the attack of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, in superior numbers, contrary not only to the plainest rules of the military art, but of common sense on the subject.'-p. 988.

"It results from these considerations that in the outset Wellington and Blücher were outmanœuvred by Napoleon. . . . . . Napoleon so managed matters that he was superior to either at the points of attack at Ligny and Quatre Bras. This is the most decisive test of superior generalship. . . . The allied Generals were clearly out-generalled,' &c. &c.-Ibid.

When the Duke of Wellington was summoned from Vienna to take the command in the Netherlands, the armies of our continental allies were distributed in different parts of Europe, while the greater part of that of England had been detached to North America; and though peace had been concluded with the United States, were not yet returned. On his arrival from Elba, Buonaparte had found a French army in France completely organized, consisting of 250,000 men, with cannon and all requisites, and capable of increase from a number of old soldiers and returned prisoners, dispersed through the country, It is obvious that, under such circumstances, the first measures which the Generals of the allied armies could take must be defensive. The armies in the Belgian provinces and on the left bank of the Rhine must have been strictly directed on this principle. They were at the outposts; it was their office to protect the march of the other armies of the allies to the intended basis of combined operations. Each of these armies, indeed, had particular interests to attend to besides those which were common to all; but the peculiar objects intrusted to ours were of supreme and paramount importance. The force under the Duke's command, consisting of British, Dutch, and Hanoverians, had to preserve its communications with England, Holland, and Germany; to maintain its connection with the Prussian army; and to protect Brussels, the seat of government of the Netherlands. Napoleon had great advantages, whether for offensive or defensive operations, in the number, position, and strength of the fortresses on the NE. frontier of France. These enabled him to organize his forces and arrange their movements beyond the power of detection on the part of the allies, even to the last moment. They put it out of the power of the allies to undertake any offensive operation which should not include the means of carrying on one or more sieges, possibly at the same time. The country occupied by the Duke and his immediate allies was comparatively open, for

the ancient strongholds of Flanders had been found in very bad condition, and though his measures were as active as judicious to put them in a state of defence, no activity could repair their deficiencies in a very brief space of time. No general ever occupied a defensive position of greater difficulty and inconvenience, and the uncertainty of the length of time during which it was to be so occupied was an aggravation of that difficulty. It is clear, from numerous passages in Colonel Gurwood's 12th volume, that the Duke could do nothing to terminate that period till the other armies of the allied powers should have entered on the basis of combined operations. The Duke could only occupy himself, as he did, in strengthening his position by pushing on the works of Charleroi, Namur, Mons, Ath, Tournay, Ypres, Oudenarde, Courtray, Menin, Ostend, Nieuport, and Antwerp. Reports of an intended attack by Napoleon had been frequent before June: and previous to the 15th of that month it was known at Brussels that Buonaparte had left Paris to take the command on the Northern frontier. This certainty, however, could make no immediate change in the position of the allied armies; it could not invest them with the power of taking the initiative. All the usual precautions for the forwarding of orders to the troops in their respective cantonments had been already adopted, but any decisive drawing together of the forces, founded on any hypothesis which could as yet be formed, might have been destructive to some one or other of the interests which it was the business of the Duke to preserve inviolate.

It is

Mr. Alison, however, decides that the Duke was surprised because he did not know that Buonaparte would attack by the valley of the Sambre, and did not collect his troops to meet the enemy in that direction. vain,' says Mr. Alison, to say that it was necessary to watch every bye-road to Brussels.' Does Mr. Alison know that among the said bye-roads there happened to be four great roads leading on Brussels from the departments of the North and the fortresses on the French frontier-one from Lisle, by Meuin, and Courtray, and Ghent; one from Lisle on Tournay, Oudenarde, and Ghent ; one from Condé on Tournay; one from Condé by Valenciennes, on Mons? Each of these were great paved roads, presenting no other obstacle than the unfinished works to which we have before adverted, On any or all of them Buonaparte might have moved his columns with the same secrecy with which he poured them on the Prussian right; and with greater ease and

rapidity for the fact is remarkable, though little noticed, that Napoleon had, at an earlier period, broken up the roads by which he ultimately advanced on Charleroi, and which he was in consequence obliged partially to repair for that advance. It was highly probable up to the last moment that Napoleon would make his main attack by one or more of these bye-roads; and it is now the opinion, not perhaps of Mr. Alison, but of somewhat higher strategical authorities, that if the Duke of Wellington had concentrated his troops prematurely to the left, Buonaparte would have so acted. Would it have been no advantage to him to have opened the campaign by throwing himself on the line of English communications with Ostend, driving the Court of Louis XVIII. from Ghent, and probably occupying Brussels ? We may, with General Clausewitz, think it probable that even such a start of success would have failed to avert Napoleon's ultimate ruin ;-but the Duke had a complicated task to perform-it was his business to throw away no chances: he had to watch over the inclinations as well as the real interests of different populations: he had to watch over the great danger of any sudden revival of the Buonapartean prestige-he had sacrifices to avoid as well as objects to compass. Let us consider what would have been his position at the best, had any one of the interests intrusted to his care been sacrificed. He might have effected his junction with Blucher, and have answered a French proclamation from the palace of Lacken by the Gazette of a victory on some other field than that of Waterloo; but how many Alisons would have arisen to tell us how in the first instance he had allowed his right flank to be turned! The victory must, indeed, have been rapid and decisive, which would have silenced the opposition orators of England, and repaired the shattered morale of Belgium-with a French army between the Duke and the coast, and Brussels the head quarters of Napoleon.

