Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 397, November 1848
It has become the fashion of the French to speak of this illustrious personage with something of a sneer at what they pronounce his "want of enterprise." Every thing that he has done is by "phlegm!" Phlegm must be a most valuable quality, in that case, for it enabled him to defeat every officer to whom he had been opposed; and there was scarcely any man of repute in the French army to whom he had not been opposed. It is in no spirit of rational taunt, or of that hostility which, we will hope, has died away between England and France, that we give the list of the French marshals whom Wellington has fought, and always beaten, and several of them several times: – Junot at Vimeira, Soult at Oporto and the Pyrenees, Victor and Sebastiani at Talavera, Massena at Busaco, Marmont at Salamanca, Jourdan at Vitoria, and a whole group of the chief generals of France, with Ney, Soult, and Napoleon himself, at their head, at Waterloo.
But have the British military authors ever doubted the talent, or disparaged the gallantry, of those distinguished soldiers? Certainly not; they have given them every acknowledgment which ability and bravery could demand. Let the French nation read the eloquent pages of Alison, and see the character given by the historian to the leaders in the Italian, German, and Spanish campaigns. Let them read the spirited pages of Napier, and see them decorated almost with the colours of romance. Does either of these popular and powerful authors stigmatise the French generals with "ineptie," or characterise their victories, as the mere results of inability either to attack or to run away? Let them be the example of the future French military writers, and let those writers learn that there is a European tribunal, as well as a Parisian one.
But the French altogether mistake the question. Men like Wellington are not the growth of any military school, of any especial army, or of any peculiar nation. Without offering this great soldier any personal panegyric, he was a military genius. Since Marlborough, England had produced no such commander of an army, and may not produce another such for a century to come. Nelson was similarly a genius: he sprang at once to the first rank of sea-officers; and England, fertile as she is in first-rate sailors and brave men, may never produce another Nelson. Napoleon was a genius, and almost as palpably superior to the crowd of brave and intelligent generals round him, as if he had been of another species. The conduct of men of this exclusive capacity is no more a rule for other men, than their successes are to be depreciated to the common scale of military good fortune. The campaigns of Napoleon in Italy; the sea campaign in which Nelson pursued the French fleet half-round the globe, to extinguish it at Trafalgar; the seven years' continued campaign of Wellington in the Peninsula, finished by the most splendid march in European history, from the frontier of Portugal into the heart of France, have had no example in the past, and can be no example to the future. The principle, the power, and the success, lie equally beyond the limits of ordinary calculation. The evident fact is, that there is an occasional rank of faculty, which puts all calculation out of sight, which is found to produce effects of a new magnitude, and which overpasses all difficulties, by the use of an intellectual element, but occasionally, and but for especial purpose, communicated to man.
We have no doubt whatever of the truth of this solution, and are consequently convinced, that it would have been much wiser in M. Gravière to have attempted to describe the career of Wellington, than to pronounce on the principles of his science; and, above all, than to account for his victories by the very last means of victory – the mere brutishness of standing still, the simple immobility of passive force, the mere unintelligent and insensate working of a machine.
"What a contrast," exclaims the Frenchman, "between these passionate traits (of Nelson) and the impassive bearing of Wellington, that cool and methodical leader, who maintained his ground in the Peninsula by the sheer force of order and prudence! Do they belong to the same nation? Did they command the same men? The admiral, full of enthusiasm, and devoured by the love of distinction, and the general, so phlegmatic and immovable, who, intrenched behind his lines at Torres Vedras, or re-forming, without emotion, his broken squares on the field of Waterloo – (where not a single British square was broken) – seems rather to aim at wearying out his enemy than at conquering him, and triumphs only by his patient and unconquerable firmness."
Must it not be asked, Why did the French suffer him to exhibit this firmness? why did they not beat him at once? Do generals win battles merely by waiting, until their antagonists are tired of crushing them?
But the Frenchman still has a resource – he accounts for it all by the design of a higher power! "It was thus, nevertheless, that the designs of Providence were to be accomplished. It gave to the general, destined to meet incontestably superior troops(!!), whose first efforts were irresistible, that systematic and temporising character, which was to wear out the ardour of our soldiers." Having thus accounted for the French perpetuity of defeat on land, by a man of stupidity and stone; he accounts, with equal satisfaction, for the perpetuity of defeat at sea by a man of activity and animation. "To the admiral who was to meet squadrons fresh out of harbour, and easily disconcerted by a sudden attack, Providence gave that fiery courage and audacity which alone could bring about those great disasters, that would not have been inflicted under the rules of the old school of tactics."
