ART. V.-1. Sur la Formation des Troupes pour le Combat. Par le Général JOMINI. Brussels: 1856.

2. Modern Armies. Translated from the French of Marshal MARMONT by Captain LENDY. London: 1865.

3. Études Tactiques. Par le Général Baron AMBERT. 1re Série (Zorndorf et Austerlitz). Paris: 1865.

4. Tactics of the Three Arms. By Colonel LIPPITT. New York: 1865.

5. Modern Warfare and Modern Artillery. By Colonel MACDOUGALL. London: 1865.

6. The Manœuvres of Cavalry and Horse Artillery. By General M. SMITH, C.B. London: 1865.

7. Professional Papers of the Royal Engineers. New Series. Vol. XIV. London: 1865.

8. Military Operations Explained and Illustrated. By Colonel HAMLEY, R.A. London: 1866.

IN

N tracing the main currents of thought which influence our time, and their effects upon public policy, a strange disagreement is at first apparent between the desire for peace professed on all sides by publicists and statesmen, and the activity of every great Power in the improvement of the means of war. Very different are these days, it would seem, from those of the preceding generation, when a millennium of trade, unbroken by the clang of arms, was held by many earnest politicians to be the future condition of the civilised world,-when even in the military profession men of high education and intelligence were not slow to declare that Europe would never again hear the tread of great armies in the field, and that the British soldier need henceforth prepare to meet no more disciplined enemy than the Maori or the Sikh. Then all was stagnation within our fleet and army, as all was neglect without. India was looked on as the only field where military ability could be the stepping stone to fame. Reduction and retrenchment were the order of the day; and faithfully reflecting the national feeling in the national service, the officer regarded the few among his fellows who gave their spare hours to the study of their profession as mere eccentrics, led by some strange aberration of intellect into a pursuit tedious in itself and tending to no practical result.

Great is now the change in all these respects. Instead of a government commending itself to the country's approval on

the score of a blind undistinguishing economy, we have heard a statesman, the most experienced and renowned of our age in foreign and domestic policy, not only avowing that the enlightened attention of the Ministry he directed had been systematically given to the care of our national armaments, but claiming their improvement and development as special grounds of public confidence. The present time,' said Lord Palmerston in his last manifesto to the Tiverton electors, is remarkable for the progressive application of the results of science to the operations of war, both by sea and by land; and this country has not in such matters lagged behind the other great Powers of the world.' Even his opponents gave the late Premier credit for knowing accurately how the national pulse beats, and for being well acquainted with what our neighbours are doing. And his assertions are borne out to the full by our increased expenditure for defences and by the formation of our self-created Volunteer army, as well as by the large share allotted to topics of military interest in the journals of the day, and by the attention paid to the progress of science in this particular direction by thoughtful men, both in and out of the service.

The art of war-to use the recognised term-is one of those sciences which time has seen by turns improve, stand still, retrograde, and again take a sudden advance side by side with the general civilisation to which its condition seems bound. The most recent events in the history of the world give us no hope of the speedy realisation of that Utopia, not long since dreamed of, where its use shall be unknown. And if it be acknowledged as a necessity of the existing state of things, its progress must follow closely that of other great branches of knowledge which affect the general good. For, viewed in its highest aspect, it is but the application of a nation's strength to the protection of the commerce, freedom, and order of its citizens; and the abuse of warlike power for the mere purpose of aggression is but a proof that to be independent it is necessary to avoid that decay of military resources which may invite attack. Happily, such pages of our history as the Indian Mutiny show that the advance of British wealth and science has by no means diminished that spirit of personal sacrifice, without which the warrior, though engaged in the fairest cause, would find but little honour paid to his profession. Steam, rifled arms, and railroads have not slain knighthood, nor taught us to undervalue the true soldier and his deeds.

But courage and patriotism are but of little avail when illdirected and untrained, or destitute of the needful appliances

from which they should receive support. The case of Denmark has shown too painfully how brave men are sometimes sacrificed for lack of warlike material and of the strategy which might supply its place. The successes of the Federal generals, in the West especially, have drawn attention to the advantage in war of a ready use of every improvement in mechanical art. And more striking still as an example, the brief campaign of 1859 showed the astonished world the tical results of the diligent improvement by France of her Algerian and Crimean experience. Austria found her utmost efforts unequal to those of her better prepared foe, and succumbed in the struggle, before unready Prussia dared resolve to throw her half-drilled forces into the scale for German honour*, or the Bund could gather its unwieldy legions on the Rhine.

