I do not mean to assert positively that this confusion of words led to the deep masses at Waterloo; but it might have done so; and it is important that in every language there should be two different terms to express two such different things as a division of twelve battalions and a division of a quarter of a battalion.
Struck with what precedes, I thought it proper to modify my Summary already referred to, which was too concise, and in my revision of it I devoted a chapter to the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different formations for battle. I also added some considerations relative to a mixed system used at Eylau by General Benningsen, which consisted in forming a regiment of three battalions by deploying the central one, the other two being in column on the wings.
After these discussions, I drew the conclusions:—
1. That Wellington's system was certainly good for the defensive.
2. That the system of Benningsen might, according to circumstances, be as good for the offensive as for the defensive, since it was successfully used by Napoleon at the passage of the Tagliamento.
3. That the most skillful tactician would experience great difficulty in marching forty or fifty deployed battalions in two or three ranks over an interval of twelve or fifteen hundred yards, preserving sufficient order to attack an enemy in position with any chance of success, the front all the while being played upon by artillery and musketry.
I have never seen any thing of the kind in my experience. I regard it as impossible, and am convinced that such a line could not advance to the attack in sufficiently good order to have the force necessary for success.
Napoleon was in the habit of addressing his marshals in these terms:—"Take your troops up in good order, and make a vigorous assault upon the enemy." I ask, what means is there of carrying up to the assault of an enemy forty or fifty deployed battalions as a whole in good order? They will reach the enemy in detachments disconnected from each other, and the commander cannot exercise any control over the mass as a whole.
I saw nothing of this kind either at Ulm, Jena, Eylau, Bautzen, Dresden, Culm, or Leipsic; neither did it occur at Austerlitz, Friedland, Katzbach, or Dennewitz.