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were to be obtained by requisition, that is, | steady and tried soldiers, the momentum contributions levied on the countries with and impetus derived from the inexperienced which the republic was at war; and the and unsteady in its other parts, contribute command was so strictly observed, that the to its effects. The notion entertained French army was not only thus fed and paid, but the generals were enriched, and above 50,000,000 francs found their way into the French exchequer from the system of plunder and spoliation put into execution during the first Italian campaign.

from the success of the column-attacks of the French on the armies of Austria, Prussia, &c., that that mode of formation is the most conducive to victory, was absolutely disproved, when attempted to be put into execution against the British. At Talavera, Busaco, and Waterloo, the column-attacks were completely frustrated. At Talavera, the British line kept up an incessant rolling fire on the head of the column, while the flanks inclining forwards, directing their fire against both sides of the column, overthrew it. At Busaco, the head of the French column fired; when the English line, overlapping both its flanks, drove it back, after three discharges, with prodigious slaughter. At Waterloo, the whole French army advanced to the charge in column-formations, the guard being formed into three distinct bodies, each having a battalion in line and a battalion in column on each of its flanks; when the English line, converging its extremities on the flanks of the enemy, poured in so steady and well-directed a fire, as to stagger and overthrow the foe. The same skilful and highminded men adopted, and put into force in their tactics, the first great principle of the science of war-(and, indeed, of mechanical and mathematical science, which constitute the principles and basis of military

To surmount the difficulties with which he was surrounded, Napoleon Buonaparte made a great change in the established rules and principles of war; indeed, the same had been the case with the leaders of the first armies of the republic, when, to adopt General Foy's vivid expression, "eight hundred thousand men started from the earth at the cry of the country in danger, to combat its enemies." Such were the tactics of Dumourier, Pichegru, Moreau, Dampier, Dugommier, and all the able generals of the revolutionary early times. It was by celerity of action, rapid marches, sudden attacks, precision of formation and deployment, and promptitude of execution, unencumbered with tents, camp-equipage, military hospitals, and commissariat stores, that those splendid and decisive victories were won, (and that, too, in a great measure, in the absence of magazines, of all sorts of stores, and munitions of war ;)-that astonished and astounded the men of routine and precedent in the art of war. By them, the system of attack in mass or column was adopted; but not, however, as is universally, but mis-science)-that victory is generally dependent takingly supposed, as more effective and decisive than that in line, but in order to make up for the deficiency of discipline and steadiness to which new levies are necessarily subject, troops in column (especially young soldiers) deriving a confidence and mutual dependence from its density and compactness: if the head of the column consists of

on the greatest quantity of effective force brought into action, on the decisive point or points of the field of battle, at the same moment. Napoleon Buonaparte adopted and developed the same system, and was favoured with the same results. He deemed that the best formation or manœuvre was that which produced those effects, and he was suc

It was the love of country, of liberty, of inde- veteran opponents, formed them into masses or pendence, that stimulated the victors of Fleurus, columns, that they might by their weight break Jemappes, and Valmy. The wild impulse of their an extended line, and cutting or separating it into zeal amounted to fanaticism. The undisciplined parts, might thus turn and attack it in detail. enthusiasm and patriotic energies of the sans-culotte From these masses, in the first efforts of the rebands of Pichegru, Jourdan, Dampier, and Dugom-publican soldiers, as the columns advanced to the mier, set at nought all the well-practised tactics of the parade of Potsdam-all the theories that had been adopted by the so-called great masters in the art of war, both ancient and modern. Bold in the strength that freedom gave, the republican sansculottes required no other tactics but "Ca-ira," and no strategy but "en avant." The French generals of the infant republic, availing themselves of this exalted feeling, and aware that their raw levies were sadly inferior in discipline to their

assault, the boldest and most enterprising of the men started forward to act as tirailleurs, or, as the light troops were latterly called, voltigeurs. In the more improved state of French military science, the French generals, thinking that some great physical force was inherent and mysteriously concealed in their column-attacks, reduced the formation and mode of attack into an apparently scientific form. The evolution received its full development in the hands of Napoleon Buonaparte.

