Weekly New Oregon plain dealer. (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1866-1867, 1866-12-21
WHAT WAR DE lDES.
An Instructive Article from
the London Times.

There must be something strange
ly attractive in the story of Water
loo. That single battle has lit
erature of its own. The original
accounts of the various commanders,
British, Prussian and Dutch, with
the circumstantial narratives of eye
witnesses and observers in both ar
mics, would fill goodly shelf, and
those materials have been repeated
ly analyzcd and digested in later
times by writer's on both sides of
the Channel In fuct, tho most re-
cent specimens of this literature
have been contributed by France.
Our neighbors seem to be drawn by
some irresistible attraction to the
history of that 'imcmoriablc day, nor
need we wonder at the fact. They
fought a good fight, and there were
incidents enough in the engagement
to furnish every endurable explana-
nation of the defeat. We ourselves
should say, as a conclusion from all
the recent discussions, that Napo-
leon undertook. of course unavoida-
bly,, more than he could perform.
His design was to fall upon one
of his enemies and then upon the
other, and crush them both in sue
cession. But this he could not ac-
complish. lie did succeed by
his strategic skill in separating
Blucher from Wellington, and in
fighting the former General before
the latter could join him. But he
did not succeed in SO beating the
Prussians that they could not renew
the fight two days afterward, nor
could he then drive the English
from their position before the Prus-
slams came up. That appears tous
the fair moral to be drawn from the
arguments and descriptions Of NJ.
TLicrs and Victor Hugo, and We do
not think it discrcditable to the
French. Napoleon's conception was
too gigantic. He and his soldiers
] did more then" any v.i--~4Co"n~al-
perhaps, or rany other troops could
have done in thus striking right and
left alternately, but the enemy upon
either arm was too much for him. -
There is, however, moral deeper
tl:an the strategetical neral to be
drawn from those unlying histories.
The battle of Waterloo has been
regarded and dcscribedas one Of :he
decisive battles Of the world. Is
that description justif"blc? 1t is
certainly natural. Nobody can
wonder at the feelings with which
the intelligence Of tiis great victory
was received at the time and recall
ed for many year afterward. Not
only was it a fierce stand up fight
between rival nations under their
most renowned commanders, but in
one sense it was really decisive
It terminated the wars of the French
Revolution. After Waterloo the
land had peace. A generation Of
wars then came to an end, and
new era ofpeace and progress COM
menced. But that is not what we
mean by one of the decisive battles
of the world. In that sense deci-
siye battle is a battle which decides
some great issue once for ALL. which
crushes one and sets up another,
which turns the streams of history
into a fixed and permanent channel,
.na which stands out as n landmark
in such views for all time.
1t was a decisive battle in which
Charles Martcl beat back the Sara
Gems, and saved Europe from their
prcdominance Marathon and Phar-
salia were decisive battles, and we
know what came of them. But
what came of Waterloo? Beyond
the forty years peace, secured by
the exhaustion of the world, what
followed upon the victory of June
rs, 1915? We can tell what was
thought and believed to follow. We
believed all of US that VIC had rescu-
ed Europe from another series of
battles which Napolean would infal-
libby have brought about. We
thought we had put an end to the
French Revolution and it's princi-
pies, that we had restored to the
dynasty of the Bourbons in France,
and cxtinguished the Empire and
the dynasty by which it had been