
+his terrible enemy. Nor had the Archduke, though a general-in-chief,
+and having it would seem unlimited powers, strengthened his army as
+much as ought to have been possible. He left a very large detachment
+on the Polish frontier, where its presence could be of no avail;
+and he did not insist that the Archduke John—an insubordinate and
+conceited theorist—should join him with all his troops on the Danube.
+The Austrian army, therefore, was certainly weaker than it might have
+been on the principal point; and it had not been largely reinforced by
+reserves or levies. It appears probable that it did not exceed 140,000
+or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> 150,000 men, a force comparatively small if we bear in mind that of
+the two antagonists one was at home on the Danube, the other, far from
+the Rhine. In this, as in everything else, the contrast between the
+commanders opposed is most striking.</p>
+
+<p>All was in readiness by the first week of July, for the grand
+operation of crossing the Danube. Thousands of troops, with all
+the impedimenta of war, guns, trains, field hospitals, and a huge
+<i>matériel</i>, had defiled over the great bridge; and on the night
+of the 4th, 160,000, French, Saxons, Bavarians, Italians, Poles, and
+auxiliaries from the petty German States—Napoleon’s concentration had
+been made complete—were assembled in the entrenched camp of Lobau.
+Demonstrations had been made to deceive the enemy, and to conceal
+the real points of the passage; but the movement, though screened in
+part by the darkness, was soon heard along the silent shores. In an
+incredibly short time, not less than six bridges were thrown over the
+small arm of the river; and the army began to cross to the northern
+bank, covered by the fire of hundreds of guns in position. The
+different divisions—the Emperor himself had arranged their march with
+extraordinary care—were directed towards the expanse of the Marchfeld
+east of the points of Aspern and Essling; and they scarcely encountered
+any resistance, as this vast space had escaped the Archduke’s notice.
+By the early morning of the 5th, 70,000 men had taken possession of
+the far-spreading plain; the rest of the Grand Army followed in order,
+and by the afternoon its extending masses held a long line from the
+right at Glinzendorf, to the extreme left on the verge of the Danube,
+the fortified posts of Aspern and Essling having been turned by this
+movement and rendered useless. The Austrian army, though completely
+surprised and out-manœuvred by Napoleon’s strategy—a masterpiece from
+every point of view—had, by this time, advanced towards the enemy;
+some skirmishes of little importance occurred; but an effort made
+by Bernadotte against the Austrian centre, not far from Wagram, was
+sharply repulsed.</p>
+
+<p>The hostile armies made their bivouacs in the plain, and prepared
+for the great fight of the morrow. The morning of the 6th rose on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>
+the great arrays that extended, on either side, for miles; and it
+witnessed the most far-spreading battle which had yet been fought in
+the civilized world. I cannot retrace the scenes of the contest; and,
+indeed, they have no features of peculiar interest. The Archduke,
+certainly much inferior in numbers, had resolved, with little prudence,
+to attack; and his general plan was to fall on the French right, so to
+force it back as to enable his brother, the Archduke John, to arrive
+on the field, and simultaneously to assail the French left in great
+strength, and to endeavour to cut it off from the Danube. The effort
+against the right failed; for Napoleon, aware that the Archduke John
+was approaching, had placed Davoust and Oudinot, with a great body of
+troops, on that wing; but the attack on the left proved formidable
+in the extreme. Masséna and Bernadotte were almost driven from the
+field; and the young levies and auxiliaries fled in thousands. Panic
+began to spread through the Grand Army—no longer the army of Jena
+and Austerlitz—and had the Archduke made the most of his success, he
+might, perhaps, have achieved victory. The extension, however, of both
+his wings had left his centre comparatively weak; and Napoleon was not
+slow to seize the occasion. He massed the whole Italian army, together
+with other contingents and the Imperial Guard, and struck a terrible
+blow at the vulnerable point; and the attack was preceded by such a
+fire of cannon as had never before been seen in the field. The battle,
+however, continued to rage; the Austrians fought with devoted courage;
+the ardour of the auxiliaries was not great; and though the pressure
+was taken off the Emperor’s left, and Bernadotte and Masséna regained
+ground, the Archduke in the main retained his positions. His left, at
+last, was forced by a well-directed attack; Davoust and Oudinot carried
+the low uplands of Wagram; and the Austrian army slowly left the
+field, as the Archduke John showed no signs of appearing. The retreat,
+however, was not molested. The result of the day might have been
+different had the Archduke had the support of his brother; the carnage
+of the battle had, indeed, been terrible; but the victors captured
+few guns or prisoners; and Wagram did not approach Austerlitz. Still,
+Austria had made her last effort; she submitted to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> a humiliating
+peace; and Napoleon returned in triumph to France, though he had been
+made painfully aware that the Grand Army was not the instrument of war
+he had at one time wielded.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon’s genius in war shone grandly out in the memorable campaign
+of 1809. The movements around Ratisbon, he has said himself, were the
+most perfect of his military career; and it would be impertinence to
+dispute his opinion. His army, in a position of extreme difficulty, was
+extricated by a series of marches, scientific, rapid, and daring alike;
+and the enemy, who had gained a marked advantage, was out-manœuvred
+and completely defeated. Decision, energy, consummate skill, and
+the boldness that runs risk when there is no help for it, are the
+distinctive marks of these wonderful efforts; and the operations
+against the Austrians, when once divided, are equal to those against
+Beaulieu and Colli. The march on Vienna, though not as rapid and
+decisive as in 1805, was in complete accordance with true strategy; it
+was bold, and yet made thoroughly safe; and the communications with the
+Rhine were made quite secure—as regards the numbers of defenders at
+least—for in this respect the Emperor was never careless. After the
+failure at Aspern and Essling, too, the resolution of Napoleon to hold
+his ground, spite of doubting lieutenants, and a plotting Continent,
+reveals the chief of supreme capacity; and the administrative powers,
+the untiring energy, and the masterly art with which he drew together
+every possible man to the decisive point, deserve the admiration of
+all students of war. As for his choice of Lobau as the place to cross
+the Danube, in the face of the enemy, it is characteristic of his all
+but perfect insight; the means he employed to protect his army, and
+to render the passage safe and certain, are models of conspicuous
+forethought and skill; and the movement by which he turned the
+position of the Archduke, caused his defences to fall, and attained
+the Marchfeld, at the head of immense forces, was a most striking
+exploit. Yet, in these dazzling displays of genius, one grave error
+was indisputably made; the relying on a single bridge to conduct a
+great army across the Danube cannot be justified; this nearly led to
+a frightful disaster; and here we see, once more, that confident<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>
+arrogance and that too passionate energy which show that the faculties
+of this marvellous being were not always controlled and balanced by
+sound judgment.</p>
+
+<p>It should be added that these prodigies of war could not have occurred
+had Napoleon had an adversary worthy to cope with him. The Archduke
+Charles was a learned soldier; he had studied war, and proved more than
+equal to confront men like Moreau and Jourdan; but in his operations at
+Ratisbon, in his indecision at Essling, in his failure to prevent the
+French from crossing the Danube, in his remissness in not collecting
+his forces, in the incapacity with which he allowed his enemy to issue
+in to the plain of the Marchfeld,<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> we see a commander quite of the
+second order; and, in truth, like all the Continental generals,<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>
+he was paralyzed by terror when before Napoleon. As for the Emperor
+at Wagram, his skill in the great moves of tactics was conspicuous
+in his attack on the Austrian centre when weakened by the extension
+of the wings; the Archduke, too, did wrong in attacking, though he
+all but routed the French left; but these are not the most striking
+features of this well-contested battle. What the student of war should
+specially observe is that Wagram marks a notable change in the quality
+of the armies which met in conflict; a change that was to be yet more
+developed. The Austrians fought with heroic courage; they were animated
+by a strong national feeling, seen among them, perhaps, for the first
+time; they were wholly unlike the mere soldiers who had been routed
+under Beaulieu and Würmser. On the other hand, the Grand Army showed
+signs of weakness; except the Bavarians, the immense contingents of the
+auxiliaries were half-hearted and feeble; and the young French levies
+disbanded in thousands. The Austrian tactics and the formations of the
+troops, had also been extremely improved, while that of the Grand Army
+had changed for the worse. Conscious of the inferiority<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> of the men in
+their hands, the French commanders had tried to make up for this by
+rendering their columns of attack more large and solid; and Napoleon
+had begun to adopt the system of increasing the number of guns to
+support his infantry. The density of the masses formed in this way—and
+the skirmishers, too, were not what they had been—made them heavy
+and inefficient in the shock of battle, and exposed them when engaged
+to most destructive fire; and the change in the proportion of foot to
+artillery was followed by evil results to both arms.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot allude to the divorce of Josephine, the sacrifice of the
+young child of the Cæsars, flung into Napoleon’s arms as a hostage
+of war, and the further extension of the immense Empire which, in
+its author’s eyes, grew in strength as he enlarged its limits. To
+ordinary observers, the power of the Emperor seemed at its highest in
+1810–1811; the Continent had succumbed to his omnipotent will; he had
+annexed Rome, Holland, and the Hanse Towns without a word of protest
+from the great German States; the Pope was a captive in gilded chains;
+the material and moral forces of five-sixths of Europe had yielded to
+that all controlling dominion. Yet the Empire was distinctly declining;
+and the truth had been perceived by more than one statesman, and by
+soldiers as different from each other as Blücher and Wellington.
+Napoleon at this time had 800,000 men in arms, including all his
+reserves for war; but the Grand Army had for some years resembled the
+enfeebled army of Imperial Rome, filled with barbarians who hated her
+yoke; the dominant race had ceased to be supreme in it; and unwilling
+or lukewarm allies, nay, the forces of conquered and reluctant nations,
+sustained the ill-cemented structure of conquest, itself an unnatural
+and monstrous portent. While central and eastern Europe, too, seemed to
+submit to bondage, Spain continued the struggle against her oppressor;
+the ubiquitous insurrection had never ceased, and defied the efforts
+of the Imperial Marshals; and the arms of Napoleon had received an
+affront, and had suffered reverses which had amazed Europe. Masséna had
+recoiled from Torres Vedras; a small British army, under an unknown
+commander, had baffled the might of the whole<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> French Empire, and
+had triumphed upon the Douro and at Talavera; and the jealousies and
+discords of Napoleon’s lieutenants had led to all kinds of untoward
+events, and had wasted his forces throughout the Peninsula. There
+was light at one point amidst the gloom which seemed to enshroud a
+vanquished world; and though Germany—then a divided land, and wholly
+unsuited to partisan warfare—had returned to quiescence after Wagram,
+the growing indignation against the rule of France, which had already
+made itself felt, was preparing the way for a universal rising.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the signs that the Empire was in decay were not less apparent in
+France herself, the centre of that domination of the sword. The nation,
+always prone to change, had begun to get tired of a despotism opposed
+to “the principles of 1789”; its appetite for glory had been more than
+sated; new ideas and forces growing up within it already indicated
+another coming era. The power of these tendencies had been greatly
+increased by the sufferings the people were now enduring, by the
+severity of the Imperial rule, by the poverty and distress it had for
+some time entailed on once flourishing cities and districts. Flattering
+bodies of State and satellites of power might boast that France was the
+Queen of Europe; but the devouring waste of the Spanish war brought
+desolation to thousands of hearths; and peace, under Napoleon, appeared
+impossible. The never ceasing demands of the conscription, too,
+provoked general and bitter discontent; the laws on this “blood-tax”
+had been made barbarous; and the extent of the burdens imposed by
+the State had become, year after year, more onerous. The Continental
+system, besides, the most extravagant of Napoleon’s projects, while it
+led him to aim at universal conquest, enormously lessened the resources
+of France; Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Havre became half deserted, and
+seethed with indignation at the Imperial rule; and the Continental war
+with England destroyed French commerce. In addition, the finances had
+begun to decline; the frightful results of 1791–98 became apparent in
+a great falling off of youths fitted to enter the army; and, in short,
+despotism had done its work of exhaustion, causing general decay.
+The feeling of stability and of assured greatness which had pervaded
+France<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> at the peace of Amiens had for some time been passing away;
+and, a most significant fact, though a son was born to Napoleon—heir
+of world-wide grandeur—this made no change in the general sentiment.
+Yet the conqueror, from the heights of his splendour, did not see the
+shadows of night approaching; and though the war in Spain consumed the
+flower of his armies, and he had seen at Wagram what the Grand Army
+was, and the condition of France had become ominous, and Europe, he
+knew, was hostile to him, he committed himself to the most gigantic
+enterprise which ambition has ever, perhaps, suggested. False to
+his own genius, which must have shown him that Spain had become the
+principal scene of action for him, he resolved to invade and subdue
+Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Peace, in fact, with the great Power of the North, had, for several
+years, been almost hopeless. The League of Tilsit was an impossible
+compact, full of seeds of disunion and ultimate strife; and war between
+France and Russia had become imminent. The Russian nobles detested the
+French alliance; the trade of Russia perished under the Continental
+system; the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a kind of
+pledge that Poland might again be a nation, was a direct menace to
+Russian ambition; and Russia could not regard with indifference the
+subjection to France of three-fourths of Germany. Alexander soon
+escaped from the spell of Napoleon; he secured, indeed, the spoils
+flung to him; but he bitterly resented Napoleon’s conduct in having
+extended the Grand Duchy, and in refusing to promise that he would
+not restore Poland; and he was indignant at the recent annexations
+to France. On the other hand, the Emperor had not forgotten the
+lukewarmness and, perhaps, the treachery of the Czar in the contest
+of 1809; he charged him with evading the Continental system; he
+pretended that he was an ally of England; he treated with scorn his
+solemn protests against the addition of Holland and the Hanse Towns to
+the Empire. Preparations were made on both sides for war, as early as
+the autumn of 1811; Alexander abandoned the Continental system; made
+overtures to England, which were received; entered into negotiations
+with his Ottoman foes; and began to draw together two large armies
+towards the heads of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> Dwina and Dnieper—the river frontiers of old
+Muscovy—there to be combined with a third army from the South, when
+peace had been made with the Turks. The arrangements of Napoleon for
+his gigantic enterprise were, necessarily, on a much larger scale; they
+were extraordinary in extent and grandeur; and they exhibit in the very
+highest degree his characteristic skill in stratagem, and his great
+capacity for organizing war. One of his first objects was to gain time
+to collect his enormous military means, and to advance his huge arrays,
+when ready for the field, by degrees even to the Russian frontier,
+without opposition on the part of the enemy; and having attained this
+position of vantage, and mastered the resources of Eastern Europe,
+his purpose was to pour across the Niemen such forces that to resist
+would be useless. To reach these ends, he kept up a show of diplomatic
+professions for months, which bewildered the Czar and made him
+hesitate; and, meanwhile, he secretly and swiftly combined the forces
+of Western Europe for his prodigious venture. His experiences of 1806–7
+made him perfectly aware of the difficulties of a task which no other
+man would have dreamed of attempting; but he said, “My means are vast,
+and I can devour obstacles”; and he addressed himself to the mighty
+work with wonted perseverance and administrative power.</p>
+
+<p>His first care was to provide for the huge armies which were to march
+into the wastes of Russia; and for this purpose, as in 1806–7 the
+resources of Poland, of Prussia, and even of States on the Rhine, were
+placed in requisition for immense supplies; bases of operation and
+magazines were formed along the tract from the Elbe to the Vistula; a
+system of water-carriage, admirably planned, conducted all that was
+required for armed multitudes to the Vistula and the mouths of the
+Niemen; and the expedition was delayed until the summer of 1812, in
+order that myriads of horses should find pasture on the long march
+to the Russian frontier. Meanwhile, Napoleon collected the forces he
+deemed necessary for this colossal effort. Austria was now his ally,
+and Prussia a vassal; and both Powers furnished contingents to the
+Imperial host, which were to join as it approached the Niemen. Bavaria,
+Italy, the Confederation of the Rhine, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> Holland, of course, obeyed
+their master and arrayed troops in immense numbers; and unhappy Poland,
+deceived yet trusting, sent tens of thousands of her brilliant horsemen
+to take part in a crusade which might give her freedom. France, the
+dominant Power, once more saw the Grand Army collected in strength;
+but Napoleon did not, in 1812, anticipate the conscription as in 1807;
+he enrolled masses of levies and reserves; but he dreaded an outburst
+of hostile opinion; and he tried to lessen the strain of the war on
+Frenchmen. By these various expedients 600,000 men, collected from
+every part of old Europe, were arrayed in arms in the spring of 1812;
+and these vast masses were slowly moved to their positions between
+the Rhine and the Vistula. Napoleon set off from Paris on the 1st of
+May; he left France, alarmed and discontented, behind; scarcely a
+cheer greeted the departing conqueror; his very Marshals disliked the
+enterprise; and even his docile Ministers and mute bodies of State were
+anxious and feared some great coming danger. Another sight, however,
+rose before his eyes when he entered Dresden after a rapid journey;
+a humbled Continent, in the person of the Head of the Hapsburgs, of
+kings, princes, dominations, and powers, bowed before the Charlemagne
+of a changed world; Napoleon received such homage as was never seen
+since Rome hailed her ruler as a god; and the enterprise was deemed so
+assured of success that it was talked of as a mere passage of arms. The
+Emperor reached the Niemen in the last week of June; and by this time
+the first line of the Grand Army, numbering upwards of 420,000 men,
+with 70,000 cavalry, and 1,200 guns, was extended along the Russian
+frontier, from the verge of the Baltic to the Galician plains. The
+sight might have turned the head of a Xerxes; but to the experienced
+eye of a great master of war, it ought to have been significant of evil
+omens. In that enormous army there were probably not more than 100,000
+really good French troops; the rest was an assemblage of young French
+levies, of Austrians and Prussians, enemies of France, of auxiliaries
+who, except the Poles, had no sympathy with her cause or her chief, and
+who had, for the most part, showed what they were at Wagram.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p>
+
+<p>The centre of the host, led by Napoleon, with Oudinot, Ney, Davoust,
+and Murat, inferior chiefs, crossed the Niemen on the 24th of June, in
+the angle, entering at Kovno, the Russian frontier; the left, composed
+of the corps of Macdonald and the Prussian contingent, crossed round
+Tilsit; and the right, an enormous array, comprising the army of
+Eugene, Poniatowski and the Poles, for the present commanded by Jerome
+Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, with his auxiliaries, the two corps
+of St. Cyr and Junot, and far away, Schwartzenburg with the Austrian
+forces marched along the space between the centre and the heads of
+the Bug. This movement, which enabled the Grand Army to issue into
+Lithuania as from a salient, brought it almost within reach of the
+hostile armies, which, under Barclay de Tolly, by descent a Scotchman,
+and Bagration, a chief of the Muscovite nobles, had advanced from
+the Dwina and Dnieper, where their sources meet, and had approached
+the Niemen with no fixed purpose. The generals of the Czar, all but
+surprised and out-manœuvred, fell back at all points; and Napoleon
+was at Vilna, within four days having gained an immense strategic
+advantage. He made a long halt of about a fortnight; this has been
+condemned as a capital error, even by the cautious and far-seeing<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+Wellington, and, as events happened, it would have been better
+perhaps had he pressed, at all hazards, his offensive movement. But
+his <i>Correspondence</i> shows that, from a military point of view,
+this delay may be very well justified; the Grand Army, burdened with
+impedimenta of all kinds—a necessity in districts with few resources,
+and filled with weak elements, was in a bad condition; the auxiliaries
+and conscripts had fallen away in thousands; and time was required to
+reorganize huge arrays already beginning to dissolve and break up.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_174fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_174fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre, of the<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1812.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The situation, in short, had brought the Emperor to a stand; and yet an
+opportunity was given him to strike the Czar a blow more decisive than
+his sword could inflict. He was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>in one of the capitals of ancient
+Poland; he was greeted with enthusiasm once more by the conquered
+race; and had he spoken the words “Poland is to be free,” the Russian
+Empire would have been thrown back at once to the distant limits of old
+Muscovy. But Napoleon adhered to the policy of 1806; he caressed the
+Poles and enrolled their levies; but he paltered with their demands to
+be made a nation; and he even intimated that he would not annul the
+Partition. Meanwhile, after a few days of delay, he despatched Davoust
+and part of his right wing to pursue Bagration, trying now to join his
+colleague by a circuitous march; but partly owing to the difficulties
+of a way through immense woodlands scarcely traversed by roads, and
+to the slow movements of heavily-laden troops, and partly to disputes
+between Davoust and King Jerome, the effort failed; Bagration escaped;
+and he ultimately attained the Dnieper. By this time the Emperor had
+formed a great plan to cut off and annihilate Barclay de Tolly, who
+had dangerously exposed himself to his foe; and the project was worthy
+of a great master of war. A German theorist, possibly struck by the
+results of Wellington’s defence of Portugal, had persuaded the Czar to
+construct a huge camp at Drissa upon the Lower Dwina, to concentrate
+within it his two armies, and to offer battle behind its fortified
+lines; and Barclay had reluctantly obeyed the command; Bagration,
+too, drawing near him from the distant Dnieper. This strategy, it is
+needless to say, had nothing in common with that of Torres Vedras; it
+was really the old routine of an obsolete school; and Napoleon broke
+up from Vilna on the 16th of July, hoping to surround Barclay, to
+destroy him in his camp, and then to turn and overwhelm Bagration.
+In all human probability he would have succeeded, had the Russian
+commander stood in his lines; but Barclay saw his peril, and left them
+in time; and he made a very able movement to Vitepsk, across the front
+of the approaching enemy, in order to reach and join his colleague.
+The Emperor pursued with his wonted energy; but nature and the defects
+of the army interposed; and he attained Vitepsk too late to catch and
+destroy an enemy still eluding his grasp. He was again forced to make
+a long halt at Vitepsk, from the reasons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> which had made him halt
+at Vilna; the state of the Grand Army had become alarming, and the
+appalling fact was brought before the eyes of its chief, that, though
+no real battle had yet been fought, 150,000 men were missing out of
+the 420,000 who had begun the invasion. Such waste of war had never
+been seen before; yet Napoleon still had faith in his genius; he made
+a daring flank march, behind a screen of forests, in order to effect
+a junction with his right; and this, he hoped, would enable him to
+reach the enemy between the Dwina and Dnieper, and compel him to fight.
+The movement had only partial success; a fierce encounter took place
+at Smolensk; but the French army only gained ruins, and Barclay and
+Bagration, having joined hands at last, disappeared into the remote
+interior.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon’s manœuvres up to this time were worthy of his strategic
+genius; in theory they had been almost faultless; but they had been
+baffled by obstacles not to be overcome, and by the conditions of the
+war and the state of the army. The middle of August had now arrived;
+the Emperor was at the portals of old Russia, hundreds of miles
+from his nearest base in Germany; was he to advance further into
+the recesses of the East, and to brave the fate of Crassus in the
+Parthian deserts? His lieutenants, to a man, entreated him to halt;
+to establish himself between the Dwina and Dnieper; to call up all
+available reserves; and, extending his wings on either side, to overrun
+Volhynia and subdue Courland. This probably would have been done by
+Turenne or Wellington; but there were military reasons against a delay,
+which must have led to a winter campaign; and after long reflection,
+the spoiled child of Fortune resolved to advance to Moscow, and to
+find peace, after victory, in the old capital of the Czars. Yet he
+did not take this momentous step inconsiderately, or without ample
+precautions; he exclaimed: “I will find no Pultowa on my way”; and he
+left nothing undone to render his communications secure, and to avert
+every peril from the invading army. His situation, at this moment,
+appeared safe; for to the left Macdonald occupied Courland, and was
+besieging the important place of Riga; Oudinot had defeated the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> corps
+of Wittgenstein, left behind by Barclay in the retreat from Drissa;
+and Schwartzenberg had repulsed the army of the South, moving, under
+Tormazoff, from the Pruth and the Dniester. Yet the Emperor would
+“make assurance doubly sure;” he summoned Victor, with his corps,
+to Smolensk; he ordered Augereau to advance towards the Niemen; he
+moved up his second line to the tracts round the Oder; he organized
+Lithuania under a local government, and directed the formation of
+immense magazines at Smolensk, Vilna, and all the way to the Niemen.
+He broke up from Smolensk, in the last week of August, at the head of
+about 160,000 men, the best and most solid part of the Grand Army. The
+troops had been provided with large supplies, for the Russians had
+wasted the line of the retreat, even in Lithuania, without the aid of
+the people, and it had been foreseen that in old Russia the peasantry
+would assist in the work; and for some days the invaders moved without
+distress along the vast uplands, which divide the streams that reach
+the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian. As soon, however, as
+provisions fell short, the army began to suffer terribly in what had
+been made a harried wilderness; 30,000 stragglers became missing; and
+Napoleon declared, that if nothing new occurred, he would return to
+Smolensk and find winter quarters. At this critical time, intelligence
+arrived which caused him again to pursue his march. The Russian army,
+furious at a retreat of hundreds of miles before the invaders, had
+insisted on fighting a great battle; the Czar had dreaded to refuse the
+demand; and Barclay had been replaced by Kutusoff, the chief who had
+made his mark in 1805, and who, though approving Barclay’s conduct, had
+promised to encounter the approaching enemy. On the 5th of September
+1812, the horsemen of Murat came in sight of the Russians, in position
+along a line extending from Borodino on their right to the wood and
+village of Outitza on their left, their front covered by redoubts and
+field works. Both armies spent the following day in preparation for the
+conflict at hand, and as light rose on the morning of the 7th, Napoleon
+exclaimed to his staff of Marshals: “It was time; but there is the
+Sun of Austerlitz!” The armies opposed were about equal in numbers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>
+130,000 to 140,000 men; and for some time the course of the battle went
+rapidly and decidedly on the side of the French. Napoleon, with the eye
+of a master, had seized the weak point of his adversary, and assailed
+his left; the redoubts and other defences were stormed and captured,
+and Kutusoff, who had unskilfully crowded his right with masses of
+troops that could hardly move, was in extreme peril. Had the Emperor
+at this crisis sent part of his reserve to complete the defeat of his
+foe, he must have won the battle, but he refused to believe in such
+rapid success; he was not as active as was his wont on the field, and
+a change soon came in the tide of Fortune. The Russians, after a great
+effort, retook the redoubts; Kutusoff detached troops by degrees from
+his right, and the battle raged furiously for several hours in which
+each side fought with heroic courage. At last the Russian left was
+again broken; once more the French stormed the fortified works, and,
+though a fine charge was made by the Russian cavalry, the defeated army
+began to fall back. Napoleon was implored to launch the Guard, at this
+decisive moment, against the enemy; but he remained inactive, and would
+not employ it; and the battle closed with a frightful duel of guns, in
+which the Russians were literally slain in thousands. The struggle was
+the bloodiest ever seen in war; the Russians lost nearly 50,000 men,
+the French probably 80,000; and though the beaten army drew off from
+the field, Borodino was only a greater Eylau.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_178fp" style="max-width: 367px">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_178fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">NAPOLEON WATCHING THE BURNING OF MOSCOW FROM THE
+PETROVSKI PALACE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Napoleon was ill on this terrible day; and it has been supposed that
+his powerful frame showed on this occasion, for the first time, the
+symptoms of a disease that was to prove mortal. His hesitation,
+however, to use his reserves and the Guard has been explained by
+himself: “I will not,” he said, “throw away my best protection” at
+an “immense distance from its nearest supports”; but this fact alone
+condemns the whole enterprise. On the 14th of September 1812, the Grand
+Army beheld the temples and domes of Moscow rising from the surrounding
+plains; it had soon filled an almost deserted city; and the Conqueror,
+at the summit, as he dreamed, of his unequalled fortunes—his eagles
+were on the Niemen, the Elbe, and the Tagus—imagined that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>Alexander
+would sue for peace, as he had sued for it after the rout of Friedland.
+Before many hours the capital, self-destroyed, was a hurricane of
+devouring flame—a sinister monument of internecine war—and the
+victorious army had to establish itself in a desolate expanse of
+charred ruins, spreading far into a wasted country. Yet Napoleon
+clung to the wreck of Moscow; he believed that the enemy would be
+forced to treat; he slaked the pride of his still exulting soldiers by
+grand reviews and exhibitions of their power; and, as supplies were
+found in abundance in underground recesses, the army retained its
+order and discipline. Weeks, nevertheless, ebbed away and the Czar
+made no sign. Meantime Kutusoff had rallied his defeated army, had
+distributed it in a series of camps, some distance from Moscow, on the
+flank of his foe; and while the French cavalry and artillery became
+rapidly feeble—there was no suitable food for the horses—thousands
+of recruits, and especially a host of Cossacks, the Bedouins of the
+deserts of the North, assembled to defend “Holy Russia” to the death.
+At this crisis—always in this consistent—the Emperor refused to adopt
+a course which must have compelled Alexander to yield. He would not
+listen to the idea of proclaiming the freedom of the enormous masses
+of serfs in the Muscovite Empire; and, rejecting even now the notion
+of retreat, he formed vast designs for a march on St. Petersburg, or a
+descent into Southern Russia to find winter quarters. His lieutenants,
+however, condemned schemes strategically grand, but perhaps impossible.
+He did not silence them with his wonted authority in the critical
+position in which they all stood, and at last, in the middle of
+October, he consented to retreat, the delays which had already
+occurred having no doubt been largely due to the guile of Kutusoff,
+who, anticipating the future with sagacious forethought, feigned
+negotiations to deceive and detain his enemy. The retrograde movement
+began on the 19th of October; and the Grand Army, as it defiled out
+of Moscow, presented a strange and ominous aspect. It was still about
+100,000 strong; the infantry were in a tolerable state, but the cavalry
+and horse artillery were few and enfeebled; the proportion of guns
+was far too great, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> the divisions, bearing with them an enormous
+booty, and dragging a huge <i>matériel</i> and <i>impedimenta</i>,
+were incapable of making an energetic movement. Napoleon endeavoured
+to steal a march on Kutusoff, still on his flank, but at a wide
+distance, and to retreat towards Kalouga, to the south-west of Moscow,
+through a fertile region not yet destroyed; and probably he would have
+attained his object had he had an efficient and active army. But his
+enemy forestalled him at Malo-Yaroslavetz; a murderous and indecisive
+battle followed; and Napoleon—it was the first council of war he ever
+summoned—yielded to his Marshals, and abandoned the attempt to break
+through and reach Kalouga, a decision fraught with momentous results.
+The French army was now forced back on the line by which it had
+advanced to Moscow, but it had sufficient provisions for some days; the
+climate as yet was not threatening; the Russians cautiously kept aloof,
+and the still hopeful soldiery believed they would reach Smolensk and
+good quarters in ten or twelve forced marches. Ere long, however, the
+supplies fell short; the army, passing through a ruined country, was
+scarcely able to procure the means of life, however widely it spread
+to pillage; men began to disband and straggle in thousands, and want
+hastened the destruction of all that gives power to armed men. Early
+in November, the icy hand of winter fell suddenly on the host already
+breaking up; horses died in multitudes in a single night; guns, trains,
+carriages were lost and abandoned; and the army became a shattered
+horde without resources, military strength, or discipline. Kutusoff,
+who had steadily followed the retreat, saw that the expected time had
+come; swarms of his light horsemen hung on the rear of the French,
+cutting off the wounded, and making numerous prisoners; and attacks,
+hesitating at first, but growing formidable, were made on the exposed
+flanks of the retreating masses, now almost wholly without the help of
+cavalry. The perishing army reached Smolensk by the middle of November;
+it had dwindled from 100,000 soldiers to 40,000 worn out fugitives,
+deprived of the greater part of their guns and <i>matériel</i>; and it
+was soon discovered that the the long-expected haven could not afford
+refuge even for some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> days. The magazines, which Napoleon had commanded
+to be made, were not furnished with nearly sufficient supplies; they
+were not properly secured or guarded, and the famishing soldiery
+recklessly wasted and plundered the scanty resources they had, for
+subordination and military obedience had been almost lost.</p>
+
+<p>At Smolensk, Napoleon received intelligence more appalling than ever
+had reached a commander. Victor and his corps had come up to Smolensk,
+and had thrown reinforcements into the town, but he had left under the
+stress of the gravest peril. Wittgenstein, whose army had been largely
+increased, had eluded Macdonald far away in Courland, and had defeated
+Oudinot, very inferior in force; and Victor had marched to assist his
+colleague. The two Marshals, however, could not shake off their foe;
+Wittgenstein was advancing on the Upper Dwina, at the head of about
+45,000 men; and the left wing, therefore, of the Grand Army, once
+apparently secure, was in daily growing danger. Meantime, Tormazoff
+had been joined by Tchitchakoff, an admiral, with a fresh army from
+the south. The Saxon auxiliaries had been defeated; Schwartzenberg,
+at a hint given from Vienna, had fallen back before the approaching
+enemy; and Napoleon’s right wing was left uncovered and threatened by
+nearly 50,000 men. Kutusoff was already close to Smolensk; what if he
+continued his ceaseless attacks, while the hostile forces, converging
+from the rear, should drive in the already broken wings, and should
+close on the rear of the army from Moscow? Mack and Mélas were never
+in such a woeful plight, and Napoleon at once broke up from Smolensk,
+to make a great effort to avert destruction. He had not been equal to
+himself since he had left Moscow; whether illness had impaired his
+great faculties, or, more probably, because he had no experience of
+defeat; and, underrating the real force and the skill of Kutusoff, he
+sent off his army, strengthened in some degree, in separate masses,
+that scarcely supported each other. The Russian chief seized the
+occasion, and became more bold. He endeavoured to cut off a large part
+of the retreating forces, and though the effort failed, the French had
+to run the gauntlet of enemies ever gathering on their flanks and their
+rear, and slaying, capturing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> and destroying thousands. The horrors of
+the retreat to Smolensk were surpassed; the dissolving masses, which
+had been 60,000 strong when they left the place, were but 20,000; and
+the heroism of Ney, who covered the rear, was the one gleam of light
+in a long night of darkness. Victor and Oudinot had now drawn close
+to Napoleon, but Kutusoff, Tchitchakoff, and Wittgenstein were at
+hand; and the three French armies, 70,000 fugitives in the last days
+of November, found themselves arrested by the broad and half-frozen
+Beresina, while the enemy, fully 120,000 strong, was gathering on
+all sides to prevent the retreat. The situation seemed utterly
+hopeless, but Napoleon’s genius suddenly revived; and he extricated
+himself from the jaws of destruction by one of the finest efforts he
+ever made in his career. Deceiving his adversaries by feints of all
+kinds—he actually drove a huge body of stragglers to the wrong place
+to conceal his purpose—he threw two bridges over the wintry stream;
+the soldiers who could move and keep together succeeded in crossing
+under the Russian batteries; thousands perished, indeed, but the army
+was saved; though Wellington has observed, with strict truth, that had
+the Russian commanders struck home, it must have been destroyed as a
+military force. I shall not dwell on the closing scenes of the retreat:
+the wrecks of Moscow, and the corps of Victor and Oudinot, were about
+50,000 men when the Beresina was passed; the enemy had abandoned the
+pursuit; and yet these bodies shrunk to about 30,000 in not more than
+five or six marches. At Smorgoni Napoleon left his army, in order,
+he told the Marshals, to awaken France; political considerations
+plead for the act, but it would not have been done by Turenne or
+Frederick; and, with other instances, it shows, I think, that this
+supreme military genius, matchless in success, was not equally great
+in extreme adversity. After the Emperor’s departure, the diminishing
+arrays toiled hopelessly through the Lithuanian wastes; each day very
+many hundreds dropped off; Murat, placed in command, all but lost his
+head; reinforcements caught the contagion of despair, and the armed
+multitude completely broke up. The frightful scenes of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> demoralization
+and terror witnessed at Smolensk recurred at Vilna. Great magazines had
+been collected there, but they were sacked and destroyed by the mobs
+which attacked them; and the French fled to the Niemen in petty knots
+and bands, and at last sought refuge behind the Vistula. Such a tragedy
+of war had never been seen since the immense host of the Assyrian
+tyrant perished through the inscrutable will of Omnipotence. More than
+half a million of soldiers, including reserves, had crossed the Niemen
+a few months before; 50,000 did not recross the stream, and the cavalry
+and artillery were almost destroyed. The losses of the Russians were
+also terrible; but bearing in mind that they were at home, and that
+numbers of the disbanded and wounded rejoined their colours, they were
+ultimately, perhaps, not more than 120,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>The causes of this immense disaster, the prelude to the fall of the
+French Empire, have been examined by many writers. We may dismiss
+the pretence that “it was all the cold.” This equally affected both
+armies, and it weakened the Russians quite as much as the French. The
+conflagration of Moscow no doubt contributed largely to the events that
+followed. The Grand Army but for the fire, might have found winter
+quarters in a rich capital; but we can hardly agree with Napoleon’s
+phrase: “I would have emerged like a ship from the ice in spring”; his
+cavalry and artillery would have been ruined, for the horses had no
+hay, and would have had insufficient provender. The chief causes of the
+catastrophe are, I think, two: the Grand Army was the worst instrument
+of war, which Napoleon had hitherto had in his hands; it was feeble
+despite its enormous size; more than half the soldiers were bad or
+unwilling; and it was incapable of great and rapid efforts, especially
+in a theatre of war like Russia. The paramount cause, however, beyond
+dispute, was that the grand offensive strategy of the French Emperor
+was all but impossible in such a campaign. The army, unable to find
+resources on the line of march, was obliged either to carry large
+supplies with it or to scatter over the country to obtain subsistence;
+in either case, daring and decisive movements were frustrated or had
+few results;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> and, curiously enough, the very expedients Napoleon
+adopted to support his troops, great magazines at a variety of
+points, so encumbered them that they baffled his efforts. As for the
+Emperor, his conduct in the campaign has never yet, perhaps, had an
+impartial critic. His operations at the beginning of the war bear
+the ineffaceable stamp of his powers: they were masterly, perfectly
+conceived, and brilliant; and had he commanded the army of Austerlitz,
+he might have separated Bagration and Barclay, and perhaps won a Jena,
+before he reached Smolensk. It is wholly untrue besides, that he
+plunged into the depths of old Muscovy without forethought; he spared
+no pains to make his bases secure, and to protect his communications
+in every way; and his great faculties were seen in perfection in his
+escape on the Beresina from a host of enemies. Undoubtedly, however,
+he may have been too cautious in husbanding his reserves at Borodino;
+he certainly delayed too long at Moscow; he ought not to have recoiled
+at Malo-Yaroslavetz; he should not have divided his columns when he
+left Smolensk; he ought never to have given Murat the command of his
+army. All these, however, were mere mistakes, and every commander must
+sometimes go wrong; but what really was most to blame in him was his
+inactivity during a great part of the retreat, and his abandonment of
+his troops at Smorgoni. This indicates a defect in this great master;
+there were vulnerable points in the Achilles of war, and Napoleon
+never was in the hour of misfortune the perfect chief he was in the
+hour of triumph. Still, his capital error in the campaign was that
+the enterprise, as he conducted it, was beyond his powers: he defied
+space and Nature when he advanced to Moscow, and he paid the penalty in
+terrific ruin. The result might have been different had his operations
+been more methodical and more prudent; and here we see, again, how
+imagination and pride occasionally mastered his better judgment. As
+regards the Russian commanders, their first movements were timid,
+aimless, and yet presumptuous; they ought not to have approached the
+frontier; they should have kept away from the camp of Drissa; they
+ought not to have fought at Borodino at all, a battle, besides, which
+they directly badly; and if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> they imitated Wellington in the retreat
+from the Dwina, the imitation was poor and unskilful. Barclay, however,
+showed resource in the march to Smolensk; and though Kutusoff probably
+could have done more than he did, his choice of a position on the
+Emperor’s flank, and his unceasing attacks on the retreating enemy, are
+good illustrations of the military art. Nevertheless, the fame of the
+Russian chiefs, due to the results of the war of 1812, has diminished
+with the progress of time; and none of them can rank as truly great
+captains. The most conspicuous fact on the victorious side is the
+stern endurance of the Russian soldiery, and the resolution shown
+by the Czar and the nation; thus patriotism in Spain and in Muscovy
+baffled Napoleon. Two of the most striking incidents of the war, as
+a whole, are Napoleon’s refusal to set the Poles free, and even at
+Moscow to emancipate the serfs; in his hatred of all that is national,
+liberal, popular—of what he called the “ideology of the Rights of
+Man”—he would not adopt measures that would have disabled his foe, and
+certainly would have saved the Grand Army.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_224.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br>
+<span class="subhed"><span class="smcap">Napoleon</span>—(<i>continued</i>).</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>Napoleon—he had travelled in disguise through Poland and
+Germany—returned to Paris as 1812 was closing. On his arrival he had
+proofs, not to be mistaken, of the increase of the adverse opinion
+of France, and of the real instability of the Imperial throne. An
+obscure Republican officer had conspired against him; and though the
+conspiracy had been nipped in the bud, the capital had heard of the
+crime with indifference; and, most significantly, no one seemed to
+think that the infant King of Rome—his ill-fated son, the Astyanax of
+the fallen House of Bonaparte as he was called by the captive of St.
+Helena—would succeed to the heritage of the French Empire. Napoleon,
+after reproving his still servile ministers, and the silent and docile
+Bodies of the State, addressed himself to redeem the pledge he had
+given his lieutenants when he left Smorgoni; he exerted himself with
+even more than characteristic energy—“I am now General, not Emperor,”
+is a phrase in his letters—to repair the tremendous disaster which
+had befallen his arms; and he was seconded with real zeal by a nation
+which, though the Revolutionary fervour had ceased, and it feared and
+disliked the Imperial rule, has often done wonders in an effort to
+retain the military supremacy which is its great ambition. The Emperor,
+who had called out the Conscription of 1813, ventured to anticipate
+and call out the Conscription of 1814; immense bodies of National
+Guards were enrolled, and invited to serve; the depôts of the Empire
+were emptied, to furnish every trained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> soldier who could bear arms;
+<i>matériel</i> of war was found in abundance in the arsenals of France
+to replace what had been lost; and veterans of the past and officers
+from Spain were forthcoming in hundreds to prepare the new levies. The
+genius of Napoleon and the ardour of France were successful, to an
+extent that appears astonishing; half a million of armed men were on
+foot by the early spring of 1813; gifts of horses, and purchases on
+an immense scale, had in some measure replaced the destruction of the
+cavalry which had disappeared in the retreat; and though these masses
+could scarcely be called an army, they were being skilfully drilled
+and organized, and they had the national aptitude to become quickly
+soldiers. Napoleon had calculated that, by the coming summer, he would
+be able to take the field at the head of 250,000 men, with armies of
+reserve on the Rhine and the Elbe; and he had boasted that with these
+forces, and the troops that had come back from Russia, he would conquer
+the Czar and keep Germany down. Events, however, had completely changed
+since he had abandoned the wreck of the Grand Army. When he set off
+from Smorgoni, Macdonald on the left and the Prussian contingent were
+almost intact; Schwartzenburg, on the far right, had a considerable
+force; though the army from Moscow was almost destroyed, a great part
+of the second line of the Grand Army, assembled in 1812, was cantoned
+between the Elbe and the Vistula; and Napoleon’s previsions, therefore,
+were not illusory. But since his return to France, the Prussian corps,
+and its chief, had ostentatiously revolted and joined the enemy;
+Macdonald, hard pressed and deserted, had escaped with difficulty,
+through a host of enemies, and attained the Vistula; Schwartzenburg,
+with his Austrians, had marched into Galicia, and evidently was waiting
+on the policy of his Court; the army that had left the Beresina had,
+we have seen, perished; and down-trodden Prussia had suddenly flamed
+out in a tremendous explosion of national passion, which was rapidly
+making itself felt through Germany, prepared for years for a patriotic
+outbreak. Murat, left in command of the French army, proved utterly
+unable to confront misfortune; he fled to his treasured kingdom of
+Naples; and the conduct of operations was given to Eugene Beauharnais,
+devoted to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> the Emperor, but not a great chief. Eugene, collecting the
+fragments of Macdonald’s corps and the survivors of the troops who had
+entered Russia, had endeavoured to make a stand on the Vistula; but
+the approach of the Russians and Prussians, and the rising of Prussia,
+compelled him ere long to fall back; and he ultimately retreated to
+the line of the Elbe, bringing along with him the greater part of what
+had been the second line of the army of 1812. He was in positions on
+the Elbe, in the first days of March, at the head of perhaps 45,000
+men; about 40,000 were in march from the Oder; and these, apart from
+a few thousands more sent to strengthen the garrisons in the Prussian
+fortresses, were the whole forces that could be brought together out
+of the enormous mass of 600,000 soldiers arrayed, the year before, to
+invade Russia! Yet Eugene had conducted the retreat ably; and this was
+admitted, at the time, by the sternest of censors.</p>
+
+<p>These disasters frustrated Napoleon’s projects, and accelerated his
+appearance in the field. He endeavoured to arrange the dispute with
+Rome, acquiring influence again in Imperial France; issued a paper
+money to sustain the finances, too like the assignats of 1791–3; the
+Treasury was in a critical state; and he was at Mayence in the middle
+of April, having summoned the Princes of the Confederation of the
+Rhine to arm and put down the great Teutonic rising, described by him
+as a mere “Jacobin movement.” His troops had been for some time in
+motion, and were probably 120,000 strong on the Rhine; and he hoped
+that with these and the army of Eugene he would surprise and overpower
+his enemies, who had incautiously exposed themselves to his terrible
+strokes. I shall say a word hereafter on the reorganization of the
+Prussian army, after the ruin of Jena, and of the great consequences
+which flowed from it; but the suddenness of events had taken the nation
+by surprise; it had not had time to put forth its strength; and, for
+the present, the Prussian forces in the field were not more than 50,000
+or 60,000 soldiers. The Russians had a much larger army, but their
+chiefs were obliged to leave detachments behind; and when they joined
+hands with their new allies, in march from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>the Vistula to the Oder,
+the collected forces were probably not more than 130,000 or 140,000
+strong.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_188fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_188fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre, of the<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1813.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>In this position of affairs, against the advice of Kutusoff—the
+warrior died a few weeks afterwards—the Czar, dazzled by an
+immense triumph, and yielding to the prayers of the Prussian
+commanders—Blücher was the most pressing and bold of these—was
+persuaded to advance into the heart of Germany, in order to turn to
+account the national rising, and to sweep into it the Confederation
+of the Rhine; and the allied armies had approached the Elbe, about
+100,000 men in the first line, disseminated, too, in divided masses.
