Napoleon’s system of war was admirably adapted to draw forth and augment the military excellence and to strengthen the weakness of the national character. His discipline, severe but appealing to the feelings of hope and honour, wrought the quick temperament of the French soldiers to patience under hardships and strong endurance under fire; he taught the generals to rely on their own talents, to look to the country wherein they made war for resources, and to dare every thing even with the smallest numbers, that the impetuous valour of France might have full play: hence the violence of their attacks. But he also taught them to combine all arms together, and to keep strong reserves that sudden disorders might be repaired and the discouraged troops have time to rally and recover their pristine spirit, certain that they would then renew the battle with the same confidence as before. He thus made his troops, not invincible indeed, nature had put a bar to that in the character of the British soldier, but so terrible and sure in war that the number and greatness of their exploits surpassed those of all other nations: the Romans not excepted if regard be had to the shortness of the period, nor the Macedonians if the quality of their opponents be considered.

Let their amazing toils in the Peninsular war alone, which though so great and important was but an episode in their military history, be considered. “In Spain large armies will starve and small armies will be beaten” was the saying of Henry IV. of France, and this was no light phrase of an indolent monarch but the profound conclusion of a sagacious general. Yet Napoleon’s enormous armies were so wonderfully organized that they existed and fought in Spain for six years, and without cessation, for to them winters and summers were alike. Their large armies endured incredible toils and privations but were not starved out, nor were their small armies beaten by the Spaniards. And for their daring and resource a single fact recorded by lord Wellington will suffice. They captured more than one strong place in Spain without any provision of bullets save those fired at them by their enemies, having trusted to that chance when they formed the siege! Before the British troops they fell, but how terrible was the struggle! how many defeats they recovered from, how many brave men they slew, what changes and interpositions of fortune occurred before they could be rolled back upon their own frontiers! And this is the glory of England, that her soldiers and hers only were capable of overthrowing them in equal battle. I seek not to defraud the Portuguese of his well-earned fame, nor to deny the Spaniard the merit of his constancy. England could not alone have triumphed in the struggle, but for her share in the deliverance of the Peninsula let this brief summary speak.

She expended more than one hundred millions sterling on her own operations, she subsidised Spain and Portugal besides, and with her supplies of clothing arms and ammunition maintained the armies of both even to the guerillas. From thirty up to seventy thousand British troops were employed by her constantly, and while her naval squadrons continually harassed the French with descents upon the coasts, her land forces fought and won nineteen pitched battles and innumerable combats; they made or sustained ten sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled the French from Portugal, preserved Alicant, Carthagena, Cadiz, Lisbon; they killed wounded and took about two hundred thousand enemies, and the bones of forty thousand British soldiers lie scattered on the plains and mountains of the Peninsula.

Finally, for Portugal she re-organized a native army and supplied officers who led it to victory, and to the whole Peninsula she gave a general whose like has seldom gone forth to conquer. And all this and more was necessary to redeem the Peninsula from France!

The duke of Wellington’s campaigns furnish lessons for generals of all nations, but they must always be peculiarly models for British commanders in future continental wars, because he modified and reconciled the great principles of art with the peculiar difficulties which attend generals controlled by politicians who depending upon private intrigue prefer parliamentary to national interests. An English commander must not trust his fortune. He dare not risk much however conscious he may be of personal resources when one disaster will be his ruin at home. His measures must therefore be subordinate to this primary consideration. Lord Wellington’s caution, springing from that source, has led friends and foes alike into wrong conclusions as to his system of war. The French call it want of enterprize, timidity; the English have denominated it the Fabian system. These are mere phrases. His system was the same as that of all great generals. He held his army in hand, keeping it with unmitigated labour always in a fit state to march or to fight; and thus prepared he acted indifferently as occasion offered on the offensive or defensive, displaying in both a complete mastery of his art. Sometimes he was indebted to fortune, sometimes to his natural genius, but always to his untiring industry, for he was emphatically a pains-taking man.

That he was less vast in his designs, less daring in execution, neither so rapid nor so original a commander as Napoleon must be admitted, and being later in the field of glory it is to be presumed that he learned something of the art from that greatest of all masters; yet something besides the difference of genius must be allowed for the difference of situation; Napoleon was never even in his first campaign of Italy so harassed by the French as Wellington was by the English Spanish and Portuguese governments. Their systems of war were however alike in principle, their operations being necessarily modified by their different political positions. Great bodily exertion, unceasing watchfulness, exact combinations to protect their flanks and communications without scattering their forces, these were common to both. In defence firm, cool, enduring; in attack fierce and obstinate; daring when daring was politic, but always operating by the flanks in preference to the front: in these things they were alike, but in following up a victory the English general fell short of the French emperor. The battle of Wellington was the stroke of a battering-ram, down went the wall in ruins. The battle of Napoleon was the swell and dash of a mighty wave, before which the barrier yielded and the roaring flood poured onwards covering all.

