Читать книгу The Works of Napoleon Bonaparte - Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - Страница 75

MAXIM LXX.

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The conduct of a general in a conquered country is full of difficulties. If severe, he irritates and increases the number of his enemies. If lenient, he gives birth to expectations which only render the abuses and vexations, inseparable from war, the more intolerable. A victorious general must know how to employ severity, justice and mildness by turns, if he would allay sedition or prevent it.

NOTE.

Among the Romans, generals were only permitted to arrive at the command of armies after having exercised the different functions of the magistracy. Thus by a previous knowledge of administration, they were prepared to govern the conquered provinces with all that discretion which a newly-acquired power, supported by arbitrary force, demands.

In the military institutions of modern times, the generals, instructed only in what concerns the operation of strategy and tactics, are obliged to intrust the civil departments of the war to inferior agents, who, without belonging to the army, render all those abuses and vexations, inseparable from its operations, still more intolerable.

This observation, which I do little more than repeat, seems to me, notwithstanding, deserving of particular attention; for if the leisure of general officers was directed in time of peace to the study of diplomacy—if they were employed in the different embassies which sovereigns send to foreign courts—they would acquire a knowledge of the laws and of the government of these countries, in which they may be called hereafter to carry on the war. They would learn also to distinguish those points of interest on which all treaties must be based, which have for their object the advantageous termination of a campaign. By the aid of this information they would obtain certain and positive results, since all the springs of action, as well as the machinery of war, would be in their hands. We have seen Prince Eugene, and Marshal Villars, each fulfilling with equal ability the duties of a general and a negotiator.

When an army which occupies a conquered province observes strict discipline, there are few examples of insurrection among the people, unless indeed resistance is provoked (as but too often happens), by the exactions of inferior agents employed in the civil administration.

It is to this point, therefore, that the general-in-chief should principally direct his attention, in order that the contributions imposed by the wants of the army may be levied with impartiality; and above all, that they may be applied to their true object, instead of serving to enrich the collectors, as is ordinarily the case.