+This was the repetition of the faulty strategy which had led to Jena
+and all that followed; and though times had changed, and Napoleon had
+suffered disasters beyond example in war, the movement was wrong from
+a military point of view, for it placed the Allies, thrown much too
+forward, and comparatively weak, in a situation of peril. Soon after
+the Emperor had reached Mayence, his enemy had mastered the line of the
+Elbe: York, the Prussian chief, who had been the first to revolt, and
+Wittgenstein threatening the great place of Magdeburg, at the head of
+about 35,000 men, Wintzingerode, a Russian, and fiery Blücher holding
+the river round Dresden with perhaps 50,000, and Milaradovitch, with
+about 15,000, advancing along the edge of Bohemia, to encourage Austria
+in a policy hostile to France. This disposition of the allied forces
+gave Napoleon an opportunity to strike; he drew Eugene towards him with
+admirable skill from the Elbe, behind the Saale, as a screen; he broke
+up from Mayence with about 100,000 men, and made for the Saale, through
+the scenes of Jena; his purpose being to join Eugene, and at the head
+of their united forces, 140,000 strong at least, to surprise and assail
+the divided enemy, to cut him off from the Elbe and Dresden, and to
+force him against the Bohemian ranges, where it would be difficult to
+avoid destruction. The Emperor and the Prince effected their junction,
+between Merseburg and Naumburg, on the 30th of April; the young levies
+of France and the war-worn troops of 1812 met with sympathetic pride;
+and the Grand Army, given the name again, marched across the Elster
+into the great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> plains of Leipsic, in order to carry out a strategic
+project as brilliant as any of its renowned author’s. The troops of
+Jena and Austerlitz were, however, gone; the movement of the army was
+extremely slow; the want of sufficient cavalry was severely felt; and
+Napoleon was compelled to advance cautiously, for the enemy was known
+to be at hand, and reconnoitring was difficult. A skirmish, in which
+Bessières perished, gave the Emperor a warning he did not despise; and
+he moved into the open tract between Lützen and Leipsic, combining
+his corps with such skill that each could easily and quickly support
+the other. Meanwhile, however, the main part of the allied forces had
+drawn together, and at the suggestion of Diebitch, a real future chief,
+and at the entreaty of Blücher, passionate to fight, it was resolved
+to assail the Emperor in the vast and unprotected plain, where the
+Russian and Prussian cavalry would have an immense advantage, though
+Milaradovitch was many leagues distant.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd of May Eugene had attained Leipsic, and was attacking the
+town with an advanced guard, when the hostile army, about 70,000
+strong, fell furiously on the French centre, holding, under the command
+of Ney, a cluster of villages, but otherwise exposed in the great
+tract around them. The young French soldiers, fired by the heroism of
+their chief, made a gallant resistance for some time; but strength and
+practised valour gradually prevailed; there was nothing to oppose to
+the allied squadrons, and the centre of Napoleon was all but broken,
+when the precautions he had so carefully taken enabled him to restore
+the uncertain battle. The corps of Marmont, of Oudinot, of Bertrand,
+so placed as to come into line quickly, reinforced by degrees the
+divisions of Ney; the Emperor was soon on the scene with the Guard;
+and a converging line of fire began to envelop the enemy, greatly
+over-matched in numbers, and carried destruction into his diminishing
+ranks. A desperate effort, however, made by Blücher, nearly pierced
+through the French centre once more; and it required the discipline
+and power of the invincible Guard—still largely composed of trained
+soldiers—to win for Napoleon a doubtful victory. The Allies left the
+field in unbroken array; few<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> prisoners or guns were taken by the
+French; and owing to the feebleness of their levies, and the want of
+horsemen, anything like effective pursuit was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Lützen, like Eylau, was a fruitless battle, and must have suggested
+painful thoughts to Napoleon. His strategy had been after his wonted
+fashion; the Allies had made a distinct mistake in fighting without
+Milaradovitch; the French army had been largely superior in numbers,
+and yet it had narrowly escaped defeat. The young soldiers, no doubt,
+had shown brilliant courage, but they had recoiled before their veteran
+foes; the Emperor had been saved only by his wise caution, the enemy
+had successfully effected his retreat, and from their weakness in horse
+the French had accomplished little. The great object Napoleon had
+had in view, forcing the Allies into the Bohemian hills in complete
+ruin, had not been attained; and operations which, with the Old Grand
+Army, would probably have led to a second Jena, had proved to a great
+extent abortive. He had, however, restored the glory of his arms, and
+he entered Dresden in a few days in triumph. He soon compelled the
+old King of Saxony, wavering in his faith, like all the Allies, to
+furnish him with a large contingent; and his other vassals among the
+German princes sent troops at his imperious command, ready to abandon
+him at the first change of fortune. He set off from Dresden in the
+middle of May, confident that the enemy had at last fallen into his
+hands. The Russians and Prussians, after Lützen, had recrossed the
+Elbe and marched into Saxony, and they had been directed to the verge
+of Bohemia, in the hope of winning Austria to their cause. That Power,
+always tenacious, but always wary, was still an ostensible ally of
+France, and was bound to Napoleon through the young Empress, but it had
+long been playing a double game; it had dealt with the Czar in 1812;
+it had winked at Schwartzenburg’s evident neglect to cover the Grand
+Army during the retreat; it was not heedless of German opinion; and,
+under the direction of the sagacious Metternich, it was seeking to turn
+the situation to its own advantage. It had offered council to all the
+belligerents, had gradually taken the attitude of a powerful arbiter,
+and had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> quietly begun to prepare armaments; but though sympathy and
+instinct drew it towards the Allies, it feared the Emperor’s power,
+and it was still neutral. The Allies, however, thought they could gain
+Austria, especially as Napoleon had charged her with bad faith, and,
+sacrificing military ends to politics, they had placed their armies
+in positions round Bautzen, at a short distance from the Bohemian
+frontier. The operations that followed were on a theatre made memorable
+in the Seven Years’ War, not far from the famous field of Hochkirch,
+where Daun had surprised and and defeated Frederick.</p>
+
+<p>Fancy may picture the shade of the old Austrian chief directing the
+conduct of the Allies; they had entrenched themselves within two
+defensive lines, covered by the Spree, and a stream behind; and in
+these positions, with little power of movement, they had resolved to
+await the shock of Napoleon. That great warrior, on the other hand, had
+imitated Frederick to this extent; he would attack the enemy in front,
+and reach his flank, but the turning was to be a strategic movement,
+carried out far off, and perfectly safe, not a tactical stroke on the
+field and hazardous. The battles that followed are full of interest,
+and should be carefully studied by a thinker on war. The Emperor
+attacked on the 20th of May; he perceived with his wonted insight that
+the force of the enemies was too large on their left; so, neglecting
+the Tronsberg heights, which they held with this wing, he directed his
+main effort against their centre and right, placed along the marshy
+ground that surrounded the Spree. The resistance was prolonged and
+vigorous; but passive defence had often failed before, and was certain
+to fail under the strokes of Napoleon, and the first position was at
+last forced, the French being greatly superior in numbers, perhaps
+150,000 to 110,000 men. The Emperor renewed the attack next day, but
+meanwhile he had taken care to mature an operation promising decisive
+success. Ney had been ordered to march on Würchen and Hochkirch at the
+head of about 50,000 men, making a long circuit far to the left, and
+when the enemy had yielded to the attack in front, he was to close in
+on his line of retreat, and to place him in the position of Mélas. The
+second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> line of defence was also carried, and when the Emperor beheld
+his foes falling back, he looked eagerly in the direction where his
+trusted lieutenant was to be on the spot, to make his triumph complete.
+Ney, however, whether it was because his young troops had been slow in
+their movement, or, more probably, because he had lost something of the
+perfect confidence of unbroken success, had hesitated when far from
+the main army, and never attained the points of Würchen and Hochkirch;
+Blücher confronted him with heroic energy, the defeated army found an
+avenue of escape, and it effected its retreat, though with heavy loss.
+The indignation of Napoleon may be conceived; he had a right to find a
+Marengo at Bautzen, and yet, master as he was, he had once more been
+baffled. “What a butchery for nothing!” was his angry remark when he
+found that the enemy had escaped from the toils.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was all himself at Bautzen; his strategy and tactics were
+alike perfect; and the manœuvres which ought to have destroyed his
+enemies, prove his immense superiority to Frederick in the field, when
+following, partly, Frederick’s methods. The Allies were completely
+defeated, and fell back; the Grand Army advanced to the Oder; and
+once more the Emperor beheld the vision of the Continent prostrate
+under his eagles. Yet the Prussians and Russians had not been crushed;
+Napoleon had learned, by hard experience how inefficient his army
+was, especially in the essential force of cavalry; and, confident in
+himself and the magic of his sword, he accepted the famous armistice of
+Pleistwitz, with the object, as he avowed afterwards, of organizing and
+training his immature levies, of increasing them, above all, in horses,
+and of making them capable of great offensive movements. This truce
+has been called the greatest mistake of his life; and history fully
+confirms the judgment. The Allies, though baffled, had not been broken;
+the Czar, eager to become a second lord of the Continent, had engaged
+the strength of his realms in the war; and Prussia, placing herself at
+the head of Germany, was proving what her armed might had become, and
+gave reliance and weight to the great rising now in full force from the
+Rhine to the Oder.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span></p>
+
+<p>The military power of that martial State had become transformed since
+the day of Jena, and was now capable of immense development. The army
+had been reorganized in all its parts; the officers, no longer a mere
+noble caste, comprised men of all classes fit to do their duty; and
+the soldiery, fired with intense patriotism, were burning to avenge
+and restore the nation. The most remarkable change which had taken
+place, however, was in the effective force and the character of this
+fierce array of warriors. Napoleon had restricted the numbers of the
+Prussian army; but his craft and oppression had not attained his ends;
+the contingent under arms was not large; but the conscription had been
+applied to Prussia; thousands of youths had yearly passed through the
+ranks, and had learned the elementary work of soldiers; and the army
+was now capable of being enlarged to 200,000 or 250,000 men, especially
+under a strong popular impulse. Scharnhorst had, in fact, outwitted
+the Emperor; the foundations had been laid of the great system of
+which we have witnessed the results in war in this age; and in the
+summer of 1813 Prussia was able to place fully 200,000 men in line for
+the approaching contest. Meanwhile, immense bodies of troops had been
+marched from the Niemen to take part in the struggle in Germany; and it
+was calculated that, should Austria join the Allies, 900,000 men would
+appear in the field to engage with Napoleon in a mortal struggle. The
+forces available for the imperilled Emperor were hopelessly inferior
+to these enormous masses. France could yield no further supplies of
+troops; and even reckoning the contingents of the Confederation of
+the Rhine, notoriously disaffected and eager to desert, 600,000 men
+formed the extreme limit of the soldiers capable of joining the Grand
+Army, and 200,000 of these, at least, were of scarcely any use. The
+armistice, therefore, was a capital error; yet Napoleon maintained his
+attitude of pride; he employed the breathing time he had chosen for
+this end, in drilling and improving his young levies, in purchasing
+horses in vast quantities, in making, in a word, the Grand Army an
+instrument fitting to answer his purpose; and considering its state and
+its imperfect structure, it is astonishing what was accomplished by
+his untiring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> energy, by the practised skill of high and subordinate
+officers, and by the willingness and intelligence of the French
+soldiery. His capacity and genius shone out splendidly, though his
+health showed occasional signs of weakness; and he gradually matured a
+gigantic design of contending for Empire in the plains of Saxony, to
+which he trusted for ultimate success.</p>
+
+<p>The theatre of war bore a kind of resemblance to that in which he had
+triumphed in 1796–7; the Bohemian hills were like those of the Tyrol;
+the Elbe, like the Adige, was a great river barrier; and the Emperor,
+in his own words, “took again to the trade” of the warrior who had
+struck down the Hapsburgs, with a relatively small force, on the verge
+of Italy. Napoleon took possession of the whole course of the Elbe
+from the Erzgebirge to its mouths at Hamburg; he secured the passages
+at every point in order to have full freedom of action; he placed the
+bulk of his forces around Dresden, with detachments, however, along the
+stream; he threw secondary armies out to the Oder, while he kept his
+communications with the Rhine well guarded; and, at the head of from
+300,000 to 350,000 men, he made ready to defy his enemies, whatever
+their strength, on this vast field of manœuvre. His letters breathe
+nothing but stern confidence; he felt convinced that he could defeat
+the Allies; and his assurance was such that, playing for his old
+domination, he left thousands of troops shut up in the fortresses of
+the Oder and Vistula.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it had become apparent that Austria would be of immense
+weight should she place her sword into either scale; and the Allies and
+Napoleon during the truce endeavoured to win her over and to obtain her
+support. Her inclinations had been never doubtful; she had favoured
+Russia and Prussia all through. Napoleon, too, had insulted her by
+bribes and threats, and had almost outraged Metternich in a fit of
+passion; but she refused for many weeks to make up her mind; and it was
+only the success of Wellington in Spain, and especially the great day
+of Vitoria, that at last determined her halting purpose. On the 10th
+of August 1813 she declared war against France once more; 250,000 men,
+who had been assembled in Bohemia, joined the allied standards;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> and
+Napoleon, with ruin impending in Spain, with France even now on the
+point of exhaustion, and with auxiliaries, for the most part, worse
+than useless, was left to confront the power of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The forces on the theatre of war in Saxony were about 500,000 to
+800,000 men—50,000 French were between the Rhine and the Lower
+Elbe—and the disproportion of numbers against the Emperor was less
+than it had been against the youthful Bonaparte. But the situation,
+even in pure strategy, was less favourable to Napoleon than it had been
+in 1796: and other circumstances increased the chances against him.
+The long line of the Elbe was more difficult to hold than the short
+and scarcely passable line of the Adige; the secondary armies that
+reached the Oder were far more exposed, and less easy to call in, than
+the detachments of Masséna and Vaubois; the retreat of the French army
+was better assured in 1796 than in 1813, and all this gave the Allies
+advantages, and subjected the Emperor to real dangers, which scarcely
+existed in the earlier contest.</p>
+
+<p>The allied armies, it should be added, were different troops from
+those of Alvinzi and Würmser; the young levies of 1813 were not the
+fierce Republicans of 1796; and here again the scale turned against
+Napoleon. He maintained, however, his unbending attitude; and the plan
+of operations formed by the Allies, if well designed, proves how he
+was still dreaded. Their general purpose was to attack and weaken his
+lieutenants, in their distant positions; to avoid a great battle with
+their terrible foe, but to wear out his strength in repeated marches;
+and then, and only then, to risk an encounter, when their superiority
+of force would make success certain. This strategy, if timid, had real
+merits; and it shows how, in most respects, the condition of affairs
+was different from what it had been in the campaign of Italy. As was
+his wont, Napoleon took the initiative; he set off from Dresden, in
+the middle of August, to attack Blücher, already seen to be by far his
+most resolute enemy, and he had soon driven him back to the Katzbach,
+for the Prussian chief, as had been agreed on, retreated, when made
+aware of his presence. Meanwhile, Schwartzenburg,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> with the chief part
+of the Austrian army, had issued through the Bohemian passes, and,
+gathering Russians and Prussians on the way, had advanced against
+Dresden in the Emperor’s absence; and St. Cyr, who had been left to
+defend the city, announced that he had no means to resist an enemy
+apparently 200,000 strong. Napoleon returned, to make head against the
+approaching foes; he hesitated whether he would attack Schwartzenburg,
+and fall on his rear, as he had attacked Würmser in the defiles of
+the Brenta; but time and distance made the attempt hazardous; and he
+marched with 100,000 men to the relief of Dresden. A terrible battle
+was fought on the 26th and 27th of August; the Allies were greatly
+superior in numbers, perhaps 190,000 to 140,000 men; but Napoleon had
+his genius, and the advantage of the ground; he rested his weakened
+centre on the defences of the place, and assailed Schwartzenburg with
+both his wings in great force; and he gained a complete and splendid
+victory, remarkable for the death of Moreau in an Austrian camp. The
+Emperor’s fortunes seemed restored, when a sudden disaster befell his
+arms. Before he reached Dresden he had sent off a lieutenant, Vandamme,
+to menace Schwartzenburg on his march, near Pirna; and as the allied
+army had been utterly beaten, and was retreating in disorder through
+the Bohemian hills, he ordered Vandamme to push forward boldly,
+and to close in force on the enemy’s rear, intending to second the
+movement himself. The events that followed are still obscure; Vandamme
+seized Culm and the Austrian slope of the range; but Mortier and St.
+Cyr perhaps did not support their colleague; Napoleon,<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> owing to
+illness, or to some unknown cause, did not advance with the Imperial
+Guard; and Vandamme was left almost wholly isolated. In this position
+he was assailed by the defeated army; he was overwhelmed by superior
+numbers; a Prussian detachment hemmed him in, and, instead of breaking
+up a routed enemy, he was compelled to surrender and lay down his
+arms. Thirty thousand men were thus lost to the Emperor; it had become
+evident that, in the present<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> war, the events of Auerstadt would not
+happen again; the apparition of a hostile force on the rear of his foes
+would no longer make them disperse and succumb.</p>
+
+<p>Culm effaced Dresden, and disasters fell in quick succession on the
+secondary parts of the Grand Army, far away from its centre. Macdonald
+and Poniatowski were completely defeated, on the verge of Silesia, by
+fierce old Blücher; and their shattered levies dissolved in multitudes.
+A similar reverse befell Oudinot, who had approached Berlin, at the
+hands of Bernadotte—the Marshal had given up his staff, had been
+declared heir to the throne of Sweden, and was now an obsequious
+vassal of the Czar—and this front of the Grand Army was also broken.
+Napoleon, losing heavily already through long forced marches, hastened
+from Dresden again to assail Blücher; but the veteran fell back into
+the Silesian plains and the Emperor failed to bring his foe to bay.
+Ney was now directed to march on Berlin with another division of
+the secondary arrays; but he was routed, with crushing effect, at
+Dennewitz; for Napoleon, who had intended to join hands with him, had
+been recalled to the Elbe to oppose Schwartzenburg, threatening Dresden
+from Bohemia again; and the Marshal had been, like Vandamme, isolated.
+Through these successive defeats the Grand Army had lost nearly 100,000
+men, whole regiments disbanding, disease falling with cruel severity on
+the young soldiers, and many of the auxiliaries breaking out in mutiny;
+and it had become evident that Napoleon’s plan for the campaign, as
+a whole, could not be realised, that his forces on the Oder were far
+too distant, that his strength was being destroyed by his fruitless
+efforts to support them, and to strike with effect,<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and that his
+enemies had learned his game, and would not approach him to court
+defeat. He drew in the remains of his shattered armies, and placed them
+in collected strength on the Elbe, holding the bridges and passages at
+all points; and, still hopeful, he awaited<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> the attacks of the Allies
+in a central position, analogous to that which he had held at Mantua,
+but not, I have said, so favourable to the French. His enemies paused,
+still afraid to assail the terrible adversary who had so often proved
+what genius could achieve in a situation like this. A long series
+of manœuvres followed, but at last Blücher and Bernadotte made for
+the Elbe; Schwartzenburg finally issued from the hills, and the huge
+converging masses, describing a great arc, were directed towards the
+central point of Leipsic, in order to fall on the line of Napoleon’s
+retreat, and to cut him off from his communications with the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor thought his opportunity come; he was operating between
+widely divided enemies, and he had accomplished wonders when so placed;
+and, following exactly his strategy in 1796, he left St. Cyr and Lobau
+to hold Dresden; detached Murat with about 50,000 men or more<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> to
+restrain Schwartzenburg, and advanced in person against Blücher and
+Bernadotte, with perhaps 140,000 of the main army. Operations, however,
+on the long line of the Elbe were more uncertain and likely to fail
+than on the short and difficult line of the Adige; and other causes
+concurred to frustrate a project marked with the accustomed skill of
+its author. Blücher crossed the Elbe in the second week of October,
+and, eluding Napoleon, made for Schwartzenburg, though his colleague
+Bernadotte was still far off; and it seems certain that this audacious
+movement, not scientific but bold to rashness, and very characteristic
+of the Prussian chief, was unknown to the Emperor for some days on
+a vast and imperfectly observed theatre. Napoleon now resolved to
+overwhelm Bernadotte, to advance and to occupy Berlin, the centre of
+the great Teutonic movement—a “focus of insurrection,” in Imperial
+language—and this grand stroke was, I believe, possible,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> had the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>
+conditions of the war been of the ordinary kind. But intelligence came
+that the Bavarian troops were dangerous, and that Bavaria herself was
+to make common cause with the Allies; and Schwartzenburg was moving
+down the Elbe, on the left or western bank, to approach Blücher.
+Napoleon was compelled to abandon his project; he directed Murat to
+come to his aid, though he did not call in his divisions at Dresden;
+and collecting all his other available forces, he marched towards
+Leipsic with the view of assuring a retreat to the Rhine, should this
+be necessary, but ready to fight a decisive battle. His attempt to
+reach and strike his divided enemies, and to repeat the marvels of
+1796, had failed; and he was now exposed, with a greatly weakened army,
+to be surrounded, beaten, and cut off from France, by enemies immensely
+superior in numbers, Germany, up to the Rhine, conspiring on his rear,
+and his German auxiliaries eager to revolt. Strategically, his position
+resembled that on the Beresina a few months before, though the peril
+was not yet frightful or imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from general causes affecting the contest—a word must be said
+on these afterwards—the student of war should note the reasons why
+the strategy of 1813 had results opposite to those of the strategy of
+1796. Napoleon was the same commander on both occasions; and his great
+faculties had not diminished, though his bodily strength was not what
+it had been, and his arrogant confidence had certainly increased. But
+the barrier of the Elbe could not be defended as that of the Adige
+had been, and Blücher mastered it easily with a large army, effecting
+his junction with the Austrian forces; the French corps detached to
+the Oder were far from the main army, and were not in hand, like the
+small bodies which covered Mantua, so that instead of strengthening
+they weakened Napoleon, by compelling him to make harassing marches;
+the Emperor, when threatened by his foes at Leipsic, had no choice but
+to concentrate his troops, for otherwise his retreat would be barred;
+and the Grand Army, though improved since the spring, was an imperfect
+and not trustworthy instrument. Yet the chief reason, perhaps, has
+yet to be noticed: Würmser and Alvinzi in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> 1796–7 exposed themselves
+to Napoleon’s strokes, and were struck right and left, and beaten in
+detail; the Allies took a wholly opposite course; they kept steadily
+aloof from the enemy they feared; they did not venture to approach him
+until he was almost crippled, and they gave but few chances to his
+grand offensive strategy.</p>
+
+<p>History dwells on the famous days of Leipsic, for they set Germany free
+from the Imperial yoke, and finally broke down the power of Napoleon;
+but they have few features of interest for the student of war.
+Schwartzenburg attacked Napoleon, on the 16th of October, in positions
+a considerable way from Leipsic with probably 200,000 men; and Blücher,
+though not yet in line with his colleague, simultaneously attacked with
+about 70,000. The efforts of the assailants were still feeble; the
+Emperor had perhaps 170,000 men, and stood between enemies still apart;
+a magnificent charge of the French cavalry, reorganized and admirably
+led by Murat, was nearly attended with marked success; and though
+Blücher and his Prussians made some progress, the battle was drawn, and
+had no result.</p>
+
+<p>Retreat for Napoleon was now easy; the way to the Elster and the
+Rhine was open, and might have been made completely secure; and
+Schwartzenburg, at least, would have been too rejoiced to leave a
+golden bridge for his still dreaded enemy. But Napoleon refused to
+acknowledge defeat; he insisted on gambling with adverse fortune, and
+scorning to fall back before foes he despised, he resolved to stand
+and fight a decisive battle. The 17th was spent in preparations on
+both sides; Bernadotte and Beningsen came up with their armies, and
+the combined allied forces probably reached the enormous number of
+300,000 men. The Emperor had no reinforcements to expect; the Grand
+Army was not 150,000 strong, and the issue of the conflict could hardly
+be doubtful. Yet the attacks of the Allies were partial and timid;
+they have been compared to the peckings of crows round an expiring
+eagle; the French fought admirably when brought to bay, and but for the
+defection of the Saxon contingent, it is questionable if they would
+have suffered defeat. A retreat, however, had become necessary; it
+was precipitate, and it led to a frightful disaster. The Elster had
+not been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> bridged by the French; the retiring columns were stopped or
+retarded; an explosion destroyed the one bridge over the stream; a
+large part of the Grand Army was cut off; Poniatowski perished with
+thousands of his troops; and the allied commanders could now fairly
+boast that they had won a great and decisive victory· The remains
+of the defeated army, strewing its path with wounded, dying, and
+straggling men, moved feebly across the Franconian lowlands; a ray of
+light shone on its arms for a moment, for Napoleon crushed a Bavarian
+force which had endeavoured to cut him off, but it was a mere mass of
+fugitives when it attained the Rhine. By the flight from Saxony, the
+corps left at Dresden and the distant garrisons on the Oder and Vistula
+were completely and irrevocably lost.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, it is scarcely necessary to say, ought not to have fought
+the second battle of Leipsic; he should have retreated after the first
+battle; and he ought to have bridged the Elster for his still large
+army. Turenne and Marlborough would not have made such mistakes; but
+those who have really studied this wonderful being will understand
+how he made them, despite his genius. Independently of the military
+causes which made the results of the campaign in Saxony so different
+from those of the campaign of Italy, there was a general cause for
+Napoleon’s overthrow; he contended for the prize of his whole Empire,
+for domination over three-fourths of Europe; this is the true reason
+why he threw forward secondary armies from the Elbe to the Oder, and
+why he left thousands of men in the Prussian fortresses, operations
+contrary to sound principle, and wholly opposed to his own wonted
+strategy. Ambition, arrogance, and the lust of power, in fact,
+“distorted”—as has been truly said—“the marvellous conceptions of the
+matchless chief,” and he underrated the strength and the resolution of
+his foes, and vainly trusted to the last to false auxiliaries, for whom
+treachery to the flag meant faith to their country, rising to a man
+against wrong and oppression.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Paris, in the middle of November, the Emperor had
+soon abundant proofs of the ruin of his power, and of the collapse of
+his Empire. The relics of the Grand Army, spread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> along the Rhine,
+scarcely exceeded 100,000 men; until reorganized they were of no use;
+they were dying in heaps by contagious disease; they required horses,
+guns, and all kinds of <i>matériel</i>; and the demoralization of
+the troops had become frightful. Yet even this was by no means the
+worst: the huge fabric of conquest formed by the sword was evidently
+doomed by the sword to perish. Soult had been driven by Wellington
+beyond the Pyrenees, and was endeavouring to defend the Adour and
+Gascony; Suchet had recoiled to the line of the Ebro; the mock throne
+of Joseph had been abandoned; the Confederation of the Rhine had
+vanished, annihilated by the rising of Germany; Eugene, beaten by
+a secondary Austrian force, had been repelled to the Adige and the
+Mincio; unfortunate Murat was plotting treason, and trafficking with
+the enemy to save Naples; Holland, half beggared by the Continental
+system, was striving to shake off Imperial bondage; and stirrings of
+revolt were feared in Belgium, and in the German provinces west of the
+Rhine. Even in old France the position of affairs, and the state of
+the public mind, was portentous of ruin. The nation had lavished most
+of its youth fit for war in the effort of the year before; the depots
+were empty and the arsenals stripped; supplies of arms of all kinds
+were short; and the <i>matériel</i> of war which remained to the Empire
+was now, for the most part, beyond France, stored in fortresses on the
+Elbe, the Adige, and the Po. The destruction, too, of the material
+resources of France, was less ominous than the national attitude. The
+fervour of 1813 had completely disappeared; the mass of the people had
+become indifferent to patriotism, and only thought of repose; and the
+cries against the Empire heard in 1812, swelled into a vast murmur
+from ruined cities, from half-starving seaports, from discontented
+provinces. Even the machinery of government was breaking down; the
+conscription was evaded in whole districts; there was an increasing
+movement not to pay taxes; and the Treasury, buoyed up by paper for a
+time, was scarcely able to avert bankruptcy. The very functionaries of
+the Empire forgot their servility; the silent Bodies of the State dared
+to make complaints; the military chiefs secretly condemned the war; and
+a conspiracy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> against Napoleon, immature as yet, was slowly formed by
+disgraced Ministers, by the remains of the Royalists and Republicans,
+scarcely heard of since the 18th Brumaire, by the men of new ideas, who
+aspired to give free institutions to a reformed France, and to save her
+from despotism and ruin at hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor proudly confronted misfortune; and did not abandon his
+still assured confidence, that he would emerge safe from this vast
+sea of troubles. One circumstance fed his hopes at this crisis; the
+Coalition had paused after Leipsic; its armies had halted as they
+approached the Rhine; and it made overtures of peace to Napoleon,
+partly because it feared a death struggle with him, and partly because
+it had begun to be divided in interests, passions and feelings. The
+Emperor sent an ambiguous reply, to proposals which would have left
+him ruler of a France enlarged to the “natural boundaries”; but it is
+questionable if he really wished to treat; and, like the armistice
+of Pleistwitz, this was a capital error. He was convinced that he
+would not be assailed for some months; he made preparations for a new
+campaign; and it is evident his purpose, once more, was to contend
+for a scarcely diminished Empire. He called out the Conscription of
+1815; forced old soldiers into the ranks of the army; made another
+appeal to the pride of Frenchmen; supplied the failing Treasury from
+his Privy Purse; endeavoured to restore the <i>matériel</i> of war;
+and tried to arouse the passions of 1798 against “an invasion of the
+sacred soil”, though, as he bitterly said, he had “crushed Revolution
+and would not rely on his worst enemy.” These efforts, however, though
+his administrative powers and genius for organization were as great as
+ever, produced comparatively small results; France could not and would
+not supply the means required to further his ambitious ends; and yet,
+I have said, his intention was to play again for supreme dominion. If
+Soult was required to oppose Wellington, Suchet was left in Spain, and
+Eugene in Italy; the forces which still remained to France were not
+concentrated within her borders, for Napoleon thought invasion remote,
+and would not give up his ambitious projects; and this strategy,
+essentially false, and unlike that of the best days of the Emperor,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>
+largely detracts from the conspicuous merits of the grand campaign of
+1814. The Allies did not give their foe the long breathing time on
+which he had unwisely reckoned. Divided as they were, they had a common
+enemy. They resented Napoleon’s still warlike attitude; and when signs
+of his real position had become manifest, in the rising of Holland, the
+defection of Murat, the victorious progress of the arms of Wellington,
+the misery of France, and the growing hatred of the Imperial rule from
+the Scheldt to the Po, they resolved to seize the occasion, and to
+cross the Rhine. By the end of December and the first days of January,
+the forces of the Coalition, spread on a vast front, were set in motion
+to invade France; and this bold offensive effort beyond question
+disconcerted Napoleon, who would not believe in such resolution and
+well-sustained energy.</p>
+
+<p>Schwartzenburg, at the head of about 160,000 men, marched from Basle,
+across the plains of Franche Comté; Blücher, with an army perhaps
+60,000 strong, advanced from Mayence and Mannheim, and traversed the
+Vosges; and Bulow and Wintzingerode, far to the north, moved, with
+probably 70,000 troops, from the upper Rhine towards the Aisne and the
+Oise, the object of the chiefs of these converging masses being to
+unite in Champagne and to press on to the capital. The invasion was so
+sudden that the surprised Emperor had but small forces to oppose to it.
+The remains of his armies, not half reorganized and only recruited to
+a slight extent, fell back at all points, through Lorraine and Alsace,
+not more, probably, than 80,000 strong; and the invaders for weeks met
+no resistance. By the close of January Schwartzenburg had crossed the
+range to the east of the great upland of Langres, and had arrived at
+the heads of the Seine; Blücher had passed Nancy, the old capital of
+Lorraine, and was in full march for the Upper Marne; and though the
+Northern column was far in the rear, a speedy advance to Paris was
+deemed imminent. The only enemies in the way were the shattered corps
+of Mortier, Oudinot, and Gérard, round Troyes, of Macdonald, Marmont,
+Victor and Ney around Châlons; and though these had been hastily
+reinforced, they certainly could not oppose 90,000 men, largely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>
+composed of beaten and despondent soldiers, to victorious enemies at
+least twofold in numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Having left Paris, and sternly rebuked one of the heretofore
+servile Bodies of the State, which at this crisis found heart to
+murmur, Napoleon reached Châlons in the last days of January. Some
+reinforcements were upon the march; but, for the moment, he brought
+nothing but his skill to assist his collected marshals, who with
+shattered forces had begun to despair. Yet he retained his haughty
+and serene confidence; he had formed a general plan of operations for
+the campaign which once more revealed his unrivalled power of turning
+the theatre of war to account, and his insight into passing events;
+and it was to lead to some of his most splendid exploits. Blücher
+and Schwartzenburg had advanced from divergent bases; their supports
+in the rear were far distant; they had the old Prussian and Austrian
+dislike of each other, and they had now reached the valley of the Marne
+and the Seine, deep rivers traversed at many points by the main roads
+converging on Paris, the object aimed at by the allied chiefs. They
+would probably, therefore, march on two lines, Blücher along the Marne,
+his colleague by the Seine, and would be separated by a wide distance;
+and the obstacles which the rivers might be made to present would give
+a great advantage to a really able enemy. Napoleon had fully perceived
+this; he resolved to oppose one front of defence to a double front of
+divided attack, and, interposing between his foes, to strike them in
+succession and to beat them in detail; and for this purpose he had
+given orders to fortify the passages on the Marne and the Seine, and
+had formed his base in the intermediate districts. This was one of his
+most brilliant conceptions, but the Emperor was very nearly crushed in
+his first operations through his extreme confidence. In an effort to
+attain Blücher, drawing near his colleague, he fought an indecisive
+battle at Brienne—the place where he first studied war—and he was
+defeated with heavy loss at La Rothière, an engagement he certainly
+should have avoided, for his enemies were nearly threefold in numbers.
+His situation appeared hopeless; he had not more 70,000 men to oppose
+to fully 200,000, when his mastery of his art and the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>blunders of
+his foes changed the position of affairs, and caused a last ray of
+glory to irradiate the ruin of his falling Empire. As he had expected,
+the allied generals, after La Rothière, fell respectively back to
+the Marne and the Seine, and moved along the rivers; Schwartzenberg
+marched slowly along the Seine, throwing out detachments to protect his
+flanks—for hostile bodies were approaching from the south; Blücher,
+passionate and impulsive, pushed along the Marne, spreading out his
+army in disconnected fractions, and burning to run a winning race to
+the capital.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_206fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_206fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre, of the CAMPAIGN of 1814.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Napoleon, like an eagle watching his quarry, sent Oudinot and Victor to
+keep back Schwartzenburg, holding the passages of the Seine in force,
+and with the rest of his army, perhaps 50,000 strong, he hastened to
+the Marne to fall on Blücher, whose exposed and divided flank was laid
+bare to him. The weather was dreadful, and the cross-roads bad; the
+French army was filled with boyish conscripts, and was encumbered with
+far too many guns, which retarded the heavy and cumbrous columns—these
+evils had gone on increasing since Wagram—but Napoleon’s genius
+overcame all hindrances; and the effects of the movement were well-nigh
+magical. Bursting into the midst of his terrified foes, he overwhelmed
+Olsuvieff at Champaubert, routed Sacken completely at Montmirail,
+defeated York at Chateau-Thierry, and finally hurled Blücher back to
+Châlons, having disabled for a time a whole host of enemies. He now
+turned against Schwartzenburg, who, pressing Victor and Oudinot back,
+had gradually advanced along the Seine; and no doubt can exist that,
+had he been free to act, the Emperor would have descended on the
+Austrian’s flank. But alarm and discontent prevailed in Paris, and in
+order to produce an immediate effect, Napoleon was obliged to approach
+the capital, and to attack Schwartzenburg, when reached, in front.
+These operations could not have the results of the terrible strokes
+against Blücher’s flank; nevertheless, the Austrian chief was beaten;
+he retreated eastward as far as Troyes; a demonstration by Blücher in
+his aid proved useless, and by the close of February 1814 the forces of
+the Coalition, cruelly shattered, were again at the heads of the Marne
+and the Seine. Genius had triumphed over ill-directed force; and the
+allied commanders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> were so despondent that they actually sought and
+obtained an armistice.</p>
+
+<p>The events that followed strikingly illustrate the character of the
+antagonist chiefs, and the peculiarities of the struggle for Empire.
+Napoleon’s<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> arrogance exceeded all bounds; he exclaimed, “We shall
+soon be again on the Vistula”; and his letters breathe intense scorn
+of his foes, and absolute reliance on his own military strength. Full
+of these illusions, he still refused to summon Eugene across the Alps
+from Italy; and though he drew detachments from the armies of Soult
+and Suchet, and organized a force under Augereau in the South, he
+did not bring nearly all his available forces to the decisive point,
+the theatre in Champagne. Had he conformed to his early and perfect
+strategy, Schwartzenburg, menaced by Eugene, and with Augereau on his
+flank—and Suchet might have joined—would have no doubt retreated;
+Blücher could not have remained isolated; the campaign of 1814 would
+have had a different close; and this, I repeat, must be borne in mind
+in judging the Emperor’s conduct as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>The operations of the Allies had no resemblance to those of their
+renowned antagonist; they were timid for the most part, and confessed
+weakness; but they were prudent, and marked by decision and firmness.
+At a great council of war held near Troyes, the Czar, the Emperor of
+Austria, the King of Prussia, and the representatives of the great
+Powers were present;<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> the admission was made that Blücher and
+Schwartzenburg could not hope for success against Napoleon, though
+he had but about 80,000 men, and their armies, strongly reinforced,
+were 200,000; the difficulty of operating along the Marne and the
+Seine, with their enemy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> between them, was frankly recognized; it was
+resolved to bring up the greater part of the army of the North, under
+Wintzingerode and Bülow, to turn the scale decisively; and whatever
+may be thought of these councils of fear, this was certainly wise and
+true strategy. Hostilities, which had never really ceased, began again
+in the first days of March: and Blücher, with perhaps 60,000 men—he
+had reorganized his army with characteristic energy—moved along the
+Marne again in the hope of destroying the isolated corps of Marmont
+and Mortier, for the present covering the main roads to Paris. The
+Marshals, however, retreated behind the Ourcq; and Blücher, rash to a
+fault, and not taught by disaster, crossed the Marne, and endeavoured
+to bring them to bay. This gave Napoleon his opportunity again.
+Quitting his central position, he bore down on Blücher, now far from
+his colleague, and crossed the Marne; and he was soon on the track of
+the Prussian chief, who, in extreme peril, was making for the Aisne,
+with but a feeble chance of getting over the river.</p>
+
+<p>A fortunate accident saved Blücher, when perhaps on the verge of a
+terrible overthrow. The commandant of Soissons, a weak man, opened his
+gates to Bülow and Wintzingerode, advancing from the North, as had been
+arranged; the only passage on the Aisne fell into their hands, and
+Blücher joined with delight his new colleagues, their united forces
+being about 100,000 men. Napoleon had not more than 60,000; but his
+passionate ardour mastered his judgment, as had often happened in his
+chequered career; he attacked the Allies at Craonne and Laon, and, as
+at La Rothière he was completely beaten, though he destroyed a hostile
+body in his retreat. His second effort against Blücher had, therefore,
+had very different results from those of his first; he had suffered
+greatly at Craonne and Laon, battles which he certainly should not have
+risked; and he was now obliged to return to the Seine, with an army
+weakened and beginning to lose hope. He had left Oudinot and Macdonald,
+replacing Victor, to hold Schwartzenburg in check, as in the first
+instance; but the Austrian chief, in the Emperor’s absence, had forced
+the passage of the Seine, and approached Paris; his advanced guard
+was not far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> from Melun; and the capital, seething with passion and
+terror, had not only made no preparations to resist, but was beginning
+to declare against the tottering Empire, especially since Wellington’s
+victories in the South. Napoleon left Mortier and Marmont to observe
+Blücher, and calling up his forces to come into line with him, he
+endeavoured to operate on the rear of Schwartzenburg; he compelled the
+cautious Austrian to fall back; but he was surprised on the Aube, near
+the town of Arcis, was forced to fight a stern but a losing battle,
+and was ultimately obliged to cross the river. He had failed against
+Schwartzenburg as he had failed against Blücher. How different might
+the result have been had he called Eugene and Suchet to his aid in
+Champagne!</p>
+
+<p>The Allies were now in overwhelming force; they thoroughly understood
+Napoleon’s game, and he could no longer continue his late strategy.
+He adopted a course almost the counterpart of his projected march on
+Berlin in 1813—baffled, we have seen, by various accidents—which
+has been differently judged by disputing critics, but which, as a
+mere military move, may be pronounced admirable. His garrisons on the
+Vistula and Oder were lost; but he had large garrisons in the French
+fortresses, which, hitherto blockaded by the allied armies, had been
+nearly set free by the immense demands of Blücher and Schwartzenburg
+for reinforcements; and he resolved to make use of what he called those
+“dead forces,” to collect a powerful army, to descend on the rear of
+his foes, and to cut off their communications with the Rhine. He always
+declared that this plan was possible, and when we consider the timid
+weakness which usually marked the conduct of the Allies, it presented
+many chances of success, had France been really true to the Empire.
+He broke up from the Aube in the third week of March, and summoning
+Mortier and Marmont to join him, made for Vitry upon the Upper Marne,
+his object being to attain the Meuse and, rallying the forces released
+from the fortresses, to attack Schwartzenburg and to seize the line of
+his retreat at the head of about 120,000 men, the troops from Lyons and
+the south supporting the movement.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Emperor’s letters still breathe the perfect confidence which
+distinguished them throughout the whole campaign; and he haughtily
+spurned proposals for peace, which even now, at the eleventh hour,
+would have left him the France of Louis XVI. Events, however, were soon
+to show the vanity of the false dreams of ambition. The conspiracy
+which had been hatching for months in the capital, against the Empire,
+had become mature; it was joined by Talleyrand and other dismissed
+Ministers, by Liberals, Bourbon and Jacobin partisans, and means were
+found to inform the Allies that should they advance on Paris Napoleon
+would fall. A second great council of war was held by the leaders of
+the Coalition on the 24th of March; and it was unanimously decided to
+march on the capital, leaving a detachment only to observe Napoleon.
+The allied armies pushed rapidly on by the now abandoned and unguarded
+lines which, hitherto, they had failed to master, driving before them
+the feeble corps of Mortier and Marmont, who had been unable to join
+the Emperor, and could not offer a show of resistance; and on the 29th
+of March the armies of Continental Europe had come in view of the proud
+city which, for twenty years, had been the ardent focus of revolution,
+of war, of glory, of Empire. The marshals fought a battle honourable
+to both, but it was impossible to withstand the great host of enemies.
+A capitulation was signed the following day; and Russians, Austrians,
+Prussians, Swedes, Bavarians, and soldiers from every part of Germany,
+took possession of the fallen yet not mourning capital. A few hours
+sufficed to complete the ruin of the despotism of force which had long
+been supreme. The young Empress and the Imperial Court vanished; the
+Bodies of the State, for years the instruments of a tyranny they had
+cringed to but had learned to hate, declared the throne of Napoleon
+forfeited, and Paris heard, not without rejoicings, that the Monarchy
+of the Bourbons, which its frenzied citizens had shed oceans of blood
+to destroy for ever, was to be restored at the will of the conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Napoleon, informed of these events, had hastily abandoned
+his march eastwards; he was at Fontainebleau on the 2nd of April, at
+the head of nearly 70,000 men, and treating as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> nought all that had
+been accomplished, he still resolved to strike a blow for Empire.
+The military situation was not quite hopeless. The generals of the
+Coalition had most unwisely distributed their armies around Paris,
+divided by the streams of the Marne and the Seine; and everything was
+to be dreaded, in a position of this kind, from the terrible enemy
+placed in their rear. Napoleon made overtures to negotiate, but it is
+tolerably certain his real object was to gain a few hours to make a
+desperate effort, and to surprise his foes in their false security; and
+he has left it on record that he must have won a decisive battle at the
+very gates of Paris. His marshals, however, refused to follow their
+chief in a course they believed desperate; Marmont went over, with his
+corps, to the Allies, and the conqueror saw his invincible sword fall
+from his grasp through the ill-will and the treachery of the companions
+in arms he had long led to victory. He abdicated, after the Bodies of
+the State had pronounced finally; and—a terrible lesson to those who
+abuse power, and a terrible proof how faith and loyalty are blighted
+in a revolutionary age—Fontainebleau became quickly a silent desert,
+abandoned by the functionaries who had grovelled at his feet. His noble
+words of farewell to the veterans of the Guard in some measure lessen
+the ignominy of scenes on which the historian dwells with pain; but
+one incident of shame has yet to be noticed. The fallen Emperor took
+poison, to end a life of despair. The attempt at self-destruction,
+perhaps happily, failed, but this is another proof that, when all
+seemed lost, Napoleon had not the indomitable firmness of very inferior
+warriors.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon’s operations in 1814, as regards the struggle in Champagne
+at least, have always been classed with his finest efforts. It was a
+prodigy of skill that, with a bad army, he should have baffled enemies
+threefold in numbers, should have all but overwhelmed Blücher, and
+should have kept the issue of events in suspense; the general of 1796
+reappears, in full perfection, in this splendid strategy. Yet even
+in these noble displays of the art, he fell into serious and plain
+errors; he ought not to have fought at least four battles, unnecessary,
+and with the chances against him; and he made two grave mistakes,
+which proved fatal—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> attempt to contend for his whole Empire,
+and the omission to concentrate his forces during the armistice. His
+generalship in 1814, considered as a whole, was not equal to that of
+1796, and his campaigns of 1812, of 1813, and even of 1814, remind me
+of Turner’s latest pictures; we see the hand of the master everywhere,
+but there is a want of proportion and real harmony, and the result is
+sad and general failure.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_256.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br>
+<span class="subhed"><span class="smcap">Napoleon</span> (<i>continued</i>).</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>I must pass over the attempt to resettle the boundaries, at Vienna, of
+a changed Continent; nor can I dwell on the pretensions of the Czar
+to sit in the seat of Napoleon without his genius, on the rapacity
+of Prussia and the craft of Talleyrand, and on the league between
+Austria, England, and France, to restrain the ambition of the Northern
+Powers. Nor can I notice Napoleon’s brief rule in Elba, though the
+administrative powers of the fallen Lord of the Continent were
+exhibited in this narrow sphere, and have left honourable traditions
+not yet forgotten. I must also avoid even a short account of the
+failure of the Restoration in France; how Louis XVIII., well-meaning
+but feeble, spite of the memories of the old <i>régime</i>, fell into
+the hands of Royalist zealots, and marred the grace of the freedom
+he claimed to concede; how impossible it became to reconcile the
+pretensions of returned <i>émigrés</i> and a ruined <i>noblesse</i>
+with the interests grown out of the Revolution; how the army,
+transformed and made the appanage of a Court, chafed in silence, and
+regretted its unrivalled chief; how the nation after a brief hour
+of repose, felt humiliated that it had been reduced to the position
+of a lesser Power of Europe. The discords of the Coalition, and the
+unsettled state of France, were not lost on the extraordinary man who
+watched events from his speck in the sea, and who had not forgotten
+his vanished Empire. Napoleon quitted Elba in February 1815, on the
+most wonderful enterprise of his whole career. A flotilla bore the
+few hundred men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> imprudently left him by the Allies; Fortune smiled
+treacherously on her audacious favourite, and he had soon landed on
+the shores of Provence, in order, in the face of embattled Europe, to
+subvert a Government founded on an European triumph. The very thought
+seemed akin to folly, and yet it became an accomplished fact in a
+fortnight. With that insight which was one of his greatest gifts,
+Napoleon avoided the cities of the coast and the great military
+stations of his old marshals; he flung himself into the valleys of
+Dauphiné, a district hostile to the restored Monarchy, and his march
+seemed like the spread of some mighty influence, which power and
+authority were unable to withstand. Grasse, Sisteron, and Gap were
+rapidly passed; a regiment near Grenoble welcomed the sight of its old
+commander, and fell at his knees; the garrison of the town greeted him
+with exulting shouts, and wherever a part of the army beheld Napoleon,
+it followed him, swayed as by an enchanter’s spell. Macdonald, with his
+staff, was expelled from Lyons; Ney, meaning to be loyal, was carried
+away in the universal military revolt; other chiefs found it impossible
+to resist; and the discrowned exile was soon on his way to the capital
+at the head of a great and hourly increasing force.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was at the Tuileries once more on the 20th of March; “his
+eagles,” in his expressive language, “had flown from steeple to steeple
+to the towers of Nôtre Dame,” and France, dazzled, surprised, and
+disliking the Bourbons, accepted a revolution which seemed a kind of
+portent. The King fled into Belgium with his Court, his nobles, and
+a few officers of the Empire, who would not break their oaths; the
+army easily put down two or three risings of Royalists in the Southern
+Provinces; and Napoleon boasted, with truth, that he regained his
+throne at the cost of scarcely a drop of blood. After this astonishing
+return to Empire, Napoleon offered peace, and to remain satisfied with
+the France of the Treaties of 1814; and probably he was sincere in
+these overtures. Yet it is not surprising that he was not believed;
+he had broken faith with Europe in leaving Elba, and, partly through
+terror and partly from hate, the Allies proscribed him as an enemy
+of mankind. He addressed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> himself to the defence of France, but the
+movement which had set him on the throne was essentially a military
+revolt; the fierce animosities of French factions embarrassed his
+Government and weakened the State; the restored Empire was viewed
+with distrust by Royalists, Liberals, and the old Republicans; the
+nation treated with indifferent contempt free institutions offered
+by Imperial hands; and the Chambers, which Napoleon convened to give
+popular support to his imperilled power, were full of secret or avowed
+conspirators. Nevertheless, let detractors say what they please, his
+exertions were mighty and worthy of him; his genius as an administrator
+shone with fresh brightness, though his health was evidently on the
+decline, and in a few weeks he had made preparations to resist the
+Coalition which must be deemed wonderful. One circumstance gave him
+precious resources; more than 100,000 prisoners of war, trained and
+excellent soldiers, had been restored to France; and by making use of
+these and additional veterans, and by employing conscripts and National
+Guards, he raised the army, which had been reduced to impotence, to a
+state of formidable strength and efficiency. Meanwhile, he gave its
+old organization and structure to the instrument of war he had so long
+wielded; the Guard reappeared, and the loved eagles; corps, divisions,
+and reserves were again formed; great exertions were made to provide
+arms, horses, and <i>impedimenta</i> of all kinds; and Paris, which
+had fallen at once in 1814, was to a considerable extent, fortified.
