Frederic Natusch Maude and David Hannay

“ Napoleon might have remembered his own saying, “La misère est l'école du bon soldat.” In cavalry they were weak, for the Russian does not take kindly to equitation and the horses were not equal to the accepted European standard of weight, while the Cossack was only formidable to stragglers and wounded. Their artillery was numerous and for the most part of heavy calibre—18- and 24-pounders were common—but the strength of the army lay in its infantry, with its incomparable tenacity in defence and its blind confidence in the bayonet in attack. ”

“ Leaving the leading troops to repulse as best they might the furious attack of both Russians and Prussians, and caring little whether they lost ground, he rapidly organized for his own control a battle-reserve. At length when both sides were exhausted by their efforts he sent forward nearly a hundred guns which tore asunder by their case-shot fire the enemy's line and marched his reserve right through the gap. Had he possessed an adequate cavalry force the victory would have been decisive. As it was, the allies made good their retreat and the French were too exhausted for infantry pursuit. ”

“ The truth is that the days were too short and the roads too bad for Napoleon to carry out the full purpose his “general advanced guard” was intended to fulfil. It was designed to hold the enemy in position by the vigour of its attack, thus neutralizing his independent will power and compelling him to expend his reserves in the effort to rescue the troops engaged. But in forests and snowdrifts the French made such slow progress that no sufficient deployment could be made until darkness put a stop to the fighting. ”

“ An offensive move into Franconia was under discussion, and for this purpose the Prussian staff had commenced a lateral concentration about Weimar, Jena and Naumburg when the storm burst upon them. The emperor gathered little from the confused reports of their purposeless manœuvres, but, secure in the midst of his “battalion square” of 200,000 men, he remained quite indifferent, well knowing that an advance straight on Berlin must force his enemy to concentrate and fight, and as they would bring at most 127,000 men on to the battlefield the result could hardly be doubtful. ”

“ The strength of the army lay in its infantry, for both cavalry and artillery were short of horses, and the latter had not yet acquired mobility and skill in manœuvring. Napoleon’s determination to undertake the invasion of England has often been disputed, but it is hard to imagine what other operation he contemplated, for the outbreak of hostilities with his continental enemies found him ill-supplied with intelligence as to the resources of the country he had then to traverse. ”

“ It seemed as if nothing could save the Austrians from complete disaster, but at the critical moment the emperor, yielding to the protestations of his corps commanders, who represented the excessive fatigue of their troops, stopped the pursuit, and the archduke made the most of his opportunity to restore order amongst his demoralized men, and crossed to the north bank of the Danube during the night. ”

“ Here, however, the inefficiency of the Russian staff actually saved them from the disaster which must certainly have overtaken them had they realized their intention of fighting the French. The Russians marched in two columns, which lost touch of one another, and as it was quite impossible for either to engage the French single-handed, they both retired again towards Smolensk, where with an advanced guard in the town itself—which possessed an old-fashioned brick enceinte not to be breached by field artillery alone—the two columns reunited and deployed for action behind the unfordable Dnieper. ”

“ Again arrangments were made for a Napoleonic battle; behind Murat's cavalry came the “general advanced guard” to attack and hold the enemy, whilst the main body and Davout were held available to swing in on his rear. Napoleon, however, failed to allow for the psychology of his opponents, who, utterly indifferent to the sacrifice of life, refused to be drawn into engagements to support an advance or to extricate a rearguard, and steadily withdrew from every position when the French gained touch with them. ”

“ With horses only just recovering from an epidemic, they proved quite unequal to the task of catching the Cossacks, who swarmed round them in every direction, never accepting an engagement but compelling a constant watchfulness for which nothing in their previous experience had sufficiently prepared the French. ”

“ But what may seem to a Napoleon the best course is not necessarily the one that suggests itself to a mediocre mind, and the greater the gulf which separates the two minds the greater the uncertainty which must prevail on the side of the abler commander. ”

“ Believing implicitly in the rumours of a descent on Boulogne and of risings in France which also reached him, and knowing the destitution he had left behind him in his movement to Ulm, when he heard of the westward march of French columns from the Lech he told his army, apparently in all good faith, that the French were in full march for their own country. ”

“ Issuing orders to Davout, Oudinot and his cavalry to concentrate with all speed towards Eckmühl, he himself rode back along the Regensburg road and reached the battle-field just as the engagement between the advance troops had commenced. Had the Austrians possessed mobility equal to that of the French the latter should have been overwhelmed in detail, but whilst the French covered 17 and 19 m. the Austrians only marched 10, and, owing to the defect in their tactical training alluded to above, the troops actually on the ground could not hold out long enough for their reserves to arrive. ”

“ The individual officers of the executive staff were the most highly trained in Europe, but there was no great leader to co-ordinate their energies. The total number of men assigned to the field army was 110,000 Prussians and Saxons. They were organized in corps, but their leaders were corps commanders only in name, for none were allowed any latitude for individual initiative. Ill-judged economies had undermined the whole efficiency of the Prussian army. Two-thirds of the infantry and one-half of the cavalry were allowed furlough for from ten to eleven months in the year. ”

“ The French marching in pursuit were received with open arms, the people even turning their own wounded out of doors to make room for their French guests. Their servility awakened the bitterest contempt of their conquerors and forms the best excuse for the unparalleled severity of the French yoke. On the 26th of October Davout reached Berlin, having marched 166 m. in twelve days including two sharp rearguard actions, Bernadotte with his fresh troops having fallen behind. ”

