Une OCCASION bien chaude, Fr. a warm contest, battle, or engagement.—It further means, as with us, the source from whence consequences ensue. Les malheurs du peuple sont arrivés a l’occasion de la guerre. The misfortunes of the people have been occasioned by the war, or the war has been the occasion of the people’s misfortunes. The French make a nice distinction which may hold good in our language, between cause and occasion, viz. Il n’en est pas la cause—Il n’en est que l’occasion, l’occasion innocente.—He is not the cause, he is only the occasion, the innocent occasion of it. Il s’est faché pour une legére occasion; he took offence, or grew angry on a very slight occasion.
Se servir de l’OCCASION, Fr. to take advantage, or make a proper use of time and opportunity. A French writer has very properly observed, that to seize with dexterity occasions as they occur, is a certain proof of courage and ability, especially in the general of an army. Opportunity or occasion, according to Tacitus, is the mother of events. Opportunos magnis conatibus transitas rerum. One complete and decisive victory leads us to a multiplicity of enterprises and great designs, all of which grow out of the first triumph.
A full and decisive victory, by which the country is left entirely at the mercy of the conqueror, must necessarily throw the inhabitants into confusion, and open fresh avenues to conquest; for one opportunity or occasion well embraced and executed upon, becomes the source of many others. There is not, perhaps, in human contingencies any thing which spreads itself so rapidly, or ought to be so little neglected. An enterprise which grows out of another, though it be in reality more arduous to get through than the one which produced it, becomes more easy in its execution: and yet, how many brave and skilful generals have existed, who could not make a proper use of opportunity? In reading over their gallant exploits, one would be led to believe, that all their knowlege consisted in merely knowing how to fight. We have seen them, with unexampled intrepidity, doing every thing that man dares to do, in the field of battle: we have seen them make a decisive blow, and place victory within their grasp; and when they were in the actual possession of all they fought for, we have seen them suddenly relax, give their enemies time to breathe, and finally lose all the fruits of their victory. The courage and promptitude which they manifested in a decisive battle, were the effects of a transitory impulse which was soon wasted and extinguished.
Hannibal, so much celebrated for his bold enterprise against the Romans, was guilty of this error. After the battle of Cannæ it rested entirely with himself to march to Rome. He had only to follow up his first blow, to take advantage of the consternation of the Romans, and to pursue them to their capitol. By so doing he would have made use of the glorious occasion which fortune had thrown into his hands by the first victory, and would not have been driven to the necessity of endeavoring to obtain the original object of his enterprise, by fighting several battles that proved abortive of it. Adherbal on this account, after having failed in his attempt to persuade Hannibal to pursue his first good fortune, and to march to the gates of Rome, is recorded to have used the following expression: Vincere scis, Hannibal; sed victoriâ uti nescis. Hannibal, thou knowest how to conquer, but thou dost not know how to make use of a victory.
Gustavus Adolphus made the same mistake. Had he, after having won the battle of Leipsic, hung upon the rear of the discomfited Imperialists, pushed and harassed them to the gates of Vienna, there is little doubt of the consequences which must have ensued.
The emperor Ferdinand was as weak in effective forces at the capital as the Romans were at Rome, and the same consternation prevailed among the inhabitants. Had Gustavus profited by his first success, and converted the means, which so glorious an occasion offered, into prompt and vigorous pursuit, he would not indeed have reaped additional laurels in the plains of Outzen, where he fell at the head of his victorious Swedes, but he must have reached Vienna, and there have dictated his own terms.
Carthalon, among the ancients, was on the contrary, an instance of how much may be done by acting up to circumstances, and by judiciously making use of fortune as occasions offer. He was not satisfied with having surprised the Roman fleet, taken off a considerable number of ships, and burned others, but he instantly availed himself of his first good fortune, attempted another enterprise, and succeeded.
The British generals who made war in the American revolution, were as unfortunate in their never taking proper advantage of occasion; their retreat from Princeton, and their subsequent stupor, while the American army of only 4000 men lay hutted at Valley Forge; while they held Philadelphia within 20 miles of them, with 17000 men, is a striking instance. An important occasion was also lost by them after the battle of Brandywine; where the American dispositions and subsequent retreat were alike unsuited to the occasion. The campaign was a series of the most extravagant blunders that can be conceived. The campaign that ended with the capitulation at York Town, was as brilliant on the part of the American arms, as on the English side eggregiously injudicious and unsuitable to the occasion.
Occasional, (elle, Fr.) This adjective is used in a different sense among the French, to what it is with us, viz. Cause occasionally; any thing that occasions an event.
OCCIDENT, Fr. The west.