Theodore Ayrault Dodge

“ In Cæsar we find an unimpassioned pursuit of his one object with cold, calculating brain-tissue, and all the vigor of body and soul put at the service of his purpose to control the power of the Roman State.
In each, the will and intellect were balanced, as they must be in a great captain. But in Alexander, the will often outran the intelligence; in Hannibal the intelligence occasionally overruled the ambition to act; in Cæsar it was now one, now the other bias which took the upper hand. Alexander was always daring, never cautious. Hannibal was always cautious, often daring. ”

“ To-day war has been reduced to a science which all may study. Alexander knew no such science, nor Hannibal, nor indeed Cæsar. What was, even so late as Cæsar’s day, known as the art of war, covered merely the discipline of the troops, camp and permanent fortifications, sieges according to the then existing means, and the tactics of drill and battle. What has come down to this generation, as a science, is a collection of the deeper lessons of these very men and a few others, reduced during the past century by able pens to a form which is comprehensible. ”

“ Hannibal ranks with the few great captains of the world. Alexander, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, Napoleon, alone can stand beside him. In this galaxy the stars are equal. His self-reliant courage, which prompted him to undertake the conquest of Italy with twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse, without a definite base, and with uncertain confederates, is the mark which stamps the genius—or the fool. Without the ability and iron resolution to do so vast a thing, no great man ever accomplished results. ”

“ In strategy, tactics, fortification, sieges, logistics, he showed larger ability at the end of his career than at any previous time. To his personality his soldiers owed all they knew and all they were. Remarkable for discipline, esprit de corps, adaptiveness, toughness, patience in difficulty, self-denial, endurance and boldness in battle, attachment to and confidence in their general, his legionaries were an equal honor to Cæsar and to Rome, as they were a standing reproach to Roman rottenness in their splendid soldierly qualities. ”

“ Moreover, Frederick, like Hannibal, was greater in disaster than in success. Napoleon succumbed to disaster. Frederick and Hannibal alone held themselves against overwhelming civilized armies. They were stronger, more able, more determined, more to be feared the more misfortune crowded upon them. We instinctively couple Napoleon’s genius with his greatest success; we couple Hannibal’s or Frederick’s with their direst disasters. Alexander and Gustavus never looked real disaster in the face, as Frederick before Leuthen, or Hannibal after the Metaurus. Nor indeed did Cæsar. ”

“ Napoleon aptly says: “The principles of Cæsar were the same as those of Alexander or Hannibal: to hold his forces in hand; to be vulnerable on several points only when it is unavoidable; to march rapidly upon the important points; to make use to a great extent of all moral means, such as the reputation of his arms, the fear he inspires, the political measures calculated to preserve the attachment of allies, and the submission of conquered provinces.”
Such men have used the maxims of war only so far as they fitted into their plans and combinations. ”

“ All maintained discipline at an equal standard. All fired their soldiers to the utmost pitch in battle, all encouraged them to bear privation in the field, and bore it with them. All equally won their soldiers’ hearts. All obtained this control over men by scrupulous care of their army’s welfare, courage equal to any test, readiness to participate in the heat and labor of the day, personal magnetism, justice in rewards and punishments, friendliness in personal intercourse, and power of convincing men. In what they said, Alexander and Hannibal spoke plain truths plainly. ”

“ No doubt, taking him in his many-sidedness, Cæsar is the greatest character in history. It may not unfairly be claimed that Napoleon follows next, especially in that he preserved for Europe many germs of the liberty which was born of the blood of the Revolution. Cæsar was the most useful man of antiquity; Napoleon comes near to being the most useful man of modern times. But neither Cæsar nor Napoleon appeal to us as do splendid, open-hearted Alexander; patient, intrepid, ever-constant Hannibal; the Christian hero, Gustavus; and daring, obstinate, royal Frederick. ”

“ Move upon your enemy in one mass on one line so that when brought to battle you shall outnumber him, and from such a direction that you shall compromise him. This is, so to speak, the motto of Napoleon’s success. All perfect art is simple, and after much complication or absence of theoretical canons from ancient times to his, Napoleon reduced strategy down to this beautifully simple, rational rule. ”