We may further suggest to Mr. Alison that though troops do not eat more when together than when separate, it is rather more difficult for the commissary to bring their necessary supplies to one point than to many, especially as respects cavalry. Mr. Alison must be aware that these troops, quartered, and as it was, crowded, on the territories of an ally, were not fed by the Napoleonic process of compulsory requisition. Those who were responsible for their discipline, physical condition and efficiency, had good reasons for not collecting them an hour sooner than was necessary. A

nervous and incompetent commander having the fear of such critics as Mr. Alison before his eyes, would probably have been distracting his subordinates and harassing his troops by marches and counter-marches as profitable as those of Major Sturgeon in Foote's farce, while the Duke was keeping his men in hand and his councils to himself. Such a general would assuredly not have gone to the Duchess of Richmond's ball.

We should like to know Mr. Alison's definition of a surprise. We do not ourselves profess to furnish any compendious formula including all the conditions which collectively or separately may justify the use of a term so derogatory to the reputation of any commander. We apprehend, however, that these conditions are most completely fulfilled when the party assailed is not expecting to be attacked at all. Lord Hill's attack of the French at Arroyo Molinos is an instance of this rare class of exploits. Another fair condition of a surprise is when the party attacked is prepared for defence, but when the line of the hostile approach or the point of the attack is one which he has overlooked or neglected: in this way Soult was surprised at Oporto, Jourdain at Vitoria. The affair of Culm affords an instance in which two hostile bodies surprised one another, for the Prussians no more expected to find Vandamme in their front than he did to find them on his rear. We presume Mr. Alison hardly means to bring the Duke of Wellington under the first of these categories. As to the latter, we contend that Napoleon's line of attack was one embraced and provided for in the Duke's calculations, but which the circumstances of his position made it impossible for him, up to the last moment, to anticipate with precision.

It is probable that even Phormio, who lectured Hannibal at Ephesus,* was aware that the initiative of operations between two armies en présence is a great advantage, of which either leader would be too happy to avail himself. The allies in the Netherlands and on the Meuse in 1815 were, as we have shown, necessarily on the defensive. They were waiting for the junction and co-operation of other large armies, destined for the attainment of a common ultimate object. This defensive position did not necessarily preclude all idea or plan of attack upon the enemy. The enemy might have so placed himself as to have rendered the attacking his army advisable, even necessary. In that case the English and Prussians should and

* See Cicero de Oratore, lib. ii., cap. 18.

ment

been

would have taken the initiative; but the enemy did not assume any such position. On the contrary, he took one in which his numbers, his movements, his designs could be concealed, protected and supported, down to the very moment of execution. The allies, therefore, could not have the initiative in the way of attack. But they might have, and they had it, in the way of defensive movement; and, with submission, we maintain that they availed themselves of that opportunity the instant that it was within their power. Their original position | having been calculated for the defence and protection of certain objects confided to their care, any alteration in that position previous to the first movement of the enemy, and the certainty that that was a real movement, must have exposed some important interest to danger; and therefore no movemade until the initiative had n taken by Buonaparte, and the precise design of his movement was obvious. Any movement on the part of the allies, previous to his ascertained march and purpose, would have been what is commonly called a false movement,' and we believe the Duke of Wellington has never hesitated to avow his opinion, that, of all the chiefs of armies in the world, the one in whose presence it was most hazardous to make a false movement was Napoleon Buonaparte. We have not the Duke's detailed and complete orders for the movements of his troops on the receipt by him of authentic intelligence of Napoleon's decisive movement on the Sambre. We believe that, if we had it in our power to place those orders in full before our military readers, it would be apparent that but for the occurrence of certain accidents, which we shall not characterize further than by saying that he never could have expected or reckoned on them, the left wing of his army-infantry, artillery, and particularly cavalrymust have been in position at Quatre Bras by two o'clock P. M. on the 16th of June. It was only, as has already been shown, in consequence of an accident that Bulow's corps did not join Blücher in time to take part in the affair of Ligny on that day; but since Blücher was not to be able to repel the French on the 16th, the English army, however strong it might have been, must, in consequence of what was settled between the Duke and Blücher on the morning of the 16th, have retreated from Quatre Bras on the 17th. But take things as they were the forces that reached Quatre Bras, and concentrated upon the position of Ligny, were sufficient to maintain the one post, and to retire from the

other in good order, and fully prepared for immediate co-operation in the further carrying out of a plan deliberately framed beforehand. And this was the plan of the Duke of Wellington, who, with a very remarkable accuracy of prescience, had, as we have seen, predicted, as early as the 2d of June, that his first active movement would be on the 16th of June, and who, from the time of his arrival in the Netherlands, had considered Waterloo as the ground on which, if Buonaparte should make Brussels his aim, it would be best for the allies to fight their battle in defence of that capital. And now, wise not only after, but in spite of, the event, Mr. Alison tells the general whose business was defence, and whose defence was completely and triumphantly successful-whose defence included the entire protection of every object and interest committed to his care-the avoidance of every sacrifice and risk to which he was exposed, and the gaining of the greatest battle recorded in modern history—Mr. Alison tells the Duke of Wellington that he was 'surprised,'' out-manœuvred,' and out-generaled' by the leader whose every aim and purpose he, in a campaign of three days, utterly baffled and for ever overwhelmed.

Mr. Alison, however, does not merely infer the fact of the Duke's 'surprise' in June, 1815, from the outward aspects and results of those military operations which our historian considers himself so well entitled to criticise. He has, being a skilful lawyer, reserved the strongest part of his case for its close. He has direct and positive evidence to produce-he can show not only that the Duke was surprised, but the exact circumstances in, and by consequence of which, he was surprised. He thus puts his irrefragable witness in the box ::