[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]