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Military History, if aspiring to be anything higher than the bare record of warlike transactions, must be accompanied by intelligent criticism. Of the limits of such criticism it is proposed to speak hereafter. At present our first duty is to consider what is the just and safe foundation on which both narrative and comment should rest; how, in short, we are to verify the facts on which we propose to build our theories. For, surely, without historic truth to light us through the past, it is vain to form judgments on it, or to seek to deduce lessons for the future.

To show by what principle such truth can alone be secured, I would here employ the words of a late writer, universally allowed to be one of the greatest critics which this age has produced. The lamented Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, in a notable passage of his ‘Credibility of the Early Roman History,’ thus lays down the true law which should constantly guide our researches:—‘It seems,’ he says,‘to be often believed, and, at all events, it is perpetually assumed in practice, that historical evidence is different in its nature from other sorts of evidence. Until this error is effectually extirpated, all historical researches must lead to uncertain results. Historical evidence, like judicial evidence, is founded on the testimony of credible witnesses.'

It need hardly be pointed out that this law is quite as necessary in studying military events as any others. Indeed, there are none in which an actor is so apt to mistake mere impressions of his own for facts, and (which is very important) to note down for the use of history his own guesses at what exists and what occurs on the other side, instead of waiting to correct these from the proper source, the information which that other side alone can furnish of its means and objects. Unhappily, these hasty guesses are often more flattering than would be the truth to national vanity. Hence a powerful sentiment is enlisted on the side of error, and succeeding authors think they are doing their country service by shutting their eyes to the truth, and following blindly the narratives of their own party, thus accepting for history a purely onesided version of events. By and by the stereotyped statement is treated as fact, its accuracy hotly defended, records diligently searched in as far as they are likely to confirm it. This process, continued on either side, multiplies contradiction, until essayists moralise over the falsity of history, forgetful that in all disputes truth can only be sifted out by comparing evidence, and that it is the special duty of the judge to correct that partiality of witnesses which obscures but does not change the nature of the facts.

We shall have in these pages to deal much with the military literature of a great neighbouring nation, whose writers sin above all others in the matter of their national defeats and victories. It is not intended, however, to assume that our own are blameless. The popular English version of that great battle which gives its name to the campaign of 1815 is hardly less a romance than the famous Waterloo chapter in Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables,’ over which our critics have with good reason made merry. Let us select from our various school histories one of the best known, and see what is said of the Prussian share in the victory of Waterloo. Of nearly a page devoted to the battle, just two short sentences are allotted to Blücher’s part! ‘When night approached, the heads of the Prussian columns were seen advancing to share in the combat.’ ‘The Prussians, who were comparatively fresh, continued the pursuit’ [the French are described as broken entirely by Wellington’s charge], ‘and the army of Napoleon was virtually annihilated.’ What English lad, reading a story thus written, could possibly surmise that the fiercest of, all modem leaders of wax was on the ground with part of his army at half-past four, was hotly engaged with Napoleon’s reserves three hours before dark, had brought 50,000 fine troops into action at the time of, Wellington’s grand charge, and had 7,000 of them killed and wounded that evening in his vigorous support of our army! Yet these facts are perfectly patent to him who sees the battle of Waterloo, not as coloured by patriotic artists, but as portrayed by true history, and is veiling to take his account of what the Prussians did, not from the guesses of enemy or ally? but direct from their own narratives, confirmed by those of independent observers.

It has been intimated that French historians offend terribly in this matter. They sin, not merely by omission, but by wilful repetition of error from book to book, long after the truth has been given to the world. This would matter little to us, comparatively, were French historians and French material for history not specially important to our own. Unhappily, the ease and grace of the military writers of France, and the number and accessibility of their works, have caused those of our country to adhere almost entirely to their versions of European wars, excepting always those in which English Armies are mixed up. This slavish following of guides too often blind has warped our whole judgment of Continental military powers. We could hardly, indeed, have chosen worse for our teachers. No German writer would dream of sitting down deliberately to construct a history of a war, a campaign, or even an action between French and Germans, without carefully consulting the French authorities as well as those of his own nation. A Frenchman, writing at this present time of an affair of the revolutionary or imperial period, thinks nothing of following implicitly the bulletins of the day even for the enemy’s numbers; or will take these at second-hand from some intermediate writer, with perfect good faith no doubt, but with an utter disregard of the rules of evidence. I take as an instance the latest of such narratives, from a work which, however little accurate, is yet one well suited for its special purpose, being published as a French Reader for the use of a great military college. It is written by a Frenchman who seems able in his method, perfectly honest-minded, and who, living in this country permanently, is removed above all petty reasons for flattering the national vanity of his own. He is sketching the lives of some eminent French generals, from whose writings he wishes ta quote, and among others that of Marshal Jourdan, with his great achievement, the victory of Fleurus, which turned the tide of the war in the Netherlands in 1794. As the authorities employed are solely of the one side, one knows beforehand how the estimate of numbers will be given; ‘100,000 Allied troops were opposed to 70,000 Republicans.’ The author is but following a host of writers who reckon no French but those actually engaged, and who have never sought to verify the original guess of their countrymen at the strength of Coburg’s beaten army. Yet the numbers of the latter have been published these twenty years from official returns in a standard Austrian work, and from this source the supposed 100,000 are found, by a single reference, to be just 45,775! As to the French, their available strength under Jourdan appears from Thiers’ account (not likely to exaggerate in that direction) to have been full 81,000, when his reserves are reckoned. So the Republican general, instead of having only seven-tenths the force of his adversaries, commanded in reality not far from two to their one!