The Frenchman, in his eagerness to disparage Wellington as dull, and Nelson as rash, forgets that he forces his reader to the conclusion, that tardiness and precipitancy are equally fit to beat the French. Or if they are incontestably superior troops, and their first onset is irresistible, how is it that they are beaten at the last, or are ever beaten at all? We also find the curious and rather unexpected acknowledgment, that Providence was always against them, and that it had determined on their defeat, whether their enemy were swift or slow.
We are afraid that we have been premature in giving M. de la Gravière credit for getting rid of his prejudices. But we shall set him a better example. We shall not deny that the French make excellent soldiers; that they have even a sort of national fitness for soldiership; that they form active, bold, and highly effective troops: though, for them, as sailors, we certainly cannot say as much. Henry IV. remarked "that he never knew a French king lucky at sea;" and Henry spoke the truth. And the wisest thing which France could do, would be to give up all attempts to be a "naval power," – which she never has been, and never can be – and expend her money and her time on the comforts, the condition, and the spirit of her people, both citizens and soldiery.
But, we must assist the French judgment on the character of Wellington: and a slight detail will prove him to be the most enterprising leader of troops in the history of modern Europe. Let us first settle the meaning of the word enterprise. It is not a foolish restlessness, a giddy fondness for the flourish of Bulletins, or a precipitate habit of rushing into projects unconsidered and ineffective. It is activity, guided by intelligence; a daring effort to attain a probable success. The French generals, in the commencement of the revolutionary war, dashed at every thing, and yet were not entitled to the praise of enterprise. They fought under the consciousness that, unless they attracted Parisian notice by their battles, they must pay the penalty with their heads. Thus nearly all the principal generals of the early Republic were guillotined. The levée-en-masse gave them immense multitudes, who must fight, or starve. The Republic had fourteen armies at once in the field, who must be fed; commissioners from Paris were in the camps; and the general who declined to fight on all occasions, was stripped of his epaulets, and sent to the "Place de Grève."
But enterprise, in the style which distinguishes a master of strategy, is among the rarest military qualities. Marlborough was almost the only officer, in the last century, remarkable for enterprise, and its chief example was his march from Flanders to attack the French and Bavarian army, which he routed in the magnificent triumph of Blenheim. Wolfe's attack on the heights of Abraham was a capital instance of enterprise, for it showed at once sagacity and daring, and both in pursuit of a probable object, – the surprise of the enemy, and the power of bringing him to an engagement on fair ground.
But enterprise has been the chief characteristic of the whole military career of Wellington.
His first great Indian victory, Assaye, (23d September 1802,) was an "enterprise," by which, in defiance of all difficulties, and with but 5000 men, he beat the army of Scindiah and the rajah of Berar, consisting of 50,000, of which 30,000 were cavalry. There, instead of phlegm, he was accused of rashness; but his answer was, the necessity of stopping the enemy's march; and, more emphatic still, a most consummate victory.
On his landing in Portugal, at the head of only 10,000 men, (August 5, 1808,) this man of phlegm instantly broke up the whole plan of Junot. He first dashed at Laborde, commanding a division of 6000 men, as the advanced guard of the main army; drove him from the mountain position of Roliça; marched instantly to meet Junot, whom he defeated at Vimeira; and, on the 15th of September, the British troops were in possession of Lisbon. The French soon embarked by a convention, and Portugal was free! This was the work of a six-weeks' campaign by this passive soldier.
The convention of Cintra excited displeasure in England, as the capture of the whole army had been expected, from the high public opinion of the British commander; and the opinion would not have been disappointed, if he had continued in the command. The testimony of Colonel Torrens, (afterwards military secretary to the Duke of York,) on the court of inquiry, was, "That, on the defeat of the French at Vimeira, Sir Arthur rode up to Sir Harry Burrard and said – 'Now, Sir Harry, is your time to advance upon the enemy; they are completely broken, and we may be in Lisbon in three days.' Sir Harry's answer was, 'that he thought a great deal had been done.'" The army was halted, and the French, who felt that their cause was hopeless, sent to propose the convention.
On the 22d of April 1809, Sir Arthur again landed in Portugal, to take the command of the army, consisting of but 16,000 men, with 24 guns. His plan was to drive Soult out of Oporto, fight the French, wherever he found them; and then return and attack Victor on the Tagus. Such was the project of the man of phlegm! He made a forced march of 80 miles, in three days and a-half, from Coimbra, crossed the Douro, drove Soult out of Oporto, ate the dinner which had been prepared for the Frenchman, and hunted him into the mountains, with the loss of all his guns and baggage. The French army was ruined for the campaign. This was the work of three weeks from his landing at Lisbon!
