VIII.
We have left our eighteenth-century novelists--Fielding, Richardson,
and Smollett--safely behind us, with all their solidity and their
audacity, their sincerity, and their coarseness of fibre. They have
brought us, as you perceive, to the end of the shelf. What, not
wearied? Ready for yet another? Let us run down this next row, then,
and I will tell you a few things which may be of interest, though
they will be dull enough if you have not been born with that love of
books in your heart which is among the choicest gifts of the gods.
If that is wanting, then one might as well play music to the deaf,
or walk round the Academy with the colour-blind, as appeal to the
book-sense of an unfortunate who has it not.
There is this old brown volume in the corner. How it got there I
cannot imagine, for it is one of those which I bought for threepence
out of the remnant box in Edinburgh, and its weather-beaten comrades
are up yonder in the back gallery, while this one has elbowed its
way among the quality in the stalls. But it is worth a word or two.
Take it out and handle it! See how swarthy it is, how squat, with
how bullet-proof a cover of scaling leather. Now open the fly-leaf
"Ex libris Guilielmi Whyte. 1672" in faded yellow ink. I wonder who
William Whyte may have been, and what he did upon earth in the reign
of the merry monarch. A pragmatical seventeenth-century lawyer, I
should judge, by that hard, angular writing. The date of issue is
1642, so it was printed just about the time when the Pilgrim Fathers
were settling down into their new American home, and the first
Charles's head was still firm upon his shoulders, though a little
puzzled, no doubt, at what was going on around it. The book is in
Latin--though Cicero might not have admitted it--and it treats of
the laws of warfare.
I picture some pedantic Dugald Dalgetty bearing it about under his
buff coat, or down in his holster, and turning up the reference for
every fresh emergency which occurred. "Hullo! here's a well!" says
he. "I wonder if I may poison it?" Out comes the book, and he runs a
dirty forefinger down the index. "Ob fas est aquam hostis venere,"
etc. "Tut, tut, it's not allowed. But here are some of the enemy in
a barn? What about that?" "Ob fas est hostem incendio," etc. "Yes;
he says we may. Quick, Ambrose, up with the straw and the tinder
box." Warfare was no child's play about the time when Tilly sacked
Magdeburg, and Cromwell turned his hand from the mash tub to the
sword. It might not be much better now in a long campaign, when men
were hardened and embittered. Many of these laws are unrepealed, and
it is less than a century since highly disciplined British troops
claimed their dreadful rights at Badajos and Rodrigo. Recent
European wars have been so short that discipline and humanity have
not had time to go to pieces, but a long war would show that man is
ever the same, and that civilization is the thinnest of veneers.
Now you see that whole row of books which takes you at one sweep
nearly across the shelf? I am rather proud of those, for they are
my collection of Napoleonic military memoirs. There is a story told
of an illiterate millionaire who gave a wholesale dealer an order
for a copy of all books in any language treating of any aspect of
Napoleon's career. He thought it would fill a case in his library.
He was somewhat taken aback, however, when in a few weeks he
received a message from the dealer that he had got 40,000 volumes,
and awaited instructions as to whether he should send them on as
an instalment, or wait for a complete set. The figures may not be
exact, but at least they bring home the impossibility of exhausting
the subject, and the danger of losing one's self for years in a huge
labyrinth of reading, which may end by leaving no very definite
impression upon your mind. But one might, perhaps, take a corner of
it, as I have done here in the military memoirs, and there one might
hope to get some finality.
Here is Marbot at this end--the first of all soldier books in the
world. This is the complete three-volume French edition, with red
and gold cover, smart and debonnaire like its author. Here he is
in one frontispiece with his pleasant, round, boyish face, as a
Captain of his beloved Chasseurs. And here in the other is the
grizzled old bull-dog as a full general, looking as full of fight as
ever. It was a real blow to me when some one began to throw doubts
upon the authenticity of Marbot's memoirs. Homer may be dissolved
into a crowd of skin-clad bards. Even Shakespeare may be jostled
in his throne of honour by plausible Baconians; but the human, the
gallant, the inimitable Marbot! His book is that which gives us the
best picture by far of the Napoleonic soldiers, and to me they are
even more interesting than their great leader, though his must ever
be the most singular figure in history. But those soldiers, with
their huge shakoes, their hairy knapsacks, and their hearts of
steel--what men they were! And what a latent power there must be
in this French nation which could go on pouring out the blood of
its sons for twenty-three years with hardly a pause!