“ The Capuans and Carthaginians attacked the Roman lines at the same time, but both recoiled from superior numbers and entrenched position. Hannibal, seeing that he could not raise the siege by direct means, tried, for the first time in the history of strategy, an indirect means, hoping to effect by moral weight what he could not by weight of men. He marched straight on Rome. He counted on the proconsuls, from fear for their capital, to raise the siege of Capua and follow him. He knew he could not capture Rome, where were forces much larger than his own. ”

“ The details of all these movements are so wonderful and show such extraordinary courage, enterprise, and intelligence, such exceptional power over men, so true a conception of the difficulties to be encountered, such correct judgment as to the best means of overcoming them, that if the test should be the accomplishment of the all but impossible, Alexander would easily stand at the head of all men who have ever lived. ”

“ Never was one and the same spirit more skilful to meet opposition, to obey or to command. It was hard to decide whether he was more dear to the chief or the army. Neither did Hasdrubal more readily place any one at the head when courage or activity was required, nor were the soldiers under any other leader so full of confidence and daring. He entered danger with the greatest mettle, he comported himself in danger with the greatest unconcern. By no difficulties could his body be tired, his ardor damped. ”

“ In weighing his intelligence, sound judgment, strong will, elevated sentiment, energy and vigilance, he is properly put in the highest rank. But though his record cannot perhaps vie with the others in the brilliancy of his tactics, in the splendor of his victories, in extent of conquest, in immensity of ambition, in the surmounting of all but impossible natural or artificial barriers, in resisting overwhelming disaster with heroic constancy,—still, if we look at the man, upon the results of what he did, at the purposeless and barbarous nature of war as conducted up to his day ”

“ But Punic faith was distinctly as good as Roman faith. The Romans promised and did not perform; Hannibal never promised. Hannibal’s mind was broad, delicate, clear. His Greek training made him intellectually the superior of any of the Roman generals. His conception of operations and discrimination in means were equalled by his boldness—even obstinacy—of execution.
Hannibal’s influence over men is perhaps his most wonderful trait. Alexander commanded fealty as a king, as well as won it as a man; Hannibal earned the fidelity and love of his men by his personal qualities alone. ”

“ This is the same distinction which Napoleon draws between what he aptly calls the terrestrial and the divine in the art. The divine part, says he, embraces all that comes from the moral forces of the character and talents, from the power to gauge your adversary, to infuse confidence and spirit into the soldier, who will be strong and victorious, feeble and beaten, according as he thinks he is. The terrestrial part comprises the arms, entrenchments, orders of battle, all which consists in the mere combination or use of everyday matters. ”

“ It was Hannibal’s marching to and fro, Hannibal’s manœuvres, offensive or defensive, which predetermined the movements of the Roman armies.
We know little about the personal appearance of Hannibal. We only know that in the march through the Arnus swamps he lost an eye. In the British Museum is an ancient bust of a soldier with but one eye—by some supposed to be Hannibal. But there is no authentic likeness of the man. It is improbable that he possessed Alexander’s charm of beauty. ”

“ The ancient military writings cover no other ground. There was little conception of what we call strategy,—the art of so moving armies over the surface of a country, that as great damage may be done to the enemy as by battle, or at least that the enemy may be so compromised as that a victory over him shall be a decisive one. Strategy among the ancients was mere stratagem,—except in the case of the great captains, whose genius made them instinctively great strategists,—for strategy is the highest grade of intellectual common sense. ”

“ Many have often seen him covered by a short field-cloak lying on the ground betwixt the outposts and sentinels of the soldiers. His clothing in no wise distinguished him from his fellows; his weapons and horses attracted every one’s eye. He was by long odds the best rider, the best marcher. He went into battle the first, he came out of it the last.... Hannibal served three years under Hasdrubal’s supreme command, and left nothing unobserved which he who desires to become a great leader ought to see and to do. ”