Whilst on the subject of French inaccuracies I may with advantage refer to a notable correspondence to be found in the appendix to the first volume of the Life of sir life of that peerless military historian, the writer of the ‘Peninsular War.’ Here M. Thiers, the great master of the art of explaining away national mishaps, has fallen into the hands of an antagonist in every way his match, and is fairly worsted, even as to his French numbers, by the aid of the genuine returns, kept for Napoleon’s private use, and still existing in the Paris archives. The discussion is a model of its kind on Napier’s side; and the airy readiness with which M. Thiers, unable to refute his adversary’s facts, declines to argue further with interested or ignorant critics,’ may serve to forewarn us how far the author of ‘The Consulate and Empire’ can safely be trusted as an historical guide.

There are errors less important than those which have been referred to, that become woven into ordinary histories from the mere careless habit of writers who, without intending to mislead, copy tamely the assertions of those who have gone before them, and take no pains to check their truth. An amusing instance of such is to be found in the popular accounts of the great cavalry combat which closed the battle of Eckmuhl in 1809. A French writer of mark, General Pelet (who served in the action, though he did not see the combat), ascribed the success of his countrymen to the superiority of the armour of the French Cuirassiers, who wore back as well as. breastplates, over that of the Austrians of the same arm, who were protected only in front. Pelet no doubt had some camp story for his authority for this strange assertion, which has been repeated again and again, and is recorded as an interesting fact by Alison, none of those who have borrowed the statement having enquired what help the French cavaliers really obtained in their successful charges from their armour behind, nor, what is more to the purpose, what was the actual proportion of the numbers of the combatants. It so happens, however, that there are unusually complete records on both sides, from which the latter may be extracted. Baron Stutterheim wrote a history for the Austrians, which, by favour exceptional at Vienna, was published at once, and forms a standard German authority. Thiers, following Pelet, and using the French archives, has reckoned up the French cavalry with much elaboration. An examination of these sources shows twelve squadrons of Austrian reserve Cuirassiers, aided by seventeen of light cavalry (which had suffered very severely just before), opposed to ten full regiments of French heavy horse, aided by three brigades of allied Germans. The latter had numbered altogether 10,000 a few days before, the former little over 3,000: and, making the necessary allowance for the preceding operations, this wonderful tale of a victory due to the armour on the backs of the victors resolves itself into a hopeless stand of the Austrian cavalry against a force more than three times their strength.

It has not unfrequently occurred that the features of national policy bear the impress of false current notions of military events. Our own recent Indian history affords a very striking instance of this truth. Rather more than a quarter of a century since we occupied Affghanistan, to anticipate Russian intrigue on our north-western frontier. The country was held for us by three separate brigades of troops, each with distinct cantonments and administration. An insurrection took place at the capital, spreading soon to other districts; and the force at head-quarters, overcome rather by the imbecility of mismanagement than by the strength of the enemy, perished absolutely with all its camp-followers in the attempt to retreat. The other two brigades held their own with perfect success, and maintained our hold of the country until, being reinforced, they re-conquered it with ease. We had thus lost about one-third of the original army of occupation, 4,500 men in fact. Unfortunately, in writing of such a disaster, there is a tendency in the historian to magnify his office and give the event undue proportions, and the school of writers who seek effect rather than strict truth have made the Affghan war their own. Hence it has been usual to add to our actual losses the swarm of followers who attended the combatants that fell, and to keep in the background the true proportion of the latter to the forces that held out; so that nowadays, if twenty fairly informed Englishmen were interrogated on the subject, nineteen would probably unhesitatingly admit such statements as that ‘all our army was destroyed,’ or that our terrible loss of 16,000 men in Afghanistan shook our prestige throughout the East;’ and the moral effect of the disaster upon our policy has been magnified threefold by misconception. It is not here sought to advocate any change in the pacific attitude adapted by our rulers on that frontier, but to show that it has been imposed by public opinion rooted on a misstatement of facts, and to gather from this instance the inference that a nation’s policy may be largely influenced by the incorrect history of a war.