+By June 1815, half-a-million of men were on foot to take part in the
+impending conflict; about 250,000 of these were ready; and paper money
+supplied the Treasury with the means of seconding a great effort which,
+in existing circumstances, was, I repeat, astonishing.</p>
+
+<p>Two plans of operations presented themselves. Had France been united
+and loyal as a whole, Napoleon would have, no doubt, followed the grand
+precedent of the year before, under conditions much more favourable
+to success; he would have encountered the Coalition in Champagne
+with forces far more powerful than in 1814, and with Paris a strong
+entrenched camp in his rear, and recollecting what he achieved on
+the Marne and the Seine, his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> triumph would have been not at all
+improbable. The second plan was much more hazardous; but it was in
+harmony with Napoleon’s genius, and it followed methods which had often
+secured him victory. The Coalition had a million of men in arms; but
+these masses were spread from the Scheldt to the Po, and easterly,
+from the Rhine to the Oder; and the extreme right of the immense line
+of invasion, the two armies of Blücher and Wellington was isolated
+and thrown forward in Belgium. It might be practicable then, as it
+had been at Ulm, to cut off and destroy this detached force; and many
+circumstances concurred to give a well-directed attack a real chance
+of success. The armies of Blücher and Wellington were widely apart;
+they rested upon divergent bases; they were commanded by chiefs of
+opposite natures; their centre was weak and greatly exposed; their line
+of communication was a single road, at a short distance only from the
+French frontier, and behind this line lay a difficult country which
+would make their subsequent concentration no easy matter.</p>
+
+<p>Seizing the situation with the eye of a master, Napoleon saw in this
+position of affairs an admirable opportunity to strike with effect; and
+he resolved to assail and break through the allied centre, and to try
+to defeat Blücher and Wellington in detail, as he had defeated Beaulieu
+and Colli in the campaign of Italy. The means he adopted to carry out
+his project rank among the finest operations of his life, and form a
+conspicuous instance of his gift of stratagem. Concealing the movement
+with consummate skill, he drew together four corps from the vast
+space between Lille and Metz to the edge of the frontier; the Guard,
+another corps, and the cavalry marched from the interior; and the
+collected masses, perfectly arranged, converged gradually along this
+immense front, under the eye of the enemy, yet without his knowledge!
+No more splendid effort has been made in war; and had the Emperor had
+the complete force—150,000 men—which he reckoned on to begin the
+campaign, in all probability he would have triumphed. A rising in La
+Vendée deprived him, however, at the last moment, of 20,000 soldiers;
+but the die was cast, and he did not hesitate; and he set off from
+Paris on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> 12th of June to challenge Fortune in a supreme trial. His
+admirable directions had been admirably fulfilled. On the evening of
+the 14th June 1815, 128,000 Frenchmen, comprising 22,000 horse and 350
+guns, were assembled from near Maubeuge to near Philippeville, where
+the French frontier then entered Belgium; and screened by the Sambre,
+they were a few miles from Charleroi, where the great road to Brussels
+gave an easy approach to the comparatively feeble centre of the Allies.</p>
+
+<p>The army was in motion at daybreak on the 15th, the Emperor’s object
+being to cross the Sambre, to occupy Charleroi, and by a forced march
+to seize the points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, on the great cross
+road between Nivelles and Namur, the only line on which his foes
+could unite without obstacles of no small difficulty. The operation
+was not quite successful; delays and different accidents occurred.
+Ziethen, too, one of Blücher’s lieutenants, had checked the advance,
+not without skill, but Napoleon’s project was nearly realised; the
+great mass of the French was beyond Charleroi, and within easy reach
+of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe before night closed on the 15th; and the
+allied centre was threatened if not severed, and could only close up
+in effective force, under, so to speak, the guns of the enemy. The
+conduct, meanwhile, of the hostile chiefs had perfectly fulfilled
+Napoleon’s previsions, and had given him already an immense advantage.
+Blücher had, characteristically, placed three of his corps in positions
+around, or not far from, Sombreffe, even now almost in Napoleon’s
+grasp; but his fourth corps was many leagues distant, and could not
+reach Sombreffe for a battle next day. On the other hand, Wellington,
+circumspect and cautious, and without experience of Napoleon’s
+strategy, had hesitated and delayed at Brussels; he had not taken a
+step to join his colleague until late in the night of the 15th; and
+even then, fearing for his communications and his right, he had not
+advanced in force towards Quatre Bras, where his junction with Blücher
+would be accomplished. The allied line of communication, therefore, on
+the lateral road of Nivelles-Namur was not held by the Allies in force;
+it was all but in the hands of the enemy. The allied centre was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>completely exposed, and Napoleon might reasonably expect either to
+beat in detail the allied chiefs, should they venture to offer battle,
+or to seize the points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, and to interpose
+between Blücher and Wellington.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_218fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_218fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre of the<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1815.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This was the situation on the morning of the 16th, and it was full
+of great, nay, of splendid, promise. Napoleon was now at Charleroi,
+about to start for Fleurus, and to take the command of his corps near
+Sombreffe. He has been charged with delay, I think unjustly, and he
+was not fully aware of the enemy’s movements; but his general position
+was so good, and his general directions were so well planned, that
+accidents only robbed him of a decisive victory. He ordered Ney on his
+left to seize Quatre Bras, driving back any forces of the Duke at hand.
+The Marshal was then to descend on the rear of Blücher, who was to be
+attacked near Sombreffer, in front, by the Emperor; and had this grand
+manœuvre been properly carried out, Blücher must have been routed and
+forced away to the Meuse, and Wellington would have been in the extreme
+of peril, for both generals were now trying to join hands at Quatre
+Bras and Sombreffe, and were laying themselves open to the whole force
+of Napoleon. Ney could have easily fulfilled his mission; but he had
+lost the confidence of better days; he waited many hours before he even
+tried to move; and he failed to accomplish his main task, falling from
+Quatre Bras on the rear of Blücher.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, meanwhile, marching from Fleurus, had attacked Blücher
+between Sombreffe and Ligny. The battle raged furiously for a
+considerable time, to the disadvantage of the Prussians on the whole,
+but no decisive success had been won; and the Emperor, perceiving that
+no force was closing on Blücher from the direction of Ney, tried to
+attain his object by another method. One of Ney’s corps had advanced
+slowly; the Emperor directed this towards Blücher’s flank, while
+Blücher was to be assailed, as before, in front; and had this stroke
+been pressed home, the result would have been the same as that of
+the first projected attack. D’Erlon, however, the unlucky chief of
+this corps, was, when on the path of victory, called up by Ney, hard
+pressed by Wellington<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> at this moment; and Napoleon, I think, must have
+concurred in this, for the defeat of Ney would have been disastrous,
+though this extreme caution was, perhaps, an error. Blücher escaped
+destruction through these mishaps; but Napoleon’s attack in front had
+partial success, and the Prussian army was driven, in defeat, from
+the field. On the other side of the scenes of manœuvre, Ney, we have
+seen, had not reached Blücher, and had missed his mark; he had most
+unfortunately recalled D’Erlon, and he had suffered a repulse from
+the hands of Wellington, who had kept Quatre Bras though with much
+difficulty. Ney, however, had gained a strategic advantage; he had
+prevented Wellington from joining Blücher, and as Blücher had been
+forced away from Sombreffe, the Duke would be compelled to retreat;
+the line of communication of the allied armies was practically already
+in Napoleon’s hands; and his operations had been largely successful,
+if they had not led to a second Jena, as he had reason to expect a few
+hours before. Such had been the result of his fine strategy, although
+that result had not been complete; and it should be borne in mind that
+the allied armies were not far from double his own in numbers.</p>
+
+<p>The allied generals, obliged, through the defeat of Ligny, to abandon
+their proper line of junction—the great road between Nivelles
+and Namur—were now thrown back into the country behind it, the
+thick-wooded and marshy valley of the Dyle, very difficult for the
+passage of armies. The real student of war will not doubt as to what
+their movements ought to have been; they should either have united
+their forces at once, a few miles behind Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+or they should have retreated two marches away to Brussels, where,
+having an overwhelming superiority of strength, they might have derided
+Napoleon’s efforts. They took, however, an intermediate course—a half
+measure often disastrous in war; Blücher fell back some twenty miles
+to Wavre, the Duke fell back from Quatre Bras to Waterloo, and holding
+these positions they meant to join hands and accept, if offered, a
+great battle.</p>
+
+<p>The idolaters of success, supposed to cover everything, have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> praised
+this as scientific strategy, but it was bad strategy, and dangerous
+in the extreme. Wavre is considerably farther from Waterloo than
+Sombreffe is from Quatre Bras; what is more important, a most intricate
+country divides Wavre from Waterloo, and in this operation Blücher and
+Wellington were playing into the hands of their renowned adversary.
+Napoleon was given three alternatives, each big with the promise
+of immense success. He might call on his victorious army to make a
+forced march, might fall either on Blücher or Wellington, and defeat
+either within a few hours, before Wavre or Waterloo were reached; or
+collecting together all his forces, he might attack Blücher at Wavre,
+or the Duke at Waterloo, before either could join the other; or, in
+truer accordance with the principles of the art, he might restrain
+Blücher, with a retarding force, sent quickly from Ligny to hold him
+in check, and might attack Wellington with the mass of his army—the
+favourite manœuvre, in which he has had no rival—and in any of these
+cases he must have triumphed, over-matched as he was by his foes in
+numbers. The double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo was therefore a
+thoroughly false movement; and the General of Rivoli would have made it
+fatal. But the General of Rivoli, full of genius as ever, had lost the
+iron strength of twenty years before. Napoleon returned after Ligny,
+to Fleurus, ill; he went to sleep and could not see his staff, and
+this illness, at a crisis in the campaign, saved the Allies, and had
+momentous results.</p>
+
+<p>During the night of the 16th and the morning of the 17th, the French
+army remained motionless. Soult and Ney literally did nothing, no
+preparations for marching were made; the Emperor sent no orders from
+Fleurus; and, worst of all, Grouchy given the command of the right on
+the 16th, made no real effort to reconnoitre the Prussians, and to find
+out where they had gone. Disease, in fact, had weakened the energy of
+the chief; his lieutenants, fashioned to servitude, let things drift,
+and the opportunity of the 16th, given on the 17th once more, was lost
+never again to return. Napoleon was back at Ligny in the forenoon of
+the 17th; a letter of Soult, the Chief of the Staff, proves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> that his
+first intention was to halt for the day, for he believed that the
+Prussians, completely routed, were falling back on their base, towards
+the Meuse, and there would be time, he thought, to turn against and
+defeat Wellington. On learning, however, from Ney, on the left, that
+parts of the Duke’s forces were still at Quatre Bras, he resolved to
+advance, and try to destroy them; and he made preparations, now very
+late, for a combined movement against the Allies. He divided his army
+into two groups; at the head of the first, about 72,000 men, he meant
+to attack Wellington and bring him to bay; he gave Grouchy the second,
+about 34,000 strong, and he informed the Marshal that his mission was
+to pursue Blücher and to keep him in sight, and to interpose between
+Blücher and Wellington who, the Emperor added, was to be assailed
+should he stand near the neighbouring forest of Soignies.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon broke up from Ligny early in the afternoon; he was soon joined
+by Ney at Quatre Bras, and he endeavoured to harass the rearguard of
+the Duke, who by this time had his main force at Waterloo. The pursuit,
+however, had no results—it was too late, in fact, to be of use—and
+an extraordinary tempest of rain had broken over the country, and all
+but stopped marching. Before night fell, the heads of the French army
+had reached the low hills that overlook Waterloo, and a large army was
+evidently in position before them. Napoleon halted, hopeful of a great
+coming battle; but some hours before he sent directions to Grouchy, on
+his right, which require attention. Before leaving Ligny the Emperor,
+we have seen, believed that Blücher was making for his base, and had
+spoken to Grouchy in that sense; but on his way from Ligny to Quatre
+Bras he was made aware that a large Prussian force had been seen on
+the Orneau, near Gembloux. He immediately sent new orders to Grouchy,
+and directed him to advance on Gembloux, and, of course, generally to
+comply with his first orders. Grouchy, who had broken up from Ligny
+late, set off for Gembloux in the afternoon; and though Blücher had
+had a long start, and Gembloux was by no means the best position to
+be taken for an advance on Wavre, still the Emperor’s directions
+were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> correct enough to have enabled a bold and capable chief to have
+fulfilled his all-important mission, to have attained Blücher and
+kept him off from Wellington. Grouchy reached Gembloux rather late at
+night—the state of the roads and the weather excuse him—and he can
+hardly be blamed, though the fact is strange, that even at this time he
+was not informed with perfect accuracy about the Prussian movements.
+Within a short time, however, he had ascertained that a great part
+of Blücher’s army had made for Wavre; another part, he was told, was
+marching on Perwez, towards the Meuse. He communicated this important
+news to the Emperor, and he expressly added, “that he would advance
+on Wavre, should the mass of the Prussians go that way, in order to
+separate Blücher from Wellington,” proving that he perfectly understood
+his mission.</p>
+
+<p>This intelligence—received during the night of the 17th—was
+calculated to make Napoleon certain, especially as it was his own idea,
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army; he thought only of
+fighting Wellington, and he made preparations to attack on the morrow.
+The Prussian veteran, however, who more than once had baffled the
+Emperor by his audacious movements, had resolved, whatever the risk, to
+advance on Waterloo. He had rallied his whole army around Wavre, his
+first corps, that of Bülow, had come into line, and he had given his
+word to the Duke, who on the faith of the pledge was in position to
+fight at Waterloo, that “the whole Prussian army would be on the field
+by the early forenoon of the 18th of June.” Blücher nobly endeavoured
+to fulfil his promise. Bülow broke up from Wavre at daybreak on the
+18th, but the obstacles he met were formidable in the extreme; he was
+still far from Wellington’s lines at noon, and his three colleagues,
+Ziethen, Pirch and Thielmann, were still close to Wavre, nearly a march
+distant, and were on a perilous flank march, in long straggling columns.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Grouchy had left Gembloux for Wavre, to follow up the
+enemy—he had now ascertained that all Blücher’s army had gathered
+round the place the night before—but his operations were simply
+wretched. He knew that Napoleon meant to fight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> Wellington, should
+Wellington make a stand at Soignies; he knew that he was detached
+to hold Blücher in check, and to keep him completely apart from
+Wellington; he knew that the Prussians had been round Wavre, and had
+informed his master, in part, of the fact; he knew that Wavre was a
+march from Soignies and Waterloo, and he knew that at Gembloux he
+was some fourteen miles from Wavre. Knowing all this, he should have
+left Gembloux at the first peep of dawn on the 18th of June, and have
+advanced as quickly as possible; and common sense should have taught
+him so to make for Wavre as to get across the Dyle, in order to draw
+near Napoleon and to cut off Blücher on his way to Wellington, for
+probably Blücher was making the attempt. He took exactly the opposite
+course; he left Gembloux many hours too late; his movement on Wavre was
+pitiably slow, and he made for Wavre, not over the Dyle, which would
+have soon placed him on the flank of Blücher, but along the stream,
+striking Blücher, if reached, in the rear, and pushing him, so to
+speak, on Wellington. This miserable generalship led to what followed;
+and Grouchy was so obstinate, and so blind to fact, that when he heard
+the far-distant thunder of Waterloo, he refused to follow the sagacious
+advice of Gérard and to march, at the eleventh hour, towards the flank
+of the enemy!</p>
+
+<p>While these operations, big with a great future, had been taking place
+on Napoleon’s right, the Emperor had attacked Wellington, who, with
+faith in his colleague, awaited his foe in a long-studied position.
+Napoleon had intended to attack early, but the state of the roads
+and the weather made an attack hazardous, and he delayed some hours,
+greatly to the Duke’s advantage. The Emperor’s general plan—the last
+exhibition of his genius in the sphere of higher tactics—was to turn
+Wellington’s left and to force his centre, making a demonstration to
+engage his right; his adversary’s was to hold his ground until the
+arrival of Blücher would make success certain. The grand attack on
+the British left and centre failed, partly owing to the excellence
+of the British troops, and partly to the density and cumbrousness of
+the French columns; and the feint on Wellington’s right had no more
+success, and led to terrible waste of blood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p>
+
+<p>By this time Napoleon had learned that Bülow was gathering on his flank
+with 30,000 men, but he hoped this was a stray column which Grouchy
+might arrest and perhaps destroy, and he turned fiercely against the
+centre of his foe, abandoning the effort against the British left,
+which, with Bülow at hand, would have been too hazardous. This attack
+was successful to some extent; La Haye Sainte, a fortified post, was
+captured. This made a gap in Wellington’s defence, and Napoleon,
+confident that victory was at hand, launched a great mass of cavalry
+against the Duke’s centre, intending to support the movement with the
+Imperial Guard. But at this crisis of the battle Blücher was near.
+Despising wounds, defeat, and days of fatigue, he ordered Bülow to fall
+on the Emperor’s flank. This prevented the attack the Guard was to
+make, and though the French horsemen made heroic exertions, the British
+and German infantry “stood rooted in the earth”; and the cavalry,
+recklessly squandered by Ney but not supported by foot, were at last
+beaten.</p>
+
+<p>During all this time, Bülow had been striking Napoleon’s right; but at
+about 7 this attack seemed spent. The French still occupied the thin
+red line of Wellington, the artillery of Grouchy was heard at Wavre—a
+pledge that he was keeping the Prussians back—and victory for France
+seemed yet possible. Napoleon formed the Guard into two great columns,
+but Wellington had admirably strengthened his centre; the first column
+was fairly beaten, and the second, kept in reserve, could give it no
+aid. A sudden change now came over the battle; parts of the corps
+of Ziethen and Pirch appeared on the field; the attack of Bülow was
+fiercely renewed; British squadrons, let loose, swept over the plain;
+and the Duke, seeing the day was won, ordered a general advance of his
+worn-out army. The French, routed and surrounded, had soon no army, and
+night closed on a scene of carnage and ruin, the presage of Napoleon’s
+second fall.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon’s plan of attack on his last field was perfect, but his
+tactics at Waterloo show many errors. He was certainly in difficulties
+after the flank attack of Bülow, but he allowed his troops to be wasted
+in the feint on our right; he made a premature use<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> of his noble
+cavalry, and he perhaps missed an opportunity to strike with the Guard
+before Bülow’s diversion had become serious. For these mistakes he must
+be held responsible, though he was badly seconded by his lieutenants,
+especially by Ney—desperate, and stung by conscience—but all this was
+because, as is now well known,<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> he was ill and worn out on the 18th
+of June. The Duke, on the other hand, was the soul of the defence. He
+made, indeed, a grave strategic mistake in leaving a large detachment
+far off on his right, but his conduct of the battle was above praise;
+and though he must have lost Waterloo had not the Prussians come up,
+still the defeat would not have been the rout to which Napoleon had
+looked with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the result of Waterloo flowed from combinations outside
+the field. It was caused by the junction of part of Blücher’s army with
+Wellington; and the question for the student of war is, ought this
+junction to have been prevented by Grouchy, detached by the Emperor to
+make it impossible? The answer must largely depend on conjecture; but
+I, for one, can have few doubts. Had Grouchy left Gembloux at daybreak
+on the 18th, and, crossing the Dyle, made for Blücher’s flank, he would
+have surprised the Prussian army in divided columns on a flank march of
+extreme peril; and, giving Blücher credit for his splendid energy, I
+am convinced he would have paused to confront his enemy, and this must
+have prevented him reaching Wellington. The same result would have,
+perhaps, followed, and this is Napoleon’s deliberate view<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>—not
+impartial, perhaps, but not to be dismissed—had Grouchy simply marched
+on Wavre in time, and fastened upon the rear of Blücher. The Emperor
+insists that, even in this case, not a Prussian division would have
+attained Waterloo. The arguments urged against these conclusions
+disregard the peril of the march from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>Wavre, and the very events
+of the day confute them. Grouchy, who should have been near Wavre at
+11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, did not reach it until 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and yet his
+apparition stopped the Prussian army; Ziethen and Pirch were delayed,
+Thielmann was left at Wavre, and Blücher brought only 45,000 men,
+out of 90,000, to the field of Waterloo, and that too only between 4
+<span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> and 8 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> In view of this fact, I can draw but
+one inference, and in this controversy all that has been written by
+Charras, and authors of his school, seems to me worthless.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_226fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_226fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">NEY AT WATERLOO.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>A word on this memorable campaign, as a whole, and as to the lessons
+it really teaches. Napoleon’s first operations were a masterpiece of
+war; and these, and the grave strategic faults of the Allies—Blücher
+ran into the lion’s mouth, the Duke did not know how sudden was his
+spring—exposed both to alarming danger, and ought to have secured the
+Emperor a decisive victory. The errors, however, of Ney and D’Erlon
+saved Blücher at Ligny from utter ruin, and Napoleon’s over caution as
+regards D’Erlon—though this is theory after the event—was certainly
+unfortunate to the interests of France. The double retreat at Wavre
+and Waterloo—another palpable strategic fault—gave Napoleon a second
+great opportunity. No doubt can exist for those who understand his
+career, that he would have seized it early on the 17th had he been
+the chief of a few years before,<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> but he was no longer equal to
+prolonged fatigue, and the negligence of his lieutenants and his
+slumber at Fleurus lost him a chance not again afforded by fortune.
+His prospects were not equally good on the 18th; he calculated on
+destroying Wellington, but this, I believe, was beyond his powers, and
+his delays, and the direction given to Grouchy and his wing, made it
+possible for Blücher to join Wellington, a possibility that might have
+been wholly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> excluded. Nevertheless, he ought to have gained Waterloo.
+The arrangement of Grouchy’s force was sufficiently correct to have
+enabled Grouchy to stop Blücher, and though the Emperor made more than
+one mistake—and supreme genius is not omniscience—we still see in
+this campaign the matchless strategist, great as ever in intellect,
+but no longer equal, through physical weakness, to work out his
+conceptions. Yet when this has been said, justice should be done to the
+allied chiefs; and they deserved their triumph. Both, no doubt, made
+serious strategic errors; from first to last they proved themselves
+to be, strategically, unfit to cope with Napoleon, but both exhibited
+as soldiers the finest qualities. Blücher’s conduct in rallying his
+defeated army, and in attempting the march on Waterloo, shows energy
+of the highest order. Wellington’s constancy and tactical skill at
+Waterloo are admirable specimens of his genius in defence. The test of
+the merits of the two commanders is to compare their conduct with what
+would have been the conduct of any other chief of the Coalition opposed
+to Napoleon; Schwartzenburg would not have risked the march from Wavre,
+the Archduke Charles would have fallen back from Waterloo when he found
+that the promised support was late, and in either event the Emperor
+would have won the battle. Two subordinate causes of the issue of the
+campaign cannot, in addition, be passed over. Napoleon’s army was too
+small; 128,000 men could, with difficulty, be opposed to 224,000, and
+this led to a distribution of his force—his wings not being well
+connected with a weak centre—which partly explains his lieutenants’
+faults, if it does not afford an excuse for them. The Prussian army,
+besides, was a different army from that which had succumbed at Jena.
+Napoleon refused to see the distinction; he would not believe—as, in
+all instances, disregarding national and popular feeling—that it could
+rally after Ligny, and draw near Wellington, and this had something
+to do with his overthrow, though, I repeat, Blücher could not have
+succeeded had Grouchy been a capable chief.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not dwell on the closing scenes of a most strange and eventful
+history. Napoleon at St. Helena realised the legend of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> the fabled
+Prometheus; Genius, in conflict with Supreme Fact, was chained to a
+rock, and held down by Force, and humanity turns away from the agony.
+Yet impartial history will truly say that it was just to deprive
+the great troubler of the world of liberty, and the animosities and
+fears of the time account for, if they do not excuse, the indignities
+suffered by the fallen Emperor. The student of war will turn with
+gratitude to the rich fruits of Napoleon’s exile, his writings on
+the art, in thought and style superior to all productions of the
+kind, and those who imagine that German genius has created the latest
+developments of war will be surprised to learn that if we omit what
+belongs to purely material inventions, it has been anticipated at every
+point by Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>My estimate of this extraordinary man can be easily gathered from what
+I have written. Nature gave her prodigy an imagination such as she gave
+to Dante and Milton; she added a power of calculation and thought, such
+as she bestowed on Newton and Laplace; she contributed a superabundant
+and practical energy, embracing alike what was great and small, such as
+scarcely ever has been seen in man, and she conferred craft, dexterity,
+readiness, and firmness of character in a most ample measure. Gifts
+such as these would have made Napoleon one of the greatest of generals
+in any age; but he fell on a time when the progress of husbandry and
+facilities of locomotion, greatly increased, had created new conditions
+for the military art; and when, too, Revolution in France had given a
+powerful impulse to the human mind, and had made it singularly bold
+and aspiring. Genius and circumstance thus concurred to place Napoleon
+almost at once at the head of all warriors of modern times; and for
+years it seemed, as if Fortune, whatever he did in the field, assured
+him victory. He was unrivalled, from the first, as a strategist; the
+plans of his early campaigns are marvels of genius as distinctive as
+those of Shakspeare or Raphael; but though imagination is their most
+striking feature, this as yet, as a rule, is controlled by judgment,
+and astonishing as they are, they are thoroughly practical. The
+peculiar excellence of these prodigies of art is the mastery of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>
+theatre of war, and Napoleon’s power in making it answer his ends;
+the campaign on the Adige, that which led to Marengo, and that of
+Austerlitz are perhaps the finest specimens of this supreme merit.
+Conceptions, however, in war are useless unless skilful execution
+follows; and Napoleon’s execution of his strategic projects was more
+wonderful than the projects themselves. In these operations he, of
+course, adhered to the methods of his great predecessors, for these
+were in accord with the nature of things, and carried out principles
+always true; for example, like every real strategist, his constant
+object was to bring superior force to the decisive point, and so
+to baffle and defeat the enemy; and, with these ends in view, like
+Turenne, he struck repeatedly at the communications of his foe, and
+endeavoured to gain his flank or rear; or, throwing himself between
+divided enemies, attacked them in detail, and beat them down in
+succession. But all this he did with an originality of design, with a
+force of calculation, and, above all perhaps, with a power of stratagem
+unequalled by Turenne or by any commander of modern times.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing since the days of Hannibal can be compared to the descent
+from the Alps, which conquered Italy, and to the march from the
+Channel to the Danube, which destroyed a whole army by manœuvres,
+and threw the gates of distant Vienna open. These marvels of war, it
+must be borne in mind, however, were due not to Napoleon alone; they
+were to be attributed, in a great degree, to circumstance and to his
+perfect appreciation of it. From the new conditions made possible in
+war, from the growth of agriculture and the multiplication of roads,
+armies could subsist, in every fertile country, for the most part,
+on resources on the spot, and could therefore dispense, to a certain
+extent, with <i>impedimenta</i> necessary before; they could also march
+on a variety of lines with a rapidity never before possible; and the
+art, so to speak, was given wings, and could take a flight into a new
+sphere. First of the men of his time, Napoleon grasped these facts;
+his armies living on the tracts they passed through, and making use
+of every available road that was compatible with their safety on the
+march, moved, not without magazines, indeed, nor without a solid base<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>
+and all kinds of supplies, but with a celerity never before known; and
+the young chief out-manœuvred and terrified generals accustomed only
+to the methods of the past. This was one of the secrets of Napoleon’s
+early success; his genius fell in with and made the most of the new
+conditions of the art of war, and for a long time he came, he saw, and
+he conquered. Yet what had been a talisman might prove a peril, should
+these conditions happen to fail; and history was to illustrate this by
+most striking examples.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was thus the first of strategists; he stands supreme, like
+a Himalayan peak; there is nothing equal to him in this sphere of
+the art. He has been surpassed in the lesser tactics; he never was a
+regimental leader; he commanded in chief at too early an age to have
+had practical experience of the three arms; he perhaps underrated the
+strength of infantry, and rather exaggerated the force of cavalry,
+and the only arm he thoroughly understood was artillery. But in the
+province of the higher tactics, where strategy and tactics blend with
+each other, his pre-eminence nearly, if not quite, reappears. He
+detected the decisive point on a field of battle, and the true way to
+cope with an enemy, almost as surely as on a great field of manœuvre;
+but faults I shall notice were here sometimes seen, and I do not think
+he excelled Marlborough, a tactician of the very first order. As a
+military administrator he was, perhaps, unrivalled. His industry, his
+grasp of facts in the mass, and his extraordinary mastery of details
+were marvellous; and though the Grand Army had many defects, for it was
+the hasty creation of an age of war, still it was the best army that
+had been seen since the Legions; and, unlike the conscript armies of
+our age, it was subjected to trials they have never endured. Napoleon’s
+<i>Correspondence</i> can alone give us a notion of his administrative
+powers; and their results are most conspicuous in his immense
+preparations for the campaign of 1807, for the passage of the Danube in
+1809, for the invasion of Russia in 1812; and for the restoration of
+the military strength of France in 1813 and 1815.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder, then, that this prodigious genius, backed by favouring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>
+circumstances, and the French Revolution, should have transformed the
+art, to a great extent, and have given it an aspect of new grandeur.
+Turenne did great things between the Scheldt and the Inn; Marlborough
+did great things between the Meuse and the Danube; Frederick did great
+things on the Elbe and the Oder; but what were these achievements,
+splendid as they are, compared to Napoleon’s march of conquest? He
+moves from the Var to the Po and the Adige, strikes down the power of
+the House of Hapsburg, and dictates peace within sight of Vienna. He
+issues from Switzerland across the Alps, envelops his enemy and gains
+Italy; and had he had a lieutenant equal to himself, he would have
+destroyed the Austrian armies in Swabia in 1800. He imprisons Mack in
+1805, enters Vienna with an army encamped, a few weeks before, within
+sight of our coasts, and annihilates for a time the military power of
+Austria and Russia on the great day of Austerlitz, the most perfect
+battle of the nineteenth century. The tale is the same the following
+year; the operations are less striking, but Jena overwhelms the army
+of Frederick, and a few days of well-planned manœuvres makes Napoleon
+master of the Prussian monarchy.</p>
+
+<p>His unbroken success comes here to an end; but even in his campaigns
+of chequered fortunes, nay of disasters, we see the same grandeur,
+marred as it often is, of conception and action. He defies Nature, and
+receives her warnings in Poland; he narrowly escapes defeat at Eylau,
+but his genius and will re-establish his power, and he strikes the
+Czar down on the verge of old Europe. He defies national right and
+feeling in Spain and Portugal, and meets reverses justly deserved;
+but he hastens across the Somo Sierra to Madrid, and for the time he
+subdues the Peninsula. When called back to France by the sound of war
+on the Danube, he rectifies errors made in his absence by operations
+of consummate skill; he once more reaches and conquers Vienna, and
+having challenged Fortune at Aspern and Essling, he answers her rebuff
+by a prodigious effort of energy and perseverance at Lobau, and he
+ultimately triumphs on the field of Wagram.</p>
+
+<p>The Nemesis of power attains him at last; his army is engulfed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> in the
+snows of Russia, beyond the confines of the Western World, and yet
+his movements are admirably designed, and his capacity was, perhaps,
+never more conspicuous than at the Beresina. He reorganizes his forces
+in 1813, with a rapidity and completeness that confound the Allies;
+and though he loses at last his hold on Germany, he wins four great
+battles, is able to make the issue of the contest doubtful for months,
+and succumbs at Leipsic perhaps through defection only.</p>
+
+<p>In the campaign of 1814 he aims at too much, yet his genius shines out
+with such malignant splendour that his enemies shrink in terror from
+it; he is victorious over and over again, and he is only overwhelmed
+because France and Paris will not support his Empire. In 1815 he
+sinks at last, through the effects of a crushing military reverse;
+yet even in this campaign, spite of the faults of lieutenants and the
+determination and energy of foes, the presence of the great master is
+seen everywhere; and he only just misses splendid success.</p>
+
+<p>Humanity, however, is never perfect, and there were many flaws in
+this marvellous nature. The intensity of his imagination occasionally
+mastered the prudence and calculating powers of Napoleon; we see this
+even in his early years, in his project to march from the Nile to
+the Indus, in his scheme of a descent on our coasts in the face of
+immensely superior fleets; and we see it more clearly in his later
+campaigns, in the advance from Smolensk into the depths of Muscovy, in
+the attempt to reconquer the continent in 1813, in the resolution to
+strike for the whole Empire, and not to recall all his forces to the
+decisive point on the theatre in 1814. This dangerous quality sometimes
+marred the strategy of Napoleon, and marked it with extravagance. He
+was not so safe a strategist as Turenne, and his strategic reverses
+were as great as his triumphs. Over confidence, too, and extreme
+arrogance, combined with this excess of imaginative force, form
+distinctive faults of Napoleon in war. We see them, even from the
+first, in the campaigns of Italy; they appear plainly in his march on
+Marengo, and nearly caused him to lose the battle; they are visible in
+his advance on Austerlitz; they are conspicuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> in his campaigns in
+Poland; they largely contributed to the ruin of 1812; they prevented
+him from saving his army at Leipsic; they lured him on to his fall in
+1814; they are exhibited in 1815, in the false conviction that Blücher,
+after Ligny, was utterly routed, and could not rally his shattered army.</p>
+
+<p>To this fault must be added another, a kind of passionate desire to
+crush an enemy, whatever the risk, on the field of battle. Napoleon
+showed this at Caldiero in 1796; perhaps at Eylau in 1807, distinctly
+in 1809 at Aspern and Essling; and most remarkably, and with the
+worst results, at La Rothière, Craonne, Laon, and Arcis in 1814.
+This even lessens his excellence as a tactician. With his marvellous
+insight, in comprehending the ground and the weak points of a foe, he
+sometimes attacked imprudently, and deserved defeat. He had not the
+calm intelligence of Marlborough on the field, and here he is certainly
+less great than Marlborough. Napoleon, too, had another defect, of a
+moral kind, not to be overlooked; no one could hold a prouder or a
+more daring attitude, no one knew better the power of the renown of
+arms, but he did not confront misfortune, when hope seemed lost, with
+the indomitable constancy of some warriors. He was unequal to himself
+during the retreat from Russia—he ought not, I think, to have quitted
+his army; he tried to kill himself in 1814; and in this respect he
+falls below Frederick, who, in all others, is not to be compared to him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the most marked of his failures and shortcomings as a leader in
+war have yet to be noticed. He thoroughly understood the material
+conditions which made his grand offensive strategy possible. Yet he
+disregarded the fact when these largely failed; he endeavoured to make
+the same daring movements in barren Poland as in fertile Italy, in the
+swamps and forests of Russia as in the plains of Germany; and though
+he laboured to avert the resulting dangers, he could do so only in a
+slight degree, and he failed when nature began to fail him.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, too, had this special fault; he had many of the instincts
+of the old <i>régime</i>; he simply abhorred Jacobinism, and all
+its doings; he believed in force only as the means of ruling; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>
+throughout his career he had a rooted dislike and contempt of all
+popular movements and feelings. This tendency led him into capital
+errors, even from a purely military point of view; he believed that
+he could conquer England by a descent; he scorned the national rising
+in Spain, though it destroyed the flower of his best armies; he would
+not lift a hand to liberate Poland, though this must have disabled
+the Czar; he would not even at Moscow set the serfs free; he laughed
+at German and Russian patriotism, and found the results of his scoffs
+at Leipsic; he called the liberal movement of France at the close
+of his reign, “metaphysical nonsense and visionary stuff,” and this
+contributed to his fall in 1814.</p>
+
+<p>In politics in the highest sense, and even in the larger affairs
+of State, Napoleon did not attain supreme greatness. In this noble
+province of wisdom and conduct, his genius was not in its true sphere,
+the force of his intellect was out of its place; he followed false
+lights, and fell into the gravest errors. His ideas of politics were
+derived from the ambitious traditions of the old Monarchy, and from
+the frightful scenes of the French Revolution, and his conception of
+ruling was to extend the domination of France over a subject Continent,
+and to keep down anarchy at home by despotic power, magnificent,
+even national, but sternly repressive. His capacity, his craft, his
+untiring energy were tasked to the utmost to compass these ends. The
+Empire bestrode three-fourths of Europe; it extinguished Jacobinism
+for some years in France, it nursed her in dreams of warlike glory, it
+established order, prosperity, and material grandeur. Yet this vast
+fabric of conquest and force, which, like the Satanic temple of the
+poet’s vision, “rose like an exhalation,” as quickly vanished. The
+Empire, founded on international wrong, and depending for its existence
+on the enforced submission of great races conquered, but spurning the
+yoke, was a defiance to Law divine and human; it was a contradiction to
+the nature of things; and the methods by which its author upheld it,
+harsh tyranny, statecraft, and the Continental system, were assurances
+of his speedy overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>As for Napoleon’s system of domestic government, splendid as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> it
+seemed, and as it was for a time, it had no stability and could not
+endure; it rested on the mere rule of the sword; it had no solid
+support in old institutions, in settled traditions, in powerful
+orders of men; it was a despotism controlling a demoralised people,
+in which revolution had destroyed faith and loyalty. The character,
+too, of this rule was bad; the execution of the Duc D’Enghien, and
+many similar deeds of blood, were crimes that shocked the conscience
+of mankind. Napoleon’s Bodies of State, his spy system, his organized
+informers, his repression of thought, remind us of the Rome of the
+later Cæsars; and, curiously enough, he hated Tacitus, the immortal
+censor of Imperial tyranny. Yet the Empire was not a mere scheme of
+oppression. It had a grand and beneficent side; it bears the marks of
+the administrative gifts and capacity of its great creator; it largely
+civilized while it subdued; it saved France from the vile rule of
+demagogues; it gave her all that is solid in her social fabric, and the
+Codes will outlive Marengo and Jena.</p>
+
+<p>A word on Napoleon in his tent and his camp, the natural home of this
+mighty spirit. The great captain was, in the main, a kind master to
+submissive lieutenants; he lavished wealth and honours on his generals
+and marshals; he was usually good-natured to these docile servitors.
+But his personality was so overpowering that he made his subordinates
+mere pawns on the board; he deprived them of self-reliance and freedom,
+and as his nature was not magnanimous, he repeatedly blamed them for
+his own errors. The results were injurious to him as a chief. Few of
+his marshals were fit for independent command; they had little power of
+initiative or true capacity, and they indemnified themselves for his
+rebukes and gibes by squabbling, and often thwarting each other, as was
+notably seen in Spain and Portugal. It was otherwise with the mass of
+the army; here Napoleon’s influence was immense for good. He obtained
+efforts from French soldiers, which no other chief has ever obtained;
+his presence among them it has been said, was equal to 40,000 men; he
+was prodigal of their blood, and set at nought their sufferings, if any
+object was to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> attained; but he was careful of their wants, knew how
+to win their hearts, and was adored with a truly idolatrous passion.</p>
+
+<p>As has been seen in the case of other great men, the inner life of
+Napoleon had repulsive features; the figure loses majesty, when
+undraped of its trappings. He had been brought up in an age of
+wickedness, and Napoleon could lie, cheat, and forge with complete
+indifference, if anything was to be gained by it. His manner and
+voice could charm and fascinate, but his imperious nature made him
+rude and brusque; he could scold and fly into fits of temper; “his
+very caresses,” it has been said, “were feline”; he could be coarsely
+familiar and suddenly savage. In his general bearing there was a want
+of repose, of true self-respect, of natural dignity. In all these
+respects, as in the weightier matters which pertain to the master art
+of Empire, Napoleon falls far behind Cæsar through unquestionably the
+superior of Cæsar in war.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_050.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Wellington</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>Arthur Wellesley was born in 1769, a few weeks before the birth of
+Napoleon. His family belonged to “the English in Ireland”—a happy
+expression of Mr. Froude; and the future soldier and statesman in his
+great career displayed many of the distinctive qualities of a ruling
+caste which, though of late decried by traders in faction for selfish
+purposes, has nevertheless given more than a due proportion of eminent
+men to the service of England. The ancient seat of the Wellesleys has
+been long a ruin; the traditions of Meath yield few records concerning
+a House which produced two of the most illustrious names in our
+eventful history, and all that is really known about the first years
+of Arthur is that he was a sickly child, overlooked by his parents.
+At Eton the boy showed none of the brilliancy of his elder brother
+Richard, a precocious genius; he was unnoticed at the military school
+of Angers, and no one who saw the two youths in these years would have
+thought that the fame of “the Wellesley of Assaye” would eclipse that
+of “the Wellesley of Mysore.”</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_238fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_238fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">WELLINGTON.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Arthur obtained his first commission in 1787; passed rapidly
+through the intermediate grades, after the bad fashion of that age
+of privilege, and was placed, through interest, at the head of the
+Thirty-third, just as the Great War with France had begun. During the
+intervening period he had held a seat for the borough of Trim in the
+Irish Parliament, and had been on the staff of the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>Lord Lieutenant
+Camden; and some faint memories of his life in those days have survived
+down to the present time. Passing by idle gossip, the young member
+spoke on the Catholic Relief Bill of 1798; the speech, though dry and
+blunt, goes straight to the point, and is characteristic in many ways;
+and an old house on the quays of Dublin which commands the Liffey and
+the adjoining streets, and which, it is said, he urged the Government
+to buy, remains to this day to prove that Wellington had in early youth
+a true military eye. It is impossible to doubt that, even in these
+years, Arthur had studied and read a great deal, and was well-versed
+in his professional work. He had acquired a command of the English
+and French tongues which made him the master of a vigorous style, not
+brilliant or striking, but clear and solid; his writings nearly of
+this date give proof of thorough information on many subjects, and of
+singularly ripe and disciplined thought; and from the first moment that
+he obtained a regiment, he made his mark as a most promising officer.
+Like Turenne, Wellesley addressed himself with untiring industry to
+the care of his men; he enforced discipline with a steady hand, and
+showed that he had the faculty of command; and, like Turenne, he was
+soon able to boast that his corps was well-ordered and very efficient.
+The occasion quickly came when the young colonel was to show that he
+possessed qualities above those of the common herd of men.</p>
+
+<p>In the unfortunate campaign of 1794 the Thirty-third formed part of
+the British army, which, under the command of the Duke of York, had
+been separated from the main allied force retreating on a divergent
+line to the Meuse, and which, hardly pressed by the Republican levies,
+advancing upon the flood-tide of victory, was endeavouring to make its
+way into Holland. Wellesley distinguished himself in several rearguard
+actions, displaying from the first the skill in defence, the resource
+in danger, and the perfect self-reliance, which were peculiar gifts of
+the future chief; and it is significant that he was chosen to cover the
+retreat, a task he performed with marked ability. These experiences
+made a profound impression on a remarkably penetrating and sagacious
+mind; they seem to have led him to observe carefully, and to form an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>
+admirably just estimate of what he called “the new methods” of French
+warfare, and of what was good and defective in them; they enabled him
+to realise the immense abuses then prevalent in the Continental armies,
+and to a considerable extent in our own; and, unquestionably, they
+were of the greatest use as a preparation for the Peninsular War. It
+is remarkable that, after this first essay in arms, most honourable
+as it had been to him, Wellesley tried to give up a military career,
+and actually applied for a post in the Civil Service; the reason he
+assigned was that he saw little chance of advancement through merit
+in the British army, to the shortcomings of which he had become fully
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>Fate happily disregarded Wellesley’s prayers; and having escaped exile
+to the West Indies, he was sent off to Calcutta in 1797. A short time
+afterwards, his brother Richard, the Marquis Wellesley of a later day,
+arrived in India as Governor-General, and the real career of Arthur
+may be said to have opened. Much of his correspondence of this period
+remains, and it bears the marks of the prudent forethought, of the
+clear insight into men and things, and, above all, of the moderation of
+view, which distinguished Wellington when at the summit of fame. He was
+often consulted by the Governor-General, and it is interesting to note
+how the ambitious statesman,<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> a more brilliant but a less scrupulous
+man, was more than once restrained by the calm-minded soldier. Arthur
+Wellesley’s judgments on Indian affairs were such as Marcus Aurelius
+might have made had he been a Pro-consul in a province of Rome; he was
+the constant advocate of peace with honour, of keeping the strictest
+faith with the Princes of Hindustan, of no undue extension of our
+growing Empire; and yet he thoroughly understood the true nature of
+that wonderful domination which, in spite of itself, was winning its
+way to supremacy in the East, in virtue partly of its own force, and
+in part of the decay of all powers around it, and of the jealousies
+and discords of its numerous foes. Another characteristic of these
+papers is this: they show that the writer had admirable views on
+military and civil administration alike; and the remarks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> on the whole
+system of our Indian Government, which repeatedly occur, are profound
+and striking. Peace in India at this time had become impossible; the
+inglorious satrapy of Sir John Shore had only encouraged the hopes of
+our enemies; and the news of Napoleon’s descent on Egypt, and of his
+avowed project to march to the Indus, had animated Tippoo Sahib to
+endeavour to break the settlement made by Cornwallis in 1793. I shall
+not repeat the often-told tale of the dealings of “citizen Tippoo” with
+the Directory of France; of the assistance he received from French
+soldiers of fortune; of the siege of Seringapatam, and his death; this
+scarcely belongs to Wellesley’s career, who was a subordinate only in
+the attack on the fortress, and who, in these operations, happened to
+meet one of the few reverses he met through life. He was made Governor
+of Seringapatam, and afterwards of Mysore; and in this position he
+first gave proof not only of great administrative powers, but of that
+capacity for ruling alien races—for reconciling the ascendency of
+the English name with the obedience of people completely different—a
+gift partly due, perhaps,<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> to his Irish experience, and partly to
+firmness, patience, and a strict regard to justice, which stood him in
+good stead in Spain and Portugal. Ere long Wellesley, now raised to the
+rank of General, had an opportunity to show what he was in command.</p>
+
+<p>He had distinguished himself, when at Mysore, in putting down a
+Mahratta partisan who had ravaged the country with part of Tippoo’s
+forces; and when Scindiah and Holkar in 1803 made a determined
+effort to destroy our Empire, Wellesley was placed at the head of an
+independent army, and advanced from Madras into the Central Provinces.