“ I shall not touch upon Napoleon’s life as statesman or lawgiver, nor on his services in carrying forward the results of the Revolution toward its legitimate consequence,—the equality of all men before the law. In these rôles no more useful man appears in the history of modern times. I shall look at him simply as a soldier. ”

“ In personal attributes there is a divinity which hedges Alexander beyond all others. Despite his passionate outbursts and their often lamentable consequences, a glamour surrounds him unlike any hero of antiquity. But in mind and will, in true martial bearing, all are alike. The conduct of each is equally a pattern to every soldier.
Alexander and Hannibal, from youth up, led a life of simplicity and exercise, and their physique, naturally good, became adapted to their soldier’s work. Cæsar led the youth of a man of the world, and was far from strong at birth. ”

“ He was a born soldier. As Cæsar taught himself from ambition, so Frederick taught himself from necessity. What he did had not a theoretical but an essentially practical flavor. He rose to the highest intellectual and characteristic plane of the art, not by imitation of others, but by native vigor. Frederick had by heart the lesson of Leuctra and Mantinæa, but it required genius to apply the oblique order as he did it at Leuthen. No man has ever so perfectly done this. No one in modern times has had such troops. ”

“ Details had to be overlooked, but the whole army was held in the Emperor’s hand like a battalion in that of a good field officer. In forty-eight hours194 his two hundred thousand men could be concentrated at any one point. And the very essence of the art of war is to know when you may divide, to impose on the enemy, subsist, pursue, deceive, and to know how to divide so that you may concentrate before battle can occur. ”

“ Frederick not only showed Europe what speed and decision can do in war, but he made many minor improvements in drill, discipline, and battle-tactics. He introduced horse-artillery. His giving scope to such men as Seydlitz and Ziethen made the Prussian cavalry a model for all time. He demonstrated that armies can march and operate continuously, with little rest, and without regard to seasons. Light troops grew in efficiency. War put on an aspect of energetic purpose, but without the ruthless barbarity of the Thirty Years’ War. ”

“ And his individual equipment as well as the discipline of his army enabled him to do this with unequalled brilliancy. In all history there is no such series of tactical feats as Frederick’s.
Each captain must be weighed by the conditions under which he worked. We cannot try Alexander by the standard of Napoleon. While Napoleon’s battle tactics have something stupendous in their magnificence, Frederick’s battles, in view of numbers and difficulties, are distinctly finer. Frederick’s decisiveness aroused fresh interest in battle. ”

“ At this juncture,—his eye was as keen as Napoleon’s for the critical instant,—Alexander ordered forward the phalanx, with protended sarissas and linked shields, while himself led the cavalry round to the Indian rear, and charged in one final effort with the terrible Macedonian shout of victory. The whole Indian army was reduced to an inert, paralyzed mass. It was only individuals who managed to escape. ”

“ Perhaps there is no surer test of who is the foremost soldier of a campaign than to determine who it is upon whose action everything waits; who it is that forces the others to gauge their own by his movements. And this Hannibal always did. ”

“ These veteran troops, in perfect order, wheeled inward to right and left, on the flanks of the struggling mass of legionaries. The Roman army was lost beyond a ray of hope, for, at the same instant, Maharbal, having finished the destruction of the cavalry, rode down upon its rear. The cry of victory changed to a cry of terror. Defeat degenerated into mere slaughter. The Carthaginian cavalry divided into small troops and rode into the midst of the Roman soldiers, sabring right and left. Some squadrons galloped around to the flanks and lent a hand to the African phalanx in its butchery. ”

“ And the fact that even Napoleon could not, in the absence of a thoroughly educated staff and perfectly drilled army, obtain good results from the handling of such enormous forces, gives prominence to the value of the Prussian idea of placing greater reliance on an army drawn from the personal service of the people and made perfect in all its details from the ranks up, than on the genius of a single general. ”