It took all that time to work off the hot ferment which the
Revolution had left in men's veins. And they were not exhausted, for
the very last fight which the French fought was the finest of all.
Proud as we are of our infantry at Waterloo, it was really with the
French cavalry that the greenest laurels of that great epic rested.
They got the better of our own cavalry, they took our guns again
and again, they swept a large portion of our allies from the field,
and finally they rode off unbroken, and as full of fight as ever.
Read Gronow's "Memoirs," that chatty little yellow volume yonder
which brings all that age back to us more vividly than any more
pretentious work, and you will find the chivalrous admiration which
our officers expressed at the fine performance of the French
horsemen.
It must be admitted that, looking back upon history, we have not
always been good allies, nor yet generous co-partners in the
battlefield. The first is the fault of our politics, where one party
rejoices to break what the other has bound. The makers of the Treaty
are staunch enough, as the Tories were under Pitt and Castlereagh,
or the Whigs at the time of Queen Anne, but sooner or later the
others must come in. At the end of the Marlborough wars we suddenly
vamped up a peace and, left our allies in the lurch, on account
of a change in domestic politics. We did the same with Frederick
the Great, and would have done it in the Napoleonic days if Fox
could have controlled the country. And as to our partners of the
battlefield, how little we have ever said that is hearty as to the
splendid staunchness of the Prussians at Waterloo. You have to read
the Frenchman, Houssaye, to get a central view and to understand
the part they played. Think of old Blucher, seventy years old, and
ridden over by a regiment of charging cavalry the day before, yet
swearing that he would come to Wellington if he had to be strapped
to his horse. He nobly redeemed his promise.
The loss of the Prussians at Waterloo was not far short of our own.
You would not know it, to read our historians. And then the abuse
of our Belgian allies has been overdone. Some of them fought
splendidly, and one brigade of infantry had a share in the critical
instant when the battle was turned. This also you would not learn
from British sources. Look at our Portuguese allies also! They
trained into magnificent troops, and one of Wellington's earnest
desires was to have ten thousand of them for his Waterloo campaign.
It was a Portuguese who first topped the rampart of Badajos. They
have never had their due credit, nor have the Spaniards either, for,
though often defeated, it was their unconquerable pertinacity which
played a great part in the struggle. No; I do not think that we are
very amiable partners, but I suppose that all national history may
be open to a similar charge.
It must be confessed that Marbot's details are occasionally a little
hard to believe. Never in the pages of Lever has there been such a
series of hairbreadth escapes and dare-devil exploits. Surely he
stretched it a little sometimes. You may remember his adventure at
Eylau--I think it was Eylau--how a cannon-ball, striking the top of
his helmet, paralyzed him by the concussion of his spine; and how,
on a Russian officer running forward to cut him down, his horse bit
the man's face nearly off. This was the famous charger which savaged
everything until Marbot, having bought it for next to nothing, cured
it by thrusting a boiling leg of mutton into its mouth when it tried
to bite him. It certainly does need a robust faith to get over these
incidents. And yet, when one reflects upon the hundreds of battles
and skirmishes which a Napoleonic officer must have endured--how
they must have been the uninterrupted routine of his life from the
first dark hair upon his lip to the first grey one upon his head,
it is presumptuous to say what may or may not have been possible in
such unparalleled careers. At any rate, be it fact or fiction--fact
it is, in my opinion, with some artistic touching up of the high
lights--there are few books which I could not spare from my shelves
better than the memoirs of the gallant Marbot.
I dwell upon this particular book because it is the best; but take
the whole line, and there is not one which is not full of interest.