+I pass over his forced march to Poona, considered in those days a
+remarkable feat, and his rapid operations in the Deccan; and I proceed
+at once to the really grand exploit which gave him, for the first time,
+a great name in India. Wellesley and Stevenson, in September 1803, were
+near the Kaitna,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> one of the Godavery’s streams, at the head of about
+16,000 men; Scindiah’s army, 50,000 strong, commanded and organized
+by French officers, was in camp at no great distance; and the two
+Englishmen agreed to attack it, on lines divided by a wide range of
+hills, strategy which, even in the case of Indian warfare, was too
+hazardous, and cannot be justified. Wellesley came up with the enemy
+at Assaye, his colleague being still far away; and, as more than once
+was seen in his career, his boldness on the ground and his quickness in
+action made more than amends for a strategic error. Disregarding all
+odds, like Clive at Plassey, he instantly fell on the masses before
+him; and though the issue of the battle was doubtful for a time,
+nothing could stand against his British foot and horsemen, and in a
+few hours he gained a complete victory. Stevenson arrived before long,
+and the campaign ended in the easy triumph of Wellesley’s arms, and
+in a large increase of our Indian dominions. Yet Assaye had, perhaps,
+other results; the strategy of Wellesley was, no doubt, faulty; and the
+battle probably gave Napoleon, who let nothing escape him in war, that
+first false impression of the “Sepoy general,” which caused him greatly
+to undervalue Wellington, with fatal consequences to France in the
+Peninsular contest.</p>
+
+<p>Wellington always looked back on India with pride; and nearly two
+generations after Assaye, when he had been for many years the first of
+living Englishmen, he actually proposed to set off for the East, when
+danger threatened our power on the Indus. An attentive observer will,
+indeed, perceive that his career in Hindustan foreshadows, in part, his
+more renowned career in Portugal and Spain; we see in both the same
+sober wisdom, the same administrative gifts, the same intrepid conduct,
+if Wellesley had no opportunity to display his skill in defence
+in Asiatic warfare. He was back in England a few weeks before the
+memorable events of Ulm and Trafalgar; but he was relegated at first to
+a civil post, and he became Chief Secretary for Ireland under the Duke
+of Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>The state of the island was very critical; the fires of 1798 were still
+smouldering, and the unpopularity of the Union<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> strengthened the hands
+of the remains of the rebel Irish faction, which continually looked
+to France for aid, though, characteristically, scorned by Napoleon.
+Wellesley ruled after the fashion of those days: that is, he kept
+Celtic discontent down and threw bribes and places to greedy seekers of
+both, in order to extend ministerial influence; but he was perfectly
+aware of the many abuses then prevalent in the social condition of
+Ireland, and his warnings on the subject now appear prophetic. He was
+at the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807; was chosen by Lord Cathcart
+to arrange the terms of the surrender of the fleet with the Danish
+commander; and won golden opinions in this delicate task from brave
+enemies, whom he seems to have pitied. At last, in the summer of 1808,
+fortune found for him a place on the theatre of the great events
+which were stirring the Continent especially adapted to his peculiar
+genius, and launched him on the career which has made him famous. By
+this time Napoleon’s first invasion of Spain was ending in calamitous
+failure; the French armies were falling back at all points, and the
+British Government resolved to strike a blow at Junot and his corps,
+isolated in the midst of Portugal. Wellesley set off from Cork in the
+middle of July, at the head of about 10,000 men; and a remark he made
+to his friend Croker, when leaving, shows the character of the man
+and his strong nature. “The French armies,” he said, “have beaten all
+the Continent. They have, it seems, adopted a new system; they have
+out-manœuvred every enemy they have met, but I do not think they will
+outmanœuvre me, though, as a matter of course, I may be outnumbered.”</p>
+
+<p>Wellesley had landed at Mondego Bay in the first week of August; he was
+soon joined by about 5,000 men under General Spencer, from the south
+of Spain, and he ultimately had nearly 20,000 troops, by the addition
+of a British division and some Portuguese auxiliaries. The effect of
+the descent was to throw a superior hostile force on the communications
+of Junot’s army, and to place it in grave peril, for it was split in
+fractions; and Wellesley hoped to cut it off from Lisbon, and, should
+a detachment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> under Sir John Moore co-operate, even to intercept its
+retreat on Elvas, and so to cause its complete ruin. This able plan
+was frustrated by a series of accidents, though it led to a brilliant
+if not a decisive victory. Wellesley attacked and defeated a French
+division at Roliça on the 17th of August; and he was in turn assailed
+when on the march to Lisbon, at Vimeiro, not far from the coast, by
+Junot, who had assumed the offensive with from 14,000 to 16,000 men.
+The efforts of the French completely failed; and as their defeated
+columns drew off, Wellesley eagerly tried to follow up his success, and
+to force Junot against the Tagus, where, even without the aid of Moore,
+he might destroy the Marshal. This bold and brilliant stroke was,
+however, prevented by the interference of Sir Harry Burrard, a veteran
+of the old school, who had come from England, unluckily, to take the
+chief command, and the French army escaped unmolested. The Convention
+of Cintra soon followed; and though a storm of indignation arose at the
+time, because Junot and his troops were landed in France, it is but
+fair to remark that as Moore did not complete the operation laid out
+for him, the French would probably have made good their retreat. The
+one real opportunity was lost at Vimeiro, owing to a change of leaders
+at a critical moment.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_244fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_244fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre, of the<br>
+PENINSULAR WAR.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This short campaign brought out one of the gifts of Wellesley, capacity
+for bold offensive movements, not on a grand scale but within limits
+where readiness and vigour are of special value. His ability was
+recognized at the inquiry held in England, after the affair of Cintra;
+and he returned to Portugal in the spring of 1809 in supreme command of
+a mixed force of British and of Portuguese troops, perhaps altogether
+40,000 strong, which had been assembled for the defence of Lisbon,
+and had been organized by Generals Cradock and Beresford. Affairs in
+the Peninsula had, by this time, completely changed since the year
+before; and it was universally believed in Europe that the whole
+country would in a few months become a vassal province of the French
+Empire. Napoleon had invaded Spain for the second time, at the head of
+forces that nothing could resist; he had swept aside the rude levies
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>that crossed his path. Saragossa had fallen; a British army, led by
+Moore, had narrowly escaped destruction; the national insurrection
+seemed, for the moment, crushed; and fully 300,000 veteran soldiers,
+commanded by skilful and successful chiefs, were gathered round the
+eagles for a march of conquest from the Ebro to the mouth of the Tagus.
+Yet Wellesley, with deep sagacity and grand strength of character,
+refused, in this state of things, to despair; and he drew elements
+of hope from the peculiar nature of a theatre of operations he had
+carefully scanned, and from the conditions of French invasion in Spain
+and Portugal. Portugal, open to England through the command of the sea,
+and scarcely accessible from the Spanish frontier, the only avenue open
+to the French armies, could, he insisted, be defended with success, by
+a small British force if well supported by the national militia and the
+Portuguese Government; and he relied greatly on the immense impediments
+which would necessarily beset the French in Spain, owing partly to
+the ubiquitous guerrilla risings, partly to the intricacies of a
+region of mountains and defiles, partly to the exposed state of the
+communications with France, assailable along a vast line, and partly
+to the extreme difficulty of concentrating and supporting large forces
+which, upon Napoleon’s principles of war, would be compelled to subsist
+in a poor and barren country on resources principally drawn from the
+spot. These admirable views, set out in detail before Wellesley reached
+Portugal in 1809, anticipate the course of the Peninsular war, and in a
+great measure foreshadow its event; and if they do not equal Napoleon’s
+conceptions in splendour, science, and imaginative force, they indicate
+real genius for defence and military wisdom of the highest order.
+Wellesley’s first operations were of happy augury, and realised his
+predictions with full completeness. Napoleon, before he set off for
+Wagram, had made preparations to invade Portugal on what he considered
+a sufficient scale, while he continued to extend his power in Spain;
+and for this purpose he had directed Soult to march on Lisbon with an
+army supposed to be at least 40,000 strong, while Victor was to second
+the movement by the valley of the Tagus with about an equal force.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>
+Soult, however, pursued by swarms of guerrillas and making his way
+with extreme difficulty, reached Oporto with less than 25,000 men;
+though Victor routed a Spanish army, he never approached the Portuguese
+frontier; and when Wellesley arrived in Lisbon the two Marshals were
+far from each other, unable to co-operate, nay, perhaps, unwilling, and
+not in sufficient force to subdue Portugal. Wellesley, rightly aiming
+at his nearest foe, marched against Soult with about 30,000 men; and
+the operations that followed were very brilliant.</p>
+
+<p>Soult, dreaming of a throne for himself in Portugal, and a somewhat
+indolent though a very able man, was surprised and assailed by his
+bold adversary; the Douro was crossed by the British army, under the
+eyes of a powerful hostile force, by a movement of singular daring and
+skill; and a detachment ably sent off by Wellesley all but cut off the
+Marshal’s retreat, and nearly involved him in utter ruin. In fact,
+Soult only contrived to escape by abandoning his <i>impedimenta</i>,
+and crossing the ranges that lead into Spain with the wreck of an army,
+and the invasion of Portugal ignominiously failed.</p>
+
+<p>The passage of the Douro in the face of Soult is another instance
+of the skill of Wellesley in offensive movements upon a contracted
+theatre. He now turned his attention towards Victor, far off, yet in
+the lowlands of the Tagus; but a long pause in the operations took
+place, due, partly, to the maladministration of the British army,
+partly to disputes with the dullard Cuesta, in command of the Spanish
+army of the west, and partly, too, perhaps, because the English general
+had not the fierce energy, in a situation like this, of the warrior
+of the campaign of Italy. Wellesley had defeated Soult by the middle
+of May; he did not even attempt to advance against Victor until the
+last days of June, and it was the third week of July before his army,
+having effected its junction with that of Cuesta, was in the valley of
+the Upper Tagus, marching in pursuit of the French Marshal. The allied
+chiefs were now at the head of about 20,000 British troops and 40,000
+Spaniards, mostly new levies; their purpose was to attack Victor,
+falling back leisurely towards Talavera; and they moved up the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> Tagus,
+not without hope that they might ultimately reach the Spanish capital,
+for they expected aid from a Spanish army in the south.</p>
+
+<p>The long delay which had occurred, however, had enabled the French
+armies in the Peninsula to draw towards each other in formidable
+strength; the corps of Soult, reorganized and recruited, that of Ney,
+and that of Mortier were but a few marches off, behind the screen of
+the Avila range. King Joseph at Madrid had a considerable force, which
+might easily join hands with Victor; and Wellesley and Cuesta were
+in fact moving into the midst of immensely superior foes, strategy
+difficult to understand and not to be justified. In the operations that
+followed, the French lost one of the best opportunities they ever had
+to destroy our power in Portugal and Spain; and the glitter of success
+ought not to blind us to the perils incurred by the British commander,
+from which he only escaped by accident. In the last days of July Joseph
+had come into line with Victor, who had been well-nigh caught. Their
+united armies were near Talavera, at least 45,000 strong; and pressing
+orders had been given to Soult, to fall on the flank of the allied
+army, with the corps of Ney, of Mortier, and his own, 60,000 excellent
+troops at least; a movement not in any way difficult, for it only
+required a short march, and the passes from the hills were but weakly
+guarded. These dispositions were by no means perfect, but they promised
+brilliant and decisive success; and they failed only through a series
+of mishaps and errors. On the 27th of July Victor attacked the Allies,
+in position at Talavera, between the Tagus on their right and a set
+of knolls and low hills on the left; and his first effort altogether
+failed, though he concentrated his main strength against the British
+troops.</p>
+
+<p>The attack was premature and imprudent, for obviously it was the
+true course of the French to wait until the advance of Soult would
+enable them to assail the Allies, in front and flank, in overwhelming
+strength; but Victor, jealous perhaps of his colleague, and eager to
+win on his own account, insisted on renewing the fight on the 28th.
+The battle raged furiously for several<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> hours; all the attacks on the
+British left were baffled; but the intrepidity and skill of Wellesley
+were taxed to the utmost to save the centre, and though he undoubtedly
+gained the day, the French army drew off unbroken. Ere long, however,
+the advanced guard of Soult made its appearance in the plains of the
+Tagus; the defeated army resumed the offensive, and in the first days
+of August a great French host, from 85,000 to 100,000 strong, was
+menacing the Allies in front and rear, and seemed as if on the verge of
+a splendid triumph. Had the counsels of Soult, to press on and attack,
+prevailed at this juncture, it is difficult to see how Wellesley and
+Cuesta could have escaped; and in that event the combined French armies
+would not improbably have overrun Portugal, and, perhaps, have even
+attained Lisbon. The danger, however, passed away; the French chiefs
+separated, and did nothing; and Wellesley, placing the Tagus between
+himself and his foes, made good his retreat across the frontier, though
+unsupported by his worthless ally, whose conduct, it has been thought,
+was not free from treachery.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_248fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_248fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">WELLINGTON AT TALAVERA.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Wellesley received a peerage for Talavera, and the battle is honourable
+to the British army and its chief. The attacks of Victor were ill
+conducted, but fully 35,000 French soldiers were opposed to less than
+20,000 Englishmen; and yet they retired from the field, defeated.
+Talavera, indeed, like Vimeiro before, had proved that the modern
+French tactics were not calculated to achieve success against those
+long in use in the British service, as regards defensive battles at
+least; columns and skirmishers failed to make an impression on the
+formidable line of the British infantry, a result which was seen two
+thousand years ago in the inferiority of the Greek phalanx to the Roman
+legion. Wellesley’s first dispositions were not very good; he did not
+occupy the ground in force on his left; but he displayed great resource
+and skill on the 28th, and he deserved the victory he fairly won. His
+strategy, however, in this campaign was ill conceived, and, indeed,
+bad; and it can be explained, perhaps, on the supposition only that he
+had no idea what a great hostile force was ready to descend through
+the hills on his flank, as he marched in fancied <span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>security up the
+Tagus. As for the French operations, the plan of the double movement
+of Victor and Soult was not ill designed; but it was frustrated by the
+inconsiderate haste of Victor, who attacked before the approach of his
+colleague; and Napoleon truly observed that combinations like these are
+ever liable to mischance and failure, and that Wellesley ought to have
+been allowed to advance until the net was made certain to close around
+him. Wellesley, however, as it was, only just escaped. The wrath of
+Napoleon<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> knew no bounds, for a great opportunity had no doubt been
+lost; and the mistake of the English commander confirmed the Emperor in
+the low estimate he had formed of an enemy, who was anything but “the
+presumptuous, rash sciolist” he held up to ridicule after this campaign.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Wagram had been fought. After the defeat of Austria,
+the whole Continent was more than ever under the yoke of Napoleon;
+Spain and Portugal were the only points where there was even a show
+of resistance to that colossal force; and as the Emperor poured fresh
+masses of troops into Spain, and announced that he would march on
+Lisbon in person, even the British Government, injured at home by the
+calamitous issue of the descent on Walcheren, began to quail and to
+wish to give up the contest. Yet Wellington—we now use the revered
+name—retained his calm and unbroken confidence; and though the
+subjugation of Spain seemed imminent—for three Spanish armies had been
+completely routed, and Andalusia was being overrun—he still contended
+that the defence of Portugal could be successfully maintained even
+in existing circumstances. After his retreat from the Tagus, he had
+returned to Lisbon; and, in the autumn of 1809, despite of the fears of
+ministers at home, and of the reluctant aid afforded by the Portuguese
+Regency—a corrupt and incapable body of men—he made preparations for
+the memorable stand in Portugal which has gained him enduring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> renown.
+His own army was now about 30,000 strong; the Portuguese army, drilled
+and led by Englishmen, had become a trustworthy force of about equal
+strength; and the addition of other Peninsular levies had placed him
+in command of more than 100,000 men. Such arrays, however, Wellington
+clearly saw could not hope to contend, even in Portugal, against the
+masses of which Napoleon disposed, unless means were taken to place
+a barrier in the way of the invaders, behind which the forces of the
+defence could be securely rallied. For this purpose he chose a position
+between the Atlantic and the mouths of the Tagus, covered in front by
+a succession of heights, and most difficult to turn on either flank;
+and thousands of labourers were quietly employed, with a secrecy which
+appears surprising, in constructing the famous Lines which will make
+the name of Torres Vedras long live in history. These great works
+formed a triple range of entrenchments, thirty miles in length on
+their exterior face and about eight in their second extension; the
+third was a vast fortified camp, from which the army, if forced, could
+embark; and the whole were protected by all the means available to the
+art of the engineer, redoubts, inundations, stockades, escarpments,
+and formidable batteries commanding vulnerable points. In this
+“impregnable citadel,” as has well been said, Wellington “deposited
+the independence” of Portugal at first, and ultimately, as it turned
+out, of Spain; and clinging to a rock on the verge of the ocean, while
+all was fear and mistrust around, he steadily confronted the might of
+Napoleon, the undisputed lord of a vanquished Continent. History has no
+grander instance of heroic constancy, and of self-reliance justified by
+the event.</p>
+
+<p>By the early summer of 1810, the French armies in Spain had reached
+the enormous number of 350,000 fighting men, and Napoleon believed the
+whole Peninsula to be within his grasp. Engrossed, however, with his
+overgrown Empire, and meditating already the invasion of Russia, he
+had renounced the idea of crossing the Pyrenees, and conducting the
+approaching campaign himself; and this was one of the greatest mistakes
+of his life. The Emperor, shut out from the sea by England, and unable
+to procure<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> intelligence in Spain, had not the least notion, strange as
+it may appear, of the real force in the hands of Wellington, still less
+of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and his plan for the contest, formed
+without knowledge, was misconceived and false to his own strategy.
+He believed that the British army was not 25,000 strong; he took no
+account of the Portuguese forces; he thought that the way to Lisbon was
+open, or barred only by natural obstacles; and instead of concentrating
+200,000 men, in order to overpower Wellington and to turn the Lines on
+the landward side, at the verge of the mouth of the Tagus—a difficult
+but a possible enterprise—he disposed his armies in such a fashion
+that, as the event proved, they were largely wasted and were not strong
+enough on the decisive point on the theatre. Reasoning on his false
+data, he left Macdonald and Suchet to reduce the east of Spain; he
+allowed Soult to remain in the south with a great army, to no useful
+purpose, and calculating that this force would be more than sufficient,
+he placed 70,000 men in the hands of Masséna, by far the first of
+the imperial marshals, with orders to besiege the north-eastern
+frontier fortresses, and to “drive the English into their ships from
+Lisbon.” This dissemination of his military strength, so contrary to
+the principles of war, was due not to wilfulness or over-confidence,
+but simply to ignorance of the real facts; the Emperor knew that the
+British army was the one enemy he should first dispose of, and he
+conceived that he had made this result certain; but his reckonings and
+previsions were wholly wrong, and his projects were based on disastrous
+errors. The remarkable campaign of 1810 was to illustrate this in
+a most striking way, and forms Wellington’s true title to glory in
+war. Masséna began operations in the first days of June by investing
+Ciudad Rodrigo, a famous stronghold and the key of Portugal from the
+west of Spain, and as he was not to advance until after the summer
+heats, he conducted the siege in a leisurely manner, though disease
+and want had begun to prey on his army. Wellington, who had approached
+the beleaguered fortress at the head of about 30,000 men, when made
+aware of the strength of the French merely observed the enemy from
+secure positions; and all the devices of Masséna to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> tempt him to fight
+were fruitless against his steadfast prudence. Ciudad had fallen by
+the middle of July; Almeida, a neighbouring stronghold, met the same
+fate, and Masséna had set his army in motion—it numbered about 60,000
+men—to invade Portugal in the third week of September, the Marshal
+advancing along the Mondego, and the British commander falling back
+before him. By the 27th the French had entered a region of mountains
+and defiles between the great ranges of the Sierra Alcoba and the
+Sierra Estrella, and they found Wellington and his troops in position
+on the ridge of Busaco, awaiting their enemy. Masséna did not hesitate
+to attack, for he had a great superiority of force; but once more the
+column was repulsed by the line, and the assailants only reached the
+well-defended heights to be smitten down by the steady British footmen.
+The Marshal, bold and persevering, now discovered a track which enabled
+him to move his army and turn Wellington’s left. This was not the fault
+of the English chief, for he had given directions to secure the pass;
+but his position had become no longer tenable, and the French entered
+Coimbra in high heart, and confident that they would soon attain Lisbon.</p>
+
+<p>Masséna, utterly ignorant of what was before him, shared this hope with
+Ney and Junot, his chief lieutenants; and leaving his wounded and sick
+men at Coimbra, spite of a guerrilla warfare gathering on his path,
+“the spoiled child of victory” pressed boldly forward, making for the
+Lower Tagus and the Portuguese capital. To his great astonishment, the
+hostile army, which had retreated slowly and made scarcely a sign,
+seemed suddenly to disappear from his view; and Masséna only discovered
+the cause when, in the middle of October, he saw the Lines of Torres
+Vedras rising in formidable strength, and his enemy, he knew, was
+entrenched behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Masséna’s army had, by this time, been reduced to about 50,000 men, and
+his adversary had fully 100,000, within lines not to be attacked in
+front. Ney and Junot were for an immediate retreat, but the warrior of
+Zürich, of Genoa, of Essling, whose great merit was tenacious boldness,
+refused to listen to these desponding counsels. He searched the barrier
+before him at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> every point, and only fell back when the state of his
+troops had warned him that a further stay was impossible. In his
+march from Busaco, Wellington had given orders to ravage the country,
+and to destroy its harvests; and though we may, perhaps, regret that
+he had recourse to a barbarous and obsolete mode of warfare, it was
+very efficacious against invaders who had no magazines when they
+left the frontier, and relied for supplies on organized plunder.
+Within a few weeks after it had reached the Lines, Masséna’s army,
+practised as it was in extortion and rapine, was half-famished; and
+the Marshal recoiled from Torres Vedras baffled and indignant, but not
+disheartened. Concealing the movement with great skill, he established
+his troops in strong positions round Santarem, on the Lower Tagus,
+where he was almost inaccessible to attack, and where, at the same
+time, he had several lines of retreat, and he might receive aid from
+the French army in the South should it advance to the opposite bank
+of the river. Here the Marshal made a determined stand, disregarding
+the murmurs of inferior men; he sent flying columns through the
+surrounding region to obtain means of subsistence by force or terror;
+he constructed bridges to cross the Tagus, and he despatched Foy, a
+very able man, to Paris, to ask for reinforcements and to inform the
+Emperor of the critical state of affairs in Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon saw his messenger before the end of November, and it might
+have been supposed that the first of strategists would have sent
+every available man, as quickly as possible, to Masséna’s aid, for
+everything, it had become manifest, depended on the course of events
+on the Tagus. But the Emperor was not pleased with the Marshal, on
+account of Busaco and the march from Coimbra. He persisted in holding
+Wellington cheap; he refused to believe in the strength of the Lines;
+he would see no foes but the British army, and the measures he adopted
+were quite inadequate to meet a situation already of peril. He ordered
+a detachment to be sent from the North of Spain, and to join hands with
+Masséna’s army; and he directed Soult to the Tagus from Andalusia, a
+distance requiring a long and arduous march, giving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> his lieutenant,
+besides, a dangerous latitude. The results, due partly to want of
+knowledge, but principally to obstinacy and unwise arrogance, proved
+most disastrous to the Imperial arms.</p>
+
+<p>The detachment from the north reached Masséna’s camp, but instead
+of being 20,000 strong, as had been promised, it was not 10,000,
+a reinforcement of little worth; and Soult never approached the
+Marshal, either because the difficulties in his way were immense
+or because, as has often happened with French commanders, and was
+conspicuously seen in the Peninsular War, he was selfishly jealous
+of a superior colleague. Yet Masséna clung to his positions to the
+last. In this unfortunate campaign he showed the great qualities which
+have deservedly given him renown in history; and it was not until the
+whole adjoining country had been turned into a desolate waste that he
+reluctantly yielded to dire necessity. He broke up from Santarem in
+March 1811, having, to Wellington’s amazement, contrived to live for
+nearly four months on the tracts around him; and his retreat was one
+of extreme difficulty, for the British army was soon pressing on his
+rear; Coimbra had been taken, and swarms of partisans were gathering
+around on every side. The Marshal, however, proved equal to himself;
+he conducted the movement with the greatest skill; Ney distinguished
+himself in more than one action; and the French army ultimately
+recrossed the frontier, having saved its honour, it may be truly said,
+but having injured its fair fame by atrocious excesses. It had been
+reduced to 40,000 men, in miserable plight and greatly demoralized;
+a quarrel between Masséna and Ney increased disorder and destroyed
+discipline; and Portugal had been set free, and, as time was to show,
+was not to be invaded by Frenchmen again.</p>
+
+<p>Torres Vedras is Wellington’s crown of fame, and gives him his true
+place among great commanders. The Lines might have, perhaps, been
+turned, had Napoleon put forth his whole strength; but they baffled the
+force believed by the Emperor to be sufficient to conquer Portugal and
+to drive Wellington out of the entire Peninsula. The conception of the
+defence was very fine, for Torres Vedras was all but impregnable; but
+the conception was nothing to the moral grandeur of the attitude of
+the heroic soldier, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> from this rocky nook defied the mighty hosts
+which certainly might have been arrayed against him. It adds, too,
+to the just renown of Wellington that he met a foeman worthy of his
+steel. Masséna possibly made mistakes; he ought not to have fought at
+Busaco; it is astonishing that he was not informed of the Lines when
+he reached Coimbra, a few marches distant; and he ought not, perhaps,
+to have quitted that place, leaving thousands of enemies gathering on
+his rear. But the Marshal gave proof of powers of a very high order;
+he stood before Torres Vedras to the last moment, surrounded by,
+but overcoming danger; his choice of his positions at Santarem may
+almost be called a stroke of genius; and he conducted the retreat with
+consummate judgment. Apart, indeed, from the decisive effects caused
+by Wellington’s masterly defence, the failure of the campaign should
+be ascribed, not to Masséna, but to the French Emperor. Napoleon,
+ignorant of the real state of affairs, did not give his lieutenant a
+sufficient army; when made aware of the existence of the Lines, and
+of the strength of his enemy’s forces, he took half measures, which
+proved abortive; and the condemnation he passed on his greatest Marshal
+was simply a device to screen his own errors, want of real knowledge,
+contempt of his foes, and directing war at a distance from the scene.
+The results of Torres Vedras were immense; the glory of the French arms
+was deeply tarnished; a great general had suddenly appeared, who had
+baffled completely the Imperial legions. Continental soldiers began
+to study the methods of Wellington with eager hope; the fears of the
+Government at home vanished, and it resolved to prosecute the war with
+vigour; the complaints of the Junta at Lisbon were silenced; and,
+above all, Wellington had been confirmed in the accuracy of his views
+respecting the contest, and became the master of largely increased
+resources. Secure for the present from attack in Portugal, he began
+to make preparations to resist the French along the western frontier
+of Spain; and he already hoped that the day was at hand when he might
+carry the war into Castile and Leon.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1811 was a prelude to operations he had already
+planned; but it was one of many vicissitudes, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> of doubtful fortune.
+Wellington commanding the resources of England from the sea, really
+wielding the power of the Portuguese Government, and turning to account
+the great advantage afforded him by a central position between enemies
+divided and scattered, besieged Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz,
+which, with Napoleon, he correctly judged should be mastered to make
+Portugal secure, and to open an avenue to enter Spain. He failed,
+however, against the two last strongholds; and though Barrosa and
+Albuera shed splendid lustre on the British arms, the campaign had no
+marked results, and Wellington was, more than once, in the gravest
+peril. The power of Napoleon, though diminished by drafts from Spain
+for the invasion of Russia, was, in fact, still prodigiously strong;
+and had the Emperor directed it, he would, humanly speaking, have even
+now subjugated Spain and Portugal. Masséna, having reinforced his army,
+attacked Wellington at Fuentes de Onoro; the English only just escaped
+defeat, owing to a dispute between two French chiefs; and Wellington,
+indeed, has fairly acknowledged that “had Boney been in command” he
+would have lost the battle. On two occasions, moreover, the British
+commander might have been overwhelmed if ably assailed. Marmont—who
+replaced Masséna, unjustly disgraced—and Soult assembled a great army
+to relieve Badajoz, and ought to have won a real victory had they
+fallen on Wellington; and Marmont might soon afterwards have attacked
+his enemy at Fuentes Guinaldos with fourfold numbers. But the tide
+in the affairs of men was setting against Napoleon, and was leading
+his sagacious foe to fortune. The conditions of the war, which he had
+clearly foreseen, made the dangers of Wellington less than they seemed;
+the French Marshals, far apart from each other, and unable to feed
+their troops in a wasted country, could not draw together their divided
+forces for anything like a well-combined movement; and their increasing
+discords, the neglect of their master to examine thoroughly the
+situation in Spain, and, above all, the ascendency of success already
+gained by the British army and its chief, told with powerful effect on
+the course of events.</p>
+
+<p>During the last months of 1811, the British chief made great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>
+preparations to renew his efforts against Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.
+He had secretly brought up a powerful siege train to the frontier
+without the enemy’s knowledge; he had made his communications with
+the sea easy, by opening the navigation of the Upper Douro; and the
+position of the French armies on the theatre of war remarkably favoured
+his audacious enterprize. The forces of Napoleon in Spain still
+numbered at least 250,000 men; but part of Marmont’s army had been
+detached to the East; Soult was in cantonments around Seville; no other
+French army was near Portugal; and the fortresses had been left almost
+uncovered, for the Emperor had not the least idea that Wellington had
+the means to besiege and take them. The English commander first pounced
+on Ciudad, and captured it, after a furious assault, in the first days
+of January of 1812; and in a few weeks he had triumphed at Badajoz,
+the heroism of the attack and the skill of the defence forming a grand
+episode of the Peninsular War. His troops suffered enormous losses, and
+the British engineers were not, perhaps, as experienced as the French,
+in this part of the craft; but Wellington’s only chance was to hurry on
+the attack; two relieving armies were not distant; and he properly made
+sacrifices for a great object. The fall of the two strongholds incensed
+Napoleon; but here again he had himself to blame; Marmont had fairly
+warned him of the danger at hand; and this is another striking instance
+of his ignorance of what was going on in Spain, and of the mischief of
+regulating its affairs from Paris. The success of the British chief at
+Ciudad and Badajoz laid open the Spanish frontier from Portugal, and
+he resolved to carry out his project of entering Spain; for though his
+army was very inferior in force to those of Marmont and Soult combined,
+the conditions of the war remained in his favour.</p>
+
+<p>The marshals, as in 1811, were widely apart; they could hardly unite
+their armies in a ruined country; and their enemy held a position
+between them with an army whose wants were well supplied, and with
+little apprehension that the hostile forces in his front could be
+largely increased. The first care of Wellington was to seize the
+passages on the Tagus which enabled Soult and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> Marmont to communicate
+with each other by a short line; and then, leaving a detachment to
+observe Soult, he crossed the frontier in the second week of June
+and marched against Marmont with about 40,000 men. The marshal fell
+back behind the Douro, in order to collect his scattered forces,
+abandoning works which he had constructed as a centre of defence, in
+the place of Ciudad; but he was a brilliant, if not a great chief; and
+he quickly showed that he had no notion of abandoning the initiative
+to the British general. Marmont recrossed the Douro on the 16th of
+July, about equal in force to Wellington, but the passage was only a
+feint; he crossed the river once more, and made for Tordesillas, an
+able movement which brought him near to reinforcements coming from
+Madrid, and threatened his adversary’s right and communications with
+Portugal. A series of fine manœuvres followed, the French chief ever
+trying to outflank his enemy, and the English seeking to cover his line
+of retreat; and there can be no doubt that in this game of marches,
+the French army was the more agile of the two, and Marmont gained a
+distinct advantage. By the 22nd, the marshal had nearly reached the
+road from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo, the main communication of his
+foe with the frontier; and Wellington was about to decamp as he best
+could, when a single false movement gave him a chance and enabled
+him to win a glorious victory. Marmont, eager and impetuous, and
+perhaps jealous that Jourdan, the leader of the succours at hand,
+would claim a share in the hoped-for triumph, incautiously extended
+his left too far, in order to cut off the retreat of his enemy. A gap
+was thus made in the French line; Wellington seized the occasion with
+his accustomed promptness, and he instantly directed a fierce attack
+against his antagonist’s left and exposed centre. The marshal at this
+moment fell wounded, but his fall could not have changed the event;
+his able lieutenant, Clausel, made a fine effort to reform the French
+on a new position, and even assumed an offensive attitude, but the
+error had been made, and been turned to account; and though the French
+made a really gallant stand, their weakened line was pierced through
+and through, and they were forced to abandon the fatal field, where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>
+Marmont had hoped to avenge his countrymen for a long succession of
+repeated defeats.</p>
+
+<p>Salamanca and the operations before it are characteristic of Wellington
+as a chief. He was certainly out-generalled in the first movements,
+mainly because the French marched better than the British army; but
+probably he would have escaped unscathed, though Marmont had gained a
+position on his flank, had he been allowed to retreat unmolested. He
+was, however, unwisely attacked and in a reckless fashion; he instantly
+fell on the enemy’s centre, with the quickness and daring which marked
+his offensive movements on the ground, and he made the French general
+pay dearly for venturing on a flank march within reach of his enemy.
+Salamanca, in fact, has a strong resemblance to Austerlitz up to a
+certain point, but it wants the grandeur and effect of Austerlitz;
+and in this, as in all instances, Wellington showed that he could not
+follow up a victory with the energy and wonderful art of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>As for Marmont, he was at first dexterous, but he made an immense
+mistake in extending his left. Like Victor at Talavera, he should have
+waited until his reinforcements had come into line; and this, no doubt,
+is another example how<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> the characteristic envy of French commanders
+had the worst effects in the Peninsular War. The results of Salamanca
+were very great, though Clausel rallied the beaten army with an ability
+deserving of high praise, and was soon out of the reach of pursuit; the
+battle exposed the long line of the communications of the French with
+Madrid, and the prospect of a formidable attack on this vital point, as
+Wellington had foreseen from the first—and this, too, was Napoleon’s
+judgment—placed the entire fabric of the Emperor’s power in the
+Peninsula in no small danger.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was now far away in the wilds of Russia; and in his absence
+the conduct of the French chiefs was marked by precipitate fear and
+haste, which, critical as the situation was, was unwarranted, and does
+them no small discredit. Joseph fled in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> inglorious haste from Madrid;
+the forces of Clausel and those in the north were drawn together to
+hold and guard the communications between Bayonne and Castile; Suchet
+in the far east was directed to move; and Soult, in the south, received
+positive orders to evacuate Andalusia and to join the King, though
+the Marshal was pressing the siege of Cadiz and had matured projects,
+not ill-designed, for invading Portugal while Wellington was away. A
+single well-aimed stroke had, in short, imperilled the whole position
+of the French in Spain, and their operations were so faulty that their
+domination seemed about to collapse.</p>
+
+<p>In this state of affairs a single incident caused, for a time, a turn
+in the tide of fortune, and even placed Wellington in such straits that
+he would have been, not improbably, crushed had Napoleon commanded
+the French armies. He had entered Madrid in triumph in the middle of
+August, but he was soon on the track of the retreating enemy; and
+having driven Clausel’s army before him, he sat down before Burgos
+towards the close of September, hoping to master the great avenue from
+France into Spain. The fortress was small, but had an able commandant;
+the British chief had scarcely a heavy gun; the garrison made a stern
+resistance, and after fierce efforts and very great losses, the
+assailants were compelled to raise the siege and to fall back before a
+host of enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The annals of war present few such examples of the value of a
+well-defended stronghold at a critical juncture. Burgos had held out
+for a whole month. The time thus gained enabled Soult to come into
+line with the other French armies being collected in Castile and the
+north, and Wellington had no choice but to retreat at once before the
+huge masses directed against him. He conducted the movement with real
+ability, but his troops were to a great extent demoralized, and on
+one occasion the English commander was saved by a mere chance from
+the gravest danger. His army had reached Salamanca by the middle of
+November; it was within easy reach of the united French armies, twofold
+probably, at least, in strength, and had the French generals fallen
+boldly on they ought to have gained a decisive victory. Jourdan eagerly
+counselled the true course, but Soult, by nature rather a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> thoughtful
+strategist than an energetic and determined soldier, and borne down
+by the ascendency of the British arms, insisted on merely pressing
+the retreat, and Wellington was soon across the Spanish frontier. The
+Marshals had lost another of the great occasions afforded them in the
+Peninsular War.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1812, notwithstanding the disastrous retreat from
+Burgos, was nevertheless ruinous in its effects to the French.
+Salamanca had been a decisive defeat; the Imperial commanders had
+not attacked Wellington, falling back with a much weaker force; the
+invaders had permanently quitted the south; above all, the precarious
+nature of Napoleon’s power in the Peninsula had been clearly
+established. In this position of affairs, the tremendous tale of the
+destruction of the Grand Army in Russia fell with immense effect on
+the minds of men; it raised the hopes of Wellington to the highest
+pitch—he had always foretold that some catastrophe would befall
+Napoleon in his career of conquest—it animated his troops with fresh
+confidence; it sent a thrill of exultation through Spain and Portugal;
+it awed and paralyzed the leaders of the French armies. By this time
+Wellington had all England at his back; he was supreme in Portugal,
+and swayed the Regency by the glory of success, by his administrative
+power, by his impartial justice to the Portuguese race; and he was made
+Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies, and disposed for the first
+time of the military strength of Spain, in spite of the clamour of
+factions in the distracted Cortes against a “heretic and domineering
+foreigner.” He was now able to place in the field forces nearly
+equal in numbers to his foes, and in the spring of 1813 he had his
+preparations made for a great effort to set the Peninsula free. The
+Imperial armies, however, were still formidably strong, from 190,000 to
+200,000 men; they were superior to the Spanish and Portuguese levies,
+and as we look back at the course of events, we see that even now, had
+they been ably led, they possibly might have achieved success, and
+certainly might have avoided disaster. But they were ill-distributed
+on the theatre of war; Suchet, in the east, had by far too large a
+force; Soult had left Spain, deprived of his command; Jourdan and
+Joseph were very inferior men;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> the strength of the army confronting
+Wellington on the frontier was by no means sufficient; the guerrilla
+rising was more fierce than ever; and the French commanders had lost
+hope and confidence. The general plan of Wellington was to assail the
+enemy from many points, in order to distract and detain his forces, and
+at the same time to fall in great strength on the exposed line of the
+communications of the French; and though faults may, perhaps, be found
+in his strategy, the conception was fine, and was admirably carried
+out. Suchet was held in check by Murray with a small body of men;
+Joseph, who had returned to Madrid, was menaced from the south; a large
+Spanish army was assembled in the north; and, meanwhile, Wellington
+prepared the master stroke on which he relied for final success. His
+army, now about 90,000 strong, advanced from the frontier in the last
+days of May, divided into three great masses on a wide front, with
+hill ranges between; its chief gave an opportunity, perhaps, but there
+was no great warrior to cross his path. It had soon mastered the
+line of the Douro, driving before it foes much weaker in numbers; it
+gradually united, joined hands with the levies of the north, and found
+a new base on the Biscayan seaboard in the English fleet; and then it
+seized the main avenues between France and Spain, and sped in full
+force to the Upper Ebro. This formidable movement compelled Joseph to
+evacuate Madrid, and to draw together all available troops to attempt
+a defence; and the French armies in Castile were ere long concentrated
+around Vitoria upon the Zadorra—confused masses, already disheartened,
+and burdened by <i>impedimenta</i> such as never before weighed down
+unlucky troops in retreat. The battle that followed, fought on the 21st
+of June, was of enormous importance in its results, but has little
+interest for the student of war. The French were, perhaps, 70,000
+strong; but 15,000 men had been detached to guard convoys, and to
+secure a retreat; the English commander had about 80,000, and the event
+was never for a moment doubtful. Nothing could stand against the onset
+of the British troops, superior in numbers, and flushed with success;
+their foes fought well, as they always did, and Reille, the descendant
+of an Irish exile, distinguished himself by skill and valour; but the
+main road to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> Bayonne was lost, and the French were gradually thrown
+back on the mountain roads that extend to the frontier. The beaten
+army, however, was not hardly pressed; it effected its retreat in fair
+order, but it lost nearly all its guns and <i>matériel</i>, and it left
+behind the spoils of a ravaged country, accumulated through years of
+unscrupulous plunder, and strewn over the field in immense profusion.</p>
+
+<p>Vitoria, fitly called the Leipsic of the south, drove all the French
+armies out of Spain, with the exception of Suchet’s force in the east,
+and the garrisons of Pampeluna and San Sebastian, reinforced by Joseph
+before he crossed the Pyrenees. Napoleon, by this time, had made a
+prodigious effort to retrieve the disasters of the campaign in Russia;
+France had answered his summons to the field with energy; and he had
+won great victories at Lützen and Bautzen, followed by the suspension
+of arms at Pleistwitz. Austria now held the balance between the
+belligerent Powers; she had long inclined to the allied cause, but she
+dreaded Napoleon, and held aloof until Vitoria determined her purpose
+and she threw in her lot with the Coalition which, in a few months,
+overthrew the Emperor. The campaign of 1813 in Spain, therefore,
+was really of supreme importance, and a word of comment should be
+pronounced upon it. The general plan of Wellington was, perhaps, to
+be justified, as affairs stood; it was his only offensive combination
+on a grand scale; it was perfectly executed, and it was completely
+successful. Yet it was no masterpiece of science or genius. The
+movements by which the old base of Portugal was thrown off, and a new
+base acquired, and by which the French armies were ever outflanked and
+their communications threatened and seized, and the march on Vitoria,
+have been justly admired; but the wide dislocation of Wellington’s
+forces as they left the frontier was, in theory, a fault, and it would
+have given Turenne or Napoleon an immense chance, which they would have
+turned to such advantage that the course of events might have been
+changed at the outset. The splendour of the result cannot conceal the
+fact that the issue of the campaign was rather due to the incapacity
+and the demoralization of the French commanders than to conspicuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>
+excellence in the strategy of their foe. Could they have defended the
+line of the Douro, as Bonaparte had defended the line of the Adige,
+nay, had they fallen back on the Ebro in time, and concentrated their
+still fine armies for a decisive battle on equal terms, they might even
+yet have repulsed Wellington, and assuredly they would not have lost
+Spain. This was Napoleon’s judgment, and, in this instance, I think it
+certainly was correct; his views on the military situation in Spain in
+1813 are worthy of him; and here, again, had he been in command, events
+would probably have taken a different turn. He was naturally indignant
+at the rout of Vitoria; and having summarily got rid of Joseph and
+Jourdan, he sent Soult, with extensive powers, to the Pyrenees, to
+take the command of his shattered forces, and to endeavour at least
+to defend the frontier. The next phase of the contest is of extreme
+interest, and deserves careful and impartial study. Soult found the
+French army—a confused wreck of armies—in a pitiable state of want
+and despondency; and his first care was to secure a base at Bayonne,
+and to reorganize and restore his defeated forces. He effected a great
+deal in a few weeks, for he was an administrator of no ordinary powers;
+and by the close of July he had his preparations made to assume the
+offensive with happy promise.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the forces of Wellington—altogether about 70,000
+strong—were before Pampeluna and San Sebastian, and along the range
+of the western Pyrenees; and this gave Soult—he was about equal in
+force—an extremely favourable opportunity to attack, for he commanded
+the passes which led from the plains. He concentrated a very superior
+force against his adversary’s right, concealing the movement with great
+skill; and his first operations had real success; he fairly bore back
+the weak hostile wing, and he nearly reached Pampeluna and relieved
+the garrison. But Wellington, always ready on the ground, was too
+quick for an enemy able in thought but in execution rather dull and
+weak; he raised the siege of San Sebastian and reinforced his right;
+Soult attacked at Sauroren, and was repulsed, one of his lieutenants,
+D’Erlon, being not up in time, on this as on a far greater occasion;
+the ascendency of unbroken success did the rest, and in a subsequent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>
+effort the French Marshal was nearly surrounded at the head of his
+troops. He recrossed the frontier, a well-designed plan having ended in
+heavy loss and discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>The English commander, free from attack for a time, now resolved to
+take Pampeluna and San Sebastian before attempting to invade France.