More remarkable than any such isolated mistake, and far more important in its bearings, is the persistent error of the French nation as to its own modern military annals. By excluding from sight Peninsular failures, by treating the Republican disasters of 1793 and 1795 as of no account in the light of alternate successes, by dwelling constantly on Napoleon’s victories, and elaborating excuses for his defeats, their writers have striven to impregnate that great people with the dangerous belief that their land can produce at will soldiers invincible, and a chief that cannot err. Hence the ambitious policy which can be satisfied with nothing less than a sort of supremacy in Europe, such as Napoleon for the time actually secured. It would seem as though the feverish visions which lured that great genius to his ruin have infected more or less the whole nation that raised him to power. The belief that but for a series of unlucky accidents, but for treachery, but for some hostile element, Frenchmen under Napoleon could never have failed, has become almost a religious faith with decades of millions; and the natural consequence of this false view of history is the false policy which alarms and irritates the neighbouring peoples. This conviction of their military invincibility has been impressed by the French to some extent on others, so that among ourselves it used commonly to be taken for granted that, in the next collision between France and Germany, the armies of the latter would succumb. Those who study the history of modern wars more carefully, who discern how large a part of the French victories there recorded was due to the personal genius of one man, and observe how soon, when once made careless by success, that one in his turn met with ruinous defeat, do not so easily admit this assumption ; least of all was it accepted among that great nation whose annals could match Jena with Rosbach, Dresden with Leipsic, Valmy with Waterloo, and who, if not so boastful, were scarcely less confident than their rivals. When Prussia armed against France, she might surely with as fair reason hope to revive the glories of Frederic as her rival those of Napoleon. And if a struggle, forced on by French arrogance, turned to the ruin of France, and of her chosen dynasty, that ruin was the direct result of the false teachings, which began with perverting history, and ended in the assertion of geographical claims impossible to admit, and pretensions which threatened the independence of her neighbours.

It has been said that intelligent criticism forms a vital part of sound military history. Let us here distinguish the two chief classes of critical remarks which writers employ; for their objects are essentially different.

In the first place, a campaign, or movement, or action, may be regarded as exemplifying some general theory. Correctness is, of course, as much an object here as in treating these subjects with any other view; but the conduct of individuals matters little, except in so far as it harmonises with or violates certain rules. The actors in this case are regarded simply as instruments, more or less imperfect, for carrying out certain designs, and are made subordinate, in importance to the principles which it is the object to establish or to illustrate. This is that theoretical use of military history which has often met hot opposition, and which may easily become an abuse in the hands of those who mistake men for machines, and overlook the realities of war in their haste to reduce its combinations to geometrical rules. On the other hand, we have the distinct assurance of great commanders that professional study in some form is the first condition of practical success. Napoleon laid down this as an especial rule. The Archduke Charles practised it in his own person before taking a command-in-chief. Wellington, reticent to his own friends and lieutenants, was found ready, in the midst of Peninsular triumphs, to discuss strategical questions with a young officer of his army when he could find one worthy of his confidence; and on another occasion, at the close of his last great campaign, confessed to a junior staff-officer his personal obligation to daily study. The military, in fact, can never be an exception to that rule of other professions, which requires in their most brilliant ornaments something more than the rough practical knowledge which every useful member must possess. The day is gone by when great nations will look to see heaven-born generals appear at the first call to lead their armies. The very existence of such an institution among us as a Staff College, shows that in this country the higher branches of military art are receiving due attention. It is to avoid giving undue prominence to mere theory, to use the latter only in strict relation to known facts, that the course of study at the college is begun—-as has been the practice since its opening—by a close historical survey of some great campaign, like that of Waterloo, the special subject of this work.

