The Press.
London, England, 1858-06-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JUNE 12,1858.

chapter of a treatise on the theory of war ; here
is an unfinished essay on the different methods
which have been adopted by civilized nations
of arming and arranging troops. We have, in
short, in this volume materials for three distinct
books; but a book we have not. It is true that
the subject of a book may often consist of more
than one part, and that each of those parts might
be treated separately. It is true also that it
may often be necessary, in treating a large and
complex subject, to omit much detail, and even
to leave the outline incomplete; but then the
parts must be sacrificed to the whole, not sacri-
ficed to the detriment of the whole. In a picture
of London from Waterloo-bridge it would be
wrong to paint the whole of St. Paul's, but it
would not therefore be right to omit the dome,
nor again would it be right to introduce the
pulpit. The artist must omit some parts of his
original and introduce others ; but not as he
pleases—not as he finds it convenient to himself.
the Lieutenant-Colonel has observed no law in
his admissions and exclusions. To give a single
example out of many, he has bestowed no notice
on the Battle of Pavia, which was certainly no-
table, since it is said that muskets were employed
there for the first time, and with decisive effect.
Yet he has described at length the Battle of
Rocroi, admitting at the same time that it was a
battle altogether unimportant to science.

It is indeed a difficult thing, and one requiring
much theoretic power, to abstract from the vast
and curiously-woven web of history the single
thread of war—to disentangle it from interna-
tional politics in which it begins, from social
economics which determine the manner of
waging it, from the character of individual com-
manders and the force of external circumstances

by which its issue is frequently affected in an
exceptional manner. The paradoxes of war are
many, and probably no kind of human activity
presents at the same time so much scope for skill
and so little for theory. To collect a certain
number of men, to place them under the com-
mand of a single leader, so that they may com-
bine the force of a multitude with the prompt-
ness of an individual, might seem at first sight
no very formidable task, or one demanding only
diligence and perseverance. History, however,
shows that it is a task which can only be accom-
plished with any success in certain states of civil
society. It is consistent with the highest civili-
zation and with the lowest, but with no middle
grade, for it demands from men implicit obe-
dience to a superior ; and of this only men living
under a refined and efficient political organiza-
tion, or men accustomed to abject servitude, are
capable. Obedience may be constrained by
whips or by a sense of public duty, but by no-
thing else ; and obedience is the one indispen-
sable requisite of a soldier. The most enthu-
siastic and chivalrous valour will not make a
good soldier. If it would, the age when men
were most warlike would not be the age when
war was waged with the least effect. That all
the armies of confederated Europe, each indivi-
dual of them inflamed with the most powerful of
impulses, religious enthusiasm and military ar-
dour, should fail in a contest of two centu-
ries to maintain Jerusalem against the
Turks, and that throughout the whole of that
unparalleled war not a spark of military genius
should have been displayed in the Christian
camp, not a battle fought from which a lesson in
war may be learnt at the present day, is a fact
worth accounting for. It cannot be due to the
difference of manners or equipments. That
difference was as great in Greece, Carthage, or
Rome. Yet we still admire the military genius
of Alexander, Hannibal, and Gesar, and Napo-
leon pronounced their campaigns highly deserv-
ing of a military man's attention. Nor, as we
have said, were the Crusaders deficient in
spirit or in training. They had probably more
valour and more love of war than the troops of
Alexander or Hannibal. The secret of their in-
efficiency was this, that they wanted unity.
They had too much spirit to obey as slaves, and
not enough moral education to obey as free men.
A body of Crusaders could never constitute an
army, for it was not systematically guided by one
will. Each man fought for himself and by him-
self; he gave his service to his sovereign for a
space of time, hut he reserved to himself the
right of determining the manner of that service.
He bound himself to fight for his sovereign, but
pot to obey orders. The sovereign was not a
' •

