Отрывок из книги
William Siborne
Published by Good Press, 2019
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The French Emperor having, upon the grounds explained in a former Chapter, determined to take the Field against the Allied Armies in Belgium, the commencement of active operations could no longer be deferred. When we reflect upon the disparity of force with which he was going to contend against two such Generals as Wellington and Blücher, we are bound to acknowledge that it was an undertaking daring and perilous in the extreme, even for an individual of the dauntless and adventurous character of Napoleon. A delay of only a few weeks would have secured for him, by means of the vast organisation which was in constant and rapid progress, a sufficient accession of disposable troops to have enabled him to effect a powerful diversion upon either Wellington's Right, or Blücher's Left, Flank, and thus to impart an infinitely greater degree of weight and stability to his main operations; but then, on the other hand, this delay would also have brought the powerful Armies of the confederated Sovereigns across the whole line of his eastern frontier, and have led to the consummation of that combined movement upon the capital, the execution of which it was his great aim to frustrate.
But it was not the first time that Napoleon had advanced against such fearful superiority of numerical strength. In the previous year, when nearly surrounded by the victorious forces of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, when apparently overwhelmed by a succession of disasters, and when his Army was daily diminishing by the desertion of newly raised conscripts, and presenting the mere wreck of its former self, he was at the very acme of his mental energy, and in the full possession of his determinate and all subduing will. His great genius seemed to acquire additional vigour and elasticity, with the increasing desperation of his position; and darting with electric suddenness and rapidity, now upon one adversary and then upon another, maintaining with the renowned leaders of his detached forces, a combination of movements developing the highest order of strategy, he succeeded by his brilliant triumphs at Champaubert, Montmirail, and Monterau, not only in stemming the torrent of invasion, but in causing the resumption of the diplomatic preliminaries of a Peace. This Peace, however, these very triumphs induced him, as if by a fatality, to reject with scorn and indignation, although the terms were honourable in the highest degree under his then existing circumstances.
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