In making such a survey there is occasion to use another sort of criticism than that which merely dissects events to find the rules which govern them. This is that which deals with the characters and conduct of the men concerned. An event may be traced in all its leading features, its influence on the course of the campaign may be noted, but the task of the historian still remains unfulfilled if he fail to assign, in some degree at least, the relation to the whole of the chief actors and then parts. This particular campaign affords abundant scope for pains in this respect. No other in its result so deeply affects national vanity. No other is regarded from so many points of view. No other has exercised so much ingenuity and industry on the part of writers striving to obscure or to bring out the truth. In this its strictly historical aspect, it is as specially suited to the critic as to the student of strategy for the value of its lessons. Compact in time, important in result, conducted by the chief generals of the world, at the very prime off their reputation, and being, as it were, the finished result of the experience of twenty years’ war, we may here, if anywhere, look to see skill, conduct, and forethought taking the place of blind chance, and to find the operations leading up, step by step, to a perfect end. And just such an end was the battle of Waterloo, which, by the greatness of its issue and its peculiarly national character, has not only thrown other equally important actions into the shade, but has actually imposed itself, falsely as it were, on the world as the special object of attention in this campaign. Yet not on this battle—as I hope presently to show—however heroically fought or dexterously won, should the glory of the Allied generals rest; but on the noble devotion of each to the common object in view, and the perfection of mutual, confidence which enabled each so to act separately as to produce with their united armies at the right moment the greatest possible result. Never in the whole of military history was the tactical value of the troops more entirely subordinated to the strategical operations. He knows not what the battle of Waterloo was! who views in it merely the shock of two great armies, English and French, continued through a fierce day’s fighting, until the superior endurance of the British line shatters and finally overthrows their exhausted enemy. The eye that sees this in it and sees no more, forgetful of the long columns toiling through deep muddy lanes on the French flank, the sturdy legions of North Germans with clenched teeth and straining limbs forcing their guns through mire and over obstructions, the fierce old chieftain who is seen wherever his encouragement is needed, and everywhere is greeted as their ‘father’ by those he urges on, the cool and disciplined staff who are preparing to make the most decisive use of the coming masses in the assault on their hated enemy, does not only monstrous injustice to Blücher and his army, but robs Wellington of bis due. For Wellington regarded not the matter thus. He knew and looked for the approaching army of his ally as part of the fight; he watched from early afternoon the lessening pressure which told that Napoleon was forced to draw away his reserves from the main battle; above all, he had prepared, in concert with the old Prince-Marshal, this fatal stroke of war; and not to understand or to ignore this, is to miss the real design with which the fight was joined. Waterloo was, in fact, viewed in its proper aspect, but the crown and finish of a splendid piece of strategy. It is into the details of this that we now propose to look, with the aid of the best writers on the subject.

Of these let us first speak of the Prussian. Most important among them is Baron Müffling, Military Commissioner with Wellington’s army. Forming the confidential link between the staffs of the Allied Marshals, living with the one, and fully conversant with all the feelings of the other, his general knowledge of their side of the campaign must have been equal, at the least, to that of any other man. As Quarter master-General to Blücher in the preceding years, he had seen Much of war on the grandest scale, and was especially: observant of the system of Napoleon, of which he knew the weak points at that time more thoroughly, judging from the notes he has left us, than any other of the Allied chiefs. His opinion on military matters carries the weight which all, men will allow to that o! one who has mastered his craft thoroughly in all points of view. A student of theory in youth, he had attained on the field staff a high position by his merits, and had trained his mind by methodical practice to judge of the largest tactical movements, as a drill-sergeant does of the evolutions of his squad. A man who could time exactly the march of the enemy’s cavalry round the flank of a retiring force, or of the infantry of a whole wing of their army seeking to gain and deploy in a given position, was just the balance needed to regulate the movements of Blücher, or rather of the clear-sighted but impulsive and chivalric Gneisenau, whose advice the old Marshal followed. Complete in theory, sound and careful in practice, very disagreeable possibly to know, as he certainly was dogmatic and censorious in his professional view of others, Müffling presents to us the highest type of a carefully elaborated staff-officer of the old Prussian model. His personal employment near Wellington makes him a most valuable evidence, his private jealousy of Gneisenau a tolerably impartial one, as to the share of the great Englishman in the common achievement of the Allied armies, He has left us a short history of the campaign, published in January, 1816, and translated soon after; also,a more valuable account in his memoirs, known in its English dress as ‘Passages out of my Life.’ To both of these we shall have frequent occasion to refer.

There is a well-known Prussian official account of the events of 1815, compiled for the Berlin Government by a Major Wagner, and often quoted under bis name. It is cold and dry as a narrative, but elaborately complete; and forms, of course, the best groundwork for the inner details of the Prussian army. For their orders, movements, and numbers we shall look chiefly here.

There is another complete Prussian account by Von Damitz, an officer who served through the campaign in a high post. But as this work shows neither the laboured correctness of the official one, nor the original information of Müffling’s, nor the genius which gilds the most technical disquisitions in that of Clausewitz, it has not been found necessary to make such detailed use of it as might multiply references needlessly without throwing further light upon the subject. For the same reason the excellent narrative to be found in the 14th volume of the standard German ‘History of the Revolutionary Wars,’ by Schulz, will not be cited here, though it would repay the special student for his perusal; as would still more that in the ‘History of Russia,’ by Bernhardi, whose researches—unknown to the writer when this work was first published—will be found strongly to confirm certain criticisms ventured on, especially as regards the all-important day after Ligny.