Sir Arthur's next enterprise was an advance into Spain. The kingdom was held by a French force of upwards of 200,000 men, with all the principal fortresses in their possession, the Pyrenees open, and the whole force of France ready to repair their losses. The Spanish armies were ill commanded, ill provided, and in all pitched battles regularly beaten. The French force sent to stop him at Talavera, on his road to Madrid, amounted to 60,000 men, under Jourdan, Victor, and Sebastiani, with King Joseph at the head of the whole. The battle began on the 27th of July, and, after a desperate struggle of two days, with a force of nearly three times the number of the British, ended by the rapid retreat of the French in the night, with the loss of 20 pieces of cannon and four standards. The Spanish army under Cuesta did good service on this occasion, but it was chiefly by guarding a flank. Their position was strong, and they were but little assailed. The British lost a fourth of their number in killed and wounded; the French, 10,000 men.
The purpose of these pages is, not to give a history of the illustrious Duke's exploits, but to show the utter absurdity of the French notion, that he gained all his battles by standing still, until the enemy grew tired of beating him. There is scarcely an instance in all his battles, in which he did not seek the enemy, and there is no instance in which he did not beat them! This is a sufficient answer to the French theory.
The ruin of the Spanish armies, and the immense numerical superiority of the French, commanded by Massena, compelled the British general, in 1810, to limit himself to the defence of Portugal. Massena followed him at the head of nearly 90,000 men. The British general might have marched, without a contest, to the lines of Torres Vedras; but the man of phlegm resolved to fight by the way. He fought at Busaco, (September 27.)
Massena, proverbially the most dashing of the French generals – the "Enfant gâté de la Victoire," as Napoleon styled him – could not believe that any officer would be so daring as to stop him on his road. On being told that the English would fight, and on reconnoitring their position, he said, "I cannot persuade myself that Lord Wellington will risk the loss of his reputation; but, if he does, I shall have him."
Napoleon, at Waterloo, was yet to utter the same words, and make the same mistake. "Ah! je les tiens, ces Anglais." – "To-morrow," said Massena, "we shall reconquer Portugal, and in a few days I shall drive the leopards into the sea." The day of Busaco finished this boast, with a loss to the French of 2000 killed, 6000 wounded, and with the loss, which Massena, perhaps, felt still more, of his military reputation for life.
But the lines of Torres Vedras must not be forgotten in any memorial, however brief, to the genius of Wellington. The great problem of all strategists, at that period, was "the defence of Portugal against an overwhelming force." Dumouriez and Moore had looked only to the frontier, and justly declared that, from its extent and broken nature, it was indefensible. Wellington, with a finer coup d'œil, looked to the half-circle of rising grounds stretching from the Tagus to the sea, and enclosing the capital. He fortified them with such admirable secrecy, that the French had scarcely heard of their existence; and with such incomparable skill, that, when they saw them at last, they utterly despaired of an attack. They were on the largest scale of fortified lines ever constructed, their external circle occupying forty miles. The defences consisted of 10 separate fortifications, mounting 444 guns, and manned by 28,000 men. They formed two lines, the exterior mounting 100 guns, the interior (about eight miles within) mounting 200; the remaining guns being mounted on redoubts along the shore and the river. The whole force, British and Portuguese, within the lines, and keeping up the communication to Lisbon, was nearly 80,000 men.
The contrast without and within the lines was of the most striking kind, and formed a new triumph for the feelings of the British general. Without, all was famine, ferocity, and despair; within, all was plenty, animation, and certainty of triumph. Massena, after gazing on those noble works for a mouth, broke up his hopeless bivouac; retired to Santarem; saved the remnant of his unfortunate army only by a retreat in the night; was hunted to the frontier; fought a useless and despairing battle at Fuentes d'Onore; was beaten, returned into France, and resigned his command. He was thenceforth forgotten, probably died of the loss of his laurels, and is now known only by his tomb in the Cemetery of Paris.
In October of the year 1811, though the British army had gone into winter quarters, the man of "passive courage" gave the enemy another example of "enterprise." The fifth French corps, under Gerard, had begun to ravage Estremadura. General Hill, by the order of Lord Wellington, moved against the Frenchman; took him by surprise at Aroyo de Molinos; fought him through the town, and out of the town; captured his staff, his whole baggage, commissariat, guns, 30 captains, and 1000 men. He drove the rest up the mountains, and, in short, destroyed the whole division – Gerard escaping with but 300 men.
