Decrès considered himself to have settled the whole question, and
to have convicted Nelson of being simply a bold blockhead--Nelson,
the man of the hundred fights--the prince of tacticians--the admiral
who had never been beaten, and from whom, at the battle of Aboukir,
Decrès himself was rejoiced to make his escape, after having seen the
ruin of the French fleet.
We find a good deal of the same sort of petulant perversion, in the
narrative of Nelson's conduct at Naples. M. Gravière suddenly becomes
moral, and tells us the ten-times-told story of Lady Hamilton. But
what is all this to the naval war? Englishmen are not bound to defend
the character of Lady Hamilton; and if Nelson was actually culpable
in their intercourse, (a matter which actually has never yet been
_proved_,) Englishmen, who have some morality,--not Frenchmen, who
make a point of laughing at all morality--may upbraid his conduct.
But a French stoic is simply ridiculous. There are perhaps not fifty
men in all France, who would not have done, and are not doing every
day, where they have the opportunity, all that this moralist charges
Nelson with having done. Even if he were criminal in his private
life, so much the worse for himself in that solemn account which all
must render; but he was not the less the conqueror of Copenhagen,
Aboukir, and Trafalgar.
The hanging of Caraccioli also figures among the charges. We regret
that this traitor was not left to die of remorse, or by the course of
nature, at the age of eighty. We regret, too, that he could allege
even the shadow of a capitulation for his security. We equally regret
the execution of Ney under a similar shadow. But Caraccioli had been
an _admiral_ in the Neapolitan service, had joined the rebellion by
which rapine and slaughter overspread the country, and had driven the
King into exile. No man more deserved to be hanged, by the order of
his insulted, and apparently ruined King;--he _was_ hanged, and _all_
rebels ought thus to suffer. They are made for the scaffold.
The men who plunge a kingdom in blood, whose success must be
purchased by havoc, and whose triumph makes the misery of thousands
or millions, ought to make the small expiation which can be made by
their public punishment; and no country _can_ be safe in which it
is not the custom to hang traitors. Still, those acts, even if they
were of an order which might shock the sensibility of a Frenchman to
breach of treaty, or the sight of blood, have no reference to the
talents and the triumphs of Nelson.
But these volumes suddenly deviate from the history of the great
admiral, into remarks on the great living soldier of England. There,
too, we must follow them; and our task is no reluctant one; for it
enables us at once to enlighten intelligent inquiry, and to offer our
tribute to pre-eminent fame. But, in this instance, we argue with our
accomplished neighbours on different principles. The Frenchman loves
glory--the Englishman its fruits. The Frenchman loves the excitement
of war; the Englishman hates it, as mischievous and miserable, and to
be palliated only by the stern necessity of self-defence. He honours
intrepidity, but it only when displayed in a cause worthy of human
feeling. No man more exults in the talent of the field; but it is
only when it brings back security to the fireside. The noblest trophy
of Wellington, in the eyes of his country, is the thirty years of
peace won by his sword!
It has become the fashion of the French to speak of this illustrious
personage with something of a sneer at what they pronounce his "want
of enterprise." Every thing that he has done is by "_phlegm_!" Phlegm
must be a most valuable quality, in that case, for it enabled him
to defeat every officer to whom he had been opposed; and there was
scarcely any man of repute in the French army to whom he had not been
opposed. It is in no spirit of rational taunt, or of that hostility
which, we will hope, has died away between England and France, that
we give the list of the French marshals whom Wellington has fought,
and _always_ beaten, and several of them _several times_:--Junot at
Vimeira, Soult at Oporto and the Pyrenees, Victor and Sebastiani
at Talavera, Massena at Busaco, Marmont at Salamanca, Jourdan at
Vitoria, and a whole group of the chief generals of France, with Ney,
Soult, and Napoleon himself, at their head, at Waterloo.
But have the British military authors ever doubted the talent, or
disparaged the gallantry, of those distinguished soldiers? Certainly
not; they have given them every acknowledgment which ability and
bravery could demand. Let the French nation read the eloquent pages
of Alison, and see the character given by the historian to the
leaders in the Italian, German, and Spanish campaigns. Let them read
the spirited pages of Napier, and see them decorated almost with the
colours of romance. Does either of these popular and powerful authors
stigmatise the French generals with "_ineptie_," or characterise
their victories, as the mere results of inability either to attack or
to run away? Let them be the example of the future French military
writers, and let those writers learn that there is a European
tribunal, as well as a Parisian one.
