The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-01
MILITARY GENIUS.
Frem the London Spectator.

IOfi0Ofi spectator
Mr.. Helps seems inclined, in one of his
recent chapters of Friends in Council, to in
dorse the well-known opinion of Macaulay,
that there is no such thing as military genius,
that any person of ability who would devote
himself to the subject might make of himself
very good general. All business, he says, should
be conducted much on the Same principles,
and the only special faculty he will
allow to generals as distinguished
from statesmen, or barristers, or other
men of caprcity, is 'apprehen-
siveness, the faculty, as we understand
him, of seizing the points of a situation as
strategists are supposed to seize
them. 1t is an exceedingly comfort
able doctrine that, if it is only true, for in
that case no country need fear that it will
ever be without a general. 1t has only to
train q certain number of able men in the
science of war, and then, perhaps by compe-
titive examination, discover the ablest, and
it is sure either of victory or of honorable
defeat. The idea is especially pleasant to
country like England, which can
produce any amount of capacity" but
believes that she has throughout her history
had exceptional difficulty in finding gene
raj, and has frequently beon reduced to dis
cover one by a process of exhaustion, ap-
pointing man after maa until some one is
found who generally wins the game; but we
fear the idea is much too pleasant to be true
If history teaches any lesson, it is that great
generals, and even good generals, are very
exceptional persons, and that generals of the
highest class, those who can make armies
aud then with those armies accomplish
historic enterprises, are excessively rare
as rare as tho founders of
creeds or poets of the highest order. We
question if England can be certainly affirmed
to have produced more than three-Crom-
well, Marlborough, and Clive-and the gene
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fewer, only one of Napoleons marshals, Mas
sena, being entitled to place in the list. No
system makes them and no school. Some of
the greatest generals in history have been
kings, never regularly trained to war; and
two, at least, Conde and Give, won victories
before they had seen even imitation ''ser-
vice" in time of peace. Napoleon's mar
shals,, indeed, seem to us to supply
an almost final answer to Macaulay's
paradox. They were all in their way
able men, they were all trained in q mar
vellous school for the work they had to
do, and, nevertheless, the distance between
them and Napoleon himself was almost i'm
measurable. Something was in him which
was not in them, and that something was, we
should imagine, what we are accustomed to
describe as military genius. An even better
example may perhaps be found in the career
of William Ill. Nobody nowadays denies
that the great Dutchman was man of very
high ability, quite as high as that of any
statesman not heaven-born, higher probably
than that of Cromwell, whose intellect had
very narrow and hard limitations. William
had severe training in war, and desired
acutely to benefit by it; he had very excel
lent troops, German, Dutch, and English, and
he was as well obeyed as any general ever
has been. But he lacked that something the
existence of which Mr.. Helps doubts, or for
the moment appears to doubt, and for want
of it his policy was repeatedly scattered to the
winds; he was always beaten, and his name
lives without any reputation for military
skill. Almost all men who are completely
exempt from national prejudice are aware
that Wellington, though probably a greater
commander for the troops ne had to lead
than any other general would have been,
lacked something which has belonged to
leaders of the very first order-would, for
example, have accomplished as little with
Frenohmen as Won Moltke probably would
required previously existing condition of
society to give his power it's fullest play. He
however possessed in its highest degree the
power which in war seems nearest to mill
tary genius-though it is not precisely that
genius itself-that of devising the move
ments which of all others his troops were
most competent to execute, so that the ma
tional temperament and the work to be ac-
complished always appeared to be in har-
mony. Much of the real thought shown in
generalship must consist in that, as We Eng
lish may one day learn in a very unpleasant
fashion. If ever an Indian leader heads an
other mutiny, and has power enough over
his followers to make them use the spade
effectively, all the white soldiers in India
may be expended in the effort to reduce men
who, though lacking confidence in the field,
will fight like heroes behind aDy sort of shell
ter. There is indeed probability that some
mode of warfare would SO exactly suit any
race not incapable of warfare by nature, that
its adoption would make of that race good
soldiers-Uide the whole military history of
the Maories-and the instinct which seizes
on that mode is, if not military genius, an
immense addition to it. 1t is military states
manship Of the very highest kind.
We should be inclined to question Macau-
lays dictum even if applied only to ordinarily
good commanders. They must have, at all
events, some incommunicable qualities Very
able men may, and do exist, who are entirely
devoid of the Typographical faculty, who
could no more form a decent opinion as ia
the best position for a certain description OF
troops to occupy on battlefield, than Maoriei
could fern an opinion as to the best light fol
great picture, and without that faculty nc
man can be general. Doubtless it is pos
sessed by men Of low intellectual power-fol
example, by nearly all professional huntsmer
but still it is faculty, and not knowledge
and absolutely indispensable to success
Napoleon is said to have had il il
so transcendant a degree that he could
hurry an army across continent, and keeI
it throughout its march in strategic position
previously designed; but that power clearly
depends upon the other power of so clearly
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