cessful. His practice was, to bring the greatest | ture would have compelled the Duke of force that he possibly could against a weak, Wellington to assume a new disposition of a detached, or an isolated point of his adver- his forces, yet its loss would not have so sary's army; and having become victorious seriously compromised the safety of the there, the dependent parts fell into his army as is generally supposed, particularly power, as a necessary consequence. He as it stood low; and, therefore, had it been was, however, highly skilled in stratege- taken, its capture would have had no comtical operations, was eminently endowed manding influence on the British army, with the power of combination of masses to and could have decided nothing; and thus execute those decisive manœuvres that de- the time of which it was of importance cide the fortune of battles,-and possessed to Napoleon Buonaparte to avail himself the military coup d'œil in a manner almost before the Duke of Wellington could receive infallible. No general who has ever ap- any co-operation from the Prussian army, peared on the theatre of warfare, was en- was fatally wasted; secondly, that those dowed with the power of calculation (by columns which were slaughtered before its which the precise moment at which his defences, would have been of the highest columns of infantry could attack the dis- importance, and might possibly have deordered lines of his enemy, with all but cer- cided the fortune of the day, when he made tainty of success) in a more eminent degree the grand attack. A consummate knowthan he. In more abstract language, it may ledge of military science would, therefore, be said, that his system of tactics consisted in have suggested the turning or flanking of that concentrating his forces on important points, post. On the other hand, the obstinate deinstead of extending them in long lines of fence of that position by Wellington, proved posts and detached bodies-in making his his knowledge of the art of war. His object preliminary movements by vast swarms of was to gain time until he received the co-opevoltigeurs, or light troops, when drawing ration of Blucher; and the retention of this near his enemy's position, in order to conceal position enabled him to protract the contest the direction of the attack; and in attack- until he was able to make the grand assault ing promptly and vigorously when the mo- which was to decide the battle. The three ment for action arrived. But great as Na- and entire divisions which contended against poleon Buonaparte's military talent was, it the ten battalions in and about Hougomust be admitted, that he committed many mont, and the five battalions that disputed great errors. Let us investigate the case; the place with the few hundred men and for the sake of brevity, confine ourselves stationed there, were profitably occupied for to his two last displays of "consummate the interests of the British army, but most military genius"--the battles of Fleurus and unprofitably for those of the French army. Waterloo. Napoleon Buonaparte's grand or general In those contests, was the skill displayed attack with the columns composed of the with which popular and even military old and young guard, was also erroneous, opinion gave him the credit for preparing as they advanced to the attack without their his plans of operation? There, most as- flanks having any support or protection. suredly, he did not display that consummate His attacks during the battle were also illand unequalled military genius for which he planned:-infantry alone in one part of the had been so much lauded. What was the line, and cavalry alone in another part, were mode of his operations? Was it on the sent to attack infantry, cavalry, and artillery field of Fleurus, by repeated and successive combined. attacks and repulses on and from the villages of Ligny and St. Amand; and on the field of Waterloo, on Hougomont and La Haye Sainte, that he gave proofs of his great military capacity? Without wasting time in the inquiry respecting the Prussian positions of Ligny, we will confine ourselves to the English one of Hougomont.

Nor were these the entire of Napoleon Buonaparte's military errors. At the battle of Marengo, he committed the following great error:-when Melas contracted his front upon his centre, Napoleon Buonaparte, in stead of manoeuvring in mass upon his adversary's centre, weakened liis own centre to strengthen his wings, with the intention The attack on Hougomont was erroneous of surrounding the Austrian army. As for two reasons: first, though it was the soon as Melas observed this movement, he key of the position, and covered the right advanced his centre rapidly in mass on the wing of the British army, and that its cap-weakened centre of the French, and dis

and present your adversary with the chance of availing himself of the occurrence of some of those freaks of fortune which occur in the course of battles, and often frustrate the best and wisest plans and combinations. To assailants, therefore, partial actions and the capture of particular points are not of so much importance as to him who acts on the defensive. The defence of posts and positions, situated either on his front or flank, is, to a weak or dispirited enemy, of the highest importance. To him the advantages of walls and barricades are great: he is enabled to resist the heavy columns of his adversary with a small number of his forces; and the loss of the enemy must be great before those positions, if they be well and obstinately defended, can be carried. To adopt in all cases, and under all circum

persing it, divided his victorious column into two parts, and rapidly wheeling to the right and left, advanced on both the French wings, which, seeing their centre in flight, followed its example. The battle was alone saved by the advance of the divisions of Lemoncier and Dessaix at the critical moment; and Napoleon Buonaparte, having been joined by the fugitives, he formed the whole in two close columns, and rushed impetuously on the victorious Austrians before they could form again in mass, or assume any available attitude of defence. In his Russian campaign also he committed a series of errors and blunders which were at variance with the great principles of military science. Even his preparations for its inception were defective and inefficient in the highest degree. He could not, had he exerted the least thought, have reason-stances, the modern practice of la petite ably expected to put his system of requisition-of "making the war feed the war" -into operation, in the deserted steppes of Russia, and that, too, in the tract of a large retreating army. The French commissariat was in so defective a state, and the supplies so insufficient, that the Marquis Chambray says, in his Expédition de Russie, the troops were obliged to subsist by marauding in their march even through Prussia and Poland. His inaction after the battle of Borodino was reprehensible in the highest degree, and may be considered one of the principal causes of his discomfiture.

But the errors which prevailed in Napoleon Buonaparte's system of tactics were not confined to himself; they extended to his generals. The plan of attacking posts and positions which might safely have been turned or passed, and which would have followed the fate of the day, was, instead of making one well-combined simultaneous effort, put into execution at Fuentes d'Onor and Albuera. Had the troops employed in obtaining possession of the first-mentioned village been called into action on that part of the field on which the fusileer brigade determined the fortune of the day, the issue of the battle of Albuera might have been otherwise than it was.