+This conduct has been described as timid, and it enabled Soult to
+prepare large means of defence, but obviously it was judicious and
+right; the issue of the war in Saxony was still uncertain, and should
+Soult be joined by Suchet they would be in great strength. San
+Sebastian made a protracted resistance, but the place was stormed in
+the second week of September, Soult having tried in vain to relieve
+it, and Pampeluna fell at the close of October. Wellington had invaded
+France a short time previously, and it should be observed that he
+crossed the frontier before Leipsic, and months before the Allies were
+on the Rhine. The time spent in the sieges had, nevertheless, given
+Soult opportunities which he had made the most of; he had constructed
+lines on the Bidassoa and Nivelle, the last almost as strong as those
+of Torres Vedras, and he awaited his enemy in a situation like that of
+Villars in 1710–11. His army, however, had lost heart, and was crowded
+with rude levies and mutinous Germans; he had not the inspiration of
+the renowned Villars, and nothing could stand against the overpowering
+force of the British soldiery in the full pride of victory. Wellington
+carried the lines in the second week of November, displaying great
+skill in his dispositions for the attack, and before long he had
+approached Bayonne, on the confluence of the Nive and the Adour, where
+Soult had entrenched himself in very strong positions. The British
+commander, perhaps over confident, perhaps from the want of strategic
+genius—this undoubtedly was characteristic of him—escaped narrowly
+a severe reverse; he had divided his army upon the Nive, and Soult,
+availing himself of his command of the rivers, and of the interior line
+he possessed, fell on his adversary with skill in design, and tried
+to overwhelm his separated foes. The peril of Wellington was great
+for a time, but Soult had the manner of Napoleon, not his masterly
+power; he did not press the attack home, and his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> troops were beaten
+by the tenacity of the British footmen. A pause in the operations
+followed, and had the Emperor, even at this supreme crisis, ordered
+Suchet to come into line with Soult, abandoning Spain, now really
+lost, the French would have been superior in force to Wellington, and
+affairs might have taken a different aspect. But Napoleon would strike
+for his whole Empire, a false conception which mars the splendour of
+the memorable campaign of 1814; he left Suchet in Catalonia, holding
+the fortresses; the two marshals, besides, did not agree, with the
+usual tendencies of French commanders; the organized plunder of the
+French army, in marked contrast with that of the Allies, exasperated
+the populations of the south against it; the Royalist party began
+to lift its head after the first defeats of Napoleon in Champagne,
+and Soult was left isolated to resist Wellington amidst the ruin
+and crash of a perishing Empire. The British general resumed the
+offensive in the early spring of 1814; he had won golden opinions,
+even from the invaded Gascons, for the strict discipline he made his
+troops observe, for the exactness with which he paid for supplies, for
+his humane government of the country he held, and though he was not
+without real difficulties of his own—he was condemned in the Cortes
+and denounced in Portugal, and he actually sent back a large Spanish
+detachment because he could not control their excesses—still he was
+greatly superior in strength to his foe, and his arms were obviously
+on the verge of triumph. Nevertheless, Soult made an admirable stand;
+his army was being constantly weakened by drafts for the army on the
+Marne and Seine; it was oppressed by the prospect of coming defeat,
+and yet the Marshal proved that he was a real chief, and this is the
+best part of his chequered career. He disputed stubbornly every inch
+of the country between the lines of the Adour and the Garonne; he
+kept Wellington many weeks in check, and though ultimately repulsed
+with loss, he very nearly won a battle at Orthez, and at last he took
+a formidable position at Toulouse, still doggedly contending against
+adverse fortune. The battle was fought on the 10th of April, unhappily
+after peace had been made; superiority in numbers and the moral power
+of success explain, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> partly justify, Wellington’s tactics; but he
+risked a flank march of peculiar danger, under the eye of an enemy
+watching to strike, and had Soult struck home at the decisive moment
+he probably would have won a victory. The Marshal, however, as was his
+wont, was remiss in action; the French army was unequal to itself,
+and Wellington forced his adversary to leave Toulouse, though the
+battle was really nearly drawn. Toulouse, indeed, adds nothing to his
+renown as a warrior; his true titles to fame in this campaign are his
+administrative virtues, and the most significant fact that he detained
+forces in the south which might have turned the scales of fortune in
+the struggle in Champagne.</p>
+
+<p>Wellington was back in England in 1814, justly greeted by the acclaim
+of the nation, raised to the highest honour the Peerage can give,
+and ever since known as “the Duke” to his countrymen. His exploits,
+indeed, had been truly great; with an army, swelled no doubt by
+auxiliaries, but seldom numbering more than 30,000 British troops, he
+had destroyed the power of Napoleon in Spain and Portugal, backed by
+300,000 French veterans, had defeated the best Marshals of France one
+after the other, had fought his way from the Tagus to the Garonne, had
+thrown his sword, with effect, into the balance of events trembling
+in the east of France, had ruled the Peninsula with a far-sighted
+wisdom, spite of the passions of faction, admired everywhere. The
+fame of Wellington as a commander depends, beyond question, on his
+direction of the Peninsular war; and an impartial judgment should
+be pronounced upon it. We may pass by enthusiasts who ascribe his
+success to genius never approached in his day, and the notion current
+seventy years ago that an English soldier can beat three Frenchmen;
+and we may equally reject the French delusion that Wellington owed
+everything to the freaks of Fortune. It must be recognized that in
+the war, small as his force was compared to his foes, he had certain
+advantages of peculiar value; he had the command of the sea, and of
+the resources of England; his position in Portugal was formidably
+strong; he was supported by a vast national rising; he stood in the
+centre of divided enemies; whereas the French armies, large as they
+were, had most vulnerable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> communications to guard, were exposed to
+swarms of destructive guerrillas, were necessarily separated by vast
+hill ranges, and, owing mainly to the Napoleonic system of warfare,
+were unable to muster for any time in strength because they could not
+subsist in a barren country. These conditions of the strife were all
+in favour of the British chief, and told powerfully; but this does
+not in the least detract from his merits; he anticipated them with
+prophetic insight, and they simply made his defence possible; just as
+Napoleon’s choice of the Adige enabled him to baffle the whole power
+of Austria. It should be admitted, too, that throughout the contest he
+was greatly seconded by the shortcomings of his foes; more than once
+he ought to have been overwhelmed or crushed, but for the miserable
+discords of the French marshals; and Napoleon himself played into his
+hands by his ignorance of events, by his lust of conquest, by the
+false system of directing war from an immense distance; above all, by
+his contemptuous disregard of an adversary most unwisely scorned. Yet
+this, the only meaning of what has been called the “good fortune that
+attended Wellington,” does not lessen his title to fame; I certainly
+think, had he had to encounter Napoleon with all the Peninsular armies
+he would have been forced out of Spain and Portugal, nay, he might
+have been beaten in 1811, 1812, and 1813; but, tried by this test,
+we might just as well deny Napoleon genius in war; he would not have
+won Rivoli, Jena, Austerlitz, had he been opposed to really great
+captains. Undoubtedly, moreover, in these campaigns the generalship
+of Wellington was not of as high an order as some eulogists have made
+it out to be; he committed grave strategic mistakes; his plan for the
+offensive on a great scale, and at a distance, is not very striking—I
+refer especially to 1813; his tactics were sometimes far from perfect;
+he was not masterly in following up success; there is something narrow
+and contracted in some of his movements. But when this has been said,
+he gave proof of genius in defence of the rarest kind; his campaign of
+Torres Vedras reaches the sublime, in conception and execution alike;
+he was admirable in rapid and bold attack; he was almost always great
+on the field; his tenacity and judgment are above<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> praise. Add his
+most remarkable administrative powers, his capacity for ruling foreign
+races, and his moderation in the hour of success, resembling in this
+the great warriors of Rome, and we shall understand how he will live
+in history. A word, too, should be said on his British troops; that
+army—largely his own creation—which he said—and Wellington was no
+boaster—“could go anywhere and do anything.” From the first moment his
+soldiery showed the high qualities of their race, endurance, vigour,
+fierceness in attack, perseverance in defence, and the skill in the
+use of their arms of the archers of Crecy. The army, however, was for
+a time ill-organized; its movements were slow, and it was overburdened
+with camp-followers and <i>impedimenta</i>; its officers, heroes in the
+fight, were seldom skilful; in short, it was an imperfect instrument
+of war. It is one of Wellington’s distinctive merits that he made that
+army, always superior to the French in discipline, fortitude, and
+steadiness in the field—and this, indeed, is the true reason why its
+line was able to defeat their columns—equal to the best of Napoleon’s
+armies—the Emperor has made the admission himself—in readiness, in
+training, in skill in manœuvring; though Salamanca tends to show that
+in the power of movement it was not the equal of its most agile foes.</p>
+
+<p>Great as a soldier, but certainly greater as a man, it was the destiny
+of Wellington in 1815 to meet the most perfect master of modern war.
+The campaign of Waterloo belongs to the career of Napoleon, and in a
+sketch of his extraordinary deeds I have endeavoured to retrace its
+main features. Idle flatterers and the idolaters of success have given
+Wellington the palm in this mighty conflict, but he knew that he was
+out-manœuvred, and he did not claim it; and he disliked the subject,
+when all the facts were known, though he wrote on it in extreme old
+age. The simple truth is that Blücher and Wellington, considering the
+enormous hosts being arrayed against him, did not think that Napoleon
+would spring on Belgium; even their own forces, they well knew, were
+nearly double those of their foe; and though they made dispositions on
+the supposition of an attack, these were ill-conceived and essentially
+faulty. Their armies, in the first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> place, were spread along an immense
+line, with divergent bases; in the second, they were scattered up and
+down Belgium; in the third, they were far too near the frontier, at the
+points of concentration marked out for them; and in the fourth, the two
+chiefs were too far from each other, and could not communicate without
+perilous delays.</p>
+
+<p>Availing himself of these palpable mistakes, Napoleon broke in on the
+exposed centre of his adversaries with a grandeur of design and a skill
+in execution never surpassed; he was close to their weak line on the
+15th of June, and a single march had placed them in extreme danger.
+Then came the confusion and the divided counsels common with allied
+chiefs, and foreseen by their foe. Blücher rushed hastily to confront
+the Emperor before his army had been drawn together; Wellington,
+misconceiving the real state of affairs, stopped, hesitated, and left
+a wide gap open; and an opportunity was afforded to the General of
+1796, as favourable as ever was won by genius. But for a series of
+misadventures I have noticed elsewhere, he ought to have overwhelmed
+Blücher with ease on the 16th; and, in that event, nothing could
+have saved Wellington, though the French were only 128,000 against
+224,000<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> men. Strategy had only just missed one of its grandest
+triumphs; in fact, the allied chiefs were all but checkmated, though
+Wellington made an able stand at Quatre Bras, and this went some way
+to baffle the Emperor. Napoleon was given another chance on the 17th,
+by the double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo, which might have proved
+fatal to both his adversaries; but he was not well, and his lieutenants
+failed him. Soult, always indolent, was greatly to blame; the retreat
+of the Prussians was not followed up; Grouchy was detached late to hold
+Blücher in check; and when Napoleon, true to the principles of the art,
+turned against Wellington and attained Waterloo, he was not aware that
+the Prussians were near and were ready to unite with the Duke, mainly
+owing to the faults of the incapable Grouchy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span></p>
+
+<p>The morning of the 18th saw Napoleon and Wellington confronting each
+other for the first time; the state of the weather, no doubt, gave the
+British chief an unforeseen advantage. The Emperor’s plan of attack
+was perfect; but Wellington’s dispositions were also excellent, except
+that he made the strategic error of leaving a large detachment behind
+at Hal. In the great battle that followed Napoleon was ill, and the
+tactics of the French were incoherent and bad; the genius of Wellington
+in defence reappeared, and shone out with conspicuous lustre; and this
+great quality largely redeemed his shortcomings in this memorable
+campaign. He fought Waterloo on the assumption that Blücher would
+join him early with the whole Prussian army; no aid reached him until
+nearly 5 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; Ziethen and Pirch, who decided the result of
+the day, were not on the field until after 8 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; and yet
+Wellington, with a very inferior army, contrived, during seven long
+hours, to resist successfully the Imperial host, and he had fairly
+repulsed the attack of the Guard before Ziethen and Pirch dealt the
+final stroke. His intrepidity, his tenacity, his tactical power on
+that memorable day were worthy of him; no other general on the allied
+side, it may confidently be said, would have made such a stand; and
+though he would almost certainly have lost the battle but for the
+arrival of Bülow in the early afternoon, still the defeat would not, I
+think, have been crushing, and Napoleon must have at last succumbed.
+Nevertheless, Waterloo, as I have endeavoured to prove, was decided by
+operations outside the field. Had Grouchy been equal to his appointed
+task, Blücher ought not to have been able to reach his colleague; the
+strategy of Napoleon throughout the campaign, spite of mistakes and
+failures, well-nigh triumphed; and the one merit of Wellington—and it
+was immense—was the masterly defence he made at Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke commanded the Army of Occupation in France, after the second
+fall of Napoleon and the return of the Bourbons, and he admirably
+fulfilled a most arduous mission. He has been condemned for not saving
+Ney; but he had no right to interfere with the Government of France,
+and he showed characteristic tact and clemency in his relations with
+the French army, the Court, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> the nation. His grand civil career
+begins at this point; but I must pass from it with scarcely a word of
+comment. He was a representative of England at the great Congress which
+met at Vienna to resettle Europe; and he was engaged in other important
+missions of the kind. In these diplomatic duties he was, no doubt,
+inferior to Marlborough in suavity and delicate art; he was sometimes,
+indeed, outspoken and blunt, but his simplicity, his candour, his ripe
+judgment, made him a negotiator of a very high order. His position as
+a statesman was noble and striking. His nature and profession drew him
+to the Tory Party, and he was for years its acknowledged head; his
+ideal was a strong aristocratic government; he detested modern Radical
+cant and theory; and though he was a Constitutional politician in the
+broadest sense, he did not understand the play and tendency of popular
+forces. But he had no sympathy with extreme Toryism; he ridiculed the
+Holy Alliance and its dreams; he knew how to make concessions in time;
+no reformer more sternly put down abuses; he was always Conservative,
+but wise and moderate. He commanded the army for some years; in this
+high office, unlike Turenne, with whom he had certain points in common,
+he was not in advance of the ideas of his time; he was rather obstinate
+and narrow in his views; but one great work he at least prepared; he
+urged the necessity for assuring the defence of England, and this
+generation at last has accepted his teaching. He spoke very often in
+the House of Lords; as an orator he had no accomplishments, but it
+was said he always “hit the nail on the head,” and his sagacity was,
+perhaps, the more noted because it was not set off by eloquence. As
+he grew old, he became the national mentor; his counsels were felt to
+be words of wisdom, and his place in the State was one of commanding
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>He passed quietly away in 1852; England mourned him as her foremost
+citizen, and she justly regards him as the most illustrious of
+her worthies of the nineteenth century. It ought to be possible
+to pronounce a sound judgment on his military career, after all
+these years, and yet impartiality is still difficult. Wellington
+was endowed by nature with real wisdom, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> strength of character
+seldom equalled, with singular moderation and calmness of thought,
+and yet with a rapid intelligence and clear insight. She denied him
+imagination, passion, and, in some measure, sympathy; and we see these
+excellences and defects in his life as a warrior. As a strategist,
+on the offensive, he stands low; for strategy, in this aspect, must
+see into the unknown, and requires a fiery energy he did not possess;
+and he was incapable of such exploits as the campaign of Marengo. In
+defensive strategy, however, he has been never excelled; for here the
+elements of the problem are easier to ascertain, and sagacity and
+firmness are most effective; and his campaign of Torres Vedras is,
+beyond comparison, the finest specimen of defence, in the strict sense
+of the word, that was seen in the Great War with France. As a tactician
+he was admirable in attack and defence, for when the field was before
+him, his promptness, his coolness, his constancy, stood him in good
+stead; but he was, on the whole, better in defence than attack; his
+Salamanca falls short of his Waterloo; and he was inferior to some
+tacticians in his arrangements on the ground, and, conspicuously, in
+following up a victory. Though there was something contracted in his
+exhibitions of the art, he has no doubtful place among great captains;
+and yet Wellington was greatest, perhaps, as a citizen, by reason of
+his profound wisdom, his administrative powers, his statesmanlike
+views, and, above all, his capacity for ruling alien races. In one
+quality of a chief he was, no doubt, deficient. He was respected, but
+not beloved, by his officers and men; he could not command their hearts
+like Napoleon or Condé, and this was largely due to the Spartan turn
+of character which distinguishes the aristocratic caste of Ireland.
+Taken altogether, he was one of the most illustrious men who have ever
+appeared on the stage of History; his grand life justified the poet’s
+epitaph: “O Tower full square to all the winds that blew!”</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_224.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.<br>
+<span class="subhed smcap">Moltke.</span></h2></div>
+
+<p>I feel it difficult to attempt a sketch which must be inadequate, and
+perhaps partial. Moltke is a living man, though in extreme old age;
+flattery and envy have obscured his real image; and his place among
+great commanders is still a problem. Yet the General who triumphed
+in 1866–70, and whose name history links with Sadowa and Sedan, is
+assuredly a master of modern war; and I shall try to disengage his
+personality from the facts accumulated around it and still imperfectly
+known. Helmuth Charles von Moltke was born in 1800, a scion of a noble
+Danish house, of ancient descent but shattered fortunes. The family had
+produced more than one good soldier. It appears in the Thirty Years’
+War; the father of Moltke attained the rank of General in his country’s
+service, and was, perhaps, an officer in the Prussian army; and one of
+his uncles perished amidst the wreck of the Grand Army in the retreat
+from Moscow. Little is known about him in early boyhood, except that
+he grew up under the cold shade of poverty; his first recollection
+was of the sack of Lübeck, where Blücher succumbed after the ruin of
+Jena; in his case, the strong impressions of youth were formed by the
+events of the gigantic strife which marked the beginning of the present
+century; he saw the Continent at the feet of Napoleon; he was a witness
+of the great rising of Germany; he may be said to have watched Leipsic,
+Montmirail, and Waterloo. The image of war, therefore, in its grandest
+aspects, and with consequences akin to a world-wide earthquake,
+was stamped on his mind when it was most ductile; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>and these
+associations, doubtless, had much to do with the distrust of France as
+the disturber of Europe, and the blended scorn and dislike of all that
+is French which were to be characteristic of the future warrior. Moltke
+became a cadet at the Military School of Copenhagen at an early age;
+and some years afterwards, having meanwhile obtained a commission in
+the Prussian service, he was a pupil at the Staff College of Berlin, an
+institution which may be traced to Frederick, and which has always been
+of very high repute. The youth made his mark at both these seminaries;
+privation had steeled his strong nature; his intelligence was superior,
+and his industry intense; he had a special faculty for mastering facts,
+and a fine taste in Letters and Science, resembling Frederick in all
+these respects; and it is no mere tradition that his promise was great,
+when he received his first appointment on the Prussian staff. Moltke
+passed some years at a desk in Berlin, doing the routine duties of the
+War Office; and as he had fallen on the days of the Long Peace, which
+followed the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the prospect was faint
+that the accomplished soldier would ever become an illustrious warrior.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_274fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_274fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">MOLTKE AND HIS MASTER.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>When he was past thirty, however, he found an opening for the display
+of some of his eminent parts; when travelling through the East, he
+attracted the notice of Sultan Mahmoud, lately engaged in the task of
+transforming the Turkish army; and Moltke gave him valuable advice,
+especially on the defence of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Like
+Eugene of Savoy, it was his fortune also to see war for the first time,
+as it was carried on by the arms of Islam. In company with a small
+party of Prussian officers, he was present at the decisive fight of
+Nisib, which made Mehemet Ali an independent ruler; and it has been
+said that he recommended a movement which might have made the result of
+the battle different. Moltke has left a record of these experiences in
+a series of letters, still of value; but a history from his pen of the
+Russian invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1828–29 is the most important
+monument of this part of his career. The book reveals the nature of the
+man; it wants imagination and the charm of genius; but it is thoroughly
+well-informed and full of good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> criticism; and while it does justice
+to the powers of Diebitsch, its peculiar characteristic is the minute
+attention bestowed by the writer on all that relates to the mechanism
+and organization of the contending armies, and to the geography of
+the theatre of war. The reputation of Moltke grew by degrees; in the
+fine words of the Roman poet, it was like the silent growth of a tree;
+he rose slowly to the rank of general, and he was for some time the
+first aide-de-camp of the Crown Prince of Prussia, the late Emperor
+Frederick of no inglorious memory. He made several visits of state with
+his chief, and has left an interesting account of all that he saw; but
+his mind was engrossed by what belongs to war; and it is curious to
+observe that he has far more praise for the steadiness and obedience
+of the Russian infantry than for the agility and intelligence of the
+French soldiery, associated in his mind with carelessness and want of
+discipline.</p>
+
+<p>In 1857 Moltke received the office of Chief of the Staff of the
+Prussian army. The position was one of the highest eminence; it had
+been filled by distinguished men; but the names of these are of no
+significance compared to that of the renowned soldier who has made it
+famous in all lands. Moltke was in his fifty-eighth year when he was
+raised to the post; he had never commanded troops in the field, nay,
+had taken no part in European warfare; and yet he possessed qualities
+which made his selection for the place a great day in Prussian history,
+for scarcely a living man so thoroughly understood what were to be the
+true conditions of war in our time, what its characteristics, and its
+coming development. We shall perceive this better if we glance at the
+state of the art during the long period of almost unbroken peace which
+succeeded Waterloo. For more than thirty years after 1815, every Power
+in Europe felt the exhaustion caused by the gigantic strife at the
+first part of the century; and though “the war drum was not hushed,” in
+the poet’s language, their energies were mainly directed to the great
+problems, political and social, which had come into question. In this
+state of affairs they generally reduced their armies; what was more
+important, they took little heed of all that concerns the military art,
+and their war offices were, without exception, directed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> by men whose
+minds had been formed on the battle-fields of the preceding age. When
+the Revolution of 1848 passed over the Continent, the Russian army was
+far the most powerful in Europe; the armies of France, of Austria, of
+Prussia, of England, had largely declined from their old standards; and
+the great names of Wellington, of Soult, of Paskiévitch, were typical
+of the system of unchanging routine, which, in every service, prevailed
+in high places.</p>
+
+<p>This strong conservatism was not much shaken by the memorable events
+of the next few years. The military operations of 1848–49 resembled
+those of 1805–14, except that they displayed less genius; and even
+the experience of the Crimean War did not produce a wide-spread
+conviction that a new era in the art was about to open. Nevertheless,
+throughout those long years since the Peace, forces of all kinds had
+been steadily at work, which were to affect greatly the phenomena
+of war, and if not to change the essential truths it teaches, to
+modify it profoundly in some of its aspects. The population of every
+State had continued to increase, especially in Central and Eastern
+Europe; and the rude material, therefore, of military power had been
+augmented, and was still growing. The resources of most nations had
+been doubled and trebled; agriculture had made enormous strides; roads
+and communications had become more numerous; and while this progress,
+dating from centuries before, had been going on with accelerated speed,
+a new element of mighty force had appeared in the railway system,
+which, spreading over Europe, had made the means of transport and of
+locomotion infinitely more easy, more vast, and more rapid than ever
+had been known before in history. Though the truth had not dawned on
+ordinary minds, it had become certain, thirty years ago, that in any
+great European contest armies would be larger than they had ever been;
+and the facilities of moving huge bodies of troops, and of munitions
+and supplies on a prodigious scale, it is now perceived, were to have
+these results; that the efficacy of fortresses was still further to
+decline, and that military operations might be more ample, have more
+celerity, and be more decisive than had been the case even in the age
+of Napoleon. Other influences, too, had made themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> felt, to
+be attended with great results in war. The age was one of material
+inventions; the weapons of destruction used by armies had been almost
+transformed within a brief period; and appliances of a different kind
+had, to a certain extent, been turned to account. Rifled cannon and
+the breech-loading musket had been manufactured and partly employed;
+these mechanical improvements, it is now apparent, have necessarily
+led to changed formations and tactics; and the discovery of the field
+telegraph has, in some measure perhaps, affected strategy. Education,
+moreover, after the Peace had been generally diffused through Europe,
+especially in Prussia and Northern Germany; this had greatly increased
+the self-reliance and the intelligence of the individual soldier; and
+the result, we can now see, has had a potent influence in the conduct
+of armies and the arrangements of war.</p>
+
+<p>It was the distinctive merit, I have said, of Moltke, that he
+appreciated these facts, and all that resulted from them, with perfect
+judgment and the most sagacious insight. He was deeply versed in
+the history of war; like every true student of it, he had seen that
+Napoleon was, by many degrees, the first of captains, and he had
+the capacity to perceive that the new conditions, especially the
+development of the railway system, favoured the grand and daring
+Napoleonic strategy. He grasped the truth, too, that the immense
+size of the armies in coming European conflicts would lead to more
+independence in separate commands, and would require a larger number
+of able chiefs than ever had been the case before; and he saw that
+preparation was more than ever necessary, the operations of modern
+war being so quick and decisive. The superiority of a rapid and bold
+offensive, the advantage of the diffusion of skill in the high ranks
+of an army, and the value of careful organization and well-planned
+arrangement, formed, so to speak, his military faith; and, coming to
+other details, he distinctly declared that the new arms would make the
+efficacy of fire the greatest element of success, that the importance
+of mere charges would largely decline, that formations in the field
+would become more flexible, and less dense than they had been formerly,
+and that real culture and mental training made a man an infinitely
+better soldier.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span></p>
+
+<p>Moltke impressed these principles, which thirty years ago were not
+generally accepted or understood, on the Prussian army from the first
+moment, and with what results is now well known. The first great
+event in this part of his life was the reorganization of the military
+strength of Prussia, a reform completed in 1860. This vast work was
+probably due more to the king and Roon than to anyone else; but Moltke,
+we may be sure, approved of the measures by which the numbers of the
+army were largely increased and its real efficiency was, perhaps,
+quadrupled. The new arrangements did not change the bases on which
+the military power of Prussia rested, the general duty of the subject
+to serve, and the organization of the army on the local system; but
+the yearly contingent of recruits was augmented a third, the time for
+service in the reserve was doubled, and the army, which had become too
+like a militia by a large admixture of landwehr, was made a completely
+distinct force, the landwehr forming only its last reserve. The hand of
+Moltke may be distinctly seen in almost every improvement thenceforward
+made in this great force, composed, after 1860, of fully half a million
+of trained fighting-men. Holding fast to the principle that offensive
+strategy would more than ever succeed in modern war, he directed his
+efforts to have the Prussian army ready to take the field as quickly
+as possible, and to be prepared to attack at once; with this object
+in view, the local arrangement of the national forces was steadily
+retained, for it assured the rapid assembly of masses of troops; but it
+was subjected to minute and careful central direction; and elaborate
+preparations of all kinds were made to secure speedy “mobilization,”
+and the regular transport of whatever is required for the conduct of
+a campaign by turning railways and other communications to account.
+Another great object of Moltke was to provide for general efficiency
+through all commands, from the highest down to the lowest grades. He
+had excellent materials for this at hand, in the practised officers
+who abound in Prussia; and steadily applying himself to his task, he
+succeeded by degrees in placing the army under the control of capable
+men, from top to bottom, producing in this way that hierarchy of good
+leaders which Thucydides declared,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> two thousand years ago, was one of
+the secrets of Spartan success; and creating that division of skilful
+labour which has become a necessity in modern war. Moltke addressed
+himself, also, to the reforms in tactics which he had foreseen were
+to be essential; but here his exertions were less successful; he was
+steadily obstructed by routine and tradition; his own views, probably,
+were not fully formed, and years were to elapse before the Prussian
+army was to attain its present excellence in this sphere of the
+art. The greatest reform, however, effected by Moltke remains to be
+stated, and had immense results. The Prussian Staff stood high since
+the days of Frederick; but under the care of its greatest chief, it
+gradually reached a state of extreme perfection. Divided mainly into
+two branches, it supplied the commanders of corps with able advisers,
+trained in strategy, in tactics, in the direction of troops, and in
+providing for their needs in the field; and it has accumulated stores
+of knowledge in all that relates to military history, to the geography
+of war, to the resources and armies of civilized states, which have
+proved to be of the greatest practical value. Moltke, it should be
+added, like all true leaders, inspired the army generally with his high
+aims and spirit; he encouraged the mental training of soldiers and
+officers, but he paid special attention to order, discipline, and to
+everything that secures obedience to command.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_281fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_281fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre, of the<br>
+CAMPAIGN<br>
+of 1866.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Moltke could never have accomplished these tasks had he not had the
+all-powerful support of the King, a really able and far-sighted ruler,
+and a soldier of no ordinary gifts. Within seven years from the time
+when he was raised to his post, the Prussian army, which since 1848 had
+fallen low in universal repute, had, under Moltke’s care, become, we
+know now, unquestionably the first of European armies, as superior to
+those of every other State as the army of Frederick was to the armies
+of his day. The time was at hand when the strength and worth of this
+mighty instrument was to be proved in the field. I pass over the petty
+Danish war, and proceed to the great conflict of 1866, fought with
+memorable and lasting results for the Continent. Prussia instantly took
+a bold offensive attitude, and the celerity with which her main forces
+were <span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>“mobilized” and directed towards the Bohemian frontier, with
+every requirement to begin a campaign, surprised all who understood the
+subject. The invasion, too, of the Northern German States was admirably
+planned and well carried out; and the ability with which a small
+Prussian army held in check and baffled the whole of South Germany
+remains a specimen of fine generalship. The distribution, however,
+of the principal army on the theatre of war to oppose Austria can be
+praised by the courtiers of fortune only, and is certainly open to
+grave objections.</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of June 1866 this huge array, about 250,000 strong, and
+divided into three great masses, was disseminated along an immense
+front, extending from the Elbe almost to the Oder, and not far from
+the main Bohemian range; the right, the Army of the Elbe, being near
+Torgau, the centre, or First Army, being around Sorau, the Second Army,
+the left, holding the tract round Neisse. At this moment the chief
+Austrian army, nearly equal in numbers, reckoning its Saxon allies,
+was in Moravia, spreading about Olmütz; it held a central position
+between scattered foes, and it is now acknowledged that it was ready
+to advance, and could have assumed a decided offensive. It is vain to
+deny that in this state of affairs it already possessed an immense
+advantage; and, whatever the cause, the Prussian strategy which gave
+it this grand chance must be deemed faulty. All the apologies that
+have been made on this subject will not mislead the true student of
+war. It has been urged that the dislocation of the Prussian armies was
+necessary “to cover Berlin and Breslau”; but this argument is of no
+avail. You should never risk a whole army for such objects, and if you
+try to defend everything, you run all hazards. It has been said, again,
+that it was not possible to assemble the Prussian forces in any other
+way, regard being had to the lines of railways; but that is no reason
+why the three armies should have been distant from each other near
+the Bohemian frontier. Lastly, it has been alleged that the superior
+quality of the Prussian troops, if considered, excuses their chiefs;
+but this superiority had yet to be proved; and any operation, however
+defective, may be justified by this kind of reasoning. The examples set
+by really great captains<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> show what Benedek—a good soldier, but unfit
+to command a large army—might have accomplished at this conjuncture.
+Napoleon, in the place of the Austrian chief, would have made for
+the salient of the Bohemian hills—would have debouched through the
+passes into the Saxon plains, and holding the army of the Elbe by a
+detachment in check, would have fallen in superior force on the First
+Army, and then would have turned victoriously against the Second
+Army, which, thrown forward into Upper Silesia, might have been cut
+off from its base and destroyed. Turenne, less daring but more safe,
+would have advanced to the southern verge of the Bohemian range, and,
+occupying the position he always sought to gain, would have invited the
+attack of his divided enemies, and interposing between them would have
+beaten them in detail. In either case, the Prussians should have been
+defeated; and, indeed, why they were placed in this way on the theatre
+has never yet been really explained.</p>
+
+<p>On the 16th of June the Army of the Elbe entered Saxony, and had soon
+seized Dresden; and about the 20th it had nearly joined hands with
+the First Army which, under Prince Frederick Charles, had been moved
+close to the Bohemian frontier. The Prussian right and centre were thus
+almost united; but the left, commanded by the Crown Prince, which had
+advanced from Neisse towards the passes near Glatz, was isolated from
+its supports, and at a great distance; and if the invaders were not in
+immediate danger—for Benedek had only begun to move—their strategic
+position remained critical. In this situation the Prussian armies, now
+practically two, not three masses, were directed to pass through the
+range, and, approaching each other, to effect their junction around
+Gitschin, a point considerably to the south of the hills, not far from
+where Benedek had some troops, and where he might have had five-sixths
+of his army. This strategy was exactly the same in kind as that which
+had proved fatal in 1796, when attempted against the chief of Rivoli;
+and the excuses that have been made for it are weak and baseless. Two
+large armies, such as those of Prussia were, though far from each
+other, are no doubt in less peril if they invite the attack of a single
+army equal to both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> in strength, than two small armies would be under
+like conditions, and this would specially be the case where, as in
+the present instance, the field of manœuvre was somewhat contracted.
+All this, however, proves no more than that the converging movement
+of 1866 was less to be blamed than that of Würmser; it does not show
+that it can be justified, and the experience of ages clearly condemns
+it. Benedek, who broke up from Olmütz on the 17th of June, might have
+reached Gitschin with the mass of his forces before the Prussian armies
+could have come into line; and in that event he would have had at least
+an opportunity to fall on his divided enemies, and to achieve success,
+more or less important. Unfortunately for himself, however, the
+Austrian chief was unable to seize the occasion before him; instead of
+turning his central position to account, and advancing northward with
+all his corps in hand, he adopted half-measures of extreme feebleness.
+He sent a detachment only, comparatively small, to hold the Prussian
+right and centre in check. He struck at the Prussian left with inferior
+forces, and he hung back himself with the mass of his army, irresolute,
+hesitating, and, at best, inactive.</p>
+
+<p>The result was what might have been expected. Clam Gallas and the Saxon
+contingent were overpowered by Prince Frederick Charles, who attacked
+with largely superior forces; the Crown Prince, as he emerged from
+the defiles, defeated with ease the three hostile corps opposed to
+his much more powerful army, and though the issue was partly due to
+the excellence of the Prussian infantry, and to the efficacy of the
+arms they wielded, it is chiefly to be ascribed to the grave faults
+and the shortcomings of the Austrian leader. The victorious armies,
+though still far apart, now advanced along the heads of the Iser and
+the Elbe. The Austrians, beaten and demoralized, slowly fell back; and
+yet such was the inherent advantage of the central position still held
+by Benedek, that had he known how to make a true use of it he might
+even yet have turned the tide of ill-fortune. By the 29th of June he
+had his army nearly united; the two Prussian armies were leagues from
+each other, and part of the First Army was dangerously exposed; and
+it has been justly remarked that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> had Benedek boldly attacked Prince
+Frederick Charles on this day, he ought to have won a real victory,
+and, in that event, he would still have had a chance to strike and
+defeat the Crown Prince of Prussia. As is well known, however, the
+ill-fated chief did not attempt an offensive return, and continued his
+retreat until he had passed the Bistritz; here, like Daun, he took a
+position of defence, and he passively awaited the onset of his foes,
+anticipating already impending ruin. Yet even at this moment, had he
+been a general of a high order, he might perhaps have triumphed. I
+have no space to describe the great day of Sadowa; it was, no doubt,
+a splendid and decisive victory; but the operations of the Prussians
+once more gave their enemy an advantage which he might have seized, and
+turned to account with immense results. The First and Second Armies
+remained still divided; for many hours on that eventful forenoon, an
+almost insignificant force was opposed to the mass of the Austrian
+army; and it was only when the Crown Prince reached the field, at about
+2 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and was able to attack, that the chances of the battle
+became equal, and that success was made even possible. Had Benedek at
+any previous moment fallen in full force on Prince Frederick Charles,
+it is difficult to suppose that the Austrian chief might not have, at
+least, averted defeat.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of Sadowa is a striking instance how generals who steadily
+carry out ably a plan essentially faulty in itself may defeat a
+commander who waits on his foe, and cannot take the initiative or seize
+the occasion. In justice, however, to a departed veteran, let us say
+that the Prussian army was, in most respects, very superior to that
+arrayed against it; the Austrian army was crowded with discontented
+levies; the Prussians, too, possessed a breech-loading rifle, the fire
+of which had great effect, though it is idle to contend that it decided
+the war; and these facts told in the final issue. As for the Prussian
+strategy, it was not good. We can imagine the shades of Turenne and
+Napoleon indignant that a violation of their art should have been
+followed by ill-deserved success; and if Moltke really directed these
+operations of 1866, his first essays in war are not admirable. The
+movements, however, which led to Sadowa are almost identical with those
+of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> Frederick in Bohemia in 1756–57; and I cannot help conjecturing
+that King William—his reverence for his ancestor was a kind of
+worship—was in a great measure their true author, though those of
+Frederick have been condemned by Napoleon with no uncertain censure.</p>
+
+<p>After the events of 1866, it became apparent that Prussia and France
+would ere long quarrel; and I must say a word on the preparations made
+by the two Powers before the impending conflict, and on their military
+resources when it at last broke out. Northern Germany was practically
+added to Prussia; treaties were made with the Southern German States;
+the unity of Germany for war was well-nigh accomplished; and the German
+armies which could be brought into the field, more or less organized
+on the Prussian model, reached the enormous number of a million of
+men, 500,000 forming the first fighting line. Extraordinary attention,
+moreover, was given to the improvement of the instrument of war which
+had crushed the power of Austria in three weeks, and to the removal of
+every defect which had been discovered in it. The “mobilization” was
+made more effective; the experience of 1866 was turned to account to
+make the evolutions of foot more quick and exact, and to adapt infantry
+tactics to modern arms. Great pains were taken to reform the cavalry,
+which had been scarcely equal to the fine squadrons of Austria, led
+by the brilliant Edelsheim, and to give it celerity and strength in
+the field; and the artillery, it may be said, was transformed, old
+smooth-bore guns being finally condemned, and artillery tactics being
+greatly changed by abandoning the system of huge reserves of guns—a
+tradition of the Napoleonic era, but obsolete under the new conditions
+of war—and by directing every battery that could be made available as
+quickly as possible to the front of battle. By these means the Prussian
+army of 1866 was expanded into the vast German army which overran
+France from the Rhine to the Loire; and the hosts which triumphed at
+Metz and Sedan were infinitely more formidable in all respects than
+that which had overwhelmed Benedek.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now turn to the attitude of France, in view of the contest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>
+known to be imminent. Napoleon III. and one or two French chiefs had
+not failed to observe the immense increase of the military power
+of Prussia and Germany; and they perceived how enormous was the
+importance of the great trained reserve of the German system, which
+had nothing corresponding to it in their own. The Emperor and Marshal
+Niel accordingly proposed that the nominal reserves of the French
+army—masses of men on paper—should be in some degree disciplined,
+and that the Garde Mobile, a new force, should be formed; and had this
+been effected the military power of France would have been largely
+augmented, though it would have been still very inferior to that of
+Germany. Tradition and faction, however, prevailed; a reform, of which
+Napoleon had laid down the lines at St. Helena fifty years before, was
+disregarded and not carried out; and the strength of France for war was
+left as it was, that is, miserably weak compared to that of Germany.
+This difference was in itself immense, but there were other differences
+of perhaps equal moment. France was not prepared for a great modern
+war; her military organization was out of joint; she had not had a good
+Minister of War since Soult; her chiefs, formed for the most part in
+Africa, had little strategic or scientific knowledge; she had nothing
+resembling the Prussian Staff, the brain of the army, as it has well
+been called; she had not in her service the perfect gradation of united
+commands which was one secret of the success of Prussia in 1866. Her
+whole military hierarchy, and all that depends on it was, therefore,
+in far from a good state; her chiefs had no settled convictions in
+war, and were divided upon the great question whether the offensive or
+defensive was the better strategy; and, besides that it was weak and
+without a real reserve, the condition of her army was very defective.
+It was, no doubt, a fine professional army; but it had been injured by
+the system of commuting service; it had many bad and worn-out soldiers;
+it had not been practised in manœuvres in the field; it had not
+anything like fixed rules of tactics; and though its infantry possessed
+an excellent rifle, much better than the needle-gun of Prussia, and
+its cavalry was a noble arm, its artillery was very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> inferior to that
+of the Germans. The most marked distinction, however, between the two
+nations in their capacity for a campaign has yet to be noted. The
+railway system of Germany was designed for war; that of France was
+formed on no such principle; the local system of Prussia made it quite
+certain that the German army would be placed in the field more quickly
+than that of France could be under her centralized and ill-arranged
+system; and these two circumstances, little perceived at the time, were
+of extreme if not of decisive importance.</p>
+
+<p>The general result of this state of things was that Germany could
+“mobilize” and send into the field half a million of men, backed by
+enormous reserves, well organized, disciplined, trained, and commanded,
+within three weeks after a declaration of war; that France could hardly
+assemble three hundred thousand soldiers, unsupported by any solid
+reserve, ill-prepared, and under inefficient chiefs; and that, in point
+of time, she would be far behind her enemy. There was no comparison,
+therefore, between the two powers, and France had scarcely a chance of
+success, though if her military strength had been well directed, she
+need never have signed the Treaty of Frankfort. The conflict began in
+July 1870. Napoleon III., the mere shadow of a mighty name, assumed
+the command of the French armies, and his plan was to advance from
+behind Metz and Strasbourg, to cross the Rhine between Spires and
+Landau, and to interpose between the South and North German forces,
+which, it was assumed, would not be ready in time, and divided. The
+project, the Emperor has told us himself, was founded on that of his
+uncle in 1815; but Moltke had foreseen and provided against it, and
+it is useless to examine a mere scheme on paper, which was no sooner
+conceived than it proved abortive. Napoleon III. calculated that he
+would have 250,000 men round Metz and Strasbourg ready to march, with
+50,000 in immediate reserve; but he had little administrative power
+or resource; the existing system of France proved inefficient; her
+organization for war broke down, the “mobilization” of her troops was
+slow and partial, and when the Emperor reached Metz in the third week
+of July, he had not assembled 200,000 soldiers, and these were hardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>
+in a state to take the field. This was very different from that prodigy
+of skill, the concentration on the Sambre before Waterloo; and in these
+circumstances, the unhappy sovereign ought to have renounced a hopeless
+offensive, and to have placed his army on the line of the Moselle,
+in order to defend the Vosges and Alsace, a course which Moltke
+believed he would take. But the Emperor thought he had no choice. He
+was goaded on by opinion in France; the folly of allowing politics to
+master strategy, one main cause of the disasters that followed, had
+already begun to produce its results; and he advanced to the frontier
+with forces, compared to those of the Germans, pitiably weak, and but
+ill-provided with all kinds of requirements. When he had attained
+Alsace and the Sarre he paused, afraid to strike, but he felt that he
+was not in nearly sufficient strength, and, waiting on his enemy, he
+allowed his army to be disseminated upon a vast arc, extending from
+Thionville to the gap of Belfort, and dangerously exposed along its
+front.</p>
+
+<p>The conduct of Germany and of the German chiefs contrasted most
+strikingly with this exhibition of maladministration, feebleness,
+and incapacity for war. The contest, Frenchmen thought, was a mere
+affair of “glory”; in Germany it caused a great national rising for
+unity and independence, and to avenge Jena. The Teutonic race sprang
+fiercely to arms; the feuds between North and South Germany ceased; the
+orders for the “mobilization” of the German armies were carried out
+with wonderful skill and precision, and more than 300,000 men, with
+great reserves behind, were in a few days arrayed on the frontier,
+an astonishing result of patriotism and organization for war, partly
+due to a well-planned railway system. Three great armies were now
+quickly formed. This time Moltke certainly had the general direction
+of operations in the field, and he instantly assumed a determined
+offensive. The situation dictated his plan; there was nothing original
+in it, as has been said by flatterers. In fact, it was that of
+Marlborough in 1705, and it had been actually laid down by Gneisenau;
+it consisted, simply, in invading France from the Palatinate, along
+her most exposed frontier, but it was executed in the main ably, and
+with conspicuous forethought and vigour. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>The First Army, led by the
+veteran Steinmetz, advanced from Treves towards the Lower Sarre; the
+Second, under Prince Frederick Charles, moved from Mayence through the
+German Vosges; and the Third, commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia,
+marched across the Rhine and attained the Lauter, the three masses
+acting well in concert. The poor affair of Sarrebruck only quickened
+the movement; and, in the first week of August, a great tempest of war
+burst over the verge of Lorraine and Alsace. The first efforts of the
+Germans were, no doubt, premature; Frossard might have gained some
+success at Spicheren had he been seconded by the corps in his rear,
+and the impatience of the invaders, and of one or two of their chiefs,
+precipitated the well-fought battle of Wörth. Moltke, however, is not
+to be blamed for this; he was far away from those scenes of action, and
+his strategy completely attained his object, though his subordinates
+made more than one mistake. As for Wörth, it does honour to the arms
+of France; on that day 45,000 Frenchmen held double their number, for
+hours, at bay; and the issue might have been very different had De
+Failly come into line, as was possible. Macmahon, however, a soldier
+but no chief, cannot escape blame for not having drawn off his troops
+while retreat was still open and safe, especially when the great
+superiority of the enemy in force and in artillery had become clearly
+manifest.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_288fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_288fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Theatre of the<br>
+CAMPAIGNS<br>
+of 1870–71.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Spicheren shattered the front of the French army—it had been named the
+Army of the Rhine; and Wörth forced its right wing in confusion and
+rout far to the south, in eccentric retreat, laying bare the defeated
+centre and left. Napoleon III. fell back with his beaten forces; and
+the next few days, big with the fate of France, witnessed a wretched
+succession of divided counsels. It was proposed to attempt a stand on
+the Nied, in Lorraine, to join Macmahon, or to call him up to Metz;
+but all that was done was to retreat on the fortress, to cause a weak
+reserve to advance from Châlons, and to impair the moral worth of the
+French soldiery, when ill-led, never great in misfortune. Meanwhile,
+the hosts of the invaders, largely reinforced, were moving slowly
+through the passes of the Vosges; the First and Second Armies filling
+the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> tracts between the Sarre, the Nied, and the Seille, the Third Army
+far to the south, round Nancy; and, whatever may be said, ample time
+was given to their enemy to make good a retreat westward. This movement
+was not arranged until the 12th of August, a precious week having been
+thrown away; and the Emperor handed over his command to Bazaine, a
+chief, whose antecedents had, at best, been doubtful, with a general
+direction to fall back on the Meuse. Moltke’s plan of operations became
+now developed; the First Army was moved towards Metz, in order to
+detain the retreating enemy; part of the Second Army was pushed across
+the Moselle, its march screened with remarkable skill; and the Third
+Army made a step westward, the object being to force the Army of the
+Rhine into the north of France, and to cut it off from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Steinmetz attacked Bazaine on the 14th of August. The battle was stern
+and well contested; but it kept the French back for a whole day, and
+it facilitated, as was intended, the forward movement of the Second
+and Third Armies, which was Moltke’s object. A great mistake, however,
+was here made; the German chief believed that the Army of the Rhine
+was already far to the north of Metz; but Bazaine was moving directly
+westward, and on the evening of the 15th he had his whole army, at
+least 140,000 strong, concentrated along the roads that lead from Metz
+to Verdun, by Mars La Tour and Etain. One German corps only was on
+the spot; Prince Frederick Charles, no doubt unaware of the immense
+superiority of his enemy in force, attacked on the morning of the
+16th; and had Bazaine had any skill in war, he ought to have swept his
+assailant from his path. The Marshal, however, could not handle an
+army; he kept the Imperial Guard inactive near Metz, he made little
+use of two of his corps; the hard pressed Germans were reinforced by
+degrees; a magnificent effort of the German cavalry had a marked effect
+on the fortunes of the day; and evening fell on a scene of carnage,
+in which neither side could lay a claim to victory. The result proved
+the ascendency won by the Germans, and was for them a splendid passage
+of arms; but the effects of Moltke’s error were not yet got over—it
+was like that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> of Napoleon before Auerstadt—for, as I have remarked,
+the campaign of 1870 resembles that of Jena in many respects; he had
+not 80,000 men in hand, and Bazaine had still a strategic advantage,
+from which a real chief would have at least plucked safety. As Prince
+Frederick Charles has said, he should have attacked on the 17th; and in
+that event he ought to have won a battle, or, at all events, have made
+good his way to Verdun, a result which would have given a new turn to
+the war. A much grander game, however, was open to him; and a German
+commentator—Moltke, I suspect—has remarked that Napoleon would have
+played it, and have perhaps gained important success. On this day, a
+decisive moment in the campaign, the First Army was still east of Metz;
+the Second Army was partly west of the Moselle; the Third Army was
+leagues away to the south; and the communications of the invaders would
+be dangerously exposed, could an enemy descend from Metz on Nancy. Had
+Bazaine, therefore, fallen back on the fortress, and issued from it in
+force on the 18th, advancing between the Moselle and the Seille, he
+ought to have been able to seize and hold the line of operations of
+the hostile armies, and the consequences must have been very great.
+He might have stopped the invasion, perhaps for weeks; he would have
+certainly saved himself and his army, and the situation would have been
+wholly changed.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily for France, she had not a captain who could seize the one
+great occasion given by Fortune in the first part of the war of
+1870–71. Bazaine, a soldier fit to command a division, but utterly
+unable to direct large masses, had experience of the power of modern
+arms, and he had a fixed belief that mere defensive tactics were the
+means to assure success in battle. He resolved, therefore, to stand
+and to fight; and he arranged his forces, still 120,000 strong, along
+a range of uplands, from near Metz on the left to St. Privat and
+Roncourt on the right, which formed a fine position for a passive
+defence, the system on which the Marshal relied. Moltke, on the 17th,
+drew together the greater part of the First and Second Armies across
+the Moselle; the huge masses, probably 210,000 men, were west of Metz
+on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> morning of the 18th, intercepting, a retreat to the Meuse and
+Verdun; but, strange as it may appear, the German commander was still
+ill-informed of his enemy’s movements; he believed that Bazaine was
+falling back northwards, and when he discovered where the French were,
+he was convinced, for some hours, that the positions they held did not
+extend nearly as far as Roncourt. This and other mistakes dispose of
+the theory that Moltke is a kind of Providence on the field, gravely
+asserted by certain worshippers of success, and tend to show that
+German reconnoitring may be less perfect than has been said; but fools
+only can claim omniscience for chiefs; and, in fact, under the new
+conditions of war, with its vast operations and its immense battles,
+the ablest captains will fall into error more frequently than has been
+the case formerly.</p>
+
+<p>Partly owing to the miscalculations of the German leader, and partly
+to tactics essentially false, the tremendous battle of the 18th of
+August—known to history by the name of Gravelotte—was undecided up
+to the last moment, large as was the superiority of Moltke’s forces.
