nition had crossed the perilous pas | medio dedit, Afri circa jam cornua sage! fecerant, irruentibusque incaute in 67. Nor is this all; the result of the medium Romanis circumdedêre alas. battle of Aspern clearly demonstrates Mox, cornua extendendo, clausere et that the method of attacking in column ab tergo hostes."* The military art in a narrow field, and against a brave is in its fundamental principles the enemy is essentially defective; and same in all ages; and it is highly inthat the prodigious loss sustained by teresting to see Hannibal's triumph, Napoleon was owing to his persisting and Napoleon's defeat, arise, under in it under circumstances where it had the greatest possible difference of obviously become inexpedient. The ground, arms, and contending nations, observations of a distinguished French from the same simple and obvious military writer on this subject are cause.t convincing and unanswerable. "The battle of Essling was lost," says General Rogniat, "in consequence of our having attacked in column the centre of the Austrian line. That centre skilfully gave ground as the French columns of Lannes and Oudinot advanced, while their wings insensibly approached our flanks. By means of that skilful manoeuvre, we soon found ourselves in the centre of a semicircle of artillery and musketry, the whole fire of which converged on our unhappy columns. Cannon-balls, musket-shots, shells, grape, bombs, crossed each other in every line over our heads, and fell on our ranks like a hail-storm. Everything was struck down or overturned, and our leading columns were literally destroyed in the end we were obliged to fall back and yield to that frightful tempest, till we again came abreast of Aspern and Essling, the bulwarks of our wings." It was by a system of tactics precisely similar that Hannibal crushed the Roman centre, and gained the battle of Canna. "Cuneus Gallorum ut pulsus æquavit frontem primum, deinde nitendo etiam sinum in * "The wedge of the Gauls, being repulsed, in the first instance retired to their original ground, then fell gradually back, and made a curve in the centre of the line. The Africans assembled on the wings, and, as the Romans incautiously advanced into the heart of the battle, fell on their flanks. Soon, extending their wings, they shut them in even in rear also."-LIVY, xxii. 47. Napoleon saw these principles clearly, when judging of the conduct of other generals: Sempronius," says he, "was conquered at the Trebbia and Varro at Cannæ, though they commanded armies more numerous than Hannibal's, because, in conformity with the Roman practice, they arranged their troops in a column of three lines, while Han 68. The Austrians, indeed, had not yet attained to the incomparable discipline and firmness which enabled Wellington with British troops so often to repel with prodigious slaughter the French attack in column by a single line, three or four deep. But they did on this occasion, as well as long at Wagram, successfully resist it by receiving the column in a checker of battalions in column-a disposition extremely similar to that adopted by the British commander at Waterloo, and which the Archduke then adopted for the first time, after having read a few weeks before the chapter on the principles of war, by General Jomini, where it was strenuously recommended. The dreadful carnage sustained by the French troops in subsequent battles, especially at Albuera, Borodino, and Waterloo, was mainly owing to the same cause. Doubtless, the attack in column is most formidable, and it requires great firmness in a single line to resist a mass to which weight and numbers have given so much momentum. But its success depends entirely on the courage of the nibal drew up his in a single line. The Carthaginian cavalry was superior in number and quality; the Roman legions were attacked in front, flank, and rear, and in consequence defeated. If the two consuls had adopted an order of battle more conformable to circumstances, they would probably have conquered." What a luminous commentary on his own conduct and defeat at Aspern!NAPOLEON in MONTHOLON, i. 282, Melanges. Each battalion was drawn up in column by divisions; and as each division consisted of two platoons or companies, this was in fact forming them in column of attack on the two centre companies. And the battalion, consisting of six companies, or three divisions, was thus drawn up in three lines. leading and flanking files; its ranks, | the Marchfeld. It is the invariable Inassed together, present an unerring characteristic of revolutionary power, mark for the enemy's fire, if they will whether political or military, to be only stand to deliver it; confusion is perpetually exposed to this necessity, apt to arise in the centre from the from the want of any lasting support losses sustained or witnessed by men in the interest and affection of the innot warmed by the heat of action; dustrious classes of the people. And and if it is exposed to a concentric it is in the experience of that necessity, discharge, or meets with opponents as not in any oblivion of the rules of the resolute as itself, it becomes liable to military art, that the true explanation a bloody reverse. The same principle and best vindication of Napoleon's conapplies to breaking the line at sea: that duct, both at Aspern, Moscow, and system has done admirably with the Dresden, is to be found. French and Spaniards; but let the British admirals consider well before they adopt it in combating the Russians or Americans. 