The impolicy of this system of modern tactics, especially where it is not possible to arrest the progress of the attack on the main body of the army, as was the case at Waterloo, Fuentes d'Önor, and Albuera, is self-evident. You not only uselessly sacrifice your men, but you waste time,

guerre, or the war of posts and positions, implies a capacity of not being able to distinguish between generals and particulars— between a rule and its exceptions.

But for the errors just stated, Napoleon Buonaparte made large compensation in his deviations from the routine methods of warfare. In his invasion of Italy, he not only deviated from the established rules of tactics, and disregarded the practice of supplying his army with the usual matériel and equipments of war-with stores, a commissariat, and a military chest-but he even deviated from all his predecessors in his method of invasion. Instead of penetrating the country by some of the passes of the Alpine range, and encountering the difficulties which would thereby have presented themselves to his ill-provided army, he made his irruption by the comparatively level country-namely, the narrow pass, called the Boschetta, situated at the point where the Alps and Apennines form a junction-that is, where the former range melts as it were into the first and lowest elevation of the latter range.

Another inducement to adopt this line of invasion was, the probability it presented of enabling him to intersect and separate the Austrian and Sardinian forces; as from the point he intended to debouch, it would be as practicable to march upon Milan, which the Austrians were interested to defend, as on Turin. In the execution of these operations, the Italian campaign commenced, of which the battle of Montenotte was the precursor.

BATTLE OF MONTENOTTE.

To protect Genoa and the entrance of Italy, his shattered and dispirited forces. Thus the Austrian general, Beaulieu, distributed did Napoleon Buonaparte, by the applicahis army into three divisions. D'Argenteau tion of the first principle of military and was posted on the heights of Montenotte mechanical science-that the greater moand the two villages bearing the same name; mentum must overpower the less, and that the Sardinian forces, under Colli, occupied mathematical accuracy of combination neCeva, which formed the extreme right line cessary to execute decisive manoeuvres—win of the allied army; and Beaulieu himself his first field of glory, and baffle the meatook post at Voltri, a small town, six miles sures of the adherents to routine and etiwest of Genoa, for the protection of that quette, who fancied that nothing was to be city. The Austrian general supposed he done in warfare but by a servile observance had posted his several divisions sufficiently of rule and regular usage. Thus was lost in communication with one another. The the battle of Montenotte, or, as it is othertactics of the French general were to render wise termed, Montenuovo; and no other that communication impracticable. result could have taken place from the faulty disposition of the allied army-the mountainous nature of the country so preventing communication between the separate divisions, that the battle was lost before Beaulieu and Colli had any information of its commencement-an error which attended the Austrian operations throughout the whole of the contest of the revolutionary and imperial wars of France. The armies of that power were always too much subdivided; and the subdivisions were posted over too extended a line of operations to allow a combination of force soon enough to offer a chance of success against such active, enterprising, and impetuous foes as they had to contend with. Time and experience never convinced the Austrian generals of their error: discomfiture was, therefore, the necessary consequence of their obstinacy and ignorance.

On the 10th of April, the van of the French army had reached Voltri; but was forced back on the main body. D'Argenteau at the same moment attacked the French redoubts at Montelegino; but, being gallantly resisted by Colonel Rampon, he retreated with the intention of renewing the assault next day. In the course of the night, Napoleon Buonaparte, having left a sufficient force to watch Beaulieu, concentrating his whole force, threw it on the Austrian centre. In the morning, D'Argenteau saw himself surrounded; Massena and Augereau on his flank and in his rear, and Napoleon Buonaparte behind the redoubts. In the engagement which ensued, his loss was 1,000 slain, 2,000 prisoners, and all his colours and cannon. He effected his retreat with difficulty, and retired among the intricate mountains of those regions to reorganise

BATTLES OF MILLESIMO AND MONDOVI.

THE victory of Montenotte having opened to the French the plains of Piedmont, and separated the Austrian and Sardinian armies, Beaulieu retreated on the village of Dego, to cover the road to Milan, and Colli took post at Millesimo, with the strong position of the heights of Biestro between them, to protect the entrance into Piedmont. Their intention was to remain in their positions until they received succour from Lombardy, and were joined by the troops under D'Ar

It was at this time that Lannes, afterwards Duke of Montebello, and one of the bravest marshals of the empire, first attracted the notice of Napoleon Buonaparte. "The talent of Lannes," said Napoleon Buonaparte, "was equal to his bravery. He was at once the Roland of the army,

genteau. But their active and enterprising adversary was not inclined to allow them such respite.

On the 13th of April, the day following the battle of Montenuovo, Napoleon Buonaparte made a general assault on the line of the allied army, and totally defeated Beaulieu and Colli at Millesimo. Nine days afterwards, Colli was again, in his disastrous retreat, overthrown at Mondovi, as Wukassowich had previously been at Dego.* and a giant in capacity. He had great experience in war: had been in fifty-four pitched battles, and three hundred combats. He was cool in the midst of fire; and possessed a clear penetrating eye, ready to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself."—O'Meara.