[6] Incidentally it should be noted how true it is that this supreme
military quality is a matter of organisation rather than of the physical
power of troops; in the Napoleonic wars the marching power of the
English troops was often proved exceptional, and perhaps the greatest of
all feats accomplished by a small body was that of the Light Brigade
marching to the succour of Wellington at Talavera.
[7] I must not, in fairness to the reader, neglect the great mass of
opinion, from Jomini to Mr. Fortescue’s classic work upon the British
Army, which lays it down that the Allies had but to mask the frontier
fortresses and to advance their cavalry rapidly along the Paris road.
Historical hypothesis can never be more than a matter of judgment, but I
confess that this view has always seemed to me to ignore--as purely
military historians and especially foreign ones might well ignore--the
social condition of “’93.” Cavalry is the weakest of all arms with which
to deal with sporadic, unorganised, but determined resistance. To pass
through the densely populated country of the Paris road may be compared
to the forcing of an open town, and cavalry can never be relied upon for
_that_. As for the army moving as a whole without a perfect security in
its communications, the matter need not even be discussed; and it must
further be remembered that, the moment such an advance began, an
immediate concentration from the north would have fallen upon the
ill-guarded lines of supply. It may be taken that Coburg knew his
business when he sat down before this, the last of the fortresses.