69. In truth, nothing can be more apparent than that, considered merely in a military point of view, the conduct of Napoleon, in regard to the battle of Aspern, was altogether inexcusable, and that it was the peculiarity and hazard of his political situation which made him persist in so perilous an undertaking. He has told us so himself: "At Aspern, at Jena, at Austerlitz, where I have been accused of acting rashly, I had no option: I was placed in the alternative of victory or ruin." He felt that his situation, as head of a military republic, required continual excitement for its maintenance; that he must fascinate the minds of men by rapid and dazzling successes; and that the first pause in the career of victory was the commencement of ruin. Though in possession of the Austrian capital, military resources, and finest provinces, he still felt that the contest must not be protracted, and that, to keep up his character for invincibility, he must cross the Danube, and finish the war by a clap of thunder. Undue contempt for the Austrian troops, or ignorance of the magnitude of the host which they had at hand, led him to hazard the engagement of the 21st, with a most unequal force; and having once engaged, however imprudently, in the contest, he conceived that he must at all hazards carry it on, and, despite of his army being divided by the Danube, and the difficulty of safe retreat, fight for life or death in the plain of 70. The resolute stand made by the Austrians at Aspern, is one of the most glorious instances of patriotic resistance which the history of the world affords. Driven back by an overwhelming force into the heart of the monarchy, with their fortresses taken, their arsenals pillaged, their armies defeated, they still continued the contest; boldly fronted the invader in the plenitude of his power; and with unshaken resolution advanced, alone and unsupported, to drive the conqueror of Europe from the capital he had subdued. Contrary to what has usually been experienced in similar cases, they showed the world that the fall of the metropolis did not necessarily draw after it the submission of the empire; but that a brave and patriotic people can find their capital in the general's headquarters, and reduce the invader to the extremity of peril, in consequence of the very success which he had deemed decisive of the contest. The British historian can hardly hope that similar resolution would have been displayed by the citizens of his own country; or that a battle of Waterloo would have been fought by the English after London and Woolwich had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Contrasting the heroic battles of Aspern and Wagram, after Vienna had been captured, with the unbounded terror inspired at Paris by the advance of the Duke of Brunswick to Valmy in 1792, a hundred and twenty miles from the capital, even when the people were in the highest state of democratic excitement, it is impossible to avoid the inference |—that as much in the conduct of a nation, under such circumstances, de of the campaign had been implicitly obeyed. It was the disobedience of his orders by the Archduke John which deprived the Austrians of all the results of the battle of Aspern, and enabled Napoleon to extricate himself with success from the most perilous situation in which he had yet been placed since ascending the cousular throne. Had that prince obeyed the instructions which he received from the generalissimo on the 17th May, and marched direct from Carinthia to Lintz, he would, in conjunction with Kollowrath, who was in that neighbourhood some days before, have been at the head of an imposing mass at least sixty thousand strong, even on the 23d, to which Bernadotte, with his inefficient corps of Saxons, could have opposed no adequate resistance. Can there be a doubt that the concentration of such a force directly in his rear, and on his principal line of communication, at the very moment when he was driven with a defeated army into the island of Lobau, would have compelled Napoleon to retreat; and that the battle of Aspern would have been the commencement of a series of disasters, which would speedily have brought the Imperial eagles back to the Rhine? The instantaneous effect which a similar concentration of force from the north and the south at Borissow, near the Beresina, produced on Napoleon at Moscow, three years afterwards, affords the clearest illustration, both of the importance of this movement, and of the prodigious effects which it was fitted to have had, if pro circumvention of the dismayed by the fal see in that catastrop which was to seduce ultimate ruin. 72. From the i quences which follo tion of Vienna, and immense military r French, may be ded sion of lasting value dent state. This is importance of every being adequately for ing, in its immediate of approved strength taining twenty or thi diers, and of serving cure deposit for the stores, wealth, and the national strengt roused for their rescu possessed such a fort near Vienna, the inva 1809 would have terr vader's ruin; had the ville and Montmart fortified, the invasio 1815 would have be nothing but disaste armies. Had Berlin strength as Dantzic, t after the disaster of been detained round Russian hosts advand of bondage saved to t archy. Had the Kre del capable of holdin the terrible sacrifice not have been requi not been impregnabl man arms, the monarchy would have sunk in the dust before the standards of Sobieski gleamed on the Bisamberg. Had the lines of Torres Vedras not proved an impassable barrier to Massena, the fire of patriotic resistance in the Peninsula would have been extinguished in blood: had the walls of Rome not deterred the Carthaginian hero from a siege, the fortunes of the republic would have sunk after the disaster of Cannæ. It is by no means necessary for these important ends, that the whole metropolis should be environed by fortifications; it is enough that a citadel of great strength is at hand to contain all the warlike and civil resources of the kingdom. 