“ He had found that his own conceptions of war ranged beyond the stereotyped routine of the Prussian army, though this indeed was not to be underrated. Silesia became valuable to Prussia beyond the wildest dreams of its worth by Austria, and, being allied by religion with North Germany, had every reason to remain satisfied and faithful.
It is generally assumed that great captains are fond of war for war’s sake, or for the lust of conquest. While often true, it was not so with Frederick. To none of the great captains was war so heartily distasteful. Not one was so fond of the pursuits of peace. ”

“ Each gave frequent proof that he possessed abundant human kindness. But Alexander was at times guilty of acts of brutality and injustice. To Hannibal’s score can be put nothing of the kind. Cæsar by no means lacked the gentler virtues. Some claim for him sweetness equal to his genius. But he exhibited in the Gallic War a singularly blunted conscience. Peoples were mere stepping-stones to his progress. Judging Cæsar solely by his Commentaries, there goes hand in hand with a chivalrous sense a callousness which is unapproached. ”

“ But we must remember that because Napoleon wrought in our own times we can the better appreciate what he did, while our more meagre knowledge of the others makes it impossible to see as clearly the manner in which, to accomplish their great deeds, they must have patterned their means to the work to be done. “The most important qualities of an army leader,” says Jomini, “will always be a great character or constitutional courage, which leads to great determinations; sang froid or bodily courage which conquers danger; learning appears in third line, but it will be a strong help.” ”

“ He never made plans colored by the enemy’s possibilities. He chose his own plan intelligently, according to the geography, topography, and existing conditions, and made it elastic enough to be equal to the enemy’s. “The mind of a general should be like the glass of a telescope in sharpness and clearness, and never conjure up pictures.” The elasticity of Napoleon’s Eckmühl plan is well shown by his ability to turn threatening disaster into brilliant success. ”

“ Gustavus will always rank, not only as the man219 who rescued intellectual war from oblivion, but as the most splendid character, in nobility of purpose and intelligence of method, which the annals of the world have to show. Frederick is not only the Battle Captain who never blenched at numbers, but truly the Last of the Kings,—king and priest, in the history of mankind. Napoleon carries us to the highest plane of genius and power and success, and then declines. ”

“ But the discipline of the army was disgraceful. The plundering which always accompanied Napoleon’s movements—for, unlike Gustavus and Frederick, he believed in allowing the soldier freedom beyond bounds if only he would march and fight—was excessive. The health of the army was bad; its deprivations so great that suicide was common to avoid suffering which was worse. And yet Napoleon, by his unequalled management, kept this army available as a tool, and an excellent one.
Napoleon now became First Consul. The campaign of 1800 was initiated by the celebrated crossing of the Alps. ”

“ Nor can we compare Napoleon with Hannibal. In his successes Napoleon is equally brilliant, more titanic; in his failures he falls so far below the level of this great pattern of patient, never-yielding resistance to adversity as to be lost. To Alexander fighting semi-civilized armies, Napoleon can only be likened in his Egyptian campaigns, and in this he in no sense rises to the height of the Macedonian. Napoleon’s genius was most apparent on the familiar fields of Europe.
In intellectual grasp, all six great captains stand side by side. ”

“ That, despite these errors, he was still victorious in so comparatively short a time he owes to his extraordinary ability, his simply stupendous good fortune, and the weakness of his opponents. In success he was brilliant, in disaster strong and elastic, and he never weakened in morale. It is adversity which proves the man.
Cæsar’s strategy was broad and far-seeing. His tactics were simple. There are no striking examples in his battles of tactical formations like Epaminondas’ oblique order at Leuctra, Alexander’s wedge at Arbela, Hannibal’s withdrawing salient at Cannæ. ”

“ The era of the great battles of modern war dates from Austerlitz. Marengo was rather two combats than one great battle. Frederick’s battles were wonders of tactics and courage, but they differ from the Napoleonic system. In Frederick’s battles the whole army was set in motion for one manœuvre at one time to be executed under the management of the chief. If the manœuvre was interrupted by unforeseen events, the battle might be lost. In Napoleon’s system, the centre might be broken and the wings still achieve victory; one wing might be crushed while the other destroyed the enemy. ”