Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

This introductory discussion is followed by a rapid sketch of the different struggles for power and independence in Europe during the three last centuries. The general tendency of this period has been to consolidate severed nations into great kingdoms; but this tendency has been checked when the growth of any single power has become excessive, by the combined efforts of other European nations. Spain, France, England, and Austria, all in their turns have excited the jealousy of their neighbours, and have been attacked by their confederate strength. But in 1793 the peace of Europe was assailed by an enemy still more dangerous and energetic—still more destructive—we doubt whether in the English language a more vivid description is to be found of the evil, its progress, and its termination, than Dr Arnold has given in the following passage:—

"Ten years afterwards there broke out by far the most alarming danger of universal dominion, which had ever threatened Europe. The most military people in Europe became engaged in a war for their very existence. Invasion on the frontiers, civil war and all imaginable horrors raging within, the ordinary relations of life went to wreck, and every Frenchman became a soldier. It was a multitude numerous as the hosts of Persia, but animated by the courage and skill and energy of the old Romans. One thing alone was wanting, that which Pyrrhus said the Romans wanted, to enable them to conquer the world—a general and a ruler like himself. There was wanted a master hand to restore and maintain peace at home, and to concentrate and direct the immense military resources of France against her foreign enemies. And such an one appeared in Napoleon. Pacifying La Vendée, receiving back the emigrants, restoring the church, remodelling the law, personally absolute, yet carefully preserving and maintaining all the great points which the nation had won at the Revolution, Napoleon united in himself, not only the power, but the whole will of France; and that power and will were guided by a genius for war such as Europe had never seen since Cæsar. The effect was absolutely magical. In November 1799, he was made First Consul; he found France humbled by defeats, his Italian conquests lost, his allies invaded, his own frontier threatened. He took the field in May 1800, and in June the whole fortune of the war was changed, and Austria driven out of Lombardy by the victory of Marengo. Still the flood of the tide rose higher and higher, and every successive wave of its advance swept away a kingdom. Earthly state has never reached a prouder pinnacle than when Napoleon, in June 1812, gathered his army at Dresden—that mighty host, unequalled in all time, of 450,000, not men merely, but effective soldiers, and there received the homage of subject kings. And now, what was the principal adversary of this tremendous power? by whom was it checked, and resisted, and put down? By none, and by nothing, but the direct and manifest interposition of God. I know of no language so well fitted to describe that victorious advance to Moscow, and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as the language of the prophet with respect to the advance and subsequent destruction of the host of Sennacherib. 'When they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses,' applies almost literally to that memorable night of frost, in which twenty thousand horses perished, and the strength of the French army was utterly broken. Human instruments, no doubt, were employed in the remainder of the work; nor would I deny to Germany and to Prussia the glories of the year 1813, nor to England the honour of her victories in Spain, or of the crowning victory of Waterloo. But at the distance of thirty years, those who lived in the time of danger and remember its magnitude, and now calmly review what there was in human strength to avert it, must acknowledge, I think, beyond all controversy, that the deliverance of Europe from the dominion of Napoleon was effected neither by Russia, nor by Germany, nor by England, but by the hand of God alone."

The question, whether some races of men possess an inherent superiority over others, is mooted by Dr Arnold, in his dissertation on military science. Without laying down any universal rule, it may be stated that such a superiority can be predicated of no European nation. Frederick the Great defeated the French at Rosbach, as easily as Napoleon overcame the Prussians at Jena. If Marlborough was uniformly successful, William III. was always beaten by Luxembourg, and the Duke of Cumberland by D'Etrées and Saxe. It seems, therefore, a fair inference, that no civilized European nation possesses over its neighbours that degree of superiority which greater genius in the general, or greater discipline in the troops of its antagonists, will not be sufficient to counteract. The defeat of the Vendéans in France, by the soldiers of the garrison of Mentz; and the admirable conduct of our own Sepoys under British generals, are, no doubt, strong instances to show the prodigious importance of systematic discipline. Still, we cannot quite coincide with Dr Arnold's opinion on this subject. We are quite ready to admit—who, indeed, for a moment would deny?—in military as well as in all other subjects, the value of professional attainments and long experience. We cannot, however, consider them superior to those great qualities of our nature which discipline may regulate and embellish, but which it can never destroy or supersede. As every man is bound to form his own opinion on religious matters, though he may not be a priest, every man is obliged to defend his country when invaded, though he may not be a soldier. Nor can the miseries which such a state of things involves, furnish any argument against its necessity. All war must be attended with misfortunes, which freeze the blood and make the soul sick in their contemplation; but these very misfortunes deter those who wield the reins of empire from appealing wantonly to its determination. The resistance of Saragossa was not the less glorious, it does not the less fire the heart of every reader with a holy and passionate enthusiasm, because it was not conducted according to the strict forms of military tactics, because citizens and even women participated in its fame. The inextinguishable hatred of the Spanish nation for its oppressor—which wore down the French armies, which no severities, no violence, no defeat, could subdue—will be, as long as time shall last, a terrible lesson to ambitious conquerors. They will learn that there is in the fury of an insulted nation a danger which the most exquisite military combinations cannot remove, which the most perfectly served artillery cannot sweep away, before which all the bayonets, and gunpowder, and lines of fortification in the world are useless—and compared with which the science of the commander is pedantry, and strategy but a word. They will discover that something more than mechanical power, however great—something more than the skill of the practised officer, or the instinct of well-trained soldiers, are requisite for success—where every plain is a Marathon, and every valley a Thermopylæ.

Would to God that the same reproach urged against the Spanish nation—that they defended their native soil irregularly—that they fought like freemen rather than like soldiers—that they transgressed the rules of war by defending one side of a street while the artillery of the enemy, with its thousand mouths, was pouring death upon them from the other—that they struggled too long, that they surrendered too late, that they died too readily, could have been applied to Poland—one fearful instance of success would have been wanting to encourage the designs of despotism!

Some of the rights of war are next considered—that of sacking a town taken by assault, and of blockading a town defended, not by the inhabitants, but by a military garrison—are next examined;—in both these cases the penalty falls upon the innocent. The Homeric description of a town taken by assault, is still applicable to modern warfare:—