general, but only the leading warrior; the *MAI
was no army, but only a company of duellists,
or rather, perhaps, a company of moving for-
tresses, each man depending less upon the as-
sistance of his comrades than upon the iron
stronghold of which he formed the garrison.
• If the warriors of the Middle Age had had
less spirit and energy, they might have been
better soldiers, though, perhaps, we, their de-
scendants, might have been worse. The soldiers
who sustained Frederick in the most desperate
struggle a king ever waged, were vagabonds
drawn from all parts of Germany by deceptive
promises, or by force, and trained by the disci-
pline of the cane. Slaves commanded by a hero
may be good soldiers, for they know how to obey,
and their leader can sometimes teach them how
to dare. On the contrary, soldiers of the highest
moral standard, brave by nature and trained to
the performance of public duties, are not always
the best soldiers. The citizen soldier is some-
times too much of a politician, too free-spoken,
too much alive to the miseries caused by war.
The free republics of Greece present an example
of this. The art of war did not flourish among
them as much as might have been expected ;
military genius had not much scope among them.
War was cultivated more successfully among the
slavish and barbarous Macedonians, precisely
because they were less enlightened and less
patriotic. }or they did not value human life so
highly nor watch their leader with such jealous
eyes. The art of war suffered at Athens from
its fear of standing armies and of a military des-
potism. It would seem that war ought to be
best understood and practised where liberty and
a standing army exist together.
The last great change which has been made in
the manner of fighting appears to be the re-
modelling of the cavalry by the great Frederick.
It is thus referred to by our author :

When Frederick came to the throne, the discipline and
elementary tactics of the Prussian infantry had already
been brought to a high state of perfection ; but the Prus-
sian cavalry was not remarkable for anything but the ap-
pearance of the men and the fine condition of the horses.
Like the cavalry of other States, it was heavy and incapable
of rapid motion. Charges were made at a trot, the
troopers firing their pistols or carbines. This practice was
prohibited by Frederick, and his cavalry was ordered to
disregard the tire of the enemy's squadrons ; advance at
a gallop, and attack at once with the sword. The supe-
riority which Frederick's revelry thus acquired was socn
evident, and answered fully all his expectations. Hence-
forward the object aimed at in the cavalry exercise was to
attain gond use of the sword, and to preserve close order
and the alignment at the gallop; and through this system,
when the Seven Years' War commenced, the Prussian
cavalry could go through all their manoeuvres in perfect
order at full gallop.

The reaction against cavalry after the dis-
appearance of chivalry had been excessive. The
knights of the Middle Age had at least under-
stood their object in mounting themselves on
horseback. They knew that they meant to give
greater weight and momentum to their charge.
This, however, had been forgotten in the seven-
teenth century, a custom having been intro-
duced from Germany of arming the cavalry with
pistols instead of lances. It was perhaps as
well that cavalry should be put aside for a time,
while the best manner of using infantry was to
be ascertained; but it was right, also, when this
was once accomplished, to restore the other arm
to its proper function. The Lieutenant-Colonel
contrasts Frederick the great tactician with
Napoleon the great strategist :

Until the time of Napoleon, strategy can only be said to
have been dimly seen : a concurrence of various circum-
stances was required to bring forth this important branch
of the science of war, or rather the science itself, from
the bosom of obscurty—sucii as artnes on a vast scale
in point of numerical strength, extensive combinations,
wars of prolonged duration, a general of consummate
genius.
The great struggle which succeeded, and was the natural
consequence of the French revolution, called forth all the
warlike energies and military talent of Europe, and the
metaphysics of war, the science of great operations, the
art of massing and manceavring troops, hitherto in many
respects in a state of infancy, rapidly advanced to maturity.
In fact, that period may be said to afford examples of
the utmost range to which it can be expected man will
ever attain, either in his capacity of general or simple
soldier,
It is not possible to conceive men brought to a higher
state of perfection in discipline and military training than
the warriors who rallied round the eagles of Napoleon, or
those whose arms were lifted to defend the ancient
standards of Europe; neither is it possible to conceive
that the lofty aspirations of those illustrious generals,
whose renown has echoed through the world, or the skill
they displayed in using the mighty instrument of war,
will ever be surpsped by tlic genius of any future
bawler.

M

Like other sciences resulting from experience, strategy
re:inked time for its development, and therefore its creation
cannot absolutely be ascribed to Napoleon; but his cam-
paigns are abundantly prolific in facts showing the opera-
tion of certain causes and their consequences, fortunate and
otherwise, and they thus greatly contributed to place on
evidence a sufficient number of principles, rules, and excep-
tions to constitute a special doctrine, and to justify the use
of new terms.