Vamhagen von Ense’s ‘Life of Blücher’ is valuable for its anecdotical details; but is of too popular and sketchy a character to be of much value to the military critic.

Clausewitz’s ‘Campaign of 1815’ deserves particular attention; as well for his personal knowledge of the events, as for two other special reasons. In the first place, Wellington himself deemed this general’s criticisms of sufficient importance to require an elaborate Published answer from his own pen, a compliment he paid no other of his censors. In the second, Clausewitz in his own country stands confessedly at the head of all military theorists; and the great reputation made for him by the genius his writings display, deepens constantly with time. It is a matter of public acknowledgment that the principles which he bequeathed to his countrymen, in his great work ‘On War,’ for the guidance of their action in their next struggle, were acted on fully in the recent contests which have placed Prussia at the head of Germany, and caused her to appear the first military power of the world.

Belgian writers should not be wholly neglected in treating of a campaign fought in their country, although it must be observed that Colonel Charras has ransacked the local sources of information with exhaustive effect. Brialmont is the most important for our purpose, and his ‘History of Wellington’ has, Under Mr. Gleig’s fostering care, become a household work in our land. It is a strange instance of the fascination which Napoleon’s genius exercises over even powerful minds, that Brialmont, like our own Napier, appears partially blinded by it, and has in consequence done himself and his subject less than justice, in that short portion of his second volume which treats of the ‘Waterloo Campaign. His details are here less perfect, his treatment less clear,judgments leas lucid by far than in his Peninsular chapters. He seems to have assumed beforehand, like a hundred other less praiseworthy writers, that Napoleon could never greatly err in strategical difficulties, and to have determined that the blame of his defeat must lie on other shoulders. Hence in one strange passage on a particular disputed event, he appears to rest censure for a certain delay upon Marshal Ney in the text, though, in a note to the page, the error is clearly charged to the Emperor instead, as though the author could not bring himself to write in large print, ‘here Napoleon failed.’

The plain account of the Dutch writer, Van Loben Sels, is far more complete as a history, contains many original documents, and is an essential authority as regards the details which concern the troops of the Netherlands that fought under Wellington.

The literature of Austria (deeply concerned as she was in the great issue) contributes nothing towards our knowledge of the campaign of 1815, if we except the valuable report made to his imperial master by Baron Vincent, Military Commissioner for the Court of Vienna with Wellington. This paper is to be found in the British work dulled ‘Official Documents,’ and will be referred to in its proper place. The silence of the Austrian military writers is the less extraordinary when it is remembered that they have left the tale of their own country’s victory of Neerwinden, which cleared Belgium of French invaders in 1793 as effectually as that of Waterloo twenty-two years later, to be known in European history almost solely through the loose and contradictory versions of the defeated Republican generals. No Austrian detailed account of this remarkable triumph (which cost the vanquished 4,000 men left upon the field, 10,000 fugitives lost in the retreat, and the possession of Belgium) ever appeared until 1808, and then only in an obscure professional journal. Almost all known histories of it accept as authentic, and use freely the hasty dispatch of the beaten general Dumourier, written to excuse his disaster, which is flatly contradicted by that of Miranda, who personally commanded the wing that was driven off the field, and proves by its wording that the former was unacquainted with the part played by that wing, the ground it occupied, or the correct names of the villages it attacked. Indeed, in attempting to use both accounts, the anonymous writer of the ‘Victories’ has naturally found it impossible to make them harmonise, and to escape the difficulty he quotes Miranda indeed, but with audacity excelling that of other French historians excusing national defeats, quotes him with the hours mentioned in his original letter altered to suit those given by Dumourier and with no notice of the alteration! This shameless falsification of the less popular version becomes immediately apparent on a comparison of the quotation with the original ‘Correspondence de Miranda from which it professes to be taken. But Dumourier’s inventions would never have been embodied into history, had Austria not left the field o! military literature open for her enemies to work their will in.