+The assailants, thinking they were turning the French right, fell
+in front on the centre strongly entrenched, and failed to make the
+slightest impression on it; Steinmetz, on the German right, made
+repeated charges, in the close columns of the days of his youth, and
+the First Army suffered enormous losses. The Prussian Guard, too, were
+cruelly stricken in an attempt to carry St. Privat by storm; indeed,
+until near nightfall, the Army of the Rhine had a marked advantage
+along the whole line of battle; and had it been able to make a grand
+counter-attack, especially when the right of its foe was shattered,
+it not improbably would have achieved success. At last, however, the
+inherent vices of a passive defence became manifest; the German chiefs,
+given the offensive all through, and allowed to search the positions
+of the French everywhere, brought their masses to bear against the
+extreme French right; Roncourt was carried by a great turning movement;
+the whole position became untenable, and the French army gradually
+fell back on Metz. Yet no doubt can now exist that had Bazaine been
+a capable chief on that terrible day, the battle would have been at
+least drawn, inferior as were his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> troops in numbers, and, in some
+degree, disheartened by defeat. Had the Imperial Guard, as was quite
+possible, been moved to the aid of the French right, the last effort of
+the Germans must have failed; and in that event the contending armies
+would have retained their places on the field unchanged. The Marshal,
+however, unequal to his task, and thinking only of merely holding his
+ground, kept this noble reserve near Metz unengaged; and 20,000 men
+were left out of the struggle who could have turned the balance in the
+scales of Fortune. Gravelotte, in truth, is a notable instance how a
+resolute offensive, even though ill-conducted, may, notwithstanding the
+arms of the age, prevail over passive tactics of defence; the attack
+on the French right, made at the last moment, after many mistakes,
+gained decisive success; and all the efforts of an army which had not
+the means to attempt at any time a counter-attack, and simply waited
+in position on its foes, proved ultimately fruitless, though for
+hours hopeful. The battle, the student of war will note, has a strong
+resemblance to that of Malplaquet; but the operations of the Germans
+are not to be compared in skill to those of Marlborough and Eugene;
+and the tricolour was defended by a very different chief from the
+illustrious warrior who upheld the lilies.</p>
+
+<p>Within two or three days after Gravelotte, the German armies had closed
+around Metz and the army of Bazaine, which had clung to the fortress.
+The left wing and centre of the whole French army were thus, so to
+speak, removed from the theatre, at least for active operations in
+the field; and, notwithstanding mistakes and shortcomings, the plan
+of Moltke, if not realised, had been attended with more than expected
+success. The right wing, half destroyed at Wörth, remained, and we turn
+to the movements of this force, on which the fortune of France for the
+time depended. Macmahon had been joined by De Failly and his troops,
+by the corps which had been placed at Belfort, and by a new corps
+despatched from the capital; and by the 20th of August the collected
+array, numbering from 120,000 to 130,000 men, was assembled around the
+great camp of Châlons. The Marshal was in supreme command; he properly
+resolved to keep the only army now left to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> France to defend Paris; but
+as Bazaine conceivably might be not distant, he marched on the 21st
+to Rheims, holding a position on the flank of the German invasion,
+and in the hope that his brother chief might approach, but with the
+determination to fall back on the capital. This was in conformity with
+the principles of war; and had Macmahon kept firm to his purpose, the
+catastrophe that followed would not have happened, and France would not
+have mourned for the extreme of disaster. Unfortunately, however, the
+Duke of Magenta, a hero in the field but a weak man—the character is
+by no means uncommon—was led astray by pernicious counsels; Palikao,
+a new Minister of War, whose chief thought was for the tottering
+Empire, and to satisfy the desires of Paris, insisted that Metz must
+be relieved; and he urged Macmahon to advance to the Meuse, to slip
+outside the flank of the hostile armies, and descending from Montmédy
+on the beleaguered fortresses, to join hands with and to extricate
+Bazaine, and to strike a bold stroke for a decisive victory. In an evil
+hour for France and himself, the marshal gave ear to a fatal project,
+as reckless as ever was made in war; for the march to the Meuse, and
+thence as far as Metz, would be a flank march of the most hazardous
+kind, the enemy holding the chord of the arc; it would be a march
+perilously near the Belgian frontier, where a lost battle would mean
+ruin; it was a march to be made by an enfeebled army in the midst of
+the victorious Germans, threefold in numbers; above all, it was a march
+which would draw away from Paris, the centre and vital point of the
+national defence, the only organized force that remained to protect
+it. Macmahon, it is said, was still doubting—he knew that the course
+proposed was insensate, not strategy, but the throw of a gambler—when
+an ambiguous message sent by Bazaine, and implying that he was on
+his way from Metz northwards, at last caused the luckless commander
+to yield. Once more the plainest military rules were sacrificed to
+political ends; and once more Bellona, who brooks no rival, was, so to
+speak, challenged and wildly provoked. The army of Châlons broke up
+from Rheims on the 23rd, and it was on the Upper Aisne on the 25th,
+approaching the region of defiles and forests, which extends from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> the
+Ardennes to the Meuse. Macmahon spared no effort to make the movement
+rapid, for celerity he knew was his only chance; but the march of his
+army became slow, and by the 27th it was still far from the Meuse, in
+the tract between Tourteron, Le Chêne, and Buzancy. It had already
+begun to shows signs of weakness; it was ill-provided and badly
+organized; the soldiers were discontented and ill-disciplined, and the
+mind of its chief was full of misgivings.</p>
+
+<p>I proceed to the operations of the German armies, very different
+from those of their ill-directed enemies. The main body of the First
+and Second Armies was required for the investment of Metz; but three
+corps, called the Army of the Meuse, were detached to co-operate with
+the Third Army, by this time west of the Moselle, in the borderlands
+of Lorraine and Champagne; and the converging masses, 230,000 strong,
+advanced steadily upon a broad front towards the heads of the Marne and
+the great roads to Paris. By the 24th of August, the cavalry outposts
+which preceded the movement had ascertained that the Army of Châlons
+had left Rheims, and was on its way to the Aisne eastward; but Moltke
+refused for some time to credit the rumour that it was making for
+Metz, for this, he rightly thought, would be the height of folly. He
+learned the truth, however, positively on the 25th, and his resolution
+was formed with that prompt decision which is a characteristic of real
+chiefs, and has been exhibited by him at grave crises. The measures he
+took to baffle Palikao’s scheme were not wonders of genius, as has been
+said by flatterers, but they show true insight, and most comprehensive
+judgment; and they were carried out with consummate skill. The Army of
+the Meuse was directed to recross the river; two corps were detached
+from Metz to join it, and to stop Macmahon should he get near the
+fortress; and the Third Army was ordered to advance northwards through
+the district of the Argonnes and the Ardennes—the scene of the
+campaign of Valmy—and to gather on the flank and rear of the Army of
+Châlons, which would thus be placed in a difficult strait at least.
+The execution of this fine strategic movement was admirable in the
+highest degree; the great invading hosts, ruled by one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> master’s will,
+well-led, supplied, and trained for the field, marched with speed and
+precision through an intricate country, and the careful preparation,
+the organization for war, the perfect unity and gradation of command,
+and the intelligence of the individual soldier, which are distinctive
+marks of the army of Prussia, were made fully and grandly manifest.</p>
+
+<p>By the 27th of August the German squadrons were gathering rapidly upon
+their foes; Macmahon, though without the least notion of the enormous
+force that was closing round him, perceived that his army was in grave
+peril, and he gave orders for a retreat on Mézières, hoping to attain
+Paris by a march from the frontier. For the second time, however, the
+incapable chief succumbed to the temptation he should have spurned. A
+message, that “revolution would break out should Bazaine be abandoned
+at Metz,” induced him to continue the advance to the Meuse, and to
+court the ruin which he knew was probable; and it is but just to
+observe that Napoleon III.—he accompanied the Marshal since he had
+left Châlons—protested against conduct which was almost criminal.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>
+Macmahon now tried to make a forced march; his army was divided into
+two great columns, in order to make its movements rapid, and the
+first column reached the river safely, and had crossed it by the 29th
+of August. The second column, however, was far to the south, and
+separated by a full march from the first; it was largely composed of
+beaten troops, already desponding, nay, half-mutinous; it was charged
+with <i>impedimenta</i> of all kinds, and it toiled slowly through
+the passes and thickets it had to traverse on its way to the Meuse.
+This gave Moltke the opportunity to strike; the Army of the Meuse was
+recalled to the west of the stream, the two corps from Metz having
+been sent back; a part of the Third Army was pushed forward, and the
+Germans fell with terrible effect on their enemies, caught in flank
+and surprised, at Beaumont and other places in their march. The second
+column was routed with immense loss; it reached the Meuse a mere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>
+shattered wreck, pursued by the indefatigable Prussian horsemen; and
+its ruin involved a part of the first column, which crossed the river
+to give it support. By the evening of the 30th the Army of Châlons, one
+corps of it as far as Carignan, was on the eastern bank of the Meuse,
+but half of the French troops were a demoralized mass; and the German
+advanced guards were already at hand, in close communication with the
+hosts in their rear.</p>
+
+<p>Macmahon, at this time, was at Carignan; he confidently expected that
+he would reach Metz; he boasted, it is said, that victory was at hand.
+The news of the events of the 30th dispelled these dreams; he hurriedly
+fell back with his one intact corps, and by the morning of the 31st
+he had assembled the still large, but beaten, Army of Châlons in the
+tract that surrounds the fortress and town of Sedan. The state of the
+French troops was of the worst omen; but an occasion was still open
+to a great chief, to extricate them from impending ruin. Mézières was
+not distant, and a French corps had reached the place to support the
+Marshal; the Meuse spread between his army and the foe, and had he
+left his <i>impedimenta</i> behind, and made a rapid march, without
+the loss of an hour, he would certainly have escaped with the great
+mass of his forces. It is this circumstance which makes the strategy
+of Moltke inferior, fine as it was, to that which shut up Mack in
+Ulm; and the Grand Army, it will be borne in mind, had been saved on
+the Beresina when in far worse straits. Macmahon, however, would not
+stir from Sedan; there is reason to believe he never knew the immense
+strength of the hostile force, and he arrayed his army, “ready,” he
+said, “to fight,” along the uplands, encircled by streams and villages,
+which overlook Sedan and the valley below. The evening of the 31st had
+come; the German horsemen made the situation known; and Moltke, who up
+to this time had only hoped that he might succeed in forcing his enemy
+across the frontier, saw that he could reckon on a decisive triumph.
+Orders were issued for an immediate night march; the great German
+divisions, perfectly led, and the men scenting approaching victory,
+moved rapidly over the space between, and preparations were made to
+assail and surround the feeble and shattered Army of Châlons.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to retrace the scenes of Sedan, the just retribution
+of foolishness in command, a battle decreed by Fate, in its irony,
+to be fought around the birthplace of Turenne. The French were first
+attacked, on that fatal morning, on their southern and eastern front
+towards the Chiers; and they made for a time a gallant resistance,
+though the fall of Macmahon and a squabble between two of his
+lieutenants had a bad effect on the troops. By degrees, however, the
+overwhelming pressure of forces immensely superior told; the line
+of defence on the Givonne was carried; and the French were driven
+back, on Sedan, routed, and huddled around the walls of the fortress.
+Meanwhile a tremendous attack had been made on the northern and
+western fronts of the defence; the Germans advancing to the heights
+of Illy, and moving from the opposite side round the bend of the
+Meuse, which half encircles the outskirts of Sedan, closed gradually
+round their doomed foes; and though the French cavalry made heroic
+efforts, and one corps nobly struggled to the last, it was impossible
+to withstand overpowering numbers. The last remains of the Army of
+Châlons were forced, like the first, against the fortress; the German
+artillery—throughout the campaign it had proved an arm of enormous
+strength—was brought to bear in masses on the perishing wreck; the
+fire of 500 pieces searched the scene of carnage; and a white flag soon
+announced that resistance, no longer possible, had completely ceased.
+Within a few hours 85,000 men, the survivors of more than 120,000, the
+victims of worse than insensate leading, were a collection of helpless
+prisoners of war; and their cries of impotent fury and despair—this
+was the attitude of by far the greater part—only provoked the pitying
+scorn of the victors.</p>
+
+<p>This immense disaster, added to that of Metz, all but destroyed the
+military power of Imperial France on the theatre of war. Moltke had
+acted harshly at the capitulation of Sedan; he had no respect for the
+French character; like Hannibal and Napoleon, he treated the force of
+patriotic passion with contempt; and, leaving a considerable detachment
+behind, he directed an immediate advance on Paris. The German armies
+rolled steadily onward,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> through the valleys of the Aisne, the Oise,
+and the Marne, masking fortresses and occupying points on their way;
+and they appeared before the capital on the 19th of September, the
+chiefs convinced they would meet no resistance. Their expectations
+seemed about to be realised; an attempt to assail the invaders in
+flank, as they gathered upon the uplands south of the Seine, was
+easily defeated, and had bad results; and the Germans were permitted,
+without a further effort, to surround and invest the beleaguered
+city. Their lines, constructed with skill and forethought, spread on
+a circumference of great extent, from the confluence of the Seine and
+the Marne, by St. Denis, round through Versailles to Bonneuil; and
+though the besieging forces were at this moment not 150,000 strong, no
+doubt existed in the German camp—it was, indeed, the general belief of
+Europe—that a few days would see the surrender of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Weeks, however, passed, and it became apparent that this calculation
+was a complete error. The Empire had fallen on the 4th of September; a
+Government of national defence had been formed; and this Revolution,
+in the main caused by the passionate wrath of the great mass of the
+citizens, quickened the general resolve that the capital should hold
+out, and confront the power of the German armies. Preparations had been
+made to stand a siege; immense supplies of provisions had been stored;
+the <i>enceinte</i> and the forts which protect the city had been
+hastily manned and armed; enormous bodies of men had been assembled to
+take part in the defence of the place; these were supported by a corps
+of trained soldiers, and by the corps which had appeared at Mézières,
+and had been brought back after a skilful retreat; and though these
+arrangements were rude and imperfect, the strength of the city to
+resist attack was infinitely greater than Moltke had supposed. Sorties
+began to be made by degrees; these, though always repulsed, were not
+contemptible; the armament of the forts was completed; redoubts and
+entrenchments rose at many points to strengthen and to perfect the
+zone of defence; the citizens, warlike in all ages, though in peace
+addicted to pleasure and ease, acquired gradually something like
+discipline; the materials at least of armies were formed, and Paris
+assumed the aspect of a huge fortified<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span> camp, with a garrison certainly
+immense in numbers. Moltke took pains to secure his position; he
+tacitly admitted that he had made a mistake in marching on the capital
+without having his communications or his base assured, and with forces
+comparatively small; but he held his ground with determined constancy;
+he summoned reinforcements to head-quarters, and several corps were
+employed in besieging Strasbourg and other strongholds on the way
+from the frontier, and in overrunning Burgundy and Franche Comté. The
+front and lines of the invasion were thus strengthened; and, though
+time had passed, the submission of France was held to be a fact of
+the immediate future. The German chief was to be again deceived, as
+many warriors had been before, in his estimate of a people, great and
+heroic, despite of many national faults and failings. It is all very
+well for the Prussian Staff to sneer at Gambetta, as it has done in its
+book; but he was a man of great powers, if of real shortcomings; and
+he was but the most striking figure of millions of Frenchmen. A great
+and sudden national rising took place; it was more spontaneous than
+that of 1793; in an incredibly short time 250,000 men were in arms to
+resist the German hosts; and by making use of the resources of France
+for war—old soldiers, troops in depôts, and reserves—vast arrays were
+mustered, which at least contained the elements of real military power.
+These levies, of course, were bad soldiers, but they were formidable
+in numbers and in aptitude for war; and, whatever may be said, the
+position of Moltke had become critical as October was closing; the
+German armies were, for the most part, engaged on the investment of
+Paris and to the east of Metz; they were conquerors, and had all the
+power of success; but they were exposed to attack from within and
+without at the centres to which they were, as it were, bound; and they
+were in the midst of an immense insurrection spreading all round.</p>
+
+<p>At this conjuncture, a great disaster showed that Fortune was still
+most adverse to France. Bazaine had been shut up since Gravelotte
+at Metz; he had kept his army almost inactive, and he had made no
+real effort to break the investment. I cannot examine the crooked
+intrigues in which he played an ignoble part;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> but he surrendered the
+great fortress on the 28th of October, and the world beheld the most
+disgraceful capitulation ever known in war. Even on his pitiful system
+of passive defence, the Marshal did not nearly do his duty; the place
+could have held out a fortnight longer, and the respite would have
+been of extreme importance. The First and Second Armies were now set
+free to take part in the great invasion; several corps were sent to
+the north, to crush levies formed in Normandy and other provinces. One
+was despatched to support the siege; and the remainder, under Prince
+Frederick Charles, held the tract between the heads of the Seine
+and Burgundy. The grasp of the Germans on France was thus greatly
+strengthened; yet the position of Moltke was so unsafe that it was
+endangered by a single trifling reverse. An army, partly composed of
+good troops, but in the main of improvised levies, had been assembled
+south of the Loire; it had been placed in the hands of D’Aurelle,
+a veteran of real organizing skill, and in a few weeks it numbered
+60,000 men, and had acquired something like military worth and power.
+A Bavarian detachment, perhaps 20,000 strong, and a division under the
+Grand-Duke of Mecklenburg, sent off to put down insurrection in the
+west, were the only hostile forces between this large mass of Frenchmen
+and the lines round Paris; and D’Aurelle, aided by a young chief,
+Chanzy, who was to prove that France had yet real captains, resolved
+to attack the Bavarians and to retake Orleans, which had fallen into
+the enemy’s hands. The Army of the Loire broke up from its camps,
+and crossed the river in the first days in November; it fell on the
+Bavarians near the little town of Coulmiers. Had the orders of Chanzy
+been well carried out, and a turning movement been completed in time,
+the invaders must have been utterly routed; but, as it was, they were
+beaten with loss; and they were compelled to fall back on the roads to
+Paris, abandoning Orleans and the adjoining region.</p>
+
+<p>When this intelligence arrived, unfeigned alarm prevailed at the
+German head-quarters at Versailles; the besiegers were threatened
+by an army of relief, and by the unknown multitudes of armed men in
+Paris; and disseminated as they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> on an immense circumference,
+they were in a situation of no common peril. Moltke made up his mind,
+as became a true chief; he despatched pressing orders to Prince
+Frederick Charles to hasten to the capital by forced marches; and, like
+Bonaparte before Mantua—a Journal, said to be his, alludes to this—he
+resolved, whatever the result, to raise the siege should the Army of
+the Loire appear from the south. This single circumstance shows how
+precarious the position of the Germans had become; and had D’Aurelle
+boldly followed up his success the consequences to France might have
+been momentous. Chanzy, it is known, was for the more daring course;
+Napoleon would have taken it, I cannot doubt; and though it is idle to
+speculate now, the siege would certainly have been given up and the
+war would have taken a different turn. D’Aurelle, however, refused
+to advance; he constructed a great entrenched camp near Orleans; and
+here he increased and trained his levies, hoping before long to resume
+the offensive. This, probably, was too great caution; but there were
+reasons for the step of real weight. Prince Frederick Charles was but
+a few marches off, and should he reach the flank of the Army of the
+Loire, on its way to the capital, he would perhaps destroy the best
+organized force possessed by France. This clearly shows that had Metz
+resisted, and detained the Prince only a few days longer, the French
+chief would have had, and perhaps would have seized, an admirable
+occasion offered by Fortune; and, indeed, a German writer has drily
+remarked that “the capitulation came in the very nick of time.”</p>
+
+<p>The victory of Coulmiers sent a thrill through France, enormously
+increased the power of Gambetta, and caused levies to flock to the war
+in thousands. Notwithstanding the fall of Metz, and all that followed
+from it, the situation of the Germans was still critical; and owing to
+the undoubted strategic mistake of marching on Paris with too weak a
+force, their movements had been incoherent, and far from masterly. By
+the close of November the Great City had formed three armies out of
+her armed multitudes; and two of them, probably 150,000 strong, had
+acquired a certain degree of efficiency; the third, perhaps 200,000<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>
+men, being only fit to defend the ramparts. I cannot describe the
+great sortie which followed; Ducrot crossed the Marne and carried
+two villages, which had been made part of the besiegers’ lines; but
+ultimately he was compelled to retreat; and, in fact, the effort was
+doomed to failure, for the zone of investment and the zone of defence
+had by this time become all but impregnable, or could be mastered only
+by the art of the engineer. The sortie from Paris was contemporaneous
+with an advance of the army of D’Aurelle’s northwards; but here
+Gambetta unhappily intervened, and his meddling and presumption did
+enormous mischief. The young civilian had done, no doubt, great things,
+but since Coulmiers, he had become a kind of Dictator—the history
+of France has too many examples how foolish hero-worship has such
+results—he insisted that the Army of the Loire should make for the
+capital, whatever the risk, though Prince Frederick Charles was near
+at hand; and, as he had made that army 150,000 strong, he refused to
+believe that there was serious danger. D’Aurelle and Chanzy protested
+in vain; two detached corps of the Army of the Loire were directed
+against Prince Frederick Charles, and were easily defeated by an
+inferior force; and the Prince, a chief of a very high order, made
+immediate preparations for a great counter-stroke. The Grand Duke and
+the Bavarians had been approaching; he quickly united these forces to
+his own, and he bore down in irresistible strength on the army, mainly
+of recruits, opposed to him. The centre of the Army of the Loire was
+broken; its wings fell off in eccentric retreat; one part was driven
+across the river, and the triumphant invaders re-entered Orleans,
+having gained rapid and complete success. By the first days of December
+it had become apparent that Paris could not burst the chain cast around
+her; and the army had been shattered which had been employed, unwisely
+at the moment, as an army of relief.</p>
+
+<p>The prospect for France was dark and mournful; but light shone at
+one point on the gloomy scene. D’Aurelle had been unjustly dismissed
+by Gambetta; and the part of his defeated army which had crossed the
+Loire had been placed in the hands of Bourbaki, the chief of the late
+Imperial Guard. Chanzy, however, commanded the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> remaining part; and a
+series of operations followed which show that he had real genius in
+war. He was attacked by the Grand Duke in all the flush of victory; but
+he had been reinforced by Gambetta’s orders; he took a strong position,
+covering both his flanks; and then with true insight he assumed the
+offensive, essential in the case of French soldiers; and, on the whole,
+he obtained some success. Prince Frederick Charles now fiercely turned
+against him; he concentrated all his available forces; but Chanzy
+made a magnificent stand; and his conduct deserves the very highest
+praise. Perceiving that the relief of Paris should be the true object
+of the French armies in the field, he fell back from the Loire to the
+Sarthe, drawing toward the capital with great skill; and in this he
+showed that he was a real strategist. Nor was he less admirable as a
+tactician; he continually, in retreat, took an offensive attitude; he
+turned defensive positions to the best account, and he contrived that
+the superiority of the French rifle should tell with full effect on
+the advancing enemy. Prince Frederick Charles pursued in vain; Chanzy
+made good his way to Le Mans; he was nearer to Paris than when he had
+left the Loire; his army had not been once beaten; and the Germans
+were not only worn out, but showed signs of demoralization and fear,
+for thousands had perished to no purpose; the hardships of the winter
+campaign had been frightful; and it seemed impossible to overcome the
+enemy.<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>A pause in the conflict now occurred, to the astonishment of Europe,
+still doubtful—a war of races, in which colossal force was confronted
+by a national rising. The Germans were still, for the most part,
+victorious; their armies surrounded imprisoned Paris; they had mastered
+most of the fortresses of France, proved to be of little use in the
+struggle; and they had made their lines of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> operations secure, and
+had overrun a full third of the country. But Chanzy was in the field
+unconquered; Faidherbe, a commander of real gifts, had admirably
+conducted a campaign in the north, attacking the invaders when he
+saw a chance, and falling back on the strongholds of the Somme;
+Bourbaki was at the head of a great force, continually increasing,
+on the Middle Loire; and France had realised her proud boast that
+she had but “to stamp her foot, and legions would spring from the
+earth at her bidding.” Grave<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> anxiety was felt at head-quarters at
+Versailles, spite of noisy boasting of German triumphs; and Moltke,
+reading the facts with a true general’s eye, insisted on having large
+reinforcements to strengthen the wearied and thinned invaders. Troops
+in tens of thousands from the trained reserves of Germany were called
+into the field; shrunken regiments and corps were restored in numbers;
+new corps entered the east of France, and preparations were made on
+an immense scale to quicken, by a bombardment, the fall of Paris. The
+organization of the German armies, though strained to the utmost, bore
+the test; and if the trials of the war had told heavily on the young
+soldiers who crowded the ranks, a fierce national passion still upheld
+the invasion. Moltke made excellent use of these new forces. Up to this
+time, his movements had suffered from the effects of the premature
+advance on Paris; but the error was now completely rectified, and his
+dispositions were able in the extreme. Keeping his grasp on the capital
+with stern tenacity, he so distributed his corps on the theatre of
+war that a far-spreading external zone of resistance protected the
+inner zone of investment; and should an attempt, therefore, be made
+to relieve Paris, he would have a double set of armies to oppose the
+French and interior lines on the whole circumference. Secure within
+this circle, he defied the enemy, but he was ready at all points to
+take a bold offensive, and he eschewed the whole system of mere passive
+defence. The exertions of France were also prodigious. Independently
+of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> Parisian forces, she had placed 500,000 men in the field, with
+from 1,300 to 1,400 guns, and history, despite the Prussian staff, will
+pronounce this a gigantic effort. These levies, however, were most
+inferior troops. They were no match for their trained adversaries; they
+were not equal to long marches, and at this supreme moment they were
+wrongly directed. Chanzy, the master-spirit of the national defence,
+saw what the situation was, and what it required; he appreciated the
+ability of Moltke’s strategy; but even now he did not despair of
+success, and in a despatch, marked with true insight in war, he urged
+that all the provincial armies should endeavour to combine and march
+on the capital, which, in turn, should fiercely attack the besiegers.
+This last effort would, I believe, have failed; but it was the true
+course and perfectly conceived; and it was that which Moltke expected
+and feared. Unhappily for France, Gambetta rejected the counsels of
+her most distinguished soldier, and, giving ear to a silly theorist,
+he adopted a plan for the operations at hand, false in principle and,
+as facts stood, ruinous. At this moment Werder, in the east of France,
+was engaged with his corps in the siege of Belfort; the garrison was
+making a firm stand; Bourbaki, in command of his large army, was in
+the Nivernais, on the verge of Burgundy; Garibaldi had a motley array
+near Dijon, and a large army was ready to march from the south. In this
+state of affairs, instead of directing all the forces of France in a
+march on Paris, Gambetta resolved to make a great effect to relieve
+Belfort and to enter Alsace. For this purpose the collective forces of
+Bourbaki, Garibaldi, and the south were to join, and the result, it
+was hoped, would place the French armies on the communications of the
+invaders from the Rhine, and would have great and glorious results.
+This plan, strikingly resembling those of Carnot in 1793–1794, was,
+even in the abstract, misconceived; the detachment to the east of the
+French armies would expose and isolate Chanzy on the west, and even
+were the communications of the Germans reached, this would be at a
+point too remote to relieve Paris, or seriously to affect the issue
+of the campaign. But, in the actual state of affairs, the project was
+little less than foolishness; the armies intended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> to relieve Belfort
+and to attain Alsace were not equal to a great operation of real
+danger, and the scheme in truth was of much the same kind as that which
+had led to the catastrophe of Sedan.</p>
+
+<p>In the last days of December, Bourbaki’s army set off from the
+Nivernais to reach Franche Comté. The march of the columns was pitiably
+slow; the troops suffered terribly from cold and disease; and signs of
+evil omen had become manifest long before Belfort had been approached.
+This eccentric movement set the Grand Duke and Prince Frederick Charles
+completely free to attack Chanzy upon the Sarthe; and the German
+chiefs, who had had their forces recruited to a very large extent,
+broke up from Chartres, Nogent le Rotrou, and Orleans, and bore down
+on the French commander, advancing on an ever narrowing front. Chanzy
+had detached flying columns to observe the enemy; these fell back as
+the assailants drew near; and the French army, by the 10th of January,
+was concentrated within its lines at Le Mans, which had been fortified
+with skill and care. A fierce and protracted struggle followed;
+Chanzy, very different from the incapable Bazaine, really did wonders
+with his raw young troops; but, at nightfall on the 11th, his extreme
+right was turned by a desperate effort of Prince Frederick Charles.
+He evacuated Le Mans, and lost thousands of prisoners; but he made
+good his way to the Mayenne; and here he still kept his foes at bay,
+having in his retreat drawn nearer Paris. He was still full of hope,
+and wrote in that sense; but before long a tremendous disaster befell
+the ill-fated forces of France in the east. Bourbaki was joined by a
+part of Garibaldi’s troops, and by the army moving from the south; and
+with this force, fully 130,000 strong, he crossed the Ognon, and almost
+reached Belfort. He was, however, defeated with ease by Werder, with a
+force very inferior in numbers; and, after one or two fruitless efforts
+to outmanœuvre his victorious enemy, he fell back baffled, and made for
+Besançon. Here he gave up his command, and tried to commit suicide; his
+ruined army continued to retreat, but Moltke saw that his opportunity
+had come and he turned it to account, with great skill and decision.
+Three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> corps were detached from the external zone; Manteuffel, at the
+head of them, bore down on the enemy; Werder, with part of his corps,
+pressed forward from Belfort; and Bourbaki’s whole army, under its new
+chief, Clinchant, was surrounded and driven across the Swiss frontier.
+This was the end of Gambetta’s ambitious enterprise, which alike had
+caused the defeat of Chanzy and had ruined the last hope of success for
+the provincial armies.</p>
+
+<p>It fared almost as ill with France in the north, on the theatre where
+Faidherbe conducted the war. That skilful officer had continued the
+game of harassing the enemy, and falling back; and he had even fought
+a battle at Bapaume, which he had some right to describe as a victory.
+But about the middle of January he advanced towards St. Quentin, in the
+hope, it is supposed, of either relieving Paris, or of making eastward
+towards Bourbaki’s army. Moltke sent off a corps from the zone of
+investment, and defeated him with considerable loss; and, though he
+effected his retreat to Lille, his forces were for the time paralyzed.
+The military strength of France outside Paris was thus rendered almost
+powerless; Moltke had made the best use of his interior lines, on a
+great and complex field of manœuvre; and the false direction given to
+Bourbaki’s army had practically decided the contest in the field. The
+proud capital alone remained; and invincible famine was already at
+hand. In the first days of January the bombardment began; for fully
+three weeks shot and shell crashed through all parts of the beleaguered
+city; but no impression was made on the <i>enceinte</i> or the forts,
+and still less on the great mass of the citizens. The attack, in fact,
+altogether failed; it does no credit to the German Engineers, and it
+attests Moltke’s dislike of Frenchmen; and it must be condemned as
+barbarous warfare, for it was known that Paris must ere long surrender.
+Towards the end of the month the end came; a last sortie for the honour
+of arms was easily repulsed with great slaughter; and on the 28th of
+January 1871 the capitulation was signed. German horsemen defiled under
+the Arch of the Star, a monument to the Grand Army, as the Guards of
+Napoleon had passed through Berlin; the tricolour has been plucked
+down from Metz and Strasbourg;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> and France mourns the calamitous Peace
+of Frankfort. Yet the defence of Paris, and the efforts made by the
+improvised armies of Chanzy and Faidherbe, were exploits worthy of a
+great nation; in the hour of misfortune France may say, like her king,
+that she has not lost honour; the resistance she made, all things
+considered, was grander than that of 1793, and it has redeemed the
+ignominy of Metz and Sedan.</p>
+
+<p>The success of the conquerors in this gigantic war is the greatest,
+perhaps, recorded in history. The Imperial Army of France was carried
+away captive; her improvised armies were nearly half destroyed; her
+fortresses yielded one after another; her capital held out, but
+succumbed to famine. The theme is a fine idol for the worshippers of
+success; and Moltke has been held up to the admiration of mankind as
+the greatest military genius in the annals of war. Yet, if we calmly
+examine the course of the contest, we perceive that the operations of
+the German chief do not reveal one grand strategic conception, and are
+characterized by several grave errors; they exhibit science, decision,
+and strength of character, and perfect execution of the thoughts of
+others, not originality, or “the faultlessness” claimed for them.
+Moltke—and this does not detract from his fame—owed much to his
+foes, and much to fortune; Bazaine and MacMahon, in different ways,
+sink to the level of the Soubises and Clermonts; the fall of Metz was
+a godsend to Germany; but Chanzy was a warrior of real powers; he kept
+the issue of the struggle long doubtful, and had he had the supreme
+control of the forces of France, it is impossible to say what might not
+have happened. Some of the lessons taught by the war are commonplace;
+well-organized armies, of overwhelming strength, defeat armies inferior
+in every respect; trained and disciplined troops beat raw levies;
+disaster is all but certain to follow when the simplest rules of the
+military art are disregarded for supposed reasons of State. Two great
+facts, however, require special notice; the German armies are the most
+formidable which have ever appeared in the modern world; there is an
+element of weakness in their young soldiers, but they represent a
+mighty race in arms, ready at any moment to march on to conquest; and
+this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> has been the result of years of training. On the other hand, the
+national rising of France, after Metz and Sedan, was a noble movement;
+it was marked by heroic courage and self-sacrifice; and yet it failed,
+and probably was doomed to fail, though the resources of France for war
+are enormous, and the French are a people of born soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>I have come to the last of my Great Commanders; what is Moltke’s place
+in that august succession? It is difficult to catch a true likeness
+of a figure not in the perspective of Time, and whose career belongs
+to the history of the day. Moltke has many, I think, of the gifts
+of Frederick; he is a thoroughly accomplished and educated man; he
+has extraordinary force of application and thought; his perseverance
+deserves the highest praise; and though he has not been tried by the
+test of ill-fortune, he has evidently the tenacity and firmness of the
+Prussian king. Like Frederick, however, he wants supreme genius and the
+imaginative power of the greatest chiefs; but he is far superior to
+Frederick in all that relates to the large combinations and movements
+of war, though probably his inferior on the field of battle. It is his
+special characteristic that he was one of the first to see what are the
+new conditions of war in this age, and that he turned them to the very
+best account; the Prussian Army and that of the lesser German States
+have been, in a great measure, created by him; and Moltke, I conceive,
+has “organized victory” more thoroughly than has ever before been seen.
+His place as a strategist is more doubtful; his countrymen have called
+him “the great strategist,” but this is the exaggeration of national
+sympathy; and in this sphere of the art, I certainly think he holds an
+inferior rank to Turenne, and he has not even approached the height of
+Napoleon. We miss originality in his conceptions of war. If he really
+directed the converging movement into Bohemia, in 1866, whatever have
+been the modifications of the art, this was inconsistent with its true
+principles; his advance on Paris was a distinct mistake; and in his
+operations at Metz we see many errors which Bazaine possibly might have
+made disastrous. His peculiar strategic merit is that he can work out
+to perfection accepted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> views, and improve upon the ideas of others;
+but in this there is not the masterly power seen in the campaigns of
+1674 and 1675, of 1796 and of 1800. Still Moltke is a real chief of the
+grand school of Napoleon; he can move large armies on a wide theatre
+with remarkable forethought and scientific skill; his marches against
+the army of Châlons, and the army of Bourbaki, are very fine, and he
+made the best use of his interior lines in the final operations around
+Paris. His merits as a tactician are less easy to estimate; in the case
+of the immense battles of the present day, the real head of an army
+can do no more than make arrangements of a general kind; but if he
+directed Gravelotte, it was ill-directed, though it is well known he
+condemned Steinmetz; and in theory he is a master of modern tactics.
+Moltke seems to have a cold and passionless nature; like Wellington, he
+has commanded the respect of officers and men but not their devotion;
+Prince Frederick Charles was the real hero, in the eyes of the German
+soldiery in 1870–71; and this remarkable chief possessed in a high
+degree the peculiar gifts of his greatest ancestor. It is astonishing,
+however, if we bear in mind that Moltke was in his sixty-seventh year
+when he first commanded an army in the field, that he should have
+achieved what he has achieved. He is a great commander, beyond dispute,
+and as an administrator in war he has never been excelled.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_256.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span></p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_315fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_315fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">Map of BELGIUM</p>
+  </div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center xl p2">THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>I purpose, in this and a subsequent chapter, to describe the main
+features of the Campaign of 1815, and to endeavour to pronounce a
+fair judgment upon it. Of the interest of the subject it is needless
+to speak; this grand passage of arms will attract the attention of
+history to it in the same degree as the contest decided on the field
+of Zama, or the last struggle between Pompey and Cæsar. Yet this is
+not my chief reason for attempting this sketch; I venture to think,
+though a large literature has grown up round the theme of Waterloo,
+that there is still room for an impartial study, brief though it be,
+of the leading incidents of this ever-memorable and most decisive
+conflict. Many causes, in fact, have concurred to obscure the truth
+respecting the Campaign of 1815, and to prevent a just estimate being
+formed of it. On some points our knowledge is still imperfect; passion
+and prejudice have distorted the facts, on several others of the first
+importance; and commentators on Waterloo, even including the chief
+actors in the drama, have, in most instances, either made palpable and
+grave mistakes, or have applied a kind of criticism to the course of
+events, essentially, and from the nature of the case, fallacious. The
+narratives of Napoleon, in some of their parts, bear the ineffaceable
+marks of his genius, but they abound in serious errors of detail, and
+in places they are far from just or honest. The apology of Wellington,
+though the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> most truthful of men, written as it was in far advanced
+age, is not trustworthy in many respects; and all that has emanated
+from the Prussian staff is by no means accurate, or even always candid.
+As for historians, Thiers has composed a romance confuted by the
+evidence in most important points; and the same may be said of the
+host of Frenchmen who, like him, have slavishly followed Napoleon. We
+have had a like class of writers in England; from Siborne to Hooper
+it has been the fashion to describe the Duke as faultless in 1815, in
+plain defiance of unquestionable facts; and Dutch, Belgian, and German
+authors have equally erred in claiming praise for chiefs of their races
+beyond their merits. Then we have commentators, of whom Charras is by
+far the ablest and most perfect specimen, partisans who test operations
+of war by an impossible standard of mere theory, and who, in this way,
+have succeeded in making the greatest chiefs seem inferior men; and
+Chesney’s <i>Essay</i>, though in parts excellent, is by no means free
+from this most unsound criticism. Passing by General Hamley’s valuable
+sketch, I believe Jomini’s account of Waterloo to be, even now, the
+best extant narrative; but it is necessarily wanting in many respects,
+in the information obtained since his day. I shall try to follow, in
+these chapters, the method which, in an inquiry of this kind, will most
+probably lead to just conclusions; that is, I shall rely<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> only on
+contemporaneous documents, the genuineness of which is not doubtful;
+and I shall endeavour to judge of events as they happened, from the
+point of view of those who took part in them, and not by the mere
+abstract rules of strategy.</p>
+
+<p>I have no space to discuss the arrangements made beforehand by Napoleon
+to meet the League of Europe in 1815; but they were most able and
+even wonderful, and the detraction of Charras is false and unjust.
+The memories of an immortal campaign would have caused the Emperor
+to defend France on the Marne and the Seine, with fortified Paris a
+pivot for his operations and a vast entrenched camp; but the state of
+opinion made this plan impossible,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span> and he resolved to assume a daring
+offensive. His design, resembling in its main features the strategy
+which led to Ulm and Austerlitz, may be left with confidence to judges
+of the art, and bears the clear stamp of his transcendent genius. A
+million of armed men were advancing on France from the Scheldt, the
+Rhine, the Oder, and the Po; but the hosts of the Allies were widely
+apart, and at unequal distances from the points of attack; and the
+extreme right of the vast front of invasion, composed of the armies of
+Blücher and Wellington, was isolated, and close to the French frontier.
+It was possible, therefore, to make a sudden spring on this detached
+part of the Coalition’s forces, to surprise and to overthrow it in
+detail; and if decisive success were achieved, there were reasons to
+believe that Napoleon’s triumph might bring the war at once to a close.
+The situation, besides, of the menaced armies in Belgium invited a
+daring attack, even though made with an inferiority of force. They were
+disseminated along a wide front, from Ghent to Liège, a hundred miles
+in length, and from thirty-five to fifty miles in depth, from Brussels
+to the edge of French territory; they were scattered in divisions,
+covering the roads that led, in many lines, from the frontier of
+France; and two days, at least, were required before they could
+even nearly concentrate on a given field of battle. They were thus
+vulnerable at all points, and the strategy which placed them in such
+positions has long ago been condemned as false; but many and decisive
+reasons concurred to induce Napoleon to select their centre, and the
+space where their inner flanks met, as the first spot on which to
+direct his efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Were he to assail the Allies on either wing, he would press their
+armies against each other, and favour rather than retard their
+junction, the very event to be most avoided; and, besides, they were in
+greater strength on these lines than at those points of their centre
+at which their separate forces came in contact. Again, Wellington
+was based on the sea, from Brussels and Ghent to Ostend and Antwerp;
+the base of Blücher was the Rhine and Cologne. Were their centre,
+therefore, fiercely attacked, and their armies compelled to diverge
+from each other, the probability was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span> that each chief would fall back
+on his proper base, as happened in the campaign of 1794, and that
+the Emperor would be able to interpose and, perhaps, to overwhelm
+their recoiling forces. Other considerations combined to determine
+the purpose of the most profound of generals. Blücher was known to be
+hasty and bold to a fault; the genius of Wellington was circumspect and
+cautious; and Napoleon calculated—rightly, as the event proved—that
+should he fall suddenly on the allied centre, Blücher would hurry
+forward to repel the attack, and that Wellington would be slow to
+advance; and this single circumstance, it was not unlikely, would
+give the Imperial chief an admirable chance to beat in detail his
+divided enemies. The peculiarities of the theatre, too, encouraged
+an attempt against the allied centre. At each side of this point the
+French frontier at this time ran into Belgian territory, especially
+from Valenciennes to Rocroy; a great main road by Charleroi to Brussels
+nearly traversed the space where the Allies met, and led into the
+heart of the Belgic provinces; the communication between the Allies
+depended chiefly on one lateral road, extending from Nivelles to Namur
+eastwards, and behind this lay a difficult region of hills and marshes
+watered by the Dyle, and unfavourable to the junction of divided
+armies. Should Napoleon, therefore, advance on this path, he would have
+the shortest line of attack from France; he would have an avenue into
+the midst of the camps of his foes, and conducting him to the Belgian
+capital; and should he once be able to force his adversaries from their
+main point of contact, the Nivelles and Namur road, they would find it
+no easy task to reunite, and they would probably be placed in serious
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>The Allies were thus to be struck at their centre, and their separated
+hosts to be rent asunder as Beaulieu and Colli, twenty years before,
+when Bonaparte was first revealed to Fortune, were assailed from the
+Genoese seaboard and driven in eccentric retreat from Piedmont. An
+untoward event at the outset increased the difficulties of carrying
+out a plan, which may be pronounced one of the most brilliant even
+of Napoleon’s marvellous career. The united armies of Blücher and
+Wellington were about 224,000<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> strong; the Emperor reckoned that
+150,000 men were required to assure his operations success; and it may
+confidently be said that, had he had this force, he would, humanly
+speaking, have been victorious, spite of the misadventures and faults
+of the Campaign. A sudden rising in La Vendée, however, deprived him
+of 20,000 good troops; but, though this added largely to his adverse
+chances, his position was such that he still resolved to persevere
+in his audacious project. The execution of his profound design was
+admirable, and, indeed, all but perfect. The divisions intended to make
+the movement were encamped along the northern frontier of France, or
+thrown back southward almost to the capital; and the problem was how to
+draw together these widely separated bodies of men, and to concentrate
+them at the appointed spot, without interference on the part of
+the enemy, and without even his knowledge, if this were possible.
+The operation was accomplished with success, largely through that
+remarkable skill in stratagem which was one of Napoleon’s distinctive
+gifts. While the corps on the frontier, their march concealed by
+different expedients with consummate art, were collected together
+from the vast distance which extends from Lille and Valenciennes to
+Metz, the corps in the interior were moved forward by degrees, and
+the united masses were brought into contact, at the points indicated
+by their great head and leader. On the evening of the 14th June 1815,
+nearly 128,000 Frenchmen, including 22,000 cavalry, and with 350 guns,
+had effected their junction, on a narrow front, on the very verge of
+the plains of Belgium, a few miles from the banks of the Sambre, and
+converging towards the great main road, running, we have seen, from
+Charleroi to Brussels; and the concentration, if not quite complete,
+was, in the circumstances in which it was made, one of the finest known
+in the annals of war. The Emperor’s left wing, about 45,000 strong,
+composed of the 2nd and 1st Corps, in the experienced hands of Reille
+and D’Erlon, was near the Sambre at Leez and Solre; the centre, nearly
+68,000 men, comprising the Imperial Guard, the 3rd Corps of Vandamme,
+the 6th Corps, with Lobau as its chief, and the cavalry reserves,
+under the command of Grouchy, lay in the country<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> around Beaumont;
+and the right wing, the 4th Corps, led by the brilliant Gérard, and
+numbering perhaps 15,000 soldiers, was, in part, at Philippeville,
+its appointed station, a part, however, being half a march distant,
+the single detachment that had not fulfilled its mission. The purpose
+of Napoleon was to conduct these forces, assembled at his bidding as
+if by magic, at daybreak against the enemy in his camps; to cross the
+Sambre, to enter Charleroi, holding the main road to Brussels before
+referred to; and having taken possession of the adjoining country, and
+overpowered, if possible, any foes in his path, to press on to the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, to occupy on it Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+the two points where the allied commanders would probably attempt to
+effect their junction, and having attained this position of vantage, to
+interpose between their divided armies, completing the first act in the
+drama of the Campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Having made a spirit-stirring address to his troops, Napoleon set
+his army in motion at about 3 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on the 15th of June. The
+left wing was not long in crossing the Sambre; soon after mid-day the
+corps of Reille, that of D’Erlon being some miles behind, had passed
+the bridge which spans the stream near the town of Marchiennes—it
+had been left intact by the enemy—and the great French columns had
+easily pressed back a detachment of the Prussian corps of Ziethen, in
+observation along the frontier. The march of the centre was greatly
+delayed; an advance-guard of cavalry, with a weak support of foot,
+entered Charleroi, indeed, and was over the Sambre a short time after
+the left wing—the bridge at Charleroi, too, was not broken—but an
+accident had kept back Vandamme; and it was past three in the afternoon
+before a part of the Guard, the 3rd Corps, and part of the reserve of
+cavalry had made their way out of the narrow streets of Charleroi,
+Lobau and much of the cavalry being still in the rear. The progress of
+the right wing was even more retarded; it did not move until a part
+at least of its backward detachment had come into line; the march of
+the troops was, in some measure, checked by the villainous treason of
+Bourmont; the country to be traversed was close and difficult; and
+it was about five before it had passed the Sambre, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>even in part,
+across the bridge at Châtelet—unbroken like those of Marchiennes and
+Charleroi—more than half the corps being on the southern bank of
+the river. These delays enabled the bulk of Ziethen’s forces—their
+head-quarters had been at Charleroi—to effect their retreat before the
+advancing French, and frequently to arrest the heads of their columns.
+The Prussian commander had manœuvred ably, though he had greatly erred
+in not destroying the bridges; Ziethen made good his way to Fleurus,
+with a loss of not more than 2,000 men, any hope which Napoleon may
+have entertained of surprising and crushing his isolated corps having
+been at an early hour frustrated. Mainly, too, from this cause, the
+Emperor failed to seize the two points of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+on the cross road from Nivelles to Namur, which had been the object of
+his march on the 15th; and the day, as Charras has said, was, in part,
+incomplete.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_320fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_320fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">“<span class="allsmcap">THE IDOL OF THE SOLDIER’S
+SOUL.</span>”—<i>Byron.</i></p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Napoleon had already attained considerable and most
+promising success; and he might even now reckon on approaching victory.
