impossible for those who are assailed by them to discern whether they are supported by battalions, or in what order the French general is arraying his forces in the rear of this swarm of hornets. Thus they remain in complete ignorance of the French disposition, and dare not of course attempt to change their own; and while the wings waste their force, nay sometimes sustain heavy loss in encountering this harassing, and, as it were, unsubstantial enemy, their centre has to sustain the full weight of the French line, concentrated as we have described it. This mode of warfare was peculiarly severe on the Austrians; for it happened, by some unfortunate fatality, that in her passion for the Prussian discipline, that power judged it fit to convert the greater part of her Croats, the finest light troops in the world, into heavy battalions, and thus diminished their strength of this particular description of force at the moment when the fate of battle was about to depend upon it. The excellence of those light corps which Austria retained could not supply their great inferiority of numbers; and thus in that sort of minor battle of advanced guards, which is maintained by the light troops, and of which it is usually the object not to beat back the enemy, but to distract his attention, and, by engaging him in a confused struggle with a foe not the less formidable because yielding and almost invisible, to bring him up to their own line crippled and disheartened, the French acquired a superiority, which enabled them, without the least risque of being outflanked, to contract their own line within the extent necessary for employing the sooften-mentioned principle of reserves.

But it may be asked, to what tends this exposition? The French have

been almost uniformly victorious, and how avails it to what their victories can be ascribed? Our answer is twofold. Such an investigation as we have attempted leads us to due ap preciation ofthe talents of Buonaparte, instead of blind terror or blinder admiration. We have no wish to insi nuate a disrespect for his talents, having (as they unfortunately possess) the disposal of such extraordinary force at their command; in the words of a warrior speaking of his enemy, we grant him

Strong, and skilful to his strength, Fierce to his skill, and to his fierceness va liant.

But it will remain to be inquired whether his genius is of such a transcendant and overpowering nature as a distant contemplation of his exploits might induce us to believe. His plan, of which we have endea voured to develope the principle, is indeed well fitted to ensure the most numerous of two encountering armies the full superiority of its numbers; but there is no brilliant genius requisite to the formation. It is not an invention like Frederick's discovery of a new principle of moving au extended line. The latter is like the discovery of a mechanical power, and must in one shape or other be useful while armies are opposed to each other. The system of Buona parte is only a peculiar mode of em ploying the same power previously discovered, which may be destroyed by any counteracting system, or su perseded by any improvement on the application of the principle upon which it turns. In all his great engagements, (that of Austerlitz perhaps excepted,) Buonaparte seems never even to have attempted mancu vering, that is, he never attempted to

gam for his army a position which must give it an immediate and decided advantage over the enemy. Now this art we take to be the consummation of military ability, as being that by which military skill supplies the lack both of strength and of numbers. In the battles of the King of Prussia and other distinguished generals, we are led to augur the fortune of the day from the dispositions their ability enabled them to make relative to their enemy; and in the progress of the action we gradually observe our expectations realized. But Buonaparte's dispositions never authorize any conclusion as to his final success; and the imperfection of his positions, as well as the inferiority of his troops, is frequently conspicuous by the defeat of his army during the greater part of the day, until at length the fortune is turned by that in which his secret seems to consist, the appearance, namely, of a numerous reserve, fresh and in order. But it may be asked, is that not ability which secures to itself the effect of bringing up the last reserve? Undoubtedly it is, but of a subordinate and somewhat vulgar nature. It is the game of a chess player, who, conscious of superiority by a single piece, goes on exchanging man for man, because he knows that the lower he can reduce

both parties, the more his numerical superiority will be likely to gain the ascendant. Independent, therefore, of the waste of human blood, which conquerors seldom attend to, Buonaparte's road to victory seems greatly to depend upon his bringing a predominating force into the field, and upon his enemy's pertinacious adherence to the infatuated system of exposing an extended line to the action of a deep and reinforced column.

But the second object of our remarks is yet more important. Not only do we think the system of Buonaparte too obvious and too coarse to claim the praise of very high genius for the general who has trusted so constantly to it, but we conceive that it also admits of being easily counteracted. * Supposing that an enemy not inferior, at least not very much inferior in numbers, encountered Buonaparte with a line condensed like his own, covered in front by sharp-shooters, supported by numerous and powerful reserves, and capable, from its concentration, of suddenly executing general and combined movements, his ordinary scheme is entirely disconcerted, and the two armies meet upon equal terms. Now where this is the case, uniform experience shews, 1st, That the bravery of the French, however

