The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-31

"the German bear" as the Italians called him, was better than his name, and on the whole the most humane of all the swash- -buclSlar partisans who crossed the Alps In the middle ages, but he could not stand to hear the prowess of his troops underrated, and once of- fered a skeptlc bet of several thou sand dollars that he could overpower the Duke of Milan within ten weeks af- ter the declaration of war. The money was guaranteed by 8 syndicate of the dissenter's friends, and the Bear won his wager within the proposed time, but only by forfeiting the sympathy of his Italian allies, who had flattered themselves with the hope of an endur- ing peace.
 A biographer of Catherine II. throws a new light on the motives of the, Rus sian government in joining the coai- tion against the first French republic. Your countrymen are murderers and maniacs," Prince Potemkin told a French refugee. ''and if was not so busy just now I had a good mind to take a battalion of our household troops to Paris and bring these demoni- acs to their senses"
 The refugee was an aristocrat who bore the sans-culottes no good will, but he could not deny his nationality alto gether. "I appreciate the noble pur- pose of your highness," he replied, 'but I doubt if the entire male population of your empire could serve the cause of 1 my king in this matter II didn't know that all the males of cour country were crazy" said the brutal Muscovite, and from that day used all his infiu- ence for the ruin of the obnoxious na- | ton.
 | Over-estimates of military resources have brought about more than one dis astrous war from the time of King | Croesus to the collapse of the second empire; but it is a strange fact that as l late as 1907 an experienced soldier of | undoubted patriotism could stake the fate of his country on the success of a single strategic innovation. The supe- riority of the best French to the best Austrian troops had been demonstrated ! by arguments not easy to resist. Ma poleon alone had beaten the armies of Francis Joseph twenty-three following times; Morean had beaten them dread fully at Hohenlinden and Lannes at Montebello; but the Archduke Charlss thought that he had at last discovered l the secret of all these reverses In all | the battles that he had witnessed or studied on the basis of intelligent re- ports, the French had owed their victo- " to the success of their trick of wear I ing out the strength of their adversary by a series of preliminary attacks, then
 breaking the line by a grand cavalry charge, and, after wheeling their cav airy to the left or right, finish things by flank maneuver. To chsckmate
 that maneuver the archduke proposed to post artillery and picked sharp shooters in the rear of his own forma- I ton and not only resist but encourage I the line-breaking cavalry charge. The galloping cuirassiers were to be admit ted through a gap fin the center as
 through gate, button attempting tc continue their career for flank attack would expose their own flank to tons o1
 ammunition reserved tor that special purpose. So confident'of success was
 the generalissimo of the Austrian army Ethat hostilities were commenced with out shadow of plausible pretext, and
 to the unfelgned amazement of the French autocrat, who at that time had
 the power of the Russian empire and the Rhenish confederation at his back I For all that, the proposed trap was
 really an ingenious one, though events proved that on Q strategist like Napo- leon it could be sprung only once. The
 battle of Aspern was fought by armies pretty evenly matched in point of nu-
 merical strength, though the French had the advantage of more experienced
 leaders-and the result surprised al Europe. The crack regiments of the
 French cavalry were not only crippled but destroyed, and for the first time ir
 his miraculous career the Corslcan con. queror had to own himself worsted
 The victory of Wagram, however proved how quickly he could profit by
 experience, and the campaign, as usual ended with the discomfiture of his ad versaries
 l But the strangest motive of all grea
 wars was perhaps that which induced
 King Attila to try the efficiency of hi!
 Hunnish horsemen against the legion
 of the Roman empire. A power tha
 had held its own against all corners fol more than a thousand years coult screen its decadence under the mer, prestige of its name, but the king of tht
 Huns happened to become acquainted
 with strange prophecy. When Rom
 ulus built the ringwall of the city ol the Tiber twelve vultures appeared a the moment when he prayed to tn gods for an omen; they signihed tha
 twelve centuries of Rome's world-rule
 the soothsayeTs explained, and tha
 term of her fate had now expired.