+As evening closed one division of the left wing, supported by a large
+body of horsemen, was at Frasnes, quite near Quatre Bras; and, in fact,
+it had been prevented from gaining that point only by a demonstration
+made by the young Prince of Saxe Weimar, anticipating his orders by
+several hours. The remainder of the left wing, now under the command of
+Ney—the Marshal had reached Charleroi some time in the afternoon—was
+extended from Gosselies to Jumet, holding the great road from Charleroi
+to Brussels, and from ten to thirteen miles from Quatre Bras, a single
+division approaching the centre; and a march of a few hours could
+place it in force on one of the chief points of the allied line of
+junction. As for the centre, Lobau, and part of the Guard and of the
+heavy cavalry were still near Charleroi; but Vandamme and the great
+body of the Guard and of the cavalry reserve were not far from Fleurus,
+a few miles only from the point of Sombreffe, by which Blücher would
+unite with Wellington, and filling the country back to Charleroi;
+while the right wing of Gérard was at a half march’s distance. The
+main body of the French army, about 100,000 strong, had thus attained
+positions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span> near the allied centre, which already made it difficult in
+the extreme for Blücher and Wellington to combine their forces along
+the road from Nivelles to Namur; if the Emperor had not cut his foes
+in two, he threatened their communication in a most dangerous way; he
+was master of the main road from Charleroi to Brussels almost up to the
+point of Quatre Bras; and notwithstanding several mishaps, he had not
+30,000 men in his rear. He had every reason to assert, as he did, that
+if not wholly, he was, in the main, satisfied with the results of the
+operations of the day.</p>
+
+<p>What had been the dispositions of the allied chiefs, while Napoleon had
+gained this immense advantage? Neither Blücher nor Wellington seriously
+thought that their adversary would venture to invade Belgium, for
+his inferiority of force was well known to them; and Wellington was
+convinced that the Emperor would await the attack of the Coalition,
+as he had awaited it the year before. This partly explains, though it
+does not justify, the dissemination of their scattered forces; and, as
+has been said, it is now conceded that this strategy was essentially
+faulty. They admitted, however, that an attack was possible, and
+everything tends to show that Blücher conceived that an attack on
+his centre and left was the most probable; while the Duke certainly
+believed that the blow would be most likely directed against his right.
+As an attempt, however, against their centre might be made, they had
+made provision for this contingency; and it had been arranged between
+them that should Napoleon advance by Charleroi on the great road to
+Brussels, striking at the point of contact of their inner flanks,
+each should concentrate in force on the road from Nivelles to Namur,
+holding the two positions of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, which they felt
+assured they could occupy in time, though the mass of their armies
+was far distant, and Quatre Bras and Sombreffe were but a march from
+the frontier. These calculations might have proved correct in the
+case of a foe of ordinary powers; but in that of a consummate master
+of his art they were pregnant, as Charras has said, with danger. The
+Duke, however, and Blücher were not surprised, as has been alleged,
+in the true sense of the word, though they were out-generalled by
+Napoleon’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> movement. As early as the afternoon of the 14th of June,
+Ziethen had learned that the French had approached the frontier, and
+he immediately despatched the news to Blücher at his head-quarters,
+miles off at Namur. The Prussian army was about 118,000 strong,
+including 12,000 horsemen and 312 guns; but its four corps were widely
+apart: the first, that of Ziethen, being around Charleroi; the second,
+that of Pirch, in camp at Namur; the third, under Thielmann, to the
+south-east at Ciney; the fourth led by Bülow far away at Liège; and
+it was all but impossible that the collective mass could be united on
+the road from Nivelles to Namur before nightfall on the 16th of June.
+The ardent veteran, however, eager for the fray, at about midnight on
+the 14th, when Napoleon’s advance might be presumed, ordered a general
+concentration of his army on Sombreffe, as had been agreed between
+himself and Wellington; the Prussian chiefs gave proof of extreme
+activity; and while Ziethen, who, as we have seen, had skilfully
+retarded the march of the French, fell back to Fleurus, and thence
+to Sombreffe, Pirch, by the night of the 15th of June, had got near
+Mazy, four miles from Sombreffe, with three of the four divisions of
+his corps, the fourth being a short way in the rear; while Thielmann
+had attained Namur, half a march from the intended point of junction.
+Three corps, therefore, of Blücher’s army could be at Sombreffe on the
+16th by noon, ready to encounter the shock of Napoleon, and doubtless
+expecting support from Wellington. The corps of Bülow, however, could
+not be up in time; notwithstanding his energy, Blücher had assembled
+only three-fourths of his army; and, in the actual position of affairs,
+could he confidently rely on the aid of his colleague?</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, indeed, the French outposts were close to the allied
+line of junction, and Wellington had made scarcely a sign of moving.
+The army of the Duke was about 106,000 men—of these 14,000, or nearly
+so, were cavalry—with 196 guns; and it was spread over even a larger
+space than that of the veteran Prussian warrior. A motley array of
+many races, it had been hastily formed into three masses; the first
+corps, under the Prince of Orange, scattered over an arc from Genappe
+to Mons, and covering two of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> the main roads from the frontier; the
+second, in the skilful hands of Hill, extending westward as far as
+the Scheldt, from near Braine le Comte to Ath, Leuze, and Oudenarde,
+observing, too, the approaches from France; and the third, or the
+reserve, at Brussels, a long distance off, round the head-quarters of
+Wellington. A fraction only of the first corps was thus near the road
+from Nivelles to Namur; the dispositions of the Duke were, in truth,
+made to protect his right and his communications with the sea, and
+time was required before he could send anything like a strong force to
+the support of Blücher. By nightfall on the 15th, when the heads of
+the French column were but a few miles from Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+the army of Wellington had scarcely stirred, and it was some hours
+afterwards before the British chief set it in motion in the direction
+of Blücher, and that, too, slowly, and as if with reluctance. The Duke
+had heard from Ziethen in the afternoon of the day, that the French
+were crossing the Sambre, and near Charleroi, and the intelligence
+was subsequently confirmed by Blücher; but thinking that Napoleon was
+making a feint, and believing that his own right was menaced, he waited
+upon his enemy’s movements, and merely ordered his lieutenants to be
+in readiness. As is well known, indeed, he went to the historical ball
+given at Brussels by the Duchess of Richmond; and it was after ten
+at night, when he had been made aware that Napoleon had mastered and
+passed Charleroi, that he took anything like a decisive step. Hill and
+the Prince of Orange were now directed to concentrate their troops,
+and to move to their left; but they were to hold a line from Enghien
+to Nivelles; the reserve at Brussels was still kept back, and nothing
+like a considerable force was to be drawn towards the allied points of
+junction, or to be so placed as to approach Blücher. The wide interval,
+in fact, from Nivelles to Quatre Bras, and thence by the main road
+to Sombreffe—the communication with the Prussians—-was to be left
+uncovered, and whatever mere partisans may urge, there is not a word to
+be said for this strategy. Happily for the Allies, subordinates of the
+Duke interpreted the situation better than their chief. Saxe-Weimar, we
+have seen, had advanced to Quatre Bras, and checked Ney in his forward
+march, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>Perponcher, a general in the Dutch service, ere long had
+occupied that most important point, though he held it with a single
+division only, which could scarcely offer a prolonged resistance. By
+midnight Wellington gave further orders for a general concentration
+to his left, and the reserve from Brussels was directed towards
+Nivelles; but these orders were extremely late, and it had become most
+improbable that the British commander would be able to master the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, even now almost in the grasp of his enemy, to
+advance along it by Quatre Bras, and approaching Sombreffe, to unite
+with Blücher. It was, indeed, far more likely that the divided armies
+would be attacked, and beaten in detail.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_324">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_324.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">ENGLAND’S HOPE, 1815.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The previsions on which Napoleon had formed the plan of his campaign
+had thus been realised, up to this point, in their main particulars.
+The divergence of the bases of the allied chiefs had left their
+centre weak and ill-joined. It was now, after the retreat of Ziethen,
+connected only by a thread of vedettes; it was within easy distance of
+the French army; and should it be attacked, and cut in two, Blücher
+and Wellington would fall back, and probably separate, happy if they
+escaped a disastrous reverse. Blücher, again, had rushed forward to
+confront his enemy, leaving 30,000 of his troops far off; Wellington
+had paused, hesitated, and not approached his colleague, and an
+admirable chance had been thus afforded to the General of Arcola
+and Rivoli. The allied commanders, in fact, whatever may be said by
+apologists, and by worshippers of success, had laid themselves open to
+a terrible stroke, and though Napoleon is a most exacting critic, I can
+see no answer to his profound remark, that, out-manœuvred as they had
+been on the 15th, Blücher ought not to have made for Sombreffe “already
+under the guns of his enemy,” and Wellington ought not to have tried
+to join him, but that both chiefs should have endeavoured to unite
+on a line, in the rear, between Wavre and Waterloo. Their strategy,
+in short, was bad, and they only escaped defeat owing to a set of
+accidents in which fortune baffled their mighty adversary.</p>
+
+<p>We have reached the morning of the 16th of June, and we turn to the
+operations of the French army, and to the direction given<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span> it by its
+Imperial leader. Napoleon had returned to Charleroi on the night
+of the 15th, to “take repose for his wearied frame”; his physical
+strength had been long declining; and possibly even on the first day
+of the campaign, he began to give proof of those failing bodily powers
+which was certainly exhibited before the contest closed.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Yet,
+though murmurs were heard in the French camp, both Jomini and Charras
+seem to me to reason too much on mere theory, and to fall into the
+error of judging only by the event, when they charge the Emperor with
+sluggishness and delay in his conduct on the morning of the 16th. A
+large part of the French army was still in the rear; Napoleon did
+not and could not certainly know the exact positions of the allied
+armies; he was about to thrust himself between two hostile masses, each
+nearly equal to his own force in numbers; and though he could have
+done more had he been omniscient, the circumstances required caution
+in any forward movement. Be this as it may, his orders were given, at
+Charleroi, at about 8 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; and if they were founded on wrong
+assumptions, they proved his perfect knowledge of his art, and were
+admirably adapted to the events that happened. These orders, contained
+in four despatches, two from the Emperor to Ney and Grouchy, and two
+from Soult, the Chief of the Staff, to the same generals, prove that
+Napoleon did not believe he would be seriously opposed on that day;
+he thought that his left wing would easily pass Quatre Bras, and
+that his centre and right wing would easily pass Sombreffe; and he
+conceived that it was not improbable that he would enter Brussels on
+the morning of the 17th. This calculation was, no doubt, false; but
+it was founded on the true strategic view that Wellington and Blücher
+would not now endeavour to make a stand at Quatre Bras and Sombreffe,
+on the threatened road from Nivelles to Namur; and what Charras and
+others fail to point out, but what the real student of war will dwell
+on, is that, ignorant as he was of the actual facts, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> dispositions
+made by Napoleon were in accordance with sound principles, and fitted
+to meet the situation of affairs. Ney, in command of the left wing,
+was ordered to advance, and go beyond Quatre Bras, concentrating the
+2nd and 1st Corps, supported by Kellerman’s heavy cavalry, and holding
+the great road from Charleroi to Brussels; while Grouchy, entrusted
+in the Emperor’s brief absence, with the centre, the right wing, and
+the cavalry reserves, was to pass Sombreffe, and to attain Gembloux,
+attacking any enemy in his path, and to stand on a parallel line with
+Ney. As the army, however, should be well united, Ney was enjoined to
+detach a division to Marbais, a village near Sombreffe and Gembloux, to
+give support if required to the centre and right wing; and the Emperor
+added that, at about noon, he would be on the spot to assume the
+supreme command.<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p>Napoleon’s orders despatched from Charleroi reached the chiefs of the
+2nd and 1st corps, spread, we have seen, from Gosselies to Jumet, on
+the great road from Charleroi to Brussels, at about 10 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> or
+a little before; they reached Ney at Frasnes at about 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>;
+and as<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Reille and D’Erlon had been directed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> advance by the
+aide-de-camp who carried the Imperial message; Ney might have been in
+possession of Quatre Bras at about 1 or 1.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; at the head
+of 45,000 men, and might have crushed Perponcher’s feeble division, at
+the time standing alone at that place. In that event Ney could have
+seized Quatre Bras, in conformity with the Imperial orders, and have
+made the required detachment on Marbais; and had this been done, the
+16th of June would certainly have witnessed a second Jena. We pass from
+the French left wing to the centre and right wing, directed, we have
+seen, at the time, on Sombreffe, and intended to prolong their march to
+Gembloux. Napoleon had reached Fleurus by 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; the Guard,
+the 3rd and 4th Corps, with most of the cavalry reserves, for a moment
+under the command of Grouchy, had passed, at about 1 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>,
+into the Emperor’s hands; the division detached from the left wing
+on the 15th had come into line, and Lobau, with the 6th corps, was
+marching from the rear. By this time Blücher stood in the path of
+the French in an advance on Gembloux; he was in force on the road
+from Nivelles to Namur, and his three corps held a formidable line,
+extending from Sombreffe almost to Marbais, and fronted by the villages
+of Ligny, St. Amand, and La Haye. Napoleon seems to have disbelieved
+at first that his adversary could be in strength on the field; but at
+2 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> he sent a message to Ney enjoining him to complete the
+movement on Marbais, and to fall on the flank and rear of Blücher, and
+at the same moment the Emperor marched his army from Fleurus against
+his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The armies opposed were about equal in force, if we reckon
+the approaching corps of Lobau; the French being inferior in
+numbers—78,000 to 87,000 men—but having more guns and more numerous
+horsemen; but the superiority of Napoleon’s tactics gave him the
+advantage almost from the first moment. The villages, indeed, before
+the Prussian front proved defences of remarkable strength, and were
+taken and retaken with little results; but Napoleon occupied a full
+third of Blücher’s forces by merely threatening his communications
+to his left. The French batteries caused frightful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span> destruction in
+the Prussian reserves, which had been recklessly exposed; and while
+Blücher brought most of his troops into action, the Emperor husbanded
+his men for a final stroke. The battle, however, was raging furiously
+and wholly undecided at 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; and as Blücher’s rear was not
+assailed from Marbais, and the roar of cannon announced a battle at
+Quatre Bras, Napoleon formed a fresh combination to surprise and to
+overwhelm his enemy. By this time he had no doubt learned that D’Erlon,
+who ought to have been in line with Ney three hours previously, was
+still in the rear; so he sent<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> an order to D’Erlon to turn aside
+from Quatre Bras, and, moving towards Ligny, to fall in full force at
+St. Amand on the right and the rear of Blücher, accomplishing thus,
+in a different way, the results of an attack from Marbais. D’Erlon
+had approached Ligny within an hour, but he had so marched that
+Vandamme pronounced the apparition to be that of an enemy—a part,
+probably, of Wellington’s force—and the Emperor despatched<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> a
+general officer to ascertain how the fact stood, retarding meanwhile
+the course of the battle. Ere long the advancing columns were seen to
+draw off, and to disappear from the field; Ney, in fact, now assailed
+by superior numbers, had angrily ordered D’Erlon to Quatre Bras, and
+D’Erlon, Napoleon at least consenting—the Emperor would have been in
+extreme peril had his left wing been defeated and forced—abandoned
+a movement which, if pushed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span> home, would have given his master a
+splendid triumph.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> It was now 6.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and it was time
+for Napoleon to endeavour to strike a decisive blow, the march of
+D’Erlon having not only ended in a disastrous false movement, but
+caused unfortunate delays at Ligny. During all this time the Prussians
+and French had been engaged in mortal encounter, but Napoleon’s skill
+had borne its natural fruits. Blücher’s left had been held in check
+and paralysed; the Prussian losses had been enormous; the veteran’s
+reserves had been thrown away, and in an effort to outflank Napoleon’s
+left, Blücher had weakened and almost laid bare his centre. The
+Emperor, who had his reserves in hand, launched the Guard and a mass of
+cavalry against the endangered point; the Prussian centre was broken
+after a fierce contest, and Blücher’s whole army was driven from the
+field, the corps of Lobau, which had come up from Charleroi, hanging
+on the retreat of the defeated enemy. The losses of the French were
+about 11,000 men, those of the Prussians not far from 30,000, including
+10,000 disbanded fugitives; but how different would the result have
+been had Ney or D’Erlon fallen on the rear of Blücher!</p>
+
+<p>While the star of Napoleon still shone at Ligny, it had begun to wane
+hard by at Quatre Bras; and the faulty disposition of his left wing
+had saved Blücher from a complete overthrow. We left Ney at Frasnes,
+having received the order of 8 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> at about 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>;
+and the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, we may be quite certain, informed the
+Marshal that he had communicated the order to Reille and D’Erlon,
+the chiefs of the 2nd and 1st Corps, at this moment at Gosselies and
+Jumet, about ten miles off, along the broad highway from Charleroi
+to Brussels. That order directed Ney to advance beyond Quatre Bras,
+collecting his 45,000 men, but making a detachment to the right at
+Marbais; and Ney might have begun at once to execute a movement which,
+if well carried out, would perhaps have changed the fortunes of Europe.
+Ney, at 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, had 9,000 good troops, of whom 4,000 were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>
+fine cavalry, at Frasnes, actually in his hands: his only foe was
+Perponcher’s weak division, 7,000 infantry, with but a few guns, and
+almost wholly unsupported by horse; and the Marshal knew that within
+three hours he might expect the aid of more than 30,000 soldiers,
+including a magnificent body of cavalry. Had Ney, therefore, been the
+chief of Elchingen, he could easily have overwhelmed Perponcher; and
+directing Reille and D’Erlon to expedite their march, he could have
+passed Quatre Bras, and detached to Marbais, at from 1.30 to 2.30
+<span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, without encountering any enemy in force. But, as the
+whole course of the Campaign proves, Ney had become demoralized, like
+most of his colleagues, by the events of 1812–14, and that even in a
+greater degree; he fought with a halter round his neck, and was by
+turns timid and unwisely bold; and he not only did not make a step
+forward, but seems to have made no effort to induce Reille and D’Erlon
+to accelerate their movements and to come into line. This delay saved
+Blücher, and gave Wellington just sufficient time to repair, in part,
+the tardiness and hesitation of the 15th, to check Ney, and to baffle
+Napoleon in the manœuvre he had planned, which would have crushed the
+Prussians. The Duke reached Quatre Bras—but with an escort only, his
+advancing divisions were still distant—at about 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on
+the 16th; and he rode off to near Ligny to confer with Blücher, whose
+faulty arrangements to meet Napoleon he condemned in a characteristic
+phrase—“they will be damnably beaten,” he said to his Staff—but to
+whom he promised support, “if possible.” Meanwhile, Ney showed no sign
+of moving: Reille advanced slowly, and the march of D’Erlon from the
+rear was a succession of delays; and it was 2 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> before
+the French Marshal—one division of Reille had come to his aid—made
+even an attempt to attack Quatre Bras. It is unnecessary to retrace
+the scenes of a combat, in itself not of supreme importance, though it
+had much to do with the issue of the Campaign. Perponcher’s division
+and other supports were nearly overwhelmed at 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; but
+reinforcements came up by degrees, moving in haste from Nivelles and
+other points, which ultimately turned the scale against Ney. The Duke,
+returning from Ligny, displayed on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> the field the intrepidity and the
+genius in defence which were his distinctive gifts in war; and Ney,
+as night closed, retreated on Frasnes, having failed to fulfil his
+appointed mission, which, I repeat, might have been accomplished,
+having, however, prevented Wellington from sending a man to Blücher.
+The Marshal had been supported by Reille’s corps only, and by
+Kellerman’s corps of horsemen; D’Erlon, loitering in the rear, had been
+directed, we have seen, to another field at Ligny, and when recalled by
+Ney came into line too late to be of any use, or even to fire a shot;
+and Ney had conducted the battle ably, and even performed an important
+service, though he had thrown away a part of his superb heavy cavalry.
+He had, however, proved unequal to his task; he had not carried out
+Napoleon’s designs, which ought to have led to Blücher’s ruin, as,
+beyond question, he might have done; and though Reille and D’Erlon,
+especially the last, who contrived on the 16th to do simply nothing,
+are in a greater degree to blame, he cannot escape a share of censure.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the Campaign of 1815 ends with the battles of
+Ligny and Quatre Bras. Napoleon’s operations, up to the evening of
+the 16th, had been attended with marked success, which might easily
+have been complete and decisive. Selecting, with perfect insight, the
+true point of attack, he had conducted his army with admirable skill
+and secrecy to the Belgian frontier; and aiming at the centre of the
+Allies, the weakest and most vulnerable part of their line, he had
+drawn close to it on the 15th June. His enemies had been unable to
+arrest his progress, disseminated on a broad and deep front; and the
+impetuosity of Blücher, and the caution of Wellington, gave him, as
+he had foreseen, a favourable chance to divide his adversaries, and
+to beat them in detail. Blücher had hurried to Sombreffe to confront
+the Emperor, leaving a fourth part of his army behind; the Duke had
+paused, hesitated, and delayed in moving, and it was hours after
+Napoleon had passed Charleroi that Wellington even made an attempt to
+draw near his endangered colleague, even then directing his troops
+to points distant from the selected place of junction. This was the
+situation on the morning of the 16th, and it gave Napoleon a great
+advantage,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> which almost led to a crowning triumph. He may, perhaps,
+have delayed at this moment, though in this judgment I cannot concur,
+and his projects were founded on imperfect knowledge; but his general
+dispositions were so excellent that he ought to have overwhelmed the
+Prussian army. Having directed Ney, with his left wing, to pass Quatre
+Bras and to detach to Marbais, he marched to Fleurus and attacked
+Blücher; and had the attack in front at Ligny been combined with an
+attack in the rear from Marbais, Ligny must have terminated in another
+Jena. Exactly the same result would have followed had D’Erlon, who had
+lagged in the rear, continued his movement upon St. Amand; and a series
+of misadventures alone saved Blücher from a crushing disaster. Ney
+was not equal to his appointed mission; he lost the occasion to reach
+Quatre Bras, to advance, and to occupy Marbais. Reille and D’Erlon
+did not second their chief; and D’Erlon, when launched on the path of
+victory, was turned aside by an order of Ney, Napoleon, I certainly
+think, consenting. The blame of these failures must be divided between
+Ney, Reille, and D’Erlon, who deserves the most; Napoleon, too, may not
+have been bold enough, though this is mere theory after the event; but
+the fact remains that, but for unlucky accidents, Napoleon would have
+annihilated his foe. As it was, Ligny was a real victory. The Prussian
+army lost a third of its numbers, and Blücher was driven from the only
+road by which he could readily join Wellington into a difficult and
+intricate country. Meanwhile, though Ney had not accomplished all that
+his master had a right to expect from him, he had, at the opposite side
+of the line, attacked Wellington and held him in check. The Duke, his
+forces coming up late and in fragments, was unable to send assistance
+to his imperilled colleague; and though he had compelled Ney to fall
+back a little, Ligny made it necessary that he should quickly retreat,
+happy if he could effect his escape. Napoleon had thus succeeded on
+the 16th, though his triumph had been incomplete and partial. He had
+defeated Blücher, and kept Wellington at bay; and, above all, he had
+forced the Allies to abandon the road from Nivelles to Namur, their
+natural and their only easy line of junction. Would they diverge as
+Beaulieu and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> Colli had done, and give the General of the Campaign of
+Italy an opportunity to ruin them in detail? To Napoleon the prospect
+seemed full of promise, and yet all was not light on the scene before
+him. He had not gained a decisive victory. Blücher and Wellington were
+no ordinary foes; their armies nearly doubled his own; might they not
+yet close on the Imperial Eagle, which, terrible and swift as had been
+its swoop, had not thoroughly grasped and destroyed its quarry?</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_050.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one of the last and fiercest struggles at Ligny, Blücher had been
+unhorsed and severely hurt, and the command of the Prussian army
+devolved on Gneisenau, a capable and scientific officer. It was near
+nightfall when Ligny had been won—the delay occasioned by the affair
+of D’Erlon had been injurious in the extreme to the French—and,
+perceiving that no enemy pressed on his rear, Gneisenau halted, and
+made preparations to retreat. But whither was the defeated army to
+move? Was it to fall back on its communications with the Rhine, opening
+to Napoleon the path to Brussels, and separating itself completely from
+Wellington; or was it to endeavour to join its allies, abandoning its
+line of operations for the time, but appealing to Fortune in another
+battle? Gneisenau, urged, it is said, by his heroic chief, who gave the
+order at night from his litter, resolved to adopt the second course;
+and the Prussian army was directed on Wavre, a town about twenty
+miles from Sombreffe, and divided from it by the difficult country—a
+region of hills and lowlands watered by the Dyle—which lay behind the
+road from Nivelles to Namur. Wavre is about nine or ten miles from
+Waterloo, a village in front of the Forest of Soignies, and north of
+a position marked out by Wellington as an admirable field for a great
+defensive battle; and it was this circumstance, well known to Blücher,
+which doubtless led him to fall back on Wavre, in spite of the many
+impediments in the way, impediments which had caused Napoleon to
+expect that, if forced from the road from Nivelles to Namur, Blücher
+would most probably recoil on his base, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span> not attempt to join
+Wellington through a mass of obstacles. By daybreak on the 17th, the
+first corps of Ziethen, and the second of Pirch were on their way to
+Wavre, by Tilly and Gentinnes, villages some miles to the north-west
+of Sombreffe; and the third corps of Thielmann, charged to cover the
+movement, broke up some hours later, and made for Gembloux, one of
+the points, we have seen, which Napoleon hoped to have reached in the
+advance of the day before, and to the east of Tilly and Gentinnes. The
+Prussian army was still greatly shaken, and especially was short of
+food and munitions; but no enemy harassed or observed the retreat; and
+before long it was joined by Bülow, who had hastened to march by Hannut
+to Gembloux, and brought 30,000 fresh soldiers to Blücher.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Wellington, who, as night closed on the 16th, had had at
+Quatre Bras a mass of about 37,000 men, was joined ere long by some
+8,000 more, marched from Brussels and points on his right, and he was
+thus now equal in numbers with Ney, who had by this time his two corps
+in hand<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>; though he was dangerously exposed should Ney and Napoleon
+be able to reach him with their united forces. Owing to an accident
+which befell a Prussian officer, the Duke was not informed of the
+defeat of Blücher until the early morning of the 17th; he thereupon
+resolved at once to retreat, but having been apprised that the Prussian
+army was in full march from Sombreffe to Wavre, and would soon be ready
+to fight again, he decided on stopping the retreat at Waterloo, and
+on awaiting there the attack of the French, if he could rely on the
+support of his veteran colleague. The retrograde movement of the Duke
+from Quatre Bras, screened by a considerable body of horsemen, began
+at about 10 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, and continued for hours; and, in addition
+to his 45,000 men, he summoned about 21,000 at Nivelles, and perhaps
+4,000 more from outlying points, to Waterloo, the scene of the intended
+conflict. Fearful and jealous for his right, however, all through, he
+left a large force near Braine le Comte and Hal; and his whole army, in
+fact, was never concentrated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Allies, falling back from their true line of junction, the main
+road from Nivelles to Namur, were thus trying to unite on a second
+line, by the bad roads from Wavre to Waterloo. This strategy has been
+praised by the worshippers of success, even by soldiers like Charras
+and Chesney, and, in the event, it was more than justified; it was,
+nevertheless, essentially faulty. It is impossible to refute Napoleon’s
+logic; either Blücher, after his defeat at Ligny, ought to have moved
+directly on Wellington’s army, joining it either at Genappe or at least
+at Waterloo, or both the Allied chiefs ought to have fallen farther
+back, to have placed the Forest of Soignies between themselves and
+their foe, and concentrating their forces around Brussels, to have
+opposed 200,000 men or more to the 100,000 of the French Emperor, who,
+in that case, would have been out-generalled and could scarcely have
+ventured to offer battle. The double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo was,
+in fact, an imperfect half measure, so often fatal in the operations
+of war; Wavre was more distant from Waterloo than Sombreffe was from
+Quatre Bras, by certainly two or three miles, and, what was infinitely
+more important, was divided from Waterloo by a most intricate country;
+and, in making this movement, Blücher and Wellington were exposing
+themselves to crushing defeat, and were rendering their junction
+extremely difficult. It was to be assumed that a man like Napoleon
+would be exactly informed of the line of their march, and would do
+what was the best for his interests; and had Napoleon, on the morning
+of the 17th, called on his victorious army to make a great effort, he
+would probably have reached either Blücher or Wellington, still widely
+apart, and beaten either in detail. Nay, had he, collecting his whole
+forces, and moving more slowly, either attacked Blücher at Wavre or
+the Duke at Waterloo, on the 18th, he would almost certainly have won
+a great battle before the Allies could succeed in uniting. Exactly
+the same result would have followed had he, acting on more correct
+principles—and supposing, of course, as was to be expected, that he
+was thoroughly apprised of the allied movements—detached a part of his
+army to hold Blücher in check, and assailed Wellington with the mass of
+his forces; in that case all the chances were that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span> would be able
+to overpower Wellington, and to prevent Blücher at Wavre from sending
+a man to Waterloo. Considering the situation, time, and distance,
+the boasted retreat of the Allies, therefore, cannot be vindicated,
+whatever may be said; it exposed them once more to be defeated in
+detail; and unquestionably their best strategic course was to have
+effected their junction in the rear, on Brussels, thus completely
+baffling their great antagonist and not exposing themselves to danger.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_338fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_338fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">“TAMBOUR, FAITES-MOI CADEAU D’UNE PRISE!”</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The state of affairs, however, in the camp of the French had singularly
+favoured the plan of the Allies, and had already saved them from
+impending peril. Over confident in success, his distinctive fault,
+Napoleon was convinced that the Prussian army had been<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> completely
+routed at Ligny, and could not reappear on the scene for some time; and
+he returned to Fleurus, utterly worn out by the anxieties and fatigues
+of the two preceding days. He appears to have given no explicit
+orders, but he left Soult and Grouchy in temporary command; and these
+lieutenants, experienced as they were, did nothing to repair the gross
+want of vigilance due, probably, to the state of Napoleon’s health.
+Soult seems not to have even sent a message to Ney, a few miles off,
+to the left; no attempt during the night was made to discover the
+line of the Prussian retreat, still less to molest the defeated foe;
+and Grouchy especially, a cavalry chief, instead of reconnoitering in
+every direction to ascertain where the enemy was, despatched only one
+body of horsemen along the road from Sombreffe to Namur, that is, far
+away from the Prussian line of march. In this negligence and slackness
+we see no sign of the marvellous activity of Jena and Ratisbon; and
+Charras, I believe, is perfectly right when he says that Napoleon’s
+“long sleep” at Fleurus made the success of Ligny of no use to him,
+though Charras, always unjust to the Emperor, makes no allowance for
+his physical weakness, and refuses to blame either Soult or Grouchy.
+It was about 9 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on the morning of the 17th when Napoleon
+drove from Fleurus to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>Ligny—he had been extremely unwell for
+hours<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>—and everything tends to prove he had no doubt but that the
+strength of the Prussian army was broken, and his first idea was that
+his own army should take rest<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> on the spot for the day. He ordered a
+grand review of his troops, and spent two hours at least on the field
+of Ligny, distributing rewards and attending the wounded; and it was
+not until near noon—having learned from Ney that part of the British
+army was still at Quatre Bras—that he seems to have resolved on a
+forward movement. By this time Blücher had completely escaped, and,
+in fact, was not many miles from Wavre; the Duke was in full retreat
+on Waterloo; and the chance which Napoleon<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> certainly had, and
+which the youthful warrior of 1796 would most probably have turned to
+account, that of falling either on Blücher or Wellington in the early
+morning of the 17th, had been lost never again to return.</p>
+
+<p>The delay, too, in the operations of the French, coupled with the
+neglect of Soult and Grouchy, had caused the Emperor to remain in
+ignorance of the true direction of Blücher’s march, and had confirmed
+him in a false impression, which, though not the main cause of his
+subsequent ruin, undoubtedly in part contributed to it. Clinging to the
+conception which he had formed from the first, he was now absolutely
+convinced that, after Ligny, Blücher was falling back on his base
+to the Rhine; and the unlucky reconnaissance made in the morning,
+which pointed to a Prussian retreat by Namur—some prisoners and guns
+had been taken by the French—only went to strengthen his erroneous
+judgment. He resolved, therefore, following the grand precedent of
+1796, against Beaulieu and Colli—his cardinal idea in the campaign of
+1815—to direct the mass of his army against Wellington, and to keep
+Blücher<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> away with a force sufficient to hold the defeated Prussians in
+check while he should endeavour to overpower the Duke. This strategy
+was perfectly correct in principle, but the delay of the morning
+had been most unfortunate, and the project was founded on a false
+assumption of the direction taken by Blücher’s forces.</p>
+
+<p>The whole French army—except one division left in reserve, it had
+suffered so much—was now divided into two groups; the first composed
+of the Guard, a part of the 6th Corps, and some 8,000 horsemen,
+marching on Quatre Bras, to unite with Ney, with the 2nd and 1st Corps,
+and about 7,000 cavalry; the second comprising the 3rd and 4th Corps,
+one division of the 6th, and about 5,000 horsemen. The first group,
+about 72,000 strong, with not less than 240 guns, was to be under the
+Emperor’s command, and was intended to reach and attack Wellington; the
+second, some 34,000 men, with from 96 to 100 guns, was the wing that
+was destined to restrain Blücher. Napoleon broke up from Ligny soon
+after noon, and gave the command of this wing to Grouchy, enjoining him
+to “pursue and attack the Prussians, and to keep Blücher continually in
+sight,” and indicating Namur as, most probably, the direction of the
+retreat of the enemy. The Emperor, too, I can have no doubt, informed
+his lieutenant that his mission was<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> to interpose between Blücher
+and Wellington; and, in fact, an experienced chief like Grouchy must
+have understood that this was the object of his being detached from
+the main French army. The direction, however, of the restraining wing
+was late; Blücher had gained fourteen hours on the foe sent against
+him; his retreat was on Wavre, not on Namur; and it had already
+become no easy task to come up with him, and to hold him in check.
+Grouchy, alarmed at what had been devolved on him, expostulated with
+his Imperial master; but Napoleon curtly told him “to find out the
+enemy,” and set off to join Ney at Quatre Bras. He met the Marshal at
+about 2 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; their united forces<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span> were massed together, and
+they were directed against the army of Wellington, for some hours, we
+have seen, in retreat. Ney had continued stationary at Quatre Bras,
+until the Emperor came on to him, and for this inaction he has been
+severely blamed; but the reproach is<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> too exacting, and by no means
+just; the army of Wellington had been placed in safety; and even had
+Ney advanced from Quatre Bras as soon as he saw Napoleon moving from
+Ligny, and pressed on the rear of the British force, he could not
+have gained any marked success. Napoleon began the pursuit at about 3
+<span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, following Wellington along the great road to Brussels,
+leading by Genappe to the Forest of Soignies; but great results were
+no longer possible; the French merely harassed the retiring cavalry;
+and, in fact, an extraordinary tempest of rain made military operations
+practically useless. At about 7 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> the advanced guard of the
+French reached the low hills above La Belle Alliance, in front of the
+position of Waterloo; and in reply to a challenge made by Napoleon,
+the fire of many batteries informed the Emperor that a large army was
+collected at a short distance from him.</p>
+
+<p>We turn to the operations of Grouchy’s wing, detached, we have seen,
+late to follow up Blücher. Grouchy had not set his 34,000 men in
+motion from Ligny until about 3 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and for this he has
+been harshly condemned; but, considering that his troops were widely
+scattered, and that Napoleon did not advance from Quatre Bras until the
+same hour, or nearly so, I am satisfied the censure is not deserved.
+The Marshal, a brave but irresolute man—he had shown what he was at
+Bantry in 1796—was hesitating what direction to take, when a positive
+order from Napoleon came to determine his still uncertain purpose. The
+Emperor, when on his way to Quatre Bras, had received the intelligence
+that a large Prussian force had been seen on the Orneau, not far from
+Gembloux; and he instantly sent off a messenger to Grouchy—through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>
+Bertrand, and not through the Chief of the Staff—every sentence of
+which should be carefully studied. In this important despatch Napoleon,
+we see,<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> believed that Blücher was still falling back, with at least
+the mass of his army, eastwards; but the proximity of the Prussians at
+Gembloux surprised him; and he distinctly pointed out that “Blücher
+and Wellington might endeavour to unite, and to offer battle, in
+order to cover Liège or Brussels.” Suspecting part of the truth,
+but still uninformed, he now ordered Grouchy to occupy Gembloux—he
+evidently thought that from this point the line of Blücher’s retreat
+would be ascertained, and that Grouchy would hold a position between
+the Prussians and the main French army—and he desired Grouchy “to
+communicate with head-quarters,” by “cavalry detachments,” along “the
+road from Namur,” showing thus he believed that the Prussian chief was
+probably retiring in force towards Liège, that is, towards his base on
+the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>This order was still founded on the false impression of the direction
+really taken by Blücher, for Gembloux is to the east of Wavre, and
+thirteen or fourteen miles from that place; but in spite of all that
+the Emperor’s censors have said, it was sufficiently correct to have
+enabled Grouchy, had he been a capable and active chief, to have, in
+the main, fulfilled his mission, and to have interposed between Blücher
+and Wellington. Grouchy set off without further delay—responsibility
+was a heavy load on him; the storm of rain which had kept back Napoleon
+retarded also the Marshal’s columns; the roads, too, to Gembloux were
+exceedingly bad; and it was not until 9 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> that the whole
+force of Grouchy was collected near and around Gembloux, part east of
+the town and part still in the rear. Grouchy had pushed on to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span> Gembloux
+some hours before, with an advanced guard, to endeavour to find out the
+true direction of Blücher’s retreat; but though it is certainly strange
+that this was not discovered beyond the possibility of doubt by this
+time, and the march to Gembloux had been slow, I believe the Marshal
+cannot fairly be blamed. In this position of affairs Grouchy sent a
+despatch to the Emperor, now in front of Waterloo, at 10 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>
+on the night of the 17th, and another at 2 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on the morning
+of the 18th; and these, too, require close attention. In the first
+of these letters Grouchy announced that the Prussian army was still
+falling back, almost certainly formed<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> “into two great columns,” the
+one moving on Wavre by Sart les Walhain, a place a few miles to the
+north-east of Gembloux, the other retiring on Perwez towards Liège;
+and the Marshal added that if “the mass of the enemy had made its way
+to Wavre” he would “follow it up in that direction,” “in order to
+separate Blücher from Wellington.” The second letter has been lost,
+but its contents are known; the Marshal wrote that he was about to
+march on Wavre by Sart les Walhain on the track of Blücher; and this
+is confirmed by a third message,<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> sent to Pajol, one of his light
+cavalry chiefs, which directed a speedy advance on Wavre.</p>
+
+<p>The information thus conveyed by Grouchy was only a partial approach to
+the truth, and it was calculated to mislead Napoleon, and to inspire
+him with disastrous false confidence. Blücher was not retreating in
+two divergent columns; he had never thought of drawing towards Liège;
+and, at this moment, the night of the 17th, the four corps of his
+army, now well supplied and rested, and still numbering about 90,000
+men, with from 270 to 280 guns, had been concentrated around Wavre,
+on either bank of the stream of the Dyle, and ready in the morning
+to march on Waterloo. The knowledge even now acquired by Grouchy was
+amply sufficient to urge that chief to advance on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span> Wavre as quickly as
+possible, for it was by that line only that, from his point of view,
+even one hostile column could join Wellington; and his letters prove
+that he understood his mission. But his messages to Napoleon were of
+such a nature as to cause the Emperor to feel assured—especially as
+this was his own idea—that a large part at least of the Prussian army
+was leagues away in retreat eastward, and could not possibly assist
+the Duke; and, in any case, he had a right to infer that if part of
+Blücher’s forces was at Wavre, Grouchy would be fully able to hold it
+in check. Buoyed up by these hopes, the Emperor spent half the night
+of the 17th in watching the lines of fire which marked the British
+bivouacs, and he had but one fear, that the state of the weather—the
+rain had continued to descend in torrents—would prevent him from
+bringing Wellington to bay, and would enable the English chief to
+decamp ere the morrow. It is, however, a complete mistake to suppose,
+as Charras and other detractors have urged, that the Emperor at this
+critical moment altogether neglected to watch his right, or to keep
+in communication with Grouchy at Gembloux. I cannot, indeed, accept
+his statement,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> for it can hardly be reconciled with the published
+documents, that he directed Grouchy, on the night of the 17th, to
+send a detachment to the main French army, in order to fall on the
+flank of Wellington—the counterpart of the march from Quatre Bras to
+Marbais—though this incident of the campaign has been ill explored;
+and there are reasons to think the order was made, apparently opposed
+to the known evidence. But he sent horsemen to scour the country
+towards Gembloux, and even within some miles of Wavre. He certainly
+ascertained,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> before daybreak on the 18th, that a Prussian column was
+near Wavre, and he communicated, we shall see, the news to Grouchy.
+Relying, however, on the Marshal’s account, he assumed that Grouchy
+would be in sufficient force to paralyze and perhaps destroy this foe,
+and he was justified, from what he had been told, in a supposition of
+the kind.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the morning of the 18th of June, and Napoleon perceived,
+with exulting pride, that Wellington had not attempted to retreat, and
+that the Duke’s army retained its positions. The Emperor felt assured
+of a decisive victory; he was certain that Grouchy could easily master
+any forces that might threaten his right, if such forces were at hand
+at all; and he exclaimed to Ney, as they sate at breakfast, that the
+“chances were ten to one in their favour.” Napoleon had intended to
+have his army in line, and to begin the battle at 9 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>,<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>
+but the severity of the weather had made the ground very difficult
+for the manœuvring of guns. He believed that a grand demonstration
+would shake the nerves of the Belgian and Dutch troops, who had been
+lately in the Imperial service, but who now formed a large part of
+Wellington’s force; and, at the instance, it is said, of Drouot, one
+of his most skilful and trusted officers, he put off the attack for
+nearly three hours, the state of his frame, which needed repose, very
+probably, too, affecting his purpose. This delay was immensely in the
+Duke’s favour. Waterloo, but for it, could hardly have been won, and
+it may truly be said that, on this day, the sun in its courses fought
+against Napoleon. Meanwhile Wellington had drawn together his army,
+about 70,000 strong, comprising 13,000 cavalry, and 160 guns; and
+relying on the pledge of the word of Blücher, who, conquering pain
+and superior to defeat, had promised to come up in line at Waterloo,
+“with his whole army,” by the “forenoon at latest,” he calmly awaited
+the attack of his renowned antagonist. He might, even at this moment,
+have had a much larger force on the ground, for, apprehensive for his
+right to the last, he had left 17,000 men far away at Hal, a strategic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span>
+mistake which cannot be justified, and which placed him in grave peril
+during the ensuing battle.</p>
+
+<p>While Waterloo was being thus prepared, Blücher had broken up from
+his camps round Wavre, intent on carrying the support to his English
+colleague which he felt would secure the Allies a triumph. The veteran
+did not suspect that Grouchy was not far off with 34,000 men; the
+Duke and Blücher, in fact, believed that Napoleon had all his army in
+hand, with the exception of the one corps of Vandamme; and this single
+calculation condemns the generalship of the double movement on Wavre
+and Waterloo; for had Napoleon had 90,000 men to oppose to the 70,000
+of Wellington, and been able to attack early on the 18th, Blücher
+never could have been up in time to avert a defeat that must have
+been certain. No hostile column, however, appeared from Gembloux, to
+threaten the Prussians on their flank march, and yet the difficulties
+and obstacles in the way—imperfectly understood by the Prussian
+staff—were so great that the advance from Wavre was exceedingly slow,
+and perilously delayed. Bülow, starting from beyond the Dyle at break
+of day, was not at Chapelle St. Lambert, with even a few men, until
+noon, still far from Napoleon’s right; Pirch and Ziethen were not in
+march for Waterloo until 11.30 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, and even then lingered;
+and Thielmann, with a considerable part of his corps, was left behind
+to defend Wavre. Nothing but the heroic ardour of Blücher and the
+energy of his fierce soldiery enabled the movement to be made at all,
+and but for accidents and bad generalship I think it could not have
+been accomplished with results leading to success at Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>While Blücher was thus toiling to attain Waterloo, Grouchy was on his
+way from Gembloux to Wavre. To appreciate thoroughly this passage of
+the campaign, I must ask the reader to retrace his steps, and to turn
+back to part of the preceding narrative. Grouchy, sent to Gembloux
+with 34,000 men, to pursue and to attack Blücher, and, doubtless, to
+keep him aloof from Wellington, had not ascertained, even at the close
+of the 17th, the exact positions of the whole Prussian army; but he
+had been informed that part of it was falling back on Liège, and that
+another part was retreating on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span> Wavre; and he had, in the two letters
+cited, apprised Napoleon that “should the mass of the Prussians go
+that way,” he would take care to advance on Wavre, and thus “separate
+Blücher from Wellington.” This information was not wholly correct, but
+it was so to a certain extent; and it ought to have at once suggested
+to Grouchy—a general-in-chief in command of an army, and he perfectly
+understood his mission—the necessity of marching quickly on Wavre by
+the earliest dawn of the 18th; for any Prussian column retiring on
+Liège was abandoning altogether the theatre, and might, therefore,
+be left alone; whereas a Prussian column directed to Wavre would be
+approaching Wellington, and might molest Napoleon. This was the more
+essential, because the Emperor, upon leaving for Quatre Bras, had told
+Grouchy that his intention was to attack the Duke should he make a
+stand “in front of the Forest of Soignies,” the very spot where the
+Duke now was; and also, notably, because the Marshal’s despatches were
+such as would lead Napoleon to think that no Prussians could even
+approach Waterloo. The duty of Grouchy to keep Blücher and the Duke
+apart ought to have induced him likewise, in his march from Gembloux,
+to draw towards Wavre along roads tending towards the Emperor’s
+position and Blücher’s flank, should the Prussians attempt to make for
+Waterloo; for thus only could he accomplish his task, of which he was
+well aware, as his own messages show. These roads existed, and were
+even open; they led across the Dyle by two stone bridges at Mousty and
+Ottignies, left intact as those on the Sambre had been on the 15th;
+and they could have borne Grouchy’s army in seven hours at latest—the
+distance, we have said, is thirteen or fourteen miles—either to
+Wavre, or to intermediate points between Wavre and the Duke’s lines at
+Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>Common sense, therefore, should have inspired Grouchy to leave
+Gembloux as early as possible on the 18th, to divide his troops
+into two columns at least, in order to expedite the march, and to
+make for Wavre by Mousty and Ottignies; and had this been done, I
+agree with Jomini, Blücher would not have made his way to Waterloo.
