[I] Like William of Deloraine, "good at need."
[J] Prince Ernest, brother to Prince Albert.
THE ROYAL ENGINEER TRAIN PRACTISING LASSO DRAUGHT.
To face page 195.
On Military Horse-Power.
As the momentum or force of a shot is said to be its weight multiplied by its velocity, so the strength of an army may not unjustly be estimated by multiplying its physical powers by the rate at which (if necessary) it can be made to travel: in short, activity is to an army what velocity is to a shot, or what the rigging of a vessel is to its hull. But, although we refuse to increase the weight of a shot unless we can proportionately preserve our power to propel it, yet, in European warfare, this principle, as regards the "matériel" of an army, has not always been kept in mind. Inventions have very easily been admitted, which afterwards have not been so easy to carry. It is true, they have added to the powers of the army, but they have so diminished its speed, that, encumbered by its implements and accoutrements, a European, like an East Indian army, has often felt that it requires less science to fight than to march; and thus, when Bonaparte, in his retreat from Moscow, was surrounded by Cossacks, which his troops were unable to crush only because they could not get at them, his well-known confession proves that when the field is vast, and its resources feeble, the distance between regular and irregular warfare "is but a step,"—the reason being, that the superior strength of the former is worn out by the superior activity of the latter, or, as Marshal Saxe expressed it, "its arms are of less value than its legs."
Now, it is undeniable that this want of activity proceeds partly from the weight of the "matériel," but principally from the following very remarkable imperfection in the military equipment of Europe.