We now pass to English authors. Of these the earliest that deserves attention is Siborne, whose work, with its excellent atlas, has the honour of being the first thoroughly complete narrative of the campaign ever issued. Even now it forms a most useful book of reference; nor can any student peruse it without being under obligation to the writer for the diligence with which he has collected his materials, and the care with which he has used them. At the same time it must be confessed that it has the essential faults of a national history written soon after a great war. Much that is in it would never have been inserted had the work not been largely dependent for support at its publication on the British army. As to the view taken of the Great Duke, it is simply that taken of Napoleon by a Napoleonist writer; the view in fact of an advocate who believes that his hero was incapable of mistakes, and cannot suffer him to be charged with any. The book is thoroughly British, no doubt, but hardly suited for general use; nor is this surprising when we recollect the time at which it appeared. The weakness of all such national versions is that they can hardly hope for acceptance save among the nation whose taste they are intended to meet.

Sir Archibald Alison’s great work has of course a large section on our subject. We shall not, however, refer to it, for though very readable as are all accounts of campaigns by that distinguished author, it will not help our present purpose. It is true that the errors which disfigured this part of the earlier editions, disappeared to a great extent in that of 1860, for which the campaign appears to have been nearly rewritten, to the great improvement of the work as a whole. In his later years Alison had taken more pains to attain the accuracy he formerly neglected. By the aid of such sound authorities as Charras and Clausewitz, the English historian at length produced a Waterloo narrative not only interesting, but useful in detail. In seeking for the picturesque, however, he has lessened the value of his chapters, by devoting the larger part of their space to those battle-scenes into which he loved to throw his strength, to the neglect of the story as a whole. However popular these episodes of combat may be, their description, especially by writers who have not seen war, can little help the practical student. It is right to add that Alison has, in this his latest study on the subject, used very freely, and with due acknowledgment, the brief but pregnant criticisms on the campaign, of Colonel Hamley in his essay on ‘Wellington’s Career.’ Such light as he has thrown on the strategy he appears to owe mainly to the Waterloo pages of that brilliant sketch.

In one English authority we have the evidence of a sound eye-witness happily combined with the gift of clear expression, and the faculty of judicial criticism, which make history valuable: for all these qualities appear plainly in the posthumous work of the late Sir J. Shaw Kennedy, a most, valuable addition to the literature of the campaign. The writer was employed on the staff of Wellington, received orders personally from him in the crisis of the battle of Waterloo, and has left in his pages such a clear record of its chief phases, and of the marvellous tact and readiness of his great chief, as can nowhere else be found. Though his volume is mostly devoted to the battle itself, he has taken occasion to review the strategy which preceded it, with a freedom and breadth that ho English author before him had used. The reflections of such a tried soldier and honest critic upon the commander whom he revered have special weight. His admiration of Wellington’s tactical skill—a skill to which perhaps full justice had never before been rendered—has not led him into the common mistake of supposing his hero a demigod beyond all error or criticism. The principle upon which he boldly examines the strategy on either side may best be given in his own words, which may be quoted as specially deserving attention for their bearing on our subject. ‘There is an error almost universal as regards the bulk of mankind, in supposing that great commanders, such as Napoleon, Wellington, Cæsar, and Hannibal, did not commit great mistakes. The game of war is so exciting, so complicated, and presents so many propositions which are capable of a variety of solutions, and Which must be solved irrevocably on the instant, that no human powers of mind can reach further than a comparative excellence as a great commander; that is, great commanders will have higher views, act upon superior principles, and commit fewer errors than ordinary men; but still this is only comparative merit, and should not exempt the operations of even the greatest commanders from criticism.

Wellington’s own Memorandum, already referred to, forms most valuable material for history, as do the Dispatches of that great general. But such papers as these (like the mass of letters, bulletins, and reports in the, volume of ‘Official Documents’ published in London soon after the campaign), being written ostensibly from a single point of view, and limited to a certain definite purpose, do not, taken by themselves, serve as histories of the whole event in which their authors took part.

Hooper’s ‘Waterloo’ is one of the best single volumes on this campaign existing in any language: indeed, were we reduced to one book in studying it, this would be perhaps the one to adhere to. Mr. Hooper, like the French critic Quinet, has followed Charras very closely, and is under very large obligations (not wholly unacknowledged) to the latter writer for his historical details and his criticisms of Napoleon. On the whole his work may be declared more complete than his French rival Quinet’s, and more compact and readable than that of the great, historian to whose researches both are so much indebted. His able defence of Wellington’s conduct, when impugned at certain points, is always worthy attention: yet it is rather that of an advocate than a judge; and in this respect his work falls in value far behind that of Sir J. Kennedy. On the other hand, no English student of the whole campaign can afford to neglect the narrative of Hooper, unless indeed he has time to master those more original authorities, which the author has skilfully condensed into a moderate octavo volume.