“ Though he had control of what remained of the navies of Holland and Spain, as well as of the French, he was outnumbered at every point, while the efficiency of the British fleet gave it a mobility which doubled its material superiority. All Napoleon’s efforts to support his troops in Malta and Egypt were necessarily made under the hampering obligation to evade the British forces barring the road. The inevitable result was that only an occasional blockade-runner could succeed in escaping detection and attack. The relief thus brought to Malta and Egypt was not sufficient. ”

“ An action in the West Indies would have ruined the emperor’s plan of concentration, and Villeneuve decided to sail at once for Ferrol. Nelson, misled by false information, ranged the West Indies as far south as the Gulf of Paria, in search of his opponent whom he supposed to be engaged in attacks on British possessions. By the 13th of June he had learnt the truth, and sailed for Gibraltar under the erroneous impression that the French admiral would return to Toulon. ”

“ The allies broke off the action at their own time and retired in such good order that the emperor failed to capture a single trophy as proof of his victory. The enemy's escape annoyed him greatly, the absence of captured guns and prisoners reminded him too much of his Russian experiences, and he redoubled his demands on his corps commanders for greater vigour in the pursuit. ”

“ Instead of seizing all provisions and burning what they could not remove, the Prussian generals enforced on their men the utmost forbearance towards the inhabitants, and the fact that they were obeyed, in spite of the inhumanity the people showed to their sick and wounded countrymen, proves that discipline was by no means so far gone as has generally been believed. ”

“ Every one was weary of the war, and many felt that it would be unwise to push Napoleon and the French nation to extremes. Hence a prolonged halt arose, utilized by the troops in renewing their equipment and so forth, but ultimately the Young German party, led by Blücher and the principal fighting men of the army, triumphed, and on the 1st of January 1814 the Silesian army (50,000) began its passage of the Rhine at Kaub. ”

“ In this idea they were supported by the law itself, which protected the civilian against the soldier, and forbade even in war-time the requisitioning of horses, provisions and transport, without payment. Up to the night of the battle of Jena itself, the Prussian troops lay starving in the midst of plenty, whilst the French everywhere took what they wanted. ”

“ Where formerly 15,000 men to the mile of front had been considered ample for the occupation of a position or the execution of an attack, double that number now often proved insufficient, and their front was broken before reinforcements could arrive. Much had been done to create an efficient staff, but though the idea of the army corps command was now no new thing, the senior generals entrusted with these commands were far from having acquired the independence and initiative of their French opponents. ”

“ The French navy came under the direct and exclusive control of Napoleon after the 18th Brumaire. At the close of 1799 (see French Revolutionary Wars) he had three purposes to serve by the help of his fleet the relief of the French garrison besieged by the British forces in Malta; the reinforcement of the army he had left in Egypt; and the distraction of Great Britain by the threat of invasion of England across the Channel, or of Ireland. ”

“ The whole army was particularly strong in cavalry; out of the 450,000, 80,000 belonged to that arm, and Napoleon, mindful of the lessons of 1807, had issued the most minute and detailed orders for the supply service in all its branches, and the forwarding of reinforcements, no less than 100,000 men being destined for that purpose in due course of time. ”

“ But the French army was already completely out of hand, and the degree to which the panic of a crowd can master even the strongest instinct of the individual is shown by the conduct of the fugitives who crowded over the bridges, treading hundreds under foot, whilst all the time the river was easily fordable and mounted men rode backwards and forwards across it. ”

“ Meanwhile the Russians and Prussians had concentrated all available men and were moving on an almost parallel line, but somewhat to the south of the direction taken by the French. On the 1st of May Napoleon and the advanced guard entered Lützen. Wittgenstein, who now commanded the allies in place of Kutusov, hearing of his approach, had decided to attack the French advanced guard, which he took to be their whole force, on its right flank, and during the morning had drawn together the bulk of his forces on his right in the vicinity of Gross-Görschen and Kaya. ”

“ Marching always ready to fight wherever his enemy might stand or move to meet him, his mind was relieved from all the hesitations which necessarily arise in men less confident in the security of their designs. Hence, when on the battlefield the changing course of events left his antagonists mentally exhausted, he was able to face them with will power neither bound nor broken. ”

“ Marmont and Mortier with what troops they could rally took up a position on Montmartre heights to oppose them, but seeing further resistance to be hopeless they gave way on the 31st of March, just as Napoleon, with the wreck of the Guards and a mere handful of other detachments, was hurrying across the rear of the Austrians towards Fontainebleau to join them.
This was the end of the First Empire. The story of the Waterloo Campaign is told under its own heading.
The Military Character of Napoleon.
No military career has been examined more often and more freely than that of Napoleon. ”

“ It was his fate to be made the scapegoat for the disasters which followed, though they need no further explanation than that, at the head of 80,000 men and exercising only restricted powers of command, he was pitted against the greatest strategist of all ages who was responsible to no overlord and commanded, in the fullest sense of the term, an army considerably more than twice as strong. ”

“ During the 17th there was only indecisive skirmishing, Schwarzenberg waiting for his reinforcements coming up by the Dresden road, Blücher for Bernadotte to come in on his left, and by some extraordinary oversight Giulay was brought closer in to the Austrian centre, thus opening for the French their line of retreat towards Erfurt, and no information of this movement appears to have been conveyed to Blücher. The emperor when he became aware of the movement, sent the IVth Corps to Lindenau to keep the road open. ”

“ But with the Bohemian reinforcements he had still four corps in hand, and Napoleon, whose intelligence service in the difficult and intersected country had lamentably failed him, had weakened his army by detaching a portion of his force in pursuit of the beaten right wing, and against the archduke's communications. ”