+Unfortunately, Grouchy, we have seen, had resolved to advance from
+Gembloux on Wavre—and he was hesitating even in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> this purpose—not
+by the roads that would bring him on Blücher’s flank, but by Sart les
+Walhain, and a circuitous road that would place him only on Blücher’s
+rear, and therefore in a much worse position to intercept a Prussian
+flank march on Waterloo; but though this was a grave strategic error,
+it was perhaps not an irreparable mistake. Where Grouchy’s conduct
+cannot be excused, and what condemns him at the bar of history, is
+that, in opposition to his obvious duty and to the rules of mere common
+prudence, he left Gembloux at<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> so late an hour that it became
+difficult to attain Wavre in time to be of much use to Napoleon; and
+that he so disposed his army as to render its march unnecessarily
+and even extraordinarily slow. Instead of breaking up at 3 or 4
+<span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, he did not break up until 8 or 9 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; instead
+of forming his men into two columns at least, he allowed them to march
+in one huge column; and thus hours of inestimable worth were lost, and
+a movement which ought to have been as quick as possible was retarded
+in every conceivable way.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, meantime, had been preparing a grand and decisive attack on
+Wellington. His army had been some time in motion to take the positions
+assigned to it, when he sent off by Soult a message to Grouchy, at
+this moment on his way from Gembloux. In this letter, written at 10
+<span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, the Chief of the Staff informed Grouchy that, besides
+the two columns the Marshal had mentioned, intelligence had been
+received of a third Prussian column falling back on Wavre by Gentinnes;
+and he approved of Grouchy’s intended march on Wavre—inferred from
+the despatch of 2 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>—but he enjoined him to approach the
+Emperor, and to enter into communication with the main French army,
+which, he added, was about to engage in battle “near Waterloo,” before
+“the Forest of Soignies.” By 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, Napoleon’s legions had
+taken their ground on their last field, and the annals of war have
+seldom presented so magnificent and imposing a spectacle, described
+by the Emperor himself in most striking language. The French army,
+spread out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span> like a gigantic fan, resplendent in all the pomp of battle,
+was formed into three great masses; the first, composed of the 2nd
+and 1st Corps, deployed in lines from Mon Plaisir on the left to near
+Frischermont on the extreme right; the second, a superb array of
+cavalry, in line, to the rear of Reille and D’Erlon; and the third,
+in close columns, made up of cavalry, of Lobau’s 6th corps, and of
+the Imperial Guard, intended to deal the decisive stroke. Napoleon’s
+position crossed two roads, one the great highway from Charleroi to
+Brussels, the other a good cross road from Nivelles running into
+the first at Mont St. Jean; and the three arms could concur in the
+attack, though his adversary’s front was protected by obstacles, and
+the rain of fifteen hours had made an attack difficult through dense
+fields of rye and miry enclosures. The Emperor rode in front of his
+line, accompanied by his gorgeous staff; exulting cheers burst from
+the martial host, proud of the renown of a hundred victories; and
+the sight, as Napoleon calculated, made a profound impression on the
+thousands of men in the hostile array who had but recently served under
+the Imperial eagles.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke, however, had his arrangements made; they fully revealed his
+defensive skill; and if some of the auxiliaries had faint hearts,
+he knew that he could thoroughly rely on his British and most of
+his German soldiery. His lines, running from his right to his left,
+extended from beyond Hougoumont, in front of Mon Plaisir, to Papelotte
+and La Haye, in front of Frischermont; but he had some thousands of men
+on his extreme right, holding Merbe Braine and Braine L’Alleud, and
+communicating by vedettes with Hal, where, we have seen, he had left
+17,000 men; and his extreme left had outposts reaching to Ohain, on the
+road to Wavre, whench he expected Blücher. Hill commanded the right
+wing, Picton held the left, the Prince of Orange was at the centre; and
+though the Duke’s army presented a less compact front than that of his
+Imperial foe, it was admirably arranged for a defensive battle. Before
+the position stood the château of Hougoumont, covering the right and
+the right centre of the Duke; beyond was the farm of La Haye Sainte and
+the hamlets of Papelotte and La<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> Haye, advanced posts on his centre
+and left; and these points of vantage had been carefully fortified and
+held by considerable bodies of men, to break the first fury of the
+French attack. Behind these obstacles the main army held a formidable
+position, guarding the two roads from Charleroi to Brussels and that
+from Nivelles; and it had this special characteristic, that its
+possessors could sweep the assailant’s columns at all points with fire,
+and that it afforded cover in the rear to screen the reserves, exactly
+the opposite of the case of the Prussians at Ligny. The Duke, however,
+like all true generals, did not rely only on a passive defence; a
+cross-road just behind the main position enabled all arms to manœuvre
+freely, and the cavalry massed behind the British centre had facilities
+to advance from most points of the line.</p>
+
+<p>I can only attempt a mere sketch of one of the most memorable battles
+of all time. The plan of Napoleon’s attack, in which we perceive
+the last exhibition of his genius in war, was to turn Wellington’s
+left—by many degrees the weakest point of the British position—and,
+simultaneously, to force his centre; success in this operation would
+not only separate the Duke’s army completely from Blücher, but would
+cut off its retreat upon Brussels, and would force it into an intricate
+country where escape from a victorious foe would be difficult. This
+great effort was to be made by the corps of D’Erlon, supported by the
+fire of an array of batteries accumulated in front of La Haye Sainte,
+and thence as far as Papelotte and La Haye; and it was to be sustained
+by the Imperial Guard, by Lobau, and by a large reserve of cavalry; but
+it was to be masked by a feint against Wellington’s right, in order
+to screen the decisive movement, and to draw the enemy’s attention
+away from it. Napoleon gave the signal at 11.30 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, and
+part of Reille’s corps on the Emperor’s left advanced boldly against
+Hougoumont, in front, we have seen, of the right of the British
+position. The château and the adjoining grounds, composed of a wood, an
+orchard and walled enclosures, afforded an excellent centre of defence;
+and though the French surrounded the place in thousands—nearly all
+Reille’s men became <span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span>engaged—and captured most of the approaches to
+the house, and though some of the Duke’s auxiliaries fled, the British
+Guards stubbornly clung to the spot, and made their resistance good
+to the last. The effect of this attack, in which we see precipitate
+haste on the part of the French—a defect in their tactics throughout
+the day—was to weaken most seriously the second corps, and to turn
+a diversion into a principal effort; and this admirably answered the
+Duke’s purpose, for the force of his foe was broken on obstacles, and
+his own position was left intact.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_b_350fp">
+     <img
+    class="p1"   
+    src="images/i_b_350fp.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">PLAN OF the Battlefield of WATERLOO,<br>
+showing positions of OPPOSING ARMIES.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>It was now 1 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and Napoleon was about to send an order
+to Ney for the grand attack, when he descried a body of troops on his
+right, at a considerable distance, near Chapelle St. Lambert, and he
+was soon apprised that this was the advance guard of Bülow’s corps,
+30,000 strong, already gathering menacingly on his flank. The Emperor
+detached Lobau, with 10,000 men, to the right, to hold this new foe
+in check, exclaiming that “Grouchy had lost him thirty chances”; and
+he instantly sent off a message to Grouchy, desiring the Marshal to
+approach Waterloo, and if possible, to fall on the rear of Bülow;
+some indication, perhaps, that Napoleon believed a part of Grouchy’s
+force would be at once available, and possibly showing that the
+disputed order of the previous night may have been given. Meanwhile the
+batteries bearing on Wellington’s line from La Haye Sainte to Papelotte
+and La Haye—a mass of from 70 to 80 guns, opposed by a much weaker
+artillery force—had been carrying destruction into the British ranks;
+and about 1.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> Ney was directed to carry the Duke’s
+left, and to storm his centre. The assailants advanced in four huge
+columns of extraordinary depth, and with their flanks uncovered—this
+vicious formation has been acknowledged, but the author of it is not
+known—they moved slowly through the difficult ground; they swept
+away a Belgian division, which did not attempt to abide their onset;
+but they failed before Picton and his tenacious infantry, though
+they attained the crest of the British position. The Duke seized the
+occasion with perfect skill; and seeing that the French were already
+shaken, he launched against them a mass of heavy cavalry, which, in a
+few moments, carried all before it,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span> forced the enemy’s columns in rout
+backwards, and clinging to their unprotected sides, captured two eagles
+and 2,000 prisoners. The horsemen, pressing the pursuit too far, were
+nearly destroyed by a counter-attack of hostile cavalry from Napoleon’s
+lines; but this magnificent charge completely defeated the first great
+effort made by the Emperor, and had a marked effect on the fortunes of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly 3 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and Napoleon’s prospects, which had
+appeared so brilliant, had become clouded. Bülow had moved forward
+from Chapelle St. Lambert; Lobau, greatly outnumbered, was falling
+back; a messenger had arrived from Gembloux announcing that Grouchy was
+miles distant; and Wellington had completely maintained his position.
+It is difficult to determine what, in this state of affairs, was the
+exact purpose formed by Napoleon; but he probably resolved to watch
+the movement of Bülow; and renouncing his attack on the Duke’s left,
+which would seriously endanger his own right, he turned against the
+British centre, for the present suspending a decisive effort. Ney
+was ordered to seize the advanced post of La Haye Sainte, and the
+place was mastered at about 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>,<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> after a furious and
+well-contested struggle, in which the French cavalry made their power
+manifest. A gap was now opened in Wellington’s front; guns were brought
+up to bear on his line; a part of his troops fell back for shelter
+behind the crest of his main position. Napoleon seems to have believed
+in the beginning of a retreat, and he directed a large part of his
+cavalry reserve, with Ney at their head, to advance on the enemy,
+his purpose being, it seems probable, to sustain the movement by the
+Imperial Guard. The French horsemen advanced in superb confidence;
+carried the eminences held by the hostile infantry, and sent terror
+into the hearts of the inferior troops who crowded the ranks of
+the Duke’s army, though checked by the squares of the British and
+German footmen, who exhibited the most heroic constancy. It seems now
+certain that Napoleon meant to follow up this partial success, when a
+diversion caused<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> him to forego his purpose. Bülow had hesitated to
+make a serious attack; but Blücher had joined his halting lieutenant,
+and the fiery veteran, seeing how critical<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> was the situation of
+Wellington’s army, ordered an immediate advance on Napoleon’s flank.
+The Emperor was now fighting two battles; his attention was for some
+time engrossed in repelling Bülow’s attack on his right; and this,
+indeed, became so formidable that a considerable part of the Imperial
+Guard was required to stem the enemy’s progress. Ney, meanwhile,
+had been making desperate efforts with his cavalry to break the
+British centre; he employed the last reserve of this splendid force,
+undoubtedly against his master’s wishes;<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> but though Wellington’s
+line had been severely shaken, and thousands of fugitives covered his
+rear, and enormous gaps had been made in his army, the enemy’s cavalry,
+unsupported by foot, were unable to force the British position, held by
+squares “rooted,” it has been said, “in the earth.”</p>
+
+<p>The battle was undecided at 7 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; but Bülow’s attack had
+been repelled; Ney maintained his hold on the British front; the
+cannon of Grouchy were heard from Wavre, a pledge that he was keeping
+back the Prussians; and Reille and D’Erlon had made some progress in
+their efforts against the British right and centre. Napoleon thought
+his opportunity had come; a final stroke, he believed, would secure
+him victory, and forming the Guard into two great columns, supported
+by guns and the wreck of his cavalry, he directed one against the
+Duke’s centre, holding the second in reserve to sustain the movement.
+Wellington’s army had suffered immense losses; death, desertion,
+flight, had carried off thousands; undoubtedly he was in serious peril;
+and he now probably felt how grave had been the error of leaving 17,000
+men at Hal. But, though “night or Blücher,” significant words which
+fell from him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span> showed that he knew his danger, he had made everything
+ready to meet his foe; and drawing in his right wing behind his centre,
+he had even now a powerful reserve to oppose to Napoleon’s supreme
+effort. The onset of the first column of the Guard for a time overbore
+all resistance; but it was arrested by the British Guards, by the
+renowned 52nd, and by a division of Dutchmen led by Chassé, and the
+defeated column swayed slowly backward, expecting the support of the
+approaching reserve. The needful assistance was never to come. Just
+at this moment part of the two corps of Ziethen and Pirch came into
+line. The French right was suddenly rent asunder, and a mass of British
+cavalry flooding the plain spread confusion and panic through the
+beaten army. The Duke now ordered a general advance; a terrible scene
+of ruin and disaster followed. The Imperial Guard fought nobly to the
+last; but the rest of Napoleon’s routed troops became a mere chaos of
+dissolving fugitives, pursued with relentless hate by the Prussians,
+and scattered along the roads that lead across the Sambre. Not thirty
+thousand men of the perishing host were ever, probably, seen under arms
+again. The losses of the victors were not less than 22,000 or 23,000
+men, and nearly 7,000 of these were Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon at Waterloo gave little proof of the energy and resource of
+Jena and Austerlitz. The plan of his attack was, indeed, perfect, and
+during the greater part of the day he was in a position of extreme
+difficulty, and he was badly seconded by his lieutenants, who displayed
+feverish impatience and great want of caution. But he did not prevent
+the waste of his troops round Hougoumont; he allowed Ney to engage a
+large part at least of his cavalry in a premature movement; he did
+not seize the occasion he perhaps had to attack in full force before
+Bülow’s diversion. He was remiss and inactive throughout the battle;
+and this was due, there is now no doubt, to physical exhaustion<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and
+long impaired health. The Duke, on the other hand, was the soul of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span>
+the defence; he conducted the battle with wonderful skill, directing
+every movement at the right moment, making counter attacks when these
+were opportune, keeping a sufficient reserve for the supreme trial,
+and breathing into his men his stern sense of duty, his tenacity, and
+inflexible constancy. His management of the contest was so admirable
+that he held his ground, though he had expected Blücher in force on the
+field before mid-day, and though, humanly speaking, he must have lost
+the battle but for the intervention of the Prussian army—his composite
+force of 70,000 men, much weaker in guns, was not to be compared to the
+72,000 troops under the Emperor’s flag—still, I venture to think that
+even without this aid, he would not have suffered the crushing defeat
+on which Napoleon’s hopes for the campaign rested. His one mistake, in
+fact, on this memorable day was the isolating 17,000 men at Hal; this
+certainly exposed him to real danger; but then this was a strategic not
+a tactical error. Nevertheless, Waterloo was decided by combinations
+outside the field; and we turn to the operations of Grouchy, the main
+cause, I believe of Napoleon’s overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>The Marshal breaking up, we have seen, from Gembloux at least five or
+six hours too late, and marching with extraordinary slewness, reached
+Sart les Walhain at about 11:30—he was still eight or ten miles from
+Wavre—and at that place the thunder of cannon, far to the left, gave
+token of a great distant battle. Gérard, with true insight, at once
+urged Grouchy to cross the Dyle by Mousty and Ottignies, and to draw
+near the Emperor, known to be at Waterloo; for by so doing, Gérard
+justly argued, Wavre would be turned should it be attacked, and the
+French would attain the flank of Blücher, who, Gérard felt certain,
+was trying to join Wellington. Grouchy refused to listen to sagacious
+counsels, which, had they inspired him twelve hours before, would have
+perhaps changed the course of events in Europe, and which even now
+might have borne fruit; and he set off with his whole force for Wavre,
+where he expected to find the Prussian army. By this time Bülow was
+at Chapelle St. Lambert, but with a weak advanced guard only. Pirch
+and Ziethen were just breaking up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span> from Wavre, and Thielmann was about
+to join them; but a great change took place in the Prussian movements
+when, at about 1 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, intelligence came that the enemy was
+approaching Wavre. Part of the corps of Pirch was ordered to fall back;
+the march of Ziethen was greatly retarded; and Thielmann was directed
+to remain at Wavre, and to make head against the scarcely expected
+foe. By 4 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, Grouchy was close to Wavre, having marched on
+the place, not across the Dyle towards the flank of Blücher, but along
+the river, thus striking Blücher’s extreme rear, and pushing him, so
+to speak, on Wellington; the Marshal opened fire at once on the town,
+having just received Soult’s letter of 10 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, which, no
+doubt, sanctioned an advance on Wavre, but ordered Grouchy to approach
+the Emperor. It is useless to follow the events of a combat of no
+importance to the result of the campaign; Thielmann, with only 18,000
+men, contrived to hold Grouchy some hours in check; and meanwhile
+Bülow, completely free to act, and Pirch and Ziethen, all danger
+removed, succeeded in reaching Waterloo and in crushing Napoleon. Yet,
+bad as it was, the position of Grouchy made the Prussians cautious
+and kept them back; Pirch and Ziethen were only just up in time; and
+of an army of 90,000 men, not 50,000 made their way to Waterloo. By
+7 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> Grouchy received the letter of 1 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, sent
+off from Napoleon’s lines at the news of the apparition of Bülow; the
+Marshal crossed the Dyle, and tried to approach the Emperor; but the
+movement was now altogether too late; the French army and its chief had
+succumbed.</p>
+
+<p>The junction of Blücher and Wellington, therefore, led to the
+overwhelming defeat of Waterloo; but for this, Napoleon would have won
+the battle—the chances, at least, were all in his favour—despite the
+tactical errors of the French, and the admirable defensive resource of
+Wellington. It follows that the great and capital question, as regards
+this part of the Campaign of 1815, is, Could Grouchy have prevented
+this junction, for if he could, he must be held responsible for the
+catastrophe which befell the Emperor? The answer must largely depend
+on conjecture; but an impartial student of war, I think, especially
+if he can weigh evidence, will give it distinctly in the affirmative.
+Considerations,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> obvious and yet decisive, should have urged Grouchy,
+we have seen, to leave Gembloux in the early dawn of the 18th, to cross
+the Dyle at Mousty and Ottignies, and to approach Wavre as quickly
+as possible; the idea, it will be observed, flashed on Gérard’s mind
+the moment he heard the cannon of Waterloo. If the Marshal had taken
+this rational course, he would have been over the river at about 11
+<span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>,<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> and, in that event, as affairs stood, he would
+have seriously menaced the flank of Bülow, toiling painfully, in long
+straggling columns, on the way from Wavre to Chapelle St. Lambert, and
+he would have been nearer Napoleon’s lines than the corps of Ziethen,
+of Pirch, and of Thielmann, still near Wavre, and not on the march for
+Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>What, in these circumstances, would Blücher have done, giving him
+full credit for his daring and energy? He would have been surprised
+in a perilous flank march, through a difficult and almost impassable
+country, for he had no conception that Grouchy would be near; and
+his army would have been almost divided by an enemy threatening its
+separate parts. In this state of things I cannot doubt but that he
+would not have permitted Bülow to advance farther, or his three
+remaining corps to make a move towards Waterloo, until he had disposed
+of Grouchy; he would have drawn the mass of his forces together. All
+this would have been an affair of hours. Grouchy could have made a
+prolonged resistance, and, meanwhile, Napoleon, free to bring the
+whole strength of his more powerful army against the Duke, would
+have triumphed over his much weaker enemy. The same results would,
+have, perhaps, followed had Grouchy, without attempting to cross
+the Dyle, reached Wavre at 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, as he might have done;
+Pirch, Ziethen, and Thielmann would not have moved; Bülow, isolated,
+would not have dared to attack, and the French army would still have
+gained a victory. Even had Grouchy, at the eleventh hour, listened to
+the excellent advice of Gérard, and crossed the Dyle at Mousty and
+Ottignies, he might possibly have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span> averted a complete catastrophe. The
+movement could not have interfered with the attack of Bülow, but it
+might have arrested Pirch and Ziethen, and it was these chiefs who, at
+the last moment, dealt the French army the final mortal stroke.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible, therefore, to acquit Grouchy; he is mainly to
+blame for the result of Waterloo. This conclusion, however, has been
+assailed, with confidence, on two lines of argument. Napoleon, it is
+said, was not aware, from first to last, whither Blücher had gone; he
+despatched Grouchy from Sombreffe too late; Gembloux was not the true
+point on which the force of the Marshal should have been directed.
+Napoleon gave Grouchy no precise orders; he misled his lieutenant,
+and kept him in the dark; he approved, late on the 18th, the march on
+Wavre, and he has, therefore, to thank himself for his own overthrow.
+We may grant the premises, yet they do not sustain the inference or
+exonerate Grouchy. Admitting that Napoleon believed that Blücher was
+falling back on his base after Ligny; that he should have sent Grouchy
+on his track much sooner; and that Gembloux was not the best place
+to be assigned for the restraining wing; still, it was the duty of
+Grouchy, knowing what he had learned on the 17th, to have left Gembloux
+at daybreak on the 18th, and marched rapidly on or towards Wavre; and
+had he done this, he would, I believe, have stopped the Prussians
+and averted Waterloo. As for Napoleon not having given directions to
+Grouchy of an exact kind, and having sanctioned the tardy advance on
+Wavre, the first statement assumes that Grouchy was not an independent
+general-in-chief, in command of a distinct army, and the second is
+opposed to the known evidence. Napoleon approved of the march to Wavre,
+but not at a late hour, or at a snail’s pace; he certainly thought,
+and had a right to think, if a Prussian force existed at Wavre—the
+reader will recollect the letter of the 18th, pointing to his growing
+suspicion of the fact—that his lieutenant would be able to hold it in
+check, and this required an early and speedy march from Gembloux. This
+reasoning, in fact, errs in two respects; it ascribes to the mistakes
+Napoleon made results with which they are not chargeable; it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> assumes
+that Napoleon, in front of Wellington, was to instruct Grouchy, in
+front of Blücher, in his conduct, in the minutest details; it takes for
+granted that Grouchy, the head of the army, was a mere puppet to be
+directed in every operation he was to undertake, and that by his chief
+at a wide distance from him. The argument, when examined, falls to the
+ground; it cannot stand the test of impartial criticism.</p>
+
+<p>The second contention, urged by Charras, rests on the fact that the
+army of Grouchy was very much weaker than that of Blücher; but though
+made with a parade of science, it does not mislead a true student of
+war. Grouchy, the argument runs, had but 34,000 men to oppose to the
+90,000 of Blücher; the Prussian was an able, nay, a great soldier; and
+had Grouchy done all that man could do, he could not, his force was so
+inferior, have prevented the junction of Blücher and Wellington, and
+conjured away the disaster of Waterloo. Assume that Grouchy manœuvred
+rightly, had left Gembloux at the first possible moment, had marched
+rapidly, had seized Mousty and Ottignies, and had mastered the Dyle
+before mid-day, his adversary would have at once recognized, that the
+Prussians were nearly three to one to the French, and this would have
+determined Blücher’s purpose. The Prussian marshal, aware of this fact,
+would have sent Pirch and Ziethen to hold Grouchy in check, and marched
+on Waterloo with Bülow and Thielmann; or he would have allowed Grouchy
+to draw near his flank, and, fending him off, would have moved on
+Wellington with three-fourths of his army at least; and in either case
+he would have joined the Duke, and both would have overwhelmed Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>This looks well on paper, and in mere theory; but is contradicted by
+the realities of war. Had Grouchy attained the Dyle by noon, he would
+have completely surprised Blücher, have caught him with an army far
+apart, on a flank march of the most critical kind; and in this position
+of affairs it is morally certain that Blücher would have reconnoitred
+and paused, would have waited to draw together his army, and would
+have fought a pitched battle with Grouchy, before he even thought of
+uniting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span> with Wellington. In that event, inferior in numbers as he was,
+Grouchy would have detained the Prussians for hours; Blücher would
+have lost the chance of joining the Duke; and Waterloo would have
+been a French victory. The lessons of war, and the great authority of
+Jomini in this matter, confute the reasoning of a partizan censor,
+and the very incidents of the day point to the same conclusion. The
+mere apparition of Grouchy on the wrong bank of the Dyle, late as the
+hour was when he had approached Wavre, delayed the general movement
+of the Prussian army; and half of it never attained Waterloo. How
+different must the result have been had Grouchy crossed the Dyle at
+the true point, and gathered upon the flank of Blücher; in that case
+not even one Prussian division would, I think, have come to the aid of
+Wellington.</p>
+
+<p>Grouchy, in short, was the Emperor’s evil genius on the great and
+terrible day of Waterloo; Napoleon has written, with perfect truth,
+that he could no more foresee his lieutenant’s conduct than he could
+assume that Grouchy would be swallowed up, with his army, by an
+unexpected earthquake. The Campaign of 1815 may be summed up in a
+few sentences. Striking at the extreme right, for the time isolated,
+of the hosts about to invade France, and screening the movement with
+wonderful skill, Napoleon collects an army of 128,000 men on the edge
+of France, running into Belgium, his object being to attack Blücher
+and Wellington, commanding about 224,000 men, but whose two armies
+were widely divided, in scattered groups, from Liège to Ghent and
+Charleroi. The Emperor, aiming at the allied centre, the weakest and
+most assailable point, begins the movement on the 15th of June; he
+does not, owing to a set of accidents, reach the strategic points
+of Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on the true line of junction of his
+antagonists, the lateral road from Nivelles to Namur; but his columns
+at nightfall are close to these, and his adversaries already are placed
+in danger. Blücher, meanwhile, acting as Napoleon had hoped, marches to
+Sombreffe with three-fourths of his army only; the Duke, fulfilling the
+expectations of his foe, lingers, hesitates, and delays his movements;
+and on the 16th Napoleon has a grand chance of reaching and beating
+his enemy in detail.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span> His plans, if formed on a false impression, are
+nevertheless so correct in principle, that had they been carried out
+ably the Prussian army must have been destroyed; but Ney, Reille,
+and D’Erlon failed: the Emperor is perhaps over-cautious in not
+pressing D’Erlon’s advance on St. Amand; and Blücher escapes, through
+misadventures, which alone save him from complete ruin. Ligny, however,
+is a real French victory; and, meanwhile, Ney, though unequal to his
+task, fights an indecisive action at Quatre Bras; and though forced to
+fall back, he so far succeeds that he prevents Wellington from sending
+aid to his colleague, and, in fact, gains a strategic advantage. The
+close of the 16th sees Napoleon victorious upon the main scene of the
+contest, having only just failed to make Ligny a counterpart of the
+rout of Jena.</p>
+
+<p>The 17th has come; the Allies, compelled to abandon their proper line
+of junction, retreat separately and in distant groups on a second line,
+between Wavre and Waterloo; they intend ultimately to unite on this;
+and this project, though crowned with success, was false strategy
+that might have proved their ruin. The French army, on this eventful
+day, makes a long halt not easy to explain; the retiring enemy is not
+pursued or watched; and this delay and remissness—utterly unlike the
+energy of Napoleon on the path of victory—and probably largely due
+to his declining health, save Blücher and Wellington from the gravest
+peril, and singularly aid their future projects. Napoleon does not
+move until noon from Ligny, his purpose being to attack Wellington,
+for several hours falling back on Waterloo; he has a noble army 72,000
+strong to cope with 70,000 men of the Duke, more than a third of these
+being inferior troops; and he detaches Grouchy, with about 34,000,
+to pursue Blücher and to keep him away from Wellington. The Emperor
+follows the Duke from Quatre Bras, and finds his adversary in force
+near Waterloo; and meantime, though he remains convinced that Blücher
+is retiring on his base, he directs Grouchy to occupy Gembloux, having
+heard that Prussians were approaching that place. Grouchy reaches
+Gembloux by the night of the 17th; he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span> informs his master that the
+Prussian army is in retreat in two great masses, one directed to Wavre,
+the other to Liège: and he shows that he understands his mission, and
+that he will endeavour “to separate Blücher and Wellington.” This
+report perfectly reassures the Emperor; he makes preparations for a
+decisive battle; but the elements interfere to retard his purpose, and
+he does not attack the Duke until near noon on the 18th. Meanwhile
+Grouchy, whose plain duty it was to leave Gembloux early, and to march
+on Wavre across the Dyle on the flank of Blücher as rapidly as his
+troops could move, breaks up hours too late, proceeds with strange
+slowness, and reaches Wavre in the afternoon only, striking Blücher
+in the extreme rear, but still detaining a part of his army. During
+all this time the great fight of Waterloo has been raging with varying
+fortunes; the French tactics are faulty, the Duke’s admirable. In
+the afternoon Bülow reaches Napoleon; the Emperor is engaged in a
+double battle. Ney recklessly squanders his master’s cavalry, but
+Bülow is for a time repulsed; and the Emperor makes a final effort to
+break Wellington’s centre with the Guard. The attack fails, but all
+is not over until part of two fresh Prussian corps turns the scale
+decisively against the French, and Waterloo ends in a frightful rout.
+The Prussians, in fact, who might have been detained by Grouchy, were
+all but left free to advance on Waterloo; they reached the field in the
+very nick of time. Grouchy kept back directly only 18,000 men; and yet,
+miserable as his operations were, they indirectly retarded the Prussian
+army, a significant proof of what might have occurred had Grouchy been
+a capable chief.</p>
+
+<p>Having reviewed the incidents of this great Campaign, let us disengage
+the permanent lessons it teaches an impartial student of war. Napoleon
+operated with too small an army: 128,000 men could hardly overcome
+224,000. He had a right to count on his transcendent genius; he had
+no right to assume that the Allies would make the grave strategic
+mistakes they made, or would give him the opportunities they gave. In
+consequence of this numerical weakness he was compelled to divide his
+army into two masses not sufficiently connected by an intermediate
+body; and this partly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span> explains, though it does not excuse, the errors
+of Ney to the left on the 16th, and those of Grouchy to the right
+on the 18th. Had the Emperor had the 20,000 men he had intended to
+bring into the field, he would have had a force sufficient to fill
+this interval, and in that event he would have doubtless triumphed.
+The intellectual powers of Napoleon were splendidly exhibited in the
+contest; his plan for the Campaign is a masterpiece of art; his plan of
+attack at Waterloo defies criticism; his general ideas, though he made
+mistakes—for the greatest generals must necessarily err—reveal the
+wholly unrivalled strategist. His bodily strength, however, failed him:
+to this, I doubt not, we ought to ascribe the delays and carelessness
+of the 17th, and certainly this weakness had much to do with the
+inactivity and slackness he betrayed at Waterloo. It may well be,
+too, that his complete faith in himself had been diminished by recent
+events. Like Richard at Bosworth, he has recorded—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>I had not the alacrity of spirit,</div>
+        <div>Or cheer of mind that I was wont to have;</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>and the great player against Fate may, in this mighty hazard, have
+thrown his last die with a trembling hand. We may perhaps see
+hesitation, and even timidity, in his allowing D’Erlon to return to
+Quatre Bras, and in not pressing the movement on St. Amand home;
+and the same shortcomings may be possibly traced in his not seizing
+a real chance at Waterloo, when La Haye Sainte had been taken, and
+before Bülow had made a serious attack on his flank. Yet it was his
+lieutenants’ errors that lost the campaign; on the 16th they failed
+on the left; Grouchy, on the 18th was worse than useless; and we can
+understand his bitter expression that victory was twice wrested from
+his hands through incomprehensible faults of subordinates. In this
+campaign, so to speak, the sun of Austerlitz seems about to break out
+in its old splendour; but malignant influences intercept its rays, and
+it sets at last in disastrous night.</p>
+
+<p>To turn to the Allies, Blücher and Wellington were adversaries of
+a very different kind from the Beaulieu and Colli of 1796. Both
+certainly, made great strategic mistakes; both were more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span> than once
+in imminent peril; and we see in their conduct the divided counsels
+repeatedly fatal to a Coalition and its chiefs. But both, in different
+ways, were great soldiers; they cordially co-operated in a common
+design; and the heroism of Blücher, mastering defeat, and the tenacity
+and tactical skill of Wellington, are admirable specimens of great
+parts in war. Another cause of the ultimate success of the Allies
+should be carefully noted. Napoleon, in his last address to his troops,
+referred scornfully to the Prussians of Jena, and exclaimed “Are not
+we and they the same men?” and like many great chiefs he took no heed
+of national and patriotic passion. The Prussian army of 1815 was not,
+however, “the same men” as the Prussian army of 1806; it was fired
+with an intense hatred of France, and with an intense love of the
+Fatherland; and it was capable of very different efforts from those
+of the serf-like troops of Brunswick. Napoleon, relying on former
+experience, believed that the army defeated at Ligny would recoil
+on its base, and, beyond doubt, would not make a dangerous march on
+Waterloo; but the reasoning of strategy, as has often happened, was
+baffled by the ardour of a devoted soldiery; though had Grouchy been
+equal to his task all this energy would have come to nothing. In Spain
+and Russia Napoleon had suffered immense disasters from his inborn
+contempt of patriotic and popular sentiment; and this indifference
+had something to do with the final issue of the strife at Waterloo.
+But when all has been said, the Emperor’s genius all but triumphed in
+the campaign of 1815; he was nearly successful although opposed to
+adversaries almost twofold in numbers; and victory was only wrested
+from him through the mistakes of others. Notwithstanding Zama, Hannibal
+remains the pre-eminent figure of ancient war; Napoleon is the great
+captain of modern times, though ruin overtook him on the plains of
+Belgium.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2" 
+    src="images/i_050.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center xs">Printed by W. H. Allen &amp; Co., Limited, 13, Waterloo Place, London, S.W.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Napoleon Correspondence</i>, vol. xxxi., p. 365.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Compare this with the movement, described on p. 8, which
+was made by Gustavus Adolphus in pursuit of Tilly.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> French armies had before this taken many of these
+fortresses, but they had been retaken on the first turn of fortune.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Napoleon never made use of lines of this kind, but nothing
+escaped him, and he had the example of Torres Vedras; at St. Helena he
+made admirable observations on this system of defence.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Every real student of the wars of the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries knows the difficulty of forming anything like
+a just estimate of the numbers of the armies in conflict. This is
+mainly due to the systematic practice of enumeration by battalions and
+squadrons, bodies always in a state of change; and besides, national
+pride and interest have obscured the truth. I have taken some pains to
+collate the authorities, and to arrive at an estimate approximately
+correct.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> This march, in fact, strongly resembles Eugene’s famous
+march up the Po in 1706, described by Napoleon as “a marvellous piece
+of audacity,” but it was far more perilous.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Coxe, though a dull is a conscientious writer, and
+occasionally he had good military assistance. Alone, as far as I know,
+of commentators on the campaign of 1704, he points out the risk to
+which, at this juncture, Eugene and Marlborough were exposed. Napoleon
+wrote on Marlborough, but his observations have never been published;
+it would be most interesting to know his judgment on this passage in
+the campaign.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> It is more difficult to arrive at an estimate of the
+strength of the contending armies in the case of Malplaquet than in
+that of any other great battle of the war. I think my calculation is
+fairly accurate.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> “<i>Semper et ubique fideles</i>” was the proud and
+well-merited device on the flag of the Irish brigade.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> This is the sagacious and just judgment of Wellington, a
+genius of quite a different kind, but a great admirer of Napoleon.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Bulletin of the Grand Army the day after the battle:
+“L’armée ennemie était nombreuse et montrait une belle cavalerie; ses
+manœuvres étaient executées avec précision et rapidité.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> This saying has been ascribed to Napoleon; it belongs to
+Turenne: “Les plus habiles sont ceux qui font seulement le moins de
+fautes.”—<i>Memoires</i>, p. 5. Ed. Hachette, 1877.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> The last words of Napoleon’s despatch to Masséna are
+characteristic: “Activité. Activité, vitesse! Je me recommande à vous.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> The monarchies and aristocracies of old Europe had
+an immense opinion of the Archduke Charles; but his reputation has
+steadily declined. He was as inferior to Napoleon as Pompey, the
+admiration of the Roman patricians, was to Cæsar.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> “Mais, Monseigneur, figurez vous qu’au lieu de Bonaparte,
+c’est Jourdan que vous avez devant vous,” was the exclamation of
+an aide-de-camp, when the Archduke was in this mood of fear and
+hesitation.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> See a masterly paper, from Wellington’s hand, on the
+campaign of 1812. The Duke’s knowledge of the facts is not complete,
+for the <i>Napoleon Correspondence</i> had not yet been published; but
+the criticism is admirable. I have made ample use of it in this sketch.
+<i>Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field-Marshal the Duke
+of Wellington, K.G.</i>, vol. iii., 1866.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Napoleon was certainly unwell; poison has been suspected;
+but probably he was again showing signs of disease.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> It has been said—and the fact is probable—that the
+general scheme of the operations of the Allies was formed by Moreau, a
+chief of the second order, but a capable, sagacious, and far-sighted
+soldier. Their strategy was better than that of the Russians in 1812,
+and than their own in 1814.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Owing to the losses of the French by disease, desertion,
+and defection, it is impossible to determine, even approximately, the
+numbers of the Grand Army in this part of the campaign. Those of the
+Allies are better known; but patriotism and pride have tended to make
+them smaller than they were.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Napier insists on this, though he was so enthusiastic an
+idolator of Napoleon that he is not an impartial judge.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Napoleon’s exultation at his feats and those of his army
+was extravagant. “Ce qu’ils ont fait,” he wrote on 12th February, “ne
+peut se comparer qu’aux romans de chevalerie et aux hommes d’armes
+de ces temps où, par l’effet de leurs armures et l’adresse de leurs
+chevaux, un en battait trois ou quatre cents.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Lord Caetlereagh, who was at this council, could not
+comprehend why Blücher and Schwartzenburg could not defeat Napoleon
+with their enormous superiority of numbers; and demurred to the
+expense—England was the paymaster of the Coalition—of bringing
+up Wintzingerode and Bülow. “Milord,” said a bystander, “vous ne
+connaissez pas cet homme!”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> The authorities on the state of Napoleon’s health during
+the campaign of 1815 will be found in Mr. Dorsey Gardener’s book on
+Waterloo, pp. 34, 36.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> “Si le maréchal Grouchy eût campé devant Wavre le soir
+du 17, l’armée prussienne n’eut fait aucun détachment pour secourir
+l’armée anglaise.”—<i>Correspondence</i>, vol. xxxi., p. 213. No
+doubt Grouchy could not have reached Wavre on the night of the 17th,
+but he might have been there at 11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on the morning of the
+18th; and the result would have been practically the same. Bülow would
+not have attacked, or perhaps even approached Waterloo, had he been
+isolated.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Jomini knew more about Napoleon than any other
+commentator on the Emperor and is naturally astonished at the delays
+of the 17th of June. The real cause was not then known, but Jomini’s
+words are significant. <i>Précis de la Campagne de 1815</i>, p. 185.
+“Pour ceux qui se rappellent l’étonnante activité qui présida aux
+évènements de Ratisbonne en 1809, de Dresde en 1813, de Champaubert et
+de Montmirail en 1814, ce nouveau temps perdu sera toujours une chose
+inexplicable de la part de Napoléon.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Lord Wellesley’s epitaph, chosen by himself, is
+strikingly characteristic:—“Super et Garamantas et Indos protulit
+imperium.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> It is most remarkable how many of the Irish Protestant
+aristocracy have distinguished themselves in India. Besides the two
+Wellesleys, the names of Eyre Coote, of Gough, of the Lawrences, of
+Canning, of Dufferin, will at once occur to the reader. This, no doubt,
+may in part be traced to their hereditary ascendency over the Celtic
+Irish.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Napoleon wrote thus to Clarke 18th August 1809: “Quelle
+belle occasion on a manquée! 30,000 Anglais et 150 lieues des côtes
+devant 100,000 hommes des meilleures troupes du monde! Mon Dieu! qu’est
+ce qu’une armée sans chef!”—<i>Correspondence</i>, vol. xix., p. 362.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> Napoleon received the news of Salamanca on the eve of
+Borodino. His criticism of Marmont is striking and just.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> I refer to the combined forces of the Allies. The Duke’s
+army was from 100,000 to 106,000 strong, counting all the troops in
+Belgium.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> This is the expression of Napoleon in a somewhat
+analogous case. The orders of a Government, if not precise, obviously
+should not excuse a general-in-chief on the spot.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Chanzy, a singularly modest and truthful man, gives
+this account of the state of the Germans after the retreat to Le
+Mans: “L’ennemi, contenu partout, était devenu de moins en moins
+entreprenant; il était facile de voir que pas plus que les nôtres,
+ses troupes n’avaient pas résisté à la fatigué; ses hommes étaient,
+eux aussi, grandement démoralisés par cette resistance d’une lutte
+qui se reproduisait constamment, alors qu’ils la croyaient terminée;
+le désordre se mettait parfois dans ses colonnes malgré sa solide
+organisation et sa discipline.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> This message from Berlin, at this juncture, is very
+significant:—“La position militaire est regardée comme critique dans
+les cercles bien informés. On a des inquietudes sur l’issue finale de
+la lutte.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> My limits preclude me from citing extracts from these
+authorities. But I shall, when it is required, indicate them; and I
+hope I shall accurately express their meaning and purport.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Napoleon had shown signs of illness in the campaigns of
+1812, 1813, and 1814, and was in bad health in 1815. Mr. Dorsey Gardner
+in his useful work on Waterloo, pp. 34–36, has adduced ample evidence
+to prove that Napoleon was unwell and out of sorts on the 16th, 17th,
+and 18th June; and this, I know, was remarked by Soult on the morning
+of Waterloo.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> After the publication of these despatches, and of other
+documents, especially those collected by the son of Ney, we must reject
+Napoleon’s statement that Ney received “positive orders,” to occupy
+Quatre Bras on the evening of the 15th, and to advance from that
+place, “at daybreak,” on the 16th. Still, I think Napoleon indicated a
+movement of the kind to his lieutenant on the 15th; the <i>Moniteur</i>
+of the 18th contains a despatch of the 15th, which announces that “Ney
+had his head-quarters at Quatre Bras.” The point, however, is not of
+very great importance; had the Emperor’s orders of 8 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> on
+the 16th been intelligently and rapidly carried out, Ney would have
+done all that was required, and Napoleon would have gained decisive
+success.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> The failure of Ney to attain Quatre Bras, and to send
+a division to Marbais, before the arrival of a sufficient part of
+Wellington’s army to arrest the Marshal’s progress, saved Blücher
+from destruction on the 16th of June, and was fraught with the most
+momentous consequences, and the truth on this subject has been
+studiously concealed. Charras and the detractors of Napoleon, eager to
+condemn the Emperor, and English writers, desirous of hiding what might
+have happened through Wellington’s tardiness, concur in insinuating
+that Reille and D’Erlon were not to begin their movement until they had
+received their orders from Ney, who would have to send despatches from
+Frasnes back to them, and contend, therefore, that Ney could not have
+been in great force at Quatre Bras before 3.30 or 4.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>,
+at which time he was fully engaged with Wellington, and could not
+even master Quatre Bras. This, however, is a complete mistake: Reille
+and D’Erlon have acknowledged that they received the order for their
+movement from the aide-de-camp at about 10 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; and, in
+fact, Ney could have swept all before him at Quatre Bras soon after 1
+<span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, and have made the detachment to Marbais, had the order
+been properly carried out. See the letters of D’Erlon, of Reille, and
+of Durutte, quoted by the Prince La Tour D’Auvergne in his book on
+Waterloo, p. 149, p. 170, and p. 171.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> A host of witnesses, Soult is the most conspicuous—his
+well-known testimony of the 17th of June, the day after Ligny, has
+been shamefully garbled by Charras—have proved that Napoleon sent
+this order to D’Erlon; and the fact, I conceive, is indisputable. It
+is denied, in the face of the evidence, by those only who, seeking to
+censure Napoleon and to excuse Wellington, pretend that the Emperor
+had not the means of gaining a decisive victory over Blücher after
+1 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> on the 16th of June. Even after the failure of the
+projected movement from Marbais the means were ample; D’Erlon would
+have annihilated Blücher had he struck the Prussian right and rear at
+St. Amand.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> This was Dejean, a favourite aide-de-camp of Napoleon.
+As the evidence shows that the Emperor ordered D’Erlon to Ligny, so it
+indicates that he must have permitted D’Erlon to abandon his march,
+and to retrace his steps towards Quatre Bras when peremptorily ordered
+to do so by Ney. This, in the events which happened, was over-caution,
+for D’Erlon would have destroyed Blücher had he carried out Napoleon’s
+order, and Ney, hard pressed as he was at Quatre Bras, could have held
+his ground against Wellington without the aid of D’Erlon; and this,
+I conceive, is the reason that Napoleon’s commentaries on this most
+important subject are vague and unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> D’Erlon detached a division to observe St. Amand before
+he counter-marched to Quatre Bras. This division, however, merely
+reconnoitred, and took no part in the battle; it was simply useless.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> With Kellerman’s heavy cavalry.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> “L’armée Prussienne a été mise en déroute” is the
+expression of Soult, in the well known letter of the 17th, written
+under the eye perhaps of Napoleon, certainly according to his ideas.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> Dorsey Gardner (p. 34) cites conclusive testimony to show
+“that Napoleon went to bed immediately after the close of the battle of
+Ligny, and was in such a condition that none of his staff dared enter
+his chamber to procure his sanction for vitally important orders, and
+that on the morning of the 17th there was the same impossibility of
+getting access to him.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> See, again, Soult’s letter of 17th, “La journée
+d’aujourd’hui est nécessaire pour terminer cette opération, et pour
+compléter les munitions, rallier les militaires isolés et fair rentrer
+les détachements.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> What Napoleon might have accomplished on the morning of
+the 17th is very ably shown by Charras (p. 203, vol. i.), but with too
+much regard to mere theory.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> This has been denied by Grouchy, but is distinctly to be
+inferred from his own letters; and, as Jomini observes, the situation
+dictated the order. Gerard, who however, is unjust to Grouchy, declares
+that Napoleon gave the most precise instructions nearly to this effect.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> Napoleon, conscious of the evil results of the delays of
+the 17th, condemns Ney for not having fallen on Wellington, at least
+when the Imperial army was on the march. This criticism, however, is
+not well founded, or even honest. Napoleon had a right to complain of
+Ney on the 16th and 18th, not on the 17th.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> The operations of Grouchy on the 17th and 18th of June
+had a decisive effect on the issue of the campaign, and have been
+the subject of volumes of controversy. I have relied mainly on the
+papers written at the time, but in part guided by Jomini’s sagacious
+direction. Napoleon, writing at St. Helena, was largely ignorant of the
+details of these movements, and is unjust to his luckless subordinate.
+Thiers, and authors of the Napoleonic school, exaggerate the unfairness
+of the Emperor; on the other hand, Charras, Chesney, and others are
+not trustworthy authorities, and are thoroughly prejudiced against
+Napoleon. This part of Charras’ book is the theoretic reasoning, after
+the event, of a malignant partisan critic.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> Grouchy also incidentally refers to a third column
+retreating by Namur.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> This despatch was discovered by the Prince La Tour
+D’Auvergne (see his book on <i>Waterloo</i>, p. 318), and is of extreme
+importance. It was written “at daybreak, on the 18th, and ordered Pajol
+to hasten to Tourinnes, “<i>afin que nous poussions en avant de Wavre,
+le plus promptement possible</i>.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> This is one of the most obscure and disputed passages of
+the campaign. Napoleon positively declares that he ordered Grouchy to
+detach 7,000 men from Gembloux to attack Wellington, and he is followed
+by Thiers and a number of writers. But, as Charras and others have
+fairly pointed out, no copy of the order can be found in the register
+of the Chief of the Staff; the name of the bearer has never been given,
+and the order seems inconsistent with a subsequent message sent to
+Grouchy in the morning of the 18th. Still there are indications that
+the order was given; Napoleon would hardly utter an audacious falsehood
+on such a subject. Thiers narrates an anecdote which confirms his
+conclusion; and, as we have already seen, the Emperor did not always
+convey his directions through Soult. The matter, however, is scarcely
+of the capital importance ascribed to it by some writers.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> This is placed beyond doubt by Prince La Tour D’Auvergne,
+<i>Waterloo</i>, p. 251, and disposes of the able but ill-founded
+remarks of Charras.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Detractors of Napoleon and encomiasts of the Allies have
+concurred in endeavouring to excuse Grouchy. They begin by referring to
+the state of the weather on the morning of the 18th as accounting for
+Grouchy’s delay in leaving Gembloux. It is enough to reply that Bülow
+started for Waterloo at daybreak through a most difficult country.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> I cannot accept General Shaw Kennedy’s statement that La
+Haye Sainte was not taken until 6 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>; it is contradicted by
+every other contemporaneous authority.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> See on this point Blücher’s official account of Waterloo,
+never contradicted by Wellington. English writers will not acknowledge
+the enormous importance of Bülow’s attack.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Napoleon, to the latest hour of his life, attributed to
+Ney the sacrifice of his last cavalry reserve, and declared it was one
+main cause of the rout of Waterloo. Ney acted recklessly on the 18th
+June; he had the hot fit and cold fit of a desperate man by turns in
+this campaign.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> Dorsey Gardner, on the authority of two of Napoleon’s
+staff officers, gives this account of the Emperor at Waterloo (p.
+36): “he remained motionless, for long intervals, seated at a table,
+frequently sinking upon it.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> Grouchy might, I think, have been over the Dyle before
+11 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; but I accept the time of Charras, who has made it as
+late as possible; “before noon” is his exact phrase.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="transnote">Transcriber’s Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
+corrected silently.<br>
+<br>
+2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
+been retained as in the original.</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77267 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77267
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77267)