LVII. 1809. CHAP. ciple, an abstruse art; whatever directs the proceedings of large masses of mankind must be founded on maxims obvious to every capacity. Napoleon himself has told us that the leading object in strategy is, with a force inferior upon the whole, to be always superior at the point of attack; and that the greatest fault a commander can commit is to fight with no other line of retreat than by a narrow defile. His main charge against the generalship of Wellington, is founded upon the fact of his having fought at Waterloo with a single highway traversing the forest of Soignies in his rear. "The position of Mount St John," said Napoleon, "was ill-chosen. The first requisite of a 19th Book field of battle is to have no defiles in its rear. The injudiNap. 207. cious choice of the field of battle rendered to the English army all retreat impossible." 1 66. errors and rashness on Judging by these principles, which are recommended not less by the weight of his authority than by their intrinsic His military justice and sense, what are we to say to the general who, though superior by twenty thousand men upon the whole this occasion. to his adversary, on the first day, according to his own account of the matter, exposed twenty-five thousand men* to a hopeless contest with eighty thousand; and, on the second, precipitated seventy thousand, in close columns, against a semicircle of batteries containing three hundred guns, every shot from which fell with the certainty of destruction upon their crowded ranks, and that, too, when a vast river, traversed only by a tottering bridge, connected the troops in advance with the reserve of the army, and served as the only possible way of retreat to either in case of disaster? It is in vain that his defenders argue that eight divisions on the field of battle, with four under *On the two banks of the Danube," says Napoleon, "I had, at the time of the battle of Aspern, twenty thousand men more than the Archduke. In the battle of the 21st, twenty-five thousand men combated a hundred thousand during three hours and a half, and preserved their positions."-N POLEON in MONTHOLON, ii. 78, Mélanges. These numbers are grossly exaggerated, according to his usual practice: but the greater the disproportion is made, the worse for Napoleon; for how did a general, at the head of a hundred and twenty thousand men, come to expose twenty-five thousand to so grievous a chance as combating against such odds, with a river all but impassable in their rear? There are occasions in war when such a risk as this must be incurred, and when to hazard it is the first duty of a commander. Such was Wellington's situation on the Douro in 1869, and Napoleon's own at Lodi in 1796, and in Champagne in 1814. But in 1809 he lay under no such necessity; the capital, the resources, the arsenals of Austria were in his power; the great stroke which was to fascinate mankind had been struck; it was the Archduke who was in the predicament of being compelled to undertake perilous measures. Davoust on the right bank, were equal to any force the Austrians could bring against them. Granted, provided always the communication between them was secure : but what is to be said to hazarding two-thirds of the army on the left bank, when a narrow bridge, a mile in length, shaking under the flood, separated that portion from the remaining third on the other bank? Napoleon has himself told us that "twice, on the 21st, the bridges were carried away by the flood, and that the Austrian boats were already dashing against the pontoons. At midnight the Danube rose in the most frightful manner, and the passage was a third time interrupted, and not restored till next morning, when the Guard and Oudinot's corps commenced their passage." What temerity, then, in 77. such circumstances, to hazard a decisive action on the day following with the whole Austrian army, and precipitate Lannes into the centre of their batteries, early in the morning, before either the bulk of Davoust's corps or the reserve parks of ammunition had crossed the perilous passage! "The 1 CHAP. LVII. 1809. Nap. in Month, ii. method of column. Nor is this all; the result of the battle of Aspern clearly. demonstrates, that the method of attacking in column in 67. a narrow field, and against a brave enemy, is essentially Observations defective; and that the prodigious loss sustained by on the French Napoleon was owing to his persisting in it under circum- attacking in stances where it had obviously become inexpedient. The observations of a distinguished French military writer on this subject are convincing and unanswerable. 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 manœuvre 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. Every thing was struck 2 Rogniat down or overturned, and our leading columns were literally sur l'Art destroyed:2 in the end we were obliged to fall back and 333. yield to that frightful tempest, till we again came abreast VOL. XII. U Militaire, LVIL 1809. CHAP. 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 Cannæ. "Cuneus Gallorum ut pulsus æquavit frontem primum, deinde nitendo etiam sinum in medio dedit, Afri circa jam cornua fecerant, irruentibusque incaute in 1 Polyb. iii. medium Romanis, circumdedere alas. Mox cornua extendendo, clausere et ab tergo hostes."1* The military art is in its fundamental principles the same in all ages; and it is highly interesting to see Hannibal's triumph, and Napoleon's defeat, arise, under the greatest possible difference of ground, arms, and contending nations, from the same simple and obvious cause.t c. 12. Liv. xxii. 47. 68. Disadvan tages of the attack in sisted. 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 column when single line, three or four deep. But they did on this steadily reoccasion, 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.2 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 2 Jom. Vie de Nap. iii. 201. *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. The † 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 Hannibal drew up his in a single line. 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!-See NAPOLEON in MONTH. i. 282, Mélanges. 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 centre companies. And the battalion, consisting of six companies, or three divisions, was thus drawn up in three lines. 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 leading and flanking files; its ranks, massed together, present an unerring mark for the enemy's fire, if they will only stand to deliver it; confusion is apt to arise in the centre from the losses sustained or witnessed by men not warmed by the heat of action, and if it is exposed to a concentric discharge, or meets with opponents as resolute as itself, it becomes liable to a bloody reverse. The same principle applies to breaking the line at sea that system has done admirably with the French and Spaniards; but let the British admirals consider well before they adopt it in combating the Russians or Americans. CHAP. LVII. 1809. 69. reasons for 1 vi. 41; vii. 125. 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 Napoleon's altogether inexcusable, and that it was the peculiarity his rash conand hazard of his political situation which made him duct. 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 Las Cases, 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 the Marchfield. It is the invariable characteristic of revolu LVII. -1809. CHAP. tionary power, whether political or military, to be perpetually exposed to this necessity, from the want of any lasting support in the interest and affection of the industrious classes of the people. And it is in the experience of that necessity, not any oblivion of the rules of the military art, that the true explanation and best vindication of Napoleon's conduct, both at Aspern, Moscow, and Dresden, is to be found. 70. Glorious character of the Austrian 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, resistance at with their fortresses taken, their arsenals pillaged, their Aspern. 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 Euglish 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, depends on the national institutions as on the stage at which they have arrived in social advancement; and in the invincible tenacity and far-seeing sagacity of an aristocratic government is to be found the only guarantee, from the days of Cannæ to those of Aspern, for such an unshaken resolu |