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Such lessons as these should not wholly be neglected by any nation possessing a permanent land force-least of all by one which holds a vast and distant empire mainly by the power of the sword. It is our purpose, therefore, to review the existing state of military science as a whole, with special reference to the modifications which the modern conditions of warfare in the field have lately undergone. An article in these pages † was lately devoted to the special question of rifled guns, and drew attention to the striking difference of the principles on which our own artillerists and those of our great neighbour have been at work. But the tactics of different nations have diverged more widely still. Nor is the contrast more startling between the Armstrong gun in broadside and the 450-pounder smooth-bore in its turret, to which our American rivals pin their faith, than between the agile scramble of the Zouaves up the Alma heights and the long-drawn movements of the army of the Potomac through the woods before Richmond. And great as is the difference between these operations of the same period, still wider differences may be traced between the tactics of modern armies at different eras. A brave man is now, indeed, according to the lament of Bayard, exposed to 'die by a miserable pop-gun, from the effect of which he can'not defend himself;' yet the levelling of all engaged in action

* Those who were present at the a-sembling of the Prussian and Bavarian corps d'armée on the Rhine in June 1859, and at their disbandment on the astounding news of the Villafranca treaty, saw that the regiments of the landwehr were not in any fit state to take the field, being scarcely more mobile than our battalions of county militia. Edinburgh Review, April 1864.

VOL. CXXIII. NO. CCLI.

H

to one common risk has not only tended to exalt true valour, but has exercised ingenuity in a hundred ways in the endeavour to spare the lives of combatants, and to meet increasing peril by increased lightness and dexterity. In these efforts for economising the numbers employed until the supreme moment of conflict be reached, lies the key to most of the past and coming changes of modern tactics.

Although the grand principles of strategical combination are, as we are constantly told by military writers, the same in all ages; although now, as in the days of Cæsar, it is of the first importance for a general to keep his forces united or ready to unite; to leave as few points vulnerable as possible; to maintain free lines of supply for his own army, and to harass or break those of the enemy; above all, to bring an overwhelming mass to the striking-point when the attack is made: yet the means for doing these things are so greatly enlarged by the improved communications prepared in time of peace and by the superior wealth of town and country, giving facilities, hitherto unknown, for the feeding and moving of great hosts, that in Europe, at all events, there is an inevitable tendency to accelerate events in time of war. Such campaigns as those of Marlborough and Saxe in the Low Countries can no more be repeated on the same soil than the battles of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness could have been fought as they were, had the wooded swamps of Virginia been changed beforehand into well-drained fields. The single invention of railroads would have modified, it is not to be doubted, the strategy of Napoleon himself. It is very possible that its general application would have greatly lessened the superiority of quickness in combination which he enjoyed even to the moment of that last essay of invasion which ended at Waterloo. But, on the other hand, had his tremendous assault on the Russian Empire been aided by the resources of supply which even one well-guarded railroad would have offered, it is certain that the enterprise would not have broken down from the cause which was immediately fatal to it. And the great modern conqueror was the last person in the world, his whole life assures us, to have slighted the aid offered to his designs by the progress of mechanical art.

Since the conditions of warfare are thus liable to change with the changes of time, it is surprising, at first sight, to meet with such periods of stagnation in military science as mark certain epochs of history. This stagnation has especially been felt in England, a country where the soldier's profession is often unpopular, and the expense of a standing army distasteful to the

people. The wondrous successes gained by Marlborough's great genius for war for a time overbore this national prejudice, and lent a charm to the history of our campaigns in Flanders, which we see reflected in the pictures of Corporal Trim and Uncle Toby, honoured relics of an illustrious time. But after the Peace of Utrecht our continental operations had little to flatter the popular fancy. Blundering King George just saved from ruinous disgrace by the hard fighting of his troops at Dettingen; his soldier son leading our troops in the true spirit of military pedantry to certain defeat at Fontenoy, and in later days, with strategy no better than his tactics, yielding Hanover, almost without a blow, to be plundered by Richelieu's greedy army; the noble charge which shattered the French centre at Minden*, forgotten in the shameful immobility of Sackville's cavalry: these were not pleasant memories of our chief campaigns and with these in view, redeemed only by the one ever-glorious leap of Wolfe to Abraham's Heights, our military reputation waned and sank into oblivion.

Then came the American war, with its sad tissue of blunders by land and sea, in council and in field; the hired troops; the divided commands; the reckless disregard of all strategical rule; the incompetent commanders-men who might well make even the overbold Minister tremble who allowed them to go forth in the name of England. The failure of our attempts to reconquer our colonies matched well with the policy which had made them our enemies, and left upon the public mind at home a deep-rooted dislike to those enterprises of our troops which had served but to lower our prestige and to enlarge our debt. To the navy, as the arm to which belonged chiefly such credit as was won in these wars of the last century, flowed the tide of popular confidence, and the sister service came to be regarded merely as a necessary evil, part of the trappings of the king rather than of the protection of the subject. Nor were matters better managed across the Channel, where the once formidable army of Turenne and Saxe had become a mere booty for the crowd of spendthrift noblesse; where, as in the other armies of the Continent, all discipline and training had sunk into a mere dull imitation of the stiff precision of Frederick's later days, and Potsdam, rather than Rosbach or Leuthen, had become the one model after which the marshal's baton and corporal's stick drove and trained the rigid lines.

In the monument erected on the field in 1859, the centenary of this great battle, the Germans have omitted all notice of the contingent of six battalions of British infantry, whose valour decided the day.