But the French altogether mistake the question. Men like Wellington
are not the growth of any military school, of any especial army,
or of any peculiar nation. Without offering this great soldier any
personal panegyric, he was a military _genius_. Since Marlborough,
England had produced no such commander of an army, and may not
produce another such for a century to come. Nelson was similarly a
_genius_: he sprang at once to the first rank of sea-officers; and
England, fertile as she is in first-rate sailors and brave men, may
never produce another Nelson. Napoleon was a _genius_, and almost
as palpably superior to the crowd of brave and intelligent generals
round him, as if he had been of another species. The conduct of men
of this exclusive capacity is no more a rule for other men, than
their successes are to be depreciated to the common scale of military
good fortune. The campaigns of Napoleon in Italy; the sea campaign
in which Nelson pursued the French fleet half-round the globe, to
extinguish it at Trafalgar; the seven years' continued campaign of
Wellington in the Peninsula, finished by the most splendid march in
European history, from the frontier of Portugal into the heart of
France, have had no example in the past, and can be no example to
the future. The principle, the power, and the success, lie equally
beyond the limits of ordinary calculation. The evident fact is, that
there is an occasional rank of faculty, which puts all calculation
out of sight, which is found to produce effects of a new magnitude,
and which overpasses all difficulties, by the use of an intellectual
element, but occasionally, and but for especial purpose, communicated
to man.
We have no doubt whatever of the truth of this solution, and are
consequently convinced, that it would have been much wiser in M.
Gravière to have attempted to describe the career of Wellington, than
to pronounce on the principles of his science; and, above all, than
to account for his victories by the very last means of victory--the
mere brutishness of standing still, the simple immobility of passive
force, the mere unintelligent and insensate working of a machine.
"What a contrast," exclaims the Frenchman, "between these passionate
traits (of Nelson) and the _impassive bearing_ of Wellington, that
_cool and methodical_ leader, who _maintained_ his ground in the
Peninsula by the _sheer force of order and prudence_! Do they belong
to the same nation? Did they command the same men? The admiral, full
of enthusiasm, and devoured by the love of distinction, and the
general, so _phlegmatic_ and _immovable_, who, intrenched behind
his lines at Torres Vedras, or re-forming, without _emotion_, his
_broken_ squares on the field of Waterloo--(where not a single
British square was broken)--seems rather to aim at _wearying out his
enemy_ than at _conquering him_, and triumphs _only_ by his patient
and unconquerable firmness."
Must it not be asked, Why did the French suffer him to exhibit this
_firmness_? why did they not beat him at once? Do generals win
battles merely by waiting, until their antagonists are tired of
crushing them?
But the Frenchman still has a resource--he accounts for it all by
the design of a higher power! "It was _thus_, nevertheless, that
the designs of Providence were to be accomplished. It gave to the
general, destined to meet _incontestably superior_ troops(!!),
whose _first_ efforts were _irresistible_, that _systematic_ and
_temporising_ character, which was to _wear out_ the ardour of
our soldiers." Having thus accounted for the French perpetuity of
defeat on land, by a man of stupidity and stone; he accounts, with
equal satisfaction, for the perpetuity of defeat at sea by a man of
activity and animation. "To the admiral who was to meet squadrons
fresh out of harbour, and easily disconcerted by a sudden attack,
Providence gave that fiery courage and audacity which alone could
bring about those great disasters, that would _not_ have been
inflicted under the rules of the old school of tactics."
The Frenchman, in his eagerness to disparage Wellington as dull, and
Nelson as rash, forgets that he forces his reader to the conclusion,
that tardiness and precipitancy are equally fit to beat the French.
Or if they are _incontestably_ superior troops, and their first onset
is _irresistible_, how is it that they are beaten at the last, or are
ever beaten at all? We also find the curious and rather unexpected
acknowledgment, that Providence was always against them, and that it
had determined on their _defeat_, whether their enemy were swift or
slow.