Two classes of writers, of views diametrically opposed, claim our interest when we pass to those of France. The one comprehends the long list of worshippers who so adore the military genius of Napoleon, as to be unable to discern the flaws in their idol. So complete, in their eyes, was his conception, and so perfect his execution of all warlike operations, that failure must be held impossible, as far as his own conduct could affect the result. In all his misfortunes, and in that of Waterloo above all, some other reason must be found for the want of his usual success; and as national vanity forbids the disaster being laid on the quality of French troops, ingenuity is racked for third causes, which shall spare the honour of the Emperor and his legions. Let his own political errors, the treachery or imbecility of his subordinates, special conditions of weather, blundering good luck on his opponent’s side, be charged with his ruinous defeat. If none of these will serve the purpose, ‘an unhappy fatality’ must be found at every turn, such as makes brave men over-prudent, brilliant men slow, old soldiers rash at the wrong moments; so that an unheard-of combination of others’ mistakes was the true cause of the ruin of Napoleon. Let all or any such excuses be employed rather than believe that he was ever wanting to his army, or his army to its chief. Of such authors as these, who suit their facts to their ideas, and use historical material only so far as it serves to embellish their idol, a library might be formed, and formed to little advantage. We shall take but one into our list—one who has surpassed the rest no less in his worship of Napoleon’s military genius, than in the success of the great work in which he has striven to perpetuate error. Of this, the well-known ‘Consulate and Empire,’ we shall say a few words later, as well as of Napoleon’s own writings on the subject.

France has no longer any necessity to give herself up to this phantom of history. Writing in her own tongue, and born of her own race, there has of late arisen a severe school Of critics who absolutely refuse to follow their predecessors, in blind adulation of Napoleon, whether viewed as soldier-or Emperor. These have gone to work upon the Waterloo campaign with the cool deliberation of anatomists, dissecting the limbs, of the dead to find the true, causes of the malady. V Facts are what they first seek, and conclusions drawn only from facts are to follow. They pursue, indeed-, the true historical method; and, as their national pride is, enlisted "on the side of France, there is no fear of any general injustice being wrought to the French cause under their treatment. Conspicuous among such authors are Charras and Quinet, and, for the reason just given, their works are invaluable to us as independent students of this campaign. General Jomini might also have been added to this list of sound critics, but that the peculiar form of his narrative (supposed to flow from the Emperor himself) fatally hampers him in matters of which Napoleon has actually written, and written much that history refuses to accept as true. This makes his work far less valuable as to 1815 than in those portions which relate to campaigns of which Napoleon has forborne to speak personally; There is, however, an independence in the spirit of this writer which forbids his yielding his judgment to Napoleon’s in matters of opinion; and his criticisms on the campaign have, therefore, the proper value of those falling from one whose great practical knowledge of war is only exceeded by his devotion to theory.

To return to the modern school of French critics. Colonel Charras is, and will probably continue to be, the first of all authorities on the Waterloo Campaign. As a soldier he had seen hot service in Algeria; and afterwards holding office in the Bureau of War under the brief republic of 1848, he had all the technical knowledge which could aid in throwing light upon the subject. Being banished from France in 1851, he took up his abode in Belgium, and revenged his cause with the most severe yet honourable weapon that exile ever took in hand. Whilst living on the scene of Napoleon’s last campaign, he undertook to write for his fellow-countrymen a true history of that great disaster ; and if he has not shaken the throne of the Third Napoleon, he has at least struck rude blows at the idolatry with which the name of the First was regarded. Doubtless his own political career must have sent him to his work with much bitterness at heart against the dynasty to whom he owed his banishment ; but though his leanings are against the defeated Emperor, he has striven from first to last to judge of nothing without sufficient original proof. His work is truly exhaustive. ‘After its perusal,’ as he fairly says in the preface, ‘one man will seem somewhat lowered; but, on the other hand, the French army will appear greater, and France less humbled.’ No part of this great book is uninteresting, and the care which he has bestowed on it extends even to the Atlas which accompanies it for the student’s use. It must be remarked, however, that the very pains with which Colonel Charras traces out his details, and gives, in the body of his text or’in notes, a multiplicity of original documents, detracts from the natural liveliness of his style, and makes the work almost too bulky and diffuse for common use. This is especially noticeable in the more recent editions, Which, except in a single necessary instance (p. 101), will not be referred to, the earlier one of 1858 being used elsewhere throughout.