73. Let no nation imagine that the magnitude of its resources relieves it from this necessity, or that the effulgence of its glory will secure it from ultimate danger. It was after the battle of Austerlitz that Napoleon first felt the necessity of fortifying Paris; it was in nine short years afterwards that the bitter consequences of the national vanity, which prevented his design from being carried into effect, were experienced by the Parisians. England now slumbers secure under the shadow of Trafalgar and Waterloo; but let not her infatuated children suppose that they are for ever removed from the chances of disaster, or that the want of citadels to surround the vast arsenals of Woolwich, Chatham, and the Tower, will not, and that perhaps ere long, be bitterly felt against either foreign or domestic enemies. These ideas, indeed, are not popular with the present age, with whom foresight is the least cultivated of national virtues, and in which the democratic character of the legislature has tinged the government with that disregard of remote consequences, and that unconquerable aversion to present burdens, which is the invariable characteristic of the masses of mankind. Without doubt, if any minister were now to propose the expenditure of one or two millions on such central fortifications, it would raise such a storm as would speedily prove fatal to his administration. It does by no means, however, follow from this circumstance, that it is not a measure which wisdom dictates and national security enjoins; and in despair of effecting, at present at least, any change in public opinion on this particular, the historian has only to bequeath this counsel, as Bacon did his reputation, to the generation after the next, and to mark these words, if they should live so long, for the judg ment of the world after the expiration of two centuries. CHAPTER LVIII. WAR IN THE TYROL, NORTHERN GERMANY, AND POLAND. 1. Ir is neither on the greatest fields of battle, nor the places where the most calamitous bloodshed has taken place, that the recollection of future ages is chiefly riveted. The vast theatres of Asiatic conflict are forgotten; the slaughtered myriads of Timour and Genghis Khan lie in undistinguished graves; hardly a pilgrim visits the scenes where, on the fields of Chalons and Tours, the destinies of civilisation and Christendom were fixed by the skill of Aëtius and the valour of Charles Martel. It is moral grandeur which produces a durable impression; it is patriotic heroism which permanently attracts the admiration of mankind. The pass of Thermopyla, the graves of Marathon, will warm the hearts of men through every succeeding age: the chapel of Tell, the field of Morgarten, | ates their brilliant hues from the grey still attract the generous and brave piles of rock, or snow-besprinkled peaks, from every civilised state: the name which repose in undisturbed serenity of Wallace, the plain of Bannockburn, on the azure firmament. have rendered Scottish story immortal in the annals of the world. The time may come when the vast and desolating wars of the French Revolution shall be dimmed in the obscurity of evolving years; when the great name of Napoleon is recollected only as a shadow of ancient days, and the fields of his fame are buried in the waves of succeeding change; but even then the siege of Saragossa will stand forth in undecaying lustre from amid the gloom of ages; and the war in the Tyrol, the strife of La Vendée, survive unshaken above the floods of time. 2. The country now immortalised under the name of the Tyrol, the land of Hofer and Spechbacher, lies on the southern frontier of Germany, and is composed of the mountains which, stretching eastward from the Alps of Switzerland, are interposed between the Bavarian plains and the fields of Italy. Less elevated than those of the Helvetian cantons, without the awful sublimity of the Alps of the Oberland, or the savage wildness of the Aiguilles of Chamouny, the mountains of the Tyrol are still more romantic, from the singular and imposing character which they in general bear, and the matchless beauty of the narrow valleys, or rather clefts, which are interspersed around their feet. Their summits, though in one or two cases little inferior in height to the Jungfrau or the Titlis, are more rugged than those of Switzerland, from being in general somewhat lower, and in consequence less charged with snow, and exhibiting their various strata, ra vines, and peaks in more undisguised grandeur than where a silver mantle has been for ever thrown over the higher regions. The general level of the country is less elevated than the central parts of Helvetia, and hence it is often more beautiful: the pine and larch do not appear in such monotonous masses: but noble forests of beech and oak clothe the mountain sides to a greater height than that of any hills in Britain, and a dark zone of pine separ. 3. The northern and southern slopes of the Alps exhibit here, as elswhere on the sides of the great stony girdle of the globe, the same remarkable difference in the productions of nature, the character of the landscape, and the disposition of the human species. To the north of the central chain of the Brenner, everything wears a frigid aspect. Vast forests of pine and fir clothe the middle regions of the mountains; naked rock or masses of snow compose their highest peaks; extensive pastures afford nourishment to numerous flocks and herds; barley and oats constitute the principal food of the inhabitants, and Indian corn is cultivated only in the rich and sheltered vale of the Inn. The inhabitants, like all those of Germanic descent, are brave, impetuous, and honest; tenacious of custom, fearless of danger, addicted to intemperance. But to the south of the range, these rigid features insensibly melt away under the increasing warmth of a more genial climate. Maize and wheat are reared with assiduous care in the few level spots which are interspersed among the rocks; walnut and cherry trees next give token of the approach of a milder atmosphere; beech and sweet chestnut succeed to the sable pine in the woody region above; the vine and the mulberry are found in the sheltered bosoms of the valleys; and at length the olive and the pomegranate. nestle in the sunny nooks, where, on the margin of the lake of Garda, the blasts of winter are averted by a leafy screen of almost perpetual verdure. But if the gifts of nature improve as the traveller descends to the plains of Lombardy, the character of man declines: with the sweet accents of the Italian tongue, the vices of civilisation, the craft of the south, have sensibly spread. The cities are more opulent, the churches more costly, the edifices more sumptuous; but the native virtues of the German population are no longer conspicuous: the love of freedom, the obligation of |