Marbot gives you the point of view of the officer. So does De
Segur and De Fezensac and Colonel Gonville, each in some different
branch of the service. But some are from the pens of the men in the
ranks, and they are even more graphic than the others. Here, for
example, are the papers of good old Cogniet, who was a grenadier of
the Guard, and could neither read nor write until after the great
wars were over. A tougher soldier never went into battle. Here is
Sergeant Bourgogne, also with his dreadful account of that nightmare
campaign in Russia, and the gallant Chevillet, trumpeter of
Chasseurs, with his matter-of-fact account of all that he saw, where
the daily "combat" is sandwiched in betwixt the real business of the
day, which was foraging for his frugal breakfast and supper. There
is no better writing, and no easier reading, than the records of
these men of action.
A Briton cannot help asking himself, as he realizes what men these
were, what would have happened if 150,000 Cogniets and Bourgognes,
with Marbots to lead them, and the great captain of all time in the
prime of his vigour at their head, had made their landing in Kent?
For months it was touch-and-go. A single naval slip which left
the Channel clear would have been followed by an embarkation
from Boulogne, which had been brought by constant practice to so
incredibly fine a point that the last horse was aboard within two
hours of the start. Any evening might have seen the whole host
upon the Pevensey Flats. What then? We know what Humbert did with
a handful of men in Ireland, and the story is not reassuring.
Conquest, of course, is unthinkable. The world in arms could not do
that. But Napoleon never thought of the conquest of Britain. He has
expressly disclaimed it. What he did contemplate was a gigantic raid
in which he would do so much damage that for years to come England
would be occupied at home in picking up the pieces, instead of
having energy to spend abroad in thwarting his Continental plans.
Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Sheerness in flames, with London either
levelled to the ground or ransomed at his own figure--that was a
more feasible programme. Then, with the united fleets of conquered
Europe at his back, enormous armies and an inexhaustible treasury,
swollen with the ransom of Britain, he could turn to that conquest
of America which would win back the old colonies of France and leave
him master of the world. If the worst happened and he had met his
Waterloo upon the South Downs, he would have done again what he
did in Egypt and once more in Russia: hurried back to France in a
swift vessel, and still had force enough to hold his own upon the
Continent. It would, no doubt, have been a big stake to lay upon
the table--150,000 of his best--but he could play again if he lost;
while, if he won, he cleared the board. A fine game--if little
Nelson had not stopped it, and with one blow fixed the edge of salt
water as the limit of Napoleon's power.
There's the cast of a medal on the top of that cabinet which will
bring it all close home to you. It is taken from the die of the
medal which Napoleon had arranged to issue on the day that he
reached London. It serves, at any rate, to show that his great
muster was not a bluff, but that he really did mean serious
business. On one side is his head. On the other France is engaged
in strangling and throwing to earth a curious fish-tailed creature,
which stands for perfidious Albion. "Frappe a Londres" is
printed on one part of it, and "La Descente dans Angleterre" upon
another. Struck to commemorate a conquest, it remains now as a
souvenir of a fiasco. But it was a close call.
By the way, talking of Napoleon's flight from Egypt, did you ever
see a curious little book called, if I remember right, "Intercepted
Letters"? No; I have no copy upon this shelf, but a friend is more
fortunate. It shows the almost incredible hatred which existed
at the end of the eighteenth century between the two nations,
descending even to the most petty personal annoyance. On this
occasion the British Government intercepted a mail-bag of letters
coming from French officers in Egypt to their friends at home,
and they either published them, or at least allowed them to be
published, in the hope, no doubt, of causing domestic complications.
Was ever a more despicable action? But who knows what other injuries
had been inflicted to draw forth such a retaliation? I have myself
seen a burned and mutilated British mail lying where De Wet had left
it; but suppose the refinement of his vengeance had gone so far as
to publish it, what a thunder-bolt it might have been!
As to the French officers, I have read their letters, though even
after a century one had a feeling of guilt when one did so. But, on
the whole, they are a credit to the writers, and give the impression
of a noble and chivalrous set of men. Whether they were all
addressed to the right people is another matter, and therein lay the
poisoned sting of this most un-British affair. As to the monstrous
things which were done upon the other side, remember the arrest of
all the poor British tourists and commercials who chanced to be in
France when the war was renewed in 1803. They had run over in all
trust and confidence for a little outing and change of air. They
certainly got it, for Napoleon's steel grip fell upon them, and they
rejoined their families in 1814. He must have had a heart of adamant
and a will of iron. Look at his conduct over the naval prisoners.