That of M. Quinet in this respect far surpasses it. This writer originally intended solely to review the book oi Colonel Charras, and make known to his countrymen its incomparable worth. In performing this self-imposed task he found occasion to refer to many original documents not specially used before, and being also a resident in Belgium, he took pains, like the author he was following, to personally examine the theatre of war. Gifted with clearness of vision to find the truth, and with a trenchant style well suited for sharp exposure of falsehood, he has skilfully followed up the path first opened by Charras. Certain stories, long accepted by French writers, have been so effectually handled by this keen critic, that for all readers open to conviction by evidence, they must disappear from the domain of history. His work, though hardly attaining the dignity of a history, may be called, as regards both style and matter, the most brilliant review of the campaign ever written. Before his sharp strokes vanish, their magic power dispelled by the touch of truth, those mythic notions of this great struggle, which have too long stood in place of facts, and which he has happily named ‘La Légende Napoléonienne.’

The real author of these fables, in their first origin, was Napoleon himself Not content with supplying the usual materials which all commanders of great armies bequeath to history in their correspondence, he has written two separate narratives of the campaign. The first of these appeared in the earliest part of his St. Helena exile under the name of his attendant, General Gourgaud; but from the moment of its publication has been ascribed, without denial, to its true author. It is a nervous, forcible narrative, thrown hastily off, to enable the imperial writer to show to the world that he was not to blame for the disaster which had so humiliated France. No one more plainly than M. Thiers admits it to be superior in value and truthfulness to the more elaborate and studied apology to be found in the ‘Mémoires.’ To both of these it will be repeatedly necessary to refer. It is the former which, above all other misrepresentations, has misled the mass of historians. We do not propose to follow blindly those writers who have accepted it without applying to its details the ordinary rules of evidence. How hard it is to correct an error which has once crept into history, is well shown by the fact that although the ninth volume of the ‘Mémoires’ (as finally published) contains its own refutation in the appended narrative of Colonel Heymès, and although in 1840 Marshal Ney’s son published a mass of documents issued by Napoleon’s staff in 1815, flatly contradicting in many points the versions of the Emperor, the latter have continued to be accepted as authentic by innumerable writers, and none even took the trouble to attempt to explain the discrepancies until M. Thiers applied himself to the task.

No one can peruse the twentieth volume of that, great author’s ‘Consulate and Empire’ without doing homage to the powers which he has brought to his task. If a brilliant style, large acquaintance with details, special opportunities of correcting error, and a full knowledge of the strength of the evidence against his hero, would enable anyone at this time to clear Napoleon of the responsibility' of this great defeat, M. Thiers might have succeeded. Had so clear-sighted a writer entered on the subject with an unbiassed mind, no one can doubt that he would himself have seen where Napoleon failed. This was not the case, however. He has undertaken beforehand to prove to all the world that Napoleon, culpable as a man, mistaken as a ruler, was, as a captain, without stain or error. With many fine words about truth, conscience, and the dignity of history, we find mingled in the very first of his important notes on the campaign the following sentence, in which his real prejudice escapes him. ‘We have here, in truth, to suppose several impossibilities in order to prove the incapacity at this juncture of one of the greatest of known generals.’ These impossibilities are merely to believe that Napoleon did not give a certain order the receipt of which has never been proved, which was not carried out, and which is in contradiction with his own later-written instructions, but which ought to have been given, as it now appears. ‘Call anything impossible’ (it is meant), ‘rather than believe that the Emperor mistook his strategy.’ The author has written throughout with the same foregone conclusion, and, let us add it plainly, with a mischievous effect corresponding to the consummate power of his pen. No other account of the campaign has been, perhaps ever will be, so widely read, as the famous first chapter of the twentieth volume. It not only forms part of all standard libraries, but, republished separately under the simple name of ‘Waterloo,’ its yellow cover is seen on every bookstall in France, and its pages have become part of her household literature. Since, therefore, no other historian on this side has written so lately, so powerfully, or with such full information as M. Thiers, we need take no other representative of the military infallibility of Napoleon into our review. In his narrative are, met the most charming language and the worst faults of a host of authors whose works are, for the most part, written but to pass away. The presence of a Napoleon on the throne, the approval of the Academy, the lucid eloquence of its style, have stamped this volume as the masterpiece of that false school of history with which we are So much concerned. We shall have constant occasion to refer to it, and would here only say that, in many passages defending Napoleon, M. Thiers clearly has Charras in view, though not expressly naming his antagonist. If it were possible to rebut the charges made by the latter against the Emperor, it would, we may be sure, be here effectually done, The skill with which the great national writer uses every point of evidence which bears in favour of his view, and hides from sight such as conflict with it, proves him the most valuable of advocates whilst the most dangerous of historians. It is only the mighty power of that truth which he professes to invoke, that enables a critic to dare to question his results. But he himself has said of the controversy, ‘Truth is holy, and no just cause can suffer from it.’ Seeking only for this truth, we proceed to the examination of the subject.