[63] This account of Wolfe's death is quoted from Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, on which most interesting work the foregoing narrative is based. There are several versions of Wolfe's dying words, but Parkman, after comparing the evidence, accepts that given above.
[64] Had Wellington's base of operations been Cadiz instead of Lisbon, every step in advance would have pushed the French nearer to their base, and therefore would have rendered the conditions of supply, etc., increasingly favourable to them. A successful advance from Portugal on Madrid cut off the whole south from easy communication with France, without which they could not long maintain their ground.
[65] He was only created Lord Wellington after the battle of Talavera, but it is convenient to use the familiar title all through.
[66] All the quotations in this and the following chapter are from Napier.
[67] This is the battle which, in a school-book I once saw, was described as a glorious victory won by 29,000 French over 90,000 English and Spaniards.
[68] Maida and Vimiero were real defeats, but the numbers engaged were insignificant. Aspern was a great and bloody battle, in which the French on the whole got the worst of it, but it was hardly a distinct Austrian victory.
[69] The exploits of Craufurd, with the light division, acting as Wellington's advanced guard, are the subject of some of Napier's best writing.
[70] The disastrous Walcheren expedition, which started while the battle of Talavera was being fought, had wasted a large part of the military strength of England. Sent as it was after Napoleon had forced Austria again to sue for peace, and badly conducted, it was an inevitable failure. This being the case, it is of course true that the men and material would have been more usefully employed in the Peninsula. But it is by no means equally clear that the original idea was faulty. Had even a smaller force, energetically led, been despatched to the same point two months earlier, when Napoleon was still absorbed in remedying his failure at Aspern, the consequences might have been enormous. At the very least it could have ruined Antwerp for purposes of naval construction; and Napoleon deemed Antwerp, "a pistol pointed at the heart of England," so valuable that in 1814, when almost at the last gasp, he broke off negotiations for peace rather than cede Antwerp.
[71] King Joseph was indeed declared commander-in-chief in March 1812, but the marshals disputed his authority, and denounced his plans as unwise. Their criticisms were not unreasonable, but "one bad general is better than two good ones."
[72] Belgium had been for over twenty years annexed to France. Holland had been entirely under French influence almost as long, and annexed to France for six years. Hence the people were either partisans of the French, or in great dread of them.