A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be

by James Campbell

Very few churches in provincial towns, or villages, can afford proper accommodation for the troops quartered in them, and they ought not to be dependant upon this; and as regiments would thus have their own clergymen, there should be attached to every barrack, at home or abroad, a large comfortable school-house, in which divine service might be performed twice a day on Sundays; so that one wing of a regiment could be accommodated in the morning, and the other in the afternoon.

Every corps ought to have a well paid, and highly respectable school-master, with whom no one should have a right to interfere, but the commanding officer and chaplain; and part of the duty of the latter should be to superintend the school and to direct the system of education to be pursued in it. Every school-house ought to be furnished with a carefully selected collection of books, which should be handed over, in good order, from one chaplain to another, and according to an inventory kept for the purpose. Of course the regiment relieved would have to pay for any books lost or damaged. There ought to be also a sufficient allowance of fuel and candles granted for the school-house; and it would be most desirable that the soldiers should, as much as possible, be induced to spend their evenings there; and in order to increase this inducement, the books should not only be instructive, but also amusing; and as far as practicable, different at every station. A place of public resort of this kind, where a certain number of non-commissioned officers should be required to be present, would be particularly desirable everywhere, but especially in our North American possessions, where in winter it is so difficult to find means of amusement, for soldiers, and thereby to keep them out of mischief. But all kinds of out-door amusements ought also to be encouraged in every part of the world, and even money should be allowed to commanding officers to provide what is required for them; and every thing possible done, so as to make soldiers feel that their regiments are their homes, and their officers their best friends. With this most desirable object in view, officers must see what vast responsibility devolves upon them, and how much they are called upon to teach by example.

It is well known, that in the United Kingdom, society is very differently circumstanced to what it is in any other part of the world. No nation can boast of such a high-minded and enlightened middle class as we possess; and education and manners place most of them upon a level with the highest. Almost all the officers of our army and navy are taken from this middle class; but I regret to say, that too many of them, as well as the first class, know as little of the habits or feelings of the lower orders, as the latter know of theirs. Thus the very formation of society is against that community of feeling and interest, which ought to exist between officers and soldiers, or sailors; and to the want of this sympathy among us, may be attributed much of that powerful influence which dangerous men are able to exercise over the lower orders of the people of the present day; for they are generally destitute of the virtues or principles to be found among men in a similar state; and the dependence in which they are held by the more wealthy part of the community, engenders feelings of jealousy and even dislike towards them, which may be expected at any time, when opportunity offers, to burst forth in those acts of open violence, which occasionally disturb the tranquillity of the empire.

The fancies and absurdities of some of our commanders in former times, were most truly surprising; but to us who were their victims they were any thing but amusing or laughable. Some of them ought to be held up as beacons to warn others to avoid them; but doing so, and showing their effects upon those under them, would occupy much more time and space than I can devote to the purpose. But how rapidly an army whose spirit has been already subdued by a too severe system of discipline is vanquished, was clearly proved, by what occurred in the year 1806. On the 7th of October in that year, the Emperor Napoleon announced to the Senate, that he had quitted his capital to repair to his army in Germany. Already had the Prussian army, completed to its war establishment, passed their frontier, in all the confidence of discipline, and had invaded Saxony; and their advanced posts had even made their appearance not far from the cantonments of the Imperial army.

The French were instantly put in motion to cross the Rhine, and by forced marches, the several corps occupied the points assigned them, and every thing was arranged for advancing against the Prussians. By the evening of the 8th, the French, after several brilliant affairs, in which the Prussians were invariably beaten, had passed the Saale. Events succeeded each other with great rapidity, and according to the Emperor's account of what occurred, Marshal Davoust arrived at Naumbourg on the night of the 12th of October. The Prussian army being thus caught, "en flagrant délit," their left being turned, and many of their depots of provisions taken. The king of Prussia intended to have commenced hostilities on the 9th of October, by moving his right upon Frankfort, his centre upon Wurtzbourg, and his left upon Bamberg; but the Emperor seems to have anticipated this arrangement by marching upon Saalbourg, Lobenstein, Schleitz, Gera, and Naumbourg, when the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, were necessarily occupied by the Prussians in changing their positions, and in recalling their detachments; so that upon the 13th they were, by concentrating their troops, in number about 150,000, enabled to offer battle to the French between Capelsdorf and Amerstadt.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th, the Emperor arrived at Jena; and from a height occupied by his advanced guard, he reconnoitred the Prussian position, and made his dispositions for the morrow.

The Prussian army on the morning of the 14th displayed a splendid front of infantry, cavalry, and seven or eight hundred pieces of cannon. All their manœuvres were executed with that precision and rapidity which might be expected from troops who spent their lives at constant drill, and in military evolutions; in all of which the French were very inferior; yet they had been sufficiently taught their business as soldiers, without that severity of discipline having been resorted to, which too frequently dispirits men, and renders them indifferent to events.

The results of this campaign, of seven days duration, and the famous battle of Jena, were 30,000 prisoners, and amongst them twenty generals; upwards of twenty colours, three hundred pieces of cannon, and great quantities of provisions taken by the French. The Prussian loss was estimated at 20,000 in killed and wounded; and the wreck of their army fell back in consternation and disorder, whilst the French admitted only the loss of a few generals, and about 1,500 men killed and wounded.

We are not to suppose that the Emperor Napoleon could have gained such advantages over a Prussian army, manœuvred by such able officers as those who led it, by superiority of tactics, though he evidently wished the world to think so; and we must attribute the results of the battle to the gallantry and superior intelligence of the French officers and soldiers over troops in whom such a spirit no longer existed; for had it not, in a great measure been banished, for the time, from amongst them, by the severity of Prussian discipline, which is most certainly calculated to eradicate courage out of any army in the world but that composed of English, Scotch, and Irishmen, upon whom its effects were but too long tried; and though it did not exhaust their innate national bravery, and love of war, yet it rendered them at all times ready and anxious to free themselves from the restraint under which they were so tightly kept; and when once they could contrive to get out of the sight of their officers, and to think for themselves,—to do which they perhaps had very few opportunities in the course of their lives—they bade farewell to subordination, and took good care, in every kind of excess, to make up for what they had suffered, under the kind of discipline we had in a great measure copied from the Prussians; and to this I venture to ascribe many of our soldiers' irregularities, and even their crimes.

Let us see the effects of such absurd discipline upon a Russian army. In the month of June, 1807, the Russians occupied Heilsburg, where they had collected vast quantities of provisions, and all that was necessary for an army. Their position was excellent, and during a period of four months every thing possible had been done to render it, by field works, more formidable. The Russians even attempted to be the first to commence hostilities, but they were attacked by the French, and completely beaten with the loss of 30,000 killed and wounded, and 4,000 prisoners; while the French lost (and the results go to prove their statements to be correct) only 700 killed, and about 2,000 wounded; and I do not hesitate to attribute the loss of the battle of Eylau to the same cause as I do that of Jena; that is to say, the injurious, depressing effects of Prussian discipline; and which system seems to be even to this day followed up in the Russian armies.