The French field-marshal here amply acknowledged the effect of enterprise. In his despatch to Berthier from Seville, Soult says, – "This event is so disgraceful, that I know not how to qualify it. General Gerard had choice troops with him, yet shamefully suffered himself to be surprised, from excessive presumption and confidence. The officers and soldiers were in the houses, as in the midst of peace. I shall order an inquiry, and a severe example."
The next year began with the two most splendid sieges of the war. A siege is proverbially the most difficult of all military operations, requiring the most costly preparations, and taking up the longest time. Its difficulty is obviously enhanced by the nearness of a hostile force. Wellington was watched by two French armies, commanded by Soult and Marmont, either of them of nearly equal force with his own, and, combined, numbering 80,000 men. Ciudad Rodrigo was one of the strongest fortresses of the Peninsula; Marmont was on his march to succour it. Wellington rushed on it, and captured it by storm, (January 19.) Marmont, finding that he was too late, retired. Badajoz was the next prize, a still larger and more important fortress. Soult was moving from the south to its succour. He had left Seville on the 1st of April; Wellington rushed on it, as he had done on Ciudad Rodrigo, and took it by one of the most daring assaults on record, (April 7.)
This was again the man who conquered "by standing still." The letter of General Lery, chief engineer of the army of the south, gives the most unequivocal character of this latter enterprise. "The conquest of Badajoz cost me eight engineers. Never was there a place in a better state, or better provided with the requisite number of troops. I see in that event a marked fatality. Wellington, with his Anglo-Portuguese army, has taken the place, as it were, in the presence of two armies. In short, I think the capture of Badajoz a very extraordinary event. I should be much at a loss to account for it in any manner consistent with probability." The language of this chief engineer seems, as if he would have brought all concerned to a court-martial.
The conqueror, after those magnificent exploits, which realised to M. Lery's eye something supernatural – the work of a destiny determined on smiting France – might have indulged his passiveness, without much fear even of French blame. He had baffled the two favourite marshals of France – he had torn the two chief fortresses of Spain out of French hands. There was now no enemy in the field. Soult had halted, chagrined at the fall of Badajoz. Marmont had retired to the Tormes. Wellington determined to continue their sense of defeat, by cutting off the possibility of their future communication. The bridge of Almarez was the only passage over the Tagus in that quarter. It was strongly fortified and garrisoned. On this expedition he despatched his second in command, General Hill, an officer who never failed, and whose name is still held in merited honour by the British army. The tête-du-pont, a strong fortification, was taken by escalade. The garrison were made prisoners; the forts were destroyed, (May 19.) The action was sharp, and cost, in killed and wounded, nearly 200 officers and men.
Wellington now advanced to Salamanca, the headquarters of Marmont during the winter; and pursued him out of it, to the Arapeiles, on the 22d of July. In this battle Marmont was outmanœuvred and totally defeated, with the loss of 6000 killed and wounded, 7000 prisoners, 20 guns, and several eagles and ammunition waggons. The British army now moved on Madrid. King Joseph fled; Madrid surrendered, with 181 guns; and the government of Ferdinand and the Cortes was restored.
But a still more striking enterprise was to come, the march to Vitoria, – the brilliant commencement of the campaign of 1813. Wellington had now determined to drive the French out of Spain. They still had a force of 160,000 men, including the army of Suchet, 35,000. Joseph, with Jourdan, fearing to be outflanked, moved with 70,000 men towards the Pyrenees. On the 16th of May, Wellington crossed the Douro. On the 21st of June he fought the battle of Vittoria, with the loss of 6000 to the enemy, 150 guns, all their baggage, and the plunder of Madrid. For this great victory Wellington was appointed field-marshal.
The march itself was a memorable instance of "enterprise." It was a movement of four hundred miles, through one of the most difficult portions of the Peninsula, by a route never before attempted by an army, and which, probably, no other general in Europe would have attempted. Its conduct was so admirable, that it was scarcely suspected by the French; its movement was so rapid, that it outstripped them; and its direction was so skilful, that King Joseph and his marshal had scarcely encamped, and thought themselves out of the reach of attack, when they saw the English columns overtopping the heights surrounding the valley of the Zadora.
In his last Spanish battle, the victory of the Pyrenees, where he had to defend a frontier of sixty miles, he drove Soult over the mountains, and was the first of all the generals engaged in Continental hostilities, to plant his columns on French ground!
