William Napier

“ A new edition of the great military history of Sir William Napier, printed in the approved luxurious style which the good examples of the Cambridge University Press have made a necessity with all intelligent book-purchasers, calls at the present time for a special word of recognition. Of the merits and character of the work itself it is scarcely required that we should speak. An observer of, and participant in, the deeds which he describes, cautious, deliberate, keen-sighted, candid, and unsparing, General Napier's book has qualities seldom united in a single production. ”

“ Bad though that law most certainly was, and vehemently though he had opposed it by voice and pen and labour of mind and body, William Napier was still the last man in England to pass the boundary which separates moral from physical antagonism. It is alike the misfortune of thrones and of peoples that around the former there will ever crowd those selfish and self-seeking men whose loyalty is only a cover to hide their own greed of power or possession. ”

“ When the news of this battle reached England, the entire nation cried out with one voice for Charles Napier at the helm of India, and of all the bitter draughts ever swallowed by any Honourable Company of Traders assuredly the bitterest was this forced acceptance as their Commander-in-Chief of the man whom now for six years they had been assailing in public and in private throughout the entire English empire. All honest England laughed loud at their discomfiture. Every real man welcomed with joy the triumph of the old hero over his treacherous and powerful foes. ”

“ Into the lowest parts of this ravine their light troops towards dusk dropped by twos and threes, and endeavoured to steal up the wooded dells and hollows, close to the picquets of the division; they were vigorously checked, yet similar attempts at different points kept the troops watchful, and indeed none but veterans tired of war could have slept beneath that serene sky, glittering with stars above, while the dark mountains were crowned with innumerable fires, around which more than a hundred thousand brave men were gathered. ”

“ The allies moving in two lines of battle within musket-shot of the French endeavoured to cross their march, the guns on both sides exchanged rough salutations as the accidents of ground favoured their play, and the officers, like gallant gentlemen who bore no malice and knew no fear, made their military recognitions, while the horsemen on each side watched with eager eyes for an opening to charge: but the French, moving as one man along the crest of the heights, preserved the lead and made no mistake. ”

“ Lorsque je ne sais rien de la situation du pays ni des besoins de troupes qu’on y éprouve. Je ne puis raisonner que sur ce qui est à mes ordres, et puisque les troupes qui n’y sont pas me sont cependant nécessaires pour combattre, et sont comptées comme partie de la force que je dois opposer à l’ennemi, je puis en fausse position, et je n’ai les moyens de rien faire méthodiquement et avec connaissance de cause. ”

“ But a greater soldier than Soult or Ney had still earlier placed the military fame of Moore beyond the reach of little minds. When Napoleon heard of Moore's march from Salamanca to Sahagun, in December, 1808, he exclaimed, "I shall advance against Sir John Moore in person. He is now the only general fit to contend with me." "Where shall we find such a king?" asks William Napier in a letter written from the battle-fields of Portugal two years after [Pg 38] Corunna. ”

“ Napoleon once declared that a nation resolved to be free could not be conquered; and the Spaniards re-echoed the sentiment in their manifestos, as if to say it was all that was necessary. But Napoleon contemplated a nation, like the Portuguese, making use of every means of defence, whether derived from themselves or their alliances; not a people puffed with conceit, and lavish of sounding-phrases, such as “perishing under the ruins of the last wall,” yet beaten with a facility that rendered them the derision of the world; a people unable to guide themselves yet arrogantly refusing all advice. ”

“ In vain did Soult with voice and gesture animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans, breaking from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and fiercely striving fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. ”

“ While withdrawing from Afghanistan, however, Lord Ellenborough was anxious to retain our hold upon the lower Indus with the fort of Karachi, which had been occupied temporarily as our base for the late operations. Sir Charles Napier was therefore sent out to Scinde with a small force to press upon the Amirs a treaty to that effect. The Amirs very naturally resented the demand; whereupon Napier instantly struck the first blow. His campaign is one which every Englishman should know, and which none has any excuse for not knowing; for its history was written by William Napier. ”

“ It was to General Napier that he dedicated his "Hellenics," published in 1859, wherein he pays the following chivalric tribute: "An illustrious man ordered it to be inscribed on his monument, that he was the friend of Sir Philip Sidney; an obscurer one can but leave this brief memorial, that he was the friend of Sir William Napier." Not long after the conversation last referred to, Landor said, very sadly, as he welcomed us, "I have just heard of the death of my dear old friend Napier. Why could not I have been taken, and he left? I have lived too long." ”

“ Pillars of white smoke rose on the lofty brow of the Sierra, the heavy sound of artillery came rolling over the valley, and the garrison of Fort Napoleon, crowding on the ramparts, were gazing at those portentous signs of war, when, quick and loud, a British shout broke on their ears, and the 50th Regiment with a wing of the 71st, came bounding over the low hills. ”

“ Between them stood Napier, determined upon using to the utmost the immense power which the Viceroy had placed in his hands, and seeing far beyond the present dispute a time when this valley of the Indus must all become British territory; seeing it in imagination, too, a happy valley waving with grain, peopled by a peaceful and contented population free from the exactions of semi barbarian chiefs, and enjoying the blessings of a government which would rule them with patriarchal justice—a picture the reality of which no human eye has ever looked on. ”

“ The order was sudden, no volunteers were demanded, no rewards offered, no means of excitement resorted to; yet such is the inherent bravery of British soldiers, that seventeen men of the Royals, the nearest at hand, immediately leaped forth ready and willing to encounter what seemed certain death. With a rapid pace, all the breaching batteries playing hotly at the time, they reached the foot of the breach unperceived and rushed up in extended order shouting and firing, but the French musketry laid the whole party low with exception of their commander. ”