We are afraid that we have been premature in giving M. de la
Gravière credit for getting rid of his prejudices. But we shall
set him a better example. We shall not deny that the French make
excellent soldiers; that they have even a sort of national fitness
for soldiership; that they form active, bold, and highly effective
troops: though, for them, as sailors, we certainly cannot say as
much. Henry IV. remarked "that he never knew a French king lucky
at sea;" and Henry spoke the truth. And the wisest thing which
France could do, would be to give up all attempts to be a "naval
power,"--which she never has been, and never can be--and expend her
money and her time on the comforts, the condition, and the spirit of
her people, both citizens and soldiery.
But, we must assist the French judgment on the character of
Wellington: and a slight detail will prove him to be the most
_enterprising_ leader of troops in the history of modern Europe.
Let us first settle the meaning of the word enterprise. It is not a
foolish restlessness, a giddy fondness for the flourish of Bulletins,
or a precipitate habit of rushing into projects unconsidered and
ineffective. It is activity, guided by intelligence; a daring
effort to attain a probable success. The French generals, in the
commencement of the revolutionary war, dashed at every thing, and yet
were not entitled to the praise of enterprise. They fought under the
consciousness that, unless they attracted Parisian notice by their
battles, they must pay the penalty with their heads. Thus nearly all
the principal generals of the early Republic were guillotined. The
_levée-en-masse_ gave them immense multitudes, who _must_ fight, or
starve. The Republic had _fourteen_ armies at once in the field, who
_must_ be fed; commissioners from Paris were in the camps; and the
general who declined to fight on all occasions, was stripped of his
epaulets, and sent to the "Place de Grève."
But enterprise, in the style which distinguishes a master of
strategy, is among the rarest military qualities. Marlborough
was almost the only officer, in the last century, remarkable for
enterprise, and its chief example was his march from Flanders
to attack the French and Bavarian army, which he routed in the
magnificent triumph of Blenheim. Wolfe's attack on the heights of
Abraham was a capital instance of enterprise, for it showed at once
sagacity and daring, and both in pursuit of a probable object,--the
surprise of the enemy, and the power of bringing him to an engagement
on fair ground.
But enterprise has been the _chief_ characteristic of the whole
military career of Wellington.
His first great Indian victory, Assaye, (23d September 1802,) was an
"enterprise," by which, in defiance of all difficulties, and with
but 5000 men, he beat the army of Scindiah and the rajah of Berar,
consisting of 50,000, of which 30,000 were cavalry. There, instead
of _phlegm_, he was accused of rashness; but his answer was, the
_necessity_ of stopping the enemy's march; and, more emphatic still,
a most consummate victory.
On his landing in Portugal, at the head of only 10,000 men, (August
5, 1808,) this man of phlegm instantly broke up the whole plan of
Junot. He first dashed at Laborde, commanding a division of 6000 men,
as the advanced guard of the main army; drove him from the mountain
position of Roliça; marched instantly to meet Junot, whom he defeated
at Vimeira; and, on the 15th of September, the British troops were in
possession of Lisbon. The French soon embarked by a convention, and
Portugal was free! This was the work of a _six-weeks'_ campaign by
this passive soldier.
The convention of Cintra excited displeasure in England, as the
capture of the whole army had been expected, from the high public
opinion of the British commander; and the opinion would not have been
disappointed, if he had continued in the command. The testimony of
Colonel Torrens, (afterwards military secretary to the Duke of York,)
on the court of inquiry, was, "That, on the defeat of the French at
Vimeira, Sir Arthur rode up to Sir Harry Burrard and said--'Now, Sir
Harry, is your time to advance upon the enemy; they are completely
broken, and we may be in Lisbon in _three days_.' Sir Harry's answer
was, 'that he thought a great deal had been done.'" The army was
halted, and the French, who felt that their cause was hopeless, sent
to propose the convention.