It was only after this science had been for some time con•
centrated in his hands, after he had shown how to use it
with certainty and success, that attempts can be said to
have been male to place its elements on a fired basis : thus
it may be allowable to say that strategy rose to light from
the campaigns of Napoleon, like tactics half a century
before from the Prussian camp.
It appears to us that an elementary history of
the art of war, better arranged and more philo-
sophically written than the one before us, would
be very useful, not only to the military man, but
also to the historical student. The history of
war is a good half of the history of mankind.
The history of the results of war and the causes
of war form a large part of the other half. Yet
it is not easy to conceive warlike operations
vividly without actual experience of them; all
that the peaceable student of history can do is to
mark the principal features of the military art
and the principal changes which it has under-
gone. Such an outline of the theory and the
history of war might easily be &iven by a
military man if to a knowledge of his own craft
he united some skill in the art of composition.

Oxford Easays, 1858. Contributed by Members
of the University. London: J. W. Parker
and Son.

(Second Notice.)
SIR ALEXANDER GRANT'S essay upon " The
Ancient Stoics" is suggestive and interesting,
and has much of that imposing generalization
which is so attractive to cursory readers. In
this instance, however, it is probably better
founded than it often is, and the following pas-
sage strikes one as not less true than brilliant:—
While Stoicism passed away the Stoical spirit has
continued, and still continues to reproduce itself in the
world. This spirit, in its extremest form, animates the
various religious ascetics—Fakirs, Trappists, and the like.
The Society of Jesus, like the school of the Stoics, was
founded by those the intensity of whose moral will was
more prominent than the Sneness of their intellect. The
parallel presented by Calvinism in its external gloom and
its high necessarianiern, to the Stoical system, has been
already hinted at, and might be followed out at length.
The Puritans stood to the Cavaliers much as the Stoics to
the Epicureans. We might say that changing sides, the
same spirit manifested itself in the recurring austerities
of the High-Church party, only here the attention to
ceremonial showed a susceptibility to what is external alien
from the Stoical tendency. Stoicism is essentially
abstract; hence it is nngenial to the imagination and un-
favourable to poetry. While the Epicurean school could
boast of Lucretius es their poet, the ancient Stoics had
only the crabbed satires of Persins, and the rhetorical
verses of Liman to set against him. In modern times
two great works of the imagination have been claimed for
00 Stoical side, that is, for the Puritans; namely, Bunyan's
" Pilgrim's Progress," and Milton's " Paradise Lost."
These works coming from such a sourae must be said to be
exceptional; though in the last resort no form of out•
religion is to be treated as if absolutely like Stoicism, or
absolutely wanting in the objective element. However, in
each of the works in question, traces of the spirit to which
we refer can be readily traced : in Bunyan the basis of the
whole conception is abstract, it is a detailed picture or
history of an inner life; in Milton, also, the'imaginative-
ness is sublime, but cold and unearthly, and the inspiration
is drawn rather from a rich learning than from vivid itn•
pressions of external life. Stoicism, while deficient in
that sensuous impressiveness which is necessary for poetry,
is, on the other hand, extremely suitable for rhetoric, for
splendid didactic preaching, for patriotic invocations, for
historical tableaux. To this cause we may attribute the
partiality manifested by the French, that nation with such
perfect rhetoric and so little poetry, for the ancient
Stoics and all belonging to them. In feet. the works of
Seneca read like a fine French sermon, and Cato and Thrasea
were a model to the Girondists. On quite other grounds
we may say that there is a Stoical tinge also in the
English character. It might be enough to allege that
Puritanism is English; but independently of religious
feeling, the tendency " to shun delights and live laborious
days," to sacrifice life to an idea of success, this is Stoical
because it is abstract. Of the spirit of Stoicism we may
now take our leave, having seen in its various manifests.
tions what it is. Existing by itself it is narrow and harsh,
it has too great an affinity to pride and egotism, it is too
repressive of the spontaneous feelings of art, and poetry,
and geniality of lite. On the other hand, it is the stimulus
to live above the world. Hence while the hare Stoical
spirit, in whatever form, produces only an imperfect and
repulsive character, a certain leaven of it, to say the least,
is necessary ; else would a man be wanting in all effort and
aspiration of mind.
The general tenor of this essay is not suffi-
ciently popular to justify us in according to it
a protracted or precise criticism. Nevertheless,
in one portion of it so very interesting a question