Yet was there nothing of timidity or natural want of enterprize to be discerned in the English general’s campaigns. Neither was he of the Fabian school. He recommended that commander’s system to the Spaniards, but he did not follow it himself. His military policy more resembled that of Scipio Africanus. Fabius dreading Hannibal’s veterans, red with the blood of four consular armies, hovered on the mountains, refused battle, and to the unmatched skill and valour of the great Carthaginian opposed the almost inexhaustible military resources of Rome. Lord Wellington was never loath to fight when there was any equality of numbers. He landed in Portugal with only nine thousand men, with intent to attack Junot who had twenty-four thousand. At Roliça he was the assailant, at Vimiera he was assailed, but he would have changed to the offensive during the battle if others had not interfered. At Oporto he was again the daring and successful assailant. In the Talavera campaign he took the initiatory movements, although in the battle itself he sustained the shock. His campaign of 1810 in Portugal was entirely defensive, because the Portuguese army was young and untried, but his pursuit of Massena in 1811 was as entirely aggressive although cautiously so, as well knowing that in mountain warfare those who attack labour at a disadvantage. The operations of the following campaign, including the battles of Fuentes Onoro and Albuera the first siege of Badajos and the combat of Guinaldo, were of a mixed character; so was the campaign of Salamanca; but the campaign of Vittoria and that in the south of France were entirely and eminently offensive.

Slight therefore is the resemblance to the Fabian warfare. And for the Englishman’s hardiness and enterprise bear witness the passage of the Douro at Oporto, the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, the storming of Badajos, the surprise of the forts at Mirabete, the march to Vittoria, the passage of the Bidassoa, the victory of the Nivelle, the passage of the Adour below Bayonne, the fight of Orthes, the crowning battle of Toulouse! To say that he committed faults is only to say that he made war; but to deny him the qualities of a great commander is to rail against the clear mid-day sun for want of light. How few of his combinations failed. How many battles he fought, victorious in all! Iron hardihood of body, a quick and sure vision, a grasping mind, untiring power of thought, and the habit of laborious minute investigation and arrangement; all these qualities he possessed, and with them that most rare faculty of coming to prompt and sure conclusions on sudden emergencies. This is the certain mark of a master spirit in war, without it a commander may be distinguished, he may be a great man, but he cannot be a great captain: where troops nearly alike in arms and knowledge are opposed the battle generally turns upon the decision of the moment.

At the Somosierra, Napoleon’s sudden and what to those about him appeared an insensate order, sent the Polish cavalry successfully charging up the mountain when more studied arrangements with ten times that force might have failed. At Talavera, if Joseph had not yielded to the imprudent heat of Victor, the fate of the allies would have been sealed. At the Coa, Montbrun’s refusal to charge with his cavalry saved general Craufurd’s division, the loss of which would have gone far towards producing the evacuation of Portugal. At Busaco, Massena would not suffer Ney to attack the first day, and thus lost the only favourable opportunity for assailing that formidable position. At Fuentes Onoro, the same Massena suddenly suspended his attack when a powerful effort would probably have been decisive. At Albuera, Soult’s column of attack instead of pushing forward halted to fire from the first height they had gained on Beresford’s right, which saved that general from an early and total defeat; again at a later period of that battle the unpremeditated attack of the fusileers decided the contest. At Barosa, general Graham with a wonderful promptitude snatched the victory at the very moment when a terrible defeat seemed inevitable. At Sabugal, not even the astonishing fighting of the light division could have saved it if general Reynier had possessed this essential quality of a general. At El Bodon, Marmont failed to seize the most favourable opportunity which occurred during the whole war for crushing the allies. At Orthes, Soult let slip two opportunities of falling upon the allies with advantage, and at Toulouse he failed to crush Beresford.

At Vimiera, lord Wellington was debarred by Burrard from giving a signal illustration of this intuitive generalship, but at Busaco and the heights of San Cristoval, near Salamanca, he suffered Massena and Marmont to commit glaring faults unpunished. On the other hand he has furnished many examples of that successful improvisation in which Napoleon seems to have surpassed all mankind. His sudden retreat from Oropesa across the Tagus by the bridge of Arzobispo; his passage of the Douro in 1809; his halt at Guinaldo in the face of Marmont’s overwhelming numbers; the battle of Salamanca; his sudden rush with the third division to seize the hill of Arinez at Vittoria; his counter-stroke with the sixth division at Sauroren; his battle of the 30th two days afterwards; his sudden passage of the Gave below Orthes. Add to these his wonderful battle of Assye, and the proofs are complete that he possesses in an eminent degree that intuitive perception which distinguishes the greatest generals.