On the 22d of April 1809, Sir Arthur again landed in Portugal, to
take the command of the army, consisting of but 16,000 men, with 24
guns. His plan was to drive Soult out of Oporto, fight the French,
wherever he found them; and then return and attack Victor on the
Tagus. Such was the project of the man of phlegm! He made a forced
march of 80 miles, in three days and a-half, from Coimbra, crossed
the Douro, drove Soult out of Oporto, ate the dinner which had been
prepared for the Frenchman, and hunted him into the mountains, with
the loss of all his guns and baggage. The French army was ruined for
the campaign. This was the work of _three weeks_ from his landing at
Lisbon!
Sir Arthur's next enterprise was an advance into Spain. The kingdom
was held by a French force of upwards of 200,000 men, with all the
principal fortresses in their possession, the Pyrenees open, and
the whole force of France ready to repair their losses. The Spanish
armies were ill commanded, ill provided, and in all pitched battles
regularly beaten. The French force sent to stop him at Talavera, on
his road to Madrid, amounted to 60,000 men, under Jourdan, Victor,
and Sebastiani, with King Joseph at the head of the whole. The battle
began on the 27th of July, and, after a desperate struggle of two
days, with a force of nearly three times the number of the British,
ended by the rapid retreat of the French in the night, with the loss
of 20 pieces of cannon and four standards. The Spanish army under
Cuesta did good service on this occasion, but it was chiefly by
guarding a flank. Their position was strong, and they were but little
assailed. The British lost a fourth of their number in killed and
wounded; the French, 10,000 men.
The purpose of these pages is, not to give a history of the
illustrious Duke's exploits, but to show the utter absurdity of the
French notion, that he gained all his battles by standing still,
until the enemy grew tired of beating him. There is scarcely an
instance in all his battles, in which he did not _seek_ the enemy,
and there is _no instance_ in which he did not beat them! This is a
sufficient answer to the French theory.
The ruin of the Spanish armies, and the immense numerical superiority
of the French, commanded by Massena, compelled the British general,
in 1810, to limit himself to the defence of Portugal. Massena
followed him at the head of nearly 90,000 men. The British general
might have marched, without a contest, to the lines of Torres Vedras;
but the man of _phlegm_ resolved to fight by the way. He fought at
Busaco, (September 27.)
Massena, proverbially the most dashing of the French generals--the
"Enfant gâté de la Victoire," as Napoleon styled him--could not
believe that any officer would be so daring as to stop him on
his road. On being told that the English would fight, and on
reconnoitring their position, he said, "I cannot persuade myself that
Lord Wellington will risk the loss of his reputation; but, if he
does, _I shall have him_."
Napoleon, at Waterloo, was yet to utter the same words, and make
the same mistake. "Ah! je les tiens, ces Anglais."--"To-morrow,"
said Massena, "we shall reconquer Portugal, and in a few days I
shall drive the leopards into the sea." The day of Busaco finished
this boast, with a loss to the French of 2000 killed, 6000 wounded,
and with the loss, which Massena, perhaps, felt still more, of his
military reputation for life.
But the lines of Torres Vedras must not be forgotten in any memorial,
however brief, to the genius of Wellington. The great problem of
all strategists, at that period, was "the defence of Portugal
against an overwhelming force." Dumouriez and Moore had looked only
to the frontier, and justly declared that, from its extent and
broken nature, it was indefensible. Wellington, with a finer _coup
d'oeil_, looked to the half-circle of rising grounds stretching
from the Tagus to the sea, and enclosing the capital. He fortified
them with such admirable secrecy, that the French had scarcely heard
of their existence; and with such incomparable skill, that, when they
saw them at last, they utterly despaired of an attack. They were on
the largest scale of fortified lines ever constructed, their external
circle occupying forty miles. The defences consisted of 10 separate
fortifications, mounting 444 guns, and manned by 28,000 men. They
formed two lines, the exterior mounting 100 guns, the interior (about
eight miles within) mounting 200; the remaining guns being mounted
on redoubts along the shore and the river. The whole force, British
and Portuguese, within the lines, and keeping up the communication to
Lisbon, was nearly 80,000 men.