ardent, is rather of a volatile and spirited nature, than what we term steadiness and intrepidity; and, 2dly, that where sufficient skill is united to the latter qualities, they, like what is called bottom by the prize-fighters, secure superiority in a long action. 3dly, The French general must be necessarily embarrassed and disconcerted by the neutralization of the very plan on which he had rested for conquest. For these combined rea sons, we conceive, that if deprived of the benefit of this favourite manoeuvre, the balance would probably incline against the French; Nay, we are able to shew an example in modern war, where Buonaparte's own system was successfully employed against himself by the Russian General Benningsen, at the battles of Pultusk and Eylau. In sustaining the French attack at Pultusk, the Cossacks and other light troops of the Russians formed as it were an outwork, or advanced battle, to their main-line, and not only completely overpowered the eclaireurs and tirailleurs, who were thrown forward, as usual, to protect and mask the advance of the French columns, but greatly embarrassed, interrupted, and crippled the columns themselves before they could reach the Russian position, properly so called. At Eylau, the counterpart of the French system was equally successfully provided against and counter acted by the Russians. Reserve after reserve was brought up by the French, but at the close of a long and desperate battle, the last reserve brought into action was that of the Russians. In both these battles, the Russians had decidedly the advantage, a fact which might have remained concealed from Europe, but for the clear, distinct, and able state

ment of Sir Robert Wilson in his late publication, which he himself in. vites the reader to contrast with the partial and studiously confused bul letins of Buonaparte, which form part of his appendix. It may be supposed strange, that the generals of a much more uncultivated people should be able to imitate, and by imitating to foil, a system of tactics, before which the generals of Austria and Prussia had given way. But it should be remembered, that the Rusians had conducted wars upon a very broad scale, and though their opera tions were against barbarians, they were, perhaps for that very reason, more certainly brought back to ge neral principles, and freed from the prejudice of military men, who, having only studied in one school, expected their antagonist strictly to conform to their own game and their own rules for playing it. Let it be remembered, that it was a Russian Emperor, who, by simply covering his line-of-battle by a chain of closed redoubts, instead of the combined fortified lines then in use, broke, at Pultowa, those Swedish infantry, whom every general in Europe, nay, Marlborough himself, regarded with respect and apprehension. French themselves were comparative. ly undisciplined when they devised this very system of reserves, as affording them the means of availing themselves of their numbers against the superior skill of their adversaries. We cannot forget the reproaches cast upon Lord Wellington as a Seapoy General. Had he not learned his art upon a broad and ex tended plan, such as India alone has yet afforded to a British general, where else could he have acquired the art of providing for the necessities of a large army, the principles of com

The

bination necessary for conducting its extended movements, in short, the complicated branches of military skill by which he is now driving be fore him those hordes, whose great est disgrace it is, that they canot shelter their abominable rapine and atrocity under the barbarous ignorance of Seiks or. Mahrattas.

It may indeed be pleaded too just ly, that the acknowledged imperfec tions in the Russian commissariat, the deficiencies oftheir staff, and, above all, the deplorable neglect of their government to supply and reinforce their armies, deprived them of the fruits of victory; while the active energy of Buonaparte drained his whole acquisitions of every soldier, or man who could be made such, to resume the field with a force superior to that which had foiled and defeated him. These considerations, however, do not respect our present subject, which refers merely to the field of battle, on which, we repeat, the Russians have neutralized Buonaparte's favourite manoeuvre. It may be briefly noticed, that the inhabitants of the peninsula, less fortunate in facing him in the field, and who at Tudela experienced discomfiture from the effects of that system which we have detailed, have yet shewn, that when a general battle is lost, the advantages of the victory may be in a great degree intercepted. The inveterate and desperate hostility of the Spaniards and Portuguese, so widely diffused through the peasantry of the country, has utterly destroyed the boasted system of intercourse and communication, by which the march of one French column was made to correspond with that of all who were acting in the same kingdom. Near as the events and positions were, it is almost impossible that Massena

could have known the fall of Badajos when he broke up from Santarem, or that Soult anticipated the retreat of Massena when he himself fell back into Spain, instead of advancing into Alemtejo, to make a diversion, and afford support to the enfant gate whom Fortune was dropping out of her arms. But the general and inveterate enmity of the peasantry entirely annihilated all the fair system of unity and constant correspondence, which in Germany the French armies maintained at any given distance. Couriers, aids-decamp, orderly men, and disguised spies, were alike the objects of suspicion to the Ordenanza, who, rather than miss securing their letters, would steadily rip up their bowels, a sad interruption to a regular and friendly correspondence. And thus these two great generals seem to have known little more of each other's motions, than if they had been next door neighbours in London. The self-devoted patriotism, with which the Portuguese destroyed every part of their own property, which could afford supply or assistance to the invading army, rendered the genius of the French for the commissariat department equally unavailing. Nay, even les grands moyens themselves have proved fruitless in a country, where Lord Wellington has declared, that none, even of the lowest description, forgot, through any compelled intercourse with the French, the duty which they owed to their country. We glance at these subjects, though distinct from that which we proposed to enlarge upon, merely to shew, that as the French system of tactics in the field of battle is far from infallible, so neither are the other means which they employ in facilitating the operations of the campaign