Those are the facts of seven years of the most perilous war, against the most powerful monarch whom Europe had seen for a thousand years. The French army in the Peninsula had varied from 150,000 to 300,000 men. It was constantly recruited from a national force of 600,000. It was under the authority of a great military sovereign, wholly irresponsible, and commanding the entire resources of the most populous, warlike, and powerful of Continental states. The British general, on the other hand, was exposed to every difficulty which could embarrass the highest military skill. He had to guide the councils of the two most self-willed nations in existence. He had to train native armies, which scoffed at English discipline; he had the scarcely less difficult task of contending with the fluctuating opinions of public men in England: yet he never shrank; he never was shaken in council, and he never was defeated in the field.
But by what means were all this succession of unbroken victories achieved? Who can listen to the French babbling, which tells us that it was done, simply by standing still to be beaten? The very nature of the war, with an army composed of the raw battalions of England, which had not seen a shot fired since the invasion of Holland in 1794, a period of fourteen years; his political anxieties from his position with the suspicious governments of Spain and Portugal, and not less with his own fluctuating Legislature; his encounters with a force quadruple his own, commanded by the most practised generals in Europe, and under the supreme direction of the conqueror of the Continent – A condition of things so new, perplexing, and exposed to perpetual hazard, in itself implies enterprise, a character of sleepless activity, unwearied resource, and unhesitating intrepidity – all the very reverse of passiveness.
That this illustrious warrior did not plunge into conflict on every fruitless caprice; that he was not for ever fighting for the Gazette; that he valued the lives of his brave men; that he never made a march without a rational object, nor ever fought a battle without a rational calculation of victory – all this is only to say, that he fulfilled the duties of a great officer, and deserved the character of a great man. But, that he made more difficult campaigns, fought against a greater inequality of force, held out against more defective means, and accomplished more decisive successes, than any general on record, is mere matter of history.
His last and greatest triumph was Waterloo, – a victory less over an army than an empire, – a triumph gained less for England than for Europe, – the glorious termination of a contest for the welfare of mankind. Waterloo was a defensive battle. But it was not the rule, but the exception. The object of the enemy was Brussels: "To-night you shall sleep in Brussels," was the address of the French Emperor to his troops. Wellington's was but the wing of a great army spread over leagues to meet the march of the French to Brussels. His force consisted of scarcely more than 40,000 British and Hanoverians, chiefly new troops; the rest were foreigners, who could scarcely be relied on. The enemy in front of him were 80,000 veterans, commanded by Napoleon in person. The left wing of the Allied force – the Prussians – could not arrive till seven in the evening; after the battle had continued eight hours. The British general, under those circumstances, could not move; but he was not to be beaten. If he had 80,000 British troops, he would have finished the battle in an hour. On seeing the Prussian troops in a position to follow up success, he gave the order to advance; and in a single charge swept the French army, the Emperor, and his fortunes, from the field! Thus closed the 18th of June 1815.
Within three days, this "man of passiveness" crossed the French frontier, (June 21,) took every town in his way, (and all the French towns on that route are fortified,) and, on the 30th, the English and Prussians invested Paris. On the 3d of July, the capitulation of Paris, garrisoned by 50,000 regular troops and the national guard, was signed at St Cloud, and the French army was marched to the Loire, where it was disbanded.
We have now given the answer which common sense gives, and which history will always give, to the childishness of accounting for Wellington's unrivalled successes by his "doing nothing" until the "invincible" French chose to grow weary of being invincible. The historic fact is, that their generals met a superior general; that their troops met Englishmen, commanded by an officer worthy of such a command; and that "enterprise" of the most daring, sagacious, and brilliant order, was the especial, peculiar, and unequalled character of Wellington.
The volumes of M. Gravière are interesting; but he must unlearn his prejudices; or, if that be nationally impossible, he must palliate them into something like probability. He must do this even in consideration of the national passion for "glory." To be beaten by eminent military qualities softens the shame of defeat; but to be beaten by mere passiveness, – to be driven from a scene of possession by phlegm, and to be stript of laurels by the hand of indolence and inaptitude, – must be the last aggravation of military misfortune.
Yet, this stain they must owe to the pen of men who subscribe to the doctrine, that the great soldier of England conquered simply by his incapacity for action!
We think differently of the French people and of the French soldiery. The people are intelligent and ingenious; the soldiery are faithful and brave. England has no prejudices against either. Willing to do justice to the merits of all, she rejoices in making allies of nations, whom she has never feared as enemies. She wants no conquest, she desires no victories. Her glory is the peace of mankind.
But, she will not suffer the tombs of her great men to be defaced, nor their names to be taken down from the temple consecrated to the renown of their country.