The contrast without and within the lines was of the most striking
kind, and formed a new triumph for the feelings of the British
general. Without, all was famine, ferocity, and despair; within,
all was plenty, animation, and certainty of triumph. Massena, after
gazing on those noble works for a mouth, broke up his hopeless
bivouac; retired to Santarem; saved the remnant of his unfortunate
army only by a retreat in the night; was hunted to the frontier;
fought a useless and despairing battle at Fuentes d'Onore; was
beaten, returned into France, and resigned his command. He was
thenceforth forgotten, probably died of the loss of his laurels, and
is now known only by his tomb in the Cemetery of Paris.
In October of the year 1811, though the British army had gone into
winter quarters, the man of "_passive_ courage" gave the enemy
another example of "enterprise." The fifth French corps, under
Gerard, had begun to ravage Estremadura. General Hill, by the order
of Lord Wellington, moved against the Frenchman; took him by surprise
at Aroyo de Molinos; fought him through the town, and out of the
town; captured his staff, his whole baggage, commissariat, guns, 30
captains, and 1000 men. He drove the rest up the mountains, and, in
short, destroyed the whole division--Gerard escaping with but 300 men.
The French field-marshal here amply acknowledged the effect of
enterprise. In his despatch to Berthier from Seville, Soult
says,--"This event is so disgraceful, that I know not how to qualify
it. General Gerard had choice troops with him, yet shamefully
suffered himself to be _surprised_, from excessive presumption and
confidence. The officers and soldiers were in the houses, as in the
midst of peace. I shall order an inquiry, and a severe example."
The next year began with the two most splendid sieges of the war. A
siege is proverbially the most difficult of all military operations,
requiring the most costly preparations, and taking up the longest
time. Its difficulty is obviously enhanced by the nearness of a
hostile force. Wellington was watched by two French armies, commanded
by Soult and Marmont, either of them of nearly equal force with his
own, and, combined, numbering 80,000 men. Ciudad Rodrigo was one of
the strongest fortresses of the Peninsula; Marmont was on his march
to succour it. Wellington rushed on it, and captured it by storm,
(January 19.) Marmont, finding that he was too late, retired. Badajoz
was the next prize, a still larger and more important fortress. Soult
was moving from the south to its succour. He had left Seville on
the 1st of April; Wellington rushed on it, as he had done on Ciudad
Rodrigo, and took it by one of the most daring assaults on record,
(April 7.)
This was again the man who conquered "by standing still." The letter
of General Lery, chief engineer of the army of the south, gives the
most unequivocal character of this latter enterprise. "The conquest
of Badajoz cost me eight engineers. Never was there a place in
a better state, or better provided with the requisite number of
troops. I see in that event a marked _fatality_. Wellington, with
his Anglo-Portuguese army, has taken the place, as it were, in the
presence of two armies. In short, I think the capture of Badajoz a
_very extraordinary_ event. I should be much at a loss to account for
it in any manner consistent with probability." The language of this
chief engineer seems, as if he would have brought all concerned to a
court-martial.
The conqueror, after those magnificent exploits, which realised to M.
Lery's eye something supernatural--the work of a destiny determined
on smiting France--might have indulged his _passiveness_, without
much fear even of French blame. He had baffled the two favourite
marshals of France--he had torn the two chief fortresses of Spain
out of French hands. There was now no enemy in the field. Soult had
halted, chagrined at the fall of Badajoz. Marmont had retired to the
Tormes. Wellington determined to continue their sense of defeat, by
cutting off the possibility of their future communication. The bridge
of Almarez was the only passage over the Tagus in that quarter.
It was strongly fortified and garrisoned. On this expedition he
despatched his second in command, General Hill, an officer who never
failed, and whose name is still held in merited honour by the British
army. The _tête-du-pont_, a strong fortification, was taken by
escalade. The garrison were made prisoners; the forts were destroyed,
(May 19.) The action was sharp, and cost, in killed and wounded,
nearly 200 officers and men.
Wellington now advanced to Salamanca, the headquarters of Marmont
during the winter; and pursued him out of it, to the Arapeiles, on
the 22d of July. In this battle Marmont was outmanoeuvred and
totally defeated, with the loss of 6000 killed and wounded, 7000
prisoners, 20 guns, and several eagles and ammunition waggons.
The British army now moved on Madrid. King Joseph fled; Madrid
surrendered, with 181 guns; and the government of Ferdinand and the
Cortes was restored.