The natural proceeding would have been to exchange them. For some
reason he did not think it good policy to do so. All representations
from the British Government were set aside, save in the case of the
higher officers. Hence the miseries of the hulks and the dreadful
prison barracks in England. Hence also the unhappy idlers of Verdun.
What splendid loyalty there must have been in those humble Frenchmen
which never allowed them for one instant to turn bitterly upon the
author of all their great misfortunes. It is all brought vividly
home by the description of their prisons given by Borrow in
"Lavengro." This is the passage--
"What a strange appearance had those mighty casernes, with
their blank, blind walls, without windows or grating, and
their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where
the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of
grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide
expanse of country unfolded from their airy height. Ah!
there was much misery in those casernes; and from those
roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the
direction of lovely France. Much had the poor inmates to
endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England
be it said--of England, in general so kind and bountiful.
Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen
the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy
entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless
and captive; and such, alas! was the fare in those casernes.
And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called
in the slang of the place 'straw-plait hunts,' when in
pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners,
in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries
and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making,
red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who,
with the bayonet's point, carried havoc and ruin into every
poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been
endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant
exit with the miserable booty, and worst of all, the accursed
bonfire, on the barrack parade of the plait contraband,
beneath the view of glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs,
amid the hurrahs of the troops frequently drowned in the
curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in
the terrific war-whoop of 'Vive l'Empereur!'"
There is a little vignette of Napoleon's men in captivity. Here is
another which is worth preserving of the bearing of his veterans
when wounded on the field of battle. It is from Mercer's
recollections of the Battle of Waterloo. Mercer had spent the day
firing case into the French cavalry at ranges from fifty to two
hundred yards, losing two-thirds of his own battery in the process.
In the evening he had a look at some of his own grim handiwork.
"I had satisfied my curiosity at Hougoumont, and was retracing
my steps up the hill when my attention was called to a group
of wounded Frenchmen by the calm, dignified, and soldier-like
oration addressed by one of them to the rest. I cannot, like
Livy, compose a fine harangue for my hero, and, of course, I
could not retain the precise words, but the import of them was
to exhort them to bear their sufferings with fortitude; not
to repine, like women or children, at what every soldier
should have made up his mind to suffer as the fortune of
war, but above all, to remember that they were surrounded by
Englishmen, before whom they ought to be doubly careful not
to disgrace themselves by displaying such an unsoldier-like
want of fortitude.
"The speaker was sitting on the ground with his lance stuck
upright beside him--an old veteran with thick bushy, grizzly
beard, countenance like a lion--a lancer of the old guard,
and no doubt had fought in many a field. One hand was
flourished in the air as he spoke, the other, severed at the
wrist, lay on the earth beside him; one ball (case-shot,
probably) had entered his body, another had broken his leg.
His suffering, after a night of exposure so mangled, must
have been great; yet he betrayed it not. His bearing was
that of a Roman, or perhaps an Indian warrior, and I could
fancy him concluding appropriately his speech in the words
of the Mexican king, 'And I too; am I on a bed of roses?'"
What a load of moral responsibility upon one man! But his mind was
insensible to moral responsibility. Surely if it had not been it
must have been crushed beneath it. Now, if you want to understand
the character of Napoleon--but surely I must take a fresh start
before I launch on so portentous a subject as that.
But before I leave the military men let me, for the credit of my own
country, after that infamous incident of the letters, indicate these
six well-thumbed volumes of "Napier's History." This is the story of
the great Peninsular War, by one who fought through it himself, and
in no history has a more chivalrous and manly account been given of
one's enemy. Indeed, Napier seems to me to push it too far, for his
admiration appears to extend not only to the gallant soldiers who
opposed him, but to the character and to the ultimate aims of their
leader. He was, in fact, a political follower of Charles James Fox,
and his heart seems to have been with the enemy even at the moment
when he led his men most desperately against them. In the verdict
of history the action of those men who, in their honest zeal for
freedom, inflamed somewhat by political strife, turned against their
own country, when it was in truth the Champion of Freedom, and
approved of a military despot of the most uncompromising kind, seems
wildly foolish.
