The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-27
NAPoLnoN TN I'm


,1nn TO SUFFER- By THE FIRST NAPOLEON.
Now that the conquerors of France have
maopanimously turned their backs upon
Paris and have resolved to spare the van
ouisbed capital the humiliation of trium-
Ibal march. it may be well to consider for a
moment the contrast presented by the con-
duct of the French invader when the cam
paipn of Jena had laid Germany at his feet.
A half century has certainly improved the
manners and morals Of princes.
The events of the present obscure In our
eves all the past There is something so
startling in the succession Of victories that
have brought the King Of Prussia in seven
months in triumph to the Tuileries, that we
call them in our daily speech unexampled,
and challenge history to afford any parallel
for them, An argument as to the innate in
feriority of the Latin races is founded upon
these occurrences, and the South is once
more summoned to give up the world
pesceably 10 the fair-haired families that
are pouring forever from the teem-
inc North. But it is always unwise
to eeneralize too hastily from single
facts. however important Otherwise, since
this century began, the world would have
been justified in concluding, not from one
campaign, but from two, that the German
race was inferior TO the Gaul, and that the
rod of empire had passed away from the
Tenton to the Latin When Napoleon had
crushed the Austrian power at Austerlitz, it
was still said that Austrian frivolity and
Russian ignorance were something very diff
ferent from Prussian science and stead
fastness Wait till you see this boastful
Italian confronted by the trained soldiers
who have grown up in the traditions of the
great Frederick, said the Junkers in specta-
cles on the Spree, in 1906, just as they said
it in 60, after Solferino-just as all nations
and soldiers speak of successful armies who
have whipped somebody else. But when,
after campaign Of fortnight, the Emperor
sat down in Berlin to dictate laws to Europe
and organize a further campaign against
Russia, it is difficult to see what argument,
which now would show France utterly lost
and ruined, would not then have indicated
Germany as the vassal in perpetuity of her
more warlike neighbor.
Prussia had broken to pieces so completely
and lamentably at the first blow that there
seemed little life vitality left in her organi-
zation. The events of one day were all that
was necessary to destroy her military force
and her power of resistance. When we con-
slider the armies employed in that momentous
campaign-not more than 1876, 900 on side
it hardly seems like war in comparison with
the vast ornaments of our day; but the re-
suits involved were of the greatest magnitude,
and the genius and endurance displayed by
the conqueror and his subordinates will
always make the story of jena one of the
most attractive chapters in the history of
wars to those who unfortunately still believe
in the nobility and worth of the science of
human butchery.
Reading over again the engrossing story in
the light of recent events, we are startled at
every page by the wonderful way in which
time has brought its revenge to the van
quished and its retribution to the vict ors
The terms seem exactly exchanged in almost
aI rff mi fxuag fIa
Prussian King, weak and uxorious who, in
fuenced by q vain Queen and crowd of am
bilious and ignorant mobiles, rushed into a
hap hazard war unprepared 1t was Prussia
that took SO little care of the political and
diplomatic aspects of the affair that
she was caught and crushed at last
entirely alone. 1t was Prussia that gloried
in the beauty and regularity of
her field parades; it was her armies that were
encumb cred by a vast train of useless and
luxurious rubbish; at their head were old
and respectable officers owing their places
to their social rank and the traditions of
former reigns-the Duke of Brunswick, Field
Marshal Mollendorf, and the Prince Hohen-
lohe. They were not satisfied with the nomi-
nal command. They had the vacillations of
age and the conceit of youth. They were too
old to learn or to admit that they had any
thing to learn.
On the other hand was the French army,
in some respects of discipline and trust
worthiness the counterpart of that now enter
ing Paris. Full not only of enthusiasm, but
of the spirit of obedience as well-fery and
seasoned-a living and breathing machine,
that had its own ideas, and thought and
sang and prayed, but fought as it was told,
without dream of doubt. It's officers-Ney
and Lannes, and Davoust, and Murat-where
will the world ever see their like again
They were men created for their time,
by the man and the age that used them.
As we hope such q man and such an
age are never to come again, we can
also hope such perfect soldiers will never
again appear upon our planet. They were
mere soldiers, moulded to the hand of Napo-
leon-as swift and sure to do his bidding, to
do it with every possible manifestation of
strength and celebrity and instructive know
ledge of all things essential, as the winged
messengers of Omnipotence who peopled the
courts of heaven in the visions of Hebrew
poets. They were strange instances of that
arrested development we have sometimes
seen in the true soldier of our own day-men
in grasp and power, and children in the love
and simplicity of obedience they bore to their
leader. In this very campaign, when Murat
took Prenzlow, the Emperor made him and
his cavalrymen wild with delight by the
clumsy facetiousness with which he
wrote:- ''Since your dragons can take
Notifications, have nothing to do
but disband my foot and melt
down my great guns" Lannes, who had
toned in the praise, writes for kind word
for his men. "What recompense can they
hope for, if not to see their name published
by the hundred voices of that renown which
you alone can eonfer?" The Emperor an
swers, like an indulgent schoolmaster: