General chez les Turcs, Fr. Turkish generals.
The Turks have had brave generals. They possess experience, because from their earliest infancy they become inured to arms; because through the different stages of acknowleged service, they rise by degrees; and because their empire being very extensive, it is necessary that they should over-run several provinces for its protection, and be almost constantly engaged in skirmishes or battles. These, at least, were the original principles upon which the military code of that country was established. But abuses, the natural consequences of corruption, have since crept in amongst them; for there have been persons suddenly raised from subordinate employments under the Porte to the supreme command of armies. The primary cause of this abuse is to be found in the luxury and effeminacy of the grand signors, who are become heedless of the Mahomedan laws, and never go to war in person.
The acknowleged valor of the Turkish generals may be attributed to the following causes. To a constitution which is naturally robust, to a practical knowlege of war, and to habitual military exercises.
To these may be added the confidence with which they are inspired by the recollection of former victories; but they are influenced above all, by the secret dictates of a religion, which holds out eternal happiness to those who shall die in battle, and which teaches them to believe, that every Turk bears written on the forehead, not only the hour of his departure from this earth, but the manner of his removal.
A Turkish general possesses a power as absolute and uncontroled as that which was entrusted to the dictators of the Roman republic. He has no competitor, or equal in the charge he holds, no assistants or colleagues with whom he is directed to consult, and to whose assent or dissent, in matters of consultation, he is to pay the least regard. Not only the army under his command, but the whole country into which he marches, is subject to his orders, and bound implicitly to obey them. Punishments and rewards are equally within his distribution. If an authority so absolute as this be considered in the light of executive effect, nothing most unquestionably can so readily produce it; for the tardiness of deliberation is superseded at once by a prompt decision, before which all sorts of objections, and every species of jealousy, subside. When a project is to be fulfilled, secrecy is the natural consequence of this arbitrary system, and rational plans are not interrupted by a difference of opinion, by prejudice, or cabal.
| General de bataille, | - | |
| General major, |
a particular rank or appointment, whose functions correspond with those of a ci-devant marshal of France. This situation is entrusted to a general officer, and is only known among the armies of Russia, and some other northern powers. He takes precedence in the same manner that our major generals do, of all brigadier generals and colonels, and is subordinate to lieutenant generals. The rank of brigadier general is known in France, Russia, England, Holland, and the United States. It does not exist in Austria or Sweden.
General des galéres, Fr. Superintendant officer, or general of the gallies. This was one of the most important appointments belonging to the old government of France. The officer to whom it was entrusted commanded all the gallies, and vessels which bore what the French call voiles latines (a triangle rectangular sail) in the Mediterranean. He had a jurisdiction, a marine police, and an arsenal for constructing ships under his own immediate command, without being in the least subordinate to the French admiralty board. When he went on board he was only inferior in rank to the admiral.
The privileges which were attached to his situation, and the authority he possessed with regard to every other marine, or sea officer, were specifically mentioned in the king’s regulations, and were distinguished by the respect and compliments that were paid to the royal standard, which this general bore, not only on board his own galley, but whenever he chose to hoist it in another.
During the reign of Louis XIV. in 1669, the Duke de Vivone, marshal of France, raised the reputation of the galley service, to a considerable degree of eminence, by gaining several hard fought engagements. His son the Duke de Mortemart succeeded him in the appointment; and the chevalier d’Orleans, grand prior of France, was general of the gallies at his decease.