But if Napier's politics may seem strange, his soldiering was
splendid, and his prose among the very best that I know. There
are passages in that work--the one which describes the breach of
Badajos, that of the charge of the Fusiliers at Albuera, and that
of the French advance at Fuentes d'Onoro--which once read haunt the
mind for ever. The book is a worthy monument of a great national
epic. Alas! for the pregnant sentence with which it closes, "So
ended the great war, and with it all memory of the services of the
veterans." Was there ever a British war of which the same might not
have been written?
The quotation which I have given from Mercer's book turns my
thoughts in the direction of the British military reminiscences of
that period, less numerous, less varied, and less central than the
French, but full of character and interest all the same. I have
found that if I am turned loose in a large library, after hesitating
over covers for half an hour or so, it is usually a book of soldier
memoirs which I take down. Man is never so interesting as when he is
thoroughly in earnest, and no one is so earnest as he whose life is
at stake upon the event. But of all types of soldier the best is
the man who is keen upon his work, and yet has general culture
which enables him to see that work in its due perspective, and to
sympathize with the gentler aspirations of mankind. Such a man is
Mercer, an ice-cool fighter, with a sense of discipline and decorum
which prevented him from moving when a bombshell was fizzing between
his feet, and yet a man of thoughtful and philosophic temperament,
with a weakness for solitary musings, for children, and for flowers.
He has written for all time the classic account of a great battle,
seen from the point of view of a battery commander. Many others of
Wellington's soldiers wrote their personal reminiscences. You can
get them, as I have them there, in the pleasant abridgement of
"Wellington's Men" (admirably edited by Dr. Fitchett)--Anton the
Highlander, Harris the rifleman, and Kincaid of the same corps. It
is a most singular fate which has made an Australian nonconformist
clergyman the most sympathetic and eloquent reconstructor of those
old heroes, but it is a noble example of that unity of the British
race, which in fifty scattered lands still mourns or rejoices over
the same historic record.
And just one word, before I close down this over-long and too
discursive chatter, on the subject of yonder twin red volumes which
flank the shelf. They are Maxwell's "History of Wellington," and I
do not think you will find a better or more readable one. The reader
must ever feel towards the great soldier what his own immediate
followers felt, respect rather than affection. One's failure to
attain a more affectionate emotion is alleviated by the knowledge
that it was the last thing which he invited or desired. "Don't be a
damned fool, sir!" was his exhortation to the good citizen who had
paid him a compliment. It was a curious, callous nature, brusque
and limited. The hardest huntsman learns to love his hounds, but he
showed no affection and a good deal of contempt for the men who had
been his instruments. "They are the scum of the earth," said he.
"All English soldiers are fellows who have enlisted for drink. That
is the plain fact--they have all enlisted for drink." His general
orders were full of undeserved reproaches at a time when the most
lavish praise could hardly have met the real deserts of his army.
When the wars were done he saw little, save in his official
capacity, of his old comrades-in-arms. And yet, from major-general
to drummer-boy, he was the man whom they would all have elected to
serve under, had the work to be done once more. As one of them said,
"The sight of his long nose was worth ten thousand men on a field of
battle." They were themselves a leathery breed, and cared little for
the gentler amenities so long as the French were well drubbed.
His mind, which was comprehensive and alert in warfare, was
singularly limited in civil affairs. As a statesman he was so
constant an example of devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and high
disinterested character, that the country was the better for his
presence. But he fiercely opposed Catholic Emancipation, the Reform
Bill, and everything upon which our modern life is founded. He could
never be brought to see that a pyramid should stand on its base and
not on its apex, and that the larger the pyramid, the broader should
be the base. Even in military affairs he was averse from every
change, and I know of no improvements which came from his initiative
during all those years when his authority was supreme. The floggings
which broke a man's spirit and self-respect, the leathern stock
which hampered his movements, all the old traditional regime
found a champion in him. On the other hand, he strongly opposed the
introduction of the percussion cap as opposed to the flint and steel
in the musket. Neither in war nor in politics did he rightly judge
the future.