“ But Napoleon never was hated by the people of France; he was their own creation and they loved him so as never monarch was loved before. His march from Cannes to Paris, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of poor men, who were not soldiers, can never be effaced or even disfigured. For six weeks, at any moment, a single assassin might by a single shot have acquired the reputation of a tyrannicide, and obtained vast rewards besides from the trembling monarchs and aristocrats of the earth, who scrupled not to instigate men to the shameful deed. ”

“ NAPIER, Sir JOSEPH (1804–1882) , lord chancellor of Ireland, born at Belfast on 26 Dec. 1804, was youngest son of William Napier, a merchant of Belfast, and was a descendant of the Napiers of Merchiston. His mother was Rosetta Macnaghten of Ballyreagh House, co. Antrim. His only sister Rosetta married James Whiteside [q. v.] , chief justice of Ireland. He was educated in the Belfast Academical Institution under James Sheridan Knowles [q. v.] , and in November 1820 was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, under the tutorship of Dr. ”

“ Old and tried officers held views similar to those of the great Duke,—by the lash alone could the discipline of the army be maintained; and no greater supporter of corporal punishment can be found than that high-minded leader of men, Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War. He was a man acknowledged to have been beloved—even worshipped by [204] all ranks, as the epitome of all that was just and sympathetic, a man who wrote of British soldiers, as a class, as the most noble of men ”

“ In the autumn of 1850 Charles Napier set out on the homeward journey. The last scenes in India were pleasant to the old soldier about to close his long and eventful career. He reviews once more his own favourite Twenty-Second Regiment and presents them with new colours. The soldiers of Meanee and Hyderabad received their chief with a frantic enthusiasm and delight that more than made amends for the neglect of the great and powerful; and the entire army too, whose deep heart the follies and the fashions of the moment cannot reach, bent its head as the old hero passed ”

“ Envoyer des renforts c’était augmenter les pertes et l’on reconnut enfin qu’il fallait empêcher les troupes neuves de se mettre en contact avec cette multitude en désordre à laquelle on ne peut plus donner le nom d’armée. Le roi de Naples disait hautement qu’en lui laissant le commandement l’empereur avait exigé le plus grand sacrifice qu’il pût attendre de son dévouement. Les forces physiques et morales du prince de Neufchâtel étaient entièrement épuisées. ”

“ As the world translates the phrase, Napier was perhaps not a successful man. Yet he lived to see the principles he had struggled for through life, and suffered for in his struggles, everywhere triumphant. The great circle of human sympathy growing wider with every hour, and some new tribe among the toiling outcasts of men taken within its long-closed limits. ”

“ The kings of his childhood still wear their crowns; the love of mother and home are still fresh and bright in his heart; his hatred of [Pg 59] tyranny, and contempt of fools are as strong as ever; the thirst for military glory is unquenched; but one feeling has steadily grown and increased during all these years of toil and war and travel—it is his admiration for the man he was fighting against. "From first to last," says William Napier, "the great Napoleon was a wonder to him. Early in life, deceived by the systematic vilification of that astounding genius, he felt personal hatred ... ”

“ Of course there was the usual howl of execration from the whole tribe of self-styled loyalists, office-holders, highly-paid idlers, and others; but nevertheless William Napier was perfectly true to [Pg 181] all the noble traditions of his race and his life in this action of his in behalf of a man who, though terribly mistaken in the line he had adopted, had been given only too much excuse for despairing of remedying the wrongs and miseries of his countrymen by any method of constitutional action. ”

“ Eight thousand men had been left in Catalonia under general Frere, another eight thousand were placed under general Musnier, to protect Aragon, and twenty-four thousand of all arms remained for the invasion of Valencia, but this force Suchet thought inadequate, and demanded a reinforcement from the army of reserve, then in Navarre. Napoleon, whose system of war, whatever has been said to the contrary, was eminently methodical, refused. He loved better to try a bold push, at a distant point, with a few men, than to make an overwhelming attack, if he thereby weakened his communications ”

“ Again, in 1821, Napier went to Greece and travelled extensively through the country. As he wanders by the battle-fields whose names will never die he is busy fighting them again with modern armies. On the plain of Chæronea he thinks the marsh in front impassable for guns, and sees how Pindus and Parnassus secure a flank; and at Thermopylæ he notes how the sea has receded from the mountain, but thinks three thousand men instead of three hundred might still hold the position against an army. ”

“ They contemplated this astonishing insurrection, as a mere military opening through which Napoleon might be assailed, and they neglected, or rather feared, to look towards the great moral consequences of such a stupendous event, consequences which were in truth above their reach of policy. They were neither able nor willing to seize such a singularly propitious occasion for conferring a benefit upon mankind. ”

“ In the night of the 12th rain swelled the Nive and carried away the bridge of communication; it was soon restored, but for the time Hill was cut off from the rest of the army; and while seven French divisions of infantry, furnishing thirty-five thousand combatants, approached him in front, an eighth under General Paris, and the cavalry of Pierre Soult, menaced him in rear. To meet those in his front he had only fourteen guns and fourteen thousand men in position; to check those on his rear but four thousand Spaniards and Vivian’s cavalry at Urcurray. ”

“ When Colonel Napier settled at Celbridge he was still in his prime, a man formed both in mind and body to conquer and direct in camp, court, or council; and yet, for all that, a failure as the world counts its prizes and blanks in the lottery of life. ”