The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-06-08
WATERLOO.

Eighty years have passed since the
battle of Waterloo was fought. The |
historians and the critics are discuss
ing with more energy than ever, the |
merits of the battle, and it's effects on |
the course of European history. There |
is no event within the century which |
appears to have had such a marked |
effect in fixing the map Of Europe.
Notwithstanding the many volumes |
of Napoleonic history that have been |
lately published, one more, by Henry |
Horresaye. a Frenchman, has lately |
been issued. The author has had ac-
cess to some documents, in the French
War Office which have been overlook
ed by other historians. With reference
to the battle of Waterloo, he makes
the positive statement that in making
a disposition of his troops before the
battle, Wellington had given orders
for the placing Of his forces in groups
along an extended front. If these or
ders had been executed there would
have been, he says, a gap between My
eress and Dyle through which Marshal
Ney could have marched, reached
Brussels without firing a gun, and
turned the Prussian flank and defeat
ed Wellington. But some of Yelling
tons subordinates, being on the
ground, disobeyed this order and kept
the gap closed. If such was the fact,
it appears then that Wellington, in
H. Il Tod ha1l
in Brussels given by the Duchess of
Richmond should have been at the
front examining the situation. And if
it be the fact that he was at fault in
his strategy, he is not entitled to the
credit of the victory, but his subordi
mates are. Criticisms upon the STRAIT
egg of both Wellington and Napoleon
are very common in these days, by
military men who have abundant leis-
ure to study the topography of the
ground over which the armies march
ed, and are not called to act on the
spur of the moment, as the generals
were, who fought the real battle. Even
the late King Kalakaua, standing, in
1881 upon the summit of the Mound
erected by the English on the battle
field of Waterloo, after reviewing the
situation pointed out, in the presence
of the writer the buildings Of La-Haye-
Sainte, and observed that Napoleon
should never have made an attack
upon them in the front but should
have moved in the rear, and he point
ed out with his finger the proper
course that the great French General
should have taken. When the writer
asked His Majesty how Napoleon
could have gotten behind the English,
SO as to make an attack in the rear,
he replied promptly that the English
should have been attacked in the flank
and beaten first.
If the historians and the scholars
are reaching any conclusions in these
latter days, it is that national life is
an evolution, and that the evolution
of all the nations of Europe moves on
the same lines. 1t follows that wheth-
er the English or the French won the
battle of Waterloo it was a mere in
cident in the evolution. AS Professor
Tyler says: eff Napoleon had wol
the victory, the vast moral forces II
Europe which opposed him woui'
quickly have reversed the effect OF tn
battle of Waterloo, and the great EN-
peror would have been driven to HI
ST. Helena"
The study that is absorbingly fascl
mating of the strategy of the TWO gen
erals is in tracing out their menta
operations which involved the lives c
many thousands of human beings
These beings had nothing to say abot
the way they should be led out
slaughter The least error in maxim
such grand movements involved a
enormous loss of life.
1t is a singular aspect OF the gel
eral thought of the Teutonic and Latl
races, that in spite OF the vast
crease in the number Of subjects Whl'
attract investigation, and the lnablil'
of any person to master but frac1lo
of the existing valuable knoWleds
tbere should be such a general desl
to hear again the story OF the patti
which occurred almost century age
Napoleon and Wellington, now 7
ioicing in a happy immortality, al
taking their ghostly CONSTITUTIONS
together must smile at the CRITICS
of the little people down here w
have not yet obtained all the facts
the case and cannot reach the gre
commanders by telephone.