And yet in reading his letters and dispatches, one is surprised
sometimes at the incisive thought and its vigorous expression. There
is a passage in which he describes the way in which his soldiers
would occasionally desert into some town which he was besieging.
"They knew," he writes, "that they must be taken, for when we lay
our bloody hands upon a place we are sure to take it, sooner or
later; but they liked being dry and under cover, and then that
extraordinary caprice which always pervades the English character!
Our deserters are very badly treated by the enemy; those who
deserted in France were treated as the lowest of mortals, slaves and
scavengers. Nothing but English caprice can account for it; just
what makes our noblemen associate with stage-coach drivers, and
become stage-coach drivers themselves." After reading that passage,
how often does the phrase "the extraordinary caprice which always
pervades the English character" come back as one observes some fresh
manifestation of it!
But let not my last note upon the great duke be a carping one.
Rather let my final sentence be one which will remind you of his
frugal and abstemious life, his carpetless floor and little camp
bed, his precise courtesy which left no humblest letter unanswered,
his courage which never flinched, his tenacity which never faltered,
his sense of duty which made his life one long unselfish effort
on behalf of what seemed to him to be the highest interest of the
State. Go down and stand by the huge granite sarcophagus in the dim
light of the crypt of St. Paul's, and in the hush of that austere
spot, cast back your mind to the days when little England alone
stood firm against the greatest soldier and the greatest army that
the world has ever known. Then you feel what this dead man stood
for, and you pray that we may still find such another amongst us
when the clouds gather once again.
You see that the literature of Waterloo is well represented in my
small military library. Of all books dealing with the personal
view of the matter, I think that "Siborne's Letters," which is a
collection of the narratives of surviving officers made by Siborne
in the year 1827, is the most interesting. Gronow's account is
also very vivid and interesting. Of the strategical narratives,
Houssaye's book is my favourite. Taken from the French point of
view, it gets the actions of the allies in truer perspective than
any English or German account can do; but there is a fascination
about that great combat which makes every narrative that bears upon
it of enthralling interest.
Wellington used to say that too much was made of it, and that one
would imagine that the British Army had never fought a battle
before. It was a characteristic speech, but it must be admitted that
the British Army never had, as a matter of fact, for many centuries
fought a battle which was finally decisive of a great European war.
There lies the perennial interest of the incident, that it was the
last act of that long-drawn drama, and that to the very fall of the
curtain no man could tell how the play would end--"the nearest run
thing that ever you saw"--that was the victor's description. It is
a singular thing that during those twenty-five years of incessant
fighting the material and methods of warfare made so little
progress. So far as I know, there was no great change in either
between 1789 and 1805. The breech-loader, heavy artillery, the
ironclad, all great advances in the art of war, have been invented
in time of peace. There are some improvements so obvious, and at
the same time so valuable, that it is extraordinary that they were
not adopted. Signalling, for example, whether by heliograph or by
flag-waving, would have made an immense difference in the Napoleonic
campaigns. The principle of the semaphore was well known, and
Belgium, with its numerous windmills, would seem to be furnished
with natural semaphores. Yet in the four days during which the
campaign of Waterloo was fought, the whole scheme of military
operations on both sides was again and again imperilled, and finally
in the case of the French brought to utter ruin by lack of that
intelligence which could so easily have been conveyed. June 18th was
at intervals a sunshiny day--a four-inch glass mirror would have
put Napoleon in communication with Gruchy, and the whole history
of Europe might have been altered. Wellington himself suffered
dreadfully from defective information which might have been easily
supplied. The unexpected presence of the French army was first
discovered at four in the morning of June 15. It was of enormous
importance to get the news rapidly to Wellington at Brussels that he
might instantly concentrate his scattered forces on the best line
of resistance--yet, through the folly of sending only a single
messenger, this vital information did not reach him until three in
the afternoon, the distance being thirty miles. Again, when Blucher
was defeated at Ligny on the 16th, it was of enormous importance
that Wellington should know at once the line of his retreat so as
to prevent the French from driving a wedge between them. The single
Prussian officer who was despatched with this information was
wounded, and never reached his destination, and it was only next
day that Wellington learned the Prussian plans. On what tiny things
does History depend!
