make upon that place. He had no heavy artillery, and he tried in vain to take the place by storm, first, by a battalion, then, by a division, and lastly, by the whole army. He obtained possession of Smolensk at last, only because the Russian general had made no previous arrangements for occupying the place; and because Barclay knew that, if he left a garrison there unprovided, it must fall into Napoleon's hands a few days sooner or later. The Russian general then thought proper to evacuate the place; and notwithstanding the position of Napoleon on the left of the Dnieper, and his attempts to take the place by storm, the Russian general would have kept the possession, if he could have either maintained the position of his own army in the neighbourhood, or could have supplied the place adequately before he retired from it.

"The possession of the place depended, then, on the position of the Russian army; and what follows will show, that other measures and movements than those adopted were better calculated to dislodge the Russian army from Smolensk.

"There can be no doubt that, upon Napoleon's arrival at Smolensk, he had gained six marches upon his enemy. If Napoleon, when he crossed the Dnieper at Rassassna, had masked Smolensk, and marched direct upon any point of the Dnieper above that place, he could have posted himself with his whole army upon the communications of his enemy with Moscow; and his enemy could scarcely have attempted to pass across his front, to seek the road by Kalouga. Barclay must have gone to the northward, evacuating or leaving Smolensk to its fate, and Napoleon might have continued his march upon Moscow, keeping his position constantly between his enemy and his communications with that city, and with the southern provinces. The fate of Smolensk could not have been doubtful.

66

Here, then, a different mode, even upon the same plan of manoeuvring, would have produced two of the three objects which Napoleon is supposed to have had in view by these movements. But these were not the only movements in his power at that time. The Viceroy is stated to have

been at Souraj and Velij. If, instead of moving by his right, Napoleon had moved by his left, and brought the first, fifth, and eighth corps from the Dnieper to form the reserve; and had marched from Souraj upon any point of the Upper Dnieper, he would equally have put himself in the rear of his enemy, and in a position to act upon his communications. He would have effected this object with greater certainty, if he had ventured to move the first, and the fifth and eighth corps through the country on the left of the Dnieper. And in this last movement there would have been no great risk,-first, because Napoleon's manoeuvres upon the Dwina would have attracted all the enemy's attention; secondly, because these corps would have all passed Smolensk, before the Russian generals could have known of their movement, in like manner as Napoleon passed the Dnieper and arrived at Smolensk without their knowledge. By either of these modes of proceeding, Napoleon would have cut off his enemy from their communications, would have obliged them to fight a battle to resign these communications, and in all probability Smolensk would have fallen into his hands without loss, with its buildings entire-an object of the last consequence in the event of the campaign.

"Either of these last modes of effecting the object would have been shorter by two marches than the movement of the whole army upon Rassassna."

མ་ ་ ། ”

No. VIII.

REMARKS ON THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.

Volume VIII. p. 445.

BY CAPT. JOHN W. PRINGLE, of the ROYAL ENGINEERS.

THE following observations were hastily made, at a time when much public interest was excited by the various accounts of the Campaign of 1815, edited by several individuals, all claiming the peculiar distinction of having been dictated by Napoleon, or written under his immediate direction. With some slight exceptions, and occasional anecdotes, they nearly correspond, as far as relates to the military details. The 9th volume of the Memoirs of Napoleon, published by O'Meara, is perhaps the original from which the greatest part of the other productions are derived. It is now generally acknowledged to have been, to a certain extent, composed by Buonaparte.

These works have had one particular object,-the defence of an unfortunate and a great Man. The individual, however, is always held up to view; the actions are softened or

1 Liv. ix. Memoires Historiques de Napoleon. London, Sir R. Philips, 1820. -Montholon, Memoires de Napoleon. Colburn, London, 1823.-Las Cases; London, 2 vols.-Gourgaud, War of 1815. London, 1824.-Many passages in these works will be found quite parallel; for instance, Montholon, vol. ii. p. 272-289, with Liv. ix. p. 43. Grouchy, page 4, designates these works from St Helena, as containing, "des instructions et des ordres supposés; des mouvements imaginaires," &c.; also, "des assertions erronnées, des hypothèses faites après coup;" see also p. 26. P. 22, he says, with justice, of these authors: "Des individus qui se persuadent que l'auréole de gloire d'un grand homme, en les éclairant un moment, les a transformé en d'irrecusables autorités, et ne voyant pas qu'un eclat d'emprunt qui ne se reflechit sur aucun fait d'armes connus, sur aucuns services eminens, ne sert qu'a mieux faire ressortir la presomptueuse imperitié des jugements qu'ils prononcent."

strengthened to suit this purpose, and in the extension of this design, the reputation of his own officers, and a strict adherence to facts, are occasionally sacrificed. The military features of the campaign have remained unanswered; whilst the wounded honour and fame of his generals have called for some counter-statements, which throw curious light on the whole campaign, and on the machinery of a system which so long alarmed the world. These last are little known in Britain.

Whoever has perused the mass of military works by French officers, most of them ably written, and many artfully composed, must feel how much they tend to encourage a peculiar feeling of national superiority in young minds, in a country where only their own military works are read. In these works they never find a French army beaten in the field, without some plausible reason; or, as Las Cases terms it,1 "a concurrence of unheard-of fatalities," to account for it. Upon the minds of young soldiers, this has an effect of the most powerful description.

Great care appears to have been taken in these various works, to meet the accusations of military men respecting the disposition and employment of the French army. Where a fault is admitted, the error is at least transferred from Buonaparte to the incapacity or remissness of his generals. The talents and honour of the British commanders are rated at a low state; their success attributed more to chance than to military skill, and the important result of the battle, less to the courage of the British troops, than to the opportune arrival of the Prussians, who they allege to have saved the British army from destruction. What are now termed liberal ideas, seem to have made it a fashion to assert, and give credence to these accounts; and it is no uncommon occurrence to meet with Englishmen who doubt the glory and success of their countrymen on that eventful day. A wounded spirit of

1 Vol. ii. p. 15.

faction has contributed to this feeling, and in the indulgence of its own gratification, and under the mask of patriotism, endeavoured to throw a doubt over the military achievements of our countrymen, eagerly laid hold of any faults or failures, palliating, at the same time, those of their enemies, and often giving that implicit belief to the garbled accounts of the French, which they deny to the simple and manly dispatch of a British general.

There does appear in this a decay of that national feeling, and jealousy of our country's honour, the main spring of all great actions, which other nations, our rivals, cling to with renewed ardour. No man could persuade a Frenchman that it was British valour which has conquered in almost every battle, from Cressy down to Waterloo; and it is impossible to forget that national pride, so honourable to the French name, which could make their unfortunate emigrants even forget for a while their own distresses, in the glory which crowned the arms of the Republicans at that Revolution, which drove them from their homes.

The British works on the campaign, with one exception, are incomplete productions, written by persons unacquainted with military affairs, and hastily composed of rude materials, collected from imperfect sources.?

Whoever has endeavoured to analyze the accounts of modern actions, and to separate in them what can be proved to be facts, from what is affirmed to be so, or to compare the private accounts (too often indiscreetly published) with the official documents, and the information procured from proper sources, will not be surprised to find in these home-made

1 Batty.

2 The best account of the campaign is by an anonymous author, C. de W., published at Stutgard 1817, and is attributed to Baron Muffling. It does honour to its illustrious author, from its candour and manliness, though he naturally wishes to give more effect to the Prussian attack on the 18th, than was actually the case; that is, he brings them into action, with their whole force, considerably too early in the day.